Andy Bate Photography

Photographing freerunning at Southbank

admin — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 16:22:26 +0000

Here are the beginnings of a new photography project I am starting on freerunning. The interaction of freerunners with the shapes and textures of the brutalist buildings at southbank in London is awesome. Freerunning or Parkour is the art of moving through an urban or natural environment with speed and efficiency. After spending a little time with some of the guys I was able to tell a dash vault from a wall spin. These guys are real athletes and for me it is fascinating to see a sport that involves skill, control, balance and speed without being competitive. It is a great social activity where everyone helps eachother out. Maybe i’ll give it a bash myself.. just need to get rid of the pop belly!

I want to photograph more freerunning.. maybe with lights?!

London Olympics 2012 – Athlete Shoot for Cultura Images

admin — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 13:27:16 +0000

With London 2012 Olympics fast approaching the team at Cultura sent out a sports brief highlighting some emotions and concepts associated with competing in sport at all levels. I took quite a literal approach to my first series of images by shooting athletes doing a few Olympian events in the studio – sprinting, discus, relay etc. To make them stand out I sourced vibrant coloured athletics kit and concentrated on lighting the subjects beautifully to bring out muscle definition. In an effort to avoid run of the mill images I found some interesting angles and composed graphic shapes against the white or black backgrounds. This meant that the images could be easily reconfigured to suit page layouts and provide ample copy space for the end user.

Thanks to Eliza Stancu for modelling – I still don’t believe you had a baby 3 months ago!!

Rehydration time! Splish Splash Splosh

admin — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 09:14:13 +0000

I wanted to do a studio sports shoot which didn’t directly advertise any specific sport but illustrated rehydration and some emotions associated with competitive sport. Time to waterproof the studio and get messy!

Once we had experimented with liquids and perfected techniques of dispersing it at the correct time we got results which exceeded expectations. While I was able to control factors such as the model’s aggression, body position and lighting, it is the relative unpredictability of moving liquid which is really exciting. It took me back to the days of processing black and white film and the suspense of waiting to see if you got the image that you think you nailed upon hitting the shutter release. The images would be fantastic for advertising energy drinks and other sport related concepts: power, rehydration, strength, determination etc

Thanks to my assistants Thea Baddiley and Emma Cheng for their skills with lobbing liquid all over the place (and then clearing it all up!). Also, our sports model Michael Whittaker was an absolute pleasure to work with – a funny, laid back guy who had no problem switching on the aggression to help create really powerful images.

GQ Magazine – Up-and-coming Talent

admin — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 12:52:19 +0000

I was invited by James Warner, the Art Director at GQ Magazine to sit on top of an audi and look cool. I achieved one of the two…

Obviously I’m a lot happier on the other side of the camera!