Blog of photographer Kevin Ahronson

Hayley - a beauty portrait

This weekend I photographed Hayley.  The brief was to take a traditional beauty image with uncomplicated, smooth lines.  

This was the image I was looking for, and I'm delighted with the results. Hayley's stunning looks help make a good shot look sensational.

To acheive the look, we first of all placed a large Bowens softbox behind Hayley.  Because it was pointing straight towards the camera, we tilted it at an angle of 45 degrees to reduce lens flare.  This produced the white background, but because it was so close to her, it wrapped a beautiful soft light around her hair, her shoulders and both sides of her face. 

Next we positioned the main light (a smaller softbox suspended from a boom arm) high and in front of Hayley.  Hayley was now bathed in soft light from both front and rear.  Finally, a small reflector was held in front of her, to emilinate shadows under the chin and nose.  If you look closely at Hayley's eyes, you can see the two catchlights produced by the front softbox and reflector.

This is a very flattering way of photographing the female face, and is available to any client who requests it.  Please drop me an email if you would like to know more (or if you would like to buy this shot for someone you love).

Alternative image:

Equipment info for photographers:

Camera:  Canon EOS 5d MkII (Full-frame, 21 megapixels)

Lens: Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS

Studio stobes:  All Bowen

Softboxes:  Bowen 100 X 100cm and 60 X 60cm

Wireless flash triggers:  Pocketwizard 2 X Flex receivers & Mini transmitter

 

Meet my new assistants

Today I spent nearly seven hours with my new assisants Leigh, Loren and Heather.  It was our first training day, with over two hours in the morning going through the equipment - and the rest of the day working in the studio and outside on the streets of Purley.

The guys worked so hard and they tirelessly absorbed huge amounts of information.  

I wanted to use this blog to publically thank them for today and for the great way they all worked together.

The three photos below represent a fraction of the work we did.  Each photo has a description of how it was taken.  Click on any image to view a larger copy.

Heather:  Two softboxes were used, one above, one below (in what is often referred to as a clamshell configuration).  There was a small window through which the camera was able to shoot (between the softboxes).

 

Leigh:  Above the camera, mounted on a large (Manfrotto) boom was a Bowens beauty dish.  Behind Leigh (left and right) were two more lights directed towards the sides of his face.  Each light was fitted with a grid to increase the harshness of the light.  To prevent light spilling into the camera lens, we used two large black flags mounted on C stands.  Leigh held a small reflector in front of him, to bounce light upwards and fill in some shadows.

Finally, To provide a small rim of light to the back of his head, we positioned another light immediately behind him.

 

Loren:  Taken outside in Purley, we used Pocketwizard wireless triggers to control two Canon speedlites. One was held on the end of a long boom just above Loren's head.  

On the camera I set the colour temperature to tungsten, which gave a blue tone to the ambient light, I also underexposed the ambient light by two stops.  The speedlite was fitted with an orange gel, to colour-correct the light hitting Loren and was mounted inside a Lastolite Ezybox.

A second Speedlite was handheld by Leigh just out of sight (behind Loren and to the right of camera). This was used to illuminate the passing bus.  The beam was zoomed to 24mm, to give a wide spread of light.

Camera used throughout was a Canon EOS 1D MkIV with a Canon 70-200mm f2.8 lens.

Some images from the St Paul's protest site

I was up in London for a few hours this afternoon helping a young photographer get to grips with her camera.  We passed by the Anti-Capiltalsm protest outside St Paul's Cathedral and just had to grab the opportunity for a few shots.

We found it remarkably clean and quite a lot smaller than we expected.  There were one or two items of discarded litter as shown in some of the photos below, but nothing serious (I've seen worse outside McDonalds).  Even the portaloos were in good shape, and at one point there was a small queue of tourists waiting to use them!

We also witnessed a really good releationship between the protesters and the small number of police present. 

It was all rather civilised.

 

Camera was a Canon 5D MkII with an 85mm fi.2 lens.

 

CLICK ON PHOTOS for larger copies

Saxon in concert at Koko in London

I was delighted when Saxon drummer Nigel Glocker invited me backstage to capture him at work during Saxon's gig at the Koko theatre in Camden, London, last night.

Drummers rarely get their fair share of photos, hidden behind all that kit.  I had a virtual free-hand to photograph him on stage and was able to get in really close, in some shots, physically shooting through the gaps in his massive twin-bass Duallist drum kit.  

I love to work in black and white, and many of the photos below have been deliberately treated to a grainy monochrome finish.  It reminds me of those wonderful days (that seem so long ago) when I shot exclusively in black and white 35mm film (Ilford HP5) which I would process and print at home in my darkroom.  It was possible to force the film to work beyond its ISO 400 specification, pushing it to ISO 800 and even higher.  The end resuilt was often rich in atmospheric grain.   

I hope I have been able to use the grain in some of these images effectively.  

I have also recently started to crop a lot of my photographs to the same aspect ratio as widescreen cinema.  I love the cinematic effect, and if you click on the images you'll open up larger versions which should fill most computer screens.

Half way through the gig, I left the stage and got some shots from the audience area, and not just of the band.  One of my personal favourites is the image of the beer glass being held aloft by a cheering fan.

 

Equipment used  

Cameras: Canon 1D MkIV, Canon 5D MkII

Lenses: (all Canon) 70-200mm f2.8 IS II L, 85mm f1.2 L, 24mm f1.4 L.  

Everything shot in manual, ISO 800, 1600 & 3200.  Processed in Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5.

 

Kate & Patrick's Wedding

I've been absent from this blog for a few weeks, no excuse other that a really busy life.  I hope to rectify the shorfall initially with some images from a wonderful wedding I had the pleasure of photographing at the end of July. 

