Portraits for a donation to Down's Syndrome Scotland

This Saturday (17th November), I’m going to be taking fast, fun portraits for a mere £10 donation to Down's Syndrome Scotland, at the Catholic Church Hall in Kirkudbright (on High Street, across from The Tolbooth) from 10am to 4pm



Stewartry Camera Club are holding an Open Day with an exhibition, slideshow, tombola, refreshments, home baking, and people to offer advice on photography. Because of the talks I have given to the club and a competition I judged for them (see The Challenge of The Self Portrait), they have kindly offered me a space to set up a wee area to do portraits to raise money for a great organisation.

I have to confess that at this point in time, I have no idea whether there will be queues around the block, or if I’ll be sitting there for 6 hours twiddling my thumbs, with only the occasional friend turning up to show a bit of support.

Despite the fact £10 is barely much more than having a passport photo taken in a booth, I’m not convinced most people understand the value having their photo taken by someone who knows what they’re doing.

The question is, when you and everyone you know has a camera on their phone with auto-focus, auto-exposure and even face-recognition, why bother parting with money to have someone else take your photo?

It’s a question all portrait photographers have to face in this instant, digital age.

The only real answer to this is - I have to go places the iPhone can’t.

That means it’s not about the technology – whether I have a bigger camera with fancier lenses and a higher megapixel count – because advances in technology will soon make any such advantages redundant. Your average camera-phone today is superior to a professional digital camera from 10 years ago.

Therefore, it’s about the vision; the creativity; the style. Of course anyone can take your photo, but can anyone take your photo like Kim Ayres does?

Although Saturday is primarily about raising money for Down’s Syndrome Scotland, it will be interesting to see how successfully I’m getting that message out there.

Do come along if you can, and bring a friend. But if you’re not in the area on Saturday, then feel free to pass this on to anyone else you know who might be.

And if you can't make it along, but would still like to donate (any amount - even £1/$1/€1), then please visit my page on JustGiving.com - http://www.justgiving.com/kimayres

Masayuki Kino at The Mill Sessions

Back in September, one of The Mill Sessions I was able to attend featured world class Japanese violinist Masayuki Kino.

Being a small venue, where you cannot fit more than about 50 or so people in the audience, has plusses and minuses. The biggest advantage is the intimacy – it has the feeling of being just one step up from having someone playing in your living room. You are sitting just a few feet away from the performers and can often feel the music resonating in your chest.

The disadvantage is it means even if the venue sells out, there’s still a very limited amount of money to pay for high quality, better known performers.

We’ve been fortunate in that we’ve managed to find a lot of really good up and coming singers and musicians, and there’s a wealth of local talent we’ve been able to tap into for support acts.

Masayuki Kino, however, is in a totally different league. You would be expecting to pay big bucks for a ticket, and probably dress up in your posh gear to attend a performance. However, this was a case of someone who knew someone who knew someone else, and as he was in the area was happy to do a set in exchange for the door takings to be donated to charity.

He also had two young protégés with him, Tomone Yokoyama and Ena Shibata, who started off the set with outstanding playing, before Kino-san himself treated us to a virtuoso performance.

As with most of the Mill Sessions over the past 2 years, I took photos of the performers for the Mill Hall of Fame before the evening began.



Masayuki Kino, Ena Shibata and Tomone Yokoyama


Masayuki Kino


Ena Shibata


Tomone Yokoyama

Debi Gliori, Tobermory, Cats and Controversy

Debi Gliori is a children’s author and illustrator with at least 75 published books to her name, the latest of which is called The Tobermory Cat, loosely based on a stray ginger tom that was well known about the town of Tobermory on the Isle of Mull, off the West coast of Scotland.

As something of a local celebrity, the cat was even given a Facebook page by a local artist, Angus Stewart, who photographed the cat, made up wee stories about him and posted them online.

Debi’s publisher became aware of the cat on one of his many trips to the island while in conversation with a local bookstore owner and thought it might make a lovely children’s story and approached Debi to create one.

What should have been a delightful project, which might have boosted positive publicity for the Tobermory, Debi, the cat and Angus, all turned sour when Angus accused Debi of stealing his idea and started a campaign against her, the publisher and the book. And as word spread from this one-sided perspective, some Internet trolls fuelled by a sense of righteous indignation, or just plain malice, got rather nasty – initiating cyber attacks, phone calls, insults and threats. You can read Debi’s own account of events on her blog - The Tobermory Cat, the trolls and me.

