Michael Palmer Photography

Laughing at people in Basingstoke

2012-02-03T06:12:00.000Z

I hate Basingstoke with a passion that I normally reserve for people who talk at the cinema, but on one Thursday evening a month there is a very good reason to go there. Surely there can't be a reason in the world strong enough to go to Basingrade you say? Well yep, there is, and I urge you to go one month to Jan Jack's Laughter House at the Red Lion Hotel.

The line up were 3 comedians I'd never heard of, Windsor, Chris Norton Walker, (who whispered in my ear "do you know any good jokes" seconds before going on stage!) with the headline act Dave Fulton. Dave was in the headlines himself after saying the word "wanker" on BBC Breakfast the day before while sitting on the sofa with uptight hosts Bill Turnbull & Sian Williams. I've seen the clip on Youtube and all I can say is "urgh really?" Tis but a very sad world we live in if we find a simple little word like that so mortally offensive. Add in a little bit of Jan Jack, and a compere, Phil Dinsdale, who I remember taking the piss out of me and my beard as part of his act at a previous Laughter House and we had our evenings entertainment... the git!

Oh, and yes before anyone asks, I did get lost trying to find my way out of Boringstoke.

Anyway, my favourite photo of each of the acts...

B-Fit Expo 2012

2012-01-29T14:36:00.000Z

Yesterday I spent the day at London's Excel Exhibition Centre for the first of hopefully many B-Fit Expo's.

Inside there were demonstration areas set aside for all sorts of things, from gymnastics, trampolines to a zumba stage and much more. Add to that several theatre style presentation rooms, a demonstration kitchen and more. Clearly lots of time, effort and money had been spent on making B-Fit look the part. Things did seem to be rather quiet, not nearly as many people walking around as I'd have expected. Although this made things easier for me, the stands and expo hosts would obviously have preferred more people.

Still, it's only year one for B-Fit and as the expo hosts have proven through Bodypower (which they also run), they have what it takes to make expo's bigger and bigger each year.

I also counted at least 4 "Gladiators" (3 new, 1 old) in the house!

For me, the Excel Centre is a bit of a pain to get to, and everything is all rather expensive. The main Excel car park only caters to cars under 190cms in height, and has a ban on "Transit size vans", so that was me screwed straight away. I managed to squeeze into the Novotel car park, and later that day they managed to squeeze £24 parking costs out of me.

Meh.

I also object to paying £2 for a small cup of over-brewed tea... and one of the stand holders told me that Excel wanted £200 for a single plug socket for the weekend. Needless to say they made do without.

But enough of my moaning, the day was good, I got to speak to a couple of magazine owners who are hopefully interested in using my work in the near future, and I even got a slice of cake and a hug from quite a few pretty girls.

Oh and a big thank you to the owner of the bottle of water I drank while slowly (but quite loudly) choking on a piece of chicken!

Photographing Fire...

2012-01-22T20:49:00.000Z

... on a bitterly cold January evening in the depths of Dorset.

Fire is not the easiest of subjects to photograph well, add in a bitterly cold gale force wind (that would eventually beat us into an early submission) and it was that little bit harder.

This was the first of hopefully several "just for fun" fire shoots this year with a fire performer friend, Thomas Johansson, and fellow photographers Spencer & Karl.

I've photographed fire performers quite a few times, but always as part of a show, and never as part of a controlled shoot. Here we had some control over what the "crazy German" Thomas would do. Also to make our lives that little bit harder we had a couple of flash units stuck on tripods either side of Thomas.

With three of us shooting at the same time fancy remote flash triggers sadly weren't an option, so we used the best accessory that money can't buy, namely Spencer, running from his camera to press the button on the master flash unit manually.

With our cameras set on 10 second self timer mode, we'd do a 3-2-1 countdown and press the shutter buttons, with that Spencer would run across the pitch black field, wait for the cameras to "click" into action, and then trigger the master flash (which would in turn trigger the slave flash unit).

From the moment the shutters opened Thomas then had anything from half to 3 seconds to do his fire stuff, during which time the flash was fired and in theory would freeze Thomas. Confused much? Just look at the photos and it should make more sense.

Okay so it's not the best technique, with probably over a 50% failure rate due to timing it wrongly. However if we just played the numbers game and kept going until we got a few keepers.

I even got in on the action myself, with one of my favourites posted below...

Oh, no photoshop has been used in any of these photos.

