last minute shoot

So I was supposed to have my first official shoot with my new camera today but unfortunately it didn't happen. Managed to set up a spontaneous thing in the end though. I had no ideas in mind for it; only a nearby location and about half an hour before it was too dark to really shoot, but was revved up so just wanted to take some pictures! So on that basis they're nothing revolutionary but thought there was no harm in posting em anyways. Big shout to Adam for coming through and doing it on such short notice.

Arrival of my D90!

So my new camera arrived today, seriously exciting times. Just been out around town testing it out. Not taken pictures of anything too special, but I've arranged a shoot for Monday, which will be my first time 'properly' using it. Shooting with a girl I've been dying to shoot again for ages, it's been around a year since our last. Also been messing about with video, hoping to move into short films soon. Came across a new location on the way home from town too, so all's good right now!

Here are a few of the pics from today, hope you like, and look out for the pics on Monday.

                                                                    Through the glass

Byram Arcade

Myself, taken by Kano

                                                                   Myself, taken by Sian

                                                                 Ornament, DAIS Boutique

                                                            Kano, a man of many mysteries

                                                   DAIS Boutique, 2nd Floor Byram Arcade

                       Joe, who you may recognise from some of my pictures, an all round awesome guy

                                                                             Town

                                                                         Town, sunlit

                                                                     Midges on the river

Some pictures I've never uploaded before

Think it's about time I published some more pictures from this shoot... possibly my favourite ever. There's so many great ones to choose from, Tamara is a brilliant model and photographer, and being as creative as she is we just kept bouncing ideas off each other. Here's six new (technically old) pics.

Flickr ratings - right or wrong?

Decided to do a feature on my Flickr ratings. Below are my 10 most 'popular' images according to their stats. The figures are based on views, the amount of "favourites" each has, and how many comments. Basically, the photos that have garnered the biggest reaction.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

So what do you think? Would you rate these pictures in the places they have ranked? Let me know!

The start of better things to come...

1)      As of today my new camera is officially ORDERED! Can’t really express how excited I am.

My D60 has been fantastic over the last 18 months and I’m not one to have tons of cameras/equipment but the problem I’ve been having is that with my favourite lens – the beautiful 50mm – I can only manually focus. For those of you that don’t know, that means turning the lens until the subject you're taking a picture of is in focus. It can be handy depending what you want to focus on but it’s also a bit of a nightmare and can be distracting. It takes so much effort sometimes to make sure the model is in focus that you can start to forget about whether the composition of the picture even looks good. After 8 months of manually focusing on every shoot I am READY TO UPGRADE to the D90!

This also means I can *FINALLY* start shooting video! I’ve played around with a few concepts for a short film but haven’t really decided on anything yet. Can’t wait to plan something out and pick the ‘models’ for it. It’s going to be a sequence of short clips with music over the top I think – no acting for now, that could get a little tacky. Until then I am going to start filming a little ‘behind the scenes’ as such from each shoot that I do. I want everyone to see the fun side of things and just generally what we get up to, and compile them :) that also reminds me, I'm going to start a YouTube channel for these videos amongst other things, so watch out for that !

This is the bad boy itself, Nikon D90 - featuring a different lens to the one I'll be using 

2)      Got a number of paid shoots coming up. New camera is going to seriously make life a lot easier when it comes to these, especially band shoots (try controlling 5 people whilst worrying about everything look good and whether the picture is sharp, umm no thanks!). So yeah doing some pictures for bands, model portfolios and some small projects like headshots for drama students. Always good to try stuff that’s slightly different from my usual personal projects and, well, the money will be an extra bonus that will come in handy in covering costs for my upcoming website (wahey). Shall be sooo much better having one big portfolio rather than it being spread across two different sites… and obviously much more professional when sending it to potential clients and such. 

     Some of the band work I've done:

     
           Once I get these assignments out the way I am going to be on the hunt for my next big project. I was contacted by a play director a few weeks ago about doing some promo shots for and of a show by an award-winning writer. Pretty nervous about that actually but enjoy throwing myself in the deep end if I’m honest! Have recently emailed the Manchester Fashion Network people again about the chance of another Vintage Threads campaign, as it was mentioned by them at the end of last year. That was pretty crazy last year, a prize for winning a competition. Some pics below of that, when my picture was used on banners and flyers etc.

 Triangle Shopping Centre, Manchester

4)      Also going to be contacting every local shop in town to see if I can get any work there. I did my first shop work for Dais Boutique in Huddersfield last month too (see below). It’s pretty much a big help because I want to start taking pictures that will be taken seriously, and so for that I need more extravagant fashion items, which I need the shop to provide. Pretty good deal in my opinion!

5)      Finally, going to really push the boat out with pictures this year. When I finally have some free time, I’ve got some ideas lined up that I really really want to make happen. Some of them will maybe shock people a little bit, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Got a few collaborations with some real talented people too. And I want to return to the style of image that I used to do, like the Circus series. That’s what made me different from other people and I really want to get back to that in summer, for definite.

That’s about all that’s going on right now. I know it’s been a lot of talk and not a whole lot of pictures but once this term is over, there’ll be no holding back! Guaranteed.