Kate & Patrick had the most fabulous venue for their reception - Waverley Abbey in Farnham.  The weather was perfect and, as the sun went down around 7.30pm, the shadows were long and the colours were truely golden.  It was a photographer's dream.

They were a very imaginative couple who had taken great care to ensure that their guests were not only suitably fed and watered, but that the entertainment was entirley original.  

Some of the shots show the wedding guests gathered around a hand-made photo-jigsaw.  Every guest had a piece of the jigsaw on their table as a place mat.  After the meal they took their piece out onto the grass and assembled the jigsaw into an amazing montage of photographs depicting Kate and Patrick's lives.  Brilliant!

Here are some of my favourite images from the day.

 

Do click on the images to see the larger versions in their hi-res glory.

Please feel free to leave you comments at the end of the photos.

 

Tony & Carol's 40th Wedding Anniversary

Last weekend I was invited to photograph a Ruby Wedding anniversary for Tony & Carole Latham.  They had booked one of their favourite hotels in Berkshire, the Ramada Jarvis at Elcot Park.

My brief was to capture the evening on camera, to document everything that went on, no posed shots (hooray!), and where possible, to avoid using flash.  Well, you know how much I dislike using flash for this sort of job, so usually that's not a problem...

However, there was a point during the evening when I actually had to resort to popping one of my Speedlites on the camera and bouncing the light off the ceiling.  At one end of the room a video projector was projecting images onto a screen.  At the same time, entertainment was laid on with a Mr & Mrs quiz for three couples.  Unfortunately, the line of people ran right through the projector beam and some of the contestants had images projected on their faces.

The only way to capture the moment without faces being bleached out from the projector light, was to provide what was effectively a fill-in flash, to even out the contrast between parts of faces that were in the projector beam, and those parts that were not.

Motto: Be prepared.

Below are just a few shots from a few hundred that were taken on the evening. 

Do click on the images to see the larger versions in their hi-res glory.

Please feel free to leave you comments at the end of the photos.

 

A week in the Scottish Highlands

Having just got back from seven days braving the weather in the highlands of Scotland (a good 550 miles from our home in Surrey) I look back over the photos.  Some documented the time we spent with our friends Richard and Liz, some recorded the local wildlife and others were of the spectacular landscape.  I look at them and wish I was still there.  It is a truely jaw-dropping part of the world.  So beautiful and yet so rugged...both at the same time.

It rained every day while we were up there, and to some extent I was grateful.  If the sun had been shining I would have had to stop the car at every turn in the road to take a photo.

The flight from Gatwick took only one hour and twenty minutes - I hadn't realised just how close Scotland was.  One hour and twenty minutes from some of the most extraordinary landscape in the British Isles.  I will be going back.

Living in Surrey, I don't do a lot of landscape photography, so I had a great opportunity to shoot images that were out of my comfort zone (people being my preferred subject). 

Below are just a few shots from a truely wonderful place. 

Do click on the images to see the larger versions in their hi-res glory.

Please feel free to leave you comments at the end of the photos.

 

Kate & Patrick engagement photos

Kate and Patrick met at university in Cambridge.  Friends at first, later to become a lot closer - and now engaged to be married.  I will be photographing their wedding at the end of July, but for now, here are a few of the photos that we took on their engagement shoot.  

It was a particularly special day for these guys, going back to the place where it all started for them three years earlier.  It tied in nicely with a reunion party that they were going to in the evening, hence you may notice a change of clothes.

Taking the photos at the end of the day produced a wonderful light with long shadows.  We were blessed with gorgeous weather, and Mary and I arrived late morning to spend most of the day exploring Cambridge centre - a beautiful place.

But it was the amazing light that made my day.  It just gave us extraordinary opportunities and produced an almost fairy-tale feel to some of the images.  Even in black and white, it looked fantastic!

Some of my personal favourites from the day are below - it really is worth clicking on the images to see the larger versions in their hi-res glory.

Please feel free to leave you comments at the end of the photos.

A Sunday snapshot

I was asked to take some photographs of four different churches this morning. 

Croydon Churches are staging a big worship event at Crystal Palace football stadium and a video is being put together (by Owen Kingston) with a montage of stills showing the variety of churches within the borough.  My brief was to visit these four churches and capture something of their character.

It was a truely fascinating morning, with a couple of traditional CofE churches, a small, but incredibly lively black pentecostal church and a huge church in the centre of Croydon, with lots of different cultures represented.

I had to be sensitive to the worship that was taking place, so of course no flash, and most of the shots were taken with high ISO settings: 1600-3200.  All photos have been trimmed to 16:9 widescreen format, as needed for the video. 

Cameras were Canon 1D mkIV with 70-200mm f2.8 and Canon 5D MkII with 24mm f1.4

I'm really pleased with with the results, and as usual, some of my favourites are below.  I'd love to know what your favourite image is.

[Click on the photos for larger images]

Please feel free to leave you comments at the end of the photos.

Wedding: Steve & Emma

Having had a great engagement shoot with this lovely couple, the wedding took place on Easter Monday. It was a beautiful day with gorgeous sunshine during the hottest April on record.

This was my first wedding of 2011 and it couldn't have been better. We kicked off with an early morning visit to the hairdressers for the bride and her bridesmaids, then back to the riverside apartment overlooking the Thames at Teddington for make-up and the dresses.

The wedding was in the centre of Richmond, and then back to Teddington for a riverside reception at the Wharf resaurant.

Some of my favourite candid images of the day are below, [Click on the photos for larger images]

Please feel free to leave you comments at the end of the photos.

 

Photo info:
I used a Canon 1D Mk4 and 5D Mk2 with lenses:
70-200mm f2.8 | 24-70mm f2.8 | 24mm f1.4 | 85mm f1.2. No flash (as usual)