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The Starving Artist

~ Still an artist but no longer starving!

The Starving Artist

Monthly Archives: December 2012

Best of 2012

28 Friday Dec 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Photography, Portraits

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Arts, beauty, Bride, entertainment, Fashion, Hairdresser, Hazlewood Bridal Boutique, Make Up Artist, shoot, Shopping, style

the-starving-artist-2012

 

So with 2012 almost at a close and 2013 nearly upon us I thought I would take a look back at my year as a pro photographer and showcase some of my best images taken throughout the year.

Of course, I could never take these images without the help of all the pople that are involved in making a shoot and this includes stylists, MUA’s, clothing designers, researchers, hair stylists, prop buyers and of course last but by no means least the models themselves.

I have had the pleasure this year to work with some absolutely amazing professionals, way too many to mention you all, but those that made it into my best of 2012 are,

Lorena F, Franki, Forsaken Desire, Emma S, Holly T, Miss Laura Mai, Jodie Winter-Smith, Helen D, Mary L, Emily L, Bubblefaery, Hazlewood Bridal Boutique, Findadress Bridal

Now to the best bit – the video – I must stress that some of the images in this video are unpublished and while there is no nudity some of the images show more than I would normally publish and probably not safe for work, so if that type of thing offends please do not watch the video.

Once again a BIG thank you to EVERYONE I have worked with this year and here’s to a prosperous and happy 2013!

Best – Colin

 

 

 

 

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Shooting in Clubs

27 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in General

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Tags

aperture and shutter speed, bands, camera, club photography, clubs, Film speed, High ISO, Lens speed, light, Manual, Shooting, Shutter speed, singers, Standards

Evening

A couple of days before Christmas I was offered the opportunity to Photograph a cabaret  evening at a local venue – now this is not something I would normally shoot but I knew one of the acts personally and so took up the offer.

The venue seats around 200, reasonably large enough I thought to have plenty of light on stage so that I could get some good shots without going to too high an ISO setting.

Upon arrival I was shown to my shooting area, actually on stage – great – going to be able to get some good shots – I thought

There was some lighting on the stage when I arrived, but this was just a 40watt lightbulb (it wasn’t really, but the light wasn’t much brighter!). I went and asked the sound engineer when they would turn the “proper lighting” on and my heart sunk when he said the 40watt lightbulb was it.

When shooting in dimly lit clubs and other venues its important to have the right gear with you. Especially important is the type of lens, a fast lens is usually accepted to be at minimum a f 2.8 aperture and even faster lenses are available, 1.8. 1.4 and even 1.2.

Coupled with a fast lens you ideally need a camera body that is able to shoot in low light conditions at reasonably high ISO settings. Most modern cameras of today are capable of shooting at high ISO and with a little post processing acceptable results can be easily achieved.

When I got back to my shooting point I set up my body and attached my 24-70mm 2.8 lens – as I was close to the action this lens gave me the flexibility of being able to shoot at wider angles and also to get up close and shoot tight if needed. I’m a manual shooter, the only parameter I let the camera decide what to set for me is the ISO – I set auto ISO to “On” and this meant that I could manually set the aperture and shutter speed and the auto ISO feature of my particular body will adjust the ISO (within certain parameters) to enable a correct exposure.

With my lens wide open (f2.8) and my shutter set to 1/100 and with the 40watt stage light set up in place I was shooting at ISO 12,800 on occasions. It really is a testament to the technology available today for it was not that many years ago that shooting at ISO 800-1000 was considered “pushing it”.

On the night there were many performers, but this one singer stood out – an amazing voice. Gavin Lazarus

Gavin Lazarus

Gavin Lazarus

Gavin Lazarus

Gavin Lazarus

 

Gavin Lazarus

Gavin Lazarus

Gavin Lazarus

Gavin Lazarus

 

Gavin Lazarus

Gavin Lazarus

Gavin Lazarus

Gavin Lazarus

 

Best – Colin

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Merry Christmas

24 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in General

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Christmas, Christmas - Holiday Season, friends family, holidays, home, loved ones, merry christmas, Robin, Season of Goodwill, time of year

Winter Robin-1

It’s that time of year once again when we shall be meeting up with friends family and loved ones. But it’s also the time of year when we should remember that there are people in this world not so fortunate as ourselves that don’t have loved ones to go home to and that won’t be sat around a beautifully decorated tree opening presents.

Give a little thought for all the children in this world that won’t be celebrating tomorrow.

Merry Christmas & Best Wishes to everyone!

 

Best – Colin

 

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The Two Types of Photographers

19 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Photography

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Colour Correct, forum expert, forums, gadgets, Histogram, Internet Forums, Nikon v Canon, photography, Raw v JPEG, technology

Morning.

There are two types of Photographers, those that go out and create pictures. And those that talk about it instead.

Photographers that go out and create pictures are usually either, a) out creating pictures, b) editing those pictures, or c) researching for the next photo-shoot opportunity – they don’t have the time to be sat around on Internet Forums talking about the latest and greatest MPix Sensor or senselessly debating Nikon v Canon.

