Studio Shoot

This is probably the most excited I've been about one of my posts. Obviously nothing is going to compare to unashamedly showing off my beautiful son, but in regards to my photography work I do harbor the ambition to also do commercial work. How happy was I when Helen Howard, whom I had met on a training course run by the very talented Mr. Steve Gerrard (see previous non-football explanation), sent a shout-out on Twitter to let people know she was a holding a model event at her studio.

As well as being a wedding and portrait photographer (have a look at Helen's work at www.helenhowardphotography.co.uk), Helen is also a partner in Image Red Studios in Tamworth. The studio is really nice and though I began quite nervous at the prospect of my first studio shoot, I was very quickly relaxed and very happy with the results. I can't say enough good things about everyone there, really helpful and supportive. I would definitely recommend to snappers at any level wanting to do it out of interest, experience or for a portfolio. Booking and information about events can be found on www.photographer-in-birmingham.co.uk.

The shoot itself was fashion-focused which I found really interesting despite being stylishy-challenged myself :-) My research is why you might have seen me walking out of Tesco recently with a bunch of Vogue, Tatler and GQ mags (not that it's having any positive influence on my dress sense!). To get some practice for future ventures I tried to capture jewellery as a focus in some of the images.

The models were as patient as they are beautiful and also very professional. An unexpected treat for the evening was provided by Keshia, the model pictured above. To give some variety in poses Keshia sang a cappella during one of her sessions, her voice was amazing enough but even more impressive to find it was one she had written herself. Have a listen for yourself at www.keshia.co.uk, I'm looking forward to the bragging rights to have photographed a multi-platinum artist before she went off to take over the world!

I'm embarrassed to say I didn't get everyone's name from the night but will get them and put in a follow-up post.

Rock and Roll :-) Happy Saturday!

Change

What often seems like the scariest six letter word in the english language, "change" has been my friend for the past 12 months at least.

My beautiful boy Cullan seems to change every day (his look of surprise captured above has remained pretty consistent though). As I write this he has managed to throw and break a cup in the kitchen, which is probably a good thing because we might not have otherwise noticed the shoe he decided to hide in the bin! Bless :-)

And amongst all this chaos and amusing mania, I've been busying away a few hours a week setting up my own photography business. Whilst now probably isn't the best economic time to be doing this (even with one whole shiny penny back on petrol), it's something I love so much and feel absolutely compelled to do.

Already armed with my business name, I've been trying to come up with a logo since Christmas and have finally managed to create one I like. Below is the result of my blood, sweat and late-night profanities :-)

I wanted to keep within an Irish theme and decided celtic swirls was the way to go. The spirals are usually associated with life, birth and growing (to me the very thing a business is about and in particular what mine hopes to capture). The colours I had actually decided in advance, as I wanted them to refer to photography (RGB - the way light is captured on a digital camera's sensor) and also use the colours most associated with Ireland and Britain. The final flourish I allowed myself was to finish off the spirals in a kind of heart-shape, I'm all about the love! :-)

I'm still busying away on a business website and am hoping to have that online by April, so there'll be a few late nights coming methinks. I think I'll leave the blog design as it is. Still like my cloud picture and then there's that horrible word - change ;-)

Happy 1st Birthday Cullan

So far, despite having this beautiful little monster in my life, I've managed to resist the temptation to overwhelm the interweb with millions of pictures of him (ok there's still quite a few about). However, today it's something I cannot resist.

Today is my little man's first birthday and I can't tell you how much that fills me with happiness.

So forgive the indulgence as I share the many faces of my beautiful Cullan (and place them in public domain to embarrass him in future years.







This is the day after he was born. Throwing up a sign to his homies, Cullan was "Winning" long before Charlie Sheen discovered Tiger Blood.

 

He still hasn't decided which is his better side. And now for the funny/cute . . .

Better than any gift I've ever received from Santa. Happy 1st Birthday Cullan, Love Dad x

Mo Bhaile

Having settled across the water in England, the term 'home' is a strange one for me. Several times a year (as much as is possible) I find myself returning home having visited home. Perhaps I'm a child of two cities, it makes me wonder if my son will feel the same when he's older.

