Brett Harkness at Annabel Williams

On Friday I travelled to Staveley in the Lake District to attend a 1 day flash course with Brett Harkness at the Annabel Williams Studio. Brett is a very talented photographer and he works with his wife Christie as a Wedding, Fashion and Commercial photographer in Manchester. He describes his style as edgy fashion!

I felt that a bit of a refresher on outdoor lighting was required, balancing ambient and flash light is quite a tricky operation requiring a little bit of maths, not exactly my strong point.

I stayed in the Eagle and Child Pub , I was disappointed, the room was tiny, walls paper thin, food pricey, service not great and the shower – well pitiful!

We started the day with a short lecture from Brett and a slideshow of the type of work we’d be covering during the course of the day. We then got into 2 groups of around 6 photographers (my only complaint of the day was that there was way too many of us) and started shooting the young lady (sorry can;t remember her name) .

This is taken with 1 lastolite easy box placed camera right.


Lastolite easybox to camera left and a flash behind her head to create the rim lighting.


We then had a male model and went outside, it is a lovely area and the sky was a clear blue, a little cold but very pleasant. The shot above is taken with a lastolite easybox to camera left


This was taken by a car garage under a tunnel thing, a little dark. Softbox to camera left, this is about right in respect of the balance of daylight and flash.


The model had to go to work so we shot Bretts wife. A difficult shot with very strong back light, it is really strong and creates that lovely rim light that you can see round the edge of her body but it also creates lens flare. I like it though. I need to practice this type of shot so if any aspiring models read this then please get in touch and I’d be happy to shoot you. (with a camera)

All in it was a good day, as mentioned above, too many people in my opinion but I still learned something. There was a really good mix of people from other Professionals to people just trying to learn a little more about their hobby. I bumped into Christina Golian from Edinburgh, her and her Husband run a very successful Wedding Photography Business called Elemental Weddings it was strange to see her as I have been reading their blog. Christina supplied me with this picture, not a great model but I really think she could have done some work on my double chin – shame on you Christina!!!!