New Forest Photo Experience Days

2012-01-09T19:29:00.002Z

It was a slightly chilly Sunday morning in January when 10 photography enthusiasts with an eye for a bargain (all of them booked through my Groupon & Living Social offers) all met up in Lyndhurst for the first of my Photo Experience Days of the year.

We met at the Lyndhurst Park Hotel and then walked over the road and up the hill to the Lyndhurst Cemetery and Chapel where the the photography started. We walked around there and the surrounding area for the best part of 2 hours. As we made our way back to the hotel via Boltons Bench the grey skies cleared and we were bathed in sunshine.

After lunch the second part of the day was walking up Lyndhurst High Street. I've driven down it dozens of times, but never have I properly explored on foot.

First stop was Meridien Modena, the Ferrari / Maserati dealership who kindly & somewhat surprisingly didn't mind letting us inside to take photos of their cars. Cheers for that Meridien! :-)

After narrowly avoiding being murdered by some old school bikers, it was time to see how many of us could fit inside the rather small "The Lyndhurst Sweet Shop" at the same time. The answer was most of us! We continued walking up to "St Michaels and All Angels Church" at the end of the High Street. Leaving the church well and truly 'papped' and learning that "Alice in Wonderland" is buried there, we made our way back to the hotel and the end of our day.

I really enjoyed the day, and I hope everyone did as well.

Death by Photoshop

2011-12-05T07:19:00.001Z

I've always had this thing against photoshopping people to death. So much so that asides from the very occasional pimple, I simply don't do it.

I watched a video recently of a guy calling himself a Photographer / Retoucher, who in the video said that 99% of the images you see in certain magazines are photoshopped.

This is a link to the video. http://youtu.be/YP31r70_QNM (link will open in a new window)

If you've watched the video you'll probably agree that the girl featured is slim and beautiful. With a little bit of make up she wouldn't need any post production work done.

Take for example my latest published work, the Gaspari calendar. Other than converting to black and white, none of the girls have been photoshopped in any way. With the girls posing correctly, some decent lighting and a good make up artist in the shape of Laura Forrest, nothing extra needed doing.

The Gaspari calendar is just one example, but the same applies to the rest of my work. Asides from a few simple corrections for exposure, colour balance etc, none of the images you see on my website have had any airbrushing done to them. I'm really rather proud of this fact, and over the years I've had hundreds of photos published.

You could argue that most of the models I work with are gym rats, and hence look better than average, and of course you'd be right. However isn't that all part of it. If you want to look great in pictures then you have to put a bit of work in yourself and not leave everything up to the "photoshop artist"?

My work isn't perfect, and no model is perfect, but at least the pictures I take show models with an obtainable and not impossible look.

Should I change my attitude, I mean if you watch the video the photographer featured appears to own a large and rather sexy studio. From the one picture we see his work seems to be average at best, yet he appears to be rather successful. I'm probably reading too much into what we see in the video, for all I know he could be an actor paid to play the part, but you get my point.

Would I be more successful if I photoshopped my images to death?

I'd appreciate your feedback, so please leave your comments below...

Things to tick off my vision board

2011-12-01T18:09:00.001Z

Finally I get to tick something off my vision board.

For years I've wanted to have a calendar properly published featuring exclusively my work. This year, or should that be 2012, it's happened twice.

The first calendar, Bikini Gold, features photos from my archives of several trips and shoots across the USA and Canada. The second however is a much bigger deal for me.

I had the privilege of photographing the Gaspari Girls 2012 calendar, all new photos shot exclusively for the calendar, and working with a major supplement company - probably my biggest job in fitness to date.

If you'd like to get your hands on a copy of either / both of the calendars;

Bikini Gold 2012 is available for purchase from my website - prices are cheap, include postage and delivery is direct from myself.

and

Gaspari Girls Calendar 2012 is actually available for FREE direct from their website.

Autumn Fitness Shoot in Hyde Park

2011-11-29T15:15:00.001Z

A couple of weeks ago I got a call out of the blue from Hanan, a personal trainer working from central London. We had a little chat about what she wanted (some shots in her home gym and maybe some shots in Hyde Park if the weather was good), and about how I worked. The conversation ended with her saying she'd call me back to confirm. Ten minutes later she called back, and the shoot was confirmed for that coming weekend.

I do like it when a shoot "just happens" so quickly.

