Face. Off.

February 26, 2015 by Phil Kneen Photography

“What makes a photograph of a person a portrait?” – a question I have been asked on more than three occasions… If the truth be known, I’ve never really fully understood the definition of ‘portrait photography’. Is a portrait a photograph of a person, or is it a photograph about a person? If it’s an image of a person, then is every single photograph that has a human in a portrait? I run photography workshops for beginners, one of the […]

Categories: fashion, Photography • Tags: 160nc, 6x6, 6x7, 80mm, art, black and white, camera, canada, colour, digital, Epson v700, film, film camera, film photography, fine art, france, fuji film, fuji instax 200, fuji pro 400H, fuji X-pro1, holga, I shoot film, instant film, inventive, isle of man, kodak, kodak portra 400, mamiya 645 pro tl, mamiya 7II, music, negative, nikkor 35mm 1.4, nikon D800E, Olympus mju II, Peak imaging, peel, personal project, phil kneen, portra 160, portrait, VSCO, VSCO FILM, yellowknife

Please release me…

February 23, 2015 by Phil Kneen Photography

  One of the main reasons for shooting my Spain project on film was because I wanted honest, straightforward portraits of people, shots like these can often seem unflattering and harsh to the sitter. I didn’t want to shoot digital and have the constant distraction of people asking to see the shots as soon as I’d taken them, not liking them and asking me to take another…or not take another and leave as quickly as possible! But guess what I […]

Categories: Photography, photojournalism • Tags: 6x7, 80mm, art, camera, canada, colour, film, film camera, film photography, fuji pro 400H, I shoot film, inventive, isle of man, kodak, kodak portra 400, mamiya 7II, negative, Olympus mju II, Peak imaging, personal project, phil kneen, portra 160, portrait, yellowknife

One.

January 20, 2015 by Phil Kneen Photography

“I do have a personal discipline of only taking one picture, of one thing…not two” – William Eggleston “I’ve never been able to take a picture with a digital camera, because I look at it on the back of the screen, then I try and do a better one, then a better one…then I don’t know what I’m doing” – Richard Billingham “The photographer has been a slave to the camera for a long time. Photography is not about the […]

Categories: Photography, photojournalism • Tags: 160nc, 6x6, 6x7, 80mm, art, black and white, camera, canada, colour, digital, Epson v700, film camera, film photography, fine art, fuji film, fuji instax 200, fuji pro 400H, fuji X-pro1, holga gcfn, I shoot film, inventive, isle of man, kodak portra 400, mamiya 7II, negative, Olympus mju II, Peak imaging, personal project, portrait, spain, VSCO FILM, yellowknife

Cafe Plaza Nueva

December 24, 2014 by Phil Kneen Photography

The Cafeteria Restaurante Plaza Nueva, Seron, Spain – my office for most of January 2015. I’m heading down to the southern Mediterranean to shoot a project on British Expatriates who are, for one reason or another, living full-time away from their country of origin. I’m not really interested in the people who are living there for ‘one reason’, one reason being the weather. No, I want to meet the people who are possibly hiding there for ‘another’ reason. I have […]

Categories: Photography, photojournalism • Tags: 160nc, 6x6, 6x7, 80mm, art, black and white, camera, canada, colour, digital, Epson v700, expats, film, film camera, film photography, fine art, fuji film, fuji instax 200, fuji pro 400H, hide, I shoot film, inventive, kodak, kodak portra 400, mamiya 7II, negative, nikkor 35mm 1.4, nikon D800E, Olympus mju II, Peak imaging, personal project, phil kneen, portra 160, portrait, project, seron, Simon Campbell, spain

Changes

September 20, 2014 by Phil Kneen Photography

One of the things I love about portrait photography is the way people can look completely different in every photograph I take. There are so many variables that affect the final image – the sitters mood, my mood, how well we know each other, light, temperature…the list is endless. These portraits were made days apart, weeks apart, there’s a couple with a few years gap. One thing I noticed, straight away, when selecting these images is how the look of […]

Categories: Photography • Tags: 160nc, 6x7, 80mm, art, black and white, camera, colour, digital, Epson v700, film, film camera, film photography, france, fuji film, fuji instax 200, fuji pro 400H, fuji X-pro1, holga, I shoot film, instant film, inventive, irish sea, isle of man, kodak, kodak portra 400, mamiya 645 pro tl, mamiya 7II, negative, nikkor 35mm 1.4, nikon D800E, Olympus mju II, Peak imaging, peel, personal project, phil kneen, portra 160, portrait, VSCO, VSCO FILM

