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Old and New

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Well it's full speed ahead on producing new images. With one of the distinctions I am looking at achieving I have to get 100 new images accepted in international exhibitions, the good news is that I have 2 years for this, so that's only one a week - it sounds better when you say it that way :)

I'm digging through lot of images from shoots old and new for potential images, and in the past around 80% of the images I have produced have met the required standard. So I will have to produce over 125 new images.

For a recent exhibition I entered 15 new images, and here's some of them.

First we have Madame Bink.



Then something a bit different for me, Anita De Bauch, who I hope to work with quite a few times next year.


And two of Ivory Flame.




Katy Cee.




And finally a bit of good news. I entered the Smethwick International, which is my home club's exhibition, and it really means a lot to do well in my own back yard. I got quite a few acceptances, but nudes were not really getting any awards, then this image of Holly came up as my last monochrome print right at the end of the final day of judging, and it got a very good score. The three judges Jean Claude Menneron, Chris Palmer and Simon Allen, had looked through nearly 1300 prints. I was helping out at the judging so I was able to see them make their deliberations, after a tense couple of minutes they picked up my print and I was awarded the gold medal for the best monochrome print. From not thinking I had a chance, to winning was a pretty amazing feeling, especially given many of the other really superb images it beat.


Many thanks to all the ladies and gentlemen mentioned above, I'd better get back to knocking out those images.

Nice Weather We're Having

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Everybody knows that the English like to talk about the weather, and Winter is well and truly here in England so I thought it would be nice to see some images from when it was nice and warm earlier in the year.

I had spotted the natural beauty that is Romahni Rose on a website and made a booking with her, but I was a little concerned that she might find outdoors work a little chilly as she is from sunny Australia, and we were going to north Wales, from which my childhood memories are of rain and more rain!
However there was a mini-heatwave and some beautiful light, as can be seen in our images below:






















Thank you Romahni, and  I look forward to your next visit to our sunny shores.

Time Flies When You Are Enjoying Yourself.

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At first, the last 12 months seems to have passed so quickly, but then looking back at all the great times I've had with models and other photographers I can see that I managed to fit quite a bit in.

So we'll start with a few of new models I was fortunate enough to work with for the first time and hope to work with again next year.

First we have the lovely Romahni Rose all the way from sunny Australia. As my last blog post was about her I've had to rustle up a few new images of her, but that's no hardship. Hopefully she will pay us a visit again in 2014.




The next model who was new to me was the striking Anita De Bauch. Anita has been modelling for a few years, but for some reason I have never got around to working with her. Sadly we only had a relatively short shoot, but it was most enjoyable and extremely productive, and I'm sure we'll produce more great images next year.


And the beautiful Carla Monaco, who I had two shoots with, hopefully the first of many.


There are other great models I worked with for the first time as well, but sadly I can't include them all! And of course there are models I've worked with before and hope to continue to work with in the future, again sorry for those who were missed out :-s

So we start with Chrissie Red making a trig point look tiny.


Kayleigh Lush on a sofa!


And Ivory Flame in a beam of light.



I also consider myself fortunate to have worked with some super models who I won't get the opportunity to work with again, either because they are no longer doing this type of modelling, or other reasons such as leaving the country!

The stunning Fredau.




And the wonderful Katy. Normally I post images of her gravity-defying elegance, but I thought I'd go for one in a field near an ancient monument where we'd just done some shots.


On the gong and letters after my name front I was most pleased to gain my MPAGB distinction in April and EFIAP Bronze in May.  While filling in the form for my next distinction I worked out that in the last 18 months I entered 38 salons and was awarded 25 gold medals, which still amazes me and is in no small part due to my collaborations with such great models.

The latest successes were FIAP Gold Medals in the Cork International, Ireland, and Exposed, Slovenia, both with Circle Of Beauty with Holly, taking that image's tally to 5 golds in the past 10 weeks!




But we're only as good as our last image, so they all mean nothing now, and I need to start producing more images. I'm in the strange situation of having no shoots booked in the future, but I'm sure that there are some new and current models that can remedy that :) Thanks to all the great photographers and models I've worked with and a happy and healthy New Year to everyone.

Sweet 16

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I've mentioned previously that I need to produce 100 new exhibition quality images over the next 24 months, so I've been making some progress producing new images, albeit in a rather haphazard rather than planned manner.

