Lake Macquarie House-ric woods photography

We were commissioned to shoot a house on Lake Macquarie for some builders.
The client wanted the roof line captured as the hero shot. A difficult job, although the house was great to walk through with interesting levels,up close the finished textures were simple and did not lend itself to stunning still images.We decided to mask the finer detail and light up the outside taking advantage of the dramatic slope of the land.

We placed 5 strobes outside the house gelled to match the interior lights.In camera the the back grass was let to go black to create a dramatic line up to the sloped roof. This decision was made as there was a septic tank in the foreground and the lawn was patchy. The client asked to have lawn placed in the shot in post production, they say the customer is always right. I would have left it drop to black

Burlesque-Guns-Girls and Booze-ric woods photography

We had to re post this for a client to view, some how it fell off the web? Voo Doo?
Girls,Guns,Gin and Gambling...thats a formula thats unstable

Images with an Edge- ric woods photography

We did a photo shoot with Caitlin the other day.Its great to transform the studio with lighting and structures


Its certainly different to photographing products,corporate head shots,fashion and newborns

The Urban wasteland provided great images and of course gets the creative brain waves flowing..

I wonder if this could be our next profile image...Hmmmm it might scare off a few customers.....and it might win a few as well.

ric, caitlin( the talent) bridie and maree

Crissy's Pin Up Photo Shoot-ric woods photography

We shot Crissy the other day.We were commissioned to shoot her in the style of a pin up.These retro photo shoots are coming our way often these days and they are lots of fun.The clothes are great and Crissy certainly has great praise for Kat at "Catfight Collections" in Hamilton for their great range of Retro clothing. Maree Nichols applied Crissy's make up and assisted with the photo shoot. Well done Crissy...3 hours without a fade out.....





See some behind the scenes action here..........

ZENER ELECTRIC-ric woods photography

Check out our behind the scenes video grab and I shall show you how to make a black box look beautiful...

ric woods photography fashion and lighting course- behind the scenes video

Turn up the volume and take the jump to the "Behind the Scenes" video of our recent Fashion & Beauty Photography & Lighting Course. At ric woods photography we conduct small classes for better one on one time and the latest course (21 page pdf course booklet download) was a blast....All participants get to shoot and take home fantastic portfolio images.

The studio ( location) was buzzing with enthusiastic and creative people and at 6pm it all took off!

We started with some theory like:

• Camera preparation,lens selection...we talked about shutter speed, aperture , ISO and how to balance or eliminate the ambient studio like.We showed how to get clean perfect exposures straight out of the camera.I shot images tethered to two monitors and showed practical differences with light modifiers. I use equipment that people have in their own kits like umbrella's as well as studio gear like gridded beauty dishes and large soft boxes.
• We instructed people how to engage the models.We explain why we NEVER touch models without asking.Composition and camera point of view are covered.We talked about photographic releases explaining that you MUST have a release for every portrait and every wedding shoot. You get the HERO shot you best have a release before you sell that image on the Commercial Scene, OR it could come back at you and you may need pay many $$$$s to clean up the mess.

Special thanks to;

• Maree Nichols my business partner and production manager for pulling it all together.If you need more information about the courses of booking a shoot at the studio, shoot her an email maree@ricwoods.com.

We gave a couple of students their "shot" in a commercial studio.

• Caitlin Nolan-Jones wants to be a creative director. Caitlin was given free reign to design the theme for the shoot.She sourced the clothing and accessories and enlisted the aide of two friends to be the male and female models.She did a great job and exceeded our expectations.She did the work and was rewarded with a great result.She supplied several looks and did well in the 3 hour course.

My tip for up and comers that want their "shot" . Do the work you want to get paid to do....do the work..do the work.

• Piyanuch "Nuu" Hathaipontaluk was our make up artist and did well to collaborate with Caitlin to pull the vision together.She was showing off her skills, doing male and female make up finishing with a Dramatic look on our female model. Also thanks for her patience in my poor attempts to pronounce her Thai Name.
• Odessa our female model was stunning and brought amazing beauty to the photo shoot.
• Liam was the perfect male model, making light when some participants were finding it difficult to shoot and talk at the same time.
• Thanks to Kristie, Debbie,Peter, Zahra, Kaz and Llynda the participants...great work, good listening.

Finally..........

• Eagle Boys Pizza for delivering ON TIME and making GLUTEN FREE Pizzas...

SCHOOL FORMALS-ric woods photography

Gambling,Girls and Guns...a mix that often ends badly

What a great mix of talent. Our latest self commissioned photo "shoot" was a "blast".

We compose these shoots because we love making images and it keeps us inspired it also demonstrates to the participants of our photography and lighting courses that fantastic images can be composed in-camera with very little post production Photoshop work.

Jessi and Maree ( right) were the Burlesque show girls in the shoot.Maree, my business partner, let go of her usual roll as studio manager,admin,second photographer and make up artist to be the talent in the shoot.

