Late summer evening

Well it’s been a quiet time on the blogging front, because it has been a busy time on the festivals front, as well as on the over indulgent front. Starting to wind down now with the end of the Fringe and our fair city getting slowly back to some kind of normality. Photographs starting to reflect quieter times (no more pictures of the bright young things on the High Street for a start). Some almost gloomy, with the slight chill in the air and the days getting visibly shorter. A calmer time. After a busy summer, a time for contemplation, re-assessment and future plans.

Do your own thing.

Endings and beginnings. Glad that D is out of it. C, the people who matter care!
More convinced that someone/something is sending me messages. Madness, probably, no bad thing. Saw this, no camera, so went back.

Yin(g) Yang

Shit day. How long will this nonsense go on before we say enough!
Good night. Brilliant concert - Pokey LaFarge & the South City Three. The kind of music that on a bad bad day makes you smile and feel good about life, and think f**k them! They may take, but they cannot touch our soul!

Industrial decay.

Few words today. Two new DVD's just arrived - The Genius of Photography and Life Through a Lens -  Firing up the machine to watch so toodleoo the noo!

Performance in the round.

Back to work tomorrow. Going to be a shock to the system given that I have been playing 'student' for the last two weeks. 

Portrait Photography - Exhibition Images

Conventional portraits. All would benefit from a little more processing, but didn't have the time. Two street, one studio. Chose five but only space for three. Hanging order horizontally from left to right in this order. Link to our Flickr group ECA Portrait Photography, Class of 2010

Studio Portraiture

Absolutely knackered! First time I have ever taken photos in a fully equipped studio. Incredibly intense but very rewarding experience. Processing all day tomorrow. The above was a quick RAW conversion job. Example of "High Key", though ideally the subject should have been wearing white.

Girl in a tub

Another enjoyable day taking photographs on the street and visiting exhibitions.

Into the Light

First day of portrait photography. General intro to the subject and lots of discussion. Different exercises in terms of composition, use of different light sources, getting to know each other, portraits of each other, and group shots.
"The most difficult thing for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt." Henri Cartier-Bresson, Photography Year 1980.

Mercy, Mercy, Mercy

Great concert to mark the end of the Jazz Festival. The music of Cannonball and Nat Adderley, played by:


Colin Steele - Trumpet
Martin Kershaw - Alto Sax
Dave Mulligan - Piano
Brian Shiels - Bass (his right hand and Bass featured in photo)
Alyn Cosker - Drums


Brilliant weekend. The weird and wonderful flooding into Edinburgh with the start of the Fringe. Lots and lots of photos taken on Saturday of audiences and performers to be processed this week.

The Exhibition Piece

The nature of signs:

• There are things that are just things, not any sign at all;
• There are things that are also signs of other things;
• There are things that are always signs.

Printing heaven

Does anyone want to off load a copy of Photoshop CS4 (PC version) or do you know anyone else who does?! Absolutely love it now that I have a better understanding of how to use it for photography, but balking at the cost.  
Have been in printing heaven today, and continuing to tweak and refine towards tomorrows exhibition. Take 8 photographers, an intensive week of thinking and doing nothing but photography - the results are absolutely amazing. So many different approaches and ideas. So many different ways of thinking and doing!
The above shot (not part of my final submission) looks brilliant (he said modestly!) printed at A4 on an A3 (semi-gloss) sheet. Smooth and soft as a babies bum!

Tiger in the Woods

Today at school was all about scanning and getting in about the Epson printers. I took this with an Olympus OM1 in April 1981 (who's a good boy that has all of his old negatives catalogued and filed - worth a gold star I would say). Even remember taking it in a friends parents garden at Tacket Wood Cottage, Totness, in Devon. The subject - one of their many moggies. It has been scanned using an Epson Perfection 4990 Film Scanner, then fiddled with in PS.

Happiest days of your life.

School day #2. Morning time spent in the studio exploring the effects of light. Enjoyed the theory, disappointed with my results. My take on a still life. Afternoon spent using more photoshop tools.

Where the rain gets in

Back to school today. Much fun was had by all. Lots of toys to play with. Took a little while for me to get to grips with using an Imac for the first time this century. So much nicer than a PC - and the quality and clarity of that screen for post-processing! The mysteries of B&W and photoshop starting to be revealed. Challenging week ahead. Also a nice (and varied) bunch of fellow students from all over the place.

Half weird guitar music.

Samuel Hallkvist Centre, Voodoo Rooms, 31 July 2010.

"Jazz for the information age. Guitarist Hallkvist's eclectic roots in ragtime, country, metal, noise and early digital electronics, inform music that's half weird guitar music, half the future of jazz. Boldly he's been made Jazz in Sweden artist of 2010. Want to hear something new? Check out this Nordic Quartet." http://samuelhallkvist.com/
I did, and it was good! 


My first experience of low light, high ISO settings. More band shots here.