As the end of the year approaches one of the modern social media traditions is to
show off your Instagram Top 9 – the images you posted that received the most
likes across the year.
If you don't want to scroll back through every post to count up your "likes",
then there are various apps you can download that will do it for you, in
exchange for data harvesting everything about you and everyone you're
connected to (who reads the consent blurb these days anyway?). Some of them
will even kindly put their logo boldly in one corner for you too.
What shouldn't have surprised me, but completely did, was the mismatch between
the images I was expecting to appear, and what actually did.
While 2021, for obvious reasons, has not been my busiest year, I have done a
few photo shoots I'm proud of, that have gained positive feedback, and I feel
have stretched and grown me as a photographer.
If I was hoping for images from the Re:Dress Fashion Show, or Odin's Chair, or
The Kippford Mermaid to show up, then confusion was sure to follow.
With the exception of a black and white photo of Meg, every other image was
some kind of selfie, or a quick fun photo taken because I was bored and wanted
to try something out.
The fact that Meg appears in 6, my wife in 3, and me in 7 of them means
clearly those who follow me on Instagram respond more to family pics and
selfies than they do to my professional photography.
Perhaps the clue is in the fact it's called "Social" media.
And on one level, that's fine, I get it. I really do.
But how on earth I'm supposed to build followers to expand my business, I have
no idea, and am just left feeling as lost and cynical as ever.
Tomorrow I will put up my traditional New Year "Best Of..." post, where I show and write about my favourite photos from the past year - which from a photographer's perspective look quite different from the ones above.
And on Sunday, my Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres live video podcast will be featuring the best photos submitted by the viewers of their own work.
Perhaps that will leave me feeling a little more inspired.
In the meantime, I wish everyone a wonderful Hogmanay, and hope hangovers and trips to the hospital are kept to a minimum!
Fast Fashion has become endemic in the modern world. Trends move so quickly, and
production has become so cheap, that millions of tons of clothing are bought,
worn once or twice and then discarded.
The problems of this are hugely damaging from environmental, ethical
and social points of view.
From the appalling human exploitation in terrible working conditions in 3rd
world countries to produce many of the cheaper items, to the environmental
cost in their production and disposal, to the social anxiety about being
judged for being seen wearing the same outfit twice – the cost to all of us is
so much more than the pennies spent on the clothing.
The idea of slow fashion, then, is that items are made to last, be reused,
recycled or even upcycled to create something new.
In many ways it's the how things were always done.
When I was a kid, patching my jeans when they got a rip was the norm, rather
than throwing them out. Making new garments out of old ones was something my
mother did all the time. And when I did a photo shoot with a 4th generation
bespoke tailor, he was telling me how certain hand made coats and jackets used
to be passed down the generations, and were designed so adjustments could
easily be made for a different sized wearer.
Marie and Dan set up Circle Vintage about 3 years ago, where everything you
buy is an original, second-hand or pre-loved item mostly from the 1960s to
90s.
Being stylishly retro and individual has never been so easy.
Combining their love of clothing with a strong sense of environmentalism, they
recently set up the
Dumfries Slow Fashion Movement
CIC (Community Interest Company - a special type of limited company which
exists to benefit the community rather than private shareholders), and
launched it with Re:Dress – a fashion show at the Theatre Royal in Dumfries,
where all the clothes were reused or upcycled in some way.
I was oblivious to all this when I wandered into the shop to have a wee chat
and catch up with Marie for the first time since the original Lockdown in
early 2020. We'd originally met shortly before the pandemic, when I stumbled
across their shop and thought there could be potential for working together on
a photo shoot.
Marie quickly told me all about the fashion show and asked if I'd help out
with the photography as they wanted to document the event. They had a few
other local photographers and students who would be taking images, so I
suggested perhaps I should concentrate on creating some set pieces – the kind
of shots you would expect to see in a magazine.
Initially I thought I could do this in advance of the show, but it turned out
this just wasn't going to be possible – not only would trying to organise
models, clothes designers, make up artists, hairdressers and the venue in
advance be extraordinarily unlikely, some of the outfits were basically being
constructed onto the model on the night.
The shoot was going to have to happen at the same time the fashion show was
going ahead.
The main thought, then, was to create images that looked like they were
backstage and behind-the-scenes, except they would be carefully crafted.
Over the next week or two we shaped the ideas, set up a Pinterest Board, and
went out to the Theatre Royal so I could work out potential places to set up.
The key was going to be preparing as much in advance as I could so I would
be able to grab models either shortly before going on stage, when they came
off, or during the mid-interval break.
In the end I decided on 2 different spaces, and styles of shoot.
One would be in the wings of the stage, with a large single softbox to one
side, and another off-camera flash with a coloured gel, slightly behind to
create a back-stage look with a theatrical feel.
The other was to create a dressing room scene.
There are 3 dressing rooms at the Theatre Royal. The 2 larger ones were going
to be used for outfit changes, hair and makeup, while the small, 3rd one, was
going to be empty, so I could have that.
While you might think that's the set sorted, all I need to do is place people
in it, in reality actual dressing rooms are nothing like as rich, atmospheric
and theatrical as they are portrayed in the movies. They tend to be much
sparser and utilitarian.
At this point, we brought in Marie's friend,
Penny, a visual merchandiser who creates window displays.
We had access to the theatre the day before the show, as it was being used for
dress rehearsals. Penny and I raided the clothing and props departments and
set up our wee space to look like the kind of dressing room you would expect
to see – with racks of clothes, mannequin heads with wigs, and a chaise
longue.
I then had to figure out how to light it, as the bulbs around the mirrors
weren't enough, and the overhead lights destroyed any sense of mood and
atmosphere.
I managed to grab a couple of people to try things out, and while I started to
make progress, I couldn't get a look I was completely happy with. I didn't
want my off-camera flashes in shot, but it was such a small space there didn't
seem to be any options to get in back and side lights.
I got home that evening feeling frustrated and deflated. I slept badly,
continually waking up with it all running around my head. And I hadn't even
had the chance to try out the stage wings idea, so if my best guess on that
failed too I wasn't going to be able to produce anything remotely close to my
original visions.
At some point, the idea of a standard lamp leapt into my head. I've used this
solution before a couple of times. The trick is to place an off-camera flash
with an orange gel where the bulb would have been. It creates a much stronger
light, while appearing to be just a natural lamp in the photo.
Fortunately, when I arrived at the theatre a couple of hours before the show,
they were able to find me one in the props department.
I also tucked another off-camera flash down between the clothing racks on the
right, thereby lighting up whoever would be on the chaise longue, which
otherwise would have been lost in shadow.
To my delight, and relief, this worked exactly how I hoped, and I was finally
able to get the look I was after.
Sometimes it feels like you're just not in the right flow and every step is
difficult and energy draining. And then other times it feels like you're
completely in the zone and everything flows almost effortlessly.
When my first test shots in the stage wings also worked almost perfectly, I
felt like I had suddenly shifted from the former to the latter.
The finale of the show featured the wonderful Angela Green, who some might
remember I photographed on an aeroplane at Dumfries Aviation museum a few
years ago in a promotional shoot for Mrs Green's Tearoom (see – Up In The Air
with Mrs Green's Tea Lounge).
During the mid-interval break I photographed her both in the stage wings, and
in the dressing room – although with her massively wide dress, it was a bit of
a squeeze!
I spent several days editing the images, polishing them up and pushing pixels
around the screen until I had them honed the way I wanted, then sent them off
to
Dumfries and Galloway Life magazine, where commissioning editor, Andrea Thomson, had told me she was going to be
doing a feature article on both Circle Vintage and the Re:Dress fashion show.
In the end she used half a dozen of the images, and I was delighted how they
looked in print.
If you're interested in listening to me talk about this shoot in my
weekly live video podcast, Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres, then click
on the video below.
And scroll to the bottom of the page for the full list of credits
CREDITS
All photography: Kim Ayres Location: The Theatre Royal,
Dumfries Concept and Execution: Circle Vintage, Dumfries Slow
Fashion Movement
Dressing Room: Background clothes and props supplied by the Theatre
Royal Set styled by Penny McNeish
Reclaimed cardboard animal head wearable sculptures by Norval Forrest
Hair and Makeup (All shots) Hair: team led by Nelson Brown,
with Joyce Money and Caitlin McDonough, assisted by Katie Maxwell. Make up: Abbie Turner and Claire Robson, assisted by a team of S5 & S6 pupils from
the ASDAN Hair & Beauty course at Dumfries Academy (accompanied by their
teacher, Mrs Esther Papworth).
Outfits
Designers and Makers: Marie McKinnon Daniel McKinnon Fiona
Gordon Lorna Nee Trash Nerd Clothing Morag Macpherson Emma
Visca Claire Hamerton Emily Major Julia Mesnikoff
Models: Angela Green Julie Ward Joseph Harper Emily
Major Isla Wilson Kate Langton Tim Zhovreboff
Lizzie Craufurd Sarah Vose Katy Brown Jessica
Sweeney Katy McLaughlan
Last Tuesday evening's live video podcast of
Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres was the last podcast I'm doing
on a Tuesday.
