Portraits for Phillip Thomas

Sometimes, posts are short and to the point. This is one of them. 

 A few weeks ago I was contacted by Jamaican artist Phillip Thomas to shoot some portraits. I’ve never known him personally, but one thing was always evident; the man has style! With him being a well-known painter and mixed media artist I was thrilled to work with him, but just like this post, our time was incredibly short. He had two fairly simple looks with wonderfully made jackets. Using a 47” softbox as my key light and a bare flash as the rim, I was able to get a very interesting look and feel from the images, using the light to sculpt not just his features, but the clothes as well. At the end of a 15-minute shoot, we had 4 great photos!


A Boudoir-Inspired Shoot with Anna

A few years ago, I had the pleasure of working with my friend and colleague, Anna-Lisa Guthrie on a small, intimate shoot. A professional photographer and model, Anna had the chops to pose and give the looks I had envisioned with maximum efficiency, and she definitely delivered. The images were tucked away in storage a while back, but I recently came across them while sorting my files, and I thought there was no better time than the present to give them a 2017 edit! 

I had posted a few of them on social media at the time, but never had the opportunity to show the all. In a shoot that had me continuing with my recent trend of working in small, intimate spaces I used not only Anna, but also her environment as a character in this series of images, which I felt complemented her look and style. Using a mix of a single speedlight, a shoot-through umbrella, a reflector and natural light, I was able to control the ambience to nice, clean looks, but made sure the space still felt lived in/occupied. The end result was something that can be described as boudoir inspired. You can find the full gallery of images here.


Headshots for Harrison & Harrison

Fairly I got the chance to dive into a genre of photography I’ve been diving into a bit deeper as of late; can you guess what it is? (It’s in the title. If you can’t guess, I can’t help you!). I was contacted by Lisa Harrison, of the law firm Harrison & Harrison to shoot some headshots of their staff for their website, which was designed by Chrysalis Communications. Headshots being something I enjoy shooting quite a bit, I responded as quickly as I could. We set a time and date, and decided on shooting in their offices with a white background. I enlisted the help of my colleague Kid Bazzle to assist with the photos, and we made our way to their location. 

Upon arrival we were a bit wowed by the look of their office suite; clean, modern, nicely lit and filled with art. After a quick second of gawking, we got to work and commandeered a corner of the office. Even though I traveled with a bunch of equipment, I ended up keeping it simple, using a 47” octabox as the background, and another 47” octabox on a boom arm as the main light.

A rough idea of what the setup was like.

After a few test shots to get the lighting right, we were ready to get shootn’! We spoke with Lisa about the tone and vibe to be evoked by the images, and learned that Harrison & Harrison is a pretty happy law firm! We had no problems getting everyone to smile after we introduced ourselves and had a small chat with each person. All in all, the images came out great. I decided to shoot them somewhat wide, so that they could be cropped to various sizes for different use-cases. Shortly after wrapping up the headshots, Lisa asked if I’d be willing to shoot a few environmental photos of their office space and I jumped at the chance! Like I said above, the office space is pretty gorgeous. I decided to do multiple exposures for each space, with Bazzle moving around with a speedlight to light different areas. You can see the results of everything below!



Wedding Decor & Details for Tai Flora

You know what they say, the devil’s in the details! A few weeks ago I was contacted by my friend and colleague Jik-Reuben Pringle to shoot an assignment in his stead. Tai Flora Services, Jamaica’s largest floral provider had contracted him to cover a number of weddings for which they had done the decor. 

Jik, being the savvy person he is, got it arranged so that we both shot two weddings simultaneously, in different parts of the country at that! While he was doing some great work in Negril, I was shooting up a storm at Sandals Resort in St. Ann (you can find his post about his experience here). Now when I say shooting up a storm, it’s not just a euphemism; rain clouds hung low throughout the entire afternoon, and the skies threatened to open up… which they did. Luckily, I was able to get some amazing detail shots of the decor before the rains came down. Needless to say, the decor was gorgeous and exactly in line with what I expected from Tai Flora. Their work is well known, and did not disappoint. I love the photos I got from the intricate details at both the ceremony and the reception, and I’m happy to share them with you!


Portraits With Alana: Part Deux

Guess who’s back! Recently I’ve been bolstering my home studio with a few bits and bobs (a modifier here, a boom pole there) and decided it was time to put a few of these to work. I decided to reach out to my good friend Alana, who you might recognise from this 2015 post, in order to have some fun! Like I said in my previous post with her, she’s always incredibly cool and comfortable, and is always willing to do something new. 

Working with a mix of two speedlights and two softboxes, we tried out a few different lighting techniques until we got a full day of shooting done. Coming out of this shoot, I can truly say I learned quite a bit. Not just about managing and shaping light, but also working my personal studio space to the best of its ability. While I always believe my work has room for improvement it can only get better with more practice. In the end, we got images that we both love, and I look forward to working with her again!


6 Looks, 2 Models: A Beauty Shoot

It started the way many collaborations do; on Instagram! Tamara Melville of T-Amoi Makeup Artistry recently contacted me via Instagram with the idea to do a beauty shoot with some clean, popping looks. She loved the photo set from my shoot with Toni and was interested in collaborating with me. Now, it’s always great when someone loves your work, but it feels even better when it’s someone whose work you also love! I’ve been a fan of her blush looks, and it was a great chance for us to work on a dope project together.

