Pic of the Week 22.2.13

Holy wowsers!!! Here is another "Pic of the Week" post. On time!
Oooooo la la!

Another one from my archives.

This was shot whilst on holiday at the in-laws over in France last year.

I suspect the white washing is to diffuse the strong sunlight? Anyone?

Pic of the Week 15.2.13

Well I tried this once before, back when I first started the blog.
I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with the blog back then, or what I was going to be posting (and to be honest I still don't, but it seems to be working and you all seem to enjoy it. I hope?) so I thought that a "pic of the week" was a good way to get the ball rolling.
Well, then I ended up getting bogged down in work, and also struggling to find shots that I wanted to post without feeling that I was showing you all something half baked. Or to the other extreme of having a lovely shot to post but at the same time wanting to keep it unpublished as it was part of an ongoing project.
If I learnt anything from a decade of music writing, producing and performing, it was that if you don't let someone hear it sooner rather than later and hang on to it for too long with the aim of creating a master plan project, you will reach a point when you won't want them to hear it at all. And then sadly, some of your greatest works may go unloved and unappreciated.

So let's not do that with the photography then.

I'm still learning, and always will be. My tastes and styles may change along the way and that, for me, is what it is all about. But if that is to happen then I need to show my current work whilst it is still current to me. So I am re-starting the Pic of the Week post's.

These are not necessarily (although they may well be, who knows) supposed to be earth shattering master piece, Ansel Adams quality shots. But rather, work that I created for me  and that I, and hopefully some of you, enjoy.
A bit like the "album tracks" versus the "hit single"
You wouldn't find the masses dancing to an album track in the clubs. But then you wouldn't sit on a quiet night with a cold beer or smoke, deeply listening to a bunch of club hits.

It was whist digging through my hard drive, looking for images to add to the web site (It's HERE by the way if you have not already seen it) that I kept stumbling across photographs that I personally really love for one reason or another but had completely forgotten about. An easy thing to do in this day and age of digital vaults, full of lost information. So it is these images that I will be starting with, instead of hanging on to them in the hope of visualising the "project" that they were supposed to grow into or trying to find enough of a connection to bunch them together in a show.


And here I start with "The Olympian"

This was shot at Brands Hatch during the 2012 Paralympic cycle road racing.

Red lights

Right then, time for another post folks.

This week...... THE DARKROOM.

I just spent my weekend in the Double Negative Darkrooms learning how to wet print black and white photo's.

I have been waiting to learn how to print for a very long time now. Now film processing I can do, as my long suffering kitchen will gladly tell you but after that I have always had to head for the scanner.
You can get some very nice results from the scanner. Even more so if you happen to have a super expensive professional lab scanner. But you just don't get the depth and shadows that you do from real wet printing.

Soooooooo.....

Saturday was spent learning how to process the film (yes I already knew how to do this but it was nice to do it in a dark room instead of a changing bag :) and then on to test strips and contact sheet printing.
From there it was onto the main printing and learning about filter grades and focusing the print. Then home for a little sleep and back on Sunday for a full day of printing, dodging and burning and anything else we fancied trying.

It was a great experience and if you have ever wanted to print your own photo's I highly recommend you do it. Seeing your image as it starts to appear in the developer is an amazing feeling. Then taking it back to the dark room and figuring out how you are going to tweak the print with extra exposure time, dodging parts and burning others. 10 seconds here, 3 there while dodging that little bit there and then wait for the results in the developer tray. Fun stuff.
It really dose make you think about the whole process allot more. And it is 100 times more satisfying when you end up with a print you are happy with than if you had done it in Photoshop.

Here are a few scans from the weekend and yes, that is another hawk photo.
(the scanner has darkened them a bit too much but hey)

This was on a roll of 120 that I shot in my Fuji 645 but sadly there had been a major light leak somewhere so the top half of the print is a bit washed out.

I really liked my son's pose in this shot and it was proving super easy to print. Too easy! I did another print after this one with the sky burned in but it revealed a water mark on the neg and I had to send it back to the wash. So this one will have to wait for another day.

This is my favourite print of the weekend, a crop from a 645 neg.

