Toby Roberts Photography: Blog

Debut 2010: Graduate Show

2010-07-16T14:09:00.001+01:00

Having just graduated in Commercial Photography from AUCB i've been incredibly busy assisting and interviewing these past couple of weeks, taking my first big steps out into London's photography industry. Alongside this my fellow graduates and I have been putting together our final graduate show, Debut 2010, at the Proud Central Gallery near Charing Cross with our private view happening last tuesday.

Above is a little behind the scenes video of the private view as well as another video detailing the fundraising print auction that made it all possible. If your in London this weekend get down to Proud and have a look as its all gone on Monday.

Assisting: Isuzu Rodeo with Carl Lyttle

2010-07-07T03:50:00.001+01:00

Having recently graduated from the Art University College at Bournemouth (got a first woo!) I've been stepping up my assisting and have been lucky enough to work with automotive advertising photographer Carl Lyttle over the past month.

The video above is from a recent shoot involving a rare sunny week in Wales and Gloucestershire for the newly revamped Isuzu Rodeo truck . It was a great job and I thoroughly enjoyed getting out on location again. For more shots from the campaign head over to Carl's Blog.

Published Work: Criminal Clothing Microsite

2010-06-24T12:02:00.001+01:00

Earlier this year I was lucky enough to work with the UK retail giant House of Fraser's Criminal Clothing Brand, Myself and a select group of fellow students from the Arts University College Bournemouth were asked to create a micro campaign for the 2010 summer season.

I visualised an energetic campaign inspired by the UK summer music festival season and the urban influences of free running. I was pleased to discover that my campaign was chosen as the winner of the brief and is now plastered all over the House of Fraser's website!

You can see the campaign online at House of Fraser and on my portfolio site.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Inspiration: Volcanoes and blog tweaks

2010-05-16T12:05:00.001+01:00

I've been tweaking the layout of the blog today in order to increase the content area for my posts, which was a little tight width wise and not very friendly to video posts.

As an example here is an incredible stop motion animation from Sean Stiegemeier of the recent Eyjafjallajökull Volcano eruption in iceland. This literally took my breath away. Makes me want to shoot some video...

Via John Nack's On Abobe blog

Portfolio Update: New Project Online

2010-05-13T11:18:00.003+01:00

Having kept this on the back burner for a while i've now updated my Portfolio site to include a recent documentary project shot in the UAE this easter. The project explores the lives of the unskilled migrant workforce in Dubai's construction industry. After an extended stay in Dubai I was fascinated with the ever present construction workers and the issues that surround their presence. For more info on the series and to take a look at the images check out my updated Projects section HERE.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Big Shiny Project Springs a Leak

2010-05-05T00:46:00.002+01:00

As the image above may suggest my big shiny project has hit another slight hiccup in todays test shoot. The mould for Amy MKII's head appears to have sprung several major leaks over the weekend. This had the unfortunate effect of placing most of the ice that should have made up her lower face, neck and shoulders into the drip bucket she has been sat in over in the Bournemouth Universities Industrial Freezer. Thus I discovered a bucket shaped ice block, instead of an Amy shaped ice block, when I went to investigate this morning.

After about half an hour of frenzied chiseling and this little lump is all that remained inside the actual mould. Ah well, we live and learn.

Pass the Polyfiller.

Call to Arms: Debut 2010 fundraising print auction

2010-04-28T15:02:00.001+01:00

With the end of my photography studies looming my fellow AUCB soon-to-be-graduates and I are going into overdrive fundraising mode, in anticipation of our final graduate Debut 2010 show at theProud Central Gallery this 12-18th of July.

View Larger Map

To this end we are putting on a fundraising print auction next Friday the 7th of May at the same venue in association with Balcony Jump Photography agency and UNICEF's Haiti Children's appeal. The auction will run from midday with silent bids up until 7pm when a hammer auction for the special stuff will commence.

We've got some fantastic prints to put under the hammer from a wide range of leading photographers. Check out the site HERE and flyer below for more info.

Please feel free to pass on these details to anyone who may be interested in coming along, we look forward to seeing you there!

Big Shiny New Project Phase 2: 3D Scanning

2010-04-21T18:55:00.001+01:00

Heres the second instalment in my now much delayed big shiny new project. Check out the video below to get the gist of what we've been busy doing.

Special reflective dots are used to provide spatial reference points for the scan.

A 3D laser scanner is then used to create a point cloud of information mapping the surface of Amy MKII.

This is then interpretted by the computer into a 3D mesh of Amy MKII ready to be sent off to Adam Elkins for some touching up in Z Brush,

Tear Sheet: Design Week Photo & Image Supplement Interview

2010-04-20T13:17:00.000+01:00

I have been lucky enough to be featured in the current Issue of Design Week's Photography and Image supplement. I was interviewed by Yolanda Zappaterra for the article exploring the possibilities of modern photographic techniques. You can pick up Design Week in the shops now or if your a subscriber head over to the design week website to read the article.

The genius of not taking your self too seriously.

2010-04-10T08:12:00.005+01:00

Found this over on Atlanta based photographer Zack Arias' blog, pure genius.

Enjoy.

House keeping and the UAE

2010-03-28T13:15:00.001+01:00

I'll be away shooting a personal project in the UAE over the next few weeks, I will try to update the blog with various images of my exploits. I've heard that internet connections can be temperamental so apologies if the blog is a bit sparse over the next couple ( to be honest its always a bit sparse so you probably wont notice).

Anyway before I go a couple of housekeeping items to bring to your attention.

Big Shiny Project has hit a few logistical snags, (model makers casting room burning down has somewhat slowed down the timeline...) but the project will be hitting the ground running when i'm back from the UAE, I've assembled a great team for the project, and am pleased to announce the Cinema 4D guru James Chiny of Hypoly.com is onboard to help with visual effects modelling on the CGI side of the project. If his recent 'The Moment' short is anything to go by this collaboration is going to be epic.

I've had a mad couple of weeks raising my profile as an assistant working on a number of jobs. Firstly, with Tara Darby at East Photographic, alongside her long-time first assistant Nick Seaton and the talented Ben Beagent, I had a great time on set working alongside such a professional and friendly team, I can't wait to work with them again in the near future.

I've also been assisting the Laura Pannack whose fantastic portraiture won her First Prize in the World Press Photo awards for portraiture this year.

We spent several days up in Sheffield working on a portrait series and despite the long days and endless travelling came away with some great shots and amusing memories. Most notably a respectable 70-something year old lady having the time of her life in a wheel barrow and the construction of a mock 'bundle' involving two dozen excited children at a roller hockey rink. Needless to say it was a fun assist and I look forward to future projects with Laura. Check out Laura's blog for more on the project including a rather nice portrait of yours truly.

That is all for now, bon voyage...

The Future. Maybe...

2010-03-27T00:39:00.001Z

If only.

Lightroom 3 Beta 2 with tethering!

2010-03-23T13:58:00.001Z

Finally the one thing missing from Lightroom has been introduced! Check out the free public beta HERE. Id also recommend casting your eyes over the neat little summary of other changes over at Scott Kelby's Blog, the Photoshop Insider.

Nazi Mutant Friday!

2010-02-27T11:51:00.000Z

Today I had the wonderful privilege of shooting Klaus the mutant Nazi. He was a surprisingly photogenic chap and was kind enough to pose for a couple of snaps despite a rather nasty blocked nose and a tickly cough. Here are a couple images for your enjoyment.

Big Shiny New Project update: It Worked!

2010-02-25T18:05:00.004Z

The molds have been cast in plaster and Amy mark II looks amazing! A perfect white sleeping beauty! I'm amazed by the detail in the face, every pore and detail has been resolved by the alginate.

Over the next week or so the mold will be cleaned and smoothed by hand, with the ears and other details re-constructed and the seams covered. Then a second fibre-glass master mold will be made from which my real photographic work will begin to take shape... Ill keep you posted, check out the previous post HERE for a step by step of how Amy mark II was created.

Big Shiny New Project: Phase 1

2010-02-25T12:42:00.015Z

I am now coming to the end of my time as a student and for my final major 'professional' project i've decided to go a little bit overboard. I want to create something ambitious that really stands out visually in my portfolio. To do this i've been looking into various projects and on the advice of the my tutors and the photographers I met up with in New York I decided to try all of them...

To this end I had a wonderful day in the model-making dungeon at AUCB yesterday glooping massive quantities of blue paste all over the beautiful Amy B from Premier Model Management. With the help of model making gurus Jack Gardner and Alan Hinton (sporting the rather dapper green tie-dye overalls) I'm creating a life size cast of Amy's head, neck and shoulders for an interesting if slightly mad portrait/concept project. More on this later, for now enjoy the time-lapse video of the casting process below with a couple of snaps to explain the process.

1: We create a latex skull cap to protect Amy's amazing long blond hair. The cap was then cut to exactly match Amy's hairline and sealed with liquid latex, her pony tail was then placed safely in an attractive blue carrier bag and taped shut.

2: Next we covered the exposed skin and remaining hair strands on Amys' neck and back with Vaseline and began to plaster-cast the back half of the head starting with a wall crest in order to remove the mold later.

3: We then continued plastering until the entire back of the head, neck and shoulders was covered.

4: Now came the fun part, having Vaselined Amys' eyelashes eyebrows we then began to gloop on the Alginate, (the same stuff you get your brace made up with a the dentist) in order to get a high detail cast of the face. This wonderful blue stuff was lots of fun to use and Amy was an absolute dream to work with showing absolutely no fear or discomfort during the whole process.

5: Once the Alginate was on and the fine detail areas round the nostrils clear we applied a layer of Scrim (coarse hessian sacking) to give the plaster shell something to bind to and then began to add the final strengthening layers of plaster bandaging to complete the mold.

6: Having completed the mold we then let it dry for a couple of minutes before cracking it open down the ridge seam and hey presto a perfect mold of Amy!

Watch this space for updates on how the cast turned out.

Englishman no longer in New York.

2010-02-16T02:16:00.010Z

As the title of this posts suggests, I have returned from New York after an incredibly busy week of meetings, interviews, talks, portfolio reviews and galleries visits, not to mention lavish helpings of American size food and tiny confusing 3/4 pints of Boston ale. Without boring you with all the nitty gritty details here are a couple of things that I took away from the experience:

1: New Yorkers are incredibly friendly, generous, self-confident folk. I have never met so many people in any city willing to meet and help out an absolute stranger or just have a chat.

2: I shall be concentrating on my portraiture from now on. Having shown my book to a dozen people over the course of the week from a broad spectrum of industry positions, including photographers, producers and stock agencies, I had one overwhelming response; we like your portraits, not so much the fashion. This was exactly what I needed to hear, and was worth the cost of the trip alone.

3: Erwin Olaf is an intimidatingly good photographer. Check out his exhibition at the Hasted Hunt Kraeutler Gallery if you get the chance, or take a look at his online portfolio HERE.

4: Platon is still one of my all time photographic heroes, and a fantastic public speaker to boot, It was great to talk to someone with so much optimism for the future of photography.

5: Good photography is all about great ideas, case in point Mr. Toledano.

6: 13 inches of snow and casual shoes makes for wet, cold, soggy feet.

7: Some people have no natural sense of direction, despite otherwise being quite intelligent.

For a more in depth rant about how great the trip was check out this extended blog post from friend and fellow photographer Adrian Rogers via the Seaside Student

Portfolio Update and NYC trip.

