Steve Leanaghan, who I’ve photographed in a few plays, asked me to take the promotional photos for he and Paul Dyson’s production of “Zoo Story”, set in Central Park. We used the Botanic Gardens in Bath as the closest we had to Central Park.

[all the photos in this post are copyright (c) Falling Shadows Productions Ltd]

I’ve spent most of the last two weeks working on the set of “Judas Ghost”, a horror film by successful novelist Simon R Green. You can find out (a bit) more about the film on the producer’s website: http://www.wolf-media.co.uk/portfolio/film/judas-ghost/

Working on a film is fun but tiring – twelve hour days in a chilly building, trying to keep out of everyone’s way while still getting good shots of the acting and behind the scenes. And then I can’t show you most of the photos (I edited 974 out of the 2200+ I took), as they would give away far too much of the film! So here is a tiny selection, as chosen by the producer.

Great experience for my own film making too, working with a good and experienced team – I look forward to using some of what I learned when we restart shooting on my film, MindTwist, this Friday 30th March!

I’ve worked with Beth a number of times, in several guises! She plays cello, recorder, ukulele, violin, … and she can do the most astonishing dolphin imitation! She also write songs for her group, “Beth Porter and the Availables”, and that’s what we were recording for at her cottage. Her partner was in another room with the recording equipment while Beth conducted the singing and I took photos.

The lighting conditions were challenging – the room was dim but had bright patches near the windows and around a tungsten light in one corner. I ended up using a some available light, some off-camera flash, and some with a mix of the two.

Working with musicians is definitely one of the best parts of my job – I wander around taking photos while they, seemingly effortlessly, produce beautiful music with me as the sole audience.

This was my third play in one week! Well, two plays and a musical, and all very different. Unusual take on WWI in that it concentrates on the women at home more than the soldiers in the trenches. Several interesting scenes combining the women at home on one half of the stage and soldiers at the front on the other half – great for interesting photos. It says a lot for the play and, especially, the acting that the ending is very moving even though you know what the result must be.

“The Decent Rogues” is a new musical by “Music is Life Productions Ltd“ which is about to transfer to London so they needed some good photos to promote the production. The show was first on at the Rondo theatre in Bath but now had a short run at The Mission theatre in Bath, to get ready for London, and that’s where I photographed the dress rehearsal. It’s a lovely little musical and got warm reviews from the local press. The production uses strong coloured lighting in many scenes which looks great but can be a bit challenging to photograph – when you’re in a theatre the lights look very bright but they’re very dim compared to daylight and if you only have one colour, there’s even less light to work with. Thank goodness for modern cameras with usable high ISO settings!

Good luck to the production on it’s London run.

Kelvin Players, an amateur group based in Bristol, put on “Natural Causes”, a black comedy about assisted suicide. The entire play is set in one living room, so a bit limiting for photography but the acting was good and there were some wonderful facial expressions :)

I’ve been working with The Bookshop Band for over a year now, shooting both photos and video – I’ve videoed almost every event they’ve played in Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights as well as the recording sessions they did at Ben’s house and Prior Park College (with a full size church organ and a one-man brass band). So it was lovely to get the chance to do a proper photo shoot with the band, ready for the launch of the box set of CDs (+DVD) which they will release soon. We tried various setups including my favourite – the band surrounded by floating books. I don’t often resort to heavy Photoshop use but this required a few layers and lots of wire removal – as you can see from the setup shot and the final image.

http://www.thebookshopband.co.uk/

I thought it might be useful for people to see what sort of retouching I do to my photos. Of course, what I do and how much I do varies drastically depending on the type of image and its use – a fashion shot gets far more ‘tidying’ than a gritty urban shot.

The above example is from my fashion shoot with Fiona. The photo was taken using flash (umbrella above me and reflector held by Fiona) to get very soft shadows and enough depth of field to have everything in focus.

In retouching I hid a few spots, toned down some freckles, increased contrast, increased sharpness in some areas, made her eyes a bit brighter, and removed a few stray strands of hair.

I wanted to do a black and white shoot in order to test my ideas, lighting, composition, etc for the parallel world in my film, MindTwist. Charlotte Howard will be in the film, and is doing costume and makeup for it, so she seemed an ideal model – especially as she has modelled in the past, and she has an amazing collection of vintage clothing!

We borrowed a house (which is also in the film) and Charlotte tried a variety of outfits while I messed about with my lights to see what would work best. These shots are a mix of flash (staircase) and continuous light (all the others). I needed to practice with continuous lights for the filming we were about to do but flash provides more control over the ambient light just by shifting the shutter speed.

I wanted to use the kitchen as it was, rather than hiding it, because that gave me better practice for filming, when we need to include the environment and not just the actors.

I’ve taken headshots for several of the actors I know but recently I was asked to take headshots for an actor that you probably know! Derek Fowlds is an actor I’ve admired since way back when he was Bernard in “Yes, Minister”, so it was lovely to be able to work with him for an hour – in his kitchen. Yes, these shots were taken in his kitchen, using three speedlights, with and without an umbrella. It’s amazing what you can do with a bedsheet, a couple of clamps and some small flash units.

I used two styles, as well as two backgrounds. Hard light (on the black background) and softer light (white background) in order to give him more choice as to how he looked. In the end he and his agent chose the one on the left for his current headshot.

And if you’re thinking, “he looks a bit old”, that’s intentional – seems people remember him younger (possibly from years of Heartbeat) so we needed to convey the age he now plays.