Dear All

Six months ago in my blog, I was hoping when we arrived at this point that we could have moved on to some kind of normality and whilst things are better, we are still living in a difficult time, which will probably only change once a vaccination has arrived.  As a professional corporate and event photographer working in Edinburgh and around Scotland, the events industry is only slowly starting again and mostly at limited capacity, often without the need for conference and event photographers.  However, as with every difficult situation there are always positives and things we can learn.   I thought it would be a good idea to list a few of the lessons learned and these are indicated below:

1. We have all learned that nothing can be taken for granted.  Nothing is exempt from this kind of emergency.  Some of the sports photography and cultural events have experienced cancellation or postponement for the first time since the second world war.

2. There are always options to diversify.  I have spent more time learning new skills and improving areas that I haven't worked in for a while.

3. Photographers have had more time to explore their creative side.  I have done a lot of infrared photography during this period and the time has been beneficial from a fine art photography point of view..

4. You can explore where you live from a photographic point of view.  I admit this is probably a bit easier if you live in a lovely scenic place like my home town of Dunbar, but I imagine there are opportunities wherever you live.

5. communication with our peers and clients has been vital and we have all had the opportunity to explore this more during the lockdown and immediately after.  I certainly have tried to be more focussed on social media and communicating with my fellow photographers.

6. This may sound strange but I have also used this time to explore all aspects of my camera and software.  I have tried to use the free time to ensure I know my software and equipment inside out.

7. This period has been a valuable to time to think your financial and photographic strategy for the future.  We should all be doing this anyway and as a newspaper photographer in the past I had to do a big re-think of my photographic priorities and strategy when this aspect of the market diminished somewhat.  This is one area that we all tend to ignore when things are busy, but it is good practice to continually evaluate your strategy.

Anyway, more on this soon. I will leave you with an infrared photo I took recently.

Until next time.

Kind Regards

Colin

Colin Wright Photography

www.colinwrightphotography.co.uk

www.edinburghphotographer.com

Hi All

As a professional corporate, event photographer working around Edinburgh and throughout Scotland, it is always good to get the opportunity to visits different places.  I paid a visit to Glasgow on friday, to add to my infrared photography Scotland collection and also to get some urban photography images of this great city.  I thought this would be a good time to do a few Tips for the Urban Photographer, so here they are as follows:

1. Try low angles, making the best of puddles, objects on the ground and the dramatic perspective.

2. If you can try and include people in the photos, to give the images a sense of reality and buzz through movement, more difficult just now, I know due to the lockdown restrictions and the lack of people in urban offices.

3. Try to include famous landmarks in the city ie buildings, statues and bridges, or famous streets.

4. Be careful, you are in a city.  Be aware if you have a £2000 camera on a tripod in the middle of a busy location, or even more so, in a quiet area at night time.

5. Take loads of photos and try different things, with regard to the angle, composition etc.  Get creative also at home with software ie conversions to black and white, increase the dynamic range and structure in your editing. You could also try a little HDR, or focus stacking.

Hope that helps.

Until next time.

www.colinwrightphotography.co.uk

www.edinburghphotographer.com

Hi Everyone

One of the things I have missed during this awful pandemic has been sport and event photography in Scotland.  As a professional sports, event and conference photographer working around Scotland, I have really missed this aspect of my work.  Some of the events cancelled included, motor sport, football, rugby, bungee jumping and golf.  So when i went a walk with my daughter last week, I jumped (pardon the pun) at the chance to photograph her jumping from some old fallen trees along the East Lothian coast at the John Muir Walk.  I thought I would make it interesting and I fitted a manual focus fish-eye lens onto my Fuji XT2 and fired a few shots of at a very low angle, while Gina jumped onto the sand.  The results were pretty good, with the low angle giving the impression of extreme height.  Of course, it helps that Gina is really up for this kind of thing and her athletic movements also resulted in some dramatic images.  I have always been a fan of low angled shooting at ground level and in previous corporate positions, I have included some arty dramatic ground level urban and architectural images.  I also completed a project on puddle photos taken in Edinburgh and Glasgow and I also try to incorporate this technique in my sports photography commissions and infrared photography work where appropriate.  So enjoy the photos, more are on the website.

Until next time.

Kind Regards

Colin

www.colinwrightphotography.co.uk

www.edinburghphotographer.com