The Beauty of Autumn Light

This time of year go out and have that stroll in the woods or through your local park and see the wanders of autumn. This is a fantastic time if you are one to enjoy taking photographs of landscapes and views of our countryside. As a corporate photographer working in London and the surrounding areas this does not usually allow me to go and photograph scenery like this as an assignment with my day to day working environment. But I make the effort to go and explore with camera in hand not only to give me some well needed exercise but adds to my portfolio of images that can be useful to have at some point later.

Autumn PhotographyOne of my favourite ways of shooting these scenes is to use the strong backlight that the sun has to offer. Shooting into the sun but slightly hiding it from the camera lens to reduce flare creates a glow effect on the trees.This shines through to the foreground to highlight areas but still leaves a great deal of the image in a darkened tranquillity with depth and shape. Notice how on some of these the contrasting reflections and the detailed shadows on the ground really add to the feel of the photograph.

Late September and October the evenings start to draw in and the sun becomes low in the sky. This creates some of the long and moody shadows later in the afternoon that make these images so interesting.

 

Please share:

Web Video Production to Your Liking

Recently in July I was asked to shoot a video piece by a client I have know for quite a few years now. We first met up when she was involved in marketing with a firm in London. During that time I shot stills at events that were for the English rugby squad and various other promotions that were organised by the company. Now some years later she has progressed and is her own boss and wanted me to make a short presentation to camera for her company.

I produce video for people who want to present themselves or have an explanation article for say a company meeting or conference. The web is a fascinating arena for displaying who and what you are, so having a video clip to help the viewer understand and engage with what you are trying to share on a site is all an add bonus.

The equipment I use for this is fairly straight foreword. I often use DSLR to record the video in HD that is very good quality for this use where the final production will be hosted by Vimeo or Youtube.There is no short cut to be had when we come to sound and lighting. This needs to be the same as if you were shooting for a more complex situation due to lighting a scene and the sound recorded has to be a good standard.

We did have fun producing this. It was quite a warm July day and though the room we used was cool at first after an hour or so of studio lighting the temperature grew. My client was determined to do all the sections of the video shoot in one take and actually nailed it with considerable ease. That made the edit process in FCP for me an easier task. Well she is a professional!

screen-shot-wendy-timeline

Please share:

Video In London with ZS Associates

Alternative Images Video Production was asked in June to visit the offices of ZS in Ludgate Hill near St Paul’s Cathedral to discuss logistics for an event that was to take place later that month. All was discussed and preparation for the day commenced.

The meeting was going to be held as a theatre style event where the invited speakers would form a panel at one end of the room and address all who attended. This then would be an opportunity for the audience who were obviously involved in the subject of the meeting to later have a Q and A session with the panel. There were about sixty in the audience that were invited and they had plenty to talk and ask questions about on the day.

ZS is a sales and marketing agency with connections in America and has various office locations around the world. This shoot was estimated to last for about one and a half hours so it was decided to be done using a three camera set up. All three would be set to shoot different angles of the main panel to give variety to the meeting but also to have one that was able to swing an capture the audience when a person wanted to make a statement or ask the panel a question.

Alternative organised all the equipment for the event shoot. The decision was made to have a sound system so everyone could hear on the day but also to provide the cameras with an audio feed from all speakers who wore radio mics so there was no ambient noise from the people who attended recorded to camera. Or very little.

The edit from all the footage shot was a long task of about ten hours to mix the best from the three cameras and ended with a timeline of roughly 100 gigabit of information after edit. After a few edit changes the company had the video for their clients for reference of the days meeting.

zs-blog-at-15-32-35

Please share:

Having a Smoke on a Roof Top

Hello everyone its been a while since my last report of what I have been doing as a corporate photographer for Alternative Images.

It seems that I had so much to do with other projects recently that to find the time to sit and write a catch up piece for the blog had to take a back seat for a while.
So I’m back and have a few interesting items to share with you. Hope that you find enjoyable.

Back in May I was asked to do a small project for Simon from Delta Ventilation, who owns a company that deals with new builds where fire and smoke is an issue.
The company installs and maintains a smoke extraction system that is designed to remove smoke from a building when is on fire so any people who are escaping from a scene are helped so the smoke does not indanger their lives. Many lives are lost more from the smoke inhelation than the flames or heat itself.

Here we set up a controlled situation and notified the near by emergency services that we were going to re intact a fire event. The corridors of the eighth floor were flooded with artificial smoke, this looked pretty realistic to me, and we set up camera equipment on the roof top of the eleven story building know as Victoria Halls in Kings Cross that has been built for accommodation for students for the nearby university and colleges, though the rent is designed for the more wealthy student while studying in London.

I was shooting video using two Nikon D810 DSLR cameras to make a sequence piece that was going to be used at an exhibition for Delta at the Excel centre later in June. The large powerful fans of the system started up and the auto process was underway. Within no time at all the extraction funnels were blowing the large volume of smoke away from the corridor of the eighth floor into the skies above and we had our shots we needed for the production.

Later in June I visited the Excel and photographed the exhibition stand for Delta that had the video we made running on a visual display.

Delta Blog

Please share: