A few images that I managed not to screw up completely

Summer 2020 and I haven't used my camera for over four months due to the unfortunate circumstances of the global pandemic. It has given me time to plough through my digital archives from 2004 when I bought my first digital SLR. This set of images were shot with Soria (pronounced Sor-e-ah) in 2016, as well as being a excellent model she is also a performer in the arts of trapeze, silks and hoops. The shoot itself was a mixture of lingerie, portraits and nude shot using natural light and in The Shed for strobe work.

As with thousands of other portrait and fashion photographers in the UK I am a member of Purpleport a modelling portfolio site, and with the lock down and isolation needed to prevent the spread of Covid-19, a few kindly members have offered the use of their RAW files for other members to edit and post on the site. I have just finished my first attempt, the original photographer is Matt and his portfolio can be found here MaffsterX , the model is Chantelle Parker .

As I am in week two of twelve of isolation, I am going back into my digital archives starting with 2004 when I first bought a DSLR the images below are of Maria who ended up featuring in a overseas version of Playboy and has long retired. Taken on a late afternoon entirely natural light with two large white polystyrene boards as fill in. The second set were taken in my lounge using a self made background using dyed painters dust sheet lit with Courtney Colorflashes with silver umbrellas.

Been having problems with hard drives and trying new software since my last post, having tried ON1 and the new version of ACDSee and after my brief and expensive dalliance with Capture One I am still sticking with Adobe for the time being unless something changes before my current subscription expires. Having a working hard drive fail is something I have had to deal with around every 18 months or so, fortunately I only lost edited images as I have my RAW files backed up and organised. Checking the new drive has copied everything as it should I have been randomly looking at older shoots again and picked out a few to rework and post on the blog three from 2015 will be published today and later on, the first is with Claire Louise who I have shot a few times this being the the only solo session we had. A glamour session using mainly natural light and portraits shot in the studio processed in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Over the years I have worked with many make up artists, some on a regular basis maybe once or twice a year as they are very busy working on paid jobs such as weddings between April and October especially. As I was looking through an index of this years shoots I noticed I have worked with Olga Barassi four times this year and once at the end of last year which was the first time we met. The first shoot with with Shanielle Richardson from West Bromwich via Anguilla was a standard beauty shoot shot in my studio. Our second shoot was a Asian Bridal with Sonia a part time model based in Solihul I used a large softbox as the main light with a smaller beauty dish as fill in and speedlight on the background. For the third and fourth images I had Sonia lying down on red bedspread lit from above with Octabox softbox and reflectors. Shoot number three was meant to concentrate on the eyes and a simple hairstyle with artificial flowers attached to the model Zara, again th...