After an incredibly busy start to the year yesterday was spent in Dorset with Colin Varndell on a photo-day shooting spring flowers. Booked much earlier in the year it came at exactly the right time, and but for the poor weather we have had for the last few weeks and a colder day reducing or chances of seeing large numbers of butterflies in the evening to almost zero it was an excellent experience, and an opportunity to get outside with the cameras for personal enjoyment and nothing else.

The day was exceptionally well organised with both Colin and his wife Susy excellent hosts. From simply memorising everyones names on arrival, engaging in great banter, and providing amazing spreads of food, flapjacks and cream teas.

The small group of photographers quickly settled into the day, with a large proportion being on their second visit and some obvious regulars at Colin’s days. We started at The Happy Return, Colin & Susy’s lovely home and amazing 5 acre garden capturing wild flowers, and with great fortune a roosting butterfly which was found by one of the workshop attendees. Then after lunch we all headed off to a large area of orchids and cowslips growing in the wild where a couple of hours were spent lying down on my stomach getting a worms eye view. Our last stop, after the cream tea, was an area of woodland and common ground with bluebells, bracken, wood sorrel, moss and other species to photograph and as dusk arrived we all headed back and said our goodbyes.

Colin worked his way around the group who were all allowed to get on with the business of photographing their own subjects, ensuring everyone was OK – and several times through the day handed me a tip each of which will dramatically improve my natural history photography. We were also privileged to be able to view some of his compositions and images which he found during the time at the locations.

I would heartily recommend spending a day with Colin and Susy and their photo-days can be found on their website.

Here are a few of the images I captured on the day…

Yesterday we spent the evening shooting some promotional images for a charity aligned product in the studio. I’m not able to go into specifics, or show any images at this time, but the shoot started with the product in situ on two models working a series of images to show the variety and versatility. With a few clothing changes, styling and art direction the resulting images will give my client a strong set of stories which they can use in presentations, marketing materials, and online. After the models left it was then a case of turning the studio around and shooting some straight product images utilising a fairly standard white infinity cove to give a clean and uninterrupted background.

As a Hampshire newborn photographer we get to meet lots of parents from across Hampshire, Dorset, Sussex and Surrey all of whom travel to our studio for their newborn portrait sessions. Many of them have seen us in an advert in one of the quality parenting magazines, or searched for a Hampshire newborn photographer on the internet – but we also get to see some of the brides and grooms who’s weddings we have photographed in the past and who have come back to the studio with a new addition to their family.

This little 10 day old girl is the first born of one of our wedding couples and they made the short trip from just the other side of the M27 to the studio for her newborn portrait session. We had to be especially careful of this little one because of a medical condition which restricted some of the poses we would normally look to do but we still had an excellent session and they have a great set of images to look through and select from. This session focussed on neutrals (taken from the wide selection of props we have in the studio) as the main colour theme which was the preference of her parents, fitting in the colour scheme of their own decor.

Here are some of the images from the shoot:

Day 2 of the National Championships arrived rather too quickly after eventually calling it a day editing down a small set of images from day one for PR photography usage and after a hearty breakfast we all set off to various parts of Bath University to photograph the sports which were all now in full flow. Saturday saw the widest geographic spread of sports and multiple photographers working across three sites to get as much coverage as possible of the events including dedicated coverage of both the cross country and trampolining. I drew myself the short straw and covered three different sites in the day shooting on campus covering some excellent basketball in the morning, table tennis, and a little bit of trampolining then heading into Bristol for the netball round robin and some 5-a-side soccer in the Goals Centre in Filton, before leaving for the badminton at a school near Bath Uni and then back to the campus site to wrap up for the sports coverage. Having photographed the netball before for BCS I found it easy to settle into comfortable coverage ensuring I photographed as many of the teams as possible whilst also having time to head out to the football pitches for some fast and furious soccer action and plenty of goals in both the mens and womens competition.

Fortunately the car journeys allowed me to take on some much needed water and on arrival back at the campus we quickly headed down to cover the medals ceremony for some of the sports which completed on either Friday or Saturday, shooting the awards in both a documentary and studio lit environment. Congratulations to all of the medal winners at that ceremony, and also thanks go to all of the competitors, staff and volunteers who are making this event such good fun to work at.

Again here are a short set of images from across some of the sports from today.

