Garage Studios

Occasionally in house photographer DarkDaze suggests an idea that lends itself quite neatly to ideas about the creation, depiction and deconstruction of spaces.

The last mammoth shoot at the studio saw the crew and studio community grow to an indomitable force. DD having been commissioned to produce a new image and with a clear direction to push it in, referenced specific lighting from the world of the painted image and films. Compositionally the style was strongly influenced by a favourite of mine (M.Halls); architecture and the perception of space.

Working from sketches and film stills, and further sketches and rough layouts, we were able to start the construction of the largest set yet in Garage Studios. 

To see how we constructed 2 rooms, a dividing wall and all the other components that make this image bigger than most, watch the video below. As you can see after a few hours of running around with nail guns, skill saws and the odd hammer, we were joined on set by a keen and dedicated team including, Avangelist, Nicholas Blake, Ben Petrucci, Emma of Ophelia Fancy and Natasha of  lighting fame.  

Yep thats right, Brighton’s very own Photography Studio and Training center, Garage Studios makes it all the way to Iraq.

Courtesy of the media and the superb ‘Mikey aka DaSkinnyBlackMan in Iraq”.

Now for those of you who don’t know Mikey is a Marine in the US Marine Corps, and is currently out in Iraq. He is also an amazing photographer and top bloke.

We first became aware of his work though the 365 days self portrait project that ‘the brownhorse’ was doing at the same time as Mikey. Mikeys pictures always stood out of the crowd, as inventive, technically brilliant and always fun. But don’t take our word for it, see for your self:

Mikey aka DaSkinnyBlackMan in Iraq’s flickr stream

Oh and boy that man can jump!!!!!

Superstar photographer Martin Parr, came to Brighton last night and gave a talk on his work at the University of Brighton. Garage Studios went along to check it out.

Photoworks (they commission new photography, produce exhibitions, initiate research and education projects, publish books and a biannual magazine) who are based just around the corner from Garage Studios, organised the talk and it must have been one of the hottest tickets in town. It was fully subscribed months ago.

Martin Parr spoke for just over an hour about a retrospective of his work from degree show to present day. It was a fascinating insight into one of the world’s best-known photographers and what makes him take photos. As well as hearing an insight into the photos that everyone knows and some background to them.

He spoke about what inspires him; how he takes photos and the work that you don’t always see, like the European fashion commissions. He seems to be incredibly prolific doing a few editorial jobs a month as well as fashion shoots, personal projects, book projects. As well as collecting the most bizarre items, like Saddam watches, Thatcher plates, Obama kitsch, that he has just agreed to donate to the V&A museum. He has also traveled all over the world documenting the subjects that interest him. There were many people in the audience who must have been very jealous of him for doing the commercial jobs, as well as his outstanding personal work and getting paid to do this and see the world.

Here are a few snaps from last night and if you’d like to find out more about Martin Parr have a look at his website.

And keep an eye out for more talks from Photoworks

It’s the second run of lomokev’s fansatical HotShots course soon, and we’re just booking up the last few places now.

The first run of the course went really, really well. There was an amazing response from the students who all had fun and ‘refreshed’ their photography. The course covers basic photography principles, like composition, getting the most from your camera, photoshop etc. As well as practical shooting sessions with lomokev, on the streets and seafront of Brighton.

Pupils are encouraged to shoot with film / lomo cameras as well as their digital cameras. The idea being that the principles of HotShots can be applied to all photography. Lomokev also pushes the idea of having personal projects and simplifying your photography to get more creative.

Have a look below to see some examples of shots taken on the last course.

If you want to find out more or book your place please see the HotShots Course page on our website or send us an email to

Many thanks to Ben, James, Kevin, Johnathan and Dajo for letting us use their shots from the last course on this page

We’ve just done a quick headshot for our Web Guru Paul Burgess . As he needed a nice photograph of himself to put online. We also grabbed two Garage Studios regulars to stand in and model for us.

So here are the final shots as well as a set up shot, the whole thing only took 30 minutes to do from start to finish as we used the same technique for the corporate headshots we did for Leapfrogg, who incidentally launched their new site this week.

If you want to see some more info on the set up have a look here

We have lots more ideas for innovative head shots, so if you require a something special to make you stand out from the crowd, maybe you want a cool buddy icon for flickr, facebook, twitter, myspace, bebo etc. Or need something for your own website.

Why not just drop us an email; you’d be surprised how affordable it is.

Yes thats right, Brighton Biggest Photography Studio and Training Centre, as finnaly woken up to 2008 and has joined Twitter.

We’ll be hopefully keeping you up to date on all our photography courses, latest shoots, ramblings, thoughts, what we had for lunch, bad jokes etc.

So if you have a twitter account, why not follow us and add us as a friend……..god know we need them.

have a look at our twitter page:

http://twitter.com/GarageStudios

Right thats flickr and twitter…..now whats this email thingy that everyone is going on about?