Tamara came up with the concept of doing some clean, dewy looks with smoky, dramatic eyes and bold lips. As she showed me the images from her mood board, I could see the shoot coming together in my mind. Once we got that down, what came next was casting. She suggested Danielle-Kay Northover (repped by Pulse Models) for the looks involving smokey eyes, and the more colourful looks were done with Cleopatra Whyte, also repped by Pulse Models.

With casting done, all that was left to do was prep and shoot. Knowing it was going to be a long day, I reached out to my friend and colleague Jik-Reuben Pringle to assist me with the day’s work. We looked through the mood board to get not just the vibe of the shoot, but to work on how we were going to light it. Being creative and whimsical is great, but it has to intersect with technicality! We used 4 speedlights, 3 softboxes (one on a boom arm) and a 7” zoom reflector for most of the shots throughout the day, with a solid mix of butterfly and loop lighting techniques, and a few in-betweens.

A rough idea of what the setup was like.

Everyone got together at my home studio, and we settled in for a long day of fun shots! The day went incredibly smoothly, with Tamara creating gorgeous looks, DKay and Cleopatra giving us amazing poses and expressions. Shooting went even smoother because I chose to shoot tethered, with the images popping up in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom on a display. This kind of workflow made it easy for the models, the makeup artist and I to see exactly what was happening when the lights went off, and to see if any changes needed to be made (more technical stuff to the rescue).

In the end, we all had a great time and loved the final looks. I’m happy to share the final images with you. Enjoy!


Port Maria to Strawberry Fields

This blog post will have images that are quite different from what you’re used to seeing on my site. As I mentioned in my blog post 2016: A Retrospective, I work in the Photography Department at the Edna Manley School of Visual and Performing Arts. During March we had a departmental field trip, during which myself, Photojournalism lecturer Andrew Smith (AKA the man who taught me photography) and the main lecturer for the department Lewis Gibson-Grainger, escorted students from 1st year to 3rd year on a trip along the coast of St. Mary.

Pagee Beach, Port Maria

With our day starting at 5:00 am, we left the college’s campus in Kingston and travelled to Port Maria, our first stop for the day. While the students worked on various things, from photojournalism to environmental portraiture, I decided to work on my landscapes. It’s not a genre I dabble in very often, but given the right circumstances can be incredibly enjoyable. It took me out of my comfort zone, but I was able to capture some wonderful images during our time (mostly at Pagee Beach) and I’m very happy with what I ended the day with. 


Lynne & Nathan-John: Hope Gardens Wedding

In January I had the pleasure of shooting the wedding of Lynne and Nathan-John Webb. It was held on a sunny morning on one of the beautiful lawns at Hope Botanical Gardens in St. Andrew. 

While I hadn’t known them for very long (Nathan-John for about a year and a half, Lynne for a few months) their openness and friendliness made working with them a great experience, and from the moment I learned how they met, I knew the wedding would be a great one. Lynne (who’s from the United Kingdom) and Nathan-John (who’s from Jamaica) had their paths cross while in… Canada! While I definitely won’t get into the details here, it all began from that first meeting.

From the emotion felt during the ceremony, to the stories and dancing at the reception (they’re a fun-loving bunch!) the entire day was an absolute blast. It’s definitely a wedding that you’d want to experience again; luckily the day can be re-lived through the photos below!


Test Shoot with Toni

Last year I contacted a friend of mine from Uni, Toni McLennon, to see whether or not she would be willing to do a test shoot with me. I felt she had a unique look, and I could see myself working with her on a shoot. We took some time to plan a few outfits and the look and vibe we were aiming for, and then set a date. The original date came and went while I kept planning more and more things for the shoot, until I realised one simple thing; I was over-thinking it. I got into my own head and turned it inside out, when the best thing to do was to keep it simple; and that’s exactly what I did. I contacted makeup artist Dominique Mitchell (also known as LadybugMUA) who does excellent work, as well as photographers and colleagues Jik-Reuben Pringle to assist as my lighting technician, and Kid Bazzle to work as my digital technician for the day. 

We had a wonderful day of shooting, and everything went more or less as planned. It was also my first proper attempt at shooting tethered, which was quite the experience. My only gripe is that Lightroom isn’t quite as quick as I would like with importing the images. All in all, we got some great photos, and I’m glad we could all come together to get it done! 


The Piano Tuner

While scouting the School of Music on the campus of the Edna Manley College of The Visual and Performing Arts, I came across a stranger. He was seated in front of the grand piano, on the stage in the Vera Moody Concert Hall. Beside him on a stool were tools, screws, bolts, nuts and other bits and ends. The piano lid raised, his hands moved across the hammers, tweaking, tuning, deftly working within the 9-foot Steinway grand piano with 12,000 moving parts. 

Something about it caught my eye, and I asked him if I could take some photos of him while he worked; he obliged. I sized him up, and carefully took a few shots. He was happy to see them afterward, and he introduced himself to me; Johnny O’Brien, a piano tuner. I noted that he had an accent, but I didn’t have the time to have a conversation with him. I said goodbye and made my way to the exit.

It wasn’t until much later that I realised he was far more than; he was a renowned piano tuner, restorer and a skilled jazz pianist from New Orleans. He first came to Jamaica in 1981 with his grandfather (who was Jamaican born) and fell in love with the island; after living here for over a decade, he has travelled here frequently for work. Hopefully we’ll cross paths again, because I would absolutely love to shoot some portraits of this very interesting man.

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