Making a Splash!

I was asked how I created the image above of the coffee pour and splash so here I will share the process and behind the scenes. It’s a composite of about 4 or 5 images. First I created the set using an old patio table, brick wall background (nope its not real!), sacking and other elements and took a shot of the coffee in the cup. The milk jug pour and sugar falling are separate shots. After this I dismantled and ‘coffee proofed’ the set, making sure to keep the light, camera and cup in exactly the same positions. I then experimented with dropping different objects in the cup to get different splash effects. The most difficult part was syncing the trigger with dropping the object - too early and you caught the object in mid-air, too late and you missed the splash! I first tried whisky stones but being hard objects I was afraid they would break the delicate glass, so instead I tried grapes which worked pretty well. I used green ones but I think red would probably work just as well ;)

I must have taken hundreds of images before I got some I was happy with. Then the work just involving compositing the chosen splash images onto the original image using masks, then colour grading.

Various splashes including the one of the grape where I completely failed to capture the splash at the right time!

Last Normal Photo

There’s been a popular online thread where people post their ‘Last Normal Photo’ before the lockdown. The first two weeks of March had been a busy time so I wasn’t exactly sure what my photo was. It turned out to be some behind the scenes images I took on my phone from the video shoot I did for the Elan Quintet during their latest recording for Naxos. They finished the recording literally the day before the lockdown began and the producer Phil Rowlands managed to leave Spain just in time on one of the last flights out. It was indeed a bit of a strange week.

Two weeks before that I’d done a shoot with the Quintet featuring their new members and for the promotion of the new cd. Generally in Valencia we get about 300+ days of sunshine a year, apart from when I have scheduled an outside shoot it seems! It was rather a blustery day with a lot of dust blowing about, but nonetheless we got some nice shots! So tell me, what was your last normal photo?

Raspberry & lemon vodka tonic, you're welcome!

Summer is on it’s way and things are beginning to open up again. In Spain we are permitted finally to sit on an outside terraza for a drink. Although many people I know are not yet ready for this step and still prefer to stay at home for the time being so I thought it would be perfect to create my own ‘quarantini’ or rather a raspberry lemonade vodka tonic for those who prefer to celebrate the end of lockdown in their own space. Of course the vodka is optional if you just want a refreshing drink.

I wanted to create a hot summer’s day vibe, so of course I took advantage of the weather here and shot at midday, outside on my own patio to make those lovely shadows and bright highlights. The recipe is below, but I’m taking no responsibility for the outcome the next day!

Recipe:

1 (or 2) shots vodka (optional)

A few crushed raspberries

Juice of half lemon

Top with tonic water to taste and add ice

Garnish: raspberries, lemon wedge, rosemary sprig

Cheers!

Back to work!

It was with great joy that I was contacted by Principal cellist Rafal Jezierski last week to produce a short video of him performing the Prelude from Bach’s first cello suite inside the Museum of Bellas Artes in Valencia to help celebrate the International Day of Museums. I felt incredibly privileged to be one of only a handful of people inside the museum listening to beautiful music among the paintings. It was a challenge as I had to work alone as a one man band so to speak, directing, lighting, recording audio, and operating the 3+ cameras. I do miss working in a team but Rafal was great to work with and helped make the process run as smoothly and enjoyably as possible with minimum stress. I did however have to wear an attractive face mask and keep to the 2 metre distance rule as well as I could, not always so easy! Performing and recording a piece of music such as Bach’s Prelude has added pressure because it is so famous, and everyone has an opinion on how it should be played! I do hope that you enjoy Rafal’s performance and my video, and we can all look forward to working together in person again before too long.

Yep I need a haircut!

Haydn's Cassations

We had a problem. How do you film a trio of instruments when you are locked down in isolation and two of those three instruments are incredibly rare? Answer: you DIY it at home and find a versatile musician who can play all three parts!

My husband Matt is a double bassist and in the last few years has taken up playing the baryton, an 18th century classical instrument with strings on both the front and the back. Normally you’d be hard pressed to find two baryton players in the same room - a world conference of baryton players a few years ago took place around a single table in a bar in Finland, such is the rarity of both players and instruments! Matt has long had an ambition to perform Haydn’s Cassations for 2 Barytons and Bass and so suddenly being off work at the opera at the beginning of March he actually had time. Now of course when I said I would help I wasn’t quite aware of what I was setting myself up for. It was a steep learning curve as we fumbled our way through new software, best recording and filming practices in tiny spaces, and overlaying the three tracks and split screen video editing. Those first three days of lockdown were spent living Haydn and we quickly realised that producing all 12 movements was a big task and we couldn’t continue to pump out one a day if we wanted anything approaching quality.

So we enlisted our 3 year old to help with the recording, and chilled out the production timeframe. This led to some fairly ‘different’ ideas for each video - green screen with a tropical island? Why not?! A stop motion ‘live audience’ made of lego? Sure! I think my favourite though is number 10 when we filmed Matt playing all 3 parts outside on our terrace. It was a beautiful morning and our neighbours got to enjoy the performance as well. Here is the link to see all 12 of Haydn’s Cassations, recorded and filmed in our home during the lockdown.

