Tag Archives: photography

Reggie Yates: How to take a photo

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Love photography? Watch this video where Reggie Yates shares his valuable advice on photography

Reggie Yates is best known for his work as a TV presenter on The Voice and his shows on the radio; but what most people don’t know is that he is also very passionate about photography.

Reggie first got into photography as a bit of fun when he was studying and now these days his photos get used by magazines, he has his own photography website and has taken photos of the likes of Tinie Tempah just before the Brits.

As he is so passionate about photography, he has joined the Pentax Meet Britain campaign which is a nationwide competition calling on members of the public to submit images of the things which they feel encapsulate our iconic Britishness. The best images will be chosen to appear in a public exhibition in September. Entrants have the chance to win a new Pentax K-30 camera and there is a £1,000 prize fund up for grabs.

Watch our video where Reggie gives his top tips on how to take the perfect photograph and gives his advice on light, composition and the rule of thirds. All these can seem quite daunting to the amateur photographer but stepping out of your comfort zone can really help you develop your photography skills.

Website: To find out more about the Meet Britain campaign visit: www.facebook.com/pentaxuk

WIN A CANON IXUS 510

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Trial the new Canon IXUS 510 HS digital camera, and be in with a chance of winning one to take home

Five minutes of fame and Canon IXUS up for grabs, at Westfield Stratford City from this Saturday

From this Saturday, 16th June, Canon, the world-leader in imaging solutions, is inviting all photography fans to come along to Westfield Stratford City and trial the new Canon IXUS 510 HS camera, as well as be in with the chance of winning their own camera and a £100 Westfield shopping voucher.

Those who take part will be given the opportunity to take the stylish IXUS 510 HS camera along with them on their shopping trip to snap away as they shop. Each photographer will be able to take 20 photos, and will be asked to submit their best five shots to enter the competition. As soon as they are submitted back at the stand, the photos will be uploaded onto Westfield’s big FourDials screen, for everyone to enjoy.

Canon’s specialist panel will judge every photo submitted, and the winner will receive an IXUS 510 HS camera, worth over £300 (RRP) and a £100 Westfield

To register to take part, simply email reply@cuk.canon.co.uk and await more details.

The experience will be live on the following dates:

* Saturday 16th June 2012
* Sunday 17th June 2012
* Saturday 23rd June 2012
* Sunday 24th June 2012

Please note photo ID will be required in order to take part.

For further information about Canon UK please visit

http://www.canon.co.uk/

Be Part of Art!

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Have you ever wondered who the Mona Lisa was? Or perhaps imagined what it would be like to see your likeness on display in a gallery?

Next month, Gérard Rancinan is offering attendees at his Wonderful World exhibition the chance to be immortalised as part of the final composition in the series, which will be shot entirely on-site at the Londonewcastle Project Space.

Presented by The Future Tense in association with Opera Gallery and Londonewcastle, Wonderful World is the concluding part in Rancinan’s seven-year Trilogy of the Moderns.  Fresh from La Triennale di Milano, photographer Rancinan brings this revolution in three acts to a close, debuting the complete Wonderful World series to the UK public.

With galleries one and two housing the main exhibition of 15 large format works from Wonderful World, gallery three will feature a purpose-built set and studio, offering a voyeuristic glimpse behind the scenes of a fine art photo shoot. Repeat visits will reveal the organic nature of studio life – part art installation, part film set, part soap opera – as the shoot moves from concept, through production and postproduction, to the climactic unveiling of the finished work at a special reception on Wednesday 20th June.

To celebrate the completion of Trilogy of the Moderns, The Future Tense will publish a new print edition by Gérard Rancinan. Limited to a signed edition of 20 + 4 Artist Proofs, the work will be available only to those attending the show. A pop-up store will also sell related merchandise including the supporting books.

Wonderful World will open to the public at a launch reception from 6.30pm on Thursday 7th June 2012 (part of East London’s First Thursday late night art openings) and will remain on view until Sunday 24th June 2012.  Photoshoot auditions will be held on Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 June, from 11 am to 6pm, with the shoot itself being on Monday 11 June.

Wonderful World runs from 7 – 24 June 2012 at Londonewcastle Project Space, 28 Redchurch Street, London E2 7DP:  Tuesday to Saturday, 11am-7pm; Sunday, Noon-6pm; closed on Monday.  There will be an artist signing on 16 June from 12 – 1.30 pm; curator-guided tours on 17 June at 12, 2 and 4pm; and an unveiling reception on 17 June from 6.30 – 9.30 pm.  For more information visit the artist’s website at www.rancinan.com.

