Hasselblad + Digital Back Portrait Shoot

As part of my University course i had to do a portrait shoot with a Hasselblad camera and digital back within the studio. I chose my friend Liam for the shoot as i feel he has a story behind his face. Looking at the images they just look like portrait photographs. The truth is Liam actually has metal implanted into his face after being attacked with a crow bar, his whole left cheekbone has metal somewhere within or around it to keep the structure of his face (i believe).

Snow, snow and more snow

This photo pretty much sums up my day; Sat at my desk, trying to do uni work but really watching the snow fall down on my road..

Taken with my new lens i got for christmas. Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8.. it is incredible. I've done two shoots this week and after all the stress i am really happy with them. (will post when all the editing is finished) Starting to get motivated to take photos again! 

Something different, but interesting.

Neil Armstrong, the astronaut... and photographer?
At the end of the day anyone can call themselves a photographer, qualifications or not. I was amazed when i found a page in my photography book of a photograph that Neil Armstrong took of Buzz Aldrin on the moon.

It is such an incredible photograph, without even meaning to be! An astronaut took the photograph with no history in photography and without even having a viewfinder on the camera. 

'Neil shot most of the photos on the moon, having the camera attached to a fitting on his spacesuit much of the time while I was doing a variety of experiments. I didn’t have such a camera holder on my suit, so it just made sense that Neil should handle the photography. He took some fantastic photographs, too, especially when one considers that there was no viewfinder on the intricate Hasselblad camera. We were basically “pointing and shooting.” Imagine taking such historic photographs and not even being able to tell what image you were getting. Unlike the digital camera era of today, in 1969 we were shooting on film, typically looking through a small optical opening on the back of the camera that corresponded with what the camera’s lens was “seeing.” But with our large space helmets, such a viewfinder would have done little good anyhow. So, similar to cowboys shooting their sixguns from their hips, we aimed the camera in the direction of what we wanted to photograph, and squeezed the trigger. Given that ambiguity, it is even more of a credit to Neil that we brought back such stunning photographs from the moon.'

I think the conclusion of this post is that i'm a geek when it comes to photography, which i think most people already knew. At Uni I feel like i'm constantly made to plan in detail my images, before i even take them. Then i'm told to re shoot them if they aren't quite right...but why? when in real life situations you don't have time to plan or re-shoot.

Trax

Last weekend i went with my boyfriend and his friends to Trax, a drift event at Silverstone. I managed to get a few good shots of the cars in motion, but i have to admit some of the photos on my flickr my boyfriend did take! The photographs in the post i did take myself and i am quite pleased with them even though i didn't really know how was best to edit them.

Have a look at the rest of the set of photos here.

Modestep

Once again i was at WAMA last night photographing, this time round Modestep were performing! It was such a busy night and it was getting pretty difficult to get around the venue without getting bashed into, but i think everyone just put up with it because the music was incredible! 

After last night i do wish i stopped and enjoyed the music a bit more. Then again at the end of the day i do get paid to take photographs, see people i know and hear incredible music. 

The whole point of this post was to share my favorite photo of the night, as always with these events i don't realize that I've got the shot i wanted or even that i took the photo at that time, until i sit down and look back through them.

'Show me a sign' is Modestep's new song that was being performed when i took this photo. Pretty much everyone in the room had a light on their phone or their lighters up, pretty cool to see!

someone raise a light up

light up the sky above

if you're with me now, show me a sign

(put your f*cking lights up)

Labradoodle

Just a few shots of my boyfriends labradoodle - Hetty. I dont really have that much to say about this set of photos but i wanted to share them. :)

Snow is falling

Everyone is talking about the snow thats now arrived in Wycombe. Since my original plans got cancelled because of the forcast of snow i ended up having a quiet night in home alone, but when the snow started and i looked out and saw my street so white and peaceful i couldnt help but brave the cold and get some snaps.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alex-beynon/

Olmpus om10

Mike's dad let me borrow his Olympus om10 35mm camera. So to test it out i used some out of date film (expiry date - 2005) just to have a play around with the camera and how the film turns out.

Our cars were getting pretty filthy so we decided to clean them today, not the best idea considering how cold it actually turned out to be. While we washed the cars i took some photos using the camera, then once we were done washing the cars i got the film developed at asda and put on a CD.

Even though the women had scanned the film in backwards so all the images were the wrong way round and half of them had been cropped some of them turned out pretty good and have a really cool vintage grain look to them!

Quite chuffed really, ended the day with a clean car and some cool looking photos :)

Vibrant entertainment

So once again i was down at Wycombe Acadamy on the 30th of December to photograph an event organised by Vibrant entertainment.

They had an awesome snow cannon which looked great in the photos. I tried out a few new settings i had researched in these photos and i think they are getting better and better with practice.

Really starting to make a name for myself photographing these events, its money in my pocket and its actually really fun!

The rest of the photographs are here if you want to have a look :D.

Brands Hatch - Track Day

As part of my college Documentary brief i had to choose an event or theme to document. I was going to the Track Day event at Brands Hatch with my boyfriend and some friends anyway so i decided to document that.

The photographs were taken in black and white film and i processed and printed the film myself, the prints wernt amazing quality but once i scanned them in i edited them to make them look how they are supposed to.

These are a few of my final photographs that were my favourites from the day. I enjoyed my day and i enjoyed the fact of not knowing what photographs i had until i had processed them, some of the images that are below i didnt even realised i had captured that moment.

Whipsnade Zoo

So its been a while since i updated my blog and i felt it was about time to update it with what ive been doing recently.

In November my college class took a trip to Whipsnade Zoo, this is part of our documentary brief and we had to generally photograph the animals and the location.

I found going to the zoo made me feel like a little kid again, getting excited about the little penguins and how big the elephants are.

Curious Events

On Friday 28th October Curious Events organized a Halloween UV party at High Wycombe Academy. I was the hired photographer for the night and these are a few of the photographs from the night. It was such a good night and its really making me think more about getting into photographing events, it was extreamly tiring and ended up being a late night followed by a lot of editing the day after. I still enjoyed doing it and would definately do it again :)

The rest of the photographers are on the organizers facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Curious-Events/175035332564021

Fashion Water and Movement

For my fashion water and movement brief i had to create images that showed all three areas.
After my first idea not happening after trying to arrange it 2/3 times, i got my boyfriend and some friends to go outside on their skateboards/bmx's and do some tricks while i photograph.
Simple idea, but i am actually really pleased with the photos, i wanted to create something different and i think i managed that.

Black Park

Took a few photos on a trip to Black Park with Mike and Hetty, such a lovely place to walk around. Played around with Photoshop colours to give the cross process look to the images.

Hetty

These are a few photos i took of my boyfriends dog, she is a very calm and lovely labradoodle. I used a ball to prompt these poses as she was watching the ball and moving her head along with it. I am certain that after a while she knew what was happening and just posed for the photos without me doing anything.