Portland Bill Photographs

This week I spent a couple of days in one of my favourite places in England, Portland Bill.  Walk just a few steps away from the lighthouse and cafe and you'll find yourself mostly on your own.  This makes it the ideal place to do  model shoots, which is just what I was doing there.  More on that in a day or two, but for now I'd like to share with you a few pictures I took for myself.

Enjoy.  :)

Photoshoots in Las Vegas

Last night I was sent a copy of a tearsheet (see below) from Planet Muscle magazine from a shoot I did the last time I was in Las Vegas, and this morning I woke to an email from someone asking if I'd be at Olympia this year.

Before today I had my mind focused on shooting in Canada in August & September.  However confirming shoots this year in Canada seems harder than ever.    So I'm seeing it as a sign that Las Vegas is a much better idea, and therefore is much more likely to happen.

My plan is to travel out somewhere around 20th September and stay for 10-14 days.

Let the booking start today!

Also, someone has suggested that I come to New York City to shoot.  I've not been there in years, so would welcome an excuse to visit again.  It would have to be after Olympia though.

A tearsheet in Planet Muscle with IFBB fitness star Larissa Reis

It's been quite a long time since my last photo was published in Planet Muscle magazine, but the dry spell is over with a little help with IFBB fitness star Larissa Reis.  We shot just a day after Olympia in Las Vegas in 2009 so Larissa was in amazing shape having just stepped off stage a few hours before.

 

Skip gets a shower

He doesn't much like it, but it has to be done.

Thanks to @ecokitchens for the posh doggy shampoo!

Netley Marsh Steam Show

I've been meaning to go for years, but never quite got around to paying the Netley Marsh Steam Show a visit until today.

Arriving a little later in the afternoon had two benefits., most people were leaving, and unexpectedly there was no one on the gate to collect money so we were able to walk on in for free.  Bonus!

Shooting with Gladiator Enigma, Jenny Pacey

This week I had the pleasure of working with athlete Jenny Pacey.  You might know her better as Enigma from the recent reincarnation of The Gladiators tv show.

Jenny is the third Gladiator I've worked with, the others being Caroline Pearce and Sam Bond.

We'd been talking about doing a shoot for some months now, and we'd already had to re-schedule once due to bad weather.  The heavy rain and fact I couldn't see much more than 100 metres on the M3 as I drove up didn't bode well, but the weather forecast was for showers so had to keep my fingers crossed it would be right.

We shot at Thames Valley Athletics Centre.  The weather didn't help things, and for most of the afternoon we were dodging the rain showers, but with the sun peaking out on a few occasions we got the shots we were after.

I had to balance myself on a steeplechase hurdle for part of the time, very hard to balance on a narrow beam while taking photos.

Jenny is a great athlete and model, and with a bit of luck she'll hit the long jump qualifying mark (somewhere around 6.50 metres I believe) which will take her to India for this years Commonwealth Games.

Most of the shots involved running and jumping, and I know I'm happy with the results!

Hair and make up was done by the fantastic Samantha Hosker.  Great work Sam!  :-)

Little Black Book tee shirts

Just for fun this one.

I've made available a few t-shirts for my "Little Black Book" models.  Ladies, send me a picture of you wearing the shirt and I'll post them here and on Facebook, and my favourite will win a copy of the book!

http://www.cafepress.com/blackbook42

Buy the little black book now!

Buy it now!

With, if I've counted correctly 183 models, almost 200 full colour photos, this is a rather big little black book.  All of the photographs included are from outdoor on location shoots from all over the place.  Countries include Malta, England, Wales, USA and Canada.  While cities include London, Miami, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and even little old Winnipeg!

My little black book

I'm self publishing a book of photos.  I'm calling it "Michael Palmer's Little Black Book of Scantily Clad Women".

With all the positive thinking in the world I don't expect to make much money from it.  Self publishing in this case means printing on demand, and that brings the cost price of the book up hugely.  I expect the selling price to be around £35 for the hard back edition, and sadly I won't be making much of a profit on that.

