ARCHIVE KENYA 98 – MOTHER AND BABY

 

 

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Mother and baby at a wedding near Thika, Kenya, in the late 1970s.

African women’s love of gorgeous, bright colours.

Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window.

Technique: OM-2 with 75-150 Zuiko lens; Kodak Ektachrome 200 colour slide film (I think!); Color Efex Pro 4; Lightroom.

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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ARCHIVE 413 – MOTHER AND CHILD (MONO)

 

 

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A mother comforts her child;  26 Nov 2009.

They are both old friends of our’s.

In the emotion of the moment, the mother’s eyes close and her lips part slightly to murmur soft comfort and reassurance.

And, to me, the baby’s anguish is reflected in the widely splayed hand that desperately clutches her mother’s neck – and especially in that little thumb.

Technique: D700 with 24-120 Nikkor lens at 120mm; 25,600 ISO; Dfine 2; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Soft Sepia preset.

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ARCHIVE 351 – MOTHER AND BABY (MONO)

 

 

A mother sooths her troubled baby.

This is an intimate family moment that I feel privileged to have been close to.  I’m not saying that this family resents my photography, in fact quite the reverse is true.  But here is an intimate moment, frozen in time, and monochrome is the ideal medium with which to record it –  no distracting colours, just the emotions seen in the sidelong views of the two faces.  The dark, uniform background also helps: a cluttered background would ruin this shot’s simplicity.

Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window.

Technique: D700 with 105mm Nikkor lens; 3200 ISO; Bristol; 26 Apr 2009.
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SOMERSET LEVELS 277 – MOTHER AND CALF, WESTHAY MOOR

 

 

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Cow and her calf, Peacock Farm, Westhay Moor; 3 June 2016.

Ruby Red Devon cattle, always to be seen – and certainly a pleasure to see them – around this farm.

And a mother’s concerned look, interrogative, not unduly concerned but still wondering what the fat guy with the camera is all about.  She’s not the first to wonder that.

X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 305mm (equiv); 3200 ISO.
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PEOPLE 211 – MOTHER AND CHILD (MONO)

 

 

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A mother comforts her child;  26 Nov 2009.

They are both old friends of our’s.

In the emotion of the moment, the mother’s eyes close and her lips part slightly to murmur soft comfort and reassurance.

And, to me, the baby’s anguish is reflected in the widely splayed hand that desperately clutches her mother’s neck – and especially in that little thumb. 

D700 with 24-120 Nikkor at 120mm; 25,600 ISO; Dfine 2; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Soft Sepia preset.
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PEOPLE 193 – MOTHER AND BABY

 

 

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Mother and baby at a wedding near Thika, Kenya, in the late 1970s.

African women’s love of gorgeous, bright colours.

OM-2 with 75-150 Zuiko; Kodak Ektachrome 200 colour slide (I think!); Color Efex Pro 4.
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PEOPLE 159 – MOTHER AND SON 2 (MONO)

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Mother and son; 6 Mar 2014.

We popped over to see a good friend and her baby son.  This time I took the D700 rather than the D800 because, with fewer pixels, the former produces “cleaner” images in low light situations.  And following something I learned from another SEP2 user on WordPress’s Freshly Pressed, I used Nik Software’s Dfine 2 (a part of Google’s Nik Collection software suite) to help reduce the image noise inevitably present at this high ISO rating. 

I’m not sure I used this software very expertly, I did what I usually do with a new package – ignore the Help pages, and just fiddle around a bit and see what happens! – but it does seem to have helped a bit >>> must print off those Help pages!

The first portrait of these two is here.  I hope to take more photos of this little boy and his parents in the future.

D700 with 105mm Nikkor; 25,600 ISO; Dfine 2; starting at Silver Efex Pro 2’s Classic Portrait preset.
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PEOPLE 151 – MOTHER, SON AND A LOVING SMILE (MONO)

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Mother and baby son; 29 Nov 2013.

We went over to see our friends’ new baby.  My wife waded in with some of her wonderful knitting – a cardigan and a blanket – and almost as an after thought I took a camera. 

Our friend is a warm and caring person and, with the camera making more noise than I’d have liked (how I wished for a Leica!), I managed to catch her loving smile.  That smile, those gentle and concerned hands – this is love, and it certainly makes me feel good.  It is one of the huge things that Life is all about.

But, on the downside, absent mindedly grabbing a camera, I took the wrong one for the job.

Because while the D800 is a superb machine, jamming all those pixels into that full frame sensor does make it struggle a bit in low light – and low (but beautiful) light is what there was.  And so, at over 25,000 ISO, to grain and more grain.  Which is certainly not a catastrophic thing, especially if presented in mono, but the fact remains that I would have done better to take the D700 which, with a third of the D800’s pixels, is much handier in low light – while producing distinctly less bulky files too, of course.

I focused on the baby’s eye, shot wide open at f2.8 and, using matrix metering,  let the rest take care of itself.  I’ve toned down some of the backdrop, particularly that at mid to upper left, which was near a window.  I had a flash with me, but I’m always wary of using flash in close proximity to babies and, besides, I much prefer natural light if I can get it – light from a single window can be just glorious.

D800 with 105mm Nikkor; 25,600 ISO; Silver Efex Pro’s Antique Portrait preset.
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PEOPLE 137 – GRANDDAUGHTER 3 (MONO)

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Our granddaughter at her baptism ceremony, in the arms of her mum; 22 Sept 2013.

Aged six months she is interacting more with everyone, and I am greatly looking forward to the time that she starts talking.

Nikon D700 with 24-120 Nikkor at 95mm; 400 ISO; diffused flash; Silver Efex Pro 2, using the Faux Infrared preset.
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PEOPLE 117 – MOTHER AND DAUGHTER 4 (MONO)

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Mother and daughter; 1 June 2013.

Nikon D800 with 105mm Micro Nikkor; 3200 ISO; conversion to mono and toning in Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Cool Tones 2 preset.
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