2010-02-07T15:52:00.004Z

I've just made another update to the fashion section of my portfolio site with a couple of photos from Fridays shoot, take a look at the stop motion behind the scenes in my previous post if you feel like being voyeuristic. I'm really happy with the shots and enjoyed working back in the studio rather than outside in the freezing cold, which seems to be happening quite frequently at the moment.

Speaking of the cold, I'm off to New York City for week of meetings and photo shoots, most of which will probably happen outside, ah well, warm studio was a nice idea while it lasted.

Religion+Fashion=Sin Behind the Scenes Video

2010-02-05T21:42:00.003Z

Had a great shoot today working in the studio with Stylist Amba Hudson-Skye and model Sophie Wild. Check out the video below for a stop motion behind the scenes look at the shoot.

PS. special thanks to Sarah Brimley my wonderful assistant for the day whom I cruelly forgot to add into the crew credits at the end. Sorry...

Portfolio Update.

2010-01-29T13:34:00.006Z

I have added a few of the images from last weeks Death and Decay Shoot to my Web Portfolio, I'm really pleased with the way they've come out and feel they mark a real stylistic departure from my previous work. Ive Included a few below, let me know what you think in the comments.

Death and Decay Fashion Shoot: Behind the Scenes

2010-01-24T15:11:00.004Z

Here is a little stop motion video of a recent fashion shoot for designer and stylist Naomi Farmer, I'm really pleased with the results of the shoot and hope to share them here soon. In the mean time enjoy the video below.

My First Picture!

2010-01-17T12:31:00.002Z

I've made a rather nostalgic discovery this weekend. My parents are soon to emigrate to the middle east and I spent yesterday at back at the family home rummaging through my old things just to make sure nothing important got chucked out in the big move. A good thing I did too as I managed to find none other than my very first camera, circa 1998, the Nintendo Gameboy Camera. This digital beast was way ahead of its time and was an absolute joy to use and in retrospect probably has a lot to answer for when it comes to my on going obsession with photography and digital imaging.

With its 2bit grey scale sensor that pumped out 128x112 pixel images this camera produced the my first ever photographs and more significantly my first ever digital photo comps using the built in editing software. At the tender age of twelve i was already well on my way to a career in photography and retouching!

As you can imagine I was elated to find that all my old photos where still saved onto the in built memory including some priceless comps of my younger siblings as babies and toddlers as well as several ambitious composites, highlights including a portrait of my father combined with my now deceased labrador, Kim, and the head of my family doctor transplanted onto a duck.

For your viewing pleasure here is the former:

The Future?

2010-01-15T21:28:00.003Z

A Belated happy new year, it being a new decade and all I thought Id share with you a possible glimpse of the future. This is truly amazing visual achievement given that it was created with a consumer level computer by a single individual. for a full commentary head over to Rob Haggart's blog: a photo editor.

How to: Get rid of tabbed image behavior in CS4

2009-11-21T15:25:00.011Z

Last Friday I attended an official Adobe Seminar day at Bournemouth University and sat through one of the most entertaining lessons on Photoshop i've had in quite some time, unfortunately this was mainly due to an amusing American speaker, whose talent for whacky commentary and slick presentation skills rather over shadowed the basic level of the techniques showcased. However one thing I did take away from the session was a great little fix for a really annoying design change from CS3 to CS4, and one that I know annoys several many other photographers as well, pro retouchers included.

I am of course referring to the tabbed window default behavior in CS4 that automatically tabs image files into one window when opened. This is extrememly annoying when trying to drag & drop different images quickly into a layer stack when compositing as in this mode layers cannot be dragged & dropped meaning that each image has to be opened pulled out of the tabbed window pane and then dropped into the master image stack, which seems a totally counter intuitive and inefficient method for what should be a relatively easy operation.

Now before people point out that images can automatically be loading directly into the layer stack via the File>Scripts> Load files into stack.. I know this. I'm talking about the general visually intuitive drag and drop interface that was so easy in CS3 and that crucially allowed images that where already open to be quickly stacked into layers.

But low and behold with an ironically simply click of a button it is easy, its just not something that anyone bothered to mention, well at least not me until now.

So here it is just take your horribly tabbed window.

Hit this sheepishly conspicuous 'Arrange Documents' button here: (highlighted in red)

Select the appropriate arrangement ( Tile all in grid works well for me).

Hey presto all your tabs should now appear gridded just like in the good old days and ready to be drag and dropped into layer stacks. If you preffer this style its easy to make sure you never hav the tabbs show up by defualt again. Just head to the Photoshop>Prefferences>Interface tab and un-check the box marked 'Open documents as tabs'

Hope this is as much help to your work flow as it is to mine.

Narrative Project: Final Images

2009-11-06T12:34:00.007Z

Having now completed my narrative project I thought Id share some of the images with you, the project centered around a series of images with a narrative theme and I decided to pursue an advertising style shoot for a semi- luxury watch brand aimed at a young adult male audience .

In this instance I chose Levi's recently launched range of watches, which have received little press, as my focus product. The images are arranged in three pairs that each includes an establishing and detail shot. These three looks form different takes on the same narrative thread. Namely that an 'attacker' character has taken one of the watches by force from an victim character, hopefully highlighting the desirability of the items and establishing them within cinematic action/thriller aesthetic that Levi's* and other similar brands have built over the last few years.

Right. Waffle over.

Check out the shots below and let me know what you think in the comments.

Look 1:

Look 2:

Look 3:

*Please note this is a self initiated project and I have only included Levi's branding for illustrative purposes.

Lightroom Presets: Cinematic Toning Now Available!

2009-10-25T14:32:00.011Z

As promised here is a group of five cinematic toning presets for Adobe Lightroom, These presets are designed to create a colour toning similar to that found in feature films and will hopefully help you create some really dramatic moody looking imagery. The pack is designed to process Canon (.CR2) Raw files specifically as the pack includes specific adjustments to the camera raw color calibration profile that has been tweaked for use with Canon files. I imagine this will work will work with Nikon Raw (.NEF) files also although I cant comment on the results, Let me know if they work out.

The pack includes five looks (original above):

Tobacco: Strong brown tone, works best with image 1/3rd stop under exposed. Strong orange cast.

Tobacco Medium: A happy medium tobacco tone.

Tobacco Lite: Lighter tone ideal for brighter outdoor scenes.

Cyan: Split tones to give a slightly Sci-fi cyan shadow. Works great on skies and metallic interiors.

Twilight: Ideal for making moody deep blue twilight shots. Good for shady portraits.

The Cinematic Tone Pack can be downloaded as a zip file HERE or follow the link in the right hand side bar under the Lightroom presets heading. To install simply unzip and place files into the Lightroom develop presets folder which can be found by navigating to the preferences panel in Lightroom click the presets tab and clicking 'Show Lightroom Presets Folder...'

Hope you enjoy, let me know what you think in the comments,

Oh and on a related note if you want to try these presets out but don't yet own Adobe Lightroom now is a very good time to get involved as Lightroom 3 beta has just been released for free unlimited download, check it out at Adobe Labs HERE.

Portfolio Update and Site Redesign

2009-10-14T20:42:00.004+01:00

Check out my new portfolio redesign over at www.tgrphoto.co.uk It a work in progress but all constructive comments welcome as I build up the folios, which have also undergone a slight refresh with a few snippets of new content here and there.

Ive opted for a design with more image space which will hopefully show of the images better, they were a little cramped on the old site. Ive also gotten rid of the numerical slide show and opted for a clean minimalist thumbnail driven affair. The portfolios themselves can also be navigated via keyboard arrows for easy flicking.

Hope you like.

Cinematic Image Toning

2009-10-12T17:17:00.006+01:00

In response to a couple of requests about the colour toning on the test images for my narrative project last week here's a brief explanation of how I went about processing the files.

I photographed all the images in canon RAW format (.CR2) and fed them all straight into Adobe Lightroom. All the colour toning work was applied within the Lightroom develop menu options with no additional post processing in Photoshop or any other software program.

The first part of the puzzle was to find to some examples of the type of colour tones I wanted and use these these as a colour reference. I did this by taking stills from movies that I had screen grabbed in VLC media player ( which unlike a number of other media players has this functionality built in). In this particular case British gangster movies like Snatch and RocknRolla had great dusky tones that I wanted to emulate.

Once I was happy with look I wanted to achieve I set about tweaking the camera calibration within Lightroom to get that classic film brown tobacco look and mute the blues and greens, esp the greens, I then split toned the highlights to the light yellow side of gray (i think the values where around 45 for hue and 30 for saturation). In the HSL panel I boosted the orange and yellow and blue saturation further but drastically reduced the luminance of the blue tones.

As for Presence I dialed in approximately +50 to Clarity about -60 to Saturation and +30 to vibrance, the rest of the settings being mainly camera dependent (as they dealt mainly with exposure compensation) I aimed for around 1/3rd of a stop under exposed in my histogram to get that moody tone to the images. This stripped back allot of the deep saturated colours but left the warm middles tones with really cinematic feel.

White balance again was a custom job and will obviously change from image to image depending on lighting conditions but I started off with a value of 5450K and tweaked from there till the image looked right.

Hope that's of interest, If people really like the looks I might create a little Lightroom Preset back with a couple of different feels and strengths. Let me know in the comments.

Narrative Project: Film Inspired Portraits

2009-10-01T21:29:00.007+01:00

Following from my street portraits I'm currently researching my current 'narrative' project which I am focusing on cinematic portraiture. When out with the AUCB freshers today I took the opportunity to try out a few cinematic techniques I've been researching; such as 16:9 crops lots of bokeh on a long lens and a fair amount of toning. Here are a few of my first attempts: let me know what you think in the comments.

Street Portraiture

2009-09-26T11:15:00.007+01:00

After watching a recent Wired Magazine video blog post by Watchmen Photographer Clay Enos, I was inspired to get out on the street and try some portraits with the public, on Thursday this week I set out to find a nice shady spot in Bournemouth town center with a plain wall as a back ground, I was looking to take fairly honest ambient light portraits, concentrating more on the convincing them to have a shot taken that anything fancy at this stage.

I was very surprised to find that It didn't take much to get over 60 varied portraits before I lost the light. I am really happy with my first results and met some great characters along the way. I will definitely be doing this again very soon and will try to introduce some of my own creative slant to proceedings.

Ive processed a couple below, take a look and let me know what you think in the comments.

Clay Enos Street Studio

Published Assist: Volt Magazine

2009-09-24T12:53:00.004+01:00

Independant fashion and beauty magazine Volt has just released their September issue (no. 6) and I was lucky enough to work with beauty and advertising photographer Iain Crawford on the shoot. The A3 unbound format of Volt really shows off the fantastically detailed textures that ran through the shoots flowing liquid themes. I really love the colour pallette of the shoot, it was hard work but qell worth it for the results.

You can see more of Iain's fantastic work HERE

Volt Magazine available online and in store at Borders

Instant Artistic crediblity: the easy way...

2009-09-21T16:10:00.003+01:00

Having moved back to Bournemouth today and I found this literary gem on A Photo Editors Blog. Genius, this will definitely come in handy in this terms critical evaluations and portfolio reviews.

Deeply memorable insights include:

"With regard to the issue of content, the disjunctive perturbation of the spatial relationships brings within the realm of discourse the distinctive formal juxtapositions."

and:

"Although I am not a painter, I think that the reductive quality of the spatial relationships contextualize a participation in the critical dialogue of the 90s. "

The Instant Art Critique Phrase Generator by Pixmaven

Strobist DIY Beauty Dish, UK

2009-09-16T13:02:00.016+01:00

A while ago I began the process of building my own 13 inch beauty dish for use on my portraiture and fashion projects. I vaguely remember promising that I would blog about the build, so here it is only six months late!

