Hello and welcome to our brand new web site! Please bear with us while we get everything bedded in and completed… but we hope you enjoy a faster and more informative visit than you did with our old tired site!
New studio flooring!
We thought our old blue/green carpet was bringing the place down, so we’ve replaced it with a whole load of bright, lovely laminate which has brightened the studio up and made it smart and versatile.
Posted in News
Mothers Day Gifts
If you’re stuck for something special to give your mum for mothers day, we can help. How about a Gift Voucher for a makeover or family portrait shoot? Or you can choose your budget & leave it to mum to decide how she’d like to use it.
See our gift vouchers page for some vouchers you can purchase online, or give us a call on 01273 358283 for full details. We can take all major credit & debit cards, & despatch vouchers for next day delivery or collection.
Posted in Makeovers, Offerings, Portraits
Tagged gift ideas, gift vouchers, makeover photography, makeover photoshoots, makeovers, portrait photography
Christmas Portraits
Lots of people seem to like to get portrait photographs taken of themselves and their families in the lead-up to Christmas. Some people do it because the only time they manage to get the family all together in one place is around Christmas time. Others like to give their Mum & Dad or grandparents a nice portrait of the kids. Whatever your reason for wanting Christmas Portrait photos, Southdown Studio in Brighton serves the whole of Sussex and can offer a wide variety of portrait photography packages to suit everyone, including photoshoots in the studio or at home, makeover photoshoots, and items such as loose prints, framed prints, canvas prints and photo books. We offer gift vouchers for portrait shoots too, or indeed any of our services, which also make perfect Christmas presents.
Full details at southdownstudio.co.uk/portrait-photography-brighton-sussex/
Modelling Skills? What Skills Do Models Need!???
If you’re considering modelling as a career or just a fun hobby, it’s important to know what it all entails. Many people think modelling is just standing in front of a camera looking pretty (or manly) and having your photo taken, but to be a good model there’s so much more to it. Good models are worth more because there are simply so many people (especially girls) wanting to be models; so to be competitive you need to have better skills than anyone else.
So what are these modelling skills? First of all there’s the range of poses you can do. You have to learn poses so that whenever you need another pose, there’s one in your head ready to get into. A lot of photographers will ask you to give them a different pose for each click of the camera. Sometimes they’ll guide you into a pose they want, generally by demonstrating it, so it still helps if you are aware of your physicality (how your body moves). A good range of facial expressions linked to emotion keywords is also useful – for example despairing, sad, happy, elated, joyful, excited, coy or seductive. Posing for photos is a lot like stage acting – you often have to over-emphasise in order to convey all the expression of feeling or emotion you need for the shot, which lasts less than 1/100th of a second. As a rule of thumb, if it hurts or makes you feel like an idiot, it’s probably going to look great on camera.
Lastly you may be asked for moving poses, so that a sense of movement can be recorded in the image. One of these is walking; not the walking you do down the high street, but the sort of walk you’d do in a catwalk show. These moving poses are the most difficult to learn, but are a lot easier if you’ve had some dance training or do sports. Of which more later…
There’s all a point to this, and that is to create an image. What the image is trying to show depends upon the genre of the modelling job. In catwalk modelling, you’re showing the clothes, and it’s the clothes that are important, not the model. Photographically you’re either trying to show off clothes, or a catalogue product, or your hair, or facial beauty makeup, or an emotion or concept.
But modelling isn’t just about what happens in front of the camera or on the catwalk. As a model you’re a self-employed person running a business, and there are a whole load of skills you need to survive and thrive in business. Firstly you need to be able to find yourself work. That means making good contacts, networking, marketing, and above all good written & spoken communications. You need to actively market yourself, which means maintaining a strong, varied and up-to-date portfolio showing the full range of everything you can do. But you have to get your portfolio seen, and that means getting a web site, maintaining profiles on social networking and modelling sites, and making sure the right people get to see them. Sitting back and waiting for people to come to you is never going to ensure success in a crowded market, so you have to be proactive, actively seeking out people you want to work with and building professional relationships with them.
