While staged narrative photography has kind of become my speciality, sometimes my skills with the camera are needed to make something look just like it is – no story, just representation.
Photos have been needed to as accurately as possible portray her abstract, mixed media art - although there has to be an understanding colours and tones can vary a bit depending on the screen that's showing them (which can be a frustration for any artist).
However, in addition to the paintings, and closer up details, a little bit of narrative has crept in to the process.
It's all very well saying this piece is 40x40cm, or 50x20cm, but it's not always that easy to visualise what that means on your wall. So we set up a scene with a chair, and a small table with a cafetière, a coffee cup, a sketch book and a pen, swapping the painting on the wall each time, to give a reasonable sense of scale
Everything has moved up a level this year.
2 years ago Maggie took her first tentative steps into the world of online exhibitions. For 2 weeks she put up a small painting a day – she was so convinced it would never work, she didn't want to put up any larger pieces.
To her great surprise (of course it was no surprise to anyone else), people bought her work.
One of the things that came out of the experience, however, were that quite a few people wanted to see all the pieces available before making a choice, and weren't so keen on the “daily reveal”.
So last year she did it again, only this time included some larger pieces, and put up a single shot at the beginning of all the paintings grouped together.
Around the same time, I was doing some photography for Doug & Hannah Fitch who have an annual online exhibition each autumn (see my post Fitch and McAndrew - Slipware Potters), but they do it on a big scale – it's become a major part of their sales process.
One of the things they do is create an online catalogue using issuu.com, which has a magazine-like interaction, but is viewed on your device.
So this year we thought we'd steal that part of the idea and create our own online brochure for Maggie.
I spent the best part of a week constructing it. If I'd had a decent publishing programme I could use it would have been easier.
If I'd had a decent template I could have just dragged and dropped images and text into then it would have been easy-peasy.
However, I couldn't find what I needed, so ended up building each page in Photoshop. This allowed me to lay out each page exactly as I wanted it, but it meant that if I decided to, say, swap the order of anything, I had to change all the page numbers manually, which would take forever.
Still, I do have to say I'm quite pleased with the final result. The online brochure really does give a good sense of Maggie's work, both in content and scale.
If you have a moment, do go and take a look – I promise you won't be disappointed.
From shooting along the Nith estuary at high speed on a Rigid Inflatable Lifeboat, to discovering how periwinkles are sorted into different sizes, to trying to figure out how to photograph a Coastguard training session in the dark and in the fog, the Fishing Faces project was a real (sometimes literal) voyage of discovery.
Commissioned and managed by the Solway Firth Partnership, Fishing Faces was a year-long project. But this wasn't going to be about creating a set of photos of craggy old fishermen in black and white, instead the purpose was to draw attention to those who support and rely on a modern fishing industry in South West Scotland.
From harbour master to chef, Fisherman's Mission volunteer to fishing gear fabricator, my task was to create a series of portraits of some of the faces that much of the general public wouldn't even think about, but are all part of supporting the fishing industry.
Launched at last month's Stranraer Oyster Festival, free copies of Fishing Faces can be picked up at a variety of outlets across SW Scotland, including local libraries, seafood restaurants, hotels and tourist information centres.
Here are a few of my favourite images from the year:
Nith Inshore Rescue
Without a doubt, the biggest highlight of the whole project for me was when I went out on the Rigid Inflatable Lifeboat with Nith Inshore Rescue. To say it was exhilarating travelling at a rate of knots across the water, would be an understatement.
I put a wide-angle lens onto the camera which had the advantage of giving a real sense of the place, as well as feeling embedded in the boat with the crew.
Coastguard
I was quite excited at the prospect of photographing the Coastguard doing a training session descending a cliff face on ropes. However, while it had dawned on me that it was going to be in the dark, I wasn't prepared for the thick fog. I almost gave up before I started, thinking there was no way I was going to get a decent shot, but I was there, so I figured I may as well at least try.
As I clicked away, I was convinced I was going to have to wait until the Spring and lighter evenings, as I couldn't see anything very promising in the back of the camera. However, once I'd transferred the images to the computer and was able to explore and edit them on a big screen, I was delighted to find some really quite atmospheric pictures.
