A quick and painless 30 minute flight and I am now in Belfast for a wedding. When I was aimlessly hunting for food, I came across David Hughes and the City Hall. I don’t know which was more beautiful.
Belfast is the same kind of pretty Glasgow is (in my opinion); there are a few really good buildings that stand out, and lots of nice textures kicking about. I’m looking forward to photographing my first wedding of the year tomorrow (in the City Hall!).
If you look through my Flickr stream, you will see that since 2009 only a handful of the photos I’ve taken have been self portraits. Generally I avoid being in front of the camera (unless it’s Instagram, but those filters seemingly make anything forgiving). I find self portraits too finicky, and they usually result in me hating my face or body. Basically, self portraits are not my favourite form of photography to explore.
Occasionally, though, Rick and I talk about the need for a project that coerces us to pick up our cameras. Enter Seven Days of Self, a mini project that involved us taking a self portrait for 7 days. Simple. But this time we had people vote on themes, which were decided on the day. This generally left little time to plan and get the shot out there. By the way, I never have worked well under pressure.
Here are some facts:
Rick and I didn’t discuss the concepts in any detail, so we didn’t have much of an idea what each other were shooting. This made the big reveal quite interesting, and they always turned out so differently.
Here are the themes from all seven days. If you click on them it will take you to my Flickr, where there is a more in-depth description of each photo.
Thank you to everyone who voted! Despite not loving some of my shots, I think the project was a success based on the reactions of other people and how involved some of you got, not to mention that it encouraged me to attempt something a little different.
I’ve also included Rick’s photos from the project here. It is pretty obvious which ones are his ‘cos he has a beard.
Summer came over the weekend. In true Scottish style it has now gone, but I still got to play in it with Kaitlin. I’ve known this girl since the day she was born and she’s now a grown up 17 year old. This makes me feel old.
We headed to my old neck of the woods, Inverkip, and shot around the pontoons and on the beach. The sun was too harsh, meaning I’ve discarded a lot of the photos. Everyone kept saying “It’s a great day to take photos”, but I prefer when it’s a bit shady.
I photographed Kaitlin over a year ago for my sister’s make-up palette. Time flies!
Shona is like my own personal Rachel Khoo, except she bakes in my big Glasgow kitchen as opposed to a little Paris kitchen. This time Shona made a nectarine cheesecake, which suited me as nectarines are one of my favourite fruits. She also topped it off with almonds, but worry not, I’ve included the full recipe below.
Ingredients you will need:
And here’s the recipe:
I first met Kay in February when I was shooting for Parma Vintage on Asos Marketplace. We swapped details so we could do a proper shoot at a later date, and that time came yesterday. I headed to Newark Street in Greenock where the Cherry Blossom trees are in full bloom and the properties are old, Victorian buildings. Basically, it’s a pretty sweet location to shoot with a lot of surroundings to utilise.
Yesterday was a pleasant reminder why I love photography.
