David Wagstaff-Myers Photography

Mannequin Hall near Newark is one of those places that straddles the line between surreal and extraordinary. Picture this: a yard sprawling with 15,000 display mannequins. It’s a scene straight out of a dream—or perhaps a fascinatingly eerie film. This unique location became the backdrop for an unforgettable photographic shoot featuring the talented models  Elle Baldwinson   and  Darcie Binsley . Setting the Scene Arriving at Mannequin Hall, the sheer volume of mannequins is overwhelming. They stand in rows, lie in heaps, and are stacked in bizarre, almost sculptural forms. The initial impression is a blend of awe and curiosity. As photographers, we live for such moments where the setting itself provides endless inspiration. Ellie and Darcie were equally captivated. Their energy was palpable as they moved among the mannequins, transforming the static, silent figures into dynamic elements of our shoot.  Ellie Baldwinson: Grace Amidst Stillness Ellie Baldwinson has a p...

Today I will discuss the importance of background in photography composition illustrated with some examples of mine. Part of a larger series covering elements of composition in photography for which you’ll find links at the end of this article. I taught myself photography in quite a specific order, I navigated / progressed through various urban photography genres: Graffiti Photography > Urban Landscape Photography > Street Photography It’s the reason I realised early how important an image’s background really is, allow me to explain: I took-up photography as I used to have an obsession with graffiti, around 2006. I was like a trainspotter but instead of obsessively shooting trains, I’d hunt for new graffiti art around London which would be cleaned or gone just as fast as that elusive locomotive. I had to find them. After exclusively shooting graffiti up-close, photography itself became my passion. I realised I loved graffiti because of how it sat within its surroundings and its e...

                                                                                                             Catchlights are the lights reflected in a subject’s eyes. I normally use strobes to capture them. Catchlights add life and sparkle, while their absence can result in dull, lifeless images. There are no hard and fast rules, and sometimes you may want dead and lifeless. It’s all about knowing what you want, why you want it and how to create it. But portraits are almost always better with catchlights. Single vs. multiple catchlights Regardless of the light source used, the goal remains the same: replicating what exists in nature. In nature, we have only one light source, the sun, and there’s only one....

Inspiration The most exciting kinds of artificial lighting are those that mimic natural light. It’s not easy to recreate nature’s subtle, atmospheric qualities. Beginners make the common mistake of throwing way too much light at what they’re shooting. Whether you’re shooting people or products, less is more. The more focused the lighting, the more interesting and visually compelling it becomes. If there’s light everywhere, there’s no direction for the viewer’s eye to follow. If there’s a scarcity of light, the areas that are illuminated become the focal point. We see this kind of subtle light in nature. Lighting geeks like me love nothing more than watching the way sunlight behaves as it streams through a narrow opening, moves across the sky or scatters into beams of light as it breaks through clouds or strikes the leaves of a tree overhead. It results in unique shapes and patterns. These magic lighting moments give me pause and remind me how powerful light and shadow can be in...

Many photographers dream of working on location in incredible places where one might encounter the occasional giraffe or dolphin. A few years ago I was exposed to the dark side of destination shoots when I was invited by my good friend Brian to shoot inside a vast abandoned country house in West Yorkshire erected before the Civil War. Since then, I’ve had the urge to visit destinations where I am more likely to get tetanus than to see a family of elk. There is a strange allure to working on location in these abandoned buildings. Part of it is the architecture and history of the building. But to be honest, I’m mostly into it for the spooky factor. At the house, my mind was free to ponder the 100s souls who died there. When I walk through the halls of places like this, I let my mind wander to the history. I also think about the architectural workmanship of those who are long dead and forgotten. In the nursery room, the name of a nurse was carved into the concrete floor. That gav...

QUICK TIP: USE TENT PEGS TO STOP YOUR LIGHT STANDS FALLING OVER ON LOCATION One of the most common questions I see on social media, especially just after somebody’s posted an image shot on location with flash, is “How do you stop your light stands from falling over?” – which isn’t an unreasonable question to expect. When it’s just you and your subject, how do people stop their light stands from falling over? Well, you could carry a bunch of heavy sandbags around with you, or make sure to hire an assistant for all of your location shoots, but photographer Wayne Speer has another idea – especially when shooting in locations with soft ground. He uses tent pegs and rope. It’s a great way to keep your stands pegged down – quite literally – so that they don’t fall over due to being top heavy or during a bit of a breeze. I’ve been using this technique myself for about a decade now, although I strap mine down slightly differently to Wayne. You can see in the images above that Wayne ties his...

The Key to Basic Beauty Lighting Let’s talk about the word “beauty” for a second to get our journey off on the right path. The definition: “A combination of qualities, such as shape, colour, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight.” Seems pretty straightforward—we see something beautiful, and we admire it because of those elements mentioned above. As a photographer, ask yourself this question: how often do you break down a session into those key elements? Our creative path is usually inspired by other images we see, images that evoke the desired adjective of “beautiful” and also conjure the phrase, “I want to shoot something like this too!” You get all the necessary components together and start photographing. But are you replicating what you saw as your inspiration, or are you returning to the basics of beauty—the definition of the word? SHAPE To define shape, we can, of course, think about the pose of the subject, but the lighting patt...

There is a recipe in everything we do as human beings, one that incites some type of emotional response no matter where we are and what we are doing. It involves the senses—whether a single one or multiple at the same time. In the artistic realm, part of the goal is to generate a response based on a recipe that engages sight. This requires a process that will make your vision come to life—from formulation to actualization in creating images that inspire and elicit joy when viewed. The creative process and the steps we take to achieve a goal are similar across many genres. In this case, they are similar to the process of a chef who specializes in a specific set of culinary delights. This is how I approach creating my images, whether in a studio or out on location. There is more than one recipe, of course, but I will go over the five key steps that structure how I approach creating my own imagery. There are several factors to take into account: Location, Lighting, Colo...