“Fashion shoot, fashion shoot! I’m in a fashion catwalk tonight” said my friend and model Azzi Kalili. This was sent at about 1pm and the preparations for the event started approximately 7pm .. this gave me just enough time to go home after work, pick up my camera and head out the door.
I’d said to Azzi to please let me know when she does a fashion show and an open call to photographers occurs. I want to experience a lot in photography, try everything so that I can figure out if I enjoy it or not. I must say that I definitely learned a lot! Here’s the story of that evening of fun, mistakes and a whole lotta learning :D
Azzi is a queen at networking and her open call for photographers, along with Miss Elle Zadina’s; was answered by quite a number .. 9 in total I believe. Which is a considerable number saying as the main call only went out a few days before the event and me and 5 others only heard of the fashion show about 6 hours before the preparations started!
As with anything to do with fashion there’s always the preparation and the getting ready.
Elle Zadina was the fashion show organiser and PR wonder woman of the evening. Orchestrating organised chaos and also preparing all the models from hair and makeup, to dressing them along with the clothing designer, making sure they knew the sequence and placement of the walk on the bar and club floor .. and so much more. I caught a surprise photo of her and I’m pretty sure she’ll kill me for this but she also works as a model and her surprised face is still pretty darn beautiful.
I nipped downstairs to the club basement where a few of the boys were already dressed in the clothes for the show during the pre-show run down of where they were walking and posing. I must say this was the easiest time to be able to capture them in their finery!
After the quick rehearsal we all scuttled back upstairs to the 3rd floor which was reserved for the fashion show preparations. (Yes that means we kept running up and down 4 floors between the fashion show location and the preparation floor .. whooo, talk about exhausting.) So .. while the rest of the models were getting ready all the photographers grabbed them as soon as they were ready of waiting to get ready to do some impromptu photo shoots.
TIP: for any fashion show co-ordinators this is an ideal time for you to have somewhere (even a stairwell) where the photographers can shoot the models in their clothes. The effort has already been made for the fashion show, scheduling in 1 hour of shoot time for a few photographers to get a fashion show photos is great publicity and a great opportunity to do a photo shoot.
In addition to shooting some models looking gorgeous, one model wanted to ‘fly’ and play with her wonderfully floating clothing. So we had some fun and then I captured people gossiping while waiting for starting time of the fashions show.
I gave my card out to the clothing designer but she hasn’t been in touch. However if by some miracle you come across this blog and you are the designer of these clothes .. I’d love to work with you and do a proper fashion shoot using your clothes and I’ll organise a makeup artist and this same model to do so. Deal?! K, thanks :D
To wrap up, the following two photos were taking from the actual fashion show itself and with the lights dimmed and absolutely no space to stand back from the floor, due to it being crammed full of fashionistas .. it was a difficult shoot to say the least. But .. I learned a lot and when the next time comes around I’ll improve yet again.
My main problem in the evening that I discovered later was that I was enjoying the behind the scenes photography with my speedlight so much that I’d drained the spare set of batteries and didn’t have a second set to be able to do a quick fire series of shots during the fashion shoot itself. So you can see the photo on the left is lit from a speed light reflecting of the mirror ceiling .. yes you read that right, that was a mirror ceiling which cast really strong reflections and was incredibly hard to bounce diffuse light off. The second photo on the right is where I shot purely on my camera with existing light in the club itself .. this is a wide open aperture and a very high 1600 iso or some such. Trying to free a reasonably fast model who poses only for a split second is hard to do a dark nightclub fashion shoot! Oi vey!
So what were my big lessons from the event:
- Bring a notepad and pencil to take a rollcall of who’s who so that I can remember later!
- Find out the fashion show pre and post schedule
- On arrival, scout out some interesting spots to do an impromptu fashionphotoshoot
- Bring a stand and two speedlights, one can be hand held and the other positioned for more exiting lighting.
- Bring TWO sets of spare batteries for my speedlights!
Other than that, I had a really great time. It was hard to shoot amongst so many people with only two locations reserved for photographers and I’m not used to having to wrestle for a position with others shooting the same subject. I’m used to being able to remove myself from the crush and getting a different angle .. but not this time in such close quarters.
