President’s Night Special Guest: Barrie Spence

Every season, our penultimate meeting is the President’s Night, wherein the society’s president offers up a surprise, typically in the form of a special guest. This year was no exception, with our president, John Cuthbertson, bringing in the excellent Barrie Spence, a very award-winning portrait photographer from Bathgate.

Barrie’s talk, titled “An Evening With,” offered and informative and enlightening look at his career highlights and working strategies.
Barrie began working in IT and studied photography and film at university before setting up his own studio.

Keep it simple and uncomplicated, and be consistent, remains his mantra during the studio workshops he conducts. In terms of details, Barrie shared how he uses a camera stand in his studio—rather than a tripod—for the versatility of positions, angles and moveability. His often minimalist-looking shots include plenty of negative space. In terms of subject matter, he often photographs posed female models and sometimes male models, as well as animals.

He said people will have an individual preference for how they stand comfortably; use that to your advantage when making portraits. Ensure the face is the brightest thing in a shot when seen from the front or side. Getting your lighting set up correctly also remains vital.

Barrie often uses flat overhead lights as well suitably situated floor and side lights against mainly plain neutral backgrounds. When photographing animals he shoots in bursts to capture the best shots. His current camera of choice is a Canon R6.

Many thanks to Barry for the excellent and informative evening.