After 30 years of commercial photography and shooting for clients I decided to start shooting a few personal projects. I recently bought a Sony A6000 to carry around with me all the time and capture images that interest me. I decided on a road trip to the Isle of Skye to capture some images of this fantastic Island which has been seriously impacted by the Covid 19 pandemic. The lack of tourists on the island was very noticeable in all the shops , cafes and hotels. Very sad for an island that relies so much on tourism.

 Talisker Bay. The sand is a mixture of golden sand and black sand from the Cuillins. The beach is almost monochrome already. Best time to shoot this area in my opinion is sunset.....it was overcast when I shot this. The weather in Scotland is as unpredictable as the National Football team !! 

Sligachan Bridge with the Cuillins in the background
Shot on Sony A6000 (entry level camera) with neutral density filters and graduated filters to hold back the sky.
The thing about photography is....there are no rules. Just go out and shoot and enjoy the day.

Sundown at Neist point lighthouse. THe wind was blowing a hooligan when I shot this and I stayed well away from the cliff edge. Would love to go back and shoot this in the summer and campout near the lighthouse and get a sunset and with clear skies a few astro shots.

The Commando memorial at Spean Bridge,and they deserve a memorial for the service they have given. The memory of this place is the memorial garden where you can still see that young men are still giving their lives in combat zones to this day.

Shot using Bowens traveller packs and daylight

Some food photography for a fantastic bistro on the Quayside, River Beat.
I used a mixture of daylight and fill in flash to give a natural light feeling to the shots.
A narrow depth of field to give focus fall off, with very little photoshop treatment after in edits.
Restaurants and bistros should never underestimate the value of professional food shots for social media to drive sales.

A couple of posters for a Movember campaign for a martial arts club in Darlington.
The shots are a fun twist on the self defence and use of BIC razor using the techniques from Krav Maga.
A great shoot directed by Alan at MTR
http://prodefencekravmaga.co.uk/


All shots used Bowens beauty dish on gemini 500 head available at http://www.bowensdirect.com/

How do you photograph ice cream and keep the texture under the studio lights?
The shots for a local design agency for ice cream manufacturer and using Maureen Murray a fantastic home economist.
The shots where all set up with lighting and dishes , props etc in place without the ice cream.
This give you a chance to light the subject without fear of ice cream melting.
The ice cream is brought from the deep freeze and the balls are scooped up from the hard ice cream and placed in liquid nitrogen which reduces the temperature and has a boiling point of -196C
It has also become increasingly common at top restaurants as a method for instantly freezing food and drinks, or creating an impressive cloud of vapour or fog when exposed to air.

All shots using Bowens lighting http://www.bowensdirect.com/

A dramatic corporate portrait of the financial director of UK Land Estates for the Royal Bank of Scotland.
We wanted to give a strong image using leading lines from the graphic pattern and using directional lighting.
The main light was my favourite 75° Softlite Reflector by Bowens on a Gemini 500 head, an accent light through the glass to the left gives a rim light on the face and seperation from the background.

ALL LIGHTING BY BOWENS http://www.bowensdirect.com/

The last flying Vulcan Bomber.

We had the privilege of a location trip to Robin Hood Airport to photograph the last flying Vulcan bomber as it was having aviation fuel offloaded by specialist haulage company Imperial Tankers.
The Vulcan is currently being renovated in the hanger by a team of experts and the aviation fuel was need to be emptied and transported to another display Vulcan bomber.
We used our Bowens travelpaks with Esprit Gemini 500 heads to light the tanker being offloaded.
The Bowens travelpaks are a game changer for location work, giving ease and flexibility in lighting. Often in locations industrial units and hangers they use 3 phase sockets and the travelpaks wive you the ability to light the subject anyway without trailing extensions around the location.
We had a fantastic day shooting this historic aircraft and its great to see that a dedicated team are looking after the last flying example.

All images copyright Eric Murphy ABIPP LSIFGP

ALL LIGHTING BY BOWENS  http://www.bowensdirect.com/

We recently had a fantastic Industrial shoot for Hargreaves bulk transportation company at the Port of Immingham.
We shot the job with Canon 7D and using Bowens travelpac lighting to give some dramatic industrial shots. We often shoot in very unpleasant conditions and a coal handling depot in the rain ranks as one of the more challenging locations. I think we nailed it with the mix of Bowens lighting and ambient lighting and a clever bit of post processing to give some dramatic images.
All images are copyright Eric Murphy Photographer Ltd.

Water shoot in the studio.
The shot below was taken in Bananastudio on a specially constructed set for the shoot. We achieved the dramatic lighting with 2 direct heads from behind with coloured gels to give a rim light effect.
The front light was with a beauty dish from above pointing down towards the model. The backlighting was needed to record the water drops and splashes. The camera was set on the highest sync speed of 160th of a second at F5.6

The resulting shot captures the colours and splashes of the water and makes for a dramatic shot.

All images by Eric Murphy ABIPP LSIFGP