#ChooseHopeStory

Two weeks feels a bit like half a decade at the moment, but about two weeks into the lockdown I answered a call by Muse Storytelling to collaborate on a community film project as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic. As 250 of us talked together on the first Zoom chat we realised that although we were largely experiencing this separately, there was a lot of experiences that we were encountering that were the same. The anxiety, the feeling of uselessness whilst perhaps some of our family and friends were front line health or key workers literally facing life and death. We wanted to do something, to help formulate a sense of community and hope within the panic buying and fear. And being visual creatives we felt a need to document this historic moment. However, we were all largely stuck inside our homes, unable to go outside and film. It was an intriguing problem and one that we solved together. Together we brainstormed ideas, then we each filmed 3 scenes and then sent the footage off to Oregon to be edited together into the short film above. It was a wonderful lesson in how people from all over the globe can have a common goal and work together to create something greater than each one could individually. Please watch the film and share.

Working from Home

Well the world has certainly changed very quickly recently. One moment we are outside enjoying the sunshine, the next we are struck with a pandemic and being ordered to stay in our homes and home-school our children. The two are not so easily done together, and I must say being the parent of a 3 year old we aren’t exactly taking the homework too seriously. But, I do work from home on a regular basis and so thought I’d share some valuable tips on the subject in case anyone is still struggling to get the hand of it.

1. Homeschooling

If you have children at home with you during the lockdown remember that home schooling can involve teaching them how to assist you in your work.

2. Life skills

Sound engineering and Camera operation are vital life skills and offer plentiful free labour ahem I mean learning opportunities for your child.

3. Environment

Create a comfortable home-office environment away from distractions.

4. Work attire

Dressing as you usually would for work helps maintain a professional attitude when working from home.

5. Online calls

Remember to turn off the camera/mic on video or conference calls when using the bathroom, and do try to look professional and well groomed…

6. Posture

…at least on the top half that will be visible on screen. Now might be the ideal time to invest in a quality standing desk. It can be a great alternative to sitting down all day and helps take the strain off your back.

7. Schedule

Try to stick to a normal work schedule and refrain from watching television in the middle of the day. Binge-watching Netflix at mid-day and leaving your work until the evening may seem like a good idea at the time, but not so much when 10pm rolls around.

So those are my wise tips for working from home. Of course I absolutely never watch tv in the middle of the day… ;)

Weber CD cover shoot

A few months ago I was contacted by Clarinetist and conductor Joan Lluna to shoot the CD cover for his recording of the Weber clarinet concerti with the Berlin Camerata. The original brief was a little complicated to say the least as he was to be both playing the solo clarinet part and conducting the orchestra, plus conducting two Weber symphonies as well. The cover had to say: clarinet, Weber, conductor via a portrait of Joan, but also he wanted it to look modern and using olive green tones as the colour reminded him of the composer. And he needed the images like yesterday, so no time to order a specific coloured backdrop - I had to think quickly! We toyed with a few possibly cheesy ideas of him holding both a conductors baton and a clarinet but that seemed too obvious to me. Eventually we hit upon the idea of him holding an image of Weber on his ipad whilst giving a subtle cheeky nod to him by copying his pose. The back cover was able to bring in the idea of both the clarinet and the baton as a sort of coda to the cd in a still life of the two objects. I found some darker forest green material which I thought suited the skin tones better than olive green so we used that as a backdrop, then used a simple gridded beauty dish to create the spot light effect. All in all I was very happy with the results and the recording itself is extraordinarily beautiful in both the performance and interpretation.

The cd can be downloaded or ordered straight from the website here:

http://ibsclassical.es/product/weber-symphonies-concertos/

Personal Project: This is Motherhood

I recently started a personal project exploring the themes of motherhood, invisibility and the judgements that many new mothers feel, particularly in regard to breast feeding in public and extended breast feeding of toddlers. Inspired by Magritte’s The Lovers, the series also touches on the topic of post-natal depression (Magritte’s own mother committed suicide). It was a project that I had ‘conceived’ when my son was just 3 months old and I eventually was able to realize it a couple of years later when he was 2 and a half years old. It was by pure coincidence that there was a news item at the time about the airline KLM and it’s treatment of a breastfeeding mother, so I released one of the images on twitter and then it got picked up by the Daily Mail and El Mundo. The images will be part of a joint exhibition in Edinburgh in Sept/Oct 2019 by Spilt Milk and will also be displayed in the Port International Photo Fest in October. I’m really happy about the amount of positive comments the project has received and that it has started an important conversation about the topics, and I can’t thank the women (and babies) who participated enough - they were all very supportive and enthusiastic about taking part and having their voices heard as well.

