The Secret Shutter Blog

Apr 06

by karyn in Uncategorized 0 comments

Creative Photography Channel

It’s been nearly a year since my last post. This has largely been due to work commitments over the last few months. What a strange few months it has been too? However as we slowly start to emerge from lockdown I have learned a number of new skills. Being in temporary accommodation away from work and having to teach online I found producing YouTube videos quite useful as a teaching aid. As I’m going back to face to face teaching now I’d like to share some of my videos with you all. They are mostly aimed at little creative tips to help with any photography projects you might have. I’m certainly no YouTuber but I hope that you might find some of my content useful. Lockdown has certainly taught me to become more resourceful with my shooting. When you are stuck in one place and unable to go far then your creativity can suffer. However it really doesn’t have to be that way. Today’s modern DSLR cameras and even smartphones have so much to offer in terms of creative experimentation. My central message here is to simply pick up your cameras and shoot! With only a little experimentation it’s possible […]

May 13

by karyn in Commissions 0 comments tags: commissions, jewellery, silver

Silver By Charlotte

By far one of my personal favourite subjects to photograph is jewellery. I really enjoy thinking of new ways to showcase artists’ work. They spend so much time creating such beautiful objects, that I believe the resulting photographic images should also reflect this. A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of working with Charlotte Dalrymple-Hay who owns Silver by Charlotte. Charlotte’s designs are timeless classics and her designs are beautiful. I started to experiment with an initial image which you can see below: I quite liked this initial image as I felt that the silver colour worked well against the background. I also added in some light steaks and dust scratches to add interest. However I felt that the designs needed to be much more streamlined to accentuate the beauty of Charlotte’s Jewellery. One of the classic issues with this type of photography is flare. So if you are thinking of trying any projects like this, it is really important to control your lighting well. Think not only about the subject you are photographing but also the reflections in it. Flare can absolutely ruin an image especially when it is difficult to remove in editing software. Watch out […]

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Apr 30

by karyn in Holiday Let Photography 0 comments

Holiday Let, Property and Interior Photography

One of the things that I really enjoyed last Summer was the work that I did in the area of holiday let property. I did a number of interior projects for a number of clients, plus some agency work for Airbnb. However one of my most favourite jobs was for Beach Retreats. I was really thrilled to be asked to do some dusk shots for this company. Firstly because they are so meticulous about their design and photography and secondly because dusk photography is very specialist. However most importantly they have a port folio of the most beautiful and amazing properties on their books. To produce beautiful dusk shots takes patience and a good knowledge of how to use a slow shutter speed. Normally when using a camera on auto mode or a smartphone, when light levels drop the camera’s built in flash fires. Unfortunately this does not give good results because the beautiful colours of the sunset are lost. To get around this photographers must shoot their subject without the use of flash. However without flash the subject can appear to dark. This is when a slow shutter is used in order to maximise the available light. Below are […]

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Apr 15

by karyn in Uncategorized 0 comments

Return of the Ibex – BM27

One of my favourite shoots from last year was taken at Brixham’s Steam Packet Company. This involved photographing some of the beautiful items that were repurposed from the Ibex – BM27. The Ibex was a famous trawler that sank off the coast of Brixham. Some of her timbers have been reclaimed, lovingly restored and repurposed. To illustrate the idea of the sea, I used the theme of water in some of my images I love to visit the Steam Packet Company and Chartroom First Class Coffee Lounge. The food is delicious but also the Chartroom is a photographers’ dream! The lighting inside is very soft and atmospheric. Indeed all of the images shot in the following videos were taken using only the available ambient light. The Ibex – BM27 exhibition is ongoing, so if you want to own a little piece of history or just want to know more then it’s well worth a visit. I have also included a video of some of the delicious food that I shot there at the same time. Please visit the Steam Packet Company to find out more. Beautifully Repurposed Ibex Timbers Delicious Food at the Chartroom – First Class Coffee Lounge

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Apr 09

by karyn in News 0 comments tags: Adobe, news, Spark, Web pages

The Adobe Spark Blog

One really lovely surprise I had a while ago was a mention in Adobe’s Spark Blog! I already knew that I had made it onto their ‘Wall of Inspiration’ which is covered in one of my older blog posts. However, it was an extra honour to feature in their blog too! I have worked with Adobe’s creative tools for many years and each year they just keep getting better and better! Having used the Adobe Spark Pages product for developing web pages I can thoroughly recommend it. Photoshop for photographers, in my opinion is also essential. I love to experiment with photography and I hope to do more soon. In the meantime here’s my feature. I am blog/Spark page number 2 in the article.

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Apr 05

by karyn in News 0 comments tags: corona virus, forget me nots, Wex photographic

The Corona Virus

The Coronavirus has brought many problems, but it has also afforded many opportunities. A problem I constantly run into is finding time to update my blog! Over the last couple of years I have worked on many great projects but sadly not had the time to document them. Coronavirus has now changed all of that for me. Therefore I’m currently taking advantage of all of my newly found free time to catch up on things I enjoy doing. This includes keeping my blog up to date. The image I’ve chosen for this opening 2020 post is one from March last year. The reason I’ve chosen this image is because it made the Wex Photographic shortlist for one of the weeks in March. The Wex Photographic Photographer of the Year competition affords some very stiff competition. Every week, photographers are invited to enter the competition with an image each Monday that they shot the preceding week. This is a great way of keeping content fresh and forces photographers to go out and shoot something new. However the competition is extremely high with entries often running into hundreds each week. Many photographers enter on a regular basis but never ever make the […]

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