Gu Photography Blog

I recently shot Janice Graham the band in collaboration with Manchester Music. It was a blast to blasting light into the sun for an hour or so, before resorting back to the shade.

An hour may seem rather generous to some, but I always try to offer a few variations for the editor, so they will always have a choice.

While I scouted for “clean” background in a messy back yard, my assistant Duncan offloaded all the lights and camera (yet some say men can’t multitasking?).

Now the technical stuff for the geek who reads my blog (assuming there are 2 readers, 1 of which must be a geek). My primary light source were 2x Elinchrom ranger pack, one with beauty dish, the other on a westcott apollo softbox, plus the setting sun. I used a bunch of pocket wizards so I can trigger the different set ups within ease, time is money. I know this is light weight compared to some but considering we rolled up in a fiesta, the amount of gear we packed is quite impressive

The shoot smooth sailed, these lads were up for anything, including sitting right next to a fire, launching into the air and diving for flaming hot sausages!

After bagged the two variations, I turned off the strobe, ready to wrap up, then I saw some rich green foliage along the garden path. I couldn’t resist to let go of the shot, swapped 135mm with a 50mm, and quickly grabbed everyone for some singles in between their “sausage butty feasting”.

Note to myself: next time shooting a teenage rock band, bring a makeup artist … cleaning spots off their faces took me forever!

Now allow me to proudly introduce: Janice Graham the band (in no particular order), you can read the interview feature here.

It has been quite a while since I spent a week in Leicester, working alongside the Special Olympic Games for my personal portrait project.

During which time, I have befriended with a wonderful group of talented and hard working guys. On the last day of the week-long games, I was thrilled when I was asked by Gurdeep, who was in charge of the media team, to do a group portrait of volunteer photographers and film crew.

The closing ceremony was held in Abbey Park, a rather big area with lots of “green” in sight. My first thought was a hill, to elevate my subjects and give them almost heroic statue. But the park was almost flat, and hills were hidden inside the woods, it was impossible to include the sky, which I wanted for extra drama to add to the frame. Since “flatness” is abundant, it would be silly not to use it.

Given the windy weather and increasing number of spectators showing up in the background, I ditched the idea of using any light modifier and opted for the hard light (can’t afford sand bags yet …).

One Elinchrom camera left, high up in the air, angled down for the main light with a reflector to control spill; another Elinchrom was set up as backlight, bare bulb to maximise the spread. Both were powered up pretty much to the max so I can underexpose the sky a little.

Those guys were so easy to work with and everyone was great at posing, needless to say, I had a great ten minutes of fun to bag this shot. Click on the image to see a large version.

special olympic games media team