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Brighton Festival Photography Competition - Win a trip to Iceland

Garage Studios have teamed up with Brighton’s very own ‘You Got Papped Magazine’ to bring you a unique photography competition. We are calling for your very best shot of this years Brighton Festival. With a grand Pize of a trip to Iceland!!! yes thats right, a TRIP TO ICELAND!!!

Shortlisted finalists will be exhibited at the YOU GOT PAPPED Anniversary Exhibition at Garage Studios on 8th & 9th of August at which time the winner of the competition will be announced.

The winning photograph and photographer will be profiled in YOU GOT PAPPED; as well as winning that fantastic trip of a lifetime prize.

So what are you waiting for? Just send your image to . Your photo should be of something that fits with the theme ‘Brighton Festival Fringe 2009’.

For more info and details about the Prize and competition CLICK HERE.

a fresh idea for company head shots

We like to try different things at Garage Studios, we like to try and stand out from other photography studios & photographers and we like having fun in the studio and experimenting.

We’ve been thinking about company head shots a lot; probably more so than we should think about them. Following on from the shots we did for Leapfrogg we wanted to experiment with some more interesting ideas for head shots. There is so much more that can be done than the usual dull shots that are out there.

There wasn’t a client for this, it was just shot to see if the idea worked. We had in mind a cool marketing / design agency. The kind of company that is brimming with creativity and needs to make themselves stand out from the crowd and not look old fashioned and dated.

So we started to think about how colour can convey this, and what we could do with the light to make interesting portraits, but still hold a feel of creativity and be suitable for a business.

We have lots more ideas for innovative head shots. If you require a something special to make you or your business 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, a new brochure or are just sick of the existing head shots your company has.

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

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FLASH: Improve your lighting techniques weekly course

We thought we’d show you some of the group shots that we have taken on past FLASH: Improve your Lighting Techniques courses. We always try and have a bit of fun on the photography courses that we run, and we have started to make sure that we get a group shot at the end of the flash course.

We have some spaces left on the weekly flash course starting on Wednesday 10th June 7.30 - 9.30. If you’re interested in learning about flash, using off camera / strobist techniques and just taking the mystery out of your flash, this is the perfect course for you.

To find out more info about the Flash course click here.

If you’d like to book a place email us at

march-flash-course

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many thanks to Kris Mitchell for this last image

Brighton Festival images

As you may know by now there have been a lot of photography exhibitions happening in Brighton as a result of the Festival and Fringe festival. One of our tutors, and ace photographer LomoKev has an exhibition of his great Brighton Swim Club documentary images up at the Eagle pub. A lot of snappers in Brighton have focussed on the legendary swimming club, but there is something a lot more ‘real’ and rewarding about kevs images- as not only is he a member of the group and has been for many years, but shoots both from sea and shore, and they provide an intimate look into this small group of friends and swimming fanatics.

The Daily Swim by Kevin Meredith

he has a lot of work in this show, and the prints look fantastic, its 100yards walk from our studio, so we urge you to go and check it out as soon as you can. LomoKev

A large amount of the Brighton Flickr crew have some prints in a group photography show at the Marlborough Theatre, its a really varied show with a wide range of subject matters from a swathe of talented photographers, some new names and some old favourites. Check it while you can.

Lesbians to Thespians

More Brighton Flickr people also have an open house at 88 Lincoln Street, Hanover, Brighton:
“Killing Time & Other Things… Returning for a second year, photographers Lauren Chauvin and Andy Deighton explore a brand new theme with a mixture of raw portraiture, colourful abstracts and rich landscapes.”

open-house

Theres probably a lot more great selection of work out there that we havent even begun to catch up with yet, but finally we’d like to draw your attention to some of the brilliant work thats actually being made as a result of the festival being in town, which this year is curated by Anish Kapoor, whose work plays a part in this brilliant image below, by Rob Orchard, and is a collaboration with Big Bambooly. We think this shot just shows the sheer breadth of talent in this city and we hope you love it as much as we do, if you click on Robs name above it will take you to a much bigger and better version. Its a stunning piece of work.
Kapoor's C-Curve by Rob Orchard with Big Bambooly

If you have any more top festival tips, big shows, open houses etc, or great photo opportunities then drop us a line and we will let everyone know.

Fashion Shoot at Garage Studios with SJ

The wonderful model SJ came down the studio this week for a shoot with DarkDaze armed with a few bags of clothes from the new collection by New York based label Mishka, you can see their Lookbook here.