 

Hunger Games Actors Before They Were Famous

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Photographer Tyler Shields worked with the Hunger Games actors before they became famous. We have the photographs and the low-down on what they were like even though super busy Tyler is preparing for the opening of “Mouthful” which takes place at Ace Gallery, LA’s largest private gallery (the size of a City block) just down the street from LACMA. His opening nights are I N S A N E.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Josh Hutcherson: The first time I shot Josh he was 16, he busted his head open in my bathroom, so our relationship started off on a good foot! We created a real ruckus – full speed running down a street firing a gun. I don’t know anyone who I’ve shot who loved the shoot more than he did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leven: She is a delight to work with and always delivers! I’ve shot her in Wall Mart in New Mexico, we’ve broken into buildings together, she’s smashed cake in my face, I introduced her to her ex-fiance! Our relationship runs deep!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kalia with Tyler Shields

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kalia: the 1st time I met her her mom was there – because she was 15. He mom told me she had a Black Belt in Taekwondo and she could do these amazing high kicks – if you could see those kicks! She was really game for it. To be 15 and able to do things like that and deliver what she can – you’ve got to be amazing.

 

National Geo & Nintendo Launch Photography Competition.

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Budding photographers will have a chance to become the UK’s Nintendo 3DS photography champion.

Nintendo has teamed up with National Geographic Kids and The Royal Photographic Society to launch a UK-wide Nintendo 3DS photography competition

The competition has been launched in association with National Geographic Kids, famed for its exceptional wildlife photography, and the world’s oldest national photographic society, The Royal Photographic Society (RPS).

Competition entries are split into six dedicated categories, so no matter what you love to shoot, there’s a theme to suit you. The categories include: Animals, People, Places, Objects, Nature and Augmented Reality, which fully utilises the Augmented Reality features of the Nintendo 3DS system. The photo entries will be judged by an expert panel, including Lauren Jarvis, editor of National Geographic Kids magazine, and Dr Michael Pritchard, Director General at the RPS. The most promising photographer will win the top prize of a trip for two to Paris and a photography masterclass, while lucky runners-up will be awarded Nintendo goodies in recognition of their skill.

“We’re really excited to be working with Nintendo on this project,” says Dr Michael Pritchard, RPS. “3D photography has been around since the 19th century, but Nintendo 3DS gives people of all ages the opportunity to experiment with the technology and create their own 3D masterpieces.”

Lauren Jarvis, Editor of National Geographic Kids magazine, says, “There’s so much to be inspired by in the UK, whether you live in the city or the countryside. National Geographic Kids is all about young people getting out and exploring their world, and I can’t wait to see the 3D pictures they capture on Nintendo 3DS.”

How to enter:

Entering the Nintendo 3DS photography competition couldn’t be simpler. Take a 3D photo in-line with one of the six themes, using the in-built cameras on the Nintendo 3DS system. Once you have captured your masterpiece, upload it to the dedicated competition website www.nintendo.co.uk/3dphotocontest between 2nd April 2012 and 17th June 2012. The dedicated competition website is accessible through the Nintendo 3DS browser on the Nintendo 3DS system or through an Internet browser on a computer, and will feature galleries of all the images that have been uploaded. Each photo uploaded to the website will have its own dedicated QR Code and, by reading these QR Codes on the Nintendo 3DS system, users will be able to view their favourite images in 3D.

Recent research from Nintendo found that 60% of Nintendo 3DS owners take more than 100 photos a year* and 13% take as many as 1,000, which equates to three a day*. So say “cheese” and get capturing using the in-built cameras on the Nintendo 3DS system today!

The Nintendo 3DS features two outer-facing and one inner-facing camera, allowing you to take both 2D and 3D photos, and record up to 10 minutes of 3D video footage. Photos taken using the Nintendo 3DS cameras can be customised by adding fun and creative filters and effects. You can even draw on your photos using the Nintendo 3DS stylus to give them that personal touch.

To be in with a chance of being crowned the UK’s best photographer by the expert panel, check www.nintendo.co.uk/3dphotocontest for details on entry requirements and the full terms and conditions of entry. If you think you’ve got what it takes to take an award-winning 3D photo, then head out with your Nintendo 3DS today and get snapping!

Keep up to date with all the official Nintendo announcements and exclusive new game information by following the official Nintendo UK Twitter feed @NintendoUK

We Face Forward: Art from West Africa Today

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We Face Forward: Art from West Africa Today

Manchester celebrates London 2012 Festival

2 June to 16 September 2012

· City-wide exhibition of leading contemporary artists from West Africa

· Major new installations commissioned for galleries and parks

· Concerts with many world-renowned musicians, including AfroCubism

· Further exhibitions of fashion, photography, football and storytelling

· African art bus to tour creative activities around Greater Manchester

We Face Forward is a season of contemporary art and music from West Africa, celebrated across Manchester’s galleries, museums, music venues and public spaces, from 2 June to 16 September as part of London 2012 Festival.

The exhibitions, concerts, events and community activities recognise both the historic and contemporary links between Manchester and the various countries that make up West Africa. They will explore ideas of economic and cultural exchange, environment and sustainability, and the place of tradition in contemporary culture.

The core of the season is a city-wide exhibition of contemporary art from the region, the first major collaboration between Manchester Art Gallery, Whitworth Art Gallery and Gallery of Costume, Platt Hall. It will feature painting, photography, textiles, sculpture, video and sound work from a wide range of internationally acclaimed artists, including Georges Adéagbo, Meschac Gaba, Romuald Hazoumè and George Osodi. The exhibition will also be the first major display in the UK of work by emerging artists such as Lucy Azubuike, Emeka Ogboh, Charles Okereke, Nyani Quarmyne and Victoria Udondian.

New, large-scale installations have been commissioned from Barthélémy Toguo at Manchester Art Gallery, and from Pascale Marthine Tayou at Whitworth Art Gallery.

The Gallery of Costume will show work by three esteemed Malian photographers, Malick Sidibé, Abderramane Sakaly and Soungalo Malé, whose archives are being preserved by the National Museum of Mali. Their extraordinary studio and social portraits will be shown alongside West African dress from the gallery collection, photographs by Hamidou Maiga and contemporary fashion pieces from British-Nigerian designer Duro Oluwu.

A music programme, curated by Band on the Wall and The Manchester Museum, will feature world-renowned acts including: AfroCubism (the new international supergroup formed by Eliades Ochoa of Buena Vista Social Club and Toumani Diabaté); a multi-media concert by Niger supergroup The Endless Journey (Mamane Barka and Etran Finatawa); Angelique Kidjo; Jaliba Kuyateh; Kanda Bongo Man and many more to be confirmed. Taking place in music venues and galleries across the city, the season will open with AfroCubism at Bridgewater Hall on Sunday 3 June.

Exhibitions and events will also take place at The Manchester Museum and the National Football Museum. The city is hosting nine football matches during the 2012 Olympics and the National Football Museum will present African artists for whom football gives a means to explore protest, politics and social engagement.

The Manchester Museum is working with the African Caribbean Carers Group to present a re-interpretation of the Anansi spider stories using the Museum’s natural history and anthropology collections. The programme will be launched with Big Saturday: Manchester Anansi Spider on Saturday 2 June where the story will be performed by the Men’s Room community group, working in partnership with the Royal Exchange Theatre Company.

A summer-long creative programme will engage with a range of people right across Greater Manchester. Modelled on the highly decorated taxi-buses that ferry people across Dakar, Accra and Bamako, an art bus will take creative activities out beyond the participating galleries and parks to other locations across the city.

To draw the different locations together, artist Meschac Gaba has been commissioned to design an artwork which incorporates the flags of all the West African nations. This colourful motif will be on display at participating galleries and venues.

The title for the season is taken from a speech by Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, made in 1960. Stating his resistance to Cold War super powers, Nkrumah’s full quote is “We face neither East nor West: we face forward.” The festival takes its direction from Nkrumah’s statement of independence, deriving inspiration from his sense of West African cultural dynamism.

Dr Maria Balshaw, Director of Whitworth Art Gallery and Manchester City Galleries, said: “Manchester’s connections to West Africa are part of its industrial and trading history. This exhibition brings the dynamism of West African art today to Manchester, as the world comes to the UK for the Olympics.”

Ruth Mackenzie, Director, London 2012 Festival, said: “I am particularly delighted that this exceptional exhibition of art from West Africa will be part of the London 2012 Festival programme bringing once in a lifetime opportunities to experience culture to people across the north west.”

www.wefaceforward.org

Frost Loves…Sofia Coppola

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Sofia Coppola- Icon.

