Dark Daze photography blog

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

]If you liked the latest stuff on the shoot then there are some great Behind the scenes images on the G.Studios Site so wander over and have a look. Cheers for the shots Vickeh, DD.

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So this is kinda how it came about… if yr interested.

I have had the desperate desire to shoot rooms in the studio for ages, but due to many reasons its been really difficult to sort out, especially as we have so many workshops and classes in the Garage Studios space- meaning anything we did had to be set up, built lit and shot in less than 48hrs, with everything returned back to a plain white, painted studio by the end of it. Running a commercial business and trying to do creative shoots is a tricky juggling act. So I had an idea of an image i wanted to shoot, and fortunately Matt and Adam are happy to indulge my ideas sometimes, we had 2 empty days in the diary in the week ahead, so they said they’d be happy to throw some time into this one- as long as i could get the whole thing locked first.

I have always been a bit obsessed with the horror of religious painting, and had spent a fair bit of time cradling my head in my hands at Caravaggio paintings, I have linked some detail images below…. if i could control lighting like that then I’d die a happy man, instead of one probably wracked with remorse and regret.

I have also got a bit consumed by the narcissism of what we’re all doing now, the blogs, the twitter, the constant bleating just to hear our own words, over and over- and yes sure I realise that this post here is contributing to that thing that drives me all nuts. Its the self absorption I guess…. and that Narcissism appeared in another bloody Caravaggio image…..

I didnt know what the image was at this point- except it would be a room split down an axis, in one room SJ, beating up a guy, as we are both in thrall still with LaChappelle and I had promised her I would shoot something with this as its starting point, but completely try and bring something new to content.

Now as much as we both wanted to shoot something hot and rowdy, I didnt wanna rip this, but add something DD to it, you know, Hot Girls, comics, horror, the whole shebang, plus I had a magazine offering a double page spread and knew this could be one room- with some horror in the other. The story would be maybe a girl banging on the dividing wall, but with a hanging body next to her, oblivious to its prescence- but after a while it seemed a bit obvious- and angsty, and I wanted to use more models anyway, and fill the weird double page crop (its a square page on the mag) with a image that had an obvious flow, but a really rigid structure. I never really like to allow my models to move on shoots like this- you gotta keep it tight or it becomes something completely different.

So after a few false starts – and even the specific model dropping out- and a lot of coffee, no food, a few beers, some arguments with myself and getting to the point that I wanted to stab my fucking eyes out after sitting on my own in the studio for far too many bloody hours, and feeling kinda drunk off of two beers, i came up with a half decent sketch. Going over the idea for about 4 hours one night with Emma of Ophelia Fancy, (who i could never had carried this through without) we got the story right, an epic battle between two forces, the Blonde tattooed SJ and the Brunette Tattooed Toots Von Fury- two amazing girls who couldnt be more different but equally enigmatic when you meet them.

I mapped out all the positions by sticking the camera on self timer and throwing myself around the studio, with a masking tape set of walls stuck to the floor- but nothing in ‘there-is-no-God’s’ sweet earth would bring me to show those to you.

So here is the exact sketch that came out after the cawling on the floor, by the early hours of Saturday night (we were shooting on Tuesday), as you can tell I caint draw too right… but its just a plan innit….

complete with colour scheme (heavily influenced by the amazing Dean Stockwell “In Dreams”scene in Blue Velvet- which if you havent seen just stop reading this indulgent bollocks and go watch now. You may never feel the same again. I wavered on the carpet ish for a while, thinking it needed to be darker (but as it happened matt came back from a car park salvaging mission with two choices including a perfect Green.)

The thing I am dead pleased about is really the only thing that changed from sketch to final image was elin’s position, she was gonna be stabbed in the side and slumped down but it just wouldnt have worked- leaving a big space in the middle of the image, so we decided to lean her on the mini bar, and a little bit of tweaking for the others. And look at how good a job Matt and Laurie made bringing the sketch into something 100% real, and to identical scale, thats skills kids, skills….

So thats were I got to by Sunday night, after some non-stop obsessing and handed the ideas to Matt for Set Construction, and Emma and Stevi for the styling, whilst I had to try and cast the remaining models, with 24 hours to go…….

and i havent even begun to mention the shoot itself yet- the team, the time it took, oh theres good stuff to come for sure…. with photos too (and bonus they aint mine).

More will be on www.garage-studios.co.uk/blog tomo …. whoop

Important news below…..

here it is in some not eye bleedingly small glory… and less yellow than flickr makes it…

To see a set-build and read some more about this please follow the link to Garage Studios Blog

If you like this we offer courses in Studio Lighting and Creative Photography, but are also thinking of a new course that may involve a small group of students working on a project, with a set build, and models etc. Its the chance to be part of a creative team, work on all aspects of the shoot from the inital idea, to the set build, the shoot itself and the final image. Kind of a bespoke course, if you are interested then please mail info@garage-studios.co.uk

Last night had to shoot a quick fashion editorial for Ophelia Fancy… we only had about 2 hrs as the model had to go do a shift in a bar round the corner… where we relocated to sink some beers just after, and watch the most glamorous barmaid in Brighton, deal with the over enthusiastic punters sinking their ‘once-a-year’ pints of Guinness as it was that Irish marketing Campaign Day.

matt took a quick snap (below) whilst I was shooting this pic of the amazing alex…..

nice bit of wood panelling- its actually plywood, with a coat of varnish and the joints are just drawn on with permenant marker chisel tip…. the thick shag carpet- well its just a bit of rug from one of the Ophelia Girls flats. So yet another illusion shattered but hey its only the results that count…

The Ophelia girls have been asked to do a diffusion range for TopShop which is amazing news, its not all signed and sealed yet but hopefully this will clinch it for them. Go ladies!!