Find out more info about the Edinburgh exhibition here:

https://www.spiltmilkgallery.com/exhibitions/2019/9/28/re-birth-members-show-19

You can follow the project as it grows at this Instagram account: www.instagram.com/_thisismotherhood

You can read the original articles in the Daily Mail here:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7280251/Artists-portraits-breastfeeding-mums-highlight-unncessary-shame-experienced-post-birth.html

And El Mundo here:

https://www.elmundo.es/f5/2019/07/27/5d39bd6e21efa060088b45c4.html

Problem Solving: The Pilot

One of the things I really enjoy about photography is getting to meet a lot of interesting people that I wouldn’t normally. I was really happy when I was able to feature a fighter pilot with the US Air Force as part of my People of Rapid City project. Now the pilot was initially going to get me onto the flight line to do the shoot which would have been amazing, however, that wasn’t to be unfortunately due to several reasons. Firstly, because I do not hold a US passport it would have been a very complicated and lengthy process to get permission to enter the base and be up close to the aircraft, and secondly, there wasn’t time to do all this paperwork because the pilot was being sent away on active duty the following week. So we had to find a way around it. The pilot flies B1 bombers and luckily there was one parked outside the aviation museum, which was open to the general public.

So we arranged to do the shoot, he had time at mid-day for about 10 minutes! Anyone who is into photography knows that is the absolutely worst time to try to photograph anyone, but hey I like a challenge! I arrived early and had a look around, I really wasn’t at all prepared for how enormous these planes are - I mean the cockpit is about 20 feet into the air! There was also patches of bright snow on the ground and a really ugly car park in the background - not at all the kind of vibe I’d envisioned. You can see in this pull back photo what it really looked like.

How huge is this plane? You can see the ugly car park and patchy snow here too.

So I got into problem solving mode. I asked the pilot to walk forwards towards me, and had him in the end quite far away from the actual plane. This allowed me to make him larger in the image compared with the plane. I also shot upwards (basically involves me lying flat on my back on the ground!) to not only create a heroic feel to the pilot, but it also got the plane into the image and eliminated the ugly background. For lighting I used the harsh sunlight as the main light and used a pop of strobe to fill in shadows a little. All in all it’s one of my favorite images from the project.

How it works: the pre-consultation

When somebody first enquires about setting up a shoot with me the first thing I do is try to get off email or whatsapp and actually talk to them in a real conversation. Ideally this would be face to face but as many of my clients are super busy and traveling a lot we often use some sort of video call instead. I prefer this to a phone call because I can begin to start looking at the way people hold themselves - their natural body language and the way they move tells me a huge amount about them, before they’ve even opened their mouths. The second reason why I want to talk is so we can have a real conversation - something that is very difficult to do via text only. I want to ask questions and find out more about what you think you want, what you need (not always the same things!), your background or the story behind your business, and any ideas or requests you already have. I need to know what you plan to use the images or video for, so any planning always begins with the end in mind, then we work backwards. After this initial meeting if you decide to go ahead I can start the creative process and begin a mood board of ideas and shot list. 

“It was like she got inside our heads…

…and knew exactly what we wanted. It really exceeded all my expectations” - Marie Rodgers, Business and Sales coach

For a video the process is even more in depth than for still photography and if the video will include an interview then I will arrange a second meeting or pre-interview. This is primarily an informal information gathering chat, and will also give my interviewee the opportunity to know roughly what I will be asking when the cameras are rolling. Unless you are a professional actor, it’s completely normal to be a little nervous when being filmed and I find that conducting a pre-interview will help put you at ease when the record button is pressed. It also enables me to know what general direction I need to go in during the interview, find the story of the whole film, and helps me to plan the questions I will ask, and alternative ways of asking the same question in order to prompt good responses. 

All in all the pre-consultation is indispensable: it helps me to get to know you and understand your needs better so I can go away and start putting together my creative vision for your shoot. Contact me if you’d like to arrange a chat to see how I can help you.

The world's first stroller-cam

When it comes to photography, the more I shoot, the more I understand that much of my work is not about photography. It’s actually about problem solving. How do I help this client or business present themselves in the way they would like? How do I light a subject in a way that will create the right mood? How do I get a bathtub into the middle of a derelict building?

Recently I had the opportunity to create some ensemble portraits for the Valencia Baryton Project. It’s a local group of world class musicians, and being married to one of them, creates the ideal opportunity for me to experiment with new ideas. They pretty much leave it up to me and let my imagination run away with itself - perfect for any creative person! So the brief they gave me was to depict them in some way that we could add extra players for future concerts (it’s more of a collective with several interchangeable musicians). That immediately said to me ‘composite’ so that I could take photos of the musicians separately and swap them onto a background image creating different combinations of the same image. So I set up a small studio in my house (I needed more space than my regular studio has to replicate the equivalent distance in the background) to photograph each musician separately.

The next question was where should the background be taken? I’ve wanted to do a shoot for years in Valencia’s old Silk Exchange, however, it being a UNESCO World Heritage site they don’t allow camera tripods, which is necessary to take a photo at a longish exposure. But they will allow pushchairs! So I put my thinking cap on and brought along a willing helper (my 2 year old) and his stroller. I used my trusty gorilla pod to attach the camera to the back of the tripod and set about photographing various backgrounds that I might use. It was largely successful, although my toddler had his own ideas about creative direction ;)

Behind the Scenes with the stroller and my mini-assistant

The background

Photographing the musicians individually