Dubai Blue hour photography workshop

I love teaching! And teaching photography that I love working with just makes it even more fun.
My next Dubai Photography Walk will be a Blue Hour Photography Workshop so we won't really walk around just move a bit around the same location capturing it from different angles.
I was out testing a blue hour location the other night to see if it would work for me or not.
Here are two snaps that I captured, one is during the blue hour and one is just after the blue hour.
My Blue Hour Photography Workshop will be held on Sunday the 22nd of February. If you would like to take part please send me an email to info@shippeyphotography.com
The charge for the Blue hour photo workshop is the same as my photography walks AED 150 per person and you also get access to a private FB group where we can continue to talk photography and I will give you feedback on some of the photographs that you have captured during the walks or workshops that you have participated in so that you can excel as a photographer.
I always have small groups to make sure I can assist everyone at their own photography level.
What you need to be able to participate in the Blue hour photography workshop is your own dslr camera and a tripod.

Join me Catering Dubai Frame by Frame!
Looking forward to see you soon.
Over and out!
Helen xx

I was chatting on the Swedish radio about taking a chance in life!

Hi,
I was live on Swedish Radio on Thursday the 17th of July 2014 on the channel Sveriges Radio Vastmanland P4.
Click on the link below to listen to it. Disclaimer It's all in Swedish !! :) You can fast forward to about the 59th minute thats when I come on.
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/395468?programid=2985

I had a great time chatting with the radio host Ida about taking the big leap and moving abroad, curate to do it and would I recommend it and tips about expat life! In short Yes I would recommend moving abroad if you get the chance to experience life a bit differently for a little while, you don't have to do like me move and then stay but it is definitively fun to experience for a little while gives you perspective of life and the world for sure!
Catch you all later.
Helen xxx

Check out How I did my Front Cover Magazine Photo Shoot

Hi,
As I have told you guys earlier I photographed the cover for World Wide Golf Magazine a while back but could not yet share any images with you. The magazine is finally out so I can now show you guys some more details from the photo shoot.

As I mentioned before I was using Profoto Lights to light up both the background evenly as well as Mr. Donald Trump himself. I took a few over view images so that you can easier see my photography set up for this magazine cover photo shoot.
http://issuu.com/sportingpublications/docs/wwg_june_issue__lr

Here is my lighting set up, I had 3 D1's, I was at first thinking I should use the B1's since I was not sure if I would have near by access to a power socket but I had the chance to go to my location the day before for a quick look at the premisses to give me an idea of what I had available for me so in the end I opted for that D1's would work fine. I had two Profoto Strip Softboxes RFi 1x6' to make sure the background was evenly lit up. You can see part of my Profoto Octa Softbox that I used as my main light that I had positioned just above Donald Trumps head. On this photo it is lower down for when I was testing but you will see below that I put it higher up later due to that Donald Trump is a very tall man he is 1.91cm. ( I googled that in advance, so that I would be prepared of how I would have to position my lighting) When you know you have an extremely short period of time to photograph someone you should aim at having as few surprises as possible and to have as many facts as you can to speed up the photo shoot itself.  I had my back drop stand as high up as I possibly could and it was still not as high up as I would have liked it to be. I wanted more back drop space above his head than I actually had but hey there was nothing I could to about that there. I am quite tall (1.76cm) but I still had to stand a little bit on my tipi toes in order to create more background space above his head as well as not to photograph him from below :)

My assistant refused to step in front of the camera when I wanted to do a test shot lol so here is a shot of me testing how it would look if I gave Donald Trump a putter. You can see that I had put my main light  a little bit higher for this shot than in the previous one when I was just checking if they were all working at the same time :)

Here you can see an issue I had when Mr. Trump pointed the driver too far right, the end interfered with my background lighting, so I had to steer him more to the center to get a good shot. This is due to us being in such a small space, had we had a larger studio then this would have been avoided. But we had set up a studio in a small room next to where the press conference were for the Trump International Golf Course Akoya by Damac. Thankfully it was quite a high ceiling so that was to my advantage.

 To show you how the front cover was set up. My assistant Sherif Karas had put an X mark with tape on the floor so that we could easily tell Mr. Trump to please stand right there where we knew our light was set up for. I then removed it in photoshop on the images where it was visible.

