The tourist resort of Bodrum, in Turkey, has many great dive sites and crystal clear waters.
Scuba Diving in Bodrum, Turkey
Cos, Greece
A day trip to the Greek island of Cos, which has lots of free-roaming cats, just as in Bodrum.
Pamukkale, Turkey
Pamukkale is a fascinating natural wonder in South-Western Turkey. The sides of a large hill are covered in Travertine Terraces – calcium carbonate deposits left by thermal spring waters. I visited on an overcast day, so the photos I got don’t do the site justice. You’ll find plenty of photos online of snow-white slopes against bright blue skies…
The drizzle didn’t dampen my enjoyment of the thermal waters in Cleopatra’s Pool, replete with sunken ruins from Hierapolis.
Vancouver Photoshoot with Cassandra
Ever since seeing a poster of Vancouver on a friend’s wall, I’ve always wanted to visit the city. I also have several friends who live there, one of whom I met in London earlier this year. Cassandra vlogs on YouTube every day (aka NerdzRL), and has an incredible optimism and joie de vivre, as well as a love of superheroes.
This first photo is one of my very favourites of all time, not only because it looks like a movie poster (and straight out of camera, no less), but also because it makes Cassandra look: 1) tall (she’s not), and 2) like one of the superheroes she so admires.
The first time I saw Cassandra, I wanted to do a photoshoot with her, and these results just prove why I found her photogenic in the first place.
These two headshots were taken during our lunch break at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Gas Town. The white table and our seating choices round the table made for perfect lighting!
And to finish the shoot, a clothing-catalogue style shot on the waterfront.
Engagement Shoot with Sarah & Henry
My friend Sarah recently got engaged, and asked for an engagement shoot in her college, Emmanuel.
Holiday Photoshoot with Marta
Over the long Easter bank holiday weekend, I joined my family in Nice to spend some time with my relatives there. It was the first time that my niece met her great-grandmother, so plenty of photos were taken of the very youngest and very oldest. However, I didn’t expect to be doing a model photoshoot while I was out there too.
I contacted Marta, a professional photographer and ex-model based in Nice, through ModelMayhem, one of the model-photographer networking sites I use. I took a few hours while the rest of my family were off shopping or resting, and I headed to the neighbouring town of Beaulieu-sur-Mer, just 8 minutes train journey along the coast from Nice. She met me at the station, and straight away we started walking to some shooting locations she knew, and talking about photography and our backgrounds. Half an hour, and a three kilometres later, we found our location – a beach cove in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. At this point, I’d found out that Marta was smart, a great photographer, and very friendly. When I started shooting, I then added to that that she was a very good model. Great facial expressions all the time, strong fashion poses, and an effortless ability to be natural and move freely. We shot from late afternoon’s bright light, through the golden sunset light of Magic Hour, until the dim light of dusk, when even my trusty 50mm f/1.8 hinted that maybe we should stop. A welcome lift from her boyfriend saved us the half hour walk back in the closing-dark, and I made it to the train station a couple of minutes before the half-hourly train home.
It’s times like this, when you have a fantastic location, an amazing model, great light, resulting in dozens of great photos, that I’m very grateful for my passion, opportunity, and talent. All with the goal of sharing beauty and moving images with the rest of the world.
The full album from this photoshoot can be found at http://claude.gallereasy.com/gallery/363/
Lingerie Photoshoot with Ivory Flame – Redux
I’ve shot with Holly many times now, and we have a mutual appreciation for art, and each other’s portfolios. She has advised me to cut down on the quantity of shots that I process from a shoot (more for my own sanity than the quality of each resulting image!), so in addition to the myriad gorgeous shots from our recent lingerie shoot, I chose 3 photos to work on in more detail.
Normally I used Adobe Lightroom to select the best photos from a shoot (a 4-pass process that can result in 25-100 photos I love, and can’t leave out from my online gallery), and I then carefully post-process each photo (crop, skin smoothing, colour correction, and trying various colour-tone effects). This usually takes me a 10-15 hours. Definitely not sanity-preserving!
Lightroom makes it very easy to get very different results just by tweaking a few sliders, but working in Photoshop allows more creative control, as well as the ability to add textures and other graphic design elements. I was impressed with how varied these three photos came out, even though they were all taken within an hour’s shoot, using the same lighting and backdrop.
