Shadow Portrait – Hazel
One of an ongoing series of double exposures of girls. This is a shot of an artist friend of mine Hazel. She works with a lot of natural components and I wanted to get that across in the shot somehow.
Movember Mugshots
Movember Mugshots
Well here are just a small sample from my shoot from the end of November celebrating all the moustachy for the Movember charity. We had a great night and raised £295 for the charity. I love how some of the characters that came along look totally convincing as criminals while others just look like someone having fun.
Movember Mushots!
Add yourself to the Facebook event or turn up on the day
Jacob takes flight
Joanne
Joanne
On Luskentyre beach. One of the hundreds of pictures of locals on the Isle of Harris I shot last week for the new Harris Distillery they are building in Tarbert. Joanna was very patient and understanding. I was really looking forward to shooting this portrait as I knew the early evening low light would combine with my lighting to give an effective image. I wasn’t counting on 72mph winds though! I don’t know how she managed to keep her eyes open, it was like standing in a sand shower!
Dead of Night
Dead of Night
Marek stalks the streets of Edinburgh on a foggy night. Shot these for book cover images for Trevillion, a library I work with.
first flight, low light.
first flight, low light.
Jacob on Raven Crag by the Hardknott pass in the Lake district. Very low light, almost totally dark but I think the movement and noise add something.
cuba!
cuba!
Been shooting for Havana Club in Cuba. Huge amount of fun, lots of work though and tough in the heat. This is Havana from one one precious day off. There’s not much in the shot to tell you it’s not still 1959!
Between the crippling USA trade embargo and still being communist, the country is in a pretty desperately poor state. Beautiful though, especially the people.
Matt and George
Matt and George
Good friends of mine, Matt and George. Wonderfully creative people who tick the eccentric box so had no problem with my ideas for a photo. These are all there own glad rags too so it makes my job to capture their character a lot easier. Matt was pretty exhausted, it was a long day on the piste!
Fraser – in sailor mode
Naval Gazer – Fraser in sailor mode
Fraser’s a friend of mine who worked for many years as an officer in the merchant navy aboard some of the world’s biggest tankers. He took his sextant into the studio and tried to explain to myself and my assistant Greg how to use it. I think we nodded and frowned at the right moments and I liked the bit about the moon and stars but frankly he lost me at azimuth.
I’ve had this sailor outfit for a while and figured Fraser was the right man to don it. This isn’t for a specific project but just for the sheer joy of creating an image.
The Hare II
The Hare II
This was a shoot from my time up in the North East of Scotland. A beautiful morning spent at the decidedly creepy disused Lido in Banff. The weather was spectacular and the location lent itself perfectly to the mood I was looking to create in the shots. These are part of my ongoing Mythologos project. The mask itself came from a tiny craftsman’s cellar workshop in a beautiful village in Tuscanny. I liked that the man I bought it from didn’t speak a word of English. There was much waving of hands.
I liked that the location reflected my interest in things we have left behind. The arrival of cheap flights to ‘The Continent’ cast the death knell of this lido and countless others like it. As a child I spent summers playing in the waters along the coast at Findhorn. With the gulf steam curling round to this unlikely coast the water was surprisingly bearable. Still, the Mediterranean it is not.
otto flies!
Otto flies! – from my MythosLogos series
From a shoot up on the banks of Loch Ness in Autumn of 2013. Again we had two hour window on a job and myself and my good friend Iain sneaked away first thing to shoot these. I can’t explain how much I enjoy the preparation and build up to these kind of projects. The shoots themselves are usually a bit more fraught. I’ve always felt a bit unsettled by that but having watched a number video clips of other photographers shooting I don’t seem to be alone in this.
I made the wings over a week in a cottage on the beautiful isle of Lewis last new year. I loved seeing my sketches convert into the full size real thing. I now know the ins and outs of Krista’s sewing machine.
In case you wondered the name Otto is in homage to the legendary Otto Lilienthal a true pioneer of early flight. In keeping with dedicated slightly over enthusiastic innovators he died on one of his flights. I’d love to see a film of his life.
Ok, this is it – the first blog entry!
I’m just finding my feet with this thing. I’m hoping it will be something I update with some interesting work on a regular basis. Time will tell!