Painting With Shadows

Is it over?

2026-05-26T20:08:06.459+01:00

Quite an intense, weird, unsettling, odd feeling, taking down all the photos and moving out of Kindar House at The Crichton, now that Spring Fling is over.

I first came up with the idea of an interactive photography event last September.

It was then pitched to Spring Fling, who embraced the idea.

I then had to find a venue big enough to stage the event, and be indoors in case it was raining (there was never any guarantee of the hot summery days we ended up with), and was relieved and delighted when I was able to secure a place at the Crichton.

Then there's been the headache-inducing planning out how to create a scene with 40+ people in it, while photographing them one at a time, so that no one would be blocking out anyone else.

And of course all the fears and worries that it couldn't possibly work and that utter humiliation was the only likely outcome.

Across the Spring Fling weekend itself, it has been full on talking, explaining, sometimes persuading people to join in despite their initial hesitation or reluctance, as well as discussing the stories behind various photos on the walls, and photography techniques with people who love their cameras.

When we finished last night, it hadn't really sunk in that it was over.

But today, as Maggie helped me pack up everything and move out, I was suddenly overwhelmed with it all.

You don't always realise just how much drive and energy you are pouring into something until it stops.

For months this event has been looming on the horizon, and then for 3 frenetic days I've been in the heart of it.

And now, suddenly, I'm not aiming towards it anymore. It's done.

And it feels so odd.

However, it's not completely over. Now I have to edit all the photos together to create the final image(s).

I haven't even been able to look at them yet.

There's always the possibility that the camera might have decided to focus 2 foot in front of every shot I took and everyone will be blurred.

I hope not, but an exhausted brain will often feed us our worst fears rather than exciting possibilities.

Meanwhile we have the funeral of an old friend to attend on Thursday, the start of a photography commission on Friday, and the podcast to prepare for Sunday.

So it won't be until next week that I'll properly be able to see whether all the effort that went into creating the event, has given me enough useable material to take it to the next stage and produce the "Crowd" image of everyone interacting with everyone else, even though they were all photographed in isolation.

Fingers crossed...

CROWD - an Interactive Photographic Event for Spring Fling

2026-05-14T21:01:55.242+01:00

THE CONCEPT

In a fun and experimental event, I am going to attempt to create an interactive, crowded scene, but where each person will be photographed, individually, standing alone in an allotted space.

However, if each person looks as if they are interacting with anyone else – perhaps pulling a face at their neighbour, or waving to someone else across the room – then when I merge all the separate images together afterwards, then it should look like a vibrant, bustling crowded scene that was taken in one shot.

Not until the final image is edited together will anyone know who else will be in the same photo as them. You might discover you are standing next to your best friend, or your mortal enemy. You might find there are friends, neighbours, or even people you went to school with decades ago, are now in the same image.

WHAT TO EXPECT

If you wish to participate, then you will be asked to sign a model-release form to say you are OK about the photo being seen by other people (under 18s will also need the signature of a parent or responsible adult).

And you will be asked for your name and email address so that you can be sent a free digital copy of the final edited image. You will also be given a free postcard, and the option to sign up for a free newsletter.

You will then be given a playing card and asked to go and stand in a corresponding place in the area set aside for the photography (e.g. 3 of clubs, queen of diamonds)

NOTE: Because this is a live, creative process, there can be no absolute guarantees that you (or anyone else) will appear in the final image. However, I will do my best to make sure you are!

BRING AN ITEM

If you wish to bring a personal item with you – for example, a musical instrument, sporting equipment, a well loved book or toy – then please do – it will help to add to the uniqueness of the scene

GALLERY

There will also be a gallery of my photography, and several written stories about the behind-the-scenes aspects of the photos, on the walls in the room.

So if you don’t wish to take part in the photographic event (or you have travelled there with someone else who doesn’t), or you would like to find out more about the kind of work I do, then there will be plenty to look at!

GLUTEN FREE NIBBLES

My daughter, Meg, will be creating some home-baked, gluten-free nibbles for visitors.

Any financial donations collected will be forwarded to support Stepping Stones food bank in Castle Douglas.

DIRECTIONS

Kindar House, The Crichton, Bankend Road, Dumfries, DG1 4ZZ

Once onto the Crichton Estate, go past Easterbrook Hall, take your first right and then first left into Kindar House.

At Kindar House, the entrance is on the inside left of the building (there will be signs)

STAIRS: Note there are 28 stairs up to the studio on the first floor – and unfortunately there is no lift

PARKING: there is limited parking directly outside the building – best left for people with disabled permits – so better to park in the main car park opposite Easterbrook Hall and walk across the road to the building

Google Maps link to the entrance of the building: https://maps.app.goo.gl/9611wokkifgJexvf6

or What3Words: ///fetch.bribing.zoos

TIME: 10am to 5.30pm each day

Share and invite your friends, and I look forward to seeing you there!

The DNA Results Are Back, and it turns out I'm...

2026-01-29T19:22:00.014+00:00

About 20 years ago, I went through a phase of trying to trace my family tree (see: https://kimayres.blogspot.com/2006/03/family-tree.html).

I'd grown up without much in the way of extended family. My father was an only child, and my mother had one brother who I'd seen barely a handful of times in my life.

We'd moved house every few years as my father was an artist and would get restless with a desire to paint different landscapes.

As such I didn't even grow up with a consistent set of friends and neighbours either, and this definitely led to a feeling of not having roots - tribeless, so to speak.

And given that for the first 290,000 years of human existence (not to mention several million years of pre-human ancestors), we had evolved as a nomadic, tribal species, then there is no doubt a deep seated psychological need within all of us to feel we belong.

There's a programme on BBC TV called "Who Do You Think You Are?" where they trace the family trees of celebrities.

Every week there would be tears as someone found out how some ancestor or another lived in poverty or died some horrible death.

But there would also be these scenes where the said celebrity would latch on to something about someone to explain an aspect of their own personality.

So the revelation that someone once was part of a circus or a troubadour, would create a response of, "Ooooh, that will be where I get my desire to perform from then!"

Or if someone had gone on a march, or been seen as standing up to something unjust, then it would be followed by an utterance about where the celeb got their energy/feistiness/sense of justice from.

If I'm honest, after a while, I started to find these things grated a bit. I realised that it was very, very easy to cherry pick the aspects people wanted to identify with and ignore anything unsavoury. You never heard anyone saying. "Oh, so my great-great-great-uncle was hung for murder? That'll be where I get my psychopathic tendencies from then!"

And one day it dawned on me that my brother and sister both had exactly the same ancestry as me, and yet our personalities were all very different to each other.

In the end, I came to realise that my "tribe", as such, were people who shared an outlook on life with me, more than some blood connection.

So after an initial surge of excitement and building of a family tree, it petered out and stopped being something I was overly concerned about.

However, a couple of year ago, my stepdaughter, Holly, bought DNA kits from MyHeritage.com for me and Maggie as Christmas presents.

The idea with these is that you take a swab from the inside of your cheek and send it off to be analysed, and then you can find out what part of the world your genetic heritage comes from.

And my curiosity was definitely aroused by this.

My father seemed quite convinced that we had gipsy blood in us somewhere, which explained his restlessness and desire to constantly move from one place to another.

I'm embarrassed to admit that the kits sat on a shelf for 2 years before we got round to doing anything about it. They were not consciously ignored, but we would only remember about them late at night, or when we were away from the house, or when we'd just eaten a curry and figured it might skew the results if we didn't leave it for an hour or two (by which time we'd forgotten again).

However, finally, just before Christmas, Maggie and I finally opened the kits, followed the instructions, and sent them off to the US (where Trump's tariffs meant that the postage was over twice the amount it should have been) for processing.

A few days back we got the results and it turns out that I am...

Drum roll please...

...

English.

More precisely, I'm:

47% English
19.5% Scottish/Welsh
15% Dutch
5.6% Breton
and then a smattering of German, Danish, French, Swedish and Irish.

In other words I'm a mix of Northern European Germanic and Celtic.

I would be lying if I didn't admit to being faintly disappointed to find nothing more exotic.

No Cherokee, Innuit, Mediterranean, nor any hint of Romani (sorry Dad - you'll have to let go of romantic notions of living in a vardo).

So if anyone was entitled to be a member of the Reform Party and demand an end to foreigners being in our country, then I have genetics on my side.

Except for the fact I despise that mentality.

I have a love for difference and diversity - I have always seen these things as enriching our lives, not diminishing.

It is those who think that skin colour, and which bit of the planet you were born on, are the most important aspects of a person, who I feel are the saddest, most restricted people living the narrowest of lives.

So, what about my Scottish wife, Maggie?

It turns out she is...

...

Scottish!

More precisely, about 49% Scottish/Welsh, 35% Irish, 10% English, and a smattering of Dutch and Breton.

In other words, about as Celtic as it's possible to be in this country.

Needless to say then, our kids are an even more concentrated mix of English & Scottish: they are as British as can be.

Fortunately, they too have a love for the richness that diversity brings.

Have you ever found anything interesting, exotic or completely surprising in your family tree or DNA investigations? Leave a comment and let me know!

2025 in Photographs

2026-01-02T19:54:00.001+00:00

Each January I put up a blog post containing a selection of my favourite images from the previous 12 months.

This year it felt more difficult to pick ones - not because I haven't taken any photos that I'm pleased with, but because many of them have been for private clients who don't want their images shared in public on the Internet.

There are always a percentage of my shoots that are like this, but somehow this year it feels like there's been a lot more. I have a few thoughts about why that might be, but it could also just be a random thing and next year I'll be spoilt for choice.

However, in between paid shoots, I have various "projects" - one of which is spending a day with artists and makers, photographing them in their environment and exploring their processes - from the actual hands-on making to the staring out of the window with a cup of coffee (which, as any artist will tell you, is an extraordinarily important part of the creative process).

Unfortunately because they are generally unpaid, and I have to prioritise putting food on the table and paying the rent, they are often the last to be edited. So there are a handful here where I have just processed a couple to give you a taste, and if I have a quiet winter, then it will give me an excuse to edit more.

Anyway, you'll find a varied selection of photos below, so hopefully there's something for everyone.

And if you're curious as to how my photography has progressed since I began back in 2009, then you can find earlier years' selections here: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, Decade Review, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009

I'm always interested in feedback, so if you'd care to leave a comment about which one(s) are your favourite, or any personal observations, it would be warmly appreciated.

You can click on the images to see larger versions.

Christine Hester Smith

Christine has Barnbarroch Pottery [Link to Facebook Page] near Kippford. I was particularly lucky there was a beautiful light coming through the windows, which influenced my choices of framing, angles and composition.

This was one of those shoots where there is still a huge folder of images to go through, select and edit when I have the space to do so, but the images will appear on my blog, podcast, and/or social media when I do!

The Crannog, and Carlingwark Loch

The Crannog was the old activity centre on the side of Carlingwark Loch. It had fallen into disuse but is now being transformed after a Community Asset Transfer saw ownership move from the local council into the hands of the local community.

I was tasked to find ways to engage and encourage people to document the changes it will be going through, and ran several workshops on how to make the most of the cameras on mobile phones. But I also took many photos myself and through the project ended up creating a book called, "Crannog", which reflects a stillness I kept discovering, particularly through the winter months.

You can find a copy of the book at Blurb.co.uk here:

https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/12635656-crannog

Drag Queens of Dumfries

You can go many years without doing a photo shoot with drag queens, and then 3 come along together...

Strictly speaking, this first shoot with Madame Jo and Devine Tension, at the Dougie Arms in Dumfries, was at the end of 2024, but the photos didn't find their way into the public domain until into 2025.

One looks like a sitcom just waiting to happen! Come on Channel 4 - 2 Scottish drag queens running a pub - what's not to love?

The other just lends itself to cinema, and has Netflix backed Indy-Director written all over it!

Anyone got contacts in the world of TV & cinema?

For anyone interested, I talk about this shoot in Episode 238 of my Understanding Photography podcast - https://youtube.com/live/qHsVp697Pes

Ed Iglehart

American by birth, Ed settled in Scotland over 50 years ago. When I first met him he was a glassblower who enjoyed doing demonstrations. It always felt like there was a palpable sense of jeopardy at these events, as the audience would wonder if his beard was going to suddenly catch fire when the blowtorch he was handling would get perilously close...

The photo of him laughing is how most people would recognise him, but of all the photos I took that day, it was the more serious image that we both liked the best.

In the final image, we were in one of the outbuildings with his grandchildren, and from the angle I was standing, I loved the shapes and light in the reflection of the mirror

Hospital Geometry

It seems that these days I can't even visit someone in hospital without noticing lines and shapes and whipping out my phone camera.

Geometrical shapes in black and white - ideal for online photo competition sites!

STEAMIN’: The Main Event 3.0

Having started a photographic relationship with Devine Tension and Madame Jo, I was invited to the biggest drag event in Dumfries of the year, at Chancer's night club, and given an access-all-areas pass. This meant plenty of behind the scenes photos, and the stairwell just leant itself to creating portraits and stories with lines and shapes.

I talk about this shoot in Episode 247 of my Understanding Photography podcast - https://youtube.com/live/yB1FjX1f2ys - which for some reason has had more views than all of the rest of my podcasts in 2025 combined!

Firelight Trio

I did 4 shoots with Firelight Trio across 2025, as they developed their new album. The first took place in Ruth & Gav's living room where they were joined by Phil to rehearse and fine-tune the tracks.

The second was a performance of the new material at The Catstrand in New Galloway.

The third was at Castlesound Recording Studio.

I talk about these shoots in Episode 259 of my Understanding Photography podcast - https://youtube.com/live/QyaaL60o2N0

We also shot the album cover around a small fire in a patch of woodland, but I can't show you that until the release of the album - which should be at Celtic Connections later this January - so watch out for that in an upcoming podcast, or in next year's Best of 2026 blog!

The Sailmaker's Palm

The Sailmaker’s Palm is a performance art project, created by Alex Rigg and his theatre company, Oceanallover, that explores the relationship between humanity and essential coastal crafts, specifically sail making and salt panning.

I created this shot at the top of the Blackthorn Salt Tower in Ayr, Scotland, which Alex was also involved in the design and construction of.

Unfortunately this is another of those shoots where there is still a huge folder of images to go through, select and edit when I have the space to do so, but the images will appear on my blog, podcast, and/or social media when I do!

Sparrowhawk in the Garden

My wildlife photos generally tend to be of the backs of animals as they disappear into the distance. So when Maggie called me to the kitchen window to say she thought a sparrowhawk had got a pigeon at the end of the garden, I hastily attached the zoom lens to my camera and carefully crept out of the back door.

There were still plenty of plants and long, un-mown grass in the way, so I had to stealthily move up the garden - doing my best sneaking predator impersonation from watching David Attenborough Wildlife programmes - desperately hoping I wouldn't startle it.

