Dan Tidswell's photostream  

Model: Victoria
MakeUp and Hair: Elisa

Women of the late 40's and early 50's were so elegant. Elisa did a great job of emulating the style in this image.

Strobist: Canon 5D Mark II 1/125th sec ISO 200 / Sigma 85mm f/1.4@f4.5 / 22" Beauty dish / 1.5m silver reflector below models chin. Flash fired via Pocket Wizard TT5’s

Another from my shoot with Morgana, I think it would prove challenging to shoot a bad image of her. I have a couple of her smiling (she's a very serious model) which I expect to fetch a tidy sum at auction one day :-)

Model: Morgana - threnodyinvelvet.com/
Make-up: Morgana

Strobist: We shot this using a 22" Beauty dish, a 1m square soft-box (fill) and a snooted CTO'd flash for a hair-light.

So my original Valentines image idea turned into a car crash, the snow stranded my model, the butcher forgot to order the pigs heart and, before I know it, it was the 13th of Feb. On the bright side I now have 364 days to re-shoot for next year :-)

Morgana came to the rescue yesterday and we created some great images together. She is a local Colchester photographer and model, with her own (excellent) studio taking over most of her house and a portfolio of images to die for.

The smoke was shot separately against a black background and composited. The fire in the hair comes from bits of cotton wool, lite and shot very quickly against black.

Model: Morgana - threnodyinvelvet.com/
Make-up: Morgana

Strobist: We shot this using a 22" Beauty dish, a 1m square soft-box and a snooted CTO'd flash for a hair-light.

It's the coldest day of the year and it makes me long for warmer weather.

I shot this last summer in a field just two minutes walk from my front door. We caught a few funny looks as we carried a stepladder, a large softbox and a bunch of strobes to the edge of the field. Elisa was a champ and jumped off the ladder more times than I can count.

Model: Elisa

Strobist: Large softbox on high stand on the VL, camera metered for ambient.

This is my home studio, this week I'm planning to make it messy!

Elisa (my MUA) and I have been conjuring up a cool Valentines day concept image involving a model, a pigs heart and a bunch of fake blood. The shoot needs a charcoal gray background so today I installed some new seamless in preparation. It's a complex image and therefore at risk of turning into a car crash - but I'm fine with that, so long as it's fun and I learn some new tricks along the way.