Rob Booker Photography • Blog » Portraits

Lucy • Headshots & Portraits • Slung Low

Rob — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:45:57 +0000

I met Lucy the other week on her Birthday of all days to shoot her Pro-Package headshots. Lucy works for a great Leeds-based company, Slung-Low, which is where we spent the second half of the shoot creating some portraits in and around the building where they work at the HUB (Holbeck Underground Ballroom), and if your the kind of person that could do with artistic space for any reason then you should totally check them out. Their really nice guys and up for the collaboration. There was loads of areas to shoot at and I could have spent weeks there exploring the space. The end of the shoot resulted in cups of tea and birthday cake all round. Bonus.

I hope to be working with the company some more in the near future, but for now here’s a few of the shots from the shoot . . .

The Reject Pile • Headshots

Rob — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:20:07 +0000

Towards the end of last year, I started to introduce a quick-fire and impromptu end to my headshot sessions. Some people heard the word “improvise”, and ran a mile, whilst others embraced the opportunity for some fun portraits of themselves. Often at the end of the session when the hard work is over, people have totally relaxed and forgotten that they’re having their picture taken, they tend to be a bit more open to playing up to my camera. As well as this, during my shoots I tend to catch moments where people are in a different world, either whilst I’m checking the lights, or if they’ve just lost focus for a second, or it can be in mid-conversation and I catch a cheeky smile. But now I’m keeping this five-minute freestyle for good, so if I ask you to have some fun with the camera, and you’re feeling a bit shy, forget your inhibitions for a minute or two, and get ready for some killer portraits. Be who you want to be.

Below are just a few of the dozens of crazy snaps I’ve captured of people during their headshot session (I hope they don’t mind!). Some of these are captured mid-session, and some are the very last shot of the day – when I tell people this is the last picture I’m taking of them, they tend to go all out.

Primary Faction • TV Promo Images

Rob — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:27:21 +0000

I spent most of this shoot in a dark, oil coated, freezing-cold building. Studio 81 on Kirkstall Road, kindly gave me permission to shoot in an old disused bus depot in Leeds for a promotional shoot for a TV series currently in development called, Primary Faction. With only limited time before the natural light was gone, I had to work fast to get through the huge shot list, and towards the end of the day, I had to get someone to hold a brightly lit iPhone screen to the actors faces to be able to focus, in was that dark! The whole cast and crew were ace, and really put a lot into the shoot.

For the strobists amongst you: I was working with one Canon Speedlight 580 EXII, using a lastolite 80cm umbrella-box on a light stand, triggered using an Elinchrom Skyport, and both camera and flashgun were on manual. f-stops were around 5.6, shutter speeds anything between 1/30th and 1/160th, with ISO again starting at 200 increasing to 800 as the daylight vanished!

Urban Portraits Workshop • 3B Media

Rob — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 08:07:39 +0000

So last Tuesday, saw the first of 3B Media’s training workshops. Myself, Phil Barber and Barnaby Aldrick have been working hard for the last few months on all things 3B and are now in the process of developing an entire series of photographic workshops to inspire and teach aspiring professionals with all aspects of their photography.

The first workshop we held was “Urban Portraits”, a one-day course on shooting people in the everyday urban environment using only natural light and minimal camera gear.

We started the day with a quick lesson in basic exposure and camera settings to get our delegates up to speed for the day ahead. After this, I headed up the morning’s sessions by teaching how to look for backgrounds and suitable places to shoot. Developing an eye for great places to photograph people against is crucial in getting good shots. I showed the group that there are always plenty of opportunities wherever you look, and gave some advice on what to do when those opportunities run out.

This shot of one of our models, Alex, was just around the corner from a busy entrance to a restaurant. This could’ve been easily overlooked, but by changing your viewpoint and using the curved walls, we created a background out of something that isn’t necessarily obvious immediately. The changing light on the walls also helps to add interest and contrast.

I then went on to give advice on communication. How to talk to anyone that you’re photographing, to get the best out of them, whilst making them feel at ease and relaxed.

Below is one of Phil’s shots from the day and one of my favourites. Here, he’s used the leading lines of the ceiling lights to add some movement and dynamics to the shot without distracting from the subject.

After a full-on buffet lunch, a question and answer session, and warming up after shooting all morning in the chilled January air, we were all back outside where Phil led the afternoon’s session. He first talked about composition; the basic rules and then how to break them. He gave some great advice and ideas on how to change your viewpoint to get a completely different shot. Starting off with just a brick wall and a model, we got the delegates to think about creating as many different photos with just these two things. He also gave some practical tips and guidance on how to deal with different natural lighting, whether that be overcast, direct sunlight, shade or sunsets.

We gave everyone plenty of opportunity to shoot the models, whilst sticking around to answer questions, give advice, and help out when all else failed. Before we knew it, all the delegates had taken over the day and were dying to shoot the models in every location they could find using all the advice we had taught them all day. It was great to see how their confidence grew, and how their shots were improving throughout the day.

