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Welcome to McAleavy.org (or LightPainting.org if you came in that way), my photographic home on the web and sporadically updated blog. I have a keen interest in low-light work and light painting in particular, but I also dabble in large format photography, infrared and Polaroid transfer work.

Latest Blog entries...

Models

Posted on 18th January, 2015 by DaveMc — 1 Comment ↓

Over the last couple of years I’ve photographed may fantastic people, and although all of those images are posted here, I’ve never really grouped their images together in one place. The shots tend to get split across different galleries at different times, which doesn’t really show their individual work as well as it could. So I’ve started to create galleries for individual modes, starting with those that I’ve worked with most in the last couple of years. This is very much a work in progress, with more galleries yet to be added.

You’ll find them here: Model Galleries

New Cameras

Posted on 17th January, 2015 by DaveMc — No Comments ↓

I haven’t updated the blog here in a while despite having posted quite a lot of new images in the last couple of years, so it’s time to start doing that again. Recently I’ve come round to John Gray’s way of thinking about small cameras. I recently bought a Fuji X-A1 and and added an 18mm f/2 lens, and have been very impressed by it. DSLR sized sensor and image quality in a very small, unobtrusive package with a tilting screen for waist-level and overhead shooting. I’m pretty sure it will be a very capable light painting camera when travelling light. Now all I need to do is add the Samyang fisheye.

Apricity – Translucence V

Posted on 22th March, 2012 by DaveMc — No Comments ↓

With Kirsty as model, yellow did indeed become the 5th colour in this series – after a brief, but futile, attempt to get a deep blue fabric to work. Only later did I realise that the light I was using, being incandescent, doesn’t put out a lot of blue light. So expecting expecting a strong blue glow from it was a bit optimistic. Yellow did the trick though, and produced a more accurate colour than the previous two images. One more to complete this series. Probably electric pink. Probably.

Imposture

Lunate – Translucence IV

Posted on 13th December, 2011 by DaveMc — 1 Comment ↓

This image of Sharon is the 4th image in my ongoing Translucence series and, as with the others, the colour of the fabric has been a big part of making each image unique. The only complication has been that the colour of the final image is never quite the same as the colour of the fabric used. This stuff was quite definitely purple, but what I’ve got is perhaps closer to pink. The next one will probably be yellow. Probably.

Sarah

Posted on 19th November, 2011 by DaveMc — No Comments ↓

My friend and once regular model, Sarah, decided it was time to come back into the studio and model for me again. So I dug out some of the organza fabric and we set about taking this shot. She held this pose, with an upside down head, six times while I did my usual thing and tried to get the lighting just right. It’s one of my favourite images in a long time. It’s good to have you back in the saddle Sarah.

Counterpoise

Ephemeral

Ash

Posted on 23th September, 2011 by DaveMc — No Comments ↓

After taking the Translucence image of Meg I decided I wanted to do some more in that style. So I bought a pile of different colours of organza with the intention of shooting a series – and in a strange twist of fate, I bout the whole lot in the very chain of fabric shops that I used to spend many bored hours in as a child while my mother was picking dressmaking fabric. Ash came in to pose for the green one, and did nailed it on the first exposure. Thanks Ash.

Hiddenite

Allegory