Hinterland, A Journey of Discovery

October 31, 2018 in Landscape Photography

Hinterland, A Journey of Discovery…

is a photo essay curated from a series of landscape photographs that lead the viewer on a journey through a compositional and bendy narrative with twists.

Join me on an exploration through the Hinterland in the depths of the East Midlands.

Follow the twisted path of yonder and discover the adventure that awaits any man or woman brave enough to wander alone.

You’re welcome to begin but you can’t stop once you start.

There’s an edge to this journey, you must run for your life for there are packs of creatures that have not been seen, yet traces of their existence and the loss of many brave souls lives and the limbs,, enough. Well, they’re real and they’re out there.

So you must fucking run ok!

No walking or your fucking dead, they won’t miss you if you walk.

Trust me.

It’s good for the waste line too!

So…

When you clear the clearing and reach the woods, breathe, you can relax there because it’s just magical in the woods. It’s pretty and you’ll see, it’s a furry tail!

Don’t fret if you’re spotted by the creatures after the woods, they’ll be on foreign ground and this is your time Bumble Bum, it’s a bumpy road but there’s a way out.

Now fucking run!

If you wanna keep up with my work, please sign up below, it’s easy, I’ll do the rest.

Moments of People

September 09, 2018 in Street Photography, Documentary Photography

Celebrating life in Birmingham CIty Centre

NIKON CORPORATION_NIKON D610_591813-599127_008.jpg

This collection of photographs were created in 2014 during some of my exploration of street photography.

As always, I welcome your comments and chats about photography.

Feel free to subscribe to see more of my work.

The Combe Martin Landscape, North Devon.

July 23, 2018 in Landscape Photography, Tourism Photography

Tourism Photography

Showing off the landscape for travellers and tourists.

During a trip to Combe Martin in North Devon for our holiday and exploration of the area, I was overwhelmed by the naturla beauty that surrounds the resort and reacted by making photographs that I felt showed off the place in a promotional way.

This is a skill that I apply to my commercial photography. I look for the shape of the land and work with how the light falls up on it, shaping the form and romanticising the landscape.

I'm not strictly a sublimne romantic photographer and this genre is one that I usually leave for the photography enthusiasts but when I was faced with these beautiful scenes in Combe Martin, I couldn't refuse the exposures.

This is a small selection of the pictures that I made during this trip, I hope you enjoy them?

This kind of Landscape Photography can be used to help promote holiday parks, resorts and campsites as well as support the tourism board in promoting destinations. If you'd like to make an enquiry about commissioning me for an assignment, please hit this button gently...

contact paul hands

Hinckley Bid's 9th Annual Soap Box Derby Film

July 16, 2018 in Commercial Film, Documentary Film

The Soap Box Derby

Hinckley BID (Business Improvement District) organise many social events in the small market town centre in Leicestershire every year in what is now becoming an historic tradition.

I was commissioned to create a short film of the whole event and arrived early on the Sunday morning of the race day. The first thing I encountered was the huge numbers of entrants hanging around in the pits, tinkering around and putting the final touches towards their carts.

The Soap Box Derby is a timed solo race down Castle Street which is a large hill named after a small Mott and Bailey that centered in Hinckley many years ago. Castle Street is a long downhill gradient and the course is manufactured with a chicane and a ramp with a large stopping and turning area at the bottom of the hill.

Thousands of people come to Hinckley from all over the UK to watch the derby and this film is a short tribute to everyone that takes part in both the racing and the organisation.

The commission was to create this short film with a focus upon the event and the crowds that flock to watch and for the purpose of showcasing the extent the BID go to, to bring people in to the town centre and to show how good for local business are the BID and the events that bring the footfall.

Documentary Photography and Filmmaking

Public Relations Photography

Corporate Website Imagery

Landscape Photography

Documentary Photography

Clients: Charities, Local Government, Corporate and SME business

Events, promotion and storytelling visual needs

Contact

What Can Street Photography Do To Help?

June 10, 2018 in Street Photography, Documentary Photography

Street Photography Skills Are Transferable

It's the hardest genre of photography to pick up!