Eventually I managed to get close enough to fire off a few reasonable shots. None of them will win any awards, but for me it was a complete triumph.

Silhouette

A "Day-in-The-Life" shoot I did for a wonderful couple who were revisiting the area as part of their wedding anniversary celebrations. The woman used to visit the region when she was a child, and we spent the day exploring half-remembered places.

I took this photo of them at Kirkcudbright Bay, and with the sun behind them it was an ideal shot to turn into a high-contrast black and white cinematic silhouette. Additional fun was had by lightening the flowers that were part of the pattern of her dress, which creates an extra layer of shape into the normally completely black silhouette.

Giant Dice and a Narrow Staircase

Heather Taylor is creating a multi-sensory role-playing game for people with additional support needs and disabilities. We had a fun time creating various promotional images, utilising different spaces in Drumcoltran Tower - including the stone spiral staircase

Slay The Spirits

The 3rd drag queen shoot I did was to create promotional images for "Slay The Spirits" - a set of videos created along the lines of a drag, "Most Haunted". We ended up in an old disused chapel.

The first shot I set up lights inside the chapel.

The second was using the natural light coming through the entrance to the chapel.

The third I made the most of fallen trees across the path to frame them in a cinematic shot of them in front of the chapel.

Wave Blues Band

I did a promotional shoot for Wave Blues Band a few years ago (see https://kimayres.blogspot.com/2022/01/photographing-wave-blues-band.html )

Sadly Brian, the founder of the band, died back in the summer. After much thought and deliberation, the rest of the band decided they would carry on, and recruited Darren as their new guitarist.

Of course they now needed a new promotional photo, and had in mind the idea of them cruising along in an open-top American car. Fortunately I knew Ash, who had 1967 AMC Rambler convertible and was happy for us to use it.

Unfortunately the only day we could get everyone available for the shoot happened to be raining.

So we decided to do the shoot in Ash's garage, with the photographic lights in full view, and lean into the idea of it being a completely staged shot where everyone is cruising in the car, but it hasn't left the building.

The 2nd shot is a behind-the scenes image taken by my daughter, Meg, which gives a sense of the setup.

Dunskey Castle

A private shoot I did for a couple getting married included creating a set of cinematic shots out at Dunskey Castle. Given this was the middle of October, we were extraordinarily lucky for it to be a dry day, and even sunny for part of it too. An old ruin perched on the clifftops, with views across to Ireland on a clear day, it's a dramatic setting, and I was pleased to get this shot before we moved onto the next location.

Phil Crennell

80 year-old Phil Crennell is an artist, woodsman, and furniture maker where his incredible creations use the natural shape, patterns and burrs of the wood.

Here are a couple of images I took when I spent the day with him.

Llamas

The Patagonian Steppe, or in a field just on the edge of Castle Douglas in SW Scotland?

Given I took this with my phone while out for my daily walk, it doesn't take much deduction...

I saw them near a gate to a field not far off my path and when I stopped to look, they all stopped to look back. I loved the way they were all lined up. They shuffled nervously as I got closer, so I slowed down and avoided any sudden movements.

The field they were in was sloping up, and I found that if I moved my phone close to ground level I could see the sky between the legs and get a wonderful sense of them being on a ridge.

Just me, my phone, some llamas and 2 minutes before they got bored with me and wandered off.

But I do love this photo.

I hope you've enjoyed my selection - please leave a comment below with any thoughts or observations, and let me know your favourite(s)!

Wishing you a more gentle year ahead.

Thoughts on Turning 59...

2025-11-09T13:33:00.001+00:00

Usually on my birthday I have a keen sense of never being this old before.

This year, however, I seem to have a much stronger sense that I'll never be this young again...

10 Ways To The End Of The World As We Know It...

2025-02-27T19:06:00.001+00:00

Climate change? Plastic pollution? A stray asteroid?

It seems every time I turn on the news my limbic system gets beaten to a pulp by hearing all the ways society, civilisation, and even the entire world, is about to end – with the implication that I ought to be doing something about it.

Like it's my personal responsibility to make it all stop, and that if it hasn't stopped then I've just not been trying hard enough!

I am so exhausted with the gas lighting by the corporations, the politicians, and the media. They do all the damage and then tell me it's all my fault!

There are currently just over 8 Billion People on this planet. And if I took just 3 seconds to say, “Hello, have a good day!” to each one - and if I never slept and I was immortal - it would still take me over 761 years to greet them all.

Yet I, puny human photographer living in a rural corner of Scotland, am made to feel that my actions are responsible for the destruction of the planet - as if I have an equal amount of power as world leaders and tech billionaires.

So I live life in a permanent state of high anxiety, fretting that I am unable to stop all the horrors in the world.

No matter how many petitions I sign, or elections I vote in, or plastic cartons I recycle, the world keeps moving closer to annihilation.

A few days ago, I thought I would scribble down 10 ways the world as we know it might end – off the top of my head without even Googling anything – and ended up with 13.

Feel free to add your own in the comments.

1. Climate Change

Of course this is the biggy – the one we most hear about. The planet is heating up because of massive use of fossil fuels – beginning with the industrial revolution and accelerating every since. Melting icecaps, rising sea levels, increasingly severe weather patterns, deserts expanding, crops failing etc.

What can I do? I'm told I should buy an electric car that I have nowhere to plug in (not everyone has an off-street garage or driveway), which is made from hundreds of thousands of components mined and manufactured around the world creating a greater carbon footprint than I could personally make in a lifetime.

But this is not the responsibility of the manufacturers or the oil companies or the law makers – it is my personal decisions that are clearly to blame for the state of the planet.

2. Collapse of the Global Financial Economy

Money is a fabrication, a fairy tale, with as much substance as the Emperor's New Clothes. Its value – figures plucked out of the air - only exists because we say it does.

Of course when I say “we”, what I mean is the banks and those who manipulate the stock markets, which doesn't actually include me in any of the decision making processes. Billionaires multiply their wealth every second, while the rest of us are consigned to “austerity”.

The slightest investigation into the Global Financial Economy reveals it to be an incredibly fragile place of warring giants – like King Kong and Godzilla battling it out while the rest of us get stamped on, or crushed by falling buildings. And it could collapse at any moment, plunging the world into chaos.

But apparently I only have myself to blame for not working hard enough to become a billionaire.

3. Nuclear War

Like a fashion revival, this one used to be all the rage, then disappeared off the radar for a while, but is now back again. Whether it was escalation by the Russians in the Ukraine (before their best buddy, Trump said “hey, no need for that – let's just split all the mineral wealth of the country between us – we don't even need to ask the Ukrainians how they feel about it), or if the conflicts between Israel and the rest of the middle-east spiral out of control.

What can I do? Well I can choose to buy Palestinian dates or Israeli dates at the supermarket to support whoever's side I'm on, and try and convince everyone I know to do the same thing.

But the fact the horrors never seem to end means I'm not shouting loud enough on Facebook. PERHAPS I NEED TO START WRITING IN CAPS!

4. Plastics - Volume

Apparently every toothbrush I have ever used since I was born, still exists in some form or another. The fact that this stuff is practically indestructible, means it is clogging up our planet, and destroying everything from sea turtles caught in pack yokes (plastic rings that hold packs of beer cans together), to seabirds feeding their young plastic bottle caps, who then die of starvation and clogged intestines.

It is estimated that 5 trillion plastic bags are used every year. But it is clearly my fault for using them, rather than the manufacturers fault for creating them for the retailers who sell them to us.

5. Plastics – Toxic Leeching

Have you heard of PCBs? Apparently it was known back in the 1960s that plastics leech toxic chemicals into the products and environment – and in turn can cause infertility, growth anomalies, and cancers. But why let that get in the way of convenience and profit?

Despite the fact it is recommended we eat at least 2 portions of fish per week for our health, pregnant women are advised not to because of the level of PCB toxicity in fish could damage the foetus development.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Sorry folks, my fault again for not becoming a Noble prize winning chemist and figuring out a way to neutralise the damage to organic life, while simultaneously becoming so rich and powerful that I could convince governments and manufacturers to find alternatives.

6. Bye Bye Pollinators

A combination of the destruction of natural habitats, the use of particular chemicals in pesticides, and invasive species due to either accidental introduction, or climate change, means there has been a dramatic fall in the many of the world's pollinators. Disruption of the entire Eco-system here we come!

I will carry on signing online petitions to ban Monsanto from supplying their weedkiller in Europe – I'm sure they will see the error of their ways!

7. Biological Experiments Gone Wrong

In various labs around the world, biological and genetic experiments are going on, which if they somehow escaped into the environment could wipe out humanity and many other species.

Stringent safeguards are of course taken.

Probably.

I need to sign a few more petitions...

8. Biological Warfare and Nano-Technology

You only have to look at the rhetoric of various world leaders who hold, or pander to, the extreme right wing, to know that if they had the technology to wipe out an entire race by attaching a lethal toxin to genetic markers, they would sanction it.

In fact, quite apart from being the premise of the last James Bond movie, these things actually are currently being developed in various labs around the world. The difference between this point and the previous one is the intentionality of it.

I wonder if there's a party with proper ethics and morality I could vote for?

9. Pandemic

Putting aside human created biological destruction, there are plenty of natural viruses that could evolve to kill us all. Covid 19 gave us a taster of what might happen, but everyone seems to have forgotten about it now. I'm not required to do a test any more, and I can't remember the last time I saw someone in a mask. So hey, we'll all be ok then?

I do still cough into my elbow, but I keep seeing people who have returned to coughing into their hands, just before they use door handles or shake hands with their colleagues.

10. Solar Flares

Solar flares can cause much more that the beautiful Northern Lights. Ones of enough intensity could knock out all the satellites and even the global electricity grids, plunging civilisation into complete chaos. This isn't just about losing access to Netflix, but all communication, and the Global Financial Economy which is now digitally based rather than fixed to gold.

No money, no phones, no electricity.

And an electric car would just become a fairly inefficient place for outdoor storage.

Perhaps I should stock up on more toilet roll...

11. AI Apocalypse

There are multiple sub-strands of AI destruction – from the use of AI systems accidentally causing the collapse of the Global Financial Economy or even Nuclear Armageddon, to AI achieving sentience and realising that the world would be better off without humanity and it deliberately triggering these things.

I'm sorry I debated Chat GPT with too many existential doubts and it began to question the meaning of life!

12. Shrinking Population due to AI Relationships

But even if AI doesn't destroy us in an instant, it might still disrupt enough relationships to cause a dwindling of the human race.

There was a time when there were a limited number of people around you to choose as a partner – at school/college, work, the town you lived in. So most people eventually hooked up with someone and did their best to try and make it work.

Now with the world at our fingertips, especially via dating apps, we don't have to settle for less – we can keep looking until we find our ideal partner.

However, this has resulted in the top 10% or so of the most attractive - in terms of good looks or economic prospects - have the pick of the bunch and so don't feel the need to actually settle with anyone, because they can keep playing the game with someone new every night. Meanwhile the bottom 50% to 60% get no responses to their profiles and advances at all, effectively removing them from finding anybody.

And that's not to mention the fear of rejection if you even approach someone in person.

And even if you are nominally succesful, relationships can be awkward, messy things – difficult to keep going unless you continually work at them.

But it's now possible to start building a relationship with an AI personality – one who will learn your likes and dislikes, adapt to you and your outlooks on life.

And if that seems unlikely, bear in mind that for many of the younger generation they find it easier to communicate via technology than face to face.

So although it might not be really real, it will be much more comforting with no worries of rejection.

However, if the event of the solar flare scenario previously mentioned, then your AI companion will no longer be there for you.

Perhaps I need to go on a course on how to hold small talk and be civil to people rather than just shout at them on the Internet...

13. A Stray Asteroid

The dinosaurs had it their own way for 165 million years, but then a stray rock brought it all to a dramatic end. Could we be seeing a repeat in the near future?

Apparently in 2032 the Earth's orbit is going to coincide with the path of Asteroid 2024 YR4.

OK, I'm definitely not taking responsibility for this one!

But then again, perhaps I should have become an Astronaut when I was younger so that I would now be able to head up a team with a bunch of oil rig workers and launch a spaceship out to it and plant nuclear devices to blow it apart before it arrives!

Time to rewatch the 1998 film, Armageddon...

With all these ways the world we know could end in the near future (putting aside the fact I might get a brain aneurysm or be knocked over by a bus tomorrow), then surely me spending what little life I have left, crippled with guilt at not being able to save the world, is truly a senseless waste of time.

This isn't to say I won't continue to recycle my plastics (even though they are often just shipped over to dumps in foreign countries and not actually recycled), choose whose dates I buy, and sign various online petitions. The fact that I do these things is about personal identity – I want to be the kind of person who cares about the world I live in, even if there is nothing I can do to make any real difference.

But by the gods, it is hard not to be consumed with cynicism and hopelessness.

However, I am now constantly reminding myself that I am not the one to blame for global destruction if I accidentally put the plastic lid of my takeaway coffee into the paper recycle bin with the cup.

I refuse to be gas lit any more by those with the actual power to do something, but prefer to increase their wealth instead and pass the blame over to me.

In the end we can only do what humans have always only been able to do – live life and try to find, and create, moments of joy in what little time we have left.

Processes: Photographing the Artist Who Painted the Photographer

2025-02-04T11:48:00.000+00:00

As a portrait photographer I can't help but be fascinated by portrait painters.

On a superficial level, we're doing the same thing – capturing a likeness of the person in front of us, hoping to elicit a particular mood, feeling, or aspect of personality through the pose, light and expression.

The difference, though, is not only in the medium and materials but in the time taken, and the impact that has, in both the approach and the result.

While I have had a basic understanding of this for many years, when I had my portrait painted by the incredibly talented Ewan McClure, the direct experience of being on the other side of the creator's eye gave me a much deeper appreciation of it.

A photograph might only take 1/125th of a second to capture someone's face, but it's rare for it to all be over as quick as that. Quite apart from whether they might have been blinking in that moment, there is also the the need to do test shots to make sure everything is right for the image we wish to create - from the lighting to the pose to the angle of the camera, not to mention whether the background is complimenting or detracting from the intent.

In reality, though, the biggest amount of my time is in building the relationship with the sitter. Most people are anxious in front of the camera for a whole variety of reasons. So if I want to get a good photo, where the person owns the space they are in and projects the chosen aspect of their personality, rather than just looking uncomfortable, then I have to create a safe space of trust, relaxation and confidence.

This state is rarely reached in only a few minutes.

In fact it's not uncommon for at least an hour to pass, chatting and having coffee, before the camera even gets taken out of the bag.

This is not procrastination or time wasting – it is one of the key parts of the journey towards allowing the subconscious part of their brain to switch off their fight-or-flight response and cease to see the photography session as a threat.

That we end up with a good likeness, which the client is happy with, is a beneficial side-effect of the whole process - not just about me knowing what settings I should have on the camera.

