The Human Element

WOW! It’s been a very long time since my last blog update! As usual, I’ve just been too busy to do it!

My blog is automatically posted all over the place when I do an update. For example it appears on Facebook in form of a “Note”. Chances are then, that you’re not reading the actual blog, so head over to here: http://www.paul-gardner.com/blog to see it how it was meant to be seen.

A lot of people are asking me lately if I’m “still doing the ‘old’ photography?” and I can see why as I’ve not really been promoting it much, it could look like I’ve moved on to something else. The answer though is yes! I’m still very much doing the ‘old’ photography, and here’s the proof.

As it’s been a long while since my last update, I don’t want to do a bit about everything I’ve been snapping, so I’ve chosen a nice (but still large) selection of what I think are the more interesting bits n’ bobs I’ve been up to.

Here’s what’s in this update:

• Cherylanne in the Studio
• Kirsty in the Studio
• Sam Naked in the Snow!
• A Trip to Norfolk
• My Cousin’s Baby
• Bar 29 Calendar Shoot
• Jenny in the Studio
• Too Damn Glam
• Laura in the Studio
• My Little Niece
• Fake Wedding
• My Garden
• Emma in the Studio
• Louise in the Studio
• Emma’s Canvas
• Prague

So here we go…

Cherylanne in the Studio

I had a shoot coming up and I wanted to try out a new lighting technique. Cherylanne was kind enough to volunteer to be my guinea pig, here’s a couple of really nice shots from the test.

Hopefully Cherylanne and I will be hooking up for a proper shoot soon, so watch this space!

Kirsty in the Studio

This is pretty much the same story as above. I’ve shot Kirsty before, we did an awesome shoot a long while back, so when Kirsty said she was up for testing something out for me, I knew we’d get some great results. Can you believe she was pregnant when we did this shoot?

The full album can be found here on facebook.

If you’re interested in being a test model for me, drop me an email and I’ll take a look at your pics, I’m always up for trying out my new ideas on people with the right look!

Sam Naked in the Snow!

I’ve known Sam for years, and when the snow was in full force, I suddenly had a cool little idea for a shoot in my back garden. I did a quick little facebook status update asking if anyone was “up for getting naked in my garden” and Sam was the first to say yes, without knowing what the shoot even was!

The shots came out spot on:

And yes… she got very cold!

A Trip to Norfolk

This trip will forever be special to me now, as it’s the only time I ever took Leia away on a holiday with me, and sadly she had to be put down several weeks later. Unknown to me at the time, she was very ill while we were on this trip, but I hope she still enjoyed it as much as Louise, Jed and I did.

Here’s a few cool shots from the trip:

The full album can be found here on facebook.

My Cousin’s Baby

I’m not sure how you describe the family relationship when it’s the child of your cousin? Does it make them your second cousin? Or is that not your cousin’s cousin?

Anyway, I popped round my Aunties to take a few shots of My cousin Rachel’s family while they were down for the day. Here’s a few of my favourites:

Bar 29 Calendar Shoot

Blimey, this was a long shoot. I turned the camera on at 11am, and took the last photograph at 11pm!

I love these photographs, and it was a nice opportunity to try some new things. It’s really hard to keep a flow and feel through 13 photos, but still make them all different in order to stand out individually too.

I went for a really moody and strong editing style with these, this is to represent the underground but stylish and unique feel of the bar. I didn’t want them looking like all the other bar and club calendar photos out there, or just some tacky glam calendar, I wanted them to have an element of art, and style to them, while still being very sexy too!

The full set can be found here on facebook.

Jenny in the Studio

A friend of mine Jenny asked for a shoot this year, she’s the owner of the stunning legs and bum in front of the sign in the calendar shoot. Here’s a few really nice shots from the studio shoot:

Check out those dirty feet! It’s not Jenny’s fault, it’s the floor in the studio… lesson learnt, make sure they wear shoes until they’re in position!