I love the soft but directional light a beauty dish casts and really wanted to achieve this look on location with my Strobist style off camera lighting set up, which currently consists of three Sunpak auto 30 dx manual flash guns, Radio Triggers and numerous light modifiers.

My project began by cobbling together the bits and pieces I would need to create a beauty dish. I used David Tejada's excellent instructions, although not living in the U.S. I made my own modifications to account for a lack of home depot.

My first modification was to use a steel mixing bowl (from Wilkinsons £1.20), I found this slightly lighter than the thick plastic David favored, The polished steel surface of the interior of the bowl also maximizes the amount of reflected light (quite important as the flash will be used with small low-powered flash guns) and saved me shelling out for white spray paint which I was worried might scratch off with heavy use. Like David I opted for a 3 1/2 inch reversing mirror (eBay £4 delivered); rather than mounting in a CD case housing I went all out and had a transparent acrylic mount cut at college with three arms that attach to the outside of the dish (£0 off cut from a scrap pile), this allowed for the mirror to be held at a decent height without cutting down the reflected light leaving the dish.

For the flash mount, I cut a hole in the base of the dish just big enough for the flash guns head to fit through snugly and covered the sharp edges with electrical tape. I then added a 62mm steel hinge (£2.49 for two at Homebase) to one side of the opening on the outside of the dish, to act as the locking mechanism for holding the flash in place. I attached a Velcro strip (£1 for a 5m roll on eBay) to the inside of the free hinge plate and a matching strip on the flash gun. On the opposite side of the opening I placed a second strip of Velcro directly onto the base of the dish and an opposing strip on the body on my flash gun. This firmly holds the gun in place with the flash placed in a standard right angle position. This hinge mechanism works great and as the hinge closes flat it makes storage footprint of the dish much easier to manage, especially useful as I will be using it primarily on location.

When using beauty dishes in the studio I have found that a diffusion panel really adds to the soft delicate shadows that beauty dishes are favored for. For my diffusion material I choose gardening fleece, which is a white semi-transparent fiber based material used to protect gardens from heavy frosts, this can be picked up cheaply at most garden centres in the UK ( I paid £1 for a 2m by 2m roll at Homebase).

Attaching the diffusion material proved relativity easily I stretched three elastic bands (£0 found at bottom of drawer) between the bolts protruding from the mirrors acrylic housing where it my the edge of the dish. These elastic bands provide an easy way to secure the diffusion material and any other modifier I might want to put onto the light. The elastic fastening also means that I don't have to damage my diffuser when attaching or removing it, so hopefully the material will last longer.

To finish off I masked up the flash head opening and sprayed the outside matte black (matte enamel spray £3 at Homebase) and voila my very own portable beauty dish, total cost £12.69!

Examples shots to follow shortly after anybody from my unsuspecting family returns...

My first Gong: The Warriors take the bronze at the International photography Awards!

2009-08-19T22:00:00.004+01:00

Long time readers of this blog, (few you may be), may remember my 'The Warriors' portrait series from earlier this year which has taken pride of place on my portfolio website for a number of months now, well at the time I was so chuffed with the images that I entered five of them into the International Photography Awards on a whim some 4 months ago... Thinking nothing of it I totally forgot about even entering until quite unexpectedly a fortnight ago when I received an email that I informing me that I had been made an official selection for the awards! A week later another email informed me that I had again progressed to another round of judging and I have just returned home this evening to find myself placed with third prize in the People :Portraiture category as a student entry!!!

I am too excited to post anymore, so just be sure to check out the winning entries over at the IPA winners page, the level of talent on show is truely amazing and I am humbled to have been included in this fantastic group on images.

Did i mention YAAAAAAAAY!!!!!

Oh and WOOOOO!!!!!

UPDATE: Here's a video overview of the category winners:

IPA 2009 Finalists from Lucie Foundation on Vimeo.

Poverty Wizards: Yongnuo 2.5GHz Radio Triggers

2009-08-15T12:27:00.005+01:00

Pocket Wizards Cost approximately £100 per receiver or transceiver in the UK and can cost significantly more for the newer wireless ttl (through the lens) exposure balancing units. These triggers allow you to wirelessly trigger your flash guns and in some cases your cameras shutter release wirelessly via a radio signal. These units are the professional de-facto wireless trigger for off-camera flash photography today, be it in the studio or on location.

However the cost of these units is a significant barrier to entry. For many enthusiast and student photographers looking to develop their off-camera lighting, a set of triggers costing upwards of £200 (just for a single trigger and transmitter) is an unjustifiable expense.

As with most electronic items with market appeal, a quick search on ebay will reveal a knock off version available from china at a fraction of the cost of the products they ape. These 'poverty wizards' have been around for a few years now in various interations and levels of sophistication. A basic set of Pt-04, (or Cactus V2) triggers costs around £20-30 and includes a transmitter and two hot-shoe receivers. The vastly reduced price of these units is however reflected in their limited range, build quality and reliability. For some occasional use and experimentation these triggers offer a great entry point into the wonderful world of off-camera lighting, I myself having owned and used a set of these triggers for over a year now.

However the limitations of these units soon becomes apparent, they trigger unreliably, being prone to radio interference, only work at close range (5-10m at most) and are not built to survive day to day use. As a result the rock solid reliability, range and build quality of the Pocket Wizard has started to look mighty tempting.

A number of lighting equipment manufacturers have identified this gap in the market and sought to fill it, notable efforts include the Elinchrom Skyport Triggers and the Alien Bees Cyber Syncs. Both these products provide a very similar feature set the the poverty wizards but bring with them the build quality and reliability of the more expensive Pocket Wizards. Both these units are priced to under cut the pocket wizard at around £125 for a pair of Skyports or $120 for CyberSyncs (plus import costs- these are not available in the UK yet).

In an effort to combat this the Chinese manufacturers of these 'poverty wizards' have continually updated and improved their triggers, with building quality and design improving with every offering. The latest offering from Yougnuo are im my opinion the first 'poverty wizard' option that truely competes pound for pound with the more expensive rivals.

The new Younguo 2.4 GHz triggers use the same frequency as the CyberSyncs and Skyports providing a very similar level of reliability and range, I have tested these triggers at over 140m (with line of sight) and found them to work reliably with no misfires, I would have tested them further but i ran out of space! Another major grip with previous poverty wizard iterations was their inability to deal with non-line of sight operation. due to the new 2.4 GHz frequency this problems is resolved, I have personally tested these triggers though two thick brick walls and had no misfires. And the best bit is these triggers only cost £27.99 for a transmitter/receiver pair!

The Younguo triggeres also extend the functionality of the poverty wizard to include shutter release, allowing you to trigger your cameras shutter and you flash set up remotely, perfect to wildlife photography and self-portraiture. I am amazed by the flexibility of these triggers and look forward to more experimentation soon.

Yongnuo triggers can be purchased on Ebay from Hkyougnuophotoequipment HERE.

For more information and up-to-the-minute discussion on this fantastic new product visit the Strobist.com's flickr pool discussion pages HERE.

Placement: My first published assist.

2009-07-28T13:23:00.002+01:00

Over the last couple of months I have spent a number of months working in London on placements within the photographic industry. One of these took place at the fantastic This Little Fish Production house run by top advertising photographers Carl Lyttle and Doug Fisher. I had a fantastic two weeks working within their team, learning all manner of useful techniques for digital manipulation. It was a great insight into the fusion of 2d and 3d production techniques that is currently redefining the media production and opening a huge number of doors for new creative practices and outputs.

As case in point here is Carl Lyttle's recent advertising piece for Lurzer's Archive showing a seamless integration of 3d and 2d elements. I really enjoyed assisting on this shoot as well as getting my hands dirty in the pre-production. It was a great insight into the automotive advertising work flow and I cant thank Carl, Doug and the rest of the team enough for opportunity to work alongside them.

You can read more about the this shot at Carl's Blog

Don't forget to also take a peek at the main This Little Fish Website for even more fantastic examples of current work.

I think I've found my new Hero.

2009-07-19T13:14:00.002+01:00

Ever Since my Warriors Project I've been more and more inclined to developing my photographic style around the classic 'on white' portraiture convention, its clean its simple and its all about the character in front of your lens.

While browsing the excellent Strobist.com this morning I found this fantastic street portraiture video from Wired magazine featuring Clay Enos who recently shot the incredible black and white portraits for Spring 09's block buster: The Watchmen.

The video is a fantastic insight into how to interact with your subject as portrait photographer, and shows how simple a set up can be used in order to capture amazing images on a tight budget very quickly. Needless to say I will be trying a similar set up in the not to distant future.

You can visit the original Strobist post HERE and Clays personal Website HERE

Finally made the jump to Apple

2009-07-08T14:28:00.003+01:00

I recently took the plunge and decided that with the timely death of my three year old pPCs graphics card it was time to think about the switch to mac, After a few days looking at the options I decided to make the most of education discount and get myself the new 13.3 inch MacBook Pro, I was originally dissuaded from purchasing a mac over a year ago when the new line of unibody MacBooks was introduced, primarily due to the lack of firewire 800 port on the mid range models and the highly reflective glass screen.

Well the new machine has a much nicer screen (60% increase in color gamut; although still glossy) and Firewire 800 port for tethered shooting. With this improvement and having road tested a friends before purchasing I was confident that I could still work with the glossy display. I took delivery last night and am very pleased with my purchase, the free ipod touch (via rebate) was also a nice added thank you given the amount of cash I forked out.

For anyone looking to upgrade this summer I thoroughly recommend this machine, its small portable with great battery life and the same performance as the 15inch model with and now with the necessary ports for a pro photographer.

Olympus Pen

2009-07-03T11:07:00.004+01:00

Ive just found this rather nice promotional video for the new Olympus Pen micro four thirds DSLR over at PRODIG and thought it deserved sharing I am very much a fan of this pocket sized SLR format having been a big fan of Olympus' classic pocket camera range especially the fantastic Olympus Trip 35mm film camera which I blogged about a few months ago.

The Pen has roots going back all the way to 1959 with this rather dinky little model (above) and I'm glad to see that Olympus has carried the core styling concepts into the new model below.

For more info on the new Pen check out this in depth preview over at DPreview.

A New Project for the Summer.

2009-06-07T22:44:00.005+01:00

Given my current employment imposed captivity (and lack of AIB photographic mentors handing me assignments) Ive decided to set myself some projects for the summer, I'm not quite sure what these projects will consist of yet but i'm confident that a little bit of focus will keep me behind of the camera long enough not to get rusty, as well as making the impending purchase of a new camera all the more justifiable.

I am initially thinking of putting together a few multi-part comps to flex the newly formed Photoshop muscles Ive developed on my travels to London for placement this Easter. Not quite sure what this will involve yet, but if my experiences in London have taught me anything its that advertising photography is as much about creating a convincing comp from many individual source images as it is about getting it right in camera.

On a more traditional note, I would also really like to indulge in one of these one photo a day challenges whereby a photographer endeavors to take edit and publish to the web one photo per day for a whole year, effectively creating a 365 image time line of their photographic development, creating a nice fat portfolio of images in the process. Having a rather large soft spot for portrait photography I and going to endeavor to begin a 365 day portrait project, in an effort to develop my own style, I don't expect it to be pretty during the beginning but i think i have the drive to see it through and hopefully come out the other side all the better for the experience.

