Thomas McEldowney Photography
a distinct lack of updates is hardly new on this blog but there have been a few life changing events in the way that needed taking care off.
Yesterady I took a day out to work on a new series, a sneak preview of which can be seen on my flickr stream, but I am mostly experimenting with b&w – i find it works best under harsh mid-day sun as in the pic above, taken in Portugal a couple of weeks ago
FC United 1 Bradford Park Avenue 1
This was devastating. Since the formation of FC United the club have managed promotion every succesive season, for much of this season that looked unlikely but FC came rallying back toward the end and made a phenomenal surge to reach the play-off stages, with the last game of the season being in effect a play off to reach the play-offs – whoever won against Bradford Park Avenue would go into the play-offs…. neither won and the play off place goes to Kendal… its gutting.
I came across a photoshop a while back of a heavily tattooed baby and liked the idea (much cheaper than the real thing) so got thinking what tatts would suit….. and then some Tupac played… I got some studio lights a while back but they are not used in this, just the natural light in the room
I have been reading recently where there is something of a trend in wedding photography to get back away from the reportage style that has become so ubiquitous in wedding photography recently, where people are wanting to get back to the traditional heavily posed and group shots that was the hallmark of wedding photography. Its not hard to see why really, reportage when done well, is superb and highly effective, but it is exactly the sort of thing that looks easy and really isn’t – reportage done badly? you will get better snaps from disposable cameras on your guests tables.
At my own wedding, our photographer gave his cameras to the children at the end of the night and the result was superb – people really let their guard down when children are pointing a camera at them, and even better goof for the camera – a world away from reportage but not quite traditional either.
I have just got some studio lights and am experimenting with them for family portraits – at the minute sticking to quite formulaic ways of doing it, nothing terribly adventurous but seeing what works. I know there was a huge trend for High-Key photography, but that is perhaps passing – so i’m wondering, what are the current trends in family photography?
Flash Player is required to view this gallery!
Great game, a must win for FC who took the lead, only to go behind and then bring the score to 2-2 at HT. Second half FC looked by far the stronger side and deservedly won.
Off the pitch the ‘Battle Zone’ predicted by the police predictably never happened, leaving 21 officers, three sergeants, four mounted police, several dogs and a force helicopter to make arrests for cannabis posession and breaking bail conditions.
Much as i would love to go into great depth about the history and traditions of Gamelan, I think that people would probably twig pretty quickly that it came from the Wikipedia page anyway. The Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester had a Gamelan concert, I went along to a rehersal, to watch and photograph. Thank you very much to the organisers and musicians who allowed me to be there.
Karima (prev post) was supporting James Morrison, so i hung around to photo that gig too.
I told you about Karima Francis a while back, and i think i may have mentioned she was going to be big, well she proved it again last night, opening for James Morrison she soon won the crowd over first with her own songs then a cover of Kings of Leons ‘Use Somebody’
And experiments in new theme settings
Christoph Bangert
War Photography holds a particular fascination for me, perhaps it is as James Nachtwey says, a photograph which shows the horror of war is by its very nature and anti war statement – it is necessary. I re-watched the Nachtwey TED prize speech on the bus on saturday on the way to a workshop with Christoph Bangert, a photojournalist who, despite only being a working photographer for 5 years and being only 30 years old, has worked and documented war and conflict in many war zones across the world.
