Behind the Scenes: Eleanor Hardwick shoots for Rookie

A couple of weeks ago, at the end of January my friend Eleanor Hardwick asked me along to her shoot for Rookie Magazine to assist and help with the lighting. 

The shoot was a collaboration between Eleanor and artist Mirren Kessling, the title was 'Miss World'. Here are my behind the scenes photos and to see the photos Eleanor took just follow this link!

London Fashion Week AW12 - February 2012

This February I had the privilege of being invited by Canon to shoot the Tuesday of London Fashion Week. 
Having only shot a couple of small fashion shows before I was quite nervous about squeezing in between the seasoned pro's in the photographer pit and producing a good documentary of the shows! 
Throughout the day I was fortunate enough to use the Canon 1D MkIV with a selection of lenses. For the first show, David Koma, I started out with one of my favourite lenses, the familiar 70-200mm F/2.8 II L, which was a great lens to use for a catwalk as you could zoom in to get full length shots when the model walks onto the runway but also have the option of a head and shoulders shot when the model gets close, or still take a 3/4 or full length photo by zooming out to 70mm. 
Something that also helped was the realisation the lighting was even enough to have everything set to manual and the colour temperature could stay the same throughout the day which always helps keep the continuity in the images nicely.

For the next show, Holly Fulton, I decided to take the new 400mm F/2.8 L out for a trial, having felt the weight of its predecessor I can't say that it was heavy but holding it still without a monopod for 25 minutes is definitely a workout for the arms! 

Being a prime lens this meant I could only stick to that focal length but it took some stunningly sharp images so it was certainly worth it. 

I could just about get a full length image of the models if I took a photo of them as soon as they walked onto the runway, the lens was great for close up shots and the main attraction in using it was to get a nice depth of field whilst having enough focusing space to get one models face nicely in focus during the line up at the end of the show!

Next up was the Ashish show, which was really fun and loved the fact that there was a lot of details on the backs of the designs that really kept the photographers on their toes! I decided to test out the 24mm F/3.5 II L Tilt-shift lens, though after a quick test we decided it would probably be best to get used to the lens for a bit longer before using it to shoot a show as it is manual focus and had a lot more options than the lenses I'm used to (shifting the plane of focus etc!) It definitely looks like a fun lens to use in the future though! Here is one of my test images from that lens:

I quickly changed over to the 8-15mm F/4.0 L Fisheye lens to catch the Ashish show which give me some really different images and helped to capture a wider shot which will hopefully help to show what actually being at the show is like! 

For my final show of the day, Aminaka Wilmont, I decided to use the 70-200mm F/2.8 again as I did find it the best all-round lens to use, though I think my best results were probably from the 400mm F/2.8! The only aspect of this show that I didn't anticipate before was that the lighting changed - so only the lights in the closest third of the runway were on full power, so consequently the exposure settings I set for one part of the runway would be different to the closest part which made things a bit harder, after realising this I just shot the girls when they were in the well lit area! 

The Last of the Troubadours

24/02/2012 - Bar Solo, Camden.

more than just video posts..

So I've come to the conclusion that I want to write more than just the video side of things so I'll be using this as my entire blog until I have the blog on my website up and running ;)

Video: The Libertines acoustic set

In March 2010 I was lucky enough to be working at MOJO magazine for a few weeks helping out on the picture desk and on my last day there they asked whether I would be interested in going to take photos at the press conference for The Libertines announcement that they were re-forming to play Reading and Leeds festival that year, of course I said yes, definitely!

It was a really exciting experience and I managed to get a really close spot to the band during the conference and then to my amazement they said they would be playing some songs for the press too. I managed to squeeze a little closer at this point as these are more the kind of photos I am interested in taking, as I was snapping away I suddenly remembered I could also record some of it on my camera!

You can probably tell I didn't have much room to move about during this as the rest of the cameramen/women were also trying to get a good angle on the performance!
I can still remember how surreal it felt to put down the camera and realise I was actually there right in front of one of my favourite bands witnessing this performance first person! I think the video portrays a bit like how it was to be there, I was being pushed around a little but had to stand my ground to keep in place, it would have been really useful to have some kind of support for the camera (like a shoulder mount perhaps) to get smoother shots - but i'll expand on that in a future post!

Inspiration: Nocturne by Vincent Laforet

Nocturne is one of the first video's that I came across that really opened my eyes to the potential DSLR's have when it comes to working with moving image. What really struck me was the depth of field and the sharpness of the shots which made me realise the quality that could be achieved with the lenses available.

Nocturne was filmed entirely using available light which really demonstrates the camera's amazing ability to reduce noise even at high iso's, although I do note this was shot with the Canon 1D MkIV which was the most advanced Canon model at the time so it's noise reduction is better than the 5D MkII, but I have also found the noise reduction on that superb.

Nocturne from Vincent Laforet on Vimeo.

Video: The Shutes - Sweet Marie

Here is one of my earliest video's which I shot at a gig on the Isle of Wight where The Shutes were playing,for this video I used the Canon 5D MkII and a Canon 50mm F1.2 L lens. The sound was also recorded in camera which I thought came out surprisingly well considering how loud the gig was! I think the footage could be improved if I'd started recording earlier obviously... and it would definitely look more professional to have smoother shots and better focus transitions! Also I can imagine it would look better to have a wider shot or multiple angles to then edit together in post-production!