Each trip back to Dublin seems all too short and so often I get caught up in what's going on I forget to take my camera out of the bag.

Fortunately the last time, I remembered to take at least a few :-)

Wedding Workshop with photographer Steve Gerrard

It's been a hectic few months since Christmas. My day job has had me visiting every country in the British Isles at least twice (I can't complain too much as I've managed to squeeze in a visit to Dublin). And while the people I work with are really nice and friendly, it's hard to be away from my little monster who is becoming all too good at saying "Bye Daddy".

However, the past couple of weeks my feet have been firmly in Birmingham and it's a good thing too because this week I attended a Wedding Photography Workshop with Steve Gerrard. Not the wannabe-DJ/footballer for Liverpool, but an actual DJ turned Photographer based in Birmingham. If you're not familiar with his work take a trip to http://stevegerrardphotography.com/ for some amazing Music, Wedding and Portrait photography.

Thanks to the twitterverse (@tdkavanagh) and little Cullan waking up at 3am, I read about the first Wedding Workshop that Steve had decided to hold and booked myself on immediately. To say I'm grateful is an understatement. I've been so inspired by just looking at his work and got to spend the day hearing how he does it. I held my wee for a stupid amount of time, afraid to miss a thing :-)

I don't know why but I didn't expect to get so much detail and insight, perhaps I'm to used to people guarding their secret way of working like Gandalf had warned them to. The fantastic photographer Emma Case (http://emmacasephotography.blogspot.com/) was also there, impressively signing what Steve was saying for another participant. I've been working in training for what must be seven years now and thought for the first Wedding workshop it was extremely professional. A part of me is jealous of the people attending the next sessions, something that good just gets better and better.

The group I attended with were great aswell, I also learned a lot from talking to them. Now my head is just bursting with ideas and I desperately need to start putting these into action!

The day even included a shoot with Steve and two models who were great, especially given how cold it was in the shade. These pics are the ones I liked the best, if you've already jumped over to Steve's website be gentle, I'm only new ;-)

More from the Vault

Only 344 more days before the need to subject ourselves to the only meat with the potential to be more dry and tasteless than chicken, our friend the turkey. Long may cranberry make you edible!

Yes it has been quite some time since my last post and I must thank all those kind yet persuasive messages I have received to "get up off my arse and get back to it".

I am happy at least to report that I have been snapping away in the interim, as well as planning some projects and spending a bit of time on my business set up. More on these to follow over the next few weeks.

Though this festive season was the first time I haven't been able to go home to Dublin and see family, Santa was good enough at least to deliver some inspirational books to keep me going. I was obviously a good boy this year as a nice hardcover edition of Rankin Portraits found it's way under my tree. I love photography in all its forms but my truest love is that of portraiture, and where that's concerned Rankin is genius.

I also received a copy of A Shadow Falls and On This Earth, both by Nick Brandt (another amazing English photographer). If you haven't heard of him yet please take a moment to visit www.nickbrandt.com or check him out at a bookstore. To say he is a wildlife photographer is to do him a disservice, to me he is one of the greatest fine art portrait photographers, but his subjects happen to be animals.

He shoots (not literally) animals in their natural habitat in East Africa, the land itself is as much a subject as he captures an ever vanishing world. His pictures are mostly sepia in tone and he uses some form of magic (he isn't willing to share) to get some really interesting depth of field.

While I'm certain he isn't the first photographer to create pictures in this way his compositions are breathtaking. So far I haven't been able to put either of his books on a shelf, they sit by my bedside table so I can wonder at them in a moment. Brandt's work has made me look back at some of my own photographs of wildlife and apply the same technique. By that I mean colour and tone, artificially creating the depth of field doesn't feel like me (though I would love to know how he does it 'in-camera'). Sadly my pictures were not created in the open air of Africa, these I took in Fuengirola Zoo in Spain.

Perhaps I can convince a friend when they visit Africa they should take me too :-)

Happy New Year to you all (2011 - The start of many new things).