Simmone in the Scrapyard

Hey everyone. Sorry I haven't been posting much lately but I've very busy with Christmas. 

I thought I'd post some of my favourite photos from my shoot with Simmone, in a scrapyard at Tanfield Railway that stores a lot of rusty trains and rolling stock that is awaiting restoration.

I've love steam trains since I was a kid and as an adult, they still fascinate me, as they have a long and interesting history that includes the Duke of Wellington, The Industrial Revolution and both World Wars.

I used to love visiting this railway museum when I was a kid and I remembered that it had a scrapyard that I went to scout, as I thought it would be a great location for an alternative shoot. After scouting the location, I posted a Casting Call online and Simmone said she lived nearby and was interested in shooting here.

This was a very casual shoot, when we met up and explored the location and had a lot of fun exploring the location and shooting random photos all over the place. I really enjoyed working with Simmone and think the location was really interesting and vibrant and I really hope I get the chance to do some more alternative shoots here.

Here are some of my favourite photos, check out my facebook page; www.facebook.com/NJDunnPhotography for more and let me know what you think.

Hipster Khalessi

Sorry for being a bit quite recently but I have just finished my last university project and started another one, so I've been a bit busy recently. I thought I would make it up to you by posting some of my favourite photos from my latest shoot with Kovie Kixx...

I had an idea to do a "Hipster Khalessi" shoot with Kovie Kixx. This came to me since we'd already done a few t-shirt shoots together for Oh Japan and she had just bought a wig for her Daenery's costume. I'd also seen a lot of Game of Thrones t-shirts in shops and some similar artwork on the internet.

This was just meant to be a fun little idea I had that I wanted to try but I am quite pleased with how well it worked. After discussing the idea with Kovie and agreeing on a time and place, we went down to Durham and shot a few images on the pedestrian bridge and around the Cathedral with Kovie wearing a Khalessi t-shirt with some denim shorts and a pair of ugg boots.

Although it was a little straight forward and simple, I think the idea worked quite well and I enjoyed having a wander around Durham with Kovie. Looking back at these photos is tempting me to try to do some other alternative cosplay shoots and I'd really like to do some more Daenery's photos with Kovie as I am a massive fan of the show and the character and Kovie is one of my favourite cosplayers to work with.

Newcastle Film + Comic Con- November 2016

Last month I took my camera to King-Con in The Stadium of Light and I was really pleased with the photos I took. So I decided to try and take some more at the Film & Comic Con in The Metro Radio Arena on Saturday.

Like at King-Con, I took these with a Nikon D610 with an 18-85mm lens and an SB-700 speed light, synced with a TTL cable and fitted with a small softbox and once again I was really pleased with the results and I managed to get twice as many photos as King-Con.

I really enjoyed the event and I am really pleased with the photos, so I thought I would post some of my favourites here, but there are lots of others on my Facebook page so please go check them out at; www.facebook.com/NJDunnPhotography.

This will probably be my last convention of the year but I hoping I can do a few more cosplay shoots, either in the studio or if it snows maybe some winter-based characters. But what do you guys think I should? Let me know in the comments.

Fairground at Night

The fairground in South Shields is open at night for a fireworks display on Bonfire weekend. I thought it would be a good idea to try and take some portraits while the lights and rides were on and tried to plan a shoot.

Unfortunately, that night, the weather was terrible and my model cancelled. But luckily, I went with my friend Mccolie and her friend Megan, who agreed to model for us. I only managed to get a few shots before the girls got too cold and the fair became really crowded but I am really happy with them and thought I'd post one of my favourites here. 

I took this using a Nikon D610 with a 18-85mm lens and I used a SB-700 speed light tethered with a TLL-cable and fitted with a softbox, which Mccolie kindly help for me.

Although, the weather was terrible, I think I got really cool photos from the shoot and want to try and do something like this again.

King-Co 2016

As you may have noticed, I'm quite geeky and I go to a lot of conventions around the North East. I usually take my camera to these events, but as I am a "lazy perfectionist", I usually don't use it as I prefer to just talk to people and have a wander around the stalls. And when I do use it, I'm usually really critical of what I do and rarely use any of the photos that I take.

But when I went to King-Con last month, I thought I'd take my camera and have a go. 

King-Con is a weekend convention at The Stadium of Light. I only went on the Saturday and I only ended up taking about 50 photos but I really enjoyed the event and I was actually happy with the photos I took. So I thought I'd post a few of my favourites here. 

I took them with a Nikon D610 and a SB-700 speed-light, fired off camera by a TTL cable and attached to a miniature soft-box. I set my camera to 1/125 shutter speed, f/8 aperture and 200 ISO. This is my preferred setup for indoor events like this and I think it works quite well.

I'm quite happy these photos especially as I usually prefer just to talk to people at events and plan private shoots at a later date.

But what do you guys think? What do you think of these and do you think I should try to shoot more at conventions or should I just focus on proper shoots? 

