Congratulations Alex Vincent, March 2024 PFRE Photographer of the Month! The theme this month was "Kitchen". Alex Vincent - #906 Yvonne Raaijmakers - #909 Peter Wingfield - #902 Here's what Alex has to say: Thank you for the award of Photographer of th ...
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Congratulations to Hamish Beeston of Bristol, UK who the video jury has voted PFRE videographer of the month for Oct/Nov. Click on the image to the right to have a look at Hamish's winning video.
Hamish has the distinction of being the first contestant ever to win both the still photo contest and the video contest in the same month. Great work Hamish!
Here is the ranking results of the jury's voting. To view the videos click on the entry numbers below and then click on the video link in the description field of the entry:
This was an amazing set of videos this month. Be sure to check the jurors, comments in the Video Contest Flickr pool.
Here are Hamish's comments on his video:
Huge thanks to all the judges for your votes this time. I’m really delighted. Congratulations to all the other contestants too - there’s a fantastic range of styles in this mix and the standard gets better and better every time.
My main impression this month is how well aerial shots are now being integrated with the regular footage. Instead of the traditional chunk of really high aerials, then the ground footage, some of the films here have an amazing seamless mix throughout the piece, with the aerials at all heights and angles.
It’s also really interesting to see two excellent and different approaches to using people (actors / owners?) as non-speaking characters on-screen. I’ve always found it tricky to strike the correct (non-cheesy!) balance when doing this, so it’s great to see it done so well here.
Huge thanks also to the team behind the very special London mews house which features in this film. In particular, the design / finish / architectural detailing is way better than a lot of places I shoot, which means that you can really go to town on the close-up images and there are lots of nice symmetrical lines to exploit.
Finally, thanks to my assistant Billy Bolton, who shot second camera on this project and also did a chunk of the editing. Top work.
Some notes on the film:
- The main filming day was 12x hours on location in which I shot property footage for the video and C50 stills. I also spent 2-3 hours on another day filming the local area park and street shots.
- Main camera was a Sony FS7, using S-Log3 picture profile at 3840x2160. Lenses were Canon L-series 16-35mm, 24-70mm and 70-200mm, mounted on Metabones Speedbooster adapter (which makes the FS7’s sensor effectively full-frame).
- Grip equipment was tripod, Wally Dolly track system and DJI Ronin (with a Sony A7s on board).
- Edited / colour-graded on Premiere Pro. Mastered to 1920x1080 MP4 master file.
Re the format of the film, the brief from the owner / developer was to produce a piece to celebrate the project, as opposed to promote it for sale. Hence the more-in depth interviews that included not just the architectural designer but also the special water guy and the neighbor across the street. Interestingly, once I had delivered the film, the client asked for a shorter version too, without interviews, which you can see on a link from the video page.
Wow, two wins within the space of a month. Congratulations Hamish!!
Great job Hamish, congrats on the double win very impressive work and you just pushed me to some new ideas thank you.
Congratulations Hamish! I would also like to thank all of the judges for such great critiques. It really is helpful to grow and get better at what we do. Critique and constructive comments really do help more than anything, and for this to be a free contest is an amazing opportunity for everyone to give it a try. Fresh sets of honest eyes is an amazing thing when delivered properly! So with that Thank you to everyone and all the time they spend on these contests!
It feels like deja-vue all over again! Big congrats on your deserved "double-whammy" Hamish! I loved the smooth pans of some of the structural details and finishes: details like that I think speak volumes, and it would be nice to see real estate marketing listings embracing stills of such subjects a bit more. Your client must have been delighted with the combined stills and video package.
Thanks Guys. Much appreciated! Thanks to Larry as well for all his efforts in running this fantastic site.
Congrats Hamish and Billy !
I am impressed about the smoothness, sharpness and elegance of your imagery throughout ! And fantastic editing !
Did you use lights ? Because it seems that in a lot of shots, the aperture were closed between 5.6 or 8 for the interiors or maybe it's the 4k that makes it really sharp.
The color grading of the S-log is harmonious throughout as well and details well kept in the shadows, nice constant dosage !
A beautiful development that deserved your savoir-faire to showcase it.
Thanks Josué. Re lights, no we did not use them here and in fact rarely do. Very occasionally I might add a lamp or two to highlight a particularly dark room or area, but mostly I just go with available light. In the past this has meant having to accept overblown windows / other highlights but since we started using the Fs7, there's so much more flexibility in the S-log image that we can sort much of that in the edit. It's practically the same as shooting RAW for stills. Re sharpness, I tend to add a bit in Premiere (plus 20 usually) to crisp things up really well. Just checked your website. Great work!
Actually re lights, we did use them for the interviews but not the other imagery. As an aside, we also took some of the stills - mainly close-ups - directly from the 4k video and they hold up really well next to those taken on the 5D.
Thanks Hamish !
Good choice of camera for its capability.
Congratulations Hamish - beautiful, inspiring work as always. The way you incorporated the designer into the 'story' was so well crafted and provided the sort of detail that perhaps a buyer of that calibre of property would be seeking.
And congrats to all the other entrants - you sold me over and over again!