Carlile Photography

A Freezing afternoon.

2011-11-19T19:14:00.000Z

Took some time this afternoon to go around the city,seeing what could be different through my lens. Particularly in the freezing (slightly) foggy afternoon.
This was the result.

2011-07-17T17:28:00.001+01:00

10 days before we leave Hungary for ever. Much to do.

A quiet night in

2011-06-09T14:30:00.002+01:00

From a few weeks ago.

2011-05-30T21:55:00.000+01:00

The Dancer.

2011-05-09T21:45:00.001+01:00

I have been very fortunate recently to have a beautiful subject in front of my lens.
She is a dancer.
An truly excellent model to work with, open,intuitive and able to perform before the camera.
A delight to work with.

Last image from Adrienn's session.

2011-05-03T00:08:00.000+01:00

Enjoyed working with Adrienn.

London Girl

2011-05-01T19:41:00.002+01:00

Adrienn

2011-04-30T19:33:00.002+01:00

Light tests.

2011-04-26T22:03:00.002+01:00

Light and dark tests with my beautiful wife,Jelena.

Late night shoot last night.

2011-04-24T12:10:00.000+01:00

Had a session last night with Svetlana from Serbia.

Westcott Equipment.

2011-04-11T00:02:00.001+01:00

Just put in my order for one of these.....its a beautiful thing!

Westcott Equipment.

2011-04-11T00:01:00.003+01:00

Grabshot.

2011-04-08T18:09:00.002+01:00

Had a moment to spare before I ran out the door this afternoon...I photographed Sara.

The Spring Collection-Chickenpox!

2011-03-12T20:15:00.001Z

The children sporting the latest in Spring wear.From the Varicella Zoster collection.

My Boy.

2011-03-09T07:02:00.001Z

Darko has recently started collecting all his most favourite toys and putting them together on a little table.
The king of toys is the tyrannosaurus called Rex.
Rex goes everywhere with Darko.
I felt this was a moment that had to be recorded for our family history.
(If my Daughter's chicken pox gets much visibly worse then a little spotty girl's face will be here shortly!)

When I was 7

2011-02-03T20:43:00.000Z

The only existing image of me as a small child.....note the brooding sullen face.
Even then I distrusted the camera.
I'm the one on the extreme right.
(One of my sisters on the extreme left)

This must have been 1971-72
Look behind us (take note Hungarian folk that labour under the illusion that all is/was milk and honey in the West) and you get an idea of the poverty of the environment.
This area actually looked a bit better than others I had grown up in, here, the rate and mice population were minimal(unlike Parkhead where I distinctly remember mice running over my bed) and only six families shared one toilet.

Just the one.

2011-02-03T10:56:00.001Z

Had a great little session with Sofia(best friend) and her mum, Marta.
After a table heaped with humus,olives,cheeses and wine we headed in to my little studio to fire off some portraits and double shots.

Waiting to hear back from Sofi about her final slection of images.
This is just one that I liked.

Light test.

2011-02-01T18:31:00.000Z

A good friend and her mum are coming over tomorrow for a visit,drop of plonk,bit of salad and a chinwag.
Once the bevy and nosh are sorted we'll do a wee bit of clickety click.
(have to keep me hand in)
Did a couple of quick as a flash(boom boom!) light tests with her indoors and the wee sprog.

2011-01-31T10:13:00.000Z

I spent many years complaining and wondering why society(yours and mine) was ridden with problems and seemingly terminal dysfunctions.
Then I watched the first Zeitgeist film and EVERYTHING came in to sharp focus.

Maybe it will for you too.

(you can enable subtitles by hitting the cc tab under the player window)

Peer recognition.

2011-01-12T22:07:00.001Z

Its always an extra boost when the,"attaboy!" comes from your own peer group and particularly from Russia and the surrounding countries.
An honour to be among such unique visionaries.

Serbian Faces.

2011-01-06T21:14:00.001Z

Recently, while in Serbia with my family over the Xmas period, we attended a friend and family celebration held every year by my wife's father. The celebration is to commemorate the exploits of a Saint adopted by the family(through the male line) as a protector.
Its traditional that there's lots of fresh fish soup,salads,meats and more booze than you could sink a battleship in for everyone to get stuck in to.
Lots of long tables set up in the Fire-station (my wife's father is the Fire Prevention officer for Novi Sad,Serbia) friends and family all together having a great old time after a thanksgiving prayer is offered.