I found out about all this when I was at the Wigtown Book Festival a few weeks back (see - Return to Wigtown Book Festival) with a new project to photograph authors as literary characters. The Festival organisers had put out feelers to the authors attending to see who might be up for getting involved, and Debi was one of about a dozen who responded.

Debi decided she’d choose the character of The Cat and the Fiddle from the nursery rhyme, as not only did it fit in nicely with part of the story from her new book, but she also plays the fiddle herself.

The Festival had provided me with an empty shop I could use as a studio, so we fixed a time in the evening when it would be dark outside and I could control the lighting.

I set up a single light to cast a strong shadow and I photographed Debi sitting on a stool reading the book. We then removed the stool and book, fitted a little band with cat ears on it to her head and she took up a stance with her violin to create the shadow we wanted to use. Working collaboratively is part of what I love about creating images via the camera, and Debi was a delight to work with – interested, involved and contributing ideas all the way.

Then it was down to some serious editing in Photoshop to merge the two images and add a tail.

This was the final result


Debi Gliori, The Cat and The Fiddle

Thanks also have to go to Renita Boyle for all her help and support.

I’ll be posting more photos from the series of authors as literary characters over the coming weeks – stay tuned...

Irish Singer Songwriters

You go for ages without photographing any, then 3 come along at the same time…

At the Mill Session last Saturday we had Irish singer songwriter, Eleanor McEvoy, performing a much smaller gig than she’s used to, although I think she enjoyed the intimacy the venue gives. With a high ceiling, the acoustics are rather lovely, while the fact you cannot seat more than about 45 people in the space means it has the feel of being only one step up from your living room.

I met up with her in the afternoon before the gig to take a photo for the Mill Session Hall of Fame. Despite being the most well known performer we’ve had there, there was nothing of the diva about her. Friendly and down to earth, she was interesting to chat to and photograph.

Looking through the photos afterwards I decided to go against my usual black and white style when I realised this photo looked so much better in colour.


Eleanor McEvoy

Then on Monday, out of the blue I got a phone call from Irish singer songwriter, Ben Sands. Although I’ve still yet to see him play live, I first met him about 6 years ago at a small, one-off mandolin-playing workshop he ran in a nearby village as a favour to a friend.

We kept in touch and when I started my photography business I told him to call in and get his photo taken if he was in the area. It took a few more years, but sure enough he took me up on my offer, popping round in the afternoon. Most of the photos he has of himself are friendly, smiling and holding his guitar, and we did one of those, but I also wanted to do a slightly more darker, moodier photo of him, which he was up for. Below is the result.


Ben Sands

Finally, this Friday evening (21st Sept) is another Irish singer songwriter playing at the Mill Sessions who goes by the name ODi. I’m going to miss her performance and the chance to take her photo as Maggie and I are off to the Northumberland coast for a weekend away in celebration of our 17th wedding anniversary, but I’ve no doubt those attending the gig will be in for a treat.

Spring Fling Featured Artist Q&A

Spring Fling is an annual open studio event across the South West of Scotland where all sorts of artists – from potters and painters to sculptors and jewellery makers – open their doors to the public for a long weekend.

It’s been going for the past 10 years. I’ve been in it the past 2 and my wife, Maggie, has been for the past 4.

This year the Spring Fling blog started doing features on the different artists involved, and this week I take centre stage.

You can read all about it here:
http://www.spring-fling.co.uk/blog/kim-ayres/

A Model From The '50s

Pat and I have been blogging buddies for over 6 years, so when the opportunity arose to meet up with her in person 3 years ago, I leapt at the chance (see Meeting a Legend). She turned out to be every bit as interesting, elegant and warm as you would expect from reading her blog, and what was supposed to be just a mid-morning cup of tea and a scone stretched into lunch. It seemed over all too soon as we had to head off. Quick photos were taken in the car park and promises made to meet up again if we were ever back in the area (not that frequent as we live about 400 miles apart).

In the intervening years since that encounter, barely a week has gone by when I haven’t kicked myself for utterly failing to capitalise on the fact that Pat was a model back in the 1950s. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve stared at my camera and pondered that missed opportunity.

So when Rogan and I started planning our road trip this summer, there was only one thing at the forefront of my mind – I had to get a photo shoot with Pat. Of course there were other things like meeting family, climbing tors and visiting Stonehenge, but this was one highlight I didn’t want to miss.