Steve
Steve Stringer runs a range of fishing and sight-seeing trips and we planned to go out on the boat with him to get a few shots. Unfortunately it was not the calmest of days and once we left the harbour it was more of a fairground ride than a gentle boat trip. Note in this shot, the boat is horizontal, so look at the angle of the horizon, and the way Steve is standing
Now I've always had a pretty good set of sea legs and sea-sickness is something that happens to other people, so it came as a bit of a shock to me that as soon as I started taking photos, I began to feel unwell. It turned out that viewing the constantly moving vista though the camera completely confused my inner ear, and my brain stopped knowing which way was up.
I had to stop pretty quickly.
I didn't actually throw up, but I came very close, and the queasy feeling stayed with me for a few hours, even after we'd returned to dry land.
Steve also volunteers on the lifeboats, so we decided a shot of him in his gear, with the lifeboat and Portpatrick behind him was a better option.
Periwinkles
Paul exports periwinkles. Gatherers sell them to him and he grades them into medium, large and jumbo sizes by means of a large, rotating, cylinder-shaped contraption that is slightly sloped on the inside and has different sized gaps in it for the periwinkles to fall through into the appropriately labelled container. There's nothing high-tech or romantic about it, so when I arrived and just saw the sorter in a breeze-block shed, I felt a bit lacking in inspiration.
There was no alternative – I was going to need to get a bit arty, so I set the camera up at one end on a slow shutter speed to get a sense of depth, action and movement.
The Fabricator
R&A Fabricators specialise in the supply and repair of scallop gear. But pretty much any photographer will leap at the chance of photographing someone welding...
SFP group shot
A group shot of the Solway Firth Partnership team was always going to be needed, but everyone sitting in the office at their computers would have been pretty boring, so a trip down to the beach was in order. Getting everyone together meant setting up the date well in advance so there was no guarantee with the weather and I was fully expecting it either to be chucking down with rain, or at least pretty overcast with a dull sky and light. But as it turned out we were blessed with a beautifully sunny day with not a cloud in sight.
With the tide right out, and a nice bit of cliff edge for them to scramble up on, we created a fun image of them all looking off across the Solway Firth, trying to keep a straight face...
With Savile Row trained, 4th generation tailor, Andrew Livingston, I wanted to create a portrait that manifested the understated confidence of a world class, bespoke tailor in his environment.
It's a wonderful, traditional looking shop where you instantly know you are going to get the complete and personal attention of people who understand their business and their customers.
Shop lighting, however, is never designed for photographers with a specific vision in mind. What I wanted to do was sculpt the light (and more importantly the soft shadows) in such a way that your your eye is drawn first to the person, and then effortlessly starts exploring the background.
For those who are interested such things, this meant I used a large gridded softbox up and to one side of him, a smaller one to the front and other side of him to fill in some of the shadows, and a distant flash to one side that needed to be out of sight from the camera, but catch the edge of him to separate him Andrew from the background.
Here's a fun, behind-the-scenes shot
I then used the same set up to photograph his son (and therefore 5th generation), Lewis
Last month I was invited back to G Livingston & Son to create a library of images for their business - from tailor-in-action shots, to close up details of the hands, processes and tools of the trade.
Within the world of tailored suits, there is a certain amount of (sometimes deliberate) misinformation about the difference between "made to measure" and "bespoke".
In essence, made to measure suits work from existing templates that are then adjusted to the measurements of the client. They are usually machine cut and sewn.
For a bespoke suit, however, you will have a unique pattern hand drawn, hand cut and hand sewn specifically for you, often requiring a few fittings to make sure everything is done to perfection.
Apparently there are several quite well known tailors in London and elsewhere that say they sell bespoke suits, but are in fact made to measure.
An important aspect of these photos was to show that Andrew is expert in the skills of making true bespoke suits – with the drawing, cutting and stitching of the patterns.
The following day I had a hangover. I was feeling sick with tiredness, aching all over, and my head refused to stop pounding despite downing quantities of ibuprofen and paracetamol.
This was not alcohol induced, however, but instead had come about from eating way too much chocolate.
I know! Who thought such a thing was actually possible?
The previous day had been 18 months in the planning, starting way back in early 2018 when I met up with Gillian of In House Chocolates to discuss the creation of a set of promotional photos.
The 7 Deadly Sins was a theme she'd been toying with for a while, so over a large hot chocolate we began to explore what that might look like.