It was my hope that while there at the celebration I could tape up a black backcloth on the wall in a corner of the room, get my lights and light stands out and fire off some portrait shots to give to everyone as a gift from myself and family to them.

I started by taking a few shots without flash(in manual mode) in the room before I set up my gear proper.

Once everyone had eaten and were well on their way to being well oiled with the booze and fun company I set up my little corner and started banging out some nice portraits.
(post work may look a bit dodgy in a shot or two...not my personal preference but something I did for the ppl who would receive them as gifts)

My wife's father,Dragan Karabasil.

the following images are all close friends of the family.

We really enjoyed ourselves there(this was the first time we had been in Serbia just at the right time for this event)and everyone was really happy about having their pictures taken.
After the event, I did a quick process on the images(as you can see above) and my wife gave the high res files to her father to get to all of his friends.
Certainly, I have many more portraits from the evening than posted here...when I've the time I'll put some up here and over on flickr.

The 4 CEO's shoot.

2011-01-02T22:20:00.002Z

After shooting more than a 1000 business portraits (the final number will probably be around 1200 )for a corporate client over an 8 day period in December I was asked by the same client to shoot four of the main executives from the firm.

The brief was very specific.....looking for "traditional" corporate images that the print (and web now) media could use to supplement comment and analysis from these guys in the local media.

Though the brief was traditional I tried for a bit of wiggle room in the settings and workplace environments I shot the guys.

The shoot itself was planned well in advance and the light set up had already been tried and tested on location using a stand in model(cheers Hans!) to substitute for the execs.

The only part of the shoot that I had to deal with off the cuff to an extent was when the guys were sitting before a laptop with their staff at work behind them. Here I used only natural light,no fill flash or reflectors.

This natural/strip office light was done in Manual mode on the Nikon D90 and was set up seconds before the guys walked in to the area.

To assist myself in this I used a humble bottle of water

This gave me an idea of optimum speed and F stop in this area to get the focal length exactly where I needed it to be to have the subject well exposed,tack sharp and the background to be nicely thrown out.

Here are a few examples from the shoot that morning.

(The shots with the cell phone were real to an extent, I had a staff member call my phone and had the guys answer the call)

(The guys also posed with arms relaxed,hands in pockets and chilled out body language)

(The croissant was finally wolfed down by myself at the end of the shoot, after packing up and patting myself on the back for getting the shots I had imagined)

Please forgive the small size of the images posted here......would hate to see them out there as corporate stock if the file sizes were bigger!.

I was quite fortunate that I had the guys for about 10 minutes each and was able to move them through 3 different environment for the photography.

Here is the kit I used on the morning

Nikon D90

Nikon D80

50mm standard Nikkor lens

18-200mm Nikkor VR zoom lens

1 Nikon SB900 flash unit

2 Nikon SB600's flash units

1 Nikon SB800 flash unit

3 light stands (not so many light stands as in the seated area the sb800,600 and 900 flash units were placed on and behind chairs)

1 Westcott Apollo umbrella soft box

1 shoot through umbrella

1 reflector

Duct tape

Battery chargers

Ipad

Chocolate Croissant (eaten)

It was an enjoyable shoot, the guys were relaxed and cool and all my pre-visualisation work paid off in the end.

(and the client is well pleased with the product)

Fantastic Photographer.

2010-12-29T15:17:00.000Z

Just classic.

2010-12-27T22:25:00.002Z

Happy New Year.
:)

News.

2010-12-17T20:54:00.002Z

Did a shoot last night with a friend, she wanted some shots for her annual Xmas card......was great to have her and her family over....two lovely children and a friendly helpful dad.
She was pleased with the result of the session and I'll get a copy of the card in the mail.
(her cards are really good)
Lovely person that she is she came bearing gifts......got some tickets for a wellness hotel,massage,spa and swimming areas, plus an invitation for two for my favourite Tex/Mex restaurant in town. As soon as I and my lady return from Serbia in January we'll have our children looked after by a friend whilst we enjoy a jolly good nosh up. Cheers Gabriella!

