The Blog of Richard Church Photography

One for the Roadworks

2012-02-12T03:55:00.000-08:00

I was on yet another shoot with Reed in Partnership recently. My brief: to catch Martin, a newly employed contract worker, on the job. These are short, outdoor shoots and I tend to travel light for them; a couple of cameras, a couple of speedlights, and something to trigger them off the camera. A tripod too, just in case.

Access was restricted where Martin actually worked so, as is often the case, we had to improvise. We were lucky enough to have a huge road works a couple of streets away and so we asked the guys there if they wouldn’t mind us snapping a few frames. As it turned out they were packing up anyway and so left us to it.

We tried a few angles first, but I preferred the view from the front, with the sign in shot and looking into the sun. For this I used one of the speedlights off camera and to the right. The client was nice enough to hold it in place for me while I ran Martin through some poses, though with the sun facing me I was mostly firing blind and had to keep checking the back of the camera to make sure I was in focus.

Fifteen minutes or so later we had what we needed: this shot of Martin looking off camera and the haze of the sun in the background.

Pumpkin and Orange Cheesecake

2011-10-09T01:57:00.000-07:00

Autumn is without a doubt my favourite season. The weather is more manageable (I overheat very easily), evenings start to feel more like, well… evenings, and just about every food you could want becomes available. Particularly these guys…

I always get a small wave of childish excitement when I see pumpkins in the shops; maybe it’s the male I get so much weight for my money thing, I don’t know. But there’s something about them that’s irresistible. Of course, after you’ve bought one the question can sometimes become ‘Great, now I’ve got a pumpkin, what’ll I do with it? So I did a little hunting around online to find something a bit more obscure than the pumpkin pie and the pumpkin soup, both of which I happen to like very much, and I found a cheesecake recipe that looked great. Neither I nor anyone I’d spoken to had heard of a pumpkin cheesecake, so I thought it was definitely worth trying out. I’ve adapted it a little bit to suit my taste and give it an extra tang. It takes time to make but the results are worth it. Give it a go and see what you think.

Pumpkin and Orange Cheesecake

Ingredients

For the base:

200g ginger biscuits

50g butter

For the Filling:

700g fresh pumpkin, peeled, diced and cooked

600g cream cheese

300g natural caster sugar

Juice of 1 orange

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Topping:

100ml double cream

100ml Greek Style natural yogurt

Zest of 1 orange

Juice of 1/2 orange

2 tablespoons runny honey

Preheat the oven to 170C/Gas 3. Blitz the ginger biscuits in a food processor and melt the butter. Mix the butter and biscuits together and use the resulting mixture to line the base of a 9in spring formed cake tin, making sure you press down firmly. Once this is done put the cake tin containing the biscuit base in the fridge to chill for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile make your cheesecake filling. Put the cream cheese in a large mixing bowl (it will mix better if it has been out of the fridge for a while to soften up), and add the caster sugar, orange juice, eggs and vanilla. Mix the ingredients with a whisk until they are fully incorporated, but not too vigorously as you don’t want too much air getting in. Blitz the cooked pumpkin in the food processor to form a puree and then mix this in as well. Pour the finished cheesecake batter into the chilled cake tin on top of the base and place in the middle of the oven for 90 minutes to 2 hours, or until the cake is firm and slightly browned on top. Once the cheesecake has cooked, remove it from the oven and allow to cool.

To make the topping beat the double cream until it is firm, then fold in the rest of the ingredients. Chill for 30 minutes, and then spread evenly over the top of the cake. Serve either chilled or at room temperature.

Platform Latest Edition

2011-03-03T01:51:00.000-08:00

Here’s the latest issue of Platform that went out in December. Hope you enjoy it. Working on the next one right now.

Michele

2011-03-01T08:31:00.000-08:00

These pictures of Michele were really an afterthought. I had been photographing pregnancy pictures of my Fiancée and Michele was assisting on the shoot. When the shots were done we had lunch and then I decided to do a quick shoot of Michele while we had everything set up. We worked for maybe twenty minutes and managed to produce some pretty cool frames in that time.

Last Minute Christmas Recipes - Traditional Mince Pies

2010-12-23T07:53:00.000-08:00

Last chance to sort out your Christmas grub. Try some of these recipes if you're stuck for ideas.

