Okay….(I can hardly type with excitement!)…in 48 hours I’ll be winging my way to New York City for my month long stay! So, I wanted to tell you what’s happening and where you can find me online.
First of all, this website. I will be posting New York photographs on this blog. You will also have the opportunity to buy prints of these photographs, thus owning an iconic image of New York and helping to support my trip too!
Big Apple Unpeeled. This is where I am going to be very active, bringing you news, stories, photographs and videos from New York. Pop over, it’ll be ace and I want you to get involved too!
4am Project. I hope you can all take part on the 17th October! I’ll be blogging over on the 4am Project website AND I’m organising a 4am photo walk in Times Square.
So my bags are packed, I’ve got a few dollars in my purse and some comfortable walking shoes. I’m all set!
This time in two weeks I’ll be flying over the Atlantic Ocean on my way to New York City. To say I’m excited about this is an understatement! Having the opportunity to photograph Manhattan’s icon cityscape will be a dream come true.
So in the run up to my New York adventure I thought I would share some images of my home town, Birmingham. I can feel that I am going to miss Birmingham and my friends already!
This is an uber busy period for me in preparation for my trip. It’s also 4am Project time again! I hope you can all take part where ever you are in the world on 17th October!
You can follow my New York city blog in the build up to my departure, and don’t forget to visit the 4am Project website too!
After a photo shoot yesterday, I got to wondering how other photographers plan their shoots, and I thought I’d tell you about one of the ways I plan mine.
I don’t use a studio. There are a few reasons behind my choice. Financially, I don’t want the overheads. If needs must, I can hire a studio, but I haven’t had call to do that. Creatively, I much prefer location shoots and the variety they bring.
Take yesterday’s photo shoot. The brief was for some portrait photographs of Adrian Shooter, chairman of Chiltern Railways. I had to take photographs of Adrian in different environments; in an office, at Snow Hill Station (we were meeting at Moor Street Station), on the train and on the platform and I had an hour to do this. No problem!
As is usual with my photography shoots, I was walking into pretty much an unknown environment. What would the office be like? How about the lighting? Would the station and the train be busy? How about Adrian, is he happy to be photographed (no worries there, he was lovely)?
I started drafting out some plans with plain old pen and paper, which you can see below. Don’t laugh! Admittedly they are very rudimentary, but they make sense to me! I try and think about possible lighting situations and what settings I will use on my camera, although often that changes when I turn up at the location. I make a plan of my ideas. When I’m in the middle of shooting, it can be easy to get carried away and it helps to pull out my piece of paper and have a glance.
Although my drawings are very basic, upon closer inspection there is quite a lot of detail. The arrows coming out of the stick figures head? The direction of eye line. How to position arms? Check. Angles? Check.
As you can see, there are quite a few sketches and notes ( if you can read my scribbles) in relation to the train journey. But, ah, the best laid plans!!
I had about 30 minutes with Adrian, who had to dash to catch his train. Chiltern trains stop every half an hour at Moor Street. Travelling to Snow hill would be no good (as Adrian pointed out) as the train would be packed with commuters at that hour, plus it was under a tunnel so in relation to capturing a scene of Adrian sitting at a table – it would just be black in the background. Ideally we would have travelled to Solihull and back.
Okay, 30 minutes it was then! Let’s get cracking. Here are a selection of photos. Oh, and for all but the first photo of Adrian, I was standing on a chair!
Adrian dashed for his train and so I had another 30 minutes or so left. A lovely lady from Chiltern asked if I would be able to take some shots of Moor Street itself, so I happily obliged.
How do you plan your shoots? I would love to hear! (I’m sure your drawings are MUCH better than mine )
Don’t forget to put the 4th April in your diary & tell your friends. Not long to go until the 4am Project’s 1st Birthday!
Admittedly they are very rudimentary, but they make sense to me! I try and think about possible lighting situations and what settings I will use on my camera, although often that changes when I turn up at the location. I make a plan of my ideas. When I’m in the middle of shooting, it can be easy to get carried away and it helps to pull out my piece of paper and have a glance.
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