Part of the bikini shoot (that I've yet to blog) took place on a beach in the morning and later in the afternoon we got to 'borrow' a friend's sailing boat for a couple of hours to finish up the photo shoot. Paul & I never seem to remember to take 'behind the scenes' footage so we were lucky enough to have another friend on board who documented some of the shoot!

Deciding where to shoot:

I can't swim - in fact, I'm petrified of the water so they gave me a life jacket!

Paul had plans to throw me overboard but decided against it as I was holding the D3:

I ended up taking the life jacket off because I couldn't shoot with it on!

Finally, getting down to business

Model overboard.... almost!!

This was the first time we used the Profoto beauty dish - a softbox was out of the question due to lack of space and we'd left the ring flash at home. I'm actually very pleased with the light results from the beauty dish.

Thanks for lighting the sail instead of the model Paul :P

Back to dry land please!

We've been busy retouching the photos from the bikini shoot but it's taking forever! No spangly plug-ins or cross processing actions for this shoot just a bunch of slow motion Photoshop!! Lots of clone, healing brush, paintbrush tools, masks, high pass filter & curves, multiple layers & adjustment layers and a ton of time! Here's just one more to give you an idea of what's coming up soon(ish)....

 

A couple of weeks ago we photographed Marina & Michalis' wedding at one of my favorite resorts on the island, Aphrodite Hills. Its beautiful location, immaculately kept grounds and exclusivity make it the perfect spot in Cyprus for a wedding. We were also very fortunate to work with Mario from Minimal Flower again. I love his stunning creations and details and cannot recommend him highly enough. 

And here's a small selection of Marina & Michalis photos... 

 

Yesterday Paul & I shot a bikini shoot on the beach in the morning and then on a sailing boat in the late afternoon... talk about a long, hot day! We shot with the usual Nikon D3s and we gave our new Canon 5D Mark II a try as well!  Too many photos to go through and way too much work this week to post anymore than one image but here's a little teaser....!

 

 

 

A couple of weeks ago I went back to the UK to attend the Annabel William's Award's Ceremony at the Getty Gallery in London. I already knew that I'd won the teens/adults category and was a runner up in the wedding album category but they had yet to announce the Photographer of the Year. I was stunned & thrilled when my name was read out a third time for the Photographer of the Year award!! 

Not only did I receive a lovely 20x16 acrylic of the category winning image courtesy of Colorworld, vouchers for Annabel William's training courses but also a Canon 5D Mark II! Although a lifelong Nikon user, I've already had a quick play with the HD video on the Canon and it's fantastic! We'll be taking it out to our next photo shoot to see how it compares with the D3. 

A few weeks ago we got permission to shoot in a small, quiet aerodrome... on this island, it's not what you know, it's who you know!! ;)

Michelle was my muse for an hour or so and although she hasn't done much modeling she'll definitely be getting a call back from me! She was great to work with, very easy going and willing to cooperate ... and takes a fantastic photo!!

A couple of days after the civl ceremony, featured in the previous post, Aris & Evgenia tied the knot (again!) in a beautiful church in a small village, Pyrgos. The afternoon sun shone a golden light on the Greek Orthodox church which was almost divine as they came out of the church as a married couple. Beautiful light but it kind of made it hard to keep your eyes open for photos though! The reception and party which followed took place at one of the best Limassol wedding venues, the Four Seasons hotel. Many congratulations to Ari & Evi - can't wait to put your wedding album together!

 

And finally, this has to be the most unusual wedding gift I've ever seen!! Hopefully it didn't end up on the barbeque!! ;)

Last week hailed our first wedding of 2009 and we were broken in gently with a beautiful civil ceremony with a fantastic couple, Aris & Evgenia. And for a change we got to photograph the couple after the ceremony whilst it was still daylight!

 

 

More to come from Aris & Evgenia soon when we feature their church ceremony & reception which took place a couple of days after the civil ceremony.

Many thanks once again to our patient & stunning model, Katrina. If you require a model, we can't recommend her highly enough - to view more of her portfolio, visit her homepage: http://www.model-kartei.de/sedcard/modell/38447/

Not quite sure how the concept came up but I vaguely remember being on the treadmill and coming up with the idea of shooting something with balloons! Everything else just fell into place from there (other than the choice of day & windy weather!)

Here are a few of my shots from the shoot:

 

And here are a few of Paul's images:

 

 

Here is my winning image from the Teens/Adults category in the Annabel Williiams' Photography Awards. I was more than surprised to have won the category and even more gobsmacked to find I was a runner-up in the Wedding Album category too. To view the album visit http://www.annabelwilliams.com/awards/

 

A week or so ago another photographer, Kevork, invited us to shoot with him. This photographer's father is, in my eyes, the Ansel Adams of Cyprus!! He'd travel around Cyprus on his donkey (!) with his large format camera documenting the island. There are so few images of how the island used to look and it's sad that we're only now realizing how important such records of a far-away past can be.

 

Anyway, I digress... here are a few photos from the shoot...and a cool new location - a deserted church near one of the many dry damns on the island.

My favorite from the shoot and possibly from this year so far (Paul shot this one!)

And a couple I took while the Paul & Kevork were shooting -