Makes about 30

Ingredients:

400g Plain flour
200g cold butter, cut into cubes
Pinch salt
2 tablespoons natural sugar
5-6 tablespoons water
1 400g jar ready made mincemeat

Preheat the oven to 200C/gas 6. Put the flour, butter, salt and sugar into a food processor and blitz until fine breadcrumbs are formed. Pour the breadcrumbs into a large bowl and add the water a bit at a time until a soft dough is formed. Knead the dough for a few minutes, being careful not to overwork it, and then wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Once it has chilled roll half the pastry on a floured surface to about 4mm thickness and use a small round cutter to cut out your pastry base. Place each round into a greased fairy cake tin, then fill the pastry bases with a teaspoon of the mincemeat. Roll out the other half of the dough to the same thickness and use either a smaller round cutter or a star-shaped cutter to make your pie lids. Gently press the lids on each of the pies then brush with a beaten egg.

Cook in the oven for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown. When cooked remove from the oven and cool on a cooling rack.

Mulled Apple Juice

2010-12-23T04:43:00.000-08:00

Ingredients:

2 Litres apple juice
4 cinnamon sticks
2 clementines, quartered and squeezed
1 apple, halved and studded with about 8-12 cloves
2 tablespoons natural honey

Makes Approximately 2 Litres

A great alternative to mulled cider or wine if you happen to be driving. Put all the ingredients into a large pan, bring to the boil and simmer gently for half an hour.

Serve while still hot.

Easy Cheating Roast Potatoes

2010-12-23T04:40:00.000-08:00

Ingredients:

Serves 8

2 kg white potatoes
Oil for deep frying
1 tablespoon chopped rosemary
Pinch flaked sea salt

I recently discovered this quick and convenient way of making perfect roast potatoes and have been doing them like this ever since. Puritans may turn their nose up, but this method really does work.

Preheat the oven to 200C/gas 6. Peel the potatoes and cut them to about the size of an egg (keep them whole if using small potatoes). Boil them in water for about 5 minutes until just starting to soften, being careful not to cook them through. Drain and allow to cool. Heat your oil to the same temperature as for frying chips, about 175 degrees, and put a roasting dish with some oil in the bottom into the oven. Shake the cooled potatoes gently to fluff the edges and then deep fry them, in batches if necessary, until they are just turning brown. Shake off the excess oil and pour the potatoes into your now hot roasting dish. Sprinkle with the sea salt and rosemary and cook in the oven for about 35 minutes until golden brown and deliciously crispy.

Serve immediately.

Sausages Wrapped in Bacon

2010-12-23T04:38:00.000-08:00

Serves 8

Ingredients

16 Chipolata sausages
16 rashers of streaky bacon

Preheat the oven to 220C/gas 7 Wrap each sausage individually with the bacon and place on an oiled baking tray. Cook in the oven for 25 minutes, or until they are cooked through and have browned sufficiently.

Cranberry Sauce

2010-12-23T04:36:00.000-08:00

Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

500g cranberries
170ml orange juice
75ml water
200g unrefined sugar

Put all the ingredients into a pan and bring to the boil. Simmer gently for 25 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened. Allow to cool properly before putting in the fridge.

Back in the Kitchen

2010-12-23T04:30:00.000-08:00

I photographed Fuad for Reed in Partnership, as part of one of their success stories and to celebrate his new kitchen job. I met him outside of Mile End tube station, and we walked up to the restaurant together, chatting all the way. Fuad had been long term unemployed before finding work at the restaurant and was happily telling me of his experiences there. Having spend my life in professional kitchens this was a subject close to my heart, so we traded stories for a while before arriving at the restaurant.

Once we got there Fuad had to start work straight away, so I took this opportunity to set up my gear. When Fuad was in his uniform and ready to go we started shooting. Because of the speed needed to get the pictures I used a hand held flash mixed with ambient light to get the shots. It wasn’t going to be long before customers started piling in so I had to work quickly. We did a couple of setups: Fuad behind the counter, out in front loading drinks into the refrigerator, but I really wanted to get elements of the kitchen into the shot so I asked him to hold some plates in a spot where I could get both the serving counter and the stainless steel kitchen behind him.

