Picture of my dad

A couple of days back I posted about the abstract picture I made for Signature, the hairdresser shop in Woking, Surrey.

I’ve been snowed under at the moment and so my dad offered to frame the picture for me, which he does now and again if I’m flat out.
It also gave me a chance to drop off a picture I’d made for him to say thanks for helping me out over the last few months and because, well, he’s my dad and that’s reason enough )

His picture was one he took from the tiller of a scooner sailing at full tilt.
He likes his sailing

He dropped round the picture last night and we chatted for a bit. We talked a bit about the Workshop I’ve recently arranged for Bert Stephani and how it’s about lighting.
Dad used to be a keen film snapper when my brother and I were young (lots of family albums), but I was trying to explain layered lighting and how it’s controlled.

I could see the slightly vacant expression coming back at me, so I decided a practical was in order to explain what I was twittering on about

So I sat him down, set up my folding backdrop, one light stand, flash and umbrella and gave him a 5 minute demonstration.

He quite liked the results and I also got some cool shots of him for prosperity.
So, here’s my dad being a good sport while his youngest got all wide eyed and rattled on at 100mph.

The look you only get from a father to their crazy son:

I sent it to him and he emailed back thanking me, but asked who the wrinkly old man in the picture was.
Comedian ;op

Chêne Bleu Wines – Launch Event

Wow – this is a late one.
Just back from a corporate event. Chêne Bleu Wines from La Verrière were launching their label in the UK and they were holding the launch party in Belgravia in London (http://www.bottaccio.co.uk/)

I was working alongside my friend Helen Jones and we both have studio lighting which we both had to bring in order to light this event.

One area was for after the guests drop in their coats and move through to the wine sampling room so they could try the new range of wines launched on the night.
Due to some limitations on space we set up my large octabox on one of my Elinchrom heads planted on a tall stand and this was used for the couples/portrait shots as the guests arrived.

Upstairs we had another 2 Elnchroms set up to light a n area in front of a painted scrim between 2 columns with vases and shrubbery. The theme of the party was Toga and so the Greek look fitted into the rest of the party’s layout nicely. We were using 3 flash heads which left us with our fourth as a backup which was ideal

None of the studio lights were set to ‘slave’ mode to stop them being triggered by the guest’s cameras and so we were triggering all the flashes with my wireless radio triggers (PocketWizards), but even though we were on 2 separate floors we had to make sure they were in independent channels to ensure we weren’t triggering the other set by mistake.

PocketWizards (http://www.pocketwizard.com/) are an amazing piece of kit and definitely worth their weight in gold for their versatility, 100% performance and range of operation