One from the shoot

Tomorrow we head off to Serbia, an extended visit to our family there.
On Sunday,my wife Jelena has a family celebration (the family's saint day....its an orthodox Christian thing) hosted by her father in his Fire Station. There'll be lots of fish soup and very many friendly faces,family and friends there for me to put before my lens.
I'm taking a couple of flash heads, black backdrop cloth,light stands,some shoot through umbrellas and my trusty Nikon D90.....I anticipate that as the party goes on the portraits will become more and more interesting!
We'll be in Serbia until the start of January so I'll maximise my time there by learning Serbian (I'll be living there by July next year) pretty intensely and taking photographs of the neighbouring families,snow covered landscapes and walking for miles every day.
I am really really looking forward to this visit.
:)

2010-12-15T22:43:00.000Z

As seen over at 1x.com

Self test with soft box

2010-12-05T18:09:00.000Z

Thought I'd try a shot or two with a softbox (in this case the westcott apollo series) as key light, I almost always use shoot thru as my main light and perhaps a box as rim/sidelight.
I still have quite a way to go before I am happy with a softbox.

Light prep for CEO shoot.(take 2)

2010-12-04T18:19:00.000Z

Today,with the kind assist from a friend who works in the firm where I'll be shooting (on the 10th of Dec) I got my light nailed down and all my camera/strobe settings noted so that on the day the only concern I'll haver will be relaxing my subjects to get the best poses possible.

Originally, I had planned the shoot in two locations(in a seating area on the 5th floor and another shoot in a conference room on the 7th) but just had to let the location on the 7th floor go...the windows in the room were full of cross reflections of each other and the art painting in the room (large semi naked lady) was not really appropriate as a backdrop to shooting CEO's of a global insurance firm. :)

Decided to use some interesting wall texture as a backdrop, I think that the tone and texture of the wall will work well with any suit that the CEO's (will be 5 men)will be wearing.

Here is the set up of the wall area:

I'll only be using one strobe/flash for this location with a shoot through and a reflector taped to the door,note the funky feet on the floor to place the model without much fuss or communication.
Putting feet on the shapes and turning to the photographer naturally puts the model in the classic 3/4 turn that I want from torso and head.
The tripod you see in the image wont be used on the day,I took it to do some test shots of myself before bothering my friend to step before the lens,I'll be shooting hand held.

(the following images were done on my old Nikon D80 with a 50mm Nikkor lens)

Here is a shot of my friend......straight from the camera...no retouch or post except a crop to post here

and the same shot with some post work done

I was quite pleased with the simplicity of the set up above...a no brainer in fact.

The seating area has a more involved light set up
In this area I'm using a Westcott Apollo softbox as the key light with an sb800 strobe/flash unit....on the extreme right of the image you can see an sb900 strobe/flash unit sitting on top of an armchair with a diffuser on it.Directly behind the seat where the model is sitting is an sb600 strobe/flash unit pointed up at the curved wall.All the flash units were zoomed in/out to slightly different widths depending on where I needed the light to reach.
This is the area set up

after more test shots of myself I asked my friend to come in and the following is the light that I am happy with (though the white specular light on the end of the nose bothers me.....for the sake of liking the light here I'll accept the additional post work on that) for the shoot with the guys on the day

Stefan Tell

2010-12-02T21:02:00.001Z

They say that plagiarism is the best form of flattery....and in Photography its certainly true.
We look at each others work, de-construct the light and make mental notes to recreate the light but with our own spin on it. People, like the Swedish Photographer,Stefan Tell, (no,not William) do us all the privilege of giving his knowledge,expertise and approach to photography in a form that lends itself to emulation and creativity for others.
He breaks down his light,equipment used and the intent behind his images.
Take a look here at this sweet 2 light set up:

Stefan Tell Blog on quick 2 light images

And here you can see my recreation of his set up to do some test shots on myself to get comfortable with the variables and settings.

Later I'll post up some test shots.
Cheers Stefan.

Played around with the settings and did quite a few test shots.
(my grey background is darker than Stefan's is and for these test shots I didn't bother lighting the background though an sb600 would have done the trick easy!)

and just in case there is any danger of taking ourselves too seriously....

The catch lights in the eyes, are for sure "Butterfly" with a bit of seperation there.....I think with some tweaking and a bit more finesse this is a light set up I'll be employing for studio work.
Again,cheers Stefan.

The Party Children

2010-11-27T23:22:00.000Z

The children came in the afternoon,bearing gifts and a bomb of insane energy.
I took the opportunity to photograph the children...the girls were absolutely gorgeous.
(and the boys were handsome chaps as well)

Birthday Girl!