I used a 2,75cm white paper back drop in case you were wondering. The white back drop was set up in front of a window.  With all this studio gear you can imagine my car was filled to the rim. I had to take the baby car seat out to be able to fit my camera bag lol. The camera I used of this job was a Canon 5D Mark 3 with the Canon 24-70mm lens f2.8. For most of the photographs I had my shutter speed on 160 and aperture was 8 and 9. I used 8 for most of the shots but changed in the end to 9 for some but kept my shutter speed the same and ISO was 100. I always photograph with the camera in Manual mode to make sure I have full control of all the elements.
If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask, I will try and answer as best I can.
Over and out for now.
Helen xx
www.shippeyphotography.com

Marhababy one of my lovely Dubai clients

I met up with the lovely owner and founder of Marhababy, Eveline a while back. They were just starting up at the time so were of course in need of lots of photographs to use on both their website and other marketing material. And hey presto there was I :) We started to plan straight away what kind of photographs she wanted and needed to capture for her website. We started a pinterest mood board so we both could pin by ourselves when we saw something that we thought was fitting for our photo shoot. Once we had all our ideas more or less in order I started to source models for our photo shoot we wanted everyday women that were pregnant and some children. It was fairly easy to get cooperating models thank fully all thanks to Dubai's very efficient social media network! I just love how great the social media platform in Dubai is, so helpful when you have a questioner need of models etc. It is absolutely brilliant. (If you by any chance want to follow me on Twitter you can find me as @hshippey on Fb you can find me as @shippeyphotography)
Here are some of the snaps that we captured on our first photo shoot together we have since sour first one had another rome as well, that I will share with you guys later because i have not yet edited those images :)
If you are pregnant or have small children then please checkout www.marhababy.com their company idea is to provide new mums with great product information of what products that are available to us here in the U.A.E. it cane quite daunting being away from family and not know where to find things and don't know who to ask either.

Here we wanted the look of two mums getting together for a chat at a cafe.

Here we wanted a paparazzi themed look what do you think did we pull it off? lol

Happy Ladies!

Here we made a baby shower theme with two pregnant mums one having a girl and the other a boy.

Thanks for reading!
Helen xx
www.shippeyphotography.com

Dubai night photography

Hi,
I had the pleasure to go out with 3 Swedish ladies and photograph out on the Palm Jumeirah the other night. We all met at the end of one of the outer palm leafs opposite Anantara Hotel. I have started to organize photography get togethers for the SWEA members in Dubai this was our third outing together.
We started a little bit too early but it was all nice to get together and have a nice chat only thing was its getting very hot outside in Dubai so at least I was quite uncomfortable just due to the heat and the humidity. There was absolute no wind out, well at least at our first location we swapped on the way back to another location and we had a slight breeze there.
We wanted to get the colors of the Dubai Skyline which we did in the end we just had to wait for it to get dark outside.

ISO 100 F 7.1 TV 1/80th of sec.

I shot this while we were waiting for the sun to set and it to get dark. 

The evening was not very clear unfortunately so I would like to go back to this location and photograph again another night when the sky is more clear and when its possibly cooler :)

 ISO 100 F 7.1 TV 6 sec.

 ISO 100 F 7.1 TV 6 sec.

This is our second location: So we saw JBR and Dubai Marina

 ISO 100 F 8 TV 6 sec.

                                                          ISO 200 F 6.3 TV 4 sec.

If you or your organization would like to take part in a photography outing with me please don't hesitate to contact me and we can set it up to suit you guys. Let me know what kind of photography it is you are interested in to take part of.  Just send me an email at info@shippeyphotography.com

I also do photography workshops if you are looking for more in-depth knowledge. 

Over and out for now.

Helenxx
www.shippeyphotography.com

Interior photography shoot.

Hey ya'
I have a client whom I love her name is Karla Seliman she is an Interior designer here in Dubai and such a great one too. So it is always so much fun to photograph her creations. I have photographed 3 of her designs so far and we have another one booked in soon as well. The first time we met I brought my daughter along and now she gives me grief every time I come to photograph one of her villas and I am not bringing my daughter, I leave her at home or at nursery mostly for my own sake since I am not sure how I would be able to concentrate with her running around in a designed house (my house does not look anything like the ones I photograph ever :( I wish it did lol )
When I photographed this apartment down in the Marina I used all natural light so I had my camera on a tripod and used a remote trigger to make sure I had no camera shake since I needed to use a long shutter speed on most of the photographs. I always photograph in Manual mode but of interior photo shoots i try to keep my aperture on around 11 or so if I want the whole room in that is not for a detail shot. I then adjust the shutter speed accordingly so that it matches up to my aperture setting. I also focus about a third into the room as well to make sure that you get the room sharp. You always have more depth of field behind your focus point than in front of it that is why you do not want to focus at the back of the room since then the whole room will look a bit out of focus.
There were of course more rooms than what I am showing below but I don't want to bore you :)  here is a sneak peek for you guys.
If you have any questions regarding how I captured these in more details or would like to book me for a photography job then don't hesitate to ask me.
Catch you all later.
/Helen xx

Karla's mum have painted this Art work I just love it don't you?

Dubai family photography session

Hello everyone!

