Saturday 16 July 2011

#curryclub shoot results...

There is a group of us that gets together every month or so for a curry. We have a beer, great food and chat about photography and anything else that takes or fancy. At the last curry night, we decided to get together for a shoot every month and then go for a curry. Last weekend saw the inaugural #curryclub photo shoot. Here are the shots I took.

I organized the first shoot and decided, with a little help from Gareth, to theme it 'film'. Us photographers could interpret that as we would, I also asked that we each shoot a roll of film, more about that later...

We had three models on the day, Elan, Rhianne and Lou.

Rhianne + Elan

Elan + Rhianne

During the morning session I shot Elan + Rhianne as a very well dressed couple. Elan is an actor, so to him 'acting' was easy and Rhianne just followed his lead. Their chemistry on set was fantastic.

 
Elan The Photographer

Keeping the 'film' theme going, in the afternoon session I got Elan to play the part of a photographer shooting Rhianne. This was great fun and again both Elan and Rhianne proved to be very natural in front of and 'nehind' the camera.

Part of the deal for Elan was that we would provide a selection of headshots for his portfolio for his interviews and auditions. This was my offering.

Elan

The shot above is more or less straight out of camera. A few tweaks in Lightroom, but thats all. I then started playing around with in it the iPad app 'Snapseed' by Nik Software. They make great software for the photographic world and their iPad app is no different. It is very, very good.
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Elan (with a little help from Snapseed)

And in this shot you can see we had two Profoto softboxes to either side of Elan and Rhianne and Octabox on a boom and a white seamless backdrop. This was over in the great Gareth Davies Studio in Wokingham. If you get a chance to use the studio, do so, just don't ask whats in the cupboard...

The behind the scene shot of Elan + Rhianne

We also had Lou, a confirmed 'Goth' young lady. Lou is relativley new to modelling but gave us some great photos on the day. Here she is against a background of stars that I added in in post in Photoshop. I also did some minor retouching a la Scott Kelby's new book 'Professional Portrait Retouching Techniques for Photographers'. I used a Wacom tablet for the first time, takes a bit of getting used to but wow, does it make a difference.
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Lou

The behind the scene shot of Lou

This was the set up we used for shooting Lou. A pair of Profoto softboxes to either side and a beauty dish overhead. This is David shooting Lou with his 'Alas poor Horatio...' skull. Very suitable for a goth...

A big thank you to our models; Lou, Rhianne and Elan. They worked tirelessly all day for us on a TFCD basis, (we did feed and water them too). To Gareth for having a great studio. To Catherine and Katy for providing the wonderful lunch. And to the members of the #curryclub that were there on the day, Gareth, Glyn, David, Brian, Dave and me. To those that couldn't be there, you were missed and hope to see you on the next shoot.

Now there was one other thing... Shooting a roll of film. This was interpreted in many different ways. One photographer used an iPhone to shoot a roll of film! I shot a roll on an old Holga, complete with transmitter to trigger all the flash heads. And in the tradition of film, as I will have to wait a week or so for the results in the post, so will you!
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Watch this space.

I am already looking forward to the next shoot!


Monday 11 July 2011

#curryclub inaugural photoshoot...






Saturday 9th July saw the first #CurryClub photoshoot in Gareth Davies Studios in Wokingham. We had a great days shooting with some great models and lots of laughs. The theme for the shoot was 'film'. I am still editing my shots, but will be posting my interpretation here soon. I am awaiting a roll of processed 120 film in the post - I haven't had to wait for transparencies to be returned in the post for years! It brings back memories!

Watch this space!