The Luminate Photography Challenge Advice and ideas for creating your photographic portrait

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1 Introduction The Luminate Photography Challenge Advice and ideas for creating your photographic portrait We are delighted to announce a new opportunity for anyone living in Scotland to be part of our festival. The Luminate Challenge is a chance for you to create something new this summer, and to share it with others around the country. In 2015 our Challenge focuses on photography. We would like to invite you to create a photographic portrait of someone from a different generation, and tell us what inspired you to photograph them. We will select a range of portraits which will be exhibited online and in a touring exhibition during our festival in October. To help you, we ve commissioned some portraits from photographic artist Robin Gillanders, and Robin has also shared some thoughts and tips below on things you might like to think about when you re setting up and taking your portraits. The deadline is Monday 7 September 2015, and full details of how to enter can be found in the Terms and Conditions document. Robin Gillanders Robin Gillanders is an Edinburgh based photographic artist. He taught History at the Royal High School in Edinburgh for seven years until 1983, and then worked commercially from a studio in central Edinburgh. After a period teaching part time, he began teaching Photography full time at Edinburgh Napier University in 1988, and became Reader in He left teaching in September He was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by Edinburgh Napier in October Robin has exhibited frequently in Scotland and internationally in France, Spain, Poland, Norway and USA. As a portrait photographer, it s an immense privilege and responsibility to meet people from a variety of ages and life experiences, and to make a portrait. This was a hugely enjoyable experience for me, and as ever with portraiture, I m keenly aware that, in a small way, I ve contributed to their personal history. My hope is that they will be portraits that the sitter and their family will keep for generations to come. These portraits were all made with an elderly Nikon D700 digital camera with just one lens (a standard 50mm), which is almost 40 years old. I used a tripod for all the interior portraits and just available light with no flash, or even reflectors. Only very basic digital editing took place (brightness, contrast, white balance and cropping) I decided that all the portraits would be landscape format, so they would work as a set, and I ve tried to make each portrait tell a visual story, by carefully choosing the location, and including things in the picture that say something about the person. 1

2 Tips Sheet We have created this simple tips sheet to help you create a stunning portrait. Luminate will accept portraits created on any camera device. Digital images submitted via the address must be no larger than 8MB in file size. Artistic Think about your composition and be aware of all the elements in your photograph. Take notice of what is in the background of your photograph and consider where you should take the picture. Ensure that people in your photographs don t have background objects growing out of their heads! A cluttered background might distract attention from your subject, so it is important to consider what is in the background of your image. Think about the details as well as the bigger picture. When thinking about creating your portraits, consider using a prop or interesting personal object in your photograph. This can add a sense of story and place to the portrait, giving some clues about the person you re photographing. You might ask your subject to hold an object or simply place it somewhere so it appears in the picture. Consider how your image is framed. What can you see at the edges of your photograph? Can you improve the composition by adjusting your position as you take the photograph? Practical and technical Make sure your batteries are fully charged and you have plenty of space on your digital camera memory card. Reduce potential for motion blur or poorly focused images. If in doubt use a tripod. To get the best quality images, use the highest resolution setting on your camera for enhanced clarity. Images with higher pixels per inch (PPI) or dots per inch (DPI) provide the best quality image so when the image is enlarged it still looks great. Your image file should be no larger than 8MB. Be aware of lighting levels and if possible, set the camera for type of lighting source or make sure white balance (WB) is on AUTO. Be aware where the light source is coming from and position yourself accordingly to ensure the light is illuminating the subject - don t position your subject in front of a light source or window as this result in the subject being silhouetted. Take a few versions of your portrait so you have many to choose from later. Stand still when taking hand held pictures. The best pictures are usually made when your built in flash is turned OFF and you are just using natural, available light whether indoors or outdoors. 2

3 Portraits by Robin Gillanders Stevie McCammond Age 55 Glasgow I ve been a mechanic all my life, off and on you know. But I ve always had a love for writing and telling stories. I ve written a black comedy set in Glasgow and at the moment I m writing a fantasy novel. It s a challenge working throughout the day and writing too. You ve got to feed off yourself because there s nobody to motivate you to do it apart from yourself, but I manage. I have friends who play music and I used to play when I was a lot younger. But I had an accident with my left hand. I m left handed so there was a lot of pain there. A year back, I decided to play right handed and I can play now. I m enjoying it. 3

