Photowalk......

Just a reminder about the photography training course we are planning to offer in the summer covering the basics of getting more out of your camera and turning your vision into photographs. We already have one confirmed attendee, so we're looking for 4 others to join us...we will be looking at:

Basic camera controls (what do the buttons actually mean and do?!)

Setting up your camera (getting consistent results from your gear)

Photographic vision (why this is more important than how good your camera is)

Composition (seeing a photograph before pressing the button) Exposure (including shutter speed, aperture and ISO)

Post-production and workflow (the digital darkroom)

We're thinking it will be around £25 per person for a maximum of 5/6 people, including a booklet outlining some of the areas we'll cover on the day and a lunch where we can continue to discuss all things photography.

Get in touch via comments here on the blog, facebook or twitter, or email ianmac7@me.com.....

Sharon and Armen pre wedding shoot

Last weekend, we met up with Sharon and Armen to do their pre wedding shoot. Thy are also getting married at 60 Hope Street, and they really got into things on the shoot. they we very relaxed and we had a lot of fun with them on the shoot. We wandered around the lovely Reynold's Park and made use of the many different  opportunities the park provides. here's a video and a few stills from the shoot.....

Tasha and Kevin's pre wedding shoot.....

Last weekend, we spent a great hour with Tasha and Kevin and their fantastic daughters Maggie and Izzy. They are getting married at 60 Hope Street in a few weeks and we're looking forward to the day! We got some great images and the girls were fabulous, real models in the making....

Here's a video and some stills from the shoot....

Latest commercial work...

Last week, photographer Ian MacMichael was on a commercial assignment in Manchester for global energy company ENER-G. The brief was to photograph the biggest appliances they manufacture before they were shipped out to Romania. The "engines" featured in the shoot produce aroung 2MW of electricity and are over 40' long! They are so heavy they can only be shipped via special low loader and driven to their destination!

The images will be used for internal marketing materials and also some other publicity. The shoot lasted just over an hour and a half in the companies manufacturing facility. This made a change from the last shoot for ENER-G where we were photographing the smallest products they make!

The lighting conditions were very challenging and we used a combination of ambient light and 3 Speedlights triggered by the Pocketwizard flex system and controlled by the AC3 zone controller.
This made things really east as changes to the light output can be made from the camera and time isn't wasted walking around from light to light adjusting the power of each one individually. The system performed flawlessly and we are really delighted with the results. A few of the images are shown here.....

image of the week 2012, number 19 (belated)

This is a little late due to the rare occurrence of my iMac needing a repair! I was without for over a week and was starting to go cold turkey!!

Anyway, here's the image...during all that rain, we got our own private lake, or so our little boy thought, so we had to go over every evening for a little paddle!!

Lumix GF1, 1/250, f5, ISO 100

Your photography needs you!

In response to a couple of requests we have received recently, we are proposing to hold a photography training session, probably a Saturday morning (3hours ish) sometime in the summer. It will be aimed at anyone who wants to improve their skills with their camera and maybe help you become more confident handling your camera and being more successful in getting from your camera what you would like to. We have all looked at photographs and thought "I'd love to be able to do that", well, here's your chance to at least make a start in getting closer to that! We will meet up, then walk from the meeting place to our lunch destination, shooting, discussing and practicing along the way. Basically, it will be a nice walk, a nice lunch and some photography and training thrown in along the way, what could be better! The topics we cover are very open to your suggestions, but here are couple we have been asked about and we think it would be useful as a starting point: Basic camera controls (what do the buttons actually mean and do?!) Setting up your camera (getting consistent results from your gear) Photographic vision (why this is more important than how good your camera is) Composition (seeing a photograph before pressing the button) Exposure (including shutter speed, aperture and ISO) Postproduction and workflow (the digital darkroom) We're thinking it will be around £25 per person for a maximum of 5/6 people, including a booklet outlining some of the areas we'll cover on the day and a lunch where we can continue to discuss all things photography. If this is useful and goes well, we will then look at running a follow up going on to maybe some more advanced techniques and looking at post production and editing in more detail... At this stage, we're only looking at getting expressions of interest to see if this is something you would like to be involved in. If you're interested, please email your details and any suggestions to info@ianmacmichael.co.uk or call/ text 07812422349, or send a message via our Facebook page, Ian MacMichael photography or tweet us @imacphotography. Over the coming weeks, we'll keep posting about this and share any suggestions made for topics to be covered and how we're getting on for numbers. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas.......

Latest commercial commission....

This week, we were pleased to find out that we have been commissioned to do another shoot for global Eco energy company Ener-g. After our last shoot for them, of their small intelligent control units, they have asked us to shoot their larger appliances. These are quite big, around the size of a shipping container and photographer Ian MacMichael will be travelling over to Manchester to do the shoot at their premises. As usual, we will be striving to produce creative images along with the standard ones. we will post some of the images here in due course....l