The Old Masters, Grapes and a Personal Project

     I've got a personal project coming up. Been putting it off for a while because it's going to be kind of traumatic. This will all reveal itself in due course. It seems to me that personal projects, otherwise known as "massive jobs that take ages and you don't get paid for", are the creative backbone of all things photographic. No one is ever likely to pay you for the stuff you really, really feel compelled to do. Unless you are totally driven by fashion maybe. But if like me your interest is in animals things may be trickier.

     I did a job last week at Crufts for Marie Claire. A dream gig. Getting paid for something that I would do anyway given half the chance. This is not the norm. But this job came from a personal project. I'd spent a year and a half making a book on dogs. The picture editor saw it, liked it, and decided they wanted me to do some stuff for them. This is the upside of the personal work. No matter how hard it is to justify the time and lack of money involved, just do it, because at the end you will have more work for your portfolio and if what you have created is any good it may just spin off into other, paid work. 

The other great thing about personal work is the total lack of constraint. You can do whatever you like. It is the one massive bonus. Total artistic freedom and the knowledge that if you fail, nobody even needs to know.You don't have to justify your work to an editor who will likely choose the stuff you didn't want to use anyway. No ones going to tell you what you can and can't or should and shouldn't do. You  just have to find the motivation, be a bit pushy, and the world is your oyster................... Did I mention that you don't get paid.

As a result of my impending work I have been deciding on a lighting style. I like to do this. I like to be prapared. I'd been looking at lots of old paintings in the National Gallery. My background is painting so I often like to go back to basics for inspiration. What seemed perfect for this new idea was the the lighting style of the old masters. All those funereal, dark images. Every one of them telling a story. Always literal in their use of symbols. Lots of dead stuff. After a bit of experimenting in the studio I kind of arrived at this (below). One of them is a straight forward set up with two lights, reflector etc. The other is a five minute exposure and is lit with a mag light and a blue gel. Probably go with this one.

It's really good fun experimenting with still life. You have all the time in the world and can really tweak things if they aren't working. Plus, if you use grapes, oranges etc. You can eat them as you go. The perfect crime. I'll upload all the images from this series as soon as I find the cajones to start.......

Lighting experiments for an upcoming personal project influenced by old master paintings

If it bites you it WILL hurt.....

 This week I photographed some slightly more exotic than usual creatures. Parrots, snakes, lizards, tortoise and a random African barn owl. There was a crocodile there too but it was a big one and too dangerous to handle. We started off with the barn owl as it was the most calm and would be easiest to deal with. It was perfect and between every shot it moved it's head a centimetre or so to keep an eye on me. If I could speak owl I would have asked it to do just that. Of all the things I've ever photographed the owl was the easiest. Not because it was well behaved, which it was, but because it was so photogenic. Every shot was kind of great and I haven't had to do a thing with them on the computer. It was truly beautiful. Maybe the most beautiful thing I've ever had in my hand..... 

African Barn Owl

.........Apart from at lunch time when it definitely let the side down...............

Swallowing a mouse whole

Next on the list were parrots. These guys weren't so relaxed as the owl and we had a very small window before they lost interest and literally flew away. These are handsome, long lived birds with real personalities. They craved attention but were very quick to panic when anything unusual happened. "It doesn't take much wi them parrots", said Steve, the creature handler with a voice like a weary husband. We probably got about 20 shots of each bird bird but this was more than enough.

Macaw

African Grey Parrot

     After the birds came the reptiles. I shot quite a few but I'm just going to post my favourites. The most interesting was probably the Boa Constrictor. When I asked to handle it Steve said, with typical northern candour,"I'll get him out but he WILL go for you, and if he bites you it WILL hurt and you WILL bleed A LOT". I sensed there was something of the challenge in these words so we got him out anyway. He wasn't joking. Every time I got the camera within about 6 inches of the snake it struck at the lens. It was ace. I just had to hide behind the camera and I was pretty much out of harms way. Don't get me wrong, I was bricking it. Behind the camera you very easily loose track of the distance between you and the subject so every few minutes I'd pop my head over the lens to realise I was only a few inches away and in danger of getting a nasty bite. This snake was incredibly aggressive but try as I might I never got the killer shot of him striking. 

Boa Constrictor

       Dragons next. The Bearded Dragon is probably the most common lizard to be kept as a pet in the UK. After meeting this one it's easy to see why. They have real personalities and are surprisingly gentle. Also, like all good animal models, they are completely driven by food so as long as you've got a wriggling grub in your hand,"they'll let you do owt". You can see by this ones alert stance that he is totally locked onto the prey/food. I kind of wanted to take this lizard home with me by the end of the shoot.

Bearded Dragon