Recently Published: Millie Marotta for Artists & Illustrators by John Wellings

I recently had the pleasure in travelling down to West Wales to photograph the talented illustrator Millie Marotta and her studio for Artists & Illustrators magazine.

The feature is in the current issue of the magazine and is out now.

You can view more of her work at her website - www.milliemarotta.co.uk 



Shooting for yourself? by John Wellings

Whenever I can I try and shoot something just for myself when I'm working. Whether thats an unusual scene or some nice light like the photo below.

 Now some say you should always shoot for yourself, and while I agree to an extent, I also think there wouldn't have been a place for an image like this on the job I was commissioned for...interested to know what others think?

Editorial Photographer Wales: FGS Tool for Wirtschafts Woche by John Wellings

I shot these portraits of Gareth Jenkins of FGS Tool for the German economic magazine Wirtschafts Woche back in June but I've been a little slow (a bit?!) on updating this blog.....

 

Business Headshots by John Wellings

From a recent shoot for Swansea based independent financial advisor firm, Distinct Financial Solutions for their new website and branding. 

The company wanted to show a more relaxed and personable side rather than keeping everything too formal which I think we achieved well.

If you are looking for stand out business and corporate headshots for your team then please get in touch. I can bring a studio along to your office and we can work together to create some great images of your team.

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Interiors: Glansevin Mansion by John Wellings

I was recently commissioned to take some some images for the wonderful Grade II listed Georgian mansion, Glansevin House (http://www.glansevin.com/).

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Recently published: Financial Times and Trading Standards Review by John Wellings

A couple of recent commissions have just been published which I can now share with you.

 I was asked by the FT to head up to Mid Wales to photograph William Watkins, the founder of Radnor Hills to go along with a recent interview for the Money FT section. The drive up was pretty awful with heavy rain that didn't let up for the whole day, scuppering my plans for a portrait out on the farm....

I was also really happy to shoot for the recently launched journal for trading standards, TS Review. Always nice to have images over a number of pages and I'm pretty happy with the ones chosen for the article.

Here are the tearsheets and also a few out takes from the shoots.



Great British Dog Walk - Rhossili Bay by John Wellings

I photographed the Rhossili leg of the Great British Dog Walk for the charity Hearing Dogs (http://www.hearingdogs.org.uk) last weekend, here are a few of my favourite images from the sunny morning.

I've got a few other shoots that I'm waiting to post about, I'm trying to not neglect this space, too much!

 

Corporate Photography by John Wellings

As I'm sat in the studio editing images from a corporate photography shoot in Cardiff last week I wanted to share a couple of images with you.

Sometimes the strange lighting that emits from projections can be very frustrating, but in this case I see it as more of a gift. i really like the subtle light on landing on the speakers, using the blind in the room as a background,  a nice effect I think.


Band Shoot: The Weekenders by John Wellings

I made the short trip up the M4 to Newport on a soaking wet and cold Sunday morning to photograph a new local band. As I'm not too familiar with good shooting locations in Newport I left it up to the guys in the band to come up with something.

I was pretty relieved when it turned out to be in cover from the relentless rain. We managed to get a few different looks in a short space of time before it got too cold and miserable to spend any longer outside.


David Cameron by John Wellings

I was on assignment yesterday to photograph David Cameron delivering his speech at the Welsh Conservative Party conference.

I always try to shoot a little something for myself after I make the 'safe' shots so once I had delivered my images to the client and got back home I had a play with a few of the out takes.

Here are a few of those, have a great weekend!


Band Photography by John Wellings

A few weeks ago I hooked up with the awesome band Broken Fires to shoot some fresh promo images to go with the release of their new album.

We spent a pretty chilly hour under the M4 and came away with some cool images. I'm available for band promo photography all over South Wales. Rates start from as little as £75.00 for unsigned bands.

We can go to your choice of location, or I could bring a studio setup to you, drop me a line and we can have a chat about it.


New Portrait by John Wellings


I had the help of a friend of mine last week in doing some light tests at home. Geesy was a true gent and sat for me while I hacked around and realised I could probably do with a) more space and b) some different light mods.

We managed to get a few nice images though, one of which is here. I'll post any more over at my tumblr page which you can get to by clicking here or at the "Recent" link in the menu above.

