Candid

To be candid, is to be honest and tell the truth, and it’s my favourite style of photography.

“Candid photography captures natural expressions and moments that might not be possible to reproduce in a studio or posed photo shoot. This style of photography is most often used to capture people in their natural state without them noticing the camera.” - Wikipedia

When I first got in to photography, I practiced, and practiced …and practiced. Part of that practice was asking friends to pose for me, shooting portraits, learning composition and light. The other part of my practice was simply going out, and taking photos - its in these sessions where I fell in love with “street photography”.

Street photography is about capturing real moments, people thinking, laughing; just existing in day to day life - not forcing a grin, or faking anything - there’s a beauty and intimacy in these genuine moments.

Walking the streets of Lincoln (the closest I have to a “home city”) I would capture people having coffee, a quiet moment with a friend, or wrangling their dog, whilst trying to juggle an important call…

These moments showcase life at time and place, and I feel are important, documenting fashion, places, human nature etc.

Moments are fleeting, so capturing them, without being noticed, letting the moment playout naturally is a challenge - you want the light, you want the composition to be “just so”, but you can’t stage it, or fake it, I simply have to be there, prepared and ready to get it captured.

It’s always worth the effort though, and I find those shots especially pleasing, and more importantly genuine. My years of practice at street photography have given me a skill set to capture weddings, events and people more honestly.

In a world full of fake, filters, staged moments, AI - real moments have become more and more important. These moments connect us to that day, bring back memories and unveil a natural beauty that we often don’t see in ourselves as we force a grin at a camera, or hide behind a filter.

It once was the case that weddings had a big focus on “formal” shots, group photos, fake signing of the register (inkless pen in hand) and a photo with every family member going. Now I feel that is very much past us, and I for one am grateful for this change.

Candid photos are much more honest and depict the day better, capturing that moment when the groom sees the bride, or an aunt cries at the speech, a hug, a shared look, a goofy face - a real representation of the day.

A bonus to this style of photography, it’s less pressure on everyone to get to x spot for y photo, you can focus on just enjoying the celebration, and I will use my street photography skills to capture the day naturally, without the need to interrupt and change the flow of the day.

Dotted amongst this blog post are photos from this past year, that represent a portion of my favourite candid moments from weddings I’ve had the honour of photographing.

In writing this, I am reminded that I need to dig out my old film photos and get them digitised, as some of my candid images bring back fond memories of me learning my craft.

Snapshots of Looe

Looe at Dusk.

Looe has been my home for almost seven years - a fact that blows my mind at times, I’ve never lived in one spot for very long. My childhood was spent flitting from one place to the next, a couple of years here, a couple of years there at most.

A view of West Looe looking from its Eastern side.

The view from one of my favourite benches for eating an ice cream.

Younger adult me went from running a small studio to back packing for years on end and never staying still for long - indeed before coming to Cornwall, I was up in Edinburgh (an amazing city, a must for anyone to visit).

My home affords me a view over Looe river, a spot where I can watch the little branch line train come in, bringing in curious travellers, workers and a vital connection to the outside world. I also get the amusement of watching day trippers getting stuck on the sand bar, or paddle boards glide up river to enjoy the views and wildlife.

Paddleboarding up Looe River

Looe has truly become a home to me, a place full of hidden spots full of peace and nature for me to unwind in - its night sky hasn’t been entirely ruined by street lights and garish “security lights” - so I can sit with my telescope in the evenings and bask in starlight - or venture to the front to look at Looe island with our home galaxy glowing above.

Looe Island with the Milky Way glowing above it.

This peace is balanced out by the busy riverside, full of families crabbing, eating ice-creams whilst shooing away gulls. Pleasure boats dominate the water here, with the ferry nipping between East and West Looe for a pound fare and a moment of on the water peace.

The Sun setting over the busy riverside.

The sea front, with its sweeping beach is the draw for most people visiting, it’s a part I honestly rarely visit in the summer days, though early morning and as the sun fades in the evenings, it has a relaxing vibe and the gentle bustle of people heading home, or to dinner has a happy sound to it.