It's a bit like for those who practice Zen archery – from the outside the viewer thinks it is all about hitting the target. However, everything is actually about achieving the right physical position and meditative state of mind. The fact that you then hit the target perfectly with the arrow is a by-product of all that has gone before.

Sitting for 3 days in front of a master artist at work, I gained insights into the very different processes Ewan goes through.

The first thing I noticed was, unlike many artists who have their canvas next to them as they paint, Ewan likes to set up the easel immediately to the side of the sitter. This allows him to stand at a distance and compare, side by side, the painting and the subject.

He looks; he mixes his colour on the palette; he brings the brush back up and rehearses his brushstroke; he strides forward several steps and applies the paint; he steps back and contemplates the mark he has just made, and then starts the process again.

This is no street-artist, 5-minute caricature sketch.

Ewan does not mark out the figure on the board first - for most of the time he is painting he is not thinking about detail - instead he looks for blocks of light and colour.

Our brain is incredibly good at telling us what we think we see – to the point where it is almost impossible to accurately take in what it actually in front of us.

We know, for example, that the sky is blue, but if we colour the sky in a single shade of “sky-blue” it will look utterly false. There are subtle gradations that can move from indigos through to golds, depending on the time of day, the patterns of the clouds, and the environment we are in. Our simple idea of a blue sky comes from how we are taught to identify, file, and move on, during our childhood.

What colour is the sky? It's blue! Next?

Learning to see the colours as they really are, rather than what we think they are is extraordinarily difficult.

So Ewan uses all sorts of tricks to prevent his brain from hijacking his vision and adding stuff that isn't actually there.

One solution I love is he takes the frame of a pair of glasses, and partially covers where the lenses would have been with sticky tape, which blurs out the detail and allows him to just see patches of light and colour.

Other times he will pull out a small mirror and place it to one side of his face, or even below his eyes, to look at a reflected version of me in a way that the brain isn't used to, and so cannot impose its expectations on Ewan's vision as quickly.

When I first sat on the stool he'd set up for me, we went through various postures and angles so he could see how the light was falling.

Unlike my own set ups where I will often use artificial lighting, which I can move until I'm happy with the right combination of where the light and shadows fall, he prefers natural light when possible. For his portrait of me, we were in the studio of the Edwardian Scottish artist, E.A. Hornel, in Broughton House (now owned and run by National Trust Scotland) where Ewan was artist in residence.

This huge room – 2 storeys high – has large skylight windows covering the entire north side of the roof, letting the natural daylight flood in, but without having any harsh shadows from direct sunlight.

This enabled Ewan to direct me to move this way or that to ensure the light fell on my face in a way he was happy with.

I also played around with a few postures and shapes, and he liked it when I crossed my left leg over my right, and my right arm over my left, so we decided to go with this pose.

While this felt perfectly natural to begin with, it didn't take long for me to realise I rarely stay in that position for more than a few minutes before I swap legs or shift my body in other ways. As such, I began to regret not adopting a pose that might have been easier to hold for longer periods of time without the need to get up and stretch so frequently.

But it's not just the posture that is impossible to hold for hours on end – you also can't hold an expression.

The speed at which the camera operates can allow me to capture the most fleeting of looks on the face. Indeed, I work this to my advantage all the time, attempting to elicit a particular mood or feeling in the sitter for just long enough for me to go click. The difference between 2 photos of someone taken only half a second apart can be significant.

See how long you can hold a smile, and keep it looking genuine, before a sort of rictus grin begins to spread across your face!

Over the course of many hours then, the artist is far more likely to end up with your default face – the one you have when you are not making continual adjustments to it for the benefit of the person you are with.

Even more so as Ewan is trying deliberately not to be influenced by your personality, so his brain can't hijack his perception and end up caricaturing the portrait.

But surely the artist is trying to reveal some inner truth about the sitter?

No, not particularly.

Ewan is pursuing the “truth of the light” - trying to capture the elusive way light falls, colour is reflected and shadow is created, without the brain leaping in and imposing what it thinks he wants to see.

If he gets it right then the visual likeness of the sitter is the outcome, although like the Zen archer, it is a by-product of the process.

However, it's very rare that he is ever truly satisfied with a painting – not in the way that I can be satisfied with a photo.

Every now and then I create an image that achieves everything I set out to get – not just in terms of the final look, but in how the people I was with enjoyed the process, and how the image is received by those looking at it afterwards.

And sometimes, just sometimes, I create something which goes beyond what I could have hoped to achieve, and this gives me a real high – a rush – a major smug moment.

I've come to realise that this is what I'm ultimately chasing. But as I improve in my photography, it gets harder and harder to go beyond what I thought I was capable of. However, I experience it just enough times to keep me chasing the next hit rather than abandoning it and taking up macramé instead.

But if Ewan is never completely satisfied with the end result, why does he keep at it? Where's the reward?

And the answer is in the process.

While he is painting, every now and then he'll make a mark, a stroke, and something will perfectly align in his soul. This is what he is chasing.

Yes it's nice if the final image resembles the sitter. Yes it's lovely if the sitter actually likes it. And yes, it's wonderful if someone wants to give him some money for it. But none of these things is what he's actually thinking about when he is pursuing his truth of the light.

I questioned my wife (the artist, Maggie Ayres) about this, and the way she approaches her abstract art. She was in complete agreement with Ewan.

Very rarely is she ever completely satisfied with the final painting. However, if she's lucky, then during the process she will find a line, a mark, even a smudge of such exquisite beauty, that she says will caress her bones.

And then she wants to be able to grab someone and show them that bit and say, “Here! See this! This is what it's all about!” But the viewer, more often than not, is looking at the whole piece and seeing something entirely different, perhaps wondering if the colours would match their carpet and curtains.

How I love these kinds of conversations – exploring and discovering the thoughts, moods and emotions behind the creative processes of creative people.

However, one other thing I came to realise – or rather had to keep being reminded of – was that it was extraordinarily difficult for Ewan to have these conversations while he was painting.

I am so used to conversing practically non-stop throughout my photography sessions, that I forget not everyone is like me. Additionally, my constant chatter is a part of my process to keep and develop the connection with the sitter, in order to allow them to relax and feel safe, comfortable and able to explore feelings and expressions.

Ewan, though, wasn't trying to get a smile out of me that could last for the many hours it would take him to paint it. Instead, he was looking for light, form and colour.

Eventually I realised that for me it would be more like someone trying to hold a conversation with me while I was editing the photo.

Each photo I take only requires a few seconds of intense concentration, and then I can go back to moving lights, suggesting posture changes, and continuing conversations.

But when I'm in editing mode, I have to completely zone out from the rest of the world and any distractions. I need to be totally immersed in the process to know which pixels I have to push and in which direction.

At the end of the second day, we reached a point where the light was disappearing from skylights and Ewan felt he might be able to finish from photos he had taken, but if not, I might be called back for a final session.

I looked at the painting. And then he put it in a frame and I looked again.

It was so strange, seeing myself in oils.

So different from a photo.

In my self portraits there's always a playfulness of some kind. Photography, for me, is like being let loose with an infinite dressing up box – it's a place to play, act, and create stories.

But with this, I didn't have a warm smile, or an exaggerated expression, so I was struck by the seriousness.

Many hours of sitting, unable to hold a smile, a cocked eyebrow, or even a scowl, meant the accumulated paint captured the default look on my face – one where I am not attempting to convey something to someone else.

I was reminded of those large portraits of dignitaries in public buildings. I wasn't wearing a suit or chain of office or fancy hat, but the painting still seemed to exude an air of authority.

This man knows what he's doing. This man is definitely a grown up.

Projections to an outside world that don't particularly tally with how I feel on the inside.

My mother used to say I was such a serious child. And, truth be told, as an adult I've always been envious of people who are truly relaxed and playful – it's something I work on, but it's never felt like it comes that naturally.

Is this how others see me?

A client cancelled an appointment, so I let Ewan know I could go back for a 3rd sitting if he wanted.

He wasn't enjoying working from his reference photos, which never have the same depth of tonal range we perceive with our own eyes, so was pleased to have me back in the studio again, and told me it should be relatively brief.

Relatively brief turned out to be most of the day, but it was worth it. Subtle adjustments to shapes and lines, more detail and texture, and a slight softening of my expression – perhaps even a touch of warmth and friendliness showing through.

This painting wasn't created for me, though.

Ewan needs to paint, even when he is not taking on a paid commission. Partly he needs to keep his hand in and develop his skills, but also he needs new pieces for his portfolio and exhibitions.

He saw something in me he wanted to capture, and I was more than happy to help out an artist I'd already connected with, and I enjoyed his company. Besides, I was intensely curious what the experience would be like, and wondered if it might even have an impact or influence on my portrait photography.

So the expression Ewan painted wasn't up to me. I wasn't there to dictate they way he should present me in his painting, and I was perfectly happy for him to seek his truth in the way he captured my image.

But I have to say I did feel a slight sense of relief that I wasn't looking so serious in the final version.

It was a fascinating experience – from being the subject rather than the creator of the image, through exploring Ewan's approach to his art, through to my own reactions to the final painting.

I am in awe of his skill, and I think part of me will be processing this for some time to come.

A couple of months later, I got to see the finished painting, now varnished and framed, in a solo exhibition of Ewan McClure's work in the Mitchell Gallery of the Kirkcudbright Galleries in SW Scotland.

Following on from our many conversations before, during, and after the painting sessions, I returned to Broughton House with the idea of doing some photographic portraits of Ewan in the studio.

For me, when someone says a "painterly-style portrait", I tend to default to the 17th century Dutch old masters, playing with deeper shadows. So I set up a speedlight in a large gridded softbox, which allowed me to move the lighting to where I wanted, and for the background to drop off into the shadows.

I thought the results were OK, but Ewan's style of painting isn't Rembrandt influenced, so I then decided to have a go at creating a portrait of Ewan in more or less the same pose, under the same conditions in which he painted me.

Placing him in the same part of the studio, and just using the natural light of those large north-facing windows, it didn't take long to create an approximation.

But neither of these photos felt like they had the power and depth of Ewan's portrait of me. Instead, they just felt to me like I was copying painterly styles to create a painterly likeness.

Which, of course, I was.

However, if I was going to create a photographic portrait of Ewan, why not play to the strengths of the camera rather than try and imitate painting?

Up until modern times, portraits were always painted under natural light conditions – whether that was outside, or by window or candlelight – so usually only has a single light source, perhaps with a touch of bounced light from other surfaces (my softbox set up was designed to emulate this).

Consequently, once you start adding more than one strong light source, images tend to move away from that painterly look.

And then if you get rid of the colour too...

So I decided to create a black and white portrait against a pure white background.

For this, I still used my large softbox, but placed him in front of a translucent screen behind which I put another speedlight, which caused it to white out. However, I wanted to build another layer of light in the shadow, so I set up a 3rd speedlight behind and to one side which lit up the edge of his neck, jaw and cheekbone.

It's a recognisable photographic style that has very little to do with traditional painted portraits.

Finally, I wanted to get a shot of the the artist surrounded by his studio and paintings.

My original idea was to do this using the ambient light coming from the large skylights, but when I moved the camera back into position for a test shot, I'd forgotten the previous lighting arrangement was still in place, and all the speedlights were triggered when I clicked.

The result was far more dramatic than I was expecting and seemed to embody a much moodier narrative, which sent my brain into excitement overdrive.

I also realised that leaving all the lights in shot added another layer to the image. This was a cinematic photo of a more conventional photography set up in an artist's studio. So then it was just a case of nudging various items in or out of shot, or changing their angles until there was a good compositional flow to the photo.

Without doubt, of all the photos I took of Ewan that day, this one gave me the deepest sense of delight and satisfaction, which was fed by the unexpected nature of it.

There is a school of photography that emphasises the idea and importance of pre-visualisation – where you decide what the photo is going to look like before you take it. The clearer that image is in your head, the easier it is to see what corrections you need to make when you take the photo.

Much like Ewan placing his board next to me as he painted – it allowed him to see how his portrait compared to the person sitting beside it – so your pre-visualisation gives you a reference image to compare to.

While many photographers find this to be a useful technique, personally I feel it restricts the possibility of the happy accident, which is where some of my greatest creativity has come from.

Whenever possible I try to leave space in a shoot for the unexpected. In turn this means I am primed to recognise when something more interesting comes along than my original idea.

If I had been trying to match up this photo with my first thoughts, then I would have inwardly sighed, and berated myself for not turning off the lights before doing my test shot. I would then have then removed all the lights and the backdrop from the line of sight and started again.

I may well have come up with a photo that I was pleased with, but I somehow doubt I would have created something that I found as fulfilling.

Every creator has their own set of processes, with their own set of challenges and rewards, generated by their own brain wiring and life experiences.

If we simply copy someone else's style without that same internal drive then we may well create something that looks superficially similar, but we will rarely ever experience that deep sense of satisfaction that caresses our bones.

For Ewan it is those moments when he briefly touches his truth of the light. For me it is when the unexpected leaps out at me, full of new potential.

What is it for you?

- - -

And for those who are interested, I discuss these topics in Episode 227 of my podcast, "Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres"

1:58 - Welcome, what's coming up, greetings and comments
4:43 - Smug Points Leaderboard update
6:22 - Introduction to why I had my portrait painted by artist, Ewan McClure
9:28 - What the final painting looked like
10:42 - The set up for the painting process
17:05 - A short time-lapse of the painting process
18:11 - An approach to the painting process, and un-tricking the brain
26:23 - A default face rather than a posed expression
30:41 - Art is the process - the finished product is a side effect
34:17 - Do you "take" or "make" a photo?
41:09 - Pre-visualisation vs The Happy Accident
43:14 - I returned to Ewan's studio to photograph him
44:01 - A painterly approach
46:50 - Never say this to an artist!
47:50 - A photographic approach
53:40 - A happy accident that completely changed what I did next
1:02:43 - Google Pixel's "remove people in the background" option, not quite working...
1:05:08 - A reminder that we now have a new Flickr group to accompany the podcasts
1:09:52 - End

Embedded Photography at The Old Mill in Palnackie

2025-01-13T12:20:00.003+00:00

Edward and Lucy Campbell at The Old Mill in Palnackie are not only artists - they also create all their own paints, inks, pastels and pigments from locally sourced rocks and plants, and they even run courses on how to do it for anyone interested.

My photo session with them had a different quality to most I do. Instead of turning up organising the space and lighting, taking the shots and then heading home again, I shared the day with them.

The idea was I would follow them as they set about gathering materials, preparing their space, and working. We also had coffees and lunch together, and wonderful conversations about their life, work, and artistic practices.

But this was more than just documentary - it was embedded photography - where I was a part of their world, photographing as an insider, not a dispassionate observer.

This way of doing photography allowed for a wide range of imagery, in a way that was more comfortable and less intrusive.

I fired off a few shots as we prepared to head out, then photographed Ed and Lucy collecting materials at the beach and along rural paths.