Now I only do model pictures, so all the exhibitions with sections such as wildlife, landscape and photojournalism are not much use to me, so I usually end up just entering the colour and monochrome sections. However I spotted the Han Pijesak salon and it had mono, colour, woman and portrait sections, which is ideal for my style of photography. You can enter 4 images per section and it's always tempting to mix in new images with some existing images which have been successful to try to ensure that you at least get some images accepted, or maybe pick up an award, but I resisted the temptation and entered 16 images which had not been entered anywhere before.

Now there's no solid definition for the Portrait section, and I don't generally do portraits, but I decided that anything from a three-quarter length to a headshot would constitute a portrait, and these are the images I came up with:

Gaze - Fredau

Evening Light - Romahni Rose

Poppies - Rebecca Tun

The Green Door - Ivory Flame

For the Woman section I decided on three-quarter or full length shots of the model, and with the model being a reasonable size in the frame.

Beauty At The Window - Ivory Flame

Blonde Beauty - Romahni Rose

Shadow - Madame Bink

The End Of The Storm - Ivory Flame

Now with the Monochrome section you don't want judges thinking that the images should have maybe been entered into the Woman or Portrait sections, so where there are these type of sections I generally go for images where the model is smaller in the frame, and maybe the image is more about shape. Often the face is not showing as well.


Arch Maiden - Ivory Flame

Concrete Maiden - Keira Grant

Into The Sky - Chrissie Red

Wall Maiden - Ivory Flame
And for Colour it's generally the same criteria I use for mono images but with colour images obviously.

Beauty In The Window - Katy

Beach Walk - Romahni Rose

Nature's Beauty - Kayleigh Lush

The Red Sofa - Kayleigh Lush
So that's the vagaries of the various sections, the next fun part is titles. Each image has to have a unique title, one that you haven't used for a previous image in any other exhibition. Some people are rather unimaginative in their titles eg Fredau 1, Frefau 2.....Fredau 37. Titles are often read out, and I try to keep my titles simple as the judges may not know much English. It is quite a difficult task thinking up a new title for every new image.  Also I prefer people to read what they want into an image, rather than leading them with a very descriptive title. You'll notice I use the word Beauty, Maiden and other such words quite a lot. In this case two of the images have titles that differ only by one small word - Beauty In The Window and Beauty At The Window.

When the results came in I was extremely pleased that all 16 images were accepted, which is a really super start towards the 100 required. As an added bonus I won an award in each section. Gaze with Fredau won a gold medal in the Portrait section, Beauty In The Window a gold medal in the colour section, Arch Maiden a diploma in the mono section and Beauty At The Window a diploma in the colour section. So a pretty perfect result all round, and it's also give me the motivation to find lots more new images for my next entry.

Thanks to the models involved in helping create these beautiful images with me. Also thanks to a number of people who made comments and suggestions when I posted some of these images on a forum, it's always good to get other people's thoughts before you put images in front of a judge, as other people can spot things that are staring you in the eye buy you just don't see!

Simply Fredau

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My images are often of models at a location, where they are not necessarily that large in the frame. So for one of my last shoots I decided I would try to produce some more traditional portraits, and luckily I had the perfect model for this, the incredibly beautiful Fredau.

According to the dictionary definition a portrait is an image in which the face and its expression is predominant, so that's what I went for. We produced so many great images and these are a just a small selection.








We also did some more traditional nudes as well.




And also a bit of creative imagery.


Fredau now lives in Canada, and I'm sure I'm one of a long queue of photographers who can't wait to work with her again when she next visits the UK. So I hope you're having a great life in Canada Fredau, and thanks for producing so many great images with me.

Doors, doors and even more doors!

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Well I have just booked up my now regular annual trip to see my good friend and fellow photographer Francisca in Portugal, so it's really about time I showed some of the images from last years trip with the beautiful and talented Kayleigh Lush. While you have mainly seen her in the studio in previous images, it was great to work with her on location.

She did tell me that she was getting worried about me though, as she thought I had a fetish for doors, anytime I saw a door I just had to take a picture of her in it! So the first lot of images are some of the doors I forced her to pose with ;-)





Now Kayleigh is one of the tallest models I know, but even she was dwarfed by this particular door.




And to show that I am relatively normal, here's some other great images we produced, using some of the super natural light at this location.






It was a superb location, so a big thank you to the couple who let us use their home, as well as Francsica for putting us both up, and to the incredibly flexible Kayleigh. I'll try to be quicker with images from this year's trip, but don't bank on it!

Red On Green

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OK, first I have to admit that these are more images of a model with a door, after as mentioned in my last blog post that I seem attracted to them. However, this is a rather special door at a location sometimes  known as 'the secret castle', but actually probably the most popular and widely known location in Scotland to shoot nudes with a model!

