Aerial Photography: Another Perspective.

I was in the digital darkroom at AIB today putting the finishing touches to a print, when i peeked over the shoulder of a fellow students work, I was fascinated by the weird abstract shapes of his images and it wasn't long before i realized that they where all taken from about 50m up in an aerial photography kite.

This got me thinking about aerial photography and the amazing perspective it achieves. From breathtaking landscapes to intricate almost cellular abstracts. One of my favorite photographers Vincent Laforet is a keen aerial shooter and Ive always loved the playful way he approaches the genre.

Another favorite is Jason Hawkes who recently photographed the United Kingdom as part of the BBC's Britain from above series. Check out this small interview below or his blog for a better idea of what he's about.

Facial Tattoos portraiture project.

Heres a couple of tester shots from a shoot last night with Chris Wilson, a new friend who I met recently on the hunt for facially tattooed subjects around the Dorset area for my current Arts Institute Project. I built upon the Martin Schoeller Style lighting Tests I attempted earlier in the month and am pleased with the results so far. I am desperately trying to find more persons with facial tattoos, if you know anyone please email me at info@tgrphoto.co.uk

I'm a fascinated with why people tattoo themselves, especially in the facial area, which can have so many social repercussions for the individual. The idea of permanently altering something as personal as the face to better match a chosen identity i really interesting, I will definitely pursue this project even if not as part of my course.

Puppy!

Back home this weekend for my Fathers Birthday and to meet the newest addition to the family: Zula the Rhodesian Ridgeback. Zula is a natural model, and managed to cock her head on cue for the camera shutter. Here are a few shots.

Make up mini project and possibly over the top retouching...

Here's a shot from a shoot I played around with today.,just trying out some make up with up and coming make up artist Dionne Taylor, our model bailed on us at the last minute and my lovely fellow photographer Andrea kindly stepped in. Quite pleased with the result, I used this session to try out different beauty techniques and flex my retouching muscles. No afraid to say that I may have gone to far on the skin texture. Here's the same shot in black and white, not sure which I like best.


I shot with a Hasselblad 501 with phase one back 120mm lens and macro adapters where necessary. The shot was lit with a low key set up with just one beauty dish with honeycomb grid.

Make up: Dionne Taylor
Model: Andrea Stoker
Assistants: Mike Osbourne, Montana Lowery
Photo and Retouching: Me!

Kalinsky Album Cover

Weymouths very own alt rock band Kalinsky recently booked me for a promotional shoot and having liked the pictures ask me to produce their album cover for the forth coming 'A Raid of Thoughts'.

Having brain stormed the brief with the band they wanted a simple, dark twist on the idea of thought. The images i produced used the age old example of the light bulb to symbolize thought and the harsh monochromatic lighting really bringing the shattered fragments to life . The Band and I are really pleased with the final image and look forward to listening to the just mastered album in the not to distant future.

You can purchase and sample tracks form the upcoming album HERE and view a small number of the promo shots from the previous shoot at my Behance portfolio.

Simon Hogsberg: An Incredible street portrait - 100 meters long!

This incredible street portrait by Simon Hogsberg was captured over 20 days at the same point in Berlin 2007. The image and the characters that make up it, all 178 of them are a unique cross section of the people who live in this diverse city. This is an amazing shot (s) and something I would love to try for my self.

We're All Gonna Die- 100 Meters of Existence

Martin Schoeller-esque Lighting....ish

As part of one of my upcoming projects Ive been looking into portrait photographers that inspire me. Over the past week Ive been especially interested in the look achieved by Martin Shoeller in his famous celebrity portrait series. The lighting produces a really serene almost geographical look at the models face, with a shallow depth of field, close up wide angle perspective and strangely feline catch lights in the models eyes producing really unique portraits.



While in the studio yesterday evening I decided to attempted to emulate this lighting in an effort to understand this unique portraiture approach. By studying the above you tube clip of Martin at work and a careful look at the models catch lights I determined that two strip lights either side of the model at 45 degrees to the face at low power would nicely fill the shadows of the model and provide the feline catch lights. To get the DOF fall off i dropped the lights to their lowest settings and shot at f4 on a Mamiya Rz67 with phase one back, the large crop factor of the digi back allowed me to get in really close on an while retaining a much reduced DOF. I used black flags on either side of the model and a black anti-reflector (?) under the chin to get that dark edging to the jaw. To create a slight shadow above the model i used a small grid spot dish as a key light.



The results are not quite right yet but I think they are going the right way. The catch lights appear to be too thin and straight. I think will use strip soft boxes in my next test and perhaps a wide angle lens to get the perspective better, though i don't want to copy Martins amazing originals to closely, Id rather learn and adapt to create my own images.

