Lumbypics

Guess the ISO

2012-02-11T20:31:00.000Z

Just an observation. This is a shot I took of some new boots for my fishing blog - although I ended up using one taken with the X10...

Good as the compact is, there are still some things that DSLRs excels at.

I didn't realise the ISO setting until I came to edit the photo as I had it on auto. The lower picture is a 100% crop - with no sharpening.

The ISO? 7200.

Tree fellers

2012-02-10T18:20:00.000Z

I'd gone out looking for a couple of bitterns that have arrived at the nature reserve I worked at in the '80s but hadn't taken a lens along suitable for photographing them. I was hoping to get some shots of the bird watchers. As it happened the bitterns hadn't been seen this morning, and it was a dull day making it too dark in the hide for any available light shooting. There were, however, some volunteers on a chainsaw course and I got chatting to their instructor, Colin.

I was hoping to get some tree felling pictures, but there was more log cutting going on. The one tree I did see felled got stuck, rather spoiling the effect!

Even in the shade of the pines the D90 coped pretty well considering the slow zoom I had attached. It's a a pain to use compared to the D3s though. I also got a shot with the X10. A shot that seems a little 'flat' compared to the shots from the DSLR.

Given that there wasn't much going on and it was just on lunchtime I got mostly pictures of men standing around in a wood. At least they were wearing bright colours to stand out from the trees. Some winter sun slanting through the branches would have given the shots a lift. C'est la vie.

Mist

2012-02-06T20:58:00.000Z

This is probably less than two hundred yards from home. I can't see the need to travel the world to find pictures. They're all around if you look with an open mind.

Owl mania

2012-02-05T20:56:00.002Z

When word gets out there's a rare or photogenic bird around 'wildlife photographers' descend en masse at the location these days in a photographic twitch! I'd found out, accidentally via the web, that some short eared owls had been showing about five miles from home so I thought I'd go and see what the score was.

I hadn't taken my long lens because my primary intention on heading out with the camera was to get some misty landscapes, but the mist had cleared a little too much, and I had also had it half in mind to shoot any photographers I might spot.

Sure enough there were seven or eight people around, most with cameras and long lenses. Why they were all stood out in the open and not making use of available cover I don't know. Still, the owls showed. And the frenzy commenced. So I snapped the snappers!

Spot the shorty

Quick, there it goes!

The big advantage of the X10 is that I can sling it round my neck while carting a DSLR around and hardly know it's there. As I had the 70-200 attached to my full frame body, which I find suits my way of seeing landscapes in the flatlands, this gave me a good coverage of focal lengths.

Although I still can't take to the 4:3 'compact' format for landscape orientation shots, I find it works well used vertically. 3:2 can be a little narrow in this orientation.

I'm getting more into manipulating images to get a look I like. This is partly because the raw files from the X10 can be kind of 'flat'. Partly because I'm finding my way around Lightroom more. I think I might be overcooking things a little in my new found enthusiasm. However, this has made me realise how much work people do to the images we are accustomed to seeing.

Contrarily, when it comes to landscapes, as a subject, I find myself drawn to the 5:4 format. Maybe it's time to start taking this landscape lark more seriously and take a tripod along. I still can't help thinking that a DSLR isn't the best tool for the job.

I must ease off on the neutral grad in Lightroom

Minimalism

2012-02-02T19:39:00.000Z

An even more minimalist, and unintentional, companion piece to an earlier picture.

Satisfaction

2012-01-31T12:56:00.000Z

While waiting for the harriers to turn up I wandered around, snapping away. Oddly I find the non-bird pictures hold my attention more. I'm guessing it's because I find them more graphically interesting.

Having a zoom lens allows too many options at times. I moved in closer and zoomed out to get a similar framing. The result has a different feel. I can't decide if it is more succesful though.

Harriers

2012-01-30T18:35:00.002Z

I've been tempted back to trying to capture some wildlife shots this last few days. I have a shot in mind, but the window of opportunity is small (about an hour) and the birds fickle.

A full frame camera's low light performance and focus tracking would be beneficial, but so would the reach of a crop sensor. It's hard to decide which route to take.

The first of the shots below is closest to what I'm after - a harrier hunting over the reedbed with an evening sky as the backdrop.

This third shot is of an unexpected hen harrier which came even closer - but the autofocus went haywire and I got a slightly blurry shot that should have been spot on. So it goes.

Portrait landscapes

2012-01-29T18:37:00.000Z

Two similar compositions from an evening walk. To a degree the equipment used has dictated the visual outcomes, which helps emphasise the nature of the two subjects - which are actually both man made watercourses just a few dozens of yards apart. Both have been processed from RAW files, the most drastic manipulation being the addition of graduation to the skies.

The photograph on the right was shot using a telephoto zoom on a full frame DSLR which results in the shallow depth of focus giving a soft look that suits the more natural elements of the image.

