Colour

having now had the chance to go over my recent images I can begin to see a real passion developing for saturating colour. As well as also introducing a feeling of nostalgia to my images.

I am becoming more and more aware of the colour around me and also looking at the way old photographs dealt with colour especially holga cameras. I have resolved to buy myself an old holga camera and begin to experiment with the way those cameras see colour. The plan is to take one to Bestival in September when I will once again have some time on my hands to be able to shoot for myself without the pressure of news organizations demanding specific images of specific artists and acts.

I have also come into contact with a number of other photographers now who also have similar views and ideas on colour and nostalgia that I have and plan to collaborate with them or at least brainstorm and share ideas with them.

Camp bestival was very successful for me in a professional way as a number of very high profile bands and acts have come into contact with my work and want to see more from me. On a funny note I even have Mr Tumbles personal mobile phone number now...what parent of a young child in the UK wouldn't kill for that privilege!

As 2009 moves on towards the end of the summer now I have also resolved to move closer to where most of the festivals and action is with a move to Cornwall on the cards in the coming months for both me and my partner. This we both feel is a sensible move and somewhere we have been thinking of moving towards for a number of years. Lookout when the move happens for some very dramatic winter seascapes as the north Cornish coast is very dramatic.

Camp Bestival. Flags, Fun, Music & Sun

Well Camp Bestival seems like a distant memory now but one of those memories that truly become a cushion for old age. We arrived on site two days before the festival began and started to distribute the sofas , mirrors, dressing tables and chairs to all manor of strangely named sites within the grounds of Lulworth Castle. Our sofas were delivered to knitting tents sewing tents and placed around a campfire circled with flags. Pianos were placed underneath trees and within a circle of flags to be used by anyone who cared to stop and play. The work having been completed we were then free to roam around an empty site photographing all that is involved in setting up such a huge festival. Flags adorned every part of every field from the castle field to the magic meadow. As the last of the flags went up the sunshine appeared and the whole festival site looked like one giant medieval tournament field. We wandered for hours just marvelling at the spectacle.

Friday arrived and so did the festival goers along with their fancy dress costumes and so the festival began and the music started. We were treated to everything from Mr Tumble from CBBC to Chic with their amazing catalogue of disco tunes. Comedy came from the likes of Lee Mack and dancing from the English National Ballet. Amongst the places to eat was the famous River Cottage Cafe and places to relax included Dingly Dell and the spoken word tent. This was a very well organised festival and all who attended seemed chilled and relaxed including the security guards and police officers.

It has been absolutely impossible to represent the festival with one particular image and so i present to you my portfolio of images @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/lemonsplashphotography/sets/72157621740496663/ You will see a variety of styles used to convey the mood and atmosphere of the event. Some of my favorites are the Holga processed images as the festival had a very nostalgic feel to it. They convey to me the feel of childhood and what it should have been like. I hope you enjoy the set of images and if you haven't yet been to a festival maybe it will entice you to find out about one near you.

Camp Bestival Preview

Well its the night before LemonSplash Photography sets off for Camp Bestival based at Lulworth castle in Dorset. I will be arriving at the festival two whole days before those with tickets have access to the site. This means hopefully that I will get to take some very unusual photos of the event site totally devoid of festival goers. I'm hoping there will be a strong breeze to enable me to capture some very ethereal images of all the flags fluttering. The weather is very predictable for UK festivals, rain is forecast throughout the event...deep joy!! One of the reasons we are arriving so early is the fact that I am helping deliver 41 sofas to the event...yes I did just type 41 sofas to the event. These are to be used everywhere from VIP areas and dressing rooms to out in the festival site in the knitting tent and also in the bollywood tent. Expect to see images of sofas in very out of the ordinary places on my flickr portfolio site. My partner is hoping we keep a sofa back for our tent as we will be there for 5 days and nights. In return for this favour I have been given unprecedented access to the whole site and not just in front of the numerous stages at this event but also access to everything behind the scenes. Which is probably where I will spend most of my time away from the mud and huge crowds...I'm still washing mud off me from the NASS event two weeks ago!!

Lookout for our images of Camp Bestival on my flickr site and also at www.efestivals.co.uk

NASS in the Rain

Another festival over for 2009.

