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The Starving Artist

Category Archives: Bridal Photography

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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Wedding Catwalk

03 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Bridal Photography, Photography

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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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Bridal Fashion Shoot

19 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Bridal Photography, Photography

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Autumn, bridal, Bridal Fashion, Fashion, Filming location, Make Up Artist, models, Moody, photography, Summertime

Morning

My last few portrait shoots have been either children & families, or alternative, out of my comfort zone shoots, so it was really great to get back into my comfort zone yesterday with my favourite type of shoot – on location Bridal Fashion.

But it very nearly didn’t happen.

Most photo-shoots, especially those on location, do require a certain amount of planning. You need to research the location, decide on the look/style, source a suitable model, book a make up artist and hairstylist, decide on props, book the time and date and check the weather forecast!

Many of my shoots are planned weeks if not months in advance. The shoot yesterday was booked back in the Summer. I had a location I had researched, but Summertime was not ideal due to the light, it needed an autumnal feel, so November was chosen.

Everything was ready, model booked, MUA/stylist booked, weather forecast looking almost perfect and then……

What every photographer has to deal with at sometime or other, the model AND the MUA called three days before the shoot and cancelled. At least it was three days and not three hours as I have heard stories of!

So what to do – cancel the shoot entirely and with it all the hard work on styling and planning gone to waste – or try and find another team.

IĀ am fortunate to have worked with a number of professional models and one of those, Lorena, I knew loved being shot in Bridal wear and if she was free I was pretty certain she would be happy to step in.

As it happened she was free and she was happy to be part of the shoot. We were unable to source a styling team – but Lorena, the consummate professional, did her own to fit the mood and styling we had in mind.

Yesterday was a typical autumnal day, crisp, cold clear blue skies, sun low on the horizon. These are just a few of the images we created on the shoot.

Bridal Fashion - Lorena F

Bridal Fashion – Lorena F

Bridal Fashion - Lorena F

Bridal Fashion – Lorena F

Bridal Fashion - Lorena F

Bridal Fashion – Lorena F

Thank you Lorena for stepping in and helping me create these images

Best – Colin

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What do you do when your wedding dress is covered in fake blood !

08 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Bridal Photography, General

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Bride, China, cleaning, Ebay, Formal Wear, photography, wedding dress, Weddings

Morning

Following on from my recent, Bride with a difference post I thought I’d share a little “post shoot” information with you – but don’t try this at home if your wedding dress is worth Ā£2000 šŸ™‚

The wedding gowns that I use for photo shoots are all imports from China, with Chinese prices to boot and so usually I’m not too bothered when one of my gowns is covered in muck and grime – I throw them away if they cannot be salvaged and import another.

The day after my shoot I received another enquiry for bridal wear shoot, the client to be was a size ten (UK) and to my horror the only dress I had in a size ten was one which was now sitting in a holdall under my desk, covered in fake blood, dirt, grass, concrete dust, you name it, it was covered in it.

What could I do? I could get another from Ebay, but deliveries are up to three weeks and this client wanted to shoot sooner than that.

Taking the dress out of the holdall I just knew that this should go straight in the bin, and I’d have to turn my client down. But then I thought, why don’t I ask the person that should know all about cleaning wedding gowns, Jill, from the local bridal boutique

Well, when I told her the story, her answer amazed me, “Just stick it in the washing machine on 30 degrees wash, it’ll be fine” she said. “Then hang it up for a couple of days to let the creases fall out”.

So that’s what I did, wedding gown, straight in the washing machine, 30 degrees wash, 1 hour later, looking as good as new šŸ™‚

I can tell you I was pleased as punch, not only did this save my bacon this time, but it also means I can wash all my gowns instead of disposing of them when they are too dirty – but please – don’t put a gown in the wash if you plan to wear it for your wedding day – mine was a Ā£50 gown!! A Ā£2000 gown would have been professionally dry cleaned!!

Best – Colin

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Bride with a difference

05 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Bridal Photography, Photography

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Corpse Bride, Ebay, Make Up Artist, photography, Photoshop, SFX, SFX Make Up, wedding dress, Weddings

Afternoon

I don’t photograph weddings, but I do shoot a lot of women in wedding gowns. When I had my studio I was lucky enough to be on the same business park as Hazlewood Bridal BoutiqueĀ our towns’ newest and best bridal boutique. It wasn’t long before I struck up a friendship with the owner, Jill, and we were soon collaborating on photo-shoots together.

