This recent commercial shoot for Taylor Tennis Club in Thornbury was great fun - the kids and grownups alike were fantastic, along with the whole team of coaches who were really accommodating and helped make some great actions shots. You can check out their courses and join their club here: http://taylortenniscoaching.co.uk/
Also great thanks to Leo, standing down court of his incredible serve was a little unnerving but worth it.
Wye Valley Brewery contacted me after finding my Herefordshire Landscapes series, to discuss ideas for new content for their upcoming anniversary beer and new calendar. I was pretty excited, I am quite a fan of their work.
An initial plan was for landscapes along with a few portraits to compare the current Hopfather (Vernon Amor) in their new brewery to photographs of the founder (Peter Amor), when he started out brewing in the back of the Barrels in Hereford.
After a conversation with the marketing team this beautifully spiralled somewhat out of control…
What resulted was a full set of portraits and staged action shots, portraying the WVB team as the family run and tight knit business that they are, with a mafiso edge…
The anniversary beer is called ‘The Hopfather’ after all.
These were made into a calendar, can be found all about their distribution area on dripmats and I also discovered their brilliant, movie style advert recently:
Below: Some of the team swiftly load the branded getaway mini - strictly overseen by Abbie, in the name of a drama playing out inside their photographers head.
Despite how grim everyone looks this is possibly the most fun shoot I have ever made. Enormous thanks to the whole incredible team for being so game to act out my ludicrous Godfather themed ideas “..so Scouse, you’ve just brutally murdered this chap right, he’ll be on the floor covered in fake blood and I want you to shower off in the emergency chemical shower...”
Thanks to Peter Glendinning for getting involved with great suggestions and supplying the essential hop backdrop, as well as for all his work in creating the hop varieties of the future (Jester starring in the ad above being one). Extra special thanks to marketing Abbie Gadd and Isobel Heywood for all their incredible input, organisation and assistance.
Also of course to Peter and Vernon, for looking the part so completely “... look really grim, perhaps dour is a better word - yes perfect hold that face” and for creating really amazing beer as well.
Better late than never.
Starting up the blog again after a busy time. Following are some posts of the most interesting things I worked on during the last 6 months.
HEREFORD HOP HARVEST
Something I have always wanted to investigate and tell the story of photographically is the Hop Harvests in early September. My Dad is hot stuff in the hop world - working on amazing new varieties as well as tackling diseases and teaching farmers how to treat this pernickety, vulnerable and hugely variable plant, so we have always been knee deep in hops as a family. The aromatic smell of hop oils pervading everything for a good portion of the year, hot summers in hop drying kilns, days of farm tours bouncing around on trailers and the overwhelming noise of picking sheds are all deep nostalgic memories for me and my sisters.
With ‘I’m Peter Glendinning’s Son’ as my casual access pass, I took a week to photograph the stages of harvesting and processing of tall and dwarf hops in the Wye Valley in Herefordshire, in the fields of my childhood surrounding the family home.
Tall hop bines are pulled down by hand by cheery Czech seasonal workers, fed into the cleaning machine which sorts the delicate cones from the leaves and bines. After being checked at the other end by hand again, automatic conveyer belts replace the traditional ‘sweaty-men-stripped-to-waist+wooden-shovels’ in laying out the hops to be dried in huge warm beds. When their moisture content is perfect they are released to be compressed into bales, sold to brewers via hop merchants.
Dwarf hops are grown on shorter trellises of 8 foot and harvested by a proprietary picking machine which straddles the rows, slowly working their way up and down a field and conveying the harvest to a continual stream of trailers which rush back to the picking sheds.
Dwarf hops are sorted en mass as the bine is already stripped by the harvester. Vibration, fall rate and conveyor belts separate the waste from the cones for removal. The hops are again dried by automatic machines overlooked by watchful eyes. Hop kilns are notorious as sources of fires that can reduce much of a harvest to ash…
Hop breeding produces multitudes of new varieties. These are selected for trials, watched throughout the year for character, cone density, resistance to many diseases and weather fluctuations, yield… the list of variables is monstrous and generates enormous spreadsheets which frequently adorn our kitchen table for study. They are picked by hand and tested, guesses are made as to the potential for brewing based on smelling the strong, aromatic oils. The unique blend which defines each variety has a huge influence on the potential taste of a beer, though first it has to be brewed in small breweries by master craftsmen.
