English Seaside Bank Holiday
Traditional English Bank Holiday
Spring Bank Holiday is almost upon us and the sun is shining… ☀️🏴🇬🇧
LiFe @ the Palm Springs Retirement Home
LiFe @ the Palm Springs Retirement Home.
A place for washed up Hollywood actors, models, gangsters and casino bosses.
A series created using a combination of Ai Software & Adobe Photoshop postproduction technique, exploring this new avenue for producing…
Grand Boulevard Race Cup
It's F1 weekend in the UK and with all the talk of Brad Pitt making an F1 movie, I began to wonder what a classic fictional Wes Anderson race film may look like.
Pet Parlour
Grooming and pet pampering in style...
Field of dreams
Fashion location test series, using colour, movement and the seasons.
Working once again with generative Ai and generative fill software, both Midjourney and Adobe Photoshop Beta continue to improve leaps and bounds on an almost weekly basis, Ai fast becoming an ever important part of the creative digital workflow.
The Menagerie
The Menagerie - A fictional English country house, where the animals come and go as they please…
More visual storytelling.
For everything we dislike about Ai generative software, as a creative tool to help bring our imagination to life, it sure does take all the donkey work out of the hours and hours of complex compositing we used to have to do...
The only thing is, now everyone is a compositor/retoucher lol...
Anyway more than happy to shoot this with good old traditional photography, if someone has a budget big enough lol.
The Return...
The return...
The ability to creatively play has never been stronger than it is right now, with the various generative Ai tools we now have at our disposal. Would I prefer the good old days when this was simply limited to those of us who had put in the many years of technical training and expertise to produce, yes of course but those days are now over.
Image creation is no longer the sole playground to those of us who are designers, photographers or retouchers, this new world we now find ourselves in, is at the fingers of everyone who has a creative mind.
And you can't help but be consumed by this addiction to bring ones visions to life, in a fraction of the time it used to take to painstakingly composite all of the various assets/elements together.
Would I prefer thing were like they were before, of course but those days are gone, welcome to the future.
Forgotten Heroes
We are surrounded by 'forgotten heroes', all you have to do is open your eyes and look...
Another conceptual project I’ve wanted to do for some years now, we rarely see our super heroes grow old in the current medium of movie and comic book fiction and yet we are surrounded by real life elderly heroes everyday, if only we'd just find the time to stop and hear their stories.
Winter Dreams of a Snowy Edinburgh.
Winter Dreams of a Snowy Edinburgh...
This series continues a fascination with romanticised fashion portraiture, often portraying my love of wildlife set alongside gorgeous models, set in dramatic surroundings, in this case our beautiful Scottish capital.
Whether using photographic capture or generative ai, it’s always about my ongoing passion for visual storytelling.
Super Furry Animals
Men like cuddles too...
During the Covid lockdown, like many families we decided to get a pet, well two in fact, one a year after the other, two lovable Devon Rex cats.
At this same time my wife was also going though cancer treatment and it was the love and affection, that these two mischievously cute little rogues gave, that helped all of us with our mental health, at such an emotionally tough time.
Now firm members of the family, if they’re not keeping me company while I retouch, you’ll catch me rolling around on the floor with them, rough and tumble play fighting, so this project is for them and to say, you know what, when it comes to super fury animals, men like a cuddle too...
Ai software as a creative tool, in combination with the usual postproduction technique, is allowing me explore and revisit ideas and concepts once touched upon but never fully visualised.
Always happy to recreate any of the featured imagery with digital photographic capture, should any brands, agencies or clients have the budget to do so.
Hope you enjoy this series that I’ve have had the great pleasure in producing.
Moo & Yoo
Recent Moo & Yoo campaign showcasing their natural vegan hair & body products, that are both good for you and good for the planet, set in the most stunning Scottish locations.
Ai Little Too Close to Home - Scotland
Ai little too close to home… Nothing in this series is real…
Namibia Another World.
Ai Virtual Fashion Shoot
Back in 2014 I shot an editorial feature for Migrant Woman Magazine, where we photographed the talent on a cold and empty beach in the UK, then required to composite several of the images in the series, into African style backplate imagery for the final artwork, as we had little to no budget to actually fly out to Namibia
Now in 2023, I thought I'd revisit the idea of a futuristic styled fashion shoot, set in a Namibian influenced location, with the assistance of emerging Ai generative and Adobe postproduction technologies.
Ai generative software as a creative tool, in combination with the usual postproduction technique, is allowing me explore and revisit ideas and concepts once touched upon but never fully visualised.
However if any brand would like to commission me to fly out to Namibia and shoot a similar series using photographic capture, I would be very pleased to do so.
Sadly however, I have a feeling that in the near future, there will be no need to do
Ai Little Too Close to Home - Scotland Editorial
Ai little too close to home… Nothing in this series is real…
As some of you will know, as well as photography, a large percentage off my work has always come from being a digital image creator, so have spent the past few moths getting to grips with the emerging Ai generative software.