I emailed Pat to see if she’d be about during our trip down South and whether she’d be interested in a photo shoot. To my delight it was a yes on both accounts. But rather than just go for standard poses, we thought we’d have a bit of fun and recreate our own versions of some classic images, with Pat sending me links to photos she particularly liked. I did my best to try and work out how they were lit, and when we set off I made sure I took a portable lighting kit and backdrop with us.

It might have only been the 2nd time we’d ever met up, but being back in the company of Pat was as comfortable as if we’d been friends for 20 years. This time we also got to meet her husband as well as “French Son,” both of whom were very welcoming and friendly. Between long chats, plentiful food, cups of tea and an afternoon siesta we even managed to get some photography done.

Although we were never going to have time to do all the shots we’d like to have, we did manage to construct the couple I was most keen to do.

The first was a classic Hollywood type of photo in the style of Marlene Dietrich, complete with a fake cigarette.



While for the other, Pat wanted to see if we could approach something of the feel of Annigoni’s portrait of Her Maj, the Queen.



The vast majority of people I photograph begin by feeling very uncomfortable in front of the camera, and a fair proportion of any photo shoot is spent building their trust and helping them to relax with me before we start producing images that don’t have an expression like a cross between a grimace and a startled rabbit.

With Pat, however, from the word go she was right there with me – patient while I adjusted lighting, committed to each shot and working collaboratively to produce the best image. If we lived in the same town there’s no doubt I would be making excuses to photograph her on a weekly basis.

You can find Pat's blog about our day here, with a couple of set-up shots and one of me & Pat together, here.

Photographing Bellevue Rendezvous

Several years ago on a day trip to Carlisle, I came across a woman busking with a stringed instrument played with a bow. It was a bit larger than a viola – but rather than pressing the strings with her fingers there were an array of keys being fingered to change the notes. Additionally there were several strings sitting below the main four, which weren’t played, but vibrated sympathetically with the notes that were. The overall effect was a deep resonant sound that you could feel in your chest as she played. After standing mesmerised for several minutes I suddenly remembered I was supposed to be meeting up with Maggie and the kids. I dropped a pound coin into her case and headed off into a world that was now subtly different.

Two or three years later the same woman, with the same instrument, turned up at a folk session in a pub I was at. It turned out she lived locally, the instrument was called a nyckelharpa and she was called Ruth.

Over the next couple of years, Ruth would occasionally turn up to the folk sessions with her partner, Gavin, who played a mean fiddle. I lost count of the number of times that when she played the nyckelharpa I had to stop playing and just listen to – indeed feel - the sound reverberating deep inside me.

I then discovered Ruth, Gavin and another guy called Cam, who played the cittern (not dissimilar to a bouzouki, but with 10 strings instead of 8), had a band called Bellevue Rendezvous. Far from being just a local outfit, they toured in Europe, played at Celtic Connections, and had CDs you could buy. So I bought them and played them to Maggie who also fell in love with their sound.

Maggie and I were both desperate to see them play live, but on the rare occasions when they were performing locally, awkward timings or lack of babysitter meant we weren’t able to.

For the past 18 months or so I’ve been involved with The Mill Sessions - a small venue with lovely acoustics, which can’t hold more than about 50 people in the audience. It means the gigs have an intimate feel – barely a step up from having performers playing in your living room – but those limited numbers also mean there’s little money available to pay for high quality, better known musicians. I knew, however, if I could get Bellevue Rendezvous there, it would be something special indeed.

So to help sweeten the deal I offered to top up the fee available from the Mill with a photo shoot so they could have some good publicity images. They agreed and on the morning before the gig I went out to Ruth and Gavin’s with my camera, laptop and a couple of portable studio lights.

We started with an idea I’d been mulling over for a few days, with Ruth sitting with the nyckelharpa on her lap, Gavin on a high stool behind her to one side and Cam standing further behind and to the side, creating a sweeping diagonal across the image.

It took a bit moving stools and adding cushions to change heights but we got there (as always, click on the images for larger versions).




With an acceptable shot in the bag, I was now free to try some other arrangements and managed to get some great diagonals and triangles in this one:




Pleased with that I felt I could now play a bit more and I pulled out the wide-angle lens, which had the effect of distorting the image a bit and exaggerating the size of the instrument, as well as creating some stronger lines.




