MAC Cosmetics Beauty Shoot

How do make up artists become MAC Make up artists?  They train and train and train.

Last week I shot one of MAC Cosmetics training days. Thirty eight artists gathered at the St Martins Lane Hotel in London and were put through their paces by MACS Creative Team.

A theme was chosen in this case 'Countries of the World' and the artists were split into teams of 4 or 5. They got to rummage through a table of fabrics and accessories and tables piled high with MAC products. Elbows were sharpened and the stop watch was set.

Two hours later each team had come up with a look, done the make up, dressed and styled their model and were ready to shoot.

I had 3 minutes with each model taking direction from the teams about how they wanted their look captured.

I loved this quick turn around. Eight models, eight looks, eight shoots all in under 40 minutes. We needed one image from each shoot and here are my four favourites.

As ever we could have done more if we had more time but the point of training is to learn to work under pressure, at speed and still get the right results.

This was a really fun job.

Notting Hill Wedding

The more weddings I shoot the more I realise that its not necessarily the big moments that make the day special. Often its the smaller, sometimes unseen gestures or moments where the story truly lies.

A hand on the shoulder, a glance across a room or a look from father to son. These fleeting moments tell a story that can be overlooked or overtaken by the days bigger events.

For me, one of the most rewarding parts of my job is getting close to my clients and being able to witness these things happen through my camera.

Creating portraits, organising groups are all essentials which I enjoy but these other moments captured slowly and carefully throughout our time together become the heart of the wedding.

And it is these images that keep me coming back to weddings each year.

Group shots..

In every meeting I have with clients I am always asked slightly apprehensively about what we can do about 'Group Shots'. People seem to dread them. But as with most things a little bit of creativity, the right setting and the right time can all make the experience a fun one. And of course the thing is to get some good images from it. With this blog it would be easy to put up the very best of what I do each week but sometimes I think it is better to answer the question that seems to be asked most often.

So here are some images from Alice and Elliots wedding shot last weekend at Sunbeam Studios in London.  London weddings are great and make for interesting pictures a world away from the country churches and stately homes I am often shooting in.

Ok , so you may say it helps having a studio to shoot in but these were not lit differently from any other situation whether indoors, outdoors, country or city.

And as you can see there were tables, trees, cables everywhere and a wedding going on all around us.

I love the fact that all the guys, as ever, told me they were not at ease being photographed. Until they get together and the shutter starts clicking that is..

None of the models were posed or harmed in the making of these images.

Clara Getting Ready

I really love shooting brides getting ready. Whether its at home or a hotel or in this case at Mums house, there are always great images to be got. Clara, her sisters and everyone else who packed in to the house, provided a really fun atmosphere to work in. We even ended up shooting Clara in her fabulous dress in her mum's allotment over the road. Great fun and a really special way to start off the day.

Here is my favourite image from Vogue's Shopping Night Out in Bond St recently. The whole of New Bond St was pedestrianized for an evening of shopping and fashion presentations..and champagne!

London Fashion Week S/S 12

After a busy summer shooting, I finally get a chance to upload some new images. Where to start? Apart from a host of weddings and events, we have had Fashion Week here in London which saw me working backstage for MAC Cosmetics shooting beauty looks for various publications. I could flood this blog with images from all the shows I covered but here is a selection of final looks from Erdem, Maria Grachvogel, Sass & Bide and Tod Lynn.

Somerset House is a great location particularly in September when we are often blessed with good weather. Backstage is always a pretty hectic affair with decent sized spaces becoming over run with teams of hairdressers, make up artists, photographers and models as well as the designers, dressers, journalists, editors and the ubiquitous people with clipboards! I dont know what the last lot do but they seem to be the loudest..

Debbie & James Roehampton Wedding

London Wedding on Tower Bridge

The B/W images above  are  from Kam's  bridal preparations at her hotel close to Tower Bridge.  I started with the shoes  and  as I placed them on the carpet , having noticed the strong diagonal line created by the  bright sun outside,  something in the image I took reminded me of  Mad Men.  This TV series is  very strong on its viuals and as a photographer its a great thing to be able to reference something like this on the day. It helps  bring a  contemporary  and stylish  edge to my clients images. 

 

I have just picked out these two images from this weekends wedding. As I took them I had an idea that they were quite successful. The colour image was one I came up with when we did a recce at the venue and was taken on the narrow walk way at the very top of the North Tower. We had brilliant sunshine but the high wind at that height kept this part of our shoot brief.  The B/W image we took at the foot of the North Tower was more of a surprise. The sun was low in the sky and having just taken a load of shots with both towers behind us I saw that there may be something we could get using the sun as a second light. The flare is quite effective but we needed to throw a lot of light at the couple to prevent us ending up with a silhouette. Kam and Nick were fantastic clients. They were very keen to make the most of their location and gave me plenty of time to capture some great shots...more to follow!

Donna Air shoot for Grazia

Here are are a couple of images from a recent shoot with Donna Air that I did for Grazia. From a very simple, straight forward picture, shot against a white wall, with a bit of photoshop I came up with these two images. I had no real goal with either of them, it was just something I began to do and one idea lead to another. Simply put, I wanted to see what I could create from a basic image. Donna was judging a fashion event with some other industry figures and I had 10 seconds to get a quick shot of her before the next hopeful came in. In that time I got three frames. The colour image is made up from all three. For the B/W image I isolated the best one and played around with it. I'm glad I have discovered this way of presenting an image and there may well be a time in the future when I can apply this technique to a portrait with more purpose and then I think I will really be onto something.

In the meantime there is no harm in experimenting..

Let me know what you think of them.