Photographer Awards May 2012 – Avante Garde Band Photographer
Been awhile, almost a month I think, and I promise to start getting this blog up to date and posting more regularly again. Just been very, very busy this year, which is good but also leaves little time for updating the blog. I have some plans for posting some before and after blogs as I have had a lot of people asking to see the images before I edit them and I am happy to share that. Some images I don’t do a lot of editing (at least I don’t think I do), and some images are composite images made of multiple images put together. While that is all for another day, it does lead us nicely into the awards I received for the month of May as one of them was a multiple image composite.
In the professional photography competitions with the SWPP this image was Highly Commended in the Open Avante Garde category for May. I entered it into open because it isn’t very traditional by any means and I thought the “pose” would have marks against it in any of the more traditional categories. It was taken at one of my favourite spots in London’s brick lane area and is a spot I have used on numerous shoots (though you wouldn’t know, and that’s what I love about this spot…the variety). It features London based musician Ross Candy (full blog post coming sometime soon hopefully) and was one of the last shots we did on the day. The idea was to get an image of him kicking dirt, and Ross had been SO good at posing for me that I asked him to sort of strike a model post whilst kicking…and I think he nailed it! Why wasn’t it Gold? Well, I think some of it is the “pose”, and I think some might be just general untidyness in his jacket and tie….but, I really can’t think of other reasons as the lighting is spot on. Either way it’s one of my favourites from the day!
This image is one of the most advanced composites I have attempted. It consists of 9 different images, though it probably doesn’t look like it. Each band member was shot separately and then I used a panoramic shot of parliament I took as the base image, 2 different sky images put in, a full moon shot I took of the supermoon last year and then one layer of a lens flare. Then loads of editing skin and blemishes and adding some foggyness and so on and so on. Oh, this image is just one on a set I am doing for a rock opera about Frankenstein does by a host of London based musicians that I was really pleased to be the photographer for. Why wasn’t this image a Gold? Well, when you are dealing with so many elements in an image things get a bit tight and I think it’s my arrangement of the musicians that is probably that one little thing that let it down. It was hard to arrange them in a way that led the eye whilst not blocking certain aspects….and I think I probably could have spent a little more time tweaking this. But again, I am happy with this as it was up to this point, the most complex composite image I have attempted as a band photographer.
One more image of London based musician Ross Candy…I have loads of good images from this shoot! You probably already now recognise the location in Shoreditch London and for this shot we wanted to get a GQ sort of fashion look for the image, but also try to capture the desolateness of the location and make you think there is no way this was shot in the middle of London. And I think we nailed that. Everyone that has seen this is shocked that it is shot in London, but I assure you this is and it’s only 10 minutes away from Liverpool Street station…so we are not out on the outskirts here! This one for me is a lot easier to see why it wasn’t gold. There is some slight cross lighting on his face from my key light and one of my rim lights. That, and the pose isn’t terribly flattering…I like the pose, but I could have done better and I know that.
So there are my three awards for professional photography for the month of May. No gold, but three Highly Commended awards isn’t bad going really. Next month all golds!! :D
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