One of my repeat clients had their whole family over in Dubai for two days only it is very rare that they are all 16 of them in the same country and city at the same time. So we took advantage of that to capture them all together as well as individual family photographs. I was so pleased to meet them all and they were all so lovely! So genuinely nice people so we had a great fun photo session down in the Dubai JBR area.

Thank you for stopping by.
Helen xx
www.shippeyphotography.com

Swedish Photo Crew Website launch! - Dubai

Today have been a big day for myself and my fellow Co-founders at Swedish Photo Crew. We have officially Launched our new website www.swedishphotocrew.com

We are an all-Female Swedish Photography Team we have just launched our Stock Photography and Marketplace Site in Dubai.

We were one of the lucky ones or was it skill? to have ourselves portrayed on the sail of Burj Al Arab Hotel it was a great way for us to celebrate the launch of Swedish Photo Crew' Photography and Marketplace Site

Dubai, UAE, March 8, 2014

Swedish Photo Crew a.k.a. Agneta, Eva, Helen, Joan, Lotta and Maj, today launch a vibrant image library and Marketplace Site at http://swedishphotocrew.com providing an entirely new solution for individuals seeking artwork prints or for corporates and businesses to access beautiful imagery.

Swedish Photo Crew is not an anonymous stock photography portal but a library of stunning images created by six photographic artists.

Swedish Photo Crew offers royalty free, affordable, high quality photographs for web and print. Many of their images are taken in the UAE, capturing major tourist attractions, themes, places off the beaten track, everyday life as well as emotions. They all have one thing in common - a Scandinavian chic touch.

For more information about Swedish Photo Crew, visit swedishphotocrew.com or call +971 55 3717 992 

We have started a Facebook page please head over there and press Like 

https://www.facebook.com/SePhotoCrew

as well as we have a twitter account https://twitter.com/SePhotoCrew

and an Instagram account http://instagram.com/swedishphotocrew

So please connect with us on-line.

Happy Shopping everyone!

Check out our photographs here: www.swedishphotocrew.com

PS. Hope all Women out there have had a wonderful International Women's Day!!!!

Over and out for now.

Helen xx
www.shippeyphotography.com

Dubai Fire work photography chance

Happy New Year everyone!
I hope you all have had a wonderful 2013. I know I have and I am really looking forward to 2014. I have so many new things work wise planed in so I am super excited to get started with it all. I just need some more hours in the day to get it all done (is that even possible to get more hours in a day than the 24h there is??) Maybe I should have asked Santa for that? If anyone can make it possible it must me Santa. right!
Well for all of you that are in Dubai at the moment you must be aware that tonight is the nigh you have the chance to photograph the most spectacular fireworks display in the world. Dubai are tonight going for a world record fire work display you see so ours will be so much cooler and bigger and better than any other in the world at least for tonight.
For those of you that are a bit photography interested I am sure that you have already planned out a head of time where you will be standing with your tripod at the strike of 12 tonight.
If you need pointers on how to photograph firework displays take a look at my blog post from last year.
 http://shippeyphotography.blogspot.ae/2012/12/happy-new-year-dubai.html

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy New Year and all the best for 2014!
I hope to see you all in the New Year!!

ps. Do any of you have any new years resolutions?
I have two.
1. is to take more time to play golf (I only managed 2 times in 2013)
2. Keep my office tidier and organised so I easily find stuff. I find stuff now but it is a right mess most of the time. Just take a look at my desk top.

I even have my passport just laying about not good at all. But there is a reason for that which i have a reason for all the stuff to be where they are... I am endless of excuses and might be hard for an outsider to understand but there is an order to all this madness. All the memory cards that are laying about have an order to them. :) Not saying it is a fail proof system could for sure get better! But there is some king of system :)

Over and out for 2013.
Helen

Dubai Sony Grand Prize Winner!!! It is Me!!! Yey!!

Tjohooo!!

I am so happy right now I have just found out that I am the Grand Prize Winner in the Sony #Snapathon Challenge that I was participating in together with 7 other Dubai based photographers.
We all got to test out one of Sony's new wifi camera for smartphones for 10 days, the Sony QX100 camera.
If you follow my blog you will have read about it earlier that it is a very small camera that you can attach to your smartphone or keep it separate and just hold it in our hand while taking a photo or filming. yes I said filming it can do that as well, it is very versatile and handy to have with you when you are out and about. About 6 months ago I changed from a Blackberry Curve to an iPhone5 and i have been amazed what my camera phone can do on my iPhone compared to the camera i had on my blackberry. Now when I have tried the Sony QX100 I literally do not want to leave home without it. I only had it for a test loan for 10 days and now after I have given it back I have caught myself thinking if I only had the Sony QX100 with me now I could capture this image a lot better than I can with only my iPhone5. Especially in low light situation the quality difference is amazing. You can do lovely sunsets with it that your smartphone can never capture in the same way and with great quality minimum of grain in the image, which you usually get a lot of when you photograph in low light with a smartphone.

