I posted a number of updates to the main web site recently.
There are a lot of more recent images added to the portraiture galleries including some of this year’s Holy Communion photos.
I added a small gallery of Story Boards and Album Pages just to give an idea of how these turn out. The Story Boards are a great product to capture a particular moment in time. They typically include a main portrait, some support images of the child or children with their family to set some context and a then a set of detailed miniature images of the things that are special to the child at that point in their lives. They are all custom designed, printed and framed and range anything from 50cm to over 1.2m wide.
It was great to see one of my photos posted all over West Cork over the weekend.
The guys from Aesop’s Fables and Foibles are in Gougane Barra this week and posters featuring a photo from a session I did with them are on posters posted all around the place.
One of the kids spotted them first as we passed through a town on the way out to Allihies. It then became one of those great kids games to find another poster as we travelled around.
I must admit I had great fun shooting a bunch of actors doing mad stuff in cardboard outfits!
I just finished catching up with RTÉ’s ‘the Look of the Irish’ season on the on-line player. Some really good stuff in there: some arty-farty stuff, artists who take photographs; some very interesting profiles of ‘real’ photographers; lots of interesting archive material as well.
If I had to pick one it would be John Minihan. I came across an small exhibition of his work from Cuba at the Kinsale Arts Week (last year?) and subsequently realised that not only did I have one of his books already, but his work is also hanging in the English Market. Very interesting for me to see the man talk about his work and to get his full bio.
But they’re all worth a look if you have the time. I think RTÉ keep them up for a couple of weeks. Start here and explore: http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1053611
I got an e-mail this week from David A Williams announcing more seminars (none in Ireland yet unfortunately) and also his new web site. It is well worth a look, lots of lovely images but also some thought provoking messages.
David is inspirational. Not only in terms of his photography but also the way he encourages photographers to look at the value of their work: ‘You do not make portraits of children for their parents, you make them for when the child is a parent’. He emphasises the work of a photographer as a creator of unique memories which will prove to be priceless.
The thing is, the true value of these memories only truly comes home to you sometime later when your family experiences a dramatic change and it is apparent that the moment captured by the photograph has gone forever.
Getting your family together for a photograph is an easy thing to put off or just never get around to doing.
It doesn’t matter who is missing or what shoes you have on, take the photograph, make the memory. You will never regret taking a photograph, you may regret not having a memento of your family at a unique point their history.
It took a lot for me to ask my mother to pose for a portrait for me way back when I was about 20. It probably took more for her to agree. But in the passing years those photographs have become more precious than I could have possibly realised at the time.
Unfortunately parents age. Inevitably children grow up. Sometimes family leave for foreign shores. Take pictures of your family whenever you can. Get them taken with you in them as well.
Whether you hire a professional photographer or not, make a memory, not an excuse.
Well ladies and gentlemen, I managed to see John Spillane three times in the last five days. Fair play to me.
At the last minute we wangled a babysitter last Thursday night and made it down to the Marquee for John and Mick Flannnery. John literally rocked the house, great concert, nice to bring Mick into it too. Cheer the young fella up a bit.
Then I was putting the kids to bed (late) on Saturday night and the call came up the stairs, ‘John Spillane’s on Miriam’. And there he was in a Blaze of Glory, Another Ball Safely in the Back of the Net, doing his stuff for Miriam.
Sunday we headed West through the storms to Dzogchen Beara. The Misses as been interested in seeing the place for ages (I feel a retreat coming on soon) and they have had a ‘Free Spirit’ weekend with events, meditations and free concerts. It was a bit further out along Beara than either of us remembered but we made it without too many ‘are we there yet’s.
Wow, what a wonderful haven of a place. At perfect spot. And there in the evening was John. Fresh from Dublin and RTÉ.
Now believe it or not the kids are big fans. The girls have been since the Live at the Speigeltent DVD came with Hey Dreamer. The small fella gets off his chair to dance and sing to most of Irish Songs we learnt at School.
Another great show. So not-the-marquee. A tent on Beara with 200-odd people. Same great performance (no one getting up for more beer throughout). He even didn’t run a mile when the Mad Woman from Cork (aka my wife) came up and told him our 2 year old was a fan. Oh no, he sang a few lines of An Poc ar Buile specially for him.
So the kids got their dream to see him live, in the perfect circumstances. We got our John Spillane hit (until Christmas anyway). We drove home late (again, thank goodness for school holiday), four in the car asleep but all happy.
Thanks John. Thanks for the Songs From Your Own Imagination. Thanks Dzogchen Beara, you have our support and best wishes.
James is a local musician who seems to have worked with just about everyone in the area as well as touring Europe and the US with various bands. He is extremely talented (and a very nice guy too) and I had the pleasure of shooting some portraits and other images for his new web site.
So you no longer have to take my word for it, check out the site at http://www.shambobala.com/james and keep your eyes open for James gigging in the city and county. He can also be booked for events, weddings and all that (check out the details on his site)
Election material has come through our door practically every day this week. No surprises there. It normally gets discussed in some way at the table. My 8-year-old has a natural curiosity for the whole thing. I think Deidre Clune visiting Kindie while she was Mayor had a long-lasting affect on her. We encourage this: I’m a big fan of democracy. As my mother put it (although in a very different context): ‘people died to get you the vote’.
At one point she declared that we should simply ‘vote for the best looking one’.
Naturally this sparks a discussion on what makes someone good at running the place and what she’d want them to do (free sweets, no school, look after the planet etc).
But she had a point. Putting your face on a poster or a flyer is an incredibly strong visual message. In doing so, each candidate is projecting an image which is going to influence your impression of them and therefore possibly your actions when you scroll down the ballot paper scanning those same images. Even if your vote aligned to a particular party, they hope to influence your transfers.
It is a strongly subliminal message and I’m not sure how deliberately any of them are using it. Certainly the larger parties have a consistent look and I’m sure there has been some strategy behind selecting the presentation of the image if not the image themselves. The smaller parties and the independents seem to just ‘have a good photograph’ (and some not) and have paid little attention to how the style of the photograph projects them.
It works too. I can name many candidates but I know very little about their manifestos.
In actual fact though, those leaflets I have taken the time to read have contained very little policy information – a big photograph and a lot of bio. Its all about personalities and not policies. If you’re in government it is about youth or experience, if you’re not in government it is about change. But no actual policy statements. A picture tells a thousand words.
The style of a photograph does project an distinct image of them. We learn to interpret a face from a very early age.
I take a good few business portraits for people (mainly web site bio pages). I always ask a client what kind of image they’re looking for and many don’t have a strong preference. So I talk to them about their business and we go from there.
Most people I guess don’t really appreciate what a strong and effective visual communicator a facial image is, especially if they’re offering a service. They know it is important to get their logo and their branding right, but few spend the same amount of time discussing their portrait with their photographer.
Now you’ll now notice that there is no image of me on my web site. That’s a photographers curse I’m afraid: we’re too often behind the lens that no one ever takes our pictures. It is not an easy thing to do either: a portrait of a photographer needs to project the quality of their own work but the photo isn’t actually taken by them.
So thanks so David A Williams for this one: David realises the predicament that a photographer is in and ensures that everyone on his seminars leaves with a portrait. Thanks David (again).
There are lots of lovely images coming from family shoots arranged around First Communions. Its a wonderful moment in the cycle of family life, my best wishes to anyone who is making their First Communion this year.
