Where does the time goooo.......??

Where does the time gooooo....??

Can it really be so long since I wrote my last blog, please forgive my absence. Things were great last year and levelled up towards the end. The start of this year saw me shooting two commercial projects in the first two weeks, hopefully a good omen for the year ahead. I can't really talk about those as the agencies haven't published yet, however I can talk about last year.

Take a look at my last blog and can see that my team and I risked our lives in the heat on the beach to create a beautiful editorial for Féroce Magazine. As I sit here writing this and looking at the grey overcast and considerably colder day outside I am longing for those hard light, sunny days by the ocean. Currently in Taiwan we have had persistant presipitation, some snow on higher ground and more seriously a series of earthquakes. 

Back to last year though and work. My year was predominantly taken up with shooting content for ASUS, laptops and mobile phones. It was solid and continous, I am not going to complain about being tired from work, the busier the better and I love the challenge. Over the year I made images for the ZenBook Deluxe 3, the ZenFone 3 Zoom, UX430 and UX530 laptops, VivoBook S and Pro, ZenFone Max and Max Pro, ZenFone 4, ZenFone 4 Pro, ZenFone Selfie and ZenFone Selfie Pro. So quite a lot of images to produce and original content to create. Here are some examples.....

Along with making the still images for ASUS, they requested Cinemagrams/Cinemagraphs. For those that don't know what these are, they are still images with a moving compnant within them.

These were certainly a challenge and something new for me to learn, improve on and understand. The other thing they did was get me thinking more about creating moving images, and so the seed was sewn.

I had been shooting with Nikon for nearly 20 years, Fujifilm joined my arsenal 5 years ago and I am now a Fujifilm X-Photographer and love the cameras they produce. It was not an easy decision to make but I came to the conclusion it was time for the Nikons to go. The cameras that had been catching my attention for a while were all coming from Sony and their A7R series. I knew the A7RII was a little old and due to be replaced, as a result the price was very good, I also heard that a deal was available for early buyers of the A7RIII. Both cameras offered so much more than the Nikons. The other thing that interested me and possibly even more important was the Sony GM glass (lenses), they are not cheap by any means but now, having used them I see why. The clarity and sharpness are strides ahead of the Nikon glass I owned, and I owned the top of the range from Nikon. So far I have the 16-35mm GM and 24-70 GM for my A7RII and A7RIII. I did keep my Nikon 50 1.4 and 85 1.8 which I use via an adaptor and manual focus. The Manual focus action on the Sony is very similar feeling to the old manual only days, and with focus peaking is a doddle. I have made a few shoots with the Sony's, and am gradually learning the new system. I have also recently bought a Zhiyun Crane 2 gimble, so this is the year I re-learn film making. I'll move onto the Sony Images in my next blog, and talk more about my experience with them, I may even have a bit of film footage shot to show you, but don't hold your breath on that as I want to get it right first.

So that summed up 2017 and now I am looking into 2018, getting Chinese New Year done with a little holiday to Japan (film making practice haha) and then getting busy image making. I am already working on the next couple of commercial projects, one here in Taiwan and another in China. I have started a personal portrait series which is coming along nicely and have the plans of two fashion editorials begun.

2018......BRING IT ON!!

I hope you enjoyed this episode, and got an insight into the work that I do, and effort that we all put into it to produce beautiful images.

If you want to book me for work get in touch so we can discuss your needs and get started making a great project together.

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Thank you and love to all.....