I shot this on Walthamstow marsh one sunny summers day with my kids (same day as the photo above actually). The hawk sat there for so long while I took the shots that I could not believe it. Until I realised that we had been standing over a dead mouse aka HIS LUNCH! and he was not looking to part with it.

Bye bye 2012 (photo-heavy post)

Firstly HAPPY NEW YEAR to all my friends and readers!!!!

Well then, 2012 has come and gone, and what a year it was.

At the start of the year I was still juggling photography work and cycling round London as a courier. And now, well let's just say I haven't been back on the courier circuit since getting knocked off in February (other than the odd day riding for Control Courier Collective;)

I'v assisted on some cool shoots, 

met David LaChapelle, James Cosmo and Tony Benn,

broken a collar bone and thumb,

had pins in my bones, 

shot stills on the worlds oldest constantly active sound stage,

applied for my first IMDB credit,

started two blogs, 

started a web page,

visited two different beaches (in winter),

got stranded on the motorway,

put together my first exhibition and print sale,

took part in Photomonth 2012 and got featured on the front cover of the program,

and lots of other wonderful and interesting things.

And thats just the work related suff. 

Phewwwwwww.

I didn't manage to get this blog updated as frequently as I wanted during the year but to be honest, I felt it has been a lot more important to focus on getting the work on the books first. The blog is however very important to me and I hope you all enjoy the posts that do find their way on to here.

If you haven't already you can follow me over on twitter for more daily postings and photos from my work life, and general day to day humour @12clicksaway and also on Instagram via the same name.

For the new year there will be a new website. 'THE' website.

Possibly not instantly for the new year but I am designing it as we speak and the domain name has been bought. So, fingers crossed it will arrive soon.

So I though I would give you all some nibbles for the festive period in the form of a bumper size post

As you know I have been specialising more and more in the world of unit stills on films. 

I love the job.

I don't love the alarm at 4am but once I'm up it's a great job. 

I have met so many amazing people, visited so many amazing locations and expanded my portfolio with some beautiful images.

I don't always have time to put a blog post together for each film as there is so much editing to do. In an average day I can shoot 500 frames easily, if not more. 

Also I have to wait for permission to post images of the film from the production team.

So here are some of my personal fav's format he last four films I have worked on

Taxidermessen: Directed by Rupert Van Den Broek

The Whore: Directed by Asim Abbasi

Last Night A Kiler Saved My Life: Directed by Gary Grant

Sea Out: Directed by Jake White

Taxidermessen

Blank slate as filming commences at 'The Last Tuesday Society'

Camera and gaffer team organise the shoot over lunch.

Morning make-up 

'The Last Tuesday Society' is home to many strange residents.

The schedule takes its toll.

Male lead actor, Nick Downes

A glamourous life in the movies.

Dop and Director planning the shot

Dop and steady-cam operator Yiannis Manolopoulos

Director and Dop having a moment.

The stressed 1st AD

 

Got to have some kind of game to play on set. Pin the tape on the Dop is always a winner.

The Whore

Dop and Director deep in thought.

Main actors

Sound man Filipe Pinheiro.

The Dop and Director always have a 'moment'

Mixing up the props.

Hiding in the rain.

The last location of the day way an amazing hotel in Cadogan Gardens SW1 with the most amazing staircase.

Last Night A Killer Saved My Life

Sea Out

Hiding the present from the past is always an important job.

The garden started as just grass and ended up like this.

Movie life.

The production designer, lost in his own mess.

James Cosmo on the estate with a 360 track.

James Cosmo. It's always nice to shoot really friendly actors.

Sunset on the beach at Camber

Checking the gate.

The Dop setting up for the final shots of the day.

Well everyone, I hope you enjoyed that bumper post. 

There where so many other shots that I wanted to show you but I really can't reveal to much about the films that I work on and also if uploaded everything, I would be here alllllllll night.

So here's to 2013. Make of it what you will and go for what you want. 

Good luck to everyone around me that I see going for it. So many of you in the last year have dropped what you where doing and started the path to something new.

Work hard and you can do anything.............

And don't forget to come and follow me on twitter and instagram @12clicksaway for allot more postings.