Monday Motivation - there's plenty of space this week prior to the weekend!

NSFW

MONDAY MOTIVATION

"I stayed with Russ for three days and had a blast! 

His studio is incredible, well equipped and with cool unique features like a neon wall and a skateboard light- very cool!

It also has a pool which is a really interesting feature and his house beautifully designed with a renaissance feel to the decor.

I felt very at home at his place and there were endless things to shoot at the studio!

Highly recommended by me to any model/photographer"

Angel.

Studio Hire for just £20ph, and you get all this:

BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE..

Now we're well and truly in to Autumn and approaching winter, the days start getting colder, the natural light gets shorter, and the weather gets even more wet.. so come inside and get warm, and err, wet in our heated pool instead!

   

(L-R) Zoe shot with strobes but dragging the shutter to allow in ambient (the water looks green because the old pool lights were incandescent and warmer, the new ones are LED and daylight balanced.  Emma is just lit with window light.  Demi is shot using ambient light and continuous wands. 

Whatever your vibe, we've got you covered, or of course you can bring your own lights.  Obviously, you need to be acutely aware that there is no power supply in the pool for safety reasons, so strobes and constants need to be battery powered - we do have all the above.  Your camera insurance policy may also not cover your equipment being around open water, I had to add it in to my policy, so that is something you need to consider too.

Failing that, the rest of the studio is equally epic and can be used for the very same £20ph fee.  You are free to move between locations during your booking.

  
Natalia is you January Studio Day for just £55ph - now booking (L-R) Hall, Boudoir, Hall.

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.

  
(L-R) Aly Sky on our ever evolving Neon Wall (it just gets bigger).  Verity on our papers with smoke and gels. Natasha, Louisa, Angel and Lily on our free-floating steps.

Each mid-November our hallway location is transformed in to a Christmas paradise.  The rest of the studio is available as normal but with a few decorations knocking around and Christmas options, but obviously our 9ft tree is immovable where as most of our other areas can have the décor shifted out the way for normal images.