Brian Harte the photographer

A few weeks ago I was asked to go to Runswick Bay for an engagement shoot. Being one of my favourite areas of England I jumped at the chance.

Pulling in to the bay the weather was good, in fact it was great! So in an upbeat mood I went for a little walk along the beach looking for locations where I could take Peter and Helen. I decided to challenge myself and look for locations that you might easily walk past without a glance. Having had a look around I was quietly confident that I had my locations in the bag and decided a nice cup of tea was in order.

It was then that the nice tea-shop lady informed me that the weather was about to turn quite nasty. I found it hard to believe looking outside on a glorious day however I’ve experienced this scenario in the past and my gut feeling said to go with the tea-shop lady. So I ambled up the quaint narrow passages towards Peter and Helen’s cottage. In fact I got lost and had to ring Helen to come down and find me, but hey that doesn’t sound as good!

We quickly had a look over the clothes and selected a few tops and jackets to wear and hit the beach where the weather had turned to what I can only describe as “driving rain”. Hmmm….nice.

Keeping a big smile on my face I jollied them both along and managed to get some smiles from them in the rain. Helen’s prediction that “it would pass” was fast being proved wrong so we ran to one of my locations which would provide shelter. Here I shot them on their own and together getting some cracking shots but I wanted something more….

…I wanted them to get wet. No really I had some ideas but I also wanted to know if they trusted me, which they did, and I got each of them standing in the rain while I used a flash off camera (also in the rain which is not advisable if any photographer is reading) to get a fashion look for the photos. This turned out to be Peter’s favourite photograph and for me was evidence to them that whatever the weather I will take photographs and they will be great.

We moved back to their cottage where I took some window lit photographs as we dried out.

Helen was a bridesmaid at a wedding I photographed two years ago and I love it when people come back to me as I know I must have made a good impression first time around. I’m looking forward to their wedding and I hope to make it even more fun than their engagement shoot.

Peter and Helen have two romantic cottages they rent out. One at Runswick Bay and the other at Robin Hood Bay on the North Yorkshire coast and if you would like to find out more you can visit their website here.

…and no they are not like stripper-grams!

Some of you may know I once planned to become an optician…well I decided it wasn’t for me but thats not to say I am not still interested in perception, vision and optical illusions.

One of these perception tricks is 3D. Here are a few photos that show a funky type of stereoscopic vision.

Traditionally stereograms are photographs taken slightly apart from one another at exactly the same time, as our eyes would do. Then the left photograph would be presented to the left eye and the right photograph presented to the right image with each eye occluded from seeing the other eyes image. Our brains see the two images and merge them together to see a three dimensional image using different visual clues within the images and differences between the two.

One of the ways our brains do it is that objects viewed far away in each eye don’t appear to have much movement when you swap between them however objects close to you move a lot more. You can see what I mean if you hold your finger up in front of your nose and focus in to the distance now close one eye at a time your finger will jump a lot when you change eyes. Extend your arm and repeat still focusing in the distance…it will jump around a lot less.

The stereograms above are examples of a different type of stereogram called Wiggle-grams which flips between the two images rapidly. What interests me is that the stereo images are not separated in space as normally would be but in these type of stereograms are separated in time. The brain still reads three dimensional information from this.

Even if you don’t appreciate the science behind it you have to agree they look pretty cool.

Here is a website that tell you how to make them yourself and here is a website with more examples.

There are a few old stereogram cameras and examples to see at The National Media Museum (formally the National Museum of Photography Film and Television) in Bradford, Yorkshire.

I’d like to share a few of the photos with you and talk about what went in to them and what they mean to me.

Last autumn I was asked to travel down to Buckingham for a family shoot. The family consisted of Mom, Dad and 3 girls (6 years to 14 years old). Mom had asked if it was possible to have photos at The National Trust Stowe Gardens. I had made a few phone calls, upped my insurance to £5million!!! (thats what they required) and arranged a permit for photography.

Here is a family shot taken about lunchtime (about a third of the way through the day). I arranged each member of the family in to a nice looking group but by this time I had got a feel for who each of them were and tried to help them express that in the photo. I don’t like my family group photos to look rigid but I also don’t want them to look a mess. You tell me but I think they have structure with room for everyone to move and express themselves within it.

Apparently some tourists were walking past while I was taking the photo and I shouted “Everybody. This is Lord and Lady Stowe!” which got them all to laugh and I captured a real warm moment.

Here are some photos of each of the girls.

When I am shooting photos I’ll only take photos where I deem the light to be good. There is not much point otherwise or you wont be able to see peoples eyes and expression. That usually means not in direct sunlight. There are always exceptions and this girls strong features and her fashion look made me feel that I could take this photo using the harshest of direct sunlight.

I don’t tend to do this with young children (although I also never say never) as the harsh light can be too dramatic on a child, I’ll save this for the teenagers and the funky adults.

Near the end of the day I took the family to an industrial estate where I wanted to have some photos that would be a departure from what we had done in the morning, I also had the feeling that the eldest girl wanted some fashion shots so I got my outdoor flash equipment and worked a few photographs there.

We ended up the day having a bit of fun back home when I persuaded the girls to sing and dance for me on the karaoke machine. It was a long day we had all enjoyed it so much it didn’t feel like it.

Here are a few more of my favorites from the day….

There are more but I’ll save them for another day. I hoped you liked them and feel free to leave a comment below.

I’d like to thank all of the family for such a fun day. I had a great time.