P.S If your out there Martin and you'd care to share some advice on this kind of set up, let me know... Please?

My New (old Camera): Olympus Trip 35, Circa 1971

After a rather surreal eBay shopping spree, I have just taken ownership of my very first film camera, the one and only Olympus Trip 35. It arrived in a soggy box with a dinky little flash gun the size of a pack of cards (which on foolish closer inspection was quiet powerful, as my poor retinas will attest) and is in perfect working order. Its built like a tank and runs totally without the need for batteries. Having parted with my hard earned £18 I can wait to take this out tomorrow. I've been having a look at Internet resources relating to the camera and discovered quiet a community dedicated to this diminutive gem.

Here's My pick of the best:

• An beginners Overview of the Trip by Peter Leslie.

• A fantastic In depth review and image quality comparison to a canon 5D! via KenRockwell.com

• The Olympus Trip Flickr Group- A lively community of photographers willing to share information, images and modifications.

• Tripman- A great place to pick up a totally refurbished trip for as little as £35 in your choice of new shiny leather paneling . Also a great source for accessories and servicing.

• How to modify your trip for manual shutter speeds. Via Alpix.

• A second slightly riskier modification for manual shutter speed.
  

• The Olympus Trip Blog- Peter Leslie's Blog dedicated to news and information about the Trip.

• The original manual.

And my personal favorite...

The original David Bailey Advertisement.



Classic.

White-Tack Warrior

White-Tack Warrior from Toby Roberts on Vimeo.

Here's a third attempt at stop motion animation that I frittered away my afternoon putting together. Many of you will be wondering why these three rather poor animations have suddenly arrived on the blog in short succession, allow me to explain.

As part of my current briefs at the Art Institute at Bournemouth I have been given the opportunity to delve into the world of animated stills, both time lapse and stop motion animation. These techniques really appeal to me and are great fun to create, even if you have to be little bit patient with the process. I hope you like this third effort. Personally i think the time lapse of the bus ride home is my most successful visually and I will endeavor to make a longer more refined version in the not to distant future, until then take a look at these similar attempts by fellow students Tom Hole and Mike Osbourne and this fantastic time lapse HDR tutorial that caught my eye over the past week

PS. Take a look at Muto a fantastic stop motion animation by the artist Blu Blu, As disturbingly beautiful as it is meticulously crafted.


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

A still rather poor second attempt.

Second rather shoddy attempt at Time Lapse animation. from Toby Roberts on Vimeo.

My second attempt at time lapse photography, still very bad- I have no experience in video editing so apologies for the rather rough transitions at the beginning and end.

A rather poor first effort at stop motion animation.

A rather bad first attempt at time lapse from Toby Roberts on Vimeo.

The other side of the coin.

As part of my commercial photography training the arts institute at Bournemouth provides a wide variety of guest speakers that ranger from practicing photographers, agents, and all the way up to clients and picture editors. Today we where privileged to receive a talk from Marie-Louise Collards, a highly experienced picture editor for United Business Media, specializing in medical industry photography for Business to Business publications such as PULSE. What was interesting about the lecture was that it opened my eyes to the idea that commercial photography is an overarching discipline that is required in almost every industry imaginable, and that even something as seemingly mundane as medical press can provide both challenging and creative photographic opportunities; to take advantage of these opportunities you must be willing to think from your employers and consumers perspective.

Marie-Louise really drove home the point that she chooses images in order to increase her readership and thus attract more sponsors and advertisers. Thus the images must directly engage with the consumer, in this case medical professionals such as doctors, nurses and pharmacists. This is especially prevalent in the medical field given the high level of education and aesthetic commonalities shared by the vast majority of her readership. The medical images shown where designed specifically with the needs of a very specific audience, catering to the needs of this audience with a level of sophistication I had not previously considered. The images for the most part where not aesthetically groundbreaking but required painstaking care in construction, their vernacular consistency as visual documents being of core concern especially when illustrating new treatments or documenting patients conditions.

This intense need to satisfy an audience was both interesting and informative. I think it is very important to remember that as a commercial photographer you must satisfy the need of the client first and that this goal should be your primary concern rather than any aesthetic agenda you wish to pursue. Understanding the way your employer thinks and expects you to perform is key to achieving success in this regard. I must thank Marie-Louise for sharing this valuable insight. If you are interested in this subject head over to fellow photographer Tom Holes blog HERE for his overview of the talk.

Starting the new year with a bit of tech news...

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

Fellow photographer Matt Grum recently shared with me a few humorous links, this is my favorite, and no i don't own an mac and yes i still want one. God bless the onion news network.