Portrait Photography

Ben

03.12.09

ben

When I met with Ben to do his portrait, the plan was to photograph him Juggling with the “Devil Stick” (if I have the right name)? We mainly stuck to the plan except for perhaps 3 pictures just sitting at the fountain. Anyone who knows Ben’s picture from “100portraits” will know that I went for one of those non-action shots. My second favourite was this one which was straight from the agreed script. I just love Ben’s smile here and I’m fairly fond of the fountain as well.

Taken in Kelvingrove Park in Glasgow.

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Oban Main Street

03.11.09

Here are 2 more Oban views from my Oban visit last week. The first one is another handheld HDR image from the 5th floor of the Royal Hotel on its fire escape which I posted yesterday. This was taken with the very wide angle 10-20 giving an effective 16mm focal length on the Canon 40D. The second image is a roof line detail with my 70-300 telephoto from the main street in the first image. Nice town Oban.

Oban from the Royal Hotel 5th Floor

Oban Main Street Roofline

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Royal Hotel Fire Escape

03.10.09

hotel-fire-escape

While at the conference in Oban last week I tried a quick handheld HDR image of the fire escape and inner view of the hotel we stayed in. The range of dark low down and brightness high up in the image made it difficult to get a good exposure without HDR. The beauty of the 40D is that its 6 frame per second allows you to set auto exposure bracketing and then hold the shutter long enough for 3 exposures. That takes 1/2 a second, so with a steady hand you get virtually no movement between the exposures. I blended and tonemapped them in “photomatix”. I think there’s something creepy about this?

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Dick

03.09.09

Dick Edie as a colleague of mine, and a friend from Argyll. We share an interest in photography with Dick majoring in landscapes. The west coast where he lives is the most frequent subject for his landscape work which you can check out on his photoblog. He also happens to be a great musician and once piped the (vegetarian) haggis in for our Burns night at home. Just to prove that he only specialises in instruments with an unnaturally large body of jokes about them, he now studies the banjo. This was taken in Oban at a conference we were both attending.

Just for the record, he had a neat tie but the wind was gusting strongly.

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Offshore

03.08.09

Sorry I haven’t posted for a couple of days. Between being away for a conference and then rushing back to hang the portraits in “Offshore cafe’s” exhibition space there hasn’t been time. On Friday night Catherine and our dear friends Gerry and Elisabeth got stuck into the task and discovered the true scale of hanging100 12″ x 9″ images; 500 sticky pads needing cut, 100 name and description cards as well as wrestling with newly painted walls where the paint has set with a powdery finish. A big thanks to my helpers. I wen’t back yesterday and finished the job as we only managed 70 on Friday night.

Anyway, the exhibition is up, and I’m really pleased to see it coming together. If you’re near Glasgow then head to Offshore Cafe, Gibson Street in Glasgow’s west end.

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