NASS bills itself as Europe's largest extreme sports festival. By day you are entertained by skateboarders, BMX, FMX, mountain bike trials, old skool slalom skating, inliners, streetboarders and just about anything else dangerous on two wheels. This year saw the introduction of the Goliath ramp. With an 8 metre drop in its not one for the faint hearted. Sadly this year NASS was blighted by the traditional British weather which meant most of the outdoor events were severely curtailed. I did find myself on top of the Goliath ramp at one point though perched on a ledge 25 feet in the air clinging onto my new 300mm F2.8 prime lens photographing the skaters as they came down the ramp. To say I was concerned about my £3.5 k investment was an understatement but I did manage to get some great close ups of the skaters as they popped up over the jump. The lens has some fantastic features and its no wonder it has become the lens of choice for most sports and action photographers.

This years music was kind of split into two genres over two days with dance/drum n bass the order of the day on the Friday and rock music on the Saturday. As you can see from the images here and on my flickr site the rain does nothing to dampen down festival goers when it comes to their music. Within hours the front of the stage was little more than a mud bath with the photographers pit not fairing much better either. I used my 24-105mm lens to photograph much of the acts but again decided to try out my new 300mm for some really close up shots of the vocalists. I even managed to hand hold the lens which was a huge bonus as I fear my monopod would simply have disappeared into the mud had I decided to use it.

The shots above are not what you would call "exhibition" standard shots but they do show what it is editors are looking for when it comes to photographing at these events. I was simply tasked by sportvision and littlepress to capture what was going on. I dont think too many shots will make it to press this year as NASS clashed with T in the Park which is Scotland's answer to Glastonbury or Reading I suppose. They will be used to promote the event next year though and hopefully NASS 2010 will be a sunny affair.

Next stop for LemonSplash Photography is a quite different festival....Camp Bestival in Dorset, lots of live music, stand up comedy, theatre and even a knitting tent. Watch this space and my flickr pages for images and a write up of the event.

Festival Season

This image was taken as Pendulum walked on stage...So very glad I was in the photographer's pit for this one. As you can see from the image this is the crush as thousands of fans push forward in unison to greet them. I always like to turn my camera on the crowd as headline bands take to the stage. They make such fantastic atmospheric shots and I hope give a feeling of the euphoria of the event.
As for the band....Drum and Bass meets hard techno rock and their set didn't disappoint the multitude of fans.
This year sees LemonSplash Photography covering festivals almost every weekend of the summer. We will be covering events as small as SeaSelsey through to medium sized festivals such as NASS and then onto some major players in the festival calender such as Camp Bestival and finishing off the season by returning to the Isle of Wight for the last big festival of the season, Bestival. Along the way I will be photographing fancy dress competitions, huge mega ramps for skateboarding, bmx and inline, angel gardens and strange acts at camp bestival through to surfers and Lily Allen live onstage as she closes Bestival in September.
At 45 you would think I would be taking it easy and winding back a bit but truth told this is something I should have done 20 years ago as its so much fun. hard work but fun non the less.
Lookout on my flickr site over the coming weeks for lots of festival images.
Add to all the festival work my usual wedding work and now arts and craft fairs where I sell my images directly to the public it makes for a thriving business which is much needed in these very difficult trading times.

The Right Place at the Right Time

Yes that really is me photographing the FMX rider whilst he jumps over me some 80 feet in the air and travelling at 60mph!!
Working as a professional photographer its sometimes quite easy to be in the right place at the right time but even on this job I still got to know the guys who were jumping and spent several hours watching them practice before the competition started. Vital if you need to know what it is they are actually going to do. I guess its a bit like wildlife photography you have to know your subject to capture the right images. I think this is true for every type of photography, I also attend weddings and always make sure that I'm in on the rehearsal just in case they have planned something unexpected. One wedding even saw a look a like Elvis walk a bride up the isle of a catholic church singing "the wonder of you". Always expect the unexpected!
The images above were taken by my partner at NASSFEST last year as she couldn't believe exactly where I had positioned myself for the competition. You can see the photos I took at http://www.nassfest.com/ in the photo section of the website as they are being used to promote this years event which I will again be attending. You will notice that the final images barring one were taken from a better vantage point but it was still fun to have those guys flying over my head during the practice runs. You will also find many other images in the photo section from around the event. If you like photographing extreme sports there is no better summer festival to catch all the worlds best riders and jumpers as well as some very cool music to while away the evenings.

