This Saturday, 1st September at 2pm, is the launch of my wife, Maggie Ayres, solo exhibition at Gracefield Arts Centre in Dumfries.
Over a year in the making, Maggie has poured her heart and soul into this astonishing collection of abstract wall pieces and boxes, using the ancient art of encaustic, with layers of melted beeswax and tree resin, fused with a blowtorch, and incorporating oil paints, rust printed paper, found objects and constructed materials.
Entitled “Orchard,” it explores memories, hopes and imagination – recalling everything from a childhood playing among the apple trees in the Lake District, through the joys and trials of motherhood, to struggles with anxiety and depression.
It's a deeply personal journey, but has universal themes of desire, struggle and hope, which everyone can connect to.
To say I'm proud of her would be the understatement of the year. I am in awe of what she has created.
Earlier this year I took a series of photos of Maggie in her studio, and some of these have now appeared in September issue of Dumfries and Galloway Life magazine (out now), along with a wonderful interview written by Carol Hogarth
If you can make it along to the exhibition launch on Saturday at 2pm, you will be more than welcome. If you can't make it on that day, but will be in Dumfries over the next month or so, it runs until 6th October.
If you can't make it along at all, it is well worth getting hold of a copy of D&G Life to read the article.
Over the next few days, on the run up to the exhibition, I'll be putting up the full set of photos from that session on my Instagram account, if you're interested:
With portrait photography, you control the lighting, the background and the camera angles, and work with the subject to create the desired expressions and postures.
You are the director creating a story that conforms to your vision, for the viewer to consume.
With performance photography, you have no control over any of these things. You have to make do with the existing background and lighting, and usually only have one or 2 possible places you can take a photograph from, while having no interaction with the subjects.
You are the observer, capturing images to document and reflect the experience of being there.
I've done both these styles of photography on many occasions, but when capturing images of the Fedorova Ensemble for Absolute Classics I was also given the opportunity to photograph the rehearsals, which is a strange in-between world.
For an hour or so before the doors opened to the public, this quintet of world class classical musicians rehearsed on stage at the Theatre Royal in Dumfries.
While I couldn't start posing them or ask them to adopt particular expressions, so long as I didn't get in their way I could set up my own lights and move among them with my camera.
I created a 3-light set up, so pretty much whatever angle I was at there was light on the musicians, and a backlight behind them. This allowed for more dramatic shadows and light than the standard stage lighting.
But the real fun was that I could place myself only a few feet away from them and create photos that give an embedded sense of intimacy, where you can almost feel what it would be like to be up there in among them rather than watching from the stalls.
And of course, throughout it all I was treated to the most astonishing quality of musicianship, as though it were my own private concert.
Don't get me wrong, the actual performance was amazing, but as a photographer, the rehearsal was a much more enjoyable experience.
Kasama are a young, energetic local band with great potential.
In recent months they have been recording their new EP, Noisy Neighbours, with Marcus – the other half of my own band, The Cracked Man, who's also a sound engineer.
While the songs all sound great, they needed some strong images to promote it when the EP was released.
Their initial idea was to have a photo of them next to the radio masts out at Skyreburn, but when they had tried being photographed standing directly underneath the towers, it hadn't worked – primarily because of trying to fit it all into one image – either the tops of towers were cut off, or the band looked too small next to them.
At a bit of a loss what to do next, they talked to Marcus, and Marcus called me to ask if I could help out.
I met up with a couple of members of the band for coffee, and realised the best approach would be to shoot further away from the radio masts, so they appeared on the top of the hill behind them, rather than directly above them. We set up a Facebook group chat to get everyone involved in honing the concept and working out what props we would need.
Before long, the idea of a semi-domestic scene – based around a coffee table and sofa – but out in the hills, started taking shape. Each person would be doing something different – playing the guitar, switching on the radio, eating a bag of chips etc.
When we arrived, it was blowing a gale and one of the original ideas of someone playing football had to be discarded.
It was also a dull, overcast day with very flat light, so I had to set up a couple of off-camera flashes to add a bit of depth to it
Despite frozen hands, ears and noses, the guys threw themselves enthusiastically into the shoot and in the end we got the first image we were after.
When the EP was released last week, the local papers did a feature on them and used this photo to headline their out-and-about section, so it was good to see it being used.
With that in the bag, we decided to go for a really close up shot using the wide-angle lens. It didn't take long to find the overall look I wanted, but I couldn't quite get the shape right of Andrew with his can of beer on the right. I was trying to get him to be looking off to one side and taking a swig, but the angles of his arm just weren't giving me the lines I wanted.
Suddenly as I counted them into a shot, Andrew shot his arm out, pointing his finger directly at the camera, can still in hand. A moment of inspiration that completely made the photo.
A few days before the shoot I felt it had the potential to have a good behind-the-scenes video, so I put out a call on Facebook to see if anyone wanted to come along, experience what it's like on a photo shoot, and do a bit of videoing. I had a few responses, but went with Brodie Donohoe – a young photographer who had previously come on a workshop I'd run a few years back.
With Brodie's footage and Kasama's track, Holding Up The Sun, I was able to knock together this short (about 90 seconds) video which gives quite a good sense of the session.
It also seemed like a potential opportunity to film a video for the track, so after we'd completed the photo shoot, the guys got their instruments out of the back of the van and we shot them playing the song.
Brodie then took all the footage of the day and created a music video for them
