While at the NOBS Photo Success Inferno last week, I took part in the Shoot Out. This was an amazing night where 6 photographers were thrown a challenge and then 6 retouchers worked their magic on the images.
The photographers were matched with a retoucher by pulling names from a hat, and I was lucky enough to get James Hodgins – the co-founder of NOBS, an awesome photographer and top guy too! All the photographers were secluded outside the main room and brought in one by one to shoot. They had one large strobe, a desk lamp and a reflector for lighting and had to use a chaise as a prop. They had a lovely model to work with and just 5 minutes to set up and shoot a perfect image. James read my mind and took apart the desk lamp and used the shade on the model’s head, which I thought was going to be our shot…but then he had a flash of inspiration and took the bulb out, cooled it then stuck it in the model’s mouth!! I was cursing him as I only had 15 minutes to retouch the image, and I’d have liked an hour on that one!
We had a break after all the photographer’s had shot, then we all downloaded at once and had 3 minutes to choose an image. I was in between the shade/head shot and the bulb/shot..but thought what the hell, and picked the bulb one! I then had 15 minutes to retouch the image anyway I wanted with a crowd of about 30 people milling around me! I had great fun working this way and going up against some of the best retouchers around. The overall winner was Jason Abbott – a great photographer (and new friend) from Texas. His image was retouched by the awesome Shelly Harrington. The whole evening was organised by another great new friend of mine, Alison Berk from Humbolt, Canada. She spent the night in character as Sarah Palin (who?!)

Here are all the photographers and retouchers and me working hard with an audience. Images courtesy of Tommy Cooper Photography.

And here is the image that James shot and my final version…I used a blue action from the amazing Andy Armstrong’s Design|House set. Andy was one of my competitors and he’s also now a firm friend.