We did half the shoot inside her gym, and the other half outside in the glorious late afternoon sun in Hyde Park. The outside shots are both of our favourites. The lighting, the autumn colours, were all just perfect.

I asked Hanan for a testimonial. This is what she said. "These are my thoughts on Michael as a photographer: reliable, friendly, chilled out, professional, serious about quality, genuinely cares about delivering the best service, and giving you the kind of photos you’re after. Basically, I was really happy with the photos I ended up with. Get in touch with him, you won’t regret it."

Hanan is currently working updating her website with her shiny new photos, when it's finished I'll update this post with a link. Until then, thank you Hanan for the great shoot, the cup of tea, the healthy biscuit and the salmon sandwich!

Gaspari Calendar

2011-11-27T20:01:00.001Z

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of photographing 11 of the best female fitness bodies in the UK for the 2012 Gaspari Nutrition calendar. I've seen the whole calendar, and it looks great, but I'm only allowed to show this preview of the cover featuring Beth Workman and Lydia Rees.

Oh, and before anyone says, yes I'm well aware there are 12 months in the year, but one month features two of the models!

Published in Ultimate MMA magazine

2011-11-26T13:26:00.001Z

I've just found out that a couple of photos from a shoot with Jennifer Weintz, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu brown belt have been published in the American magazine Ultimate MMA. It's my first publication in the magazine, and for that matter the first time I've heard of it.

The shoots took place in Vancouver, one on the beach, and if memory serves the second one was half way up a mountain.

Congrats on the publication Jen!

Please excuse the rubbish quality mobile phone taken photo of the magazine.

Shooting a magician in the dark

2011-11-18T13:52:00.001Z

After he saw my experimental night-time self portraits, magician, friend and sometimes client Paul Newton asked me to do something similar of him. Turns out he'd had the idea in his mind for some time, but hadn't been able to get his idea across to any photographers.

So off we trotted one cold mid Novembers evening to one of the darkest places I know in Southampton that has a view, Mayflower Park.

The exposure time for all of the photos was 30 seconds, which for those of you who know Paul is rather a long time for him to stand still and not talk. The lighting came from me, walking quickly around Paul with a torch, and because I kept moving with little or no light falling on me, I don't show up in the photos.

Now I'm sure a Photoshop expert could probably create a better end result, probably without the need to get so cold, but I'm a bit of a purist where these things are concerned and I like doing it "for real". Anything else for me is cheating.

My approach is a bit hit and miss, all of the photos were lit differently, but after taking around 50 images we got a couple that we both really like. A happy client and a happy photographer, what more could you ask for? I think the final image of the three is my favourite.

Now the Marwell Zoo animals that aren't meerkats...

2011-11-16T15:25:00.001Z

I really enjoyed my visit to Marwell Zoo. Some of the animal enclosures seemed (at least to my eyes) to be a bit on the small & depressing side. From what I can see the zoo is making efforts to modernise, but I'm guessing there is only so much money available and hence is a slow progress. The more modern enclosures are all fairly nice, better viewing for us humans, and better habitats for the animals.

Photographing meerkats is simples?

2011-11-15T21:58:00.001Z

I recently visited Marwell Zoo for the first time since, well since almost forever. I have vague memories of going there once when I was little, probably 30 ish years ago. A re-visit was long overdue.

So on one of the most gorgeous mid November days I can ever remember, along with my hairy biker friend Karl, we visited. I never thought I'd complain about being too warm while outside for 5 hours in November, but I very nearly did. Such a beautiful autumn day.

Marwell has some "big" animals, such as leopard, tiger, cheetah, rhino, giraffes, & zebra, but it was one of the smallest that stole the show for me. The simple meerkat.

Why? Asides from the fact they are super cute, and had some ever cuter young...? They are in one of the few enclosures where the view is uninterrupted. No glass, fencing, or nets to get in the way of taking a photo. Add in the fact that they don't run away from people. It's almost like they enjoy showing off for the cameras. Did I mention yet how cute they are?

They probably are the most simples creature (critter?) at the zoo to photograph. No?

I'll post a few pictures of the other animals another day, but for now I give you the meerkat.

You never know...

2011-11-12T18:25:00.001Z

When you're going to get a photo opportunity. This evening while walking the dog I saw this little critter. First time I've seen a hedgehog while out with the dog. Not surprisingly I didn't have a proper camera with me so had to make do with the crappy one on my Blackberry, that combined with a torch and the flash from the phone gave me this.

