Poros Island Engagement Photoshoot Greece - Irina & Vlad
The Engagement Photoshoot of Irina & Vlad, in the lovely little town of Poros, in Greece. Great fun shooting this plus the views were simply gorgeous!
This is the first of a series of blog posts featuring Irina & Vlad, who are a beautiful and incredibly fun couple, soon to be married. Vlad spends a lot of his time sailing around on the Aegean Sea, as a skipper for SetSail, while Irina has a passion for creating wedding dresses, and oh my God you won’t believe how cool her dresses are! Actually, you will believe it when you see them on her website, The Last Human.
It looks like I tend to attract fashion designers, last time I shot Aida’s awesome fashion collection at the Barbican in London.
I sailed with Irina & Vlad as well as a few other fantastic people, in Greece, for 10 days - or to be more precise, Vlad sailed, I just took photos and enjoyed the sun and the sea - moving from island to island, each one more beautiful than the last.
In this post I will show you a collection of my favourite images from Irina & Vlad’s Poros Island Engagement Photoshoot. Poros is a lovely little island, part of the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea. It is a popular holiday destination for tourists as well as Greeks, as it is only 1 hour away from Athens, by ferry. It is really no surprise people go there in numbers, the place has everything going for it, beautiful views, super friendly people and nice weather (most of the time).
We were there in April, so the weather was still a bit….volatile. We had sun, rain, wind, a bit of everything really. We shot in all weather conditions, rain and wind were no restrictions. Don’t know what is going on, where these rhymes are coming from, but I sure won’t stop them now, not before I take a bow!!
Ok, don’t know what that was..Moving on..
Couple Portrait Photography Session in Poros, Greece
We walked around the picturesque town for a bit and found a lovely rooftop with great views over the houses, so we stopped and shot there for a bit.
I have to point out Irina’s lovely engagement ring, which in case you’ve missed it, is a cat!
Engagement Photoshoot on Poros Island. Fun and relaxed portrait photography in Greece
Later we decided to go even higher up so we headed towards one of the highest points of the town, which is the clock tower peak. That’s not actually what it’s called, in reality it’s something more like Πύργος ρολογιού κορυφή.
Ok, I have no idea what that means, I just put some greek letters next to each other…
The views from up there are absolutely stunning which is why this spot is very popular with tourists as well as other photographers, so if you are a wedding/portrait photographer and you are doing a Couple Portrait Session, or a Pre-Wedding Photoshoot in Poros, I definitely recommend you don’t overlook this spot.
By the time we got to the top the temperature dropped a little and it was getting a bit chilly. No worries though, everyone just put and extra layer on and we were good to carry on.
Irina and Vlad’s personalities really shine through in these next photos and I love looking back at them because it shows them just as they are: fun and in love!
2Creative Workshop Greece - Wedding Photography Training
Here is a summary of one of the best experiences of my life, 10 days of sailing and doing wedding photography on a couple of Greek Islands, together with 17 incredible people!
Greece has gained a special place in my heart. It has become the place I go when I want two things: to have the best time with a bunch of wonderful people and to grow as a photographer.
This is exactly what I did on my second ever visit to this wonderful, sun-kissed country. My first experience came some 3 and a half years ago, when the tiny island of Limnos became my home for 4 months over the summer. Back then I worked as an Action and Portrait Photographer, for CE Photo and it was one of the best times of my life, as I got to live on an island, meet some fantastic people and do the thing I love most, photography! I learned so much and I improved my photography skills tremendously in that time.
2Creative Wedding Photography Workshop Greece
This first experience of Greece played a crucial role in the next decision that I was faced with when I accidentally stumbled upon the advert for the 2Creative Wedding Photography Workshop, organised by two fantastic wedding photographers, Marius Tudor and Marian Sterea, where? You guessed it, in Greece!!
As I was reading through the workshop’s description, a wave of emotions started rushing through my body, from excitement, all the way to nostalgia! I was reading about the opportunity to receive training from two amazing photographers, while spending 10 days at sea on a yacht and shooting on some amazing Greek islands! All I was thinking was how incredible it would be if I actually went!
I started looking at flights and the best option was flying from Liverpool to Bucharest and from there to Athens and back, so a total of 4 flights, which was only £160, half of what flying directly from Manchester to Athens would have cost me. With a bit of luck, I managed to get some time off from work as well, so a couple of days later, my place on the workshop was booked!
