Fellow Photographers,

Welcome to this bumper edition of the Photonews Newsletter! I’ve recently added a whole load of new events to the studio programme taking us into next year. I’d like to draw your attention to a few events in particular. Firstly we have our Male Nude Night this Friday (2nd Nov) bookings are going well for this so if you want to come please book your place soon.

The next two events I want to highlight are both designed to help you work more effectively in the studio. Firstly on Saturday 10th November Rick Bradbury and I will be co-leading a workshop on How to Pose your Subjects. If you wish to attend this workshop please let me know soon, because of the number of people involved in running it – Rick, myself and two models – we need to know we have the numbers to run it soon.

The other studio based workshop to draw to your attention is the Introduction to Studio Photography workshop. This has been a popular workshop in the past and is designed to give you confidence in designing and setting up studio lighting. There will also be advice on how to work with models.

Also in this newsletter we have no less than three articles from the blog and two photos of the day. All of which contain hints and tips to help your photography. So for all these things, please read on…..

Forthcoming Events

Friday, 2 November 2012 – Male Nude Night

Male Nude Night

Location: Ian’s Studio
Time: 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Price: £29

Take the challenge of working with a male model to create stunning art nude images.

We will look at different posing and lighting techniques for working with male models. We will start with semi clothed images, and progress through to full male nude.

The model for this event will be Neil Thomas. You can see Neil’s profile on Purpleport here: http://purpleport.com/portfolio/NeilThomas/?referrer=ianbutty

Price: £29

Please book via my website: http://www.ians-studio.co.uk/events/male-nude-night/

Friday, 9 November 2012 – Multi-Strobe Night

Multi-Strobe Night

Location: Ian’s Studio
Time: 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Price: £20

Outdoor photography at night with multiple speedlights/strobes. Weather permitting we will shoot in the grounds of the works and look at different ways to illuminate both model and location.

If you have your own strobist gear please bring it with you. If you haven’t we have enough kit at the studio to work with.

The model for this event will be Hazel Clarke you can see Hazel’s portfolio on Purestorm: http://www.purestorm.com/Hazel305 and images from a previous shoot at the studio here: http://photos.imb.biz/models/shoot/hazel

Price: £20

Please book via my website: http://www.ians-studio.co.uk/events/multi-strobe-night/

Saturday, 10 November 2012 – How to pose your subjects

How to pose your subjects

Location: Ian’s Studio
Time: 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Price: £85

In this full-day workshop you will learn how to work with both models and members of the public on your photo shoots. The workshop will be led jointly by Ian M Butterfield and Rick Bradbury

You will learn techniques for interacting with your subjects to bring out their personality. How to find poses which work well for your subject.

We will work with both male and female models and also look at how to pose couples.

Price: £85 (Includes buffet lunch and printed notes)

A deposit of £25 is required to secure you place on this workshop.

Please book via my website: http://www.ians-studio.co.uk/events/how-to-pose-your-subjects/

Friday, 16 November 2012 – Beat the Clock

Beat the Clock

Location: Ian’s Studio
Time: 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Price: £25

Join us for a fast paced shooting evening. Shoot against the clock and decide how many minutes to allocate to each of the evenings set-ups

The evening has been designed to be fun, but also to allow you to learn how to shoot under pressure.

Our model for the evening is Victoria Claire. Victoria will be working at a range of modelling levels and genres including fashion, lingerie, topless and implied nude.

You can see Victoria’s model profile on Purestorm: http://www.purestorm.com/profile.aspx?id=VictoriaClaire (Note: contains nudity)

Price: £25

Please book via my website: http://www.ians-studio.co.uk/events/beat-the-clock/

Saturday, 17 November 2012 – Introduction to Studio Photography Workshop

Introduction to Studio Photography Workshop

Location: Ian’s Studio
Time: 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Price: £69

In this workshop we look at a number of simple studio lighting techniques starting with zero lights (using only window light) up to using four lights. We also look at some basic techniques for posing subjects and for working with models.

We will look at how different light modifiers such as umbrellas, softboxes, snoots, grids and gels can be used. There will be time during the day for you to practise these techniques with the help of a professional model. We will cover basic posing techniques which are suitable for photographing friends, family, customers or even models. We will also look at the biggest cheat of all for posing people in the studio – the use of props.

Printed notes to document the techniques we will look at during the day will be provided and a buffet lunch is included in the price of the event. Numbers will be limited to 6 photographers.

