Short Film and Personal Work

I like to keep my creativity topped up by taking on various personal projects with both stills and video and currently I'm working on a short film which I've written and I'm taking some stills at the lovely Hook Norton Brewery for my personal portfolio.

Me and Cat in action in my short film

Writing the film has been great fun and although I'm not Clint Eastwood I'm enjoying trying to act (I've only got a small part to play!) and direct it too.

I'm shooting the film in 1080 rather than 4K as I've decided to use my Canon C100 because it is such a lovely camera to shoot with. I can't see Amazon snapping it up to show on 4K TV's anyway!.

The Hook Norton Brewery project is great fun too and I'm hoping to head back next week to finish off photographing the brewing process and to capture the Drey horses delivering the beer to the local pub which is a lovely tradition.

I'll post a set of pictures from the Brewey once they have been signed off by the marketing team there but they are looking good so far.

On a more commercial note we are now offering a great value startup social media package which consists of a day shooting video and stills for the great all in price of £700 plus VAT and travel.

We will shoot some video interviews with the business owner, some nice clean headshot portraits and some pack shots of their products if needed. This will give the customer a set of professionally created content to populate their social media for a few weeks.

Please let know if this is of interest to you or to someone you know.

Have a great weekend!

Dave

Saturday studio time

Hi Everyone

After a busy week taking photographs and shooting video there's nothing I enjoy more at the weekend than...a fun photoshoot in the studio.

Studio Shot 

This might sound like a busman's holiday but it give me a chance to try different lighting set ups and fresh ideas in a non commercial environment. Without the pressure of a client brief it's much easier to relax and play with light and setups.

I shoot two or three personal projects each month too to make sure I keep my ideas to photography fresh and to remind myself why I became a photographer all those years ago - basically because I love taking pictures.

Aston Martin taken with film

For my weekend shoots I still use film and have a Pentax 67 outfit, a Rolleiflex T and some Canon FD and Olympus OM cameras. I also love to buy old cameras from junk shops and try to get some quirky pictures from them.

Screen grab from my short film

Today I've been shooting with an old 1970's Petri rangefinder camera with some Ilford XP2 film and I'm quite pleased with the results. I bought this camera for £25 from an antique shop in Bletchley.

Personal project shot with medium format film

I've also recently written a short film and I've started to shoot this too - I'll post it here once it's finished.

Thanks for checking in on my blog again and please do ask me if you have any questions about photography be it film or digital.

Extreme running at the Swanbourne Endeavour for a great cause!

We like to take on one charity shoot a month and every year we cover the fabulous Swanbourne Endeavour extreme running event which raises thousands of pounds for great causes like Help For Heroes.
David our running mad MD loves to photograph this and gets in very close to the action to the degree of getting into the water to capture the best images.
It's a tough ask for the camera kit but the Fuji system stands up well and delivers great results and doesn't suffer from the muddy water that soon covers it!.
If you would like an event like this photographed or captured on video then get in touch with us.

Food Glorious Food

We've been very busy with food photography lately and we have been taking pictures for British Bakels who make ingredients for many high street supermarket bakeries.

We love visiting their bakery centre as the smell of the bread is so lovely and we always get treated so well and have lots of samples to eat whilst we are there.

We also took some pictures for a new start up in Bicester called Mi Burger. These guys make super tasty burgers all using locally sourced meat and ingredients. The burgers are really delicious and I think these guys may well be onto a winning formula.

Here's a few pictures from these shoots

Competition Success and Photography Workshops

Screen grab from the Colour Awards

I usually enter two competitions each year - the Spider Awards for black and white photography and The International Colour Awards. I've had some good success with images being nominated and one honourable mention. The International Colour Awards have just listed the winners and this time both my pictures have received an honourable mention so I am really pleased.
Here's a link to the website https://www.colorawards.com/gallery/

A shot from the recent workshop of one of our students

The commercial photography work has been steady since Christmas even though this is usually a quiet time of year for us. As out work is 99% business to business we always have a slight down time in February and March as our clients are coming to the end of their financial year. Once the new marketing budgets are in place from April 1st we get very busy again.

As I've had time I have started a photography workshop side to the business and we had the first workshop a couple of weeks ago. I base these at the lovely Devere Horwood Estate and we have a mix of theory and practical photography out in the gardens. The workshop went really well and all the students gave me really good feedback which was fab.

I have two more planned in the coming couple of months and you can book in here :-

https://www.davidthrowerphotography.co.uk/book-online

Another shot from the recent workshop of one of our students

Please do spread the word about the workshops as they do offer great value for money at £95 each for the basics of photography course which includes a hot three course lunch and is limited to just 4 people. This means I can spend time with everyone and tailor the course to each person.

The studio basics course is £125 and the extra fee is to cover the cost of a model.

Medical Detection Dogs

It was a lovely clear but cold day yesterday and perfect winter light for some drone shots. I had promised my friends at the Medical Detection Dogs (a wonderful charity that I volunteer for as a photographer) some drone shots of the work in progress of their new building so I popped along with the Phantom 4 Pro and took some shots.

Medical Detection Dogs HQ

 After the drone shots we took each of the wonderful dogs out into the garden for a quick portrait shoot so there is a good stock of images for when each dog wins the "dog of the week" competition!.

All the dogs have loving foster homes and are dropped off to the centre each day (3-4 days per week so days off too) to do their amazing work of sniffing out cancer in urine samples.

Please visit the website for more information on this really great charity - https://www.medicaldetectiondogs.org.uk/

Bumper 

I love all the dogs but I do have a big soft spot for Bumper - he is a big cuddly Golden Retriever and apparently his deep gold colour if the original colouring for the breed although the light gold is the modern favourite and the most common.

Charity Work and Aerial Photography

Tony and Jane Henman

It's always good to put something back and we represent several charities here at Redshift Photography and this month I have been busy with three of them. I did a shoot for the Freemasons to promote their grant giving work last week when I photographed two senior guys from the Bucks Province at Willen Hospice alongside one of the lovely nurses that work there. The Masons had donated £3,000 to buy a special chair which enables the patients so lay back or sit upright via a motor in the chair itself.

Ride High and the Freemasons

Willen Hospice Chair Donation

Later in the week I took some pictures at Ride High in Milton Keynes which is a splendid charity that helps young people with confidence issues due to bullying or learning difficulties to build their self esteem by learning to ride. Many of the young people make a very close bond with the horses and they gain a tremendous amount from the time they spend at the centre.



Finally today I photographed Tim Henman's Mum and Dad at Medical Detection Dogs in Gt Horwood as they were visiting the centre and had helped to organise a donation of tennis balls for the dogs to play with from the ATP tennis circuit.

Tomorrow I have a shoot with some Chinese diplomats and next week I'm shooting food at a gourmet burger bar - plenty of variety!.