In December I travelled to Wicklow to photograph three generations of the Lawlor family in a beautiful house just outside Wicklow town. The photoshoot was a present from siblings Susan, Alan and Conor to their parents to mark their 40th anniversary, and all we needed to proceed with it was a date when everyone would be able to be in the same room (me included). That day arrived just before Christmas.
Last summer I had two photographic projects which I wrote about but couldn’t really share photos from. One was the Dublin Simon project which made it to print at the very end of the year. The second was a series of staff portraits which I ended up shooting in two pretty short sessions in the company’s boardroom. At the time I wrote a behind-the-scenes post about the taking of the images, sharing only a set-up shot showing the lighting. I promised to refer you to the images when they went live. Well, that time has come.
Up to now, whenever I’ve done studio portraits – or, to be more correct, ‘portable studio’ portraits, I’ve tended to do high key images on a white background. I really like that look, and it works especially well, I think, for child portraits, which I like shooting. But it’s not without it’s disadvantages. In fact, three issues with it come to mind immediately, best summarised as follows: it can be a big hard mess. Last night I started playing with an alternative approach to portraits, and five minutes in I could feel myself being converted. It’s quite possible that for my portraiture at least, black might be the new white.
I’m sure there are lots of rules about portraiture that you could find if you go digging and one of the more important ones might well be: “Don’t forget your subject’s name”. ”Don’t forget to include your subject in the frame” might be higher up the list, but remembering his or her name is important. This is especially the case during the shoot, but also holds true afterwards. Which is why I’m embarrassed to say that I think the subject in the photograph above is called Pat. I think, but I’m not certain. But let’s pretend it is. Anyway, Pat (or whatever his real name is), won’t mind me telling you that the image above wasn’t really about him at all. It was more a vehicle to illustrate of a particular concept of lighting an environmental portrait with flash, and one that I had to fight with in Newbridge a few weeks back as I reached the end of another outing of my Taking Control of Flash Photography course, and as I raced against the clock and the setting sun. And as often happens when time is tight, not everything worked as it was supposed to. But while I might remember that day for all the wrong reasons – not least the technical hiccups with getting this photo, but also the loss of my voice – the people of Newbridge may possibly remember it as the day that the town was blitzed with speed cameras for about 5 minutes. Or so it must have seemed to the passing motorists as we sought to get the photo above.
The whole purpose of my photoshoot in Grand Canal Dock last week was to photograph a group of international students all studying and living in Ireland. Not just any group of international students, though. These students are all able to pursue their studies here thanks to The One Foundation, a private philanthropic fund based in Dublin whose stated aim is “to significantly improve the life chances of disadvantaged children and young people” in Ireland and abroad. To this end, the foundation have a scholarship programme for students who have become separated from their families, and which allows those students to stay in Ireland and continue their education into third level. Attending third level college in Ireland, particularly for those from outside the EU, is an expensive prospect, with fees often running to five figures per annum, and accomodation and living costs on top of that. So for the foundation to sponsor these scholars to the extent that it does is a particularly admirable thing. Last week the foundation brought all its scholars for 2011 together for a meal at Milano in Grand Canal Dock, and it was outside the restaurant that I was to take a group photo. I was glad to see that it was dry, especially when I saw the alternative location for the photo inside the restaurant – a location which was, literally, a black box.
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