Master craftsmen is an apt label. The complex processes of breeding, selecting, growing, safeguarding, harvesting and brewing are undertaken by people with exceptional practical knowledge and skill. Although their are many attempts to be scientific about it, the successful process remains an art form undertaken by experts with perfect judgement.
While hop varieties can easily all look the same, their diversity is startling up close and not limited to the physical variation seen in the trial nursery at Dormington, tended by Peter and continually inspected and tested against every plausible classification, all in the search of ever better beer.
So what do the experts do when they gather to discuss their secrets at the 150th anniversary of Charles Farams & Co hop merchants?
Drink the best beer available. What else.
As usual you also can view all the collections on Flickr:
More beer related photography coming in the next post with my favourite shoot to date, except perhaps for the one with the Dali Lama...
But I can't show you those. I signed forms and everything.
Wye Valley Brewery's Anniversary is up next!
Looking East, from Berges Island on the Gower, across the salt marsh
Recent holiday to Pembrokeshire - a great deal of relaxing (flat surf) resulted in plenty of times for the camera to come out.
Being away with Bobbie I included her in much of the landscape photography, to a lesser or greater extent. As I have previously said about ‘Location Portraits’:
“…I used a portrait as the focal point in a street scene or landscape to bring it scale, depth and more meaning or relatability.”
Starting at Berges Island in the Gower, one of our favourite places, we the explored the various peninsulas of South Pembrokeshire, some of the most beautiful coastline in Europe. National Trust protected lakes, bird sanctuaries, Freshwater West dunes, gradually getting bleaker and wilder heading North to come to rest in the familiar windy comfort of Newgale sands.
Nearly inaccessible sea stacks with ‘Settlement’ marled on OS maps were climbed and explored, secluded hidden beaches on hot days were fully indulged and secret forest gardens meditated and camped in.
This shoot was for a very old friend Matt Milne (check out his IMDB), who is working on the proposal for a film to document and dramatise the true British boxing story of George Groves vs Carl Froch.
He called me in to provide the photographic base for the mock-up poster artwork, to be taken to Lionsgate along with the script and movie ideas for their appraisal.
Matt chose the metaphor of facing up to the unrelenting surf and an enormous wave to conjure in popular imagination the feeling of insurmountable odds. However, the impression we wanted to achieve was a gritty, determined and prepared attitude to facing the inevitable. Or more accurately a choice made to stand and fight - win or be broken.
The shoot was done (purposefully) on a dismal miserly day on Rhossili beach in Wales. Matt was in the cold hard surf and bitter wind for 2 hours to get the stills and film we wanted.
Then we went surfing...
The final poster was created based on the photography by graphic and designer Oliver Gillard of Gage Graphics - check out his work.
The last series of photos from the early spring trip to Crete.
En route both directions, we flew over some spectacular mountain ranges and islands with truly incredible light both times.
Shooting through a double skinned aeroplane window is not ideal, especially as you also can get some very strange polarised light effects. A very good polarising filter is essential to having control in this type of photography.
However, in a few shots, particularly with multiple-angled reflections from seas and lakes I played with the using the colour cast this generates creatively…
It’s hard to tell where the true colours begin and end - the natural sunlight was spectacular though, don’t assume this is all photoshop trickery by any degree! The colours of mountain and sea are hugely variable and always feel unreal once you pull them out of a RAW image.
Finally I toyed a little with some two tone samples of the starkest mountain-scapes. Always fun, and of interest to me ever since I saw a gallery of 9'x6' two tone photographs in the most unreal colours..
As usual you also can view the whole set on Flickr
As always cutting criticism and comments via email (tomglendinning.photography@gmail.com) or facebook, are hugely helpful and welcome.
If you don't like something then please, tell me - Also try to articulate why, it is tremendously useful to have constructive, critical feedback. You can view my full portfolio, contact and pricing information on my WEBSITE - tomglendinning.co.uk
Landscapes from a weekend on the Brecon Beacons in Wales in very good company. Exploring the waterfalls, lakes and hilltops around and near Pen Y Fan.
