Life just does not stop. It keeps coming. There is always so much to do and sadly this blog suffers. I should do more, I have so much to show. I know I’m not all that bad though. I am always very busy and I have been focussed on changing some personal habits.

I will try to up my game on here. I will try to post a picture every day and say something about what I am up to.

Nature has always been there but it seems more and more people are seeing it.

I do love getting out and about with my macro lens from time to time, and having just moved house, there are many opportunities to capture. A change in scenery can do that, don’t you think? You find these opportunities to see with fresh eyes what was probably always there.

Nature seems delicate at times and so robust at others.

What is there around your garden?

More tomorrow…

Never work with kids and animals? Why not?

January 7, 2017

Portraits

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One of the hardest things to do is to juggle jobs. I already have a busy and very demanding job. It is photography based, although has become more of a management and administrative role, which obviously opens new challenges, but I really miss the hands on with a camera side. especially in the studio. So, this year, I am planning to up the anti on my studio work.

What better way to do that than to offer people lots of free stuff?

Now I have run these things before and they have proven to be very popular. So I am going to open up a studio for a weekend, here in sunny (not today) Middle Wallop. I have booked the community center for the 28th and 29th Jan 2017 and plan to open for some studio portraits.

Saturday will be for children. These will be for one on one portraits, so I can work on some new styling (lighting) ideas. Each shoot will cost £5.00 (what? I thought it was free?), well yes, the £5 goes to Cancer Research completely and the shoot will last for 30 mins (so I will need you all to book 30 min slots), and you will receive a complimentary 8 x 6 in print from the shoot. OK, you don’t get anything for free, right? Well that’s true, I guess. I will need a signature which will allow us to use the images for promotional purposes, although this does not mean we will.

We will be looking at making some really stylish contemporary portraits, that you would love to hang as works of art on your wall.

On the Sunday, we will be doing the same, but with your pets. I have done these things before, so I do kind of know what I am getting myself into, lol.

As I said, all the booking fee will go to Cancer research, as this is an ailment that pretty much touches us all. Who has not had a family member or friend that has not had to battle?

The whole point is that we want to do something with the community, build a reputation and if we can make the odd sale or booking then that is an added bonus… 😉

We will have some other work up and on display. so feel free to come and visit.

Oh, did I say we can do family portrait sessions and weddings too? No? Well, now you know. We look forward to seeing you there?

To book, you will need to call either Roxy or Mark on 01264 781461 and when prompted say ‘Studio Open weekend’. Please call in the evenings though, after 1830.

Please note that this is a session for individual portraits only, no groups or multiples this time. We will be looking at running other themed shoots during the year, so send us your ideas.

Landscape – I like the summer but mornings get too early.

April 11, 2016

Landscapes, travel

2 Comments

Landscapes. I dabble, I will be honest, I don't spend the time on them that I should. Commercially they are quite hard to make any profit from them, unless you happen to be called Peter Lik (Google him). Worst of all, though, is that as the summer gets closer, the mornings get even earlier. So every once in a while, when work allows, I will get out there and capture a landscape or two, or just go and look for a possible future image for when the light is better. Mark-2016-04-04--42 I know I should do more, I know I should, but that is where we must try to balance our lives. There are times that I wonder how some photographers manage to make their photography the sole purpose (or certainly give the impression). Life does not seem to be in the way for some. 22608538936_448323f4e3_o I contemplate offering framed landscapes to clients who book a particular wedding package, but struggle with this too. Who would want one of my Landscapes on their wall? Lets face it, I don't even have any of my own hanging up. [caption id="attachment_1949" align="alignnone" width="3000"] British Army assist the Environment Agency with floods.

Back again. You remember me?

October 13, 2014

Military work

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I think it is almost a year since I was here. Certainly it has been a long time, too long. So I will keep this short. I have saved drafts of new posts that will be more in depth that will attempt to bridge the gap of the last 12 months or so.

You know the worst thing? As a 42 year old man, I got a telling off for not posting for so long. Dad was not amused. 😉

Let me be honest though. I have not dropped off the edge of the planet, things have still been busy. I seem to spend a lot of my time wandering across Germany from location to location, and sometimes even outside Germany too.

I won’t go on too much now.

