Worcester Photography Composition Workshop

Seems like a while ago now (sorry I've been away again) but at the end of March I ran a workshop, dragging some hardy souls around Worcester to practice compostion in a city/urban environment. What's good about Worcester and the site of the other composition workshop I planned in Gloucester is that they have a good mix of old and new, waterfront, dock areas, city architecture and lots of opportunities to find interesting shapes, patterns and textures.

We concentrated largely on the redeveloped dock area at Diglis Basin and the area around the Cathedral. We started using wide angle lenses only. This got us thinking hard about what to include in the shot, how to make it interesting with such a wide field of view and what shapes to look for that the wide angle could accentuate.

Here's the lock-keeper's cottage at Diglis Basin. I thought a black and white treatment worked best.


Another black and white of a bit of urban decay. Just round the corner to all the new building going into the sparkly dock areas is this neglected sea cadets' hut. Conveniently there's a wall dropping down to the riverside path so I could get a low angle across the gravel without lying on the floor!

Later in the day we switched to longer lenses to again force us to think in a certain way. This one shows some of the flood levels that have been reached over the years.

A close-up detail of the intricate workmanship on one of the doors to the Cathedral.

This house in the green next to the Cathedral - I think it's one of the university buildings - stood out to me as it was the only one not obscured by parked cars!


Another wide shot that takes in the buildings around the green with the tree and it's little blue circle of flowers as both framing and foreground. Waiting for the sun to come out from the intermittent cloud threw the lovely shadows of the branches into the bottom of the shot.

A classic simple off-centre composition. I do like brick walls for their texture.

Back at the Diglis Basin the houseboats here formed a nice curve which worked well with the perspective of the long lens.

There are some more on my Flickr stream, along with some from skiing.
If you want to come along to one of my workshops give me a call and keep an eye on the webpage and Facebook for updates. The next one is likely to be in search of bluebells on Sunday May 9th.

This Sunday 18th April I'll be at Hereford Racecourse wedding fair then May and June are pretty busy with weddings and pre-wedding shoots. So plenty more blog posts to come!

Lisa Pre-Wedding Shoot

On Saturday I met up with Lisa at Parkfields Country House near Ross on Wye. Lisa & Chris are getting married here in June so we took the opportunity to get some shots in the grounds ahead of their big day. We're meeting up again in May for a full pre-wedding shoot when Chris is around too.
This is the lovely house itself, set in beautiful gardens with miles of unspoilt countryside all around.

I'm really looking forward to the wedding day so we can explore these grounds even more. Might even get the guests to enjoy a bit of croquet on that lawn behind Lisa in this shot :-)




There's a great little wooded section of the grounds. Might be interesting in wedding shoes!


We found this little hidey house and Lisa was a great sport, climbing inside to get a shot!

Looking forward to meeting up with Lisa & Chris again in May for their pre-wedding portrait shoot and then of course for the wedding day at Parkfields in June.

Photography Exhibition

Those of you who know me will know that I teach photography at John Masefield school in evening classes 3 nights a week. This term (which has just finished for the Easter break) we have concentrated on getting pieces ready for the second annual exhibition of students' work. The exhibition ran for a week at the Weavers Gallery in Ledbury until today and was a great success!
These are some of the pieces in situ.

Here's a couple from Jane that she had made into canvas wraps. Jane put some prints in last year so wanted to try something different this year. She's had a fantastic journey on the classes and is now selling some of her work locally!


The pieces below are from JM 6th form student Jess who comes along to my Tuesday group. She saw this project through from a concept she wanted to do with a vintage feel shooting into low evening sun. I think she did an amazing job and is a talent to watch out for in the future!


A little section of the corner of one of the exhibition rooms. I haven't done close-ups of the works but rather just wanted to show some of the pieces as they were in the rooms. Here are some great portraits from Jenne, some shots from Carl's recent Kenya trip (the one of the lady in the middle is amazing) and some lovely early morning train shots from Ralph.


Christine has only joined the Monday group recently protesting of a lack of computer skills. Then she came up with this brilliant pair of pieces printed on to fabric and hand stitched into a quilt and a cushion! Who needs computer skills when you can do that?

And here is another lovely piece from Margaret. She did an autumn leaves canvas last year and this one shows again how Margaret understands and seeks out lovely light for her work. You can't really see Tess's black & white prints in the background but trust me they were fantastic and very powerful.

So that's just a little glimpse of what was on show. If you didn't go come next year! I might get them to collect all the images together and make a Flickr gallery so the exhibition can live on. Will post details of that as and when it happens.

It really was great for me to see all this superb work put together in such a variety of ways. Here's to another exciting term ahead and hopefully another top exhibition next Spring.

Little Me Childrens' Clothes

Here's a few shots I did a week or so ago for the fab kids' clothes shop Little Me in Great Malvern.
This is some of their new 2010 range expertly shown off by little Molly.
We had a fun morning dancing to Abba!





Some of the shots from this session will be on display in the shop, as well as of course, all the wonderful clothes.

Caribbean Faves

OK, I've been back a few weeks so it's old news and it wasn't work but I felt like putting up my faves from the holiday last month. Maybe it makes up for not blogging since January.

I don't really do landscapes so here's a seascape. I find the sea so much more appealing, which can be a problem when I live so far away from it now!

Could have spent hours in here but only Katy was willing to do crazy poses :-)

This is in the same place - the Vortex disco on deck 13.


Raining in Haiti.

Street sellers in Cartagena, Colombia.

Portobelo, Panama.

Portobelo again.

Aah, the Champagne Bar.

Here's our home for the 10 nights - Royal Caribbean's Jewel of the Seas, anchored here at Grand Cayman.

The boys on 7 Mile Beach in Grand Cayman

So just a little taste there - quite a few more on Flickr.
Since I got back I've been catching up and doing some commercial work for Football Fledglings and Little Me, as well as covering Bugsy Malone tonight at John Masefield.
Will put some pics up from some of those soon.
I'll be doing some wedding fayres and pre-wedding shoots in the coming couple of months so looking forward to those and getting on with some outdoor portraits when Spring finally arrives.

Studio Workshop

Today I ran my first workshop of 2010. 4 photographers joined me in my studio to have a crack at some still life set-ups. It's a bit of a departure from my usual work but we had some fun playing with the various 'props' and putting our (limited!) flower arranging skills to the test.
One of the attendees, Jane, brought these peacock feathers along and I think they look great with the blue gels on the background.


Here are the same feathers but shooting into the softbox. It gives a dreamy, almost monochrome feel.

A couple of different gels, a tulip and some hyacinths for another set-up. Flowers today were supplied by Valerie Butcher.

Some nice daffs shot against the grey background. We used this set-up with some green gels on the background but I like this simple grey shot.

Thanks for an enjoyable day everyone. The next workshops are in March, details on the main website.

The Imagined Village

The last time I saw The Imagined Village was at the Big Chill, either last year or the year before (sorry I can't remember which!). Then they had Sheila Chandra with them and they've also featured Billy Bragg. Now they've slimmed the line-up down a bit but there's still a fair few of them on stage.
I photographed them last night at Birmingham Town Hall for Brum Live and they were great!
There should be a review up there soon.
For now, here's a few pics.


Not many uprights in the bass player collection so this is a nice rarity.




Their sound is somewhere between ancient English folk and Indian/world music, oh with a bit of Electronica thrown in for good measure. Many of the songs are re-workings or arrangements of songs I normally would steer well clear of! That's testament to how good they are at it. I even bought their CD. :-)