It's my best (only) hedgehog photo ever!

Update: I neglected to mention the "difficulties" I had while shooting this little beastie. Asides from kneeing on the wet wood floor, aiming a torch at it with one hand, while with an upside down mobile phone (so I could get the angle from the floor), I also had a dog, still on his lead, running around barking at week late fireworks. Sit, Skip, sit, and shut the .... up for a few seconds!

My future in fitness photography

2011-11-08T17:58:00.001Z

I owe much to being involved with photographing fitness for so many years. Through fitness I learned how to take a decent photo, got my first photo published, and met some great people.

However back in the summer shortly after I wrote my honest review about the FAME UK competition I started to question whether I’d done the right thing or not. Although though there were lots of positives about FAME, almost immediately I was banned from future Miami Pro events.

This might not seem like a big deal, but I made close to £1000 on the day through selling event photos, which is actually quite a large percentage of my annual turnover. If I’d have kept my mouth shut then the Miami Pro door would still have been open to me in 2012, and the potential for networking and earning still available.

A few months later came the Fitness Britain finals, and me being told despite agreements being in place for several months that I was the only person attending that wasn’t allowed to take photos (due to Discovery Channel being there filming whats-her-face)...

Tired of all the bullshit in the fitness industry I even thought for a while about walking away from it and concentrating my business elsewhere.

Meanwhile in the background I was chatting with Sarah Donohue about being the primary photographer and involved with an event she was doing in 2012. Her ideas changed a bit, but ultimately Galaxy Universe was born.

After spending Sunday at the Galaxy Camp in Hooks Gym in London I can see how the “fun” is coming back into fitness. Lets face it, unless you’re up there on stage, a normal fitness / bodybuilding show that goes on for about 20 hours isn’t exactly “entertaining” to the average punter.

I really enjoyed the challenge of photographing the camp, so much more interesting than stage photos at a fitness show, which basically amounts to taking the same set of photos X number of times where X equals the number of competitors. The one time I tried to be a bit creative with my event photos this year I ended up getting “told off”.

Meh.

But Galaxy, and all the emotions that come with it, the pain and the laughter, I like. It gives me something real to photograph. I’m looking forward to being involved with the build up and the competition in May.
Sarah, thank you for letting me be a part of your dream.

Along with Galaxy, shooting the Gaspari 2012 calendar, and getting my first few photos published in Muscle & Fitness UK, it's given me a renewed interest in the fitness industry. Here's to making 2012 even better.

Now for a few of my favourite “pain faces” from Sunday.

Walking night photoshoot in London

2011-11-08T13:03:00.001Z

Something I've wanted to try for a long time is a night shoot, using available light (ie street lighting). So while I was in London recently with some spare time in the evening I took the opportunity to invite a couple of my favourite models to shoot and made it happen.

After a long day of shooting at Hooks Gym in Royale Park I made my way over to the meeting point, the Park Plaza Westminster Hotel. Silly me for thinking that traffic on a Sunday evening in London would be fairly light. 90 minutes and 10 miles later I finally arrived. I hate being late, but on this occasion it worked out just fine, as both models were running later than I was.

My two models for the evening were Ina "talks alot" Gutowska (who I'd recently worked with on the Gaspari calendar shoot) and Emma Burrows, who I'd been shooting with 13 other girls at Hooks Gym for most of the day. Just so you know who is who, Ina has dark hair, and Emma is the blonde.

Technical bit... I used the Canon 5D Mark II with a 50mm f1.4 lens for the shoot. I had it wide open the whole time at f1.4, and went from ISO 400 to 3200 throughout the shoot depending on the levels of light we could find. As mentioned I only used available light "stolen" from street lamps, shop windows etc.

Trying to auto focus black on black was not easy, next time I think I'll bring along and use a torch to aim at the subject while I'm focussing the shot. I tried this technique on my experimental self portraits a few days ago and it worked rather well.

I've never done a walking photoshoot of any kind before, but it was rather interesting. We walked almost 3 miles and stopped to shoot at anywhere we found that we liked the look off, from alley ways, to a Christmas tree in Covent Garden.

Ina & Emma were great, and thankfully it wasn't that cold (for a Novembers evening).

Most amusing part of the shoot was while we were shooting by the door that "James Bond" walks through on the film "Die Another Day". He disappears down to an abandoned fictional underground station. I'm not sure who got the bigger shock when the door opened, the guys coming out, or the girls!

