When the machines fall silent..

Posted by Paul

At the weekend I was given access to a now silenced factory..where once it was alive with the sounds of people working and the steady throb of machines it was now eerily quiet…with perhaps only the occasional plop of dropping water echoing eerily in the distance.

For this adventure we have the lovely Amy, who braved the cold to model. All images are shot using the Sony A7rii, an 85mm lens and occasionally lighting by Rotolight (Neo I and II).

See look sometimes I do shoot in colour, although more and more these days it is monochrome that colours my life! (like what I did their?)

Probably a pixie..am fairly sure a pixie…

Sometimes all you need is a pretty girl and a dingy location to create beautiful images

Sunday Mornings are for Fashion Shoots

Posted by Paul

Sunday saw a quick fashion shoot in the very beautiful spa town of Leamington, When your model suggests an early start you dont expect it to be 7am…..unfortunately the frost was not present but it was cold, so all credit to our very brave model.

For this shoot we were using the Sony A7rii and the Canon 70-200 and the Sigma MC-11 adaptor to enable everything to talk to each other.

Focus was pretty fast and face recognition worked really well, it didn’t focus as fast as the lens would on a canon body – but we never expected that it would.

Assistance on this shoot was provided by Ken Witherow – master of lighting



Locations around Leamington Spa included Jephson Gardens amongst others – the beauty of Leamington being that all parks seems to inter connect. Model is the lovely Kelly ‘Tinks’.

Studio Shenanigans

Posted by Paul

Once again I borrowed the lovely Charli Lambert for a quick shoot in Andy Baines studio B72 Imaging we were joined by Dave Piper and had a play with Andys new striplight and Dave bought along the Nikon D3s and the Sigma D15 for us to have a look at. Both very different camera’s (none of the pictures below are taken with them). The Sigma produces lovely sharp images and is an excellent studio camera returning crisp realistic tones and if you have not already bought into one of the existing brands is well worth a look. Remember the previous comments I made on the Sigma 50mm?

I shot a few images of Charli with the Striplight either camera left or boom mounted above, with the light feathered to accentuate her features. The striplight was from Bessel and is a cracking piece of kit and very affordable – a lot cheaper than the OEM equipment and of a similar quality. One word of caution and this applies to all makes, the striplight is a large softbox, and boom mounted it does sway a fair bit – make sure you counterbalance it (and remember to attach the power lead before putting it in position!)


Amber Foxx – the tractor files

Posted by Paul

After discovering that Pocket Wizards made location shooting so much fun, it seemed only fair to subject Amber to even more location work!
In order to minimise the discomfort I chose the windiest day of the year, on the premise that we would be inside for the shoot….totally forgetting the fact that most barns are not that windproof, doors have a habit of being blown open and that using a 5ft umbrella on your main light source also makes an impressive kite…
However the images turned out nice, the umbrella…well that is no longer as round as it once was….but seeing as it only cost £7 I am not too upset at that.

Amber Foxx – the Birmingham Files……

Posted by Paul

After a successful shoot at the Curzon St car park earlier in the year, I did a follow up shoot with Amber around the Custard Factory in Digbeth and then we ventured into the city centre.
The Custard Factory is as its name suggests an old custard factory (I believe Birds?) that has been reinvented as a creative and arts centre. It is home to a diverse range of creatives from Graffiti to Wedding Dress designers to vintage and retro shops. It is well worth a look round and often has exhibitions for you to see.
We used one of the empty gallery areas for some shoots and it was a chance for me to try my new pocket wizards out.

As we had spoken to the reception staff there we were fortunate enough to be given free rein to shoot where we liked as long as we didnt disrupt or get in anyones way.

We also met the owners of Graffiti4Hire who graciously gave us permission to take some shots inside their design space, these guys are very creative and if you need some work done then please give them a look