A good turn out for last night’s talk by Mark Page. Hard to believe this was the first time Mark had presented a talk about his photography.
Mark was born and bred in High Wycombe and along with his Dad, has always had a passion for photography. He is self taught, and is always looking for a ‘photograph’, capturing light and dark, creating photos with texture. Photos that tell a story.
Mark, probably like most of us, was not confident to approach people asking to take their photograph.He was quite happy to photograph buildings, and because of this now has a big collection depicting the history of High Wycombe’s buildings, some still standing, many not. Mark’s brother played in a band in Camden Town, he asked Mark along to take some photo’s of the band. This was an ideal opportunity to photograph interesting people, people of character, unusual people, people with piercings and tattoos, he was able to capture the ‘heart and soul’ and loved this genre of photography.
An incident in his life gave him a real ‘jolt’. A friend had lost his son and Mark hadn’t taken a photo of him, no visual record of this young character. This inspired him to set about a project, a series of pictures of interesting people around High Wycombe and it was this collection that he shared with us last night. He was keen to stress the gallery was done on a ‘shoestring’. All taken in monochrome, all taken in the same way, with a single light source, no special backdrop, all taken in jpeg, very little, if any editing. Yet, because he’d captured the essence of the person, each one felt special in it’s own right.
I believe the images were taken over a four day period, with nearly 200 people turning up to have their pictures taken! This is a hobby for Mark and any proceeds he makes goes to Wycombe Homeless Society.
After the break Mark demonstrated the simple light set up he uses to capture his images ……………
A ‘Beauty Dish’ with a ‘Honeycomb Modifier’ ………….
A Volunteer!
And the result!…………
All in all a very enjoyable and inspirational evening, and we wish Mark all the best for his next project …………. BANDS OF HIGH WYCOMBE.
I came to the talk given by Mark Page – Faces of Wycombe – and was very impressed by his photography and simple lighting techniques. Does anyone have the actual spec of the lighting device he was using – I seem to think it was a Bowden but any information would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Dave Gibbs
Mark
I’m afraid this request has only just been picked up. The best thing to do is contact Mark, gel be happy to let you know. Marks email address (as in his book) is photoswithattitude@gmail.com.
Thanks for the info. Contacted Mark and I now have all the details. Thanks once again.
Dave Gibbs