Too Damn Glam

As many of you will know, I gave nightclub photography the boot last year after a 10 month stint working for 1 nightclub every weekend. Well the reality is, I’ve not totally stopped taking photos in clubs, because once or twice a month I still take photos for Too Damn Glam when they head out of Southend. I’ve been taking photos at Pacha in London and Warehouse on the outskirts of London for them. It’s good to keep touching base with nightclub photography, it’s one of those things that you lose the edge on if you don’t keep up the practice.

Here’s an couple of albums from this year that I like:

• Warehouse 1 and 2
• Pacha 1 and 2

Laura in the Studio

My friend Laura came into the studio for a shoot recently and I got some lovely shots of her. I tried out a few new lighting ideas I’d been coming up with too, with great results!

Here’s a few of my favourites:

My Little Niece:

2 days before my own Birthday, my sister had the audacity to give birth to my wonderful little niece! The cheek of it! Pia is so beautiful, and these photos were taken on my first trip down to Hove (actually) to see her. These are a few of my favourites from the visit:

Louise and I visited Pia and family last weekend in Hove again, and it’s amazing to see how she’s changed, she’s now a very cute and chubby baby that sits up on her own, chews things and watches you with her big eyes! Sadly I didn’t take any photos to show you, I was too busy holding Pia, chatting to my sister or eating pizza, doughnuts, cookies and jammy dodgers!

Fake Wedding

A local casino are starting up a wedding service and wanted some nice shots to use in publications of the casino in use for a wedding. This was by no means an easy task. I had only a handful of wedding guests available on the day, the venue is quite dark and, well, un-wedding-like, and let’s face it, it was a fake couple, they weren’t in love or actually getting married.

Having said all that, the photos came out spot on! Here’s some of my favourite shots from the day:

My Garden

I’ve done a lot of work (With the help of housemate Dean and girlfriend Louise) on the garden this year. It now has a lovely pond, and waterfall, and lighting, and so on. For Louise’s birthday this year I cooked her a lovely 3 course meal, including her favourite, Fish Pie. I served the whole thing outside in the garden on a lovely summer’s evening. I even added a trail of rose petals and candles to really make it a romantic occasion.

Here’s a couple of photos I took using a nice long exposure:

Emma in the Studio

I did a shoot with Louise and her twin sister Emma again fairly recently. I really enjoy shooting these two, and will be getting them back in again soon as we had to rush the shoot and finish early. Here’s some of my favourite shots of Emma:

Louise in the Studio

I got some stunning shots of my girlfriend too in the same shoot, and convinced her to go a bit more daring this time. Despite appearances, she can be very shy, so I’m mighty impressed with her for doing this, and here are some of the best shots that she’ll let me show you all:

Alas, there are some more amazing ones we did on the shoot, but understandably they’re a little too revealing for her to share with the world, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that they’re beautiful photographs.

You only live once, and you’re only young once, so I always recommend that people should try something like this. You may never show the photos to anyone, but it’s a liberating experience, and something you’re less likely to do as the years pass by. Nude photography doesn’t have to be pornographic, tacky or embarrassing, it can simply be a celebration of your body, an artistic statement or even just an exciting experience to look back on in years to come.

Emma’s Canvas

Still on the subject of the twins, and their birthday (it was Emma’s birthday on the same day as Louise’s… it’s like that every year apparently!)

Emma had been harping on about getting a nice big canvas print for her and her boyfriend’s flat for a while and she’d mentioned that she’d possibly like a beach shot. Going through my beach shots, they were either a bit too moody for her liking, or in some cases I’ve lost the high-resolution versions so would have been unable to print them at such a large size.

So, for a nice surprise, Louise and I popped down to the stretch of beach at the end of Emma’s road on a lovely sunny day to see if we could get a good shot to hang on Emma’s wall. The tide was out for most of the day, so I had to get a bit creative. I got some lovely shots, one of which I’m considering getting as a canvas myself! But the one we chose for Emma was this one:

Louise couldn’t tell at the time why I was so interested in taking photos of a bit of thistle, but it’s all about the bee!

