What really took me was just how easy it was. I don’t mean the technical aspect of the shot, but just how pleasant it was to work with the people who were essentially modelling for me. Everyone was co-operative and helpful, although I’ll say that I was more or less useless at directing them.

I’m surprised because of course I’ve heard all of these horror stories about difficult subjects or the more or less total control needed for the photographer. One photographer friend of mine has said ‘it’s essential to communicate‘ and that I should ‘take charge’ and ‘direct everyone’, In fact his exact words were ‘You need to be really good at directing people’. Of course after hearing that I more or less ended up crapping myself at the thought of trying to control or direct some very important people and of course in my case, a famous one.
Yet all I had to do was say to them both “just relax and do whatever feels right”, and whilst they picked up on the fact that I have never done any form of portrait work before, they did exactly as I said and just… relaxed! It was an incredible feeling building a rapport with them as I fumbled around with the studio lights, trying very hard to not burn either myself or the cast member I was shooting. Despite all this, they were great, helpful, kind and after a few nerves and a little uncertainly (on both their part and mine), I started taking shots and everything just flowed.

Shooting in a studio helped so much, this is the first time I was able to do this, but it gave a more professional environment, I was able to shoot easily and well with the camera and I think I got some fantastic shots as well (you will see some soon) but it’s left me with a completely different view of studio photography. Who knows, I might even get a huge amount of work from it, Maybe not. But there is the possibility!

Maybe this was just a really great first experience, maybe it’s all like this, but I now know for a fact that the profession I’ve always wanted to get into, really is what I want to get into.

I am more comfortable behind a camera, than I am anywhere else.

I today completed building and have now started rendering the 3D Landscape for this christmas and the end of the decade… that’s going to be a few more days, however in anticipation of that, later tonight I’ll be releasing my Christmas photograph for this year. 3 similar photos but all are a little different to suit everyones tastes, oh and every one of them is in HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography and in the highest possible quality.

Yup for the first time ever, you’re getting three pictures with no scaling, no reduction in size full HD quality from the 40D with almost no digital work other than the HDR blending.

There will be a separate post here later this evening when I upload them into the “new year, new decade” set, which may or may not have pictures specifically for the turn of the decade and not just christmas, and the images will be available here and on my Flickr account. I will also upload a 16:10 Widescreen version of one of them to fit most widescreen monitors, and for those of you using televisions as PC monitors or the brand new apple iMac’s I’ll stick the same picture in 16:9 resolution as well. Trouble is choosing which one!

Hope you like

Update: Here they are! Click here

There is now only a single gallery on the site, The Portfolio which is based on the Cooliris Piclens Suite. All you need to do is have Flash player installed.

The remaining galleries are now hosted on Flickr, and the link will take you directly to Flickr’s own Photo Gallery, giving you the option to go back to the photo stream.

I will, in time, add a widget to the sidebar to show random flickr images from my photo stream, and will eventually re-integrate the twitter widget into the sidebar as well.

I am considering moving the entire gallery over to Flickr, but need to do some further research into this. For now though, after all the suggestions, I hope you like it.

Enjoy!

Whilst out walking the dog in Victoria Park in Cardiff, early one January morning, the statue which is normally covered in water, was covered in ice. Rushing back home, I grabbed my camera, and started work taking pictures. These were originally intended to go up on the old site when it was live, but unfortunately it would have taken 3 hours to add 4 simple pictures.

Whilst there, I even decided to make my very first attempt at taking a picture of a bird, specifically a rather manky seagul that was picking at the bread that had frozen on the top of the pond, still I think I did reasonably well for a first attempt. What do you think?

Click on the gallery link at the top to view them or click here, and please leave your comments here! I really look forward to reading them!

Prints are available for anyone that wants to order any of these pictures, so please, let me know if your interested by clicking the contact button. Otherwise, enjoy!

Remember, the pictures may take a moment to load fully as people have requested higher quality images

thelongmile activley encourages comments, please remember to leave some, and if you don’t like leaving your email address, put admin@thelongmile.net instead. Remember if you like this post, Tweet it!