I hope to set up a sub-domain on my portfolio site to showcase this project which I will build over the course of the next few weeks. I aim to begin the project in earnest on my birthday, the 2nd of July. Watch this space for images come 02.07.09

If anyone has any other ideas for summer projects, let me know in the comments.

UPDATE:

Looks like David Hobby over at the excellent Stobist.com is thinking similar thoughts, follow the link to read his take on personal projects and self-driven photo challenges , and check out Dustin Diaz's featured 365 project HERE

A quick flick through the AIB Yearbook.

2009-06-04T23:00:00.003+01:00

For anyone who wasn't satisfied with the 15 page preview of the AIB year book at Blurb.com here is a quick video I recorded on my phone to give people a better look, apologies for the poor sound, I would personally leave it muted.

Remember to order a copy follow this link HERE.

Putting together my first portfolio: Part 2

2009-05-27T20:17:00.007+01:00

So after several weeks of indecision over potential portfolio options I finally came bit the bulletand made my purchase, and its a decision that fly's somewhat in that face of previous advice given in part one of this blog post, and with good reason. The advice previously given concerns the student photographer who is in the final stages of formal education, with graduation on the horizon and looking to hit the streets with their book from the get-go.

Why I changed my mind:
This however is not my position, I am currently finishing up my first year of formal photographic training with another full year of study and portfolio preparation before I am to venture out into unforgiving world of the freelance photographer.

With this in mind I decided to compromise on one factor when choosing my portfolio: Price. As we all know students are hard up, and I am no exception, the idea of spending £200+ on my first portfolio is an extravagance at present (especially given that my body of work is a still in its infancy). However I still maintain that as you are only good as your book in the clients eyes, quality and professionalism are still paramount concerns. So with this balancing act of economy and quality I set out to find my perfect first book.

As I have been working in London for the last 6 weeks working for various photographic production houses I have been able to visit several portfolio stockists, Including Cowling and Wilcox (known online as Portfolioplus.com) Here I found a fantastic selection of well priced portfolios and presentation boxes at a price range that went from £20- £200.

Having handled several folios I settled on a 14x11 inch size (this being a standard size for fashion and editorial books) as it will allow me flexibility when printing using A3 paper, allowing for easy border less print crops, as well as fitting snugly into a standard courier style shoulder bag. I have also decided that despite the lure of colored folios, a simple black leather finish will fit my branding and help me keep my price down.

So what did I go for?
So with this spec I mind I was presented a number of options from brands such as Pina Zangario, Prat, Techstyle Agency, and Itoya, as well as Cowling & Wilcox's own bespoke products.

I went with 14x11 inch black bonded leather finish display book from Parisian manufacturer Prat,The book has a classic look and hard wearing construction which should survive the knocks and scrapes it is likely to encounter.

I decided to compromise on extensibility in order to keep the price down by choosing a fixed sleeve folio, with a maximum of 20 views my book may be smaller than larger books but it will easily fit the work that I wish to present, and be within the 15-20 image guideline that top photo agent Mark George recommended in part 1.

And the best part about this book is that it only cost my £9.95! Having hunted around for the book design I liked I discovered that last years end-of-line model was available at a fraction of the price ( I believe the R.R.P. was £40) With this minute cost I felt confident that I had discovered a bargain and quickly snapped up the book. Even if this deal is not still available it has still taught me to look for the bargains, C&W had a great selection of sale items such as this and even their current stock carried a 15% student discount, which made many of their prices fantastically competitive even at the top end.

So I have my book, but given that I spent so little on it, i felt like getting a bit creative and given the minor financial risk decided to make some modifications...

Mods...
As I mentioned in part 1, having your name on your book is a great way to differentiate your work and branding from the crowd, given that Ive gone for a black standard 14 x11 folio I was in desperate need of some differentiation.

So when I returned from London I paid a visit to the Art Institute at Bournemouth's resistant materials department and had a custom vector of my logo laser engraved into the leather cover. The wonderful technician Ed made a great job of the etch and I am amazed by the results. My £9.95 folio has been transformed, the etching providing that professional look and feel that would normally cost a significant amount more.

You can download Cowling and Wilcoxs Product Catologue HERE,

and for more infromation on Lazer etching check out this engraving obsessed website.

Putting together my first portfolio.

2009-05-11T09:00:00.003+01:00

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As the end of my first year at AIB draws to a close i have decided to start to put together my first professional portfolio 'book' . Having met and worked with a diverse range of industry professionals over the past 12 months, Ive come to realize that while websites are the first port of call for anyone wishing to research a specific photographers work, a printed portfolio is still the only way to take that next step and present yourself as a bookable professional photographer, especially within the commercial sector.

Bearing this in mind have spent the past few months collecting as much advice and information about the best way to put together my portfolio. AIB has been fantastic in this regard providing great advice and support as well as bringing in a broad range of leading industry professionals such to give advice on how to put together a great 'book'. We've met art buyers agents, photographers and creative directors including notable talks from the likes of fashion photographer Sølve Sundsbø, photo agent Mark George, Art Director Alex Jenkins and ex Magnum creative manager Jessica Crombie.

Having gathered as much advice as I can here is a rather lengthy list of do's and dont's when looking to purchase your first portfolio.

Your best image should be your first image, open with a bang.

Your 2nd best image should be your last image, make sure they remember you.

Buy a folio that matches the majority orientation of your work: If all your work is landscape, get a landscape folio etc...

All images should be mounted in the same orientation- whether your images are landscape or portrait you shouldn't have to turn the book round to view them, your book should be as easy to view as possible with the minimum amount of fuss.

Your book is a workhorse not a precious work of art, it should be sturdy enough to take a lot of wear and tear without looking messy and be easy to dust off.

Don't go for a cheap ring binder folio, remember your folio is a reflection of your professionalism and quality, the better it looks, the better you look. Fixed screw post books are generally considered top of the line.

Aim for at least 15-20 great images.

Don't put include sub-par work simply to pad out your book, quality is always more important than quantity. That said less than 10-15 images is a little on the thin side even as a student.

Print big, the bigger your prints the better they will look. 14 x 11 inches is the industry standard book size although many now prefer A3 given that the cost and quality of inkjet printing has dropped significantly in recent years.

If you are going to present your prints in protective sleeves avoid textured materials such as PVC vinyl, textured sleeves will tend to distort the print quality of your work. Try to use Polyester acetate or Polypropylene sleeves, both are great choices although Polyester has slightly better transparency and fade resistance ( as well as being slightly more expensive).

Get a book that is easy to update and expand, its likely that as your progress as a student your will want to show more and more work. Also, each client is different and you may need to quickly edit your images to maximise your appeal. Fixed sleeve folios should be avoided for this reason.

Choose your portfolio colour and finish carefully, the majority of books are black in a leather or leatherette material. This is a classic design and looks and feels very professional; it also blends in alongside every other book from every other photographer a client is considering. Try to stand out with a coloured book or book accents that echo your branding or photographic style. Leather books are considerably more expensive than other material choices although several alternative materials exist at a fraction of the price.

Put your name on the cover, blind embossing on leather materials or laser etching on metal are both great options providing a fantastic level of finish and are widely available as options from most manufacturers.

Invest in the future, portfolios can be expensive items to purchase, with custom leather books often running into the hundreds of pounds (sometimes thousands). Don't be put off by the initial expense, A quality book will be with you for years and will ensure that your work is presented in the best possible light. By the same token don't go overboard, remember that your book is a workhorse to be used not fawned over.

With this lot in mind I ventured online in search of my perfect book. Several UK sources presented themselves:

House of Portfolios- US manufacturer providing a wide range of folios and a variety of colours at competitive rates ( be sure to check exchange rates).
Silver Print- Limited range but provides a great starter books.
Plastic Sandwich- Known for their signature one piece leather books, expensive but the quality speaks for itself.
Portfolio Plus- The online face of Cowling & Wilcox Art Stores. Wide range of folios covering in a range of styles and finishes including a selection of metal and acrylic folios from Pina Zangario.
The Wyvern Bindery- unique bespoke service, perhaps out of the price range of most students.

I hope these resources are of benefit to students in a similar position to my own, watch this space to see what I decided to go with.

125 Luxury Issue Out Now!

2009-05-10T11:20:00.004+01:00

The latest issue of my favorite photography and fashion magazine, 125 is out now on the shelves of you local Borders or more artsy newsagent. The magazine is a specifically targeted at photographers, showcasing new talent alongside established players.

This issue 'Luxury' (the irony is not lost i assure you) happens to include two of my favorite photographers: Phil Toledano, shooting accessories with a satirical twist, and Rick Guest of East Photographic, the man responsible for the fantastic Canon 5D Mk II print campaign from last year, here applying his groundbreaking laser imaging techniques to fashion photography.

As always the 125 is a huge tome full of incredible imagery that is more coffee table book than magazine. As a source of inspiration and platform for new photographic talent 125 is well worth the £6.99 cover price and can be order online HERE along with many of their back issues.

The AIB Photo Year Book

2009-05-09T10:50:00.007+01:00

After several weeks of manic emailing, telephone calls and long nights in front of Booksmart I have finally put the finishing touches on The Arts Institute at Bournemouth's first entirely student led photo yearbook, preserving the work fledgling work of 27 budding commercial photographers at the end of their first year of study.

The Book contains over 130 images spanning a diverse array of styles and subject matters, everything from advertising and still lives right through to high-end fashion and documentary works. I feel truly proud of the submissions that make up this book and am especially thankful to the lecturing and technical staff at AIB who have enabled us to make such strides in our work.

I created this book using Blurb.coms booksmart software, producing a professional grade 8x10 inch 120 page hardback book printed on premium 100-pound text silk-finish paper. You can read my review of the blurb software and process from my previous encounter with it for my Warriors photo series.

The book is publicly available from blurb.com priced at £26.95 plus shipping. Order yours HERE.

Thoughts on business card design.

2009-04-19T23:44:00.005+01:00

This weekend Ive been pottering around planning the little jobs Ive wanted to get my teeth into for a while, tweaking my portfolio, planning new shoots, redesigning my business cards etc..

During my pottering I discovered this tasty morsel and couldn't resist sharing this mans advice with you.

Enjoy.

For more business card related fun follow up this link

Before you ask, yes things are a little slow at the moment...

Blurb Book Review.

2009-03-29T15:12:00.010+01:00

Having completed my assessed modules for the summer I decided make a permanent record of my current projects, trying out a service Ive been hearing a lot about recently, Blurb books.

Blurb offer loads of different self-publishing services for both photographers and authors and I had heard good things about the quality of the results. So I sat down a couple of weeks ago spent some time with the Booksmart software and put together my first photo book based on my current portrait series The Warriors.

I decided to go all out with my first book and opted for Blurbs top of the line, Hardback Large Landscape (13×11 inches) photo book with image wrap and premium paper.

The Booksmart Software was very easy to use and allowed for an impressive number of layouts, although if you would rather create you own you can layup however you like then import your competed layout as an image. The software also allowed me to use any fonts I had installed on my computer, rather than those recognized by Blurbs servers, allowing me to be much more individual and creative with my layup.

To get the best out of the book I followed the recommended file preparation and converted my chosen images to 300ppi in sRGB colour space. Colour space is especially important as incorrect colour space can result in faded washed out prints that lack saturation, particularly in red and orange tones.