Our model for this event will be announced shortly

You can see some images taken at previous versions of this workshop in this gallery…
26 Nov 2011 – http://photos.imb.biz/model/shoot/vikiworkshop
27 Nov 2010 – http://photos.imb.biz/models/danniworkshop (at Pumkin Studio)
15 May 2010 – http://photos.imb.biz/models/faithstudio (at Calumet)

The cost for the event is £69.00. (includes lunch and printed notes)

Please book via my website: http://www.ians-studio.co.uk/events/studiointro1211/

From the Blog…

Studio Hire: What’s included?

In this blog post I wanted to briefly talk about what is included in the price when you hire the studio. The answer is just about everything you need. I try very hard to avoid hidden extras when the studio is hired out.

This means the price includes the use of the lights, modifiers, radio triggers, light meter, smoke machine, props, backgrounds and normal use of background papers.

You also get me! If you want me that is. I have some people who use the studio who simply want to use the equipment and be left to get on with it by themselves. That’s great I’ll just sit in my office and get on with processing some of my own images. But I also have some people who hire the studio and want me involved with setting up lights and offering advice throughout the shoot. That’s fine too, I’m always happy to assist in any way you want me to.

What’s not included in the standard hire price? If you want to do a water based shoot or a messy shoot and I need to put down protective sheeting or set up the shower either in the studio or for your model to clean up then I have to charge a little extra to cover the set-up and clear away. How much will that be? Well it depends on the shoot and how much extra work is involved. I try to keep it down to a minimum.

The only other additional charge that could possibly be made is if there is excessive use of background papers or damage to equipment due to a hirer not taking due care. To be honest I’ve never yet had to charge for either but I have to reserve the right to.

A listing hire charges can be found here: http://www.ians-studio.co.uk/studio/hire-prices/

A list of studio equipment can be found here: http://www.ians-studio.co.uk/studio/

Turn back time!

Clocks went back (here in the UK) this weekend. We have left British Summer Time and moved into GMT… Don’t forget to put back the time on your camera. Every time the clocks change I come across loads of photographers who remember to adjust all the clocks in their homes but still manage to forget to adjust the one in their camera!

BLOG/TIPS: Photographing Fireworks

As we are heading towards Bonfire night I thought it was time to update and revise my blog post about photographing fireworks. This was previously published on the site last November.

Long exposure is of course the way to go, you want the shutter open for the duration of a firework burst. This will normally mean an exposure of several seconds depending on the duration of the burst. A lot of photographers tend to use “Bulb” mode and a cable release/remote trigger. Opening the shutter as the firework zooms into the sky and closing it at the end of it’s burst. I’ve found that setting a manual exposure of about 4sec also works reasonably well if the shutter is opened as fireworks zoom upwards. Whichever method you use, you will of course need to have your camera of a sturdy tripod.

Having looked at shutter speed what about ISO and aperture? Assuming you are shooting at ISO 100. Aperture settings for fireworks tend to be anything between f/8 and f/16 depending on brightness of the pyrotechnics. (Having said that the image on the right was taken on f7.1 – as I said, depends on the brightness of the fireworks!). Manual focus on infinity and away you go. Of course check the back of the camera for the first couple of images to make sure the camera is pointing at the right bit of sky and to make sure that the firework burst is not over exposing.

Have a great bonfire night!

Photo of the Day

POTD 23 Oct 2012: Background Images

I’ve recently been doing some images for publicity at Stockport Garrick Theatre. In addition to shots of cast members for the production I’ve also been taking ‘flavour’ images. Some of these will be used as backgrounds in the program.

When ever I do a shoot for any sort of commercial work I always try to understand what the images will be used for. In this case I spoke with the designer and out of those discussions I realised that he would need background textures as part of the layout. Although it would be very easy for the designer to get the images from stock it would be much more effective in the final product if those images tied in with the main images we were shooting for the programme. So for each play we took images of props such as the rope image above and the coins image below that could be used.

It took just a few extra minutes to gave the client some added value.

POTD: 20 Oct 2012: Neil

Today’s POTD comes from a test shoot I did with Neil who will be our male art nude model on Friday 2nd November. I really enjoyed the shoot with Neil – great to do a different type of shoot. You can see more images from my test shoot here: http://photos.imb.biz/model/shoot/neil

The images in that gallery are similar to the ones we will be creating at the Male Art Nude event. If you you would like to join us, you can book here: http://www.ians-studio.co.uk/events/male-nude-night/