An agency can help by finding jobs for you that you wouldn’t be able to get by yourself. But equally you’ll be able to find work for yourself that the agency wouldn’t even be interested in looking for. It’s important to cast your net as widely as possible, so by all means seek agency representation but don’t expect that it’s the answer to everything. It’s also a matter of getting the right agency. There are of course charlatans, and lots of them. Some are after money, but some are much worse. The legitimate ones aren’t all good either – some of them charge you to join, which means they get their model directory/register paid for by wannabes who’ll end up as “filler”, just making up the numbers. The good ones generally don’t charge anything, but their entry requirements are strict. They tend to be specialists in one field or another; perhaps catwalk fashion models; or teenage models; or plus-size models; or glamour models. Don’t waste everyone’s time by applying to agencies where you’ll be unsuited to their specialism.
As a photographer, when I’m selecting models for a job, I tend to go with models I’ve worked with before because they’re known and reliable, and I already have a good working relationship with them. Next in line are the ones who have been talking to me for a while, perhaps having written me a really well-worded introductory email. Models I don’t know come way down the list, whether or not they’re represented by an agency. So very often it’s not just what you look like, but how you communicate and the professional relationships you maintain. Some models are so good at this, they’re first in line whenever an opportunity comes up, they’ve keep in touch so frequently.
Other modelling skills wouldn’t be classed as skills by most people, but they’re really important nonetheless. For example, looking after yourself – knowing how to eat properly, doing the appropriate exercise to keep yourself healthy… These are essential skills for the successful model. You only have one body, and your body and mind are the tools of your trade, so don’t mistreat them. Whatever your dress size, you need to be toned and physically fit.
Reliability deserves a mention all its own. It’s important to turn up for a shoot or show on time, properly prepared for work, and carrying everything you’ll need. Part of reliability is honesty. People tend to talk to each other, and the truth tends to surface all to easily. We all understand if you can’t make it because of something bad that’s happened, but one girl seemed to have had five grandfathers, all of whom either died or were rushed to hospital on the day of one shoot or another. Another girl destroyed her entire reputation for reliability by cancelling two shoots at the last minute with different photographers on consecutive days giving inconsistent excuses to do with college exams and then even having the audacity to turn up on MSN Messenger at the times she was supposedly unavailable.
This brings me to what I consider the most important and valuable modelling skill of all: intelligence. There’s nothing more attractive in a person than a burning intelligence, even better if combined with creativity, and if great good looks are part of the package too then that’s fantastic.
So, if you thought modelling was just standing in front of a camera looking pretty, think again.
Read about Jon Silver’s Southdown Studio modelling portfolio photography services for Brighton & Sussex.
Or visit Southdown Studio’s model register for models in Brighton & Sussex.
Posted in Articles, Portfolios
Tagged how to be a model, model portfolios, modelling, modelling skills, models, portfolios
Makeovers, Confidence, Self-Esteem and the True Nature of Beauty
Women want to feel beautiful. That’s different from being beautiful, looking beautiful or being seen as beautiful. It’s also different from feeling, looking or being seen as “sexy”. Feeling beautiful is something that comes very much from within.
Most women don’t feel beautiful most of the time. Men see this a lot. Unfortunately most of them are entirely ill-equipped to help. If you’re male, you’ve probably witnessed this scene. Your favourite woman looks gorgeous, but she doesn’t feel it. This can happen for all sorts of reasons, not least pregnancy & childbirth, when she feels like a beached whale, those flowing locks of beautiful hair just get in the way, and those bounteous boobs are no longer remotely sexual. As a result, she does one of two things. Either she withdraws, or she over-compensates. She dresses down, stops looking after her appearance, doesn’t want to go out, and the one that really hurts is the loss of sex-drive. As a man you feel so helpless, so utterly useless, and alas you’re apt to take it personally. It must be you. She doesn’t love you any more. Maybe she’s having an affair. At the other extreme, she becomes totally obsessed with her appearance, and end up wearing far too much makeup, dressing in clothes that really don’t suit her and can even appear rather slutty, and worst of all she projects it all back on you. You’re a slob, you’ve got fat, you don’t love her any more.
