ed smith blog

Quiz Gurus

admin — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:01:18 +0000

My latest portrait shoot of entrepreneur and quiz master Scott Carwood, founder of Quiz Gurus for the Prince’s Trust.

It was a challenging but fun shoot, largely due to Scott reading out pub quiz questions and my lack of correct answers being quite shameful… The only excuse being that I lack football and TV knowledge!

More soon!

Top of the Ben

admin — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 17:54:03 +0000

With a fluctuating winter season coming towards its end, the Scottish Highlands open up to a huge variety of outdoor enthusiast. From those looking to conquer the last frozen gully’s of winter, to those looking for vast panoramic views.

A lone climber heads up towards gully number two on the north face of Ben Nevis.

Peering down Gardaloo gully.

A mountain leader helps an ice climber to recover ropes on the north face before doing a ski descent of gully three.

Winter walkers head from the summit shelter to do a ridge walk of the Nevis range.

Munro bagging - summiting Scottish peaks over 3000 ft becomes a popular pastime as the summer approaches.

Tourists admire views of the Lochaber area thanks to broken cloud.

Cloud quickly converges on climbers near the summit of tower ridge.

Graffiti at the very edge.

PSYBT - Top 100 best businesses

admin — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 11:32:48 +0000

At the Scottish parliament on the 7th of March, the Princes Scottish Youth Business Trust launched a published list of their top 100 best performing businesses in conjunction with RBS. As a PSYBT supported business I was employed as the event photographer, which was a fantastic drinks evening attended by numerous MSP’s, with a great line up of speakers and lots of networking potential. Here’s a few images from the event…

MSP’s Chic Brodie and Margaret Burgess listen to plans of PSYBT supported businesses.

The published list ‘Celebrating 100 of the best PSYBT supported businesses’.

Speakers from left to right; Matt McGrath of PSYBT supported business Aircraft Medical, Murdo Fraser MSP, Thom Kenrick of the RBS Community Team and Mark Strudwick CBE of PSYBT.

The strangest things…

admin — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 13:38:04 +0000

I find Glen Orchy an eerie place, theres something about how desolate it feels despite being so close to one of Scotland’s main highways the A82. Maybe it’s me, I always seem to be here when the weather’s bad in the hope that the River Orchy will be flowing high, as I’m a white water kayaker… the only people who love it to rain on their days off! It’s mid week so I’m here on my own, I kayak the 10km river with my running gear in the back of my kayak, so that I can run back to my car, which is at the top of the river. At the take out point I walk directly into the woods to hide my boat and gear - just in case anyone passing by takes a fancy to it, as has happened in the past - while getting changed into my running gear, with large drips off the trees soaking me far more than if I was in the open faced with the moderate Scottish drizzle, I look up and see the bare figure laid in the moss ahead of me… it takes a second to register but never the less the run back to the car just before it gets dark is some what hasty…

London Boat Show

admin — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:32:36 +0000

In mid January I was at the London Boat Show as a presenter and speaker for a series of demo’s and talks revolving around kayaking, my other life passion along side photography! It was incredible to once again spend time with a crew of passionate and motivated individuals, needless to say that around my work at the show I rarely put down the camera so here’s a glimpse of a few behind the scene images. Many thanks from myself and the kayaking community go to Rob harris for his continued dedication to presenting and promoting kayaking in such a professional show at London’s Excel Centre.

Enjoy

Davidson & Robertson Rural

admin — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 20:01:24 +0000

The last two months have been busy, with new clients coming into contact and gaining support from the Princes Trust (PSYBT), 2012 has potential to be a very exciting year. This is a quick post of a couple of images from a recent shoot for Davidson and Robertson Rural, for whom it was a pleasure to create a portrait of retired partner Michael Reid Thomas and PR images from a drinks evening in The New Club, Edinburgh.

Michael Reid Thomas. Lit specifically for a black and white photograph, to fit in on the board room wall alongside images of former partners dating back to the early 1900’s.

Drinks evening, third floor of The New Club, Edinburgh.

Other shoots soon.

Storms hit Scotland

admin — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 22:55:09 +0000

Despite the weather warnings, a couple of friends and myself tried to get out of Glasgow to the highlands today. We ended up stuck on a section of road that was blocked by an overturned lorry at one end and a cluster of fallen trees at the other. With a queue of traffic behind us, around eight people chipped in to clear the trees with a couple of experienced tree surgeons and a JCB… the road was re-opened within just over an hour.

Canal update

admin — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 10:08:24 +0000

Canal Culture update

I’ve been going up to the Forth and Clyde canal over the last couple of weeks getting to know some of the people who regularly use it and document the diversity of this area. The project is going to be a long-term body of work, to make sure I have images that hold weight from all seasons, in all conditions and of people from all social backgrounds as is the reality of the place. Just now it’s getting quiet due to some bad weather but never the less I’m finding the area a great source of inspiration. So many satellite communities provide an abundance of variety that new project ideas have come to light, which I hope to engage with fully in the New Year after contacts have been made and research done.

Portraits online

admin — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 16:26:48 +0000

My most recent update to the website is a portraiture portfolio - http://www.edsmithphotography.com/portraits.php. It’s an aspect of photography that I love… trying to capture character, whether it be in two minutes or two hours it’s always a rewarding challenge. So as it’s an area of the industry that I hope to direct and base a lot of my work in the future, it seemed silly not to have a broader range of these images online, presented separately to my documentary work. Out with a photo-story, looking at very separate individuals and images, it was hard to choose a close set that presented a range of work and in the end I couldn’t help including two favourite portraits from my documentaries! Making up for this there are some images which have never been shown on this blog or website in the past, and even more scarce there are some which have not been seen by friends and colleagues from Falmouth University!

Canal Culture

admin — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 12:13:42 +0000

A few months ago I started photographing on the Forth and Clyde Canal, just north of Glasgow’s city centre. Using the towpath as a running route, I was inspired by the connection it created between people on the canal side, it’s banks representing an area of common ground which breaks down social barriers and becomes a community in its own right. Constantly fluctuating through minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and so on, this transient community exists as a perception of the liminal with a character that shifts and and evolves like that of a weather system.

This is an ongoing body of work which will evolve over the coming months.