Finally I decided to ramp everything up by getting in really close with the wide-angle lens, and adding lots of texture in the post-processing of the image afterwards. It’s my personal favourite of all the images, although I’m well aware it won’t be to everyone’s taste.




With the photo shoot out of the way, that evening I was able to just sit back and enjoy the gig with Maggie, and it was truly every bit as wonderful as I’d hoped for, and more.

With my camera resting on my knee I recorded a couple of their tunes. The sound is only coming through the built in microphone, so doesn’t do it full justice, but the videos below should give you a reasonable idea of their music. But if you can’t get to see them live, the next best thing is to buy their CDs, put them on a really good quality sound system and turn it up loud enough to feel the vibrations in your chest.

Midsummer Music Festival 2012

Last weekend was the Gatehouse Midsummer Music Festival. Once again I went along with my camera for a bit of practice at performance photography on the Friday and Saturday evenings.

Low light is the biggest problem. With the performers moving, slow shutter speeds (a technique for letting more light through the lens) aren’t possible as the images will end up blurred. The only other option is to dramatically increase the ISO, which means the images become “noisy” or “grainy.” However, by dropping them into black and white, the grainy quality can help make them look a bit more like music press photos.

Here’s a wee selection of the images I took, but you can find more on my Flickr or Facebook pages here:
Flickr
Facebook


Alasdair Roberts


Samba Sene


Finding Albert


Sally Campbell


Shiznitz


Shooglenifty

On the Sunday afternoon, the band I’m in, Scruffy Buzzards, was performing, but as I was playing I was unable to take any photos. If, however, you’d like to keep up to date with Scruffy Buzzards performances along with videos and photos as they appear, then please visit our Facebook page and hit “like”
www.facebook.com/scruffybuzzards

Farino in the Stairwell

When the high-energy, foot-stompingly good guitar duo, Farino, performed at The Mill Sessions last year [see – Farino At The Mill Sessions], I did a photo shoot with them for The Mill’s Hall of Fame.

When they were invited back for another high-energy, foot-stompingly good gig at The Mill last Friday, I did another photo shoot with them in the afternoon before their performance.

To be honest they really hadn’t changed that much in the intervening 14 months, so doing another set of headshots seemed a bit pointless. Instead I thought I’d try and go for something a bit more compositionally interesting, looking at the use of lines and shapes.

I had a few ideas, which I was pretty certain would look good, but they based around the idea of being outside with plenty of light and space. Unfortunately it was chucking it down with rain that had no intention of easing off.

After trying out a couple of potential places, we settled on the stairwell of The Mill.


Making the most of diagonals


More sweeping shapes

The gig was sold out, which was good for the local band supporting them, as it gave them a bit more exposure to a warm crowd. This was particularly good news for me, as the local band was Scruffy Buzzards – the one I’m in.

I’ve gone back and checked through past posts and am surprised to discover I’ve not blogged about Scruffy Buzzards at all, and this is the first mention of them. I will rectify that soon, but for those who interested, you can find out more about us on Facebook here:
www.facebook.com/scruffybuzzards

Spring Fling, Artist in Residence, and The New Book

Last autumn, I was artist-in-residence at the Wigtown Book Festival, where I took 173 portraits of visitors, residents and authors over 10 days.

These photos were then pinned to walls of “The Hut” – the studio space I’d been given to use for the duration – and each person’s name, along with the title of ‘a well-loved book,’ was scribbled underneath.

I’ve now created a book of the event, which includes all the portraits and a journal of my experiences as I progressed from naïve enthusiasm, through loss of confidence and on to final success.

Like my previous books, Facing The Weekend, and Staring Back, it’s been created via blurb.com – an online, print-on-demand publisher. You order the book and they print it and post it to you. Unfortunately, it’s not very cheap, but then copies are being printed off individually rather than en mass.

However, you can download it for your iPad or iPhone for a mere £2.49 (approx €3 or $4) because there are no printing or shipping costs.

If you would like to see and handle a printed copy, then I will have one with me this weekend when I am back at “The Hut” in Wigtown for the Spring Fling Open Studio Event (studio 6 in the brochure – visit the Spring Fling website to download the brochure app), from Saturday 2nd to Tuesday 5th June

If you can’t get over to visit, then take a look at the widget below to give you a taste.

If for any reason, the widget below isn't working, then click on this link for more details
www.blurb.com/my/book/detail/3244464

Artist In Residence by Kim Ayres