Fuad’s portrait was quick but fun, and he was a great guy to meet. We wish him all the best in his new career.

Don’t Cheap Out on your Diary

2010-11-27T03:43:00.000-08:00

I almost did this very thing the other day. I was shopping for some Christmas stocking-fillers for the kids and came upon the diaries. Now it’s the end of the year and two things come to mind: sorting out your tax and planning your business for the following year. Obviously one of those thoughts sends a cold shudder through you like an ice bath on frosty morning, but the other one should be a positive process, one that always has the same goal: make the next year better than the one before.

So with that in mind I picked up my £1.99 diary from the shelf and slung it in the trolly. Then I start thinking as I’m walking around the rest of the store with my partner Sam, looking at multipacks of highlighter pens for the girls and boxes of Jaffacakes so long you could prop a ceiling up with them. Do I really want a cheap diary? The diary plans your business year. It keeps everything organised and in one place and keeps you grounded when things get a little crazy (which they often do).

Now I know this can all be done these days with computers and smart phones, and I both love and embrace the technology. But here’s the thing: computers crash and phones fall out of your pocket and down the toilet on drunken nights (so I’ve been told), and I am not ready yet to give up pen and paper, there’s a reason why they’re still selling them.

Consider the things you’re going to want out of your year planner. You need it to be sturdy for one thing. Hardcover is definitely recommended as it’s going to be shuffled back and forth on your desk for the next 365 days, as well as being used occasionally as a coffee coaster and bug swatter. I also wouldn’t have anything other than a day to a page. If there’s anything I’ve learned about being in business it’s that appointments change, shoots get postponed, cancelled or the date changes, special notes have to be attached to assignments, and all of these things can fill up a page pretty quickly. You’re going to need a lot of space if you want to still make sense of everything.

So after all this consideration I put the cheapo diary back on the shelf (actually it was on a different shelf, but I made sure nobody was looking first) and then I got myself a big, hardcover, day-to-page book with all the trimmings. Okay, it cost more than five times as much as the other one, but at least I know it’s gonna stay the course. That is unless I get drunk and drop it down the toilet.

Honeyed Beef Pastry with Orange and Leeks

2010-11-23T01:45:00.000-08:00

When autumn ends and we come into winter we start to feel that all the best seasonal food has gone, but the colder months still have quite a lot to offer us. Pomegranates, clementines, horseradish, blood orange and mussels, as well as many other goodies, are all available at the end of the year for us to take advantage of. If you want to make the most of what’s on offer this winter have a hunt through your local greengrocer for some inspiration. You’ll find plenty to choose from.

I came up with this dish using some seasonal winter ingredients which give an interesting take on the beef pie. It takes a little while to cook the beef but it’s a fairly simple dish to produce and makes an enticing centrepiece for the dining table. Have a go and see what you think. Serve it with some potatoes of your choosing and a light gravy.

Honeyed Beef Pastry with Orange and Leeks

Serves 4

For the Beef:
500g braising steak, diced
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
Juice and zest of 1 medium orange
3 sprigs fresh thyme
1 tablespoon chopped red chilli
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground paprika
3 tablespoon natural honey
300ml beef stock

For the leeks:
1 medium-large leek, sliced
20g butter
100ml dry white wine
Salt and ground white pepper

1 500g block of ready-made puff pastry
1 egg for glazing.

Heat the oil in a pan and fry the onion and garlic for 2 minutes. Add the beef and thyme leaves and fry for a further 5 minutes, then add the chilli and cook for a minute more. Finally add the cinnamon, paprika, honey, orange juice, zest and beef stock, bring to a simmer, then cover with a lid and turn the heat right down. Simmer very gently for an hour and a half, or until most of the liquid is gone.

For the leeks, melt the butter in a frying pan and add the sliced leek. Cook for 4-5 minutes, until leek is soft but not brown. Season with the salt and pepper and pour in the white wine, simmering until the liquid is reduced by half.