Firstly, the genre of Street Photography is the single most difficult genre of photography to do, be good at and to practice because you're simply pointing your camera at strangers in the street. In today's society, people are becoming more and more aware of their image appearing on the internet and usually, object to having their picture made by a stranger on the street.

In this picture above, I noticed the man approaching this painting and realised that he looked incredibly similar. The moment happened in slow motion and I couldn't believe what was happening at the time. I was completely tuned in to the environment when I came across this scene in Artists Square in the Montmartre district of Paris. I had to make sure the exposure was right, using manual controls on my camera, get the focus in the right place, frame the shot and make the picture, all without being creepy, obvious and with respect.

I noticed this dog in the window, while scouting the centre of Birmingham, looking for street photographs and because there was a reflection in the window below, I had to position myself so that I wasn't in the picture as a reflection but wait until the right person passed the scene to get them in the picture. This was a necessity for the image because the general consensus for a street photograph to be classed as that, there needs to be a human element in the frame.

Most of the time a street photograph works best in black and white. There's an old saying that when you photograph people in colour, you photograph their clothes but when you photograph them in black and white, you photograph their souls. For a picture to work in colour, the colour in the picture has to matter. The colours in this picture (above) matter because they're quite striking and demand attention. In black and white, this picture would just be a very average one, even now, it's still an average picture by comparison to others work.

Where I've said that Street Photography skills are transferable, I'll explain. You see, to make a street photograph, you have to really tune into your environment, slow life down and watch humanity passing your eyes. You're effectively people watching but looking at the world and these people with an artistic eye. You look for meaning and a way of making sense of life. You have to be very quick with your camera too and learn to move unseen around the city. Using the skills of a street photographer, you can learn to apply them to a commercial setting. For example, I do a lot of documentary photography for my clients, telling real stories with my camera for promotional and positive reasons. I often get commissions that require my street photography skills because it tells a certain amount of truth as opposed to designing a photograph and this is a valuable commodity for certain organisations.

The above picture is purposefully blurred because it was made in Amsterdam and it was towards the end of the evening, with this demonstrating how I felt at the time. There's a human element and it's not close up but I've photographed the environment and placed a person for the human element within the frame.

This picture is also blurry and was made in the red light area of Amsterdam. The blur is from an intentional camera movement designed to create a hectic vibe in the picture. Its design is to create tension in the frame, to make the viewer feel the chaos of the night in that place.

I made the above picture in my hometown of Hinckley Leicestershire at the end of the LOROS Colour Fun Run. The light was low and casting long strong shadows. The floor was covered in paint powder from the race and it made an interesting picture. I stumbled across a child rolling around on the floor in the paint and loved the frame with the bollards, almost creating an invisible box.

The above picture was from the same fun run as the photograph before and catches a very unique moment in time where these three girls are holding hands passing through the place where they're doused in pain powder. The paint itself is flying through the air and offers strong evidence of time stopping. There's also an element of the environment in the top left corner for reference, it also provides context as opposed to the paint blocking out any visual reference as to where it is. These are strong skills that can be applied to photographs for a commercial setting, especially within the events genre.

So in essence, Street Photography skills are the hardest to acquire and learn. I remember the first time I pointed my camera at a stranger in the street. I was so worried that they'd be offended and it wasn't until I learned how to do this properly without them realising and even noticing me that my pictures started to work. It's all about getting close to the subjects and telling the real story or even making up your own. To make a picture instead of taking one is the difference. Anyone can take one but making one is the difficulty and why only some pictures work and others don't.

I don't shoot weddings anymore, I used to but fell out of love with it through some awkward clients being painfully interfering with the process. My point here is that if you shoot weddings, Street Photography can really help your style, it's how you need to shoot a wedding really. Once you've done all of the portraits and the time comes to make natural looking pictures of the guests and wedding party enjoying themselves, these skills come in very handily.

I've always found that by learning to shoot street, it's sped up my decision-making process and the way in which I think visually, happens so quickly now. I can only put this down to the skills being transferable.

Try it for yourselves.

New Website Photographs

June 07, 2018 in Commercial Photography, Business Photographer

Corporate Business Photography

Tailored photographs designed for your new or existing company website.

Most of my clients need my services to help them clean up their websites, to help support their brands and to promote their business to their own clients and potential new business.

