Regular readers will have seen a post recently about fellow photographer Colin Read, who is riding a Harley across the US to raise funds for research into Moebius Syndrome.

Well, Colin and his buddy Iain are off, along with their assortment of kilts. You can keep up with their progress at their blog here: Kilts Across America.

Good luck lads. May the road always rise to meet you - and may your kilts not.

You know that thing they say about kids and animals?

…

Yeah, that’s the one.

It’s true. Mostly. I mean, I’ve had my fair share of two-year-olds tear up a studio - literally in one instance where backing paper was involved. It wasn’t pretty. It got worse when he got hold of a €8,000 camera and poked his fingers inside to see if anything in the mirror chamber would be his friend.

So I was a little anxious when we set out last Friday to shoot some pack shots at Ardsallagh goat’s farm, where Jane Murphy keeps her herd that produces outstanding cheese and milk. The brief was to shoot a picture of her daughter Siobhan holding a baby goat. The plan was to echo the farm’s current label, which is a drawing of Siobhan when she was a little girl holding a kid. Siobhan is grown up now, so she was never going to be the issue. My concern was working with a bunch of kid goats.

Turns out the kids weren’t the problem. Give them a belly full of milk before the shoot and you own them.

The shots of Siobhan and a series of kids went really smoothly. It was afterwards that the trouble started.

Behaving like a professional
(c) Roger Overall 2008 - All Rights Reserved

The agency designing the new labels wanted a back-up photograph of some of Jane’s goats and we decided to get a group into a field so that the background would give the open air feel we wanted. The goats, though, were perfectly happy to stay in their barn. I’ve seen kitten litters more co-operative.

It took several attempts to get a half-dozen of them out of the barn and another two attempts to herd them up to the field. Even when we got them there, most of the goats decided that their rear-ends would make for a great picture. You can’t reason with a goat that its bum is not going to sell cheese. It doesn’t care.

Eventually, though, we got some suitable shots. Actually, the agency was thrilled with the pictures. I can’t wait to see the finished label in the supermarkets.

Kidding Around
(At least they’re facing the right way)
(c) Roger Overall 2008 - All Rights Reserved

I don’t make a big fuss of it here, but I also shoot weddings.

Unfortunately, people look down on wedding photography. It’s a hangover from decades of very mediocre wedding albums shot by disinterested photographers. The story today is a bit different. Sure, you can get mediocre, but there is some amazing stuff being done by wedding photographers and at the top of the game they are charging fees in the tens of thousands of euros.

Occasionally, there is a crossover between my wedding work and my corporate assignments. Sometimes a corporate client will come to me for a wedding shoot, sometimes the reverse.

To read the story behind this shot of a former bridal client, click here: Elephant Bride.

Mary Powys - Tour Manager, The Survival Tour 2008
(c) Roger Overall

I’ve just posted a series of images from a shoot in a bakery earlier this week over at Gastro Narrative, my food photography blog. Have a look.

(c) Roger Overall 2008

A Dublin design agency got in touch with me the other day asking to see my book - biz speak for portfolio - to put me in the mix to be considered for an upcoming food shoot. (Oddly the job has almost exactly the same brief as a shoot I have lined up for next week. Must be something in the air). So, I sent over my food book by email as a PDF and then had the thought that the book would make for a good post. So, here it is, page by page:

I also sent a book of executive portraits and I’ll post that as well soon.

So here’s the thing: you’re a photographer and you want to take a boy’s photograph, except you can’t get him to smile. Nobody can. He’s never smiled. And, for now at least, it looks as if he never will.

He suffers from Moebius Syndrome - the absence of the facial nerves allow us to blink and move the eyes laterally and give us the ability to smile.

That’s the predicament of Scottish commercial photographer Colin Read and his son George.

Moebius Syndrome is a very rare condition and at present pretty much nothing is known about its cause, let alone how it can be prevented. Colin, though, has picked up the baton and together with his wife and two other trustees has established the Moebius Research Trust. The trust plans to raise £200,000 to fund groundbreaking research into the cause of the condition.

How?

Colin and chum Iain White are going to ride two Harley Davidson motorcycles across the US next month.

Sounds like a breeze, you say?

Well, you’re pretty close to the truth. They’ll be wearing kilts. And they are going to do the entire 2,913 miles in 10 days.

300 miles a day on a motor bike in kilts.

“Breeze” is not the word.

You do know what a Scotsman wears under his kilt, don’t you?

Can you imagine all that flapping about on the Interstate?

Actually, Colin and Iain are having some kilts tailored for the ocassion. Colin emailed me the other day to say, “We are having them specially designed by Howie Nicholsby. He is responsible for designing kilts for Vin Deisel, Robbie Williams etc. We are having four each from lightweight to heavyweight. There will be pockets, fluorescent strips down the side and, most importantly, Velcro to stop them blowing up in the Arizona wind!!!”

You can hear the relief Stateside, can’t you?