Ballet Fashion – Varsity / Cambridge Ballerina Project
Tearsheet from Varsity newspaper
More photos are available in these related posts: Ballet Fashion shoot
I started the Cambridge Ballerina Project in June 2010, and have since photographed 13 ballet dancers from the Cambridge University Ballet Club. The images caught the attention of the current Varsity Fashion Editor, Leah Schabas, who approached me to be the photographer for one of the newspaper’s fashion spreads. She had an idea that combined ballet and fashion (not necessarily because of the popularity of Black Swan, but it would definitely scratch the public’s itch for more ballet imagery).
We met weeks before the spread was to be published in the paper, and bounced emails back and forth about ideas and logistics. She arranged permission to shoot in the Fitzwilliam Museum, and acquired designer dresses and accessories from various sources. I provided contact details for hair and make-up artists (both Cambridge students I’d worked with before), and the ballet club president nominated 4-5 dancers as the models. Unsurprisingly, I’d already met and shot with them all before, except for Glory, who was to play one of the leads in the forthcoming annual ballet show. Sadly, Jenny had pulled a hamstring in the ADC dance show Inspired, so wasn’t able to take part in the shoot. These were all the models I would have chosen, as they are all truly beautiful dancers and models.
Our shooting slot in the Founder’s Entrance of the museum was from 9am – 12:30pm. This meant that hair and make-up started at 6:30am! I joined them at 8am to get some preparation photos, and also because I prefer to be involved in the whole creative process, not just during the shoot. Megan Riddington once again did a great job with the make-up, and Hannah Punter (a ballet dancer whom I met during Inspired) managed to make ballet buns look beautiful.
At 9am (or a while later as the finishing touches were being done to hair and make-up), we braved the winds and walked to the back entrance of the Fitzwilliam Museum, signed in as contractors, and got set up / changed. I already had firm ideas about shooting angles in the vast marble atrium, and Leah was on hand to match up dancers, dresses and their accessories.
The enclosed location, off-camera lighting, and well-defined “fashion” brief made this feel more like a studio shoot than one of my usual Cambridge Ballerina Project shoots, but I still relished having such beautiful muses with whom to create and capture ballet AND fashion imagery that I’ve been focusing on for the last year.
I normally work on location or in a studio with just the model, so it was great to work with a team and end up with a set of images whose sum is greater than its parts.
A very hearty thank you to all involved:
Models: Ellie Morgan, Chantelle Burton, Gabriella Griggs, Glory Liu
Stylist: Leah Schabas
Make-Up: Megan Riddington
Hair: Hannah Punter
Assistants: Daisy Bard, Aurien Compton-Joseph, Chloe Wallis
View the full album of photos: http://claude.gallereasy.com/gallery/344/
Read the Varsity Fashion article at http://www.varsity.co.uk/fashion/shoots/tales-from-the-ballet
A model’s perspective of the shoot: http://gloriousbritannia.wordpress.com/2011/02/19/day-in-the-life-of-the-black-swan-behind-the-scenes-of-the-varsity-photo-shoot/
“Inspired” ADC Contemporary Dance Show
Cambridge University Contemporary Dance Workshop (CUCDW) puts on a dance show at the ADC every January, and I’ve been fortunate to have photographed the last seven shows. The show has evolved since its beginnings in 2003, and now comprises various styles of dance, from contemporary to hip hop, ballet and acrobatic rock’n’roll.
I performed in “Beauty” two years ago, introducing Acrobatic Rock’n’Roll to the show, and this year I returned to the stage with a contemporary duet that I choreographed. The show was well-received, and my first attempt at choreography in a new style met with surprisingly positive feedback. Fortunately there were other photographers present, so I have some images of my own piece.
Here are some of my favourite photographs from the myriad beautiful dancers.
Many more photos from the show are available at http://www.cantabphotos.com/tag/CUCDW/
Li & Alyssa’s Wedding
Li is a good friend from University, and I was honoured to be part of his day both as a guest and wedding photographer. The wedding was quite small, but very beautiful. One of the few weddings I’ve photographed that had a wedding planner, but Rebecca Gregory did a fantastic job. The grounds of Wotton House, a hotel in Surrey, afforded myriad beautiful locations for photographs, and being able to enjoy the day among friends made everything perfect.
The rest of the wedding photos can be found at http://claude.cantabphotos.com/100808154327/