However, I hope it's going to generate a bit of fun publicity

I appear to have become mildly addicted to physics games

So I thought I'd start to share my addiction with you.

Here's the first.

Online Physics Games

Getting shot by a lingerie model

I wanted a photo of my posh new embroidered shirt.

So I asked the model.

Fitness & Lingerie photoshoot in a graveyard

Now a graveyard wouldn't be my first choice of location for a fitness & lingerie shoot, but we were hunting around for a quiet location and came across this old church & graveyard.   It was deserted, and it was just too good to walk away from.

So we didn't.

Thanks Vikkie for a fun shoot!

Mens fitness photoshoot in Bournemouth

My favourite photo from my photoshoot with Toby last week in Bournemouth.

Enjoy.

My first photo training workshop

In the countryside around Brill, 9 budding photographers, 2 dogs, 1 tour guide, and myself met and spent the afternoon roaming around for the afternoon taking photos.

Although it didn't rain, the weather wasn't so kind.  It was sunny all morning, cloudy the whole time we were shooting, and then there was the most brilliant sunset that we all missed because were in the pub eating.  D'oh!

Oh, yes, while we were shooting we saw some rather impressive flying machines.  The first being what I'm reliably informed is the only Vulcan bomber that still flies - we saw it flying to and from the Goodwood Festival of Speed.   A little while later, 6 Apache helicopters flew over.  Cool!

People had come from all over, from as far away as Wales, Bristol, Birmingham, Blandford, Bedford and myself from Southampton.  Age ranged from 16 to 50 something, and people had all types of cameras.  It was great to see such a wide variety of ages and kit.

So enough words, and on with some of my snaps of the day.

Following your instincts

Over the last few days and weeks I've been thinking about my continued participation within The Roof of the World rally.

I've come to the difficult decision that I'm no longer going to be joining the team in Baku for the final two weeks of the trip.

I know by walking away now I am going to have egg on my face and I'm not going to be very popular with quite a few people, but I'm going to trust my instincts and do what I believe is the right thing for me at this time.

Ashley has done an amazing job of getting sponsors and money for the charities involved, and I wish him and the team only the very best for the trip.

I would like to thank all of those who have expressed an interest in my participation in the trip, and an even bigger thanks for all of those who have donated.  Needless to say all monies will be donated to the charities.

Photographic training with a model

About 15 years ago when I was first getting into photography I went on several organised model photoshoot days, where a number of photographers met up and photographed some pretty models. At the time I honestly never thought I'd ever be confident enough to photograph a model by myself without the protection of a group of people around me.

Now it's the easiest thing in the world to me, and even if I'm photographing several models at the same time I'm still very chilled about it all.

Since those early days I've photographed hundreds of models, and had my work published numerous times.

This training afternoon will be all about how best to get photos of a model. Although this time the model(s) will be a pretty girl, the same skills can easily be translated into taking photographs of your kids and loved ones.

Lighting and location are the key factors for me, so that's what we'll be concentrating the most upon.

We'll be shooting at various locations around the New Forest, and the model will be modelling a variety of lifestyle outfits. Exactly what we shoot and where we go will depend on the weather on the day. As you know the English summer could bring us just about any conditions. So be prepared with sunblock and umbrellas just incase.

This shoot will take place on Saturday 19th June 2010, and we'll meet at the Lyndhurst Park Hotel at 14:00 where we'll meet and greet each other over a light lunch.

We'll head out to start shooting at around 15:00. How long we stay out for depends again on the weather. If its nice then hopefully we can keep going till later into the evening to catch the best of the sunset, but if its cloudy then we'll finish a bit earlier.

Depending on the time we finish we'll head back to Lyndhurst and find somewhere nice for an evening meal where we can discuss and compare results.

The price for all of this is just £77.

To book your place please follow this link - http://photomodeltraining.eventbrite.com/

I'm limiting the numbers on this event to just 10 people. If I get more than 6 bookings I'll try and secure a second model.