One of Monica Brant’s all time favourite photos

To be told that your photo is a one of someones all time favourites is always a good thing to hear.  When it's from one of the biggest names in womens fitness, someone who has had 10,000's of pictures of her taken, and hundreds published is, at least to me, a pretty big deal.

The photo of Monica Brant was taken in Las Vegas during the Olympia 2010 weekend.  It wasn't taken as part of a photoshoot, just a quick snap as Monica was having her make up touched up before her shoot with Marc Thyssen for the cover of Planet Muscle magazine.

Part of the job description of being a fitness model means that it's your physique that is normally in the spotlight, and photographers aren't normally taking headshots of you.  I think it's one of Monica's favourites because it's different from the norm.

Thank you Monica Brant for sending me a signed copy of the photo.  I hope some day we get to do a shoot for real.

Note:  Please excuse the poor quality photo of the print.  It's just a quick snap taken with my Blackberry.

I didn't break the baby

At the end of my portrait photoshoot with Sarah she asked if I'd mind taking a few photos of her with her 10-week old baby.  There was just enough winters light coming through her kitchen window so I snapped a few photographs.  This is my favourite.

Image information:  Canon 40D, 50mm f1.4, 1600 ISO, 1/90sec, f2.0.  Shot in RAW, edited in Bibble 4.

Just to prove to everyone that I am baby friendly and don't often break them, here is a snap that Sarah took of me.  I think it was the first time I've held a baby so young and tiny, so I was rather worried that I would break him.  To get his own back, he later poo'ed himself while sat on my lap.  After which I promptly gave him back to mother!

And yes, before anyone says it, I am aware that the baby has more hair than me!

Fun business portraits

So my client today, we'll call her Sue, hates having her picture taken.  To get a picture she liked and would use was going to be a bit of a challenge.  We chose "nagging" because thats how she describes herself to her clients - she nags them (in a positive way) to get stuff done.

Who says business portraits need to be stuffy and formal.   The important thing is to be remembered, and hopefully this photo of Sue will be hard to forget.

You can follow Sue on Twitter - www.twitter.com/suepell

Note to self, next time clean the fingerprints off the blackboard.

Family Portrait

I don't shoot many family portraits, but this is my favourite image from a shoot I did last year in the New Forest.  My clients liked the actual photos from the shoot more but this one captures things perfectly for me.

He's behind you… a photoshoot with Sam Bond

It was the first work day after Christmas, the rain was chucking it down, and I had a headshot photoshoot to do.  My subject was former SKY TV Gladiator Atlas, and current Southampton Mayflower Theatre panto (Santa Claus and the Return of Jack Frost) star playing evil henchman 'Thaw the Glaciator', Sam Bond.

It was the first time in years I'd been inside the Mayflower Theatre, as well as my first photoshoot there.  I love having access to buildings and places that you normally you can't get into.

I'd decided before leaving home that I was going to shoot with natural / available lighting.  I was travelling light, with just my Canon 5d mark ii, and Canon 70-200 f2.8 lens.  Lighting in the auditorium was about as bad as bad can get.  The seats were lit by several lights high up on the ceiling some 30 metres away.  It was the daylight equivalent to shooting under the midday sun.

This was the second time I've had the pleasure of working with Sam, the first being on a lovely summers afternoon at Portland Bill, Dorset.  Then we were working with wonderful sunlight, a reflector and a stunning location.

Sam knows what he wants, he knows his angles and what works best for him.  This I like because it helps the whole process as it becomes more of a collaboration between photographer and subject.

If you have great lighting and an experienced subject then normally you'll end up with lots of images to select from.  Poor lighting and an inexperienced model and the numbers go down drastically.  Today we had poor lighting but an experienced model, so we were somewhere in the middle.