As usual you also can view this set on Flickr
As always cutting criticism and comments via email (tomglendinning.photography@gmail.com) or facebook, are hugely helpful and welcome.
A series of posts following a family holiday in Crete. Second up - Landscapes:
Some pre-meditated with early rises and ascents made, others utterly serendipitous. Mostly drawn ever toward the White Mountains dominating the interior of Western Crete.
Always have a camera with you.
Explore, explore, explore...
As usual you also can view this set on Flickr
As always cutting criticism and comments via email (tomglendinning.photography@gmail.com) or facebook, are hugely helpful and welcome.
A series of posts now following a family holiday in Crete. First up - location portraiture:
I felt that whenever I was with family or friends any portraits were so opportunistic that I never had the chance to make the most of really amazing locations.
On many of the walks and explores on this trip I used a posed portrait as the focal point in a street scene or landscape to bring it scale, depth and relatability.
This way of blending architectural or landscape techniques with controlled portraiture is a great deal of fun and I think generated more purposeful and representative photos of the time we had, the people and the places, than if I had only photographed what was immediately happening with no creative intervention.
A landscape photographer who largely inspired in me love for this approach is Bastian - A German landscape photographer who features in many of his own (polaroid & tilt-shift) images. See his outstanding work here.
Around this time last year I visited the London Barbican. Never having been before it was a thoroughly pleasant surprise for the architecturally minded of our little party. A fabulous example of urban design, softening brutalist concrete forms with hanging greenery and unusual plants.
The interior was dominated for me by peculiarly shaped apertures, formed by and through which the complexity of the three dimensional foyer and movement spaces was revealed as layered glimpses, flickering as distant people crossed the scene.
The changing coloured lighting embedded in the moulded concrete ceiling was incredible too…
As usual you also can view this set on Flickr
As always cutting criticism and comments via email (tomglendinning.photography@gmail.com) or facebook, are hugely helpful and welcome.
My sister Lauren is a Dance Movement Psychotherapist working in Hereford. She practices a form of therapy which focuses on movement and the benefits dance and articulation by motion can have for everyone. She also runs a variety of dance classes for different ages.
For her new website I shadowed her through a series of sessions to capture her working: Caring for Finn, a disabled 10year-old full of character; Find Your Feet, a workshop for dementia sufferers; an after-school dance group for primary school kids; and a Zumba class. She also works with sufferers of alcohol abuse, severe metal health patients and orchestrates Jigsaw (a collaborative choreography group of able & non-able bodied dancers, who I have photographed performing on multiple occasions) among many other talents and efforts to numerous to list here!
Her work has a remarkable impact on those she dances with, cares for and supports. Aside from providing a safe environment to develop, grow and seek self-understanding, she produces an incredible gamut of emotional feedback from her dancers and clients. Find Lauren at Persoma Movement Practices: http://www.persoma.co.uk/ (New website coming soon).
As usual you also can view this set on Flickr
As always cutting criticism and comments via email (tomglendinning.photography@gmail.com) or facebook, are hugely helpful and welcome.
Lac du Mimizan - Sunrise
This past summer saw a host of camper van excursions in ‘Vin Deisel’ (so named for it’s deep voice, fuel type and fuel choice of the inhabitants) - The trusty VW 1994 T4 auto-sleeper.
The culmination was a 2.5 week long trip around the south of France in September.
For the majority of the trip I abandoned SLR to experiment with the immediacy of GoPro timelapse, film and pole shots. This was a great deal of fun to have a pocket-size camera for a change and muck about with it whatever the situation (strapped to the bonnet/ in mountain streams etc). Video editing takes forever though so will be a feature of a future post.
Puy Mary from Puy de Pierre Arse in the Cantal
This entry accompanies the collection of images I made when the light really was worth it and I happily spent hours with a tripod and furrowed brows.
The Itinerary for this trip was fairly on the spot, including not one single paid campsite and only a few stops at actual civilisation (Bobbie’s words not mine).
