Vroom

Today has been quite a different but fun day, i was asked to help out Adam Matheson for a few hours shooting a restored 1968 Mini Cooper.

We travelled to the sunny heights of Bo-ness to get some interesting picket fencing for the backdrop, before moving onto a site we'd found whilst having a quick squint about which included the awesome 1968 tow truck.

The very Lovely Miriam was there to help out, kicked out in 1960's disco chick outfit which worked really well.

As sometimes happens at these things we drew a little attention, including from the driver of a very cool car who paused and Mark, the mini owner, had a quick chat with him and persuaded him to let us photograph his car too, a much more modern Ariel Atom which can be seen in the shot below.

Many thanks to Miriam for being so much fun, to Mark and Steven for the loan of their cars as models and to Adam for the invite along.

Corporate Portrait Photography

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Linsey and Neil

Last weekend saw me doing one of my favourite jobs for a while, when i was asked to shoot some images at the wedding party held by Linsey and Neil.

The happy couple got married a few weeks back in New York where their close family and friends formed a group of around 16 people at the wedding, but all the rest of the family and friends wanted to celebrate too so they had a wee shindig at Orroco Pier in South Queensferry and asked me along to shoot some images.

Not only did i do some lovely wedding(y) shots, which was helped by the happy couple wearing the same outfits they got married in New York wearing, but also i was asked to shoot a number of images of their party guests as a momento of the evening.

It was a great night, and stunning location and lovely couple.

Congratulations to Mr and Mrs Humphrey.

Anne-Louise and Malcolm

As i had been saying in my last blog update I've had quite a busy couple of weeks, and i had the pleasure of producing wedding pictures for Anne-Louise and Malcolm at their recent wedding at the Ramada Jarvis Hotel in Livingston.

The hotel put on a great show for the happy couple and we were blessed with just enough dry weather to get outdoors for the majority of the shots.

Congratulations Mr and Mrs McGeachy.

Jane and Steven

I'll be updating the blog with a few images over the next week, this one was the beginning of a pretty hectic couple of weeks for me, with some more pics to come over the next few days.

Jane and Steven got married at the gorgeous Kirknewton Stables which was a lovely setting for the wedding.

Jane, who designs and makes wedding cakes - www.sweetunique.co.uk , not only made their own beautiful wedding cake, detail shot below, but also put together all the able decorations and flowers.

The whole place looked amazing and everyone had a great time.

Congratulations Mr and Mrs Black.

Prom-Tastic

I've had a pretty busy couple of months despite a lack of updates on here, not least with spending 3 weeks out on Jury Duty.

The end of June was busy with Prom time, both primary 7 and sixth year proms, but obviously i wont be posting the images here.

This shot is of the lovely Louise, and was a portrait session prior to her Primary & prom in June.

Backgrounds

It seemed to take an absolute age to arrive with the wonders of the Royal Mail First Class system, but finally, and just in time i hasten to add, my new Colourscape Stormy Blue background has arrived.

This will be the background if indoor shots are required, depending on the weather, at West Calder HS's Prom on Thursday which i have the delight in photographing this year.

I'd considered white or black but felt the traditional school cloudy blue would be better, with white lacking any feel, and needing a ton of more kit, and black being too akward with black suit jackets etc.

It needed testing to i popped over to see Alex Todd and we set it up in the garden, along with the flash head and brolly and fired off a few shots. I'm really pleased with how they look, there isnt a great deal of ambient light in these (certainly not any more than will be with a tungsten light on close to the shot) so i think they work really well.

Little bit of Post Processing on the full length shot as the background still needs an Iron but other than that, looks good to go.

Exposed 10

Exposed 10 is the annual exhibition for final year HND and PDA students at Stevenson College.

The poster image opposite was shot by Agni Kliczka and the Exhibition will run from 23rd June to 1st July at the Out of the Blue Drill Hall on Dalmeny Street in Edinburgh.

There is also a special Preview Evening on Tuesday 22nd June from 7pm-9pm

More images from the exhibition and information oin the students can be found on the Exposed 10 website which is being updated as I type.

