Monday 12 December 2011

The new restaurant in town!




Thursday's shoot at the new Italian (Per Tutti) in Manchester went well.

Monday 5 December 2011

A sample from my nursery client's shoot.

Loved this job much more than I expected! It's amazing how you remember every single child and their unique personalities when you are editing the images after the event. They all stay with you ... amazing!

Monday 14 November 2011

Sunday 6 November 2011

Saw my nephew and his dog yesterday.





He actually allowed me to take a pic of him which is extremely rare. It should feel weird to have him so grown up and speak to him so openly - but it's not. He's such a philosophical and artistic individual and I'm proud to be an Uncle to such a thoughtful and open soul. He's the one without the fur by the way ... the fury one is his dog 'Odie'. I grabbed a quick snap of him too.

Friday 4 November 2011

Another one of my jewellery shots done this morning ...



Another one in my series of shots for a jewellery client ... again ... it's lovely to have a client who is letting me 'do my own thing' and trusting me to come up with good ideas.

I'm pretty pleased with this one - I like the concept of Dragonflies delivering your jewellery for you lol!

Thursday 3 November 2011

Are you the UK's next Top Model?

I've created a page offering Help and Advice on my website for new models and make-up stylists. It tells you what to expect, how much it costs and how to prepare yourself for that first portfolio shoot:



I hope you find it useful and good luck!

P x

Monday 31 October 2011

Jewellery Photography - My Way!

I have a wonderfully open-minded client who has let me run with my idea of having dragonflies, butterflies and spiders capturing, standing on or flying with her hand-made designs. Thought I'd start the shoot with a simple 'clean' image and take it from there ... I already have a nice web full of dew in store; waiting for the bracelet. Will post that when it's done too.

Wednesday 26 October 2011

How can you not love kids?

Another photo from this morning's walk of my little girl.

Just been for a lovely walk with my kin ...

This is the reservoir near our house ... gorgeous on a clear day like today! The first pic is of Sam and Maya enjoying throwing sticks into the water for Grace ... who loves to dive in and jump out soaked to the skin. I think she imagines the stick is really the postman's leg?


Tuesday 25 October 2011

Just updated my Website's look

What'cha reckon? www.petercreighton.co.uk


Any thoughts appreciated!

Loving Photographing people ...

The way my photography panned out in the past - I ended up with lots of 'Still-life' and 'Product' clients ... no idea why, just the way it seemed! This time I seem to be getting more people orientated work and I'm loving it! Photographed 6 corporate portraits, 7 standard 'head-shots' and 38 kids so far this week for different clients and making the person relaxed enough to feel comfortable (especially the kids!) in front of the lens and to capture that calmness is extremely satisfying and fun. I hope to get more clients that want their corporate portrait, kids, pets ... whatever!? captured by me - as I'm really enjoying this side of my photography!



Thinking it's time I started doing model test shoots too. I've done plenty of model and fashion shoots for clients but never actually bothered with the test shoots as my old business partner was so good at them. But I have so many ideas now - it's time I did this. If you're a model or actor/actress who requires some folio shots for a good price ... let me know. I can arrange make-up stylists etc. at very cheap rates too if you want me too?

Bye for now.

Tuesday 18 October 2011

Happy with my lot!

Today I drove to a shoot and as I was sat in a traffic jam realised that for the first time in my life I am happy with my lot. I don't wish for more ... just to sustain that which I already have. It was quite a moment and one that has had a profound affect on my mood all day. To finally be content after all these years; and just when I'd all but given up.

Today I could see the sunlight even though the sky was blanketed in an impenetrable grey ... wow!

Monday 19 September 2011

Grace is home!

Finally got our dog Grace home from the Police kennels. Being a breeding dog for them she had to go away for a little while to have (9 healthy) pups. The great thing is - she's now retired - so never has to leave us ever again. Did a quick mug shot of her in my lounge yesterday to test some new kit. All works well.

Hello Mr Burglar ...

Thinking of offering this as a service to people ...

Sunday 4 September 2011

My first novel published, Whoo Hoo!!!

Have had my first novel just go live on Amazon for the Kindle and have my dedicated site for it ... absolutely buzzing. Please check my site out if you have a moment (and enjoy books involving magical creatures, movies like the Goonies or games like TombRaider.) It's about a 13 year old boy who finds himself and his two friends on the adventure of a lifetime when his new boss; the aristocratic Professor Bramble's latest invention shows us a world we never knew existed ... until now. The first in a trilogy ... please check the site and get a 30 page sample of the book for free: www.thechosenblades.co.uk

Thanks a million if you do and be sure to let me know if you like it?

Peter x


Friday 19 August 2011

Those eyes ...

My daughter ... her hair wild from riding her tricycle and refusing to let me brush it; whose eyes I could stare at all day if she let me.




Photographing Coronation Street Star in a couple of weeks ...