Rough Itinerary: Bath - Fontainebleau (Climbing, Forest, Zen etc) - Limoges (family friends & rendezvous with Bobbie’s flight) - Mimizan (SW coast, endless beach/ empty forests/ German happy campers) - Lot Valley (French artisinal village experience, gorges, river, regional specialties and Patisserie fix) - Monts du Cantal (Volcanic lonely mountain, hiking and most of the trip photography) - Lyon (family friends & rest) - Fontainebleau - Bath
Mountain road in the Cantal
- A Note On Holiday Photography -
After taking many photographs on various holidays, I have arrived at the conclusion that the feeling of camera-tourist frustration - not seeing what you are capturing and not taking good pictures either - is alleviated by a different viewpoint...
Making photographs is an activity - an enjoyable one. It can lend insight into a subject if you focus in on it (e.g.: street portraiture). However, if you try to be a photographer and a tourist simultaneously you are always rushed, an annoyance to your fellow travellers and eventually disappointed. Let go of the ‘must-have’ tourist snaps if you are interested in only having good shots and use your in-built memory or a phone if you must. Then in turn abandon the need to have seen and absorbed and captured everything in a new place, be a photographer and focus only on making good photographs following a subject type or area of interest.
This can really focus a holiday. I now hugely enjoy visiting cities, as I approach the entire trip either as a street photographer - Seeking to understand the place by capturing interesting inhabitants - Or I am a voyeur, taking in the whole scene, chatting with co-travellers with my camera NOT IN USE. I interchange between two modes (you can find your mode dial at the base of your neck) and am much happier for it. Give it a try!
Bobbie hiking on Puy Mary - Cantal
Another post from the backlog of summer travelling and landscapes.
This set was made on a blustery weekend on Ogmore bay, in the Vale of Glamorgan on the South Coast of Wales.
A throwback to the summer.
A series I made whilst on an extended campervan trip to the Western edge of the Gower Peninsula. Rhossili is one of my favourite beaches and the walks and views around it are incredible: Worms Head, so named after it supposedly repelled invaders who saw it as a norse sea monster; the curving hump of Rhosilli Down above that 5km long stretch of sand; Berges Island, a sandbar breaching into the estuary of the river Loughor, disconnected from its surroundings, bound on one side by pristine sand dunes, the other with salt flats, and with its peculiarly Mediterranean atmosphere.
This is where I come alive.
If you love Rhossili too and would like downloads or prints of my landscape photography - let me know.
As usual you also can view this set on Flickr
Also - my blog has moved - To my new website! How exciting. Have a gander, let me know what works and what doesn't.
This architectural shoot for CaSA was just down the road from my flat.
The original property - a highly unusual (for Bath) timber and glass structure - was designed by Ted Nash. Recent work by CaSA remodelled the interior layout for new inhabitants and added a modern timber facaded extension.
As usual you also can view this set on Flickr
As always cutting criticism and comments via email (tomglendinning.photography@gmail.com) or facebook, are hugely helpful and welcome.
If you don't like something then please, tell me - Also try to articulate why, it is tremendously useful to have constructive, critical feedback. You can view my full portfolio, contact and pricing information on my WEBSITE -
Last April I went to Paris.
This blog post is testament to my usual mess of personal project backlogs. The Paris - Architecture set is still in creation as well…
Similar to when I visited Barcelona I marvelled in Paris the proliferation of human life and business taking place outdoors. In Barca it was all about the squares and boulevards. In Paris everything seemingly takes place on the street, or where there are cars - lining the pavements.
My official line on candid street photography:
I enjoy making candid photography, capturing natural behaviour unbeknownst to the subject, and being an invisible eye onto the poetry of ordinary lives. Cartier-Bresson is my idol in this field of photography, where you must find a calm, unassuming confidence to be able to dissolve into the crowd.
Appearing, taking the photograph, hiding: his style of unmeditated, spontaneous photography has greatly influenced my attitude and purpose
.
I find it rare however that I am in a position to spend time on street photography in a place which inspires me - cities can feel so dull and flat at times, especially in England I feel at times that every person separates themselves from the crowd and hurries from box to box.
