Faye and I are honoured to have been commissioned by Poppy Scotland to complete 90 Portraits in 90 Days for the 90^th Anniversary of the Poppy Appeal in Scotland.

This is indeed a monumental task and one which we are privileged to be involved in, not only will we be making portraits of those who have served their country with honour but also those who are directly associated with the appeal and those who offer support and help in a wide variety of ways.

We will be making these portraits using a large format, 10”x8”, film camera similar to the kind of equipment that my grandfather and great grandfather would have used in their work. In fact my early work was all done on a 5”x 4” studio plate camera and in the mid 80”s we began to make a series of portraits with a 10”x8” plate camera using one of my grandfathers lenses. These formed part of an exhibition that ran back in the late 80’s and included portraits of Gian Carlo Menotti and Cardinal Gray.

Now we are back to using a large format camera for our latest project and many have asked why in the age of digital are we using such a traditional technique. Shooting 8×10 is the aspect of it being a mini production. It requires planning, transportation, scouting, set up and then the actual composing and making of the image. This process can be both painful and rewarding and yet we seem to keep coming back to large format. From the subjects point of view there is a huge difference in being photographed by a modern 35mm digital camera and a 10”x8” plate camera on a large tripod. The large format camera makes the sitter aware that they are directly involved in the creation of something of importance and as such they treat the experience with considered reverence and respect that is not afforded to more modern techniques.

This image is the first in the series of 90 Portraits and is of Andy Corbett.You can follow our journey around Scotland on Facebook just look for 90 Portraits

http://www.poppyscotland.org.uk/index.php/homepage/show/home/poppyscotland

Faye and I were saddened to hear that Derek Cameron, doyen of the Edinburgh cinema scene, passed away last weekend. This is an image made of Derek when he came to the studio to be part of our highly successful CITIZENS exhibition back in 2003. He was one of life’s true gentlemen.