I met almost everyone at the airport in Bucharest and less then 2 hours later we were in Athens. We took the bus to the Alimos Marina where our boats were waiting. Having never “lived” on a boat before I wasn’t sure what to expect, I didn’t know how everything worked, but it turns out it is literally like a micro apartment. You’ve got pretty much anything you need, but in a really tight space. Oh, and you need to be extra careful when using the loo, as anything that is flushed down, other than what is meant to end up there, is a disaster waiting to happen! Once it’s blocked, everyone will know! ( everyone at sea, that is!)
Our first day was spent planning, getting to know eachother and buying food and drinks to last us the whole week. This is what £500 worth of food provisions looks like, 4 full carts, which filled up the boot of an estate car!
Finally, two days after our arrival, we were off to our first destination, the island of Poros. It was a 2-3 hour trip and the weather was really nice and the sea was calm. One thing I think was really cool (others who were there might disagree) is that we got to sail in all types of weather conditions, from sunny weather with no wind, to really windy conditions and swelly seas which for me personally was a lot of fun, and even through a thunderstorm on our way back to Athens at the end of the trip.
Photo by Paul Budusan
Photo by Alex Culac
Photo by Alex Culac
As this was a wedding photography workshop, we obviously needed a bride and groom to photograph. Enter Irina & Vlad, a real life couple who are actually engaged and who will be married soon. Vlad is a great guy (with a great name!) and he was one of the skippers. He taught us a lot about sailing and made sure everyone knew what their roles were when we were out at sea, or when we were arriving at or leaving different marinas!
Irina, his fiancee, creates wedding dresses and luckily she had a whole collection with her so that gave us the possibility of photographing her in different outfits, which was great!
Another great thing about this workshop was that, unlike other photography workshops where the organisers photograph the models and explain things as they shoot while everyone else tries to take photos around them and they wrestle to get into the best positions, everyone who was on this workshop got their own time with the couple. We all had to do mini photoshoots everyday, ranging from 5 minutes all the way down two 2 minutes, which was a great way to put us under pressure and force us to think on our feet in order to get some great images in a very short time. The highlight was a 2 hour photoshoot each one of us got to do once we arrived on the island of Hydra.
Photo by Marian Sterea
Photo by Marius Tudor
Photo by Marius Tudor
Photo by Marius Tudor
Marius and Marian who organised the workshop were around, watching, making notes, and in the evenings we discussed about the photos, we got feedback and tips on our communication with the models, posing and so on. And another thing which I thought was great was how very different Marius and Marian are as photographers. Marius is a documentary style photographer who is all about capturing genuine moments and interactions between the bride and groom, whereas Marian is a very technical photographer whose style borders fashion photography and he likes to get creative with off camera flash. Personally I have a style which lies somewhere inbetween documentary and fashion, where I love and understand the importance of documenting a wedding just as it unfolds, but also appreciate the value of lightly directing the couple during photoshoots and having those highly technical, posed photos in my portfolio. So for me, getting advice from both of them was extremely useful.
Wedding Photography on Hydra Island in Greece
Moving on, our next destination was the island of Hydra which is literally one of the prettiest places I’ve seen to date. The really small scale of the town, with all the houses concentrated around the bay, there is just something truly special about it. Not to mention the hundreds of cats which are literally everywhere. If you love cats, the sea and absolutely stunning sunsets, this is the place for you!
Hydra is where we spent most of our time on this trip. This is where we each got the chance to have Irina & Vlad for ourselves for two hours and do some amazing photoshoots and this is where I really got to bond with everyone else and find out just how amazing and fun they all are!
I am incredibly grateful for having had the opportunity to be a part of this workshop and to spend time with such amazing wedding photographers. I feel like I have already become a better photographer and I can’t wait to start applying everything I’ve learned here.
I am also grateful for the chance to see how the simple life that people live on this island can be so beautiful, in a time where most people live their lives through their smartphones’ screens. An island where the only motorised vehicles are the garbage truck and a couple of mopeds, where a couple dozen cats gather each morning in the same exact spot, waiting for the fishing boats that bring fresh fish for the restaurants, because they know they always get a treat, and an island where sunsets are simply magical. I still smile every time I think about all of these little things.
Thanks to everyone who made this experience possible and I can’t wait to be back in November for 2Creative 2.0! I will now leave you with a few more images. Also, keep an eye out as I will soon be posting some of the photoshoots done throughout the workshop.
Photo by Marius Tudor
Photo by Marius Tudor
Working as an action and portrait photographer in Greece
This is my very first post here and hopefully one of many to come, so I'd like to start by welcoming you to my new blog!
As the title mentions, this article is going to be about working as an action and portrait photographer in Greece. The reason I decided to write about this...
