Wednesday 20 May 2009

Personal work-Worth it



Last week was another busy week

I had the pleasure of photographing the talented and very lovely Kate Humble, presenter of the BBC TV 'Spring Watch' for the cover of the BBC 'Radio Times'





This was a commission of course, but how did it come about?

It was all down to 'The Forest' series which as some of you maybe aware is a personal project that I have been working on for the last couple of years.

I have shot this series for the love of it, nothing more.

As I have followed my heart though, people HAVE noticed

I had a near miss in Spain for a major advertising job, based on 'The Forest' and now of course the BBC.

It is easy to think when one is in the middle of an ambitious project to wonder 'is it all worth it?'

The answer is an empathic YES of course but those demons do surface from time to time

The BBC asked me to shoot Kate in a bluebell wood in Wales, and instead of much grinding of teeth I knew just how to do it, as I had done it before.

The Owl was flying to kate, the fox was there but the owl hated it so we had to shoot it in separate frames and comp the fox in afterwards, keeping the same lighting set up

One Elinchrom Ranger in a medium Chimera soft box for Kate, One Ranger(with a honeycomb) for Kate/fox/owl as a backlight, the smoke machine in the background lit with a Ranger and the sun of course.

A very similar set up to the waterbuffalo

It was shot on my Phase One P45+ 400th sec at F5 on a 50mm lens

This 'following your heart' thing does seem to pay off......

10 comments:

Glyn Dewis said...

Stunning as always Drew. Saw this image on the front of the Radio Times and knew it was one of yours straight away before seeing this article.

Keep up the fantastic work,
Best wishes,
Glyn

Unknown said...

The image is stunning.
Like a movie frame - mix of "Lord of the Rings" and "Ladyhawke"
Splendid!

Unknown said...

Thanks guys!

Always feels great when someone spots my 'signature'

Cheers

Drew

Anonymous said...

That's excellent work Drew. I guess the idea of "fill your portfolio with what you'd like to shoot" has been proved now.

As an aside, I ran into you at the end of Focus on Imaging and you sold me a copy of your lighting DVD at the Microsoft stand. Excellent DVD - I especially liked the badger shoot. I see we have similar experiences with models too - "You're where?" *must remain calm*

Justin Sutcliffe said...

Great picture, great that the work is finally permeating through to commissions. Inspiring stuff.

Justin

Unknown said...

Thank you Justin

It DOES come good if you stick with it

Chat soon

Drew

levi said...

great post Drew. been trying to advocate the importance of my own personal work, and illustrate the point in personal work to my network. hope you don't mind me linking to this post on my own blog.

great image, by the way. I'm a fan of the entire series. stay fresh, my friend!

Anonymous said...

Nice one Drew! I don't know whether you're involved, but Faith shoes have some very similar themed forest shots in their recent in-store posters. Yours or an acolyte?

Dany_Gtz said...

Hey Drew! Of course doing personal works is worth it! I totally agree with you and cannot agree with you more. Working with Diego I have noticed that the personal projects make our job worth it, we love the results and we find another way to make what we do love the most with as little as we can manage. I congratulate you (of course) for all of your work and will keep blogging you!

Unknown said...

Sadly Faith shoes pics were not mine......

Stay in touch Dany, I love the work you guys do

Cheers

Drew