Just an update on the BOWENS Gallery at Focus as I did not realise until I took a call today that we are in fact the only photographers to be featured in the BOWENS gallery so that’s a bit of a feather in our respective caps however the problem is how to get the images selected and ready for next week. We have gone down the route of printing our own work which I do think we will be doing more of in the following months especially having just installed our new Epson Pro3880 and now looking at a larger Canon for the bigger images. FOTOSPEED have very kindly sponsored the A2 paper, I just love their Platinum Gloss WT, and FOTOSPEED are very kindly printing 6 large canvas images for one side of the display so looking forward to receiving that tomorrow. I must admit that FOTOSPEED are a delightfully friendly and helpful company to deal with and would highly recommend them to everybody. Speak to Toby or one of his staff they are all very helpful

While we were post processing images from yesterday’s mentoring session we came across some images from last year here is the first taken from one of our beach sessions which we host every summer.

Well we have had a busy few days so apologies for the lack of posts. We have just finished a 1-2-1 mentoring studio portrait session with Chris who brought Katrina who had kindly agreed to be his model for the session. We went through all of the basic lighting set-up for traditional studio portraiture as well as some more contemporary techniques. Faye post processed this image before they left to demonstrate how we present our work to clients.

Of interest we have been asked by BOWENS to do a couple of lighting demonstrations at FOCUS and in addition supply 28 of our images for display in the Bowens Gallery at Focus so we are delighted and honoured to have been asked. Also delighted to have be invited back to speak at the London Portrait Group Tuesday the 6th of July and down to the MPA in Southampton for an all day wedding workshop on Monday the 21st of June. Email me if you need details of how to book a place and I will put you in touch with the relevant person.

So another day has got away from us! Still plenty in the pipeline and our workshops on 28th Feb, 6 March, 21st and 23rd March are now all sold out. More dates will be announced soon so keep a sharp eye open!  We have just heard from one of our Studio Mentor students that a Valentines Day promotion that we ran back in the 90’s and which we resurrected for him has proved to be very successful. Hope you are all now well advanced with your Mother’s Day promotions and well into pre planning for locating Spring shoots during the Easter holidays?

The studio is currently out of action as it is being redesigned, new props and backgrounds etc. Today’s image is of Ronnie Browne, taken back in the late 80’s on Hasselblad and T Max100 film stock, printed onto 20×24 Ektalure. Ronnie Browne is the co-writer of Flower of Scotland which has become Scotland’s national anthem.

Just to get away from those dark, low key maternity images for a while.

One of my favourite image of Faye’s from a session last year with Christiane. We have recently been testing some digital papers that will come close to what I used to achieve in the darkroom with Kodak Ektalure which was such a delight to work with. Will keep you posted on progress though I feel we have found the perfect surface for our work already.

We are spending the next several days sourcing and collating images from our extensive archive. After that an office upgrade and installing our new neg scanner and a new Epson Pro 3880 which will allow us to offer clients a larger image print and if this is successful then we will go up to the 24″ printer, perhaps later this year. Today’s image is another long time favourite and taken, I think, around 1987 again using the same Hasselblad and film combination.

Today’s images is another from the archives. Original shot on a Hasselblad with a 150mm lens onto TMax100 stock. A daylight shot, no reflectors or other gizmos.  One of our favourite models of all time and still a wonderful and much loved friend.

We spent last Friday with one of our one to one Studio Mentor delegates and it made me realise that while many photographers spend large amounts of time and money on practical training, in general, they spend little time on looking at and addressing the business and financial side. This is not a side swipe at anybody simply an observation that many of our delegates seem to place such great importance on the ‘how to’ of photography and ‘what kit’ can I buy next rather than looking at how to set up and run a successful marketing or promotional campaign. Faye and I believe that any photographer needs a thorough grounding in both the technical and creative aspects of social photography as well as how to implement that into running a promotion that will produced clients for their studios where they can then put into use what they have learnt in all the creative workshops they have attended. I know many, many excellent photographers who have superb talent and yet struggle to survive while I also know several mediocre photographers who have made a great success in their business through carefully targeted marketing and promotional activities. So the question I ask is what camp do you fall into, creatively talented but always looking to where the next penny is coming from or the not so talented photographer who places as much importance on what the next business promotion as they do on the creative side of their photography?

We will soon be offering a limited number of places on our 6-month Studio Mentor course, which places as much emphasis on the marketing and promotion of the business as we do on developing the creativity and studio skills of our students. Only 4 places available on each series.

Looks like we have one place left on our lighting workshop here at Claremont on the 28th of February so don’t delay in calling or emailing. We have 2 places still available for our Boudoir workshop here at Claremont on the 21st of March and 1 place for our final Boudoir workshop at Maunsel House in North Somerset. All workshops are limited to only 4 delegates except the Maunsel House workshop which is for 5. Our first Art Nude workshop for 2010, again here at Claremont and limited to 4 delegates has still one place available.

More exciting Art Nude workshops are in the pipeline although we will be hosting them abroad. Details when we have finalised though if you wish for priority notice then please email me; trevor@yerburystudio.com

Today’s image is from our final Art Nude workshop held here last October with the beautiful Christiane.