Update 2018:
CE Photo are recruiting for summer 2019 positions right now. If after reading this article you decide this job is for you and want to apply, I would appreciate it if you simply mentioned that you were referred by me! If you want to apply, please do so here.
Thanks and good luck!
This is my very first post here and hopefully one of many to come, so I'd like to start by welcoming you to my new blog!
As you might have guessed from the title, this article is going to be about working as a photographer in Greece, which I did over the summer of 2015. This was a job which I got thanks to Clare Edmead Photography, now simply known as CE Photo (you can find all the details about the job and how to apply on Clare's website, including a really cool promotional video showing what working in Greece is like)
The reason I decided to write about this is because during that season I grew a lot as a photographer and had a blast as well, so I wanted to share both my experience and some of the photographs captured there. Also, the information in this post will hopefully be useful to whoever is interested in applying for the job and answer some of the questions you might have about it, questions which I know I had in the beginning, before moving to Greece. Therefore, I decided to go pretty in-depth with this article, so just to give you a heads up, this is going to be quite a lengthy read!
Let's get started!
I could say I got this job by chance, because to begin with, by the time I found the advert for the role, the applications had been closed for about 2 months. However, because I liked the promotional video so much I decided to ask a question and see if there was any need for another photographer. To my surprise, there was an available position...the only problem for me though was that the new photographer was needed there by the end of the month, whereas I was still in my final year in university, with around a month and a half to go until the end of the year.
Despite mentioning this, I was told to submit an application anyway. I did that and a few days later I had a phone interview, followed by a face to face one. Long story short, it all went great, but I ended up not getting the job because they found someone who was available to go to Greece earlier than I possibly could...bummer!...However, about a month later, I got another email from Clare, saying that a position had become available and it was mine if I wanted it. About a week later I was landing in Greece which became my home for the next 4 months.
Nikon D700 + 70-300mm VC | 70mm | f6.3 | 1/4000 s | ISO 800
Arriving in Greece
My position was in Limnos, which is a tiny island in the Aegean Sea and one of the 5 Neilson resorts where Clare sends her photographers every summer. It is a windy island and people go to that specific resort for windsurfing and sailing, but there is also waterskiing and wakeboarding as well as other activities on both water and land. Because I arrived in Greece some weeks after the season had started, I pretty much had to start working right away and I only had a couple of days to learn how things worked and what I had to do. If you apply in time and go there from the beginning of the season ( which usually starts in April) you will undergo a week of training at one of the 5 resorts, so you will be told pretty much everything you need to know, but also get to meet the other photographers and have some fun.
A day in the life of a CEP photographer
For the first two days I followed the other photographers around the resort trying to pay attention to how they were going about photographing the seemingly infinite number of activities that the guests were taking part in. I was given a rota which showed me exactly what I needed to photograph when, and that made things easier...once I had learned how to find my way around the resort.
Photograph by Joe Merchant
For example, one morning I'd be on ski, which meant I had to start the day at 8 and be on the ski boat all morning, taking photos of people waterskiing and wakeboarding until 12. After lunch, a different photographer would jump on the ski boat and I would go do something else, which was either beach or kids club.
Nikon D700 + Tamron Sp 70-300mm VC | 200mm | f6.3 | 1/3200 s | ISO 800
Nikon D700 + Tamron Sp 70-300mm VC | 270mm | f6.3 | 1/2500 s | ISO 800
When you are on the beach you basically have to capture everything that goes on there, which typically includes windsurfing, kayaking, sailing and paddle boarding (SUPs) and in order to get the best shots you need to get on one of the safety boats that go around making sure everyone is alright.
Nikon D700 + Tamron Sp 70-300mm VC | 270mm | f6.3 | 1/3200 s | ISO 800
Nikon D700 + Tamron Sp 70-300mm VC | 125mm | f6.3 | 1/1250 s | ISO 800
Now that can be a lot of fun, believe me, but once the wind picks up and the sea gets choppy, it all suddenly becomes really challenging...and wet. The sailing boats will capsize a lot more, so the safety boats will be on the move almost continuously, making it that much harder to frame your shots right while holding on to the boat and avoiding your equipment getting soaked at the same time. But it's definitely doable and the more you keep at it the better you get.
