Faye and I have spent the weekend in the company of 10 fellow photographers judging the annual print awards and I must say that we are delighted with the results and look forward to see the looks on the faces of the winners as they are announced at the gala dinner on the Sunday the 15th of January at the Novotel in London. We are hosting 3 Super Classes, 1 of which sold out within day’s of it being announced back in August, but we still have a couple of places left of the remaining 2 classes. The Passion of the Portrait on Friday the 13th of January will cover some aspects of business, marketing and branding but will also demonstrate the simple lighting that we use in the majority of our portraits and the equipment that we use. The image below was produced in our small studio last week when we flew Jacinta over from Malta.  Lit with a simple Bowens head fitted with a soft box and Faye holding a small reflector camera left. Nothing fancy, nothing difficult just simple effective lighting. If you wish to see how this image was created and to reserve one of the few places remaining then please contact the SWPP directly.

The first released dates of our Winter/Spring programme.

BOUDOIR – Sunday the 13th of February – 4 delegates – £395.00 inclusive. Business with a Power Point presentation and practical session with model. Delegates leave with a copy of the PP presentation and copies of our advertising and marketing material.

PORTRAITURE – Sunday the 27th of February – Lighting and Posing – 4 delegates - £325.00 inclusive. Studio lighting – use of natural light – posing with models.

Refreshments and  lunch are all included in the fee. Workshops run from 10.00am until 4.00pm.

We are 15 minutes from Edinburgh International Airport. 20 Minutes from the centre of Edinburgh. 10 minutes from the local Bathgate train station which is direct from Edinburgh mainline station and 2 minutes from J4 of the M8 motorway.

Steven photographed against the white wall of the lecture theatre using only the modeling light on the Bowens 400 head fitted with the Bowens Fresnel spotlight.

Steven and Zoe photographed with the Bowens 500 head fitted with the Fresnel spotlight attachment.

A portrait of Zoe using a Bowens 500 head fitted with the Bowens Beauty dish.

The first images from yesterdays highly successful seminar when we hosted 60 delegates at the new Loxley teaching facility near Glasgow. Steven and Zoe were our models for the day as well as some of the delegates who very kindly sat of me. Simple lighting was the order of the day, no technical talk I will leave that to those who know all about it! I have spent 40+ years using my technique and it seems to work without all the bullshit. Its that age old saying KISS. Some can wax lyrical but I prefer our images to talk for us so here are the first of several that we have post processed today.

This is Ola one of our delegates.

I asked Ola back to the set when I saw the smile of relief as I told him we had finished. I love this image of him.

Delighted to announce the second  seminar in our series hosted by Loxley Colour will be The Art of the Wedding and will take place on Monday the 25th of October 2010 and the cost for the day will be £85 including lunch, a £34 voucher from Loxley, a £30 discount of the next Yerbury seminar and a 10% discount of KUBOTA actions. Meanwhile we are preparing for our Light to Inspire workshop which takes place at Loxley on Monday the 20th of September and which is now completely sold out I am afraid. In looking for images to illustrate our lighting style I came across this image I made a few years ago now, of John Byrne the playwright and married to the actress Tilda Swinton. A simple image lit with one light source on the Hasselblad with a 150mm lens and T Max100 film stock. We are firm believers of simple but effective lighting in the studio, no fancy words, no highly technical explanations just good, strong stylish lighting which makes a good portrait.

Delighted to announce that we will be hosting a Wedding Seminar @ Loxley Colour on Monday the 25th of October. Details to follow. In the meantime places on our LIGHT TO INSPIRE seminars are going very fast so we now only have limited places left so call or email soon!

We are delighted to announce that we are the first speakers to host a workshop at the stunning new Loxley Colour lecture theatre. We will be hosting a further 3 exciting and unique workshops at Loxley’s in the coming months which will include Wedding, Marketing & Branding and Boudoir, details and dates for those very soon. This first workshop will take place on Monday the 20th of September 2010 and will be about studio lighting and posing. This workshop will start at 10.00am and run until 12.30pm when we will break for lunch and for those that wish Chris Kay will offer a tour of this wonderful new facility and an opportunity to see all of the new products developed for our industry by Loxley. A buffet lunch will be available for all the delegates. The workshop will recommence at 2.00pm and run until 4.00pm We will have a range of lighting from BOWENS, 3 models, 2 female and 1 male, to demonstrate our lighting and posing techniques and how to be creative with the minimum of kit to provide your clients with unique and highly sell-able images.

The inclusive cost of this workshop is £65.00 + £7.00 for lunch. All delegates will receive a £35.00 voucher from Loxley to be used against any of their product range. Delegates will also receive a £30 discount voucher off any future Yerbury Seminar’s, a 10% discount of KUBOTA DASHBOARD and for 1 lucky delegate a $100 discount voucher from KUBOTA. To reserve your place you can call the studio on 01501 744909 and pay by any major credit card or email trevor@yerburystudio to make payment by BACS or cheque.

Today’s image is from a recent client portrait session and lit with a single light source.

Yesterday we spent the day with our one to one delegate demonstrating our studio lighting set up along with some posing ideas. We had excellent models for the day and here are a couple of my images of mum Ashleigh and her daughter Alysha.  Simple, classic portrait lighting which, to me, is far superior to the current ‘white’ trend!