Battle Heritage Fighter Portraits

Marcus Geezer

Marcus Geezer

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Marcus
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I had the absolute pleasure of taking a set of fighter portraits from the full contact medieval knight group known as Battle Heritage GB. The day was an elimination to choose the best fighters to represent GB in a European competition happening in Prague later this year. I met Callum (who was dressed as a Urak Hai) at a London Comic Con and we got chatting about general stuff eventually I found out what he did at weekends, which to be honest is just flipping amazing and arranged with him to complete a set of fighter portraits. I arranged initially to visit a training day to set up a full studio however because the training day changed to the eliminations which was held at an indoor equestrian centre, had to improvise and use a single light with no backdrop.

These shots were taken with the Lencarta Safari 2 with a Lencarta 40cm beauty dish. Post included a bit of work in both lightroom and photoshop. Have to say I had been putting off buying the Lencarta Safari, normally using speedlites for location work, however having had it just a short while I've been using it all the time, should have bought it sooner! Mains power on the move is just awesome!

C&C Welcome.

EDIT: Blog added....

1.
Battle Heritage Fighter 1 by Marcus Charter, on Flickr

2.
Battle Heritage Fighter 2 by Marcus Charter, on Flickr

3.
Battle Heritage Fighter 3 by Marcus Charter, on Flickr

4.
Battle Heritage Fighter 4 by Marcus Charter, on Flickr
 
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CraigDHD said:
Great photos, looks like they'd be really fun subjects and the simple lighting really suits the subjects imo.
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Thanks Craig. When I walked in to the centre with 50+ guys all mulling around in their armour, I did think for a moment blimey what have I let myself in for however these guys are really friendly and funny. The first guy is 6 foot 6 and is a huge bear of a man but a very humble man. I've been offered a small bag of beef jerky and some used sweaty armour padding to be their official photographer, how can I refuse!

I wanted initially to have a black backdrop with a two or three light setup being: Beauty dish as key, snoot and gridded softbox as rims, but agree this has worked well. Thinking on your feet seamlessly seems to be the norm working as a photographer!
 
Wow these are stunning,they really stand out,very well done.:)
 
Yes these look very cool. Great that you explain how you went about this too.

Gaz
 
jockwav said:
Wow these are stunning,they really stand out,very well done.:)
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Carlh said:
the guy in #4 looks like tom hanks!

Great set marcus , atilla the hun type bloke in #3 is my fav - looks like a right nutter hahaha - fab stuff
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cargo said:
Yes these look very cool. Great that you explain how you went about this too.

Gaz
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Thanks guys. I really enjoyed taking these and I'm pleased they still look good despite the change in lighting from the original plan.
 
Great shots Marcus, my only slight niggle is the background and that line cutting through the neck.
 
Livin The Dream said:
Great shots Marcus, my only slight niggle is the background and that line cutting through the neck.
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Hi Chris. Thank you. Yes that line. The interior of the equestrian centre was either some kind of corrugated steel or plasterboard sheets. This was the lesser of two evils. Was so tempted to shop these out.

Blog added in original post.
 
Nice pix,stunning.I bet it was a great laugh trying to get them to pose.
 
Pick said:
Nice pix,stunning.I bet it was a great laugh trying to get them to pose.
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Thanks Allan. Yes, I tried to start off getting them to growl at me, but they just kept laughing especially with their mates looking on laughing at them. Great bunch of guys, but mean when fighting. No quarter! Fighting pics in the blog, linky above.
 
Fine set

Re the Tom Hanks comment - that's the first thing I thought.
 
I just can't stop noticing that background, it's horrible. Lighting is good.. the characters are obviously ok... but that background's awful. I'd just photoshop the joins in the wall/panels out.. takes about a minute.

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Well worth taking the effort.
 
They look fantastic. A few close up of their facial expressions would look good
 
Great work. Excellent lighting and I love the processing too. Not overly fussed about the backgrounds as such, but David's edit does ever so slightly improve these ...
 
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