Brian Aitkenhead is the winner of the May 2020 FujiLove Magazine “Portrait” photo assignment. Here comes Brian’s story behind the winning photograph.
How do I start this? Why did I take a portrait of my daughter?
Well that answer is easy, it’s ‘lockdown’ and she hasn’t been at school since March. That and me retiring from the Royal Navy back in February has meant that due to my wife being a nurse, I spend the vast majority of my waking time with her. So that is the answer as to why I take lots of images of her, however as she gets more bored during lockdown, she is becoming more resistant to me doing so, which I guess is understandable…
This particular image was taken on a very sunny day, and with the doors in the back garden behind me, the light fell on her in a very nice way, but she didn’t want me to take her picture… I asked her to hug her dolly and after much cajoling I finally got an image that I thought would be good..
After reviewing the photos on my computer, I realised that the image I thought ‘worked’ – really did not… It was the one right before this with her looking directly at the camera, so I looked at the others and realised that I preferred the one taken right after when she glanced at the TV.
With a B/W conversion, it just screamed ‘this is it’ at me. Normally I would do my own B/W conversion, but this image is actually an edited ‘Kevin Mullins preset’ and I really like it very much.
Recently I bought my now beloved X-Pro3, which I carry with me practically everywhere. As the lockdown is gradually being eased here in the UK, I use it more and more. I have recently also bought a new flash lighting system, and I plan on doing a lot more portraits, not just of my beautiful daughter.
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