"Never work with kids" .. they say.

I wanted to do a shoot all by myself, again. No imput from my tutors.

I chose to photograph my cousin and her daughter so soon booked the studio. Problems soon arose though when my cousin had actually double booked, unfortunately for me the other appointment in her diary was far more important so I had to dash around to find other models for the same idea of a shoot.

Luckily for me, the dashing around did not last long. I soon remembered my Aunty had also not long had a baby. When I say not long, I mean a year ago.
Anyway, my problem was solved and I was still able to photograph the same concept in the same studio time.

I was a little worried about photographing Menna in the studio at first. Menna is at the age where she just wont stay still, she has found her legs and boy, she is using them. Therefore putting her in a studio full of equipment and other very valuable "toys" I was just asking for trouble. Clever ol' me though had the brainwave to tape down all the wires, not only in section as I normally would, but all the way across this time, reducing the chances of her falling and hurting herself, or me by damaging equipment. I mean, of course, Menna was the main priority.
To add to this, I wasn't sure how she would find the lights, I have photogrpahed her before now, but only on location. Used to the camera, I had no worries there, but the lights, I had worries there. But, silly old me had nothing to worry about she loved the lights, signing light to me everytime the flash went off.

I am incredibly pleased with my outcomes, some of the photos I have of Menna are just adorable. There is no other word I could use to describe them.
I am going to edit a few, but only the ones where she moved to far and the light didn't hit her face enough making her look very dark and shadowed.

I find this photograph highly amusing, just look at the expression on Mennas face!! ABsolutely fabulous.

No matter what toys we gave the girl once my phone started ringing through the shoot that was all she wanted. Its a good job really she has a big cuz that will happily let Menna chew and slobber all over her stupendously expensive (£10) phone. This image is one of my favourites. My lovely Aunty is pretending to be on the phone as is Menna, however Menna has an actual phone to pretend with.

This third image, is definatley my actual favourite. Menna knows sign language, and after having thrown one of her toys at me she was signing where. I had literally a second to capture this and I am oh so pleased I managed it. Not only does it show how clever she is, it shows her fun personalty perfectly. I adore this image. Absolutely 100% in love with it. I have it printed and framed on my bedroom wall as well.

Menna makes a brilliant model. By far one of the best to work with, she never complains or whinges about me photographing her "bad side" etc.

I have plenty of other photographs of my darling cousin and her mum, but I don't want to upload them.

Bound by Blood

This time last week I was at the Lifestyle Centre in Winsford with students from Performing arts - Dance and Drama. You might be wondering why? Well if your not, I'm telling you anyway. I was asked by there team leader - Rachel Butt - to photograph there dress rehearsal so that the photographs could be put on display at the actual performances starting the following day and go on display at the Art and Design Exhibition. I was chuffed that I had been asked.
I arrived at the Lifestyle Centre at 9am. I left at 10.30pm. It was an incredibly long day.
My photos were interesting, I got some really good results and some really poor results. I did find it difficult at first to sort out the settings on my camera right. Though I eventually got it right. I didn't use the flash on camera, I occasionally used my flashgun though. However I soon realised that I actually got more atmospheric results if I took the flash off. Instead I set my ISO to 800, relatively high, this meant I got a bit of noise in my images but it wasn't so bad and barely noticeable on most shots. The fastest shutter speed I could get away with was 1/60th of a second with an aperture of about 22.
The cast I was asked to photograph did two run throughs which gave me plenty of opportunities to take photographs. They were very aware of me floating around at first though, so you can see them watching me in the earlier set of photographs. After the first scene though they were told to ignore me, pretend I wasn't there, the photographs improved then.

This is one of my favourite images, taken at the start of the second rehearsal just as the performance started. I love the atmosphere it creates and the colour of the lights.

The police officer talking to Mrs Johnstone and then to Mr Lyons (below) is possibly the most memorable point in which we notice the split between first and second class citizens. To Mrs Johnstone he threatens to take it further, to court. However to Mr Lyons he suggests simply docking his pocket money and not letting him play with children such as Mickey, Mrs Johnstones son.

This image is my favourite, I haven't edited it at all but the background has come out really dark therefore the subject is really clear and there is a nice contrast.

This image I think is rather amusing, it shows "Linda" shooting at the target in the park after having both the lads miss. She hits the target even though she is simply messing around, and not taking it seriously. Proved by her chosen stance.