In either of these situations you need help. Both of you do.
Of course it’s not just women in relationships who suffer from a lack of self-esteem. You can be left feeling like nothing after the break-up of a relationship – particularly the woman of a certain age left for a younger woman. Teenage girls can be affected in all sorts of ways, and it’s not just the self-harmers who have major crises of confidence. Parental break-ups, an unhappy mum, a seemingly uncaring dad, general family issues – all are triggers, not just the big stuff like rape or abuse.
The Unilever/Dove Campaign for Real Beauty thing petred out after initial promise, probably because everyone saw it as just a big public relations exercise. There have also been quite a few programmes on television that attempt to address the problem. Dear old Trinny and Susannah had a good go in What Not To Wear, but their approach was never holistic enough to my mind. But Gok Wan has really hit the nail on the head with How To Look Good Naked on Channel 4 – where real women with real bodies and real confidence crises are seen going through a formulaic process which helps them to see themselves as they really are. It’s not difficult, and I hope the formula works long-term for all the women who appear on the programme, rather than being just a quick-fix for TV. I get that feeling about the ubiquitous photographic makeover sometimes – it’s like a sticking plaster for major organ failure. The only criticism I have is that sometimes the women could do with losing a few pounds if only for health reasons, and I hope the boost in confidence they get from the programme helps them achieve this long after the cameras have gone away.
Makeover: a service provided by some photographic studios where you get far too much makeup slapped on by the girl who answers the phone and then shoe-horned into a whole load of really cheesy poses for some photos which are heavily airbrushed and digitally altered and set in soft-focus before you’re sat down in front of them and made to buy them for far too much money with the aid of bright lights in your eyes and thumb-screws before being released into the open air gasping for freedom. OK but you get my point.
I don’t do makeovers like that. I hate the term makeover because it conjours up the aforementioned makeover studio monstrosity – but I have no idea what else to call what we do at Southdown Studio. I think all women are beautiful – and all I have to do is make them feel it, because then I can photograph it. With sensitively applied makeup, custom designed for your colouring and facial structure, you start to feel more confident. I help you choose items from your available wardrobe that do good things for your figure. When I take a photo you’ll like, and show you on the back of the camera, you’ll start to feel even more confident. I’ll help you achieve poses that show off your natural shape. It may begin to dawn upon you that you’re actually quite good-looking. You’ll spend the next hour or so with growing confidence, gradually feeling more beautiful. The results will be amazing – a complete transformation. Best of all you get to hold onto that feeling every time you look at the photos. You can look at them as often as you like for free, in the comfort of your own home, and without some pushy salesperson looking over your shoulder, breathing down your neck and pressurising you into buying them. When you do choose to buy a print or CD, it’s at reasonable prices and on your terms. The most important thing about my makeover photos though is that they’re generally in no need of airbrushing or digital enhancement – in other words instead of looking great once someone has completely altered your image, you look fantastic just from what the camera pointed at you has seen. Since the camera never lies, it simply must be true. Job done.