Let me know. 

Free Range Exhibition

I know it's a bit overdue, but I thought I'd write about what happened earlier this year, when I got to exhibit some of my work in London...

At the start of July, I exhibited some of my work as part of the Free Range Shows in the Old Truman Brewery in Whitechapel. Since my college was exhibiting our work on double-sided banners hanging from the ceiling, I decided to exhibit the final image from my Exhibition Project and my final images of Paul in his Captain America costume from my Portfolio Production Project.

Because I was getting a coach to London, I wasn't able to help setup or take down the work but I was at the opening night and kept an eye on the exhibits over the weekend. We had a brilliant spot in the Brewery and our work looked great. The exhibition was really popular and had a great turnout throughout the weekend and I really enjoyed the whole experience.

I also got to explore London with some of my friends and did a bit of Street Photography, which I've really missed doing and it was really fun doing it somewhere completely new to me.

Overall, I really enjoyed the exhibit and I'm really proud that I've exhibited some of my work in London. It also really motivated me to look at ways to develop my Cosplayer project and I'd really like to try and do some more environmental portraits. I might even try combing the two. 

What do you guys think? Let me know if you've any ideas.

The Riddler

Recently, I've been thinking about rebooting my Cosplayer photo series but as a personal project, rather than a college project and turning it into a photobook rather than handing it in to be marked by my tutors.

I've been looking through the shoots from my original project and I love my photos of Chris as The Riddler, as he really brought the character to life with his tense posture and manic facial expressions.

One idea I am consider is to shoot the series again but in a more natural environment like the model's house to add more of their personality to the shot. I've also considered making this a location project by shooting the models doing normal activities in their costumes but this would be quite tricky.

It's something I'm really interested in but I do think I need to think about it a bit more. So while I do that, I thought I'd share some of my favourite photos with you guys.

Let me know what you think and if you think I should continue or reboot this series. 

Cargo Creative Product Shoot

It's been a while since my last post so I thought I would catch everyone on what I've been doing. 

I've recently started the 3rd year of my Photography Degree at Newcastle College, which involves writing my dissertations, drafting a business plan and updating my portfolio.

Here's a sneak peak from my latest shoot, in which I shot some of Cargo Creative's printed merchandise, including these awesome notepads, which I got to keep as a thank you. 

This was a really fun and challenging shoot, as I don't normally shot products and it was a nice change from shooting portraits and the designers have agreed to help me design a professional logo and website.

I'll try to post more regularly about my work and keep everyone updated on what I am doing.

Keep an eye on this page for new posts and check out my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for more regular updates.

Weightless Project

This is the final image from my "Weightless" Foundation Degree project, which I forgot to post when I finished the project. Still, better late than never.

This was a technical project that was meant to test our location lighting and PhotoShop skills. For the project we had to create an image showing a model in a state of weightlessness. Because I am nerdy, I experimented with photos of my friend Louise, dressed as Supergirl, floating on the Newcastle-Gateshead Quayside. But I thought an alien abduction inspired photo would be more artistic and technically challenging to shoot. 

However, because I live in Newcastle it rains a lot so unfortunately I had to cancel my first shoot and the model couldn't reschedule. So I had to promote my friend Abby from assistant to model. I'd intended to shoot along the side of a warehouse with a fire exit staircase on the outside but when I arrived at the location my shot was ruined by cars so I had to rethink it and shoot under the fire exit, which is why the image is quite tight and compressed.

However, I'm quite happy with the result especially since everything seemed to go wrong and I'm really looking forward to trying some more ideas in the future.

Exhibition Project

The final project of my Foundation Degree was called "Exhibition" and as the name suggests I had to assign myself a project brief, brainstorm, research and plan an idea, create a set of images and then exhibit them alongside my classmates work at the end of the year in our college's gallery.

Admittedly, I was my own worst nightmare for this project. My classmates were shooting month long projects; documenting football teams or creating elaborate costumes, whereas I didn't even know what I wanted to do.

A week before the deadline I had a panicked chat with my tutor and he suggested a revisit some of my old college projects and reshoot one of them. My favourite project was an Environmental Portrait project called "Unusual Occupation", so I decided to redo this and set out to find an interesting subject.

Luckily, one of my Dad's freinds, works for the Fire Department. So I gave him a call and he arranged a visit for me. I was meant to be shooting an animal rescue drill but when I arrived at the station in the morning, the acting station manager had no idea who I was and he told me that the drill had been cancelled due to a funeral.

However, he agreed to model for my project later in the afternoon so I came back with an assistant and shot for about an hour next to the fire engines. I was using a Nikon D600 with a 18-85mm lens, attached to a battery-powered studio light with a beauty dish. I choose to use a flash because I thought the portraits needed to be a bit more dramatic, however, after only 10 minutes my flash stopped working and I had to finish the shoot just using my backup speed light and natural light.