Once I had made up my 40 page book I checked it with the built in PDF proofing system before uploading to Blurb. This was especially useful and really gave me a sense of exactly how the book would look, page by page. Uploading was fairly painless experience; although uploads can take sometime, so be patient and don't start hitting buttons if the uploader becomes unresponsive.

After the upload, I was taken to an online ordering system that allowed me to either publish the book publicly or keep it private, adding options for tagging and markups, Blurb is great for those wishing to produce small limited print run books in that it allows you to add a mark up to any book you publish and you get to keep 100% of the markup. Once I had ordered my copy i was informed that standard delivery would be 2 weeks plus a 6 day processing time for my order, three weeks lead time then till my book arrived.

Bearing this in mind I was pleasantly surprised when 4 days later I received a message informing me that my book had been shipped. Things got better still when only one week later the book arrived, a whole week early.

Print quality was excellent with crisp prints and accurate colours. The image wrap on the cover was especially impressive and the premium paper really added to the professional quality of the book. Overall im really impressed with the results and will definately use the services again.

Portfolio Update!

2009-03-27T19:36:00.002Z

Ive been really busy recently with AIB deadlines and new shoots. I've got lots of new material to showcase and with all my current deadlines signed off I have just made the first of many updates to my web portfolio over at tgrphoto.co.uk

Check out the new shots and as always feedback posts are greatly appreciated.

Microsoft Tags, a fancy new marketing tool.

2009-03-18T09:40:00.002Z

(Try out this tag to my portfolio)

Ive been spending time with Photographer Atton Conrad over the past couple of days, helping out with marketing and studio based admin. Although this doesn't sound like much, it was a great opportunity to see the day to day running of a professional studio, as well as get up to speed on the latest marketing techniques.

One of the things I discovered while on my trawl through the internet many ad agencies and fashion websites was Microsoft Tags. These beauties allow you to create a custom made bar code assembled from colorful CMYK triangles that can operate as a link to a range of rich content via mobile phone. You simply sign into MSN,( or create an account) tell the tag what you would like it to represent, such as an electronic business card, hyper link to your website or prompt a text message with further content. The tag is then rendered and made available to you as a image file or pdf which you can do what you want with. Place it on business cards, wall stickers, websites etc...

To read the tag all you have to do is download a simple application available for camera phones via this web address: http://gettag.mobi

Boot it up and point your phones camera at the tag. It instantaneously loads the relevant information. No more laboriously typing in contact details or web addresses, jut point, load and bookmark.

I think this visual tag is a great idea and see plenty of viral marketing potential for the technology. I will be integrating this technology into my website and promotional material soon. and being a colorful geometric pattern its not quite as ugly on the eye as a conventional bar code, perfect for a creative industry such as photography.

If you are interested in this type of visual tag technology its also worth checking out Chase Jarvis' Blog posting on the 3d tagging system thats been doing the rounds, which operates in a similar manner,video below:

Sony Advertising Project

2009-03-08T14:42:00.005Z

With my project now handed in I thought I would share with you a couple of the final images I created for my Sony Advertising Project. The brief called for a two-part photographic advertisement for the Sony electronic entertainment brand that encompassed the whole ethos of the Sony brand rather than focusing on any particular product line it markets. The ad had to reflect Sony in a positive light, highlighting how Sony enriches our lives.

The brief called for either two billboards or two bus shelters, I plumped for the bus shelters, selecting Sony's well established commitment to environmentally friendly production techniques and innovations as my theme, using their vegetable based plastics Eco- thinking USP as the talking point of the ad. I combined this with the like.no.other. branding to build a green but contemporary look to the ad- reminiscent of Apples product advertising.

My final images are two clean, minimalistic ads that I hope get this message of Eco-friendly innovation across in a way that fits in with Sony's current audio/visual advertisement styles.

Let me know your thoughts.

The Warriors Portriat series now online.

2009-03-07T14:56:00.004Z

Its been a while since my last post, Ive been really busy with hand ins for my course as well as frantically organizing work experience placements (more on that soon). As promised my Portrait Series on the Guinness Premierships own Worcester Warriors can now be viewed online at my portfolio website www.tgrphoto.co.uk in the Projects section. Im really pleased with the out come, and would love any feedback people would spare the time to give.

Preping for the Shoot: Worcester Warriors

2009-02-18T15:53:00.024Z

Last week I was lucky enough to gain access to British Premier league Rugby Team The Worcester Warriors. I shot the team as part of a portraiture project I am currently undertaking at AIB, inspired by the portraiture of greats such as Platon, Martin Schoeller, Erwin Olaf to name a few, Ive been working on my lighting set up for a while now and it was great to get out and use it. Below is a brief round up of the planning and workarounds I employed to get the job done on my non-existent budget.

Camera phone shot of my studio set up.

Because I wanted to emulate my previous lighting that I had developed in the AIB studios and reproduce it on location for this shoot I had to overcome a number of technical obstacles prior to the shoot. My main obstacle was how to recreate a 4 light studio setup on location with only the use of small battery powered flash guns and a selection of octabox soft lights and silver umbrellas. My studio set up involved a martin Schoeller-esque twin strip soft box setup with a small honeycomb dish high directly over the camera at a full stop brighter as key light. The soft boxes where placed at 45 degrees to the subject at very close range at minims power as fill with the semi hard light of the dish providing a directional light and providing shadows to aid the contrast and skin detail of the subject.

The white backdrop was lit with a large Fresnel spot light to provide a bright absolute white backdrop. In the studio I shot with a Mamiya RZ67 at 1/125 f4 with a Phase one H5 back. Using Broncolor lights. Because I didn't have access to this level of kit on location I modified my own to meet my needs, To begin with I choose my camera- I was aiming to print these images A3 and although my 8mp Canon 20D produces great images I was worried that I would loose image quality by interpolation in the slight enlargement necessary to produce an A3 print size; so I borrowed a 10mp Canon 40D to cover this shortfall in image quality. The lens' and controls are almost identical and it was very easy to switch. I used a 50mm f1.8 prime lens to ensure the best possible image quality. As I was aiming for a very small DOF I went with an aperture of f3.5 and shot as 1/125 ISO 100.

Initial lights.
(Apologies for the messy room).

In order to achieve the strip softbox catch lights, which are integral to the look of the image, I aimed to produce, I modified the 36 inch octabox soft lights I owned by attaching two pieces of black suede fabric to either side of the boxes in order to produce a 36x 16 inch strip box in the centre of the octabox. These were sewn by my girlfriend, my dutiful mother and I. We attached them with small hooks that fasten onto the umbrella arms of the octabox.

With black flag covers. (Blags?)

For the key light I designed a small 12 inch beauty dish. This was made from a Wilkinson stainless steel mixing bowl, I used the bowl in conjunction with a custom built laser cut transparent acrylic frame (many thanks to the graphics depatment and workshop for the design and fabrication of this component), cut in a three prong configuration that held a 3 ¼ inch convex reversing mirror. I cut a hole in the bottom of the bowl for the flash head to fit through, the idea being that the light from the flash would pass through this hole into the bowl, hitting the mirror, the light would reflecting back into the inner surface of the dish where it would be thrown back out onto the subject.

The dish worked well; but during testing I found that the light spread it created was to wide and not quite soft enough for my purposes on this shoot, instead I used a 16 inch white umbrella to reflect light back to the subject in a soft but relatively tight key light source. With my light setup complete and my camera chosen my technical pre-production was complete.

I will be blogging about the shoot day and post-production very soon, watch this space.

New website up and running!

2009-02-09T23:04:00.005Z

This has been a labor of love for months, Ive finally decided to push ahead and finish of my portfolio website tgrphoto.co.uk and have spent the past two evenings locked in my room forcing myself to learn HTML and a little bit of flash to build my brand new site.

I went with a very clean minimalist layout and followed the advice of a photo editor, making sure my contact details are visible on every page. I exhaustively researched the favored themes of practicing photographers today prior to designing my site and have created something simple and easy to use every bit as good as any other folio site.

Follow the link to check it out or hit the logo link in the top right hand corner of the navigation bar. Bookmark please!

Snowed under in London.

2009-02-05T19:52:00.003Z

I've had a great week in London meeting some of my favorite photographers and taking my first steps into the realm of the world of the professional commercial photographer. The week started rather strangely with about 10 inches of snow that crippled London's Transport Network and left me stranded in a very white Sevenoaks, Kent for the day. Thus I decided to knuckle down and get on with contacting the people I wanted to see for the week and once arrangements had been made embarked on a 4-5 hour snowball fight and tobogganing session with my girlfriends younger brother.

Tuesday and Wednesday were far more productive and I managed to limp into London despite the haphazard weather and meet with some of my favourite Photographers, check out their websites below:

Atton Conrad
Tara Darby
Daniel Swallow

Fingers crossed, I hope to be working with them soon. Watch this space for more news and updates on my quest to become a Photographic Assistant.

Aerial Photography: Another Perspective.

2009-01-29T22:04:00.004Z

I was in the digital darkroom at AIB today putting the finishing touches to a print, when i peeked over the shoulder of a fellow students work, I was fascinated by the weird abstract shapes of his images and it wasn't long before i realized that they where all taken from about 50m up in an aerial photography kite.

This got me thinking about aerial photography and the amazing perspective it achieves. From breathtaking landscapes to intricate almost cellular abstracts. One of my favorite photographers Vincent Laforet is a keen aerial shooter and Ive always loved the playful way he approaches the genre.

Another favorite is Jason Hawkes who recently photographed the United Kingdom as part of the BBC's Britain from above series. Check out this small interview below or his blog for a better idea of what he's about.

Facial Tattoos portraiture project.

2009-01-27T16:56:00.007Z

Heres a couple of tester shots from a shoot last night with Chris Wilson, a new friend who I met recently on the hunt for facially tattooed subjects around the Dorset area for my current Arts Institute Project. I built upon the Martin Schoeller Style lighting Tests I attempted earlier in the month and am pleased with the results so far. I am desperately trying to find more persons with facial tattoos, if you know anyone please email me at info@tgrphoto.co.uk

I'm a fascinated with why people tattoo themselves, especially in the facial area, which can have so many social repercussions for the individual. The idea of permanently altering something as personal as the face to better match a chosen identity i really interesting, I will definitely pursue this project even if not as part of my course.

Puppy!

2009-01-26T14:09:00.004Z

Back home this weekend for my Fathers Birthday and to meet the newest addition to the family: Zula the Rhodesian Ridgeback. Zula is a natural model, and managed to cock her head on cue for the camera shutter. Here are a few shots.

Make up mini project and possibly over the top retouching...

2009-01-23T20:24:00.005Z

Here's a shot from a shoot I played around with today.,just trying out some make up with up and coming make up artist Dionne Taylor, our model bailed on us at the last minute and my lovely fellow photographer Andrea kindly stepped in. Quite pleased with the result, I used this session to try out different beauty techniques and flex my retouching muscles. No afraid to say that I may have gone to far on the skin texture. Here's the same shot in black and white, not sure which I like best.

I shot with a Hasselblad 501 with phase one back 120mm lens and macro adapters where necessary. The shot was lit with a low key set up with just one beauty dish with honeycomb grid.

Make up: Dionne Taylor
Model: Andrea Stoker
Assistants: Mike Osbourne, Montana Lowery
Photo and Retouching: Me!

Kalinsky Album Cover

2009-01-22T18:45:00.003Z

Weymouths very own alt rock band Kalinsky recently booked me for a promotional shoot and having liked the pictures ask me to produce their album cover for the forth coming 'A Raid of Thoughts'.

