Photography

Fashion Editorial with Barbra

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FASHION EDITORIAL WITH BARBRA

I’ve known designer Barbara for a few years now. We’ve collaborated on several occasions (here for example) and became friends along the way. Earlier this year I decided to carve out a day every month for personal, creative work where I invite various people to collaborate and take some photos just for fun. It allows me to experiment, and try things I don’t get to do with paid clients. It also gets me excited about photography again. Barbra’s been on the list of prospective collaborations for this and lucky for me she was up for having some photos taken. We shot a lot with hard light that day, something I’ve always been scared of but I am scared of it no more thanks to how this shoot turned out. We were going for retro vibes - some Old Hollywood, some 1980s. Have a look below.

Hair, Make Up & Styling: Michelle Watson
Studio: Basement49

GEAR
Nikon D850 + Nikkor 85mm f1.4
Tiffen Black Pro-mist 1/4 Filter
Profoto A1 x 2
Profoto B10
120cm Octabox
Softbox 3' Octa
Softgrid Octa
Reflector

Women at COP26 Exhibition

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TRONGATE 103 Gallery SEPT 29 - OCT 23 2022

New Portrait Exhibition

I wrote about several projects I was involved in during COP26, and one of them was #GirlsAtCOP26 where I photographed various female speakers from all over the world. The event has since won an international award and now, almost a year from the climate conference in Glasgow, an exhibition featuring 50 portraits of women I took during those two weeks in 2021 is opening on Thursday, September 29th at Trongate 103 Gallery in collaboration with Street Level Photoworks.

Claire Stewart, a friend of mine and a brilliant photography lecturer at City of Glasgow College, is curating the show (she was an invaluable asset when I was putting together my previous exhibition). We’ve been working with Claire, Glasgow City Council and project manager Shirani Sabaratnam for the past 6 months and while the last few weeks have been rather stressful, I’m now excited and delighted to be finally able to let everyone know about this project. Prints have been made by the ever-reliable folks at Deadly Digital using environmentally friendly materials. The exhibition runs till October 23rd so there’s plenty of time for you to go and see it and when you do, I’d love to hear about it!

Scroll below for some behind-the-scenes snaps taken during preparations as well as the gallery’s opening hours and location.

 

Trongate 103 Gallery opening times:

Monday CLOSED
Tuesday 10:00 - 17:00
Wednesday 10:00 - 17:00
Thursday 10:00 - 17:00
Friday 10:00 - 17:00
Saturday 10:00 - 17:00
Sunday 12:00 - 17:00

FujiFilm x100v

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Thoughts on FujiFilm X100v Camera

My name is Kris and I am a lazy photographer. What I mean by that is that I’ve never been the type of photographer who carries a camera everywhere they go, taking pictures of anything and everything. I’ve always admired such people, I’m just not one of them. I value comfort and practicality above all else. See? Lazy. When I started taking photos, it was with a Zenit 11 and that camera is built like a Soviet tank, not exactly a “throw-in-your-pocket” type of equipment (although it could certainly double as a weapon if one had to defend themselves). In recent years, with photography becoming my full-time job, I’ve worked with various Nikon DSLRs - D700, D4, D850 - but these are expensive cameras to be carrying around and not exactly light or compact either. I’ve realised, however, that I missed taking snaps of my friends or of places I was visiting. I’d usually use my iPhone for that but it never feels right for me, no matter how great the phone cameras are these days. And this is what brought me to the FujiFilm x100 series.

