maxhector photography: Blog

A NEW TESTIMONIAL

"I couldn't recommend Gareth Hector highly enough for portraits or people pictures.

He can produce a group shot better than anyone I have ever worked with (and after 35 years in the media that's a lot of photographers).

When I 'retired' from my business I didn't want a gold watch, or anything else for that matter, but I did want a picture of the team I was leaving behind - great people who I would miss a lot. And in just six shots (after grouping 40 people) he came up with pictures which exceeded all my expectations. Not a single closed eye or scowl from any of them!

The composition was first rate and the quality second to none. Couldn't be happier."

Rob Barrowman - Publisher

A NEW TESTIMONIAL

ps edited-2 "I couldn't recommend Gareth Hector highly enough for portraits or people pictures.
He can produce a group shot better than anyone I have ever worked with (and after 35 years in the media that's a lot of photographers).

Read more: A NEW TESTIMONIAL

KATIE LEONE - MUSIC INTO METAPHOR

This week sees the start of a new job/project for us; creating a series of portfolio and possible album cover shots for the very talented singer/songwriter, Katie Leone - check out her MySpace page here.

Katie approached us with a desire to translate and summarise her music into a series of shots that she could go on to use to promote herself. Katie's opening brief to us was "I love colour, quirkiness and vibrant images. I don't want to portray a moody serious 'singer' image, more funky, fun, different, colourful, modern and quirky".

We exchanged a few emails throwing in some 'out there' ideas to get more of a firm grip of the brief and give us a starting point. Through these, Katie gave us some visual references of 'yay' and 'nay' shots from which we quickly developed a much better understanding.

It was from this that Michelle then set to work on a mood board. A really simple, widely used technique for gathering ideas, linking them and allowing them to visually develop. At the very least it's a collation of everyones input for discussion.

Michelle drew on some of her previous encounters with her two favourite photographers; Nick Knight and Lois Greenfield and found some distinctly individual shots that really hit all of Katie's opening brief. Incredibly vibrant, a little bit 'out there' and loads of colour.

These images are meant as reference points from which to develop a further narrowing of the brief to a point where we would be able to start to think about locations, type of shoot, props, clothing and so forth.

Talking through each image, defining the good and bad of each, Michelle and Katie worked down to the images from Lois and Nick (yes, first name terms).

Michelle explains; "What really came out from these conversations was a redefining of how Katie wanted to portray herself and her music. The Alice in Wonderland concept and styling was reminiscent of an old image and was therefore binned, but the textured and patterned wallpaper backgrounds was retained.

Although the fairground idea was full of colour, the prom dress styling really wasn't what Katie wears, and she again emphasised the desire to keep her true identity stitched within her photos, and not to be something that she isn't. Scratch prom dresses.

We discussed other types of styling for this shoot, but Katie was really taken with the idea of movement and colour shown on the concept beneath this on the mood board and our conversation centred around this for the continuation of the meeting.

Coloured background and clashing fabrics were a definite, taking inspiration from two images from Nick Knight and one from Sarah Silver.

Clothing, hair and make up are an essential mix in this type of concept and must be matched, or in this case, 'clashed' with background and lighting.

We then introduced the pattern wallpaper from the Alice in Wonderland concept as a potential background to this idea and we both began making noises of appreciation."

In the meantime, I was doing some further research into the use of projections in compositions. It's something I had previously experimented with before, having seen some rather excellent, almost abstract, portrait images. Given Katie's penchant for the quirky, colourful and vibrant images, I thought that perhaps this technique may suit.

Half an hour research later and I had a set of very different images sourced from Flickr and Deviant Art - I will attempt to relocate the links for each and credit the photographers!

A date for the shoot arranged, the next steps for us are to decide on the lighting and any gels or gobos, design the image to be projected, and source potential patterned / textured back drops. As always, we will have structured images in mind for the days shoot, but will be ready for the unexpected and the extraordinary images it brings.

Watch this space for further updates.