Movember Portraits

2011-11-04T17:28:00.000Z

I realised this morning that it's been six months to the day that my Dad passed away after a horrible battle against cancer. He died on "star wars day", 4th May, which was strangely apt as the original Star Wars movie was the first and only film I can remember going to see with him.

At the same time as remembering the date, I noticed a couple of people tweeting early photos of their Movember progress so far.

It got me thinking, how could I help raise awareness of prostate cancer (which is ultimately how my Dad died), using my photography. So I came up with the idea that on the 30th November of setting up a make-shift studio and photographing guys who've made the effort to grow.

Ideas for me are quite easy to come by, putting them into practice and actually making them happen is a whole different talent which annoyingly I seem to be lacking in.

So I'm asking for help. First I need a location, ideally somewhere with easy access in the Southampton area. Once I've got that, I just need help spreading the word and getting people to come and be photographed.

If you've got a location that you might be able to donate for a few hours on the afternoon / evening of the 30th November please get in touch.

While I won't be making an charge for the photos, I will be asking that people make a small donation to the Movember appeal.

Update: Well stage one complete, and strangely easy. My friend Antony over at lightboxstudios.co.uk has kindly donated his studio for as long as I need it for on the day. Cheers dude. Now all I need is to spread the word and get people there to photograph.

Experimental night self portraits

2011-11-02T12:11:00.000Z

Last week I was inspired by the work of another photographer. He'd created these amazing images all by using light and long exposures. So inspired was I, that I headed out into a cold November night, not to copy, but to try something similar.

How did I do it?

Quite easy really, 30 second exposure on the camera, and then I just stood relatively still and aimed a very bright torch (the Armytek Predator if it's important to anyone), at myself. It was dark enough that I could move a bit and it not to really matter.

Where my legs are "see through", I just aimed the torch at my legs, and then moved out of the picture for the final few seconds of the exposure while aiming the torch, just behind where I'd been standing.

Painting with light is rather fun, and I shall be doing it again soon. Next time though I hope to be using a pretty girl instead of a fat photographer as the "model"!

Lots more luck than any skill or judgement, but some fun photos resulted. These are a few of my favourite photos from the evenings experimentation.

Update: I almost forgot to mention the "ghost walk" that was happening while we were shooting on the old walls of Southampton. A little bit of research on Twitter later and I've found out that it was "The Sarah Siddons Fan Club Theatre Company Present Halloween Ghost Walks - Harry Houdini’s Horrible Halloween". It's interesting making a bit of a dick out of yourself waving around a torch while 50 or so people look on while being entertained by "ghosts"!

Moody comedy photography

2011-10-24T17:10:00.000+01:00

I sold a couple of photos today of British comedian Ola (taken at Jan Jack's Laughter House) to Ben Lewis TV who are making a documentary which will air sometime in 2012. Working title is "What Brits Love".

Double page in Muscle & Fitness UK

2011-10-13T17:44:00.000+01:00

After years of not really trying to get published in the UK, I've managed to get published two months running in Muscle & Fitness UK, ironically without actually trying.

This month was my first "proper" photo though (last month were only contest photos and I don't really count those). I'm only showing the lead photo here, from a feature on athlete Jenny Pacey.

Thanks Jenny for the shoot and making the feature happen, photo looks great!

Being a property photographer

2011-10-13T13:27:00.000+01:00

It's been quite some time since I last got asked to do any property photography, but after responding to a request on Twitter last week that's exactly what happened. I was dispatched to photograph two locations, a large farm house (more on that later), and a 15th century house in the wonderful little town of Rye. I had to bluff my way a little "why yes of course I photograph some amazing properties all of the time...". I knew my work would be up to standard, I only ever take on jobs when I am confident of doing a good job, hence the "bluff" was only to give the clients the same level of confidence I have in myself.

The owners of both properties are putting them up as possible film / tv locations (with Film Location Agent Sarah Eastel Locations), and hence needed some quality photos of them.

Having spent the evening in Rye last year during their annual bonfire night / ritual it quickly became one of my favourite small towns.