Plus the DJ at Molton House club and bar in London was fantastic that night, I couldn’t resist doing some mini dancing swaying and grooving in time with the music from one food to the other and not crash into the other male photographers who I’m pretty sure I amused with my not to subtle antics! lol
A good time, a great learning and an opportunity expand my personal photography experience into new areas.
CathieGraphy – London Fashion Photographer
Being a new business photographer, especially a new professional (vs amateur) photographer starting out in London .. it can be nerve wracking! I’ve had this dream and desire for many years to own my own business and make my own living. While I’m still fully employed in a day job, I know I’m starting with a good foundation.
Part of this foundation was to gain some more confidence in my skills. My work, photographs and designs speak for themselves but I needed to be sure in myself that I knew what I was talking about and how I can improve with my lighting skills. The thing I wasn’t so confident about was how to get a great shot within 5 minutes of getting an idea, setting up for the shot and grabbing it in my magic camera lens! Because, of course .. my camera is magic within my hands and no one has a bad picture in the end. It’s all about confidence, in myself and in the beauty and charisma of others being themselves in the moment.
Meet Studio Time’s – Speed light photography course teacher Brian Hillsden, who taught our class near London Fields train station and their gorgeous model of the day: Sofia Skvortsova. For the first part we learned about our cameras, our flashes and what gaps we have our knowledge. I started off with a bit of a hiccup scenario .. I’d forgotten the fact that while I’d been playing around with my camera the night before and had manually turned the on camera flash compensation to -3, its lowest power.. I had not turned it back. It took Brian reminding me to set all compensations back to zero to get my flash balancing correctly like everyone else. Woops!
After that though things went a lot better and I soon felt my confidence return. I learned about how an 18% grey card also works for exposure settings as well as for white balance .. who knew! I learned that the less distance a properly exposed speed light is to the subject the softer the wrap around lighting .. I always thought the opposite, but I now know that a bare exposure flash from a speed light can yield amazingly soft shadows. I would never have believed .. my proof was in the pudding before me in previous experience. It took doing a class to teach me otherwise and I was READY to learn.
I’ve specialised more in the dramatic lighting, normally found in theatre work as I like to play [click to read more …]
Today I took a personal holiday day, in London of course, from my day job and I LOVED it! I decided to boost my confidence and signed up to the Studio Time – Speedlight photography course. Yes I could already use my speedlights in a studio type setting but not so much for fast shoots in weddings and 5 minute portrait jaunts. All my studios based in various locations I’ve lived have a ‘few’ things in common. My photography has always been shot in my lounge, kitchen, dining room and even a few times my bed room when I had a large room with great big white walls.
But I digress. I’m tired, I’m happy, slightly hungry and very ready for bed. I woke up at 5 am and was so excited to see this day that I daren’t go back to sleep just in case I slept in! So I preped my bag and whittled down my photography gear to the essentials I knew I wanted. I was ready .. but this is a story for another day. I’m almost out like a light and while I may be typing this I’m doing so with my eyes closed .. ready to close the laptop lid, switch of my flower vine lights and curl in bed to sleep.
Before I do though, I wanted to shout to the blogoverse out there that I had a great day, everyone should know this fact (sarcasm alert for the previous statement!) aaaaand .. above is my favourite photo from today with the lovely Sofia Skvortsova from Model Mayhem! The gorgeous one, with the honey dew eyes you see above ;)
G’night internet.
- CathieGraphy
So this past three days of this Bank Holiday weekend I’ve: moved out from my London flat to my own property outside of London, been to see a movie, sunbathed, edited an entire wedding, and I’m spending this next week preparing for moving back into London. Back to being a London Portrait Photographer and Designer par excellence!
I’m a bit of a geek so a light fake tan is my main source of colour on occassion but I managed to see some sun and make my body into a Vitamin D factory for a bit.
