CALM Night at Karns

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CALM stands for Campaign against living miserably and is a charity that's set up to raise awareness and offer support to males who have to deal with mental health issues that can lead to suicide.

Steven Faulkner organised this event in memory of Michael Rose who lived in Hinckley for all of his short life until he passed away at the age of 37.

The bands that donated their time and performed this gig are:

If you have a man or boy in your life, then please don't be afraid to talk about mental wellbeing. If you are worried then contact your doctor, speak to a family member or call a charity like CALM or Mind.

Simon Workers Motor

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Here's a short promo video that I put together in my spare time to help save Simon's awesome motor from being to sold to an unloving home.

DMU Student's photo chosen as one of the best pics of the year

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This is a nice accolade to start 2017 with.  If you're not aware, I'm studying a photography & video Bachelor of Arts Honours Degree at De Montfort University while running my photography and video business, which is now in to its successful fifth year.

I entered a national student photography competition last year and missed out on £12K worth of prizes by a Gnat's nut.  However, my work was highlighted as highly commendable.

You can read more about my success with this nationwide competition here... 

This was my entry chosen by the judges as significantly good in their opinion.

 

I also have some even more amazing news to share with you.  My wife Lisa and I had a little too much Paella and Red Wine at one of Lisa's exhibitions last year.  This ended with the most incredible experience of my life.

Emma Leigh Hands was born 31/12/2106 @ 17:29 weighing 4lb 15oz.

My world has just turned upside down and my outlook on life is so very different to that of a couple of weeks ago.  It will be interesting to see if this moment in my life has an impact on my photography style and outlook.

So, 2017 promises to bring around a completely different lifestyle for myself.  I'm sure I'll be working even harder this year.  I'm hoping to get some more work creating films like the last two with R-Tech Performance and Gorman's Fight Club.  I'm happy to make commercial styled films that have a backline story and add a commercial context to be different to the typical advertising style.  I like to create documentary styled films that have high impact and hook the viewers straight away.

I'll also be looking for new clients regarding my still photography side of the business.  I'm hoping to be working with many more (PR) Public Relations Agencies, Commercial and Corporate clients as well as potentially get involved with more charities like SSAFA (The Armed Forces Charity).

What is important to note is that I will be graduating from my degree course and will then be applying myself to my business completely on a full time basis.  This can only mean that my clients are truly going to get the best of me from here onwards.

Happy New Year

If you'd like to get in touch with me, please click on this link.

R-Tech Performance The Movie

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A documentary style commercial film, 

about R-Tech Performance and the way in which they do business and interact with their customers.  The owner of R-Tech (Niki Gower) tunes cars to perform out of their skin.  R-Tech increases the power output of the cars that come to their unit in Hinckley, Leicestershire in the midlands.
The modified car scene is still prevalent and especially within the VAG scene (Volkswagen and Audi Group) and Paul Hulme's VAG Tuning and the VAG Gang.
Quite often, Niki from R-Tech will go to the meets at places like Santa Pod Raceway to socialise with customers that have also become friends.
This film tells the story of a typical day at R-Tech, the things that go on at Santa Pod in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire and includes the famous rolling road days at R-Tech's unit.
The style in which this short film has been created is a witty documentary with a commercial and promotional purpose.

Click on the logo for Paul Hands to contact him about professional photography and filmmaking.

Click on the logo for R-Tech Performance to contact them about tuning or performance parts.

R - Tech Film Trailer (Official)

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This film has been 3 months in the making and involved numerous film days on set at the R - Tech Performance unit on the Dodwells Industrial Estate in Hinckley, Leicestershire.  We've also followed R - Tech and their customers along with the VAG Gang and VAG Tuning to Santa Pod Raceway in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire.

The trailer has been cut to exactly 2.01 minutes and timed with a background music track that hits the viewer with everything that R - Tech Performance are about, inclusive of the modified car scene that they're famous for being involved with and tells a very quick version of their story.

This is of course a prequel to the full length film version, is designed to appeal to a customer base who takes pride in their cars and is due to be released at the end of this week.  The intention was to create a raw and punchy stylised commercial film that can be used on their website and social media to generate a buzz and vibrant level of interest around their company and the scene going forwards in to 2017 and the future.

Have a look for yourself...

