Golden Greats -By Drew Gardner and Lucinda Marland

On the 'Nikon D800 is no competitor to Medium Format' post last week.

I posted a portrait shot on my Phase One DF with a P65+ back.

That was part of a project Lucinda and I have been shooting for the past two years.

Titled 'Golden Greats'

We have photographed every senior British Olympic Gold medalist (Individual) it has taken us all over the world and occasionally pushed us to the limit of physical endurance as you will see....

The idea behind the project was to celebrate the often overlooked if not forgotten sporting heritage of Great Britain, of sometimes towering sporting achievements from a different generation.

The media with its obsession with youth often fails to pose the question of 'How did we get here?'

The first portrait I'm posting is of Allan Wells who won Gold in the 100m at the 1980 Moscow games.

He won in lane 8 by getting a greater proportion of his head over the finishing line than the runner who came second....it was that close.

A friendly and affable bloke, Allan gave us some time to shoot this portrait.

We shot it on the Phase One DF P65+ with a Schneider Kreuznach LS 80mm at  f/2.8 1/200 sec, rated at 50 ISO.

If you want an idea of the detail this delivers check out this screen grab of his truing shoe and the 5p coin I used to position him

Getting medium format sharp wide open is, shall we say a challenge...it can be so hard that you can think the picture out of focus.

But the rewards are worth it .....

Shooting straight into the light just to make the task in hand even more difficult...and the angels sing.

Lit with Elinchrom Ranger 1200, with a Chimera Medium soft box, on a Manfrotto stacker stand.

I will be posting extensively about this projection the run up to the exhibition which starts on 5th March in the Stadium Suite of John Lewis at the Westfield centre, Stratford.

Manfrotto are sponsoring the show and I will be speaking about this project and much more besides at 'Focus' on Imaging'

I'm printing the show right now on Canon IPF printers, with their latest and greatest media.

God knows how I have time to post this...have to dash

Living the dream -31k Portraits for Peace by Diego Huerta

Earlier this week I blogged about Diego Huerta and his highly ambitious and remarkable '31K Portraits for Peace Project'

And yesterday I conducted an interview which him and his producer Dany Gutierrez via Skype where they describe their remarkable journey, share how Diego lit the portraits and how to carry on when people are firing automatic weapons into the ground at your feet...(no joke)

So, brave as well as talented.

Remarkable project, remarkable people, and some really damn fine environmental portraits.

If you want to be truly inspired and learn a photographic trick or two, take time out to watch the interview.



The exhibition opens tomorrow at the Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, Texas at 7pm

I just see that perhaps modesty prevailed and they neglected to mention that they have been announced as finalists in the SXSW Interactive Awards

Accolades come no higher.

They are looking for more exhibition space at the moment in Europe and the rest of the world too, if you can help do get in touch with them, and be part of something truly special.

Diego Huerta 31K Portraits for peace project

I first became aware of Diego in July 2010 when he shared a link with me of his excellent set of pictures of Monterrey in Mexico, which was hit by hurricane Alex.

A great peace of proactive work, getting of his backside and recording the efforts of his community.

If you have not seen it, do take a look, truly inspirational.

Well, he has been at it again, this time on rather a grand scale with '31k Portraits for peace'

In Diego's own words

'With the objective to counteract the negative impact of more than 31,000 deaths in the last four years in Mexico, Diego began a project of a lifetime on February 14, 2011.

In order to accomplish his objective, Diego traveled the 32 states in Mexico and was able to photograph 31,000 people with a blue paper dove in their hands named “La Huasteca”.

Hopefully, by doing this, he would achieve one of his goals; to change people minds and turn their negative thoughts into something positive. In addition, the message of “Peace Starts by Believing” to every single person he met.

A mammoth and gargantuan task.

But it's not just about the numbers, using his own one man lighting set up he has taken some truly excellent portraits.

These are just two that jumped out at me.

If you want to learn some great one man lighting field craft have a look at the videos at the bottom of the page.

All of this will culminate in at least one exhibition in Austin, Texas.

I do not have the date to hand.

Diego aso invited me to shoot an image for his remarkable project, I have to admit I was a little slow at shooting it....it took me nearly a year to get round to it.

But this weekend i did it, a portrait of my daughter Georgie, aged 9

It was a windy day, so my technique was a variation of Diego's

I used a Canon 5d Mk1 (my MkII's are of at the cleaners) with an 85mm F1.2, using a Lee 0.9 ND Filter to cut down the ambient light it enabled me to expose the image (hyper sync with Pocket Wizard TT5) 500th/sec at F1.2, and lit Georgie with a single Canon Speedlite 550EX with a solid white vinyl umbrella.

I focussed the camera on a tripod on my Manfrotto 057 Tripod and Manfrotto MH057 tripod head

Holding on to the light so it would not blow over and triggering the Canon with the TC80-N3...arm outstretched.

Processed in Capture One Pro 6....with no adjustments at all.

I'm very pleased with the shot....but I am biased.

Support Diego in any way you can, spread the word, and see what you can learn from him and his remarkable project.

I hope to conducting a Skype interview very soon.