Simon Congdon Photography

01/12/2018

Why not order a canvas of your favourite local beauty spot for Christmas? Check out simoncongdon.com and have a browse.

11/02/2018

Trying out my Sigma 150-600mm lens in the garden of a hotel in Banjul.

05/03/2017

London Fashion shoot.
I had the great privilege of being asked to shoot a children's fashion shoot, hosted by Baby Bandits and featuring 18 different children's brands.
Major research went into this, and so I was well prepared for the shoot when it started. There was a "tech run", when I could check the lighting and finalise colour temperature settings and exposures before the main event. Fashion companies usually want full, 3/4, half and 1/4 portraits of their models, so that is a minimum of 4 pictures per model. As one model goes off the stage, another is coming on so there is no time to adjust anything or change cards at any stage during the run. Shooting at around 6 frames per second I took 1500 photos in about 30 minutes - 50 models with two runs each, taking about 15 photos per model. For this kind of transfer rate is is important to have good CF and SD cards that can write VERY quickly, otherwise you will run out of buffer space on your camera. Pictures with the soles of feet showing are a normally not desirable in fashion photography - if possible have the model with their weight being transferred forward with the front foot down. It shows the model in the best pose possible while walking. This is why there were about 15 shots per model.
It is also impossible to shoot at this rate with flash, and anyway it is better to have well exposed slightly grainy shots (which can be edited out later) than only one or two shots per model with flash.

05/03/2017

A simple black background, with the soft boxes placed each side of the subject. The closer the softboxes are to the subject the softer the light will be. You can see the flash placed high above the subject and pointing to the hair. The left hand flash was the master flash, set at about 60% with the right hand flash set at around 20% to act as a fill-in flash. You could always use a reflector here instead.
Camera settings were manual, set at ISO 100, f9, 1/200th sec exposure.

05/03/2017

These portraits of my wife and children (and self) were taken with two flash heads with softboxes and a third flash (a Nissan Di866) placed high above and behind the subject to highlight the hair. It also has the effect of isolating the subject from the background. This technique really makes the subject "pop", giving great colour and expression to the portraits. You can see the setup I had to create these photos in the previous post.

10/01/2015

Weavers gathering material for their nests made an interesting subject for photography. Taken with a Canon 6D, 70-200 f2.8L IS & 2x teleconverter.

10/01/2015

This was taken on the only decent sunrise we had during our 5 days at Lake Malawi. Not far from where we were staying there was a fishing village, where this photo was taken.

10/01/2015

3 minute exposure with a NiSi 10 stop ND filter on Lake Malawi

10/01/2015

Taken on Lake Malawi with a canon 70-200 f2.8L IS with 2x teleconverter.

06/10/2014

Just made a new website, www.simoncongdon.com
Thanks Craig for your help...

Landscape photographs of Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire. Devils punchbowl, Wagonners Wells, Blackdown, Frensham ponds, Ludshott Common, Gibbett Hill, Ramster, Lake District, Flamborough Head.

14/09/2014

Pictures of Flamborough Head as featured in Advanced Photography this month.

14/09/2014

Last month I won a photo competition "The Great outdoors" with Advanced Photographer. One of the prizes was a photoshoot with pro Will Cheung at Flanborough Head in Yorkshire. The article is featured in this months Advanced Photograper, and I have posted some of the pictures here....