February 24

Welcome to the Stills Environmental photography course.


What we will be doing on the course depends very much on what you want to get out of it - so do let me know. (I have a few ideas of my own, of course.)
I have found that most people like to spend as much time actually out and about, shooting. I use this blog to introduce ideas and show some styles of photography that will be helpful when we are out shooting; and I also use it to keep you informed of meeting arrangements and locations.
I can also be contacted at kbrame@blueyonder.co.uk
My background is in professional editorial and corporate photography, and I have produced landscape photography of some of the wilder parts of Scotland for the land conservation charity, the John Muir Trust.
You can find a examples of that project at:
http://pa.photoshelter.com/c/brame 
www.keith-brame.com 


and http://kbrame.blogspot.com - I try to update this blog and I plan to develop it as a photographic education site, so it might be worth keeping an eye on...


The basic preparation for any day out shooting is this:

• The location
• The conditions
• The idea
• The inspiration
• The route

Simple enough, and these can vary in detail and complexity, and we will explore them more fully during the next few weeks.

So today:

Source : met office

• The location is Stills and the Old Town
• The conditions will be bright, cool, clear, contrasty, low-angled light. Wonderful late winter northerly latitude conditions after a cold front has passed through. This information came from the met office pressure charts
• The idea may be a simple visual one or something with a bit more conceptual content. The visual idea may flow from the conditions - so today we could explore the visual idea of high contrast light, and explore the extremes of brightness and shade. The idea may also be a larger unifying project idea that links your shooting together to create a coherent project theme.
• The inspiration - there's a lot of good photography out there to help us. Sometimes this can make us feel that it has all been done before. Paul Hill has remarked in his book, 'Approaching Photography', that "you haven't done it, and it is important to remember that fact."  Jerome Loreau has an eye for light and contrast in his travel photographs that include Edinburgh.

http://jeromelorieauphotography.com/

http://jeromelorieauphotography.com

Going a bit further back, the American photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn paid photographic visits to Edinburgh, inspired by the stories of Robert Louis Stevenson.

'Weir's Close', Alvin Langdon Coburn

• The route - today I suggest heading down the Royal Mile and Cannongait to the Parliament, then round the back of the Parliament past Dynamic Earth and up one of the wynds and back up the High Street. Along the way the light may be zinging through the wynds, reflecting off windows and buildings...then again, it might not.

The OS Getamap service is excellent for creating routes, saving, sharing and printing them. For routes in the country, I use the OS maps with contours, as this helps to previsualise the terrain. It is worth learning map reading for the sake of safety if nothing else.

http://www.getamap.ordnancesurveyleisure.co.uk