2010-11-27T13:21:00.002Z

Sofia's Birthday.

2010-11-26T17:08:00.000Z

My beautiful little girl (as every father confesses) will be 4 on Monday.
To celebrate her birthday there will be a party here at home tomorrow.
Many of her friends and classmates are coming.
I'm going to offer portrait photography to the parents if they would like that, a beautifully lit shot of their child on black(or maybe pink or green to flaunt my own convention) and a shot of parent and child.
Sofi is so excited about her birthday.
:)
So are we all.

Colour and Tonality.

2010-11-25T21:26:00.000Z

I was asked over on Flickr about colour processing and the tonality of my images.
Sadly, I cannot furnish anyone with a magic recipe to achieve a "look" or a "style" that they can use on their own images.....what would be the point of that?
I can say though that I have a definite work flow that I use between Lightroom and Photoshop (though each image does have a play of variables at work dependant on skin tone and light intensity and fall-off) and that the bulk of my post work is done in Lightroom while photoshop is used for perhaps 4 or 5 steps (patch tool,curves,photo filter,layers and selective blurring and sharpening to name the usual suspects) to finalise each image.
(An image is never truly complete,merely abandoned)

On what I do with lights and colour.....I had written this little squib a while back and posted it up.....it still has relevance to what I do.

On Technique:

I do simple one,(and just recently)two light photography....using exclusively cheap no name shoot through umbrellas, I use a Nikon d80 with a 50mm Nikkor lens and I have 2 sb600 flash units.

Zack Arias has been a great inspiration to me and I'd reccomend his DVD on one light photography to have you seeing the light yourself. http://www.zarias.com/

I treat each sitter and RAW image as a unique moment and as such deserves a unique application of post processing.....if my portraits all look the same to you...I have failed.

I use Lightroom and Photoshop for post processing of images...each image moves between the two applications a total of 6 times. My workflow is not as linear as I'd like but I'm working on it.

I have no secret recipe,no standardised approach.

I am a humble novice......I have so far to go.

On colour and cast to choice:

I choose colour cast based on the textures in the image,the light set up, the variables in the skin of the model and wether or not the model has a "timeless"quality to their visage. I admire early Flemish and Italien/Continental painters (think Rembrandt,Vermeer,Breugel,Bosch,Caravaggio and of course the Master...Leonardo Da Vinci)and that perhaps shows in the painterly quality of some of my images. I do NOT set out to craft work that references directly those masters....an image evolves in post process and I stop the process when I see exactly what I like.

Colour and cast are important to me to give an image an unreal dimension....images of children and lovely women usually come with glowing and blushing pink hues...I prefer to strip them out and confront the viewer with the line,texture and play of light of the face while presenting hues and tones (apparently) that some associate with corruption and even Death. A presentation of beauty and seeming decay that some dislike intensely.

Each to his own

Westcott Apollo portable softbox/umbrella.

2010-11-24T22:27:00.000Z

Just received delivery today of my little(?) 28inch Westcott Apollo portable softbox/umbrella.
That compliments my gigantic 50 inch Westcott Apollo portable softbox/umbrella.
That means if I stack one on the other I have a massive bank of light which is taller than your average human...that takes care of any light fall off going down towards the feet.
Sorted. :)

Montage.

2010-11-23T06:27:00.000Z

From a real early age I remember using scissors to cut up pictures to put them together in a way that pleased me more. I'll always remember the image of a blue bottle of Domestos with the juxtaposition of a blonde coiffed models head stuck on to the neck of the bleach container.Maybe a psychiatrist could fathom something from that with relevance? (though I must have been about 4 years old) :)
When I just started to realise the potential of Photoshop(several years ago)I went through a period of turning my hand exclusively to Photomontage...most of the expression was aimed at being humourous as a response to the horror/zombie/disturbing/weird ass shit that was appearing on many photography websites.
This was my starting point:

My working model for montage were very strict.....all the elements of the finished image had to originate from my camera,taken by me.An image could, and often did, contain elements from Scotland,Serbia and Hungary that I had pulled together to create something unusual from the sum of those parts.
My first images were relatively simple...but as each image progressed they became more and more technically proficient.
I began a series of montage entitled,"The Master's Trousers" or, if you will, "Agnes does a Runner" which was met with confusion by many but loved as well by quite a few:
Agnes does a runner.

