Postal Pipe Band Part 2

Friday. The thermometer in the car read 34C at one point. Blazing bright sunshine. A good night to be outdoors in Scotland. A bit trickier for photography though, so I knew that I'd have to be working with some high shutter speeds and would have to keep an eye on the shadows while I was shooting.

Anyway, I got up to Edinburgh Castle and wandered inside to meet with the band. I wanted to take a load of shots of them before they went on, and get a few of the dancers too. It turned out to be one of those 'not enough time' moments to get every shot you wanted, and photographically it was a little challenging at times too. Because the sun was quite low it cast a lot of shadow, but it was incredibly bright too, so at one point I found I was using a shutter speed of 1/4000th of a second. I still find it fascinating that parts of my camera go that quick!!!
 

Anyhoo, images. Here they are.

Craig

Postal Pipe Band Part 1

A week or so ago I was contacted by Jamie Starr, the Pipe Major of the Edinburgh Postal Workers Pipe Band. I've known Jay for a while, being in pipe bands myself on and off for twenty years, and he invited me up to Edinburgh Castle where they were putting on a performance for the public. 

I've been looking to photograph a pipe band for a while now, not being able to play any more myself, so I arranged to come down to the band practice the night before the gig and take some shots, and then said I would come up the Castle and do some 'behind-the-scenes' shots of the band there too.

I was delighted to see dancers there too. As soon as I know which school they're from I'll post up a link too.

Here's a few images from the practice session on Thursday night.

Craig

In Print, Funding & Other Stuff

So for the last few weeks I've been working on a funding bid to submit to Creative Scotland, formerly known as the Scottish Arts Council. After many edits, revisions, wailing and gnashing of teeth I submitted the Project Inspiration bid a few days ago. Now just got to wait eight weeks to find out if I'm successful or not.

Eight weeks.... It's going to drag. On the plus side, I do have several things to do to distract me, which is always good. Besides the shoots I have planned I'm compiling corporate sponsorship applications too, in the event I'm not successful, or funding I can apply for alongside the Creative Scotland support.

Did get a wee bit of good news the other day too. Digital Photographer magazine dropped me a message asking me to submit a headshot because they're going to quote me in an article about Photo Retouching in their next issue. I'd made a post on their forum a few weeks back in a thread discussing Photo Manipulation and Retouching, and I'd made several points about how it is acceptable to a certain level to edit photographs. Basic examples of this are simple mono conversions, spot removal, bits and bobs like that. 

Then I brought up an example of twiggy or lulu in the Oil of Olay advert where their skin was photoshopped to a ridiculous level and the press jumped on it. It was a couple of years back now, but basically it was tantamount to false advertising.  I finished by saying that people need to learn where to draw the line between acceptable manipulation and lying, and how I believe photographers should be firm where they draw it. 

I asked the editor to tell me which bit they were going to quote, but I haven't heard back, which is a pretty shrewd move on their part - now I'll have to buy the magazine to find out!!!

In the meantime I'm thinking of adding a section to my site on photo editing and retouching, explaining what I'll do, what I won't, and how for me it's all about the lighting and showing the subject off at their best, but NOT changing them into someone else.

And lastly, just a quick update on the project - it's all been emails, emails and emails. Chasing people down to invite them to participate in the project is a frustrating experience. If I can direct them to the message, either on the website or here, then they inevitably say yes. The frustrating bit is trying to get the information past the agent/publicist/webmaster. Because there's no money involved, many of the agencies just delete the email straight away so it never gets to the subject. I need to find a way around that..... but I have a plan!!!

Craig

Stats after a month

Okay, I know, boring title which will probably make you groan and click desperately on something else, but the geeky part of me finds this interesting, so I thought I'd share a bit of what's happened with the blog in the first month it's been online.

568 hits (delighted about that. My old blog got 3000 in 18 months)
489 views from the UK, 57 from the US, and the rest a mixture from places around the world like Australia, Sweden, India, France and Germany. I think that's kinda cool.... although that probably says a lot about my definition of cool lol!
Someone even browsed the blog on an iPod. I didn't even know that was possible!

Now here's the weird thing.
The most popular posts on the site haven't turned out quite as I expected. The Project Inspiration posts have held quite a lot of the traffic which is great, and the Mini-Muse posts have been looked at a lot, but the most popular post on my blog to date, outscoring all the other posts by quite a way.......