It was a green painted door with the paint peeling and revealing red wood underneath, so was I most most fortunate to have with me one of my favourite models Ivory Flame with her red hair, and a recently purchased green garment.

I'll let the images speak for themselves:











Now you tell me that you aren't attracted to doors as well! Thank you as always Holly.

The Accidental Gold Medal!

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I have been quite successful in FIAP international exhibitions recently, with around 30 gold medals in the last 18 months from 40 salons, and so quite naturally a number of other photographers quiz me, at my camera club talks and online, trying to learn the secrets of my success. I quite happily answer their questions as honestly as I can, but unfortunately I do think that many of them are disappointed that there are no magic answers, that my methods of working are rather amateurish and haphazard, and that I don't have the best and most expensive equipment going!

One of the most popular questions is "Where do you get your ideas from?". To my knowledge I have only ever gone into a shoot with a specific idea on one occasion. The idea wasn't even for that specific shoot, it had been jangling around my brain for some time, and popped to the forefront of my mind on a shoot with the wonderful Kayleigh Lush.

Sometime before I'd had a shoot with the lovely Ella Rose , and we produced this image, which was an early attempt at HDR, and is still one of my favourite images. I liked the anonymity and also the shape of the bottom half of her body. 

Ella Rose - The Bather
It's wasn't particularly successful, probably because of the over-processing, but a stray neuron fired in my brain one day, and I somehow thought it would look nice upside-down with a TuTu on. The idea then sat in my brain for quite a time until I was in the studio with Kayleigh and a TuTu, and my sole idea resurfaced.

Another popular question is "How much direction do you give the model regarding poses?". The answer is mostly very little. When I get to a location I will then have some general ideas regarding moods, shapes etc, and I will sometimes do sample suggested poses myself at particular spots, much to the models amusement! Models know more than anybody else how best to make their bodies look good, and more importantly what does not look so good. So I will then take a few test shots to show the model what will be in the image and off they go.

In the case of my sole pre-prepared idea I was obviously providing direction to the model and I had some difficulty describing the pose to Kayleigh, and I was certainly not going to do it myself, so I drew it. I think we can all see why I took up photography and not drawing :)

En Pointe - The Concept Drawing :)

Kayleigh is such an amazing talent that after looking at my remarkably life-like drawing (!) she did it first-time around. She asked whether she should do it again, I checked the back of the camera for exposure and focus, told here no as I thought we had nailed it, and we moved on to doing a back view version of it. I do get asked regularly whether she is doing a headstand or handstand, and I honestly haven't got a clue. Only she would know, if she even remembers!

En Pointe - Kayleigh Lush

And it is currently my most successful image as you can see from a previous blog post. So in summary I don't really have pre-prepared ideas, or direct the model that much, but maybe I should!

However, hot on its heels in the success stakes is an image of the amazingly versatile Ivory Flame, which in the last few months has picked up gold medals in Cork, Exposed, Smethwick, Donji Milanovac, Zagubica, and just this week won a FIAP gold medal in the prestigious Southampton International as a monochrome print.

This image, and its success, gave me the idea for this blog post, as well as it's title. As you can see from this blog I mainly produce images in colour, and this image had picked up a few acceptances as a colour image but was probably never going to win awards. 


I was short of monochrome images to enter into an exhibition, so I just quite randomly clicked on images in LightRoom, converting them to black and white, and seeing how they looked. While I am not an experienced monochrome worker even I could see that the whole emphasis of the image had changed for the better with this image. Needless to say I examine images much more carefully now to consider whether they may be better in black and white.

Circle Of Beauty - Ivory Flame

The other popular question is "Where do you find your locations?". While my idea generation is a bit ad-hoc, and my selection of monochrome images currently often relies more on luck than judgement, I will admit that location finding is something that I put a significant amount of effort into. 

I use Google and Goole Maps extensively to scout around the areas I am visiting, I also use the websites of National Trust, English Heritage, Scottish Heritage, their Welsh Equivalent CADW,  and other similar websites extensively. I also network with other photographers, both online and in person. These are not just other photographers of models but landscape photographers, urban explorers, and anybody - photographer or not - who may have access to an interesting location.

So to give some idea of where I get my locations I'll go through some of my other acceptances at Southampton. The first three images also won awards there.

To get access to the first one I found out about a castle that is being refurbished through an urban explorer friend, I then sent an email to the owner out of the blue, and they let us shoot there. I have also emailed many other owners of buildings, and the answer is most often a polite no, so you have to be persistent and may have to try lots of different places before you get a positive response.