This final set of three image are personally my favourite, taken during the scene where they about to go see the two films "Nimphomaniac night" and "Swedish opairs" (I apologise if they are spelt wrong). I think it is by far the most hilarious set of pictures when talking about Mickey asking Linda out. Eddie is clearly setting an example after having read about it.

I do have an awful lot of other photos I could upload however, I don't really have the time for all that.

Just a quick one.

Before I head off to work I thought I would upload a portrait I shot a while ago but only edited yesterday. I only edited it yesterday because we were meant to be sorting out a portfolio at college and wellI got a little distracted by the beautiful piece of software known as photoshop.
Myself and photoshop never used to get on but more recently we've had a lot less fall outs and I seem to be getting work done on there quicker.
Anyway, this portrait I shot a couple of moths ago and although I like the outcome it wasn't suitable for the style of shoot I was doing so it was just forgotten about. Yesterday I found it again and decided that it was the perfect ime to have a small play around with it.

I haven't done much to edit the images, just a tiny bit of retouching on the skin. And I mean a tiny bit, Janet here has practically flawless skin!! I then had a fiddle with the levels and curves. Bye setting the levels to what is very often called the "correct settings" it ruined my image and so they have barely been altered. I like how dark the outside of the framing is and how it is only a head and shoulders shot but framed for a full body portrait.
Pleased with this one.

Cog type thing.

I'm not entirely sure what this thing is. I know it is used to open and close the locks down by the river but that is about as technical as it gets for me.
Anyway, down by the river when playing with depth of field I took the following photo..

Even though the background is overexposed I think this image works quite well, possibly because the background is also out of focus. The main cog is what I focused mostly on, as it was here that the majority of the texture was. My aperture was 4.5 with a 125 shutter speed if I remember correctly.

Theres nothing special about this photo, I only uploaded it to show the cog thingy in use. Afterall, the man sortah forced me out of the way and stopped me taking pictures so he could open the lock.

Bank Holiday Weekend.

Okay, so it would'a made more sense for me to have posted this last weekend, when it was actually bank holiday weekend. However due to the fact it is a college project, I decided to put it off as much as possible because right now I cant stand the place. Though, this is an issue we need not to discuss on here.
We were set a task to take sic photographs over the three days to document our weekend. I have however took this to the extreme and did a lot of photoshopping and ended up with six images, made up of many more (in some cases).

Work.
I spent half of my bank holiday weekend in work. Doesn't that sound lovely? I can tell you now it wasn't. It was so quiet it was unbelievable.
This image wasn't photoshopped though, I couldn't think of anything interesting to do it as I already loved the atmosphere of the image.

Menna.
Again, a large amount of time was spent with Menna. Which, I must admit, I loved. She's a tough one to keep up with now she's found her feet. Not helped by my constant need to take pictures of her.

Public transport took a lot of money off me as well.
The above image shows the buses and the trains merged together, which I quite like as it shows them going in different directions with people bustling about.
The image below shows a bus stop and the inside of a bus. I can't make my mind up if I like it or not, though it looks better with the liquify effect than it did with without.

Paying a visit to my Gran, as you can see by the attrocious edit there.
I went to see my Gran on the monday, having decided against going to Manchester. It was nice to see her, we sat and watched Midsomer Murders together. She managed to tell me the entire tory behind it first though, after that there wasn't really any need to watch it but little else was on.

Logging was another weekend activity.
This was the best way I could show it without making tractors the main focus of the images.

There we have, my bank holiday weekend, a week late.

Wood.

Well what can I say? Wood. Doesn't sound like a particularly interesting subject to photograph does it? Funnily enough though, I enjoyed it.
Chopping up bits of wood is like a day to day thing up at my Nan and Grandads. Yah see, they have three log burners, two inside one out, and so wood is often required in order to generate some heat. Therefore my Grandad will venture out on tractor, trailer in tow to find some trees he can cut up. Uncle Les normally following him behind with a second trailer. Oh and my younger brother in the second trailer. Im never allowed to tag along. Only because they seem to go when Im at work and partially because cutting down trees when Im around would probably result in me ending up in hospital with a cracked open skull or something ridiculous. To me that doesn't sound very nice. But I am just that accident prone.
Back to the point of this post.
Once the logs had been cut up there were some very pretty patterns in the middle so I had a little play, got my camera out and took some picturrrrres.

Aren't the colours in the wood pretty? My favourite shot is the final one I uploaded, just because of the different angle. Though I'm pretty please with all four.