Here’s some other shots taken on the day. They’re all in letterbox ratio to fit the dimensions of the canvas so make sure you click on them to see the full image:

Louise and her sister Tracy went halves on the canvas and it looks excellent! It’s not really my cup of tea, but I can still appreciate it. Needless to say, they still haven’t got round to hanging it on the wall though!

Prague

I had to pop over to Prague recently for a business trip and I took some time out one evening to wander around the old town section of the city on my own getting some snaps. They’re very much in my night-street photography style, and here’s a few of my favourites:

Well that’s about it for now, I’d promise to update more often, but I know I’ll just break the promise.

I’m off to Ibiza next week, so I might have some lovely shots to write about from there. If not, I’ve got a lot of exciting and interesting shoots booked in for the coming months, so keep checking back!

As usual, you can follow me on Twitter here

Become a Facebook fan here

Check out my website (which needs updating) here

And look at my Flickr (which also needs updating) here

Paul.

As usual, I’ve left it really really late to do another update. In some ways I think it works though because each post has plenty of gunf in it then, rather than lots of little short ones and me spamming you all each week to let you know about it.

So, first things first, if you’re not reading this on my actual blog, go here: http://www.paul-gardner.com/blog to see it in its full glory. This blog gets automatically posted into my Facebook notes, etc so there’s a chance you’re reading it from there.

A couple of other bits I thought I’d mention before getting into the post:

• If you haven’t already done so, start following me on twitter: http://twitter.com/paul_gardner
• If you’re not already a fan on Facebook, go here and join in: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Paul-Gardner-Photography/8962401235

Ta!

What’s been going down in the world of Paul Gardner Photography? Take a look…

Run to the Sun!!

My last blog update was written the night before I shot off to Newquay to attend this year’s Run To The Sun festival. As usual I was up and about on the stage taking photos of the DJs and performers, and running about in the crowd getting shots of all the crazy RTTSers!

Hed Kandi were impressed with the shots I got on their night so they’ve bunged a whole load of them up on their website: http://www.hedkandi.com/wallgallery/galleries.aspx (gallery aptly titled Run To The Sun)

So, here’s a few of my favourite shots from the weekend, including some of the gang out on the beach during the day:

The astute of you will spot some photos of me with various well known DJs and MCs including one of my idols, Paul from Pendulum!

The full galleries can be found over on dontstayin.com somewhere.

I can’t wait for next year!

Emma

I did a shoot for Emma in the studio towards the end of May, I quite liked the shots, here’s a few of my favourites from the shoot:

 

Lost Bear

While walking between venues on a Friday night in June, I came across this wonderful assortment of abandoned junk. I didn’t move any of it, this was how I’d found it:

 

Club Photography

I don’t talk about it too much, or advertise it on the various sites like Facebook, etc. But I thought I’d quickly mention it here in case anyone’s interested.

Over the last 5 to 6 months, I’ve been working solely in 2 Southend clubs on the weakens: Talk Nightclub on Friday nights and Storm Nightclub on Saturday nights.

While some of my club photos are pretty cool as club photography goes, I often find it hard to get enthusiastic and proud of my club work, but here’s a couple of cool dancer photos I’ve taken recently in the clubs:

Too Damn Glam, one of the nights that I take photos at managed to get a double spread in the M8 magazine too, here’s a screenshot of it:

Of course, all of those shots are mine, not that I’m particularly impressed with the ones chosen, they all look a bit over exposed, but still, it’s good to see your stuff in print like this now and then!

Finally, I’ve been doing a few mini-shoots for Diason, a promoter who runs the Too Damn Glam events, and is putting on a new night out in Ibiza called Ibiza School Disco. The shoots are for flyers and the like..