Photoshop Glamour

As a wedding photographer I have been asked to do many strange things from add people to the photographs who were not there to on one occasion talk to the groom to coax him out because he had cold feet. Needless to say on that occasion I simply reminded the person asking me that I was a photographer not a councillor. The most common request I get though is to "photoshop" the brides complexion or some other guests complexion, by this they mean can I add that magazine glamour look minus all the wrinkles and blemishes and in some cases make them look younger than they really are. Whilst I have no objection to doing this I do think you can go completely over the top using this technique and make a 40 something woman look closer to 20 which I think can be very unflattering. There are many programs on the market that will do this job for you in no time with a few clicks but they are global effects and again I personally don't like them.
This image above is of my partner who kindly posed for me to allow me to enhance her natural beauty with a few simple techniques in CS3. All I have really done is remove some of the blemishes on her skin as most professional cameras are such high quality that they show up every pore. I then saturated her lips slightly and brightened her eyes. Finally I thickened and darkened her hair slightly. To pull her out of the background you will also notice that I darkened the door and in so doing I created a halo effect around her hair.

mental health

This is an image I was asked to exhibit at last years Brighton arts festival. I was approached by a mental health charity called Impact Workability and asked if I could come up with an image that conveyed the way mental health sufferers feel when they try to get back into the work place. Many sufferers have a vast wealth of talent and skills to be able to satisfy employers needs but because of there illness they are often overlooked. Sufferers themselves report that they feel isolated and forgotten and that they need those around them to be a little bit more understanding of their needs. One in three people in the UK at some point in their lives will suffer a mental health issue and it is a very traumatic experience.
having spent sometime with Impact Workability I was more than glad to see what I could produce to highlight their cause. This image shows a faceless person reaching out for both help and understanding. I deliberately chose the striped jumper as it breaks a number of so called rules on photography and what makes a good image. I wanted to show that there was a person in the background and that they wont just fade away and be forgotten.
I'm pleased to say the charity were delighted with the piece and it took centre stage of their photographic exhibition at the festival in 2007 and was one of the proudest moments of my life to be able to contribute to such a worthy cause.
There is no real technical data with this shot other than to say it was shot using natural light on my driveway when I was brainstorming with my partner. She is also the model and quite often helps me out when I'm in need of a bod to photograph for a project.

Textures

I am becoming more and more aware of textures and borders as a means to convey a mood or an atmosphere in my photographs. As someone who is not a great exponent of photoshop I tend to need all the help I can get to achieve this. As well as learning techniques from the Internet and from a number of books I have bought on the subject I also use programs such as OnOne and Alien Skin to make the job that much easier for me. Its true these programs are expensive and if you apply yourself diligently then all the effects these programs create can be created by simply using photoshop. I also make a point now of photographing textures and storing them for use later.
My picture of the lone gondolier was kind of reminiscent of my time in Venice from previous years. Although I was there with others I felt very alone almost as though I was seeing the place simply for myself and unable to share it with others. I wanted to create a photograph that looked old with all the colour drained from it, kind of a snapshot in time as though found by accident many many years later. he is not in fact a tourist gondolier but simply a man going about his daily business. Of course this being Venice he has to go via the canals. I thought a normal black and white tone just didn't do the shot justice to decided to tone it with a kind of sepia tone but I brightened it up somewhat. The border was created using OnOne borders and is an acid border. I then added some scratches over the surface of the image to create this aged look.