We stopped shooting location based shoots when one of her best gowns became rather sodden during a shoot up at a stately home, you can read about that here

Since moving out of my studio I have been asked to shoot much more Bridal stuff, especially out on location and knowing Jill would baulk at the idea of loaning me a £2000 wedding gown for a shoot out on some disused building site of a location I decided to see what Ebay had to offer.

Ebay has a surprising amount of Bridal Wear stockists, mostly in the far east and China, but the good thing is they come with Chinese price tags too! So after stocking up on a number of these throw away bridal gowns I carried on taking booking for bridal shoots on location

The trouble is, there are only so many pictures of pretty girls in wedding gowns you can take, after a time they all blur into the same type and style of image. I did manage to shoot a lightly different shoot with a gown, see my previous post here, but what I really wanted was something that would be so different and so unusual as to be shocking.

So I came up with Corpse Bride, my own version not Tim Burtons – but there was a thought process behind this. I have access to a disused army base, it’s pretty run down, but it does have some pretty good shooting spaces. So my idea has this pretty girl in a wedding dress playing the violin in a derelict army base – but why is she there? She is actually a ghost and she is pining for her husband that was lost at war. He was stationed at the army base but on the eve of their wedding he was killed in action.

The bride, who (when she was alive) was a violinist and she has come back to the now derelict base to wait for her husband to return, but is destined to play the violin forever as a lost soul.

To turn that idea into reality I needed a fantastic model, a violin, and the skills of a SFX Make Up Artist (MUA).

After several months of planning and some set backs along the way, I secured one of my favourite models to work with, Lorena,Ā a Spanish model who had the look, the hair and the confidence to pull this off. Our MUA for the day was Jodi, an excellent SFX MUA from Bristol.

Applying the SFX makeup to Lorena took more than four hours, four hours which she was sat on the second floor of an abandoned building, facing a hole in the wall (for light) and in the bitter cold

Lorena braving the cold to have her SFX make up applied by Jodi

As is usually the case with the English weather at this time of year, it started to rain and the skies got duller and greyer as the rain got harder. My carefully laid plans for the shoot were blown away as by the time the makeup had finished it was terribly dark outside and lashing down with rain.

Time to improvise.

Lorena towering menacingly over the photographer

Looking more menacing on the stairs

That’s not real blood in the background – honest!

 

Cowering in the corner

We had to curtail the shoot somewhat, it was deathly cold, the wind was blistering through the building and Lorena was covered in goosebumps. But we did one last shot, and with just a little bit of Photoshop magic it turned into this:-

Thunder & lightening, very very frightening !!

A little postscript to this story – Lorena decided to drive home still wearing the makeup, driving through Bristol city centre her car hit the red (on the petrol tank) and she did not have enough to get home – so she calmly drove to the nearest Shell Garage and filled up – still looking half dead! Ā šŸ™‚

best – Colin

 

 

 

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Behind the scenes

30 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Bridal Photography, General, Photography

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Behind the scenes, Bowood Estate, Bowood House, BTS, Make Up Artist, models, photo shoot, photography, Stately Home, Stylist, using models, Wedding Dresses, Wedding Gowns, Wedding Venues, Weddings

Afternoon

Pictures.

Our lives are consumed with them, every magazine, newspaper, billboard, side of bus or the Tube is covered in pictures. The Internet is awash with pictures, you cannot go through a single day of your life without looking at a picture of some description (unless you are a monk in Tibet, and even then there are no guarantees!).

But how many of us look at the picture and say, I wonder how he/she shot that, or, how many people were involved in that. I’m often amazed by clients that say to me, “I thought it would just be you with a camera and a flashgun!”

So I thought I’d share some BTS (Behind the Scenes) photographs taken for a local wedding gown supplier. The location was the local stately home, where we had free access to the library, bar and gardens.

On big location shoots such as this, the day is long and starts pretty early. Coffee and intros out of the way it’s straight into hair & makeup, this is Emily, one of the models being made up by Mary, our resident MUA.

Hair & Makeup

Starting off in the library we decided against using flash and opted for Lupolux HMI Continuos lighting instead (theatre lights). My trusty step ladder was called into action on more than one occasion, which caused some concern for our chaperone on the day!

Step Ladder Time

 

Moving into the bar area we shot some Bride & Groom images sat at the bar.

At The Bar

 

ooops, where has the photographer gone?

Where's he gone?