So I’ve been posting on my socials the more fun conceptual personal work that I’ve produced using Ai generative software, using it as a creative tool, using it in combination with my normal postproduction workflow process. However as well as this personal work, I have already worked on a number of commercial ad jobs, being asked to use my current knowledge of Ai to produce more natural looking imagery, similar to the imagery here.
When life's a Tough Mudda
A series of expressive portraits that show the grit and determination that is required to get us though this race of life.
All portrait files were produced using Ai generative software and then retouched and graded using the same postproduction process, as if the images had been photographically captured.
Always happy to recreate any of the featured imagery with photographic capture, should any clients be interested.
The Art of H•ai•R
Collaboration with international hairdresser Jason Hall, playing with the possibilities of Ai and hair design for forthcoming projects.
Giving Turkeys this Christmas off...
This year let's give Turkeys the Christmas off and let the pigs stay under their blankets.
Some festive concept artwork fun with Ai generative software, DALL•E 3, Midjourney and Adobe Photoshop.
Circus comes to town
The circus comes to town for this latest fictional visual series, which harks back to a time of Victorian English eccentrism, where the bohemian seaside town of Brighton meets a little bit of Glastonbury cabaret.
A creative series created with a combination of generative Ai software and Adobe Photoshop Firefly.
Recycle
New collection #Recycle for international hairdresser Jason Hall,
Inspired by all the items to be recycled in the salon from tint tubes and magazines to tea bags and Coke cans.
The Seaside Eccentrics
The Seaside Eccentrics, part of a visual series that centres around a timeless fictional seaside town in the south of England, bohemian Brighton meets a Glastonbury circus.
FLØW 2
Flow /fləʊ/: To move in a steady and continuous stream, to be produced continuously and effortlessly.
FLOW : DANCE
Flow /fləʊ/: To move in a steady and continuous stream, to be produced continuously and effortlessly.
Latest design project.
Stormtrooper Eighties Vacation
Public holidays were way better back in the eighties...
Empathy By Design
Commercial Digital Design work
Client: Contravent Agency, USA.
Campaign: Quantum Metric - Empathy By Design
Fløw movement created for the stills campaign, to reference the various aspects of their clients businesses, TeleCom, Finance, Travel & Retail.
Vintage Vogue
Vintage Vogue inspired fashion portrait series
As we look to the future, however uncertain that it is, with emerging technologies revolutionising the whole image production process, at an insane speed.
I find more or us are looking back, to find inspiration from what first inspired us into this industry, whether photography, art, literature, fiction, architecture, design, fashion or story telling.
We are on the cusp of great change… for better or for worse, there is now no going back, our past now crafts our future.
Talent created with Ai generative software, with additional retouching, movement, double exposure, grading and final aesthetic done produced Adobe Photoshop.
“Resenting a new technology will not halt its progress. - Marshall McLuhan"
Walk on the Wildside Vol.ii
A fictional story, remembering back to that memorable day, when all the animals escaped from Edinburgh Zoo and for just one day, they were free to explore the beautiful capital city Scotland.
Back in 2016 I had the in pleasure producing the first collection in the 'Walk on the Wildside' series. Prints were sold and we exhibited the collection in a number of galleries, so it is my great please, to bring to life the second collection in this series, some seven years later.
Ai generative software as a creative tool, in combination with the usual postproduction technique, is allowing me explore and revisit ideas and concepts once touched upon but never fully visualised.
Always happy to recreate any of the featured imagery with digital photographic capture, should any brands, agencies or clients have the budget to do so.
I hope you enjoy this fun, fictional tale of wildlife, free to explore this classically beautiful city of ours.
Reflection
[Reflection] - Model testing with different reflective materials for garments and makeup with generative Ai.
Floral Fragility /frəˈdʒɪlɪti
Floral Fragility /frəˈdʒɪlɪti
The Journey begins
Series created using a combination of Ai and Adobe Photoshop, exploring this new avenue for producing digitally created portraiture.
This is not photography, nothing here is real and yet at the same time, it is equally beautiful and beguiling.
It is but just the beginning, a new chapter of digital image creation… Like Thanos said ‘dread it, run from it but destiny arrives all the same’.
Rainbow Liquid Hair
Liquid hair series, in collaboration with Jack Hall for the AIPP Awards submission, which we went on to win the category.
Versailles au Pastel
A Parisian Avant Garde haute couture series that I have always longed to shoot with photographic capture but alas never commercially had the opportunity or personally the budget but with he help of ai generative software can now put this collection together, of how I envisage such series.
Taking influence from those big couture brand campaigns that have shot at the palace before such as Christian Dior, Versace and Channel etc with such esteemed photographers, likes of Steve Meisel and the amazing Annie Leibovitz.
Flaming June
For this series I took inspiration from one of my favourite artwork pieces by Frederic Leighton. I first came across this beautiful portrait as a teenager, on the cover on Malcom McLaren’s Waltz Darling album and have been captivated ever since..
Additionally Flaming June by BT was also one of my much loved favourite big trance tunes from my raving days in the nineties and was the soundtrack to many a post club night chill in.