7 different models, each representing one of the sins (pride, envy, greed, lust, sloth, wrath and gluttony), each interacting with the chocolate according to his or her sin-nature, rounded off with a group shot of all 7 around a table piled with chocolate.
The 7 Deadly Sins of Chocolate
Pinterest boards were created to look at different ways of interpreting the themes and exploring different styles.
More meetings were had (with more hot chocolate consumed, obviously), and we decided that rather than go down a flamboyant Marie Antoinette route, or a top-hatted Willy Wonka style, we would go for something more modern and contemporary.
The styling of In House Chocolates is red and black, so the models wearing black, with accents of red throughout the images seemed like a good starting point.
Pride
Then there were thoughts about models, makeup and hair styling, so I turned to long-time collaborator on several projects, Ralph Yates-Lee of Basement 20 Hair Salon in Dumfries, and his first in command, stylist Trae Corbett, who also worked with us for the Moniaive Comic Festival shoot last year (See Dr Who and the Androids of Moniaive). In addition to sorting out hair and dress styles, they were able to find people to model for us.
Of course then we had to figure out where we were going to do the shoot. With 7 models, a team of hairdressers and makeup artists, plus me and Gillian, In House Chocolates itself wasn't going to be big enough.
Ringford Village Hall leapt to mind as the ideal place. Easily accessible off the A75, it has toilets, a kitchen and plenty of space. I used it for my 50th birthday party, and my daughter Meg's 21st.
Envy
We didn't need a dramatic set. The focus was to be on the chocolate and the characters, but we would need some kind of neutral background – the hall itself wouldn't really give the vibe we were looking for.
Earlier this year I did a set of actor's head shots for Helen and Codge of the locally based Fox & Hound Theatre Company. While chatting with them about upcoming shoot for Gillian, they said they could supply a set of 8-foot by 4-foot black-painted boards. Perfect!
All that was left was to fix a date that everyone could manage.
Greed
As with all projects like this, nothing ever runs entirely to plan. In the week running up to the shoot, there were a model or two who became unreliable and replacements needed to be found. Then the day before the shoot the makeup artist was panicking because the assistants she was going to use had both let her down.
After a call out to our own networks, Katie stepped in to be an assistant makeup artist, however, on the morning of the shoot, just a couple of hours before I was to pick up the keys to the hall, the lead makeup artist told us she couldn't make it because she'd had some kind of accident and was in A&E at 4am. So Trae and a couple of the models went off to buy some makeup kits while Gillian and I began creating the set.
Despite the late start, everyone enthusiastically threw themselves into the day. We had a rough idea of who was going to represent each sin, but we were only onto the second model when we had to start swapping some of them round.
Lust
A point that a lot of people don't realise about modelling is it's only partly to do with what you look like. Just as important, if not more so, is the ability to project an emotion authentically into the camera, which is much harder than you might think.
When you are on a set, with lights around you, a photographer in front of you, and a whole bunch of other people getting hair and makeup done just a few feet away (who keep looking over to see what you're up to), can you authentically display pride, or lust, or anger, without feeling extremely self conscious or bursting into laughter?
Knowing it was likely to be a very long day, we'd decided that we would get pizzas in for everyone by dinner time.
Station House Cafe & Cookery School in Kirkcudbright do a wonderful Sunday Evening Pizza special, so from about mid afternoon I was starting to look forward to it.
Sloth
As we were approaching 6pm, we'd finished the individual sin shots and I was now going to have to change the lighting set up to accommodate 7 people on the set rather than one at a time. It seemed an ideal place to pause and go get the pizza.
However, the hairdressers and models decided they'd rather push on, complete the shoot and worry about food when they got home. Despite the protests of my stomach, I didn't want a mutiny on my hands so I had to agree to their demands.
Wrath
When I'd taken my final shot, Gillian said the chocolate used on the set couldn't be sold again in the shop, so boxes were filled for everyone to tuck into and take home with them.
"I'll just have one of those truffles while I dismantle the lighting," I thought.
A long day's intense shoot, no pizza, and an almost infinite amount of chocolate sitting there right in front of me.
This was the point my self control and will power decided to run off and hide.
Gluttony
To be honest, I don't know how much chocolate I ate, but by the time I'd handed back the keys to the hall and arrived home, I wasn't feeling the slightest bit hungry any more. In fact, I was feeling distinctly queasy.
