Shooting Seals

I was fortunate enough to spend a day taking photo ID's of wild seals for the hampshire wildlife trust as part of an international project to form a database of pictures to aid researchers in tracking the seals movements. It is a completely non invasive method of tracking the seals and it is possible to get software to aid in the identification of the individual animals from its markings.


There are a few issues with shooting seals from a boat,

1. The sea is moving
2. The boat is moving
3. The seal is moving
4. If you do it in feb it is likely that you will be shivering!

All of the above add up to a requirement for a fast shutter speed, Image stabilisation, and a lens you can hand-hold, and as we were out on the water pretty early to catch the tide, a high ISO.

Ok so I admit that the first pic doesn't really aid in the ID of the seal, but I liked it, and you can't be outdoors and not notice your surroundings. 5 brownie points if you can tell me what type of seal it is in the picture....

If you want a closer look, try this....

Hair Competition

So there I was, driving my kids home from nursery when I notice a sign outside a hair salon 'models wanted for hair cut and photoshoot' so on the off chance I give them a call to see if they have anything organised on the photography front.

Two emails later and I have the job...8 days later I am shooting their models (bear in mind that the models are just students after a free hair cut who have wandered in off the street after a hard day of choosing the evening's kebab shop). For this job I used my portable studio set up and shot in the hair salon. Not the easiest of locations with a mirror every 4 feet and an enormous shop front window to contend with.

The shots are to be used for the L'Oreal hair design competition - so best of luck guys!

Beating the Yanks

So I get a call from a massive company - over 10,000 employees worldwide, they provide telecoms equipment to a whole host of other businesses and governments including the foreign office and number 10! They want to showcase some of their best talent and need a photographer to provide images for their marketing campaign showing their people in their work environments, doing what they are good at.

Only one problem...they have already started the campaign in the states and the UK pics have to match the style of the ones done over the pond. So do you get all arty and refuse to work in a style except your own...well you could do, but that wouldn't put shoes on the poor cold feet of your kids

So instead - I view the pics they have already got, reverse engineer the lighting techniques and then go along to the shoot and mimic the style of the existing work.

The results? Excellent. The shots are now being used worldwide to promote the UK office - the client was delighted and has since asked me to provide some shots of their new offices which are currently under construction.