KATIE LEONE - MUSIC INTO METAPHOR

This week sees the start of a new photography job/project for us; creating a series of portfolio and possible album cover shots for the very talented singer/songwriter, Katie Leone - check out her MySpace page here.

Katie approached us with a desire to translate and summarise her music into a series of photographic shots that she could go on to use to promote herself. Katie's opening brief to us was "I love colour, quirkiness and vibrant images. I don't want to portray a moody serious 'singer' image, more funky, fun, different, colourful, modern and quirky".

NEW 101 ARTICLE

question mark A few quick answers to some common photography questions, including "which starter DSLR should I buy". Part one is here, part's two and three to follow. Please email us with any questions you may have about your equipment, technique, composition or photography in general! This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

RULE OF THIRDS EXPLAINED

web_links Just posted a short tutorial on one of the rules of thumbs of photography: the rule of thirds. If you're a budding photographer or just have an interest in how to compose an image, painting, composition take a look here.

JUMP! SHOOTING MOVEMENT

I've been looking at movement in photography in dance for some time, trying to find a subject and also manage a location in and around Canterbury. I had originally intended for a more typical studio based photography shoot, but for the type of shots I was looking for, I needed a much larger space than was available, indoors anyway. Consequently, these images are nothing like my original concept, but I am grateful for these challenges (isn’t life just full of them!!), as I came up with a much more interesting idea and learnt some new things along the way!

Lois Greenfield being my all time idol, her influence is as subtle as a freight train I know, I now have an even greater super fan complex.

There are so many things to think about when trying this type of portrait / movement photography and a good deal of planning.

I was shooting on a D90 with the following settings;

Aperture f/16,

Shutter speed 1/160,

WB auto

ISO 200,

Lens 18-55mm.

Tripod inverted to get close to the ground.

I used a 500w/s studio flash head on a 120cm softbox as my key light to freeze the movement. In addition to this I wanted some directional backfill light to sharpen the outlines and a little side fill to ease the shadows. However the daylight interfered with my infrared triggers so I was limited to one flash head. Radio triggers on order...

Next was the problem of composition. I wanted just sky surrounding the subject (me, I kid you not) and in order to do this, I had to jump higher than the six foot fence in my back garden. I used what seemed to me at the time as some very complex equations, in order to work out that, if I placed the camera level with the ground, angled up at a 45ish degree, and I was two metres in front of the camera, I would indeed jump higher than a six foot fence. I used a plumb line from the stop of the fence to the camera so I would know exactly the height I needed to achieve. Simple perspective in the end.

So position of camera and subject sorted, I had to set up the camera focus. Now, using a continuous focus seemed logical, and my camera had 3D tracking, even better. However, I wasn’t behind the camera to do this. I was in front of it. I used a 10 second timer and locked the focus manually to where I would be when I jumped before taking the shot on the timer.

And finally, there is the magical moment in movement described by Lois as the ‘peak moment’, when the subject is neither rising, nor falling, but hanging in the air. The downward movement is definitely more flattering than the upward, where the effects of gravity are most certainly evident. Because I was doing the jumping, finding the ‘peak moment’ actually came quite easily as I could feel it, however timing it with the flash was somewhat difficult, so I had to take over a hundred shots to find the few finals . Controlling my facial features through what was a rather strenuous activity proved much more challenging! Suffice to say, I took a lot of shots, my legs ached for days and I had a lot of fun!

Next up, I think it would be fantastic to try and re-run these shots with a subject in a wedding dress! Canterbury wedding photography just got interesting!

You'll find two of my jump shots in the Portrait Gallery, I hope you enjoy!

Michelle

jump blog-2 I've been looking at movement in photography in dance for some time, trying to find a subject and also manage a location in and around Canterbury. I had originally intended for a more typical studio based photography shoot, but for the type of shots I was looking for, I needed a much larger space than was available, indoors anyway.

Photograpy Types

maxhector photography: Blog

More Articles...