Different model, same bar,

 

After finishing up in the bar in was lunchtime, so after a quick bite to eat we moved onto the outside part of the shoot. Unfortunately as is the norm for the UK the weather had turned and it was dull grey and drizzly. Undeterred we set about setting up the shots for the next location.

Discussing the next shot

 

My ladder once again came in useful as the model was stood higher than me on the steps of the structure we were using.

The model was after her iPhone which was ringing right at this point ..grrrrrr

 

 

Another model this time (and another gown)

 

 

The rain was really coming down when we moved onto our final location, the model in this images was dripping wet, and an umbrella was being held over her head in between shots. It didn’t save the dress though.

And just to show some finished images from the shoot that relate directly to these BTS shots……..

Finished Image

Finished Image

 

Finished Image

 

Finished Image

 

Finished Image

 

Finished Image

 

Finished Image

 

So there we have it. A BTS look at a photo shoot. Lots of people involved, lots of time and planning involved but lots of fun too.

Best – Colin

 

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Thinking outside the box

22 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Bridal Photography, General

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

bridal, Gothic, graffiti, Model, photo shoot, photography, Rock Chick, rock n roll bride, wedding dress

Hello

The photography business is a great business to be in, going to exotic locations, driving fast cars, shooting beautiful models every day…………

Right, sorry, I was just day dreaming a bit there.

It’s actually pretty mundane unless you regularly shoot covers for Vogue, then its pretty exciting, but for us lesser photographers it’s usually 10% photography, and then 90% work (marketing, sales, networking etc) trying to generate that 10% photography.

But occasionally a job comes along that gets the old grey matter thinking and does make it all worth while. Back in the Summer I was contacted by a local model from Model Mayhem (a photographer, model, MUA, networking site) who explained to me she was in a band and wanted to branch out on her own in a different direction and so wanted some promo shots.

Nice and easy this one, her modelling profile shouted “Goth” and her normal everyday look was “Goth”, so I straight away was thinking red candles, dark stone walls, maybe some roses strewn across the floor and for good measure a bit of smoke too – job done.

Or so I thought.

This model really wanted something completely different from her normal Gothic look, something pretty unique to me, she said. Can I leave it with you? Was her parting comment!

So how do you shoot some different unique images of someone who lives eats and breathes a particular look – simple – you stick them in a wedding dress!

When I came up with this idea I needed a reasonably unique setting to put her in, after all, I couldn’t just put her in a wedding dress and stick a guitar in her hand and expect a picture now could I?

So after a bit of searching I found a terrific piece of graffiti, that fitted quite well with the look I was trying to create – a beautiful girl with angels wings, holding a spray can – a bit of an angelic rebellious message there.

Anyway, the model loved the idea and the shoot went really well. My favourite image of the shoot is on here below – I think it turned out rather well, and the model was over the moon too

Best – Colin

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Sometimes you just gotta break the rules

15 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Bridal Photography, General, Photography

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

bridal, lens flare, Model, photo shoot, photography, rules, wedding dress

Afternoon

Having a thorough technical understanding of photography is a good foundation for working in the business, F-stops, apertures, ISO, Guide Numbers, it might sound like gobbledegook but unless you know that stuff you’ll never really take your photography to the next level.

There is a lot on the web about how the technical aspects of photography must be followed to get a good shot, and to some extent that is true, but there comes a point when you just have to say, stop, hang on a minute, that photo is “technically perfect” correctly exposed, sharp, rule of thirds etc, but…there is something missing.

That “something missing” bit is the most important ingredient for making a good photograph into a great photograph, the creative input of the photographer, the thinking outside the box, breaking all the rules

I was on a shoot recently photographing models in wedding gowns, for a wedding gown Ā supplier, pretty boring, but steady work. Towards the end of the shoot one of the models walked across a window and I noticed the sun streaming behind her, so I thought, lets see what that looks like.

The model was happy to “do her thing” in front of the window while I shot without my lens hood on (to accentuate the flare) and shot from a lower viewpoint to get the sun directly in the frame (whilst minding sure my eyeballs were not scorched to a cinder!!)

The purists amongst you will say the resulting image is a little soft, lacks a bit of contrast, has waaaay too much flare – and you’re right – but it’s a pretty darn good image, I love it, the model adores it and the client even asked for a copy!

Obviously I wouldn’t shoot ALL my work like this, but every now and then you just gotta break the rules.

best – Colin

 

 

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