4 Rebecca O Toole Age 17 Glasgow I have always been determined, hard working and loved being part of a team - which is why I love hockey so much. In summer 2014 I was given a huge honour and was chosen to carry the Queen s Baton for the Commonwealth Games. This was the single most memorable moment of my life so far. I felt such pride for my country and my sport and I shall never forget it. I am going to be studying engineering from September. I know the struggles and fears females face within this field. I aspire to make engineering a field where both men and women can work together equally and I would like to make women who aspire to be engineers more confident in what they want to do. 4

5 Murdo Maclennan Age 88 Lewis I was born in a small fishing village in Lewis and I have stayed here all my life. I ve been married to Bella for 60 years now. The church has been very important throughout my life and I ve been an elder for nearly 70 years. This is a model of the boat owned by my two brothers and me. It was the best boat I ever sailed on, and we fished The Minch until it was closed in the 1970 s due to overfishing by purse netters. I still fish most days from a small dingy with an outboard motor and following local tradition, I distribute my catch to neighbours. 5

6 Beka Globe Age 43 Harris I was born in Wales and moved with my parents to Harris when I was 12. I went to Edinburgh to study photography and after graduating from Napier University in 1992, I moved to London to work in the film industry. I returned to Harris eight years ago, where my parents still live, with my husband Nickolai. We have two children aged 5 and 8. We successfully run an art gallery, Mission House Studio, where we sell Nickolai s ceramics and my own photographs. 6

7 Louis Robinson Age 15 Glasgow It took me a while to find my passion but basketball found me. I started playing basketball when I started high school. I had never played any other sport much before that but I ve been playing for about 3 years now. I play for the school team and also for Glasgow Rocks. I am committed and driven; this is only the beginning of my dream. One of the most significant events in my life was when I lost my Grandpa, who was my friend. I was still quite young when he died. He lived across the street and used to pick me up from nursery and then school. But I think of him often. Grandparents stay with you. 7

8 Tommy Dick Age 91 Edinburgh When I first went into bio engineering in 1964, Professor Simpson was the Director and he was a brilliant chap. At that time, the number of thalidomide children being born was quite large. So we had to provide them with some form of artificial arms and we had children from all over Scotland, North of England and Ireland. The idea was to give them a working functional limb. When you think about 1965, the batteries then, were too big and too heavy. We used carbon dioxide gas to operate the limb and initially they had an elbow reflection, wrist rotations and hand opening and closing. And that was sufficient to pick something up and bring it to their mouth. We couldn t give them two limbs because it would have been too heavy for them. So we gave them one working limb and usually an artificial limb with some sort of orthopaedic hand on the end, which looked reasonably normal. In fact, here is one. I got this prosthetic hand as a retiral present in 1991! 8

9 Kezia Lewis 28 Glasgow Textiles was always in my blood even if I didn't know it. My parents had a small knitting business making jumpers in the 70s before I was born. Early memories of being surrounded in my family home by fabrics, textures, patterns, ceramics, colours, stories, and music have definitely shaped my path. My diverse background and rich cultural heritage, that spans Scotland to Jamaica, has influenced my love to travel and research which is an important part in my practice as a designer. Since graduating from Glasgow School of Art 5 years ago I have strived to involve myself in various aspects of the industry. I showcased my work with Texprint in Paris, did a 3 month internship at Diane Von Furstenberg in New York and worked at a prestigious print studio in London. These opportunities opened my eyes to a world of possibilities within textiles from freelance design to working within education and showed me to embrace the nerves of putting myself out there. I finally found my perfect job when Fi Douglas, director at Bluebellgray, got in touch about an opportunity at her company. I love working full time as a designer where the ethos and aesthetic of the brand resonates with me. Working with an incredibly supportive and inspirational director, lovely team members and in a beautiful studio full of colour, sometimes I have to pinch myself. 9