The photograph on the right was taken using the X10 on a wide angle setting giving greater depth of focus laying stress on the industrial elements of the sewage works. The straight course of the ditch and the hard edge of the pipe in the foreground contrast with the delicate reed stems and the curves of the water in the left hand picture.

Individually the images work. Together they make a pair commenting on what we think of as the natural world and man's intrusion into it - while one scene looks entirely natural it has been created to appear that way, yet the other is obviously artificial and has been colonised by nature.

None of this occurred to me at the time I made the pictures!.

Sensor size and big skies

2012-01-27T18:45:00.000Z

There are pedants who maintain that small sensors do not give greater depth of field.Well if you take the same lens, then strictly speaking they don't. But when people say the smaller sensors do give greater depth of field they are referring to framing the picture the same with the two cameras. In which case there is a difference.

The X10 has it's lens barrel handily marked with the full frame equivalent focal lengths. I took advantage of that to frame two shots using the same shutter speed and aperture on the X10 and a full frame camera. No guessing which of the two shots below is from which sensor!

This extra DOF can be advantageous, as can the X10's close up capabilities. I couldn't get the shot below with the full frame gear I have.

Out on the flatlands it's difficult to make anything of the landscape because there's nothing there! One approach, I suppose, is to make skyscapes. The ultra-wide lens is the traditional tool for the job.

There are a few things out there to make some visual interest. Most striking to me are the coverts and farmsteads that break up the horizon ever so slightly. Although it is largely featureless the light changes quickly on windy days. And when the weather's bad it can be quite dramatic at times. If I was into landscape photography I'm sure I could spend hours out there waiting for the light. I think I'd do it with a large format camera rather than a DSLR though.

Panorama fun

2012-01-24T16:49:00.001Z

When a new toy has a gimmicky feature it would be silly not to try it out! Quite what I might do with panoramas made in-camera I'm not sure. They do provide a different way of seeing, it's not like what an ultrawide angle or even fish-eye lens will give as there is no curvature, it's a different kind of distortion. It was misty afternoon, so doing these by hand left a lot to be desired - although they do demonstrate the effectiveness of the camera's software.

The 'straight' view of the above pano'

Where I think the effect works best is at what might be called crossroads. A series of such shots taken with more planning and care could be interesting. Click on the pics to get a better impression.

Inspiration's all around

2012-01-21T19:00:00.001Z

'I'm always photographing everything as practice.' - Minor White

Just as a painter is always sketching, the subject matter being largely irrelevant as sketching is as much about looking as picture making, it seems that a photographer can sketch with their camera. I've just read A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney which stresses that his art is all about seeing. Hockney is somewhat disparaging about photography, although he uses cameras to make pictures himself. It is the single-eyed vision he most objects to. But also the lack of one of the three elements he says the Chinese deem essential to be involved in the making of paintings - the hand, the eye, and the heart.

What I feel he fails to understand is that picture making with a camera is not the same thing at all as picture making with the hand. It makes a different sort of picture. Pictures that are not intended to be looked at in the same way, or to convey the same meanings which paintings are capable of conveying. Photographs are literal, paintings are metaphorical. Photographs say "I saw this", paintings say "I experienced seeing this". This is, undoubtedly a simplification, but is the essence of the difference. For all that, photographs can have mystery and bear lengthy contemplation.

Anyway, I have been photographing things for practice, partly to familiarise myself with my new toy, but also because I do it anyway. No matter how often you tread the same path, or sit in the same wall, things are in constant flux. If you look. This is something Hockney talks about in relation to landscape changing with the seasons, but I find it applies just as much in the home as the light through the windows changes.

I suppose it depends how you look at the world, but I can find things that interest me visually anywhere. Influenced by reading Hockney's views on how we don't look ta things from a fixed point - the essence of early cubism, and by the fact that photographers frame and re-frame shots (even if not making an exposure with each re-framing) I wondered if a more truthful way of showing photographs is to show the ultimately chosen composition alongside the rejected ones. Fruit have long been a favourite subject for still life painting. Photographers often approach subjects by trying to idealise them in an attempt to make them timeless. But look at still life painting throughout history and it reflects the time it was painted. So why not include the electric socket and plugs?

Comparison

2012-01-20T10:29:00.001Z

Two portraits. One taken with a full frame DSLR, the other with the X10. Both using available light. It's only the depth of field that gives the game away at this size!

Stealth

2012-01-19T16:51:00.000Z

There is one big advantage of the X10 - stealth. Ray who owns the tackle shop hates being photographed and merely raising a DSLR to my eye has him giving me black looks. Not only is the X10 small, it also has a quiet mode in which it makes no sound at all. No focus confirmation beep, no faux shutter sound, nothing. The use of the screen for framing also allows for unusual angles to be used that subjects think mean you aren't getting them in shot.