Needless to say I didn't sleep well that night and as for the next morning, well that's where we came into this story.
The sin of gluttony was duly punished with the hangover from hell.
Gillian's daughter, Holly, was tasked with shooting some behind-the-scenes video with my old camera, which I've used to give you a wee taste of what the day was like.
A new series of the incredibly stylised, beautifully filmed, and ultra-violent "Peaky Blinders" starts tonight on BBC1.
Set in 1920s Birmingham (England), the first 4 series have followed the progress of a local criminal gang as they have grown in power and expanded their territories across the decade under the leadership of Tommy Shelby (played by the incredibly cheek-boned, Cillian Murphy).
At the end of the last series he was elected to Parliament, and apparently this one will begin at the time of the rise of the fascists and Oswald Mosley.
While September looks to be quite busy for me, this last part of August is pretty quiet. And while I should be using this time for catching up on my book-keeping and sorting out my filing systems, it hasn't taken long to start getting an itchy trigger finger and begin to desperately crave a photo shoot.
Quite excited by the prospect of the new series, I thought it would be fun to do a wee "Peaky Blinders " portrait, but no one else in the family was interested.
The only option left was to turn the camera on myself:
Completely lacking Cillian Murphy's cheekbones
We don't have any industrial looking areas in the house, but there is a bit of brick wall at the end of the garden, so I figured that would have to do as a background.
The sun was poking in and out of light cloud and coming more or less at right-angles to where I would be standing, but I wanted to have a little bit of light coming from behind and to one side, to catch the edge of my neck and separate me from the background.
Setting up a reflector next to the shed allowed me to bounce back a bit of the sunlight from the other side. It also had the advantage of catching the jawline, which helps to sculpt the face a bit more.
The trickiest bit of any self portrait is being able to see what the camera is seeing when you're unable to look through the viewfinder. This isn't a problem for mobile phones, but it is for a lot of DSLRs.
However, I was able to tether my camera to my tablet, and rest that on a chair I'd pulled out of the shed, so I could see exactly where the light was falling on my face, and ensure I would be in focus.
This, then, became my improvised studio:
. Garden detritus successfully cropped out of the final image
Last year I did a big "Peaky Blinders" style photo shoot with 10 people and a horse, in an old abandoned warehouse, which was a huge amount of fun.
For those who didn't see it and can't be bothered searching back through the blog posts to find it, here's a behind-the-scenes video of that shoot:
I am constantly torn when it comes to photography competitions – should I enter or not?
There's only any point in entering a competition if there's a reasonable possibility of winning, especially if there is a submission fee involved – otherwise I may as well spend it on a lottery ticket.
I've won plenty of online photo competitions (although of course I've not won far more). I belong to a few different websites that have daily challenges, and once you're signed up you can enter as many as you like. Some even have real prizes – I'm still very much enjoying the use of my Manfrotto RedBee-210 backpack (see A Manfrotto Something).
These are the ones where I become torn about entering – basically because I don't think I have a hope in hell of winning.
Oddly enough for someone operating in the creative industries, it's not because I doubt the quality of my photos or my skill. It's just the kind of photography I do, the kind I feel I excel at, the kind I'm most proud of, just doesn't fit the profile of typical winning images.
Individual portraits that make the short list are almost invariably made up of what I can only term as a "melancholic stillness", where the figure is static, and mostly where there is a sense of sadness or loss, and always a sense of "other."
The direct gaze, connection, and ownership of the space that I favour in my portraits is at complete odds with mood of those typical finalists.
And what about my staged-narrative-group shots, which have become something of a signature approach of mine? These are the ones that test me to the limits of not just photographic, but people-skills – managing several different sets of agendas, goals and personalities to achieve something everyone taking part can be delighted with.
But there's never really a proper category for these kinds of images. They do not really fall under "portraits," but nor are they "documentary." Perhaps loose categories such as "fine art" or "conceptual" but in these, again, they are looking for something else.
A final barrier is that these staged-narrative-group shots I so love to create require studying for more than half a second. It is only when you view them for that little bit longer do you start to see the layers of objects and meanings. However, when we have hundreds or thousands of images to look through, we start looking at high speed, and anything that has subtlety is missed.