She may never be completely separated from that surname (would she want to be?) but she sure is doing a good enough job of making a name for herself in spite of, not because of, dads, brothers, cousins or aunts.

Her style, her photography and her beautiful films are uniquely hers. They waft of her. Her sensitivity and quiet forcefulness. She has won over James wood and Bill Murray. As well as countless other critics and movie fans. No mean feat. She won an Best Writer, Original screenplay Oscar for Lost in Translation in 2003.

I remember seeing a short film she made called ‘lick the star’ and thinking this woman is going places. I raved about her to anyone who would listen. Her last film, Somewhere, was a very European film. Nothing really happened apart from human emotion.

There was always her photography, which was in, amongst other magazines, Nova and Allure. Her clothing range Milk Fed, and then there was the High Octane series for comedy central with her good friend Zoë Cassavetes, her appearances in music videos such as the Chemical Brothers (her favourite band), Elektrobank which was directed by then boyfriend now ex-husband Spike Jonze. In the video Sofia plays a gymnast. She is directing her own music videos now. Who can forget her video for the white stripes ‘I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself.’ In which she persuaded Kate Moss (another friend) to pole dance in a black bikini? All shot in black and white.

Her association with Marc Jacobs (she is his muse. Even having one of his bags named after her and starring in his advertisements. ) As well as other creative talent, she seems to be at the centre of a new creative movement. A movement which also includes such people as Wes Anderson, Lance Acord, her ex-husband Spike Jonze, Zoë Cassavetes, Sonic Youth, Beastie Boys, Tamra Davis who is married to Mike Diamond and gave Spike Jonze his first breaks and her brother Roman, who directed his own film CQ in 200, which Sofia appeared in. It all seems to tie together from person to person.

She was born in 1971 and baptized into cinema as a baby boy in The Godfather and said recently that she remembers parts of her life more by which movie they were than anything else. Sofia and her two brothers, Gio,who tragically died in a boating accident when she was 15, leaving behind a daughter Gia and fiancée Jacqueline de la fontaine (Who went on to marry Peter Getty and is now divorcing him and wants $300,000 a month maintenance after she found a full frontal picture of a neighbour on his computer), and Roman (who is one of the new wave of music video directors and also writes and directs his own films), traveled around with mum, Eleanor a documentary director, and dad, Francis as he worked on his movies.

Movies of cinematic greatness like The Conversation, Apocalypse Now and the Godfathers all of which Sofia was in. more prominently in Godfather III for which she was unfairly lambasted by critics with a unrelenting harshness which seems to have lasted, if only to a slightly lesser degree to this day.

This is why Sofia Coppola inspires me. Why I describe her as an icon. She is herself she makes no excuses. Yes her surnames Coppola take it or leave it and she does not pretend to be one of the boys, does not yell. She gets what she wants the way she wants. She has survived a hell of a lot. Was vilified in public and came up to prove them all wrong with sheer talent, guts and determination. It is because she has her own influential style, because she has conquered. Because she is talented and unique and a true artist and even more importantly. She proved all the bastards wrong.

Sofia is 40 now. Has two children and recently married Thomas Mars, of hip band Phoenix, in a celebrity studded wedding in Italy. She is still a fashion icon, still making movies.

Sofia Coppola is definitely one to watch. As she may yet become one of the most prominent and influential directors of our time.

Welcome to Frost Magazine’s new Bird Column!

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Are you interested in all things avian? Maybe you would like to find out more about the birds you see in your garden or on the way to work? You enjoy looking at or taking photos of our native wildlife and birds in particular? Or maybe you think wild birds really are quite boring? If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes’, then you are in the right place!

My name is Sandra Palme – I’m a professional pet portrait artist, birding enthusiast and experienced bird photographer.  From May 1st, I am going to share some of my favourite bird photos and stories with you, tell you some interesting facts about British birds and show you why  birds around you are a joy to watch and also need your help as sadly, many species are in decline.

Birds are beautiful, birds are fun, birds are clever, birds deserve our attention – and I’ll prove it.

Robin
Robin

So I hope you’ll join me next week!

When speaking to each other, in their languages of colour and song, birds inadvertently speak to us. They include us. And we cannot help but respond – so long as we have some streak of life left in us. (Simon Barnes).

Sandra Palme
www.finepetportraits.co.uk