Congratulations Team GB

What a few days of action in the Rio velodrome. But where the medals were really won was back at base with all those hours of hard training. Many hours were spent at the home of British Cycling, namely the Manchester velodrome. I had the privilege of photographing the sprint squad, including Jason Kenny, Callum Skinner, Becky James, Katy Marchant and Phil Hindes who were supporting the Help for Heroes charity. And to watch Jason Kenny full bore behind a motorbike was a sight to behold.

Shoe time

You can approach product photography in a couple of different ways. Make an arty, visually appealing picture or keep it strictly factual and let the product speak for itself. I’ve demonstrated both methods in these photographs of shoes and, as always, the lighting is critical whichever treatment you choose. The two pack shots against the white backgrounds are evenly lit with the shoes simply placed to reveal their details, while for the other two I used complementary backgrounds and composed and lit the shots carefully to build them into creative images. 

                              

   

Vive le Yorkshire

It's not often that you can nip out of Manchester to watch the greatest race in the world pass by. Massive crowds watched Yorkshire kick off the Tour de France this weekend. Here Blel Kidri of team AG2R Mondiale leads the race as he reaches the summit of Sunday’s biggest climb, Holme Moss. The crowds were amazing, 60,000 people on Holme Moss alone by all accounts.

Le Gendarmerie on British roads

A hero of mine Frenchman Tommy Voeckler

And the day before at the start in Leeds, Cav no more but va va Froome!

Lady in Red

I enjoy the challenge of arriving at a new location and seeking out the best setting for my subject. It didn’t take long this time: the moment Patricia Masters of Westgate CVs opened the door to her rich red hallway I knew where to shoot the business portraits she’d commissioned. I placed my lighting strategically to build some intrigue and create a sense of recession through the arches. And the other week the Northwest British Institute of Professional Photography Awards confirmed that my hallway hunch was right when, in the Environmental Portraiture category, my lady in red won me a gold.

Hero Ride

As a self confessed cycloholic (is that a word?) I had a dream assignment this week at the Manchester Velodrome. I was asked to photograph the launch of Hero Ride on behalf of Help for Heroes. Centre stage were Jon-Allan Butterworth, triple silver medalist at London 2012 Paralympics and Afghanistan war veteran Nathan Cumberland along with other members of Team GB cycling squad.

Why not join the ride. If you fancy Manchester to London it's only 230 miles! You've got 5 days though...

Jon-Allan in action

 And again, I know it's blurred but he was motoring. It's now art!

Is that banking steep...

  Nathan and Jon-Allan next to statue of another cycling legend Reg Harris.

Yes, they train behind a motorbike

And a real treat, Jason Kenny, triple olympic gold medalist and double world champion at full bore in training. Can he move!

Happy Christmas

A photographer friend of mine told me about the work of Kevin Best, described as one of the top 12 photographers on Flickr. Take a look, it's worth it. He specialises in sumptuous still lifes in the style of the Old Masters. There's a certain richness and quality to his work, so I was intrigued as to how he'd achieved it. He uses medium format, Pentax I think, but he also knows a lot about lighting which is ultimately what counts.

It gave me an idea for a Christmas still life of my own and I thought I'd investigate the relative qualities of a dslr versus medium format to assess just how much advantage it gives and it's significant.

so here's the first shot on a Canon 5D Mark II

and the next on a Hasselblad H3D-39

The medium format shot is much more colour accurate, has a wider dynamic range - one of the principal advantages of this large sensor, and a beautiful tonal range. The web browser doesn't do it justice but look at the candle and the fir cones. There's more tones and shadow detail evident, plus it handles the highlights so much better.

Capturing the smoke was fun, fortunately I got the better effect on the higher quality shot.

Have a great Christmas!

Ode to Michael Kenna

I took the opportunity recently to visit an exhibition by one of my photographic heroes, Michael Kenna. It was held at The Brindley in Runcorn, near his home town of Widnes. I've admired his work for a long time - it's landscape based, characterised by an abstract simplicity devoid of people so no sense of scale is easily imparted. His work is often minimalist with a very small range of tones. He predominately shoots in black and white, often in the square format, a format I particularly like.

I know you shouldn't photograph other people's work but I do so here to explain a photo I took myself in a Kenna style. I hope he doesn't mind!

One of his major projects has been the photography of Ratcliffe Power Station concentrating on the impressive cooling towers. Whilst going round the exhibition I noticed the light on the distant cooling towers at Fiddler's Ferry and as it had just stopped raining the window was covered in an attractive pattern of rain drops. So I combined the two elements to make my own composition as my ode to Michael Kenna.

Awards Season

November is awards season and last month saw me busy again. The big ones for me were the Macclesfield and Wilmslow Business Awards and the Prospects Postgraduate Awards. You might think they are quite staid affairs but quite the opposite is true, so I always like to catch the atmosphere and the guests enjoying themselves.

Of course all the winners receiving their awards, a 'grip and grin' as we call it in the trade!

The comperes, speakers and singers doing an excellent job of holding everything together.

And anything else which catches my eye...

Congratulations to all the winners.

Great North Run

It's got to be one of the country's most spectacular events, a half marathon from Newcastle to South Shields. Suspect weather didn't dampen the day as 55,000 runners or so took to the streets.

David Weir (in white) on route to winning the wheelchair race. They are seriously fast.

Billed as the best field to ever grace UK roads, Mo Farah, Haile Gebrselassie and Kenenisa Bekele were the elite of the elite athletes. What a finish with Bekele just holding off a sprinting Farah.

The event would not be complete without the Red Arrows.

Just call 118118...

It would have been easier to cycle!

My dear wife Lindsey, looking far too fresh 500m from the finish.

She was proud to be running on behalf of Parkinsons UK. Do support them if you can to find a cure for this wretched illness.

Last days of film

‘Pomp and Circumstance’ and ‘Jerusalem’ stirred the Albert Hall again at Saturday’s Last Night of the Proms.

Digital computer trickery now makes it relatively easy to produce a layered image like this, but I actually did this one the hard way, using film and entirely in the camera. Combining multiple exposures, transparency projection and the precise alignment of the different elements made it just the sort of challenging composition I really miss.

Sunshine pizza

How do you shoot a sunny garden on a cloudy day? You make one as I did here, positioning numerous lights around this courtyard. The appropriately named Spice PR had commissioned me to photograph the new Earthfire outdoor pizza ovens from their client Grenadier. Private chef Jason Palin, who has cooked in 40 countries (including for A-list stars in Gstaad, no less) brought some Mediterranean flavour to a dull British afternoon, cooking calzone and oven-roast mackerel as well as pizza.

And the best part of the shoot? I got to eat the props.

and behind the scenes, creating sunshine