Promotional Images of Percussionist, Holly Madge

Today was all about photographing musician, Holly Madge ... fantastic... I love all this stuff... fantastic opportunity to get all creative and try to do something a bit different! Today was all about Holly Madge... a superb female drummer (www.hollymadge.com). I am very lucky to work with this young lady who has played with The Sugarbabes, Robyn, Katherine Jenkins, Dennis Rollins and perfroming on programmes such as Stricly Come Dancing, Children in Need, GMTV and This Morning. The idea was to create a set of portraits, some of which were musically based and other more lifestyle model portraits. The shoot was organised around the opportunity to shoot some live gig images of Holly playing. Seeing as Holly is so beautiful we (the make up artists, Maddie Austin and I) thought we would take the opportunity to bag a few beauty shots, all shot using one studio light. A few images from the day are included below for your interest! Enjoy!

Master Blasters Band Promotional Images

I went up to Southampton to photograph the Master Blasters (http://www.masterblastersband.co.uk/) a sensational covers band set up to provide top end live music for corporate gigs, weddings and any other such events! This six piece (Jen, JD, Loucas, Chris, Si and Holly) needed images for their shiny new website and for general promotional purposes. We went up to Southampton on the Wednesday night to do a bit of a recce and work out a plan of action for the following night when we had managed to round up all six members for a shoot. Having walked the majority of Southampton's roads we found a cool place to do some backlit pictures - This sort of preparation the night before is absolutely essential ... saves me dragging six band members around the city's darkest corners for hours trying to find the perfect spot! We started off the shoot nice and gently in random car parks and the local park, then did some live gig pictures, finishing off with the backlit images in a random alleyway. With a little assistance from Tommy and Owain we managed to combine a selection of naturally lit images with a few flash lit images.

I thoroughly enjoyed photographing these guys - they are an awesome band playing all the classics - They will blow your socks off! I defy anyone to sit still whilst they are playing!

Photoshoot for Nicky Swann, 9th October

Today's mission was to create a set of portrait imagery for promotional use for Nicky, a very talented singer/ guitarist. With the help of Jana as a stylist and Grace (a very promising photographers assistant!) we created a set of really varied portraits using both natural and flash light. All credit to Nicky for attacking the shoot with great enthusiasm and an open mind... it's not easy being photographed! I really love doing musicians portraits as it provides a fantastic opportunity to try out some new techniques in a quest to produce some really cool arty imagery. Here are some examples from today...

Fashion Shoot for Loveithaveit!

Went out to a beautiful set of old barns today to do a shoot for the Penny at The Terrace shop (in Lyme Regis) and the online store loveithaveit (www.loveithaveit.co.uk).

With quite an ambitious selection of clothing to photograph in one day this venue provided lots of opportunities for a little variety in images without wasting too much time between sets. We covered a range of clothing today including dresses, skirts, tops and coats using a variety of flash light and natural light. I was very lucky to work with the very talented team of models, Sarah and Lauren, make up artist Maddie Austin and assisted by Holly Madge (despite onset of horrible case of flu... very brave little trooper!). Some of the pictures below...

Wedding of Rachael and Ben on 3rd October

The weather held up for Rachael and Ben's big day at Mapperton Gardens in Dorset on 3rd October - which was just as well as it was a largely outdoors affair! Being half American it only seemed right that Rachael arrived in a big old American truck. Rachael looked absolutely spectacular in a beautifully designed and hand made outfit by Caroline at La Di Da. Rachael wore a long fitted purple and black dress with a long bellowing purple coat to keep out the slight chill in the air. The outfit was completed with a long, dramatic bright pink veil.... perfect head turning material! The ceremony took place outside in the gardens with a reception in the formal gardens and evening do in the coach house adjacent. Beautiful venue.

As Rachel and Ben's outfits were quite colourful many of the images were processed in colour complemented with a few timeless black and whites. As Rachael plays the drums and Ben the guitar, I asked them to bring them along to make a truely individual bride and groom portrait. Check out the images below...

Photographing Richard and Caroline - 29 September

Caroline and Richard are an extremely talented couple from Lyme Regis which I photographed for very different reasons on 29th September at Weycroft Hall, Axminster (top spot for weddings too!)

Caroline has a fantastic business called La di Da in Lyme Regis which specialises in creating beautiful individually designed and hand made dresses. I got in touch with Caroline after photographing some of her stunning dresses at a recent test shoot. In preparation for the forthcoming Knitting and Stitching show at Alexandra Palace (8-11 October) we did some promotional images - both portraits as well as environmental portraits with her sewing machine. Some of the resulting images are shown below.

I also photographed Richard who is an extremely talented harmonica player who has invented an electric harmonica (check out http://www.harmonix-harmonica.co.uk/) and who has jammed with Mr Stevie Wonder himself.... very talented young man. We did a range of images for Richard using a combination of natural light and flash light to create some arty portraits for promotional purposes.