Dark Power

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Well the title suggests something a little more sinister than the work portrays.  This is about a small series of images created at night time directly pointing at the the Power Station towers at Ratcliffe On Soar near to Nottingham and situated next to the M1 motorway.

I felt that these towers needed the drama of the night and an overcast sky to work as the backdrop so that the smoke billowing out from the chimneys, blended in with the clouds.

I stopped by this location on the way home after a making a still image documentary with SSAFA (The Armed Forces Charity) last night.

It is an epic site that hits you with complete awe, when you stand next to it.  Have a look through some of the images; click to enlarge.

If you'd like to enquire about commissioning my photographic or moving image services, please click here to be redirected to my contact page.

Don't forget to follow me on social media where quite often, I upload work that doesn't appear on my website.

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Click on image below to visit the website for Hushabye Baby Newborn Photography.

November Film and Photography

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I've got a very busy month coming in November.  

I'm finalising the editing of the film for R-Tech Performance.  We've got a few days of filming left where I'll be interviewing Ben from R-Tech about their amazing company and how they've helped to create a culture around re-mapping cars to go faster.  The film so far, follows some of their customers while they test drive their cars after being re-mapped.  We've also been to Santa Pod Race Circuit to witness R-Tech's customers testing their cars on the 1/4 mile track.  We also have a rolling road day coming up at R-Tech's unit in Hinckley, where we'll be documenting with moving image.

During November, I'll be working with SSAFA again.  They have a special event on where families of fallen and injured military personnel gather in remembrance and to find support from one another.  I'll be creating a documentary series of photographs around the event for use on the website, on social media and to be printed within their help leaflets.  The next event is happening in Nottingham

I've also been out making personal photographs for projects that I'm currently working on.

 

Click on images to enlarge.

This image is part of a year long project called Rockets.  I'm currently in search of human constructions that resemble rockets and juxtaposing them against the night sky.

The above set of four photographs are all considerations to become part of a series of pictures that tell a metaphorical story.  They're all colourful sculptural protrusions from the Earth.  This is still a work in progress and will culminate with an exhibition at Free Range in the Old Truman Brewery, London in 2017.

I've also been out and collected some cheesy landscape photographs of the recent Super-moon as it hovered and rose above Hinckley.

So November is and has been a very busy month for me.  On top of all of this, I'm decorating my house from top to bottom.  This is of course in line with the amazing news that I'm going to be a Father.  So I have to get my house ready for my beautiful Daughter to arrive in January.

I'm still currently working and taking on new and exciting projects.  I've got many enquiries coming in for commercial photography jobs and a couple of commercial films to do quotes for.  If you have any assignments where you'll need a professional photographer, filmmaker or videographer, then please click here to go to my contact page and drop me a line.

R-Tech Performance & VAG Tuning @ Santa Pod Raceway

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Just a very short and quick edit for a teaser...

UBL 16 Top 10 Pictures So far...

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I left The Athena on Saturday night with over 2000 pictures, after a very heavy session photographing the boxing matches for UBL (ran by Gorman & Hopkins Promotions).

I've been working on the post production all day, since waking up until now - 22:48.  I'm turning off the Mac now, my eyes are now 6x4".

Before I do, I felt there are some photographs created at the show that just cannot remain unseen.  They do belong to albums from each fight and can be found on my Paul Hands Photographer & Filmmaker Facebook page here.

However, to find these hidden works of art, you'd have to trawl through the fights, unless you've decided to visit this blog.  Here's my top ten photographs from the 7 fights that I've worked on today.  There will of course be another 11 fights to come over the next couple of weeks but for the time being, have a look at these and check out my explanations as to why I think they're in my top ten.

If you click on the pictures to enlarge them, hover the cursor over the picture and my explanation for why these have made my top ten will appear.

R-Tech Performance The Trailer

Today was my first day working with a new client R-Tech Perfomance in Hinckley Leicestershire.  They specialise in re-mapping ECU's on VAG cars (Volkswagen, VW and Audi).  After being commissioned to create a film for them around their business and the scene at Santa Pod Raceway during the Finale of the GTI Festival season. 

I've been working with a very small amount of material this evening to create a short trailer as a prelude to their upcoming film.

Have a look (click the picture below) and let me know what you think so far.