Light Blue for Schools

As you go on, you find yourself reflected in your achievements, in others perceptions and even in dark corners. If you put anything at all into your work, it will shine back at you.

Classic Brown for portraits. Spontaneous moments are where we excel.

The questions are: Is it what you thought it would be? Is it enough? Is it what you want? We have had a wee bit of that and decided to clarify the answers and build a plan for the Wild Highlander. Articulate the things we care about and the way we care about them – then it is true for us and will be true for everyone.

One of my favourite images I have taken - to date.

Greater clarity would not have made for a better moment. Genuine feeling is a must in our style.

Wild Highlander is about people. It always has been about people. Through all the diversity of images on our site, 90% of them are of people. It is not that we love people, ( although we probably do), it is that we love what people are – fascinating, evolving buckets full of surprises and stories.

We try to make people look like they are and like they are perceived. If we can do that then – job done!

What you do not see is often more important that what you do. The mind fills in the blanks.

Even our Commercial work, like this chocolate advert, is driven to catch moments

Isn't this how every boy is seen by his mum!

There is consistency in our style but not cloning. We do not shake the face of one client into the frame of the last picture. But we do shoot in a similar style consistently and largely unwittingly. s our only reason for taking photographs at all.We have incorporated some legacy images not shown here before to introduce the brand diversity before we update you on many stories that we simply ran out of time to discuss last year.

This image shortlisted this client into the New York finals of the Ralph Lauren Modelling competition.

It is this creative freedom that sits at the essence of what we do – we have discovered. And it is this freedom that we will continue to place at the centre of our world. In creating our new look we have tried to release that looseness of style. A style that we had straight-jacketed in a fine edwardian script and the monochromatic elegance of our look to date.

Trying to make the brand reflect where we wanted to be rather than who we are.

Sometimes you find you have taken a picture that comes into your "I wish I'd taken that" category - and be thrilled you did. Found, not Posed.

Every Dog has his Day !

Taken in natural light on a cold winter dusk with a door light slightly shining from the left. Tribute to Nikon and the D3 Sensor.

Looks beautiful in a natural oak frame

Just light from a stairwell window. Nothing special but the day itself!

That closet is now trashed and we stand basking in natural light. The branding you see in the previous blog post and you will now see tranforming all of our communications and activities is designed to reflect that loose creative freedom that is our only reason for taking photographs at all.

Lisa Kwei (pronounced KWAY). First album is due out in June. Beautiful Singer who has served her apprenticeship.

I am proud if this image. It tells the esact story I was looking to achieve.

Don't know how this got so right but studio madness takes over sometimes

The Godfather. Looking hale and chipper but muttering ...'get on with it'

Ulorin Vex shot courtesy of Yerbury. An Honour.

We have incorporated some legacy images not shown here before to introduce the brand diversity before we update you on many stories that we simply ran out of time to discuss last year.

Athena eat your heart out

when a model is not a model ...

A very unadventurous look at skintone with an eye cocked to Mapplethorpe

Writer, Actor and Director Graham Pountney

No-one, and I mean No-one, has ever looked better with no front teeth.

In Memoriam

A celebration of life

Ulorin Vex and a wild blue scarf

Cool and beautiful with great smoky eyes. Reading Vogue all your life pays off.

Catch you soon…

All bar the Photographer at Becky's Falls

We had a great time as a family on holiday – phew!! I never thought I would get away with writing that.

We stayed in this country, mainly in Cornwall and nowhere for longer than two nights. We saw King Arthur’s Birthplace, had lunch in Rick Stein’s seafood restaurant in Padstein, and lunch in Rock, went back in time 50 years in Coverack including an emergency visit to the Vet at midnight in Helston. We ate the best food possible with Rick and Gina at the Bay Hotel, saw the Red Arrows in Falmouth and swam in the bay at the Three Mackerels. We had large 99 cones, petted wild Dartmoor ponies and scrambled up and down the rocks at Becky’s Falls. We had sunshine, sunburn, windburn, squalls, rain and gales. We ate three different varieties of spaghetti pomodoro, had thai, seabass and indonesian – but no curry! We bought too many sweets and ate barely any of them, we bought crocs. We went swimming, walking, climbing, paddling, jumping and scrambling.