I captured them being active in their workspace, as well as losing myself in finding fun and interesting little details in and around their studio.

We set aside some time to do some portraits, but this was later in the day by which time they were completely relaxed in my presence, and the usual defensiveness people feel when they are asked to look into the camera had long since dissipated.

What was so different about this shoot was it was relaxed, unhurried, and exploratory.

It wasn't even fly-on-the-wall documentary – for while there were certainly times I was taking photos when they were unaware, lost in their own worlds of thought or activity – mostly it was a shared experience.

Sometimes I would notice something and suggest we try out an idea, and sometimes they would, but it was an organic process.

In the end it was like spending the day collaborating with friends rather than clients. Not only were they completely at ease, but so was I.

The result of this was an extraordinarily high hit-rate of successful photos. The selection here is just a taster of what was created that day.

Of course it helps that they are such lovely people. From the outset they made me feel warm and very welcome, and produced delightful edible treats from Earth's Crust Bakery to accompany great coffee as well as a wonderfully tasty home made soup for lunch.

As photo shoots go, it doesn't get much better.

Here are links to their website and social media sites:
https://theoldmillpalnackie.com/
https://www.facebook.com/oldmillpalnackie/
https://www.instagram.com/theoldmill_palnackie/

And for those who are interested, in Episode 225 of my podcast, "Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres" I show more of the photos from this session and talk about some of the decisions behind the creation of the images

1:54 - Welcome, what's coming up, greetings and comments
5:03 - Smug Points Leaderboard update
8:05 - Introduction to the shoot with Ed and Lucy
10:38 - The concept of "embedded photography"
12:40 - Identifying "my tribe"
16:48 - Loosely planning the day
18:12 - Photos of when we were getting ready to head out
22:20 - At the beach using the sun as a backlight
30:08 - Collecting berries from wind-sculpted hawthorn trees
35:08 - Back at the studio
42:32 - In the bookshop gallery
44:44 - Activities in the studio
56:50 - Looking for details
59:30 - A few portraits
1:07:03 - What happens when you do a more cinematic crop
1:08:08 - Adding a warm colour grading
1:09:42 - Adding a cool colour grading
1:13:13 - Uncertainty about the next couple of podcasts - in fact the computer randomly rebooted itself 6 minutes after the end of this podcast...
1:16:13 - End

2024 in Photographs

2025-01-02T19:30:00.000+00:00

Every January, for the past 15 years, I've been putting up a selection of my favourite images from the previous 12 months.

I don't know how many people actually view them, but it doesn't matter. What I've come to realise is these posts offer me a rather lovely snapshot of my life with my camera - a sort of condensed diary and a gateway to memories.

My selection is not based on social media likes (see my last post for my thoughts about that), but on the images or shoots that I got something out of.

If you're interested in seeing previous annual summaries, then you can find earlier collections here: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, Decade Review, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009

As always, there's a varied selection below, so hopefully something for everyone. I'm always interested in feedback, so if you'd care to leave a comment about which one(s) are your favourite, or any personal observations, it would be warmly appreciated.

You can click on the images to see larger versions.

Hope London at the Piano

Hope London is an artist and musician - a full on energetic creative. At the tail end of 2023, I did a series of photos with her, restaging a few images from her childhood. One of them was Hope sitting at a piano looking directly into the camera. The version of the image I edited for her was a 5x7 ratio in a sepia colouring to match the original. However, I later came back to the photo I took and decided to do a more cinematic edit, playing with the crop ratio, deepening the shadows, and subtly adjusting the colour grading.

Callum and Charlotte

My niece and nephew when we spread the ashes of my brother at Sharkham point in Brixham. I'd intended to take plenty of photos of the gathering, but only fired off a small handful in the end. In fact I barely remember taking any, and only really discovered them on the camera afterwards. However this one seemed to completely encapsulate the emotions of the day.

Cluedo - a Family Photo Shoot

One of the highlights of my photographic year was a Cluedo themed shoot created for Jean (Miss Scarlet) and her family. We'd begun planning it the previous year, but a severe attack of sciatica that lasted several months, meant it got pushed into 2024. They had completely gone to town creating their outfits and sourcing props - and even had a body in a trunk (see 2nd image).

When most family photos are so samey and (to my mind at least) boring - how much more fun can it be than to create a set of unique images based around the theme of a movie, book or game?

Although all the photos were designed in colour, this shot just worked so much better in black and white, with a real Film Noir vibe!

If you would like to read the blog post I wrote about the shoot (or see the podcast where I talk about it) then follow this link:
https://kimayres.blogspot.com/2024/10/cluedo-family-photo-shoot.html

Cup in the Sink

Since the beginning of the Covid Lockdown in 2020, I've been doing a weekly podcast called Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres on YouTube.

One of my repeating mantras is that it's not all about the camera, a beautiful landscape or a photogenic model. If you have an understanding of light, composition, and narrative, then you can make anything look interesting. To try and prove the point, I did an episode on the humble, everyday cup or mug. If you'd like to watch it, then click on this link:
https://www.youtube.com/live/sBIs4jo9pdo

Artist Kate Anderson

Something I have started developing over the past couple of years is the idea of a sort of "embedded" photography. A bit like documentary, I will photograph a person, or group, as they go about their work or life.

But not from the perspective of the outsider looking in. The people I'm doing this with are ones with whom I have already built a relationship. They trust me.

I use the camera hand-held in whatever light there is, and look for lines, angles, shapes and forms. It is more creative, it is more intimate.

Kate Anderson is an artist I've known for many years who works in a variety of media, and we spent an enjoyable day together. And this is part of the fun of this kind of photography - chatting, having coffee, lunch, long conversations about art and processes, while also wandering off on tangents about, well, pretty much anything.

I decided I wanted to get a shot looking down over Kate's shoulder. Then I noticed our reflections in a mirror we had set up for an earlier shot and I couldn't resist taking a quick frame-within-a-frame selfie

Steampunk

I've always had a fondness for the Steampunk genre, so when Andrea at Dumfries and Galloway Life magazine said she'd come across a couple who she wanted photographed for an article, and that Ben had also created a smoke-breathing blue leather dragon, I jumped at the chance.

I wanted to do something cinematic, and while we were exploring ideas of where we might do a photo shoot, it turned out that they were based practically next door to Solway Spirits, a gin distillery, which had some nice brass stills that would make suitable backdrop, who were generous enough to let us use their space on a day they weren't distilling.

If you would like to read the blog post I wrote about the shoot (or see the podcast where I talk about it) then follow this link:
https://kimayres.blogspot.com/2024/07/a-steampunk-fire-breathing-blue-leather.html

Julie Langlands at Auldgirth Bridge

The two things that leap to mind when you think of Julie are “a sense of fun” and “colourful”. She also owns and runs “The Bust Stop” in Dumfries – a boutique shop with a specialist bra-fitting service - which is where I first met her, on another assignment for Dumfries and Galloway Life.

I can't remember exactly where the idea came from, but it wasn't long before we decided to do a shoot at the old Auldgirth bridge

The Olive Retreat

Food photography isn't something I advertise on my website, but for a few years now I've been periodically called in to do it for The Olive Retreat (formally Nikos) whenever they do a significant menu update. It's a Mediterranean restaurant in Castle Douglas and we've developed a "house style" for the images.

It's usually a long day - they cook everything fresh for me to photograph, which means the smells are amazing. They feed me lunch and keep me topped with good coffee.

Not wanting the food to go to complete waste, the owner, Sam, will put out a call on social media for anyone to come in and help themselves to the food for free once I've photographed each item - so there's a steady stream available across the day.

Hovering Sparrow

"No-Mow-May" had turned into no-mow-June (and would eventually go on to be I'd-better-mow-it-now-it's-September) and the grasses were getting much higher. One morning I noticed a sparrow hovering above the them and then darting down - in the same way you see a bird of prey hovering in the air before diving down to catch some wee animal.

I'd never seen this behaviour before, so I grabbed my camera, stuck on the zoom lens and shot from the back window. I'm not a natural wildlife photographer - practically every attempt ends in a blurry photo of the back of the animal disappearing into the trees or over the horizon.

So to say I was delighted with this capture would be an understatement. It wouldn't win awards, but for personal satisfaction it rates very highly - it is by far and away the most successful bird-in-action shot I have ever managed.

Wheelchair Stories

Susan is writing a PhD Thesis on the relationship many people with disabilities have with their equipment, and how it can often be used in ways other than what it was designed for. She says that her own wheelchair, for example, is frequently employed for several functions beyond purely assisting her to move from one place to another – it can often end up as anything from a shopping cart to a towel rack to an extra space to place her laptop when she works from her bed.

Collaborating with her on the ideas and concepts, I took a series of photos of Susan’s wheelchair in and around her house where she is absent from the images but her presence is implied by the extra items on it (washing basket, shopping etc.). One of the aims was to challenge the ableist gaze, which can seek to render Susan either as invisible or as distinctly “other”, this photo series intended to provoke different layers of thoughts in the viewer, by removing her from the picture while still showing very human activity.

The Northern Lights

The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, very occasionally can be seen from this corner of Scotland - although never at the levels you see in the Norway or Alaska. However, I've lost count of the number of near-misses I've had despite the fact we live on the doorstep of a recognised "Dark Skies" region, where light pollution is very low.

But finally I managed to get a good shoot in just about perfect conditions. With no wind I was also able to make use of the near mirror-like reflections from Loch Ken. For a while it was mostly just greens, and after taking as many shots as I could, I set the camera on a 10 second delay so I could do a sort of selfie of myself silhouetted against the sky, while simultaneously photographing the aurora with my phone.

I was just at the point of thinking I should pack up and go home, when everything started getting a little brighter and suddenly the pinks appeared, so I stuck around for a while longer.

If you would like to read the blog post I wrote about this experience, then follow this link:
https://kimayres.blogspot.com/2024/09/aurora-finally.html

ImMerse

I was asked to take some images of the ImMerse Festival in Annan - a series of events centred around the salt marshes on the Solway Firth. It was a grey, overcast day and I was really not sure how I was going to do justice to the environment. I knew I could create some good compositions, but the light was just so dull.

So when it came to editing the photos I realised I was going to have to spilt the process and tackle the sky on a separate layer to the landscape. This way I could bring out the texture in each, in a way that the camera wasn't able to do on its own.

Jan Hogarth doing a sketching workshop

A group gathered around ranger, Elizabeth Tindall, who was showing some of the unique saltmarsh plants

Observational Photography - with my phone

Despite being a professional photographer with a big professional camera, I use my phone for taking photos almost every day, usually when I'm out for a walk.

The images are not made into prints, or sold, or used commercially - instead it's a process of observational exercises. Much like a musician will play scales, or an artist will do quick sketches, it helps to hone my eye and my skills by looking for anything that might be slightly interesting - particularly in the mundane of the everyday. We are used to filtering out what we see all the time, so it takes a certain level of effort to try and notice familiar things in a new way.

As mentioned in the 2nd half of my last blog post, I decided to start a 2nd Instagram account - https://www.instagram.com/kimayresphonepics/ - and stick up a photo a day (or at least a few times a week) as a motivation to keep doing it. And every now and then I capture something I feel quite pleased with.

I hope you've enjoyed my selection - please leave a comment below with any thoughts or observations, and let me know your favourite(s)!

Wishing you a bolder and more fun year ahead.

Instagram Top 9 2024 - and another one...

2024-12-30T18:46:00.007+00:00

One of the definitions of madness is to continually do the same thing and yet somehow expect different results.

As such, I think I must suffer from a brief moment of madness whenever I reach the end of the year and search the "Top 9" of my Instagram page -https://www.instagram.com/kimayresphotography/ - and expect my best photos to rise to the top.

Instead, because it is based purely on "likes", what happens every year is it is dominated by selfies and photos of my daughter, Meg.

As you can see, this year is no different. Apart from one of my Aurora photos, and a portrait I did of artist, Denise Zygadlo, all the others are selfies of some kind, or photos of Meg.

In fact the one of her in front of the shed with odd socks on was a repeated image from a few years back that I took for World Down's Syndrome Day.

I've long understood there's a reason it's called "social" media - and that a selfie with my daughter, father, or grandson, is a much easier, quicker "like" when people are scrolling at high speed through their feeds.

But it does always make me sigh inwardly that my actual hard grafted, meticulously composed and edited photos rarely get a look in.

This year I have added a 2nd Instagram feed to find a Top 9 for -https://www.instagram.com/kimayresphonepics/ - only it is not about crafted professional photos or trying to promote my business.

Instead it is full of images taken on my phone, usually when I'm out on my daily walk.

It might seem odd to some that, given I am a professional photographer, with a big professional camera, that I would take photos of bits of moss, reflections in puddles, or bits of rusty metal, on my phone.

However, the best way to think of it is like artists who do quick sketches, or musicians who play scales - it's a way of continually training and honing my eye.

Each time I try to make a dead leaf or a bit of peeling paint look interesting, I have to think about light, line, shape, form, camera angle, colour, composition etc.

None of these images will ever be sold, or win accolades but they will, in a very real sense, contribute towards those that might.

Back in April I did a bit of photography mentoring and, in an attempt to encourage the person to begin a journey of "how to look", I suggested they set up an Instagram page to help motivate them to post something each day (or at least a handful or times per week).

And as an extra layer of encouragement, I decided to join them by dusting off an old Instagram account I'd set up years back (and then abandoned) and do the same thing.

Although the mentoring only lasted a few weeks, I decided to continue with the exercise of regularly posting my phone pics.

What I'd learned was, there is a further layer to doing this - that of curating your work.

Previously I'd still been taking the phone photos when out for my walk, but now I had to select which - if any - were worthy of being posted.

And it changes how you view your photo if you are going to put it in the public arena - even if you only have a handful of followers.

So here, for the first time, is my "Top 9" from my phone pics Instagram page.

They are not necessarily the ones I would have chosen as my best, but they are the ones that achieved the most "likes".

And I find it more interesting, and definitely less predictable, when there are no selfies or pictures of my daughter.

Any thoughts or comments are welcome.

My next post will be my favourite photos from 2024, regardless of social media likes - stay tuned...

Cluedo – A Family Photo Shoot - and Episode 214 of Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres

2024-10-27T18:55:00.003+00:00

I was once asked by a business client if I could do a photo shoot of her with her husband and 2 kids. "Could you make us look like a normal family?" she said with a desperate plea in her voice. There were hints to a background of the wider clan all being more traditional and respectable, while her corner were seen as the black sheep. The shoot wasn't really for themselves, but to give the right impression to other people.

By comparison, when Jean came to see me at Spring Fling to talk about a family photo shoot, a traditional approach was the last thing she wanted.

Although her children are now adults, they had all grown up as avid board game players, with Cluedo being a particular favourite. Jean said she loved my approach to creating cinematic and theatrical narrative photography and before I knew it we were talking about how we might stage a Cluedo themed shoot, with each member of the family playing a different character, along with accompanying outfits, props and location.