The job remains as active and interesting as it always has, and no matter what goes on, I still get to visit new places experience new things and get the chance to photograph them.

On one day this week we were sent out to capture the Royal Engineer reserves training on the M3 rig (for some that will mean nothing), it is essentially a bridge that you can drive to a river or waterway, open it up and voilà, as if by magic you have a bridge.

The reserves were being taught how to crew and pilot the huge machine.

I promise there will be more to come soon. I have still got so much to catch up on.

Return to Afghanistan and mono memories

November 21, 2013

Afghanistan

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I had a scary recollection today. I was speaking with a colleague today who I served with out in Afghanistan and we were both a little surprised to realise that it was two years since we arrived there for a six month tour of duty.

In the time I have been back, apart from the odd quick scan through the images, I have not really given them too much thought.

As we get closer to the end of combat operations I am regularly surprised by the lack of understanding of the job our soldier s are doing out there and in some cases, blatant conspiracy fantasies seem to be circulating. It seems to me that there are people who are happy and willing to exploit ignorance.

I have mixed feelings about my time in Afghanistan. I won’t pretend that I bounced around the green zone of Helmand with a bayonet between my teeth and two GPMG’s, one under each arm killing insurgents without fear. In fact quite the contrary, each and every time we went out on any patrol, I felt fear, the healthy kind, the kind that keeps you alert.

The people of Afghanistan are much like we are in many ways. They eat, sleep, laugh, cry. They have the same basic needs we do but have less to work with and because they do not experience our western ways are mostly happy with their existence. I won’t pretend they don’t want their security, they do as do we.

It always amazes me how we (human beings) struggle to understand different cultures though. Let’s face it there is a north – south divide in the UK and lets not get started on our nearest neighbours, the French! 😉

Anyway, looking back through the Afghan archive, memories came back and they are different from the experiences at the time, for there is no fear now, the memory of that has faded, now I focus on the experience. Much of the emotion has gone. The images bring back shadows and nothing much more. I suppose this is the same as the nerves I felt and I remember feeling on my wedding day, but now when I see the photos, they don’t remind me of that fear, just the day. Natural I suppose.

I enjoyed my time in Afghanistan, I saw things I never thought I would. It made me appreciate more what we have more. It did me some good.

The ‘SCURGE’ of photography and a client education

October 18, 2013

Opinion, Portraits

2 Comments

As I write this I have just discovered that another good friend of mine has been ‘ripped off’ by a so called professional photographer. Why am I pissed off? Simple, because every time this happens the effect is felt throughout the whole industry. I have been a professional photographer for over ten years now and I do not know all there is about photography. It has taken years to build a reputation, a style and a direction. There is no short cuts for this,

There have always been con men and women, that is nothing new, but the recent progress in photography has made this a breeding ground for minimum risk chancers. It is easy to set up a website, operate for a few weeks and then vanish.

Everyone is aware of the massive increase in photographers available and offering you their skills. This is both good and bad. Good because it has removed much of the elitist attitudes and competition is always good. Bad because most clients know little or nothing about the industry and how it should operate to be able to make an informed choice.

The papers are always telling stories of a bride and groom duped into giving away their hard earned money and being heart broken when the resulting images are not at all what they expected.

So how can I help?

I am going to give prospective clients 5 tips to reduce the risk.

1. Do your research. Visit the photographers website (no website should set alarms going), check their galleries. Is their work of a quality you would be happy with? Are the images of a similar style? Are they creative images? Visit their Blog (most have them now), do their blog entries match their website in quality and style? Look for endorsements but don’t trust them out of hand, anyone can write a few words. Be more trusting of personal recommendations although this is not always possible.

2. Speak to the photographer and meet them before any booking. Check the quality of their work on their walls, again, does it match the website for quality and style? Ask to see any other imagery that they have done that is not on their website or blog. Always ask to see a complete wedding if that is what you want to hire your photographer for. That could be either a digital display or a copy of the wedding album. Be cautious if they refuse, why would they?

3. Make sure the photographer has insurance. This should mean that you are protected to some degree. If your wedding photographs are ruined then this insurance will cover for this.

4. Get an contract. This should be an agreement like an email identifying what you should expect may suffice in many cases. I have had instances as a photographer where a client has said to me ‘but I thought I was going to get A, B and C’, the contract is there to protect the photographer as well as the client. Make sure you read and understand what is written.