Boredom..... the one where I shot a self portrait.
Seriously? 
My fugly shot is the most popular post on my blog?
I'm beginning to wonder about the tastes of some people.....  :D

Anyway, wee bit of statistics there for anyone who hasn't fallen asleep yet.
Thanks for visiting and keep coming back in the future. You can even leave a comment.... hint hint!

Craig

June's looking busy!

So here's what's in the pipeline, because June's looking like a busy month. 

For a few days over the first couple of weeks of June I'm going out with Jamie from REVEAL Scotland to meet and photograph the other featured artists from the website. Jamie is producing a magazine later this year and he's asked me to do the photography for it, which is really cool.

As soon as the tickets arrive for Edinburgh Zoo I'm off out to photograph it, and write up a review for the disabled access website Able2uk www.able2uk.com I'm really looking forward to doing this review, and I'm hoping someone from the zoo will be available to help me get some good positions for some cracking images.

Then it's time to photograph the latest addition to the Project Inspiration list, Ian Rankin. A world-famous author who's books have been turned into TV shows, and a household name, I was absolutely delighted on friday night when Ian agreed to participate and I'm very happy with his enthusiasm. I'm bouncing a few ideas around just now, so watch this space. In a few weeks time.

Then towards the tail end of the month I'm shooting Dougie MacLean up in Dunkeld. REALLY looking forward to that too, especially because I've been listening to his music since I was a kid and can even play a couple of his tunes on the guitar (badly)

At some point I hope to fit in Jim Kilpatrick too, and I've got some spectacular ideas for that particular shoot. Jim's a drumming legend, and as a long time drummer myself, the minds eye is prodding my imagination towards some very cool shots.

Then at the end of the month I'm helping my mum out with a fundraising event for Clic Sargent Scotland, a charity that supports Children with Cancer and Leukemia, as well as their families. She's been organising a charity PA with Big Brother 11 winner Josie Gibson, and I'll be photographing her a few times over the weekend for the event website, as well as making up a pretty cool video too. 

At some point during the month I hope to fit in Chrissie too, who due to the adverse weather conditions has just spent three hours tonight at my house. Talking my ears off! We usually only end up seeing each other every six months or so, but it's always great catching up and she's fun to hang out with. I've got a couple of cool ideas for the shoot with Chrissie but I need to research a couple of bits first before I tell her. And if you're reading this Chrissie, you'll just have to wait lol

Anyway, lots happening in June. Expect lots of blog posts, lots of new images, and if I've got time I'm gonna squeeze in a wee portfolio shoot too - I've got an idea I've been itching to try for at least 18 months now!

Craig 

Gemma Chan

So we did more than just the motion shoots that are in a previous blog post. I thought I'd pop a few up here.

Gemma was really good to work with, so I'm sure she'll feature again here soon.

Craig

Project Inspiration: Part 6

Well, the list of people involved in the project is going upwards and that makes me a happy person!

Yesterday I heard back from Jim Kilpatrick, and he confirmed he's happy to be involved in the project. Jim is a legend in the Pipe Band community, not just here in Scotland but all over the world. He's won the World Solo Drumming Championships a record 16 times, he's the Drum Major of House of Edgar Shotts & Dykehead Pipe Band, one of the top bands in Scotland that has won the World Championships 15 times, and he's been at the helm since 1987.

He teaches internationally, he is heavily involved in the development of pipe band drumming technology, and he also has an MBE. Jim is a classic example of the type of person I'd like to be involved in this project.

But there's more....

Jamie from REVEAL Scotland has been on the phone with me too and has asked me to photograph each of the profiled artists on their website. I'd discussed with Jamie before about including them in my project, so it looks like we'll get to kill two birds with one stone. Jamie is looking to use the photographs for a magazine coming out later in the summer, and it's always a wee bonus for me seeing my work in print.

I also spoke to a friend of mine a few days ago, Chrissie Red, who you may have seen shots of on my blog or website. Chrissie has suffered from anxiety at a debilitating level and has managed to become Scotlands top art-nude model, sought after across the whole of the UK, and a pretty nifty photographer too. In the modelling word of hyper-criticality, (if that's even a word) it must have taken a great deal of courage and perseverance as well as talent to get to where she is today. When I asked her about her involvement she said, "If it helps one person out there with their anxiety, then I'm in."

More people like the ones above please!

Craig