I'm still getting to grips with the best settings to use, but I can see the value of a camera like this for candid shooting and understand why Leicas are so suited to it. Given the available light I think the results from this wee camera are damned good. A little noise reduction has been applied, although it might not have been required in truth.

ISO 640

First impressions

2012-01-15T20:43:00.000Z

The new toy

Having taken the plunge yesterday, and spending some time familiarising myself with the controls, I had my first chance to try my new toy out this afternoon. That's it on the right, a Fuji X10.

Is it the future? Not yet it ain't. For what it is, a souped-up compact it's really good. As a functional camera it relies too much on menus for my liking, although I'm sure that with familiarity I'll get it set to a way that suits me. The viewfinder will take some getting used to. At least with it only giving a partial view of what appears on screen parallax isn't too much of a problem, and with 12mp to play with images can be cropped back without too much loss of image size.

Macro setting

There are some features I really like. The macro capability is great, and I can see it providing me with some interesting images when I get to grips with it. The small sensor's depth of field lends itself to close-up shooting.

I also like the size of the camera. It's unobtrusive in the extreme. It's also very quiet, and can be switched to a silent mode.

My first digital camera, all 1.3mp of it's sensor, was a Fuji as was my second. When I bought my third, a canon S3IS, I wasn't as keen on the colours it produced. The X10 makes as lovely pictures as my previous Fujis did. So that's nice.

All in all I find it hard to fault the files, JPEGs at this stage, that I've got. Had I gone straight from the S3IS to the X10 I would have been overjoyed and thought I'd reached Nirvana. But having got used to full frame Nikon files I have become spoiled. These are nice, but there is something about full frame that gives a different look to the pictures. It's hard to define, but it's definitely there.

However, this camera isn't a DSLR. It's a different tool for a different job. It's for taking fishing when I need to cut down on gear, and for taking round town, and anywhere else I go, where a DSLR draws attention to you. It'll get used a fair bit.

I do miss framing through a viewfinder, although it was better than squinting at the screen this afternoon in the bright sunshine when the screen was hard to see clearly. Nor do I like the arm's length hold when framing with the screen, but it has the advantage of making you look like a happy snapper.

It was fun wandering around for an hour or so seeing what the camera can do. It can do a lot.

A square crop seemed to suit this shot

I'm not sure about the native 4:3 aspect ratio in general, but it worked for this shot. Lovely blues and yellow.

A shot 'from the hip'

This current trend towards smaller sensors is not the way forward for me. They are good, and getting better, but they are being driven by a fad for making cameras as small as possible in order to compete with the ever improving phone-cameras. The technology must surely be available to put a large sensor in a small body with an integral viewfinder and simple analog controls.

No doubt I'll have more adventures from compact camera land anon.

The jury's out

2012-01-13T16:44:00.000Z

I didn't look at all three small sensor cameras, nor did I take any shots with both the ones I did look at. The handling, and the viewfinder, of the one I did play with made further investigation of alternatives pointless. It felt very much a 'real' camera. Unfortunately time was in short supply as I'd parked on the street and spent too long wandering round town taking photos - once I start it's hard to stop, especially when the sun is shining.

I did put a card in and take three shots in the shop, but wasn't able to fathom out any more than how to switch from aperture to shutter priority and alter the settings. Back home the improvement in image quality compared to my old small sensor camera was evident. More pixels and less noise (at ISO 500).

ISO 500, f2.8, 1/55th sec, 100mm (approx) equivalent

Not up to DSLR standards, but way better than I ever got from my digital 'fishing cameras'. Certainly more than good enough for web use. An A4 print of the shot above rattled off on my home printer looks good enough too. A jumped up point and shoot, perhaps, but one that operates like a camera of old and produces images which are, in ways most people are likely to use them, perfectly acceptable.

Have small cameras taken over the world? Not yet. I'll not be ditching the DSLR gear just yet, it has more features (some of which I use) and the viewfinder shows me exactly what I'll get. Then there's the look of the files. Small sensors are always going to have limitations that can't be got round. Ye cannae change the laws of physics, Jim! If you want shallow depth of field you need a large sensor. (there are those who will argue the point, but in the real world they are wrong.) For self-taken fishing trophy shots, however, a large depth of field is beneficial. And this camera has a feature that disappeared, even from film SLRs, many years ago - the ability to accept a cable or bulb release directly into the shutter release button. Such a simple physical connection thing that got replaced by electronics.

It might be a jumped up point-and-shoot compact, but it could still be more camera than I need for fishing. Then again, maybe not. I guess I'll have to take the plunge and see if it can replace a crop sensor DSLR for fishing and 'street' photography. It's the print that has convinced me. Time to lift the floorboards and dig out some cash...

No doubt the time will come when small cameras with large sensors and the features that DSLRs have today are available, and then things will change. How far away that day is remains to be seen. My guess is quite a long way off. No doubt such cameras could be made right now, but the marketing departments know that progress is better made in small steps, forcing people into multiple 'upgrades' rather than in one big leap.

