Iceland Photo Shoot with MS Flavia

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Garrison Girls Photoshoot

I've just completed my second photo shoot for the 2014 Garrison Girls calendar. The models were a group of forces wives (army and RAF) from Kinloss. We had a brilliant day out and worked in a number of local locations including Hopeman beach and Duffus castle. 

Proceeds from the  Garrison Girls calendar go towards supporting military sufferers of PSTD (post traumatic stress disorder).

Working with non professional models is  in some ways more challenging, but it is also fantastically rewarding at a creative and emotional level. All the ladies threw themselves into the shoot with 100% enthusiasm, clambering up trees, ruins and braving freezing water. The result is a wonderful set of images for their calendar, and for the models the profound experience of creating art with their bodies in Scotland's beautiful landscape.

Duffus Castle

For me it was also a trip down memory lane. It was almost 40 years ago to the day when I first arrived at RAF Kinloss as a newly qualified aircraft technician. I spent five years there, working on the Nimrods. For me it was a very formative period. I travelled far and wide in Nimrods, going to Canada, the USA, Iceland, arctic Norway, Gibraltar, the Azores, and Jamaica. When I wasn't fixing aeroplanes or flying in them I was climbing mountains in the highlands. Other adventures included smashing up two motorbikes and falling off a few horses! 

Glen Callater

Most of all though I remembered that it was at Kinloss, 40 years ago where the idea came to me that I would do art nude photography. Not long after I joined my squadron I was standing in the crew room with a mug of coffee, and facing me on the wall was a display of soft porn images from Men Only, and Playboy etc. I remember looking at them and thinking 'these women are beautiful, and I can't help looking at them, but there must be a better way of portraying female beauty than this'. Then I said to myself 'one day I will do nude photography, but my images will be beautiful and uplifting'. Well it was more than twenty years after that before I took up a camera and made a start. If someone had suggested to me at that moment that 40 years later I would be back at Kinloss doing exactly what I had just imagined I would have laughed at them!

Hopeman Beach - I place I last visited some 40 years ago!

Strange isn't it, how things work out in life?

My thanks to all the Garrison Girls for a memorable day and a wonderful experience.

For more information about Garrison Girls, and to order their 2014 calendar go to:
http://www.garrisongirls.com/calendar-2014

Photo shoot with Ella Rose in the Schwagalp, Switzerland

I have just returned from my photo shoot in the Schwagalp in Switzerland, where I worked with model Ella Rose for two days. The trip had been postponed by a few days due to bad weather which had brought a big dump of snow to the mountains and shrouded the whole area in cloud, rain and snow which would have made photography impossible.

We arrived in Zurich on the 5th of June to sunshine and 15 degrees, with blue partly cloudy skies. Perfect! We were met at the airport by my Swiss friend Wendelin who was to be our host, driver and guide for the next two days. An hours drive took us to the farmhouse in the Schwagalp where we would be staying.

We worked mostly at altitudes of between 1300 and 1800 metres which involved a fair amount of walking up steepish mountain tracks. This was reduced to a bearable level by a couple of cable cars, one of which wasn't much more than a wooden box!

Ella and myself stopping for a break on our way up Selun, at 1700 metres.

Working on the mountainside at 1800 metres. It was quite warm, apart from the snow which was pretty cold of you happend to be barefoot!

A shot using my Lumix G10 infrared camera

Overall we had a brilliant time and got some wonderful shots which you can see on my website:  click here

You can also see a full screen slide show with music: click here

Also for the first time I shot some video. Ella improvised to some music by Hildegarde von Bingen ( played on a portable JamBox ). As it was my first attempt the video work is very simple, shot using my wide angle stills camera on a tripod. However the combination of the stunning location and Ella sympathetic and beautiful flowing movements still made for a good result. To view this video: click here