All posts by Bob McEvoy

Freelance Photographer.
Child Portraiture, Studio, Uncategorized

Terrible Twos? Not at all!

Terrible Twos? Not at all!

Someone once told me that when a baby turns two that marks the beginning of the ‘terrible twos’ – when all restraints are off, and baby does what she likes, when she likes, and learns to complain loudly when he or she doesn’t get her own way!  But not always!  Today for my single family portrait photography session at Dundonald, (I was at a wedding this afternoon) I had this really delightful little two-year old, whose activities were more than enough to provide fun for the camera!  Including a great desire to carry a chair around with her!  (A small Ikea child’s chair – I hasten to add!)

Here she is on the sheepskin rug in the studio..

GS_DSC_5494A

Shot in the studio, Nikon D700, f/11@1/125th Sec on ISO200

Child Portraiture, Studio, Uncategorized

Reaching for the Moon #Nikon, #Chromakey

Reaching Up…

An advantage of digital photography is the spontaneity that it allows, which makes family portrait photography so much fun,and so full of unexpected opportunities. One of yesterday’s family photo sessions at Dundonald featured a little girl who reached upwards, just as the camera was on her.  What a great pose – totally unplanned, and so a great opportunity to show her reaching for the moon!

GS_DSC_5308

Shot on the Nikon D700, ISO200, f/10 at 1/125th sec, with studio lighting, against Chromakey ‘Greenscreen’ Backdrop.

Studio

Work Selfie

Playing with the Bronica after a Photoshoot today and I decided to do a ‘selfie’. Why not?  Everyone else is doing it!  So I propped the iPhone on a proper prop, and popped the camera thingy with a 10 second delay to allow me to pop back into position. 

Ireland, Uncategorized

Kinsale, Co. Cork, 1990 #Kodachrome

Chloe, our 5 year old granddaughter, came in from the garage clutching a little box, filled with interesting little flat plate-like things, asking Janette if it was ok to play with them.  It wasn’t!  It was a box of Kodachrome slide ‘positives’ shot in 1990.  In those days I was still making photographs with the Nikon FM2, no autofocus, no programmes, no auto-exposure, just a classy camera that gave the photographer complete control over the image.

So I took the slides, scanned them with the Epson Perfection V500 photo-scanner, imported them to Photoshop, and of course, unsaturated them to make some nice black and white images.  This selection of them is a panel of shots I made in Co. Cork, when we were on holiday there in 1990.

Some ‘sepia’ type effects applied in three of them, to create a ‘vintage’ look.

Photo-Technique, Uncategorized

Depth of Field on an iPhone?

How to get a Depth of Field effect on your Smartphone.

With the increase in iPhone photography (and of course there are other similar brands of smartphone) and with photographers starting to take iPhone photography seriously as an image medium, new apps to help the photographer improve there images are appearing all the time.

One of the real bug-bears with the iPhone camera is its lack of depth of field capability.  The small size of the lense and its proximity to the sensor makes optical depth of field impossible, (at least just now, who knows what lies ahead). So it was only a matter of time before an app appeared to produce a depth of field effect using digital manipulation in post-capture processing.  The app is AfterFocus, and it’s available now in the App Store for 79p. Continue reading Depth of Field on an iPhone? →

Child Portraiture

Saturday #Studio Work – #Nikon #BabyPhotography

Busy Studio Saturdays!

Saturdays are great fun at Dundonald.  The studio was especially busy today, – people picking up photographs and families in for their photo-shoots.  It’s always a relaxed (and relaxing!) experience, both for me, and I hope, for them.

In fact the more relaxed the better!  For sometimes that means that we can capture those little interesting moments in between more ‘staged’ posing scenarios.  It’s said that a favourite trick of Lord Patrick Lichfield when photographing groups (even the Royal Family) was to formally pose the group, make the formal image and then tell the that the shoot was over – and as soon as they dropped their guard – like half a second after his ‘final’ shot, he would hit the shutter again…  and what was recorded was the relief, and the relaxation that come when the subjects realise that their photographic ordeal is over.  Those were, arguably better, and more realistic images than the formal poses.

So, I try to copy him!  And sometimes it even works for me, like today, when the camera caught this nice little tender moment, just after the the planned pose on a little Ikea table had ended.

Unposed
Unposed

At the other end of the scale, in a totally planned and photoshop-heavy image, twin baby girls Ellie and Megan had their turn on the Dreamcatcher…

Dreams Come True
Dreams Come True

More from today:

Black & White, Child Portraiture, Studio

2015 Christmas Family Photography Experience!

Buy one Family Photography Experience Voucher and get another half price!

Buy one voucher for the purchaser and their family to use in the next 2 months (valid from the date of purchase) for just £25!

The value of this voucher is £140, which covers the cost of a one hour family session worth £75 and a framed 7×5″ portrait in modern contemporary frame or black traditional frame (worth £65.)

Get the Second voucher just £12.50!  
This voucher can to be given to another family as a gift for Christmas and would be valid until 25th February 2016.

To book your gift vouchers ring 07802 466302.

Or complete the booking form:

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