More often than not, the montage was simply a means of expression,of something that was impossible to place in to words.
Here are a few examples of that.

Budapest Hilton 3.47am

The War is Over

Under Scotland

The Piped Piper

Hell hath no fury...

Ease

Abandoned,Newcastle,1909

2010-11-21T04:20:00.000Z

Digital Photographer of the Year. (2 of my shots short listed)

2010-11-17T19:54:00.000Z

I was kindly sent a scan of a photography magazine today showing one of my portraits short listed in the Digital Photographer of the Year competition.
My image is the top right one.
I'm sure the model will get a kick out of seeing herself in print.
(and nice for me too that my work reaches a wider audience)

Sisters.

2010-11-17T19:16:00.002Z

An old friend popped up tonight with her sister for a quick session.
Did quite a few single portraits and a lot of doubles.....here is one of many that I liked.
(this was shot using a Westcott Appolo softbox)

From Israel with Love.

2010-11-16T22:45:00.003Z

Wonderful people,two great Doctors.

Light prep for CEO shoot.

2010-11-14T19:04:00.005Z

Today, I spent some time in the afternoon with a kind friend (standing in for the CEO'S) setting up some light in preparation for some "environmental" photography. A series of images of the CEO's looking relaxed,approachable and friendly.

Before I met my friend at his office I already had an idea of the look of the images that I wanted to shoot....an idea of the light and where I'd need to place them to get the result I was after.

I used a 28 in. Recessed Front Westcott Apollo (http://www.fjwestcott.com/products/product.cfm?itemnum=2334&tbl=products&head=speedlite ) with an SB800 Nikon strobe unit to the right of the model,to the left I used as SB900 Nikon strobe diffused with a sto-fen (http://www.stofen.com/index.asp) angled at the subject and splashing some of the curved wall behind him. Directly behind the chair he was on I placed an SB600 Nikon strobe to direct some light up the wall.

I did some test shots of myself (using a remote )seated with props and then I had my friend come in and take his position while I directed him in how to sit before the camera.

My camera was set to manual (what else?) and the camera was firing the strobes in Commander mode. *This is not TTL (through the lens) mode where the camera makes choices about flash intensity and sends that information to the strobes to fire....rather this is the operator(that would be me) dialling settings in camera that affect the output of the strobe light and puts control effectively in entirety in my hands.

The post work in Photoshop was extremely fast and minimal, I had a very strong pre visualisation of how the finished image would look and the steps to that were basic at best. (some desaturation and lightening of edges)

This was a very productive light prep as I now know my original ideas about the quality and amount of light were on the money, I know exactly where to place my light relative to the subject and myself, and additionally I can show the CEO'S a complete series of poses and positions on an Ipad that were taken on the very same chair they are sitting on with the exact same light set up.They get to see a very very close approximation of the finished product even before I actually press the shutter release on my camera.

With my light dealt with through this kind of preparation, on the day of the shoot I can set up quickly,dial in my settings and then focus fully on working with the subjects to go through my set of prepared poses with some amount of confidence.

I put together some of the images from today as a set card.

*Not everyone may know this jargon,Canon users and others may have their own proprietary terms for the same thing.

Anatomy of location corporate shoot.

2010-11-13T12:26:00.004Z

At the moment I am very fortunate to be doing a 1200 person corporate shoot for an International Insurer,focussing on the Hungarian Division.
The body of the work (6-800 business style portraits)is being shot(has been completed by now) here in Budapest,Hungary and the remaining staff members will be shot in their regional offices in two main locations.
My first choice would have been images on either a high key(white) or white to light grey background.As this was/is a corporate shot and not editorial on my part,I had then to follow the brief set down by the client....hence the blue background which bears a similarity with the corporate colour.

The first image below shows the set up for the shoot and the equipment and settings I used.

As you can see above,space was tight and the room was pretty much filled up with light stands and tripod...the tripod I stopped using after the third day as the shutter speed was uber fast(f stop was f8!) and framing was no real issue as my grasp of true horizontal and vertical framing is spot on.

Here are a very few of the images shot that day.......the following images are straight from the camera...absolutely zero touch up (just a resize to post here) and the colours are waaay off from the in camera pre-view and the same images in RAW format.
Here is an example of the huge difference in colour/saturation from the JPG and the RAW of the same image:

And finally, here are the jpg's straight from the camera (the final images will have company branding (logo top left) applied to all of them.....done as a batch process in PS.