Over-played

September 4, 2014 by Phil Kneen Photography

Do you ever hear a song and really like it, but you like it because not many other people have heard it and it’s a bit new and different? But then that song gets really popular and you hear it everywhere you go, and then suddenly you don’t like that song anymore? Well I’m getting a bit like that with VSCO software. If you go into any VSCO group on Facebook or Flickr, every shot looks the same.  I don’t want […]

Categories: Photography • Tags: 6x6, 6x7, black and white, camera, colour, digital, Epson v700, film camera, film photography, fuji film, fuji instax 200, fuji pro 400H, holga, I shoot film, isle of man, mamiya 7II, negative, nikkor 35mm 1.4, nikon D800E, Peak imaging, personal project, phil kneen, portra 160, portrait, VSCO, VSCO FILM

Part of the process…

September 1, 2014 by Phil Kneen Photography

Contrary to fond belief, I don’t normally turn-up at photo-shoots with no idea what I’m doing, although this can sometimes appear to be the case, especially on Sunday morning shoots… Most of the images I make have been preconceived, for all projects I will sketch-out ideas, possible models, locations and props. Some of the ideas make it, some don’t. (some people don’t make it either, sorry, Porscha!) Anyone familiar with ‘The Life, Aquatic’ and an exhibition of portraits I showed […]

Categories: Photography • Tags: 6x7, 80mm, art, black and white, camera, canada, colour, Epson v700, film, film photography, fuji film, fuji instax 200, fuji pro 400H, fuji X-pro1, holga, I shoot film, Impossible Project, instant film, inventive, isle of man, kodak, kodak portra 400, mamiya 7II, negative, nikon D800E, personal project, phil kneen, polaroid, portrait

People

August 17, 2014 by Phil Kneen Photography

At least once a week someone asked my advice about photography, about turning professional or how to get work published, but the questions, 90% of the time, revolve around equipment – “What cameras do I need to turn professional?” and “I want to get into portrait photography, but I can’t afford the same lens you use”. Years ago, when I was just starting out in photography, I would buy a lot of magazines. A lot. I’d flick through them and […]

Categories: Photography • Tags: 6x7, 80mm, art, black and white, camera, canada, colour, digital, Epson v700, film camera, film photography, fine art, fuji film, fuji instax 200, fuji pro 400H, fuji X-pro1, I shoot film, isle of man, kodak, kodak portra 400, mamiya 7II, negative, nikkor 35mm 1.4, nikon D800E, personal project, phil kneen, portrait, VSCO, VSCO FILM

Midnight Sun

June 3, 2014 by Phil Kneen Photography

I’ll tell you something – if you want to meet loads of really interesting, diverse, amusing, unusual, beautiful humans, get yourself a camera. The camera is a passport to the world of other people, people are never the same, so no shoot is ever the same – variety is the spice of life. In the last two weeks alone I have photographed 19 different individuals, and individual they are. Highlights of the last couple of weeks have been photographing Thurston Arrowsmith […]

Categories: Photography, photojournalism • Tags: 6x7, 80mm, beckii cruel, Epson v700, film photography, fuji film, fuji pro 400H, fuji X-pro1, I shoot film, isle of man, mamiya 7II, nordkapp, norway, personal project, phil kneen, portrait

Tres cervezas por favor…

April 8, 2014 by Phil Kneen Photography

It’s been a fairly quiet couple of weeks for me, my exhibition is already half way through its one month showing, it appears to have been received quite well, but negative feedback rarely gets back to the person who really needs to hear it. Last week I got some more shots of the very beautiful, Ciara, beautiful and extremely hard – I had her standing in a large sea pool, which I made her completely submerge in to get her […]

Categories: Music, Photography • Tags: 6x6, 6x7, art, black and white, camera, colour, film, film camera, film photography, fine art, fuji film, fuji instax 200, fuji pro 400H, holga, holga gcfn, I shoot film, instant film, inventive, isle of man, kodak portra 400, negative, nikon D800E, personal project, phil kneen, portra 160, portrait, Simon Campbell, spain, valencia, VSCO, VSCO FILM