Despite the issues with the rescue drill and my studio light, I managed to get some great photos that I am really pleased with and the exhibition was a great success. I also got an excellent grade from the project, despite the fact that I did most of the work in days when my classmates did it in weeks.

Overall; a great end to my Foundation Degree.

Roller Blades (Part 2)

Here's Part 2 of my "Roller Blades" photo-shoot with the gorgeous Mademoiselle Boo. We had intended to shoot in the fair and skatepark on South Shields' sea-front but because it was so cold, we decided to continue the shoot in an indoor skatepark in Bede.

Because we were shooting inside and the available light was limited I used a portable studio light with a battery pack and a beauty dish to light Boo in the skatepark. I think this worked really well as it allowed me to shoot at a low ISO and created some excellent flash-shadows that suited the location and style of the shoot. I continued to use my D600 camera with a 50mm lens, connected to my studio light with a radio slave to sync my camera shutter and flash.

I love the photos from this shoot and loved working with Mademoiselle Boo. I've only posted a few on this blog but if you'd like to see more click here: https://www.facebook.com/NJDunnPhotography/photos/?tab=album&album_id=763814110386371 to see more of my favourite photos on my Facebook page.

Roller Blades (Part 1)

Mademoiselle Boo is one of my favourite models to work with and these are some of my favourite photos from our most recent photo-shoot. 

A week before the shoot took place, Boo was reminiscing about a shoot she did in an American style diner in her vintage roller skates. She asked if anyone was interested in shooting her in the roller skates again but with a different theme than her original shoot.

I suggested doing a vintage fashion shoot with a sunny Florida beach look. Boo came up with an outfit made of some black vintage sports shorts, white knee heigh socks, red baseball shirt and some Aviator sunglasses. 

We choose to shoot in South Shields Fun Fair. It was a perfect location with some flat concrete paths running alongside the sandy beaches, an outdoor skatepark with plenty of graffiti and a bright and colourful fair that we could easily access. However, on the day the skatepark was closed off and the fair was busy. We still managed to get some great photos but it quickly got windy so we decided to move to an indoor skatepark in Bede.

Because it was such a lovely sunny day, I just used a Nikon D600 with a 50mm lens to shoot the first half of the shoot with natural light. When we moved on the skatepark, I used a studio flash-head with a beauty dish to light Boo and later used a tripod and trigger for some of my trickier shots.

Overall, I really enjoyed this shoot and it might be my biggest and favourite shot with her to date. Because we live quite far apart our shoots usually take up most of the day and result in hundreds of awesome photos.

And it's always brilliant working with Mademoiselle Boo; she's sexy, funny and really friendly, which makes her a pleasure to work with, although I only really get the chance to work with her every few years. I'm already brainstorming ideas for our next shoot which will hopefully featuring some burlesque dancing or fire performing. And I can't wait. 

Keep your eyes peeled for Part 2, which is made of our photos taken in the indoor skatepark.

Portfolio Production Project: Final Images

For the past few months I've been working on a project for my Photography degree called Portfolio Production. For this project I had to write my own brief to produce a portfolio of images on a chosen subject.

I wanted to create a series of documentary portraits focusing on local cosplayers but portraying them as themselves rather than as the characters they are portraying.

I initially set out to create a series of photos of cosplayer in there normal clothes looking into a mirror and seeing there reflection in costume. Initially I liked this idea but my tutors thought it was too complicated and that a simpler image would have more impact.

I wanted to try and do the series on location with the model in costume but in a normal situation. However, I didn't have enough models interested to fulfil the criteria of the brief. Another idea I wanted to try was to shoot a model in and out of costume in the studio and because this idea was far more popular I decided to pursue this avenue and ended up shooting 12 models. 

I shot this in my college's studio using a D610 camera. I decided to use a high-key set-up but after I experimented with a practice shoot I thought a mid-key set-up and black and white filter would set the two images apart and a graduated grey background would work better on the black and white image.

I then edited the photos into a series and submitted them as a portfolio. I thought I'd post some of my favourite photos here with Chris as The Riddler from DC Comics and Gwyneth as Harley Quinn from Batman: Arkham Knight.

Enjoy.  

My 2nd Shoot with Jordan

A few months ago, Jordan messaged me and asked if I fancied doing a shoot with him on that Friday afternoon. So I drove into Newcastle, picked him up, parked in Manors and we went for a wonder. Because he wasn't wearing any bright colours and the area we were shooting in was dominated by post war concrete architecture and because the weather was quite grey and miserable I decided to do the entire shoot just with my Nikon 7200 with a 50mm lens and a SB-700, for some of the darker shots in an old multi-story car park and abandoned shopping centre.

Considering how this shoot was quite vaguely planned I'm really pleased and a little surprised and how many great photos we left with. There's even a few that I am considered adding to my portfolio and exhibiting in London later this year. 

I'm looking forward to working with Jordan again. I've just done a shoot with him and another male model in Newcastle and I've got a few themed ideas in mind for him which I am looking forward to planning.