Too many “photographers” get sucked into Internet Forums, reading countless comments on topics posted by total strangers. Before long they even start to believe some of the things that are written.

Don’t get me wrong, Forums “Can” be a useful source of information – but only if backed up by an alternative and reliable source of enquiry.

A huge problem with forums is the people who post the most shoot the least. These forums make it impossible to know the credentials of the posters. Worse still is that if another poster dares to differ with the opinion of the resident “forum expert” then that person is heckled and belittled and will usually not return, or at the very least will not offer an opinion in the future.

There is absolutely no substitute for picking up your camera and going out and shooting – change your settings, play around, look at what you get and learn from it. You will learn far more from actually using your camera (and reading the supplier provided manual) than you ever could by asking a faceless person on the internet.

Since January I have shot 48K images on my DSLRs, 3k on my X100 and countless images on my phone – I don’t have the time to read Internet Forums – even if I wanted to!

If you shoot as much as you can, and post process as much as you can, then you WILL learn why RAW is better than JPEG. You WILL learn to understand your Histogram and you WILL learn how to colour correct in Photoshop – and you will have done this through trial and error – but you will have learnt!

If on the other hand you spend most of your free time surfing Internet Forums asking questions then you “may” get to the same conclusion, but you will have wasted all that valuable time when you could have been out having fun taking pictures creating art and learning.

I know what I would prefer to be doing.

IMG_4817

Best – Colin

 

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Shooting Bridal on the beach

14 Friday Dec 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Bridal Photography, Photography

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Tags

12/12/12, beach, bridal, cold, December, dramatic lighting, Fashion, lighting effect, outdoors, Portrait Photography, Portraits, veil, weather, wedding, wedding gown, weston super mare, wind chill factor

Morning

A few days ago a long standing client of mine called out of the blue and asked me if I would shoot her in her wedding dress as she was married more than 9 years ago, but would like some more “fashiony” (her word not mine!) images taken.

I replied that of course I would love to, but as it was coming up to Christmas there were few slots available in my calendar – but after a few minutes discussion we settled on Wednesday 12/12/12 – for no reason other than it was the ONLY free date we both had this side of 2013 – and my client was ADAMANT she wanted the images taken before Christmas.

As a photographer I have a location list I refer to when booking a location based shoot, varying from urban, derelict, woodland and parks and various bodies of water. On this occasion I had only recently scouted out a new location and so decided that – after looking at the weather forecast – we could do some dramatic lighting and give my client something just a little different.

Well, Wednesday morning I woke up to an inch of snow and a temperature of -6, it took me an hour to de-ice the car and I very nearly called my client to cancel, but decided to carry on as I knew she would be more than a little disappointed.

The location I had chosen for the shoot was Weston-Super-Mare beach and when we arrived it was (naturally) deserted as the temperature was around zero degrees, but with wind chill factor it felt much much colder 😦

We spent more than two hours there, in sub zero temps creating these images. The lighting effect was created IN CAMERA and I’ll tell you how that was done on another post!

My client was a real star as she was absolutely shivering between takes – but the end result was worth the pain.

WSM Bridal Fashion Shot-10

 

_DSC1686

 

WSM Bridal Fashion Shot-11

WSM Bridal Fashion Shot-15

 

WSM Bridal Fashion Shot-16

_DSC1791

 

Best – Colin

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Mobile Photography Takeover

12 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in General

≈ 1 Comment

A great info graphic and some food for thought – what did we do before the mobile revolution!

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Always open your post

11 Tuesday Dec 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Business, Photography, Wildlife

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Arts, Arts and Entertainment, Associations, Award night, business, Gold Award, photography, POTY, Professional Photographers of America, SINWP, SWPP, SWPP BPPA Society, Wildlife Photography

Morning

Most mornings when I open the mail it’s either bills 😦 junk mail 😦 😦 or some other meaningless piece of paper that either ends up in the bin, or worse, left unopened.

Today though was a different matter!

In the mail today I received a certificate from The Societies.

The Societies are the fastest growing worldwide association for professional photographers. They manage eight internationally recognised photographic organisations focusing on prime services to full time and aspiring full time photographers

Each month they run competitions under each of their organisations, I myself belong to the SINWP and the SWPP (Society of International Nature & Wildlife Photographers & Society of Wedding & Portrait Photographers)

The standard of these competitions is very high as the entries each month come from photographers from all over the world. Each entry is ranked as follows:

Gold: Awards will go forward to the annual judging and are deemed to be images of the highest standard and will be published in Professional Imagemaker 

Highly Commended: Above standard. These images will be reviewed every three months and have the potential of being reclassified as Gold.

Not Awarded: Unfortunately these images fall below the standard required to be given an award.

Disqualified: These images have not adhered to the competition rules or category definitions.

The annual judging takes place at a hotel in London in January where the winner of each category is crowned Photographer of the Year and wins a nice trophy.

So I was happy today.

