I watched a BBC4 documentary called ‘Shooting Robert King’ tonight. For those of you who haven’t seen it, see it. It follows photojournalist and war reporter Robert King as he starts his career in Bosnia, Chechnya and Iraq. Very interesting to see what his life was like and what his life is like now he is married has a kid and a Pulitzer prize under his belt.
This type of photojournalism fascinates me, as does history and war, but it’s obviously a long way from my own personal style or ambitions. I feel my approach to photography is changing as quickly as my life is. I’m not a student any more so I have a lot less time to take photos as I always did so in the daytime. I rarely take photos of myself now and my subjects are different and the amount of my subjects that are clients is increasing. I think it’s a good thing, change. I do, and probably always will, miss being a student, it was the best few years of my life, but I have to embrace the future.
This photo was a result of me getting out my new softbox and testing whether or not my triggers would fire my flash from my Canon AE-1 (this was a lighting test on the 5D). Turns out I can go strobist with my AE-1 so I’ll upload some film shots soon. I’m also about to shoot a roll of Portra that will be the last leg of a double exposure project with Bastien!
Here is the second batch of photographs from London. I really enjoyed taking these, especially when the sun was out. I got some portraits of my friends and of strangers that I am pleased with. Spontaneous photography is great!
I finally formed a relationship with the new camera in my life – and what better place to do so than London. I was visiting for my 23rd birthday as I’ve not been to London for so long. I drank a lot of coffee, did a lot of walking and took a lot of photographs. I also got to spend some quality time with my friends who came with me and met up with a few more friends that live in London. Delightful.
This first set of photos is from the first half of the trip, the weather was dull, windy, but not raining so it wasn’t too bad for street photography.
Previously when visiting London I have often chosen to only take one of my 35mm SLR’s, I’m not sure why I just felt like it was what I needed to do some shooting from the hip on the busy streets of London. I can safely say that the 5D2 was an absolute dream to shoot with in this situation and I think I’ll be shooting a lot more digital going forwards. Not that I would ever stop shooting film of course, that would be absurd!
I will post the second set of photos tomorrow, and in my opinion they only get better from here so do come back for London Part II.
Even though it is February, the signs of spring appeared overnight with lots of sunshine, extended daylight, singing birds and the feeling of darkness that looms over my head in winter is fading.
Spring means a lot to me, it’s almost like enduring the winter is worth it just to appreciate the beginning of spring, to embrace new beginnings and live life in the moment.
The sunshine seems to have appeared at a significant time in my life, my career in both Marketing and Photography have recently taken a leap forwards. One thing that will be changing is my camera. My companion, the 500D has been sold and is going to be on it’s way to a new owner tomorrow. Today I took the chance to go out with it one last time and do a quick self-portraiture session. Seemed a fitting way to end my relationship with the camera as a lot of the experimenting I did was using myself as a subject, something which I find myself doing less of now. The beautiful sunshine evaded me behind clouds (cheeky), so I didn’t get some of that to-die-for natural light that I rave about but it was a nice morning nonetheless.
I’ve been wanting to get my hands on a full-frame, professional camera body for some time but I always knew it wasn’t affordable. More recently I’ve needed to push myself into making the step because I have planned shoots this year that I wouldn’t want to be without a 5D mk2 for. Having said this, I’m glad I spent so much time using my 500D, I feel as though I pushed what I could from it.
I’m always eager to try new things and venturing into wedding photography later this year is going to be one of them which I am really excited about. I’ve got two lined up at the moment with two really nice couples who really appreciate natural unposed portraits which fits in so perfectly with my shooting style. I’m looking forward to working with them and giving them some photographs that they can treasure.
This weekend I went to see some friends and their babies and cats. Taking photos of young children is something I’d only ever done a few times in the past, it’s very challenging for all of the obvious reasons. I got some nice photographs of Harry and Dylan this weekend, even though we were inside because it was raining and it was quite dark (acquiring a softbox is becoming essential). We are planning to do another shoot, maybe on a nicer day. I don’t ask of any of my subjects to pose but with kids you sometimes have to intervene to the point of getting them to be in the right place, facing the right way and keep them entertained. However, the photos in the post are completely natural, when I caught them off-guard.
Chasing kittens for a photo is equally fun. This kitten won me over, she was so playful and when she got tired she laid next to me, licking my hand before falling asleep.
All in all, a nice relaxing way to spend a saturday and take some casual photographs. I know there are a lot of parents that want photos of their young ones so if you are reading this and interested in a photoshoot that is not studio based, then please contact me.
The other thing I did this weekend was to put my camera and some other bits on sale. This means the long-awaited new camera will be entering my life pretty soon. Yey!