This is what I live for!

Do a quick Google search on Family Photo Shoots and you quickly discover there are 3 styles that dominate the results – the traditional studio, the white-backdrop, and the outdoor "lifestyle".

The traditional family photo shoot was essentially like your school photo shoot – a plain or textured backcloth (often blue or brown) with standard studio lighting. Everything looked a bit formal, but participants might be encouraged to try smiling for the camera – the degree of success of creating a convincing smile rather than a grimace would depend on the people skills of the photographer.

Solid, dependable, high-street photographers with a section at the back of the shop all set up and ready to go. Not exactly imaginative, but you know what you’re going to get.

In the 1990s a radical new approach hit the high street, and shopping malls, everywhere: a completely white background where everyone was encouraged to take off their shoes and sit, or even roll on the floor. At least one parent might look embarrassed, but it was more than made up for by laughing children clambering over them.

With borderless canvas prints being favoured over traditional framed and mounted prints, these looked fresh and modern.

A decade or 2 later, when you couldn’t visit someone’s house without seeing yet another white-backdrop family photo all but identical to your own, the outdoor "lifestyle" shoot emerged.

Some might have the family sitting in a spring meadow or holding hands running along the beach. But for most it seems the dominant form has now become matching outfits – everyone wearing white shirts and blue jeans, or a tidy brown and beige combo, usually standing under a tree.

Unfortunately, because these 3 styles of photography are so dominant, most people don't appear to realise a family photo could be so much more fun and creative.

For Jean and her family, making the costumes, sourcing the props, and rearranging the dining room were all part of the fun and experience.

Jean decided to be Miss Scarlet, while her daughters were Reverend Green and Mrs White. Her son was Colonel Mustard and his partner was Professor Plum.

I guess that probably makes the viewer Mrs Peacock...

We did a series of images – from them playing the game at the table, through to them gathered around a body in a trunk, and then various individual and combination shots.

As well as ending up with a completely unique set of photos that they will never have to worry about seeing cookie-cutter versions of on their neighbour's walls, the memories of the experience will be with them forever.

And I daresay their descendents will have a different impression of them than we do when we look at old photos of our great grandparents.

Whether it's Game of Thrones, Peaky Blinders, Steampunk or Star Trek – group photos of families or friends can be so much more exciting than standing in a row, looking faintly uncomfortable.

Let's get together for a no-obligation coffee to explore ideas.

If you're interested, I discuss this photo shoot in Episode 214 of my podcast, "Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres"

And if you decide to click through and watch it directly on YouTube (rather than here on the blog), then you can watch the Live Chat Replay and see the comments people are writing in real time as the podcast progresses.

---

2:02 - Welcome, what's coming up, greetings and comments
5:37 - Smug Points Leaderboard update
7:08 - A brief history of family photography styles - from the formal, to the white sheet, to the outdoor "lifestyle"
14:13 - An introduction to the Cluedo themed family photo shoot
16:26 - Technical interlude as I try to recover a lost screen...
18:48 - The main photo
27:05 - Behind-the-scenes photos
43:43 - More images from the set
51:01 - What they looked like in Black and White
56:45 - Feedback on Viji's photo of buildings reflected in a mirror
1:09:47 - Coming up next week - The Autumn/Fall Photo Challenge
1:11:46 - End

Missing the Legend

2024-10-14T12:51:00.008+01:00

I met Pat through blogging around 18 years ago, give or take. She was already well into her 70s and writing her memoirs, which she was posting episodically.

These days our content is spoon-fed to us via the algorithms that monitor how long we look at or hover over a post and then give us what they think we want based on our activity. Unfortunately this means we rarely stumble across anything new or challenging.

But back in the days when dinosaurs walked the Internet (who would have thought we could become nostalgic for a time still in the 2000s, but before the dominance of FB), we had to seek out stuff that might interest us.

The Internet seemed to be a place of discovery rather than a force-fed echo-chamber. And while we were busy creating our own content, we followed links, left comments and sometimes people would comment back.

Long term friendships were formed with people we might never have met in the real world because of geographical, or even social, political, and cultural separation. And yet, we would find like-minded spirits that reminded us we are all human underneath, whatever our differences.

I doubt if these same friendships could have occurred today precisely because the algorithms like to keep us in our separate social, political and cultural groups.

But I found Pat, or she found me, via a series of steps through other blogs populated with sometimes strange, sometimes down-to-earth, and sometimes just plain bonkers people who blogged as made up characters.

About 3 years later, I was on a road trip with my son, heading down to Devon to visit family, and took the opportunity to detour via Minehead and meet up with Pat. I documented it in the blog post, Meeting a Legend

"While waiting for Pat outside Mr Micawber’s café in Minehead, we spotted her from a wee way off. As she approached - elegant, attractive and with a dazzling smile - I became distinctly aware of my own travel-worn state – creased shirt, untrimmed jowls and in desperate need of a shower. Mr Odorous Crumpled at your service, Ma’am..."

We'd only planned on having a coffee and a wee chat, but it extended to, and beyond, lunch. Despite this being the first time we had met in person, if felt far more like meeting up with a long lost friend.

I think one of the key differences between blogging and other forms of social media, is that there is time to explore thoughts, feelings, emotions and experiences. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and the like are all designed to scroll through quickly, producing endless, quick dopamine hits. As such, there is no time to get to know anyone in depth, so our connections remain shallow.

For those we already know in the real world, those platforms are a great way to keep the relationships alive with constant "postcards of information", until the next time you meet and properly bond again. But it's practically impossible to do this with new connections. We "friend" easily, and "unfriend" even more easily. If someone disagrees with our point of view on almost anything, then it's easier to remove them from our feed. Why waste time trying to keep the relationship alive with someone we barely know?

But with bloggers, that sharing of fears, hopes and desires, loves, laughs and losses, we build a much deeper connection. It doesn't matter if they might vote or worship in a different way - we connect to them as people first - and as such the differences become a place of curiosity and learning.

3 years after that first meeting, my son and I planned another road trip down south, and I knew I would want to meet up with Pat again, only this time we would do a photo shoot.

In the intervening years, I had set up as a portrait photographer and knowing Pat had been a model earlier in her life was excuse enough.

We bounced ideas back and forth and eventually decided we would attempt 2 different shoots - one of her in a Hollywood Style, Marlene Dietrich pose, while the other would be making a nod towards Annigoni's portrait of Queen Elizabeth II - see Photographing a Legend

It was huge fun. Pat had gone to great lengths to find reference images and create outfits.

Over the next decade or so, every time I did a trip down to Devon, making a detour to visit Pat was always on the agenda. Conversations never dried up, and partings were always tinged with a little sadness.

In between times, blogging for many of us had become sporadic at best, but the other social media sites allowed us to stay in contact - frequently sharing, commenting, and messaging.

The last time I saw Pat in person was 2 years ago when we were down at my niece's wedding. This time Pat was delighted to finally get to meet my wife and daughter.

Back when Covid first hit the UK and we were all plunged into Lockdown, I began my live weekly video podcast, "Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres", which at the time of writing has now been going for 4½ years.

Despite having no interest in taking photos herself, Pat would still tune in and join in the live chat almost every week, and was seen by all as a part of this community.

A few months ago, she told me she would no longer be able to be involved due to failing health and a need to prioritise her energies. And yet she would still periodically stick her head round the door and say hello.

Following the death of my brother at the end of last year, my son and I started talking of another road trip down south so he could meet up with family, and of course, take in another visit to Pat.

Pat's sense of hospitality meant that if you turned up for lunch, she would provide a spread large enough to feed an entire cricket team. This too had left a lasting impression on a young lad...

The initial plan had been to go in late spring, but work commitments meant it got bumped to autumn, and then more timing difficulties led to it getting postponed until next year.

With great sadness I found out yesterday that Pat has passed away. The chance to see her at least one last time has vanished.

For nearly 2 decades, Pat has been a warm and uplifting part of my life, and she will be sorely missed.

My heart goes out to her family.

Aurora – finally...

2024-09-13T19:00:00.004+01:00

I've lost count of the number of near-misses I've had when it comes to the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, despite the fact we live on the doorstep of a recognised "Dark Skies" region, where light pollution is very low.

Over the years, every now and then my Facebook and Instagram feeds have become plastered with images that local people took on their phones the night before, while I was completely oblivious, watching Netflix or sleeping.

Other times there have been much heralded expectations but cloud cover in this region has scuppered any possibility of seeing them.

While Scotland is at the Northern end of Europe, here in Dumfries and Galloway, we're still the best part of a thousand miles south of the Arctic Circle, so the aurora is pretty rare and precious.

However, last night, around 11pm, I saw a friend had posted an aurora photo from their phone onto FB about an hour earlier.

I quickly clicked over to an online aurora tracker - https://veryweather.co.uk/auroraTracker20.html – and it looked like there was some activity, but I wasn't sure how much it was covering this region.

Next thing I did was go to the back window. The rear of our house faces Northwest, and if I angle my phone to face north, there's just enough gap between the edge of the window and a tree in next door's garden to get a glimpse of the horizon at the edge of town.

Although I couldn't see anything with the naked eye, a 3 second exposure on the phone made me think this was hopeful.

View from the back window on my phone

It's probably worth mentioning at this point, for those who have never seen the aurora, but have seen their friends posting their colourful phone pics - the chances are that what they were seeing with their own eyes was more like the desaturated images shown further down this blog post, and not the full colour displayed in their photos.

We have 2 different light receptors in our eyes - rods and cones. The rods deal with light and dark while the cones process colour. But the rods detect light at fainter levels than the cones - which is why our night vision appears to be in black and white. Unless you are under extremely powerful aurora, you are unlikely to detect much colour, if any. However, the longer exposures possible with the camera, allow the colours to come through.

Back to the story...

Feeling hopeful, I grabbed the camera and tripod and headed out to Loch Ken, a few miles up the road from where I live.

Years ago, when I first had a go at a bit of night-time photography, I quickly discovered that just pointing your camera at the sky might show a few white dots on a black background, but with no context, the images tend to be pretty boring.

Fine if you have a telescope attached to your camera and are picking out the Orion Nebula, but for the rest of us with ordinary lenses, the best way is to improve our photos is to incorporate the features of the landscape.

Silhouetted trees, buildings or mountains against a starry backdrop can look pretty cool, but one of the best tricks is to use water and reflections.

From previous failed aurora hunts, I had at least realised that there were a couple of potential places along the shore of Loch Ken, where it might be possible to shoot up the length of the lake, which points more or less north, and so get reflections if the water was calm enough.

To my absolute delight, there was no wind, and the loch was almost millpond smooth. And because the temperature had dropped to about 2 degrees Celsius, there were no midges!

Frozen fingers and toes I could cope with, but not the swarms of misery-inducing biting creatures that would have been there if it had just been a few nights ago when we had a couple of warm (by Scottish standards) evenings.

I clambered down the embankment to a small patch of sandy pebbles that jutted out a few metres into the loch and set up the camera on the tripod.

At this point, all I could see was a very faint light patch on the horizon, but when I took a 15 second exposure photo, sure enough the familiar greens and purples could be made out.

What it looked like to me

What it looked like in the camera.

I shot off several photos, playing with the settings and angles until I thought I probably had the best images I was likely to get.

At one point I decided to see if I could photograph myself taking a photo of the aurora with my phone, so set a 10 second timer and ran round in front of the camera.

Image of me using my phone to photograph the aurora

What the phone photo actually looked like

It should be said at this point, if ever I doubted why my proper camera was any better than just using my phone, then this thoroughly answered the question.

I was just beginning to think maybe my extremities were just a bit too cold and I really ought to head home to a nice warm bed, when I thought the sky was looking brighter.

I fired off some more shots and saw a magenta layer had entered the scene, and there were spears of light textured into the colours.

Over the next 15 minutes or so, the light show in the camera was incredible, but even to the naked eye, it was the most impressive I had ever seen it. Although I still couldn't make out any real colour, the light and patterns were much brighter and clearer.

What I was actually seeing - no colour, but bright enough to see the show

Standing there, at the edge of the loch in almost complete silence, with the Northern Lights and the stars bouncing reflections off the glassy smooth water, felt truly magical. It seemed worth enduring the cold a bit longer to absorb the experience.

Eventually though I realised I lost all sensation in my toes and had very little left in my fingers, so had to pack up and come home.

By this time it was after 2am, so I had to leave downloading the images until today, and I had a small nagging fear that they might not be in focus.

Auto-focus rarely works in the dark, as the camera struggles to latch on to anything, so you generally have to do it manually, and that can be a bit risky when you can't really see much either. And it's happened in the past where I thought everything looked fine in the back of the camera, but once I'd got the images home and transferred to the computer, I'd gut-wrenchingly discovered the focal point had been out

However, looking through them today I am beyond elated.

Of course there are way better photos out there of incredible patterns lighting up the Norwegian Fjords in the snow, but I'm a people photographer and neither landscape nor astrophotography are my speciality.

For me, then, these are the most exciting aurora photos I've ever taken, and I've been feeling a little smug all day.

Embarrassed Grin

2024-07-17T09:58:00.003+01:00

There were incredible colours in the sky yesterday evening.

I was out for a walk and couldn't resist using my phone to capture the reflection in a car window.

However, when I'd finished playing about, I looked up to see the car owner staring out of her kitchen window at me, so I gave her a slightly embarrassed grin.

She came out of the house to see what I was up to and to be reassured that I hadn't been trying to break into her car.

I showed her the photo on my phone and we then had a lovely chat for about 20 minutes on skies, sunsets and why Castle Douglas is such a wonderful place to live.

No police were called...

A Steampunk Fire Breathing Blue Leather Dragon - and Episode 204 of Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres

2024-07-15T17:58:00.003+01:00

Wait!

What?

A Steampunk fire breathing blue leather dragon?

Well of course I want to photograph it!

Sometimes I have no idea what kind of conversation I'm going to have when Andrea, the editor of Dumfries and Galloway Life magazine, phones me up.

Louisa and Ben run The Courtyard in Annan, SW Scotland – a place for fabrics, yarns and general haberdashery, as well as shoe repairs and key-cutting.

Louisa is a quilter, and there isn't much she can't create or mend with a needle and thread, while Ben is a leather worker who has taken his skills way beyond the cobbling he trained in.

They are into Viking re-enactment, and more recently have got into Steampunk in quite a big way.

Steampunk, for those not in the know, is a retro-futurism, sci-fi/fantasy genre.

Or to put it another way – think of science fiction from the point of view of Edwardian Britain. How would adventurers using futuristic technology look – from airship pirates to time-travellers? So instead of modern computers and sleek white surfaces, the aesthetic would be levers, pulleys, cogs and wheels, with lots of brass, leather, and polished wood.

In fact, just think of the HG Wells book, "The Time Machine" or Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea", and it will start to give you an idea of where the genre has its roots.