When the leeks and beef are cooked and have had time to cool slightly it’s time to roll out the pastry. Pre heat the oven to gas mark 6, then dust a large work surface with flour and roll out the pastry to a rectangle approximately 40x30cm in size. Place the cooled beef in the centre of the pastry, leaving about 8cm on all sides and then place the leeks on top of the beef. Brush the pastry edges with the egg and roll around the beef, sealing the edges with more egg where needed. Finally place the wrapped pastry, seal side down, on a greased baking sheet. Lightly score diagonal crosses into the pastry with a sharp knife and brush the whole surface with egg, then bake in the oven for about 35 minutes, or until puffy and golden brown.

Creative Movement

2010-11-21T09:57:00.000-08:00

Capturing movement can be a hit and miss affair and there are many ways to achieve different results, but for these shots of Lauren Henderson I wanted to freeze the motion. We used a very simple setup as there was already a large window behind me. I added a flashhead and softbox to this to increase the light and help me to stop Lauren’s movements without creating blur. I set the camera low and sat down on the floor to shoot this set, giving Lauren full freedom to do whatever she wanted.

Pre-focussing was a definite must if I didn’t want to be missing all the key moments and for a change I didn’t use the viewfinder but watched the action from outside the camera. Lauren had a blast jumping and spinning around, as you can see from some of the grins she’s pulling, and we shot a ton of frames. Also I think pausing all the time to look at the back of the camera would have ruined the intensity of the shoot. When you get someone fired up like that the best thing you can do is keep going and worry about it later. Of course there were a lot of useless shots in the mix, but we had more than enough good results to make it worthwhile. It’s important to experiment and play about while you’re shooting. Change things and try something different. You won’t always get it right but you will get some interesting pictures.

Platform Relaunch

2010-11-19T08:33:00.000-08:00

Our newsletter Platform has finally become an e-magazine, thanks to yudu.com. This site allows you to design your own publication and then upload the PDF, which they switch to the page-turning format. We now have full creative freedom without having to compress everything to a single email page, giving more opportunities to go deeper into the work we do. Pretty exciting stuff. We’ve sent one out to everyone already and we’re now working on the Christmas edition.

You can see the first online edition here.

In the Hot Seat

2010-07-28T05:15:00.000-07:00

Location shooting sometimes takes you to bizarre sites, and twice it has taken me to the most formidable of all places - the dentist chair. There’s just something about them that makes you freeze up and clamp your lips together like an oyster shell, even when you know you’re only going to be pointing a camera at it and you won’t have to lie back while someone in a white mask fires up the drill (now open wide and just try to relax…)

I was here this time for some publicity pictures that coincided with the launch of a new tooth cleanser, for which I had also done the product shots. I’d had difficulty finding the location first of all, something not too uncommon when you’re travelling to different places for every shoot, and was almost late. But I arrived promptly (if a little sweaty) and began setting up my equipment in the dental surgery. Susan, my subject, arrived shortly after and introduced herself. She was tired and apprehensive about being photographed, but in good spirits, so we set about getting some pictures.

I used flash mixed with daylight, as I quite often do, especially when I’ve got large windows at my disposal. One head was on a softbox and the other bare and pointed up at the ceiling (something I’d picked up from my brief assisting days). Susan warmed up soon enough and we were able to get a variety of shots using different backgrounds and the room itself. And of course, we had to get that chair in.

Just Keep ‘em Occupied!

2010-07-27T12:06:00.000-07:00

Photographing kids isn’t for the faint hearted (I once had to snap a school full of them for two solid days, and it was about a week before I could stand up straight again and the ringing in my ears had stopped), but you get the right one and it can also be a lot of fun.

For this shoot I didn’t even have to leave the house. My partner’s youngest daughter Charlotte zips around the place constantly in search of some new mischief to get into, so I though it’d be a good idea to stop her long enough to squeeze off some frames before she started hiding various pieces of my photo gear in places I would never find them (the washing machine, for example, I never go in there). I believe the trick with photographing children is to get them involved from the beginning. Charlotte had a friend with her, so after I’d set up the white background I dumped the camera on a tripod and let them take pictures of each other while I got everything ready to go. This kept them from being bored while I did all the ‘professional photographer’ stuff like pacing around scratching my head and wondering where I’d left my flash synch lead.

I got Charlotte to pull a bunch of silly faces and jump around a lot while I fired away as quickly as my flash head would allow and we had a lot of fun is a very short space of time. Some quick and interesting portraits without needing to see a chiropractor afterwards.