I've also got a few prints for sale at the moment, if you'd like something different to what I have listed please shoot me an email and I'll see what I can do. 

Here is the print sale: http://johnwellings.bigcartel.com/


Recent interior photography. by John Wellings

I've been shooting a few holiday lets for the website AirBNB recently. Always fun to shoot something new and to see inside other peoples houses, that's the nosey side of me!

I'd love to photograph some more homes so if you are thinking of having your home photographed, either to put it up for sale or for a possible magazine feature then please get in touch. We can then have a chat to see how my interior photography can help.

 

Sunday by John Wellings

Out exploring Cwm Ivy, light wasn't great so looking forward to going back at some point. All images shot on the Fuji X100S, love this little camera. I keep having to check its still on my shoulder as its so light!


Portrait: Val Poole for Legion Magazine by John Wellings

A couple of months ago I received a call from one of my regular clients to head down to Weston-Super-Mare to shoot a portrait of Val Poole for her involvement in the National Poppy campaign.

The initial brief was for an image of Val in a busy high street in Weston with passers by blurred as they walked past. With it being midday and Britain experiencing some fine weather the light wasn't exactly ideal and I felt I needed another option to give to the picture editor.

Having spent some time working on picture desks I know how important it is to be able to give editors some different options, sometimes they are able to use alternate versions for different parts of the magazine, or for print and online.

In the end I ended up with another set of images shot in Val's garden that gave the piece a different feel to the busier shopping street images we shot earlier. You can see a couple of the shots below.

I'll to keep up to my end of the bargain here by posting behind the scenes thoughts and images from my work as an editorial and pr photographer over the coming months so keep checking back.

You can always follow what I'm up to on the usual social media channels, links above and on my Contact page.







Typical photographer blog neglect, catching up... by John Wellings

I'm certainly not the only photographer to neglect their blogs. Since I moved over to a new Squarespace website I've only written one post here...

So I'm taking the chance now to catch up on what I've been up to recently.

Way back in March I photographed some of the Parcelforce workers for their in-house magazine. The story was on how they had helped local communities after the winter storms.  It turned out to be a pretty tricky shoot considering we had zero time to go to any better location and a totally overcast morning!

Still, as an editorial photographer these are the punches you have to roll with at times, here's the tear-sheet as it ran in the mag:



Following that, in a recurring theme of photographing large groups of men at work. I had a commission from the Guardian newspaper to go and shoot a group portrait of some maintenance workers at the local Trinity St Davids college who were involved in a legal dispute (Which they ended up winning).

Here is the frame they used nice and big over two pages:


After that came some architectural photography, one commercial and the other a residential development, both in the SA1 area in Swansea.



Then I met a priest who was shining shoes for the day, this time shot for the Western mail newspaper:


After some wedding photography I had my first UKIP encounter on the streets of Swansea:


A PR job for the Halifax Big Lunch event in Newport:


I also took a trip down to Pendine for the VHRA Hot Rod races. I missed out on a pit pass as I was too slow in registering which meant I had to shoot from the sidelines, next year I'll make sure I get some decent access. 

I made a mini-edit of the images which you can view here.



Still waiting for a couple of other jobs to be published before I can share those. In between all of these I've been busying myself as a documentary wedding photographer, you can see all of that work on a separate website here.

That brings us pretty much up to date, the next post should be more interesting as I'm waiting to confirm access for some pretty big events over the next couple of months and also, some new personal work, maybe...see you here at the same place in 4 months yeah?

New website by John Wellings

Depending on how you have come across this blog, you may or not have noticed I have just updated my website. I had built my old site using Indexhibit, starting with the original and then a year or so ago I upgraded to version 2.0.

While I was kind of happy with its appearance, a few things really bugged me. The lack of dynamic resizing and overall quite a dated look had me searching for alternatives. I wanted a clean, simple and elegant design that allowed full screen viewing along with being able to be seen across all platforms.

I was pretty close to going with a Photoshelter site, but in the end I felt the cost vs what I needed from it weren't right for me and I settled on a Squarespace site instead.

As of now, the new design is up and running. I have changed things around a little too. I've been working on a lot more architectural photography recently and have begun to flow some of this work onto the new site.

Over the next few weeks and months, more images and a couple of new projects will be added but if you come across any bugs please let me know!

Nearly forgot, here is the link!   www.johnwellings.com