Indeed the mornings on Looe river can be really beautiful as the mist rises off its surface, with gulls preparing for another day of terrorising tourists and catching fish.

Banjo Pier - iconic and beautiful with early morning Sun.

Early morning on the river can be especially beautiful.

Looe has a lot of hidden (not Narnia hidden, but “less explored”) side streets and bits the visiting throngs rarely visit - these streets often have pretty cottages, buildings with history, not nation making, King breaking history - but the kind that leaves you imagening how people once lived, what daily life was like before the world shrank and the fishing vanished.

Cute cottages can be found away from the main streets of Looe.

Among these streets, are uncountable numbers of second homes, and holiday lets that go dark and dormant during the winter months, but despite this, there’s a deep sense of community here, everyone knows everyone else or at least recognises you from “such and such” and this leads to people greeting you, asking how you are and stopping for a chat - which makes it even more of a home.

The walk to the shop often affords me a beautiful view.

Looe is pretty, its quaint and very photogenic - which is something I don’t take for granted and still keeps me looking for the next photo opportunity.

It’s not stupid, if it works!

I generally tell people that I am a “people” photographer - events, weddings, portraits, they’re all about the people, and that’s what I photograph the most.

But I love photography as a whole, and if it happens to scratch an itch to try something technical or challenging, I am even more excited!

Product photography offers a diverse range of challenges, and I love it!

I don’t have a dedicated studio space, but I’ve got a kitchen table, some lights and I watched a lot of Blue Peter as a kid - what can I do in a few hours to show off a product?

Well today I am going to give you a peak behind the curtain, show you my janky setups, the RAW unedited images and the final result, and walk you through my process and the hiccups I encountered along the way.

Challenge One - Swimming Pool in the Kitchen

I want to create one of those classic “Holiday Vibe” photos, where perfume, or suntan lotion is resting in a shallow pool, kissed by warm sunlight.

Well I live by the sea…but that’s not a very controllable environment, and I want to control the light, positioning, water level etc.

Camera mounted over my "pool"

So a Pyrex dish, it’s great for lasagne, and it also makes for a great pool! Stick some blue card underneath, that will hide the table and give it more “pool vibes”. However it’s not very convincing, it needs another element.

Ripples, you’d expect them in a pool, and they create beautiful light patterns called caustics - so I removed the soft box from my light, to give it that harsh Sun like direct light effect and proceeded to tap the water with my hand, making a mess of the table and the general area - but I got the ripples I needed!

Cropping is going to REALLY help with the illusion!

I added one of my LED tube lights in just to add a little fill light to the side of the bottle, and with some colour grading, cropping and touching up in Photoshop, got the result I desired.

The final image - No kitchen table in sight!

Challenge Two - Nice Background, Controlling Reflections.

Back at the kitchen table - this time with a perfume called “Just Pink!”.

Cropping is going to be a hero once again!

Again I’m just working with whatever I’ve got laying around the house to make this photo - and despite having a very lovely kitchen/lounge space, it’s not suitable for this product, I need a background.

I’ve got some multi-coloured card left from a few projects, and some of it’s pink - perfect!

I tape two bits together, and curve it gently to create a smooth transition along the horizon line, going from foreground to background. Just how am I going to prop it up? Thankfully some boxes of Cards Against Humanity are just the right size, voila - curved pink background.

Card, sticky back plastic and a board game prop...

The scene needs more than just the bottle on its own, and whilst clearing the table of bits for this project, I moved a vase full of flowers, and they had the perfect colours for this image.

Lighting is straight forward in this scene, a very simple one light setup. I’ve got a soft box on my AD400 pro light, above and to the right, it creates a nice reflection and a soft flattering light, and with a reflector on the opposite left for fill.

The last challenge with this image was the bottles cap - it’s very reflective and you could see the kitchen in it. I got the soft box reflected in half of the cap and I like how it shows it’s shiny - but I need to remove the kitchen. Cue more cardboard! I just held a bit whilst taking the photo - the correct angle masks the kitchen, it’s really not stupid if it works!