On my wander round town taking photographs of odd stuff I got taken by the play of light and shadow in and around an alleyway. I rushed it, if I'm honest. Even so the composite below illustrates how curious people are when you are pointing a camera at something. It's not the first time I've noticed passers-by taking a puzzled look at my subject, but it is the first time I've captured it (I almost said, on film!).

Small is beautiful. Possibly...

2012-01-12T18:26:00.002Z

There appears to be a school of thought on the infernalweb that small cameras are the way forward. People seem sick of great big heavy DSLRS. I can see the point in this argument. SLR cameras have got larger and larger as they have become more and more automated. My ancianet Pentax ME is not much larger than my 6.3mp bridge camera, and way smaller than my full frame digital. For unobtrusive shooting the Pentax attracts a lot less attention. It also weighs a lot less and as such is less of a pain to carry around.

Another part of the argument in favour of small upmarket digital cameras is that most images these days don't need the resolution of large sensor cameras. They'll either be viewed on screens, or printed fairly small. This makes sense, my 6.3mp Canon bridge camera did me proud when I was writing regularly for fishing magazines it (as did it's 3.2mp Fuji predecessor). Double page spreads and cover shots looked fine to me. But comparing the images it produces with a crop sensor DSLR's output makes them look awful. Lack of contrast, noise at anything over base ISO. A general lack of flexibility. What's more the handling of the camera is clunky compared to a DSLR.

It was the handling that saw me always using it in either Auto or Program modes. Aperture and shutter priority modes are available, but involve the use of on-screen (or in-viewfinder) menus. Very frustrating. There are also buttons that were so easily pressed by mistake that the quality of the jpegs and the ISO settings could be altered without my knowledge. I'd have the camera set to the highest quality only to find the pictures were taken at a lower resolution. Bloody annoying.

After weighing the camera bag I took fishing the other day I'm considering another small 'compact' camera to take with me on those days a long walk is involved. I can't face using the Canon any longer - DSLRs have spoiled me! All I ask for is a small camera with easy shutter and aperture adjustment that produces images as good as a crop sensor DSLR. That can't be much to ask? I also demand a viewfinder for framing. I have a compact camera that lacks a viewfinder and absolutely hate holding it with both hands to frame shots on the screen. It's a poor way to hold a camera steady too.

Not only would a lightweight camera be useful to take fishing, a discreet one would be handy in town, and nice to cart around anywhere just in case. So, tomorrow I intend going out to look at some small cameras. I have three in mind - although I'm already pretty sure which one is most likely to part me from my cash. I'm taking a couple of memory cards with me in the hope I'll be able to bring some files home to inspect.

Moving on. I'm well aware that it's possible to lose inspiration or motivation. To feel that what you are photographing has no worth. I feel that all the time. But I don't log on and ask people where I can find inspiration. As soon as I go out, or even stay home, with my eyes open I begin to see things that are visually interesting. The resulting photographs may not be marvellous, but they usually have something going for them. Of course it's nice to have a project to give a sense of purpose to your photography. And so it was this afternoon when I called in at my local tackle shop.

I visit almost every week yet I still find fresh things to photograph. Not every time, but often enough. I'm a little hampered in my efforts to capture the proprietor as he has an aversion to cameras, but I'll get a good shot or two of him eventually. The shot here shows him doing what he likes doing best. Counting money! More from today have been added to the Tackle Shop page.

What is 'street'?

2012-01-08T13:17:00.001Z

Over on the Talk Photography forum someone defined street photography as being only about taking photographs 0f strangers on the street. I have to concur that is the way it is seen these days. The same poster kind of decried the 'decisive moment'.

If 'street' is only about photographing people on the street, and judging from the photographs a lot of would-be street shooters post on the interweb it is, what happened to composition or the capturing of a look or gesture? To me that is what photographing people anywhere is about - particularly when they are unaware of the camera's presence. A snapshot of a stranger is just that. A snapshot. Its being taken on a street doesn't magically elevate it to a higher status as an image.

I admire those photographers who can consistently find moments on the street and freeze them with a camera. It's a remarkable skill. To belittle their achievements is only showing up your own shortcomings. I take photographs of people in towns. Very few of them are anything more than snaps. Occasionally I grab a picture of a 'character', but in itself I don't find that sufficient. It's a lazy option. Making pictures is much more difficult.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm more interested in using a camera to make pictures than taking photographs. Which (like the rest of the above) I might have mentioned before.

As 2011 drew to a close it was time to sort through my archive and pick out my favourite pictures. As usual I found a couple that I hadn't thought much of at the time they were made and saw them afresh. Then I began the process of editing them down. I had intended to make a Blurb book from the best (for my own amusement), but after much consideration realised that there were some pictures that were good, but didn't fit alongside the bulk of the shots. There were two themes - people and places - so I split them into two groups. The people pictures are gathered in the book below. I've ordered myself a copy to see what the quality is like. Last year's effort I got printed on the standard paper, which was a bit thin. I'll be interested to see if the upgrade is worth the extra.

