Out of the studio!

As I've complained time and time again over the winter, I hate being confined to studio photography. Being mainly self taught, I spent alot of my time learning photography/lighting outdoors, so being "stuck" in the studio isn't my cup of tea.

So it was a breath of fresh air when Sophie (you remember Sophie, right?) mentioned that she's bringing her cousin, Maddy down for her shoot - and she'd prefer photos outdoors.
Maddy was having these photos as one of her Birthday presents (it's actually her Birthday today so Happy Birthday Maddy!) and she was really up for all my silly ideas and enthusiastic to get the best shots possible.

We started the day at a long stretch of abandoned railway, which is a fantastic location I came across last year whilst shooting the Bostin calendar. Prepare to see alot more of this location this summer!

Later, we took a trip to some nearby fields for (what I refer to as...) "Mum shots" - These are the photos that mums/families like.

Did I mention the light was ammazzzzing! I've ever never shot in light like this or just never seen the opportunity in light like this before.

Anyway - this is all abit of a taster to a new style I've been trying to develop over the last few months. The approach is very different to the style I used to work to about 6 months ago. I've found myself spending more time getting it right on camera and literally only seconds on each image in Ps/Lr, which is how it should be, right? I have alot less time to edit images now so I've sort of had to adapt to getting it how I want it to look in the first place.

The Rain In Spain

Apologies for the lack of updates recently, it's not you - it's me. For starters we've been away the last week and prior to going away we were dead busy with house buying/sorting out the wedding, which is all coming along slowly - but it's getting there. Which is reassuring as we only have 4 months till we get married. Eek!

Anyhow, I took the decision to take some "time out" with Dani and her family at the start of March prior to the total chaos which will be "Summer 2009". Fair few pictures knocking about on this blog so go and grab a cup of coffee and get comfy.

So Dani's family own a house in Spain, to cut a long story short...

Dani and her family moved to Spain about 3 (might be wrong) years ago, and for the first 7 months of mine and Danis relationship - we spent in completely different countries (not nice). So eventually Dani decided to move back, closely followed by her family who now live about 5 minutes from my house. Anyway, the house sits empty most of the year and they'd like to sell up so I went with her family to put the house on the market with different estate agents and speed up the whole selling process. I should add that I didn't help in the slightest - I just tagged along for the Sun, Sea and Sangria - none of which really materialised but more on that later.

We arrived in Spain on Sunday morning and immediately noticed it wasn't warm. Driving from airport to house - it was like a trip down memory lane. The urbanization (town?) they live in is really sparce now following a boom and bust routine of Brits moving to Spain then wanting to sell up.


This place has probably been here forever, there's loads of smaller buildings like this one which have always just been left. It's a photographers heaven, they have it real easy over there, especially as there was NO photographers (of any kind) listed in there local directories in southern Spain.

So anyone who follows my work will know that i'm a portrait and (more recently) a wedding photographer. However, being away from the restrictions of clients and being able to experiment was a total breath of fresh air. I love working for clients and to specification but it becomes a routine, I've learnt what sells and stuck with it, but being away from that gives me a chance to be abit more creative and best of all - OUT OF THE STUDIO (a place I've come to deteste over the last 5 months).

Anyway, I'm certainly not a landscape photographer, but I admire landscape photography and loved having the chance to be somewhere aesthetically different to the UK. I will fight with Dani to get a few of these on our walls when we get our new house.


I'm actually quite scared of these chairs now, I'll explain why later;

These two pictures makes me "roar" like an idiot.


This picture makes me want to kick back and whistle the day away


After spending most of the holiday "chilling" out...indoors, we thought it'd be a good idea to get out and do something. We head straight to Guardamar (Gwo-der-mar) - which has a super outdoor market that I intend to exploit for photographic purposes.

Then I remembered how scary market people are. Dani watched my camera every second of the day and refused to leave me to my own devices after almost snapping a policemen (not a good idea in Spain if you're English).

Dani thought it'd be nice to meet a few locals. Infact, this was her trick for me to grab a photo of an "interesting" woman sitting outside Lidl but I found her plan funny and ended up snapping this instead.

Right so you've gone all the way to Spain for the week and you wanna send home a post card telling everyone it's rained most of the time? This shop had just the thing; a faded, doggy eared Limp Bizkit post card - perfect for telling loved ones about the great time you're having abroad.


