People – Selkie’s Photography

HNC Photography

It’s all over. Officially. The certificate arrived in the post (much like the Higher one, although this one actually made it to the right address this year) and my former class mates are off onto the HND. I’ll do mine next year once I’ve worked a bit and paid off a few bills.

So I thought I’d do a bit of a collection of the different work I’ve accumulated over the year of work. So the year started with the still life unit, so there was some studio work but we went outside with lego for It’s a Small World. Then I took it further as the unit ended with the tiny model railway people re-enacting Hands, Face, Space. Some of the other work from the Still Life unit appeared in my more general Autumn post.
New year, new lockdown and we did most of Portraiture in our own homes and I ran a little short on models. The final term was Documentary photography and my final project was Unsafe Spaces. In which I discovered that Photoshop could really use a spell checker function. The Applied Photography unit showed that there was more than just taking photos… The infrared or ultra violet were pretty different although quite easy to do on a basic scale. A more practical application of the infrared was the trail camera. Watching Indy at night wasn’t exactly riveting but it was something I wanted to try for a long time. Finally there was an accumulation of work in an over haul of the Portfolio and the way this site looks.

So it’s just a matter of wait and earn… and hope they let me back in next year…..

SQA Higher Photography

In a decision that I made what seems like many moons ago, really it was only last year, I started studying at night school for my Higher. The work builds up into a year-long project and an exam. Of course covid-19 stepped in and the exam was cancelled, so I have no idea how that would have worked out. The project, however, is half finished and the photos mostly unshared. I kept the photos quiet while I was working but it’s time to share what I did work on.

So it was called People Make Glasgow…. Oh that sounds familiar, you say? Yes, I’ll admit it was a shameless theft of the toursim catchphrase. It did give rise to an interesting set of images as I went out to find “people”. I didn’t manage to get the final set of images so I’ll share some for my favourites from the shoots I did manage to complete. The whole project was about 2 shoots short of a full set.

2 of the shoots were attempts at street photography. The city centre at night – Halloween night to be exact, and Pollok Park and SEC craft fair. I got quite into these shoots.

The next shoot was a marathon of a single day. Riverside Museum in the morning and the Style Mile Christmas Carnival in the afternoon. This yielded a lot of images and a fair few that would probably have made it into the final line up. It was brilliant trying to catch images as the parade went past in manual mode, that was a challenge.

Over the month of December I centred on the Christmas markets in George Square. It was a challenge to get images handheld in the darkness.

My mojo kinda left me after Christmas for a bit and the next thing the world had changed from under us. I took my camera with me to work at an office in the city centre for the final week before the lockdown started. Then it was empty streets and lines outside supermarkets and pharmacies. For a project that had people at heart it got very complicated.

Eventually word came through that we wouldn’t be submitting anything of the project for external assessment. So it has been gatering dust since.

The results arrived last week under a storm of issues. The SQA were taking the teachers/tutors grades and downgrading some of them based on the outcomes of the place where you studied. I got very lucky, my grade remained what my tutor submitted. I got an A.

Teide

Well I’m home and this is the last of the main days of shooting in Tenerife. The beautiful volcanic mountain of Teide. It’s last eruption was in 1906 so the thousands of tourists that visit everyday are probably safe. It’s the highest point on the island and national park status makes it a massive draw for those who love climbing and hiking.

You can still see the lava flows on the surface of the mountain and the edge of the crater.

There’s a cable car that runs up to a considerable altitude. From previous experience I know I don’t do well at altitude (I did plenty of that in 2013 when I went to Switzerland, before I took any serious photo.) so my time at the top was short and peppered with the sight of me utilising my asthma inhaler. But as the cover image for this post shows it really is the top of the world…..

These stacks of rock from the volcano remain when the softer rock around them wears away.

If the whole thing looks a bit other worldly then you won’t be surprised to hear that it’s sometimes used as a replica for the surface of Mars as it has similar properties. I could quite easily imagine this as a backdrop for sci-fi B movies.

The National Park requests that people keep the the paths to reduce damage to the landscape. Which must be a mammoth job.

Santa Cruz

The capital of Tenerife and a city with so many different architecture styles thrown together.

Mostly taken from the city tour bus as it was only a short visit. I could have spent all day staring at the Auditorium. It’s designed to look like a wave crashing.

