Most photographers seem to call themselves ‘award winning’. You’re never sure really what that means. Maybe that’s why we haven’t entered many competitions. Each month we see the results and think ‘we’ve got better shots than that’ yet we never seem to do anything about it. Until now. Lola decided it was time we entered a few images, a lo and behold we’ve won a few prizes. We entered  the Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers’ monthly competition and we’ve won four gold awards. This competition differs from most because you are competing against other professional photographers. And it’s international (though most of the entrants are from the UK). We’ve won golds in four different categories so far.

First of the four is this shot of baby Mariella with dad, taken when she was six days old. I love this shot for its intimacy, and also the eye contact, which is hard to capture with a newborn baby. Although this looks like a studio shot it was actually taken at the client’s home, using window light only.

Next up is one of my favourite wildlife photographs. It’s not widely known that I lead photo safaris to Africa on behalf of a specialist USA-based photo tour company.  This one was taken on a tour to Tanzania. A few moments later and it was all over. Feel sorry for the frog

The next gold is a powerful and moving picture of a young Masai, also taken in Tanzania. The day before I’d run a ‘photographing people’ workshop for the tour participants, and one of the techniques I taught was shooting in to the sun when the the light is harsh and there is no shade. That technique works well here – I love the way the light rims her face. There’s a soulful look to her expression that really appeals to me too.

The final gold award (for now?) was for this image we took of Richard Ashcroft at a rock festival promoted by one of our clients. Photographing at a rock concert is a real eye-opener. You’re only allowed to be in the ‘pit’ for three songs so it’s a mad scrum with all the other photographers to get the best angles. Because Karen and I were working as a team the pressure was off slightly, so I could take a step back and look at what the lights were doing. Positioned myself carefully in a line with Richard and the backlight and this is the result. The lighting director should really get half this credit

These four pictures now go forward to the annual judging in January. Flushed with initial success I guess we’ll be entering a few more images next year

Here are some images of model Ash taken on the same shoot last month as those of Georgia (see below).  Same locations and hair and styling again by Toni Creative.  Lola has given these images a cool look. I especially like the black and white.

If anyone’s interested in the photographic details, all but one of these was lit by an Elinchrom Ranger with either a big Octa softbox or a grid.  The odd one out was lit by a speedlight.

Every so often I like to take time to recharge the creative batteries and create some images just for fun.  The idea of these shoots is to do something different and challenging – stylistically or technically.  I love trying out new ideas when it doesn’t really matter whether they work or not.

It’s not unusual for clients to see the results from a creative day shoot and ask for something similar themselves.

On this shoot I had the pleasure of working again with our good friend Toni Perryman.  Toni created the stunning hair and makeup, and styles and also found us the fab urban location.  My only brief to Toni was to create something that would look completely incongruous in a grungy urban location.

Our models for the day were Georgia and Ash who were both brilliant and super tolerant as we experimented with our lights to create these images.

Lola assisted on the shoot and is responsible for the stunning post production work on these pictures.

This first set of pictures are of Georgia.  Look out for Ash’s pictures next week.