Add some colour to your port! How would you use our new neon wall?

NSFW

In addition to our famous neon wall here, I've been working on a couple of mobile pieces to add to it!

The new 'mobile' portion of the neon wall consists of two shop racks of on wheels. They can be pushed together to create a lager wall in itself, or used to extend the neon wall so it's now an 'L' shaped set. They can also be separated and used independently. Such uses independently could create a mini corridor, or they can be in front of one another and layered so you have bokeh stacked upon bokeh.

And because they're on grids, it's easier to light than our actual neon wall!  When lighting the subject near our normal neons, the key light bouncing off the wall can wash them out if you're not strategic with it, whereas here it'll pass right through.. so consider your background & DOF!  With a small enough DOF, you can also shoot through the grid at the subject as another way of layering the neons. There's many more creative options and quirks to be explored.. how would you do it?

  

As always, studio hire is just £20ph for all our advertised areas!  and yes, that includes the pool, and no that doesn't mean £20 for the pool, and then £20 for another area - all our areas are included in the hire fee.  Crazy I know, if we were in a city we could probably double our prices with what we have to offer, and maybe quadruple them if it were in London, but the price you pay for being opposite the beach and surrounded by mountains in North Wales means I have to be cheap!

We are affectionately referred to as the Aladdin's cave or the Tardis by just about everyone who comes through our doors, so I promise you probably wont be able to squeeze it all in in a day!

Making the most of your time

If you intend on using the several areas we offer in a days hire, I suggest starting in the studio, before moving on to the house areas (hall, front room & boudoir), and then finishing up in the pool.  My insight for you in to this would be because the studio is where our lighting is housed, and while we use it through out other areas, it'll take time moving the gear between locations and setting up again.  If you were to zigzag between the two, this will eat in to your time and get steps in while carrying gear, or more importantly, get my steps in while helping move gear   Seriously though, if make-up looks and other practicalities require you to zigzag, that's perfectly fine too, it's just a less affective use of time should you have no variants chastising your movement.  Finishing in the pool is somewhat self explanatory, because if you're getting your model wet, that will cause problems with hair and make-up, and it'll cost you time if your subject is reapplying/doing it.  The pool is also heated, so your lenses will need time to acclimatise to the room.  Moving them between hot and cold locations regularly will emphasis this moreso, and eat in to that time.  Equally, you as the photographer (assuming you're not in the water) may get a little hot and bothered -  the room is about 30 degrees when the cover comes off, and you'll not have too much fun spending then next few hours in sweaty clothes.  In the summer, we can open doors and let in fresh air with notice, otherwise the room is climate controlled and doors and windows need to be kept closed.

In the case of studio days, the pool is always used last for wet work, but may be used during the day without getting the model wet above the neck.  It may also transpire that the lighting is not housed in the studio as it may have been moved by a previous photographer to the house areas, in which case, just reverse the above advice by using the house first and then studio second 

As mentioned, lighting from the studio can be used through-out all locations.  These are Bowens (I have other cheaper strobes too if you want a monster set up, but the Bowens are consistent work horses) and with many Bowens s-fit mods - big octo boxes, med boxes, strip boxes of all sizes, a beauty dish, reflector dishes, backdrop reflectors, a gobo, gels and probably more.  The Bowens are full manual control (that's kinda the point of studio photography, to be in full manual control) and will slave off of a light with a receiver signal from the trigger - our trigger is one of the most simple you can buy and should work on any hotshoe (/camera brand) with a centre metal pin.  There's also a few continuous light options for use with the neons (or you could drag the shutter and get creative), and there's some nice natural light to be had (weather dependant) in the front room, boudoir and shooting down on to the chesterfield in the hall.  Again, both strobes and continuous lights can be used in all these spaces too.  You are also welcome to bring your own lighting if you're more comfortable/familiar with it, or want to use through the lens metering / semi auto exposure settings if you're not fully comfortable in manual.  Our pool area also has natural light, but we also have battery lights for use in there too as there's no power sockets.  Again, feel free to bring speedlites or battery lights of your own.  Back to an earlier point, if you're comfortable with lighting in general, bringing yours to be used in one area but having ours already in the studio could speed up your work flow, but ultimately ours is here to be used, so don't feel obliged.

Some images I've shot at the studio:

www.splashpointphoto.co.uk

Oh, and while I'm here.. we have a studio day with Ell Mae at the end of the month!


All images on this flyer were shot at the studio too :)