Jessi bought a great look and vibrance to the session.



Maree and Jimmy were there Friday night...Jimmy seemed on edge and when he is like that his friends know to choose their words carefully...


The usual Friday Night crowd was at the Warehouse

Left: Will,Matt,Brett and Jimmy.


Be careful what you say to these ladies Matt...they hunt in packs.



Friday nights at Brett warehouse are usually start out light hearted...

Usually as the night goes on the mixture of Money, Girls, Booze and Greed ups the stakes ....someone always takes things too far. Matt made a comment about Jimmy's suit....

It only takes a small spark to start a raging fire... Matt didn't see it coming...

The next day it was Mr William O who said to the detectives, Matt said he was going for a long drive.... Matt is still missing....

...thanks to all who helped on the night.
NEWS: If you want to make images like this, sign up for our photography and lighting courses in 2011.**DOWNLOAD 21 page course booklet**

maternity and newborn photography workshops

Meela, was the star of our recent workshops on newborn photography, so aware at such a young age. At our course we had several lighting changes.Three lights and how to maximise depth of field and minimising distortion of the subjects through lens and aperture selection.Rim lighting high and low key. One light with reflectors.

mother & child

new family

dad and meela

eye contact and voice recognition

some of the students

Dad was fantastic with Meela, mum looks on

Dad getting ready to change Meela's pose

Small groups are great to teach.

Here I am explaining to one of the group about talking to the subject....I did this with a practical demonstration of pointing the camera at the photographer for 1-2 minutes without speaking and using the shutter...they "got it" and we had fun.One of mothers to be in the background, you will be seeing more of her as her "bump" grows.

Here Maree comforts Meela's under study....the under study wasn't needed at all. Our primary focus is the 1. the comfort of the child 2. the comfort of the parent/s and 3. getting the shot.

Here is the results of images of Amy, one of our previous subjects, using 2 lights

Amy in this shot is illuminated by 3 lights.This creates a whole different feel.

Our workshop "Creating beautiful B&W's" is scheduled to run again in 2011.Maree is compiling lots of new courses for next year.

If you would like more workshop details email maree@ricwoods.com.

ric woods photography shooting for Industrea Mining Equipment & Metso Minerals (aust) Ltd

We offer our clients many services including high quality image capture on digital or film. Extensive digital post production service are available also.

These images (below) we compiled for a 2m high trade show banner for metso minerals. File sizes of 2 gig and more require computer hardware with "grunt" and this is what we have in our studio."Computers with Grunt"

Many of the machines we photograph cannot be moved from where they are constructed this is where our deep etch technique. We can drop our clients 80 tonne machine onto any background they choose, including white. We consider many factors in producing the finished image.Such as; the centre image in the banner above was dropped onto a background that was off white, this gives the impression that the mining screen white is BHP chosen colour looks SUPER white as the result.

Industrea Mining Equipment another of our mining clients wants their machines presented in the best way possible for their sales brochures overseas.

So after we capture the images such as the Grader and the 80T choc carrier below we then deep etch them and drop them on white for their graphic artist to place in the required setting.

The finished images have far more appeal.

St Pauls PS Gateshead cartoon competition winners ric woods cartoon workshop

History:As many of you know ric woods comes to photography from a painting background and spend thousands of hours painting murals at the local John Hunter Hospital from 1995-2000 (ric says, in his other life)


out patients treatrment room


paediatric outpatients ( son to be demolished for expansion)
This lead ric into teaching cartooning in schools,festivals etc
We can send you more information to take to your school, contact us maree@ricwoods.com

Here are our winners and finalists from St Paul's PS Gatesgead. The 3 winners recieved T shirts and highly commended artists won color pencils and colour in books.

Emily did a great collage.

I see Caitlin did a realistic job of ric's muscles

Bianca included speedy the snail in her drawing of ric

Samara shows ric very happy and colourful

Summer must have created a portrait of a young ric with a full head of hair

Holly draws ric in a vibrant T green shirt

Michelle has ric under the spot lights with a microphone, maybe ric could sing a song to us....NOT !

Well done all you little artists , keep up the graet work and keep practising your cartoons, see you next year !

Photography and Lighting Courses for 2010 by ric woods

Amanda our subject, provided the subjects with a beautiful face and animated personality in the studio. Maree discussed make-up for photography. Explaining the differences in the way digital sees make up, and what to do with application of lips for colour and black and white images.

Participants have just completed 2 of our courses."My new DSLR" and "Now I know my camera"


It was excellent for me to be able to de mystify the histogram and have them all shooting manual. Their homework had them bringing back images displaying shallow DOF (depth of field/focus),movement in images and conquering back lit portraits.

Some our students making fun of their teacher, encouraged by the co owner of ric woods photography, Maree Nichols.