Five from Chip Henderson

Every few months, I like to review five images from people who have attended Edinburgh Photography Workshop sessions. Chip Henderson joined me for a couple of days back in May for a tailored private workshop session. We explored the streets of Edinburgh on the first day and then covered some landscape and seascape locations on the second.

Who is Chip Henderson?

Chip came to Edinburgh for a holiday with his wife from the USA. He has recently retired from a career in architecture and construction. I asked him to describe his photographic journey;

“I’m enjoying the trail between my comfort zone and dreams. This means mountaineering, kayaking, sailing backpacking, and grandchildren. Each adventure resulted in lots of snapshots, but little photography. I had to bring more purpose, thought and creativity to my images. Spending a few days with Rich, kickstarted that transition. I enjoy exploring wildlife, landscape and street photography. Grandchildren are fun and kinda falls into the wildlife category. I now photograph both at or below their eye level.”

The five images we will look at this cover all of the areas that Chip is concentrating on, so let’s dive in and see his photos.

Romance by the river

The first photo is a street photography classic. Trying to capture a perfect moment in time. Chip didn’t give me any background to the images, but I am guessing that this one was taken by the Seine in Paris – it certainly has that feeling. The emotion of a young couple in love is captured perfectly, with the focus firmly on the woman’s face and capturing her joy and happiness. A wide-open aperture has created a dream-like state, with the bokeh of city lights framing the couple.

Technically, this is an excellent photograph to start the review. However, as always with street photography, the advice I would give can’t help Chip to go back and re-take the shot to make it that little better. For me, the woman’s position looks a little uncomfortable in the shot by being cut in half. By taking a step or two to the right, we would have seen more of her face and body. This is one of the skills of street photography – trying to pre-empt what is going to happen in the scene and being ready for the action to happen. Chip’s shot was so close to achieving that.

Haute Couture

Our second shot is again in the street photography genre and, again, taken at night. This time Chip used the technique of mirroring the models in the window with the two women admiring the clothes. Compositionally this can work well, but unfortunately, in this picture, it doesn’t quite come off due to the positioning of the woman on the left. Again, this isn’t something Chip could have changed without asking them to pose differently (which isn’t the purpose of street photography). I would have liked to have seen both of the mannequins in the window at full length, which would have accentuated the mirroring effect. As it is, the woman on the left is lost in the photograph.

There are also a couple of technical aspects that could easily be corrected to help this picture. Firstly, the window doesn’t appear to be exactly square, which could have been easily fixed using the transform tool in Lightroom. The second issue I see is the triangle of light in the bottom right-hand corner. Our eyes are always drawn to lighter areas, so my eyes were flicking between the window display and that corner area. It could be removed by either using an adjustment brush to darken the area or cropping tighter – this shot could quite easily work as a square crop. Again, a nice image, though technically well captured in tricky lighting conditions.

The three bears (and mummy bear too)

We move to the wildlife genre for our third photograph. Again, Chip has chosen a good aperture to ensure the sharpness of all the bears while blurring the background just enough to provide context. This is definitely one of the strongest shots in the group of five. There is space for the mother bear to walk into on the right of the shot and just enough space on the left to create tension with the younger bears needing protection by their mother.

It’s great to see Chip get down low when shooting these creatures to give a strong perspective. I am kind of undecided whether I like the sliver of the hillside at the top of the picture. I have tried cropping the grey out, and I think it makes the image stronger by focusing the viewer on the bears.

Misty morning

For our fourth shot, we go to landscape. The conditions on the day do create drama, with mist rolling in and a hint of sunshine coming from the left. However, I feel this photo isn’t quite as strong as the other five, primarily because I struggle to find a subject to latch onto. The vast majority of the shot is water in the foreground, and this doesn’t have much interest in it.

It is possible to improve the image slightly by cropping some water from the foreground to a 16:9 aspect ratio. The letter-box shape then helps to create a leading line toward the hills and weather effect in the rear.

Catcertina

The final picture from Chip Henderson takes us back to street photography. This fun image has captured a moment in time perfectly. The musician’s expression conveys an acceptance that the cat will stay perched on his instrument for the rest of the day. The extension of the instrument gives the feeling that the cat’s next move will be to stretch out along the bellows.

Again, a good aperture choice has allowed just enough depth of field to ensure the subject is nice and sharp while allowing separation from the background. This is an excellent shot to complete the five images from Chip Henderson.

Like to have your shots reviewed?

Anyone who has attended an Edinburgh Photography Workshop session is eligible for a review of their images. I make regular calls in my monthly newsletter, which also gives regular updates on exciting things happening in photography and some great tips. Sign up by clicking here.

About the author

As well as running Edinburgh Photography Workshop, Rich Dyson is a professional photographer. His photographs are regularly used in newspapers such as The Times, Guardian and Daily Telegraph. He also had two solo exhibitions and was featured in a members-sponsored exhibition in the Scottish Parliament. You can see and buy his photography at richdysonphotography.com.