5. Be cautious with up front payments. Most photographers will charge you some kind of sitting fee, this is to be expected. Make sure you know what you are getting for that. You should however expect to pay up front for a wedding (this is standard practice) so seeing as much evidence of the photographers work as possible is a must.

These simple suggestions will not remove the risk completely, but may minimise it. Photography is subjective and in any dispute, if the images are well composed and exposed correctly, you might find any judgement does not go in your favour. Make sure you actually like the work you have been shown.

A photographers web site should only contain images that they have taken themselves or within a larger company, although there have been instances where photographers put stock imagery on their page, so their website has professional imagery.

These points are not an exhaustive list but a mere five suggestions that will help minimise your risk.

It’s all in the exposure, and a day out with my daughter

September 27, 2013

Development, Portraits

2 Comments

Photography is as popular now as it has ever been, with many households in the west owning at least one reasonable SLR (or so it would seem). The instant viability of the image means that if you miss the first shot you can adjust your settings and have another go (in many cases). We take many more photographs than we used to and probably as a result this has actually devalued the image. We can simply take another shot, means that getting it right first time is not important…

The number of people I speak to who tell me that photography is actually not that easy, they went out and bought a really great camera that has all these buttons and hey, “why can’t I get the background to blur?”, or “my photo’s were too dark”, to name a couple.

Whilst it is true that the newer cameras are technologically advanced and will continue to be so, there is a skill, a skill that is totally reliant on knowing the principals and more importantly being able to and understanding how to manipulate them.

I have been toying with the idea of dabbling with film for some time now, and have recently bought an old large format ‘Speed Graphic’ or press camera from the 40’s and 50’s. It is a big beast (not the biggest), and I have yet to find the memory card slot, let alone the playback screen.

The fact of the matter I plan to work on some portraiture and possibly the odd landscape, and the exposure needs to be spot on. So I decided to play around with some exposure techniques. The first I tried was a rather clunky and simple method, where I take a spot meter reading from the lightest part of the face and then for my daughter I over exposed the whole image by 1.3 stops. The exposure alteration will vary depending on the lightness of the skin. The reason for this is the light meter will try to make your selected area mid grey, but for my daughter that would make her look too dark. There is an element of trial and error to start with but as you look at your subject you will get to know what adjustment to make.

Any way back to the subject, I had decided not to view any of the images until I was finished and my daughter was eating her promised ice cream. Although not the same as film I wanted to add that little bit of pressure to the process as it was not that easy to re shoot if they had not come out. It’s all part of the mind set needed for film.

The images in this entry are those from the walk and as you can see I did not get too many. But the exposures were exactly what I wanted and apart from a little split toning or desaturating in Lightroom, they are as they came out of the camera.

These images were taken on a D800 with a prime 105mm f2 lens and manual focus.

SLOW DOWN AND GET IT RIGHT FIRST TIME!

It’s not real, is it?

September 26, 2013

Military work

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Charging through the forests of Germany, being thrown about the back of one armoured vehicle or another, it would seem that there is not a flat driving surface anywhere here. This exercise seems to be calm anticipation with periodic madness, blink and you will miss it. No pressure…

This is a joint exercise with British and German units training along side each other. It is armoured, so there are Tanks and AFV’s (Armoured Fighting Vehicles) rolling all over the place. The safety staff are beginning to HATE me, as I dart around from one shot to the next, so what? If I get run over, I probably won’t even feel it… As a photographer it comes with the territory to have a good all round awareness. Gone are those early days when all I did was look through the viewfinder, now I feel like my photography is more about instinct and premonition. I am sure that is not entirely true but hey!

I have covered these type of exercises before and come away with very little as the action is not really easy to pinpoint. You can spend your day around a group of soldiers who may not actually be involved in much. Reality…

Photographically at least, this one worked perfectly, we ran around like seemingly headless chickens, knowing the kind of things we wanted to capture but not confident that they would present themselves. It is an instant that is at times one of the more frustrating parts of the job but also gives you some excitement. Will I or won’t I?

The great thing about these kind of days is they tend to be as much training for you as the others. Trying to interview (getting a few words) young guys who are as alert as they can be on their surroundings.

