The Photo Blog

For around 20 years I have been involved in photographing celebrities, whether it be capturing the action during a TV or Film shoot, or a private commission to shoot an individual for a publication or advertising campaign. I’ll now describe how we execute a successful celebrity shoot, from start to finish.

Firstly, teamwork and planning is everything and it all starts with a brief from the client. This may be accompanied by sample images as a guideline to the style of photography that’s required. This could include lighting and posing styles, props list, background colours etc. My colleague and Art Director, Andrea normally puts the reference shots together in ‘storyboard’ fashion and we reorganise this in the most efficient shooting order. Props are purchased or obtained from hire houses and food, transport and accommodation may also need arranging. If required, we will organise a make-up artist and a hair stylist, who will also receive the reference shots. All this is half a day’s work before we even start pressing the shutter.

If the client hasn’t already done so, I will create a ‘call sheet’ which describes every detail - location address, arrival times, contact number, etc. This is delivered to every member of the team involved, including the model.

Bruce Jones - Coronation Street

Most shoots these days take place in a hired studio, although on occasion we have shot in hotel rooms and even in an auction house! We therefore often find ourselves in unfamiliar environments and for this reason I always carry my own Elinchrom lighting kit as back up, even if we have pre-booked a fully equipped studio. Working quickly is the essence, so being very familiar with all photographic equipment is paramount as we often only have half an hour or so to set up before the model arrives. I also have a back up for everything – a spare Nikon camera body, at least four flash heads, plus other essential accessories. In addition, I carry an Apple laptop for backing up the images immediately after the shoot’s over.

Most of the current Checkum shoots span over about three to four hours from model arrival to completion. Since the model is completely nude for the majority of the shoot, it’s essential we work quickly to maintain a comfortable environment. We also have to consider keeping the model warm and relaxed, something my colleague Andrea is pretty good at!

Ian Thraves With Dale Howard

Once the shoot is complete, we back up the images via a card reader to the laptop and on my arrival home, all Nikon RAW files are processed, currently via Adobe Bridge to jpeg. This usually takes another couple of hours. For the Checkum shoots, I don’t usually do any retouching or effects myself, all images go to the client as untouched files. For other shoots (especially female), I have in the past spent many hours softening the skin, whitening teeth and eyes and adding colour effects, etc so many more hours of work can be applied after the shoot has taken place.

In conclusion, a successful shoot is the result of a strong team of professionals working together to create the best results for the client. Without my trusty team, coupled with my Nikon camera equipment and Elinchrom lighting, we would never achieve the kind of results you see here.

Click on any image for larger view. Flickr slideshow here

Hot off the press! - Ian’s Dale Howard shoot has been used in Heatworld

Monday the 1st of November took me to a central Manchester studio to photograph star of X Factor, Laura White. The photos were taken mostly for merchandising purposes for Laura’s current tour with Peter Andre, the cover of her new tour CD, plus her website and Twitter site - more info on Laura’s blog here. Working closely with GSD design, we managed to pull off a very successful shoot, despite an extremely tight deadline. I managed to organise a fantastic team at very short notice - Annie Roberts of Artisan on hair, Sadaf Saeed on makeup and shoot art director, Andrea Hughes.

After a day spent sat at my Mac clicking away the chosen images, I can truly say the results look stunning. Laura was an absolute pleasure to photograph, with a character that kept all involved in high spirits throughout the entire day.

You can see some of the completed artwork featuring my images at GSD’s website here (click on ‘music’ in the menu to see the artwork). All photos shot with a Nikon D2x and 70-200 vr 2.8 nikon lens and Bowens flash.  All images are copyright protected.  Click on any image for a larger view.

Next stop London to photograph a former star from Hollyoaks - all will be revealed at a later date.

If you have been following my blog you will know from past entries that I have been working on an on-going national charity campaign called ‘Checkum’.  The aim of the campaign, sponsored by famousmales.uk.net, is to raise awareness of testicular cancer and ultimately encourage men to get themselves regularly checked out against the disease.

Radio interview - how it feels to be photographed naked!

Celebrities from all walks of life have been agreeing to shed their clothes in the name of charity.  My most recent shoot involving Bargain Hunt’s TV Auctioneer Jonathan Pratt, has already kicked up a stir with radio station Newbury Sound, resulting in a radio interview and web article where Jonathan reveals how it felt to be photographed naked - all helping to gain valuable publicity!  You can see the web article and images I shot for the campaign, plus hear the interview with Jonathan here.

CLICK ANY OF THE ABOVE IMAGES FOR LARGER VIEW.

Related to this campaign, I have another two celebrity shoots coming up towards the end of this month in London - I’ll keep you posted!  Related past blog entries can be seen by clicking these links - link 1, link 2, link 3.