Of course, all this sounds like sour grapes, and perhaps it is.
So why do I create photographs that no one else is doing? Why am I not doing landscapes, wildlife, or cute kittens?
Because I hate the competition!
I'm actually a really bad loser, and always have been.
So instead of competing with everyone else, I nearly always strike out on my own path where no one else is able to make me feel belittled.
Even with music, I started off playing the guitar, then switched to the mandolin after way too many incidents of testosterone-driven guitarists trying to outdo each other.
And then when I started attending folk sessions in Scottish pubs and discovered testosterone-driven mandolin players trying to outdo each other, I switched to playing the bouzouki.
Now there are a couple of other people who play the bouzouki in SW Scotland, although not many, and they are really good folk musicians.
So I started playing blues and rock with mine – putting it through a distortion box and using a bottle-neck slide – something I haven't seen anyone else do.
So is it any real surprise that I seriously hesitate to enter competitions?
But didn't I already say I've won plenty of online photo competitions?
Yes, but.
The reality is, I've learned how to play the online competition game. I know the kind of thing that wins and I enter those kinds of photos.
But they are not the kind of photos that I love doing and really want to be recognised for creating.
My most successful photo, by far – outstripping all others – is a swan in the mist.
I mean, it's a nice enough photo – minimalist, calm, perhaps slightly melancholic – but it's by no means my best work.
Or my second best performing photo in these competitions – the silhouetted tree against a sunset sky.
The success of these images isn't down to the skill of the photographer, it's because they are easy to consume.
You don't have to think about them. You don't have to look for layers of meaning. You don't have to explore the image to find little details you missed first time round but add extra depth once you find them.
OK, so why don't I enter these photos into the big prestigious photo competitions?
Because if I'm going to succeed in something that matters, something that might actually make a bit of a difference, something that might have people looking up my work, then I want it to be with the work I have lovingly created, not the quick and lucky snapshot where I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
What I would want to win with would be something like the photo I did for The Nail Factory in Dalbeattie that had 8 artists (and a baby), and was designed to echo many of the tropes used in a Dutch "Old Master's" painting, but that doesn't fit into any of the categories.
So after an evening of flipping back and forth over and over in my head about whether to fork out the cash and enter the British Photography Awards, I decided instead to write a blog post about why I hate these bloody competitions...
"I had someone turn up early at the preview evening wanting to buy one of the hares before anyone else could, based purely on your photo in the brochure!"
Geoff Forrest is a willow weaver in transition. Over the past year or two he's been doing less with willow and more with steel.
To someone like me it seems like a massive leap from one medium to another, but according to Geoff, many of the principles are exactly the same, even if the implementation of the techniques are different.
I've been doing bits and pieces of product photography for Geoff on and off over the past few years – initially in a studio environment, and then in galleries where he was exhibiting. A couple of years back we even had a go at doing outdoor shots down on the beach (see Baskets on the Beach).
I visited Geoff at last year's regional open studios event, Spring Fling, and saw these amazing hares he had constructed out of steel rods, sitting a little over a metre in height. Almost immediately I told him they needed to be photographed on a hill or in a field with the sun setting behind them. However, given the unpredictability of the Scottish weather, it seemed highly unlikely we'd ever manage to achieve it.
But towards the end of June we were having an unprecedented length of warm, dry, sunny days, with long, glorious evenings, and the weather forecast was predicting it would stay this way for a while to come.
I phoned Geoff and asked if he would like to have a go at the sunset shots we had talked about, up where he lived at Loch Doon – about an hour's drive from where I live, deep into the Galloway Hills.
So a few days later, one beautiful summer evening, I drove out to see him with my camera gear in the back of the car, the windows down and music blasting, thoroughly enjoying driving along the empty winding roads, over hills and through valleys.
As soon as I arrived I realised we couldn't do the shoot at his house as it was already under the shadow of the hill behind him, so after a cup of tea and a chat, we drove a couple of miles up the side of the loch to a place where the sun was still above the hills.
He could only fit the hares into his small van one at a time, so I photographed one while he collected a second. This all took longer than planned and I only managed to get the shots with the sun literally on the horizon, with only a few minutes to spare before it disappeared completely.
At this point, we were about 150m from an area of land which jutted out into the loch, and I realised if we could get down to the water's edge, then from that angle we ought to get the afterglow of the sunset reflecting in the loch itself.