And here is one with the real colour/tone as a finished result

The Neurosurgeon. (in waiting)

2010-11-10T22:06:00.000Z

Had a visit tonight from a lovely lady, planning a photo shoot in a couple of weeks with her hunky boyfriend and family members, I'm looking forward to it greatly.
She is a very cool lady.....and she'll have to be if she's gonna be poking around inside craniums soon enough!

Bag Gear.

2010-11-07T16:25:00.001Z

This is about 80% of the gear I'll be carrying over my shoulder to the shoot.
The light stands (four of them) are telescoped down and take up one big long carrying case.
The umbrellas (2 of them just in case) are packed with the light stands.
Note the double redundancy of 2 cameras and loads of sd cards,batteries and flash units.
(another 3 will be taken along as well....a badboy sb900 and 2 more sb600's)
Murphy's law naturally gravitates to those trying to make a buck off camera gear and lighting equipment.

Getting Prepared.

2010-11-07T08:48:00.000Z

So.
Tomorrow is the first day of the commercial shoot, I should be shooting between 60 and 80 people tomorrow.
Have my set up established and now its simply a matter of packing up the gear and getting it to the location early in the morning.
The lighting will be a 3 light set up, main light,back,and side kicker.
Will have a reflector on a boom to reflect light on the dark side of the subjects as my main light will be through a shoot through umbrella and there is less "wrap" from that kind of modifier.
Side/Top kicker will be a small softbox (I find it more controllable than the shoot through......can feather the light on the subject rather than blast them with the light) that will be placed behind and above the model to their right.
I'll be shooting from a tripod (not happy about the tripod but I need the framing to be consistent so that I don't end up having to crop every image individually by hand)and as my background light is static some of the especially tall subjects are going to have to sink down a little to come in to the shot......the diffuse light glow placement on the blue background is important...I cant adjust that to suit every individual's height...so basically the subjects, if too short, will stand up on some low steps, the taller models will have to sink down a little or be shot seated.
It ll be a busy shoot tomorrow that's for sure...scheduled to run until Thursday afternoon.
Expecting to have done about 500-600 portraits by the end of the week.

Sofia Carlile

2010-11-04T14:20:00.000Z

Sofia Carlile looking back at her father.

This week.

2010-11-03T13:02:00.001Z

Been a very slow week...I've been pretty ill with some kind of virus that has settled around my throat, meaning my voice has all but vanished and gone on holiday so I am moping about in my dressing gown catching up on my reading.On a positive note we will have a family visit from Serbia tomorrow,Maja (Jelena's sisiter)and Zdravko will arrive and perhaps be spending a week with us.
That means two more people for me to photograph.
:)
Next week will be an extremely rich week of photography.....I have about 800 portraits to do between Monday and Friday and then a further200-300 the week after as a commercial shoot project.
Looking forward to this shoot very much.

Another one from the other evening with Jelena.

My lovely wife. (after a long day running after 2 children and looking after a sick husband)

2010-11-02T22:14:00.000Z

My Queen. :)

2010-11-01T11:41:00.002Z

Black and White Cut.

2010-10-31T12:06:00.000Z

French Beauty.

2010-10-31T08:48:00.000Z

One of many from last the session last night with French Eva.

The French Connection.

2010-10-31T00:51:00.000+01:00

Had a very nice session tonight with Eva (I incorrectly assumed she was Hungarian) who originates from France.
Great shots,great conversation.

At the Hour of our Death

2010-10-28T21:34:00.003+01:00

At the Hour of Our Death from Mark & Angela Walley on Vimeo.

Sweet Sofi

2010-10-28T20:45:00.000+01:00

My wee girl (and she'll be a BIG 4 in a few short weeks) showing me her ballet steps learned at her class tonight.

Wee Darko (who was 2 the other week) oblivious to all the artistic dance plays with his train on the right there.

Glasgow Faces

2010-10-28T09:18:00.001+01:00

Glasgow Faces, originally uploaded by Edd Carlile.

Seems like a long time ago now.

Faces of the past.

2010-10-28T04:50:00.001+01:00

Faces of the Past from edd carlile on Vimeo.

Sean Armenta Photography Retouch session.

