March 27: A Night with The National – A Photography Workshop by Brian Kerrigan

March 17, 2013

Join Brian Kerrigan, The National’s photo editor, and his team on March 27 for an evening’s walk taking photographs of Abu Dhabi’s nightlife. Participants will use the newly released Fujifilm X100S and be guided technically and artistically to capture the beautiful images the capital city has to offer. The best work will be featured in The National.

To be considered for this workshop, email three of your best photos to photowalk@thenational.ae by 5pm on March 24.

Space is very limited, so don’t delay.  Successful participants will be contacted on March 25.

A word from Brian:

For the past 14 months I’ve been hitting the streets of Abu Dhabi on evenings and weekends documenting daily life in the city core. My motivation was not some grand artistic vision but rather the unexplained urge to take pictures using my Fujifilm X100. I love photography and have been taking pictures since I was very young. I consider myself blessed that I earn my living in the field I love. Because photography is both my hobby and my job, I’ve owned, and shot, with a wide range of cameras over the years. And while I’ve owned cameras I’ve loved – I talk with fondness of my Nikon FM2 and F2as, my Leica CL, my lovely 1950’s Rolleiflex TLR – I have never owned a camera that made me want to go out and take pictures. But then in January last year I bought the X100. I began feeling this strange urge. I really wanted to be looking for pictures to take with it – constantly. And I grew very excited about the images I was capturing, I was operating in a way in which I hadn’t operated for years. Opening up the images for editing felt like putting a loupe to perfectly exposed Velvia on a light table. A quick google search revealed I wasn’t the only photographer having this experience.  The transition, and obsession, with these wonderful mirrorless cameras was so complete that over the course of 12 months I had only used my Canon 5D Mark II once.

The results of those many walks can be seen here. All of these images are from a Fujifilm X series camera, either the X100 or X-Pro1. These cameras have wonderful fast lenses and outstanding low light performance so you can really own the night. Now we’re going to put the X100s through its paces, and is a very exciting prospect.

*Brian Kerrigan, photo editor

This slideshow is a small selection of Brian’s favorite images from the past 14 months from the streets of Abu Dhabi.  All images were shot using a Fujifilm X-Series camera.