The Staircase- Ivory Flame
My knowledge of studio lighting is rather poor, and there are not many good natural light studios near where I live. However in Wolverhampton the studio of John Barone is excellent, and this is taken in the 'world famous art nude corner', which is basically a plastered wall that makes an excellent backdrop.

Penitence - Anita De Bauch
This is from a National Trust property, and thankfully they changed their rules recently to be more receptive to photographers, as long as the images are for non-commercial use.

Gothic Lady - Ivory Flame
This was from a public location near to a good friend of mine and fellow photographer Francisca Da Silva

Out of The Earth - Ivory Flame
This was from a working warehouse. Somebody came up to me at the end of one of my camera club talks and suggested that they knew a location which they thought would be ideal for my type of photography, I think they were right :)

The Blue Door - Katy
A friend had access to an empty office space that we were allowed to use. Quite an old image, but never entered before.

Red Socks - Raphaella
John Barone's studio again.

Fredau - Pensive
And finally another property from one of the organisations listed earlier. There were a few people about, but by being prepared, waiting for the right opportunity, working quickly, and having an experienced model, you can get the image and nobody sees anything or has any idea of what is going on.

Rock Nude - Casse Jade
Sadly one of the the most common questions I get asked is "Do you use Canon or Nikon?". I will answer them, and they are usually surprised by the answer, but I explain to them that my images can be taken with every DSLR on the market, so the kit they already have is probably fine, and their images are more likely to improve by taking more pictures and spending money on good models rather than swapping camera systems.

So there you have it, my thoughts on why I have become so successful in competitions, taking lots of images, working with the best models, spending a huge amount of time online looking for locations, and having that little bit of luck, such as when I converted Circle Of Beauty to monochrome. Everybody's route to success will be different, but if you do want to be successful then unless you have a huge amount of natural talent it does take a lot of effort.

And the most important thing, have fun and enjoy your photography, otherwise all those shiny things and letters after your name don't mean anything.

As usual a big thanks to all the models :)

Adventures of a Location Photographer

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I always admire photographers who have pre-planned concepts before shoots, or who know the location they are going to use so can think up potential poses and compositions beforehand. My mind does not work that way, so I do location photography, and I have to turn up at a location that I have never seen before, and take pot luck. There are a number of things that can work against you, the weather, the light, pesky members of the public, so generally I have to have contingencies in place to cover as many eventualities as I can. Fortunately, so far, it usually all works out fine.

As I have mentioned previously so many times before, the quality of the model is paramount. One of the best models I have ever worked with for location work is Madame Bink. While others produced super images of her in a studio or indoors, I just loved working on location with her. None of these images were taken recently, but most of them haven't been seen before.

I always try to ensure that my models are naked for the minimum possible time. I do this by doing test exposures, checking the focus and composition, and working out the poses, while the model is clothed. In this shot it was near the end of the shoot and it was not particularly warm, and from memory the wind was blowing in through the window. I just love the near black background and the light sculpting her figure.



People often ask me how we produce images without being seen by members of the public. Generally if you can't see the public then they can't see you. This particular image was taken at a fishing lake, and this is at one of the fishing stations. There were other fishing stations around 15 yards either side that had people having a picnic or fishing at them. However she could not see the other stations, so they could not see us. The aim of the treatment was to give the feeling of a lazy summer's day, and I do like the reflection of the sky in the water.


As I don't use speedlights/flashes to provide lighting the model has to stand in any light that is available, and then turn around so that I get good lighting on the model as well as a nice clean background.


Bink is a true professional. This shot was taken early in the morning, and I'd previously taken some shots of her on top of this turret, as she was getting cold I had told her to get dressed, I then realised that this was the composition that I really wanted with a really wide-angle view. Without a word of complaint she just got undressed again and we got the shots I wanted. Needless to say I now try to be more careful about working out the best shot beforehand so minimise the models discomfort.


This final shot was taken at a bridge, and there must have been a statue in that opening some time in the past, so I felt like it needed a human statue in there now. We could hear people in a nearby pub car park, and the bridge was next to a canal towpath. So it was a matter of getting everything prepared while she was dressed in a velvet cape, then after a quick check that nobody was along the towpath, or would come from the pub, doing a quick 'flash and dash' and getting one of my all-time favourite shots.


While it's quite different from shooting in a controlled environment it is good fun, and can be highly productive if you come across an interesting location. Thank you Bink, and apologies for all the discomfort :)

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