Semolina Pudding

2009-11-29T02:17:00.000-08:00

Those of you born in the ‘70s might have the distant memory of thick, gooey semolina pudding poured into your bowl in the school dinner hall, usually with a dollop of jam or something similar placed in the middle (chocolate buttons were always my favourite).

My girlfriend and I were talking about traditional deserts a couple of months back and the memory of warm semolina and melting chocolate came right back to me. I Googled it and found this site. Internet recipes can be extremely touch and go, but this one works perfectly the way it is and is about the easiest thing in the world to make - just a few minutes to make up the basic mixture. The one in school was never put in the oven, but trust me it’s worth doing as you get that rice pudding crust. Give it a go (I’ve made it about four times since discovering it) and soon you’ll be sinking into creamy nostalgia. Just don’t forget those chocolate buttons.

N.B. Don’t panic if you think this is a little off topic, I was a cook for 10 years before taking pictures for a living and I promise you we’re going to talk a lot about food here.

Natural Light Assignment

2009-11-28T13:35:00.000-08:00

I was on assignment for PR Week magazine to photograph Damon Jones from Procter & Gamble for their profile piece. I arrived at their offices in central London just as the magazine’s journalist was getting started on the interview, so I was put in a large waiting area until we could begin shooting. I always like getting to a shoot like this early as it gives me time to have a little scout and think about what I’m going to do, but in this case I didn’t have to go anywhere. I knew straight away that where I was sitting was where I wanted to take the pictures: large open space, cosy but unobtrusive furniture, and an enormous window casting the whole room in soft, indirect light. Not only did I know where I was shooting, but I also knew that I wouldn’t even have to take my speedlights out of the camera bag. Jobs like this are rare.

When the interview was done Damon came out to meet me and we discussed quickly what I intended to do. I only had one brief from the art director for this job: keep him to the right of the picture. Damon was great to photograph and good fun to be around. He works in PR and was used to being on the other side of the camera, making sure the shoot went as planned, so being in front of it was an odd experience for him. He was a little worried about how they would come out, but after seeing the magazine he sent me an email to thank me. You don’t always get complements in this job, but when they come it makes everything worthwhile.

Another Cold Day in the City

2009-11-28T10:21:00.000-08:00

Another cold day out in the city, this time photographing Russian model Nargiza. Nargiza was new to the UK and there was a little bit of a language barrier, which we got through with lots of gesturing and more than a few laughs. Yasmin was again styling for the shoot (it seemed the only time she and I worked together was out in the cold and the wind), and we went for a more subtle approach this time with the make-up. We ran through a whole series of stuff at London’s Embankment, and shooting along the river of course left us more exposed to the elements.

I asked her to lean against a barrier for this shot, with the wind blowing into her face. This is all daylight, and again we had an overcast sky so I didn’t have to worry about the sun being too harsh. I used quite a long zoom on this one, and with the distance between us and the blowing wind she couldn’t hear me at all, so more gesturing was required.

I took advantage of our coffee break to get a couple more shots, though I don’t think Nargiza was too happy that she had to drink it outside when she could’ve been warming up. Once again natural light only, and a long zoom for minimal depth of field.

After a full day of it I thought it was about time we all got in out of the cold, so we began looking for a suitable café or bar to hole up in. We found one on Piccadilly that I thought would be great to take pictures in. While Nargiza and Yasmin went off to the toilets for a quick restyle I went and had a word with the bar manager. He was fine with us taking pictures as long as we didn’t disturb the customers, which of course meant no flash. When the girls were ready we set up next to the bar, and I was really thankful I’d brought my tripod with me, even though I’d just been lugging it around all day. We used entirely ambient light, some of which was coming from bar lights right above her head. Now if you’ve ever tried taking pictures under a regular light bulb, you’ll know that there’s about a million problems you have to deal with. The major one is of course the colour cast, and you can see how I fixed that, but the other big spanner in the works was the shadows created by the harsh light, and on that day I had no reflector (I now carry one everywhere). To combat this I had to position her head in just the right place to avoid the shadows and keep her eyes away from it, which was creating horrible dark pools. The final problem was the shutter speed, which in this case was 1/25 of a second, so Nargiza had to hold pretty still for the entire session. She did so brilliantly, and although there were a few frames rendered useless we did come out with this and a couple of other shots.

