I had a fun day today with Cat Garcia at Richard Caplan store in Mayfair. Gained a few excellent tips on location selection for natural light portraits. Gave my Leica M a bit of a workout too. Here are my images from the day:
March 20, 2014
I have been absent from this blog and productive work on my degree course for around five weeks. My time has been spent on other pursuits – three weeks training hard in Lanzarote for upcoming triathlon races, a few days at home catching up on life, a week in Scotland walking and photographing the landscape […]
November 25, 2013
I have been to a few exhibitions recently and have decided to capture some thoughts on these on the blog. The first port of call was the Uncertain States 2013 exhibition at The Bank on Whitechapel Road in the East End of London. (see here). I visited this exhibition with John Umney and Catherine Banks, […]
November 24, 2013
Lately I have been asked by many friends to ‘do’ some portraits for them. I always look upon these situations as an opportunity to practice my skills as a portrait photographer. Although I have to admit it has become pretty time consuming lately. I have decided to post a couple of photographs to this blog […]
November 23, 2013
I have been revisiting the contact sheets for my Women and Landscape photographs. I was struck by the subtle differences in the poses of the four women I have photographed so far and I wondered if this arose because of my editing or because how I and my subject interacted on the day. In project […]
November 6, 2013
I entered a few photographs from my portrait work for the Photofusion members Salon 2013. I am a member there as I use the darkrooms and scanner. One of my entries has been selected and will be on show there from mid-December for a month along with work by around 90 other photographers. Interestingly the […]
June 14, 2013
I have been developing an idea for a new project for YOP. I find that I need to set down my thoughts in writing and by constantly revisiting the text I can start to move towards resolution. The project will explore the ‘What do I look like ? dimension within my broader theme of ‘Realism […]
June 13, 2013
‘Reality and the Photographic Portrait’ is the title of my final essay for my Understanding Visual Culture course (UVC). This assignment is intended to explore issues surrounding the ‘real’ in contemporary society. I decided to analyse these issues with reference to photographic portraiture. The title of the essay is also the theme I plan to […]
April 12, 2013
I have now completed my final assignment and received feedback from my tutor. My submission included my 45 Seconds… project, the first version of my reflective account (which I will submit for assessment) and my broad plan for pulling all my work together for assessment. In this post I will focus on the former and […]
February 25, 2013
Roni Horn is an American artist who works in a range of media including photography. Her photography has relevance to my own because she makes frequent use of multiple images of her subjects to explore issues of personal identity and how this is (or is not) represented by the photographic portrait. In You are the Weather Horn’s […]
February 24, 2013
I discovered Bettina von Zwehl’s work late in my exploration of ‘Disarming the Pose’, whilst investigating the question of how long exposure times inhibit self conscious posing by the photographic portrait subject.. It is a pity I didn’t ‘discover’ her earlier as much of her photography is highly relevant to my own work. Von Zwehl has […]
February 19, 2013
I’ve just got back my developed film from the trip to Wester Ross. I made several portraits with the 4×5 using Kodak Portra 400. The film is a lacks punch in the dull conditions and seems to have a blue cast. I clearly need to search for more interesting light!! However, that said this was […]
February 18, 2013
Paul Graham’s Television Portraits was another reference for my Urban Artists at Work project. I have commented on this previously here. Graham’s influence on my work has however been much more profound. Graham is a photographer who is impossible to pigeonhole. He is perhaps Britain’s most revered art photographer, but his work has extended to documentary, portraiture and […]
February 17, 2013
I came across Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin’s Trust (Broomberg & Chanarin 2000) whilst researching reference sources for my Urban Artists at Work series. Trust is relevant to my own work as it is an investigation into ‘absorption’. It is a series of photographs of people emersed in various activities such as video games. I have posted a review […]
February 1, 2013
As I said in the previous post I thought I would make a comparison of the digital ‘smiling’ version of the portrait of Gwen with the 5×4 ‘serious’ film version. Here are the two photographs side by side: So how do I think these images compare. First some general observations. For this portrait I much […]
January 30, 2013
I’ve been continuing to make portraits of the members of my local Rotary Club, Rotarians (after Hill and Adamson). I have been doing this work alongside my 45 seconds… project, using the 4×5 camera. The poses are based on those used by Hill and Adamson in their Calotype photographs made in the mid 1800s. When looking at […]
January 9, 2013
At the beginning of February I am going on a photographic workshop in Scotland. The leaders of the workshop are Joe Cornish, David Ward, Eddie Ephraums and Adrian Hollister. I attended the workshop last year and thoroughly enjoyed myself. A particular highlight was learning about book production from Eddie who is a publisher – we […]
November 7, 2012
I want to start using my Ebony 5×4 camera for portraits. I will probably use it along with digital for the Long Exposure Portraits. This is a test shot I did a while ago…Very plain lighting – just available light…and my poor wife dragged away from painting and decorating. Still I think this approach has […]
October 19, 2012
Born in 1934 Lee Friedlander has been a prolific photographer over the years. He is best known for his photographic documentation of the American social landscape. He has tended to work in long run series, leading to the eventual publication of a book. At Work is one such series. The book lee friedlander at work is a […]
October 10, 2012
Just got back from Venice….I set myself a couple of small photo projects. First, I decided to try to capture Venice in black and white with my Zero 2000 6×6 pinhole camera. Somehow the soft focus and historical connotations of the pinhole seemed appropriate. I went out early in the mornings and concentrated on urban […]
June 22, 2012
I was encouraged by both tutors who assessed my Museum photographs to continue with the work. This I have been doing and plan to continue. I have decided to periodically post my latest edit to the blog to keep track on the development (and perhaps get some feedback). Based on my tutor’s comments and my […]
April 9, 2012
I have been using a single light for my ‘I am an Ironman’ portraits – when possible my Elinchrom Quadra with a 1 meter softbox and a speedlight with an Lastolite Ezybox softbox when travelling. The flash is the key light and I am metering off this using a flashmeter. The amount of fill depends […]
February 10, 2012
I have just made a self portrait to be included in the ‘I am an Ironman’ series. It is interesting making self portraits. One puts oneself in the position of the subject, so that all the uncertainties that this entails are experienced personally by the photographer. My subjects often ask me what I want them […]
January 14, 2012
I am over in Hawaii and had hoped to complete two or three portraits for the ‘I am an Ironman’ project. Here are the portraits of my good friends Al Denbleyker and Tricia Totten who are from Houston in Texas. The photographs was made at their house in Kailua Kona, Hawaii. Kona is the location […]
December 23, 2011
I have been experimenting with different film types for the Museum portraits project. Fuji Neopan 1600 is emerging as my favourite…lovely grain and great contrast. Here is a street shot taken with the film rated at 3200 iso….
November 25, 2011
I realise that I need to take a decision on the subject for my Advanced studies. I believe now that I can proceed with the Advanced work in parallel with Understanding Visual Culture. My main subject area will be Portraits in Series. I will undertake a critical review of the genre and conduct several projects […]
November 23, 2011
At the same time as pursuing the Understanding Visual Culture course, making some photographic trips and learning to use my large format Ebony camera, I have still been researching and thinking about my future Advanced studies. Indeed the more I have thought about this, the more I have become convinced that I want to focus […]
October 18, 2011
My long term plan for my Advanced studies is to complete a series or several series of portraits using large format film. The fundamental issue here is to be able to produce portrait photographs of life size scale, which I believe will induce a more engaged response from the viewer. I want the viewers to […]
June 8, 2017
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