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Moonwalk Edinburgh

armourphotographic — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 22:19:33 +0000

June 11th/12th saw Edinburgh hosting the annual Moonwalk in both half and full on flavours of marathon, and with it being almost on my doorstep it seemed rude not to pop along.
Full disclosure :I hadn’t heard of this event until last year so just in case you haven’t here is what its all about.
Moonwalk is a part of Walk the Walk, a breast cancer charity that has been around for 14 years raising not only awareness but importantly some £65 million. Its a novel idea in that the participants set off generally at midnight and wear their bra’s not only for the support but as a show of pride. Its been going from strength to strength in Edinburgh for 4 years and attracts thousands of participants each year, from what I hear its growing each year and deservedly so.
The town does its part too, with many buildings and touristy type stuff (can you tell I dont really do the tourism thang) showing its support turning its building into a pink lantern for all to see. Seeing Edinburgh bathed in pink is a sight to see.

There is no map of the route published, and I can understand why, but it does make it a tad hard for people to cheer participants on (organisers please take note). So, with this in mind and after finishing a wedding shoot that eve my wife and I had no option but to, well just hunt it down!

All I can say is WOW! I was genuinely speechless at the sheer amount of ladies and lads willing to start a walking marathon at midnight walking throughout the night in the campaign against breast cancer. The very least I could do was support this, and encourage a few people with some pictures and applause. I had only intended to stay for a bit, I mean come on I had been up since 6.30am the day before, so I was a bit on the shattered side but I had no problems staying till every last person had walked past us offering as much encouragement as I could some 7 miles into their walk. Yeh I was beat, yeh it was damned early but I was engrossed.

After watching everything and wandering back to the car, there was no way I could just return home, we were full of adrenaline, although caffeine would have been better appreciated, so my wife and I drove to nearby Forth Road Bridge and sat to watch the sun come up with another plan in our minds of what may happen next year!

A few pics of the event are below

St Lucian Wedding Eric & Sabra

armourphotographic — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 23:53:48 +0000

Whilst I was away to be married to my beautiful wife Rose Marie in St Lucia last month, we asked this lovely couple to be our witnesses, and they asked us to be theirs, so how could I not take a few candid’s whilst I was there. Hurricane Igor decided to make things interesting and make the Ocean’s a tad …. choppy, with near 20 foot waves eventually crashing onto the beach. I can tell you the official photographer was not looking forward to the formals lol.

As I say they are only candid’s but I think they capture the mood of the couple reasonably well. The pictures show how happy the couple were and we, with them , will always have the memories to treasure.

Congratulations Eric & Sabra

More Later

Various Portraits

armourphotographic — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 15:54:50 +0000

OK So I have been MIA and trying to catch ya’all up with whats been going on.

June was a very busy month for me, apart from the previous 2 blog posts I was also been involved in more Dancer portraits, a few personal portrait sessions and helped complete a project with a few Flickerites with the Bread Street Photo Project coming to an end , the results will be on display in Tea Tree Tea in Bread Street, Edinburgh around August.

I thought I would show a few of the images of my exploits.

More Later

Lisa & Duncan Wedding

armourphotographic — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:10:23 +0000

A friend, see here for his web site, asked if I could assist in a wedding recently and after meeting the bride and groom and seeing the location who was I to say no.

The location was a stunning area in Perth called Murthly castle, the grounds being more than a mile from the entrance, you would easily drive past it and never know anything about it. The church, that has been used for many generations of Murthly castle residents, although small in capacity was a stunner and with just one look at it and it was clear why Lisa & Duncan chose this for their wedding.

Thought I would share a few pics I liked from throughout the day.

More Later

Rape Seed Field shoot

armourphotographic — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 21:11:34 +0000

For some time I have been wanting a shot of a model in a Rape Seed field, and I have missed the opportunity every time. Well this time myself a few friends were not about to miss out. All we needed was a field, farmers permission, a model and a few moody clouds……. well we got 2 but hey cant complain too much.

Its amazing, you have a shot in your head that you want to achieve but invariably you either have to adapt or in some cases completely scrap your original idea and this seemed to happen with this shoot. Its not often we complain about weather in Scotland ,well at least not good weather anyway, but we were competing against a bigger flash in the sun than we could muster and had to deal with these issues

A huge thanks to Mandy for modelling for the shoot, keeping 4 photographers busy with her wardrobe changes and for all she insisted she felt nervous in front of the camera she did not show it.

More Later

The best Hobby ?

armourphotographic — Fri, 28 May 2010 17:58:47 +0000

As part of my ongoing quest to better my photography and trying to learn this business I just took part in a seminar in lighting with David Hobby, now if your reading this then I would suspect that you would already know who he was but just in case maybe you should have a look at Strobist.

I was surprised at the ease at David’s explanations that even someone like me could easily follow his teachings. He really shows what small flash is capable of, now I use small flash all the time and I never knew they could do this. Yes they have limits in that they will never compete with the sun but with some thought and planning you can use them in very sunny conditions indeed.