Quite often on location you have to deal with what’s available to you, and even though it looks like it’s not going to work at first glance, some situations are definitely worth further investigation.

Getting Through a Cold Day with Lots of Coffee

2009-11-28T00:57:00.000-08:00

I did this test shoot with model Greta Sidabraite nearly two years ago. I’d just moved to London and hadn’t built up any kind of network yet and I’d contacted Greta through Oxygen model management in the city centre. We shot for a full day around Liverpool Street with Stylist Yasmin Motovalli, using just daylight and off camera flash, more often than not held in place by Yasmin. It was a cold day and poor Greta was feeling it, but she held up really well and we pushed through taking tons of shots in a few different locations.

With location shoots like this you find yourself improvising a lot and one of the main things you have to deal with is the wardrobe change. This usually involves lots of trips to local pubs and cafes, with the model changing in the toilets. On this day we had to keep popping into these places anyway just to keep Greta warm (we drank a lot of coffee on that shoot). As it was completely overcast I did my best to keep the sky out of the pictures and went mostly for monochrome in post production, which can quite often bring a dull day to life.

This was also Yasmin’s first day as a make-up artist on a shoot and she had a lot to deal with, not only making sure Greta looked good, but acting as my assistant throughout the day too. She did a fantastic job getting the light into the right place while I battled the grey skies with a shutter speed that was open as far as I could take it and still move without a tripod.

Caught in the Crush

2009-11-27T11:16:00.000-08:00

It occurs to me from time to time how often luck comes into the creation of a photograph. Being strategically placed in the first instance helps of course, but sometimes all the elements come together without you really being aware of them to give you something a little bit special. This picture is one of those occasions, taken at an Asian wedding last Christmas. It was the end of an enormous three day event taking place over something like two weeks and I’d shot more frames than I think I had on any other job - ever. This was the first wedding I’d done since my sister’s the year before, and I had only done one before that, so I was pretty nervous at the start of the first day. But everything was going so well that I forgot my nervousness just a short time into shooting (and the fact that I was getting seriously well fed by my hosts had to help).

The third day was by far the longest and towards the end of it we were all feeling pretty exhausted. I had never photographed an Asian wedding before, or even been to one and I wasn’t entirely familiar with the customs. A lot of the guests had disappeared and the room was starting to look a little spacious, and being as no one was doing anything I assumed that the wedding was over. So I began packing up my gear in the corner of the room, when the bride’s father tapped me on the shoulder. There was more to come.

After the bride and groom had received their gifts from close family members and the procession of immediates had bid their tearful farewells I walked ahead of the newlyweds and remaining family members, snapping away as they left the hotel. They wanted pictures of themselves getting into the car so I positioned myself for the shot, and as the bride and groom approached got ready to take the picture.

I’d had to compete with other photographers throughout the three day event, as is the norm with most weddings since the advent of digital cameras, and had developed a few techniques to deal with this. But as the couple approached the car I lost the battle quickly. Between family members saying more goodbyes and others taking pictures I was caught in the crush and there was nothing I could do to get out of it. I could no longer see anything that was going on so I fired away blindly anyway, hoping to get something. When the crowd finally subsided and the car moved away I was able to escape, feeling that I had come away from that experience empty handed, and it was only when I got back that I saw this picture.

A lovely moment caught. I’d like to tell you that I planned the whole thing, but this isn’t a fictional blog, is it?

Don't Play with your Food

2009-09-29T04:52:00.000-07:00

This is a job I did a while back for joint clients Mackintosh Caterers and Delfont Mackintosh theatres for their menus and advertising. It was a full day’s shoot with a list of food items to be photographed, and like a lot of location shoots it was a case of fitting the shoot in around the working day of the client. In this instance we were shooting in the office, a small room packed with computers and desks (and bodies). They had brought in a table for me to work on, sacrificing a great deal of their office space to do so, and I got to work setting up.

One of the great challenges of location photography is to be able to assess the environment you are put into and to make it work both for you and the client, and to make it work quickly. With food and still life photography you are given an added advantage of being able to create your environment, a real blessing if you’ve got a room full of people and office furniture to contend with.