Back to the market:

For you nut fans out there:

There was lots of hanging meat on the stands at both the little market stands and the big supermarkets, similar to butchers, expect everything looks like it's only just died a minute or two ago. Far more appealing were these sweets, the man at this stand offered to trade the nuts for Danis dad's Nikon. BARGAIN! It's a Nikon - take the nuts! Only kiddin' Nikon fans, I use Canon because it makes photoshoots more exciting when things stop working for no reason (Y).


Oh I forgot to mention, we bumped into this delightful lady!

Oh and this man... I was hiding (pretty well I must say) so I could get a sneaky picture of this guy playing without him posing for a shot. He clocked me and immediately started dancing...grumble grumble...
This man was shouting "BUY MY PANTIES" - He wasn't really but I thought it'd be hilarious to tell you that he was. But tell my ladies - would you purchase under garments from this gent?

So market done, we took a trip down the back streets to find the central park. This side is a little more residential, with tall tower clocks over every street, it's quite nice actually.

This is a wall. It's a nice wall though. I told Dani at the time that it was a nice wall and she looked at me as if I'd gone mad. But it is a nice wall. Very nice indeed.

We found this little cafe on the way there, where they spoke hardly any English (which was a welcome change).

Eventually we found the park! I say "eventually" - it wasn't actually that far, probably like 10 minute walk, if that. I'm just sort of lazy. Dani however - Isn't. Check out these smiley snaps.

Compare the meerkat....

PHROARRRR, like her abit...like. I'd smack dat.

Wouldn't smack this though;

Sorry! Back to the park, there's a lot of peacocks/ducks and what not - but frankly I can't be bothered to add them because y'all know what they look like. So here's a picture of a waterfall which i've casually ruined in photoshop. Simples.

Oh and there was this nice tap. Like that wall I showed you earlier - but this was a real nice tap.

So we hit the beach after but it's friggin' deadly there - you gotta watch yo back for... a horse and cart(!?) speeding over your face/kneecaps and various other random parts of the human anatomy. My only explanation for this is that the horse is angry because it has a stick up it's backside, therefore it would be angry...therefore it'll run over pedestrians. I have no idea - but clearly Guardamar think it's a risk to public health.

I mentioned the pictures earlier in the blog made me "roar" - well this makes me roar but in a really little persons squeeky voice.

It was real cute till I stood on it.

Just kidding. But this little guy was about as tall as my shin but looked like a lion. Glad I got this shot, it makes me smile sympathically then smile again to think I'd win in a fight with it. (I should add that it's actually a dog incase I convinced anyone it was an actual mini-lion).

I mentioned that I didn't like (or total phobia of) abandoned chairs...in spain...on road islands...during the day. Let me explain, on the way back from Guardamar we're going round a main road island that connects La Marina with Guardamar and Alicate etc. Dani's mum points out someone sat on a chair on the island. Me (being innocent) thought it was someone waiting for a bus, so I reach for the camera thinking it'd make a good picture. Wrong again.

I take the shot (which was appauling because we were in a moving vehicle and I was shooting on a wide) and as soon as the shutter clicks, I hear bursts of laughter from everyone else in the car. Dani shouts "Did she just give Chris a sexually explicit mouth gesture?" (she didn't say that - she used a more direct wording of the gesture) but then Danis mum confirmed the worsed. Turns out she's like this major prostitute who sits at the road island all day waiting to be picked up. So my innocent portrait of a lady waiting in the Spanish wasteland for a "Bus" was actually advertising "her personal services". Phoar? Not this time.


I forgot to mention, it's my birthday today (Yes I'm blogging on my Birthday, It's not "sad" it's "hardcore"... actually it's probably just sad, I have a strange vision of what a "hardcore blogger" looks like - and it aint me, so I'll stick with "sad" - I'm rambling).

The reason I mention that it's my birthday is because we all went out to celebrate as an early present from Danis mum and dad (Thank you!) who treated me and Dani to a lovely suprise meal at a local restaurant that me and Dani ate our "proper" first meal together (Dis aint no MaccyD's shizzle, get me?) Heres a few pics of me and the others trying to look sober.

Another blog will follow this one to thank the pub that kept me and Dani fueled on alcohol for the week, we had a great time there and I have a bunch of photos that I shot on a film camera that we'll get processed and onto the blog hopefully early next week!

Update again soon!