The Human Element

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 been meaning to write a photography blog for a long time now. I’ve had general blogs before, but I’ve become bored of them quickly as they’ve lacked direction and subject, however I have high hopes this one will develop well.

I think it’s good timing that I’m starting this at the beginning of a new year, as I’ve set myself some interesting photographical targets to achieve this year (this being one)

So to start, I’ll have a quick chat about some shoots I’ve done already this year:

Megan

Megan was lucky enough to be the first shoot of the year. It should have been a young lady called Carli on the 4th of January, however she was unable to attend in the end.

Megan wanted to start a portfolio, with some photos she could send to agents with the hopes of getting some interest from magazines such as loaded. I’ve done this sort of thing a lot recently, but what was interesting about it was the time I had to prepare. She rang me on the Wednesday, and had to have the shoot before the Sunday, so I squeezed her into the Saturday.

The results were great, and she’s a very photogenic young lady. Take a look at the homepage of Paul Gardner Photography, she’s the new face for this month!

One thing I finally got to do, was play with the loft space above the shooting area in the studio. In the past I’ve only shot in the other direction up in the loft, using the yellow brick wall and round window as a backdrop, but shooting in the other direction gave me the opportunity to try out some funky lighting effects, using shadows created by the beams and scaffolding.

Finding Mamma

A quick MSN to my friend wo0 resulted in a last minute dash to the studio on a cold weekday night. Wo0 is a photographer herself, and we decided to have a mess about. We brought along some other friends too, and wo0′s daughter; Emily (mini-wo0).

The main shot I wanted to get was a very controversial shot called Finding Mamma. The shot was wo0, after she’s hanged herself, with Emily finding her. I had a clear idea of how it would be lit in my head, and I was able to quickly convert that to reality with a single, open flash head with a set of barn doors.

The result is perfect, exactly how I wanted it, and is getting much praise. Of course it’s also upsetting a few people too due to its nature, but hey, that’s art!