I stumbled across this blog about archive images from the BBC’s Face-to-Face series that was originally aired between 1959-1963. I’d seen footage of the cringy Hancock interview and a few others before but the stills work well on their own, particularly the darkened studio shots with the isolated lighting on the subject. The Martin Luther King image is also interesting as he’s almost framed by the statue and producer.

These are a few  shots from a recent  family shoot working the excellent wedding specialists Abraxas Photography. It can be tricky sometimes shooting very little ones but Harrison was an absolute pleasure with lots of smiles over the hour-long shoot.

I saw a really interesting piece on BBC2′s Culture Show last night about French street photographer, JR He came to the world’s attention during the 2005 Paris riots for flyposting large B&W images on public buildings as a way of challenging media stereotypes. Now his work can be seen in the flavellas of Brazil, slums of Kenya and bridges of Paris amongst other places and he’s been described as the “Cartier-Bresson of the 21st century”.

Here are some off duty shots taken whilst visiting the Browne family in deepest Wales over the New Year. I love this style of photography when you catch children in their own environment and enjoying their favourite activities, whether throwing stones in the stream or releasing bubbles across the hills. There’s the full range of emotions and it’s lovely to capture these moods so you see your children just as they are.

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…

I’d mentioned in a previous post that I have been working along with Tom at TADJU Design to produce a website for Pensions advisors, JBE Consultancy. We wanted to get across the core values of the company – professional, personable and knowledgeable – through the site photography. I went for a high contrast black and white style that will eventually have key words overlayed.