It fairly dominates the view in the area.

Capture Christmas Competition

Before Christmas Wex, that purveyor of fine camera equipment, taker of wages, and destroyer of credit cards, ran a competition. There were 3 categories; food, family, and festivities. Here’s all the winning photos.

Well I sent this in as an entry in the food category and it, somehow, magically, came first. I know I’m still slightly speechless. This is actually the first time a photo of mine has won anything. It was a slightly ridiculous set up in my bedroom to capture these tiny model railway road workers. What made me laugh was the number of models that were not actually doing any work. The dude with the clipboard is clearly the foreman though.

What it looked like from behind the camera

So with my camera on the tripod, which was more of an after thought actually. I spent 2 packs of chocolate coins getting the stacks right. They were meant to be for my nephews but I did replace them. These tiny model people don’t stand so well by themselves so they are often stuck to the ground with glue dots or parts of them.

As for camera settings, with a tripod you can get away with massively long shutter speeds. So ISO 100 and a tiny aperture to get a depth of field. I might have gotten slightly better results with a macro lens but the 24-105mm f4 lens does have a macro setting. Next time I’ll try focus stacking with Affinity photo. So there’s sharpness from the front all the way to the back. I settled the focus point on the face of the work foreman, in case you are wondering. No post processing either. It came out just the way I wanted it, with a bit of practice.

I did another set up but it wasn’t as effective. Although the guys are standing around not working very hard here.

A Little Early Summer Sun

I’m taking a break from the almost endless street photography in Glasgow rain for my higher to enjoy sun in Tenerife. The higher is going well I’m 4 shoots into the 7 I’m aiming for. I kicked myself for missing big things like the Independence March and the opening event for Celtic Connections. But I did a lot over Christmas in the markets and the Style Mile Carnival. I’m not really meant to share them till I’ve done the project submission and I’ve nearly hit burnout because everything was starting to look the same.

In fairness though I’m essentially doing the same but as my tutor was trying to encourage me to do at one point was to embrace the banality. However, its much easier to do in a different country where everything that would be boring, or everyday, is strange and unusual to me. Try doing it in your day to day life when you are in your third month of processing invoices.

Stick a palm tree beside a motorway and its something worth looking at.

I went to the market today and hoping to go back on Tuesday morning because it got very hot and was almost unbearable at the end as they were packing to go home. It was brilliant but the harsh midday sun was causing shadows that are hard to compensate for.

It’s an enjoyable way to spend a morning.

And finally…………

Edinburgh Night Street Photography

So last night I took part in an event run by Wex (where most of my wages go) to learn nighttime street photography from Edo Zollo. His work on the streets of London at night are great and figured it would be fun.

It was mostly about getting the lighting and camera settings right. If I can get past putting heads dead centre of shots then I might have a chance. It was quite different to what I usually get up to and I think I have really learned something.

Barrhead Colour Run

I’m a bit late in posting these….. They have been all over the social media though.

So I’m slightly cautious with these as a got some cracking shots involving people I don’t know, mostly children. Although as a public event in a public place it’s not as problematic as say a private kids party. I’m also not selling these for commercial gain. I would need model releases for an awful lot of people.

If only my back wasn’t hurting so bad (I toppled over 6 days before) I would have liked to arrive earlier and work for longer. Maybe next year.

Friends of mine – Elaine and Anne, nearing the finish line.

So I wasn’t willing to risk destroying the shiny new camera body on the powder paint… the night before I fitted it into an OpTec rain sleeve (cos they are 2 for £5 and I wasn’t gonna cry over that. They do also work well in the rain. No I’m not sponsored by them.) I sealed it in with duck tape (tie dye cos colour run obviously) round the lens hood, viewfinder and the neck straps. The sleeve doesn’t normally accommodate the straps but I popped holes in so it wouldn’t accidentally turn upside down when I wasn’t using it. (I’m more guarded in the rain but figured that I would need to volunteer occasionally. The other Girlguiding leaders were throwing the green powder around.)

It did inhibit the autofocus at the extreme ends of the lens’ ability so I’d move the sleeve further down the hood before taping it off. It was successful though. The strap is still green in places but no green inside the lens mount or on the mirror/sensor. I’d call that a success.