Having brain stormed the brief with the band they wanted a simple, dark twist on the idea of thought. The images i produced used the age old example of the light bulb to symbolize thought and the harsh monochromatic lighting really bringing the shattered fragments to life . The Band and I are really pleased with the final image and look forward to listening to the just mastered album in the not to distant future.

You can purchase and sample tracks form the upcoming album HERE and view a small number of the promo shots from the previous shoot at my Behance portfolio.

Simon Hogsberg: An Incredible street portrait - 100 meters long!

2009-01-22T15:57:00.002Z

This incredible street portrait by Simon Hogsberg was captured over 20 days at the same point in Berlin 2007. The image and the characters that make up it, all 178 of them are a unique cross section of the people who live in this diverse city. This is an amazing shot (s) and something I would love to try for my self.

We're All Gonna Die- 100 Meters of Existence

Martin Schoeller-esque Lighting....ish

2009-01-14T14:48:00.004Z

As part of one of my upcoming projects Ive been looking into portrait photographers that inspire me. Over the past week Ive been especially interested in the look achieved by Martin Shoeller in his famous celebrity portrait series. The lighting produces a really serene almost geographical look at the models face, with a shallow depth of field, close up wide angle perspective and strangely feline catch lights in the models eyes producing really unique portraits.

While in the studio yesterday evening I decided to attempted to emulate this lighting in an effort to understand this unique portraiture approach. By studying the above you tube clip of Martin at work and a careful look at the models catch lights I determined that two strip lights either side of the model at 45 degrees to the face at low power would nicely fill the shadows of the model and provide the feline catch lights. To get the DOF fall off i dropped the lights to their lowest settings and shot at f4 on a Mamiya Rz67 with phase one back, the large crop factor of the digi back allowed me to get in really close on an while retaining a much reduced DOF. I used black flags on either side of the model and a black anti-reflector (?) under the chin to get that dark edging to the jaw. To create a slight shadow above the model i used a small grid spot dish as a key light.

The results are not quite right yet but I think they are going the right way. The catch lights appear to be too thin and straight. I think will use strip soft boxes in my next test and perhaps a wide angle lens to get the perspective better, though i don't want to copy Martins amazing originals to closely, Id rather learn and adapt to create my own images.

P.S If your out there Martin and you'd care to share some advice on this kind of set up, let me know... Please?

My New (old Camera): Olympus Trip 35, Circa 1971

2009-01-12T18:03:00.006Z

After a rather surreal eBay shopping spree, I have just taken ownership of my very first film camera, the one and only Olympus Trip 35. It arrived in a soggy box with a dinky little flash gun the size of a pack of cards (which on foolish closer inspection was quiet powerful, as my poor retinas will attest) and is in perfect working order. Its built like a tank and runs totally without the need for batteries. Having parted with my hard earned £18 I can wait to take this out tomorrow. I've been having a look at Internet resources relating to the camera and discovered quiet a community dedicated to this diminutive gem.

Here's My pick of the best:

An beginners Overview of the Trip by Peter Leslie.

A fantastic In depth review and image quality comparison to a canon 5D! via KenRockwell.com

The Olympus Trip Flickr Group- A lively community of photographers willing to share information, images and modifications.

Tripman- A great place to pick up a totally refurbished trip for as little as £35 in your choice of new shiny leather paneling . Also a great source for accessories and servicing.

How to modify your trip for manual shutter speeds. Via Alpix.

A second slightly riskier modification for manual shutter speed.

The Olympus Trip Blog- Peter Leslie's Blog dedicated to news and information about the Trip.

The original manual.

And my personal favorite...

The original David Bailey Advertisement.

Classic.

White-Tack Warrior

2009-01-09T23:21:00.002Z

White-Tack Warrior from Toby Roberts on Vimeo.

Here's a third attempt at stop motion animation that I frittered away my afternoon putting together. Many of you will be wondering why these three rather poor animations have suddenly arrived on the blog in short succession, allow me to explain.

As part of my current briefs at the Art Institute at Bournemouth I have been given the opportunity to delve into the world of animated stills, both time lapse and stop motion animation. These techniques really appeal to me and are great fun to create, even if you have to be little bit patient with the process. I hope you like this third effort. Personally i think the time lapse of the bus ride home is my most successful visually and I will endeavor to make a longer more refined version in the not to distant future, until then take a look at these similar attempts by fellow students Tom Hole and Mike Osbourne and this fantastic time lapse HDR tutorial that caught my eye over the past week

PS. Take a look at Muto a fantastic stop motion animation by the artist Blu Blu, As disturbingly beautiful as it is meticulously crafted.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

A still rather poor second attempt.

2009-01-08T20:59:00.003Z

Second rather shoddy attempt at Time Lapse animation. from Toby Roberts on Vimeo.

My second attempt at time lapse photography, still very bad- I have no experience in video editing so apologies for the rather rough transitions at the beginning and end.

A rather poor first effort at stop motion animation.

2009-01-08T17:55:00.001Z

A rather bad first attempt at time lapse from Toby Roberts on Vimeo.

The other side of the coin.

2009-01-08T00:22:00.007Z

As part of my commercial photography training the arts institute at Bournemouth provides a wide variety of guest speakers that ranger from practicing photographers, agents, and all the way up to clients and picture editors. Today we where privileged to receive a talk from Marie-Louise Collards, a highly experienced picture editor for United Business Media, specializing in medical industry photography for Business to Business publications such as PULSE. What was interesting about the lecture was that it opened my eyes to the idea that commercial photography is an overarching discipline that is required in almost every industry imaginable, and that even something as seemingly mundane as medical press can provide both challenging and creative photographic opportunities; to take advantage of these opportunities you must be willing to think from your employers and consumers perspective.

Marie-Louise really drove home the point that she chooses images in order to increase her readership and thus attract more sponsors and advertisers. Thus the images must directly engage with the consumer, in this case medical professionals such as doctors, nurses and pharmacists. This is especially prevalent in the medical field given the high level of education and aesthetic commonalities shared by the vast majority of her readership. The medical images shown where designed specifically with the needs of a very specific audience, catering to the needs of this audience with a level of sophistication I had not previously considered. The images for the most part where not aesthetically groundbreaking but required painstaking care in construction, their vernacular consistency as visual documents being of core concern especially when illustrating new treatments or documenting patients conditions.

This intense need to satisfy an audience was both interesting and informative. I think it is very important to remember that as a commercial photographer you must satisfy the need of the client first and that this goal should be your primary concern rather than any aesthetic agenda you wish to pursue. Understanding the way your employer thinks and expects you to perform is key to achieving success in this regard. I must thank Marie-Louise for sharing this valuable insight. If you are interested in this subject head over to fellow photographer Tom Holes blog HERE for his overview of the talk.

Starting the new year with a bit of tech news...

2009-01-06T19:06:00.002Z

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

Fellow photographer Matt Grum recently shared with me a few humorous links, this is my favorite, and no i don't own an mac and yes i still want one. God bless the onion news network.

Seeing colours for the first time: Why everyone using Lightroom should switch from ACR 4.4

2008-12-18T23:38:00.010Z

While catching up on my photo news this evening I came across an article at Inside Lightroom that caught my attention: Adobe Camera Raw profiling.

Like many photographers who make the jump from Jpeg digital photography to RAW shooting I have for a long time enjoyed the extra flexibility that the RAW file format provides, especially when it comes to adjusting white balance and squeezing that extra half a stop of tonality from a blown out wedding dress. However (and this is a BIG however) until today I had never really taken seriously the drawbacks of RAW image editing especially one tiny crucial detail: Camera Profiles. Adobe camera raw in both Photoshop and Lightroom has to interpret the colour information from the RAW files it receives from your camera, such as Nikons .NEF's and Canons CR2's. By default Lightroom and Photoshop will interpret these based on the Adobe Camera Raw plugin's own profile calibrations ACR 2.4 or ACR 4.4 (and more recently for Photoshop CS4 owners the ACR 5.2 update, which can be found HERE) .

Having previously ignored these settings and oblivious to the comments of other Lightroom users who complained of dull oranges and muddy skin tones, I have for the longest time processed my Canon Raw files using the Lightroom 2 default calibration of ACR 4.4. From this point on however I will never make this mistake again. Out of curiosity I downloaded Adobes Beta camera profiles that they rolled out ahead of Lightroom 2.2. Using ACR4.4 as a base I compared a .CR2 file with the new beta profiles. The results where quite shocking to me, as the 100% crop comparison image below demonstrates:

*ACR 4.4 on the left and Camera Standard Beta 2 on the right*

The blacks are blacker and the red and orange tones are vibrant and more saturated purely as a result of using a correct camera profile when managing these RAW files noise also seems to be reduced. Needless to say I will be editing all my images with suitable profiles from now on and will not overlook this incredibly important stage in my digital work flow any longer.

*Taken from a 100% crop of the same image this clip clearly shows the difference in black levels and saturation when using the Camera Standard beta 2 calibration*

For a better look at the differences these profiles can make take a look at this blog post at Jao's Photo Blog

Another Product Shot...

2008-12-17T22:58:00.006Z

This weekend I decided to have another go at my Xbox 360 controller. Exactly the same lighting, different composition and a nice simple background in Photoshop. Sometimes its worth going back to old projects with fresh eyes to see how you tackle them with the benefit of hindsight. You can view the original effort and tutorial HERE.

* This image retains the authors copy right, not for commercial use without express permission.*

Mini Project: Xbox Controller Promo: Taking Mark George's Advice.

2008-12-09T13:11:00.020Z

Last week I was lucky enough to receive a lecture from top photographic agent Mark George. One of the key factors Mark discussed regarding making the transition from lowly student to successful professional is practice. Mark encouraged us all to immerse ourselves totally in the craft of picture taking, a sentiment echoed by Chase Jarvis in a recent post on his own blog. Fellow photographer and friend Tom Hole has an in depth look at Marks Lecture at The Photography Student Blog we worth a read for any aspiring photographer looking to make it.

Mark really impressed the idea that style develops as a result of constant practice and that by engaging in self-driven study, taking photos everyday, a photographer gains a sensitivity to the world through the viewfinder and can work towards the pictures we all wish we could take (such as these by Vincent Laforet). So on this note yesterday ,while waiting for my colour negatives to develop, I decided to act on this advice and set myself a mini still-life project.

I set off that morning with a vague urge to shoot a product shot and so on leaving the house grabbed the nearest electronic gadget i could muster: the lowly wireless Xbox 360 controller.

Given the objects nice matte off white surface and bold primary coloured elements I decided to shoot a high-key set up. I started by placing a light box on a table beneath the controller with a green gel to add a slight colour accent to the edges of the controller. I added a bit of diffusion to the gel with a large piece of polished opaque perspex. This produced the following result:

When I was happy with this high key backdrop I started to think about the fill light. I didn't want any harsh shadows so I picked a small soft box and placed it above and slightly back from the light box, filling in the controllers top surface from top center. This allowed to a slight soft shadow around the details on the controller buttons making them appear more three-dimensional. The key light was set to one stop brighter than the light box. Illustrated below:

My first test shots showed a few problem areas to be addressed. First of all the shiny plastic of the D-Pad was showing a distracting reflection. This was solved by adding a white flag just above the camera lens which blocked the reflection:

The next problem to address was that the LED lights on the controller where being totally overpowered by the studio lights. In order to bring the LEDs into the exposure i adjusted the shutter speed of the camera from 1/125 sec to 1 second, the huge difference in exposure was not a problem regarding ambient light leakage as the studio was pitch black save for the modeling lights. This adjustment really made the shot and gave the object some life. For more info on this technique check out this excellent product lighting tutorial from Lighting Essentials.