Vert Ramp

In 2007 I was asked by sports vision to be part of the team that covered "Ripcurl Boardmasters" event in Newquay in Cornwall. I guess the only reason I was asked to cover the event was because a considerable number of my shots from NASS had been published and it was the same PR company who were running this event. Proof if ever there was that attending the much smaller festivals can lead onto bigger and better things. The surfing at the event was world class and it was one of the few occasions that I got to actually enjoy the spectacle as well as photograph it. I spent most of my days at the event stood on the rocks armed with my camera fitted with a 400mm lens with a 2x converter added to it as well. Along with the surfing there was also a large prize fund for the Vans Vert Ramp so it attracted some of the worlds best vert riders. This shot was taken on one of the practice sessions with me stood on top of the vert ramp on a ledge no wider than 3 foot armed with my camera and a 20-40mm lens and my flash which was connected to my camera with a flash chord so that I could use the flash off camera. For this shot I was kneeling down and had been watching the way the skateboarders set themselves on the opposite bank to see where they would pop up in front of me. Some would say that this was a lucky shot and indeed there was no way I could predict the boarder having his tongue hanging out at just the right time but I like to think that because of my observations and where I had set myself I had to some extent predicted the shot. The exposure is 1000th sec at F16 with an ISO of 800 the reason for the high ISO is because I wanted to get the opposite side of the ramp in focus because I had hoped to sell some of my shots to the sponsors so I needed to make sure their logos were pin sharp. As it was I didn't manage to sell this particular shot to the sponsors because of the "blind" logo on the skateboarders board but did manage to sell another shot taken from the base of the ramp. I like this shot though because the boarder seems to be weightless in the air.

Music

For many years I always wanted to be one of those photographers in the "photographers pit" at the front of the stage. Don't get me wrong I used to always enjoy the atmosphere of actually being in the crowd. I have stood and been crushed whilst watching everyone from Slipknot to the Guillemots and even Genesis at Wembley as part of the live earth concerts in 2007.
This image is one of the many I took at the 2008 NASS event in Bath. Its of Charlotte Cooper from The Subways doing her thing. We were warned beforehand that she just doesn't stand still and that I was tasked with getting the photograph of her new hairdo...very trivial but I think I not only managed to capture that but also her passion for her music.
I'm not sure now that I have spent some considerable time in the "photographers pit" that I actually enjoy the experience. You are tasked with getting your shots within the first three songs before you are all removed then it's straight back to the press room to wire your shots off. This results in you missing all the music and atmosphere. In 2008 though I did manage to realise a wish of mine not only to see Groove Armada play live but also to be up close and personal with them. I not only got to photograph them but decided I was not going to return to the press room but enjoy the concert. Fortunately for me the wireless connection in the press room was down so I got away with it.
This year I intend to pick my festivals more carefully and hope to once again photograph at NASS which I have some very fond memories of but also add Surfstock and a few minor festivals around where I live most notably Gosport Folk Festival where I hope to photograph Seth Lakeman again. His set at Boardmasters last year went down a storm with everyone.
For those interested the technical data on this shot is again limited (sorry) It was shot with a Canon 5D with a 70-200 F2.8 L series lens with the aperture wide open. The hair is frozen in time with a shutter speed of 2000th sec. Post production was in CS3 where I sharpened the image and then reduced the colour to remove the purple cast which was being thrown onto Charlotte with a purple tinted spotlight.
This image has done very well for me in competitions winning no less than 3 awards since it was taken. It is available as either a mounted print from me or as a box canvas. (I'm selling here) you can purchase it by contacting me through my website for further details. http://www.lemonsplash.co.uk/

Henri Lartigue

One of my favorite images from this photographers collection.

Henri was given a camera as a boy and he began using up film almost immediately. He is famous for his pictures of his relatives and friends jumping and leaping in the air. How he managed to capture such images has baffled some of the finest brains in the business. Technically it just wasn't possible with some of his shots..but he did it so it was possible.

This image was taken in 1911 at the height of "La Belle Epoch" movement in France. I love it because of the relationship between all the subjects. The horse and carriage are exiting the image just as the motor car is coming into view, to me signalling the birth of a new era. The lady is certainly glamorous, strolling along with her two small dogs oblivious to the car but looking right at the boy taking her photograph. I wonder if she owns a car, maybe she knows the young photographer.

I don't know if Henri Lartigue had any formal training as a photographer or if like me he was just given a camera and left to his own devises. He was however a trained artist, though by most accounts a better photographer. He certainly knew how to take a photograph from a young age. I struggled for many many years without any knowledge of what I was doing and with no direction. I picked up and put down a camera many times loosing interest because I had so many ideas but did not have the ability to get those ideas out. I still struggle today but now we are in the digital age I can see my mistakes almost instantly so have the ability to go back and try again.