Yes it is fair to say that days like this make me happy as I search for the images.

I hope you like them…

Best laid plans and chomping on a bit or reality

August 7, 2013

Development, Portraits

2 Comments

With a blog comes great responsibility…….or does it?

I look here today and realise that it has been almost two weeks since my last post. Me bad! Wait though, there is a reason for it. I have been really busy trying to rush those last bits of work before I go on a break with my family on Friday. I know, I hate hearing myself say it. Busy just seems like a lame reason.

So what have I been doing? Well the fact of the matter is babies, or new born’s. A particular genre that really is a skill and there is no substitute for experience. Well photographically I have committed a cardinal sin, in my eyes out of necessity. These shots have to be done in a very small window of opportunity at a time when a new family scrambles to get used to the tremendous upheaval. So the plan was to offer a few (small number) new families the chance to get some portraits of their new baby at absolutely no charge. There will be photographers now swooning at this as the something for nothing situation is what has got this industry into it’s condition.

In my defence, I had not shot babies this young before, my studio was not equipped for it and I really was not sure what to expect. All facts that I ensured the parents were made aware of before hand. You can’t exactly tell a ten day old baby what to do can you?

A chance to play with new ideas, new colours, new styles was amazing, a recent trip to the UK meant I could pick up some simple supplies like wooden flooring and some really amazing blankets.

The end results? Well after all they are subjective and I fully understand that not everyone will like them but the response from the parents has been amazing. I have another string to my bow and I do feel that my photography has made a step too.

Exposure

July 21, 2013

Development, Military work, Opinion, Sport / Action, travel

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I am sure I have mentioned before how time is our worst enemy, although as a photographer it is one of the most important factors we work with.

Creativity never comes with guarantees, but you have to keep trying and keep your options open

Time threw another curve ball yesterday with a gentle reminder of how quickly time had gone by.

You find shots you like but it is always great when a client sees your vision.

Being a photographer is a strange existence at times. Very few of us lead repetitive lives, you can’t take the same photographs day in day out, so you are always meeting with new people and looking for the next shot. Let’s be honest though how many of us re-create the wheel at all in their lives let along every day?

Some moments are longer than others and that is never more obvious than with photography.

With the general understanding of the term ‘professional’ (which actually has nothing to do with making money) skewed, my goal or ambition is to be as professional as I can be. Not always easy when we juggle so many different balls. But it is out there, my goal.

One thing that experience gives you is a grounding for capturing an image or at least working out the mechanics of capturing an image under most circumstances.

One of the key motivators for me is the learning process, I love to try out new things, new [for me] ideas, more opportunities to attract fresh clients. The best way to do this I have found is to keep up with what people want. There is still usually enough room for your individual flair though.

No photographer likes to sit still, there are always more challenges ahead. A new market place to enter, more clients to please.

One of the more important things to keep in mind also though is that not everything goes to plan but this should not worry you, but just keep you on your toes.

The technical aspects of a shot are not always clear to see, but this does not mean the shot was simple to capture.

These images on today’s blog include some military work and some personal work but shows some of the variety we are faced with on even a weekly basis.

Mood, mood, mood and more…….. mood!

June 20, 2013

Development, Landscapes

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I have talked about Landscapes a few times on here and openly admit that to do them justice (for the vast majority) you have to invest time and effort. Sometimes you have to see an opportunity and try to find a way to make the most of it.

On my way home today the weather rapidly changed. My cameras were sat on the front seat and I spent the next few minutes looking more at the sky than the road. I had already decided that I was going to stop, but I just needed to find the right place.

Surrounded by fields with varying crops, I settled on a strawberry field where locals were busy picking and eating the crop. The sudden darkness did not seem to bother anyone.

Enjoying the fresh breeze that you have craved all day on a day like these, I rushed to select lens, ISO, shutter, Graduated filter, tripod, I had to work fast as the clouds moved so quickly. I managed to make a few exposures before I had to move on.

This one is my personal favourite.

Seeing opportunity and getting of your fat @rse!

June 8, 2013

Landscapes, Opinion

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How many of us drive around, see something interesting and stop to take a photograph?

In these days of being so busy, it is not always that easy, is it?