The SFB Group in Nuneaton commissioned me to create corporate portraits of every member of staff from all of their UK offices in 2017 and then became a returning client in 2018 when they required new photographs for their website and for public relations in the local media. The above photograph was created so they have a strong photograph to use in their recruitment campaigns.

JJ Churchill in Market Bosworth commissioned me to provide a series of corporate headshots of their Directors, working photographs of staff in situ, on site and operating their multimillion pound machines, which are used to create precision aerospace parts as well as product photography of their machined parts.

Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council commissioned me to produce a series of images for public relations to help promote their tourism partnership project, starting with a new Bosworth visitors map. The image below shows MP David Treddinick giving a speech to the local tourism businesses and other council dignitaries.

Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council, David Treddinick

Chancellor of the Exchequer Phillip Hammond and Sajid Javid Home Secretary

Morris Homes and the Treasury commissioned me to provide a natural candid style of public relations photography to help them promote the new Homes England campaign to support house builders throughout the UK. These images were used in social media blogs and on their website, all in aid of supporting positive direction.

The commonality of my image making:

These are just some of the commissions that I've been working on during 2018 and the common theme between all of them is the platform in which the images will be published, as well as the fact that most of my photographs are about people and place and always with promotion and a positive end result.

In the near future, I have a large commission for local government to produce a year-long series of documentary films promoting how the Business Improvement District support local businesses. This will be heavily focused on the footfall of the town centre, the busyness and how the BID bring business to the businesses.

I'm a passionate photographer and filmmaker that specialises in storytelling and promotion. Check out my client list and services here, along with great examples of the finished product of my assignments.

This is just a small snippet of my client list:

AAEAAQAAAAAAAAvOAAAAJDNjZDc2ODIzLWI5ZTEtNDRhZi1iZGQ5LWU2M2U0OTYzN2RmNA.png

If you're considering hiring a professional photographer to create brand-specific photographs for your website, social media or for newspapers and magazines, then make an enquiry to discuss whether your assignment and my skills & availability are compatible.

Enquiries

Alternatively, call me now on 07854 956 970

My phones in my pocket on vibrate, I won't miss your call.

Email: paul@paulhands.co.uk

Amstreetdam

May 23, 2018 in Street Photography, Travel Photography

A Street Photography Project in Amsterdam

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines landed me on a motorway bridge on the outskirts of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and with a short train ride to arrive at Centraal Station, taking in the track side views of rural, residential and industrial landscapes.

Once settled in the hotel, I hit the streets ready to put my new Panasonic LX100 to the test. Up to this point, i'd only used the LX100 a few times but not under any pressurised commercial situations. It was only up on writing this blog that I discovered a fast AF setting within the menu's. I'm kicking myself now because I spent the whole time in Amsterdam, anticipating photographs because I was worried about how slow the AF was. I put it down to being spoilt using a dslr with almost instantaneous focusing and having owned a Fuji XPro 1 for a short part of its life.

Julie Hrudova, a street photographer based in Amsterdam became a source of inspiration for me prior to my trip.

When I first discovered the pictures by Julie, I was blown away by her presentation, modernity and classic style of street photography. I recommend taking a look through her Flickr website.

Jonathan Higbee:

Jonathan lives in NYC and has recently collected the amazing recognition he fully deserves with his coincidental work around New York in what Jonathan describes as his love letter to New York. I've included Jonathan here because his work is so cool that when I'm out on the streets looking and searching for scenes, backdrops, places and people to photograph, I always have some of his strongest images in the back of my mind but I never ever come across similar.

I can only put that down to different minds and a different set of eyes. Proof that it's the photographer that makes the pictures as opposed to the camera!

Don't take my word for it anyway, please head over to Jonathan's website and see how good he is for yourself... https://www.jonathanhigbee.com

I'm currently influenced by many photographers and with all good work, it's informed by others.

So this is my Amsterdam project...

