The Photo Blog

Australian-born Rugby League player, Nick Youngquest is one of the latest Celeb’s in the queue to be photographed for Checkum, the national testicular cancer awareness campaign. The shoot took place a short while ago in Manchester and is another supported by Nikon UK (who kindly lent us a Nikon D3x body). For further information and images relating to the Checkum campaign, please see my blog history. Another shoot is scheduled to take place tomorrow in Manchester. Keep watching this space - all will be revealed! Click on any image for a larger view.

Images shot with the Nikon D3x, 85mm 1.8 Nikon lens and Bowen’s lighting. Studio - Calumet, Manchester.

Ian Thraves With D3x camera and Nick Youngquest

Matt Evers, American Figure Skater, TV Presenter and male Model recently shed all but his skates to take part in Checkum, the on-going testicular cancer awareness campaign sponsored by Famousmales and Macmillan Cancer Support (for more information see my past Checkum blog entries). Matt is one of the stars of TV’s Dancing On Ice and has toured with every show alongside Torvill and Dean since 2006. For more information on Matt, visit his official website here.

The shoot took place in London at Boak studio, a great modern environment with plenty of Elinchrom flash heads, modifiers and power packs, all of which helped to make the shoot a great success. This was different to all our previous Checkum shoots because this time we had to capture action scenes, yet keep Matt within the parameter of standard-size paper background. However, Matt was fantastic and hit the pre-focused mark every time and responded perfectly to the instructions on our storyboards. As usual, my assistant Andrea relayed the instructions and helped by art directing the shoot. Further examples of the final posters can be seen below. Click any image for a magnified view!

All images were captured on a Nikon D2x and a prime Nikon standard lens (which works out at around 75mm due to the chip size of the D2x). I have recently approached a number of companies for further support in the form of camera equipment. We especially require a higher resolution camera body to achieve maximum quality for large-scale reproduction. I will keep you posted as to whether I achieve any success. I have already had a positive response from the rental department of a leading photographic supplier, who have provisionally offered to support the campaign by way of lending us additional equipment for future shoots. If there are any manufacturers who feel they would like to support the campaign, please contact me by phone or directly by email and place the name CHECKUM in the subject field. You can find my contact information on any of my websites. Links are in the right-hand column, under ‘pages’ at my blog site.

Next up, more dynamic action shots in the pipeline – keep following my blog!

Following on from my previous blog entries, a recent trip to London resulted in another celebrity in the can for the ongoing charity campaign,‘Checkum’. This time we photographed former Hollyoaks star Marcus Patrick (aka Ben Davies), who has also appeared in BBC TV’s Strictly Ice Dancing and Weakest Link, amongst others. Although we used a central London studio, my assistant Andrea and I carried our own Elinchrom studio flash and modifiers, along with the usual Nikon D2x and 70-200 2.8 vr and 50mm 1.8 lenses. In terms of lighting, we predominantly used a medium soft box on the key light and a second flash was modified with a large honeycomb and became the backlight. A third flash head was used to light the background and was tightly channeled to get a soft spot effect using a snoot.

The campaign, in aid of testicular cancer awareness is now underway and the posters are due to be on display at various public venues, including shopping malls, major rail stations and universities and colleges. Keep following my blog, Twitter and Facebook feeds for updates on the Checkum campaign - and learn who will be the next celebrity to bare all for charity? Click any image for large view.

Further to my las blog entry, just a few days later the snow came tumbling down all over Britain.  Here are a few scenes from the local park in Wilmslow, Cheshire.  All shot with a Nikon D2x and 18-200 vr lens.

Just to prove that my almost antique Nikon d70 can still deliver, the above photo was taken on the 28th of December 2009 at the peak of Kinder Scout in the Peak District National Park.  Even at a temperature of around minus 3, the camera’s electronics didn’t fail me - not bad for an ‘amateur’ body.  I predominantly use a Nikon D2x and will probably be purchasing the Nikon D700 very shortly (purely for it’s low-light shooting ability), but the light-weight body of the D70 meant I actually bothered to carry a camera at all on this occasion.  The trip wasn’t planned and was a spontaneous decision during the final hours of daylight.  I reached the peak at sunset and much of the descent was by moonlight - thankfully, it was a clear sky with a full moon, but I still managed to lose the path once or twice.  Some might say I also fell head over heals on ice during the final part of the descent, but rest assured the D70 is still in one piece!

Nikon D70, Nikon 18-200vr (at 18mm), shutter - 1/100th, aperture - F5, ISO - 200, handheld.

Further to my blog entry of March 1st (on the subject of Robbie Williams lookalike Tony Lewis), the current issue of Scarlet magazine have published another double-page-spread, this time featuring my images of Adam Child from Channel 4’s Shipwrecked. Some of these images have been previously published in Heat magazine - to view the full story behind the shoot, see my previous blog article by clicking here.

Click to go to Scarlet magazine’s website.

Click any image for larger view.

A recent celebrity commission took me to the sunny south-west to photograph Monty Halls at his home in Bristol. Together with his dog Reuben, Monty is currently known for his recent BBC2 series, Monty Halls’ Great Escape and is due to shoot another series soon. Monty has also presented a number of other TV series, including Channel 5’s Great Ocean Adventures and was winner of Channel 4’s Superhuman in 2004.