I carry my camera around with me most of the time, and after a recent visit to a Peter Lik gallery, I have been invigorated by the landscape around me.

The reality is that we are mostly rushing around towards the next deadline that is simply to close. What is the answer? Leave plenty of time to allow for opportunity or change your mind set so that time is really not all that important.

Now the German landscape in my immediate vicinity is not the most dramatic and certainly not the kind that Peter Lik visits for his landscapes (sounds like excuses I know and perhaps they are).

The reality is that to do landscapes justice, you have to dedicate time and effort, more than most people (myself included perhaps) are willing or simply able to give. It is sad and a little depressing to admit but like most photographers time is our enemy and quite profound as it is one of the primary parameters we work with on a daily basis. We are always either fighting it or trying our best to manipulate it.

Now I am by no means a landscape guru by any stretch of the imagination but sometimes it is fun to get out on your own with a camera and a 4 x 4 and simply look for the opportunities. There is a convention that says decent landscapes should be taken at sunrise or sunset and really most of the time these are the best times as you can get some amazing light but quite often these times can give you a pretty cliche’d image. That is not to say a bad image, but for me they can lose impact if you feel you have seen them before.

We get so bombarded with imagery these days as there are so many cameras clicking away all the time, there ends up being some fantastic stuff out there but sadly often they are hidden among the mundane. A quick look on flickr searching for landscapes and you will see what I mean.

Germany is a stunning country in so many ways and I plan to try to capture more of this, I will of course share with you too.

There are some more examples of my Landscape work on our website http://www.LIMEfotographic.com Please feel free to visit.

Landscaping and inspiration

May 18, 2013

Landscapes, travel

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Landscape photography is I think in many ways one of the hardest genre’s of photography and certainly one of the more difficult to make a living from. The search for a photograph is demanding and very time consuming and nothing beats experience.

Whilst in Las Vegas we have the opportunity to visit the gallery of Peter Lik, arguably one of the most prolific landscape photographers of our time. Now there are some amazing landscapes out there to see if you look hard enough, digital photography has certainly made the skill more accessible.

To see inspirational imagery in the flesh is always very inspiring for me, the internet and books mostly sell the real stuff short but to see these images as the photographer intended can be great fun. I have to say that the way Peters’ images are displayed is nothing short of amazing and has given me ideas for presenting some of my own work.

Inspired I decided to make some landscapes of my own. These are not in the same league as his dedication to capturing the greatest of images is overwhelming and shows you what it takes to succeed in this, at times, fickle industry.

I don’t really do many landscapes but I would seriously like to rectify this if I can. Maybe 2013 will be a year for landscapes after all.

What limits?

May 14, 2013

travel

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Traveling can be a lot of fun, it can be stressful and it can be tiring. How many times have you heard people say that they need a holiday to recover from the one they just returned to? Loads yes? A trip to Las Vegas though, what limits would you put on your activities? Now there is a question (although the thoughts going through your head now are yours).
We on the other hand had a few things we wanted to do, but not too much as we felt we wanted to keep calm and leave opportunity for spontaneity.

Things to do:

1. Meet old friends
2. Go to the wedding
3. Relax by the pool
4. See a show
5. Experience Vegas
6. Hire a convertible Mustang
7. Visit Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon
8. Have a good time

We planned to kill two birds with one stone and hire the Mustang and visit the Canyon and the Dam. Now the Dam is really only a 40 minute drive away but the Grand Canyon turned out to be a huge five our jaunt each way. We worked it out, that is like us driving all the way to Calais from Hannover for a sunset. Now in those terms it seems bonkers but it was all part of the experience and even after 16 hours on the road we had no regrets.

A very Las Vegas wedding!

May 12, 2013

Wedding

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Ask any photographer, well nearly every one and they will tell you they are always tinkering. New ideas, new shots, new cameras or lenses, different venues. There is simply no shortage of things you can adjust.

Now before I go too far here, I was not the official photographer, and the chapel did not want any other photographs taken, so I was simply a guest (which was lovely). So this time I left the camera in the hotel room and took my iPad instead. I have been shooting a bit with the iPad this week anyway.

I have to say, these shots are a bit of fun and the iPad is not the best for taking photographs but with some snapseed action some of them came out quite well. So here is a selection.

What IS Facebook and Social media all about?

