Rosemary Wright - Make Up Artist

It's always interesting to see what perceptions the subject has when it comes to a photograph. I was booked to get an image of Rosemary Wright for the paper. I was after a visual hook, Rosemary has a nice portrait image that she gives to PR companies but I was looking for that extra something.

The first pic was more a portrait than anything else, a little play it safe in case my editor didn't like what I had in mind. In fact I gave the editor the choice to choose between the two photos. She instantly went for the mirror shot as it was interesting and not a normal portrait.

The second shot was with the mirror, we tried without the brushes first and it didn't look right. Second attempt was much better. The above is the uncropped version, the final version made the paper.

So, how am I going to approach the story telling group tonight......

Don & Natassia Engagement Shoot

I did a great engagement shoot on Thursday night for Don and Natassia. It was relax, informal and we got a great set of pictures. I was concerned about the weather more than anything, driving over the mountain and the rain poured. Once I arrived at the location it was wonderful, the sun was out and the light was good. Just as we declared the shoot as finished the rain was on again.

Looking back at the archive: Maranna McCloskey

Well I just let Lightroom 2 import everything on my hard drive. In Northern Ireland I've photographed a lot of musicians, local ones, visiting ones, festivals and gigs where no one has turned up.

In October 2007 I did a session for singer, Maranna McCloskey. I first met Maranna when she supported Altan at the Danny Boy Festival in 2007. Later on in the year I got a call to do a promo shoot. Now it wasn't the best of October days (it was cold basically and the sky was just a monotone off white colour). We ploughed on non the less and ended up with a good selection of work. Meetings were arranged and proofs deliberated over. Maranna went away happy.

There's always been the niggling thing in the back of my head that the images would have looked better in black and white, but as they were promo purposes they were better off in colour for the client. This afternoon I was tinkering in Lightroom and came up with something a little to a Bob Carlos Clarke-esque tone to it. My little nod to the photographic genious that he was.


The location for these was Downhill Castle in Co. Londonderry. The stone is quite light and when you blast it with white light again it starts to wash out.





Client perception is the name of the game here and these images won't have cut the mustard in terms of a traditional Irish singer. On the other hand, as a set of portraits I love them in the B+W.

Rain, rain, rain, ooooh a bit of sun, rain and really bad rain.

Northern Ireland has been prone to a sprinkle of the wet stuff. This last week though has been more monsoon that summer shower. It's affected the pictures quite badly, events called off and people not really in the mood to go out.

Spare a thought for 12 folk from Limavady Tesco's who are being bussed 19 miles up to the Lisnagelvin Tesco's and then WALKING back to Limavady. It's all for Marie Curie Cancer Care so it's not all bad, but I'm glad I'm not walking with them. No offence.

(Just as well Stendhal backed off for 2008 as it would have been a mud bath, or perhaps that was the whole plan....)

So you wanna be a model?

There are two pages of tips on how to look good in photos in Septembers British Vogue. Some handy things in that article.

The Castlerock Beach stitch up....

When a client requests a picture of Castlerock beach, in the middle of summer you'd think you'd be in with a fighting chance of getting something.

Monday: rain, Tuesday: rain, Wednesday: really bad rain, Thursday: rain, Friday: a window of opportunity.

So off we trott to the location, which is basically free reign to me. As long as it's Castlerock beach. At 6pm and the sun is still way up high and bleaching out colour like no one's business. Plus the other issue with Castlerock beach is that there is no real landmark, nothing to give a sense of location. It could be any beach in Northern Ireland.

So I decided to do a panoramic shot instead, start from the sea and work my way around. It's the one time in Photoshop when the photomerge tool performed perfectly. Only a small retouch on an overlapped cliff and a cloud movement.

I can't show you the picture yet :)

Onwards to the shops for supplies and then onwards to White Rocks. I was hoping that by 8:30pm it would be pretty deserted. No way.


Oh the manual white balance on the Fuji S5 means that you can push to 10,000K giving all these wonderful warm tones in the sunset that you'd need a miriacle for normally. You have an idea in your head and the S5 gives you all the options to do it, the days of near fighting with the light and the Nikon D50 are clearly over.

I'm off to do another Castlerock shot from the other end of the beach this time. The weather forecast for the next few days is rain :)

Stendhal Cancelled

So we went from having a festival....

To not having a festival...


In the blink of an eye. Stendhal Festival officially got cancelled yesterday. A real blow to Tim, Ross and John, more to the point a big blow to the Limavady area as it would have been a great festival.

There's a bunch of reasons why this could have possibly happened which I'm not going to disect here. From a photog point of view this does re-enforce the point of "do your reshoot now". When the call came in to do the pic I thought it wise to photograph both outcomes while I was there. It meant sacrificing a poster but hey, that night was the council meeting where everything hung in the balance. At the time no one knew which way it was going to go.

Once the shoot was in the bag I sent both images across.... who knew what would happen. The outcome was good, the festival was to happen. Only with a week to go the decision was made to cancel.

Shame. No work is lost as it all counts for 2009.

Fuji S5 Pro

I took delivery of my new camera on Friday. My Nikon has done me great service over the last 2 1/2 years but I've been looking at the S5 since February.

After talking to at least 20 photographers about the D200/S5 debate I went for the S5. I'm glad I did, it's a lovely camera. The first major test will be the Stendhal Festival just outside Limavady.