Looking at – and seeing – the world
September 12, 2021 Leave a comment
Portrait of a young friend; 19 July 2014. She is the younger daughter of close friends of our’s.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window.
Technique: D700 with 105mm Nikkor lens; 1600 ISO; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Triste 1 preset.
September 11, 2021 2 Comments
PEOPLE PICTURE GALLERIES
I’m currently posting images from my archive of photos of people. As always with these archives, I’m trying to use a variety of approaches and responses to the subject. These photos are being posted singly, with full text.
To make viewing of these images easier for those with little time to spare, I’m also posting groups of these images in galleries with minimal titles. This is the first gallery.
Clicking onto each image will open a larger version in a separate window: doing this often enhances the image.
1: Woman in a cafe; Camborne, 2013.
2: Girl in a white dress, with side lighting; Bristol, 2012.
3: Guests laughing at a wedding reception; Surrey, 2012.
4: Boat owner; Porthleven, 2016.
5: A friend, aged two; Bristol, 2011.
6: Death of a beautiful person: George Ann Weaver, 1942-2016.
7: Lovers; St Ives, 2012.
8: In the Dida Galgalla Desert, northern Kenya; 1978.
9: Man on stairs; Newquay, 2011.
10: Friends at a wedding; near Bristol, 2011.
August 21, 2021 6 Comments
A good friend with his baby daughter, 5 April 2009.
The baby’s mother loves the direct and very vital connection between the baby’s rapt gaze and the father’s smiling face and she’s totally right. I also like the apparently huge size of the father’s hand as it rests on his daughter’s diminutive shoulder.
I don’t have a lot of confidence with people pictures, but luck has won out here – and this sort of close, intimate shot is one of the things that, for me, monochrome is all about.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window.
Technique: D700 with 105mm Nikkor lens; 6400 ISO. I was very new to both digital photography and the D700 when I took this, and I have a vague recollection of frantically raising the ISO to 6400 to keep pace with the faltering light conditions, and of then setting matrix metering and trusting to autofocus – with a lucky outcome!
August 7, 2021 10 Comments
A friend, aged two; 30 Aug 2011. To say that we value the friendship of this little girl is one of life’s vast understatements.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window – recommended.
Technique: D700 with 105 Nikkor lens; 12,800 ISO; converted to mono in Silver Efex Pro.
July 30, 2021 7 Comments
Our friends’ elder daughter, luckily caught by beautiful side lighting, in their kitchen.
This family has a large and airy kitchen lit by a single, large window. Their daughter moved across to the right of the window, and was at once bathed in soft light, with relative shade as a backdrop.
The light flowing over her white dress was immediately beautiful, and I was fortunate in catching her right arm as well as her left, the former being seen both in silhouette and illuminated. I’ve also been lucky in having the light just catching her long hair too. Light reflecting from her dress produces a soft glow on the cupboards to her left.
This is, obviously, a picture of a person, but it is unposed and anonymous, and mostly about the interplay of light, shadow, shapes and textures.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window – recommended.
Technique: D700 with 105mm Nikkor lens; 12,800 ISO; manipulated with Capture NX2, Bristol; 9 Sept 2012.
March 3, 2021 8 Comments
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One of our friends’ daughters; growing up very fast now.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window – recommended.
Technique: D700 with 105mm Nikkor lens; 3200 ISO; centre-weighted metering; Lightroom; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Warm Tone Paper preset and adding a moderate coffee tone.
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February 20, 2021 13 Comments
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Young Luo girl on a farm near Akala in western Kenya; Apr 1979.
Click onto the image to open a larger version on a separate window.
Technique: OM-1 with 50mm Zuiko lens; Agfa CT18 colour slide film, rated at 64 ISO; mono conversion and vignetting in Silver Efex Pro.
THE ARCHIVE KENYA SERIES
I’m re-posting photographs that I took in Kenya over 30 years ago. You can find more context here . Click onto the “Archive Kenya” tag (below) to see more of these film images from Kenya.
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January 31, 2021 8 Comments
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Young Luo girl on a farm near Akala, in the far west of Kenya; Apr 1979.
She is leaning against the decorated wall of a thatched hut and, despite her friends and family being close by, she looks concerned and perhaps wary. This might have been her first close encounter with a white person and, although the OM-1 is wonderfully compact, with anything like a sophisticated modern camera.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window.
Technique: OM-1 with 50mm Zuiko lens; Agfa CT18 colour slide film rated at 64 ISO.
THE ARCHIVE KENYA SERIES
I’m re-posting photographs that I took in Kenya over 30 years ago. You can find more context here . Click onto the “Archive Kenya” tag (below) to see more of these film images from Kenya.
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January 7, 2021 13 Comments
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We were visiting friends when their elder daughter, whom we like very much, suddenly started asking her parents about how words are written. She knew how letters and combinations of letters sound and how they look when written down, but she’d never equated the two before.
A few words of explanation from her parents and – to the vast astonishment of everyone present – she just started phonetically pronouncing words and then writing them all over large pieces of scrap paper on the floor!
I had my camera to hand, and a unique occasion was recorded. This is not a good picture photographically, but in this sort of instance that doesn’t worry me at all – and I love her tentative, slightly doubtful expression.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window.
Technique: D700 with 105mm Nikkor lens; 3200 ISO; south Bristol; 26 Apr 2009.
UPDATE: yes, photographically, in technical terms, this is not a good picture. But it is nevertheless a very valuable picture, and especially so to the girl and her family – here is a fundamental achievement on her part, a fundamental moment in her life. Which feeds into one of my core beliefs about photography – that by far the most important aspect of an image is its content – have interesting / striking / meaningful content, and the technicalities come a very, very long way second.
So, ok, let’s turn this on its head. Here’s a meaningful image that is technically imperfect. Who would rather have a meaningless image that is technically perfect? .
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October 17, 2020 14 Comments
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Alley in Lamu; July 1978.
Lamu is a small town on an island just off the coast of Kenya. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site – see more info here.
When I was there in 1978, Lamu was peaceful, fascinating and a delight. However the section on modern Lamu in the report linked to above suggests it is threatened; and not least by the fact that, being quite close to the border with Somalia, it has been the scene of terrorist attacks. I returned from Kenya 31 years ago, and the world has changed much since then.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window – recommended.
Technique: OM-1 with 28mm Zuiko lens; Agfa CT18 colour slide film, rated at 64 ISO.
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