Dark Daze photography blog

Your life is my vanity project- one week later

Georgie Hobday. Storm Agency Model Thursday 1st October 2009 4.45pm-5.45pm

Inside American Apparel.

After my twitter appeal for a work experience candidate I had Mary come in today and help me with scanning some poalroids. I was asked a few months ago to be part of the Shashin Collective and as soon as I saw Phil Sharp on there as the first name, I was hooked on the idea but a lot of things delayed me getting onto the selecting of images that I would send, then I went to the US to rest my brain and finally now am getting around to it.

At this point I am not sure 100% whether to send something very focussed or a wide range of work, but have now submitted something, lets hope they like it… anyway its an opportunity to get round to all the scanning I need for this and various projects. Mary started with a bunch of polaroids of Sally Reynolds and it looks like I am one step closer to starting that book on her, which is a massive relief. I am not sure whether it will be done by the end of the year but I am really going to try, especially as we (Garage Studios) have been asked to do a book for a big photography publisher, it seems the ideal time. Obviously this is very much a personal project, but hopefully you’ll get to see a whole host of images that have not made it out into the world yet… As a taster here is a bunch of Polaroids of Sally, dont worry no matter what happens with the book I wont be doing the layout myself, so it wont look as chaotic as the image below….

This is a huge load of work to get through and so if anyone else is looking for some part time studio experience as well, then please get in touch here info@darkdaze.org , or in the comment box below or on the Garage Studios site
Ideally you’ll have some experience working with scanning negs and prints, and some photoshop skills, but I’ll happily teach you if you have some enthusiasm for the task. It doesnt really matter how many hours you can spare, evenings, weekdays or weekends, in return you’ll get some tuition, a lot of cups of tea, and the potential great opportunities that working in a busy professional shooting studio will offer. This is just work experience though, so its unpaid, but if you want to work in the industry then this may be of help to you.

If your just into the photos then keep checking in and I will have more news on the Sally project soon (there is more here), plus a new set of work with Elin and more from the recent projects with Georgie…. Looks like I finally have my brain back in gear after the harshness of the past few months… whoop….

Your life is my Vanity Project

Georgie Hobday. Storm Agency Model Thursday 24th September 2009 4.45pm-5.45pm

Georgie Hobday. Storm Agency Model Thursday 24th September 2009 4.45pm-5.45pm

Part1.

Your life is my Vanity Project.

we had a promo shoot for Brighton’s Source Student Guide this week, I had only been back from USA for a day, a very long day at that… and as it was for the Student guide, editor Mr Kendall insisted it be shot on location somewhere landmark-esque in Brighton.

The band that he picked were This City who fortunately have a strong image and a good look. I cant begin to describe the torturous process of organising the shoot itself, and i have ranted and ranted before about bloody PR agents, but lets just say somewhere in the region of twenty emails pinged back and forth from the bands PR company, with some demands/requests that started at mildly amusing and ended up bordering on the deranged ended up in my inbox.

The band fortunately cant have been aware of any of this, as when I mailed Aaron he was incredibly helpful and willing to go with the ideas. It just goes to show that mgmt/pr and photographers should never mix, they clearly want to defend or protect their financial investment at every step, whilst I want to exploit every opportunity to make a great image. We are so far apart in what we both want to achieve that I have found if you can get direct contact with the band then its the only sensible road to go down. If you can show the idea they tend to be incredibly willing- often the most nightmare PR’s have turned out to be working for the most easy-going bands you’ll ever meet. But I aint complaining thats exactly their role, to protect and serve and to look after the labels interest, eg getting their money back…….

The idea I had was to shoot the band in the sea, but with just the usual ‘band line-up’ style, the twist being waist deep in water. Its pretty good weather in Brighton still now and amazingly the water was very warm- well compared to what i thought it would be… but thats cos I am a 9 Stone wuss and feel the cold on my almost visible bag-of-bones body.

What followed on the day of the shoot was a quick discussion on the beach as to what the band would wear, they needed only a little convincing to ‘man-up’ and go shirtless, as they have a whole set of killer tattoos between them. We kept two shirts on to add symmetry, and waded out into the sea. I dont know if the brighton sea is always this shallow but we waded out proper far before it even got slightly deep. Matt have a £500 light strapped to his arm, and a £450 battery pack strapped to his back as the waves crashed around us. My assistant Tash, cos shes so achingly hip, wore her lovely new dress in the sea too, and kinda ruined it. I was in my freshly ironed Ben Sherman shirt you know god is in the details and even when your crouched in the sea with water up to your chest you need to look fresh.

We were shooting polaroids, on a vintage land 340, into the sun with a bowens 500w head, blasting into the band. We chose Polaroid for the slight washed out look (no pun) and as the mag needed the images by the end of the day and we arent dumb enough to try with digital and there was no time to get film processed…..Unfortunately Pocket Wizards being more tempremental than Kanye when he’s done a big bag of afternoon gak with a brandy bottle chaser, they just didnt want to fire. Waiting in the sea, jumping waves and counting for the two minutes until you can peel apart a polaroid just to see it as silhouette is a real kick in your tiny shrivelled salty balls. This happened several times until we had to shoot away from the sun instead, shame really. But the band were brilliant, not complaining at all and trying not to get too soaked whilst i faffed around like a right tard.

