I’ve been reading a book by portrait photographer Robin Gillanders (‘the photographic portrait’, 2004, David&Charles), and felt inspired to try a set of portraits with friends. This is the first of the lot – our session took place this afternoon in Keith’s summer house – I added the Bee and a mirror to the mix, and Keith tried to add his cats, Hugo and Claire, but they had their own ideas (‘you want me to sit near a baby?!’). Robin Gillanders repeats the mantra ‘keep things simple’, which is a idea that brought me some relief in recent times, when options (of location, kit, editing etc) have threatened to seem exponential and overwhelming (surely to be professional, I need at least 5 lenses, and three photo editing programmes on my computer…?). Robin often carefully adds a couple objects to his portraits that tell us something about the sitter, and I really like the idea of playing with this method – see if you can spot the objects Keith and I have chosen!
These are a few of my favourites from a quick initial trawl of the results.
Keith, the Bee & me |
Anyone who knows Keith well will probably immediately spot the glass of juice. Couldn’t resist including the Bee in this one… |
‘I AM THAT.’ Keith & Hugo. I like the way they are both looking down. |