2010-10-27T21:49:00.001+01:00

Very informative this!

Sean Armenta | Anatomy of a Beauty Retouch from Sean Armenta on Vimeo.

Sean Armenta Photography

2010-10-27T21:47:00.000+01:00

A very clean, nicely done one light beauty dish photo shoot.

Sean Armenta | One Light Beauty Setup from Sean Armenta on Vimeo.

Zeitgeist.

2010-10-26T21:02:00.002+01:00

Well......found some reason,ideas and processes I can get my mind behind.
Visit The Zeitgeist Movement to hear for yourself.

An old friend hits town.

2010-10-22T22:12:00.001+01:00

Its been a few years (about 4) since Peter and I have gotten together for a beer and a bit of catching up.
He had been based in Yellow Knife, Northwestern Provinces,Canada as Editor of various publications.
I had been here.
We talked up a storm.
I took a couple of portraits.

Back home from the Capitalist grind.

2010-10-21T17:00:00.000+01:00

Funny to sit in front of CEO's of international firms and offshore tax lawyers and see them trying to come to terms with stark humour. (kill the money)

The Ipad is here! (and that little extra too!)

2010-10-20T09:24:00.001+01:00

Hurrah!
Today I finally managed to get my hands on my new Ipad, graciously purchased for me by the kind parents of captain jaq As an additional surprise (they must have heard that times are tough here in Europe) they were kind enough to include a little extra something in the care package.
Bless their hearts! :)))))

The package was delayed for a few days held up at the Hungarian Postal Service....never to be accused of outdated practices, the Postal Service has adopted a rather novel way of security tagging screened parcels.
With lead seals. (brilliant!)

All in all, a rather successful start to a Wednesday!

Henri de Créquy,1232,Agincourt,France

2010-10-19T21:54:00.002+01:00

More.

2010-10-19T05:07:00.001+01:00

Lifted this from a friend's link on FB.
Brilliant film.

more

Darko is 2!

2010-10-18T10:21:00.000+01:00

Great Joy!
Little Darko Carlile is 2 today!!!!
Hoooorah!!!!!!!!

I think 2 of these may never have been seen before.

2010-10-17T17:08:00.000+01:00

Joy.

2010-10-16T18:33:00.000+01:00

Digital Photographer of the Year. (2 of my shots short listed)

2010-10-15T21:28:00.002+01:00

Two of my images have been shortlisted for Digital Photographer of the Year.
Thats not bad at all!

Birthday time on the Island.

2010-10-14T21:40:00.000+01:00

Am I being followed by BIG birds? (Yes,you are!)

Sofia gets a huge mother of a candy floss.

Darko looks on in disbelief as my belly defies gravity and is hoisted aloft.

(Sof is busy doing her own thing right then as well)

Saw some people enjoying the beautiful day in style...gorgeous day it was.

The Family.

2010-10-14T08:19:00.000+01:00

Mother of two small men.

2010-10-13T17:31:00.000+01:00

Shy Boy.

2010-10-13T17:21:00.002+01:00

A Mother and her Baby. ( I like this a lot)

2010-10-13T17:16:00.002+01:00

A friend came over with her boys.

2010-10-13T17:07:00.000+01:00

My happy little son. (just like me)

2010-10-13T15:36:00.000+01:00

My serious little girl.

2010-10-13T14:50:00.000+01:00

Some little lovely ladies from today.

2010-10-13T13:42:00.000+01:00

The God Story.

2010-10-12T22:04:00.002+01:00

Watch from 9.45 in the timeline.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3932487043163636261#docid=-7820609461033241987

October.

2010-10-08T08:27:00.000+01:00

This month I'm looking forward to getting together some contact proofs in preparation for the BIG shoot I'm doing in November.
I need to put together a collection of 4 different series of shots with models against a light to dark edged grey background and against a dark blue background.
Its pretty damn important that the PR department of the firm decide exactly which look they want to see from the photography.
So, I need a couple of suited bodies and well dressed ladies before my camera to get the set of work organised.
Hopefully today I'll have a suited Gent before my lens and next week I'll have a smartly dressed girl as well.

This being glorious Autumn (my most favourite season) I'll have to get to the park with my little children and lady and start grabbing some great shots of the colour and form and enjoy myself in to the bargain as well.
Have my eye on this weekend as the opportunity for this.

Corporate Photography.

