Book Derelict Nude's

I have just been told that I have two photographs published in a new book called Derelict Nudes. This is my first time actually having any of my images published, even though I have submitted work before and told they are going to be used in a book, for the books to never appear. So it’s a great feeling to see it now in actual print.

It’s a great book featuring various great photographers work so well worth your time taking a look at it.

Once book is released I will put up a link.

The two images I have published I have included below:

These images can also be purchased as prints from the Guild Of Erotic Photographers website, by just clicking on the required photograph:

Link to Purchase Prints

Photoshoot with Becky - 14th November 2011

We went to a friend’s house for a Halloween Party last month and our beautiful hostess Becky was looking great in her outfit and reminded me that it had been well over a year since I last shot with her. So striking when the iron is hot, we had a chat about it and she was also keen on having some images showing her more dominant side, which would be perfect in the outfit she was wearing.

So a few days and emails later we had a date booked and some other ideas to shoot. In the time between the shoot happening we had a further chat, as we had talked in the past of an idea  my wife had thought of  which we had never got around to doing which was based on the Spartacus Blood and Sand TV series as well as a new idea of my wife’s involving cherries.

On the day of the shoot my wife was not well with a migraine so we decided to just do the shoot with Becky on her own and maybe do the Cherry idea depending how my wife felt at the time, and put the Spartacus idea on hold for another day.

We did the shoot in the studio and I used a very simple lighting set-up with a large soft box to model left and a light from behind with a snoot to act as a hair light.  This worked perfectly for the first two outfits Becky was wearing and an example of each can be seen below:

Then we decided to do some nude shots of Becky with material hanging from the ceiling and Becky using the material to wrap around herself. To create some movement in the hair and the material I turned on a fan. I started this with the idea of using only one light but as the idea developed I added a light to the rear to have some light coming through the back of the material which worked really well. As the material was red I also added a red gel to this light, which gave me an idea of adding another light with a blue gel attached and I will let you all be the judge of whether this worked or not.

I normally go for very simple lighting in the studio, but sometimes it is nice to just experiment when there are no pressures to get great images and I find working with friends allows me to do this much more than working with a model for the first time, where as a photographer you are expected to get her images she can use in her portfolio. I have been very lucky over the last few years and a lot of the models I have worked with have also become friends and are more than willing to let me experiment when the mood takes me.

My wife was felling a little better so we decided to try the cherry idea that she had, which was basically Becky and her both biting on cherries at the same time. I wanted to use this theme to try and get an image where the faces were silhouettes and just the Cherries are correctly lit. To do this I used a large soft box as the background and then used a front light with a snoot to highlight the cherries. This though still gave me too much light on the faces, so I taped over the snoot to give just a pin prick of light. Once the lighting was set-up we then tied the cherries using some catgut and suspended them from a stick with Becky’s husband Trevor holding them so they dangled between Becky and Karenza’s mouths and then just played with different ideas and positions of the cherries, adjusting the lighting in various ways as things developed. This was a very slow process but in the end we captured the image I envisaged before the shoot.

It was a very enjoyable and relaxed shoot with the opportunity to try different things and now I need to arrange another date to get Becky and Karenza together to do the Spartacus Blood and Sand idea we have.

Private Commission - 13th November 2011

I was approached by a couple recently who wanted to commission me for some private images of them both, where they wanted some fetish type images as well as some erotic shots of themselves as a couple. Shoot was arranged with lots of discussions beforehand to ensure we exactly got the type of images they wanted.

I have to say they were a lovely couple and I really enjoyed photographing them and they are very happy with the final results.

I have included one image from this shoot which the couple have allowed me to post online as it doesn’t show their identities.

If you are interested in commissioning me, I offer a very discrete and secure service for all your fetish/erotic photographic needs, and can be contacted via my website contact page.

Photoshoot Sarah - 7th November 2011

Just finished editing some photographs from a shoot with Sarah which I did the other week and thought it was about time I updated my blog. Things have been very hectic just lately and I have got behind with everything and my list of things to do on my office desk seems to be growing at an exorbitant rate. I have some Annual Leave left to take before Christmas so think I will take some time off the day job to try and catch up and clear the backlog before Christmas.

Anyway less of my ramblings and back to the shoot in question. Sarah it turns out only lives about 10 minutes away from me and after some initial discussions discovered she wanted to try something along the Sin City line as in the film. I had done a couple of images before in this style and in my collection of props I have some guns and swords which we could use.  Sarah wanted to wear a Black PVC catsuit for these images which I thought could work well, but advised her we needed to include red somewhere in the clothing else the whole Sin City theme would not work. So Sarah turned up for the shoot with a red scarf and gloves which I believe she had purchased just for the shoot.

I used a very simple set-up for these shots against a black background, and one light to the side of Sarah with a large octagonal softbox with a grid on it to ensure the light only fell where I wanted it to. Also I had a fan going to get some movement in the hair.

We very quickly got the shots we needed to take into post production and then did a few other sets to create some images Sarah could use in her modelling portfolio.

