Posts Tagged fashion photography
Sophie: test shots from our new toy – the Nikon D3X
Posted by Paul in For Website, General on March 2nd, 2010
Ah, so it’s arrived and out of the box. Took me a while to set up all the menus to be exactly how I like them but ’tis all done and is ready to roll. One shiny Nikon D3X.
We’ve added this high-res camera to our trusty D3’s as we’re doing an increasing amount of fashion and commercial work (though I’d love to see a wall-size family canvas generated from this thing) and the extra resolution is a real help. One thing about commercial work is that the designers/clients like to have additional cropping room in an image and this compromises the overall resolution (i.e. picture quality) of the image. The D3X has twice the resolution of the D3 (and, at 12 Mega-pixels, these weren’t bad by any means!) and when you put some of our beautiful lenses on the front, the image quality is utterly compelling. The designers’ wish is our command!
We’re very lucky here to have many friends who’ll help us out – even at stupidly short notice – and so Sophie (the fantastic model we worked with recently for Sassy & Co.) agreed to pop round and help me to quickly put it through its paces. Half an hour later and we have these really lovely street/studio images. Believe me, the camera is working perfectly (admittedly, it helps that Sophie is stunning of course!)
With bags of resolution, this thing is going to be a joy to work with. It will slow me down, however, as the files do take a while to both write to the memory cards and to work with in production. However, they’re worth the wait! And you never know, it might be a good thing to slow down the ol’ continuous shooting!
In a few of the images below, I’ve cropped into the image (the crops are roughly 4 Mega-pixel images taken from the 24MP original) to show just how much fun we’re going to have! Please note that the website doesn’t quite do them justice (we’ve compressed them down or you’d be waiting a long time for them to load!)
Tomorrow we’ll be working with it for real. I’ll keep you posted, but for now there’s a great big fat grin permanently planted across my face!
Sassy & Co
Posted by Paul in Fashion, For Website on February 17th, 2010
Our studio isn’t particularly big. Large enough for most of what we do, but when 3 models and 6 stylists bowled up I knew it was going to be, well, intimate. And so it proved to be. Good fun though. Besides, our local pub isn’t very far away so we sent a couple of the guys off for a quick pint while they waited. They didn’t exactly protest, it has to be said.
As for the shoot, well this is another in a long and happy series we’ve done with Sassy & Co. in High Wycombe. I get quite excited about these sessions as they’re a little out of the norm for us – although we do work with models occasionally, it’s usually to create a much more ‘lifestyle’ image rather than these more stylised images that are clearly more at home in the ‘fashion’ category. Still, who wouldn’t want a portrait where you look this good? I think we might be doing more of this style of image in our portrait sessions.
We’ve worked with Charlie before so I knew he’d be very easy (and we’d get great images of course – something of a pre-requisite!) but it’s the first time we’ve worked with either Katy or Sophie. And I think we might be working with them again! Great, great images and a joy to work with. Even with 9 people in our little studio!
Let us know what you think.
Cheers
P.
Sassy and Co at the Mausoleum
Posted by Paul in Fashion, For Website on November 24th, 2009
We’ve worked with the guys at Sassy & Co in High Wycombe for ages now, providing images of their handywork for all sorts of uses from their website through to competitions and ads.
We shot most of the session up at the old mausoleum in West Wycombe which was a new venue for us but one that we’re now regularly using as the variety of backdrop and the quality of the light up their is perfect.
This session was unusual in that it was a couple of the trainees who cut and styled the models – you wouldn’t know it though as their talents are clearly awesome! I love that about Sassy as the sheer quality of the work they produce is second to none! And just that it was the trainees, doesn’t mean that we spent less time on the session – far from it. We even went so far as to get hose pipes out for an umbrella shot or two!
Fireworks at Carlton Towers
Posted by Paul in Commercial, For Website, Weddings on March 27th, 2009
Wow. Where do I start?!
This was just an amazing session albeit a gruelling one.