The first part of the day was going over the technical side of things in how you add lights and a look into how he works in the afternoon session as David went through the construction and deconstruction of photoshoots he did in the past, then 3 live complete portrait shoots of students and a special guest in the form of Elaine Davidson, the Guinness Book world record for the most piercings.

The results were stunning, some can be seen here on his latest blog post, and I have to say the banter between Elaine and David was something to behold and I’m still unsure who won, and although David conceded if you know Elaine at all she was definitely thrown a few curve balls from David that knocked her off her stride.

What came across most evidently was a man that loves photography, as giddy as a schoolboy on a first date and infectious with it. Now I have to follow on from the seminar, now the learning begins….. I have to start doing what was shown, but not in parrot fashion, hopefully in my own style.

Wild Y- Cat photoshoot

armourphotographic — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 12:28:55 +0000

Ok so Right about now your thinking about animals, and Im not gonna argue as this dance troop has enough energy to be classed as animal like.

Myself and a few other photographers were approached with an idea to help fundraise for the West Lothian Y Cats Dance troop, with us taking portraits and helping in potentially creating a Calendar for them to sell, all sounds great but wait there must be a catch, no no I was assured, none at all. I agree to do this for the experience and start to get some details.

So Im thinking small numbers and lots of time, the reality was somewhat different with 70 …yes 70…. dancers to shoot in under 2 hours. Oh and there is the consideration at the same time they will be rehearsing and will have a few costume changes as well. Right about now my head is spinning and Im looking for the exits but the more I hear about it the more intrigued and more excited about doing this I become.

I have never attempted to photograph as many people at any time never mind within such a tight time limit, so when I realise that if im lucky I will have at maximum of 2 minutes per person my moto’s for the day would be KISS( keep it simple stupid) and one shot one kill, maybe not appropriate considering I would be photographing kids but tasers were not allowed so if we were to have a chance at completing the task I would need to stick to these.
We arrived on the day and were given 1 hour to set up and test shoot and then the doors were opened for the dance troop to have there photograph taken at specific times as regulated by our co-ordinators. I must confess I did have a fair amount of intrepidation when the first 20 or so dancers came into the hall but within minutes I was feeding off the energy from these girls. All nerves were gone and I was on. After 2 hours of furious work we were drained and we needed a few minutes to chill and reflect, and to let the memory cards empty into our waiting laptops.

We are trying to keep all the pics off the web as its a fundraising event, but if we are really quiet and tread softly I will show you just one……… shhhhhh! Dont tell anyone ;o)

With such a tight time scale I do rue the fact that none of us were allowed the opportunity to add a WOW factor, so for that I can only apologise to the girls, but I think we managed to capture the spirit of the dance troop and can only hope we have helped in their fundraising attempts.

Now the big question…. Would I do this again, well just gimmie the date.
More later.

The project begins.

armourphotographic — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:07:31 +0000

Saturday saw the start of a project I have thought of for some time, I have challenged myself to photograph 100 strangers. Sound easy? Well as Joe McNally described in his last blog post here we photographers are a strange bunch, we ache for acceptance, hover on the edge of human activity and are generally well ..weird…… still think asking perfect strangers if they would like a portrait done is easy?

My Saturday started out with no plans of any portraiture, but after a chance meeting with friends in town the lights came out and the fun began. I surprised everyone with my confidence, looking almost normal in approaching people and asking if they would like a portrait. So with that in mind please meet Stranger No1 my texting friend.

This chap spent a few minutes posing for me but seemed desperate to answer a text, Hey I said by all means answer I’ll just pop off a few shots whilst you do. The results looked like they came from early summer with only the (several) layers of clothing showing that it was actually an early evening in February.

Had a blast and later on in the eve shot a few more portraits of strangers, so now I cant go back and have to see this project to the end, however acceptance may be a long way off.

More Later

And here comes 2010.

armourphotographic — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:04:10 +0000

Happy New Year one and all.

A new year, and in this case a new decade, brings with it a certain amount of reflection. For me 2009 was a good one I mean this blog/site was born and a passion of portraiture was created, not bad for a sport tog wannabe, my “day job” saw a promotion and my sister gave me a niece. But that’s the past, 2010 is a new challenge and one I look forward to, I mean I get married this year…… Wow.
I wish you all a very Happy New Year and I hope all your aspirations are achieved.
Take care and stay safe and i’ll see you all on t’other side.
S

Merry Christmas from inView Images.

armourphotographic — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 23:26:13 +0000

Just want to wish all friends of inView Images out there in interweb land a very Merry Christmas. With Santa warming his sleigh, I hope it has a heated seat its pretty cold out at the moment, and Rudolph getting his reindeer troops in order I hope the adverse weather here in the UK does not affect them too much and you all receive your desired gifts in a timely manner

Christmas is a time for excess so enjoy but please be safe and I will catch you all soon.