Photographing Out Aloud: Sheffield's Gay Choir.

Recently, I photographed Out Aloud, which is Sheffield's LGBT Choir.



It was a really interesting project, the key to which was meticulous organisation. I attended a week before I was taking the photos, so that I could get an idea of the room, the lighting, and do test shots, all of which I took a note of, with different lenses, focal lengths, and flashes.



This meant that I could attend on the week with confidence that I was as prepared as I could be. I had made notes of the shots I wanted too, which helped me reassure myself that I wasn't leaving at the end of the night, missing a crucial shot.





It's always worth remembering that, when the choir requests a 'silly photo' at the end, getting everyone to jump at the same time is trickier than it looks. Each photo represented various stages in what was essentially a mexican wave. I don't know why tenors and basses are so much quicker off the mark than the sopranos and altos, but it was consistently true.



All the photos can be viewed here in their flickr set, and if choir members or others want to buy individual prints, they can do so here.

A CD of the photos is going to the choir committee, for them to use them.

Black and White Portrait.

Portrait of my mate Mark.



NaBloPoMo

Crouching Texter

Classical Art Colour Match

This colour-match tutorial states,

Adjusting your photographs to get the color 'just right' can be a chore. Think about this: The Old Masters of painting spent years of their lives learning about color. Why let all their effort go to waste on the walls of some museum when it could be used to give you a hand with color correction?

I used 'Garrotte' by Santiago Bose to really alter, and improve, the colouring of this photograph of the church in Edale, Derbyshire.



With the tutorial and the Bose image, I created this:



I then used the same technique on this portrait:


and, using the colours from this floral painting, created this quite different mood.

Jane Bown (Audio)

Interview with Jane Bown

Jane Bown has been a photographer for over 50 years, spanning from the end of the Second World War onwards.

She is known for photographing many famous faces, and has a refreshingly simple approach to her art. She works in black and white, without special lighting and prefers to not know anything about her subjects. She became known for take portraits within ten minutes and sounds understated and appears the same, approaching most shoots with no other equipment than the camera. She has captured some really iconic images of really iconic people.

She was interviewed on Woman's Hour a few weeks ago, and I have uploaded the interview here as an .mp3 for you to listen to or download.

She's really interesting to listen to, and you can see more about her, and her work:

• Jane Bown Gallery (Observer)



• Jane Bown (Wikipedia)



• Jane Bown (National Portrait Gallery)

Ninety Smokers by Dan Donovan

Dan Donovan undertook an interesting project. To create a photographic documentary of smoking in the run-up to the smoking ban. He photographed smokers, smoking in places where it would soon become illegal.

I undertook this project with the aim of taking a series of portraits of smokers in locations that will be affected by the smoking ban; to archive the final moments of their freedom to smoke publicly.
This collection of work isn’t about either promoting or vilifying the act of smoking; it’s intended to capture an honest representation of smoking culture in Britain pre-July 2007.
The act of smoking has been increasingly demonised over the last number of years and these portraits take in individuals from all over England, from every walk of life, who were prepared to make a visual statement of their objection to being represented in this negative way.
The people here are law-abiding citizens who would be committing a criminal offence if they posed for a photograph in the same location today.

Interesting extra:

On my travels I met up with two people who work in the field of mental health, Kate Parry in Oxfordshire and Steve Thompson in Derbyshire. Steve says Nicotine has been shown to reduce the side-effects of psychoactive medication – more than 90 per cent of people with schizophrenia smoke, and nicotine is being used by self-medicating sufferers. Steve has been challenging attempts to try and outlaw smoking for patients.

You can see his collection of ninety smokers, and read the story behind it on his website.

Warholisation - How I Did It in Photoshop Elements

1. Open a portrait, ideally a head or head and shoulders shot.


2. Layer > Duplicate Layer


3. Filter > Stylize > Solarize


4. Filter > Adjustments > Invert


5. Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Brightness and Contrast


6. Play around with the brightness and contrast settings until you are happy.


7. Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue and Saturation


8. Play around, especially with different hues, until you are pleased with the resulting colours


9. Using magnetic lasso tool, draw around the shoulders, neck, hair, head etc.


10. Right click on the image and choose 'Select Inverse'


11. Right click on image, click Feather


12. Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Colour


13. Pick your Colour. Press OK.


14. Crop the image if necessary


15. Layer > Flatten Image


16. Save your image