Still getting a kick out of seeing my work in print

Just popped out to the shops and there was one of my latest sets of photographs  on the cover of the Daily Mail 'Weekend Magazine'

I shot it last week assisted by the brilliant Marie Absolom who has won the coveted AOP assistants Award

The brief was to shoot the cover and then a series of photos which would give the idea of the evolution of fatherhood, after all it is Fathers day in the UK this Sunday

It was a full on day to say the very least as we were lighting the two shots completely differently

The cover shot was lit with Elinchrom 600RX in a beauty dish from the left and a Elinchrom 600RX  backlight with a grid as they wanted a harder more dramatic look, shooting all the subject separately
(Doesn't 50's man look a bit like Harrison Ford? Soldier guy has shades of Jude Law I think too...)

The evolution composite was lit very simply with an Elinchrom head in a large Octa soft box, from the right.

When you are shooting composites this is a very good solution which gives very soft but directional lighting

And the challenge? Well apart from working with a very sweet but not always happy baby, the camera was in EXACTLY the SAME position FOR BOTH SHOTS!

Followers of this blog will know the importance of keeping the camera locked down on a tripod for composite shots so the angle and perspective remains consistent.

So how did I do it?

Well this shoot was the last ever on my Phase One P45+, with a Hasselblad H1, but I will talk about that another day, and explain my reasoning for switching camera's...

All I did to maintain a consistent camera position was to use a standard HC80mm lens for the full length 'Octa' shot, then get the model to step forward to a pre marked spot and switch to a HC120mm switch to the harder lighting set up (beauty dish and back light)

So full length on the 80mm.......

And the tighter 120mm shot

Check out the 'gun' which is a Manfrotto light stand. We had no gun on set and there fore had to work out something which would leave the models hands in the right position and the rifile could then be added in post (not by me or my team I hasten to add!)
The camera had to be adjusted by 3 degrees between shots on a carefully marked Manfrotto 405 geared head

This tripod head has to be experienced to be believed an if you are shooting any type of composite work it is quite frankly indispensable

A long but good day