SJ wanted something that would fit in with the simple Lookbook style that they already had- but have something fresh and new. We took one of the old flats from a previous set, and shredded the wallpaper down to give a nice texture and to have a little change up from a plain white breeze block wall. SJ sorted out her own her and make-up on this shoot, as it was more about her and the clothes, rather than some big ideas behind the shoot. She is an incredibly photogenic model, you know one of the models that the camera just loves and we had a blast shooting this.

SJ Whiteley modelling Mishka new collection by DarkDaze

SJ Whiteley modelling Mishka new collection by DarkDaze

Tash and I set two Bowens 500w to bounce off the ceiling boards to give a little lift to the room, getting a meter reading of about f5.6 of each light. This allowed an even fall off across the frame, and then we fired up a single monobloc pointed straight at the model, just slightly left of camera, with approx reading of f11. Its a clean but fairly high contrast light that gives a nice shadow with a hard edge down one side of the model, and then we added a snooted head with f5.6 of light aimed under the chin, just to give a lift to the shadows- this also allowed us to shoot SJ wearing some of the New Era caps without a big shadow falling across her face.

SJ Whiteley modelling Mishka new collection- wide setup shot at Garage studios

SJ Whiteley modelling Mishka new collection- wide setup shot at Garage studios

SJ Whiteley modelling Mishka new collection- wide setup shot at Garage studio

SJ Whiteley modelling Mishka new collection- wide setup shot at Garage studio

We shot the final sets at f11, a nice clean simple set-up that allow SJ to move around freely and without us having to worry about any tricky shadows appearing. Probably the funniest and easiest shoot Tash and I have done, and it definitely shows in the images, SJ looks amazing but without anything being too forced or posed. I will post a few more images into this blog when we have sent them off to her to check. If you want to catch up with SJ then check her myspace, she’s amazing.

Fancy Dress Studio Shoot

We’ve just done a studio shoot for a local Brighton business Revamp Fancy Dress. They wanted some of their costumes photographed for their website .

If you have a business that has some photography needs, from product shots to event photography and everything in between, Garage Studios would love to help.

Just send us an email for an informal chat and see what we can do for you.

Fixed Gear Bikes: product and location shoots.

Here at Garage Studios we are really pleased to announce that M.Halls studio/product shots of the Fixed Gear bikes, and the images DD shot in Italy have now made it safely into the final edit of the book soon to be published by Laurence King. Its written by two friends of ours, well they have to be after all the time they spent in the studio with us, Max and Andy. The full title swiped direct from Amazon is Fixed: Global Fixed-gear Bike Culture (Paperback) by Andrew Edwards (Author), Max Leonard (Author).

The final completed draft has been sent off and as far as we know they are just waiting for things such as cover proofs etc. Unfortunately we cant release any pictures yet, as that would kinda steal the guys thunder but the M.Halls studio shots of the bike look fantastic- especially the stunning all white bike shot on a white backdrop, it doesnt sound like it should work but when you are lighting obsessed you can make the oddest and most awkward combinations look brilliant.

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preliminary test shots

When DD went to Italy with the guys for a weekend he covered L’Eroica, a vintage bike race in some crazily demanding terrain shooting Large Format Polaroids on a Speed Graphic (he thought it would fit the nature of the trip- even though it made his life hellishly difficult), and has a great shot of a Fixed Gear bike messenger, steaming down a hillside in a cloud of dust- the guy had flown over from USA just for the race. Then he managed to fit in a trip to the Ernesto Colnago factory and HQ, and the Cinelli HQ (where he saw a hand painted custom frame by the legendary Keith Haring- theres a pic on their homepage), he also took this stunning self-portrait….after one too many espresso’s. Theres a huge amount of history covered in the book and Max and Andy have done a great job, plus they cover the new Fixed scene including hotspots NYC, Tokyo, San Francisco and London- although they decided not to take us with them for those trips, for which we havent forgiven them.

We will get a link up to you as soon as we have some cover images or how to buy the book.

If you have a project like this and need any aspect from documentary to product shots then please get in touch and we can help you out producing unique images. DD has years of experience covering subcultures and is an unobtrusive but skilled snapper, M.Halls is used to very demanding product shoots, from the technical to the dramatic, and in fact will have a new line of work out very soon that we are confident will knock you sideways. So use any of the forms or contact page and tell us what you need.