The results of the trip broke down into 5 sets:
Movement - literally ‘Removal’
As always cutting criticism and comments via email (tomglendinning.photography@gmail.com) or facebook , are hugely helpful and welcome.
Tourisme
Voyager
Déménanger
Calme
Café
The final instalment of my Hereford Landscape series. The hop bias is intentional!
Although I plan to continue adding to it whenever I go home, I am going to start a similar series for the Bath area.
The hereford complete set will end up in a dedicated website - if you would like one on your wall at a newsletter discount then get in touch!
I discovered so much of Herefordshire working on this commission - exploring places I thought I knew only to find I really did not!
Thanks go out to all the people who supplied local knowledge which led to me being in the right place at the right time.
As usual you also can view this set on Flickr
As always cutting criticism and comments via email (tomglendinning.photography@gmail.com) or
, are hugely helpful and welcome.
If you don't like something then please, tell me - Also try to articulate why, it is tremendously useful to have constructive, critical feedback. You can view my full portfolio, contact and pricing information on my WEBSITE -
For 3 months now my girlfriend Bobbie has been publishing a food blog, lots of fun and a good excuse to make amazing healthy food.
I’ve been helping out by making photos each time she create a new recipe - at speed because its getting cold! This post is a collection of my favourite food shots so far. It’s been great practice actually and good to see the gradual adjustments I’ve made to my approach recently.
You can drool over Bobbie’s Blog here:
bobbieliciousness.blogspot.co.uk
As usual you also can view this set on Flickr
As always cutting criticism and comments via email (tomglendinning.photography@gmail.com) or
, are hugely helpful and welcome.
If you don't like something then please, tell me - Also try to articulate why, it is tremendously useful to have constructive, critical feedback. You can view my full portfolio, contact and pricing information on my WEBSITE -
Rice Crépes
Courgette with Herb Dressing
Green Asparagus Salad with Navaho bread
Wild Garlic Potatoes
This portrait shoot was for MTW, the award winning architecture practice I worked at before leaving for freelancehood. An incredible team - I miss working with them! It was fun coming at them from a photographic angle for the first time though. The shoot was in the dojo of Stillpoint - a health, wellbeing and activity centre on Walcot Street in Bath - to this day one of my favourite projects of theirs.
As usual you also can view this set on Flickr
As always cutting criticism and comments via email (tomglendinning.photography@gmail.com) or
, are hugely helpful and welcome.
If you don't like something then please, tell me - Also try to articulate why, it is tremendously useful to have constructive, critical feedback. You can view my full portfolio, contact and pricing information on my WEBSITE -
Rob Mitchell
Kris Eley
Simon Gould
The Gang
I have been lax in my posting - publishing has come too far down the list when work is on!
This shoot was a trial for CaSA Architects in Bath (an incredible creative studio -
The Manor Barn in Wellow is a considerate, economical and aesthetically effortless restoration-modernisation of a beautiful tithe barn and outbuilding. The latter has been turned into mixed use to include studio space for the prolific mannequin and automata sculptress, Annie Scotland. I really recommend
.
Annie and David made me so welcome (including orange juice-cereal and elderflower cordial seemingly on tap!) and the setting was so serene, it made the atmosphere of this home a real pleasure to photograph.
My favourite aspect of the place was the energy in the studio room and workshop, emanating from the creativity-inspiring surrounds of paraphernalia and diasporic completed works, the subtle smells of wood and workshop; in contrast to the airy, almost dreamily detached, hugely-spacious, multilayered, deep-shadowed levels of the main living room in the barn…
So much more to come - Working with Park Street in Bristol, more Hereford and Gower landscapes, Collins House Dental Surgery, silly gopro videos that I need to edit and so much more whenever will I post it?
On with the fun - enjoy the sun.
As usual you also can view this set on Flickr
As always cutting criticism and comments via email (tomglendinning.photography@gmail.com) or
, are hugely helpful and welcome.
If you don't like something then please, tell me - Also try to articulate why, it is tremendously useful to have constructive, critical feedback. You can view my full portfolio, contact and pricing information on my WEBSITE -