May 7, 2013

Opinion

2 Comments

In this last week a friend on Facebook……. wait, a friend on Facebook or a friend who is on Facebook? Good question. How many real friends do you have in a lifetime anyway?

Social media confuses me. At first it seemed quite exciting catching up with people whom I had had no contact with since leaving school. What were they doing now? It appeals to our natural voyeuristic appetite, and yet it feels somehow detached, like you are doing nothing wrong, effectively spying on them (even though by putting their information up there for all to see if their choice).

It started by looking through the friends list of a new contact looking for other lost connections and then moves on to looking through photographs of them and their lives.

Have we always had this fascination?

A few years down the line and I find I have been questioning the validity of social media. Of course from a business perspective it works like a dream, I can post and tag my images and all their friends can see them. More work comes my way. Perfection.

But this can only happen if the public as a whole use the site. Numbers on Facebook are dropping in the western world now, but is this because the realisation has hit that time spend on these sites is a waste of time or are there other better sites available now?

I hope not. Most of the crap on Facebook seems to be more and more like a cry for help than anything else. The motivational and relationship status banners that are popping up all the time simply cannot be a healthy process. At the end of it all, who cares? I worry that many people who read these statuses are emotional vampires who get a kick out of the fact you are feeling low. There are so many people that enjoy watching the misery of others, do they not have anything better to do?

I decided long ago to keep personal details as far away from social media as I could. Most of your friends are really unknown, even if you did know them as a kid.

One of the other really big problems with social media is the faux bravery it nurtures. In the safety of your living room, you can spout all the vile poison in your head (we all have some), and yet feel safe from physical reprisals. You can say things to people that you just would not in a face to face encounter and feel safe that there is unlikely to be any consequences. This is a very worrying development for me, but also because mostly people try to believe all they read, in fact I am convinced that people in general are happy to believe what they are told because it is too difficult, sometimes, to question it. OK possibly not the case but…..

So going back to my friend, then from the beginning. A professional photographer who has decided to turn his back on the social media revolution. Wow, I thought to myself, that is brave (or stupid). Where are his clients going to come from? I thought. How strange to think that, although it does seem like it at times, social media is not everything. There is a life beyond it. My friend (maybe I will start to believe that this is the case), made some other very valid points with regards to the devaluing of the photographic image too. I don’t know though, maybe the digitising of photography has sealed its own coffin. Maybe the image will now be consigned to the disposable and temporary scrap heap. The next amazing image on Facebook is only a couple of status updates away, after all.

Except it is not, you find some of the good image based pages and you will find that many of the fantastic images being displayed are old, some very old. You see with all of this technology, I think we have started to miss the point about photography. Great off camera flash is wonderful for the wedding client or those portraits in the hay field, and it is such a skill (no doubting that), but they are still gimmicky. A great image is still a great image, even if it was taken 100 years ago. Digital means we can (and do) take more photographs, but we have always known that quality is better than quantity any day. So by taking more images what are we missing?

I think that perhaps we are missing the connection, that is what it is all about. A real connection and not a cyber one.

Another homecoming parade, how many left?

May 3, 2013

Afghanistan, Military work

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This week saw me attending another Homecoming and medal parade here in Germany. I have lost track of how many of these I have covered over the years. They are always great opportunities to capture some great images although this time for some reason, it got me thinking.

With the imminent return home of British troops from Afghanistan in 2014, these may well be a thing of the past for a little while. Of course this is great news when you consider how many soldiers we have lost during the conflict, but I can’t help feel a tinge of sadness.

These parades are always great events supported by the soldiers and their families. They are a show, a celebration, in many cases an opportunity to reflect and for some a way of closure. But more than that these signify the end of a job well done.

The British Armed forces are there to do these jobs, love them or hate them, these roles seem to come up all too often, usually when you least expect them. These parades are significant as they mean the members of the Armed Forces have been doing a job they have trained hard for.

I do not mean to be disrespectful as the conflict in Afghanistan goes on and there will in all likelihood be more injured or even killed, so we cannot afford to look at the end with too much comfort.

One thing I am glad of is how this operation seems to have brought the Armed Forces closer together. In the past the fierce rivalry used to alienate certain cap badges or trades, but such is the nature of this conflict that every job out there has risk and danger, it is not just the infantry who are risking their lives on the front. I think this conflict has shown the strengths of our armed forces as a whole and that should be commended.