A girl came to see me recently. Her mum realised her daughter’s confidence was at rock-bottom, and brought her along for a makeover. The young lady started out terribly uncomfortable, and quite scared. She had been looking forward to the experience but now she was here in front of the camera with her professional makeup job, she felt quite intimidated. She told me that her boyfriend rarely compliments her, in fact quite the opposite, meaning probably that he calls her fat or ugly or worse. To me she wasn’t fat, or ugly, or particularly beautiful, but I knew this could change if only she started to feel different about herself. She said she wished she’d had a drink before she arrived. So I tried to help her to relax without alcohol. Deep breaths, a good line in distracting conversation, lots of questions about her. It’s like a date really, but without the intent. She started off not liking her images but then I changed to an unfamiliar angle. She immediately liked the photo and started to relax. Of course then it snowballed – she became more relaxed and confident with each iteration and eventually went for her last change of outfit, into the lingerie her mum had bought her for Christmas. Within minutes she was looking every bit the fifties pinup, like the tasteful but ever-so-slightly risqué classic Hollywood glamour photo, where the eyes draw you in seductively past the heaving bosom and the full red lips and hold you there mesmerised by her unquestionable beauty (regardless of the knowledge that the woman in the photo had a terrible personal life). You can see the change happening through the photos, and if you compare one of the earliest with one of the last, the difference is astounding – to the point where you might question if it’s the same girl. Needless to say, the girl loved the photos, bought loads, gained a major boost in her confidence, chucked the derogatory boyfriend, gave up smoking and now has something to hang onto whenever she’s not feeling so beautiful, to remind her how good she can feel AND look.
I’ve helped female friends feel better about themselves just by giving them a bit of time and attention, usually around the shops. Patiently sitting in a shop and commenting honestly but constructively as she tries on a few outfits, perhaps. Or chatting away to her as she chooses makeup colours. Basically chaps, forget the football and the pub sometimes and remember your lady needs a bit of preening, as do you. Girls can help each other out as well. Next time you go shopping, actually say what you think as your short-legged friend emerges from the changing room with short-legged turned-up low-waisted skinny jeans, flat shoes and a wide low-slung belt. Stop saying “oh yes that’s so cool on you” and try nudging her towards clothes that actually work for her figure. She’ll might just start doing the same for you, and before long we’ll hopefully end up with a far more happy, content and confident nation that has a proper understanding of what beauty really is.
If you’re in the Brighton or Sussex area, and would like to try my version of the makeover photoshoot experience, you’ll find Southdown Studio’s makeover services for Brighton & Sussex here.
Posted in Articles, Makeovers, Offerings
Tagged makeover photos, makeover photoshoots, makeover shoots, makeovers
Photographic Tuition & Photography Courses
If you want to brush up your photographic knowledge or camera skills, and you can travel to the vicinity of Brighton, East Sussex, UK… I may be able to help. People always reckoned I’d make a good teacher all the time I was growing up, so I started to teach people things quite early on. Nothing I ever do is complete without me doing a lot of thinking about why I do what I do, and what it all means to people. As a result, the underlying philosophy and psychology is always a big part of what I teach, along with my passion for the subject, as well as the technical skills.
Photography is no exception. I’ve been teaching photography to people from the Brighton area for a few years now. They come along with whatever level of knowledge, explain to me where they feel they fall short of their idea, and I’ll help them get to where they want to be. It might be a professional photographer who’s great at architectural and landscape photography, but who wants to move into studio portraiture or fashion and has no idea about studio flash lighting. Or it might be a complete amateur who got a digital SLR camera for Christmas and wants to learn all about this aperture and depth of field thing in order to take better wildlife photos.
One of the most interesting aspects of photography is composition. It’s the artistic side of photography. It’s important because the composition we use at the moment we take a photo dictates the shape and form of the image for ever. But is it important in commercial photography..? Or wedding photography..?
Since we make photographs first in our heads by evaluating a scene, before we ever press the shutter release button, how we see the world is of the utmost importance. You may think you know how to spot something beautiful and take a photograph of it… but what if you’ve been asked to photograph something of whose aesthetic qualities you’re distinctly unsure? In the commercial world, can you afford to refuse a commission? Should you not be able to see beauty wherever you look? It’s even worse if you’re a wedding photographer and the bride of the day happens to fall outside your particular criteria of beauty!
Fortunately I can help to improve your composition. It’s not a magic formula, of course. I can’t just wave a magic wand and make you better at composition. The improvement comes from within you, but it’s magic to see the results, and they come quite quickly.
So… whatever bit of photography you want to learn, perhaps a few hours spent with me can help. I teach in the studio, at home, or out and about in the great outdoors. So wherever you live in Sussex (or indeed Kent, Surrey or Hampshire), look me up and give me a call.
