Repetition alert! Yes this is a sister post to one on my general website! though this is focussed towards portrait photography.
Yes we did it, we got to Madrid!
Originally we’d planned to leave Exeter and go at Christmas but Omicron hit the country and it didn’t seem wise. But as we were preparing to leave Devon recently we got the ‘Sorry, your plane has been cancelled.’ email; we initially considered driving but managed to go a day early instead.
As a photographer holidays are about photography, yes, I really do take my work with me.
Frankly even Karin sometimes gets a bit ‘awkward’ about the amount that I photograph her. On this trip though I was on a mission, to enjoy evening light and explore it in particular one of my lenses, the 105mm ƒ/2.8 Micro lens. I bought the lens a while ago to use in the studio for macro work but I just recently realised that it has fantastic bokeh abilities and, I’d missed that it also has VR so it’s great for low light! (Bokeh is the rendition of out-of-focus element at wide aperture. VR is vibration reduction – not typically used on a tripod)
Much of my work is studio based using lighting, tripods and so forth so for me it’s great to work/play in a different set of conditions. The Nikon that I took is one of my old ones, frankly I look at it and think if it was good enough for Lindbergh not so long ago I’m not going to get too whiffy about having my ‘best’ gear with me. As ever the Leica was with me, never an easy ride compared to the Nikons but then I get ‘that street shot of Karin in the hat!’
These shots are all Lightroom only, no Photoshop, retouching and so-forth. The mono profile is actually a colour one that I created a while ago for a portrait session, I need to replicate it as a black and white profile because it will give me a bit more control for colour groups. That said for now it’s doing the job and I’m liking the way colourful bokeh resolves to mono.
There’s a delight to finding light outdoors and it’s very different to creating light in a studio or outdoors for that matter. Madrid didn’t disappoint though and thank you Karin!
