Sandbump

At the turn of the year we were lucky enough to spend a few days in the Liwa Desert in Abu Dhabi.  It is a stunning place - a sea of gigantic sand dunes, rippling away to the horizon in every direction. The winter sunlight at either end of the day was breathtaking, soft and golden, and the dunes conducted a sinuous undulating play of highlight and shadow.

My amazing wife is expecting our second child in April, and we scooted off one evening for an impromptu photo shoot.

Here are three of my favourite shots.  Processed using Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, using some new colour compression filters from Totally Rad

More portraits

It has been a busy couple of months! I've been shooting a really wide variety of subjects, largely corporate and social. With Christmas just around the corner, I finally have a chance to draw breath and review.

Here's a selection of some of the portraits - all shot with either natural light, or one flash at most.

Courrèges coat

Had a bit of fun yesterday, photographing a client who wanted some shots of herself wearing her 1968 Courrèges coat, recently discovered in the wonderful new WilliamVintage boutique in Marylebone. It's a stunning piece, a searing vivid orange fabric with gigantic circular pockets and big gold buttons, so I thought we'd try to contrast it with the gritty grey concrete of the South Bank Centre, which is approximately contemporary.

To make the jacket really sing, I underexposed the (already gloomy) ambient light by two stops, and lit her with a single off camera Canon Speedlite, gelled 1/4 CTO, fired through a Lastolite Ezybox.

We took an hour or so and made about ten pictures.  Here is a selection:

Picture of the day: Mona Lisa smile

Shooting corporate portraits today (or 'Guys in Ties' as it is known), near London Bridge. Lydia was running the show, corralling the big cheeses, so they were ready for their appointed slot.

In between times I bullied her into standing in.

Can you read her smile?

Inscrutable, if you ask me.

Bump fun

Maternity shoots can sometimes be a little tense and awkward - Mum's often feeling a bit bloated and queasy, carrying a basketball around on her stomach, not really in the mood for photos, and there's the tricky issue of how much flesh do they dare to bare. Not this time.

When I suggested we photographed her relaxing in a bath of milk, she immediately said "YES!! I LOVE it, can I wear pearls?"

And so it went on.  We shot four or five setups in about an hour, and it really was a giggle a minute.

I have the coolest clients,  I really do.

Here are some of the results: