Children are great for portraits. They don't mind having their photo taken and I can take as many as I like. At this age I can even give some direction (but not much).
As it is less than a week to our local elections I thought I would choose a political theme for the photography blog and this is one of those occasions when I use the same blog entry for both of my blogs.
I am standing for election to Morecambe Town Council and for Lancaster City Council next week. We have been putting leaflets out all year (and last year) but normally the leaflets are produced by us on a Riso printer. We have gone upmarket towards the election and the photo on the left is the background used for one of the leaflets.
I often show the same photo in colour and in monochrome. The two photos place the emphasis on different aspects of the photo. Look to the left and your eye is taken by the green of the grass and the colour in the building. On the right the grass is hardly noticeable and the angles of the building take on a much greater significance.
Pre-wedding meetings are also about poses, (see yesterday's blog) and here is pose number one. Basically it is the pose everyone couple takes up if they are having their photo taken. Bodies slightly towards each other and facing the camera.
Five yards on from yesterday is another prop which brings about natural smiles. The last time i was here one of the groomsmen decided that he should climb to the top. That's fine. Much more important than posing everyone is facial expression.
I went to a pre-wedding meeting this week with the usual aims of finding the backgrounds for photos and in particular where we can have the main group photos. Another aim is to talk through the day including the sorts of poses that are possible. This photo is not a typical pose but park equipment is a great prop.
There is usually a confetti photograph at weddings and I ask those who are throwing it to make sure they have enough for me to take two photos.
The pose on the left is typical and is one of the photos you just have to have at a wedding. In fact everyone gets this photo and that gives me the chance to get photos like that on the right.
I like to go back for the evening receptions at weddings because I am able to take photos like these as the sun is setting. Every venue has great backgrounds for photos but the big advantage on the Morecambe coast is that you can take photos of Morecambe Bay.
For me the facial expression is the most important aspect of wedding photography. Blurring techniques may be a nice addition to any photograph but is nothing in comparison to a relaxed pose.
This was the photo that I took back to the evening reception. You will see that the photo on the left is in the proportion 4:3 and on the right it is 3:2. The reason for this is that I give out fridge magnets which are for the bride and groom and their parents and they are 9cm by 6cm. I also gave them an enlargement which was 8"x 6"/
I like this photograph which has been taken just before the bride and groom join their guests for the wedding breakfast. That's a strange name as it was 4.30pm. I like it because it mimics the photograph taken earlier in the day when the bride and her father were waiting to walk down the aisle.
This is one of the photos from yesterday's wedding in Lancaster. The reception was in Morecambe and a small diversion took us to this venue for a view of the bay. There aren't many places where you can get a view like this. Fortunately this was only a couple of minutes from the reception.
I went round to see a friend last week and his son is considering photography as an option for his GCSEs. In the space of thirty minutes we covered exposure and aperture and shutter priorities. He soon picked up the basic workings including manual focus. Mostly we covered the practical aspects of using an SLR.
I thought that it would be interesting to show you these photos or I should say this photo from a recent wedding. It is a simple pose but I am a great believer in facial expression being the most important aspect of portraits.
There are many people who don't like their photos to be taken but you don't usually count children among their number and my grandson is no exception.
Here are the last two photos from Preston Grasshoppers taken on Saturday. They were taken within a few seconds of each other as I understand that there were two serious injuries on another pitch. Preston's ground is not very far from the Royal Preston Hospital so these injuries must have been serious to call out the air ambulance.
Here is another photo from Saturday's match at Preston Grasshoppers. I showed you one photo yesterday along with an enlargement and I have done so again.
I watched Preston Grasshoppers play Nuneaton yesterday. I have to admit that I like rugby, especially rugby union, but I am not a regular fan. The main reason I went to Preston yesterday was to meet up with an old friend with whom I used to play rugby. He went on to write for Rugby World for many years and he still writes for a golf magazine. He has also had many photos published and always takes his camera to games. Yesterday was no exception and I borrowed his camera with a 300mm lens.
This is my daughter and grandson (nephew and aunt just in case you wondered). The reason I am showing you is that we had a party last week and it was easy to put up my black piece of material and take photos.
A couple of days ago I showed you this view of the Ashton Memorial. I don't usually take the photo in landscape as the shape of the building lends itself to a portrait orientation. However I wanted to use one of the photos that I took on Sunday and make it fit into the frame on the right.
Yesterday I showed you the quickest way to get the Ashton Memorial in the background. On the left is my favourite view. Unfortunately the landscape has changed and the overgrown rhododendron bushes were cut down a couple of months ago but it doesn't take much to walk to the other side of the building as seen on the right.
Whenever I go on a pre-wedding meeting it is always a new experience for me even if I have been to the venue many times before and I have taken many photos at the Ashton Memorial in Lancaster. I mention three options for photos of the couple and perhaps small groups, and this is the shortest version of a walk around the park as they must have this view with the memorial in the background. It only takes five minutes to get here and then we continue our walk around the park.
I mentioned Glasgow's City Chambers a few days ago as you could just see the top of the building on the horizon. This is a view taken from the top of a bus. I often take the red bus tour when I am in a city that I don't know well. Just in view at the foot of the cenotaph is the statue of a lion on the right.
