Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres – Episode 7 – A recent assignment

Unlike the previous 6 episodes, and the ones for the foreseeable future, the photo shoot I based my weekly Facebook Live video podcast around this time was done during Lockdown.

The first section of each episode gives the story behind one of the more interesting photo shoots I've done over the past several years. For anyone interested in photography, knowing the story behind the image is nearly always a bit of a treat.

It is for me, anyway. One of my favourite books is 50 Portraits by Gregory Heisler, which is all about the stories behind some of his most famous photos. Admittedly his sessions were with world leaders and famous film and rock stars, but that's less important than the exploration of his thoughts, fears, and attitudes on each assignment.

Almost all my favourite personal and business shoots I have blogged about to some degree, and told the stories to other people countless times. So when I'm talking into the webcam about them, I don't have to refer to notes or read a script – the stories are just there.

This one, however, was the first time I'd really got a chance to talk about it. We did the shoot about 6 weeks ago, and then couldn't say anything about it until it was published in Dumfries & Galloway Life Magazine.

Still, I think it worked out OK.

However, I think the most fun part of Episode 7 was doing the thumbnail sketch. I did rehearse it the day before, just to see if it would work.

It was based on the actual sketch I did when Maggie, Meg and I were sitting at the kitchen table, discussing what the shoot might look like in the garden, and I grabbed a pen and did a rough sketch in my Sudoku book to try and explain my thoughts.

The resulting illegible scribble provoked a few chuckles around the table.

Here's the snippet from that bit, if you don't want to watch the whole episode:



Meanwhile, here's the full recording of Episode 7

0:00 - Introduction - what's coming up
1:20 - Background to the photo shoot for the June 2020 edition of Dumfries & Galloway Life
2:02 - A background to Megalicious
7:38 - Deciding to create a cover photo
8:40 - Creating a thumbnail sketch of the shoot
25:30 - Response to FB comments
26:35 - Introduction to Critique of submitted photos
53:40 - The Lomo Effect
1:08:30 - Coming up next week



If you've not done so already, please subscribe to my YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/kimayres – to help me build the numbers.

And, or course, if you would like to submit a photo for feedback, or just ask a photography related question, then do join my Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres Facebook group and I will put it into the following podcast:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/240842990388815/