So after after correcting for these factors I ended up with the image below. I brought this RAW image into Adobe Lightroom and corrected the hue of the green gel to match the green of the LED lights and made a minor brightness adjustment. Then on to Photoshop for the backdrop.

To achieve the cyan green glow gradient I imported a second virtual copy of the original file but with the hue of the green gel pushed to cyan. The left and right edges of the glow where then masked in at the bottom to add the cyan accents.

Then the background was created by masking out the to product itself and building layers of colour in the same tones as the original image using a paint brush effect pack. I added a soft white glow around the controller and using the Gaussian blur filter and a screen adjustment layer to create a soft neon glow on the background.

Finally a purple backdrop was created by making a difference layer and selecting the opposite tones to the original image and filling the backdrop with these colour, the opposite tones making the product really pop out of the image; although if I was to submit this to the client (I.E. Microsoft) I would probably submit the white backdrop version as its more in line with the current Xbox 360 branding. I finished up by flattening the image and adding a subtle unsharp mask, with a radius of 9 and a threshold of 250.

Hope you enjoyed this walk through as much as i did creating it. I hope to have a few more of my mini projects up soon.

End of term thoughts.

2008-12-06T16:21:00.015Z

As part of my current commercial photography studies I have had to fulfill several technically minded briefs. These have included both mono and colour location portraiture, (utilizing both off- camera flash and ambient light respectively), 5x4 large format studio still lives, on top of studio based high and low key lighting techniques. As the end of this terms technical project approaches I thought I would look back on my first term, sharing a few of my thoughts and test images with you.

The main concerns I had when beginning this course was that the first term project itself was restricted to using film cameras and processing techniques. This was new territory for me as I've been self-taught on digital cameras until beginning the course. Initially I approached film photography like a small child poking a dead animal with a stick, It fascinated me but at the same time I didn't trust it and if I'm honest, the arrogant DSLR user inside me told me that I was above this medieval technology. I couldn't have been more wrong.

Film Photography is great and Ive learnt loads from its engaging physicality. That's not to say that I'm one of those born again art student photographers who has fallen in love with film and will never go back. 35mm film photography is dead and buried in my opinion, its fiddly, expensive and just doesn't stand up next to the current generation of digital alternatives. Medium format 120mm film photography, on the other hand, is fantastic.

The Arts institute at Bournemouth is one of the few colleges in the UK to maintain its own C41 & E6 film processing suite, which takes all the hassle out of 120 film development. This coupled with a mac suite full of Power Macs and Imacon scanners makes it possible to really get the most out of the incredible detail that can be achieved from Medium format film, and without resorting to a £30K digital back (one day...).

So, I like 120mm film; I still love digital. More importantly I feel that in taking this step into film development and printing I have a much better appreciation for many of the physical aspects of photography that I had previously glossed over, primarily due to ignorance. The use of light meters, colour balance, print quality, tonality and 'getting it right in camera' are all concepts i have really taken on board. I've really enjoyed my time on the course so far and I hope that improvements in my photography swiftly follow.

Watch this space.

Surfing at Bournemouth Pier

2008-12-05T22:29:00.009Z

I was in town early today scouting a location for a shoot this weekend in an amusement arcade on Bournemouth pier. I was quickly distracted from my scouting by a the huge group of surfers who had taken to the water, keen to make the most of the unusually large swells and gorgeous sunshine.

So, I pulled out my long lens and started shooting; unfortunately I quickly ran out of memory cards, and so after a quick memory dump, brunch and a hasty hat and glove purchase ( December on the seafront is not warm Ive discovered) I headed back to the pier for the rest of the afternoon, accompanied by my photographic partner in crime Tom Hole.

Needless to say we were transfixed by the amazing talent on display and the incredible clear winter light.The Pier made the perfect vantage point to get alongside our subjects as the waves broke. The surfers themselves where great guys of all different ages and by the end of the evening I just wanted to be in the water with them. Here are a few hastily processed shots from a perfect day.

Technical Tip: Mobile Phone Focus Trick

2008-11-27T00:29:00.004Z

Having recently become a student of commercial photography, I have begun to use medium format cameras such as Hasselblad 500/501 Cm's more and more, for both course work and personal projects. I have found,coming from a digital SLR background, that manual focusing on these cameras can be extremely difficult, especially without a prism or when using wide lenses and narrow depth of fields in low light situations.

While in the studio today i came up with a really quick and easy way of solving this problem. What i needed was a bright area with a contrasty design on which to focus, preferably small enough and thin enough to place in front of a model or object and fit within an acceptable depth of field. A mobile phone provided the perfect solution; thin enough to give an accurate focus on the object it was in front of and providing its own bright contrasty light source on which to focus.

By displaying a bold graphic or text on the screen and placing the phone in front of a model facing back towards the camera I was able to focus accurately in situations that would have otherwise been hit or miss. Its even helps prevent focus hunting in extreme low light situations when using my DSLR.

This is an extremely easy tip to employ as most photographers will already have their mobile phone handy, so no extra kit to buy. Phones are also fairly model friendly and not quite as invasive as shining a bright modeling lamp at your subject and melting their face.

To make this even easier i have put together this small focusing chart image and saved it as a mobile camera phone (including iphone) friendly jpeg file, just download it, save it to your mobile and when you need to focus just put the image up on screen and place it as close to what you want to focus on as possible.

Hope this tip is useful to people.

Kalinsky Promotional Shoot - Weymouth

2008-11-08T23:47:00.007Z

Here are some sample shots from todays promotional shoot with local Weymouth 5 Piece Kalinsky commisioned for thier debut album 'Raid of Thoughts'. More shots can be viewed at my new behance portfolio. Lighting Setups and Lightroom Presets to come...Hope you enjoy viewing the shots as much as I did taking them.

Digital Polariods: Session 2

2008-10-29T23:09:00.011Z

Here are a couple of shots from today's second stab at studio portraiture, I am pleased with the results. The first shot of Harry uses the same lighting as can be seen in the second studio lighting setup from the previous shoot. The shot is a little more accomplished given our new familiarity with the set up and by bringing the corridor of light further from the subject and keeping the Harry's shoulders parallel with the light source a more textured lighting has been achieved, this is especially noticeable in the graduations of tone in his black jacket. A few contrast tweaks and a vignette where added in lightroom 2.

The second shot is of our lovely model and fellow photographer Hannah Tozer. For this shot the aim was to achieve a portrait With a dramatic dual rim lights with nice shadowless skin tones to compliment the relatively direct gaze of Hannah.

The lighting was achieved using a beauty dish directly above the camera angled down onto Hannah's face as a key light. The rim lights where angled towards the camera at 45 degrees to Hannah's shoulders to illuminate her hair and outline. Light spill was controlled using small dishes on the rim lights and Gobos (flags) between the lights and the camera to prevent flaring. The image was then processed in Lightroom 2 to desaturate the skin tones.

In the studio: Digital Polariods

2008-10-24T18:17:00.028+01:00

Set Up 1: Nichola Rachel Smith

Today was my first day behind the camera in the studios. Here are a couple of digital Polaroids from todays lighting workshop, the first shot was inspired by an idea for lighting a still life image of a rim lit glass bottle. By simply increasing the size of the light source and flagging a full body soft rim light was achieved.

Flare was a problem however, hence the use of so many gobos (flags) ,for the final shots with the Hasselblad we used a barn doors light modifier attachment in front of the lens as a giant lens hood to reduce flare as much as possible. The lighting diagram explains the set up:

Set Up 2: Harry Shutler
For the second shot we created a corridor of soft light by taking two soft boxes and stacking them one atop the other, the then directed the soft light with two large gobos (or flags). This created a soft shaft of full body light, perfect for a full body portrait.

By moving the right hand gobo left and right it was possible to control the amount of light spill onto the background (grey) and thus control the gradient of tone in vertical shadow.

This afternoons session went well, i think that the flare present in the first image needs to be addressed more by moving the front two black flags close, let me know what you think.

In the studio.

2008-10-24T10:43:00.008+01:00

Last night i spent a few hours Assisting Ben Quinton with a few portraiture lighting setups he wanted to try. The AIB studio is very well equipped with Broncolor equipment and i thought i would take a few camera phone shots of the lights and set up. Ben shot with a Mamiya RZ67 on transparency film, using a canon 40D as a digital Polaroid.

Jammy a friend and fellow student offered to model for this head and shoulders portrait shoot.

The lighting setup produced a nice even light with a slight gradient against the backdrop. Bens lighting was quite original, and complex, I cant wait to see the results.

Incongruous: Mathmap?

2008-10-13T23:14:00.010+01:00

My first digital assignment as part of my commercial photography course has just been unveiled. The brief involves creating a composite image of a studio lit and location elements to create an image that addresses the thematic brief: 'incongruous' Roughly translated into layman's terms this involves creating an image with elements some of which seem out of place or inharmonious in the scene. This does not mean that the photo editing need stick out like a photoshop disaster.

In fact it means quite the opposite, the digital editing should be of a quality that the incongruent features of the image are part of the images intended message rather than its apparent construction alone.

Our course leader and commercial photographer Paul Wenham-Clarke threw the doors wide open on scope for this project, encouraging research into surrealist artists such as Rene Magritte and Escher.

Following this line I immediately thought of some of my previous experiments with droste style image manipulation via free image editing software The Gimp and Mathmap plugin. This coupled with the droste code developed by surrealist photographer and Flickr legend Josh Sommers allows a photographer to drastically alter images into mind bending illusions that are definitely incongruous. I thought this would make a great start to my research and though i may as well share with you how the process is achieved. Josh has an excellent tutorial for using this software HERE.

Basically the program defines and manipulates the position of the pixels within images based on mathematical formulae (much in the same way photoshop does behind the scenes). Certain formulae such as the one linked above allow the user to create images with 'infinite' polar distortions as shown in my own attempts above and below. I thoroughly recommend trying out these techniques, although they look complicated and the programming is a little outside the Photoshop norm, it is still a unique editing technique that is defiantly worth considering.

Photographers/Sand castle engineers.

2008-10-07T20:02:00.011+01:00

Freshers week has been and gone, and the real photographic work begins, but before all of that id like to highlight that our incredibly over-competitive team won the Fda commercial photography annual freshers sand castle competition, in one hour we managed to create not only an Egyptian themed feudal palace but also outlying farms and a complete sanitation system.

For a comparison to the heady levels of grandeur our teams castle managed to inspire see below for the rather decrepit offering delivered by one of the other 'less bothered' teams.

Arrogant prancing aside, the people on the course seem really great with lots of friendships already forming. I look forward to posting more relevant and professional photographic collaborations soon.

A new direction.

2008-09-30T23:28:00.005+01:00

Having recently enrolled as a student of commercial photography at the Arts Institute Bournemouth, I have decided that my blogs focus will shift to reflect my new photographic lifestyle. Expect thoughts on lectures, guest speakers and research, as well as blog entries concerning my personal development as a student of photography.

The regular Adobe Lightroom content and shot breakdowns Ive recently been posting will also continue, as well my best links from the now vastly increased knowledge base i have access to at AIB's fantastic creative media library.

Thats all for now, lots of new content coming soon.

The 5D Mk II has arrived!

