Winter light lifestyle

Just because it's chilly out, is no reason to stop shooting. Many photographers will agree that winter can provide some of the most magical lighting conditions. This is partly a result of the sun being low in the sky for so long - and as you can see in this set - the mist rose up as if on cue. Cinematic!

A lovely set of lifestyle portraits to end the year with (last shoot of 2016 in fact, couple of days after Christmas). When the mist thickened after sunset, I just had to do some 'moody noir movie stills' as the conditions cried out for it...

Stop press! The last two shots below feature the row of lamps along the path leading to the Clapham Common bandstand. Just recently (January 2017), the lights have been replaced by LED bulbs. This is great for efficiency and saving energy - but the new bulbs give out a white colour. I wish they'd used warm tungsten-coloured LEDs... So it was timely that I got one of the last shots of the 'traditional' looking lamps as 2016 drew to a close. RIP moody movie location...

Outdoor lifestyle is one of my specialties, whether a portfolio for acting and modelling or commissioned images for advertising lifestyle, fashion and many more.

Britain's highest dozing photographer

A few weeks ago I walked up Ben Nevis, Scotland, with a couple of friends. I shot this lifestyle travel video along the way.

We spent the night in the shelter on the summit, making us the 3 highest people in Britain for a night. My companions slept, I dozed for about 2 hours - the rest of the time I was doing timelapse, video and photos...

Ben was the main star obviously (video above), but I got some selfies along the way - this looping video below was taken with the iPhone on a little stand - iPhone 4K video in low-light was very good quality! If you look at the tripod (holding my Canon 5D MkIII) you can see I have it tied down to a bag which had BOULDERS weighing it down - it was extremely windy. The eagle-eyed might also spot that I have the camera on top of a small video tripod head screwed to a medium video head (which is in turn mounted on the tripod legs) - this allowed me to get some faux-slider/dolly effects without carrying an actual slider, as well as 3-axis movement for vertical shots. It didn't get much darker on the horizon than this either, being so far north and close to the longest day of the year.

Plus some levitation action - the altitude got me feeling a little zen I think...

Still more moving stills

More experiments with the currently trending cinemagraphs.

Everything seems to be moving towards 'motion', or a fusion thereof... Perhaps 'pure' photography will become a shrinking, rare speciality? Such as platinum printing and shooting on film is now? 

It seems likely that very soon the majority of photographers will be 'imagemakers', also shooting video and fusion such as the cinemagraphs seen here, timelapse, etc. Many of us already are, many others have transitioned completely to producing/directing video and cinema. I am almost 50/50 video and photography now. And I haven't even begun to experiment with virtual reality, but that is firmly in my sights.

Just as mobile phones began to incorporate cameras, then video cameras... motion is becoming the new standard. Cameras and computers will become ever faster and more powerful so this won't be a limitation. (GIFs are large in file size AND low in quality - but for a little longer yet they're still the most widely accepted format). You can now get apps on your smartphone to make cinemagraphs and even stranger fusion VR/motion creations...

The cinemagraphs in this blog (more below) can be licensed via Come Alive Images - specifically through their stock agency partner Glasshouse Images, including video versions which are much better quality.

Click on a GIF to be taken to the specific agency listing.

And you can find the lovely Lexie (the portrait model) on her website - she does do 'wistful wonderfully well'.

Right, I think that's enough weak puns and cheesy alliteration for one blog post...

Cine-surreal

Serafina Salvador - with a surrealist's name, no wonder she's so good at modeling for surreal cinemagraphs.

It was great to work with this talented actress and model again. This time I was experimenting with cinemagraphs, a kind of GIF where part of the image is frozen and part is moving.

They tend to take a while to create and file sizes are pretty large, hence only three here. Colour is also limited in the GIF format, so it suits the vintage/Instagram look.

However, I have some ideas on improving this - watch this space.

Meanwhile, keep scrolling for a couple more cinemagraphs. And check out Serafina's page.