Leeds Exhibition...

A current on going personal project of mine has been exhibited within a Leeds studio space. The project is taken from a much larger body of work currently ongoing of which I hope to keep adding to for the next couple of years. Following is the exhibition piece and the artist statement to go along with the work...

"Throughout 2011, Ben Brown undertook a project exploring the concept of characters. Carrying a very clean cinematic style into the images, Ben’s produced a fictive scenario into the world of a character.  The project has resulted in a series of 6 images visually conveying the world of the character. The photographer’s aim for the project was to focus primarily on one character. Never giving the audience exactly what the situation is, simply giving suggestions. The focus of the project is to allow the audience to arrive at their own conclusion of the narrative. "

BenBrownPhoto.com

And so the new site is complete...

After a lot of back and forth deciding on how to produce the new site, it's finally complete. Previously I had my site custom made to enable me to control every small detail of the site. Found this isn't important for my photography site. Clean, simple and straight to the point is what I've found works best. This led me to make the new site with Livebooks. Awesome choice for a simple site when you don't have the cash to pay a design company to produce what you want. Everything is so simple to change and make look professional. The ability to pay monthly worked best for me and in comparison to everything your site brings, it's very little to pay. Head over and check it out...

BenBrownPhoto

Advanced Photographer Article...

Last month 'Advanced Photographer' approached me and asked if they could produce an 8 page spread on my strobist work. Still feels very surreal when someone interviews me, maybe one day it will feel normal. Super happy with it, wouldn't have chosen some of the images, but overall think it's pretty cool. It's in this months issue if your interested in purchasing it. Hope some people find it interesting...

4ormat web design...

I'm currently in the process of re-producing my online presence and was looking at different ways I'm able to control my site without having to ask for help from the designer, but at the same time make it look awesome. Took me a while of trying out different companies, but came across 4ormat.com the other day and needed to share them with you guys.

If your thinking about setting up a site, but don't have the cash to get a web agency to do it, go with them. It's so simple to produce a really awesome, clean simple sight. You may need to do a little research into CSS if you want to tweak particular areas, but still really simple. Best thing of all is that no flash is used,s o it's completely compatible with iPad's, iPhones and the world of Apple, which is always good!

I'd check them out if you need a site...

4ormat

Latest Project...

First post in quite some time, not much else to say other than I'm not so great at this blog thing, sorry for those who have found the previous posts interesting and I've not followed up.

The following set of images are taken from a personal project I've been working on for some time and will be adding to in the future. Based around characters and the world of others, the project follows particular characters and develops on particular experiences. Ignoring all the technical aspects my work usual includes, I'm really liking focusing on the aim of the project instead of the visual, technical content.

The images will be exhibited within Leeds for a week, starting around the 13th June, not 100% on the date. I've been really excited about the project for ages and it's been awesome to finally get started on it.

Thanks for stopping by...

Greg Williams...

Thought i'd start to share something a little different through my blog from now on. Instead of just sharing tips and tricks from myself and others, I'm going to start sharing what I find to be the most important tool of research... Things that inspire me! This will vary from interesting vids to artists I find interesting...

I'm going to kick start this with one of my favourite british photographers, Greg Williams. Greg has a very natural and incredibly interesting style throughout his work and is definitely worth taking a look at. He always develops a story through his images instead of them being something pretty to look at, even when they're one shot stood alone, the images always hold some form of motive.

Williams has also recently moved into the world of moving images, but not in the same way as other photographers. He has begun producing moving portraits in a very unique way, each developing a character with no dialogue, just movement...

Take a look, you will not be disappointed...  www.gregfoto.com

Jon Franks...

Throughout the duration of my time on flickr many members constantly ask about tips and tricks in order to improve their own photography. Within this post i'll run through how i shot my latest promo shoot with Jon Franks.

I shot Jon almost a year ago now, but this time a different set of images were needed. Jon loved the style before, but there wasn't much he managed to do with them in terms of promo use. With this shoot the aim was to tweak the style before and move into the studio in order to get some universal images for his portfolio.

First location...

First location we decided to shoot at an abandoned petrol station. I've wanted to shoot here for quite some time and it worked perfectly for the style of Jon.

Camera & Lighting Info :

The aim of the shot was to incorporate Jon with the location, but lift him slightly so the attention is drawn to him. I originally wanted to use a very shallow depth of field, but the sun was just too bright, so i tackled it with the lighting. I shot with the ambient light around 1 stop under exposed the used the shoot through umbrella to fill Jon from the right. This helped to bring him out of the shot, but he blended in towards the left. I added a bare 430ex II in order to give a slight rim light. This really helped to lift him completely from the darker background.

Canon 5D mkII - Canon 50mm f/1.2 L _ Shutter : 1/200    F/Stop : 5.6    ISO : 50

Canon 580ex II - Right of subject - Shoot through umbrella @ full power

Canon 430ex II - Left of subject - 1/4 power @ 105mm
Pocket wizard Mini TT1 & Flex TT5

Second location...

We moved onto the studio in order to get some simple neutral shots for his portfolio.

For this shot we needed to keep with the clean style. We begun by shooting with a correctly exposed white background, but it just didn't suit Jon, so we quickly moved onto the light grey. I used two reflective umbrellas in order to give a very nice continuous rim light around the edge, them fill with a slightly over exposed beauty dish from above. The beauty dish allowed me to get a much deeper contrast that the softbox just doesn't offer. Also placed it as close to Jon as possible so we got some stronger shadows.

After I felt we had managed to get the shot needed, i constantly download the images onto the iPad so Jon knows what we've got and that he's 100% happy. It's always easy to change something when your there, not so easy when sat in front of the computer.

Canon 5D mkII - Canon 50mm f/1.2 L _ Shutter : 1/160    F/Stop : 6.3    ISO : 50

Elinchrom RX500 - Above subject - Beauty Dish - 1/4 power

Elinchrom RX500 - Right of subject - Reflective umbrella @ 1/3 power

Elinchrom RX500 - Left of subject - Reflective umbrella @ 1/3 power
Pocket wizard Mini TT1 & Flex TT5

Third location...

When we'd finished up at the studio we had some spare time and headed to a forest in the middle of being cut down. Perfect location to suit the jacket Jon wanted to be shot in.

For this shot I borrowed one of Elinchrom's new Quadra kits. I'm not a fan of these little things, but i'll do a review at a later date. I needed them for the power, they pack a little more power than the Canon 580ex II. The sun dropped slightly from the shoot at the station, so i was able to shoot on a slightly larger aperture, really focusing the shot on Jon. This also meant i was able to use just the one strobe, I needed this shot to look much more natural. You don't tend to get a rim light from anywhere in the wild.

Canon 5D mkII - Canon 24-70mm L _ Shutter : 1/50    F/Stop : 4    ISO : 125

Elinchrom Quadra - Right of subject - Shoot through umbrella - 1/4 power
Pocket wizard Mini TT1 & Flex TT5

And thats pretty much it for the shoot. Any questions don't hesitate to ask in the comments.

More images to see in next post...