As I said, this is purely for my own amusement - to see how the pictures look as a collection. The virtual book gives an idea, but a hard copy is something else and the best way to judge your own work. Photographs are made to be printed and handled. I believe they are best collected in book form too. Some of the pictures I wouldn't include in a broader selection, but I wanted to fill as many pages as I could for the money!

People 2011 by Dave Lumb | Make Your Own Book

Tone is in the fingers

2012-01-04T19:54:00.001Z

No matter what instrument a guitar player with an identifiable style plays he/she will always sound like themselves. This doesn't stop wannabe guitarists finding out what equipment their hero uses and buying the very same stuff! They may nail the tone. They may have the technique. A lot of guitar players never get beyond emulation and fail to develop a style of their own. Individually or together having great tone and the chops isn't enough - something else has to be brought to the mix to make a style of one's own.

What has this to do with photography? It seems to me that the buying of the same equipment as a photographic hero is carried out by many even though it is widely acknowledged that it's not the camera that makes photographs but the photographer. Photographers also mimic techniques, subjects and compositions that are the trade marks of the photographers they admire. Prowling the streets with a Leica no more makes you Henri-Cartier Bresson than playing a gold top Les Paul makes you Jimmy Page.

A photographer's style transcends the equipment they use. Having a recognisable style can be commercially successful as clients will know what they are getting in advance, but artistically it can be unfulfilling. Some artists dabble with styles early in their career then settle into a mature style. Others are constantly exploring new media and ways of seeing and working. The early paintings of Lucien Freud are distinctly different to his mature works, but still recognisably Freuds. Yet David Hockney has changed his working practices, media, and scale throughout his life while also producing work that is recognisably his. Style is not superficial. It underpins everything.

How does this impact on my photography? Since realising I have a style, or possibly just things I repeat, I am always trying to make photographs that don't follow my usual parameters for image making. Yet no matter what I do I always see something that resonates with my previous efforts. I am undecided if the image below is good or bad. It certainly doesn't follow my usual compositional style, nor my available light practice, but there is a simplicity and lack of focal point that I see in many of my shots. I guess there's no real escape from a way of looking and seeing.

More studio stuff

2011-12-30T18:57:00.001Z

With time on my hands, but no sunshine to lure me outside with the camera, I've been taking 'portraits' of some of my lure collection. The first one is another light painting attempt using black paper as the background. I found 10m rolls of paper in a range of colours in Staples that make good back drops for this sort of stuff.

The second shot was inspired by Eric Weight's use of flash in his recent fairy photos. The composition leaves plenty of space for text. (I have a cunning plan to use it in an article somewhere!)

This third photo used two off camera flashes and umbrellas. The white background is much harder to work with for someone like me who is unused to working like this.

While this kind of stuff is quite interesting to do, I don't think I'm temperamentally suited to the attention to detail that is required. Things like ensuring the surface the lures rest on are clean and free from dust and marks. And I can never be bothered making a note of what lighting set up I used. I think there might have been a sheet of white paper used as a reflector in one of the above photos...

Three photographs of a photograph

2011-12-26T16:31:00.001Z

Another look

2011-12-24T09:09:00.002Z

I took another trip to Liverpool for a second look at the Mitch Epstein show at the Open Eye Gallery before it closed. Naturally I took my camera along with the versatile 28-105 attached. The first time I went I snapped a couple of shots of the tops of litter-bins designed for extinguishing cigarettes. I'm not sure why. There is something about words appearing in photographs that appeals in a Pop Art sort of way. It's akin to my fascination with road signs in the landscape. One of the shots is on the right here.

On my second trip I hadn't intended to use the bins as subject matter again but one caught my eye, then another, and eventually I went looking for them around the Albert Dock. Some sunshine would have improved matters and there's a degree of repetition but as an idea to explore it could prove interesting. The full set can be found here.

One good thing about the 'cultural centre' of Liverpool is that it is full of tourists with cameras. So no matter what you choose to shoot nobody bats an eye. Quite the opposite in fact, as after taking one of the Stub It Out shots a bloke with a camera moved in behind me and took a photo himself.

Late

2011-12-17T18:55:00.000Z

I waited in until twelve thirty for a delivery from Amazon before heading out to take the newly acquired lens for a walk round town. By the time I got there (after a detour to the tackle shop) it was getting late. There was plenty going on with Christmassy market stalls set up, but the ISO had to be pushed to borderline levels. If only there was a crop sensor that could match the one in the D3s. Ho hum.

I must say the zoom range is useful for street photography, certainly on the crop sensor. It matches the lenses I used to use in the days of 35mm too, so should I ever take a full frame camera round town it should work equally well.

These next two leave me undecided as to whether the colour version or the black and white conversion works better. It was the colours and the lighting that made me put the camera to my eye, but it's the chap's expression (which materialised during the picture taking) that makes the picture.

