Global Drugs Survey

Founder of the Global Drug Survey Adam is a dual accredited psychiatrist and physician with specialist expertise in Drugs and Alcohol. But that's only the start. After several years as a consultant and area manager in his field in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia and with a major track record in research both there and back here in the UK at the Maudesley Hospital, Adam has performed ground breaking work in research and education amongst drug users that is the envy of multiple drug agencies.

By designing a smart phone app that protects the users' anonymity he is able to reach out to hundreds of thousands of people which will benefit both individuals and also the research community on an international scale.

But the connection between my post and this important area of health education is...what exactly?


I took the photograph of Adam published in this weekend's Guardian Blog.

More of that website article here.



Global Drug Survey

Nikon D700 Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 70mm f/5.6 1/40th second
Lastolite HiLite Background with 2x SB900 at Manual 14mm 1/4th power to give a high key feel
1x SB900 at 1/8th power through a single shoot through white umbrella. Other than the photograph opened up in Lightroom 3.6 and converted to Black and White little else has been done here to the original file.

For me the learning points on taking portraits and making them look like portraits rather than mug shots is to:

• Put some dynamism into the shot - for example tilting the camera (and/or the person)
• Angle the subject obliquely to the camera rather than straight on
• Consider whether you need to have the whole head in or whether you can go in closer
• Think about how portraits look in black and white

Getting things done in camera means less time on the computer with image manipulation afterwards.