Today found Carl and Sarah at the 2013 Military Show in the Curragh hosted by the Military Vehicle Club of Ireland. Really fun day out with loads of really cool (and huge) Military cars, trucks and tanks.

You can't really take Carl anywhere, he came home with a 1940's wheelchair that one of the stands sold him!

That's all the studio needs is more old medical equipment! Already the cogs are turning to get a shoot organised to use it!

Helen has shot with use several times now since we first met her with Elizebeth and she never ceases to amaze with her range and dedication to getting the shot right. Taking advantage of the nice (reasonably warm) weather Carl and Sarah headed off in Rosie with Helen and took to the Wicklow mountains for the morning. We found ourselves a quiet little bit of woodland and I think the shots speak for themselves. As always Helen really pulled it out of the bag and delivered, we look forward to shooting with her again soon.

It has been too long since we had Clarie Percival in for a shoot with us. I think the last time we saw her was about this time last year when ZigZag was burying her in the woods! We knew we had to get her in for one of the Barbie shoots and what started out as a 'Drummer Barbie' turned into something a little different with the styling help of Amanda Wiseley.

As usual Clarie brought something unique to the shoot and her enthusiasm and personality are infectious. We love working with her and we hope to see her again soon.

It has been a long time since we first shot Amanda for the Voyeur series, and then again for the 'Last Embrace' with the lovely Helen but we knew we would have her back in at some stage. Amanda has been off touring her latest exhibition of paintings so getting a our diaries to sync has not been easy but it was well worth the effort.

It was lovely to get her in again for a really relaxed shoot trying out some new lighting setups and Amanda is always great fun to work with.

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After nearly three years since our last big rewrite of the site a lot has changed. Technology and how people interact with the site has changed so we have redeveloped the site to be completely responsive and interactive, now if you log on with a mobile phone, table or PC it will adapt and show you the content you want properly.

There are nearly 10,000 members on the site now and the daily hits are well in excess of 1,000 so it was time to do a major overhaul of the site and the  contents. We have tried to structure the site based on reports of what you, the users value most and want.

We are going to focus more on bringing you more information about what we get up to in the studio and more behind the scenes documentaries of the shoots. We want to concentrate on the interviews section and widen out the appeal of the site to as many as possible.

What better to spend our first outdoor shoot than on a fantastic sunny bank holiday weekend. Helen was free and we had no plan other than dusting off the covers from Rosie and heading off out into the Wicklow mountains for a spin. We ended up in the same spot where ZigZag killed poor Trisha by drowning her last year and the water was just about as cold!

John, Carl, Sarah and Helen spent a fantastic morning sitting in the sun taking in stunning views and getting a few snaps as well.

I think a few more trips to the outdoors are in order for this year if this weekend is anything to go by!

Char Madden was back in with us for a shoot tonight, we last got to work with her for a shoot Ives and Gemma did where she was painted green and playing Mother Nature. We knew then that we wanted to work with her again but tonight was the first free bit of time we had. Carl and Sarah both got to shoot with her tonight and they were not disappointed, Char is fantastic to work with.

Melissa came to us with an idea for a Barbie shoot and we jumped at it. Melissa is a gamer at heart so when she wanted to do a 'Nerd Barbie' shoot with us we loved it. She came with a bag of pacman and Start Trek gear and we had a bunch of fun shooting this one.

This Barbie series is turning out to be a lot of fun and we have some great ideas planned for the next round of shots.

Belle is almost part of the furniture at this stage, her talents as a Makeup Artist and Model seem to have not bounds. When we talked about the Barbie series with her it took no persuasion to get her involved and she really blew us away with the shots as usual. Belle shot two different Barbies for us on the night, the first is Beach Barbie and the second was Snookie Barbie (you will understand when you see the shots!).

What can I say! I bought a Canon 1DX to replace my aging Canon 5DMKII and the increase in quality is everything you would hope it would be. I had been humming and hawing over the idea of upgrading since Canon announced it was coming a year ago and the really steep cost just kept putting me off, but after nearly three years of good solid use from the 5DMKII it was starting to show its age. My choices were limited to upgrade to a MKIII for no perceivable difference and half the price or bite the bullet and go to the top of the range camera Canon have to offer...

Now that the burial series is finished and 27 bags of mud and dirt have been carried out of the studio what else would you do with an 8ft x 4ft box except paint it pink and start onto a series of 'Barbie' shots! Helen was good enough to give us a bit of time from her busy schedule and we got to shoot the first of this series today. Helen is fantastic to work with and we always look forward to an opportunity to get to shoot with her.

Stay tuned for loads more of these, we have some fantastic ideas for this series!

Leah is a new model that has been working with a few photographers we know so when we got the chance to do a few test shots with her we jumped at it. Leah has a fantastic look and we have loads of plans for her for later in the year.

Both Carl and Sarah took a few shots on the night to use as reference for upcoming shots and we hope to see much more of Leah over the coming months.

Today we got to do The Banshee shoot with Trisha Leslie. This is a shot Carl has been planning for a long time now. It was a complex green screen shoot that involved a lot of odd angles, fishing line and some 'very' creative lighting. This shot deserves a behind the scenes sneak peek so stay tuned to see how it was done!

Carl and Sarah had the opportunity to work with a new model today, Eva Barnova. Eva has been modeling for a while now but this is the first opportunity we have had to get her over to the studio. We got to shoot in the new set that Jon Moran built for us so it was a day of firsts and we really hope to get Eva back over again soon.

Carl has been working through a series of shots for the last couple of months which have all revolved around burial scenes. Aisha Baraut was in with Karl Bergin a couple of years ago and Carl stole a shot on the same shoot and we knew we would get her back in again at some stage. When Aisha contacted Carl about working with the studio again we knew the timing was perfect!

The shot we ended up doing 'The Forgotten' turned out to be really powerful. Aisha really pulled off the look we needed for this one.