NOPS Urban Portrait challenge. A three week adventure.

Quite a number of our members expressed a wish to learn and understand a bit more about the capturing and processing of urban portraits, one of our members (Phil Beckworth) suggested a photographer he knew. What followed was a three week long exercise organised by club chairman George Reilly. 

The photographer in question was Peter McConnochie, a local chap who operates under the handle of the UrbanScot, due to his Scottish heritage rather than his name. Peter’s website can be found at www.urbanscot.co.uk

Peter came to the Nottingham Outlaws club room on April 6th and gave a very interesting and more importantly inspirational talk of the art of the urban portrait. Peter not only showed examples of his own work but showcased a number of others in the genre including Clay Enos and Brandon Stanton.

Peter gave us an insight in how to approach your subject, how to explain what you are about and a few technical tips about using a reflector.

The following Thursday Peter joined us on a photo shoot walk in Nottingham city centre, it was probably a little too late in the day to take advantage of natural light, but Peter demonstrated the effective use of off-camera lights, so we set of in small groups to try and put into practise what we had learnt.

To complete the three week project, a number of the photographers who attended the outdoor shoot showed their images at the club in both processed and unprocessed form, helpful discussions ensued and even a few photoshop tips from John Young as well.

So a great big thank you to Peter, also well done to George, Phil and John and all the photographers that followed the 3 weeks.  Attached are a few images that were taken, hopefully others will be added as and when they are processed and also some additions to our shadow Facebook page (www.facebook.com/groups/582076638559272/)

If anyone would like a large digital copy of the images please drop an email to chairman@nops.org,uk who can arrange contact with the appropriate photographer.

– Lester Woodward