Nikon D700 + Tamron Sp 70-300mm VC | 70mm | f6.3 | 1/1600 s | ISO 800
Nikon D700 + Tamron Sp 70-300mm VC | 70mm | f6.3 | 1/1600 s | ISO 1600
Then there is the kids club which is a different beast altogether. This was arguably the trickiest thing to photograph, but also the most important one in peak season, which can be quite hectic, with hundreds of kids to photograph each week. The reason why it is challenging is because there are 9 groups of kids which are doing different activities at the same time, all over the resort (which is not small), and it is your job as the photographer to make sure you capture every single group doing different things. The schedule for each group was always written down on boards along with the time of the day when they would do each activity.
Therefore, before the activities started I would go around the resort writing down the schedules for each group and then sit down trying to figure out where I need to be and when, in order to photograph everybody.
At the end of each day, all the photographs had to be processed and uploaded to the computers in the pool bar, for guests to look at and add to their carts in preparation for sales day, which in our case was Thursdays (other resorts had different days). Generally, in order to save time, I used to edit all my morning photographs at lunchtime, so they would be ready to upload before I got to the afternoon ones - I should probably mention that one of the reasons I was doing that was because my laptop was tediously slow and exporting from Lightroom was taking very long ( about one hour for roughly 600 images). It was so slow I actually missed the beginning of our Photo Jolly towards the end of the season, because I had to upload my images but couldn't finish exporting in time.
Sales day was usually the longest day of the week, especially if you were on Ski in the morning and started at 8, because you would take photos until lunchtime and after that all photographers would start taking orders from the guests and burn photos to CDs, until 11pm. However, it did have its good parts, like talking to some cool people and having your work appreciated, which is always nice.
Portrait sessions
One of the things I really enjoyed was doing the family/couple photoshoots on the beach, at sunset. I enjoyed it because this was one area I was a bit scared about when I got there and by the end of the season I managed to improve so much. Up to that point I had only photographed friends or relatives and I didn't exactly know how to work with strangers and how to pose them. On my first two portrait sessions, I actually acted as a second shooter for another photographer in order to see how he interacted with the subjects, which places he took them to and so on.
Nikon D700 + Tamron Sp 70-300mm VC | 260mm | f6.3 | 1/1000 s | ISO 1600
Once I started doing them on my own though, with each new photoshoot I was getting more confident and I was finding it easier to talk to the families (most of them, some were simply not very chatty by nature) and by the end of the season I was looking forward to each new shoot. The location was great too and there was something special about the whole place being soaked in that soft, golden light.
Nikon D700 + Tamron Sp 70-300mm VC | 70mm | f10 | 1/250 s | ISO 800
Nikon D700 + Tamron Sp 70-300mm VC | 130mm | f5.6 | 1/2000 s | ISO 1250
Nikon D700 + Tamron Sp 70-300mm VC | 270mm | f6.3 | 1/400 s | ISO 1600
Nikon D700 + Tamron Sp 70-300mm VC | 120mm | f7.1 | 1/400 s | ISO 800
Accommodation, internet and food
One of the nice things about this job is that you don't need to worry about finding a place to stay, as the accommodation is offered and paid for by the company. We were a team of 3 photographers and we shared a 3 bedroom flat in Myrina. Depending on your background you would have found the living conditions to be anywhere from poor, to actually quite nice. I thought there was nothing wrong with the flat, it fulfilled its purpose, which was putting a roof over our heads. Sure, it didn't look modern by any means, and the washing machine was leaking all over the bathroom everytime we'd use it, but hey, at least we had a washing machine. Most of the resort staff were saying how nice our place is, compared to where they lived and some would even come over to do their laundry because they didn't have a washing machine. I thought it was a decent flat and it even had a massive balcony which was a bonus.
Internet is quite a big thing, because at the flat it was non-existent, so what we did is bought Greek sim cards for our phones which we topped up with data only. There were a few different data packages to chose from and the one we went for had 6GB of data, which is not that much and at around €20 it was quite expensive too, but we thought it was the best option available. The way to make that last as long as possible was to not really watch any videos. There was wi-fi at the gyros shop on the corner of our street, as well as in the staff canteen at the hotel, so I used those as well in order to save data.
When it comes to food, we had 3 meals a day at the resort, which to me was great, although some people kept complaining about how bad the food is. I think they simply liked moaning more than they liked eating. I love eating and I found nothing wrong with the food. I found it tasty and varied enough to keep things interesting. The fact that it was a buffet and you could eat as much as you wanted was great because running around and photographing kids all day was no easy job and I was hungry all the time.
