James Hole, BTS and other shiz

Behind the scenes pics and video, Ideas, Personal and Creative mumblings. Click here to go back to the other page Follow me on Twitter

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Seasonal promo video for Warrior Run UK, directed, shot and edited by James Hole. http://Jamesmhole.co.uk

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Night racing ad for Q leisure

Qleisure recently contacted me to commission a night shot to promote the new floodlit racing at their mid sussex track. They had a pretty clear idea of what they wanted to achieve based on a daytime shot I had done previously. The image was going to be shot as a composite purely to combine three exposures for the three different karts. We were shooting this with a single Profoto acute b2  head in a  90cm RFi octa and a bare speedlight to rim light the drivers and imitate the floodlights that were actually in the scene but not powerful enough to show in the exposure. The final combined image with minimal retouching and Q leisures designer having added logo's and text on it looked like this. If your clients or company require high quality commercial images drop me a line, I'd love to chat about how we can help you to achieve the best possible results for your business. James

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Shopping for a Christmas jumper in Brighton.

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Couple of pics (me and Julie at the top) from the Terry Richardson style photobooth I set up at my wifes birthday.

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Image from a recent shoot for Frogbox marketing and Fremlin Walk.

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Quick shot of me with Rich and Paul of Spektre after their latest press shoot

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BMW 1000 RR, location shoot.

One of the things I love the most about photography is how framing and lighting can completely change an everyday location and transform it for a fraction of a second into a dramatic set and the reaction that follows when a client can see straight away on the screen that there is no hours spent in photoshop trying to make it interesting, it's the time spent before taking the picture that really counts.

There is very little I enjoy more than trying to take an image that I have seen in my head and figure out how to create it with the tools available.

Here's a couple of BTS shots of the setup for this bike shot, I would probably do some things slightly differently next time I do a shoot like this, like a bigger softbox and a longer boom arm, but as far as transforming the location I'm really happy with the results. 

The lighting used on this shoot was a Profoto AcuteB2 AirS Kit and a 3' Profoto RFi Octa softbox with a 1/2 CTO covering the dome of the light.

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Ace Cafe London, Harley Davidson meet with the Fuji X100

On Thursday evening I took a trip up to the Ace Cafe in London to see the Warr's Harley Davidson evening meet. Having never been to one of these before I decided to brave rush hour traffic to try and get there for around 6:30.

The idea behind going, aside from all the awesome bikes and interesting people to meet was the opportunity to take some pictures and try using my newly acquired used Fuji X100 at an event and I loved using it. Normally I would have used a D800 which generally draws attention to you in these sort of situations, but in most cases people didn't  even notice I was taking pictures with the Fuji.

I have been working on adding some bike related work to my portfolio and this was also another opportunity to spend time studying angles and details on these bike to help when I come to the planned shoots.

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Backstage shots of Rikki Glover @ Hurtwood Park Polo Club.

Rikki was just getting ready to play a guest spot with The Jones Gang at the Hurtwood Park Polo Club for the Pininfarina Sergio Tribute rally event, when he let me grab a few frames as the sun was going down. Rikki a former member of Skinny Machines is currently working on new project with Jim Stapley, you should check them out they sound pretty f'in awesome.

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Took my new D800 and Sekonic L478dr out for a quick test.

I picked up a D800 on Thursday after much deliberation, I was mostly being put off by the 36mp 70MB files and 4fps burst rate, but to be honest the resolution on these files is amazing and the Lossless compressed 14 bit files are more like 40-50MB, yeah you cant hand hold at slower shutter speeds as easily as a 12mp camera can, but that is just something to get ​used to, a D300s is my backup body so I can always use that if I need to and that still lets me get 7fps when I need it.To be quite honest though the majority of the time I am using flash of some sort anyway and I've got pretty good timing when it comes to shooting action so I tend to catch one frame at a time rather than just spraying and hoping for the best.

I was also really excited to try out my new Sekonic lightmeter, I know a lot of people say you dont need one or that they slow you down but I find it to be the complete opposite. I had previously been using the Sekonic L308s and that is great and really reliable, but I was attracted to this one because it has a ton more features including video modes that I hope to be using more now I have the D800, but the main draw for me was control for the Pocket Wizard Flex system. I can do a bit of a review if anyone gives a shit or is thinking about getting one, but for the moment I like it and think it will fit nicely with the way I like to work.

I am really excited about shooting with my new setup especially once the weather starts to get a bit better, the next thing on my list is a set of location lights and a pack as I regularly find myself coming up against waiting for Speedlights to recycle ​and although having three in a modifier to be able to shoot in the sun is great at a push it sucks for extended use in my opinion. I had been considering a Profoto Acute 600R one light and pack kit but am now leaning towards 3 Einsteins with MC2 triggers and 2 Vagabond mini's for the same money after extensive research and reading almost every review on the web.

Any opinions on buying location packs would be welcomed.​

​Cheers

​James

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Warrior Run shooting in the snow.

"When you realise that to get the angle you really want you need to lay down in the snow"

I got a call last night to head over to Warrior Run HQ in Albourne this afternoon to take advantage of the snow we have had over the last couple of days to shoot some images for their facebook page. It turned out being a great day to shoot with a stunning blue sky appearing 10 mins in.

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First few shots from the Tattoo headshot series I shot at Brighton Tattoo Convention last weekend inspired by Martin Schoeller after watching the recent Phlearn episode, but these shot with an Orbis Ringlight and a 50mm as I was approaching people inside the convention.