Sweat in style ! The fast moving photoshoot with actor Michael O'Driscoll

When Michael, whom I know for being a great improviser and really not camera-shy but a tad crazy, asked me "do you have the fast frame thingy on your camera ?" I didn't know, by answering Yes, I had signed up for a free work out !

A Grey background, a striplight & a big poly at the back and a magnum dish and a large softbox at the front, and I was ready to follow Michael in his performance.

Irish craft

Every year  we get hundreds of products of all sorts of shapes and styles for the Craft Council of Ireland / Showcase catalogue...I just love the beautiful colours and textures that we get from these pieces of art.
Here are just a few examples ... Pottery by Colm De Ris and glass work by Tipperary Crystal.

Poncho & sparkles...Part 2 of the Style Skin Shoot

Justyna shown me her unique and eclectic style with a warmer and equally more playful outfit that just featured in her blog.
I loved playing with the shapes and the different textures that she was wearing...We ll meet again for another interesting collaboration !

Part 1 of StyleSkin shoot

About 2 years ago I had done a series of portraits of this young lady called Justyna and we had a lot of fun, she is a creative woman and had lots of ideas on the day. We shot it on Leeson Street and at the side of Stephens Green.

Both now more mature of 2 years, and still as equally playful, we just did a shoot in studio. Part 1 revealed here. Her blog is only 6 months old, quite impressed at what she achieved in this length of time on her own !

New behind-the-scene videos

I've been blessed, I've had a lot of fun in the last few months, a lot of varied shoots in which that I've assisted versatile Trevor Hart who can handle it all, Dublin Bus madness, Supervalu Andalucian heat, Guinness night shoot, Bank of Ireland lifestyle shoot, and a Euro special Meteor roaming campaign ! Here are a few recent ones where I had a chance to shoot quick behind the scenes videos on the go and on the run ! The details and stories behind each of them can be found on Trevor's blog...enjoy !

These were mostly shot with Fujifilm X10 (occasionally Canon G11)...and editing in FCP7. Music : Danosongs, Garageband, Jarabe de Palo...
Coming soon, a series of videos I did for a potterer, very different ball game from shooting people, quite exciting and challenging !




www.sylviephotography.com

Recent family pictures !

Everyone's different, every family has their own way to operate, to show their love. I love entering their world for an hour or so and try to get the essence of their love, their personality. 

I played around with the grading on 2 of my recent shoots. For one I had a super large softbox and a couple of lights on the side. For the other one, an XL umbrella (absolutely beautiful), and a magnum dish on the front, as well as a honey comb at the back towards them. 

Feel free to click on them to see the collages bigger.

Behind the scenes videos - Brennans bread and Fleadh Ceoil

I recently put together 2 behind the scenes videos for Trevor Hart : two very different and fun shoots for Brennan's bread and the Fleadh Ceoil. Lately I've used Fujifilm X10, it's a 35mm looking camera, very compact and handy. I need to have something quick and easy to use because there's too much going on during the shoot to have the luxury to use the 5d MkII. The X10 delivers full HD videos of very decent quality that doesn't degrade that much in low light, however its focusing is weak in tricky times, say against the light (even slightly against it), low light and for close ups. Depending on what I wanted to get, it was actually more than just annoying. But overall it's a very fast and well designed camera.


Have a look at Trevor's blog for the final pictures and the full story.
To see the videos in a bigger format, just click on them, it will bring you to my YouTube channel.

Penneys pale pink sneakers

It's great to photograph a quality leather product like the Brooks saddle I shot a few weeks ago, but there's the bargainer pride in finding a dirty cheap item that also looks good, as long as you can embrace its ephemeral beauty !

Image Magazine shoot - behind the scene video

It was tough to wait until the March edition was out before I could share this ! I put together a video of Trevor's precise and patient still life creations and all the sparkles and pretty shapes that we got to shoot for Image Magazine.

Click here for Trevor's blog about the shoot.

Brooks England saddle

I've been fascinated by Brooks saddles for a while now, I love their look, versatility and I appreciate the fact that this is a rare example of a current product using a century old design, and yet they are very popular. So many technologies are almost obsolete the minute they hit the market because the mark 3000 is coming in 2 months. I was offered the B67 which was originally designed in 1927, very small revisions were made since, how amazing is that ? 
Anyway, before my bottom puts its imprint on it, I wanted to honour my Elinchrom lights with this piece of art !

Rigo and Pascal

Is it just me, or guys are less self conscious in front of the camera ? 

Two very different men, two fun shoots with very different styles !

You can click on the collages to see them a lil' bit bigger.

New homepage promo video with After Effects

Start of the year is usually the time where I sit down and have a look at improving or updating my website. That gave me a great excuse to redo my intro video compiling all I have to offer, as my first project on After Effects which I recently learnt to use. I normally use Final Cut Pro but I loved the way AE allowed me to tweak my comp at anytime, change any properties of each layer in a much much faster way than in FCP. It's also a huge resource of presets, effects and all. 

Check out Video Copilot, it's a fantastic place to get started on AE. Andrew, who presents the tutorials, is so passionate and creative, it's quite contagious, I might start special effects stuff myself soon !

Here's my comp anyway, you're most welcome to give me your suggestions. I think there's a big improvement compared to the one I had, I went quite easy on the effects and tried to give it an upbeat tempo.