Still alive over here! Usual story of way too much work and not enough time to blog. Got a whole stack of images to post so am going to do my best over this long weekend and get them online. Here’s a few images from my shoot at Mahoe Cafe.
Just a quick post as am insanely busy (hence the lack of updates!). Friends of friends are running a very random photography competition which I thought I should share. The company is called Facelift and they rent platform trucks. The idea for the comp is to come up with a photoshoot idea using an ascendant truck (cherry picker). You send it in and whoever wins gets to use one of the trucks for an entire week.
You could get some great architectural shots, or now with the warm weather is with us one of the huge music festivals could be quite interesting. Imagine the panoramic pics you could take from 22 metres. Have a think about it and if you have something in mind get moving as the comp ends in a few days!
Here’s some images from my shoot with Ben and Marc from Neutron Creations. Together they develop some very well put together web apps, and needed some new profile images to go with their recently launched site. Ben and Marc are also both keen photographers, so we wanted to do something a little bit creative and different to the usual corporate headshots. Here’s the result:
To achieve this look, we used 2 flashes to overpower the sun. This is what the scene would have looked like shot as is. Rather flat and boring:
The flash on my left was on full power, with the one on my right around 25% to fill in the shadows.
For this final shot of Marc we moved locations and just used the one flash and one reflector. This time I covered the flash with a blue gel, which when corrected in camera gives the sky more of a sunset look than can ever be achieved naturally in London:
Best of luck with the new venture Ben and Marc!
Way behind on my blog posts again! Here’s some pics from Mione and Steve’s wedding back in July at the Islington Town Hall. We were so lucky with the weather. Sunny for the ceremony and the after photos, then absolutely bucketed down about 2 minutes after we made it to their reception at Ziloufs.
One of the highlights was Mione’s family flying out from Australia to surprise her and Steve. Such an amazingly sweet thing to do. Apparently they decided literally a few days before and just booked the tickets and flew over. Love it.
Here’s Dad making sure he gets the sneaky iPhone shot in before the ceremony
The food at Ziloufs was superb
As were the copious amounts of cocktails consumed that evening 
Thanks Mione and Steve for having me along at your wedding. Met some really genuinely lovely people. Hope to see you guys cruising about Islington again one day.
Cheers,
Damian
Paid search experts Net Media Planet contacted me back in July to create a visually impressive image for them. They were wanting to have an image of their director, Sri Sharma, that could be used for PR and show what their business was all about. Together with my retoucher Tony, and Net Media Planet’s marketing exec Pavitra, we worked on a few concepts and ended up with the following rough mock-up:
From here we knew what we needed to shoot to make the image for real. Here’s Sri performing one of the countless poses I made him do that day!
Tony then took the image of Sri and worked some serious magic to create the final image
Net Media Planet also managed to secure a place at number 16 in The Sunday Times Fast Track 100 for Tech companies. The image of Sri was run in the Tech Track 100 supplement which is an absolutely fantastic bit of press coverage. Well done guys!
Thanks Pavitra and Sri for letting us get creative on this one. And of course a big thanks to the ever helpful Tony for bringing the ideas to life. You’re a superstar!
I’ve just returned from my close friends Cam and Nicki’s wedding in Tuscany. What an absolutely beautiful place. Had such amazing time and really did not want to leave! Stunning weather, rolling hills, simple flavoursome food, great friends and definitely no shortage of wine. What else do you need?!
We were staying at Sant’ Antonio, a converted 12th century monastery near Montepulciano. Sant’ Antonio is owned and run by Nico, by far the nicest and most helpful chap in all of Italy! Nico and his team went over and above the call of duty so many times to ensure the week went perfectly. If you’re looking for a great place to get away for a week I can whole heartedly recommend checking with Nico and seeing when he has availability (the place is usually booked out well in advance).
Here’s me and Nico. Points for guessing which ones which
The town of Montepulciano has a festival once a year which involves a parade, bit of flag throwing and a barrel race, where teams of 2 push a barrel up hill around the town centre.
After the barrel racing there’s lots of drinking
Before the late night walk home…
If I was to move to Italy, I’d have to buy a dog
Though not sure it’d be getting my gelati…
Everything is so effortlessly picturesque. Was actually pretty hard to take a bad photo.
I love the layers of hills in this pic
Interesting window in Siena
Of course while we were there we had to do a bit of wine tasting. Here’s our adorable wine expert Martina giving us the tour of Ciacci Piccolomini D’Aragona.
Their Pianrosso (a 2003 Brunello) is absolutely superb.
Now as for the actual wedding itself that we were all there for, unfortunately don’t have any photos to share. I was best man so couldn’t carry a camera! Here’s me and Paul, another good mate who was MC for the wedding. This is a few hours after the wedding and Paul had just been for a midnight swim the crazy man.
The next day we did a sneaky shot for the bride and groom with our place holders from the night before. Nicki (the bride) had made one up for every guest for the wedding, complete with a silly pic on the outside and menu on the inside. Such a cool idea to make things a bit more personal.
Paul and Michelle at sunset
So yes Tuscany is an absolutely magical place. Will no doubt be heading back there again. To finish, here’s the sunset from Sant’ Antonio on our last night (which of course a group of us had to share a couple of bottles of red together as we watched it happen). What a perfect way to end a perfect week.
Congratulations Cam and Nicki and thanks for having me as your best man. Seriously an honour.
Just read an interesting blog post I thought I should share with you all. When I travel it’s usually with quite a lot of kit and although I’m extremely careful, am sure my guard would drop slightly once on board the sealed plane. In this article Steven Frischling explains how theft aboard aircraft is a lot more common than people realise: link
Now this was a fun day. Such a genuinely nice couple and both with a fantastic sense of humour. Their wedding was a very easy going and relaxed day which led to some relaxed fun photos. Couldn’t ask for more really. Here’s their wedding car outside Chelsea Registry Office in South West London.
Quick sneaky shot of their mate Nigel while no one else was around. Always good to throw in a surprise pic for the bride and groom when possible
After the short and sweet ceremony, we jetted off in this meticulously restored cab, literally turning heads on every street we went down.
Quick stop off at the Houses of Parliament.
Another quick stop this time in the arches on St John Lane. Found this spot while checking out the local area close to the reception venue.
On to the reception at The Zetter in Clerkenwell, East Central London, where the rest of the guests had gathered awaiting their arrival.
John doing a very fine Bond impersonation in the private garden next door.
Now as for this next image, I’d like to question the very inappropriate hand placement. That was supposed to end on the hen’s night wasn’t it
Ah I shouldn’t be so mean. Here’s a really sweet email I received from Liz the day they received the photos:
—-
Damian –
..and to think I didn’t want professional photographs….
I can’t state this strongly enough – I had the best day of my life on Saturday, and these have made it even better. And I also thought I was all cried out, but apparently not. 
You’ve given us something amazing here… these are so far beyond what I expected that I can’t even articulate it. And they’re such fun!
I genuinely cannot thank you enough
Liz xxx
—-
Thanks John and Liz and also to the super friendly team at The Zetter who really looked after me (and everyone else!) on the day.
Joseph Nathan needed some new headshots to go along with his new business venture.
The first two were shot in the studio to recreate a very specific style that Joseph was after:
For this 3rd image, we stepped outside for a more casual look that he could use for social networking.
Best of luck with the new business venture mate!
Very quick post with some architectural photography I recently completed for JB Tiling.
