Sun, Sun, Sun! Day’s are getting longer, clocks have gone forwards and plants are finally starting to flower. One could almost believe summer is on the way and summer is the one time of year that it’s great to be in England.

Well due to it actually being a nice day Jennie, James, Holly and I decided to head to the picturesque Wandlebury for Jennie and James’ engagement shoot this weekend. Was really nice to get outside and and have some fun in the sun. Props to Holly for being a Human Light Stand for me and to Jennie and James for laughing at my bad jokes.

Anyway, enough of my twittering, on to the photos!

More photos after the jump.
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Let the wedding season commence! Saturday kicked off the 2010 wedding season in style for me, a little more than 3 months after Alana and David’s Christmas wedding.

You might remember the couple from their engagement session earlier in the year but this was the big day for Sarah and David. They both met at Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge while studying for their undergrad and as such decided to come back and tie the knot in familiar surroundings.

Hit the link for more about the day and more photos.
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Having not learned my lesson with the horses I decided to up my game and this time try a photograph including not one but two dogs. The vision for this one was a very highly stylised almost Chanel like photo of Carys with her two dogs. I’ve put the photo up on the blog before but here it is again along with a couple of others we snagged to jog your memory.

Well if you want to know some of the secret sauce which went into this photo hit the read more link…

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Never work with children or animals. At what point did I forget that golden rule?? Well anyway I know I promised to do a little techie post on some of my more recent photos so here goes nothing.

So let’s start with the horse shot. The back story to this is that it was inspired by a mixture of Lord of the Rings and Drew Gardner. What I wanted to do was put Carys in the middle of a sunny forest with beams of light shining through the trees and her riding through them. Here’s the shot again, do you think I made it?

Hit the link for all the techie details behind the shot and some of the issues I had to overcome to make it happen. (Click here to see more…)

It’s really not turning out to be a good Quadra week for me. Just managed to get through the airport in Dubai but only by a cat’s whisker.
When I travel I pack all my vital camera gear into a Peli case which is just the right size for carry-on. That way if my hold luggage goes missing I’m still in business the other end and able to shoot.

The Quadra is one of those items I consider essential (despite trying to toast one of my models yesterday) and as such I had it in my hand luggage. Well it turns out Dubai airport security (possibly hearing of yesterday’s escapades) really weren’t happy with that idea. I’d already been through security once but the second set insisted no Quadra in hand luggage (despite the label on it which says it’s fine) Damn. I had already checked in my hold baggage and technically left Dubai (passport stamped out etc).

So what happens then? Well that’s where it starts to get fun, and goes to show why you should arrive at the airport early. I got escorted back through security, however I couldn’t pass the passport people again with my passport. I’d been stamped as having left the country and as such if I tried to leave again they’d arrest me for entering illegally. Drat.

I ended up having to leave my passport with one of the immigration guys (a very scary thing to do) and be escorted back to check-in. There they continued to insist that I really had to check the battery and as such decided to reclaim my already checked bag. This is where I started to sweat. The only other time I’ve tried to reclaim a bag before flying it resulted in an awful headache of me trying to understand a Frenchman, jumping into a security restricted zone and ultimately almost losing the bag. I got escorted down again almost airside until being stopped at a barrier. “Wait here, it’ll only be 5 minutes,” reassured a security guy as he went to rummage for my bag, “Just give me your boarding pass.”

Okay so 30 minutes later I’m sitting in the bowels of the airport on my own. I’ve lost my passport to upstairs and now somebody has taken my boarding pass. I have no clue where anybody is and technically I’m not actually even meant to be in the country anymore. Hum. Another 10 minutes pass and yes I’ll admit I’m starting to get a little nervous. But finally, voila my bag appears. In goes the Quadra and back though security I get escorted. Luckily I managed to pick up my passport again (just hoping Mosad didn’t manage to clone it) and off I went through a few more sets of security.

After all that I was a touch dehydrated (yeah okay I admit it, I might have been sweating a little at the point they took my passport off me) so I went to Costa. Guess what? Seconds later I get the boarding call for my flight (which requires yet another set of security) and there they remove my nice, cold, airport bought beverage from me

Flying sucks! Well actually I’m lying, I love it really, here’s a few quick snaps a-la-iPhone of my journey. Really amazing what that thing can do. Recognise the view from the plane? It’s actually Iraq and Baghdad. Better hope those engines keep on running and the elections go well!

More adventures soon,
Alex

Wow what a day. Today I got set an assignment by Joe McNally to photograph the lovely Alessia – an up and coming musician. The goal was to get two photographs suitable for a magazine (one landscape and one portrait as a cover) in order to show Alessia as a very quirky but likeable person (think Biorke). How on earth do you do that? And more to the point, how on earth do you shoot and edit those in under 3 hours? Keep on reading to find out how and how this turned out to be one of my most expensive photos to date…

Story and more photos after the jump…
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Well it’s been one hell of a week here in Dubai. Last Monday I took the (somewhat suicidal) decision to fly half way around the world and spend a week hanging out and shooting with some of the best modern photographers in the world. Coming up to the end of it, all I can say is “wow”.

I started the week by being the first unwitting subject of a certain Mr Joe McNally. For those of you that don’t know, Joe has been a pro for about 40 years, was the last Life staff photographer and has worked for more publications than I care to shake a very long stick at (think National Geographic, Sports Illustrated etc etc). Crazy being on the other side of his lens! Joe’s a really awesome guy: at 58 he still spends 95% of his life tearing around the world shooting. After he got done shooting me, I really enjoyed having him rip into my photos and tell me just how badly I’d got it all wrong (I guess whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!). As it turns out, most of the time I seem to be pretty good at ripping my images apart even before Joe starts

After a few days of that I decided to head down to the Burj Arab for some sunset photos. I caught the one below just as the sun was hitting the horizon.

Hit the read more link for some more photos and the rest of part 1…

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