Author: shep

Broken Road

Broken Road is a four piece band comprising of Phil, Chris, Lorna and Tony based in Devon in the UK. They play a mixture of covers and their own material taking inspiration from across the musical spectrum, from Americana to folk, from rock to country, from Bossa Nova to jazz. Check their myspace page out here.

With a last minute location change I had to quickly re-visit how I was going to undertake this, now challenging, shoot.  It was a beautiful evening in Devon but the light was fading fast and the new location of the local pub car park was a little less inspiring than the original dramatic Clapper Bridge in Dartmoor.

The initial group shots that were taken in the car park outside proved a bit tricky but once we retired inside for the rehearsal – after a couple of ales – everyone seemed to relax into their rolls. We got into the groove whilst Broken Road rocked out some numbers and managed to capture some of the bands unique personality.

Thanks to my light girl Gabi for running around the rehearsal room with my flash on the end of a pole!

Scandinavian Beauty Weds Welsh Lad

Turning down an invitation to attend a friend’s wedding in Sweden was not really an option. After 24 hours of non-stop travel via taxi, plane, bus and rental car from Singapore we arrived at Hovs Hallar in the district of Skåne in Sweden. The wedding took place on a beautiful, sunny Monday afternoon at Hovs Kyrka church overlooking scenic farmland and out to the sea beyond.

Duncan scrubbed up well but Anna looked absolutely stunning. The whole event was stringently planned into 5 minute intervals (courtesy of the bride) but the hard work paid off and everyone, from all corners of the globe – Wales, Sweden, Belgium, Scotland, Spain, England, Afghanistan (& of course Singapore), – had a fantastic day.

Anna and Duncan had asked me to take some informal, candid shots throughout the day and here’s a small selection.

Gardens By The Bay – Off-Site Part 2

Construction on the Cool Dry Conservatory is progressing extremely fast and it’s hard to keep up with only monthly visits.  As more arches are erected the gridshell, which is a self supporting structure, is constructed within the bounds of the arches.  The gridshell will support the conservatory glazing and forms part of the facade system.  Supporting the arches and gridshell during the construction process is the ‘crash deck’.   The crash deck is the red structure you can see in the images.

Construction on the Cool Moist Conservatory has started and also progressing quickly.  The main core can be seen rising out of the ground and the concrete shoes for the arches are all being cast. Below are images from June and July 2010.

June 2010

July 2010

Welcome to the Jungle

As the rain set in we all knew we were in for a hard slog around the 7km circuit of Bukit Timah Nature Reserve for the Singapore National MTB Champs.  These images are of the Men’s Open Category.  I had raced earlier in the Masters Category and was keen to get some photo’s of the fast boys, including 5 members of our cycling team Cannasia-Cannondale.  We took all 3 podium positions aswell as 5th place thanks to the efforts of Tim Wilkins, Shahrom Abdullah, Fraser Morrison and Tim Clarsen, respectively. Fourth place was taken by the 2010 Singaporean National Champion and unfortunately our fifth member, Robert Hensby, decided to dismount his bike over the front handle bars in the first 2km and had to retire from the race. Congratulations should also go to Richard Sinclair from the Cannasia-Cannondale team who took first place in the Masters Category. Shooting proved challenging with low light conditions, heavy rain and thousands of mosquitos that decided to gather on me the moment I stood still.

Boomrock

Located on 8km of stunning coastline North West of Wellington is Boomrock.  We headed out there on a fairly non descript, dull Wellington day to help test some equipment for the Fleetsafe NZ programme.  Fleetsafe NZ has been developed to create vehicle awareness and driver training. In conjunction with Mercedes-Benz and assistance from the late Peter Brock, Boomrock has a purpose built car testing circuit where one can experience hot laps with professional drivers to hands on driver training.  Because we were there to help test some in car equipment no hot laps were experienced but we were lucky enough to be driving around in a brand new Mercedes-Benz C class car for a couple of hours.  You can read all about Boomrock here at www.boomrock.co.nz

I had also just purchased a new Canon 70-200mm f2.8L IS II USM lens and these were some of the first test shots with this lens.

Emma & Nic got married

After a successful engagement shoot with Nic and Emma I was asked to assist Annie la Rue as a second shooter for the wedding day.  It was an epic session with more than 6 photography sessions spread across the next couple of days.  I started the day at Nic’s place with the Groom and his groomsmen (and some beers) before Nic & I proceeded over to Emma’s hotel for the ‘First Glimpse’ shoot at Club Street.  After the stunning bride revealed herself (and dress) to her husband-to-be we all headed over to the wedding venue in Rochester Park for some wedding group shots followed by the ceremony. Due to the heat in Singapore and the busy wedding day we had a follow-up shoot a couple of days later in Portsdown Road. This shoot was a great idea as Nic and Emma were relaxed and we had some fun using different lenses which resulted in a great variety of photographs for the happy couple to look back on over the coming years. Below are a selection of shots that I took over the numerous sessions.

Little Lily Scott

Meet little Lily Scott, Lucy Boo’s best friend. Lily is an extreme monkey bar expert! After a morning of negotiating an obstacle course, including monkey bars and trampolines, at ‘Tumbling Tots’ any little girl deserves a hot chocolate with extra marshmallows to wind down. As you can see below, Lily not only enjoys a hot chocolate but she just loves hanging out with her friend Lucy, what a pair!