Catch Up - Halloween 2011

Oo, it's been so long since I have chance to edit any of my photos that I'm thinking I might even post a few up 'un-edited' just to play catch up!

I'm hoping that this next year will see me set aside some dedicated time to get a bit more practice in as i'm missing being out on location snapping lovely people.

Bit of fun first - Halloween '11. Not many decent photos were taken due to lack of correct lens and not wanting to use the flash...

(some lovely friends of ours)

1st portrait shoot - pin up/burlesque

I desperately wanted to try and find some burlesque style models to practice my portrait shots with, so contacted a local alternative modelling agency. I thought that if I could learn to take some good poses then I can use that with some of the masks that I design in the same sort of theme.

With all these of "Scarla Starr", I used all natural light with no camera flash as I hadn't, at that point, bought my solaflash lights. I think I learned a fair bit whilst editing the shots i.e. that make-up colour can make a difference to editing the skin tone and props should definately be handing for getting a variety of looks.

I hope you like them...

Playing with Fire

A warm evening fire and drinks with friends, provoked a sudden urge to play with the hot stuff. Luckily, I wasn't that one that had to do it! This is the first time I have managed to use my camera in the dark. Some shots were a bit blurry (very blurry actually) but there were a couple that I thought looked nice.
(unedited)

 Bit of orange glow from the fire - before I learnt to change the colour balance

 Not as in focus as I would have liked, but a fairly spooky pic

 'Stomp' (those flames out with Ugs. Hummm...')

The 'Snook' herself

Lovely lovely Snooky of the Patricia Kind. My fellow photographer volunteered as model once again and undertook a series of shots for me that were both scary (situation wise) and yucky (scummy water with lots of junk floating around). So, watch this space for a series of shots with a taster for you here...

Georgie Georgie, pretty as pie

This is part of the same shoot weekend (with more to come!) and we had fun in a local forest, getting Georgie to pose admist trees and thorns and local walkers.

And a shot in the studio......(my first indoor one)

Charlotte

After a last minute decision to try and do a bit of shoot, we 'borrowed' Charlotte for the day who had previously modelled some masks for me for the RAF charity show. On a limited timescale, we ushered the poor girl into whatever clothes we had lying around and with no make-up or hair stylist around did a quick shoot in my tiny garden.
The main aim was to get a few shots of the new Venetian Metal filigree masks that had just arrived from Venice.

Family Christening

Bit of wedding photography

I love being able to get behind the scenes at weddings as a guest. The most fascinating people to take - not being offensive to the Bride & Groom of course, are the children. They are oblivious to having to pose and not having to put on their best face.

Garden Shoot with the Snooks

One lovely evening, I popped over for a little drink to see my friends, The Snooks. We had missed the barby, but instead got to play with our cameras and had my first introduction to 'the smoke bomb'. Brilliant addition to any outside photography session!

1st masquerade photoshoot in woods

Ok, so this shoot was done with the intention of taking some good mask shots for my new gallery section. I just used a 60mm macro lens on my Canon EOS 550D camera with no extra lighting or filters. These images haven't been edited in anyway so are exactly how I took them.

The lovely model you see is my photography friend's younger sister - who is tall, lithe and gets dragged into model whenever we need her.

Ok, so now the ones without the masks.