A few images that I managed not to screw up completely

So a new blog after nearly five months, the images below were taken in a Nepalese restaurant in Birmingham City Centre called Jojolapa, the shoot was organised by Jesika Parmar of Funky Jewels and was to feature her collection of masks, headpieces and jewellery, other members of the team were Zarreen Hussein, make up, models Waheed Mohammed, Amrit Bansal and Karel Davies. I used my Yongnuo flashguns off camera into a couple of softboxes and fired by RF triggers. Amrit is wearing the maroon sari, Karel the green one.

I had a shoot with a new model Aelita who is from Lithania but has lived in Birmingham for the last year, I noticed her profile on Model Mayhem and she agreed to a shoot. It was shot outdoors at my local nature reserve Gorse Farm Wood and upstairs in my front bedroom using natural light with just one large polystrene white board used as reflect light on to Aelita. Although I shoot in RAW at all times the camera was set to black and white and it was the intention to process them only as shot, when converting the files in Lightroom they looked ok in colour, so I processed a couple of the images and I have attached an example along with a mono image.

My first missive for a few weeks, I had the pleasure of working with Paulinah Nes of Dancing Dolls on her Autumn and Winter look book along with models Roanna Dunsford , Weona Lynn Cutchin along with MUA's Sumi and Sadia. It was a fun shoot and very productive one and hope to work with them all again. The image here is one of I took of Roanna at the end of the shoot with a ringflash, the first edits from the shoot can be found in Flickr account Dancing Dolls I will be adding more soon.

2011---3994 , a photo by gm.photo on Flickr. I spent the Royal Wedding Day with the Fotomodo Fashion Show at the Bliss Bar in Birmingham, organised by Gitte Kabai and Paul Smith it featured designs by up and coming locals, the designer in this image is by Paulinah Nes of Dancing Dolls, model is Nicole Kinder

Whilst trying to organise my Flickr account into some form of order, I noted that the beter portraits were ones where a MUA was involved. Sharon Cannon was the first I worked with and her skill was evident straight away as one of the models suffered from acne scarring and covered it up so well that little post shoot work was needed. The picture below was with Sharon, the model is Saima Awan, other images can found here MUA Set

Group shoots can be a mixed bag, from free for all to highly organised and invitation only. I have attended a few and enjoyed most of them, having organised one in 2006 I know how stressful  and frustrating it can be organising one. I attended The Jewel Bar shoot last year and had a good time and more importantly got some great images. Other pictures from this shoot can be found  here Must mention that the shoot was organised by  Dani Riot and the dresses were supplied by Nikita Sablier  o

I am off work this week due to developing Pleurisy, which screwed up last weekend for me, I missed the Birmingham Model and Photographer meeting which was well attended by new and prospective models, I also had to cancel two shoots which really pissed me off big time as I hate being cancelled on so I could imagine how the models felt as well. This has also slowed down my editing for a few days as I am not coughing so much today I have spent a little time in front of the computer and re-edited a pic from a 2007 shoot I had with Shelly Radley and Katie Ingram. One of my favourite photographic books is Fine Lines by John Swannell although this book is over 20 years old I look at it frequently for ideas the image below developed from a look from the book.

One of my better shoots of 2010 was with Maddison, a new model who in my opinion an absolute natural art nude model despite only having a handful of shoots needed little direction and posed easily, unfortunately she seems to have disappeared and given modelling up.

I have commited the cardinal sin of blogging, not reguarly posting . My first post of the year involves my last shoot of 2010 and my first of this year, both models are similar physically and are glamourous in appearance. I kept the lighting simple in both cases using a ringflash on Sarah the model in the blue dress and lighting the background with my old Courtney 125's they are now around 30 years old and still going strong. The second picture is of Jessica who contacted me through Facebook, the lighting was just a softbox placed around 6ft from her and set to around one third power.