Phase One master class with Drew in California!

I have just finished a mini tour of Scandinavia with Phase One, Showcasing the P40 and the P65+ Backs along with a sneak preview of their new Camera, complete with its in lens shutters and a highly responsive shutter release.

Now it was fun, and I will be sharing some of the pics we shot there soon, but as with all day long workshops they are over all too soon.

I often have thought how great it would be to let people into my world, in a small and select way, using the equipment I use on a daily basis, both cameras and lighting, not to mention a download of my crazy mind!

Photographing a range of subjects in a beautiful location....showing fellow photographers exactly how I create my 'Forest' series and recreating similar shots



The good news this is no longer a mere thought but a reality

This year on 25-30th October I will be at the Phase One Master class held at Paso Robles Workshop

In addition to Phase One technique, the workshop will cover lighting on location and production planning for field shoots. Students will work in 3-person teams for the first half of the week. On Thursday, the class will work together on the production of a Drew-sized location shoot in the oak forest surrounding Paso Robles, in the heart of California's wine land


All this and supported by Phase One with one of their technicians in attendance along with 5 Phase One P45+ cameras for the class to use


I'm looking forward to what will be an outstanding and memorable workshop

How to get the most from your Optical slave- OUTDOORS!

When I was 'breaking out' of photojournalism, what i knew about lighting could be written on the back of a very small postage stamp.

Yes, I had read a few bits and pieces but they did not quite hit the spot, I just did not grasp it

My good friend Dave Beck had just joined the Flash Centre in London and I started to visit him and his colleagues and to be honest that is where my learning began in earnest

Now, photographers in the pre internet days were VERY secretive to say the very least, and to hang out in one of the main hire centers in London to see what was the most hired equipment for what kind of job was an eye opener

We live in an age where knowledgeable retailers are a threatened species, where people shop on line to save a few quid.

Money is saved but who do you call for vital advise when things don't go to plan

I was shooting some time lapse photography with a Pocket Wizard Multi Max in North Yorkshire and I just could not quite work it out. I could have resorted to the manual (heaven forbid!) but I had lost that years ago...

One phone call to Alex Ray at the Flash Centre and he talked me through it for 10 mins until I had sorted the issue.

Try that with your box shifter types......

These guys know some great 'Sweet cheats'

Tricks which help you save your skin when you have really messed up

Some years ago when I was shooting the 'Guinness World Record' series I had travelled down to deepest Devon along with the long suffering Clare (who is now my producer) to photograph Anne Atkin who has the Worlds biggest collection of Gnomes

Now Devon is a long way from the Midlands where I lived at the time, and seems even further away when you have 6 lights to trigger outdoors and have only 1 hard wired sync cable.

Yes folks, I had left all the Pocket Wizards 300 miles away

I was in quite a pickle in deepest Devon

Optical slaves work by detecting the flash from another unit and triggering the unit wirelessly, all well and good but there was so much ambient light they were not detecting the 'trigger' flash

We were lighting such a large area that the shoot was in doubt, not helped by a colony of crows messing on us.....oh the misery....the tears...

So how did I get the shot?

I spoke to Sav at the Flash centre and told him my plight...

'Oh have you tried covering the optical slave receptors with something like cardboard or gaffer tape?'


Here is the optical slave uncovered



And with Sav's gaffer tape modification



By doing this the slave only 'sees' the flash and not the ambient light

Go try it yourself

Now, there is no way I could have got the shot without Sav's help that day

This is not meant to be an 'ad' for the 'Flash Centre'

What I'm advocating is forming relationships with your knowledgeable dealer, no matter who it is, you support them and they will support you

Descendants- An Appeal for HELP from you guys.....

Those who follow my blog will know all about The Descendants'

Well I'm trying to get a TV company to make the a program or even a series about it

Believe me I have THE most exciting subjects in the pipeline

As they say its not what you know but who you know

So does anyone have any links to a TV station anywhere on planet earth who might be interested in making this with me?

Perhaps the 'History Channel' even?

If you could help me I would be VERY grateful and the finder would be most welcome on one of the descendants shoots...

Over to you

Maine Media Workshops '09

The Maine media Workshops, set in the picturesque town of Rockport, have always been very kind to me, providing nourishment to my creativity, while sharing my knowledge and experience with my class.

This was a vintage year indeed however, very special to me

The idea was to to split my class of nine willing and eager students into three groups of three and over the course of the week work on an epic photo of their own, under my watchful eye, advising them on lighting and production of the shot.

The results were outstanding

Have a look at the Facebook page the class created

Keep your eye out for for more updates as the class post them

Of course as tutor I can have no favorites, but I do love this shot by Claire Folger



A composite, following THE golden rule of the locked down tripod which I have covered in previous posts

It was put together by the talented and all round great bloke Andy Bloxham

We rounded the week off with a grand soot of girls in bikinis with a herd of goats (see top) and my good friend Jonathan Zuck shot a short silly video of the proceedings



And if it looks like we had a ball, we did!

Come and join me next year to join in the fun or check out the other classes there in 2010?

The Funnel

Odd name for a blog posting but let me explain..............

A little while ago I shot a series of historical re-enactments of the life of Queen Elizabeth the first

We shot this in Penshurst Place

It seems like a dream assignment, indeed it was in many ways apart from one, yes you guessed it-budget!

By the time we had paid for all the locations, costume ,props, and crew we had not very much money left for talent

So, how does one make nine actors and a sparsely filled table seem like a full on Elizabethan banquet?

The Funnel

I first heard of it in relation to a critically acclaimed BBC docudrama called 'Culloden' by Peter Watkins made in 1964

Peter Watkins was faced with the same problem

Not enough talent and a HUGE area to fill

It simply means putting more talent at the front and filling in the gaps with talent progressively further off in the background



I used the same technique for my shoot




I used Elinchrom Rangers, with the main light in a Chimera Large Softbox on a Redwing boom(the Flash centre have one going second hand here!)

Shot on a Canon 1ds 28mm lens 1.3 sec at F14, a long exposure to pick the candles up, so VERY little ambient in the room which meant movement was not an issue

Note also that by shooting diagonally across the table I'm making it seem like there is much more food on it than there actually is.

All a case of making less seem like more

Something I have made a career out of...................

Total Recall...Not quite

I love Canon cameras, they have been my DSLR of choice, and before that I bought my first 'proper' camera , a Canon A1 with my paper round money in 1980.

I use the stunning 5d Mk2 at the moment, a camera I LOVE

As followers of this blog will know, I'm an advocate of good prime lenses, but sometimes a zoom just hits the spot

My 'standard' zoom lens is the Canon 24/105mm F4 'L' Series, a good all rounder

Particularly useful for this type of classic slow shutter speed zoom

3.2sec at F16 on a tripod of course and then zooming slowly in.

Perfect for a simple dynamic shot which the client loved

But this shot has been enhanced by a quirk of a lens defect

Check out this weird striped flare from the headlamp



Early Canon 24/105 lenses were afflicted by a strange type of flare which only occurs under a certain type of light

In fact Canon issued a 'Lens flare advisor note'


If you sent your lens to Canon they would fix it for you, free of charge

Needless to say, I like the unique effect and have chosen NOT to send it back

I'm just aware of it and choose when to exploit this quirk

vive la différence!

Insight into the industry.

I'm fascinated by the shifting sands of the photographic industry

I came across this great piece by Michele McNally, assistant managing editor of the 'New York Times'

If you want to know where we are going and just a little bit more about where we have come from, do read it

I have learned a lot and it has sparked some interesting and lively debate.