Upton Skatepark

During the summer i have been riding bmx and shooting while i've been out and about most of the time i have been at a local indoor skatepark in Upton, Wakefield which is called Pitwheels Skatepark the facilities are pretty good and all the riders are sound to talk to, The only problem with the skatepark is its very low light and the only light you get are from skylights which are frosted so the light isn't intense.

I shot with flash most of the time but had a load of fun interacting with everyone telling them what to do and where and capturing some quite nice shots.

Photographing The Velcro Teddybears

The second gig I shot was The Velcro Teddy Bears, which are a local band who I got asked to photograph through my father as the lead singer had seen my work and wondered if i would shoot a gig at Dogma in Huddersfield, Which to be honest isn't the best venue but it was very fun playing with lighting and stuff, I had all the experience from the past gig which helped me a lot in this shoot.

As the venue was only small and not a large crowd I could be more experimental with my flash units and play by bouncing off walls and positioning,

Shooting Chipmunk, Skepta, Tinnie Tempah @ The Plug

I had organized for me to photograph at the live venue at The Plug in Sheffield, I got in the venue free of charge but i got no priority as to get on set and photograph near the artists but i had to wrestle with the crowd which was a tusstle as it was full of youths who just jammed the stage area as soon as i stepped in the place.

I was using very high iso as the lighting situation was very dark light set up with the odd bright lights used to light the artists when they were speaking to the crowd, I enjoyed the experience as it was really fun to listen to the music and shoot at the same time, I got some decent photographs from the shoot but i really struggled with the lens i had i was shooting on the 100-300mm which at low aperture is 5-6.3 which is very poor for shooting in low light situations.

In future i am going to look at investing in a 70-200mm 2.8 as i think that would allow me to expand myself as a photographer as it would give me more flexability to experiment with the low light conditions.

Learning Styles

At college we had been told that we needed to look at our learning styles to see what type of learner we was so we could work out a system that individuals know how to work to get the most from the course and to make it easier for them to learn, we were given two tests to complete which showed us which type of learner we were, my results came up that i was a kentic learner which means i learn from doing things and making mistakes and then correcting them, which is very true as i am a very practical kind of person, i do not enjoy sitting with books, reading peoples opinions and following tutorials on how to do stuff.

I am abit more forward than that i would like to just be given a task jump in head first and see what results i get, if i fail i will learn a lesson on how not to forsee that kind of task if one of the same type comes up, Also it is a lot more enjoyable to me to be photographing than sat in the class talking about photography, reading about other photographers and general research, some influence is good and ideas are much more important and should be carried out.

The test also showed what kind of person i am to react to homework and social situations it showed that if i come across something i cannot remember the name of i will call it a "thingy-majig" and that i would say i was going to complete some work but leave it to the last minute, these are the things that i need to take from other learning styles and incorperate them into my style of working so i get the work done to the best of my standards and in on time.

Bussiness Studies

In this semester we have been learning the ways that the creative sector creates income to the economy and how much it contributes to the national ecomomy and the global economy, Looking at the way it does contribute i have found it quite amazing how many people work in this sector which shows how saturated the market is with commercial photographers, This has made me realise that i need to put myself at top of the board and to have innotive ideas to make myself stand out.

Candle in the wind!

This was a brief set by Tony Speight one of the tutors at college who does Proffesional Practice with us the breif was the photograph candles in a indoor location and had to not be studio shot, So i decided to shoot in my nanan's dining room as the table is a nice feature for the candles to sit on.

On the day i had the problem of not having a tripod on me which was very foolish and i wish i had one now as it would have made the images better, Another problem i had as i wanted a soft focus on the candles i had to use a long focal length but i struggled to fit the candles in frame with my 135mm 2.8 Pentacon lens which is a old m42 manual focus lens i use as i think it gives really nice images and is pin sharp if you focus correctly.

As i started shooting i set the candles up and shot them on there own and found the image too bland and boring so i decided to put plates in the shot and some little features my nan has in a bowl scattered around the candles, I found the images i took after much more interesting as it gave a bit more foreground interest, I found that i wasn't stable enough so to create a tripod i had to improvise, I used a bin and pillows the make the camera more stable, This worked and i think it was a good idea.

After i sorted my frame i wanted to take, I lit the candles and shot away just moving slightly everytime to get that picture perfect photograph, The one i chose is the one below;

The reason the image looks noisy is becuase the light was low so i had to rise up the ISO setting so i could get the effect i wanted. If i could have done this again i would have fetched some external lighting and use a tripod and i think the image quality would have increased alot!

Dance the college away

We had a brief to photograph the dance students at wakefield college for the brief they had to have a headshot, top half shot and a full body then some of them dancing around doing there moves, I wasn't really looking forward to shooting this because i'm not really into posed people photographs i prefer candid photographs, But when we got the dancers in studio shooting i really loosened up and started the enjoy it, At first it was wierd ordering people about to do stuff because they were really stiff and not loose with me because they had never met me before.

I had to shoot one person from the second year group and two from the first year, I really enjoyed the in studio work but the location shoot didn't really go well for me as i don't know the area so i don't have knowledge of good places in the wakefield city centre area, So i shot in Thornes Park and the images were not up to scratch so i decided to not add them to the chosen photographs.

In studio i decided to use the Mamiya medium format with Phase one back with a 80mm Lens and with the space we had it was abit hard to get the moving photographs in shot with tall students as the space is not large enough to prance about, but the lens is incredible i cannot believe how sharp the images are i think it works well with portraits because the eyes look incredible really sharp!

The studio shoot was excellent i really enjoyed it here is a selection of images.

This was one of the headshots i chose, This shot was incredibly sharp i like the detail in the eyes how the softboxes reflect in the eyes giving a real nice reflection, I think simple lighting works better for headshots and photographs just to show the person.


This shot was with the same type of lighting as the one before, i think it works with the skin tone as the lad was pale so if i turned the lights up too much it would just blow out all his features and skin tone, The only thing i don't like about the image is the tattoo which is the only thing you cannot change in a image.

When in the dance studio with the second year dance student i had a incredible time it was so good messing around with lighting and different types of poses this image was said to be taken by the students tutor, I lit it with a strobe on a tripod coming from the right i cannot belive how good the image came out i edited it in a HDR kinda style and a harsh vingetting i think it works bring out the details in the shoes, tights and the tutu.