Douglas Fitch and Hannah McAndrew are internationally acclaimed potters using traditional techniques to create contemporary slipware pottery.
Last year Doug and I were at the Dumfries & Galloway Life Awards, having both been nominated for Visual Artist of The Year, enjoying each other's company as another artist walked off with the award (see my blog post: The Jekyll and Hyde transformation of being an award finalist).
Although in reality we have only met a handful of times, whenever I am in the company of Doug and Hannah, it's like they are old friends: conversation flows easily and the mood is always one of relaxed warmth.
I was delighted, therefore, when they approached me to do some photography for them.
For their annual Autumn Exhibition, they create a brochure which usually has one of Douglas's jugs and Hannah's plates on the cover. This year, they decided they wanted to be in the picture themselves as well.
The trickiest thing was getting the light right. Although they are in the process of expanding their workspace, at the time I did the shoot they were in a portacabin, which wasn't really big enough to create interesting lighting. If all the light came from the front, then the background just fell into dull shadow, but there wasn't enough room to put a light to the side of them, and any light behind them would be in camera shot.
Fortunately they had a small window at the far end. It wasn't facing in the right direction to bring in much daylight, but it did allow me to stick an off-camera flash, with an orange gel in front of it, outside the window pointing inwards. This gave the feel of a soft evening sunlight coming in behind them, and really lifted the whole mood of the photos.
With the main photo under our belts, I then set about doing shots of Doug and Hannah at work, creating a vase and painting a plate respectively. Here are some of my favourite images from the session, but I have a full set up on my Photography Facebook Page (you don't have to me a member of FB to view them). https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2301173563230668&type=1&l=f4ad9d4927
Here's a link to their Autumn Exhibition.
Everything is sold on a first-come-first-served-basis, although if you see something you love that has gone, I'm sure they are open to commissions - just ask! https://issuu.com/dougfitch/docs/fitch_and_mcandrew_online_iii
My 52nd birthday was in many ways very similar to my 51st – a day spent with a mocha at In House Chocolates; a picnic out at Carrick Beach; an ice cream at Cream o' Galloway, and Maggie making me a wonderful chocolate & peanut butter cheesecake type of thing.
It's not that dissimilar to what we've done on Maggie's birthdays the past few years either, come to think of it.
There might be some years where we do something really different – like the big gathering of my 50th or my 42nd, but in the absence of that, this is a wonderful sort of default with an emphasis on family and chocolate.
It really doesn't get much better.
And I have to say, for all the criticism of selfies, I really do love the ability of the camera phones for the immediacy of the snapshot.
I could never do a photo like this with my big professional DSLR – for one, it would be difficult to be in the shot as well as taking it, but more than that, I would feel the need for it to be well lit and properly composed. Despite being an almost impossible task, it would also lose that real sense of the moment.
It doesn't matter that the light is poor, that it's not really in focus, and that the compositional balance is a mess – this photo captures the mood of a bloke at home with his family on his birthday about to enjoy a slice of cake.
It won't win any prizes, but it becomes a treasured gateway to the memories of the day
Moniaive Comic Festival in early June has become a regular feature in my photography calendar. This year was my 3rd time collaborating at the event with Ralph Yates-Lee from Basement 20 Hair Salon in Dumfries - photographing models created to look like they could have stepped out of the pages of a comic-book or graphic novel (see Moniaive Manga and Moniaive Comic Festival's New Model Army).
This year, however, everything moved up a level, when legendary comic-book writer, Alan Grant, wrote a 16-page comic-book based on the characters Ralph and his team created.
Ralph's idea was to have futuristic androids with fancy hairstyles involved in the festival, and Alan wrote a script where they come to the Moniaive and start kidnapping guest writers and authors to take them to a rival comic festival, only to be stopped at the last moment by "them pesky kids."
The idea was to then have different pages and panels drawn by different artists. Some were created by well known names in the comic industry, some by local primary school children, and some by visitors to the festival who could chose a panel to illustrate. And 4 panels and the cover image were to be created by me with the camera. This mass of different artwork and styles were then edited, had speech bubbles added and compiled into “The Great Moniaive Comic Con Con” by festival organiser, Sue Grant (whose husband is Alan).
Cover image
Unlike the previous couple of years where I just turned up on the day to do the photography, this time we had to do a fair amount in advance. 6 weeks earlier we gathered at Basement 20 where Ralph and stylist Trae Corbett, set about creating the hairstyles on our 4 models – Grace, Conor, Holly and Jess (who was also the make-up artist). Trae also styled the clothing for them all, and I did a set of reference photos that were then sent out to some of the comic-book artists in advance, so they would know what to base their drawings on.
Reference photos
During the festival, Ralph, Trae and Jess set up early to do the hair and makeup and by late morning the models were ready for me to start photographing them for the comic-book panels.
In the section of the story I was covering, the 4 androids head for the Craigdarroch Hotel to find "Big" Jim Stewart. When they invite him to step outside, he stands up and towers over them. At that point they are so intimidated they decide to leave him and find other artists and writers instead.
We did the indoor shots first, but it took a fair bit of trial and error to get the compositions I wanted. The bar wasn't that big, so I needed a wide-angle lens to be able to fit everyone into the shots. However, that meant I ran the risk of my lights creeping into the images too.
Once I felt happy I'd got the photos I needed, we shifted outside to do external shot of the androids heading for the pub. To add an extra layer of fun, we staged Ralph getting thrown out of the side door by the landlord, Tim.
Over the following week when I was editing the images, I had to work out how to create an effect so they had more of an illustrative look to them, while still obviously being photographs – and I had to figure out how to lay them all out across the page so the story flowed, with enough room for Sue to add the speech bubbles
Double-page spread for the comic
The final task was to create a cover image. In an earlier part of the story, a couple of the androids arrive on a motorbike, so Sue had managed to arrange one for us, while Ralph had his 2nd cameo role, but this time with a sack over his head.
The ambient light was pretty dull as it was just a grey, overcast day. So I set up an off-camera flash with an orange gel behind the models – which is what is casting the shadows - and later on Photoshopped in the sunset sky behind them.
With all the photos done, we were about to head to the pub for a bite to eat when Sue asked if we could add Dr Who and a Dalek into the image for a possible publicity photo for next year's festival.
Nigel does a really good David Tennant era Dr Who impersonation, and he has a remote control Dalek, which he would send up to groups of children, calling out "Exterminate! Exterminate!"
Photographing 4 androids, a motorbike, a guy in a sack, Dr Who and a Dalek all together in the centre of a small village located in the Galloway Hills in SW Scotland – seemed an ideal way to end a Sunday afternoon.
Dr Who and The Androids
As in previous years I dragged my friend Allan Wright along to get some footage of the photo sessions and have put together a wee (lm 35s) behind-the-scenes video for you, which gives quite a good flavour of the day:
For the next few weeks Basement 20 are displaying are displaying some of the photos in the window of the salon, and some of the original artwork for the comic inside. If you're in Dumfries and get the chance, do pop by and take a look.
They also have a handful of the comic for sale for a mere £4, so get your copy before they're all gone.
Some of the team - left to right: Ralph, Trae, Jess, Grace, me