We have teamed up once again with the guys at Fuse Fireworks. For our regular visitors, you may remember that we captured some images for them down in a very inclement Bristol back in November but this was a very different shoot.
I always love creating images for Fuse as they have a really forward-thinking view of the marketing and PR images that they’d like. For this session, Ben and Brian from Fuse didn’t want the familiar explosions-in-the-sky type of image but rather wanted to create some images that show a little more of what it’s like to have fireworks as part of your own celebration or wedding. A little more tricky to shoot but brilliant!
We’ve been planning this session for weeks. Hasselblad kindly lent us a beautiful hi-res camera (more about this in another post) and we had hair & makeup, flowers, dresses, lighting, fireworks, models and the most unbelievable location all organised to create the most gorgeous images to cover everyone’s marketing. All of the suppliers involved are some of the best in the business which made it a real pleasure!
So a huge thank you to all the following:
* Once again we’re working with Sassy & Co in High Wycombe which I love. It was Claire and Connie who kindly joined us and we had a ball! Not only do they produce stunning results with hair and makeup – you only have to look at the photos to see that – they’re also just the loveliest people to be working around. They were absolutely at the heart of everything and there wasn’t a single glitch.
* Everyone at Maid in Heaven in High Wycombe for providing some utterly stunning wedding dresses. They were also hugely helpful given that it’s not every day that I get to go and pick out bridal wear!
* Carlton Towers for providing a location to die for. A huge, breathtaking Gothic mansion in the middle of the Yorkshire countryside. I can’t imagine a more glorious place to have as a backdrop
* Alison Tingey from Anthurium Floral created the stunning bouquets that you can see in the shots (you have to see these close up to see her exquisite attention to detail.) We’ve used her floristry for a year or two now and I am still always blown away by her work!
* The models – Anna, Ben, Coral, Danielle, Harriet, Mark, Natasha and Polly. What more can I say? Gorgeous! (even the guys)
* Fireworks – Fuse Fireworks who, as always, create the most sensational explosions! Oh, and you couldn’t ask for nicer guys to work with.
* The guys at EES Showhire provided the beautiful lighting that was the final icing on the cake. We bathed the building in a rich scarlet (for some Halloween publicity) but they had pretty much any colour we could have asked for!
I’ve included quite a few photographs for this blog to give you a feel for all the different types of shots we captured. Enjoy!
Cheers
P.
Sassy & Co. Hair Shots
Posted by Paul in Commercial, Fashion, For Website on February 14th, 2009
Well this has been a hugely productive week. At least I think it has been.
With four different sessions and a whole host of meetings, I don’t think we’ve ever been busier.
One definite high point has been the photography we’re doing with the guys over at Sassy & Co. and they came back the other day to complete the hair shots we started last week. This time the model was Becky who we’ve worked with before. Yet another fabulous model (not sure how Katherine and the guys do it) so you can see why I look forward to these sessions.
The hair colouring was done by Jody who did an awesome job and I think we’ve caught the subtlety in it beautifully – as well as creating some gorgeous images!
Though it is crucial that we get it absolutely right (the awards that these images are being entered for only come around once a year, so I don’t think I’d be very popular if we didn’t come up with goods) these sessions are always great fun and this was no exception. What heightened the pressure a little is the tight deadline on this particular brief and so we needed to turn around the shoot, the image selection and the post-production work all in the same evening. Blimey.
Still, we’re absolutely thrilled with the results – to start shooting in the early evening and hand over a completed, beautiful image just as the client needed on the same night is pretty good going. Not something I’d like to do every day but it’s nice to know we are able to when the need arises – though it did take several large pots of tea and a flagon of coffee to see us through. How very rock’n'roll!
Let us know what you think.
Cheers
P.
PS. I’ve uploaded a slightly larger selection than normal onto the blog to show what can be done with a great model, fantastic stylists, a well thought out vision and a generous pot of tea all in one session! 
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