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.

Stuart Pilkington of Big Brother 9 is yet another celebrity to hit the headlines for getting his kit off for charity. We photographed Stuart in a Manchester studio very recently, followed a couple of days later by an additional celebrity shoot in London - soon to be revealed!

The idea of the final Checkum posters is to promote Testicular Cancer awareness to the male population. As the campaign gains popularity, aided by the fantastic publicity it’s receiving through the international media, more and more celebrities are showing an interest in joining in. The photo shoots are essentially a bit of fun, but carry a very serious and important message in the final posters (click on the poster images for a larger view).

A recent shoot with Coronation Street’s Adam Rickitt has also been featured widely in the media and the Checkum campaign received mention a few days ago during a TV interview with Adam on ITV’s Loose Women. You can see a selected gallery of the Checkum posters so far, including Adam’s images here.

Stuart’s final posters are featured from today in The Sun newspaper on-line, click here to see the full article.

Here’s to the next Checkum shoot (coming very soon)!

All images were shot with a Nikon D3x loaned by the Nikon UK in support of the campaign. Checkum is a celebrity Testicular Cancer awareness campaign created by Famousmales and is sponsored by Macmillan Cancer Support.

Lenses used were my own Nikon 70-200 vr and 50mm 1.8 prime. The studio flash used was Elinchrom.

HOT OF THE PRESS - The funniest thing to come out of the Checkum campaign yet is here! And another article here.

Recently voted the best-looking housemate ever “BIG BROTHERS” Dale Howard is the latest celebrity to join forces with over 40 other top celebrities for the Famousmales Testicular Cancer Awareness Campaign in Association with Macmillan Cancer Support. Dale looking even better after leaving the BB house is now a Personal Trainer and is working in Manchester. Dale said ” I’ve never gone completely nude for photographs before but this is such an important cause that I just had to drop my pants and “CHECKUM”.

The campaign has attracted Top Celebrity support with names like Ronan Keating, Westlife and Shayne Ward to name but a few. Famousmales Creative Director Marc Gavin said, ” We have been overwhelmed by the tremendous support from multi media celebrities for this campaign and we have quite a few big surprises to come. The lads from the TV soaps have been very supportive, as have some of the countries top music stars. Anyone who’s anyone wants to strip off and join in.

There is of course a very serious side to all this, and the message is loud and clear - Check yourself and get to a Doctor if you have any worries at all!”

Macmillan Cancer Support has a special “CHECKUM” website: www.macmillan.org.uk/checkum

Click photo for larger view, scroll blog history for other Checkum photos and stories.

A quick trip down to an East London studio resulted in one of our first Checkum shoots with the Nikon D3x. A camera that yields a 24.5 mp image from a 35mm style DSLR body - fantastic! It was just like using my trusty Nikon D2x but with twice the resolution, a much larger viewing screen at the rear and shutter that sounded sweet every time I pressed the button. When the images were later viewed on my Apple Mac monitor at 100 percent, the detail was simply jaw dropping. As for my client, I think ‘impressed’ isn’t a strong enough word. I have used the D3x on two Checkum shoots so far; Jack Tweed (widower of Jade Goody) above and the other will be posted as soon as I get the go-ahead. Keep watching this space!

We have another couple of shoots coming up in the next two weeks and three more celeb’s to blog once the images have been approved. At least the next two shoots will be shot with the D3x. Nikon UK has kindly lent the camera to us in support of the campaign. Lenses I have used with the D3x are all Nikon and include my own 50mm 1.8, 70-200 2.8 vr and finally a 85mm 1.8 that was lent to me by Calumet, Manchester.

For more information about Checkum, please scroll through my blog history where you will find additional information and images that have been previously shot for the campaign.

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.

Click any image to view larger version.

A recent overnight photo shoot took me to Billingshurst in West Sussex, where I was assigned to shoot Jonathan Pratt, Managing Director of Bellmans Auctioneers and star of BBC 1’s Bargain Hunt.  The location was a four hour Journey away from my home near Manchester, but thankfully it was a smooth one, no traffic jams or delays of any kind, not even on the notorious M25 around London.  We arrived at our destination an hour ahead of time, which provided my assistant Andrea and I with the perfect opportunity to have a pint in the nearby pub… and do some additional last minute planning. We met Jonathan at around 6pm, the main objective to photograph him for a aforementioned national charity campaign (see previous blog entries) relating to testicular cancer awareness.  The campaign is due to be launched next year.

We unloaded a car full of photo equipment, including cameras, 4 Elinchrom flash heads, reflectors, grids, snoots, flags, laptop, etc, etc.  Luckily, the auction house had it’s own white paper background, so one less item to carry. With a house full of antique props, it wasn’t difficult to create a few interesting environments in which to place Jonathan.  The shoot took around three hours to complete and we came away with around 200 images, most shot to fulfill the client’s brief, but a few additional ideas of our own for good luck.  All shots were created using three Elinchrom flash heads, one large softbox, grids and a snoot and the odd reflector.

me with Jonathan

As usual, the camera used was a Nikon D2x, predominantly fitted with a 50mm prime standard lens (which works out at around 75mm due to the smaller digital chip size).  Some of the ‘unofficial’ images are revealed here, but the main images were shot for the advertising campaign and will be posted at a future date.