In a couple of days it will have a new home on Sunday afternoons at 3pm UK
time.
After 86 weeks, why the change?
In essence, it's my attempt at reducing the time spent around it.
When I started the podcast back in April 2020, the world was in Lockdown, my
photography business suddenly had an indefinitely empty calendar, and I could
pretty much devote as much time to is as I wanted.
Tuesday evenings at 7.30pm felt like an ideal time for those who did evening classes,
or attended camera clubs (of course I was thinking primarily of a UK audience at this point).
It also meant I could spend most of the day preparing for
it, while Wednesdays could be used for reviewing how it went, editing it if necessary,
writing a blog post that was probably related to something from the podcast,
and then doing all the social media stuff of putting photos and links across
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn to encourage anyone who'd missed it
to go and take a look.
And if that meant by the time I got to Thursday I was an exhausted wreck and
all I could do was sit about, dribbling into my chest, then that was fine – it
wasn't like I had any meetings or photo shoots to attend to.
As time went on, I realised that if I overdid things on a Tuesday during the
day, it seriously impacted my ability to do the podcast in the evening. I
couldn't push through with a coffee because that would mean I wouldn't really
sleep that night and my ability to do any of the rest of the stuff on a
Wednesday would be screwed. So I found I was starting to use quite a bit of
Monday for podcast preparation too in order to do less on a Tuesday so I could
conserve my energy.
Basically, the best part of half of my week was taken up with the podcast in
one form or another.
But it was also exciting that I was building something where it would only be
a matter of time before I achieved global domination, and I would have tens of
thousands of followers contributing via buymeacoffee.com/kimayres. Finally I
might actually be able to make the income I always dreamed of without the
Chronic Fatigue limiting me. Simply put, the same amount of work goes
into the podcasts whether I have 10 viewers or 40,000 so the potential seemed
limitless.
However, after more than a year and half, the podcasts have failed to attract
more than a handful of regular viewers. These people are wonderful, amazing
and I love the interaction with them every week. I cannot believe there are
not more people out there who would enjoy the podcasts just as much, but I the
reality is I don't have the marketing skills to find them.
Despite what the social media platforms would have you believe, just creating
something awesome and putting it out there every week, isn't enough.
So as the vaccines have rolled out, and I'm continually looking for real-world
photography jobs again, at this point spending half my available week
dedicated to something that's bringing me in only a small handful of donated
"coffees", is utterly unsustainable.
I don't want to drop it though – I get a huge amount of enjoyment and pleasure
out of helping people get a deeper understanding of photography.
The only option then, is to find a way I can contain the whole thing within
one day.
After lots of soul searching, head scratching and conversations with my wife,
I decided that if I did the podcasts in the middle of the afternoon on a
Sunday with a strong cup of coffee, instead of having my usual exhausted doze,
then I might just be able to get away with it.
3pm also has the advantage of making it available to a much wider part of the
world. 7.30pm UK time meant that the whole of Asia was in bed, while being on
a Tuesday meant most of those located in the American continents would be at work in their
afternoon. This new time means that far more of Asia will be awake in their evening, and most
of the Americas will be able to tune in on a Sunday morning with their breakfast or mid-morning coffee.
So the plan is to spend the morning doing the preparation, pushing through the
podcast with a good strong coffee, then do all the social media stuff in the
evening.
If it works, then I will have contained everything to within one day, be more
accessible to more people around the world, and it will free me up to continue
my career as a real-world photographer.
However, one casualty is likely to be this blog. It's highly improbable I will
be able to fit writing a blog post into the day along with everything else
that needs to be done.
Which I have some regrets about.
For me, it's felt like a bit of an achievement to produce a blog post every
single week since the podcasts began.
From the pre-Facebook days when I used to post up to 3 times a week, the blog
had tapered off over the years to the point where I was often writing less
than once a month.
But when I began the podcasts, I decided to use the blog to explore either
things that were happening with it, or the emotional impact it was having on
me, or just allow myself to shoot off on some wild tangent.
I always enjoyed creating blog posts, but with limited time, energy, and
income, it had steadily got pushed down the priority list. However, by
creating a regular slot every Wednesday morning where, before I'd even
looked at my email, I would sit at the computer and write a post, I was amazed
to find that I never failed to actually write something. Not all of them
have been Pulitzer-Prize winning stuff, admittedly, but there are a few I'm
particularly pleased with.
While some are purely informative – ideas and thoughts for the next Podcast
Photography Challenge, for example – many are explorations of thought and
feelings where I have always strived for an emotional authenticity, and
occasionally peppered with a bit of wry humour.
In an earlier incarnation of this blog, I used to have on the header,
"Everything in this blog is true! And some of it actually happened..."