I also went to see the movie “Prince of Persia – The Sands of Time” and it was a classic action movie, with a candy floss story to loose yourself in but doesn’t unravel on you to make you bored. Loved it and the comical whit included was enough to make my friend and I snigger and laugh in places.
The rest of the weekend was spent playing and editing my cousins wedding photos on my laptop in my shorts and T, with a lovely cross breeze from my windows *happy sigh*.
Last weekend I shared a sneak peek blog post with one of the images from my lovely cousins wedding and this weekend I got to properly take time (not just two hours for the next morning family breakfast showing) to peruse what to keep from the selection. Just before I started editing I shared on facebook the fact that I ‘almost’ didn’t want to start editing because if something is started it means that it also has to end .. at some point!
For me the general editing is over and I’ve put into my client proofing gallery all their photos from the selection of over 1000 photos on the day to just over 300 for proofing. I’ve not yet included the photos I’m also acquiring from the other amateur photographer friends of Tim and Lucy’s to the collection, but when I do the selection will grow massively!
So while one part of this wedding editing is over I’m very happy that my ‘consolation’ prize is to start making my true wedding present to them .. my secret project! Woohooo! Does a quick Glee show tune moment in my head and has just realised that .. yup .. I’m letting the fact I’m doing a secret project outta that bag .. so we’ll see if the cookson family read this blog or not. They may know I love photography but until the wedding I don’t think they really knew just HOW much I LOVE PHOTOGRAPHY!
Oh and to show my eeevil weevil streak I’m not saying what my project is .. I’m going to leave that up to you to guess and wonder.But. To be kind I’m going to slip you another sneak peek photo. It is one that I fall in love with every time I see it. If ever I’ve seen a smile of joy and happiness, this .. this is what we all yearn for.
I hope you enjoyed your mini holiday / three day weekend everyone in the UK and to my other worldwide readers .. yah boo and sucks to you! *ahem* I mean to say, I hope you enjoyed your twooooo day weekend as per usual :D
Ps. I booked tickets for the Wireless Festival in London Hyde Park in July this year as @pink is headlining it. I’m super duper excited about it, I gotta get my P!nk fix somehow, ttfn.
I had the absolute pleasure of shooting my cousins wedding this past weekend. Tim and Lucy have been together for 13 years and love each other absolutely. They met at university and have loved each other ever since through thick and thin with the grooms speach making a joke about him being thick and she’s thin!
They are a joy and I love them both dearly. I’m so glad they gave me the opportunity to shoot their wedding .. it would have been pure agony for me to attend and not be able to shoot the photos I see happening every minute of the day. I would have been happy for them but I confess to loving them even more for allowing my creative heart to capture their day for them.
Here is a sneak peak until I manage to process the entire collection.
My portfolio of portraits needed some new works put into it to share with you all and I called upon my local London model muse: Azzi Kalili. There is a stretch of road not far from where I live that has a wonderful black iron gated strip gardens with daffodils in them. Its one of those narrow stretch of public gardens that people never sit in but I always admire when i walk past when the flowers are blooming.
Spring is a gorgeous time of year, I love the overall feeling of waking up from a long sleep and the world being refreshed again. This is what I wanted to capture with the daffies that were in bloom. I showed a sneak peek from that shoot a few blog posts ago but here is the selection of works that I think really captured the beauty and presence of Azzi as well the feelings of spring. A calm fresh portrait of a beautiful woman with loads of creativity.
I also like the fact that the daffies are white instead of the traditional yellow. So much green [click to read more …]
.. to remind us to live, smile and continue on even when its mad, crazy and feels like black and white. I’m undergoing quite a lot of change at the minute so this blog is something I will try to keep up but forgive me if I slip up here or there. I’m without internet (apart from what I can stream through my phone and rapidly reaching my 2 gig a month data limit) and I’m in between homes as I’m about to move out and move into a new place. I can’t handle not having reliable internet as I’m trying to run a business here and I need connection!!
*takes deep breathes to not hyperventilate*
Doing research into ShowIt portfolio and the +sites option as I’ve been inspired by Jasmine Star. Just need to get more regular london portrait photographer commissions in order to justify the expense .. although I know the social media boom effect pay off from this would be huge!