Me holding the SonyQX100 camera in my hand so the photo is taken with my iPhone5 so not the best quality, I just want to show you how small it is.

Those of you that know me know that I have a daughter that is only 20 months old so I am still bringing her diaper bag with me where ever we go and this little camera fits perfectly in the bag due to its small size. Same thing for my hand bag that I use when I go out and about by myself it fits nicely in that as well and I am not one of those ladies that have a huge bag where you can find everything. 

The Sony QX100 camera is now available across stores in the UAE so if you like gadgets I can highly recommend you to go out and check it out for yourself don't just take my word for it. But you wont regret it.
Since I am the lucky Grand Prize winner I don't only win myself a Sony QX100 camera but I also win a Sony Bravia TV I am not sure who in our family that are more happy about that me or my husband lol.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience of being part of the Sony #Snapathon challenge, I liked the fact that they pushed us to take at least 6 different photographs a day, that way they forced us all to really test the camera out to its fullest potential, at least for me since I did not only just want to snap what was in front of me everyday which was a lot of different stuff since this challenge came at a time where we as photographers in Dubai are the most busiest. Our high season was in full swing and still are, which is great! I can't wait to get my winning prize so that I once again get to walk around with my very own Sony QX100 camera at hand all the time. So stay tuned more photos taken with it will for sure be visible here on my blog!
The feature that I enjoy the most on the Sony QX100 camera is the fact that it has Aperture priority mode so you can get excellent shallow depth of field with this little device. It is like having a mini DSLR camera with you all the time! Brilliant!
If you have any questions about the camera please feel free to ask me I will answer them as well as I possibly can, If I don't know the answer I will send the question over to Sony Middle East and they will for sure be able to answer you.
I would like to give a Hugh Thank You to everyone that helped me win this Sony #Snapathon challenge by sharing my photographs on Facebook Thank you!!
-Sony if you ever need someone to test out another of you products in the future please keep me in mind I would love to help you out! :)

Over and out for now.
Helen xx

Dubai Photography Walk About and #Sony #Snapathon

I would like to say a big thank you to everyonen that participated in todays photography walk about down at Heritage Village. I had a great time and from what I have heard from the participants so far they did too! Which I like to hear of course. These walks are all about learning how to use your camera for its best ability and to start thinking creatively. Today we talked a lot about composition. How do you best compose the ultimate photograph? Well join me at my next one and find out!
The next Photography Walk About dates are:
11 of November, 15th of November 24th of November and 5th of December.
Send me an email with the one you would like to attend. They will all be at different locations around Dubai so you can attend more than one if you like and join me capturing Dubai frame by frame.
As some of you know already I am this week testing out the yet to be released Sony QX100 smart phone camera. So of course I brought it along with me this morning and snapped a few frames with that one as well. I have had it for 4 days now and it is very impressive what such a small device can do. I am most impressed with the ability to shoot in Aperture priority just like you would a dslr camera! Lots of potential for such a small camera and lens all in one. It is small enough to fit in your pocket unless you are wearing skinny jeans then you will have a tuff time. I have been walking around with it in my diaper bag, since I rarely leave the house without that one I now always have a full fledged camera with me all the time that takes no space what so ever. Super cleaver.
Over and out for now. Please leave a comment if you have any questions about anything. If you want to sign up for my Photography Walk Abouts send me an email to: info@shippeyphotogrpahy.com
Looking forward to see you all again soon.
Helen xx

Dubai Photography Walk About

Back by popular demand are my Photography Walk Abouts.
The first one will take place on Monday the 28th of October between 09.00-11.00 in Dubai.
I only have a few spaces for each Photography Walk About to make sure that we are a small group so everyone get the assistance they need. We will walk around in Dubai and capture its beauty as we see it. I am at hand to help you to capture the photograph you have visualized in your mind that you want to take. I will help you out with taking your camera off the Automatic mode and start using the creative modes that you have available for you. All you need is to bring your own camera, comfortable shoes and plenty of water it is still warm out there. I charge AED 80 per person for the walk about.
If you would like to sign up please send me an email to info@shippeyphotography.com
I will put together a schedule for all the photography walks and they will be at different locations so you can attend more than one if you like and capture Dubai one frame at a time.
It will be a fun filled morning for sure. I will start it off by just giving you some hints of what you should be thinking about when you photograph in order to take a better photo.

Hope to see you on the 28th of October 2013 at 09.00

All the best.
Helen Shippey xx