The rest is just crop, grade and polish in Photoshop!

The finished result.

Challenge Three - Cocktails and Photos!

I once made cocktails professionally and it’s something I now enjoy as a hobby, experimenting with ingredients and of course sampling the result is always fun!

Tarquin’s Gin is fantastic and I make my take on a "Bee’s Knees” cocktail with it regularly - so why not photograph it!

The Tarquin’s Dry Gin bottle is a gorgeous blue, with a diffuse reflective wax seal, and the cocktail I make is yellow with a primary ingredient being lemon juice.

So I’ve got a palette which sits nicely at near opposite ends of the colour wheel and I know I want to show off the ingredients to the drink - it’s time to get creative, which is why I really do enjoy this type of photography.

I want the background to be more a part of the image, and I want to play with that nice colour wheel situation whilst creating something striking.

I decide to grab - yup, more cardboard, this time yellow and blue, and with those Blue Peter skills tape a lot together to create a split colour background - once again propped up on board game boxes.

Yes that is a Pavotube being used as a boom arm...

Now how to show the ingredients, the bottle of gin is easy, but honey? lemon? Well a lemon slice seems obvious, but sitting it next to glass would lead to an unbalance image and it’s not very inventive.

How about floating above the drink? That way I can have the honey dripping off it, which shows the honey off better! Perfect, but how?

I have fishing wire, which will be easy to remove in post, but how to hang the lemon in the right spot? I have a spare small stand, but no boom arm. Once again, it’s not stupid if it works! I have a clip for my tube light that screws in to that thread, so if I balance it right, I can use the light as the boom arm and suspend the lemon slice from that!

Now all I have to do is pour honey over the lemon, and I’ve got the shot? Well no, this is going to need a composite image as I won’t get the exact shot I want first time, and multiple tries are going to make a mess of the drink if it stays under there.

So first I shoot the unopened bottle with a glass for reference, the lemon suspended above. Next I shoot with the cocktail made and under the lemon, with some slight lighting adjustments.

Next I remove the cocktail, put some plastic down to make cleaning easier and start pouring honey over the lemon, until I get a pour I like. The mess by the end was a little extreme!

Once I’ve got the shots I need to blend, I head in to Photoshop to merge all the images in to one seamless shot, I remove the fishing wire, clean up gaps in the cardboard, remove scuffs and dust on the bottle, glass, surfaces etc After that, I colour grade, crop and adjust the text on the bottle to make it stand out better.

The finished image, and I assure you the drink tasted amazing!

Final Thoughts

Three examples of some “Kitchen Table” product photography and three times I’ve found myself really enjoying the challenge of solving problems, coming up with ideas, whilst just using stuff to hand and creating an illusion that sells a product.

I aim to capture most of the image through the camera, but the ability to edit in post afterwards allows you to really sell the effect of high end shoot, even if it mostly involves, tape, cardboard and dodgy solutions to problems.

A good photo lets you make something stand out, so if you want to really make your product shine, I hope this inspires you to find a way to make an interesting photo with just stuff laying around and a little imagination.

Or if you’re not that creative with a camera, hire a professional like me, I promise it’s not always tape and scissors, though hey if it works, it’s not stupid!

A Focus on Looe River

Looe is much like any other coastal town in Cornwall, England - huge crowds of tourists come flocking in the school holidays, to sit on the beach, and eat fish’n’chips.

The river whilst a big part of Looe (both physically and historically), and often photographed from its harbour banks or the bridge that connects East with West, isn’t the destination for these travellers, it’s more of a nice backdrop to their day by the sea.

Looe Harbour, photographed from it's West Bank, looking North East.

Just to the North of the bridge the river splits in two, it’s Western source running past the massive visitor car park, with the tourists quick marching in to town, eager to get a prime spot on the beach, or hit the shops - the river ignored.