So far the lens seems to be a handy piece of kit for the money. It'll certainly come in useful as a travelling light lens for fishing.

The light

2011-12-15T13:52:00.001Z

Can light make an everyday subject into something interesting? I took delivery of a cheap 'knockabout' lens before lunch so wasted no time attaching it to cameras, not to take test shots of walls or printed charts, but to see what it could do with regarding picture making. It's a 28-105 zoom that cost me £150 secondhand. I didn't expect top quality but I wanted a lens with a versatile range that I could use use on crop or full frame that didn't weigh a ton and had a useful close up facility. A lens I could stick on a camera to take fishing with me when catching fish was the priority rather than taking photos, or to take in the car wherever I go.

As luck would have it the winter sun broke through as I was having lunch. First shot on crop, second a while later on full frame. Two images that are far from superb, but certainly capture two effects of light.

More commercial stuff

2011-12-11T11:26:00.001Z

I've been following Pat MacInnes's Flickr and blog for a while. He works for an angling magazine publisher and takes product and editorial shots. He's a technical sort of photographer, whcih I am not, but in my real life I write about fishing and try to sell fishing rods to people, so his techniques do resonate with me.

One thing he recently blogged about was lightpainting against a black background. I could see how I could use that to make for striking adverts, so I cobbled some things together and gave it a try.

This was the result, after a few failures where the light I was using left visible trails.

With a little fiddling around it worked up into a full page ad. I shalln't be running this particular version, but hope to reshoot in future for a new project.

Undecided

2011-12-06T18:21:00.001Z

One from Liverpool the other week, and one from yesterday. Both have interesting aspects but leave me uncertain if they cut the mustard. Which probably means they don't.

Back at the beach

2011-12-03T19:21:00.001Z

Time to get out with the camera has been non-existent of late, but an e-mail from one of the kiteboarders I have got to know tempted me to the beach after finishing work at lunch. It was a day of high wind blowing in rain squalls. This made for difficult light to photograph the action in but fantastic for everything else. Owing to the rain I only took the 150-500 to the water's edge and was hand-holding at high shutter speeds and ISO values through necessity. So technically the land/sea/skyscapes aren't too hot, but atmospherically they are pleasing.

The action shots worked a little better. Taking endless frame-filling shots of jumps and spray coming off the edge of the board as the boarders speed along gets a bit tedious, so I try to break things up for my own amusement.

When I am at the beach doing the sports photographer schtick I am also quietly working on a loose project working around the kiteboarding theme.

My eyes have been opened

2011-11-25T16:23:00.001Z

Although I drive past the newly opened Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool on a fairly regualr basis I never seem to have the time to stop and call in. Today I made time. The space is disappointingly small. Not cramped, just small. I suppose this reflects on the consideration that is given to photography in general. It's a nice space nonetheless. The lack of space limits the number of prints that can be displayed, which is a shame.

Although I had primarily gone along to see the Chris Steele-Perkins show it was the Mitch Epstein photographs that I took most away from. The Steele-Perkins photographs were all pretty familiar. Seeing them printed large and framed behind glass added nothing to the experience of looking at them in books or even on a monitor. If anything the glass made viewing them more difficult and to my eyes, even close up, the prints were nothing startling. The Epsteins were a different matter.

Being stuck behind glass was still troublesome for viewing the pictures, reflections are the problem. What I wasn't prepared for was how the scale affects how the pictures act on you. I've always been well aware that an image's size has an effect on how it is perceived, and that looking at prints in books isn't always the same as seeing the real thing. In the case of the Steel-Perkins prints they were not much larger than they can appear in books. Certainly not large enough to make a difference. Seeing a photograph at a size that fills an A4 page is one thing, but seeing the same photograph printed at six feet across (or thereabouts) is another experience altogether.

What seeing these very large prints did for me was explain the benefit of large format film. At something like A3 the level of detail that can be revealed from any size negative or digital file is limited. At six feet across small elements in a large scene can be revealed. It is this level of detail that sometimes attracts the photographer's eye. By standing close to the print this detail is revealed, by stepping back the full composition is revealed - yet the mind retains the information from the closer viewing. The overall impact is much different to seeing the same image printed small.

My two favourite prints from the American Power exhibition were the Hoover dam picture and the Martha Murphy and Charlie Biggs double portrait. Both benefit from being viewed large to show. The former as it reveals the intracies of the power lines and so forth, the latter because it allows you to examine the items in front of teh pair, and the tattoo on Charlie's arm. I had never understood the point of making very large photographic prints prior to seeing these. I left the exhibition contemplating how not only the aspect ratio of a format can affect the photographs you take, but also the scale of the negative (or sensor) and the size to which the final print can successfully be made. My eyes had been opened to alternative photographic ways of looking and seeing.