Here’s a few from the shoot I did for Diason quickly for Too Damn Glam, I turned up to Storm Nightclub with a couple of my studio lights and we quickly cracked off loads of shots as the punters were coming in. Obviously these photos haven’t been edited as that’s the flyer designer’s job, so you’ll have to use your imagination:

     

Then last week I did something very similar for his new Ibiza School Disco night, but this time in the studio, but it was one of those very quick “In, Shoot, Out, Done” type shoots, so again, what you’re seeing in the selection I’ll put up here is the unedited shots, ready to be played around with by the flyer designers:

   

I’ll try and get a copy of the flyers off of Diason soon so that that I can post them up here in the next blog update. I’ve seen one of the Too Damn Glam ones, and it looked pretty damn good!

(Big thanks to Zara, Hayley, Holly, Natalie and Lewis for posing in the flyer shoots!)

 

Sam

I did a shoot a couple of weekends ago with my friend Theresa’s sister Sam. Sam’s getting into a bit of glam and is doing well apparently and getting plenty of work, I can see why, here’s a few of my favourite shots from the very successful shoot:

    

Of course there were some really nice topless ones but I like to keep things clean on here

 

Louise

And finally but by no means least, while tidying up the studio last week, I asked my girlfriend Louise if she wanted to do a few new shots for me. Louise is fun because she’s somehow body-shy and body-proud at the same time… it just takes a bit of convincing and then she gets into it. Anyway, I love these shots that we got:

 

I like one of them so much, it’s now the homepage photo for my website: http://www.paul-gardner.com something that only changes once a quarter, so I have to be really pleased with a photo for it to go up there!

 

Anyway, that’s it for now!

Paul.

Ooops, It’s been ages since I did a blog update! I’ve been so busy but now, just before I head off to Newquay for the Run To The Sun festival, I’ve finally found a spare 10 minutes to write an update!

So, what have I been up to? Apart from working hard, and playing hard (the usual then), I’ve been taking lots of photos:

Colchester Zoo

Some of us had a little reunion at Colchester Zoo at the end of last month, I took some lovely photos, but here are my favourites:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dogs

Louise and I took the dogs out for a run along the River Crouch. They got quite messy, but really enjoyed themselves, here’s a couple of cool photos I snapped while we were out:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Class Full of Girls

My good friend Annabel needed some photos taken of her and her classmates at university to go with their artwork, including in some sort of catalogue. So I lugged some lighting gear all the way up about 7 or 8 flights of stairs at her university and took some lovely black and white head shots of them all. Each girl had 3 taken; a serious one, a smiling one, and a silly one. Here’s my favourites:

 

 

 

 

 

Some of you might spot the member of the girl group Honeyz in one of those photos (I didn’t recognise her though… oops!)

 

 

Laura Needham

Laura popped into the studio for a few hours a few weeks ago, and we took some great photos, here’s my favourites:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shoot London

Wo0 (A photographer and a Mother), Marc De Groot (A weirdo who used to have an afro but now has a mulletasaurus), John Brophy (works for mixmag and founded dontstayin or something), and myself all had a day out participating in a competition at the Tate Modern. We didn’t win, but I did get this cracking shot:

 

 

 

 

 

Bernie T and Damo Shoot

A couple of DJ friends of mine booked me for a shoot… Bernie had access to an old Vulcan Bomber so naturally we used it as the backdrop for some of the shots… here’s my favourites from the whole shoot:

 

 

 

 

 

You can see the full shoot over here on facebook

 

Well, that’s just about it for now… I’ll be back next week with some snaps of Newquay I’m sure.

Paul.

I’ve been very busy with work lately, but while I’m sitting here in Dusseldorf International Airport (Germany), I’ll do a quick update!

First up, after the success of my night shots in London, I decided to go out for a bit of a longer walk and get some more! Here’s a selection from the walk:

 

 

 

 

You can see the full set over at Flickr.

Some interesting work that I’ve had to do this month was for a Restaurant called Soya, opening in Leigh-on-sea in Essex this weekend. I got a call asking if I could produce 3 photos, on large canvas prints. One of a Soya Bean, one of some Soya Sauce, and one of some Tofu. Oh, and they had to be ready in 9 days!