2008-09-17T10:47:00.005+01:00

Finally its here! The Canon EOS 5D MkII with all the Nikon beating specs we Canon shooters have been hoping for!

Full Frame 21mp sensor ISO range of 50-25,600 and full HD video recording via live-view.

An in depth look at Canons flagship 'affordable' pro body can be found at HERE at Digital Photography Review, and heres the Canon Press Release. I cant wait to get my hands on one of these!

Catchlight Photographics: New Website!

2008-09-11T22:18:00.006+01:00

My business partner Tom Hole has been busy redesigning the Catchlight photographics website over at www.catchlightphotographics.com

The site has a fresh clean look and showcases our combined wedding and portaiture photography business. All enquiries welcome!

Strobist lighting in a shed...

2008-08-23T11:48:00.006+01:00

Having recently returned home as a graduate of Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the University of York I've had to adjust to life back in Gloucestershire and reassess the photographic opportunities available in the local area. With a fresh photographers outlook several otherwise forgotten or passed by locations immediately jumped out as possibilities for a spot of Stobist/Joey L style dramatic off-camera lighting, the best of which involved my shed!

I managed to employ my brothers and their slightly disorientated friends as the talent and whisked them off into the recently emptied ~~shed~~ studio to try out some shots. The “studio” had a very distressed feel about it with moldy slightly crumbling brickwork making for a nice grungy backdrop, with nesting swallows providing extra 'grittiness' by covering the place in droppings... a perfect backdrop for some moody off-camera lighting.

The portraits where lit using a large 39” soft box umbrell a high slightly left above the camera, an additional bare strobe providing a rim light far camera left at about 45° facing back towards the models. I originally planned to have two rim lights but my 3^rd strobe failed on me and I had to make do. To counter this imbalance I placed the shorter of the two models a half-step in front of the larger so that the rim light from the left would hit both models left sides. The difference in height of the models counterbalances the models distances from the camera and by shooting 2/3 body shots the effect is complete.

The strobes used are my trusty £15 Sunpak auto 30DX strobes fitted with Ebay PT-04 radio triggers. These are early 1980's work horses that have full manual controls and can still be found on Ebay far more cheaply that the much lauded Vivitar 285HV's or the early Nikon SB flash guns.

All the images shot at 1/250 of a second at f8 to make sure that I caught the fast movements of the models jumping about and to make sure the depth of field was large enough to pick put the details of the grungy brickwork. All processing happened in Adobe Lightroom 2 using settings that I've made into a preset which can be downloaded HERE. The main tweaks involve heavy vignettes, a soft brown highlight tweak (using the split tone function of Lightroom ) and increased fill light and black levels to further increase the grungy quality of the moldy walls.

The shoot was a lot of fun and has really opened my eyes to the array of photographic possibilities that are right under my nose. More experiments to come shortly methinks. You can view a gallery of the more successful images from the shoot HERE, let me know what you think!

Its been a while....

2008-08-22T20:14:00.008+01:00

Its be a too long since my last post, I've been so busy! Recently I've been working as an equine and events photographer with Sally Blair of Blairshots photography whose based in the Gloucestershire area, UK. Its been great fun travelling all around the Cotswold's to attend events. Favourites being a wonderful wedding deep in the Hereford countryside on the 19^th of July and the British Eventing Championships at Gatcombe Park, on the 7^th of August.

Working with Sally this summer has been a fantastic learning experience for me and I am indebted to her for generosity and kindness she shown in allowing me to shoot along side her. The world of equine photography is not quite so incomprehensible as it once was.

I've been working hard over the summer to build my online portfolio website www.tgrphoto.co.uk,The site had been completely redesigned using Lightrooms Web Gallery templates from The Turning Gate with a new lighter cleaner look, as well as a fresh batch of my portraiture images. Feel free to check out the galleries HERE.

Recently I've also made myself available as a photoshop and lightroom tutor in my local area. This has been a fantastic experience and I really feel that teaching core digital editing skills has really improved my own knowledge and learning.

That's all for now many more updates to come in the next few days as I fill you in on the rest of the summers goings on. I leave you with a list of some of my most visited sites and useful links:

The F-Stop- a wonderful online photographic magazine dedicated to interviews with working pros.

TED – the you tube of great ideas, this site provides fantastic video seminars presented bythe leading minds and a wide variety of creativeand scientific fields. David Grifiths (head of National Geographic magazine) and Franz Lantings Seminars are of particular photographic interest.

Adobe Lightroom 2 - In my opinion the best piece of imaging software package this side of Photoshop.

P.S Congratulations Tom Hole for your wonderful mini planet equitorial panorama tutorial that was featured on Lifehacker, 229,000 hits in a weekend not bad!

Lightroom Presets for Weddings

2008-06-22T19:55:00.004+01:00

Following on from my previous post here is the preset used to add a light soft buttery glow to the skin tones of a bride when shot into direct sunlight (as the shot below was) This preset works best with high key images taken at high ISO values, in the style made famous by Damien Lovegrove in his excellent Natural light DVD.

Click HERE to download the preset.

Thimbelina Bridal Shoot

2008-06-19T21:10:00.005+01:00

Today fellow photographer Tom Hole and I (with more than a little help from our eager assistant Michael Brunsden) had the pleasure of photographing the fantastic bridal wear ranges from Thimbelina of York Limited designers and dressmakers. We worked in conjunction with Bad Taste magazine fashion editors Lauren Clancey and Alice Alberry and models Tara Minshul, Charlotte Davey, Helen Griffiths and Gabriella De Ferry, with hair and makeup provided by York Colleges Rachel Thwaites (her 21st birthday today!) and Emmajane Kershaw.

Despite threatening weather all we the heavens parted for us and we were treated to an afternoon of brilliant sunshine and beautiful blue skies. The shoot comprised of posed and semi-posed set-ups with a mixture of natural light and off camera flash.

On behalf of myself and Tom thank you very much to all who where involved, the shots are looking really good, expect to see them posted up over the coming week (with over 500 shots taken editing is going to take a while).

P.s. I will try create some interesting wedding themed Lightroom presets and make these available when the shots go up.

UPDATE!!

The photo above is one of the early edits from the shoot for more images follow this link HERE to my brand spanking new slide show pro gallery.

Dirty Brickwork Lightroom Preset

2008-06-16T13:28:00.013+01:00

When I began this blog last month I promised a wealth of Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom downloadable content relating to my photography. Well at long last I’ve decided to start sharing a few editing techniques: 'Dirty Brickwork' is a Lightroom preset for developing photos in Adobe Lightroom, partly inspired by the work of Joey Lawrence, it will give a very dark very dramatic look to brickwork and masonry without pushing skin tones too far.

Installation:

Download the preset HERE.

To install this present Load up Adobe Lightroom, Click Edit>Preferences

In the 'Presets' Tab click on the 'show Lightroom presets folder' button.

This will load up your file manager, navigate to the 'Lightroom' folder (this should already be highlighted).

Double click on the Lightroom folder and navigate to the ‘develop presets’ folder inside. Open this folder save or paste the Lightroom preset file (.irtemplate) into a folder of your choice within this directory ('user presets' being the most obvious choice although you may wish to create your own custom folders if you're trying to keep things organised).

Once the preset file is pasted into this directory restart Lightroom and navigate to the 'develop' window in the left hand tool bar. In the 'presets' section you will now be able to see and apply the preset.

Below is an example of the effect that can be acheived with the Dirty Brickwork Preset.

This preset will hopefully be the first of many so watch this space for more content soon.

Male Model Natural Light Shoot.

2008-06-15T17:14:00.004+01:00

This weekend I had the opportunity to work with Rennie Hoare, male fashion and catwalk model currently based in York. We spent a few hours in and around York City Center, taking advantage of the wonderful textural contrast between old and new that York's historical buildings have to offer.

The shots where all taken using natural light. Given the changeable weather (blistering sunshine one moment, heavy rain the next) I took along a monopod and ball head to steady the shots, when the light levels suddenly dropped I was rewarded for this precaution. To achieve a soft diffuse light I increased the ISO level as high as 400 to boost dynamic range coupled with up to two stops of exposure compensation.

For more information on creating high-key natural lighting see Damien Lovegrove's excellent DVD tutorials.

All shots where run though Lightroom Beta 2 to bring out the dark gritty detail of the old stonework backdrops ,with a a strong vignette added to help focus the images.

You can view a selection of images from the shoots here.

York Photosoc Lighting Seminar

2008-06-12T11:35:00.004+01:00

Last night Tom Hole and I ran a lighting seminar for the University of Yorks Photographic Society. The session covered indoor and outdoor lighting with natural and artificial light. I was in charge of indoor artificial lighting with my model Hannah. We explored the use of softboxes in varying setups, using gels, gobos, snoots and gridspots. All in all it was a fun afternoon and I hope those who attended went away with some great pictures and ideas.

Follow the links here and here to see a couple of images of Hannah on my Flickr Profile.

Ebor Singers Shoot

2008-06-03T15:19:00.004+01:00

Last weekend myself and fellow photographer Matt Grum where asked to shoot some press and publicity photographs for the Ebor Singers Choir Group conducted by Paul Gameson.

The shoot started inside in a large studio with a full compliment of studio lighting gear; however given the size of the choir (12 persons) it quickly became obvious that the studio was restricting the creative potential of the shoot, thankfully it was gloriously sunny outside and with York Universities beautiful 'quiet place' only a shot walk away we moved outdoors.

The Ebor Choir where great to work with and very patient despite the radical change of plan during the shoot. I look forward to working with them again.

The majority of the shots are taken in natural light (Studio shots excluded), although occasionally a white shoot-through umbrella was used to expose the detail on the choirs black gowns and suits. All shots where processed in Lightroom Beta 2. Follow this Flickr link to have a look at a selection of images from the day.

Bad Taste Featured Images

2008-05-21T12:57:00.004+01:00

Now that Bad Taste issue 5 has officially be launched here is a link to my Flickr account where you can view my contributions,

Hope you like them.

Bad Taste Flickr Gallery

Bad Taste Magazine

2008-05-15T15:47:00.001+01:00

I have been lucky enough to have five images published across two fashion articles in the summer issue (5) of York University Student Magazine Bad Taste.

Bad Taste magazine was founded in 2006 and focuses on Arts, Fashion, Music and Lifestyle, aiming to promote student ventures at the University of York and exploring relevant activities further afield.

I shot in collaboration with Matthew Grum, Bad Tastes head photographer across the two fashion shoots, shot back-to-back in late March, in Rowntree Park, York, and on the University of York’s campus respectively.

Many thanks to fashion editors Lauren Clancy & Alice Alberry,all the models, friends and assistants involved. Conditions where wet, cold and windy and without everyone’s patience, and endless good cheer (as well as a similarly endless supply of tea and biscuits) the shoots could have become nightmare assignments.

Issue 5 (summer) will be launched on 21/05/08 and available across the University of York Campus

Welcome!

2008-05-14T22:34:00.001+01:00

I'm British photographer Toby Roberts; I've decided to start this blog to coincide with the development of my new photography website (currently under construction).

Over the coming months I hope to update this blog with a wide variety of photography related content, including photoshop actions, lighting setups and tutorials, as well useful links to many of the more interesting photographic resources I've discovered while idly browsing the Internet.

Starting as I mean to go on here are a few of my current favourites:

Strobist - A phenomenal photography blog specialising in off-camera lighting techniques.

Joe McNally - A world renowned and genuinely innovative photographer shares his experiences.

That's all for now, watch this space for more links and posts soon,

Toby Roberts.