Fashion editiorial shoot with Elin (will post the stylist info etc soon)

As you may know I run a Creative Photography/Visual Theory Course at my studio, Garage Studios (course info) and I am trying hard to get all the students on the course out of their comfort zones, myself included. There is a good range of photographers on it, and some very solid knowledge but its always good to break the habits that we all fall into. Sometimes I forget that I don’t need a bunch of strobes to make a shot. Now the students themselves have made great progress, approaching random strangers, putting themselves in the image etc, really thinking quite critically about whats in the frame and why, but I haven’t really challenged myself. Anyways as an exercise a while back we had to all use a disposable camera and break out something new. So I decided (as I do the exercises as well, time permitting) to push myself into an area I wasn’t at all used to. I made a dumbass plan to go to a girls house who I have shot once before in studio, but this time take no lights, team or agenda, just sit with her in the room and shoot whatever made a picture. I set myself rules, no arranging shots, moving objects or give any advise or direction to the girl/model. Its probably my idea of personal hell- especially in someone else house- hell no, make that someone elses Mum’s house -my first rule in life tends to be develop an Exit Strategy, and this allowed for none. Plus I don’t really get the ‘use a camera’ as an ice breaker school of thought… and I like to have control, and if your ankle isn’t at the right angle we will keep going until it is, or until it snaps…. And yet I couldn’t do any of this… way uncomfortable…

The pics were pretty noticeably awkward from that day when I got them back- though Elin was ace and said it wasn’t odd at all to skip a day of college and have me sit on her bedroom floor for a few hours- taking photos of her and her stuff and generally just get in her way.

Whilst we were chatting (not really one of my skills as a human being- especially as we are meant to be social animals) I saw she was a fan of Kate Moss , the many images plastered on her wall gave it away- a girl that Sally and I have constantly debated the merits of….

A few days later I found myself setting up a shoot with Elin that took the early Corinne Day/Moss flat and beach shots as its starting point- via the two editorials Daisy Lowe has done for ID. Not a ground breaking idea I know- but one that may work a new angle for how I shoot, I didnt expect the shots to look that way- buts its a start. Now Corinne and Kate were friends, they were in on it together, obviously I don’t believe that the shots were as spontaneous as they appear but they both knew what they were doing when making some great, but edgy images . So the test here is was to see what we can pull off in a few hours of hanging out at Elins house, and trying not to bug the hell out of her. Plus I had a bit of a time convincing Emma , the stylist, that this could work without being ‘creepy’, she had reservations, and I guess a part of me did as well, the Moss shots have that odd dynamic that would go badly wrong if forced in a day, plus does it make a difference that Day is a female- somehow yes it think it does…. So anyways we put together some outfits (well Emma did) that we could mix in with Elin’s natural wardrobe- and went down to the house with Bryony the MUA.

Everything here is shot with natural light, mostly on 400 film pushed to 800, and maybe a bit of bounce daylight occasionally, but it was a great overcast day- just perfect for what we needed. After I traipsed mud all through her mums house with my Cherry Red DM’s (I had bad socks on…the kind that you don’t wanna floss ya know) we sat in her bedroom for a bit shooting and drinking tea. A few changes later we were outside in the park and trying to boost her onto the crossbar, shooting quickly and easy, it was pretty smooth banging through rolls of film. And I like some of the shots- but it didn’t feel quite right- I needed to frame tighter and shoot on some more diffused light so we headed back.

Then back to her house for more tea and stripping off of some of the make-up and lifting the hair off her neck, as everything was too heavy for me up till then. (See yet more issues with control…. Emma and I even argued about socks pulled up or rolled down) I wanted something lighter but also with more of an edge.

Somewhere in my head I had an idea of how Richard Kern uses light, and a touch of that mixed in with some O’Bedlam magic. We kept peeling back layers until we were getting somewhere that I wanted and so these are just a few of those shots.

Theres definitely a different dynamic shooting in a models own house, as opposed to ‘my’ studio…

So you can see these images appearing a bit on my blog, flickr and tumblr. The result of 10.30am to 5.30pm of mainly just hanging out at Elins house and listening to the girls describe the various drunken falling over bruises on their bodies, and shooting 7 rolls of film. Most of the exposures were coming out at 1/15th or 1/30ths even at f1.8, with no digital to fall back on.

Now I think we may put all of these together in a decent collection, maybe a limited edition book (one of those self published ones) limited to 15 or so copies. Theres a wealth of great shots here- but maybe we’ll go back and do some more first, cull the best from 3 shoots together maybe….?….. I am not sure yet. If you’d be keen on that then let me know. Oh and if you work with a model agency push this girl into a car and get her to London- I mean have you seen here- she’s amazing.

Looks like this season is all about the bite Chomp Chomp!! found myself sending links this week to a photography mate the talented Mr.Hiscox whose work had just been bitten to death by what i can only assume is a fan, and its not the first time this month, and now i woke up to find an angry red mark on my trigger finger too where i guess i was bitten in my sleep….. (and theres even a little skirmish on flickr at the minute due to one of the rash of female self portrait artists upsetting the apple cart and not paying huge love to the constant flickr recycling machine- I mean how many different ways can a girl climb, fall, rise out of bath before plagarism is shrilly yelled by a legion of keyboard fans…. oh the power of the internet….)

Anyways I am actually in a really good mood, did a killer shoot yesterday with Elin, dragging Tash, Emma and Bryony around for half a day- but i just got the prints back and damn they are good. So thanks ladies for being a brilliant team and helping make the difficult sublimely easy. Oh and thanks to the Brownhorse for the loan of the Olympus OM 1, which you aint getting back buddy- unless you prise it from my cold dead hands, and LomoKev for the Contax. An all film shoot, no lights, or photoshop or fuckery- just a beautiful model and a very overcast day.