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One-2-One Training – James

James is an extraordinary furniture maker, living out in Hartland in Devon.  He designs and makes the most exquisite furniture (www.jamesmorleyfurniture.com), and I was always terribly jealous of his life before I became a full time professional photographer a few years back.  Now I feel, I hope, some of that artisan excitement that accompanies producing your own work from scratch.

James has always needed images of his work for display and catalogue purposes, but photographing furniture, with it’s angles and shadow, is not an easy prospect, so he wanted to learn some techniques to help that.  He also wanted to improve his all-round knowledge of photography, so he attended one of my 2 day (1-2-1) courses.

James setting up the shot
James setting up the shot in the flat weather

 

The final article (after a little "post"!)
The final article (after a little “post”!)

We started, as usual, just confirming the basics, and the local church in Mere is a great place to put theory to the test – it is a very beautiful, but dark church, so aperture and shutter relationship and Sensor ISO balance is fundamental.

Choosing the aperture
Choosing the aperture

 

James' wide-aperture detail
James’ wide-aperture detail

We then put that into practice with an early morning landscape shoot.  Sadly, despite the forecast, the sun refused to show and the sky remained very flat.  There is nothing like a challenge though, so we used what we had to best effect.  The images of straw bales, I think, are just awesome….well done James!

Bales at full zoom
Bales at full zoom

 

A little art added
A little art added

Finally, we had a model shoot to put photographer under pressure, and to confirm all the skills in an indoor/outdoor shoot.

Balancing flash against the sun
Balancing flash against the sun

 

Why not add a little JMF furniture!
Why not add a little JMF furniture!

James is good!  He has that natural artistic eye, and now has a really strong grip on his camera’s capabilities with or without off-camera flash.

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