With food I like to make the lighting look as much like daylight as possible, this is simply a matter of taste. There are plenty of photographers who prefer to spend time setting up countless lights to get everything just right, but this just isn’t me, so I typically use a balance of daylight and flash to give the most natural look possible.

Accessories I couldn’t do without when photographing food are small pieces of silver card that you can get from just about any art shop for a couple of pound. Paperchase have a great range of reflective cards from matt to shiny that you can cut down and use for just about anything. And of course there’s the obligatory blue or white tac to hold these things in place.

The onsite chef did the styling for the shoot and the dishes were brought in at a rate of about two an hour. I had the camera mounted on a tripod on the table (there was no space to put it on the floor) and shot tethered to my laptop to get instant feedback on what we were doing. Window light lit the back of the picture, with a softbox overhead and two of those card reflectors picture left. Sort the lighting out first, and then rack ‘em up.

And the best thing about food photography? You don’t have to worry about missing out on lunch.

Thanks Canada

2009-09-24T11:07:00.000-07:00

Was testing the other day for a quick passport portrait session for a client (thanks Canada, for requiring official photographers rather than photo booths!), and my lovely girlfriend and part-time employee Samantha bravely stepped in for the job. Samantha loves a challenge - I love free help.

It was only a quickie job so we did it at home and I set up before the client arrived, moving furniture around to turn the kitchen into a make-shift studio. I only fired a couple of frames to make sure the lighting was doing what it was supposed to and this was the last shot taken. A very basic lighting setup (you’re going to hear me say that a LOT), a softbox directly behind me and above my head, with two additional Speedlights camera left and camera right. Quick and simple, evenly lit photography.

Maybe I should leave some business cards at the Canadian Embassy?!?

2009-09-15T14:55:00.000-07:00

Uploading a ton of stock pictures at the moment, trying to get those image sales moving a bit faster. A range of stuff that I've shot over the last two years and haven't really done anything with yet. That can happen a lot, and suddenly you find a huge backlog of images just taking up space on your hard drive that nobody's even seeing. A lot of the ones I'm doing now are from model test shots that I've taken at various locations in London (some of them shot in the spare bedroom at home), and I haven't got model releases for all of these so they'll have to be for editorial use only. (Note: get releases in future).

This one was shot on the model’s home with her curtains as a background. For this I used two lights, one far left with a softbox and one to my right and high as the main light. I fashioned a kind of beauty dish using silver foil, something I do a lot of because it can be shaped to my needs (more on this in a moment).

Lisa and I shot a whole series that day using different techniques. She had this huge trampoline in the back garden so I got her bouncing up and down on that. I wanted her to keep her face really deadpan, which is harder than it sounds when you’re jumping around like a kid in a playground. Still we got a great series of that with me just firing away with fill-flash.

I mentioned the homemade beauty dish earlier which, made of aluminium foil, is able to bend and twist around to any shape you want. I quite often use these as wider versions of shoots to give a real direct light on the subject (kind of like barn doors). You do have to fiddle around a bit to get it in the right place but the effects can be quite cool.

I met Cara while shopping for a photography magazine. She was working behind the counter and I asked her if she would like to be photographed at some point, trying my best not to look like I was on the pull. Of course she looked at me like she got that kind of offering every day but she took my card anyway and a couple of weeks later gave me a call. Cara’s a great girl to photograph; expressive and full of ideas to make the shoot work. This one I did at home in the spare bedroom using that homemade snoot. Just one light over my right shoulder and a lot of rolling around for Cara.

2009-09-11T03:34:00.001-07:00

Welcome to the blog of Richard Church photography. I want to start by saying that I've got a whole lot of catching up to do. Lots of things have happened that I want to talk about so I should mention that the start of this photographers diary will be in no particular order, and that my intentions here are to catch up.

This is a photographer’s blog, so there will be plenty of pictures to look at and I’ll try wherever possible to provide detailed information on how I did the shots. I am a working photographer so the stories here will mostly be of assignments, and at this stage in my career those assignments vary considerably.

As for content we’ll stick with photos for now (that’s why we’re all here) but there will be videos eventually so stay tuned and as the content grows so will the formats. So here we go, and I hope you enjoy the world of Richard Church Photography.