The opinions stated here are simply the opinions of the author and do not in any way necessarily reflect the stance of the Ministry of Defence.

All the fun of the fair and getting your balance

April 22, 2013

Portraits, Uncategorized

2 Comments

Being a professional photographer comes with pressure. Probably mostly from within. Not always though. Do I want to see any bad images out there to reflect my skill or lack of it?

There are always times when photography should come second. Family time is precious and there are few times as our children grow up that we can spend that quality time together…….. but I must take my camera…… I must…… you never know when that killer shot will show you an opportunity.

True.

Fairgrounds are so much fun, especially as a child (we had three kids with us), the colour is amazing, the speed, the screams, the laughter, the food. They are great fun to shoot too, but quite challenging. I wanted to take a few images but still keep the balance with spending some of that quality time together.

One model, three looks.

April 3, 2013

Development, Portraits

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Lighting in the studio is simply never ending, there are so many possibilities. Different intensity, direction, modifiers, sources and on and on. The opportunity to play with the D800 for the first time in the studio was a big motivator too.

I enjoy working in the studio for its control-ability. The only way to learn is to practice and play with the light. Some of the things you can do with light is simply amazing.

Most of my lighting set-ups are either one or two lights and getting the simple lighting to work is the most difficult. As you begin to understand how the light will work, you learn to manipulate it the way you want to.

So with a couple of hours, a willing model and having some ideas before hand, you can come out with some decent results. Now how can I get it better?

The worst of human nature

February 24, 2013

Opinion

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Life is not all smiles, in fact if you believe Buddhists, life is suffering. I think we all have periods of our lives when we can relate to that.

We experience bad things, this is only natural, although who can say that they experience pain (physical or psychological). This week I decided to go back to a place I went to as a child and never really understood, Belsen, one of the Nazi concentration camps of WWII.

Now to put this in context, I used to live near to Belsen as a child growing up in a forces environment, but as a child you should not understand these things (sadly this is not the case for all children). Going back to the new museum (since I was a child), I was initially shocked by the museum, it felt cold, impersonal, forbidding. As I spent time in there, the more I understood it.

My wife’s Grandfather served in the Royal Engineers during the Second World War and was one of the first to enter Belsen. As a keen amateur photographer who had his own kit, he was requested to take some photographs of what he saw, such was the dis belief of what they did see, there must have been a real fear that the outside world would simply not believe it. Sadly he suffered the effects of what he witnessed for the rest of his life. Many of the photographs and negatives were destroyed on the advice of a psychiatrist in the 60’s or 70’s. A few did survive and were given to the Imperial War Museum together with the camera they were taken on.

On reflection as you see the exhibits, the photos, the artifacts later discovered, it becomes clear. How can you soften this place, no matter how uncomfortable you make the museum, it CAN never be as dreadful as it was for these inmates.

I will always remember the story told to me by my Grandfather in law, on entering the camp there was a young girl, sat near the abandoned gates, malnourished and to weak to even stand. By the time he walked past her again a couple of hours later, she was dead.

Part of the exhibition (that does not feel like the right way to describe it), the memorial, is a video exhibit filmed by the AFPU (Army Film & Photography Unit), the fore runners of our existing trade of RLC photographers. The video is harrowing to see, as it shows the reality that made me a little uneasy, watching the dead being dragged around in ceremoniously by a limb only to be dumped in huge ditches. I am realistic enough to understand that due to the sheer scale of the problem, it had to be dealt with so quickly as the stench of death must have been almost too much to bear.

Sadly it would be at least a little bit comforting to know that as a result of these atrocities, similar events would be avoided, but alas, this has been proven not to be the case.
Even more disturbing I think is the groups that deny that these events have been fabricated, they never happened. I don’t understand that even with the weight of evidence in still and video imagery, there can be any doubt, but it makes me wonder what motivates this denial, or the continued refusal to accept the worst in human behavior. Whist that continues, should we continue to accept these situations? How do we, as a species stop it?

—The mastery of life, work and Photography

The eye sees what it sees, the camera sees what you ask it to and the rest needs to be discovered.

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