Portraits

At some point, I'll set up a shoot with purpose. For now, it's all about the learning experience. My mate Matt (and often partner-in-weirdness, back in the UK) had just bought some light boxes, so we were looking for an excuse to play around. And so, we created "twinsies".

Now, I'm no model — that's clear from the look on my face and the awkwardness of my limbs. But, with even the slightest help from Lightroom, the red, grey, and green of these Lakes portraits really make the set look almost professional. Almost.

As soon as I shared the portraits I took for my friend Laura, I had other friends interested in having a session. Aimee was next up for a portrait set. 

In some ways, I'd guised this photo shoot as about creating promo shots for the jewellery I was making. (I had the idea that I might one day set up an online shop to sell my wares.) I think, really, it was about getting to grips with shooting someone other than myself.

If I'm to believe the chick flicks, most people eat ice cream and wear pyjamas after a big breakup. I had my friend move in and we played with flash photography, in an alleyway, at 2am. We took inspiration from a photo he'd discovered on Flickr and tried to play around with the technique.

By the time I shot these pictures, I was really getting into exploring portrait photography. If there's any story to these at all, it's that I needed to be creative — trying out portraits in water seemed like something new.

Whereas my first delve into self portraits was thinly guised as attempts to photography jewellery I'd been making, this set was purely for fun. Well, I guess I'm wearing a pair of earrings that I made, but... it's not like you can even see them. (Except maybe in that B&W shot.) This is my second set of self portraits – at least the composition is a little better.

These photographs feel like me from another lifetime. Another dimension, almost. But, as ever, I took any opportunity to make art. This was my first attempt at self portraits.

This is a collection of promo shots I took for a friend's show. The homemade studio was about as scrappy as mine —it involved an un-ironed white bed sheet on the wall, all the lamps we could find in the house, and probably a few bottles of wine.

A few shots from my portrait session with Jen Armstrong, a talented singer-songwriter. She needed some portraits —for Myspace? Facebook? Pretty sure it wasn't Bebo— so we spent the evening snapping some pics.