Glasgow

Songs From The Last Page

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Photography, Video & Artwork for Gareth Williams’
“Songs From The Last Page” project

“Songs from the Last Page” is an ongoing project by an acclaimed composer/songwriter Gareth Williams where he lyrically transforms iconic final pages from Scottish fiction into brand-new 'literary chamber pop' songs. I’ve worked with Gareth on various ventures throughout the years (such as “Navigate the Blood”) but “Songs from the Last Page” has been really special. It’s been growing and developing for the past 2 years and I’ve been fortunate to be involved from the beginning: taking photos, filming, and eventually working on promotional artwork and CD packaging. For someone who thrives on creative control, this has been a dream. We shot at Edinburgh College of Art, recording studios, and even travelled to the Scottish Highlands to photograph the album cover at Loch Glass. You can check all of that and more below and you can catch Gareth performing some of these songs live at this year’s Fringe Festival. The album is out now.

2021

2022
with Deirdre Graham.

2023
with Aisling O Dea (violin) and Justyna Jablonska (cello) at GloWormRecording studio.

“Song from the Last Page of Lanark” Single Cover.

Fringe promo poster

Fringe promo poster.

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

Marissa Keltie

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Portfolio shoot with Marissa Keltie

I’ve known Marissa Keltie for a few years and have worked with her several times as part of The Eves duo. However, this was the first time I photographed her alone. Aside from being a talented musician, Marissa is also a commercial model and a voice-over artist and was looking to update her portfolio. I love how these images turned out and I think Marissa is pleased too cause this is what she had to say about this session:

 
“Kris Kesiak is such an amazing photographer who I have the pleasure of working with regularly. He always manages to get the shots I’m looking for and always has a smile on his face, singing and dancing - shoots with him are lots of fun!”
 

I’m blushing although perhaps I should cut down on the singing, I’m not that good! Aaaanyway, the shoot took place last month at Basement49, an East End studio I use a lot and you can see some images from that day below:

GEAR
Nikon D850 + Nikkor 85mm f1.4
Tiffen Black Pro-mist ¼ Filter
Profoto B10 + Profoto OCF Softbox 3' Octa
OCF Softgrid Octa
Reflector

COP26 Activists

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portraits of climate activists at cop26 in Glasgow

The COP26 theme is back, hope you don’t mind - it was a busy couple of weeks for Glasgow! This was a really enjoyable job which, after the seemingly never-ending lockdowns, made me feel excited about photography again.

Project Everyone is a United Nations Global Partner for SDG Advocacy and Outreach which seeks to put the power of communications behind the Sustainable Development Goals, also known as the Global Goals, and I was asked to take photos of their climate justice activists who arrived in Glasgow from all over the world for the conference. It was a beautiful sunny November day and the shoot took place in Broomielaw area of the city where Global Goals put up a huge billboard displaying giant post-it notes with their 17 sustainability goals. Each activist was asked to pick a goal close to their heart and got photographed in front of it. Here’s a selection of images from that day:

GEAR
Nikon D850
Nikkor 85mm f1.4
Nikkor 50mm f1.4
Tiffen Black Pro-mist 1/4 Filter

Double Take Projections at COP26

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I’ve got something different for you this time - i.e. no mug shots of anyone! As much as I love portraiture, the reality of being a self-employed, working photographer is that you grab job opportunities from all kinds of sources. This was definitely the case with this project - I’ve never done anything like that before but I ended up thoroughly enjoying it.

Double Take Projections is a brilliant company specialising in projection mapping. A mutual client of ours (Skypark) recommended me to them during COP26 when they needed a last-minute photographer to cover their guerrilla work with Scottish environmental artist Elizabeth Ogilvie. We spent a chilly, yet immensely fun evening driving around Glasgow, eating pizza and gummy bears, and projecting Elizabeth’s beautiful films onto various buildings. My job was to document it and here are some images from that night:

GEAR
Nikon D850
Nikkor 85mm f1.4
Nikkor 50mm f1.4
Nikkor 14-24mm f2.8
Tiffen Black Pro-mist 1/4 Filter
Tripod