Live Demos at The Photography Show with Bowens

I'm back and looking forward to it. This year I will be on the stage with my fellow members of TeamBowens where I will be demonstrating live with the new Bowens XMT battery powered lights. I am loving using this new kit and can't wait to show how simple they are to use. Battery powered is definitely the way to go. No more cables!

Anyway, I digress. For one of my demonstrations I will be showing how I light the majority of my portraits using just 2 lights in a wonderfully simple setup that anyone can do. I'll be using 2 large softboxes to create some lovely soft light portraits and I'm thrilled to say I'll have my daughter on stage with me as my subject. For those who know me you may remember that she hasn't been the most co-operative subject over the years.

However, that all seemed to change in January when I asked her to let me test out the new lights with her. Once I allowed her to offer posing suggestions and we started working as a team collaborating on ideas something seemed to click into place. She's now a much more willing subject. Of course being paid has something to do with that I'm sure. Its amazing how much money it takes to keep up with the clothes and makeup requirements of a 13 year old.

For the second demonstration I will be using my daughter's dancing skills to create an artistic dance piece. I will again be using the same lights however instead of 2 we will begin with 1, working our way up to possibly as many as 4 lights and in a very different way to my usual portrait lighting setup.

Now some of you will be thinking that dance photography isn't of interest to you so I'd just like to mention that the lighting I will be demonstrating has further applications. This same sort of lighting I have used in family portraits, maternity portraits (see below) and one of my favourite applications, the fine art male nude (I'm not going to include any here in case it offends anyone).

(This is an example of how this same lighting technique has been used for other applications)

Besides my demonstrations there will be loads others from the rest of the team that will surely inspire and educate. I have plans myself to stick around and watch some of the others as I always find something to learn in watching the other demonstrations. We all do different things and often use the lights in very different ways.

Click here to see the timetable for this years Bowens stage.

Comments

Zoe returns, this time with baby!!!

This was a great opportunity for me to experiment in my new studio. Zoe let me do this with her baby bump a couple of months ago with great success so we took the time again, this time with her new baby. Some experiments were successful and some where not. But that comes with the territory. You can't find new and exciting ways to shoot without finding a few bad ways too. I'm just greatful that the only mess we needed to clean up in the end was a little wee. It could have been a whole lot worse.
As usual, Zoe photographs so well and I am again so pleased with the results. She is going to have some great images to show her daughter when she grows up. Zoe looks absolutely fantastic, and without any signs of having been pregnant just a few short weeks ago. Of course, apart from her bump she hardly showed any signs of even being pregnant. If only all women could be this lucky.

I had forgotten how easy it is to photograph newborns. They can't run or crawl away. Th…

Never Work With Children or Animals

Or so the saying goes. But I have to say that working with dogs has been so lovely. They have been almost entirely a dream to work with. I say almost entirely because we have had a few moments where a dog has needed to settle. And one moment where the dog had settled but one of my cats decided to have a look through the glass door which, as you can imagine, rather quickly unsettled the dog. Still, that didn't stop us from creating incredible work.

In fact it was during that shoot with the cat instance when I created two of my favourite pieces, shown below.

(It was while sitting on the couch here when he noticed the cat peering through the curtain)
I don't know if I've just been lucky or all dogs are just easy to work with. I photographed a french bull dog puppy and I thought that would be tough as he hadn't had time to be properly trained yet. But he did everything we wanted in no time at all. And this included the props we used here (below), which to me seemed somewha…

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Meet Leo. Leo is 15 and currently going through an epic transformation that has momentarily turned the lives of himself and those around him upside down. A mum who once had the daughter she always longed for is now coping with the realisation that she will be living the rest of her life with a son instead. When your child is born you have certain expectations of the typical life they will lead but most of us know and accept that it won't necessarily end up the way we imagine. Not every person wants to marry, have kids or be involved with the opposite sex. Most of us have come to accept this and can adjust to whatever comes our way relatively easily. But few of us have expected to have to deal with a change in sex. Its not that we've hoped it won't happen, but just that it never occurred to us that it might. This is a new adjustment that we as a society are being presented with today, just like so many others that have come before.

When I first heard that Phoebe was transi…

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Seeing as this family is actually made up now of two families we also did portraits in their respective groups which I chose to do in different style to their main group. I love adding a bit of style for the overall main group and what you see above is something that is proving popular with my clients. I love adding props and giving a sort of Vanity F…

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I honestly love photographing dogs. They are a joy to work with and its almost impossible to produce a bad portrait of a dog which does of course make my life a little easier. I am someone who really needs to love the work I create. I can't help but love the portraits I've created of all the dogs I've photographed over the years. And this shoot was certainly no exception.

I found it a real pleasure using a lighter background this time too. I do often gravitate towards darker looks but seeing as this dog had a light coloured coat I thought I'd produce lighter images. This gave me the chance to use a canvas I painted a couple of years ago but never really used and I absolutely love it now. I don…

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