The Stills Portrait Class

Along with six others including Gillipaw, I went to a portrait class at Stills in Edinburgh.
Part of the day was taken up with an interview in the RSA with the grandson of the German photographer August Sander who has an exhibition in the Dean gallery of his photographic portrait prints taken in the early nineteen hundreds in Germany.

It was interesting to note that Sander considered the taking of photographs an experience rather than a scientific exercise, and when one hears how hard it was in those days to take photographs compared to plateless, filmless digital photography nowadays , one can understand why.

Back in Stills we learned about studio lighting in all its various shapes and forms, all of which was interesting and apposite for formal set ups in studios but doesn't bear much relation to the portraits I can snatch across the table or in a room without white boxes or umbrellas etc and when the person in question would rather not have his portrait taken anyway.

At the end, we had a brief demonstration of processing portraits in Photoshop which was a little too much information too quickly as we were running late, not to mention the fact that my Photoshop is a bit too old for dealing with RAW photos and I have to resort to sleight of hand and brain to do the processing another way.

However that said it was wonderful to see how things can be souped up and made to look wonderful.
It's just a pity that I seem to have forgotten the salient points already.

My portrait is of a willing volunteer who gave me permission to share it with you.