Dogwood Week 6

Candy, or sweets as we would say over this side of the pond, was this weeks challenge and for me, the hardest so far.

Candy for me were washing machine manufacturers who at one point in the early nineties sponsored Liverpool F.C. But I quickly moved away from the idea of taking pics of a washing machine or of John Barnes and tried to think of something interesting to shoot.

We have been trying to post on a wednesday and at 8 pm I had nothing, so I went to the local garage and bought jelly tots, skittles and a wham bar. I ate the wham bar and came up with the idea of skittle rain. Could it be raining on someone or something? Why not superman? He may be just fast enough to escape skittle rain.

So I lay flat on the bathroom floor and lined up lego superman and his pal. I upped the shutter speed, chucked in some  iso and then poured the skittles. Superman survived the deluge as expected.

Neil’s picture is based on a true event, the great smartie jar spillage of 1906. His cat is playing Elsie, the 5 year old protagonist and I think we will all agree that it is a wonderfully accurate portrayal.

#dogwoodweek6 #dogwood52 #the dw4 #lego #superman #skittlerain #catactors

 

Dogwood Week 5

I love a bit of black and white, it always looks beautiful and helps hugely if you get the white balance wrong! So this week’s monochrome landscape challenge has been very enjoyable.

Both Neil and I have gone for seaside shots this week. A coincidence, I promise.

I live in Brighton and the West pier is a huge visual draw. The seagulls are regular photo bombers and I managed to catch them swooping nicely across frame. There was just enough contrast in the clouds and the sea was crashing through the struts so all in all I was very happy with the composition.

Neil has also gone pier, but bournemouth which is a poor mans Brighton if you ask me…

#dogwoodweek5 #dogwood52 #The dw4 #brightonphotography

 

Dogwood Week 4

Portrait week.

Both Neil and I have been using Canon 5Ds for this project and portrait week meant getting the always glorious 50mm lenses out.

I ventured out to the Brighton Seafront with my lady wife Jude. It was very blustery and hammering down with rain so we sat in the car, worked out where would be best for light, got everything ready and then ran on to the beach. We had about 2 minutes before looking a bit windswept became looking drenched and we had to make a swift retreat to the safety of the car. Luckily we got a couple of good ones in that time.

Neil’s tiny muse was happy to eat cake while he snapped away. Love the framing and the colours in Neil’s portrait.

Next week is B and W landscapes.

#dogwood52 #dogwood52week4 #portraits #thedw4 #canon

Dogwood Week 3

Red.

For the entirety of this week’s challenge I have had this Fry and Laurie sketch in my head – the Red Hat of Pat Ferrick. It’s the dark tale of a mysterious hat that haunts a young publisher. This has very little to do with why I took a picture of my trainers, nor does it add any context to Neil’s ‘Girl with balloon’. But I wanted to share.

I very much enjoyed the red week, there os happily plenty of red in the world. But I love the challenge of shooting low light on the tube and I was wearing red trainers so…

#dogwood52 #dogwood52week3 #thedw4

http://vk.com/videos2997131?z=video2997131_164273115%2Fpl_2997131

Dogwood Week 2

Landscapes.

Now this should have been easy. We work in TV and Film production so taking a shot of a pretty hill or a beautiful valley should be easy, shouldn’t it? But the light is so important for this and it can take quite a while to get something you are proud of. So after sweatily climbing a few hills and waiting for the light we came up with these two.

Next week. Red.

#dogwood52, #dogwood52week2 #tdw4

Dogwood Week 1

The Dogwood challenge is a 52 week photography challenge that Badgerboy DOP Neil and I are taking on. Week 1 has been selfies, which has not been the best category to start with as I spend almost all my time behind the camera. But here are our efforts and instagram links. Neil has gone puddle and I have a little mirror reflection. #dogwood52 #dogwood51week1

Week 2 is landscape. Perfect.

 

https://www.instagram.com/petercoventry/

https://www.instagram.com/neilcparkes/

A big year ahead…. starting in Beeston

Happy new year y’all. 2014 was a great year for us at Badgerboy. A short film, a few festivals, lots of tv work, a number one single and a few adventures to boot. So we are looking for more of the same this year, starting with Beachcomber playing at the Beeston Film Festival at the end of January. It will be our fifth festival for Beachcomber and we are already so proud of that figure.

This year we have high hopes for a script that we are developing and a few TV projects in the pipeline, starting with burying Richard the third!

Beeston-Film-Festival---Laurel-Leaves-Black