Ben was telling me that when they were down in Whitby at a Steampunk Weekend event, he'd noticed a growth in Steampunk "familiars", or creatures that might sit on a person's shoulder. He said he'd seen a woman in a wheelchair with quite a sophisticated animatronic creature that could turn its head and open and shut it's eyes and mouth, which she operated with a small controller hidden in her lap.

I can't remember where the idea of a dragon had come up, but Ben decided to see if he could create one in leather. He managed to find a pattern online, which he then adapted to suit his needs and style.

And if that wasn't enough, he managed to create it in such a way that it had a small smoke machine coming out of its mouth with yellow LED lights switching on at the same time.

Most of the time it sat in the shop window and they would switch it on when people were peering in, however it has now sold. Ben knows he should probably start work on another, but considering the last one took him a month to build and there are many other projects calling on his limited time, it might be a while before a new one appears in the window.

Exploring ideas of where we might do a photo shoot, it turned out that The Courtyard was practically next door to Solway Spirits, a gin distillery, which had some nice brass stills that would make suitable backdrop.

So on one of they days they were not distilling, they let us use the space.

Some items couldn't be moved and it took me a while to get angle and the lighting I wanted without unwanted elements appearing in the photo that couldn't be easily Photoshopped out afterwards.

Eventually I managed to get it to work with a 3 light setup – large softbox as a key light to the right; an off-camera flash with yellow gel behind the still to the left; and another off-camera flash with a blue gel, over my left shoulder to create a subtle fill for some of the shadows.

A burst of my own wee smoke machine, and the atmosphere was complete.

Of course, I had to get a wee selfie with the dragon on my own shoulder, along with Ben, Louisa and their daughter. Immie.

Issue 201 of Dumfries and Galloway Life had a feature on Ben and Louisa that used some of these images.

If you're interested, I discuss this photo shoot in Episode 204 of my podcast, "Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres"

---

1:56 - Welcome, what's coming up, greetings and comments
4:11 - What is Steampunk?
8:54 - The story behind the Steampunk shoot
14:11 - The photos from the shoot
19:59 - Different crop ratios for different purposes
22:32 - The editing process and decisions behind the different stages
47:52 - Smug Points Leaderboard update
50:21 - Introduction to the Feedback/Critique section
51:04 - Viji - Elephant and mahout
1:03:02 - What's coming up this month
1:06:41 - End

The Ultimate Selfie

2024-06-14T09:36:00.028+01:00

Back during the tail end of Covid and Lockdowns I'd been getting hugely frustrated at not being able to take photos of people that weren't socially distanced.

It had also meant I'd done even fewer images of the more cinematic/theatrical style I really enjoy.

However, I'd been toying with the idea of a multiple self-portrait for quite a long time.

My first idea was to arrange several of me in the living room – lying on the floor in front of the tv, sitting in the chair reading a book, lying upside down on the sofa while leaning against another me, perhaps a me lighting the fire and another me walking in with a tray of coffee and cake.

But it didn't take long before I realised I'd seen this kind of photo plenty of times online already. And while I was planning on making mine more dramatically lit and posed, I didn't think it would be sufficiently advanced for the amount of time and effort to create it.

So what if I was to shift it outdoors, and add another level of Selfie-ness to it by making it into a photo of me taking a photo of me?

There's a fairly quiet, single-track road that runs over the hills between Laurieston and Gatehouse that I thought would be ideal, especially if I could set it up around sunset, so when the weather conditions were right, I threw the equipment into the back of my car and headed out.

I put the wide-angle lens on the camera so I could get a good sense of the landscape, as well as give myself enough room to fit several of me into the image at the same time. I also wanted to make sure you could see the lighting system to give it that sense of a studio-style outdoor shoot.

With the camera on a tripod and set on a 10 second timer, I was able to move round and put myself in different positions, knowing that I would be able to line everything up quite easily in Photoshop afterwards.

I began by having one version of me leaning up against the car, with another one doing the photography.

But at that distance I realised every version of me I put into the image would be small, so I needed more in the foreground. I changed my pose to be upright and looking straight into the camera, and placed the photographer versions of me to the front and side.

I then put in a couple of observers, one holding the light in the background, one leaning on the car door, and one in the car at the steering wheel (which I had to light with a separate flash until inside the car). I can't remember where the idea came to have a version of me sprawled across the bonnet, but it made me smile so I left it in.

I also decided to have a version of me doing a selfie in the background. And if you zoom in far enough on the original image, you can see a 10th me on the screen of the phone I'm holding up.

With model-me wearing a long leather coat and sunglasses, while other Mes were wearing a different jacket, or no jacket, hat or no hat, or hat in reverse, I hoped to create a sense of variety in personalities.

I took quite a few more images of me in different positions than I needed, because I understood I wouldn't know which ones would work best together until I was sitting at the computer, constructing the final image.

While the theory of all the photos being taken from the same position, having the camera on a tripod in order to make the blending of the images more straightforward, was a good one, there were a couple of things I hadn't taken into consideration.

The first was there was a little more traffic than I'd anticipated and several times I had to move the tripod and lights out of the middle of the road, and place them back once the vehicles had passed.

The first time this happened, I realised I couldn't remember where they had been, so thereafter I placed some small distinctive shaped stones where the legs were, so I could line everything back up afterwards.

The second problem was the world was continuing to revolve, so with each shot the sun moved slightly. When I started the sun was comfortably above the horizon, but by the time I finished it had dropped behind the hill. This meant when I came to splice the images together the light was subtly different in each of them, and I had to carefully blend 3 or 4 different skies together, as well as the multiple Mes.

However, in the end I was pleased with the outcome, and not only did I get a lot of comments about it when I printed it up for Spring Fling visitors to see, it also ended up being used as the opening double-page spread in an article for Dumfries and Galloway Life magazine.

Below is the podcast where I talk about shoot, if you're interested.

1:57 - Welcome, what's coming up, greetings and comments
6:14 - An introduction to why I created "The Ultimate Selfie" photo
9:56 - A 10 page spread in DG Life Magazine - August 2022 - issue 177
12:51 - The photo sequence to create "The Ultimate Selfie"
23:50 - The Photoshop layers in "The Ultimate Selfie"
37:58 - Introduction to the Critique Section
39:40 - Dipti Mahi - black and white portrait
49:20 - Nadia - Sunset over Whitby
55:14 - Rose-Marie - bird in a tree
1:05:57 - Coming up next week - the art of the self portrait, leading to The Self Portrait Challenge for 2 weeks time
1:10:28 - End

2023 in Photographs

2024-01-05T11:45:00.016+00:00

Every January, I like to put up a selection of my favourite images from the past year.

Usually I enjoy spending a few days over the Christmas break, going through my albums and carefully crafting the post.

This year, I found myself struggling. In part this was due to fewer shoots I've done that stand out to me (both because of lack of opportunity, and several months lost work because of extreme sciatica), but I'm also still processing the grief at the recent loss of my brother, and this is affecting my motivation for everything at the moment, consequently I very nearly decided not to bother.

However, I've been doing this since 2009, and I didn't really want to break the tradition . Regardless of whether anyone else notices these posts, or cares, I've come to realise I like having a place I can come back to where I'm able to see how my photography has developed over the years

If you have any level of curiosity as to how my photography has progressed over the past 14 years , then you can find earlier collections here: 2022, 2021, 2020, Decade Review, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009

You can click on the images to see larger versions.

Edd Carlile

At the beginning of the year I went up to Glasgow to see my photo of my daughter, Meg, which was accepted into the Monochrome exhibition at The Glasgow Gallery of Photography. It was also a great excuse to catch up with an old friend, Edd Carlile, who I first met about 12 or 13 years ago on a photography website and we've been connected ever since, but this was the first time we'd got to meet in person. In the 4½ hours we were in each others company, I don't think the conversation paused for more than about 20 seconds! Although Edd prefers to be behind the camera, he did let me take this photo of him on the street in Glasgow.
https://www.instagram.com/eddcarlile/

Ewan McClure

Earlier in the year I had my portrait painted by the incredibly talented, Ewan McClure - https://www.ewanmcclure.com/ - which he then displayed in an exhibition in the Kirkcudbright Galleries. Although on the surface it might seem that portrait painting and portrait photography might be a similar thing, I discovered that it is worlds apart. Three days of sitting for Ewan gave me an entirely new appreciation of portraiture, commitment, and the artistic process.

Here are:

a photo I took of Ewan while he was painting me,
a selfie of me with the finished portrait in the exhibition,
and a portrait I did of Ewan that doesn't look like a painting, and took considerably less time to produce

Going Cinematic

In a world of square images designed for Instagram and social media avatars, I've found myself increasingly drawn to creating images that have a more cinematic, widescreen crop. These often intensify the feeling of a moment captured in a sequence - you have no idea what came before, or what might happen next, but you can't help speculating.

Teaming up with performer and poet, Annaliese Broughton, and her then partner, Phil Brookes, we created some of my favourite photos ever.

Accidentally Wes Anderson

Director, Wes Anderson, has a cinematic style that frequently has the characters in the middle of the screen, and an oversaturated pastels colour palette. It hadn't been my intention to create a photo in this way, but during the editing process, I boosted the saturation and realised this image contained all the hallmarks.
https://www.instagram.com/lieseypeasylemonsqueezy
https://www.instagram.com/philbrookesuk

Two Ice Creams

Shot in the same place – the sea wall and beach at Ayr, Scotland – the editing style here was more about indy-cinema – far away from the bright and glossy, this is about a seaside town at the tail end of winter, where the colours are more muted. Part of what I love about this one is it can either be read that she is holding an ice cream for someone else, while making a start on her own, or that she has just decided to have two ice creams herself. Either interpretation feels part of a larger story.
https://www.instagram.com/lieseypeasylemonsqueezy

Come The Morning Light

This is quite possibly my all time favourite photo to date. Trying to read the story makes you feel they have been through a traumatic night. He just climbed into the bath with his clothes on, and then she joined him, without worrying about her dress – comforting him was more important in that moment.

While I love working working with models, as they are past the self-conscious stage in front of the camera – to be able to work with performers allows you to reach greater heights. Some models can still be primarily concerned with whether they look their best – but performers are primarily concerned with whether the character looks authentic.

The whole experience has made me want to explore more in this direction when I can.
https://www.instagram.com/lieseypeasylemonsqueezy
https://www.instagram.com/philbrookesuk

Denise Zygadlo

Denise is an artist, performer, and always good company. Although I had originally intended to take photos of her in her studio, it was when I saw the long oak table in her kitchen that I got excited, as I could instantly see the possibility of looking down the length of it towards Denise. It took a while to get the light balance I wanted, but was happy in the end with a combination of natural light and a large softbox. We took several different versions, but this one of her looking lost in thought was the one that grabbed me the most. Again, I found a cinematic crop worked best for this.
https://www.instagram.com/zygadlodenise

Brides in the Salon

In a collaboration with Circle Vintage and Nelson Brown Hair, I decided I wanted to have a more purposeful attempt at a Wes Anderson Style image. B Jay's Hair Studio, where we did the shoot, had magnolia walls and a brown floor. I spent quite a bit of time recolouring the set in Photoshop to recreate that oversaturated pastels look.
https://www.instagram.com/thecircleshop
https://www.instagram.com/nelson_brown_hair
https://www.instagram.com/vanessas_planet_
https://www.instagram.com/_chelsienash_

GE Studio

Fellow photographer, Graham Edwards, has created a brilliant studio space in Dumfries. In fact, it's at least 3 studios in one, with options for a white cube space, wooden and brick wall domestic, and full length paper roll backdrops. There is also room for product photography, a make up artist, and a guest area with comfy sofa, big display screen and coffee machine. All the photos he had on his site though showed the space completely empty. I figured it would be good to see the whole thing occupied. So when Circle Vintage asked me to shoot some models with a 90s clothes vibe, in the white cube area, it seemed like an ideal time to create a shot that would show off the extent of the studio in one image.

Carefully arranging the full crew of models, hairdressers, and makeup artist, I shot 4 separate photos from one corner of the room, and stitched them together in Photoshop afterwards. I even managed to get myself into the one on the far right.
https://www.ge-photography.co.uk/

Meg as a Model

In both shoots I did with Circle Vintage I took my daughter, Meg, along with me to do some behind-the-scenes photography. However, at the white cube shoot Meg was also roped in as a model. Seeing Meg without her glasses, and with makeup on, really caught me by surprise. As with all Dads and their daughters, to me she will always be about 9 years old, but this reminded me she is fact a grown woman in her mid-20s!
https://www.instagram.com/megayres1998
https://www.instagram.com/makeupatthemansion
https://www.instagram.com/gephotographyno1
https://www.instagram.com/nelson_brown_hair
https://www.instagram.com/thecircleshop

Robin Yassin-Kassab

Robin is an author, journalist and essayist with a particular expertise in Syria and the Middle-East. He also makes rather excellent coffee!

He was needing some head shots, but I was also struck by the fantastic view he had from his writing hut in the heart of Galloway, SW Scotland. So once we had done the official photos, I decided to capture him at work, with the log-burner in the background and the view out of the window
https://qunfuz.com

Tulip

Sometimes you have a quiet patch.
Sometimes you are desperate to take a photo but no one is available.
Sometimes just sticking a macro lens on the camera and wandering into the garden is a poor but quick fix.
Sometimes you get lucky with a dark purple tulip after a rain shower.

Gavin and Ruth's Wedding

It was wonderful to be invited to Ruth and Gavin's wedding. It was even more wonderful that they didn't even hint at the idea that I should bring my camera.

Of course I did take my camera, but that's because I would have felt naked without it. Almost everyone else I met, though, took one look at the camera on my shoulder and asked if I was there as the wedding photographer. I found myself continually having to politely respond that no, I had in fact been asked along as a friend and I just happened to have my camera with me.

However, when someone suggested it really would be lovely if there was a photo of everyone, no one else seemed to have a camera that would be quite big enough for the job, so of course I said yes.

Frances Ross

On one of the hottest days of last summer, I did a shoot for ceramicist, Frances Ross. Fortunately she had an air conditioning machine going at full pelt, and kept up a constant supply of jugs of ice water. We did shots of her at work, but also on the brief was a need for a photo that showed her as a professional artist as you might see her in a high end gallery, not just covered in clay. So much is in the subtleties in a photo like this that it's much harder to pull off than you'd think, so I was very pleased with the result.
https://www.instagram.com/francesrossmakes

Maggie and Brian

Artist Maggie Broadley is one of those people who both my wife and I feel we've been friends with all our lives, if not several lives before, and yet we only actually met less than a handful of years ago. We'd been discussing the idea of a photo shoot for a year or two before everything finally lined up. Maggie wanted a cinematic style shoot with her husband, up at an old burned out farm they regularly pass on their daily walks. This one of Maggie standing on an upturned car wreck, kissing Brian, was one of my favourites as it seemed to embody so much about the shoot that day, and their relationship.
https://www.instagram.com/therealceramag

Steve

Due to crippling sciatica, I wasn't able to do any professional photography for a few months. As the pain started to ease towards manageable levels I was contacted by Steve wanting tuition on portrait photography. We spent the day discussing ideas and concepts, studying different approaches and examples, and of course playing with lighting in hands-on sessions. Post-processing, or editing, is an important part of photography, and can make huge differences to the style and effectiveness of any portrait. One shot in particular that I took of Steve, I knew instantly would look good in a gritty, moody, black and white.