Please note all images are © Mike French, Meonshore Studios Ltd and are protected by law. Please do not use these images elsewhere without permission from Meonshore Studios, which may be subject to payment.

01-BCS-FRI 02-BCS-FRI BCS-SAT-1 BCS-SAT-2 BCS-SAT-3 BCS-SAT-4 BCS-SAT-5 BCS-SAT-6 BCS-SAT-7 BCS-SAT-8 BCS-SAT-9 BCS-SAT-10 BCS-SAT-11 BCS-SAT-12 BCS-SAT-13 BCS-SAT-14

After a lot of preparation and planning in the run up to the event today marked the opening day of the British Colleges Sport 34th National Championships taking place at the magnificent sporting facilities on the Bath University campus and at two other venues nearby. Over 2500 competitors took part in 13 sports over three days and we were providing the sports and PR photography for the event.

After registration it was immediately into shooting and in the next 6 hours we covered Volleyball, Badminton, Squash and Tennis indoors and Hockey outdoors on the two astroturf pitches. Then after a quick break for food it was into the main sports hall for the opening ceremony where the teams were presented and then the event was formally opened. Speeches from Kevin Hamblin,  the new Chairman of BCS, and Stephen Baddeley, Director of Sport, University of Bath were interspersed with an opening ceremony display of performance and dance by the students of South Gloucestershire & Stroud College Performing Arts and a Taekwondo demonstration by students of Filton College, academy of sports. Then GB Olympic athlete and Guinness World Record holder for Atlantic rowing – Rachel Smith – gave an inspirational talk about her experience. Finally a fast and furious skipping demonstration closed the event with the Jump Rope Skippers pulling off some incredible routines.

Tomorrow sees another photographer join the team as the event is in full swing and we are looking forward to another warm and exciting day.

Here are some of the images captured across the sports on the first day of the championships

Please note all images are © Mike French, Meonshore Studios Ltd and are protected by law. Please do not use these images elsewhere without permission from Meonshore Studios, which may be subject to payment.

01-BCS-FRI 02-BCS-FRI 03-BCS-FRI 04-BCS-FRI 05-BCS-FRI 06-BCS-FRI 07-BCS-FRI 08-BCS-FRI 09-BCS-FRI 10-BCS-FRI 11-BCS-FRI 12-BCS-FRI 13-BCS-FRI 14-BCS-FRI 15-BCS-FRI 16-BCS-FRI 17-BCS-FRI 18-BCS-FRI

On a sunny and warm Sunday I travelled up the A3 to Guildford to shoot a Mens Conference West league match with home team Guildford Hockey Club playing Cardiff & UWIC in the final league match of the season.

As well as shooting some images specifically for match purposes I was also there to test and bed in some new equipment, and to get my eye back in shooting hockey photography for some sporting events that will be taking place over the next couple of months. I’m going to be shooting a lot more sport, mainly from a Corporate PR standpoint rather than press at the moment – and it’s amazing how quickly you can lose that important 10% of reactions and prediction that can ensure you have the right camera in your hands pointing in the right direction ready to get a critical moment. Despite having played high level hockey for over 12 years this was an important refresher.

So onto the match which took place on a water-based astroturf pitch at the Guildford HC home ground in Godalming. Inside the fencing, and just off pitch side I shot from an excellent series of positions. The match was tight throughout with the score at 2-1 to Cardiff at the end of the first half, and eventually Cardiff ran out 4-2 winners. With almost continuous play and rolling subs the tempo was high, and the action furious with great commitment from everyone on the pitch.

As an ex-goalkeeper it was a treat to see Simon Mason in goal for Guildford – the ex-GB ‘keeper making plenty of saves, and dominant from the back.

A few images from the day – but we are prepping for a big event and so more to come soon including a full gallery of images for Guildford and Cardiff to view.

It was lovely to see the parents of this little newborn again having photographed them a few weeks earlier on location for their maternity session. This time they brought a little bundle with them to the studio for her newborn session. Once content and happy this 7 day old little girl’s session went very smoothly working across three different sleeping sets and then onto a black backdrop for some images with her mum and dad – initially individually (including a beautiful “Madonna and baby” style portrait) and then as a complete family.

Typically with newborns patience and attention to detail are key to get the very best images in this once in a lifetime session – as is skilled retouching and colour matching to ensure that the babies skin tones and textures are realistic and that the little newborn looks at their very best. We appreciate any expectant mums who have landed on this page and are spending the time to look at our fine art newborn photography and who are considering making an investment in the very first portraits of their new arrival.