Paradise

This is probably one of the most iconic images that one sees of Venice these days. Gondola bows bobbing in the lagoon at the San Marco station. So why the title paradise?
I have visited Venice many times in the past staying everywhere from station benches as a young man with little money to shabby chic Italian hotels as I grew older. On those occasions I always wanted to visit the city with others who would have the passion for seeing that I have. Not just the "right, seen that, what's next" attitude.
I visited Venice again this year with my partner and for the first time was absolutely "blown away" with everything the city had to offer. I saw the city in a new light with new eyes and new emotion. Gone were all the pretences and artificiality. In its place was a sense of seeing and sharing. I felt I had almost come full circle as with little money I managed to share sparkling wine in San Marco square at night under a myriad of lights only this time it was purchased from a supermarket for less than a pint of beer and to compliment it we had cheese rolls bought at the same time. A true feast and a moment in time never to be forgotten.
It's not where you have been or what you have seen, it's how you feel for a moment in your life and if you find that moment it lasts forever and becomes a personal paradise.
For those who have managed to read this far and want to know how the shot was created I have to thank a photoshop plugin by the name of OnOnes PhotoTools. After saturating the image with colour I then applied the filter to give more depth to the colour. This was then followed by adding the "orton process" to give it that dreamy look. Lastly I added a photo border to the image. This image has now become one of many prints that I sell and has been accepted by a gallery in my local town Chichester.

Tranquillity

This image was taken in 2004 on the island of Bali at 5am in the morning.
The trip to Bali really changed my life and the way I viewed just about everything I had been doing in the past both as a photographer and in my own personal life. I see in this picture a great sense of loneliness as that's how I was feeling in my personal life at the time. I used to get out of bed on these trips to far off destinations and wander around the beaches and hotels at sunrise with no one to talk to or no one to share what I was seeing or feeling. The only way I could show people what I was seeing and feeling was to take a photograph. These however invariably fell on "deaf ears" or eyes that seemed impervious to what was going on at the time.
As an image I think this has all the elements a picture needs. Everything in the right place at the right time. I remember watching the fisherman complete his mornings work and just relaxing in the pagoda looking out onto a scene that was definitely very familiar to him, one he had probably viewed every day of his life. He seems so relaxed in his surroundings, so at peace with nature and his environment. I often wonder what his life at home was like. Was he eeking out an existence, was he contented with everything he had in life? It seems as though "western" values of possessions and status are a million miles from his life as indicated by the ubiquitous bicycle that most Asians prefer as their mode of transport. To me for a while I envied that fisherman for everything he had and would willingly have traded places with him. I also feel there is a great deal of spirituality created by this image. I found many of the scenes and experiences in Bali to be some of the most spiritual moments of my life.
There is no technical data to this shot. It is quite simply a snapshot of life. I chose to present the image in black and white to allow the viewer to imagine their own colours and also to try to create a timeless feel to the image, something I believe can only be achieved with a black and white image.

Sunflower

This image was taken with my 5D on a wet summer's afternoon in my conservatory. I wanted to convey what it was that holds up such a large imposing flower. Whilst the petals are very delicate the actual structure of the flower is quite coarse and hard. Everyone has seen the traditional view of a sunflower either shot from a low angle upwards into a radiant blue sky or showing the millions of seeds contained in the centre of the flower. Like a lot of things I do in life I strive to be different and I am always looking for another viewpoint. I think also that this is what sets some artists and photographers apart from others....they look, feel and get to know their subject. A sunflower is a good example of this as many of us from a small age have grown sunflowers in our gardens to wonder at their height and majesty...add to that they are so simple to grow.
There is no technical expertise involved in this shot as the setup was simply natural light with a white card placed behind the subject. The sunflower was then placed in a vase and to hold it steady I used some wire to attach it to the vase. I did however use a tripod and another piece of white card to act as a reflector to bounce light back onto my subject. When it came to editing, again very little was done other than crop the image and slightly saturate the reds to bring up the veins in the petals.
Well that's it, the start of a new blog which is really just about how I feel about a certain image or if it helps others some basic technical detail on what I did to create the shot in the first place.