Amstreetdam:

I've created this work from a perspective full of influences from street photographers that I've discovered around the world. Julie Hrudova, Jonathan Higbee from New York City and many of the artists showing their work with the Pure Street Photography collective. These photographs are intended to show my view of the quirkiness of the streets in Amsterdam, day and night. I've found myself being drawn to almost surreal, graphic and intimate stories at the side of the canals and narrow roadways. Amsterdam really is a beautiful city and a giant habitat that just keeps on giving, which ever direction you walk in. With a good eye for a a photograph, it's difficult not to find something you can make great photographs of.

So this is my visual story of Amsterdam.

Black and White Street Photography

I also made some in colour because Amsterdam is too colourful that I couldn't resist having a play with the beauty of the city.

Colour Street Photography

I still feel like I've only skimmed the surface of Amsterdam. There's so much to explore and I only had three days to look, learn, discover, feel the heart of the city and show that in my pictures.

As this was a test for me working with my new LX100, I feel compelled to tell you what I think of it. Had I discovered the fast AF setting, I may have enjoyed this camera more. I still enjoyed playing with it and am learning new ways to work the streets with it. I found the light meter to be accurate and I shot in RAW, knowing that I didn't fully trust the camera, I wanted that flexibility. The manual controls are very intuitive and I found it easy adjusting the iso, shutter speed and aperture to suit each scene.

The challenge as always with street photography is not so much the technical side, but more the story and visual impact. You can't just make a good picture, a view of the world develops in your frame and if you're ready with your camera and become part of that moment in time. It's an honour, especially if you can overcome the initial anxiety of pointing your camera at people on the street. Breathe and feel the world living.

The photographs that appear in this blog can be made available as artwork and I've discovered new suppliers for my prints, who offer excellent quality.

Prints available poa.

Contact me.

You can subscribe to my mailing list which is managed by Mailchimp and abides by the new GDPR rules. Meaning you can unsubscribe and there's a double opt in to make sure that you do want to receive my blogs.

PR Photographer, Midlands

May 01, 2018 in Professional Photographer, Public Relations Photogra

Public Relations Photography Midlands Service

All good leading brands need to self promote

How my PR photography service can help your brand?

I'll answer that question easily enough, I'm great with candid photography. I'm a street photographer at heart and this genre of photography is a very fast paced pictorial style that can't be done well by just anybody. The snapshot is often and incorrectly disregarded because of the quick nature in which they have to be created. It actually takes great craft, skill and observational techniques that can only be grown by a practicing and experienced photographer.

Sajid Javid (Home Secretary) & Phillip Hammond (Chancellor of the Exchequer) at Morris Homes, Leicester.

The story is always the important part of the picture and in the image above, Sajid Javid who was at the time of this photoshoot, was the Secretary of State and Phillip Hammond who is still the Chancellor of the Exchequer. They both visited Morris Homes in Leicester as part of a PR stunt aimed at boosting the new Homes England campaign by the government. In this picture Hammond and Javid spoke with house building apprentices in one of the show homes. They were genuinely interested in what the apprentices had to say.

I had to light this image with a speed light in order to bring out the details of the people with this being inside a fairly dark room (for photography). The PR shoot was mixed and based both inside and outside, with me moving quickly between environments. Many lighting factors had to be considered and worked around to get the images clean and crisp enough for professional usage.

Sajid Javid, Home Secretary, Public Relations Photography Shoot.

The above image was made outside and extra lighting wasn't required to get that candid feel. Lighting always make everything look staged. I was hired purposefully to create a documentary feel to the images.

David Treddinick Politician Hinckley & Bosworth MP

David Treddinick visited an event that was held by Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council at The Royal Arms in Sutton Cheney in the district of Hinckley & Bosworth. The event was a celebration and event for the tourism industry, filled with many local businesses in the district like Twycross Zoo, Bosworth Water Park and Tropical Birdland. I was hired at the last minute, and luckily I was available and always happy to cater for emergencies and urgent requirements.

Employees at JJ Churchill Aerospace Engineering Ltd.

I was hired by a marketing agency to provide some pr photographs, product shots and studio styled headshots of the Directors for JJ Churchill Aerospace Engineering in Market Bosworth. Churchill's required imagery for their website and also for some marketing material at a trade show. This was also a last minute booking and I was hired urgently with a premium request for the turnaround of the images within 24 hours. I provide an overnight service that helps companies complete their marketing needs at late notice and with precision.