For me, this was a really interesting assignment. A former Royal Marines Officer, Author, Professional Diver and qualified Marine Biologist, Monty is known as one of the UK’s leading explorers. With a house full of facinating memorabilia collected from around the globe, it wasn’t difficult finding the odd prop (including Reuben) when we decided to add a little interest to a few of the shots.

Click any image for larger view.

The purpose of the shoot is a charity advertising campaign, details of which will be revealed at a later date. In the two hours we were there, myself and colleague Andrea managed to crack off nearly 200 images, all with simple lighting - one Elinchrom studio head and various light modifiers (there was no room for any other equipment). More will be revealed in future blog entries!

Monty’s website - click here.

Monty on youtube (Beachcomber’s cottage).

Bamburgh Castle

A quick trip to Northumberland saw some cold and windy weather but some fantastic evening light, as this shot of Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland illustrates. Summer lighting in the UK is often misty and I have found time and again that cold days can yield the best results due to the crystal quality of light. A sunny evening sky, coupled with a great location delivered all the elements required to create a stunning landscape. Camera - Nikon D2x, Tripod, 1 second exposure at f16, Nikon 18-200 vr , 100 asa.

Click image for larger view.

Click on any image for a larger view

I have recently produced a flyer and business card to promote ’stylish portraiture’ and therefore needed a few new images that would work together as a theme. I have placed a few of the resulting images here with a description of how they were created for those interested in the technicalities. All but one image were shot over a single weekend with very simple photo equipment. All subjects were friends and family - no models.

The first image (above) was shot in a real bedroom, not a studio. Shooting in confined spaces is usually much more challenging than using a studio because it is always a compromise in terms of where the lights and reflectors can be placed and it can sometimes be very difficult to achieve the effect you want. Initially, I attempted to use the natural light from the bedroom window, only to find (as usual) British winter light is too low if you want the versatility of hand-held photography, rather than confining yourself to a tripod. As far as I remember, the natural light reading was something like 1/8th of a second at f4. Any subject movement also would have shown up, even if I had used a tripod.

I therefore decided to use studio flash - two Elinchrom heads, one bounced off the back wall with an opaque umbrella attached and the other shot through a soft box about 45 degrees off to my right. The head to my right was therefore essentially a ‘fill in flash’, as it was set two stops lower in power than the flash creating the backlight/environment light. For the final shot (above) I was stood on a chair. Camera used - Nikon D2x, aperture - F9, shutter - 1/100th of a second, ASA - 100, Lens - Nikon 18-200 vr at 36mm.

The shot above was much more simple, other than the fact that the 5 year old child involved wanted to play rather than be photographed. I had about 15 minutes to get the best shot I could (which is a common times scale with children), but was lucky enough to have lots of light and a perfect tree stump facing in the right direction for making the most of the background and lighting. I attempted to take this shot with a 70-200 nikon vr lens (probably my best lens for sharpness, plus its ability to throw the background out of focus when zoomed to 200mm and used with an open aperture). However, one big disadvantage of using a telephoto lens is that it is difficult to communicate with your subject (and in this case keep control) due to the distance between each of you. I therefore used a Nikon fixed 50mm lens at an aperture of f3.5, 100asa, 1/80th of a second. The second image of the 9 year old boy was a little easier due to his age. The Nikon D2x has the smaller DX chip, effectively magnifying non-DX lenses by an additional 50 percent (approx). Therefore, the 50mm lens would effectively have a focal length more like an 80mm - pretty good for portraits!

The next image (above) was simple to create, the hardest part was getting the baby to look towards the camera. This was shot with a single Elinchrom flash head with a small square soft box attached and offset to my left. The mother was actually holding her baby over her shoulder and was wearing a black shirt. The background was simply a black double bed sheet (which I purchased from Tesco for about £4) draped behind. To keep light off the background, I stood the ‘model’ as far away from it as possible and used a barn door or flag to shade the soft box and prevent light spillage in that direction. The image of the couple  was photographed in a very similar way to the baby. Camera - Nikon D2x, Lens - Nikon 18-200vr set at f7.1, asa - 100, shutter - 1/160th.

The final image (above) was shot for the front of a publicity flyer. This is in fact an old image, shot around 9 years ago on black and white film. I therefore don’t have an exact record of the data, but do remember it was shot with a single Elinchrom studio flash head, with a soft box light modifier that was around 4ft by 4 ft in size. The camera used at the time would have been a Nikon FM2, together with a 100 mm fixed focal length lens. Click on any image for a larger view.

Following on from my blog entry of last November the 12th, the photos of Robbie Williams look-alike, Tony Lewis have finally been published in the current issue of Scarlet, a national UK women’s magazine. I was pleased to find that one image was used as a double page spread …but no doubt I will be shortly saddened when I find certain friends of mine (including my wife) have callously ripped it out in order to decorate the fridge! Scarlet will also be publishing some of my photos of Adam Child (Channel 4’s Shipwrecked) in the June issue. For more details on both these photo shoots, click on my previous blog entries here and here.

Click any image for a larger view