The Photo Blog

Sean Smith from X Factor’s sibling duo, Same Difference is another celebrity to brave the on-going national Testicular Cancer awareness campaign known as Checkum. We photographed Sean a few weeks ago in London, but I will hasten to add that his sister, Sarah wasn’t present at this particular gig! Instead she took a hasty retreat after dropping Sean at the studio door and returned later with a beaming smile all over her face - I can’t think why!

A positive and happy character (despite the three hours of nude labour Andrea (my Art Director) and I put him through, Sean was a delight to shoot and sailed through every pose like a true professional. I have posted one of Sean’s Checkum posters here, but more should be released once we receive approval. All images were shot with a Nikon D3x provided by Nikon UK in support of the campaign. The lens I used was my own Nikon 70-200 vr. We used Elinchrom flash as our light source. Click on any image for a larger view.

See an interview with Sean and Sarah here, where Sean talks about the Checkum shoot. There is also a newspaper article relating to the shoot here.

HOT OFF THE PRESS! An additional photo has been used by Heatworld (Heat magazine on-line) here.

(To find out more about the Checkum campaign and view additional images and stories, please scroll through my blog history. The Checkum celebrity campaign was created by Famousmales in association with Macmillan Cancer Support).

Gavin Jenks from the Autoglass TV advertisements is another familiar face to reveal all for the Checkum Testicular Cancer Awareness campaign. Shot about a week ago in Birmingham, Gavin told us he had never done anything like this before, but was willing to expose himself in the name of charity and for the good of all mankind! Gavin’s shoot was a little trickier than most, as we had to position the glass windscreen to avoid reflection from the studio lights. My Art Director, Andrea had much ‘windscreen tweaking’ to do in order to get the perfect shot. Gavin provided all the props for the shoot himself, including an array of tools for the job, plus the glass windscreen that weighed an absolute ton!

All photos were taken with a Nikon D2x and 50mm prime lens (75mm due to chip size of camera). The images were mostly lit with 3 Elinchrom flash heads with a small softbox as the key light, a snooted light on the background and a large honeycomb to backlight Gavin’s body and hair and separate him from the background.

Click on any image for a larger view.

HOT OFF THE PRESS! Gavin’s photo’s are in Heatworld (Heat magazine on-line) here. More radio coverage at BRMB Radio here.

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

Yesterday, I traveled to London to shoot another celebrity for the Checkum testicular cancer awareness campaign. Keep following my blog to find out who braved all to camera this time - all will be revealed soon! In the meantime, I have posted another campaign poster. See my previous blog entry for details regarding this shoot, plus view my past blog entries for other posts relating to the Checkum campaign.

The poster above shows Monty Halls. See his new series, Monty Halls Great Hebridean Escapes, 21st April, 9pm, BBC2. More info here.

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.

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.