Restricted to an APS size digital sensor I tried making some photographs that suited it as I made my way back to the car park.

Colour or not

2011-11-22T22:39:00.001Z

I only managed to get out with my new toy late on, with half an hour of light left, so I switched to black and white mode to concentrate on silhouette and texture. Had I had more time I'm sure I would have found some more successful pictures. When I came to look at the shots on the PC this first one seemed to work better in colour. I think this is because the cool blue adds to the wintry feel, and the limited palette retains the graphic nature of the shot.

On the other hand the second shot works better in monochrome because colour doesn't get in the way. Why I took the shot of waste polystyrene in a drainage channel I'm not sure. I don't think I was making an environmentalist comment, what attracted my was the curve the flat white shards make and the contrast of natural and man-made textures. So maybe there is an environmental subtext to the main visual one even though I saw it originally as shape and texture. It was a bugger keeping my feet out of the frame at 14mm!

Who needs 'protection' filters?

2011-11-17T16:43:00.001Z

Work has been getting in the way of 'serious' photography of late. Well, work and fishing have. The fishing has seen more messing around with fill and balanced flash. Some results better than others. Also some playing with ideas for future adverts which has resulted in one shot that, when flipped, makes a nice background image to fit my existing text layout. This was taken handheld, manually focused with my 150mm macro lens. I find the lens pretty useful in non-macro mode when fishing - so it serves two purposes. Angling atmosphere shots are all fine and dandy, but I could do with catching some fish to shoot their portraits and get some abstracty texture pictures of scales and eyes and things.

Other than that my photographic opportunities have been thin. The 'studio' still not being ready and my trips to town scant I've been pretty much restricted to taking shots from home. So the theme has been 'modern landscape'. I find it quite rewarding to make pictures without leaving the confines of my property. And surprising that there is a variety of pictures to be made.

The topic of filters for protection hasn't been aired on Talk Photography for a while. I might bring it to the fore for a chuckle after today's event. How I managed to drop my D90 onto my slate fireplace, albeit from a less than two feet, I really don't know. It just slipped from my grasp and landed with a horrible crunching and cracking sound. I fully expected it to be dead. All that appears to have happened is that the filter ring got a severe denting and the filter glass cracked.

There's a slight chip in the plastic of the lens barrel, but very superficial. There were a few small shards between filter and front element, but no damage to the element itself. That seems to be it. The camera appears to function normally and the lens autofocuses. It took a bit of effort, and some cycle inner tube to provide extra grip, but the filter came off okay and a replacement has been bought and fitted.

I can't say for sure what would have happened had the filter not been in place, but the threaded part of the lens barrel would certainly have taken the brunt of the fall and suffered far more damage than it has done. They seem to build Nikon's tough. For all the plastic construction this one has already survived sliding off the passenger seat of my car when I braked suddenly, and mysteriously rolling itself off the sofa. I'm sure I'll manage to kill it eventually!

Studio shooting

2011-11-03T19:46:00.001Z

Winter is here so it's time to start messing around indoors with the flash guns. I'm planning to sort out a better space and backdrops but for now I'm using some wrinkled A2 paper on a piece of plywood as a table top. So far I have invested in a couple of lighting stands, and some modifiers are on the shopping list.

Here's the result of a short play session using the camera's flash to trigger to more strobes either side. Nothing fancy as yet. The B+W conversion is to give a vintage look to the old reel.

Final touches

2011-10-29T19:03:00.000+01:00

Today I took the two photos required to fill the gaps on my advert. They needed to be graphic enough to show what they are of at a small size, so a shallow depth of field was ensured. The first shot was taken using available light and the 24-70. I tried the same set up for the ring photo but even at 70mm there was too much clutter in the background. Switching to the 150mm macro solved that problem and the addition of flash allowed me to play with the shutter speed and aperture to get the look I was after.

One problem I am having with using the DSLR kit for my product shots is that it is too good even dust and stuff on the rods shows up when viewed large!

Here's how they slot into the ad.

It's not art

2011-10-27T21:39:00.000+01:00

There are photographs for their own sake and there are photographs for other purposes. A new opportunity has arisen for me to promote my business and it's an ideal chance to combine photography, fishing and making money!

With a 'double page' spread on offer in an up-coming on-line magazine an idea popped straight into my head. Some of the shots I've taken recently would make eye catching visuals, but they were composed poorly to allow for text placement. I therefore knew the composition and the light I needed, all I had to do was be there.

For once my plan fell into place at the first attempt. Or pretty much so. I got the location right and the sunset was, if not magnificent, certainly pleasing enough. I'll admit that the flash would have been better off camera, and more diffuse (or two lights used), but it's not art, it's a functional photo to make people look rather than invite detailed critique.

Plenty of space was allowed for the text and some small images which I am working on to overlay. As a photo it works quite well as it is, as an advert it's coming along nicely.