Just been commissioned to photograph one of the stars of Coronation Street in a couple of weeks but not been told who yet? Cool!


Yesterday's shoot went well.

Did some corporate portraits yesterday ... shoot went very well and have totally fallen in love with my new Nikon 1.8 lens - it's awesome!

2 samples from the shoot:



(Note: The people have space around them so the client can play with the image's formats when compiling their brochure and website.)

Thursday 18 August 2011

Photography Tip of the Month!

Thought I’d start a monthly ‘Tips of the Month’ blog to help people take lovely photographs!

So here goes …


Oh ... and any of the shots below can be taken on a disposable camera ... the gear you use is irrelevant for this - it's all about knowledge.

I’m going to start these tips with ‘How to photograph the Sea’ (for two reasons):

·         The sea is a wonderful subject to photograph as it never fails to impress and create beautiful images for you.

·         What you learn here can be applied to photographing any landscape but it gives you a good foundation with which to start.

To begin with, imagine you are stood on a cliff-top looking out across the ocean. All you can see is the water stretching for as far as the eye can see and up ahead the horizon where the sea meets the sky.
Now raise a camera to your eye and look at that horizon, you are now looking at it in two dimensions because the camera's viewfinder flattens the world down: you have the sea, the horizon and the sky … just three elements to worry about … (possibly the sun too - but we can ignore that here.) We don’t want that horizon in the middle (because that would be boring), so how about placing it here:




Or here:



Like this:

© Peter Creighton

If you look at the image above you can begin to see how and why I composed it the way I did (It was shot on my £50 pocket camera.)


You basically imagine the viewfinder is divided into three equal parts and place the sea or sky in one of the three horizontal pieces.

Other things to consider when photographing the sea are boats and their location in the frame, birds, planes, the sun, the moon, the way the water reflects the light, waves, stillness. (If you’re lucky enough to have access to a polarising filter you can use this to reduce flare and bring back the colour saturation of the sea and/ or sky too.)

Here are a few more examples to give you an idea of how you can place elements in your ‘sea’ shots whilst keeping the horizon to one of the 'thirds' that I just mentioned.



© Peter Creighton


© Peter Creighton


© Peter Creighton


© Peter Creighton

"Simples!"

Now go and have some fun ... and let me know if this helped?

Peter x

Friday 5 August 2011

Hadfield Hall Art Exhibition

The art show I took part in last weekend went very well. There were 40 of us 'artists' that took part and the Preview on Friday night with free wine, nibbles and the official opening by the Mayor was very enjoyable. Pictures always look better and more meaningful after a couple of glasses of wine for some strange reason ...

It featured over 150 individual pieces of art and my little girl enjoyed scaring me by constantly threatening to pour her complimentary cup of juice over them.

Here are the pieces I featured:




Hope you like them?


petercreighton.co.uk

'Card not Initialised' on Fuji S2 Camera!

I received a nice shiny new 4GB Kingston CompactFlash card today only to discover it didn't work on the Fuji.

The reason: They are 32 bit format and Fuji S2's only accept 16 bit format cards of less than 2GB in size.

The Solution:

Three things to be aware of with this solution:
  • Any existing data on the card could get wiped off.
  • You will lose (for now) 2GB of your card (It's hidden as a second partition.)
  • I'm assuming you're using Windows on your PC.
The fix:
  •  Download free from the internet (Google to find it) the following Open-Source (Free) Partition software and install it: 'MiniTool Partition Wizard Home'
  • Stick the card into a USB Card-reader attached to your PC
  • Open the software above
  • Select your card from the drives shown
  • Click on 'Format Partition' (on the left menu)
  • Under the 'File System' menu select 'Fat16' then click OK
  • Click 'Apply' (top left)
  • Now select 'Move/Resize Partition' (on the left menu)
  • Under 'Partition Size' type in '2000'
  • Click 'OK'
  • Click 'Apply' (top left)
  • Close the software
  • Take the card out and put it back in your camera
  • Voila! It should now work.
Job done.

petercreighton.co.uk

Thursday 30 June 2011

Today's Protests in London

I was in the capital today photographing Corporate Portraits for a client in their Head-Office and couldn't resist popping out to snap the protesters as they marched past Bush House in Aldwych. (Where I was working.) Embarrassingly I was in the middle of shooting when my knee 'gave way' (I've been for x-rays and await the results as to why this keeps happening?) A policeman ran over thinking I was paparazzi that had got into a scuffle or something and I had to explain that I had a bad knee! He laughed it off and said he had two so I should count myself lucky ... nice guy! Anyway I'm currently sat on the train home to Manchester looking through and retouching images with a beer on my tiny fold-out tray and thought I'd stick them on my blog for anyone who is interested in this to see ... it's about time I started 'blogging' ... the people in the office were awesome too!

Hope you the photos?

Me x