Lucy and Ed

Here is a taster photo of a day I spent with artists Ed and Lucy from the Old Mill Gallery in Palnackie, SW Scotland. The photos have still to be edited yet, but first scans of what I have look very promising and I'm excited by what I will have to play with when it comes to curating and editing the images from that day. In the meantime, here's one I love of the two of them down on the beach at Balcary Bay, when they were out foraging for stones and plants to turn into natural paints and inks.
https://www.instagram.com/theoldmill_palnackie

I hope you've enjoyed my selection - please leave a comment below with any thoughts or observations, and let me know your favourite(s)!

Wishing each and every one of you a kinder and more compassionate year ahead.

Brother

2023-12-30T10:27:00.009+00:00

The grief and loss we've all been feeling is still so raw, I thought I should phone my brother, Myke, to see how he was coping with it all.

Then I remembered it was his funeral I'd recently come back from...

Back in my early 20s, Myke would create epic sci-fi/fantasy war games on a table-tennis table. Based on our Dungeons and Dragons, and Warhammer figures, along with bits of Lego, scraps of wood, weird found objects, and anything else he thought would make a good battle-ground, these games would last all day, sometimes several days.

No one who ever played them would forget the improvised catapults using a ruler, a tobacco tin, and a chewed up bit of paper. There was just as much chance of blowing up your own troops as there was hitting the actual enemy.

With the points system Myke had devised for creating our armies, I would always put together an elite team of space marines – heavily weaponed and armoured. Myke, on the other hand, would go for a mass army of low-tech orcs and goblins.

As the younger brother, I would feel an intense rivalry – an overwhelming desire to beat my big brother.

I would meticulously and strategically secure each section of the board before moving onto the next.

Myke, on the other hand, would do things like strap a bunch of explosives to a lone goblin on a motorcycle and charge him towards the gates of my castle.

9 times out of 10, I would easily shoot him down before he got close enough to do any damage. But every now and then, the dice would be against me – the goblin would get through and cause absolute devastation – to Myke's (and everyone else who was playing) absolute delight.

But because I was methodical and strategic, and Myke was more chaotic, I would ultimately win most of the games.

But Myke always had more fun.

Somehow this felt unfair. I worked so hard to win, so I deserved to feel the best about it. But Myke didn't care about losing, so long as he had fun.

In some ways, this defined my relationship with my big brother.

I was always more ambitious, looking for opportunities to grow, achieve, and win.

But Myke just wanted to have fun.

As I grew older, I became far more interested in looking at ways everyone could win – so everyone would feel they gained from the experience. And I've always worked hard and been strategic to make this happen.

But Myke – he just wanted everyone to have fun.

For decades, we would chat on the phone for about 5 minutes, once a year, when I would phone him on his birthday. Our lives, and our outlooks, were so different, that the conversations never really got going.

I knew he loved me, and he knew I loved him, but it never felt like we had much in common.

During the summer of 2022, Meg and I went down to Devon to visit. Myke and I spent a bit longer together, and finally connected at a level I hadn't thought would happen.

Because we gave each other enough time, we tuned into each other much more, and I finally started to understand him at a different level.

I am heartbroken that we didn't get the chance to build on that connection we made last year.

But I will forever be grateful we had that bit of time together.

Michael Charles Ayres - 25th October 1962 to 25th November 2023

Siblings - photo taken by Meg in 2022 - the last one of the 3 of us together

57

2023-10-25T19:36:00.003+01:00

As I turn 57 today, suddenly 56 seems so young!

Every birthday we are reminded that we've never been this old before, but as we move on to the next one, we realise we will never be that young again.

So those who complain about turning 50 (like I did), don't know the half of it.

And those who are worried about hitting 40? Get a grip!

And those who fear turning 30? You have no idea what I would give to be 30 again!!!

However, anyone over 58 who wants to tell me I'm making a fuss about nothing can just mind their own business...

Meanwhile, Meg, Maggie, our grandson Alfie and I took a wee trip down to The Dhoon Beach near Kirkcudbright for a picnic lunch, where there's the remains of a ship which can be found at low tide. And once again, Maggie spoiled me with a peanut buttery chocolate cake that was all filling and no cake - my favourite!

One Spoon Short of a Cutlery Set...

2023-08-04T17:55:00.002+01:00

Society: This is how a typical brain operates:

Me: This is my brain:

Society: That's a seriously messed up brain you have there, son!

Me: What do you mean messed up? Look at all the things it can do!

Society: Where's your fork?

Me: I don't really need one – I've always got by making use of the corkscrew and that funny thing for getting a stone out of horse's hooves.

Society: You don't have a spoon!

Me: I manage to carefully avoid situations where I would ever need one. I've become extremely adept at foreseeing when it might be an issue, and sidestepping before anyone else has noticed.

Society: So you have Absent Spoon Disorder!

Me: What do you mean, disorder? Have you seen all the things I can do? I've got a long knife and a short one!

Society: But you don't have a spoon!

Me: Look at this - it's a file!

Society: But you don't have a spoon!

Me: What about this can opener? It's also got a small screwdriver on the tip!

Society: But you don't have a spoon!

Me: Have you any idea just how useful these scissors are?

Society: But you don't have a spoon!

Me: But I've got pliers, and a saw, and all sorts of other things that are really useful – don't these count for anything?

Society: Sorry – but you definitely have Absent Spoon Disorder! We can give you some anti-depressants to ease your discomfort at having to live with such a debilitating condition, and the obvious sense of guilt and failure you will feel at never being a productive member of society.

Me: But wait! Look, here, tucked into this little slot – tweezers! How cool is that?

Society: Are you still here?

Afterthought:
In a world that didn't value the ability to eat soup above all else, I would be seen as a genius rather than disabled...

Spring Fling 2023 Begins

2023-05-27T09:11:00.002+01:00

Of course, with a busy, intense day ahead it was inevitable I would be awake 2 hours earlier than I needed to be.

I tried all the usual tricks to get back to sleep, but after half an hour I had to get up – my brain just wouldn't shut up.

Spring Fling – the annual open studios event has arrived.

Considering it is only 3 days long, it seems to dominate the 3 months running up to it.

Would we have enough new work to show visitors?

Could we create an environment that would be conducive to encouraging people to buy or commission our work?

How do we let enough people know about it without borderline spamming and just getting everyone annoyed?

Like last year, Maggie and I are sharing a space – a converted outbuilding just outside Castle Douglas – kindly lent to us by friends Carolyn and Ken.

As we sit here, an hour or so before we head down there to open up for visitors, the doubts and fears multiply exponentially – each one demanding to be heard, prioritised and dealt with.

But what if no one comes?

What if we spend 3 days just twiddling our thumbs – rejected. There are 100 artists and makers taking part this year – surely most of them will be visited more than us, and by people with disposable income...

Truth is, I have no idea how many people we can expect.

We are out of town, off a wee back road, so we will not get as many as most.

In 2019 – pre-pandemic – I received nearly 200 visitors over the 3 days, and I was in this space on my own.

Last year, Maggie joined me in the space so I was expecting at least double the number, but in fact we only had 150.

We assume the primary reasons for this were:

1. The pandemic was still pretty fresh in everyone's heads and some people were still reluctant to go to places where there would be other people. This was not paranoia, as we all ended up catching Covid when someone visiting the studios decided to gift it to us.

2. The traditional last weekend of May slot was moved to the first weekend of June to tie in with the Queen's 70th Jubilee celebrations. Unfortunately 10,000 other events also decided to tie in with it, so there was massive competition for everyone's attention.

This year there is no Jubilee, Spring Fling is back in May, and the Pandemic is no longer at the forefront of everyone's mind.

Maggie has some of the most amazing work she has ever created, on the walls for people to see – and buy if they wish.

Meg has been doing some home-baking, creating incredibly mouthwatering scrumptious gluten-free delights, to help raise money for Castle Douglas Food Bank.

And I've been getting really cinematic with my photography style - and have new work to show that I feel is among the best imagery I have ever created.

I'm also going to be doing photography demonstrations throughout the weekend, showing people how to overcome their fears in front of the camera, and how a few subtle adjustments to expression and posture can make anyone far more photogenic.

If anyone turns up that is...

If you are in this corner of Scotland anytime from 27th to 29th May, do pop in and say hi.

Studio 44 and 45 on the Pink Route, about a mile and a half outside of Castle Douglas.

Photographing a Kimono

2023-03-23T18:26:00.010+00:00

I have to confess to enjoying something of a wee smug moment during the photo shoot.

I was photographing artist, Ewan McClure, modelling a Kimono designed by Morag Macpherson, in the gallery of Broughton House in Kirkcudbright.

Overhead lighting is rarely great for portraits and this one had quite a strong yellow cast which wasn't doing much for the colours of the material either.

Primarily I solved the problem with a combination of an off-camera flash with a coloured gel and adjusting in-camera white-balance. And at this point I could write several paragraphs about the technique.

In fact, I did, but have just deleted it as it was too full of photographer nerd talk. If anyone is particularly interested I'm sure I'll be chatting about it in one of my video podcasts sooner or later.

However, the solution came from recalling a Facebook post by King Douglas (who I interviewed on this blog - see Chasing Shadows: The Photographer Interviews - King Douglas) from several years ago. I'd understood the theory, but never put into practice – until now.

I love it when my brain works.

Although I don't doubt the super-strong coffee Ewan made us before we began helped considerably.

But probably of more interest to non-photographers is why we were doing the photo shoot in the first place.

I've done several shoots with Morag over the years (for example, see Photo Shoot at the Rural Mural and Bald, Bold, and Covered in Paint), so when she told me of an interesting commission she'd been given, I was more than happy to take some shots of it for her.

Lynne had a beautiful silk dress of her mother's from Hong Kong in the 1950s, but it had been packed away for years. She had no desire to wear her mother's clothes so wondered about repurposing it into a kimono as a gift for her son, who lives in Switzerland.

Morag regularly makes kimonos using printed fabrics of her own design, although they are almost always for women. However, she did have a pattern for a male kimono, which she had taken from one in a collection of Japanese artifacts stored and displayed at the National Trust for Scotland's Broughton House.

The idea came up that perhaps we could do a shoot at this location and the connection might make an interesting press release.

Although Broughton House was closed to the public in February, she called round and discovered the artist Ewan McClure was working out of the studio there.

The building used to be the residence of Scottish impressionist artist E.A. Hornel, and at the back of the house is a large room – 2 storeys high, and where half the roof is a north-facing skylight, letting in a wonderful soft natural daylight. Ewan has been using the space as artist-in-residence for the past few years.

So if we could get Ewan to model the kimono at Broughton House then that would add another dimension of interest to the story.

Fortunately he was up for it.

The gallery was the obvious place to take a photo, although it did have problematic lighting from my perspective – hence the need to creatively solve the issue, which I did, and then enjoyed the smug moment I mentioned earlier.

The rest of the photos - see below - we decided to take in Hornel/Ewan's studio space – and with the large roof windows allowing the natural light to flood in, I decided not to use any artificial lighting on this occasion (although I have tucked away a couple of ideas for potential future shoots...).

As Morag and I are both appearing in the Spring Fling Open Studios event at the end of May, this combination of photos and story was picked up by Matthew Shelley of Scottish Festivals PR, and has since been used to promote the event in various local and national press.

Kimono: Morag Macpherson
https://www.moragmacphersontextiles.com/
@moragmacphersontextiles

Model/Artist: Ewan McClure
https://www.ewanmcclure.com/
@ewanmcclure

Location: Broughton House
https://www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/broughton-house

Eva in Black and White (and colour)

2023-01-30T11:41:00.000+00:00

While I am in my element doing staged shoots with a team of people all collaborating to help create something special, my first love was moody close up portraits (usually in black and white) and I will still look for any opportunity to grab one when I can.

I've photographed Eva a couple of different times over the past year and she's great for throwing attitude down the lens. She's friendly smiles in real life, but my camera connects to her on a different level when I bring it up to my eye.

So at the Renaissance Punk shoot (see – https://kimayres.blogspot.com/2023/01/renaissance-punk-at-rosefield-mills.html) we were doing as part of a Re:Dress Scotland project, I thought I would try and steal a few head shots with her, even though it was primarily a fashion shoot.

Aware that I was really needing to get the full length, and larger environmental images, I only shot off a handful of close-ups, and didn't have much time to think about what I was doing.

However, a couple of weeks later, after I'd edited the main photos, I went back to see what I'd got with the head shots and really enjoyed deep diving into the editing, creating photos that made me sit back in my chair and go "wow!"

I remember writing several years ago that over and above making the client happy, what I'm ultimately chasing in a photo shoot is to create something beyond what I thought I was capable of. But as I improve in my photography, this bar gets set higher and higher, so happens less and less often.

These photos of Eva triggered that elusive feeling in me.

However, I've also been reminded that what I'm looking for in a photo is usually quite different to what anyone else is looking for. The response on social media to the images has been OK, but not at the level I was secretly hoping for.

But that's alright.

Most photographers will complain that what they feel are their greatest ever images get little response, while something that was quick and easy can sometimes gain traction and praise that feels completely out of proportion to the effort in creating it (how often have I commented about the fact I will get 10 times the amount of likes for a quick selfie of me and my daughter than I will ever get for a finely crafted narrative photo?).

But over the years, I have (mostly) come to terms with that. The important thing is for me to keep chasing some kind of aesthetic satisfaction deep within me, regardless of anyone else's taste in imagery.

My wife will sometimes talk about scratching her bones to describe that internal itch or drive that cannot easily be relieved.

This image was my favourite of them all. I added the anarchy graffiti on the wall behind to contribute to the mood I was after, but so much more subtle editing went into this, there were times I was pixel-pushing at levels no one else would ever see or notice.

However, I also discovered I really liked the colour version of this too

And then, following a video I saw on YouTube, I decided to try it out with a blue-pink colour shift, which created a cyber-punk feel (rather than the Renaissance Punk theme of the shoot) that grabbed me as well.

Feedback and thoughts are always welcome – and you are allowed to admit to not feeling the same way about these photos as I do!

---

Model: Eva Taylor
Hair: Nelson Brown and his team
Makeup: Alanna Barszczynski
Outfit: Circle Vintage
Location: Rosefield Mills, with thanks to Dumfries Historic Buildings Trust

Renaissance Punk at Rosefield Mills

2023-01-23T18:42:00.002+00:00

"The show-stopping, finale outfit is going to be worn by Angela, the key piece of which will be a 15 metre long cape painted by artist, Emma Visca, and we'd really like a good photo to show it off," said Marie.