For me, and many locals, the river has become a place of peace and quiet from the throngs of visitors, a gentle woodland walk to be found along its valley banks, as it gently winds west.

Egret with its prey.

Nature - to, finds peace from people and their innumerable dogs - the opposite bank from the carpark is generally unreachable by people, so has become a haven for Herons, and Egrets, making their nests high above the water line.

Around low tide, the Egrets flock to the shallow water, walking slowly upstream - their gaze fixed down whilst they shake their legs to agitate the silt and disturb fish, a quick piercing flash later, they catch and promptly swallow small silver fish, the fish having a somewhat shocked expression in its eyes.

Landing, twisting and dancing, the Egret hunts for fish.

Egrets are beautiful birds, as they twist and dance to get the fish that slipped past them, their call however is anything but beautiful, indeed I’d describe them as “gobby” when a gull dares intrude upon their fishing.

Herons are more elusive, or at least for me so far they are! I’ve spent many days by the river at various hours and tide times - they seem to spend their days in the trees and gliding from one side of the valley to the other.

Heron perching on a branch opposite the car park.

Only on occasion do they land in the water, standing motionless and then fly off back to their exclusive nests, high in the trees. They are majestic birds, and their difficult behaviour makes photographing them a pleasure.

Herons are elusive, but not nearly as elusive as some of the other visitors to this tranquil river.

Heron, standing still, statuesque. 

Kingfishers are beautiful, but until I started attempting to photograph them - I had no idea just how hard they are to capture on camera.

It’s a familiar scene, you’re walking down the river on a sunny morning, and out of the corner of your eye is a bright blue flash, - gone, then minutes later another, gone… they are remarkably fast, and so tiny - far smaller than I had expected.

They seem to like the time around low tide, so I kept going deliberately around that time, hoping to catch one on a wall, twig, boat or the ubiquitous traffic cone that finds its way in to our waterways. These places they use to survey the water below them, before they dart in to the water with incredible speed, only to return with a morsal in their tiny beak.

The opposing bank is some distance away and makes capturing a small creature hard - even with the amazing 200-600mm lens I pack, so my first few attempts where rather poor, but I like a challenge.

Eventually, luck, patience and practice with that beast of a lens paid off.

A beautiful, but tiny bird, the Kingfisher sits on some seaweed.

A rarer sight yet is an animal without wings, and one that I can happily watch through the camera for hours at a time.

The woods run down both sides of the river, the southern bank is littered with footpaths and lovely leafy walks that lead to quiet spots and sudden clearings with views of the river below - a favourite area of mine during Autumn, as the rich reds and earthy browns are peaceful and beautiful.

The north side, whilst reachable, is hard to get to and very few paths exist on that side, - as such European Roe Deer are known to graze there in peace, less likely to find a dog yapping at their ankles.

European Roe Deer, looks at me, possibly wondering if I to like leaves.

On rare occasion, and mostly early in the morning, one of these deer has taken to swimming in the water, and grazing on the leaves by the river bank - much to my delight.

There’s something wonderfully “exclusive” feeling, when you’re stood on the edge of a car park, with people rushing from their cars to town unaware of the nature around them, as I watch a deer blissfully munching on leaves, sand pipers, gulls and other birds swim and feed around it, unfazed by human activity.

It's serene and relaxing sometimes, just to pause and look.

Moments like that, slow life down and make me appreciate what is around us so much more.

Of course, so much more visits, lives in, and plays on this river. Cormorants glide up the river, their almost pre-historic appearance in stark contrast to many of the rivers inhabitants.

They have impressive beaks, wildly blue eyes and hunt with a remarkable speed and efficiency. It’s rather fun to watch them glide submerged through the water, a wake gently flowing from behind them. There’s a game to be had here, I find myself guessing when it will pop up for air or with what prize it found.

The other day, I and the Cormorant where both surprised by its catch - a plaice. This flat fish sits on the sand, well camouflaged on one side, and bright white on its belly - however it wasn’t hidden well enough when the cormorants beak came calling.

