Thursday, April 30

EGBA Monthly networking lunch

The East Grinstead Business Association have recently begun to organise a monthly business networking lunch. This is an ideal opportunity for local business representatives to get together in an informal setting and network. Although organised by the EGBA, non-members were welcome and there was representation from several BNI chapters, including Meridian and Crawley. The setting for this event was Nizam, one of East Grinstead's leading Indian restaurants, with Salim and his team providing an excellent spread. With almost 100 attendees, this monthly lunch on the last Wednesday of the month at Nizam is set to become a regular event.







Wednesday, April 29

Family photo shoot volunteers

In March and April, before the wedding season kicks off in full swing, we look for volunteers who would be willing to sit for a portrait photo session, to help us get some new material for our marketing literature. Steve belongs to the same BNI (Business Network International) chapter as us and volunteered his family.

We had a fun session with Steve, his two very cute (and amazingly cooperative) sons and his lovely wife. Although the weather wasn't great, we shot these images just inside the french doors, which let in plenty of soft light.






Tuesday, April 21

Family Photo Shoot in Crawley

Last week I did a photo shoot with a lovely family in Crawley. Rain had been predicted by 1.00 p.m. so I was really keen to get going before it arrived. We went to a park near their house and it turned out to be a fantastic location in terms of the different areas of interest and textures that were available. As so often happens on a photo shoot, this was the first time they had met me and they were quite nervous to begin with, but I felt that we were all much more relaxed by the end of the shoot. The two middle children have even agreed to do a follow up photo shoot with me, so I'll be out looking for some new locations. Anyway, here's a sneak preview of some images from the day. All comments are welcome.





Monday, April 20

Training Day in London

Last week I spent a day with Martin Grahame-Dunn on some 1-2-1 training. It was a great opportunity for me to focus on certain elements of photography where I felt I needed more experience. I met Martin in London and took my son, Max, who was my model for the day. We mainly shot in the streets around Victoria Station and it is surprisingly easy to find lots of suitable locations. I got very excited when I saw a huge puddle of water and knew I could get some reflection shots.

We shot until around 1.00 p.m. and then went back to Martin's place to do some editing. All of the images below were shot by me but have been processed mainly by Martin. It was interesting for me to see how someone else approaches the post processing workflow and I felt I got such a lot out of this day. I'd love to receive your feedback.





Sunday, April 19

Model Shoot [Blogged by Iain]

We had a great shoot with a couple of volunteer models yesterday. This was an opportunity to practice without pressure. We were able to play around with different camera and lens settings. These were all shot in the back garden and the woods immediately behind the house. Louise normally handles most of the environmental portraiture, so this gave me a chance to pratice my posing and directing, giving Louise the chance to be my assistant. I would like to thank the girls for their patience and willingness to try anything we threw at them.














Monday, April 13

Easter in Scotland

We have just spent a very enjoyable week or so in Scotland with family for Easter. We have been so busy over the past few weeks that we hadn't prepared any eggs or bonnets beforehand and were in two minds as to whether we were even going to enter into the competition. However, after a bit of emotional blackmail, we capitulated and got busy painting eggs and preparing bonnets with only 24 hours before the event. Bringing all our artistic talents to bear, we managed to take away several prizes, although we did leave some room for others to take some prizes. The images below are just a little taster of some of our entries...





Tuesday, April 7

A Place in the Sun Exhibition

On Friday, we went to the "A Place in the Sun Live" [Channel 4 - A Place in the Sun]exhibition at Earl's Court as the official show photographers. It was a long day and I was on my feet from 08h00 to 18h30. when you do that, you then realise just how heavy the Canon 70-200mm L IS USM lens is.

We pretty much covered everything in the brief, as well as shooting almost every stand. It was interesting to see how much effort some exhibitors put in, while others merely occupied a bit of space and hoped people would stop and talk to them.

I've spent the last day or two weeding out the photos and colour correcting the remainder. The lighting in Earl's Court is very yellow and to make matters worse, there were orange carpets almost everywhere. Although your eyes compensate for this, the camera isn't quite so clever, so there was quite a bit of correcting to do.










Friday, April 3

Silver Award winning image

I entered some images in the SWPP monthly online competition and I think the judging is getting a lot tougher. I mainly work in the social photography market but thought I would enter an image that was a little different and was pleased to see that it won a Silver Award. It was taken when we were in Missouri in August last year. The second image won a Silver Award in the November competition and it was taken at Wakehurst Place in Sussex. I am now aiming for Gold!