Turning the ordinary into the extraordinary
If like me you are a photographer, you probably explore your home town looking for locations which offer something special for creative photography. My hometown Milton Keynes, 40 miles north of London, is not many peoples idea of a photographers paradise, but there is more to it than concrete cows and roundabouts, Milton Keynes has rewarded me with some great locations for my clients over the years. To find an urban location for creative photography is tough, particularly if there are young children in the shoot, as it has to be safe, and close to a car park and loos. Things are made even more difficult in Milton Keynes, as most of the city centre land is privately owned, so there is always a 'friendly' security man ready to move you on if you have not sought permission in advance. To combat this I have had to adapt the way I approach an outdoor portrait shoot, and that is to change my mindset from where is the best location, to where is the best light. Clients are intrigued when you suggest that the shoot is going to be in front of their garage door, or in a drafty subway under a dual carriageway, but I ask them to trust me, and make their judgement after they see the photographs, fortunately they have all trusted me, and are always stunned when they see the results.
The running shot at Sainsburys
Sainsburys building in Central Milton Keynes has some really interesting textures in its construction, the walls are clad in a copper coloured ceramic tile, which reflects the colour of any incident light, the wall in the shot below faces due West, so the late afternoon summer sun bounces back into the face of my subject. A low perspective, an energetic model, just the right amount of breeze to float the viole fabric, and some tidying up in post production also help to finish off the drama.
Children love action shots, and Macy was very happy to keep running until we captured the right shapes in the voile and her body. This is also my website home page image
The subway shot
The subway under the H6 at Loughton Lakes is one of my favourite shoot locations, it goes under 4 lanes of a dual carriageway, so even in mid summer is very dark. I always use my Elinchrom Ranger RX pack to light these shots, as I want to under expose the ambient light by 2 fstops to add atmosphere, and with the flash 30 feet from the subject you need a serious amount of power to achieve the look I want. Photographers with a standard strobe flash can still achieve something similar by cranking up the power to max, and zooming the flash to 105mm, and you will need to trigger the flash off camera, either by infrared or wirelessly. The final secret to these shots is to have the flash very high, in this case an Arri cine stand enabled me to get the flash 15 feet off the ground to maintain the correct 'above head' level for the main light source.
Tech spec: 1/160thsec@f16, ISO100, Canon 70-200mm 2.8L IS@170mm, Canon 5D MK2, Elinchrom Ranger RX AS Speed, Elinchrom Sykport radio trigger
The coloured background shot for a high impact studio look outdoors
Now this was fun for the family, they thought I was crazy to take them into a draughty underground car park to get some portraits of their 3 boys, Aaron, Daniel and Tom, but the results below impressed enough for them to order several prints. To achieve this colour effect on the background you need 2 off camera flash sources, one for the key light on the subject, preferably zoomed in to maximum to avoid spill on the background, and the other flash gelled with a Lee gel filter with the colour of your choice. This works best if the background, in this case steel grey, is a neutral colour, and the subject and the background have very little ambient light, by placing your subject in the gloom, the flash/es become the dominant light source, thereby creating the impact seen below.
Tech spec: Canon 5D MK2, Canon 70-200mm 2.8L IS @100mm, Two Canon 580EX11 flash guns, triggered by a Canon ST-E2 infrared transmitter, 1/160th sec@f5 ISO 400, Lee Gel filter
The under bridge shot
Bridges are a magnet to me, especially ones by water. The reason for shooting under a bridge is that you only get light coming in horizontally to the subject, just like in a studio, so the eyes can be lit beautifully, as can be seen in the photos of Tom below. The technique is similar to the subway and coloured gel shots, but because the bridge is small incomparison we can use the ambient light for the subject, and for effect a coloured gel over a background flash to add colour to the background. The first shot has a blue gelled Canon 580EX11 triggered with a Canon ST-E2 on TTL placed behind the subject and directed towards the brickwork, the light on Toms face is daylight, but relatively it looks like tungsten light, becuase of the difference between daylight colour temperature and the gelled background flash. The second shot is all ambient light.
I have used the road bridge that goes over the Grand Union Canal at the converted rail works at Wolverton to great effect. This bridge has lots of character because it is made of brick and dates back to Victorian times , when Wolverton was a busy town building railway carriages for Royalty and the great rail companies of Britain.
This was on the same family location shoot with Aaron, Daniel and Tom, and was just 100 yards from the modern apartment blocks where we did the coloured gel shoot.
TechSpec: Canon 5D MK2, Canon 70-200mm 2.8L IS @100mm, Canon 580EX11, Lee Gel filter over background flash, 1/320th sec@f4.5, ISO 200
The night shot
It was Christmas and we were on our way to photograph the beautiful Clare and the Christmas lights at the Hub in Central Milton Keynes, but on the way I noticed a blue and purple glow coming from the doorway of the Jaipur Restaurant.
Clare was wearing a red silk mini dress, purple tights, and deep red suede shoes, so we were in for a great colour feast.
I prefer to ask permission to photograph a private building but the staff were obviously busy and I decided that I could get the shot I wanted without leaving the public footpath.
I exposed for the twinkling lights, and as Clare was standing in the darkness, lit her from camera right with a zoomed in Canon 580EXII, triggered with an ST-E2 and mounted on an Arri cine stand with a Lovegrove flash bracket.
It was freezing and Clare had bare arms so I had to be quick, Auto Focus was not possible as she was in the dark, and I forgot to bring a torch, so with manual focus and checking the camera monitor for sharpness I think the results were not bad.
Tech spec: 1/50th sec@f5.0, ISO 800, Canon 5D MK2, Canon 24-70mm 2.8L@46mm, Canon 580EXII, Canon ST-E2, Lovegrove flash bracket, Arri Cine stand.
Night shot at the Hub
The Hub is a contemporary fine dining destination in Milton Keynes, with 16 restaurants, two hotels Jurys Inn and the Ramada Encore, shops and offices, and a central square which is lit with neon and spot lights at night, the square also has water fountains recessed into the ground, which spurt high columns of water every few seconds, a great combination for a colourful enviromental night portrait.
On ths occasion Alannah and Tom wanted some photographs to celebrate their new relationship, and after we had produced the romantic shots, they agreed to help me with a wow shot at the hub. My friend Carolyn Jardine of Jardine Mickelson PR looks after the PR for the Hub, so she very kindly cleared it for me to shoot at the location. I could not use any tripods or stands for safety reasons, so I enlisted the help of an assistant to hold the remote flash I wanted to use to create the look.
The whole process was really tricky, as I wanted to shoot through the spouts of water, which meant a distant view point and a long lens, but with the distance and the noise of the fountains, communication wit the subjects was nearly impossible. Preferably the camera should have been on a tripod, I could then have fired it remotely, enabling me to be closer to the subjects and instruct them on posing and posture. Either way they make a beautiful couple and they were really pleased with the results, cant wait for the booking to photograph their wedding.
The second shot here, also at the Hub, but by The Living Room, recent hosts to the Kaiser Chiefs, was created using a remotely fired flash on TTL, hand held high up and to camera left, with the camera at a low viewpoint, the ugly dual carriageway was out of sight, leaving me to concentre the viewers attention on the sky and the subjects.
The exposure was set for the evening sky so that the colours were retained, it was amazing as the sky changed colour every 30 seconds
Tech spec of first shot by fountain: 1/60th sec@f2.8, ISO 800, Canon 5D MK2, Canon 70-200mm 2.8L IS @ 115mm, Canon 580 EXII, triggered with Canon ST-E2, Tech spec of sunset shot 1/160th sec@f5 ISO 640
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