I’m always keen to try different looks created by new lighting set ups. I was pointed towards this interesting blog by Swedish photographer, Stefan Tell (thanks Mark from Decoder) and had to experiment with the two-light set up with black background – with my first attempts above.

Revisiting this for a second session, we thought we’d made it even harder  by having Kate wearing a black dress and other dark clothes! Getting the separation of the head and clothes from the background proved to be the biggest challenge as there’s the balance between getting your separation and light seeping on to the background. So, it works for some better than others. You can see these and a few more in this gallery.

I think a more directional light (snoot or grid) is probably needed to ensure that the backlight remains on the head and shoulders. I shall try that next time round but for all of these I used the softboxes I have. This simple and effective look would certainly suit corporate profile shots…

The summer’s as good a time as ever to update your website so I’ve started the process by adding to some of the galleries. Good news is I’ve received model release for a few more school and nursery portraits so you now see more of a selection now from formal(ish) school studio shots to the natural nursery playtime images here.

The Events gallery has also been updated to include some recent work for the University of Leicester amongst others. I shall continue to add more work during holiday periods so do come back…

At the end of the last academic term, I worked on the Chemistry Activity Day at the University of Leicester – organised by the Colleges and University Learning Network. It was a great day designed to introduce college students to chemistry as a study subject and included an ester lab session, visual chemistry demonstration (with lots of smoke and bangs!) and business game for the competitive amongst them.

You can see a selection of the images here along with other recent shoots for the University.