The image is of a common Buzzard in flight and posted below – along with the certificate 🙂

Buzzard

goldawardswpp-blog

Best – Colin

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If you fail to prepare.

10 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Photography

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

bad luck, business, Flash, light, one of those days, photography, SB-700, SB-800, shoot, Soft box, spare batteries, Speedlight, Umbrella

Morning

When I arrive at a clients premises for a photoshoot more often than not the client will look at my gear and say to me, “do you really need all that for this shoot?”

I do take a lot of equipment on every shoot – two camera bodies plus my x100, multiple Speedlights (flashguns), an assortment of lenses ranging from 24mm through to 200mm, flash triggers, at least two sometimes three stands, two umbrellas, a softbox, various reflectors, spare batteries/flash cards and various clips and clamps.

As with all things electrical, if it can fail, it will fail, at some point, and its better to be prepared for that failure rather than have to cancel a shoot (and have an unhappy client)

Case in point – only yesterday I had the final shoot (of three) for a client that had signed up to my, “My First Year” package. I shoot the child when it’s born, then at six months and finally at its first birthday, this provides the client with a record of their child’s first year.

As with every shoot I do, I prepare the day before, make sure everything works, all the batteries are charged up, and pack everything I need for the shoot.

But yesterday was just one of those days.

I set up, went to fire a test shot and one of my Speedlights did not fire, even though it fired the night before. The client then said to me, “can you smell burning? Sure enough, the smell was coming from my fried Speedlight, slowly cooking inside. I quickly whipped out the batteries and put the unit outside – the client watching on nervously.

After setting up another Speedlight I took another test shot and this time once again, the flash failed to fire. Worried now I checked the unit and it appeared ok and fired when I manually fired the test button – I could not smell burning – so I suspected the remote triggers. Swapped out the batteries and all worked ok.

By this time young child was getting a little agitated and restless, so I said to the mother to give him a feed while I finished my setup. While she was feeding him I needed to change the angle of my umbrella, so I twisted the handle of the Manfrotto 155 bracket and it snapped right off in my hand.

At this point I was beginning to wonder who I had upset “up there” as things were going wrong one thing after the other and I was running out of excuses for the client!

I was down a flashgun, I had no way of modifying the angle of the umbrella now the bracket had broken – what could I do – I had to get this shoot finished (started!).

Then I had an idea – the Dad was just stood around watching so I asked if he would mind holding a reflector for me while I used my Speedlight on camera and bounced the light into the reflector being held by Dad.

The shoot turned out ok in the end, everyone was happy.

Happy one year old - Lit with Speedlight fired into reflector held by Dad

Happy one year old – Lit with Speedlight fired into reflector held by Dad

But THAT’S why I have to lug around a huge bag of equipment and assorted items when I go out on shoots!!

Best – Colin

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Picture within a Picture

05 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Photography, Wildlife

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

be prepared, birds, Carrion Crow, DSLR, Fountain, Handhelds, Hipstamatic, iPhone, nature, opportunism, photography, portraiture, silhouette, Smartphone, Smartphones, Wildlife Photography

Morning.

Some of you will know I actually shoot a lot of wildlife photography as well as my bread and butter portraiture and bridal work. Wildlife photography is much harder than people think, you can’t ask the subject to “pose like this”, or “just move this way a little bit”, you have to take what you can get – usually.

Sometimes though an opportunity presents itself when you least expect it!

This image of the fountain – there is a lot going on, water splashing, sun poking from behind the centre pillar – but I wasn’t taking a picture of the fountain. Take a close look and you will see a Carrion Crow perching all fluffed up. He was in the middle bowl of the fountain bathing (heaven knows why it was near freezing where I was stood!) and I only had my iPhone on me at the time.

Straight away I saw in my mind this picture, but it had to be a silhouette, behind me were grey buildings so anything other than being backlit would not have worked. I positioned myself so the sun was just poking from behind the pillar to give added interest and waited for him to jump out.

I was lucky that he jumped out the right side AND fluffed his wings – I took several shots using the iPhone and the Hipstamatic App, there are several with him in full silhouette just perching, but I prefer this fluffed up one.

Carrion Crow - taken using Hipstamatic - using Foxy Lens & Kodak XGrizzled Film

Carrion Crow – taken using Hipstamatic – using Foxy Lens & Kodak XGrizzled Film

Sometimes pictures of wildlife can have greater impact on the viewer when they show the environment more than the subject, in this instance the picture only works because of the surroundings, a close up silhouette of the Crow (if I had my DSLR with me) would not have been so appealing.

Best – Colin

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Wedding Catwalk

03 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Bridal Photography, Photography

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Arts and Entertainment, beauty, bridal, Bridal Fashion, business, catwalks, Design, Fashion, lovely models, Photographers, photography, style, unguarded moments

Morning

Occasionally I am asked to Video Catwalk events, Bridal, Fashion etc which I do alongside my photography. There is usually a lot going on, especially at Bridal Catwalks and it pays to keep your eyes peeled for any unguarded moments – such as these two lovely models, Helen D & Hannah W doing their thing!

Best – Colin

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