Anyways here are a few of the outtakes, that kinda have a nice quality but aint covers for sure. They are sandy cos each time I shot one I had to wade a 100m to the shore and give it to the mag editor and then wade back out again to the band. Matt and tash seemed a bit despairing at how the equipment kept screwing up, but i guess Bowens wasnt built for the sea, everything got soaked, all our clothes, lights, cables, tash dropped polaroids into the sea like it was a new game, and even lobbed away a decent reflector which may have bobbed up on the beach by now, and is yours if you find it. After 6 shots we got the one we needed, and the whole thing probably took 15 minutes but under that pressure it felt like an age.

I gotta say though it was one of the most fun shoots I have had in years, and just goes to show that with the right subjects, a dope as fuck band like this, and a bit of willing even i can overcome my own ineptitude to pull out a decent image or two.

This will be out in Oct.

Thats genuine sand on the scans by the way…..

I mean really, no photo of mine could do it justice, but when she flashed it at us, emma and I nearly hit the floor….. Now we need to come up with the very best shoot possible for this girl……

Oh and this is for Andy Parker innit…. oops forgot the uuuuuuurl http://www.avangelistphotography.com cos he hates Rankin….

you want a model portfolio shoot then get in touch at info@garage-studios.co.uk

Thanks to the many hundreds of people that came to the launch last night, we all had a great time and hope you did as well… I dont think i have seen so many models in the same room at one time, it was brilliant, and I even got presented with a sort of spoof/homage mock up of the mag from some flickr friends, they’d got the look of the cover and text etc spot on… So the party was great , beer, photos, fashion, nakedness on the walls and hundreds of happy people, but without the usual dross of same old Brighton faces, thank you so much if you came down.

due to some hosting difficulties our site still isnt visible, which is a shame cos it looks great, but as soon as its back up we will let you know. In the meantime we still have the blog, GangUp and if you want to buy the mag now, then go straight to the Ophelia Fancy shop, dont worry its not a scam, the ladies are 2 of the 6 crew that make up GangUp.

Buy a copy

The mag is 104 pages, all photography, no adverts, with a beautiful matt laminate cover, and is priced at £12. You really wont disappointed, its a thing of beauty….

Thanks to Ed for this shot of one of the display copies from the launch, you can see more from last night here….

But first go buy a copy…..Go

We have 48hrs to get this magazine in your hands.

god damn i am excited.

even these ladies look pretty happy about it,

This is a little heads up that I will be running a few new courses at Garage Studios soon, quite originally its called Studio Lighting Part2, (the result of an all night brainstorming session)… It is aimed as a follow on if you have completed the original 2 day Studio Lighting course, and feel comfortable moving onto the next step.

We will focus a lot more on finetuning set-ups, and also the other factors that come into the image at this point, such as shooting to a brief, working with models, composition, introducing backgrounds and sets, current editorial styles. It will equip you with shooting portraits, band promos and fashion. You will need a good understanding of flash, and ideally have completed the first course, or be able to show some images that demonstrate your ability at a basic studio level. This image below is an example for a commissioned shoot for a client, and the sort of level that I will hope to work towards with the course. We will, as always provide models and assistant for the course, you will need a DSLR and a love of lighting. We will keep the group small, and places will be limited. I will post more details when dates and prices are fixed, but if you want to register interest please mail info(at)garage-studios.co.uk

I will also be running a course on Fashion Editorial aimed at those that want to shoot, or improve how they shoot fashion. We will work with a team with stylist, model, make-up artist etc. This is aimed at film or digital users, but this course is aimed at those with a real love of fashion and a decent grasp of fashion photographers work and will be shot on locations, not in studio. We will work on shooting a full editorial story, with specific magazines or websites submissions in mind. I will only be able to take a very small number of people on each session as we will have a full team working with you. We will also look at editing and post work on this course (though this will be available as a seperate day- so if you just want to shoot, you only need book Day 1). There are some examples of editorial on location below…. (again if you want to reserve a place pls mail info(at)garage-studios.co.uk)

But there are lots more editorial on here if you search my blog.

These should be really interesting courses and a real step forward from Studio Lighting 1, if you are interested the contact details are here

We will confirm prices soon, hopefully by the end of the day.

I had a shoot a while back with DD favourite SJ. You can read more about the shoot here…..

or you can just stare at how amazing this girl is in the pics below. The clothes are from MIshka, NYC although as you all may know by now SJ has her own site and designs as well- which I am sure I’ll get a crack at shooting one day. The site takes a bit to load but give it time. Hot damn i love this lady…. (but so does sally so its all good) Oh and there will be more to come tomo- but its been a busy day at GS towers.

[caption id="attachment_544" align="alignnone" width="433" caption="SJ in Mishka and a Gold Chain for DarkDaze"][/caption][caption id="attachment_546" align="alignnone" width="433" caption="SJ in Mishka for DarkDaze"][/caption]

DD x