Cormorant (sea raven) vs Plaice - the plaice won.

Compared to the cormorants beak and throat though, the plaice was large, to large. The poor fish was tossed in the air, dropped, re-found, hooked and chomped over and over as the bird tried to swallow its delicious prize. Its eyes proved bigger than its belly or skill to swallow the fish. The fish undoubtedly disturbed by the experience got to go free, the cormorant let out a disgruntled sound, and then stretched its massive wings and launched itself down the river, gliding low over the now still water.

Cormorant swimming with the plaice, unsure what to do with it.

Naturally being a British coastal town, we’ve got more Seagulls than people - and they dominate this waterway.

Locals will have a hearty laugh as some poor visitor looses chips or ice-cream to these precision hunters, the skill, accuracy with which they can decapitate a fresh ice-cream from its cone and owner is remarkable, even if the owner doesn’t appreciate it.

Signs fill town saying “DON’T FEED THE GULLS”, and you’ll catch a scornful look if you do, but you’d be in the company of many if you find yourself chucking a chip at a squeaking chick or podgy adult.

Despite this thieving reputation, I’ve photographed many-a-gull catching its own fish from the river, wresting with the fish, and then the other gulls who want to capitalise on its work.

Just needs to grab some chips and it can have a traditional dish!

I would argue that whilst they’ve littered streets with their bin raiding, chip dive bombing runs and ice-cream snatching, they are still largely successful hunters of their natural prey and the easier food of tourists hasn’t entirely ruined that skill.

This said, a lot of nesting habitat has been taken from them, so rather than the cliffs and nooks they’d once use, most raise their young on the tops of roofs, something unwanted by house owners and putting them at risk from our domestic pets - I feel for them as I photograph and admire their oh-so-fluffy young.

Baby seagulls huddle together on a rooftop.

There’s a great deal more to photograph and see in this beautiful river, ducks, Canada goose, swans, sandpipers and oystercatchers visit, and I really want to catch a seal playing in the water at some point.

A swan floats along the river whilst preening.

Needless to say, this river is going to get a great deal of scrutiny from me, my camera and I’m looking forward to many more mornings savouring the peace, taking time to pause, reflect and relax - something I’ve found essential as I work on building my business and continue this journey taking passion in to profession, and balancing those two forces so that the passion isn’t lost in the profession.

Walk around Caradon

Old Quarry, replete with rusting gears, chains and pulleys.

I’ve always got my camera on me, much the annoyance and amusement of friends and family - but I’ve regretted not having my camera on me, far more often than not.

So it follows that I take a lot of photos and not all of them are “folio worthy” - but they still document moments, my life and adventures. So I’ve decided to start a blog, because who doesn’t need more to do and update right?

Just hanging out, sheltering from the wind and probably annoyed at being disturbed by me.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

My hope is that this blog gives you an insight in to me, my work and how I look at the world, either that or ideas for places to go and some nice photos to look at?!

Today was lovely, the was sun out, …but it’s also half-term, which gives me the perfect excuse to go inland, away from the tourist hot spots and explore green, but remarkably barren moor land, littered with old mines, quarries and more sheep than you can easily count before nodding off.

It’s not a particularly long walk (6km) and compared to many coastal walks, not nearly as rollercoaster. It was hazy, but despite the horizon being obscured at times, the views across Cornwall, and Devon make for an impressive sight, and you’re rapidly reminded why walking around here is tiring… it is extremely rolling countryside!

I think my favourite part of the entire journey was the flooded quarry; sheltered from the wind, whisper quiet and dark deep water littered with the ruins of industry that has long stopped on this barren land. Naturally I grabbed photos and the hazy light made for a very tranquil scene.

Old mine ruin, overgrown and beautiful.

The walk wrapped up with a stop at Trevallick's Farm Shop for cake and a drink (because I am so healthy). So I shall also wrap up this first (optimistic at the start!) blog post, the aim here is to add more mini adventures, behind the scenes moments from client jobs, discussions on photography and my passion for astronomy.