Here are a small selection of the images from the session

Todays little newborn in the studio was the daughter of the winner of our recent newborn photography competition in Baby Hampshire magazine.

Her parents travelled in from West Sussex in the morning and we spent a while photographing her using a wide selection of our high quality blankets, hats and other props. Once asleep she was an absolute angel and very contented as you can see from this small selection of images from the shoot.

Yesterday I made the journey up to Leeds in Yorkshire from Southampton airport in Hampshire to shoot some production stills during the final dress rehearsal of Madame Butterfly which was performed in the Leeds Grand Theatre by the Northern Ballet company. David Nixon’s production runs from the 29th February through to the 10th March and despite watching it almost exclusively through my viewfinder it was absolutely enthralling and I’d highly recommend going to see it if you can.

Some of my regular blog readers will know that I have a personal project list which I wrote back in late December, some of it is aspirational, and some of it with a nod to possible opportunities, and taking these production stills was more of the latter. I’m delighted that I have managed to start one of the projects so early in the year especially as to date we have had a busy time after the Christmas break with lots of commercial photography commissions.

I packed lightly to ensure I could take my kit as hand luggage, but still managed to take a good selection of very low light equipment. Of course there was no opportunity to use flash, or interrupt the performance (and rightly so) and all of the images I captured were under performance lighting conditions, and at show pace. At times the combination of dramatic lighting and speed was testing the very upper limits of the most current professional equipment on the market. That said I’m delighted with the way that everything performed and very pleased with the high technical quality of the images.

All that therefore remained was to capture a comprehensive selection of images with storytelling, action and inviting content across the entire production, from what was a good vantage point sitting on the stalls of the theatre close to the lighting desk. The temptation of course, particularly with dance is to look for the most energetic, and explosive moves, and I’d like to think that I have captured those as well – but there was so much expression and emotion portrayed in this sad love story that I was compelled to show as many of those images in this short preview cameo from my initial view of the entire set.

I’m going to be working through them in a few days time at which point I may add some additional images to the small gallery below.

Typically production stills such as these are used for dance company websites, brochures and programmes, press releases, and other general advertising, and for supply to media outlets to support written reviews.

Please note these images are subject to copyright, as are all of our images posted on the blog, website and Facebook pages of Meonshore Studios. They are also additionally under restricted usage terms by the Northern Ballet. Breaching either of these will result in legal action.

northern-ballet-madame-butterfly-production-stills-120229-01 northern-ballet-madame-butterfly-production-stills-120229-02 northern-ballet-madame-butterfly-production-stills-120229-03 northern-ballet-madame-butterfly-production-stills-120229-04 northern-ballet-madame-butterfly-production-stills-120229-05 northern-ballet-madame-butterfly-production-stills-120229-06 northern-ballet-madame-butterfly-production-stills-120229-07 northern-ballet-madame-butterfly-production-stills-120229-08 northern-ballet-madame-butterfly-production-stills-120229-09 northern-ballet-madame-butterfly-production-stills-120229-10

We have just completed a product photography commission for a local wedding vendor - who are in the process of updating the images for their website and marketing materials. This Hampshire commercial photography job was to create images of their wedding stationery on a clean background but with some additional colour and context from some beautiful wedding flowers supplied by Lynda Robson at Exclusively Weddings. After receiving the products and working through an inventory, shot list, and walking through some styling and concepts this commercial photography shoot was performed in the studio over the course of a day. The photographs are now ready to be used by the client, having been fully previewed and reviewed online.

As you can see from the images these wedding invitations are delicately hand crafted in high quality textured paper, card and ribbon incorporating classic and vintage inspired themes matching the current trends in weddings. As Hampshire commercial photographers with previous experience in the wedding market we know many wedding vendors and are pleased to work with old friends like Exclusively Weddings as well as this company who were referred to us by another wedding supplier.

Some representative images from the shoot, with permission kindly granted by our client to be shown in advance of them going live on their website.

product-pack-shots-stationery-120221-01 product-pack-shots-stationery-120221-02 product-pack-shots-stationery-120221-03 product-pack-shots-stationery-120221-04 product-pack-shots-stationery-120221-05 product-pack-shots-stationery-120221-06 product-pack-shots-stationery-120221-07 product-pack-shots-stationery-120221-08