Now this should be a wedding blog post, however before I do that one, I just had to get this post in before that as I have so much to cover, so enjoy...

After putting out the call for volunteers in my last post, I am happy to report that I have had a great response and still am, so thank you to all that have let me use you as guinea pigs in my makeshift studio over the past couple of weeks, you are all stars. It has given me a really solid platform in which to continue working from for the future with portraiture, which is great for me. Below are some of the best images taken from my shoot with Lucina & Walter last week, who were kind enough to lend me their faces for a few hours.

I love these sort of portraits as they are simple, fuss free shots that capture the mood and personality of the person. I use a remote shutter cable and distraction to get the subject to relax while they are sitting for me. I am a big fan of the natural smile, which in this sort of situation could be difficult to get (most people are not used to/ like having all focus on them). I try my best to make the subject feel at ease, which I hope comes across in the images above. The style I have also adopted works very well for me, and so I will continue to develop this low key lighting style for the future. 

I have also been keeping myself busy looking for more inspiration for future projects and ideas. I travelled into central London to check out a few photography galleries and exhibitions that are going on there, including a long overdue trip to the Photographers' gallery, just off of oxford circus. This was a place I had been looking to go to for a while now, so I took myself off there to check it out. The gallery itself is made up of 5 floors of gallery space, which they tend to use to showcase one or two photographers work. In this instance the work being displayed was by Gregory Crewdson. (see below)

His work really resonated with me, each image giving off its own individual feeling of loss, abandonment or regret, creating hauntingly eerie and beautiful images of seemingly everyday places and situations. He manages to tell a whole story within one image, as well as create huge depth within the scene, which fascinated me as I travelled around the gallery. Each image was taken with a great amount of precision and planning to perfectly capture what he was envisioning for the scene. Overall a great gallery to visit (free before 12 and 4.50 thereafter) and well worth going just for this body of work alone.

Changing topics completely then from this then, I was back in my studio and finally able to photograph my grandads coins and medals, found in a small tin when cleaning out his garage. I have added a table top studio to my equipment in order to look at the prospect of product photography, as a way of diversifying the kinds of photography I can do, which will hopefully be beneficial in the long term for me.

With this set up, and as discussed in a previous post, I was finally able to really make the coins and medals stand out and hopefully photograph them in a way that really shows them off. (see results below)

Both of these collections have been a bit of a labour of love for me, so it was great to finally get them looking so good. using the high key technique also really works in making them stand out.

Finally, I finish this blog post off with some multiple exposure portraits, similar to my self portraits found in my blog post 'everyone's free to wear sunscreen'. This time you will be pleased to know, they are not of me....

I am still learning a lot with doing these multiple exposure shots. Using a high key lighting set up consisting of 3 soft box lights plus one external flash takes time to get right, but can give great results. Hopefully more like this this to come in the future!

FIN