Neither artists artwork or music were not mentioned or used in any way to produce the Ai generative imagery, they were simply used as a basis from my own feelings about these two very distinct and much loved pieces of visual and audio art.
My final inspiration for this series is also the recent work produced by the lovely @patrizia_burra_photography, you can check out her beautiful photography, 3D and Ai work over on Insta.
Flaming June by BT. was also one of my favourite big tunes from my raving days in the nineties.
A final inspiration for this series is also the recent work produced by the lovely @patrizia_burra_photography, check her beautiful photography, 3D and Ai work on Insta.
Funky Cool Alpacas
This Easter, instead of celebrating with images of fluffy cuddly rabbits and little easter chicks, we celebrating with funky cool alpacas...
The Camera Club
Welcome to - The Camera Club - Lost in a world of irony.
Series created using a combination of Ai and Adobe Photoshop, exploring this new avenue for producing digitally created portraiture.
This is not photography, nothing here is real and yet at the sa…
Life's No Joke
Life’s No Joke…
The cost of living crisis at the start of has hit everyone in the community, none more than our elderly.
After the surviving the impact of the recent pandemic, dealing with the worry, anxiety, financial insecurity, loneliness and isolation on a daily basis, has had a huge impact on the mental health of our elderly.
This was one of the first Ai generative software projects I did back in March ‘23, coming new to this emerging software it amazed me at the time, how the software was able to show the sadness and emotion I was looking for, compared to the blank and emotionless imagery I was seeing by others at the time.
Obviously just a few months later, the photorealism of the imagery has improved even further and see Ai generative software as a creative tool, much like Adobe Photoshop before it, continue to play a bigger role in the image creation workflow.
Anti Passive Smoking Awareness
A selection of advertising work using digital image manipulation, several of which have gone on to win industry awards with the British Institute of Professional Photography (BIPP)
Skin Damage Awareness
Melanoma - Skin Damage Awareness Campaign 2013
Work from a few years back, where models were photographed in the studio and then some elderly models bought in to photograph the freckles, wrinkles and liver spot assets for the right side of the final composite images.
Blown Away
Blown Away...
Just an incredible way to end the year, 106, 981 website views in the month of December www.leehowellphotography.com and over 30, 000 on Bēhance, huge thanks for everyones support, some big projects in the pipeline for 2014 but in the meantime wishing you all a very merry Christmas...
Living with the invasion
We looked to the stars for threats from far off planets, failing to see that our own planet may be plotting against us...
Personal series produced with the good ol generative Ai software, predominately Midjourney and Adobe Firefly in Photoshop 2024
Conceptual
Conceptual work from earlier in 2013, many of which have gone on to receive national industry Awards in their particular categories.
We Dare to Dream...
We Dare to Dream…
A bit of down time creative fun, a short series where children are visited by animal spirits in their sleep and their nighttime adventures begin.
Created using a combination of generative Ai software, Midjourney and Adobe Photoshop Beta/Firefly.
kadō 華道 - Way of the Flowers
kadō 華道 - Way of the Flowers
A personal series inspired by time spent in various countries throughout Asia over the years, where the significance of the flower often carries such national pride, religious and spiritual symbolism. Playing an important role in historical tradition and cultural significance, invoking powerful emotions from the whole populace, independent of age or sex... this is the way of the flower.
Spirit of Onna-bugeisha 女武芸者
Spirit of Onna-bugeisha 女武芸者
A series of dynamic feminine portraits inspired by my recent visit to Japan, for the World Photographic Cup in Yokohama.
For this series I wanted to produce a set of dynamic images, which also embody a sense of strength, honour and femininity within a contemporary fashion context. We wanted our fashion model to be inspired by the spirit of Onna-Bugeisha, the strong female warrior of feudal Japan, who history tells us, battled alongside the Samurai men.
Strong in character, these influential women were trained in the use of weapons to protect their household, family, and honour in times of war. Significant icons such as Tomoe Gozen 巴 御前, Nakano Takeko 中野 竹子 and Hōjō Masako 北条 政子are famous examples of Onna-bugeisha.
For a Greener future
Commercial photography, recently shot for Lovat’s Group, Scotlands Experts in Technical Services & Engineering Solutions.
We were looking to feature the rollout of the first of their electric fleet vehicles , looking for a greener future.
I liked the idea of showing the vehicles on the same but if road at various times of the year, throughout the seasons.
Ageing Gracefully
Ageing Gracefully - A good skin care routine, coupled with healthy lifestyle choices, for youthful radiant skin, helping prevent those fine lines becoming deep wrinkles.
ALTERN-8 UNi-VERSE
Is an ongoing personal project, featuring a series of digital artworks depicting an alternative reality to the one we live in.
Imagery is composited together with the use of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Stock, the result of which is a way for me to creatively unwind when not working on commercial projects.
Nuovi Design Agency
Commercial Caricature work for Nuovi Digital Agency.
CRUDE
CRUDE - We are all children of the fossil fuel generation, a selection of oil slick black & white portraits, created with ai generative software and retouched with adobe Photoshop to create the final artwork