This set of images show the results of a half day shot with aspiring model, Portia.  The shoot took place on location at a friend’s house, using her entrance hall as a makeshift studio, followed by locations in her back garden - all were taken in just over 3 hours.  The aim was to create a few different ‘looks’ in the little time we had, some suited to the Manchester modeling market, others leaning more towards general teenage fashion.  A mix of lighting techniques were used - the studio images were shot using two Elinchrom flash heads, one fitted with a soft box and the second to illuminate the white background paper.  The exterior images were mostly shot in natural light, but in some cases I tried fill flash (using a portable Nikon SB800 off camera) and then tried flash as my primary light source, underexposing the natural light by 1-2 stops.

The camera used was a Nikon D2x, lens - mostly the Nikon18-200 vr and occasionally the Nikon 50mm, F2.8.  The ASA was generally set at 100, but occasionally was up-rated to 250 due to low light outside.

CLICK ON ANY IMAGE FOR A LARGER VIEW

Low-key lighting is a technique where normally only one light source is utilised and can be a fantastic way to create images of the nude body without revealing too much.  In addition, because only selected areas of the subject are illuminated, the lighting can be controlled to achieve a far more flattering image than, for example, a more typical soft frontal lighting.  This image was created on location in a dining room.  A black drape was placed over a hanger to act as a background and the lightsource was a single Elinchrom studio flash, modified with a small softbox.  ’Barn doors’ were used to prevent the light from straying on to the background or from creating lens flare and the light was positioned roughly 45 degrees behind the model, Lisa.   Keep watching this space - more images from this shoot will be added to my blog as I complete them. Camera - Nikon D2x, 18-200 vr Nikon lens.  Assisted by Andrea.

The image below was shot using natural window light.

Click on any image for a larger view

Following on from my blog entry of June the 25th 2008 (click here to see entry), I recently worked again with Artisan Hair and Beauty, based in Buxton.  This time, the images were created for the 2009 Wella Trend Vision hair competition and HJ magazine.  The shoot took the best part of a day and resulted in some fabulous images.  You can see a video of the shoot below.

(click any image to see larger version)

With so many photographers around these days (or at least, digital shooters) it is more important than ever to try something different in order to stand out from the crowd.  If I have time, I always try to experiment with unusual camera angles and alternative lighting techniques, but normally do not have this luxury when shooting commissioned work. Also, the client often has fixed ideas of what they want, leaving the photographer little room for creative freedom.  This is why I love shooting stock photography or for myself - there are no restrictions!

When my friend Andrea and I agreed to do a nude shoot, I stopped to think what we could do to create something with a distinctive slant.  I definitely didn’t want the results to look like glamour photos.  It struck me that since Andrea regularly practiced Yoga, a nude Yoga shoot would be the answer - at least the final images would mean something to her, plus she had the ability to twist in to all sorts of extreme postures that would put the average person in hospital.

All these images were shot in Andrea’s dining room against some excellent pale blue painted floorboards.  I had very little space for lights, but managed to position two Elinchrom 400 flash heads to the left of her and could just about light her from behind to create an excellent rim light and show the form of Andrea’s body.  The second light was used to illuminate the wall and sometimes a honey combe grid was positioned in front of the flash to prevent stray light from illuminating the entire room.

 A notable difference to normal flash photography - I often use ‘black wrap’ or ‘cenefoil’ instead of a snoot to concentrate light in a specific area, in this case the back wall.  This material is used in the film/tv world and is like thick black tin foil.  The beauty of ‘black wrap’ is that you can clip it round the flash head and shape it however you like.  As for camera settings, the shutter was set at 1/160 of a sec, aperture between f11 and f14 for all the images.  Camera - Nikon D2x, lens - Nikon 18-200vr and Nikon 12-24 dx.  All images were initially shot RAW.  Watch this space - more images to follow shortly!

To view more images from this set (and slideshow) click here

Over the past year or so, Ian has worked on a number of shoots in the fields of Hair, Fashion & Beauty. This all started when friend, Annie Roberts (Director of Artisan Hair & Beauty, Buxton) asked Ian to produce some images for the Wella Trend Vision competition. The first shoot took Artisan to the North West finals and soon after, Ideas were flowing and led to plans for additional shoots. This slide show highlights some of the work created by Ian Thraves and Artisan, with some additional images commissioned by Partners Hairdressing in Poynton. The location shots were taken over a weekend at Fort Belan in North Wales, a fantastic place for photographers and film makers!

See a clearer view of these images (and more) here

See HJ interactive (Hairdressers Journal) images here - photographed by Ian Thraves

Ian’s portfolio was recently chosen to feature in the June 2008 issue of the British Institute of Professional Photography (BIPP) magazine.  

Click here to see Ian’s published portfolio