Diabetes UK booked me to provide documentary styled images that could be used for public relations and to help push focus towards their charity, hopefully gaining support, donations and convince parents to pay for their children to attend their type one events.

What ever your visual requirements are, what ever your budget is and whether you need still or moving images. I can provide you a tailored service that gives you a service and product that meets your budget.

My diary is very busy but I do have spaces for new business, so if you have any pr photography requirements, then please don't hesitate to get in touch.

I also provide services for:

Website Imagery
Marketing Photographs
Public Relations
Moving Image
Documentary Photography and Filmmaking
Corporate Portraiture / Headshots
Landscape Photography
Street Photography

The best thing to do if you think you might be able to use my services is to make a note of my contact details and / or just get in touch now.

Contact Me

Woodland Bluebell Photography Workshop

April 27, 2018 in Photography Workshops, Photography Classes

Outdoor Woodland Photography Class, Leicestershire.

For people interested in learning to make better photographs using professional techniques.

Paul Hands BA (hons) will be running this course.

First of all, I'm an experienced photographer and filmmaker that has been running workshops for the past 5 years now. My style is very relaxed and aimed at helping you to think for yourself and to discover a higher level of creativity that you didn't realise you had.

The fun part is we'll be walking around the woodlands at Burbage Common and amongst the Bluebells and making photographs that would be worthy of printing artwork for your own home.

Originally I had the workshop open for 7 people and now I'm closing 2 places to make it a smaller workshop with just 5 spaces. This is so that the people booking on the course get more of my time helping them with their photographs. Two spaces have already been booked, leaving 3 spaces, so if you would like to join us on this photographic adventure on May 12th for a few hours on a Saturday morning, click on the link below.

Sublunary - Alien Invasion of Planet Earth

April 17, 2018 in Fine Art Photography, Night Landscape Photo

Fine Art Photography meets Visual Stories

Sublunary - Part 2

As a professional photographer, Father to the most beautiful little toddler in the world and Husband to an equally beautiful Mother; I find it difficult to get out and make personal work.

In 2017, I graduated from University with a High 2:1 in a BA Hons in Photography & Video degree at De Montfort University, where the idea for this project was born. I began with a long period of time in the library, scouring art books and photographic archives, learning about who, what where, when, why and how specific bodies of work was made.

Surprisingly, I came across some painters and other Fine Art Photographers that worked in similar fields to my research. One in particular that sticks out in my mind was Photographer Erasmus Schroeter and Painter Max Ernst.

I was also heavily inspired by my lecturer (Kosovan) Lala Meredith-Vula who is a contemporary fine art photographer with international recognition. Lala's ideas about my work and how to get the best out of me was first class and Lala's self confessed crazy mind was a perfect match for the project I had stuck in my head. She knew just how to get me excited about my own work.

So the body of work for Sublunary began. I created a series of landscape photographs that followed the narrative of an imaginary alien invasion of the planet Earth. A tall order you might think? I just needed the right level of inspiration and a camera. At the end of creating the work for my degree, I put it all together in a short movie with a spooky sound track that I created myself. You can watch that below.

I'm now about to embark on a much longer journey that will see me creating a whole new body of work for Sublunary Part 2. I'll be using my experiences from the first part of the project and will be digging deeper in to my imagination.

Here's a sneaky peek at my first experiment for part 2...

This is called 'The Mute' and features a landscape photograph that has been manipulated in camera by myself. I added the red light using the brake lights on my car and chose this location for the crazy tree that could be morphed in to any kind of other worldly creature. The reverse side of the road sign represents having nothing to say, to be muted and to be stunned by the experience of an alien invasion. You will see that I've also added a strange shaped metal frame on the right. This represents an alien being and is the shape of a large humanoid or key hole. It is hollow and appears invisible with the exception of the outer edges.

The scene is lit like a stage as if the play is being carried out and has undertones of humour, not to be taken seriously. It's a project that I can literally play and have fun with. I have a list of locations, that I've been building, so you can watch to see how this develops.

De Montfort University bought the first 5 prints of this project and hold them in their permanent art collection on campus. You can also read more about this project here.

If you'd like to follow my work then you can subscribe to my emails (below) or follow my social media channels.