I never received a single comment about it, so clearly "wry humour" is in the
eye of the beholder...
Anyway, the point is while I do still have every intention of creating blog
posts whenever I can, realistically they are not likely to be happening every
week any more.
Unless it turns out that having more time by streamlining the podcasts gives
me more space to write...
When I asked Narelle what was involved in being a luthier, she replied that if
there was an instrument that was basically made of wood and strings, then she
could repair it or make one from scratch.
Narelle's plan was to write a book about creating instruments. Not a
step-by-step maker's guide as such, but about the processes. More of a coffee
table book than a manual.
While Narelle had studied photography herself, she hated having her own photo
taken, so part of my task was to create some portraits – both head shots of
her looking directly into the camera, and images of her at at work.
The photos would need to match the look and feel she wanted to create for her
book, so we explored Google Images, Pinterest and several books from her own collections, to get
a sense of the direction she wanted to move in. It soon became clear she
favoured a warm colour palette rather than desaturated blue-greys that were
quite popular – less Nordic, more Italian was her comment about the style she
would be pursuing.
On the day of the shoot, when I drove out to her workshop in rural Cumbria, it
was a cold and dreich November day, so ideas of soft sunshine flowing through
the windows, lighting up the workbench were abandoned. Fortunately she had log
burner stove installed so we were able to stay warm.
The key shot we needed (the one at the top of the page) was where we started.
I knew I wanted to shoot into the corner with the workbench in front and wood,
books, tools and instrument parts behind her, but I struggled for a while to get the lighting I
desired. I had one light to the left and another to the right, but still it was falling flat.
Eventually I realised I needed a light behind her, so balanced a third
off-camera flash onto the shelf. A quick burst of a small smoke machine
allowed that light to then diffuse a little and make it feel a bit more
atmospheric.
A quick note about the editing – because Narelle was wearing a white top, it
reflected the mostly warm brown wood colours, so the whole image looked a bit
too yellow-shifted. So in post-production, I subtly moved her shirt into the
blues, which had the effect of allowing the rest of the photo to have the warm
tones without looking jaundiced.
The close up portraits were a simpler set up with a single light in a large
softbox. The trickier bit here was overcoming her reluctance to be in front of
the camera and engage with me through the lens. It's always easier to take
photos of someone when the are looking elsewhere, as they don't feel so self
conscious. Getting someone to look straight into the camera without appearing
like a rabbit in the headlights is the real speciality of the portrait
photographer, and is all about building the relationship and trust.
I was still keen on the idea of a casual photo of Narelle leaning against the
bench, lit by the sun coming through the window. So I put an off-camera flash
on a stand outside the window, and we angled the blinds to get the striped
shadows. Another wee burst of the smoke machine allowed the beams of light to
subtly show up.
Here are a few more shots from the day – wood shavings, close-up hands shot,
and a photo of her grandfather's plane next to herown.
Narelle was great company throughout. From the pre-shoot meetings to the full
day of photography, conversation continually flowed easily with never an
awkward pause. She also made us pizza for lunch.
The book itself has been shelved (so to speak) for now. What with the onset of
Covid, and the fact she is now pursuing a masters in music psychology and
neuroscience, it could be a wee while until she gets back to it. However she
is determined to do so once she has the time.
and below you can enjoy Episode 86 of
Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres, where I chat about the photoshoot with Narelle, and give critique on images
submitted to the podcast.
If you decide to click through and watch it directly on YouTube (rather than
here on the blog), then you can watch the Live Chat Replay and see the
comments people are writing in real time as the podcast progresses.
---
2:00 - Welcome, what's coming up, greetings and comments
06:31 - Photographing The Luthier
26:29 - Moving the podcasts to Sunday at 3pm
32:53 - Introduction to the Critique Section
35:40 - Robert - horses on a frosty morning
40:50 - Jim - woodland path
46:32 - Megan - photographing the aurora
56:35 - Pat - how much editing is acceptable?
1:01:26 - Nurije - Exeter Cathedral
1:06:27 - Vandana - urban street
1:10:39 - 3 Types of Photographer - hunter, farmer, and scavenger
1:15:08 - Rose-Marie - a puppy behind bars
1:23:44 - Bennitito - Eastbourne Pier
1:27:27 - Should photos have borders?
1:34:08 - The next podcast is on Sunday at 3pm - set your reminders
1:36:01 - End
If you found this interesting/useful/entertaining, then please consider
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Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel -
https://www.youtube.com/kimayres
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And, or course, if you would like to submit a photo for feedback, or just ask
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Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres Facebook group and I will put
it into the following podcast:
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