In post production I did my normal tidying up of the images removing any skin blemishes, sharpening of the eyes etc. I try not to over edit the skin of the models as very quickly it can look very false and sometimes not even look like the model anymore so I like to try and keep it very natural.  Once this stage was complete I went through my large collection of images I use for backgrounds as it was important for this to work for the background to be buildings as if the image was taken outside on the street. Once I had added the background I selected the red elements of the image as in the gloves and scarf and jumped these onto a separate layer to bring back into the image later.

I then turned the whole image black and white, for this I use the Nik Silver Efex Pro filter in Photoshop which is the best Black & White conversion filter I have come across. It has massive flexibility in the conversion process and even allows selective editing of parts of the image by adding control points. I had previously created a preset for this Sin City type look which is very much like a Film Noir look and used this as my starting place and then just did some minor adjustments.

Once the image was looking right in black and white I then copied the layer with the gloves and scarf above this layer and then just did some minor contrast adjustments.

Now Blog complete it’s back to more editing before going off to the Cinema this evening to watch the new Twilight Film which my wife is a massive fan of.

Photoshoot Jo - 5th November 2011

I had my 3^rd shoot this year with Jo or Lexi to most people and as the day was cold and looking like it was going to pour down with rain at any time, we decided this time to do the shoot in the studio. This made a change for Jo, as the last 2 times we have shot together we went out on location to a derelict building.

We did not have any set plans for this shoot, so once Jo arrived and we went through what outfits she had brought along with her, we decided to use a few of the outfits, one of which was a short leopard print dress, which I know my wife would have wanted if she had seen itJ Also Jo brought along an old pair of stockings with lots of ladders in them as she knows I like. So after making a few more holes and ladders in them we decided Jo would wear them for all the images we were going to do together.

I used mainly just a single light set-up in the studio with a large octagonal softbox which has a grid on it. I like using the grid on the softbox as I find it directs the light exactly where I want it to go and doesn’t spill onto the background which, when I am using black paper I try to avoid as I prefer it to be pure black.

After the Leopard Print dress we went to a black PVC dress and did some shots with that, one of which can be seen below.

Once we had done those two outfits in a more sexy dark fashion type look, we decided to try some fetish images with Jo in just the ripped stockings and a under bust corset.  I can’t remember why we got on to the subjects of masks but we did and seems Jo is a big fan and I have a large collection of different masks so we decided to incorporate one into the fetish shoot.  Also we added a collar I have which has nipple clamps attached so Jo put this on as well and the outfit was complete. We did a few different poses with this, some with Jo in manacles and some without, before progressing to an idea I had of Jo topless with barbed wire wrapped around her and fake blood.

I have to say though it is false barbed wire that I purchased off Ebay a long time ago but it does look very realistic in the final images.  The images from this session though to be honest just did not work for me even after editing, so think I am going to have to try this idea at another time, and hopefully Jo will come up again soon to try it, as I have a few more ideas now on how to make it work better.

Photoshoot with Karenza & Simon 29th October 2011

I had another shoot with the wife, this time including our friend Simon who had come up to see us for the day so my wife could take some photographs of him. Yes my wife is a photographer as well! That is when she is not in front of the camera. She though tends to mainly photograph the male form although she also specialises in baby photography.

Once Karenza had finished doing the images she and Simon wanted, they asked me to take some photographs of them together with the idea of just having a bit of fun in the studio and not taking things to serious. Karenza had this mad idea of the two of them looking like they were fighting with mad hair and makeup. As Simon was going to lose most of the fights we also wrapped some pvc tape on his arms and legs etc.

The shoot was a lot of fun and we had a good laugh while doing it. Also it allowed me to experiment in post production to add in different backgrounds etc. which allows me to get away from my normal post production workflow which I use on my normal style of images.

I got into experimenting more with Photoshop while doing my degree in photography and a lot of those skills I learnt I now infrequently use. I don’t profess to be an expert in Digital Art but it can be a lot of fun experimenting in Photoshop although at the same time burning lots of hours.

I am going to stop rambling on now as I have a backlog of editing to catch up on as well as a few shoots planned in the next week, which I need to prepare for.

Photoshoot Karenza 27th October 2011

I had been collecting a few ideas for a shoot with my wife and we arranged to try them in the studio. One of the ideas involved digging out her wedding dress and the other involved the use of some flowers.

We went to the local florists and just bought a couple of single stems of two flowers I wanted to use and got the wedding dress out of the wardrobe and we were all set, well so I thought.

It became very clear early on that my idea needed a wedding dress with a very long zip extending low down on the back and the one we had just didn’t undo enough for the shot in mind. As they say best laid plans and all that, so after a quick rethink we took some photographs of the wife in the wedding dress, although I wasn’t getting an image I really liked so while I was having a think the wife started to just swing around and then I saw the shot and tried to capture the movement in the dress, which can be seen below.

We then went on to do the portrait shots idea I had using the flowers and these can be seen below.

It’s funny but just recently I have not been totally happy with the work I am creating and am struggling to work out why. The only thing I can think of is the fact that due to the winter coming on us, I am in the studio and not in my usual locations of derelict buildings and not getting the same inspiration in the sterile environment of the studio. Hopefully as I will be potentially be stuck in the studio until Spring I will become more inspired and improve the work I am doing in the studio.