Friday 28 October 2011

All Saints Westfield Stratford
This week feels like it's been a bit more gentle although I've still been pretty busy. I did a shoot in Ipswich on Monday at the new Klick Fitness gym, a portrait shoot at Philips Electronics HQ in Guildford on Tuesday morning followed by a video interview with a landscape gardener called Tom Harfleet in the afternoon for a video we're producing for Philips Lighting. Then I headed off to Norwich on Wednesday for two retail photo shoots - one at a Jeweller's shop and another at a ski and surf shop (not what I'd expect to find in Norwich!).
Yesterday was spent in meetings with Pete my video partner at Inverse Square Media and with Jan Baldwin from VPL PR - a top lighting industry PR company (http://www.vastpublicity.com/) followed by an afternoon of post shoot processing mixed in with bouts of PC bashing as the computer is on the blink again!.
Today I'm working a half day as we're moving into our new house this afternoon so it's going to be a busy weekend!.

Gt Pulteney Street Reception

My poor car is suffering with all the travelling and it's currently in the garage being looked at because it keeps spluttering along as every few miles some orange warning light comes on - I hope it's not going to be a big bill!. We've just had to buy one new PC and I'll need one soon too (mine's heading for the window!) so I don't need a big garage bill on top.
I'm going to be the official photographer at the upcoming Lux Awards (http://www.luxawards.co.uk/) covering both days of the show and the evening event. If you're going you'll see me wondering around with my trusty EOS 5D MK2 photographing stands so give us a shout if you want a picture taking of you.

Sunday 23 October 2011



Following on from my last blog entry last month I nearly made it through a mad period of work unscathed but I ended up getting a bad chest infection which lasted three weeks and is still hanging around now. I've been so busy though that I could only take one night off and missed a job in Covent Garden but then I had to keep on going as I didn't want to let any of our clients down.

Finsbury Park Station

I'm feeling a lot better now but it's been a tough month and I've had both photography and video to shoot as well as writing a brochure for Llumarlite via my other company Inverse Square Media were we offer video and media services as well as blogging and brochure design etc.
I've had some nice work in though including a shoot at River Island HQ, one at All Saints Westfield in Stratford and another really nice shoot at Liberty in London. The video work has been fun too and I had a two day shoot down in Wales were I video'd a furniture installation for Kinnarps and also video'd some interviews with the client. Add to that two office interior shoots, a night shoot in Oxford at Queens College, a really cool shoot at the Tate Gallery and a day and night shoot at Finsbury Park Station and you can see I've been mega busy.

Tate Modern

Whilst I've been in London I've had a chance to pick up a new lens for my little Olympus ELP-1 which I use as my point and shoot camera. I bought the Olympus 20mm pancake lens which means the camera can fit into my pocket and so far it looks like a cracking lens. I'll be taking some candid shots next time I'm in London with it and I'll post some pictures in the blog once I've got some.

One of the big problems with shooting video on the EOS5D MK2 is the crap sound quality that the camera produces. I've tried putting a good microphone on it but it's still very noisy so I've invested in a Zoom H2 stand alone stereo mike and I have to say the sound quality is superb and it's really easy to use. The sound does have to be lip-synched back in to the video but it's worth the effort and I can recommend these little recorders very highly.
 
Liberty

I'm here working late tonight (Sunday) as I need to get up to date as next week I've got four days booked out with a shoot in Ipswich tomorrow and a portrait shoot in Guildford on Tuesday for Philips Electronics. Then I've got two shops to photograph in Norwich on Wednesday and a photoshoot in London for BUPA on Thursday. That's a lot of post shoot processing to take care of so I don't want to fall behind now!.


Finally I've just bought the latest Photoshop CS5 Extended and it's brilliant!. My previous version was CS3 and things have come on a lot since then. I'm not a fan of spending hundreds of pounds on software and in having the latest version of everything but I'm glad I splashed out on this and I can highly recommend it if you do a lot of retouching.