After much persuasion Faye has finally got me to agree to hosting a couple of wedding workshops this summer. Dates and venues still to be finalised and will be available towards the end of next week. Limited number of delegates, stunning brides and grooms and fabulous locations.

Just an update of what we still have available. On Monday the 28th of March we have only 1 place left for the workshop @ Hollin Hall in Macclesfield. On Monday April 18th we still have 2 places available for the workshop @ The Manor House in Guildford. The day includes a full Business Presentation with a Power Point show and each delegate receives a copy of this for reference together with copies of some of our marketing and promotional material. Then follows a demonstration shoot where we demonstrate some of the ‘money shots’ that can help increase your Boudoir sales. The delegates have the opportunity to shoot one to one with our model in a variety of outfits and locations. These images can be used as part of your Boudoir Portfolio. For the last hour of the workshop Faye will demonstrate how we post process our images and how we maximise sales. The fee for the workshop includes all refreshments, lunch and model fee.

Finally an image of Z our other model for the afternoon session. Once again, and if you were there you saw it for yourselves, one light, one softbox and one camera with a prime lens. Can a portrait be any more simple but effective.

Monday saw the third in our series of seminars hosted at the new Loxley Colour educational facility in Cumbernauld. Once again a sell out with 50 delegates in the group and I must say a very attentive and appreciative audience and we thank you for joining us and hope that we managed to impart some of our ideas, knowledge and enthusiasm.

As I promised here are 2 images from the day. The first is of Fredau with the simple single BOWENS softbox on a BOWENS400 unit turned down to almost it lowest setting. As I mentioned on the day the larger your softbox the better the quality and softness of light. This was converted to black and white using Totally Rad actions with a slight warm tone added.

The second image is of one of our delegates on the seminar and was ‘persuaded’ to come out of the crowd and stand in front of the light! I try and do this on most workshops as it proves to the group that this can be done on anybody and not just on our models on the day.

Many of our dates are now filling up especially the BOUDOIR ACADEMY ones. The 2 new BOUDOIR workshops are in the final stages of development and test shots are being done this week so content and dates by the end of January are assured. We will be at FOCUS ON IMAGING at the NEC in March and will be guesting on both the BOWENS and SWPP stands for 30 minute demonstrations. This coming Monday we are looking forward to the last in the series of 3 seminars at LOXLEY COLOUR in Cumbernauld near Glasgow and delighted it has sold out as were the previous 2. This final one is all about the Business and Art of Portraiture so if you are coming along to this then we look forward to meeting you. Loxley have asked if we will host a special seminar on BOUDOIR later this year so dates will be announced here on this blogsite. on The Boudoir Academy website and on The Boudoir Academy Facebook page. If you are not a friend of ours and wish to receive regular updates then please come and join us you will be very welcome. Finally this is an image for back in 2003 and is from the very early VICTORIA’S SUMMER collection. Shot on a Contax G2, Ektachrome 200 push processed 3 stops to get that wonderful grain effect.

This is one of my favourite images taken by Faye a couple of years ago while we working in a Castle over on the east coast of Scotland.

Looks like we have 9 of our images chosen for the above book which will be published some time this coming Spring. One of my images followed by one of Faye’s.

We have been invited once again to be guest speakers on the BOWENS stand and with the SWPP on theirs at this years FOCUS on IMAGING show in Birmingham in March. Dates/times will follow once we have confirmed.

Here are 2 of my images from the Convention. Both from the same super class on the Sunday. A sell out class with 15 delegates and our models, Kate, Fredau and Ella Grace. We held our practical session in the Planet Suite with lighting kindly supplied by BOWENS one of our main sponsors. Both of these images were shot using only the tungsten modeling light of the BOWENS Fresnel attachment so it meant a high ISO, around 1000 and a wide aperture of around 2.8. There was no other lighting involved. A simple conversion to black and white, a hint of tone and some grain was all that was needed to recreate that classic 1930′s look which we were after. Faye has several images which we shall post tomorrow with a couple more from me. We hope that viewers, and the delegates that were present, can see how classic portraits can be achieved simply and with basic lighting.

We are just back after 6 days in London at the SWPP Convention. We hosted 2 super classes and 1 MasterClass. Image will follow later today.

We spent 2 of the days judging the 20×16 competition with some wonderful fellow judges from Canada, the States and of course the UK.