portrait

With my dad in Soho, London. He talks a lot, and manages not to be boring. Rare, I like that. Another thing I like is that if I have my camera he doesn’t mind me taking a picture. And another. …and another. This is also rare. I photographed him in some winter sun, near the corner of Greek Street and Bateman St. The low afternoon sun was glorious, and a reflection from a window picked him out against the background.

My best of the year so far.

I regularly come back to this thought: Do I have the courage to get a T-shirt printed with “I want to take your photo” and stand in a place like that all afternoon gathering any willing people, no charge – just for fun? Not yet.

London people are often very reserved. They can treat you like you’ve popped out of a spaceship just for making eye contact. But this is a good area at this time of year for a mix of really interesting people, for light and for capture. …Maybe one day I will get that T-shirt.

March 25, 2016 0

Shooting into the sun

These were taken at my friends wedding, I have been interested in this technique lately, it creates an emotional warmth, and is really easy to do in the evening, or winter and spring months when the sun is out and hangs low in the sky. And while I’m not yet in a position to totally control the results its beginning to work.

Essentially, with the sun in front of you, spot meter your subjects face. If the sun is directly behind the subject, (as in the header image), you get that hazy result, and in the image below I placed the subject in the shadow of the tree, with the sun slightly to the right to give them more definition.

Needs some more work – but i’ll find a willing London victim and post some more here when I do.

November 29, 2015 0

Dad, Little Britain, London EC1,

I took this photo on a road called ‘Little Britain’ in London while out with my dad.

August 16, 2015 0

Lonnie

Studio shots, Lonnie, July 2015

August 8, 2015 0

Charlies Garden

A pleasure to shoot some images of my good friend Charlie in her garden last month. This was an experiment to get different looks from both shooting and Post Production. A few are attached.

May 28, 2014 0

Fastest portrait session in the West?

I got a rhythm up working for a client/friend who needed portraits of nursing students taken for a book. It was the last day of their course and meant to take an hour, but more and more students just kept coming. In my corner of the lecture hall I cracked on and was finally ushered out by the lecturer who was waiting to start his lecture. 86 portraits in an hour, with no time to be creative i set up and decided to get a good rapport with the students. Looking at them now I feel really excited for them, all excited about to finish university and begin new careers.

March 9, 2014 0

Despite the fact I’m on holiday I’m also sorting out my graphics and photo portfolio, while doing so i came across this image.

I took this photo for an education client earlier this year, it’s of a schoolchild who has been working on a puppet (Mother Pig) as part of a larger project for a puppet show to be performed by him and other autistic children. The clients brief was to capture images to help promote the fact they manage an awards system for a range of children to promote their self confidence, motivation and ability.

This student came up to me with the mask held between us. I asked him to look at the camera though the eyeholes which he was happy to do. I took a few shots – changing where I focused and the framing. This portrait is really interesting, it revealed some of my sitters knowingness about himself, it also suggests barriers that exist between people, our personalities as a mask and so is rich in meaning – and interpretation.

I was also struck by the high level of care shown to the students and the fact they paid complete attention when they made some puppets that afternoon. It was a very exciting and rewarding project.

Note: I pass the copyright of my images to my clients, but retain the right to reproduce images in my own material. So either way all rights are reserved – as they are for all my other work.

June 9, 2013 0

I went back at the Friday night drawing class at the National Portrait Gallery. I have talked about the Lateshift programme before. I’m not Leonardo DV but I’m comfortable with a pencil.
But i forgot there was a brief.
This time it was to take two pieces of paper a pencil and a marker. First on the larger piece of paper to just create the shading, and then to place the second peice of (tracing) paper over the top and complete the detail. It was actually really hard. Its like drawing backwards for most people. I think the most common approach is to draw the detail and structured lines first, and shading is essentially filling in.

April 1, 2013 0

Blissful Balance Living

Libby can be contacted for yoga lessons and nutritional therapy via this link.

March 18, 2013 0

When you live in London if you’re on the horizon level there is no horizon. You can see one when you’re on a hill – perhaps – but it’s hard to be on the line of horizon. Visiting friends in Kent we walked to Faversham from Whitstable along the coast. The sense of openness is the opposite of London, I’d imagine readers who live on plains might not find this so exciting, but for me there’s a purity and sense of space that appeals to my sensibilities. (I confess to getting a little worse for wear and running along a vast tide-out shore-line the night before elated to have so much space with no one around me – I may also have been shouting “Whooo-hooo”).

So I took an opportunity to challenge a ‘regular’ portrait – just a little, knowing these guys well their size has reduced them to elements I can recognise. Funny how people who have personality character can be represented even when they are very, very small – like this*. It is very them, both in terms of their appearance and their change of environment from London to the coast, which they love, is shown in its vastness behind them.

*Okay, I may have cheated with the car – but you catch my drift.

****** OKAY, OKAY, i’ll put the cat back on…. ******

March 4, 2013 3

Portraiture 101 Part 1

Well first of all – HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Deciding haven’t practiced portraiture enough, I am addressing this by that 2013 for me would be the year of the portrait. Although its more accurate to say I haven’t done as many recently.

A studio portrait i took in 2010. — OLDER STUDIO PORTRAIT. – The position of Tereza’s head is good and the aperture value is nice. I’ll post a recent portrait shortly and you can see the difference

Also looking at the definition, as provided by the dictionary on my mac:

portrait |ˈpôrtrət, -ˌtrāt|

noun

1 a painting, drawing, photograph, or engraving of a person, esp. one depicting only the face or head and shoulders.

2 a representation or impression of someone or something in language or on film: the writer builds up a full and fascinating portrait of a community.

I think a lot of my protraits fall into the first part: They’re a picture of someone. Isn’t it more interesting to have a portrait which falls into the second category? Trying to describe an aspect of their personality, the circumstance in which we met, or how it feels to be with them.

So thats one project for next year. If anyone’s in london and wants to volunteer you just let me know!!

****

January 1, 2013 0