We took one of the sculptures down and sure enough the setting was incredible.
However, mother nature has a cruel, twisted sense of humour, as the dense swarms of midges were horrific.
I had already coated myself in citronella, which did seem to stop them biting, but it didn't prevent them coating me the moment I stopped moving. Each time I crouched down to line up a shot, I was covered in the creatures, crawling all over me, including in my ears and up my nose.
I would love to have spent more time, and brought the second hare down to the water's edge as well, but neither Geoff nor I could take another moment of it and we had to leg it back to the vehicles.
Geoff used the first of the photos in this year's Spring Fling brochure and told me he had quite a few visitors who had seen the image and made sure he was on their list of artists to visit because of it. Which I have to say felt rather satisfying.
However, next time I want to do a sunset shot at the side of a loch in Scotland, I'll be sure to do it in the middle of winter...
Do I lead with the fact you can buy a £100 photography voucher for only £10?
Or that I will be doing photography demonstrations with a smoke machine?
Or that I'll be open from 10.30am to 5pm on Saturday 25th, Sunday 26th & Monday 27th May to visit as part of the Spring Fling Open Studios weekend?
So many artists seem to start with their opening hours – I guess if you can't make those days and times then everything else is redundant.
In the Spring Fling brochure I my entry was "Smoke machine, lighting, live demonstrations of how to create awesome photos – on the hour, every hour while open across the weekend!" - in the hope it might get people excited about visiting.
But I'm also hoping there might be an uptake in a Spring Fling exclusive offer whereby I'm giving away £100 photography vouchers for only £10. Conditions apply, of course, but if anyone has ever considered the idea of having a photo session with me, then surely this is a must have?
Oh, the headaches of trying to work out how to market myself.
Lights! Camera! Smoke!
It's been 4 years since I last appeared in Spring Fling (see: Spring Fling 2015).
I did it for several years, but the problem was I could never be sure it was actually a worthwhile investment.
It's very easy for artists who sell their creations – artists, potters, jewellers, willow weavers etc – to see a direct connection between how much it costs them to participate, and how much income it generates.
However, what I offer is bespoke experiences – photography created uniquely and exclusively for individuals, groups and businesses – that are discussed and planned in advance. You don't just come along and buy a photo sitting in a print-rack.
As such it was impossible for me to see whether the time, money and effort was worth it.
So after 5 years I decided to take a break and instead visit some of the other studios over the weekend, along with my daughter, Meg. It was so much fun, we did it again the following year. And the next year too.
What got me thinking about it this time, was the “Peaky Blinders” themed shoot I did last year (see Peaky Blinders at Rosefield Mills). If you watch the behind-the-scenes video (at the bottom of that page), what strikes a lot of people is the difference between the ambient light of the warehouse, and the dramatic lighting of the photos.
Peaky Blinders themed shoot at Rosefield Mills in 2018
When using off-camera flashes, with coloured gels, and not forgetting a smoke machine, at the point the camera goes click, light gets captured in a way the human eye doesn't see. So what appears in the back of the camera is very different what you see in real life.
I started to think how much fun it would be to do demonstrations of this. I could tether the camera to a screen and have people take photos on their phones, literally over my shoulder, and what would appear on their screens would be completely different to what would appear on mine.
OK, so that would help prove why just taking photos on your phone isn't always going to be able to match what a professional photographer can do, but what I really needed was a way to see if the kind of people who visit the studios over Spring Fling weekend are actually the kind of people who would part with money for my skills.
So then I read about the idea of making a "compelling offer". Quite simply, if getting £100 off a Kim Ayres photo shoot for only £10 isn't going to make you open your wallet faster than superman getting changed in a phone booth, then I'm not the photographer you're looking for.
However, regardless of whether the offer has any appeal or not, it would be lovely to see you over the weekend if you can make it along.
I'm not operating from home as my place isn't big enough to do the demonstrations, so my good friends Carolyn and Ken are allowing me to use their outbuilding which is the size of a small village hall. It has plenty of room to do the demonstrations and show off photos from shoots I've done before.
As you leave Castle Douglas, head south on the Dalbeattie road for 1.2 miles (SatNav: DG7 1NS), then turn left, turn right and head up the hill, following the signposts. You can't miss it!
