Charlecote Park by Alpha Whiskey Photography
Spent a lovely day at this pre-Elizabethan country estate, surrounded by its own deer park, on the banks of the River Avon.
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Spent a lovely day at this pre-Elizabethan country estate, surrounded by its own deer park, on the banks of the River Avon.
Another year, another RIAT. One of the few remaining subjects I'm still interested in photographing but a great day and great fun.
A project with highly detailed 1/43 scale Lotus Esprit models shot on a practical set with backgrounds, smoke and lights added in post. The last image of the black Esprit is a 1/18 model. Much more cost effective to shoot cars using models in a studio rather than the real thing (hiring the car, driver, photographer, fuel for an engine that gets 16 mpg etc...).
Spent a lovely day at this beautiful property in Suffolk, the ancestral seat of the Parker Baronets. Built mostly in the 16th century, it's history has experienced the Dissolution of the Monasteries, during which it was passed from the abbots and granted by Queen Mary to Sir William Cordell; the Stour Valley Riots and a fire during World War II. It was eventually sold to Harry Parker, son of Admiral Hyde Parker. Beatrix Potter was a cousin of the family and would often visit here. Queen...
Elizabeth also stayed at the this property while being set up on a blind date (which was obviously to no avail).Typical for this kind of property, each room had a fascinating story to tell, replete with a wealth of beautiful paintings, porcelain and furnishings, many of which were made by young craftsmen over 200 years ago and are still immaculate today. A lesson, perhaps, for today's disposal consumerist tendencies.The photographs are not to what I believe are my usual standard for this kind of subject, rather hand-held snapshots that tried to avoid unsuspecting visitors breaching the frame. Sincere gratitude to the excellent and extremely well-informed guides who generously bequeathed their knowledge of this fascinating property. I would heartily recommend a visit.
This was a personal project rather than something for a client so you may forgive the (extra) silliness.Shooting a Delorean scale model was in fact something I was reluctant to do because it has already been done. But a buddy of mine kept bugging me to do it until I relented so I decided to get the flying version from the second movie as I figured that would be a more original project. The movies (especially the first) have excellent screenplays but since the main protagonist (Marty Mcfly)...
has virtually no narrative arc to speak of I always felt the Delorean was the star.Nevertheless, we had the idea of inserting people into the shots just for a change and they turned out ok. At least they made us smile. We shot ourselves separately in the various poses against a white background so that we could be easily selected, copied and pasted into the vehicle shots. I then matched the colour and luminosity of the subject to the background as best as I could. In some of the shots the desired effect was a movie poster style rather than realism.Since I had the Knight Industries Two Thousand from Knight Rider knocking around I included it in a couple of compositions. (When I drove the actual KITT Trans Am a few years ago it happened to be parked right next to the BTTF Delorean.)Once again, the vehicles were all shot on a practical set, suspended with wires in some shots, and with backgrounds and effects added in post. Hope you get a kick out of them. We sure had fun. The video with theme music can be seen here.
Dona Juana via N-Ridge to Balancing Boulder, return via Colorado Canyon 5/12/19
Just to get away from it all, Brubaker and I decided to take a drive and ended up in Snowdonia. He hadn't been here before so I took him to some of the spots I enjoyed on my previous visit, including a hike up Cadair Idris to Cwm Cau (the lake), Cregennan Lakes, Swallow Falls, and Pistyll Rhaeder. We even watched the RNLI haul a vessel into the sea at Barmouth Beach.Not really a trip about photography it was exhausting and fun.
Creatively this kind of thing is becoming a little routine but I'm getting commissions for more posters with this subject. Once again all made with die cast models on practical sets with only the Chilean backgrounds, lights and flying dust added in post. The exploding rocks were also added in post and blended into the image. Enjoy.
Enjoying the architecture and spirit of Venice, Italy ~
This project exemplifies that you never know where the next commission will come from. The 80s TV stuff garnered interest from the nostalgia crowd, which was unsurprising. The nostalgia market is huge. But at the start of this year a snowboarding/bike enthusiast contacted me wanting to have some posters made depicting a snowboarder or biker flying over a car.I discussed the possibility of photographing him snowboarding (a subject I would love to shoot) in order to make it more customised and...
personal but we decided that could be a project in itself for another time. He was happy for me to use a generic or stock shot of a snowboarder. But then we had to choose the kind of car he wanted in the shot. He specified something sporty (naturally) and coloured blue or red to contrast against the snow.So I trawled eBay looking for something and soon found this 1/18 scale 1977 Lotus Esprit Turbo, blue with red and white stripes, on auction. I felt it would look great in a snow setting. I checked with the client and he approved so I bought it. (I didn’t bill the client for it since I plan to sell this model again myself).Polystyrene foam doubled for snow, while some rocks from the garden had some flour sieved onto them. The background plate was from one of my Iceland trips. I personally wanted to have more snow flying off the vehicle but the client didn’t want the car to be too obscured. Fair enough.On one of the shots I also used a flying biker that I photographed at a stunt show a while back, although I think the snowboarder works better in the wintery setting. I also made a couple of static shots of the car in the snow just because it’s a great looking car.Not wanting to play my own trumpet, and you won’t be able to tell from these web sized images, but they look great on the wall at 120x80cm (minus the black bars, of course), a reminder to us all to print our work whenever we can, especially large. It will enhance your appreciation of it no end.