Much of the house has been recently modernised (while keeping original features intact), but the two "wood" rooms as I called them, have been left pretty much as is. This little extract from the interwebs explains why one of these two rooms is of such importance "There was an exciting discovery in 1901, behind panelling on the East wall of the old hall of the building: Plaster work was uncovered which revealed a remarkable wall painting dating from the first part of the 16th century. It measures eighteen feet by seven feet. Probably the most important thing about it is the frieze with Tudor roses, the coat of arms of Jane Seymour dated 1537 and the Royal Arms of England “King Edward VI 1547″. The painting was damaged during World War II but was renovated in 1997 and is in a good state of preservation."

Photographing the wall painting was a challenge. The lights in the room cast an uneven light, and the daylight from the window did similar. No one picture really does the painting justice.

A few photos from Flushing House... the final one, in the cellar I fell down the final few stairs landing on my butt. Two days later and it still hurts. Stupid me and my clumsy self.

Photographing the moon

2011-10-11T22:14:00.002+01:00

Today I learned that you need a lens much more powerful than the equivalent of a 448mm (Canon 60D x1.6 crop), + 200mm with x1.4 converter) to get a good image of the moon.

If you look at the top photo first you might wonder why, but as the below image shows its been super heavily cropped from the original image direct from the camera.

London at night

2011-10-09T19:44:00.001+01:00

If anyone suggests to me that I try and do day-time, and night-time photos of London in the same afternoon / evening again, I may have to hurt them. Fatigue had very much set in by the time it was dark enough to do night photography, so the amount of effort put into these pictures was not nearly as much as it should have been. Still some pleasing ish results. It's a subject I plan on returning to throughout the winter months.

Things I learned from a London photowalk

2011-10-05T07:00:00.000+01:00

Deciding to make the best of the fantastic late summers sun we had in England last week I booked a last minute bus ticket to London, so I could spend the day doing a photowalk. I quickly became a we as my friend Jorge was to join me.

We ended up walking much further than either of us had planned, a total of just over 8 miles. Our route took us from Victoria all the way to Westminster Abbey, via Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, St Pauls, and then across the Millennium Bridge back to Westminster via the South Bank.

During the day, after seeing a Facebook update that I was plodding the streets of London, another friend, Izuhbel joined us for a part of the walk. Izuhbel tried to get us into and up 3 different buildings opposite "The Old Bailey" so we could have a better angle to photograph the "Lady Justice" statue on top, but maybe not surprisingly she failed in all 3 attempts. We did all manage to get a mint humbug from the third building, so it wasn't a complete loss.

I learned quite a few new things during the day, including...

the queens guards are all about 12
the queens guards appear to have no apparent height standards
ice cream vans have been banned around St Paul's Cathedral
Trafalgar Square has no lighting (at all) at night
walking 8 miles around London really makes my feet hurt
there is a scarecrow alive and well in the centre of London
a quarter of the lights on the London Eye are not working
Waterloo foot bridge moves and is unsuitable for taking long exposure images
London police officers, even the ones with semi automatic weapons, are quite happy for you to take their photo
its possible for someone to identify a National Express coach type from a poorly taken photo of the interior at night
scaffolding is a good business to be in right now
taking a long exposure night photo of the houses of parliament that includes any detail in the clock face is extremely difficult
the 15 seconds maximum exposure time of the canon g12 is not nearly long enough
National Express coaches have an uncomfortably little amount of leg room

And now for a few of my favourite photos from the day time part of our trek. Night photos to follow later in the week.

5 minutes of The London Eye

2011-10-04T15:07:00.000+01:00

Just a short, kind of pointless video of The London Eye. In real time 5 minutes went by...

A front cover on a new magazine

2011-10-01T19:28:00.001+01:00

Currently still only in digital form, this is the mock up front cover of a new magazine called "Modelinscene"

To borrow a few soundbites from the magazines Facebook page -
"The UK's modelling industry premier magazine and website is on its way."

Description - "Providing a valuable resource and insight of castings, opportunities, news, reviews, interviews, tips, styling, fashion, agencies and photographers aimed at the aspiring to the established model! We will also feature models from the 'up and coming' to the 'hot right now'" and their mission "To be the print and web media choice for all things modelling! Providing an information platform for models, people interested in modelling and for the industry agencies, photographers and make up artists."

I wish Jamie (the guy behind the magazine) much luck as he moves forward with this project. Hope to see a printed copy early in 2012!

Although the photo of Abby might look as if it was taken at a glamorous beach somewhere nice, it was actually the very unglamorous Lepe Beach just down the road from Fawley Power station near Southampton. For a little glimpse behind the scenes, look below...