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.