You can find out more about Colin and Iain’s odyssey over at Kilts Across America, along with information about the Moebius Research Trust, its objectives and its fundraising effort.

Today we were up in Limerick shooting school lunches for Carambola Kidz, a company that delivers healthy and nutritious lunches to primary school children and teachers throughout Ireland. They’ve also coupled this with an education programme to get kids eating right early on in life. Good stuff.

Today is also my mum’s birthday as well as that of my niece in Australia - Hi Chloe.

(c) Roger Overall 2008

Last week we were on a two-day shoot at the Cork School of Music with two executives from Wenger Corporation, a US company that provided much of the performance equipment (such as chairs, music stands, podiums, and risers) for the school. We’re not talking your average chairs here. These are moulded along Alexander technique guidelines to ensure perfect posture for performers, and they are made to the highest standard.

[Ironically, the shoot was so intense I don't actually remember sitting on one of the chairs at any point]

The shoot was scheduled for a Thursday and a Friday, and the school had hoped to help out with some students willing to act as (paid) models. In the States, Wenger has no trouble finding volunteers and such is their reputation that schools and students generally clamour to be included in the company’s catalogue shoots. Over here, Wenger is relatively unknown and we only had one model to begin with.

Fortunately, I’d been able to source five more from outside the school, while the music student we did have helped us get some of her friends in the school to model too - one of whom was able to work the lights in the main auditorium, which was invaluable when I needed lights in various parts of the hall balanced. In the end, we had just under a dozen student models, which we were able to make work for us.

We also got a lucky break when the choir we thought we’d booked for a photograph of one of the risers didn’t turn up. It left us with a picture and lighting all set up, but no-one to fill it. Fortune smiled on us, though, when a friend of mine walked into the school with a 30-strong Swedish choir in tow. They were in town participating in a contest and had come to the school to warm up before performing in front of the Lord Mayor of Cork. We got a handful of them on to the riser and I snapped away while they and the rest of the choir, who were behind me, belted out a fantastic performance. It was stunning. One of the Wenger execs was even able to attend the performance at City Hall a few minutes later.

For me, this was a great shoot to work on. Wenger puts a lot of emphasis on its photography, which means they value both photographers and their work. Nice. Also, the Wenger people and the rep from their UK distributor were really easy to get on with. Our models were also a good bunch - patient and accommodating. We even had one poor girl on a tiny podium three feet off the ground with her €6,000 antique cello in one of the school’s offices just so we could shoot with a window behind her. Did she complain? Not a squeak.

(c) Roger Overall 2008

(c) Roger Overall 2008


(c) Roger Overall 2008

(c) Roger Overall 2008

(c) Roger Overall 2008

(c) Roger Overall 2008

I don’t get fired off jobs very often. In fact, it just doesn’t happen. Except for that one time last week.

I’d been commissioned to photograph an exclusive development in West Cork - a gated enclave of five houses that had been built right on the seafront. Lovely views in all directions, private yacht moorings - you get the idea. The paperwork was all done and signed by the property developer and we were good to go for the shoot.

Then came the phone call from the design agency that had brokered the assignment. Apparently, the auctioneer who was selling the properties decided that professional photography wouldn’t be required for the marketing material. He had a perfectly good camera himself and would take the pictures. In the world of property sales, the auctioneer outranks the design agency, so that was the end of me.

Temporarily.

Two days later, the design agency rang me again. Was I still available? Would I still do the job?

The auctioneer had come up against one of the trickier aspects of interior photography. While it is relatively easy to get some form of exposure for inside a room, it is much harder to get a balanced inside exposure that matches the light outside, which is what you want if your marketing material needs to show just how good the views are from the expensive holiday homes you are selling. If you don’t balance the inside and outside light, you either end up with totally blown out windows that don’t show anything outside, or great views as seen from the virtually black inside of the house. The trick is to bring off-camera flashes with you that you can use to boost the inside exposure.

Interior/Exterior 1
(c) Roger Overall 2008

Interior/Exterior 2
(c) Roger Overall 2008

Interior/Exterior 3
(c) Roger Overall 2008

I’ve been laid low by a huge workload and a bad head cold over the last fortnight, which is why it’s been quiet here on the blog. The workload is still there (for every assignment that is completed, another starts - and I’m not complaining), but the head cold is gradually fading and I’m starting to feel more human. I’ve also been working on an article commission for a professional photography magazine, which has eaten up my writing time this past week.

One of the assignments from the last couple of weeks was in London with one of my regular clients. It’s always a good shoot and it never fails to impress me how relaxed and happy the offices are of this international insurance company. Part of my brief each year is to capture candid shots for inclusion in the company’s annual report, and it is never hard to capture people enjoying their work. This is a firm that has a massively high staff retention rate. It is not hard to find people who have been with the firm for several decades or more.

My kind of client.

(c) Roger Overall 2008

(c) Roger Overall 2008