Photography Live and Uncut

Episode #75: Simon Weir

I spent a very enjoyable hour last night as a guest on Paul Griffiths' show "Photography Live and Uncut". A prolific webcaster, Paul has recorded video interviews with photographers from all around the world and I was delighted to be asked to join him.

We go back many years to Nikon Owner meetings in London and have since both become avid users of Fuji's X System cameras - inspired by me, Paul even has an InfraRed converted XE-1...

The discussion ranges from my childhood photography to my work in classical music and my passion for black and white and especially infrared...

You can see a full list of Paul's other guests on the Photography Live and Uncut website

Chasing the Wind - Les Voiles de St Tropez

At the start of a new year I often find myself looking back over the shoots from the preceding 12 months and in 2014 one in particular stands out: Les Voiles de Saint Tropez.

Les Voiles - literally "The Sails" - take place from April to October across the French riviera.  Each race brings together some of the most beautiful traditional wooden yachts alongside the most extraordinary modern sailing boats for a week long regatta in beautiful ports such as Antibes and Saint-Tropez.

Shooting in the dark...

X-T1 / XF55-200 at 200mm / 1/40s at f/5 / ISO6400

Photographing Classical Music often involves shooting in low light levels - especially when the concert involves multimedia and projections - and just such an event took place at London's LSO St Luke's earlier this month when the Aurora Orchestra, conducted by Nicolas Collon, performed "How Pure The Sky" with the countertenor Iestyn Davies and projections by Stanton Media.

LSO St Luke's is one of my favourite venues.  An 18th century Grade 1 listed Hawksmoor church, it has been beautifully restored to become a state-of-the-art concert hall and is a regular performance venue for the Aurora Orchestra - one of London's most innovative young chamber ensembles.

I have worked regularly with Aurora over the last 10 years and their events never fail to provide photographic opportunities - capoeira dancers, 3D printed miniature players, and Wallace & Gromit have shared the stage with them.  But on this occasion it was light - or lack of it - that gave the photographic challenge.

Infrared Photography in Yellowstone National Park

I started 2014 leading a workshop in Yellowstone National Park for Chris Weston's safari company “Magic Is” – I am now working regularly with them as a group leader and instructor and am leading two further workshops in Yellowstone in Jan/Feb 2015.

Yellowstone in winter turned out to be an IR photographers paradise and my IR modified X-E1 with the 14mm did great service as the images below show. This camera blows me away every time I use it and there was a great deal of interest from the 12 photographers in the group – so much so that I ended up doing a full presentation on Infrared photography one evening while we were there. My X-Pro1 and the XF55-200 also did good service as shown in the two bison shots at the bottom of this post.