Nice to see my recent photoshoot with Emma Nicole featured in this months issue of TillLate Magazine.

Available to look at online at: www.tilllatemagazine.com

In an attempt to do go in a different direction to a lot of my work, I decided to arrange a shoot with a guy and also look at a more urban environment compared to the natural surroundings that I normally find myself in when working out on location. These are just a few shots from a very quick shoot I did just a couple of weeks ago with my mate Bal, who was more than happy to help out.

After taking a lot of inspiration from various other photographers that I follow on flickr, I also decided to have a go at some levitation photography (a couple of these are below). Even though I decided to keep it as simple as possible, this was much trickier than I first thought it would be.
Despite that, I’m pretty happy with the results and I actually enjoyed the challenge. Over the last couple of years, I’ve become so used to walking around with my camera and shooting as I like. This was completely different with a lot more preparation required, as I had to use a tripod to achieve the results that I was looking for. Definitely something I will try again in the future though.

This set was shot a couple of weeks ago in the lovely surroundings of Bawtry at the Crown Hotel. The model was Sheffield based Natalie Kate and it was a good job she turned up with a bag full of her own clothes. The clothes which were originally picked out to style the shoot hadn’t arrived on time, which is never a good way to get things started. We were lucky enough to have a great hair & make-up team consisting of Samantha Lyann and Shahena Newton who managed to persevere despite the lack of air-con in what was a hot sticky environment to shoot in.

The shots actually are nothing like what I had planned. I was originally going for something much more cinematic with more natural light, but the reality was that the window in the room was very small, resulting in a very dark room. Despite that, I’m pretty happy with the results. I’m the first one to admit that some shots work better than others but as a set I think they work pretty well, the exception being the portrait shot which doesn’t really fit with the rest (but I liked it all the same).

Model: Natalie Kate
Make-Up Artist: Shahena Newton
Hair Stylist: Samantha Lyann
Photography: Ched53

Shooting with Emma is pretty much becoming an annual thing now. Since we last worked together, I’ve invested a lot of money into new kit so this was an ideal opportunity to do something that is completely different to any of the stuff that we’ve done in the past.

The last time we shot, one of the images went on to win a couple of different awards, so it was a big ask to make this shoot as successful as the last. I’d recently purchased myself a brand new beauty dish and hadn’t had chance to use it, so Emma was to be my ‘guinea pig’. To work along side these images, I also thought it would be nice to have some warm ambient light shots, just to add a little contrast.

To say that this is my first time using some of this equipment, I’m more than happy with the results. Reaction to these so far has been great. I think it definitely works working with someone you’re familiar with when trying out something new. Emma is a brilliant model to work with because she doesn’t need a great deal of direction and it allowed me to focus on the technical side of things and make sure that I was getting it right.

I’ve just finished putting the finishing touches to my video for the Yaelle Spring Summer 2012 collection. I shot this back in the spring of last year when I flew out to the South of France to work with Yaelle on a little behind the scenes video for her new range of silk scarfs. As I was out there for a couple of days and in such beautiful surroundings, we’d already decided prior to my arrival that it would be a shame just to go all that way and only work on one project. With the glitz and glamour of Monaco only a short trip down the road from where we were all staying, it was a perfect opportunity to try and put something together that would be more of a feature.

Our models for the day were Ellie Hallsworth (who’d featured in my very first video for Yaelle as well as the BTS video) and french model, Floriane Falcou. Working in the centre of Monaco was not without its challenges. Strangely, you are not aloud to use a tripod without a permit. Apparently this is because the use of a tripod suggests that you are doing something on a more professional (and commercial) level and permission needs to be granted by local authorities. We weren’t aware of this until we showed up, and it was hardly as if we were going to wait around to be given the green light.

Another huge issue was time. As we were on foot, we were having to cover quite a large distance through out the day and without a specific plan or storyboard it meant a lot of the day was spent searching for suitable spots to shoot. Hindsight tells me we should be much more organised in future. We had decided that we wanted to shoot 4 different scenes and in the end, one scene (the night shots) were actually done at the villa in Antibes the following day. One thing that I’m gutted about even now, is that we came ever so close to having a yacht to shoot on in the Monaco harbour. That would have been the icing on the cake for me, but even without that – it was such an amazing trip.

The collection was beautifully photographed by the very talented India Hobson. You can see her shots on her shiny new website here.

It’s amazing to see how Yaelle’s label has progressed in the short time that I’ve known her. In the last few months alone, she’s been featured in ELLE and Vogue. She was also asked to supply her scarfs in the goodie bags for the celebs at this years Brit Awards. I’m sure this won’t be the last time that we’ll work together and just like her label, I’m hopeful that our work with continue to get better and better.

Note: I really recommend you watch this in HD for better picture quality