Behind the scenes: Don Broco Shoot

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

I constantly get emails asking how I shoot and what my setup is when I work on a photo shoot and it’s impossible for me to reply to every single email especially because I am actually a photographer and not a teacher or admin guru. I thought that for this reason I would post another setup blog from a shoot I did with the super cool guys from a band called Don Broco up in Bedfordshire.

The guys were a flippen bunch of laughs but in a good way. Had a lot of fun working with them.

Anyway, the one location we shot at was next to a lake with the sun setting in the back. This is what the final photo looked like.

I used a 3 light setup for this shoot roughly placed in these positions (don’t hold me to the exact distances and angles) and the ring light is actually meant to represent my beauty dish but this app didn’t have that as an option. Haha.

All lighting is supplied by Profoto packs (Pro-7b and AcuteB to be exact). I took a photo with my iPhone of the setup in pretty much the same position as we shot. As you can see the sky actually looked like that and I never added in or edited the sky to make it look how it does in the final. Just some good lighting and a bit of tweaking on curves, levels, contrast, sharpness and colouring well importing the RAWS and obviously a few slight cosmetic clean-ups.

Not sure if this benefits anyone at all but it’s up anyway for those of you that care.

Make sure to check these guys out. They are super fun and worth supporting.

Currently listening to : Bullet For My Valentine – Fever.

Working with Trina and James

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

I haven’t posted on here properly in a while because I have been super busy and this is a good excuse. Haha.

I was contacted a while ago by a really cool couple that are getting married later this year. Trina’s family following tradition wanted to show photos of the two of them on their wedding day so we met up for a shoot in the beautiful Morden Hall Park on a really warm day out.

At the time I was being assisted by two very helpful and fun ladies (Maya and Robin) that were out in London on a work experience placement from Holland. It was great working with them and sadly they have gone back to finish off their studies.

Anyway, this is a photo or Trina and James sitting on a park bench in the full sunlight and then the next photo I took a little further back so you can see Maya and Robin supporting a Profoto light with a big softbox to break the couple out from the killer sun. I thought I would share and use this to wish Trina and James all the best with their journey forward together. Getting married is a fun time.

I also liked these scenes so posting a few more.

Photoshoot with Zebra and Giraffe Video Blog

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

I had a photo shoot with Zebra and Giraffe at the end of November last year and it’s been a really crazy busy time since then but their guitarist, Alan Shenton filmed and edited a short video of our time together on his iPhone 3GS.

This is the video. Hope you are all well. Marcus

Featured on the Profoto Blog

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

I recently took delivery of some new babies and blogged about it here and the guys from Profoto contacted me to ask if they could post a write up about what I use and how so I provided them with a few photographs that I have from a shoot I did with Zebra and Giraffe in December. My dad shot a few behind the scenes photos which came out really cool.

You can see the post on the Profoto Blog and obviously more of my portfolio on my personal website.

Exciting times.

My Profoto Babies

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Today is the day. Today is FINALLY here. I have been so excited about it that I have really battled to keep focused on anything else unrelated. For years I have wanted to own my own Profoto kit but have sadly waited it out because there was always something else in the line up waiting for my attention. I have rented these lights on several occasions along with various Elinchrom kits and the Profoto stuff has always won my vote.

As a very greedy Christmas present to myself I purchased myself 2 Profoto kits that after anxious waiting have landed. The guys from Pro Center called this morning to ask if I would be around to accept delivery so here I am waiting for the door bell to ring. AMAZING.

Anyway, I had to share my excitement and mark today as another day for me to step it up a notch. I have never been as excited as I have been about anything regarding photographic equipment except for the arrival of my D3 which was over 2 years ago.

So let me introduce you to my Pro-7b 1200 babies as I welcome them to the family …… names to follow shortly.

(Obviously as they haven’t arrived yet the photo below was pulled from the Profoto catalogue, I’ll try shoot my own one sometime)