14th November 2023
David Gilliver spoke to the Club about his journey into photography and specifically “Little People”. A subject he stumbled across whilst doing his Fine Art Degree in Photography, from the University of Glasgow.
David won the British Photography Awards for Macro, for his image “Summer Vacation 2021” and has just won the People’s choice this year. You can view his image “Hide and Seek” here.
He started by buying model Train accessories (HO gauge – 1:87, figures approx. 2 cm tall, and N gauge – 1:148, figures approx. 1 cm tall). For starting out David recommended using HO gauge and that Preiser make good quality figures, but that there are many available on ebay. David himself uses a lot of unique figures, imported from Indonesia.
David uses a very shallow depth of field deliberately and does not use techniques like photo stacking. All of his images are a single take and then dust and some supports are cloned out.
David started using an 80mm lens, then a 100mm lens, and now uses a 100mm macro lens. Lighting is simple, with an LED panel and handheld torches.
His ideas come from the figures; how can they be used to interact with objects and what objects, but sometimes his ideas can come from an object, for example how could he use bubble wrap? Many images come from food and this led to a commission from Aida Cruises, for images relating to food for restaurants on a couple of their Cruise ships. Most recently he had a commission with a vehicle parts business, that involved David working with supplied accessories and coming up with creative images utilising them.
More of his work can be found here:
Website: davidgilliver.com
Facebook: davidgilliverphoto
Instagram: @dgilliver
Don’t forget David gave us a discount code, giving us 25% off in his shop