All the details: photographystudioforhire.co.uk/learning-photography/
Posted in Articles
Tagged learning photography, photography training, photography tuition, services
The Perfect Gift
Photography gift vouchers: a great gift idea
Blokes and Christmas – what a terrible combination that makes. I’m awful at buying presents for my loves ones, especially my girlfriend, and I’m sure I’m not alone. Most men are completely stuck for ideas when it comes to finding and buying a gift for a woman. Ironically my studio offers a fantastic gift solution for men buying for a special lady – gift vouchers for makeover photoshoots and parties, starting at just £99. It’s ironic because of course I can’t really give my girlfriend a photoshoot – it’d be a bit of a busman’s holiday. Luckily you’re not me, and your woman isn’t my girlfriend. Well, hopefully not.
If you’re a budding amateur photographer, the ladies can return the compliment by buying their man a gift voucher for photography tuition. So everybody’s happy…
Merry Christmas Everybody.
Read more at www.southdownstudio.co.uk/gift-ideas-birthday-presents-gift-vouchers/.
Posted in Offerings
“Could I be a model?” – a Photographer’s Perspective
Model Family: All these people are models. Only two of them are actually related to each other.
The question I get asked most often as a studio photographer is “could I make it as a model?”
The person asking the question has generally given very little information about herself (yes it could be himself, but in reality it’s mostly girls). She’s just presented one or two photos, usually everyday snaps photographed with little or no skill on the part of the photographer… or webcam photos showing just head and shoulders. It doesn’t matter anyway, it’s not about everyday looks.
One of my favourite models, one who’s provided the human form for some of my best art shots, is of course gorgeous. Utterly beautiful. So pretty. So everyone says, from seeing her in my photos. And they’re right of course, but would they think so if they met her in the flesh, in every day life? I think her looks are interesting and outstanding, whilst underneath is a complex character lurking with an unusual set of personality traits, and for me that makes her worth photographing. But whether it makes for someone about whom the average British man in the street (or in the pub) would say “phwoaarrrrr”… well, perhaps not. Does it matter what they think anyway? Perhaps not again. It all depends who’s looking at the images.
But all this begs a question. Faced with a bare, plain background and a human subject, what exactly are we photographing? Is it what’s on the outside? Though we think what we’re looking at is alive, in fact everything on the outside, everything that we can see – skin, nails, hair and so on – is dead. And yet it’s definitely not a dead thing there in front of the camera. Apologies to anyone who thinks that anything written about death and dead people is morbid – just humour me for a moment. I’ve seen a dead person – my late mum, in fact – and it certainly wasn’t her. Everything she was, everything that made her herself, had gone. There was nothing left of her humanity, her personality, her mind… her soul, if you will. Tut tut, and me an atheist too.
An alive person is so much different, so… animated. But it’s more than just muscle tone and movement. It’s something inside that manifests itself through to the outside. So perhaps that part of a human subject that we’re actually photographing is the soul. Let’s just call it that anyway… it has a lovely, resounding mystique about it all. Faced with a model, I photograph her soul. Does it then matter what she looks like? Strangely, the answer may in fact be “no”.
Certainly I’ve met strikingly good looking people who photograph terribly badly, and vice versa. Are they “unphotogenic”? I really don’t subscribe to that notion at all, the idea that you’re either photogenic or unphotogenic. I think, as a concept, it’s twaddle. It’s much more to do with how you feel at the time you’re being photographed. Given that most women seem to be constantly dissatisfied with how they look, perhaps that explains quite a lot about the moment when those women are photographed that I really don’t have to go into.
On occasion I’ve started a shoot with my subject telling me she’ll probably look awful, almost certain that a good photograph of her can never be even a remote possibility. Then after a few shots I’ll show her a good one, and she’ll quite like it; she’ll start to believe. Repeating this cycle, the good ones get more frequent. Eventually she’s entirely comfortable and looking great. Am I therefore photographing what’s on the outside, or merely an external reflection of what’s going on on the inside? Certainly I’ve had my “eureka” moments… like when one lady with a tough external mask stared at her photographs in tears of disbelief asking me how I’d stripped away all the years of life’s hurt and damage and seen into her soul. Er… wow.
