Commercial portrait Head shoot

Here are a few images from a recent commercial portrait shoot at the medical practice in Waterhouses, which is between Ashbourne Derbyshire and Leek Staffordshire.

They wanted to update their website and the images in their entrance lobby.

I did the shoot in one of the rooms at the surgery, I used a grey seamless backdrop, one large octobox, my Nikon D800 and a 85mm lens which I find best for portrait as It doesn't distort features.

All images are shot at f11, 1/250 sec, iso 100 and 85mm focal length.

Post production was using Adobe Camera Raw. First colour correction, adjust exposure as required, increase Vibrance.

In Photoshop cc I removed any blemishes, slightly reduced any lines and wrinkles and then did a bit of frequency separation, then reduced the opacity to make the images look natural.

For details on how to book a similar shoot head over to my website www.ksfoto.co.uk

Rainy day practice

When it's raining outside and the forecast isn't very good what to do? well.......... set up some lighting and practice on yourself, as long as you have a remote you can hold out of view, takes a bit longer as you'll need to keep checking the back of camera to make sure....... you're in focus, in frame, and most importantly you've got the lighting just as you want it! You'll then have these set ups in the bag ready for your next shoot!!
These were taken with a one light set up, invisible background method, Gridded reflector, f11, 1/250 sec, iso 100.

ps. yes, I do know I look a miserable old bugger! :-)

Day at Chester Zoo

Nicki was off work last week so we decided to head off to Chester Zoo, neither of us had been before so we were very pleasantly surprised how good it was, the lay out of the zoo was great and all the animals seemed very content, there were quite a lot of young and baby animals which I guess showed they must be quite happy living there.

After winning Marwell zoo photographer of the year back in 2013 I thought I'd better get a few shot here just in case they have a similar competition, below are a few images from the day.

Cheetah 

King of the Jungle

Spectacled Bear 

Young Rhino resting it's head on it's mum

Cartoon Caricatures from Photographs

After posting a few of these on my Facebook page I've had numerous people asking if they can have one of these cartoon caricatures from photographs of themselves, well here is how you can get one!

If you are in the Waterhouses area which is between Ashbourne Derbyshire and Leek in Staffordshire I will come to you to take a photo and then give it the cartoon effect, the cost is £55, you will get a 10x8inch print and a social media ready image to post on your page, alternatively if you are too far away just follow the instructions:

Have a photo taken of yourself against a plain coloured backdrop ( a light coloured emulsioned wall for example) try and take using a flash and make sure it's a good quality image and a file size of 6mp upwards, the bigger the better, email me the image to sharpe894@btinternet.com I will then email a finished image that you can print out or use on your social media sites, the cost for this is £45, payment details will be on request.

New Born photo shoot with 5 day old Tommy

Yesterday I did a new born photo shoot with little baby Tommy at Waterhouses which is between Ashbourne Derbyshire and Leek in Staffordshire.

I used one large octobox with a 24-70mm lens at f11 and natural light with both 50mm and 85mm lenses at f1.8.

Tommy was so well behaved and we only had to stop briefly to let him have his dummy for a few minutes until he dropped back off to sleep.

All images were taken in a safe and warm environment and Tommy was held by mum Maxine on several shots and her hands and fingers removed from the final images, to book a similar shoot go to my website ksfoto.co.uk for further details.