Well, needless to say, I got the job done, and I’m really pleased with the results. The prints were blown up quite big, the biggest measuring 120cm x 80cm!

Here’s the 3 shots. The Soya Bean one is really small because Soya have paid of exclusive print rights to ensure it doesn’t show up in anyone else’s Restaurant, etc:

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s all for now.

I’ve been having some fun with ‘available light’ at night recently, using street lamps, moonlight, shop windows, etc. as light sources.

I returned home at 2:30am from a drunken night out in London last week, to find a nice fresh layer of snow in Southend, and my housemate’s friend’s Citroen 2CV car parked outside the house. Perfect for this type of photography. Here’s the result:

 

 

Also, last night I took some snaps while on my usual walk from the office in Farringdon, to Liverpool St. Station. Here’s my favourites:

 

 

 

You can see the whole set on Flickr here.

This is likely to be a bit of a big blog post, so set aside some time if you’re really going to read it!

Dell have yet again impressed me. The laptop which they said would take 3 weeks to build (due to shortages in certain components such as the fancy RGB screen) has in fact taken less than 2 weeks! It’ll be delivered on Monday! The laptop I’ve been using in the mean time is dreadful. It takes about 3 times as long to process a photo on it, and sometimes it’ll just crash photoshop without any warning or error message.. most frustrating.

That said, I’ve still managed to keep up (Just! Sorry for the delay Sara!)

Southend

On Tuesday last week, due to the laptop death, with no way to do work, I took to the cold winter beaches of Southend, to catch the sun going down. I wanted to do some cross processing, play a little with fill in flash, and play with keeping the sun in shot. all of which I achieved. You can seen the full set on Flickr here. 

Sara

I did a shoot 2 weeks ago with a friend, Sara, as an xmas gift from her boyfriend James. There was no general theme, they just wanted a nice portrait shoot with her looking all nice and pretty. But I’m not very good at sticking to the rules, so I threw in a few more details shots for good measure. The following photo is my favourite:

 

My good friend Mandi was assistant for the day, and was kind enough to climb a ladder and throw feathers about! I love the combination of colours, facial expression, and clothing in that photo. Thanks to Melissa too, the Makeup Artist for the day.

Storm

I don’t often showcase my club photography these days, and when I do, it’s usually just 1 specific outstanding shot that I got in whole night of taking hundreds. However, this weekend just gone, I produced what I think is the best set of clubbing photos I’ve taken to this date. So, have a nose through the 4 galleries taken by me over here on dontstayin.

No doubt my next blog post will be me ranting or raving about the new laptop!

Today, my laptop decided to drop its guts. For the last 4 months the hard drive has been making a strange clicking noise, which normally means it’s on its way out. Me being me, I decided to ignore it, and deal with the problem if and when it dies. Well today is that day.

As a result, I’m without the tools I need to work for at least a week now, while I wait for my new beast of a laptop to arrive. I’ve ordered a new Dell XPS Studio 16 thinggy… should do the job.

The last thing I managed to get done before its untimely demise was to edit the only photo I got of the snow that attacked us this week:

So for the next week or so, don’t expect a lot of Internet noise from me, but please say a prayer, or spare some thoughts for me, as I sit indoors getting Photoshop withdrawal symptoms!

The New York Collection is up and available on my Online Store section of the website.

The collection is comprised of my 4 favourite shots from my visit to the city in November. I’ve just ordered the canvas print of the Flatiron Building myself!

The canvas prints are produced on real woven heavy 500gsm fabric using fibre deep printing with dye sublimation. This means the ink fuses deep into the fibres and does not sit on the surface of substrate so it doesn’t crack like the inkjet produced canvas prints you get in the high street.

The gloss prints are produced on Fuji Crystal Archive Professional Photographic Paper

Enjoy!

I’ve just been pointed in the direction of these pictures. Truly amazing stuff.

Some of it is a little too staged (I like staged shots of course, just not when you’re trying to sell them as impromptu)

Very inspiring work.