Simon Wright - Talks for Charity

I’ve never made any secret of the fact that the inspiration for many of my images comes from the work of others. If I see work I like I set out to emulate it - I don’t consider it to be copying them, rather that they have inspired me. I invariably find my version turns out very different anyway.

One such photographer was Simon Wright and his work was the inspiration for my Water Dancer project.

Simon is trying to raise money for a charity that provides mental health support for frontline health worker and one avenue he is pursuing is to do Zoom photo lectures to photography clubs and donate his fee (£75) to the charity.

His work has been widely featured in the national press & I know for sure his lecture will be both enlightening and informative and I have no hesitation in recommending him to you. You can contact him directly here.

Water Dancer Workup

Here's a video demonstrating the workup of an image from my Water Dancer follow up shoot. It uses one of my favourite plugins, Flood 2, to create the water reflection. If you want to skip straight to the section showing how I use Flood 2 it's at 11m 35s.

Flood 2 currently costs £25 & you can get it here - www.flamingpear.com/flood-2

Water Dancer Follow Up Shoot

The Water Dancer project introduced me to two brilliant models - Alisha & Dan. I was so impressed with their range of movement & ability to take direction that I immediately asked for a follow up shoot... this video documents that shoot.

Water Dancers

The Water Dancer project started in February '20 & has been severely delayed due to Covid, but we finally managed to get a production shoot done in October. This video documents the development of the project from initial concept through to final images. It took 4 shoots in total, each one building on the previous as we overcame problems and worked out the best angles.

A big thank you to my assistants, Jane Riley & Marlies Chell, my video producer Alex Beck... and of course my dancers, Lily, Dan, Alisha & Jo.

Water Dance Shoot Resumes

Just before lockdown I’d started a new swimming pool project - Water Dance. We had just one shoot and then Covid bought everything to a shuddering halt. Well I’m back in the pool tomorrow!

The main objective is to get some shots of Jane diving in from the side - but I’ll also be testing the stand I’ve had built for Water Dance. As you can see, it’s pretty substantial, but that’s necessary because the models will be jumping up & down on it. The idea is to have the top just 1 cm below the surface so it looks like they are standing on water. If the test goes well I’ll plan the first shoot with Jane in a couple of weeks.

UPDATE;

Tried the stand in the pool & it worked great! Here’s me giving it a try. Don’t worry, I’ll use more attractive models for the real shoot!

First Shoot of the new "Water Dance" project

Yesterday I was back in the pool for the very first shoot of a brand new project which I’m calling Water Dance. The idea is to try to create the impression of a model standing on water, using high speed flash to capture water droplets which she / he will either kick up themselves - or we might throw it at them! As with any new shoot in the pool the technicalities of the set-up gobble up shoot time. We were there for 3 hours & only got 30 minutes shoot time, but I’m used to this based on my experience of shooting the Serenity project. Here’s a little video showing you the set-up & one of the first trial images. All the flashes are battery powered so there’s no chance we’ll electrocute our model! I’ll post the development of the project, including all the highs & lows, here as I go along. I love projects as a way of focussing the mind to create a vision, but I’ll admit they always frighten me too, because after all this effort we might fail (it’s happened before). Nevertheless, it’s still really exciting to be back in the pool.