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.

 

London Fashion Week #LFW

We asked these guys who their style icons were, the guy on the left said “Peter Saville” – very cool.

A selection of photographs of people attending London Fashion Week 2013 at Somerset House London. I went with a reporter from Kensington and Chelsea Today  to do some street-style shots – rather than inside the venue. IT was interesting to focus on the crowd there, a lot of whom were young -university age – and a lot of people created their own clothes, bags, jewellery and a range of other accessories.

Click twice to enlarge – once here and once on the following screen.

We asked the chap on the left who made his brilliant suit. He said ‘My mum actually, she lives in Ghana”,
Really? Your mum is a designer?,
“No she’s a hairdresser”
Coolest thing I heard that day

Blissful Balance Living

London based Libby is a client of mine who needed shots promoting her yoga classes and nutritional therapy. I took this portrait as part of a set last week for a new website she’s working on. All images © Kevin Ricks / Libby Limon 2013. All rights reserved

The second part of the shoot showed Libby taking yoga poses, these are going to be used as they are and for reference for an illustrator working on her site. All images © Kevin Ricks / Libby Limon

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

All images © Kevin Ricks / Libby Limon 2013. All rights reserved

Portraiture with Ade – my 1st choice – think this will end up on my site

I went out with an old work friend of mine, Ade who also does a lot of client photography – we wanted to tackle the idea of slaving a flash (so one sets off the other) to enhance natural lighting – which was under a flat grey sky. This is an ongoing exercise to further develop my portraiture, for something else planned a little later in the year.

Portraits to my mind are meant to be more than just pictures of people – but to capture a little something about them. Its not always possible – it’s a concept that the best way to do this with people who are not always comfortable in front of a lens is to spend a little time with them. I spoke to Ade about this (he does a lot more portraiture than me), and he agreed it has a much more natural effect.

It’s also interesting looking at the way men and women are captured by camera. These are much stronger than the pictures of women i’ve recently taken, orr the children in my last post. Anyway i’ll put some more portraits up soon.

Comparing the below to this picture (above) where only one flash was used you can see the effect of remote (off camera) flash can be quite dramatic.

Online Photography Magazines

Hello, just a quick update on some fantastic resources today. I have collected a bunch of online photography magazines web addresses when on my masters, however I also have just been given a load more by the amazing Photofusion.org.uk. Do note they will have a photojournalism bias, as that what I studied!

These are online publishers only. If anyone has anymore to add please feel free in the comments.

http://www.americansuburbx.com/ (my favourite)

http://www.seesawmagazine.com/

http://www.lifeforcemagazine.com/index.htm

http://www.1000wordsmag.com/

http://www.blueeyesmagazine.com/

http://www.the37thframe.org/

http://www.fstopmagazine.com/home.html

http://www.lensculture.com/

http://www.deepsleep.org.uk//contents.php

jmcolberg.com/weblog/

http://www.guernicamag.com/

http://www.lunaticmag.com/

Arthur was talking to me about the issues on his housing estate, the local Borough wanted it to be demolished with a view for redevelopment, this was promoted as a benefit to the residents and had divided the neighbours living there. Arthur was sharp, he knew that this would mean his community would be displaced and rising living costs. It was a serious exchange, I had already taken a ‘straight’ photo of him, on raising the camera to my eye a second time he suddenly pulled this face. It was a project to get a picture with backstory, so this photo didn’t fit my original intention. I love it though.

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.

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!!

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