2010-10-07T07:55:00.000+01:00

Some High Key corporate material.

Interview

2010-10-04T18:55:00.001+01:00

Give me some love.
:)
http://www.madewithpassion.com/

High Key.

2010-09-29T21:42:00.000+01:00

A couple of shots from a Law firm shot as High Key.
Did about 15 staff members.

Bad Boy Jaq!

2010-09-26T16:32:00.000+01:00

Had the pleasure today of meeting a very cool writer,magician and hell-raiser from Las Vegas,Mr Jaq.
Between shots of the hard stuff and my lovely wee daughter flashing her arse we managed to bang off a shot or two!
We talked about the lovely Ginger....all good thoughts and love going out to our very special CatWoman of Austin in the BIG T!

Lighting test.

2010-09-24T19:07:00.002+01:00

Lighting test with my little children.

2010-09-24T19:03:00.002+01:00

Lighting test.

2010-09-24T16:37:00.000+01:00

Light and processing test.

2010-09-24T16:32:00.000+01:00

Lighting test.

2010-09-23T23:02:00.000+01:00

This is close to what I want for my big shoot....doing 1200 corporate portraits in October.
Its gonna be a blast!

Lighting test.

2010-09-20T22:30:00.002+01:00

Tried the same light with my favourite model.
(yes, that lucky lady is indeed my wife!)

Lighting test.

2010-09-20T22:15:00.002+01:00

Been trying many different lighting set ups for a big commercial shoot coming up.
Quite like this one.
What do you all think?

Strobe flash destruction.

2010-09-19T21:47:00.000+01:00

Funny how things just come together sometimes...all the stars line up and good shit just falls in to place.
There was I the other night,Thursday evening to be exact messing about with a flash unit(sb600) as a hair light for an upcoming shoot...trying to get the unit on a makeshift boom to come over the models head for some nice hair and shoulder light.
The flash fell from a great height.
Bounced and would flash no more.
I ranted and raved for a bit and knew I had to hit the shop the next day and buy another unit......and then went off on a tangent about how impossible it is to get my hands easily on an sb800 unit(works as a slave and in Nikon commander mode and has a port for a sync cord) any more.
Jelena typed in sb800 whilst I was ranting and moving more light gear around and hey presto! Up pops the info that someone in Kecskemét is selling a brand new sb800 for a very good price. And it so happens we are heading to Serbia in the morning and Kecskemét is directly on our route!
A bit of communication between me and the seller and it was all organised...we swung by and picked up the unit.
Funny how things work out sometimes.
:)

1200 person portrait shoot.

2010-09-14T22:27:00.000+01:00

Well, the broad strokes of the project have been finalised.
In the last two weeks of September I start shooting about 800 people in Budapest, in the main HQ of a major insurer....and then once that's all done I move out to the countryside to do another 400.
Hurrah!

50's Style.

2010-09-13T06:08:00.000+01:00

jay-p-morgan shoots 50s style

Corporate image from yesterday.

2010-09-10T21:51:00.002+01:00

Straight from the camera, no colour adjustments, no tweaks.

Busy day shooting at the Hotel.

2010-09-09T20:46:00.001+01:00

Had a corporate shoott today......around 200 portraits needed to be done in a very short and limited time frame on the day.
I organised a second shooter for the task and along came a fellow Photog Orsi.
We set up the exact same gear in two adjoining suites and produced the same consistent light for our respective 100 portraits and with the 200 shots as a whole.
September is a busy time for me...I have about another 1400 corporate portraits to do (and on my own) in Budapest and in country branch offices for a corporate client.
Its good to be busy.

Orsi and I today.

From this evening's session.

2010-07-26T23:28:00.002+01:00

Down the Road.

2010-07-19T14:36:00.000+01:00

Luca....somewhere down the road.

More from Luca

2010-07-16T09:06:00.002+01:00

Luca

2010-07-14T22:37:00.001+01:00

An image from this evening.
A real fun girl to work with.

An hour ago.

2010-07-13T19:11:00.000+01:00

Had the pleasure of this girl's company for a little while tonight.

Saturday Shoot

2010-07-10T22:11:00.000+01:00

Had a great time today shooting a family session.
Three boys, an attractive Mum and a very cool father.
Ended up half pissed after the session(4 peach palinka and several frocs) and found myself up a tree! (you had to be there)
Here's one of the boys from today.