Leisure and free time
The work schedule was 6 days a week with one day off, which in our case was Friday. (for other resorts there were different days) Friday was transfer day, when the guests would leave the hotel and head back to chilly UK and be replaced by new guests. So there was no need for photos that day. Because some of the resort staff were off on that day too, we'd sometimes do things together and there is lots to do on that tiny island. You can hire cars quite cheaply in low season or get bikes and go explore the island which has a many other nice beaches, low mountains, waterfalls, caves, abandoned hotels and even a desert.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 18-35mm G| 18mm | f8 | 1/1600 s | ISO 800
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 18-35mm G| 18mm | f5.6 | 1/3200 s | ISO 800
There is kite surfing available, scuba diving and besides, you have access to all the resort's equipment so you can go sailing, kayaking, windsurfing, etc.
Photo by Jade Lara Jordan
Nikon D700 + Tamron Sp 70-300mm VC | 155mm | f6.3 | 1/3200 s | ISO 800
We even rented a big boat once and had a party in the middle of the sea. There is no shortage of things to do there. My biggest regret is that I really needed to save money and didn't see more of the island. Also, and this is quite ironic, I regret not taking more photographs outside my job.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 18-35mm G| 30mm | f8 | 1/2500 s | ISO 800
If I knew back then I would be writing this article now, I would have taken many more photos. In a way it's understandable though, because when you take thousands of photographs a week, you don't really feel like doing it again on your only day off.
Equipment
Lastly, I want to talk about an important part of the job and that is gear. What camera and lenses should you have for the job? Well, there are definitely many options available, but generally you want a DSLR which can track moving subjects well and a good telephoto lens. Full frame has some advantages, but some of the photographers used cropped sensor cameras and still did a great job. I am a Nikon shooter and the gear I had at the time was:
- Nikon D700 w/ battery grip
- D3000 as a backup body (never used it and actually sold it to someone at the end of the season)
- Tamron SP 70-300mm f4-5.6 VC
- Nikon 50mm 1.8G (never used it)
- Nikon 18-35mm G (never used it)
- Yongnuo Speedlite (never used it)
- a tripod (never used it)
- 3 batteries
- plastic covers (used when photographing from speed boats in order to protect the camera and lens from getting wet)
- protection/UV filters for the lenses (these are a necessity as no matter how careful you are, you WILL get small drops of salty water onto the front bit of the lens and it is better to wipe it off a cheap filter than off the glass element. they also do a great job keeping dust and sand away)
This was my gear at the time, plus a t-shirt received as a present, to go with it all.
When I took the job I was wondering whether the 5 fps of the D700 will be enough for shooting action, or if my £200 Tamron lens would be up for it. Well now that I have done it, I can confidently say that I would've been alright with lesser equipment too. I know other photographers who used cameras like the D800, or the Canon 5D mark 3. To be completely honest, I'd be a bit concerned bringing my £2000 camera on a job like this, because the conditions can be pretty harsh sometimes and getting your gear covered in salty sea spray can pottentially cause some damage in the form of rust or sticky buttons.
My D700 was great because it is an all weather sealed body made of metal so it can take a beating, but I am the kind of photographer who babies his equipment anyway so I kept it nice and clean all the time (which is a good thing because the better you take care of it, the longer it is going to last and also, the more it is going to be retain its value should you eventually decide to sell it).
You can definitely get by with a cropped sensor camera though, because 95% of the times you will be taking photos outdoors, under the hot and bright Greek sun. For the family photoshoots, done at sunset in dim light, the full frame sensor of the D700 was great, allowing me to push the ISO quite high with very little noise, but cameras like the D7200 or the 7D mark 2 could still work great for a job like this.
In terms of lenses, again, there were photographers shooting with 70-200mm lenses, that were worth at least double the money that I paid for mine. I got really sharp photos out of my Tamron 70-300mm VC lens, which in decent light has no problem aquiring focus precisely and fast enough. However, for Nikon shooters, I wouldn't reccommend any other budget, variable aprerture lens than the Tamron model I used (The Nikon 70-300mm VR could work, but keep in mind that it has a max aperture of f4.5, compared to the f4 of the Tamron, so you loose a bit of light).
Would I recommend the job to others?
Absolutely. You get to live on an island for up to 6 months, it is hot and sunny most of the time, you meet a lot of cool people, your food, accommodation and flights are all paid for and you get a salary on top of that as well as different performance related comissions. Sure, sometimes the working hours can be long and tiring and you don't take a job like this to get rich, but it can be a lot of fun and you get to improve a lot as a photographer, in an area of photography which is not within a lot of people's reach (talking about action photography here).
On the whole, it was a unique experience and personally I would go back there in a heartbeat if I had the chance.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 18-35mm G | 27mm | f5.6 | 1/400 s | ISO 200