Below are a few more of my shots I managed to sneak in between the delegate’s time with the models.

This is Katy, who was our make-up artist for the day. After getting our models ready for the afternoon’s shoot, she stepped in for a few shots herself.

At the end of the day, we headed back to our conference facilities at The Round Foundry Media Centre, in South Leeds, where Barnaby was busy on a MacBook Pro. He had taken a dozen or so of the best shots from the day and gave the group a practical demonstration on post-processing using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. He showed how to get the best from the RAW files out of the camera, pushing them to give them a final polish. In preparation for the day, we had developed some of our own 3B Media Adobe Photoshop presets, which can be quickly applied to create several effects or just to push the picture in the right direction. These we gave away in a little goody bag, along with detailed course literature from the day on everything we had covered.

Several cups of coffee and a final question and answer session to settle any last niggling queries, we wrapped up and headed to the pub for a quick pint.

All in all a fantastic day, and we got some really positive feedback from all the delegates. We will be holding the next Urban Portraits workshop soon, and regular blog readers will be the first know. If you’re keen on getting involved and want to find out more, either email me directly or via the 3B Media email – info@3bmedia.co.uk We’ll also be announcing our other workshops in the near future, so stay tuned for these and if there’s any training days you’d like to see, then please get in touch.

In the meantime why not become a 3B Media fan on facebook?

Liam • Portraits

Rob — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:39:45 +0000

This is the third time I’ve photographed Liam, and this time was just a little different . . . He wanted some portraits to show off his character as an actor which will be featured on his website. We started off in deepest, wettest Leeds in The Adelphi pub, whilst dodging the rain and traffic wardens to grab some shots outside in and around the streets of Brewery Wharf.

This was one of those shots that took a little bit of patience to light correctly, to get the left hand side of his face to just creep out of the shadow,and to get a decent amount of fall-off onto the background. I love the way all the colours subtly blend into each other.

This is just naturally window lit.

I seem to have a strange fascination with roller-shutters at the moment, I think it’s just a phase.

A winning combo guaranteed: Brick walls, shallow depth-of-field, moody stare.

We attempted to get some shots that look like they’d been pulled from a movie, even down to the widescreen ratio.

All in all a hard, but fun 2 hour shoot which bagged Liam about 80 shots. Its kinda nice when you’ve photographed someone before, because you know how far you can push them and where they’re coming from.

Elaine • Headshots

Rob — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:36:56 +0000

Elaine’s headshot session in Altrincham was fantastic, she put a lot of effort into the shoot and we produced some beautiful images. I’ve recently started to allow actors at the end of my shoot to improvise and play up to the camera in an effort to get some more personal portraits. No interaction and no direction, just let them do what they want. This can lead to some bizarre results and I’ll be doing a post on a few of these soon! Check out the third image out of this set of three; this was the first shot Elaine came up with and is really elegant and poignant.

Portrait Shoot • Just for fun • Leeds

Rob — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:23:32 +0000

As part of a network photographers I’m involved with around the country, we met in Leeds for our monthly meeting to talk about all things photography. Myself and the rest of my 3B Media crew had organised a little post-meeting shoot with a few models including Stef, who we’ve worked with several times before, her brother Alex and their other model friend Charlotte. Katy was along for the ride to ensure they all looked their best in the make-up department. We headed off to the area behind Leeds train station where some recent building developments have left the place looking pretty smart and ideal for some urban portraits.

The first batch were all shot using just natural light, until it started to get pretty thin and we had to whip out our flashguns.

These are some crazy strip lights that are fixed in the pavement

A quick grab shot with a flashgun zoomed in to pick out Alex from the street.

I didn’t have much time with Stef, as the all other photographers seemed to be hogging her, but of the few I managed to get, this was my favourite.

Ash • Actor’s Headshots

Rob — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:12:27 +0000

When photographing headshots, I normally ask the subject at the end of the session to do a little bit of improvising to get some of their character across. Not necessarily the shot that they’ll send out to casting agents to get work, but something a little bit different to highlight their personality. This was one of the last frames from Ash’s session last week. Perfect balance.

Joe • Actor’s Headshots

Rob — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:40:27 +0000

New to the Tonicha Lawrence Agency is Joe. We did Joe’s headshots down at Clarence Dock in South Leeds. He settled into form pretty quickly and within 40 minutes we had everything done that we needed to cover, so went on to something a bit different and ended up with a few fashion and portrait images for his modelling portfolio. We shot entirely using natural light, and whilst I gave him some direction, Joe was keen to try out some of his own ideas too.

Rachel Cook • Portraits

Rob — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:00:40 +0000

Last week I spent half an hour driving through West Yorkshire’s finest countryside in search of the perfect field to take Rachel’s new promotional portraits. I spotted the area we used several weeks before hand when out on a pre-wedding shoot. A tiny wooded section in a corn field next to a stretch of winding country road. The light was near on perfect in the shade of the trees, but used a couple of off-camera lights for a few of the shots to give them some extra love.

Check out Rachel’s beautiful sounds here