I’d been watching various YouTube videos about these cameras, reading reviews, checking prices on eBay, and last year I eventually bit the bullet and bought the then recently released x100v model. First of all, it’s beautiful. I often feel that in the digital age the aesthetics of a camera are the last to be considered. I realise that what a camera looks like isn’t of utmost importance for most, and I’m not too bothered about it either when it comes to the equipment I use for work (the Nikons aren’t exactly ugly but they won’t be winning beauty contests anytime soon). However, if I’m going to carry a camera with me every day, I want it to be compact, practical, and, yes - pretty. And the old-school, analog-borrowed look of the whole x100 series is really lovely (I went for the silver model). As for the performance, I’ve been shooting with x100v for almost a year now, always have it in my bag, and I really love it - it definitely exceeded my expectations when it comes to image quality and it also brought back the joy of taking photos just for fun, without overthinking. I’ve got it set on Aperture priority and don’t worry about much else. I mainly use it for personal things: meeting friends, traveling, behind the scenes, etc, but I’ve also occasionally taken it out on work shoots and ended up with decent results. All in all, I’m super happy with it, and here are some examples of snaps I’ve taken with the FujiFilm x100v so far:

New Year, New Decade

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I thought to myself, does anyone want to read another post from a stranger writing about what this past decade meant to them? Probably not. You’ve been warned then, and can just scroll down to the pretty pictures cause I’m diving in!

I don’t know why we feel compelled as humans to do these end-of-year/decade/whatever lists but for me, there can be something comforting about it. My memory is pretty crap and I tend to forget the bad things that happen to me quite quickly, or at least I can’t recall the details so their impact is diminished. I therefore focus on the positives and it always ends up being a hopeful exercise - cause if you can find something good in the past year for example, no matter how challenging it might’ve been overall, chances are there’s more good to come in the 12 months ahead

So 2019 was definitely a strange one - a lot of soul searching, figuring out myself and what I want from life and my career. I took up horse riding which I’m thoroughly enjoying, started meditating (thus becoming the kind of person I would roll my eyes at only five years ago) and reconnected with some old friends. The main event however was my first solo exhibition. It took months of preparations and help from a lot of people as well as shitloads of anxiety but it couldn’t have gone better in the end and its reception was beyond anything I could’ve hoped for.

As for 2010s, it was a decade of some big personal decisions like leaving my job to become a full time photographer and buying a flat with my partner. But when I look back at it, it’s actually the people who stand out more than anything. The friendships and connections I made, something that came as a surprise byproduct of what I do but that is definitely one of the nicest, most rewarding things about my job.

Here’s to 2020 and to the new decade then. Leaving you with some of my favourite shots from last year (I did toy with the idea of compiling a ‘best of the decade’ selection but the task seems way too daunting just now):

SONGS OF 2019
Bad Guy Billie Eilish
Crave Madonna
Juice Lizzo
Like Sugar Chaka Khan
Don’t Start Now Dua Lipa
Adore You Harry Styles
Late Night Feelings Mark Ronson
Ass Like That Victoria Monét
Don’t Call Me Up Mabel
Scandalous Camille Trust

ALBUMS OF 2019
Madame X Madonna
Late Night Feelings Mark Ronson
When We All Fall Asleep… Billie Eilish
Ventura Anderson Paak
New Breed Dawn Richard
Cuz I Love You Lizzo
Kiwanuka Michael Kiwanuka
Fine Line Harry Styles
Norman F*****g Rockwell! Lana Del Rey
Sault 5

Pictures

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Pictures is a project by Cliona Cassidy (voice) and Catriona McKay (harp and harmonium). I've worked with both artists on several occasions over the years, have great respect for them so it was a pleasure to be asked to photograph and design their EP. Cliona and Catriona had a very clear idea of what they wanted for the cover image and its inspiration was a famous Frida Kahlo photograph of the Mexican painter working in her studio (which you can see below). We first took a portrait of Catriona and then photographed Cliona standing next to an easel, just like Kahlo. Rest of the work was done in photoshop. See the EP cover below as well other images from that session:

GEAR
Nikon D4
Nikkor 50mm f1.4
Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8
PocketWizard FlexTT5 Transceiver
PocketWizard MiniTT1 Transmitter 
Nikon SB-5000 Speedlight
Neewer 120cm Octabox