New Personal Work - Koi

I'm really excited to be sharing another personal project with you.

I've always been fascinated by traditional Japanese art motifs particularly the paintings of graceful birds and koi carp. I started researching the variety of koi breeds and got really inspired by their iridescent scales and patterned markings. I had to get some in the studio!

When you bring any creatures in to the studio, particularly aquatics, you've always got to allow room in the ideas for the unknown, those chance twists in the water. On this shoot it was the ripples on the surface that gave us our added bit of magic. As soon as we saw it on screen and the painterly effect it was giving us, we knew we had struck on a shoot to be really proud of. 

'Koi' is the latest creative collaboration between myself and Emma Taylor. Huge thanks also to esteemed animal handler, and our friend Mark Amey for bringing such beautiful Koi along to the studio.

New Personal Work - Street Dogs

On a recent trip to France, with my Leica Monochrom in hand, I set out to explore the fishing port of St Martin with every intention of shooting poisson in the market. But instead of finding interesting fish scales to photograph I was struck & inspired by the amount of people out walking their dogs.

And there started 'Street Dogs'!

I'll be adding to this project over the coming months. Here's a selection of my favourites so far, you can find more in the new Animal Lifestyle section of this site.

Purina

Pets these days, much like their human friends, are far keener for their snacks to be more nutritious and healthy.

So enlisting the help of some incredibly energetic dogs, we set about a full day of running and jumping around the studio at Big Sky to create this packaging series for Purina's new range of snack sticks.

Daniel, Jon, Natalie & MT at Futurebrand thank you for making it such a fun day.

Not so grizzly bears!

Normally when I'm called to photograph bears my mind flits to thoughts of cages and insurance documents, this wasn't the case however when I was contacted last year by Bloom agency to work with them on a new Cow & Gate campaign. 

As you can see the bears in question where more the snuggly variety than the grizzly.

Many thanks to Bloom's Karina, Tim & Bobby for making it such an enjoyable day.

NEW WEBSITE

I'm pleased to be able to welcome you to my new website. 

Working with my in-house team and the brilliant Allie from Manage My Website the whole process has been really quick and i'm really happy with the new look site.

Feel free to have a look around, you'll discover lots of new work to enjoy.

Steve Hoskins new website animal photography

Animal Lifestyle

One area of the portfolio that seem to be expanding rapidly is 'Animal Lifestyle'.

Here's a little selection of my favourites for you to have a look at . . .

Merry Christmas!

Christmas turkey photo

Christmas Nut Roast

Ingredients

300g parsnips, peeled and chopped
1 red onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 clove garlic
100g walnut pieces
90g unsalted cashew nuts
200g breadcrumbs
100g pine nuts
Fresh rosemary, finely chopped
100g cranberries
1 medium British free-range organic egg
20g unsalted butter

Sauce

3 tablespoons cranberry sauce
handful of cranberries
Sprig of rosemary to garnish 

Method

1. Boil the parsnips until soft. Drain parsnips and blend in a food processor with the butter and season with black pepper.

2. Heat the oil in a saucepan and cook the onion and garlic for 5 mins until soft. 

3. Chop the walnuts and cashews in a blender, remove to a large bowl and stir in the breadcrumbs, then the cooked onions and garlic, followed by the pine nuts, rosemary and 50g of the fresh cranberries. Then beat in the egg.

4. Mix in the parsnip mash with the rest of the mixture then place it in a 1.5 ltr loaf tin. Bake in a pre-heated oven (180°C, fan 160°, gas 4) for 50 - 55 minutes until firm. Turn out onto a serving dish

5. Warm up the cranberry sauce in a small saucepan with the other 50g of the fresh cranberries. Spoon the sauce over the top of the nut roast and serve with the fresh cranberries and rosemary sprigs garnish.