The folks who came along to my workshop held at Calumet in Manchester today were great fun and were so enthusiastic it was a pleasure to work with you.
Taking control of the camera was one segment we digressed into, exploring custom functions.
Sitting recently with Cannon UK they went through my camera configuration and were surprised to find I was using all of them in my work except one.
Today I went through what functions I use, why and when, functions that turn my Canon 5d mkII into a beast with everything stacked up in my favour to help me capture as many good images as is possible.
Take control of the camera, it will reward you well.... dont be afraid to adventure into it, dare to work with settings the opposite to default.
Interested??? now your getting closer to my mindset and how pro's work.
Calumet Photographic and I have put together a series of three workshops that bring the popular makeover theme to the Manchester store.
Held every two weeks from 29/09/2011 for the next six weeks they will help build up knowledge and an understanding of how this industry operates.
This "How to" series starts with lighting, how to structure your shoot from the minute you meet your new client right through to post processing in the final workshop.
Throughout the series the attendees get hands on shooting experience and the benefits of Jason's exerience in this sector supporting one of the UK's market leaders nationally.
If you wish to book on one of these workshops contact me direct or through Calumet Manchester.
If this course interests you but you are not able to attend, you can alternatively arrange 1 to 1 training days with me.
Calumet UK website is http://www.calumetphoto.co.uk/
Bodyshop the dance video evolved from a concept far from where it finished.
Laura-Anne wanted the video, she is a professional choreographer & dancer based in Manchester, she also works internationally.
Since the age of 16 she has been working alongside the likes of, Alexandra Burke, JLS, Gwen Stefani, Kanye West, George Micheal, Pink, Katy Perry, Geri Haliwell, Jagged Edge, Mario & Omarion. enough to say she is a good dancer, experienced and open to new ideas.
I wanted this video to be light well with a slight tone, so it was captured with low contrast and a custom picture profile, knowing it would then only need minimal processing to achive the overall clean look.
We are not shooting any kind of RAW format here so tolerances for adjustments are low.
While I am on with all the pre production Laura is busy with rehearsals, we keep each other updated to make sure were on track.
Test shooting the workshop left gave me a sample from which to slice a section and work a jpeg image to perfect the adjustments required to the footage before the day of the shoot. I prefer to work this way to leave out any nasty surprises at post production and not get the look, think I could go into melt down otherwise.
Lighting the space used was easy, its a high end bodyshop right, so these guys don't work in the dark, pushing extra fill light from the front was going to be the order of the day.
Camera used Canon EOS 5d mkII
We had a small window to shoot the video, on the day of shooting from beginning to end we were in, set up, footage taken from two main locations, promotion shots made, and take down in two and a half hours.
To get the footage we worked the main sequences three times to make sure we had it right, that's the deal.
So arn't we cool doing the shoot in a short time, the EDIT oh my, three solid days for the main dance sequence plus another day or so making the beginning and credits.
Post shooting before edit, review to footage, identify the good footage to be used, then the order to run.
Editing sequence start at the beginning and sequence the movement to the audio, a tricky task.
Thanks to the fourteen dancers, the makeup artists, PROSPRAY for letting us shoot there.
To Laura and myself high five... making this video was an undertaking but a blast.
Straight off their debut at London Fashion Week label JEREMPAUL had secured meetings with buyers in London.
For those not familiar with the brand designer Khulekani Msweli won the FDC Avant-Garde Designer of the Year Award, a testament and acknowledgement of his quirky surrealist-inspired creations, this young talent has been tipped to take the couture fashion world by storm.
The seasons look book I was to shoot consisted of around 24 pieces.
At short noticed I was asked to produce their look book, having just returned from their show we quickly arranged the shoot in Manchester.
At the same time we produced some small vidoe files for each outfit that could easily be placed in any website as an individual item or as a whole for the collection.
The example below is one of the video's produced for JEREMPAUL, produced to work with the look book.
Two jobs in one session.
The individual files are small, around 1mb in size.
Short deadline, multiple media, all in a days work.
Asked to cover the visit to Manchester by uber talent Dubfire to the venue voted Worlds finest Club Sankey's, my original plan was to capture a number of promotional shots.
Dubfire is the stage name for Ali Shirazinia, he left the comforts of a storied career as one-half of Grammy-winning duo Deep Dish in order to pursue new life as a producer.
Deep Dish are well known for providing house or dance remixes of tracks of famous stars such as Madonna, Cher and Gabrielle
Camera used Canon EOS 5d Mark II @ 3200 iso hand held.
The image above and below can be found at www.jasonharry.com in the abstract section, a 32" by 24" framed print of the image below is displayed in my loft studio.
Camera used Canon EOS 5d Mark II @ 3200 iso hand held.
When the Dubfire set started the atmosphere and the performance was really one not to be missed, so i captured it in a series of photographs.
The video has been made from some 1,500 photographs taken over the 3 1/2 hour set, they haven't been modified and almost entirely dropped in the timeline in the order taken.
The experience at Sankey's was an audio visual treat for all the Dubfire fans and Sankeys faithful that were in attendance, for those who missed it...
turn the lights off, turn your speakers up, press play.
In April this year I did portfolio work for Khasan Brailsford, he is a dancer based in LA.
At that time he was on a world tour with Kylie Minogue, there is an earlier blog about this.
Khasan Brailsford and Tre Holloway on set @ the Loft Studio Shoot
I also discussed at a similar time moving my video hosting over to YouTube.
When I posted about posting all new content to YouTube I made mention that there are some great tools, available to you for free that give you information about what the viewer finds interesting.
This is the video in question
The tools are titled insight, once you get over say 400 views you will be able to see how interesting your content is to the viewer.
The video above has strong viewer attention, it gains viewer attention throughout the video, indicating viewers are scrubbing back and watching it again.
What is useful is that your video is also compared to similar length video in that genre.
I have had some brackets fabricated by a local Manchester company that will allow me to use my C stands to display my framed prints.
Why would I do this? Why not these are funky looking stands!
One step forward two back is the entry photograph you see at the top of Jason Harry.com this print is a 36" by 24" printed on Metallic paper, displayed in a custom frame with some freaky expensive glass, more about that another time.
The great thing about the C stand is that the feet are moveable unlike a normal stand in that they are not fixed all at 120' the main foot comes out from the wall and the others sit just past 90' to allow the whole deal to sit back close to the wall.
My brother is great in his vision for having fabrcated items made up for motorsport, this is my thing.
You can probably tell I am happy about this.
Imagine a group of them set up as a temporary gallery.... imagine.
This post is the result of a young photographer asking me about Model Mayhem, for those who have never heard of it, the MM website is a community of creative’s, including Models also including Makeup artists, photographers retouchers, designers, stylists etc.
It was a close friend that originally created the profile for me back in 2008.
Don't be thinking the site is full of amateurs, there are some very established talent on this site, to be fair times change and people do move on ..... I am thinking a lot of the faces originally in there have moved on and gone forever.
Have I had any bad experiences? no not really, stay on the ball, have clear goals when planning your shoot, share them with everyone involved and you’ll be fine.
If your new and wanting to grow, give MM a try, what have you got to lose?
