Wedding Photographer: Manchester, London, Cheshire, Lake District, Yorkshire | Martin Crombie Photography

New background without flash

We are just beginning our journey into home portraiture and experimenting with daylight before we look at flash as a way to light anything. Its interesting to see what can be done if you have the space.
Heres a few of Dominic in his new car smiling for mummy.
Just using the patio windows as a light source and a reflector made up of tin foil and cardboard.

We've moved!

Sorry for any delays in business - we have just moved home from Horwich to Appley Bridge.
We're up & running finally so business back to normal.

We have more room for Dominic & the new one expected in February.
Thanks for your patience :-)

An afternoon on Winter Hill - again

Punchy colours on a wintery day.

Personal Work - Fog Images

A very foggy morning around Appley Bridge nr.Wigan. Lots of thick fog for some mood. 

Woodland & Fungi - Trip to Borders East Coast - Personal Work

On a recent trip/ visit I stopped off in a woodland on the Scotish borders for 15 minutes there was no sun, just heavy grey cloud. Then for literally 10 seconds a shaft of light came out of the sky into the  the forest and I was able to capture a few images to reflect our glorious, mild Autumn.

   

 
The mushroom images were photographed at home bought from Tesco and lit with an Lowel ilight.

Winter Hill, Rivington, Bolton
It was a very misty day around 3pm. Colours added in PhotoShop.

 
Original

Still Life of a strange looking flower

A cabbage of sorts.

Silver Upgrade to Gold SWPP September Entries

1x GOLD in OPEN CATEGORY - September

A very quick still life created whilst at a wedding and enhanced alot in computer.

 

Personal Work - SWPP June Entries

A few weeks ago I shot a few very quick landscapes on the Wales coast.
Debbie has relations over that way so we went over to Colywn Bay & Llandudno on a very grey and overcast day...god I love PShop. 
Here's 1 of the images I have worked on for 30 minutes or so for the SWPP landscape category. 

UPDATE : 1 SILVER IN WEDDING CONTEMPORARY

 
I love my veg and equally love studying their unique forms - this time asparagus. A straight shot.  

The garden gloves received 'the treatment' this time.
Laid out on the Vetch (i think it is called) - a beautiful orange and yellow flower in my front garden.
The colour has been enhanced in PShop. No flash just daylight.   
  

I call this 1 Alice in Wonderland - The mind boggles on this perspective like a maze.
This image has been shot very quickly we had approx 10 minutes shot at 1600asa leaning over the bannisters to see everything.
Again plenty of Photoshop work making use of red/ blue strong primary colour combinations. 
  

SWPP May Awards 2011

This month I submitted a selection of images ranging from Landscape to Wedding and also set up some still-life sets involving various articles I find when out shopping.
SWPP stands for The Society of Wedding & Portrait Photographers and is a UK based organisation with entries from all over UK/ Europe.
 
1x GOLD WINNER - OPEN Category


 
This image was all about the arrangement of the Cep mushrooms (from the Bolete group of edibles).
I was always fascinated with mushrooms and have photographed many kinds in the wild over the years maninly within forests. Obviously these have been photographed inside using natural daylight + Canon 5D on a tabletop.
  
3x SILVER WINNERS - Contemporary Portraiture

 
This was taken in a building using a silhouette and I loved the window shapes.

I also won 2 other silvers within the wedding category, which you may remember helped me to win overall 2nd in last years Mario Acerboni awards.
 
1 of my overall favourities only received a bronze below - go figure. Taken at Llandudno, Wales
 

See all the winners 

Landscape - Gold/ Personal Work April SWPP Awards

The Winners for April 2011
  
News & Press UPDATE: GOLD AWARDED
The below image has had a nomination for SWPP News & Press Photographer of the Year 2011.

 
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Email from SWPP

Dear Martin
Congratulations!

Your Gold Award image in the Category of Press & News has been nominated by our panel of judges for the award of Press & News Photographer of the Year.
Your image will be placed in the limited edition of ‘The Societies Collection’ book (available to pre-order now by contacting Head Office) along with the other nominated images, all of which are eligible to win the title of Press & News Photographer of the Year.
Should you be successful you will then stand the chance of winning 3rd place, 2^nd place or Overall Photographer of the Year.

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The smouldering heather's taken on top of Winter Hill, Horwich mid afternoon on the West Pennines during the recent moorland/ forest fires. A Police helicopter drops water on to the buring smouldering terrain - so a very topical image, which has been darkened, smoke highlighted & finally sepia toned.


At Blackpool College (many years ago now) we used 5x4 view cameras for Still-Life Photography using mainly tungsten lighting and tungsten balanced film Fuji 64T. I never really could get interested in the subject matter or the vast amount of time it would take setting up the shot in camera & all the lights,  waiting for tranny film to get developed at the college.

However in the days of digital now Still-Life really has re-ignited my interest again. I find it very therapeutic and very different to the hussle & bussle of wedding photography.
Here's a few of my latest efforts mainly shot for the SWPP monthly awards  (Society of Wedding & Portrait Photographers)

Wooden Spoons Re-Worked PhotoShopped UPDATE: SILVER AWARDED
  
 

What I enjoy about Still-Life photography now is I can spend more time at the computer enhancing an image & not having to adjust lighting positions, camera exposures to get an effect I'm looking for. 
Instead I can use filters/plug-ins & PhotoShop Actions to get something far removed from the original flat and boring shot of 3 wooden spoons in my kitchen draw. The wooden board was an old warped cutting block/ board gone all battered in the dish-washer and with some computer help to distress it even more.

Dragon Fruit with enhancement

Walking around Tesco the colour of this thing just shouted 'buy me' with its purple coat and green edging. I still had some red paper left over from a chilli shoot I had done previously so I tried it behind the fruit and it really popped I thought 'yes' as I photographed it in the kitchen sink.

Obviously I have introduced a poloaroid effect to make this subject matter dark and more abstract.
The depth of field is very limited around 5.6 but I only wanted parts of it in focus, I needed to make it look different somehow.  UPDATE: BRONZE AWARDED

 

Monochrome entry 

This was a blaze on an industrial estate which I took from a high vantage point overlooking Westhoughton, nr Bolton. Seeing the smoke from my window, I then drove for 10 minutes to get this shot. UPDATE: SILVER AWARDED

 
    
Wedding Contemporary UPDATE: SILVER AWARDED

 

This image won a Gold a few years with the SWPP which I'd share with you.
Taken in my bedroom at 3200 asa and toned in PhotoShop it was originally a grey looking image.