My New Best Pal

Meet my new bestest pal ... baby Lacey.

Lacey is Leah's little sister and i was lucky enough to be invited down to photograph her this morning for her mum and dad.

Lacey definately has her sisters looks and already likes posing for photographs.

she just gave me constant big smiles and laughs and although we didnt get the 3rd change of clothes done before she wanted a feed and a sleep she was a superstar until then.

Thanks to Lacey, Leah, Wendy and Barry :)

From the House of Bruce

I needed a further location shoot for my fashion work for college so managed to blag my way into the middle of a shoot that my mate Bruce McGuiness had organised with the wonderful Erica Von Stein.

Erica is always up for shoots that are a little bit weird and a little bit crazy, with my ever lasting memory of her being a Jaffa Cake eating shot she did with Adam :)

So Scott and I travelled the width of the country to Bruce's in Greenock, picking up Erica and Suzie and Dean en route, and used Bruce's batchelor pad for the shoot.

Really like the quirky look to these shots, all of them have been de-saturated for effect.

Alexa Superstar

Today has been a good day, as i had the pleasure of a photoshoot in the studio with the stunningly gorgeous Alexa Campbell.

Alexa has recently been signed by Colours (the Look Agency) and i can really see big things for her in the future.

These shots have been taken for my Studio fashion assignment for college, and were all lit in the same way, using a HUGE softbox mounted on a beam from camera left.

Unusally i used my Canon for these in the studio instead of using the medium format digital kit as i wanted more movement around the studio and didn't want to be restricted by cables and tripods. Also used my RF-602 radio triggers to fire the Elinchrom power packs which was pretty cool too.

Would most definately love to work with Alexa again and would highly recommend her.

A Serena Moment

Yet another wonderful day weather wise and also photography wise for me, as i had a fantastic shoot this afternoon with the lovely Serena Manganiello.

Once again for me using my favourite wee place out at Houston House near South Queensferry we had a few changes of outfit.

All of the shots have a touch of flash in them somewhere, some more direct and harsh and others a little softer.

really happy with how these have turned out, thanks Serena, and pretty sure we'll be working together again sometime soon.

Portrait of a Future Star

As per my last post, i've been having a bit of a nightmare recently with things not going right, from models getting wires crossed and not turning up to shutters being broken, to people just simply letting me down.

Well my big mate David Alexander came to the resuce once again today as he persuaded the lovely Leah to come along for some shots.

Leah was accompanied by her mum and they are both a ray of sunshine in an otherwise dull world, they were full of laughter and fun and giggles and i really do hope to spend more time photographing members of this wonderful family.

For the techs who read here, these were all taken at f2.8 by means of using an ND4 filter (seems to be my favourite thing at the moment) and are a mix of ambient stunning sunshine and a single flash fired through a softbox.

Zzzzzzooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmm

Thursday was a a bit of a disaster in some ways, and pretty great in others.

The original plan was to take this car, beloging to Steven Carrie, into the college studio for studio based car shots, but early this week we discovered that the shutters were broken and those plans were shelved.

After a short stint of looking for a model instead a last minute plan was hatched to simply do some location shots with the car, so off we trotted, with David as assistant, and set these up.

I would have liked a better seperation from the background but some kit issues and by the looks of things the power of the flash not being as high as it could have, has meant it didn't work out as planned.

The main image here is actually a HDR, but very subtely as i combined a couple of shots to get the look i wanted.

hopefully many more car shots to come in the future.

The Little Black Swan

I may be exhausted but these guys really helped me out today and were awesome.

This is the wonderful and highly talented Emma, Sophia and Steven from the Blackswan Dance Theatre who were helping me out with some images for my college Graded Unit.

Steven is not only a talented contemporary dancer but is a very awesome breakdancer which helped lots during the shoot. Sophia and Emma and amazingly talented and able to do all manner of weird and wonderful dance poses.

Thanks to the guys, this is my final shoot for my graded unit and i'm really happy with soooo many shots for it.