We had a great time as a family on holiday.

Ambush Preparation

Ambush Sprung

Very deceptive

Very long way away

Baywatch

Dogwatch

Still drifting

Taking Shireen for a Walk

Just very dangerous. Cute but very dangerous

Also cute but not as dangerous

Rambler - that's largly walking as a far as I can tell

What fun we had

Largely Unnatural

Coverack 50 years ago

We spent a lovely two days with our friends in Coverack at their hotel ‘The Bay’. We were very lucky to be allowed to stay as their rule is no children under 11. Even with the best will in the world we were not getting away with that!

The Bay and the Bay Hotel

Our hosts made the most superb lunch the next day of the freshest and tastiest morsels and then we hit the beach. The Heir is now two and able to swim – with a few limitations…

A little wave

But she kept her sense of humour which showed great stregth of character

happy and soaking

Certainly enough to go for a jog along the beach

Young Triathlete of the Year Coverack 2009

settling down in the end to pathfinding for mummy and daddy

House, Holmes and Hedge

We had a fantastic visit, that was like a time and space warp. We could have been in the south of anywhere and at anytime in the last two hundred years.

Father and daughter

Mother and Daughter (not by Shirley Valentine Davies but by The Wild Highlander!)

Fran and a Kangaroo

He has been the owner and driving force behind Blue Dot Display for the last ten. They were based in Kingston and now are based next door to me in Hurtmore. The new owners, Zara and Adrian Decandole are very nice people and I recommend them to you. Greg, Ash and Dan all remain as ever!

Not a great picture but a great portrait

I will miss Fran and his family. Fran has been inspirational in believing in the photography and in driving me to get sales. He is a naughty, irreverant and charming man who tells tasteless jokes and always helps out a friend in need.

The Moneyspinner and Apprentice

I am looking forward to visiting them in NZ. In the meantime we found a last minute gap to shoot some family pics. I hope you like them and consider that they represent the great people they are. Skype Videocalls -  here we come…

Backlighting and dark clothing combine to make a great modelling shoot.

We took some classic portraits at the weekend.  The best part was that nothing went according to plan. The original plan was to take some quite formal images of the girls but the weather was so good that it did not feel right being inside and after all, God does the best lighting. So we decided to take the strong contrast of the sunlight and shoot directly into the light. Back-lighting breaks all the rules but it gives you some clear advantages – no squinting eyes so faces are relaxed, lovely haloes of light around the subjects hair and the opportunity to achieve a quality of translucent facial tones that are difficult to achieve in direct sunlight. Which probably says something about the rules….

Strong contrast can be interesting and needs balance

The girls are sisters who all get on really well. They were funny and supportive of each other, helping to bring out the best in each others shots.We worked on some relaxed poses that involved movement. It did mean that we only discovered the results in some cases, after the shoot, but it makes for fluid and fun photography.

Sometimes all the photographer has to do is be there

We did not use a stylist or make-up artist. The girls had done their own hair and clothing. We had a short break for a change halfway through to make sure that the final shoot with Mum had everyone in light clothes – making the most of the dark background.

A strongly backlit group can work perfectly

We separated kids from adults for most of the shoot to avoid grown-up comments inhibiting anyone and in a rapid piece of post-production, the girls and I worked in the studio until we had something we were happy to show off. It did not take long, processing initially in Lightroom 2 and the finishing off in Photoshop 4. Making it a group effort was engaging and what I may have lost in de-mystifying, I more than made up in goodwill.

Work with children and animals whenever you can!

They cheerfully  waved goodbye as the sun started to cool and I went back to finish the final touches. We are meeting up this week to review framing and portrait ideas. All in all a very creative Saturday afternoon. Thanks to the Good Girls.