Anyhow, I digress, as no doubt anyone who’s read my ramblings with any regularity will realise that I do without very much prompting at all. Back to models and the question of “could I make it as a model”?
Ok, so there are of course various sorts of modelling. One size most certainly doesn’t fit all, and there are niches out there for women of all ages, sizes and body shapes… not to mention moral limits. Whether or not you’ll succeed in any of them depends largely upon criteria that have nothing to do with the way you look. Like everything in this world, the answer lies in your presentation. For a model, presentation isn’t just how you look in person and in your portfolio. It’s your entire demeanour. It’s an attitude. It’s how you come across in your written and spoken communications. It’s turning up on time and in a state of appropriate preparedness. It’s feeling that you’re in control of your own destiny.
Of course there’s a grand misconception, especially amongst young girls with model dreams, that modelling is a never-ending round of parties and photoshoots, a glamourous world of luxury and excess and adulation. Of course they have no idea of how they’re going to get there, but they think it’s a case of being noticed somehow by an agency or a scout or a photographer and then whisked away to a better life. The reality is very different. Good, successful models have to work damned hard, and the ones on their way there have to work even harder. Apart from anything else, modelling is an acting job, but unlike conventional acting which affords you time to act in a sequence of dialogue placed into its proper geographical, temporal and social context, in photography you only have 1/125th of a second or so to convey all the emotion, feeling and context of a scene. At its best we never tell a complete story but rather hint at ideas that the viewer’s mind writes into its own very personal story. Rather like stage acting, it has to be somewhat overdone, hammed up, and overdoing a pose and holding it for a long moment tends to cause aches and pains the following day for all but the fittest models.
That assumes you’ve even been offered the shoot in the first place. It’s a crowded market. How do you get noticed amongst the 100s of other girls who sent their details in? Blimey, is it even worth bothering? Thousands of others didn’t. They don’t stand a chance. The 100s each stand some chance. In other words, what you do behind the scenes matters too, even more in fact. As a model, just as with any performer, you are your own self-employed business-person, marketing yourself as a product. If you get it right, you’ll find work. If you don’t, it’s back to the day-job.
To start off with, you’ll need a portfolio. There’s no use in writing to people who might be able to offer you something if they can’t see you in action. But there’s no use having a portfolio consisting of dozens of mediocre photos either. Choose five outstanding images. Don’t get emotionally attached to certain images that may be substandard. Learn to be your own harshest critic. When you present it to someone, do so with pride, not an apology. Your approach should also indicate that you know something about who you’re writing to. If it’s a magazine, say something specific about the magazine; if it’s a photographer, mention a specific shot you like and throw a compliment. And expect no reply or at best a “no”. You won’t be chosen more often than those times when you are selected. But grow a thick skin, and move on. And remember, every five minutes spent wishing and what-iffing is a wasted five minutes. Don’t just sit there, do something!
Of course it’s also important that you look after your product. Drinking, smoking and not exercising is just plain stupid, when it’s affecting the only marketable commodity you have. If you’re going to have thighs and a bum, at least make sure they’re toned. It’s not hard. Eat a healthy diet. Try walking a bit. Or cycling. Or swimming. And lay off the fags, drugs, etc etc.
Try to tell the vast majority of girls all this and you’ll fail to get through at all. They’ll continue to mess people around, fail to turn up to shoots, and use the death of their fifth or sixth grandfather as an excuse. Clear away the time-wasters and there are very few who’ll ever make it. Are they the best lookers? Who’s to say? But they’re definitely the ones who deserve it. And ask any of them if it’s the glamourous idyll the wannabes think it is, and don’t be surprised at the answer.
Posted in Articles, Portfolios
Tagged how to be a model, model, model portfolios, modelling, modelling skills, models, portfolio, portfolios