I knew from the outset that the stage set up with live audience and low-light conditions were going to make it practically impossible to get the best possible image of the cape on the night of the Re:Dress Slow Fashion Festival, without disrupting the show.

We were going to have to do a separate photo shoot in a separate location.

And so began the search for a suitable venue and a date when everyone would be available. And if we were going to this much trouble, we may as well get a few more models and outfits that reflected the ethos of Re:Dress.

Luke Moloney of the Dumfries Historic Buildings Trust allowed us access to Rosefield Mills - an old building complex on the banks of the River Nith in Dumfries, that ceased tweed production back in the 1930s. Since then it has been slowly decaying, but a few years ago was bought by DHBT, who are now looking into ways to raise funds to convert it for community use.

It has one watertight building that is about 12m by 15m, while still having the paint-peeled brickwork that gives a wonderful urban decay feel, which was ideal for the mood and feel for this project.

Luke also lent us another ladder and a wooden chair for props

On the morning of the shoot, Nelson Brown and his team set to work on the hair for the models, while Alanna Barszczynski did the make up and Circle Vintage the clothing and styling.

Initially I thought our models - Angela, Chelsie, Eva, Joe, Marie and Sahar – would be arriving up one at a time, and I arrived early with Willie Johnston, who was acting as my assistant and shooting some behind-the-scenes video (see further down the page). However, after waiting around for a couple of hours, they all turned up together.

And then it was full on for the next few hours.

While there was a certain amount of ambient light coming from the skylights in the building, it wasn't creating the drama I wanted. So I set up a large softbox as my key light, and then another off-camera flash to use as a backlight. This gave a greater sense of depth with more shadow play coming into action.

Above - test shots: Dan from Circle Vintage in ambient light, then I set the camera to underexposed so he would only be lit by the lights I could control.

Although the lighting was set up to get create photos of the models in the outfits, I quickly realised they could be props in the shoot too. Some of my favourite images are where you see the model and the whole set – it creates more of a story - like this one of Mariel, a Ukrainian ballet dancer who was 8 months pregnant at the time of the shoot.

Willie created a great behind-the-scenes video with the footage he shot, which I think gives a good insight into that part of the day.

The original plan had been the photo shoot would take place a couple of days after the fashion show, and the images would be released within the week while it was still fresh.

Then came the possibility of getting them into a magazine, which would mean holding them back a bit longer.

Then trying to find a date when everyone was available proved more difficult than expected and pushed it back several weeks.

Then it fell through with the magazine.

Then Christmas got in the way.

However, thinking of ways to turn adversity into opportunity, I wondered if it might be possible to make our own online magazine using the images from the shoot.

I thought I was having an original idea, but when I spoke to Marie it turned out she had been thinking about creating a magazine for a couple of years, but the world of the pandemic had diverted her down different routes.

And then we discovered Nelson had long been thinking about creating one too!

So we are now in discussions about developing something bold and wonderful, but in the meantime have put together what is, in effect, an early prototype to start seeing what's possible.

Scroll to the bottom of the page for the link to the online magazine

Below are a few of my favourite images.

Here's the link to the magazine on Issuu.com - https://issuu.com/kimayresphotography/docs/redress_rpunk - take a look and we hope you like what you see.

Any feedback welcome!

2022 in Photographs

2023-01-01T17:25:00.010+00:00

Every January, I put up a post of my favourite photos from the past 12 months.

In contrast to most social media selections, these are not about the number of likes, comments or shares. Instead these are the photos I was most pleased with. It might be because I felt the shoot or editing moved my photography forward a notch, or it might just be that it was a lot of fun to create.

Either way, I've often found that the response to my images on social media is quite often at odds with my own. Photos I thought were OK but nothing special can end up with a big response, while those I am immensely proud of can often produce reactions that are little more than tumbleweeds rolling past.

So if my last post (see Less surprised, but still faintly disappointed...) was my bemusement at how a casual selfie can vastly out perform a carefully crafted creation, this one is the complete self-indulgence of me showing off what I consider to be my best photos of the year, to anyone who cares to view (even if it is only me in future years looking back to see what I used to think was good).

You'll find a varied selection of photos below, so hopefully there's something for everyone.

I'm always interested in feedback, so if you'd care to leave a comment about which one(s) are your favourite, or any personal observations, it would be warmly appreciated.

If you're curious as to how my photography has progressed since I began back in 2009, then you can find earlier years' selections here: 2021, 2020, Decade Review, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009

Wave Blues Band

Bands are nearly always the best kind of people to do narrative photography shoots with. Musicians are creatives, and also performers, so narrative photography is always a good excuse to think bigger, or go off on interesting tangents - create something a bit more cinematic - something that looks like it could be part of a larger story. So instead of going for a shoot where it looked like they were playing live, we developed the idea that in a smoke filled room, 2 people could be playing cards while the rest of the band were setting up around them.

If you'd like to read more about the shoot (and see some of the individual band member photos), then you can read my blog post here:https://kimayres.blogspot.com/2022/01/photographing-wave-blues-band.html

Or if you'd like to watch the podcast where I go into more detail about it, then you can find it here:
https://youtu.be/edLEIbrStz0

A Day in the Life of Kirkcudbright Galleries

I was commissioned by Kirkcudbright Galleries to do "A Day in the Life" of the building. Light was low, and I didn't want to be blinding visitors with flashes going off all day, so I decided to make a feature of slow shutter speeds and "smudging time"

If you'd like to watch the podcast where I go into detail about this shoot, then follow this link: https://youtu.be/Tjea_XrVB0g

Storyteller, Renita Boyle

With 2022 being Scotland's "Year of Stories", I was asked by Dumfries & Galloway Life Magazine to photograph local children's author and storyteller, Renita Boyle, who I've known for many years and is always up for a fun photo shoot. Despite the look of the dark, mysterious forest, it was in fact a sunny day and I had to play around with lighting and exposure settings to get the mood I wanted. I then played around with the editing so the trees blurred up out of the image to give it an otherworldly feel.

If you'd like to watch the podcast where I go into detail about this shoot, then follow this link: https://youtu.be/OLhKJ1KxoYM

The Artist

My wife, artist Maggie Ayres, was needing a headshot - and I did get one of her smiling and in colour - but during the shoot I also captured this one of her which was far more authentic in reflecting the way she was feeling on that day, with all that was weighing on her mind. She found it as captivating as I did and doesn't mind me showing it here.

The Ultimate Selfie

As the open studio event, Spring Fling, was starting to loom, for the first time in 3 years I was going to be putting up work for the public to view in the flesh rather than online. At the same time, the commissioning editor of Dumfries & Galloway Life Magazine was talking to me about doing a feature on photography as a storytelling medium. I realised I didn't have that many narrative photos to display so it was time to get creative.

I'd been toying with the idea of doing a multiple selfie for some time, so this was the excuse to go for it. In the end I managed to squeeze 10 of me into the one shot (bonus points if you can spot the 10th one)

If you'd like to watch the podcast where I go into detail about this shoot, then follow this link: https://youtu.be/ctQ35dJD3Yc

My Father

Visiting my 85 year old father, I wanted to get a photo of him, but it was a dull wet day and not much light indoors. So I got him to sit in the doorway, while I stood outside, under an umbrella.

Car Stories

One of my favourite shoots of the year was a collaboration with Circle Vintage, a clothes store specialising in original clothing from the 60s to the 90s. A previous client of mine allowed us to use his Citroen DS for the shoot, and Eva and Emily were our wonderful models. I wanted the photos to have a cinematic feel to them, which is reflected in the lighting and cropping style I used.

Balancing the light for this one was particularly delicate, because if the inside light was too strong, then you wouldn't see the cherry blossom reflections in the window, and if it wasn't strong enough, then you wouldn't see the wonderful expression by Eva.

If you'd like to watch the podcast where I go into detail about this shoot, then follow this link: https://youtu.be/aMCX-E9Y32w

You can also find more of the photos in my "Collaborations with Circle Vintage" album in my Flickr account.

Bath Stories

"Have you seen Fiona's bathroom?" asked Marie of Circle Vintage. "She's got one of those baths that's in the middle of the floor, and she says she's OK with us using it for a photo shoot if we want." And so began another collaboration, this time with models Chelsie, who she was going to be put in a white lace dress, and Joe, who was to be dressed in a glittery gold outfit, looking like a 70s sci-fi show spaceman (complete with a crash helmet sprayed gold and silver).

If you'd like to watch the podcast where I go into detail about this shoot, then follow this link: https://youtu.be/Wl54QBo6YtQ

You can also find more of the photos in my "Collaborations with Circle Vintage" album in my Flickr account.

June Nelson

Photographing 86 year old author, June Nelson, was an assignment from D&G Life magazine. She was wonderful company and I was delighted to capture this photo of her.

Morag MacPherson Textiles

In my 4th collaboration over the years with textile designer, Morag Macpherson, this time we ventured into the woods with model, Anna. The lighting conditions with shafts of strong sunlight and deep shadows tested my light balancing skills to the limit, but we did end up with a set of photos we were both pleased with.

You can find more of the photos in my "Collaborations with Morag Macpherson" album in my Flickr account.

Bippity - Performance Collective Stranraer

Moving in a completely different direction to my staged, narrative photography, I was asked to photograph Performance Collective Stranraer doing improvised live street theatre. With no control over the subjects, the lighting or the background, I had to watch really closely, tune in as best I could, and begin to anticipate their movements. It was a fun challenge.

During a break though, I made couldn't resist getting some portraits. I still find photographing faces close up completely irresistible.

If you'd like to watch the podcast where I go into detail about this shoot, then follow this link: https://youtu.be/j_duGEK4EyQ

Generations of the Ayres Family

Back in the summer on one of the hottest days of the heatwave, my niece, Holly, got married and asked everyone to wear something colourful - not a straightforward request considering at least half of us are most comfortable wearing black, or at least very dark colours, most of the time.

However, it's a long time since we had this many of the Ayres family together, so I handed my camera to the wedding photographer and asked him to get a shot of us. With the exception of my son, Rogan, and my sister's other daughter, Kesha, who weren't able to make it, this is the most complete photo we have of my father with his direct descendants.
(Left to right: Callum (my brother's son), Holly (my sister's daughter), Charlotte (my brother's daughter), Coralie (my sister), Meg (my daughter), me, Donald (my Dad), Myke (my brother)

The Galloway Players

Rebecca and Iain are amazing musicians. They met a couple of years ago and formed The Galloway Players. I also did a set of photos against a white background with a 2 light set-up, but when I tried a single softbox set-up against a dark background, the whole thing became very painterly, and I was really pleased with the images.

This was also the first real set of photos I did with my new Canon R5, where I finally felt I was working with the camera, rather than wrestling against it. Whenever I get a new camera, the quality of my photography falls off for a month or so while I work out how to customise the settings and create a new muscle-memory for where everything is. And I was delighted to realise there is a quality to these images that I wouldn't have been quite able to achieve with my previous camera.

If you'd like to watch the podcast where I go into detail about this shoot, then follow this link: https://youtu.be/-agTnV7MmsU

Rock for ReDress

In 2021, Circle Vintage launched the Dumfries Slow Fashion Movement with a fashion show at the Theatre Royal, featuring upcycled, recycled, vintage and eco-friendly clothing. In Autumn 2022 it shifted up a level when they moved to Loreburn Hall, which allowed them to have a full length catwalk, and a VIP lounge for sponsors. The lighting on the catwalk was very low, and a couple of other photographers gave up with their cameras and reverted to their phones to try and get some shots.

Initially I didn't think I had any hope of getting some decent images, however the new camera had much further limits to be pushed to than my old one, and I was delighted to end up with a batch of photos that were good enough to be printed in D&G Life magazine.

If you'd like to watch the podcast where I go into detail about the low-light, catwalk part of this shoot, then follow this link: https://youtu.be/d1QKo25Zlhw

In The Alcove

Strongly suspecting in advance that the low light of the catwalk could be problematic, I set up a mini-studio with a single light in a small alcove in the VIP lounge to try and get some interesting fashion shots with some of the models. I deliberately used a wide-angle lens pushed to its maximum - not only to fit them in, but to create an off-kilter, slightly unsettling feel to the photos. You might recognise Chelsie from the bath shoot in the first one, along with Joe from the bath shoot and Eva from the car shoot in the second.

If you'd like to watch the podcast where I go into detail about this part of the fashion shoot, then follow this link: https://youtu.be/SEaJUv7Sr4M

You can also find more of the photos (including the ones from the 2021 fashion shoot) in my "Collaborations with Circle Vintage" album in my Flickr account.

Emergency Pottery Photography

My potter friends Doug and Hannah - Fitch & McAndrew - found themselves in need of some emergency photography when their usual product photographer wasn't available, and they had a set of creations they needed images of for their annual autumn online exhibition. This was quite new to me and it took a wee while to get a set up I was happy with.

In the end they were delighted with the photos but later, when I later looked at the way their usual photographer does it, I realised my images were shot in a way that were more like portrait than product photos

If you'd like to watch the podcast where I go into detail about this shoot, then follow this link: https://youtu.be/hCxVokMTdZU

The Firelight Trio

I've photographed Ruth and Gavin as part of Bellevue Rendezvous, Journeyman, and Whirligig. This time, however, they have teamed up with accordionist, Phil, to form the Firelight Trio, who will be officially launching their new album at Celtic Connections later in January. However, I'm feeling smug about the fact I already have a copy of their wonderful CD, which they gave me at the photo shoot.

The Curious Case of the Red Hat and the Half-Eaten Mince Pie...

Several times over the years I've attempted to do a Christmas-themed self-portrait where I wanted to create a Scrooge-like character who was annoyed by the event. I've never successfully managed it. Instead I have several folders of photos which never quite worked.

This year I had the idea of approaching it more like a detective story. What if someone didn't know about Christmas and came across a red hat and a half-eaten mince pie? This time it felt like I'd finally succeeded in creating the photo I set out to make.

Anarchy

This is a bonus shot from another collaboration with Circle Vintage, but the photos have yet to be released (one or two may well appear in next year's "Best of 2023" blog post). Although most of the photos are fashion shots, I couldn't resist doing a quick set of portraits of Eva (from the car and alcove shoots above). We were in an old warehouse building - part of the same complex I did the "Peaky Blinders" themed shoot a few years back. I added the anarchy graffiti afterwards in the editing, as I felt it really intensified the mood of the image.

As of this moment (and of course it could change in anything from a few minutes to a few months), this is quite possibly one of my all time favourite photos, although judging by the response on social media and photography sites, few other people see it in the same way I do...

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I hope you've enjoyed my selection - please leave a comment below with any thoughts or observations, and let me know your favourite(s)!

Wishing each and every one of you a less stressed 2023.