But what’s all this chatter about. You are here for photographs, as well as my slightly insane personality that is part of parcel with me at the minute! This is another sneak peek shot from the same shoot with Azzi last week but we shot two different topics .. personal headshots and the last post featured a bridal shot as if from a wedding. I wanted to remember fun times so I’ve spent today editing the shoot and we’ve captured some fantastic photos .. a few of which I’ll show here and more on Flickr as well.
Too many thoughts, so much going on, can I just shrivel off the need to sleep so that I can get through all this!!
Hopes to make it to the countryside in a few hours to meet with friends and shoot their family portrait .. so excited :)
Eeep .. nearly burned out my phone it’s so hot from doing constant 3G roaming to stream my internet!! Better post this now before it explodes. You can tell I’m tired because I’m thinking, writing and talking in exclamation points. Yikes.
I’m wanting to expand in my repertoire and explore doing wedding photography as a second photographer. As the second partner in a team of two. Doing a journalistic style of photography where the little moments that make up the celebration are captured and memorialised. I find that a big event can pass like a blur and it’s only upon reflection about the little moments that made up each hour can the memories truly be enjoyed.
Photography is a passion in my own life’s history because I remember everything surrounding each photograph. We all do. The feelings, the smells, what was playing in the background. The hubbub of the moment is captured and we can see the funny interplay between family and friends.
Well .. I had this as a focus that I wanted to do and .. well .. Azzi surprised me during the scheduled spring daffies shoot by bringing her gorgeous wedding dress and asking for a few photos in it to share on her portfolio.
So here is to being surprised, panicking a little in the thought ‘I hope I can pull it off and do honour to this dress and going on location to shoot in the golden magic hour of the day, the last hour before sunset. This is why the shadows are deliciously long on the ground.
[click to read more …]
This weekend I had another shoot with the fantastic London model: Azzi, who I’ve blogged about previously.
Azzi brought her Wedding Dress that she has back from Sydney and was desperate to shoot! I enjoy our more spontaneous shoot where we text each other and say, what are you doing tomorrow? Well it turns out we shot a mini wedding dress session that I didn’t even know about until she walked in my door .. talk about a nice suprise and treat :) I opted to do the quick wedding shoot (20 minutes) on location just a few streets away from my location. There is a gorgeous blossom tree in full bloom and it was the infamous ‘golden hour’, which is the last hour before sunset. The sunlight throws longer shadows, is a warmer golden and softer in intensity .. though its still pretty darn bright!
It seems to be a wedding year for me as two of my cousins are getting married and while I’m not their primary photographer (they’ve both opted to have friends and family shoot and not a pro photographer) so I’m stepping up and trying my hands at doing more of a reportage style of wedding photos. I’ve thought about focusing on doing gay and lesbian weddings, as these are close to my heart, but .. that’s another story for another day.
I’ve had a wonderfully packed weekend with a photoshoot, night out with friends and then another friend staying a different night while she traversed London on her way to another part of the country. So I’ve another set of photos to preview here that I took of my friend for a practise session .. just because we can and I love taking photos and working with different people, my friends included.
Bring on the sneak peek photo from the wedding shoot I did with Azzi Kalili.
Two cool togs were meeting up in London and wanted to do a big photography networking event. One was the incredibly popular Lara Jade @larajade_ and the other is the very cool Felix Kunze @felixkunze . They have launched a new photography networking event for London called @inspiremeetups .
Here’s the story of what happened that afternoon. Just after lunch time I had already rushed around at work to finished up in order to leave by 1pm so that I could get on the bus to Marble Arch. 45 minutes later I arrived and started walking towards the Hyde Park Corner secton of the HUGE park. Even though I was later, by almost 2 hours, the planned 12pm meet up time .. I took a few shots along the way.
On arriving at the designated corner of the park I tweeted out “where are you?” or some such to the twitter verse as I couldn’t see an obvious photography crowd .. and believe me we are obvious!! In the 15 minutes it took for Felix to see and reply [click to read more …]