As this is to be a graphic image rather than a photograph I had no qualms about cloning out the two midges that look like hot pixels in the sky. Cropped to format the image below is where the ad stands at the moment. Two more small images are needed bottom right, and a few tweaks to the text and it will be done. It's ironic to think that I was advised to change my preferred career path as a graphic designer and study Fine Art because I was a messy worker. If only computer technology had been where it is now way back then I'd probably never have become a rod builder!

What a difference a day makes

2011-10-19T18:02:00.000+01:00

One of the 'benefits; of living on the west coast is that the weather changes daily, and with it the light. Monet painted the same haystacks under differing lighting conditions. So I shall photograph a neighbour's roof under differing skies!

Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool

2011-10-12T20:34:00.000+01:00

I remember visiting the, as I remember it, pokey little and then two-year-old Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool when I was a student. Getting back into photography last year I was sorry to find it closed while being relocated to new premises in 'the heart of Liverpool's cultural centre'.

The website was also little more than a holding page, but I kept on checking it. Well, the website is now live and the gallery is due to open on the fifth of November. I'm looking forward to visiting it at the earliest opportunity. As I go to Liverpool on business at least once a month, often more frequently, that should be pretty soon.

Cliché revisited

2011-10-10T19:11:00.000+01:00

The Online Photographer

When you know with a quiet but solid confidence that you truly like one of your pictures and you're not shaken in the least when someone says, "What the hell is the point of that?" or "I hate that!," you're there.

I guess I'm 'there' then!

A question of focus

2011-10-05T22:06:00.001+01:00

Rain and street lighting always seem to make me reach for a camera. I don't know if this is pretentious experimentalism or good photography - the 'self-portrait' certainly has more than a touch of pretentiousness about it!. The green and reddish-orange hues work together as almost complimentary colours.

The way our minds see things that aren't there, interpreting shapes as forms they don't actually depict, is always fascinating. Like seeing pictures in flames or clouds, or Christ on a piece of burnt toast I immediately saw a 'Madonna and Child' in the final frame here. Of course there is no religious connection, the Madonna and Child format was plainly appropriated as a powerful Christian image because of it's inherently powerful maternally human resonances. But when looking at pictures the reference back is often to art works of the past. And Christian imagery has a long tradition in western painting - which is where I usually make my connections.

The great thing(s) about photography

2011-10-02T12:58:00.000+01:00

Maybe not for everyone, but certainly for me, the greatest thing about photography is that it gives you the perfect excuse to look at the world like a child. How else can an adult get away with lying on the ground looking closely at something without appearing to others like a complete lunatic? Once you put a camera between the prostrate person's eye and the thing they are looking at they are justified in looking closely. You can look at the world in this inquisitive way without a camera, but photographs can help to show others how the world looks when you change your point of view - not just physically.

Children are naturally inquisitive, naturally explorative. As people grow older most seem to stop looking with wonder and awe - except at that which is considered wondrous or awesome. Everything has become familiar. Or more so they think everything has become familiar. A camera allows you to look with an altered perception to the everyday. I'm sure that all visually creative people retain a childlike interest in the way the world looks.

Another childish facet to creativity in any field is that it performs the same role as play does for children. This is not the same as an adult 'playing' football or golf, that's merely participation. Play is creative. It's about messing about with things and seeing what happens. Photography allows you to do that in a visual arena. You can approach picture making as a sport - following set rules, or you can approach it as play - fooling around with no rules. It depends how grown up you are...

So what if passers-by give you funny looks for taking photographs of abandoned balls, or milk-floats, or dogs on leads rather than sunsets when there are adventures in perception to be had!

Too obvious

2011-09-29T16:28:00.002+01:00

When I was at the beach yesterday the sunset was an unavoidable subject. I took a lot of shots, most of which were rubbish, some of which were trite, a few that almost made it.

Partly as an experiment I posted a selection on a non-photography forum. I was interested to see if the ones which looked like a thousand other sunset photographs proved more popular. They did.

No prizes for picking the 'winner' from these two.

Sun off to one side, reflection on wet sand. If the horizon had been slightly higher it would have ticked all the boxes for approval. But I was trying to see if I could make a picture work with the horizon deliberately centred. It sort of does.

Sun all but invisible and central, very low horizon, hardly any subject matter. Ticks none of the boxes for approval. Placing the sun anywhere but on the centre line made no sense to me. That would have been composition by numbers. In fact I should have taken a few more shots after the sun had completely disappeared.

The bait digger

2011-09-28T21:56:00.001+01:00

Strictly speaking not a bait digger as he was using a more efficient pump rather than a spade. The light was fantastic and I managed a semblance of a story while being distracted by the setting sun and the afterglow.

All taken using the 70-200 with a x1.7 teleconverter. At 100% they are remarkably sharp. The 150-500 might be getting the heave-ho to fund a x2 converter.

One of my favourite 'scapes of the evening is below.

Night light

2011-09-25T09:00:00.000+01:00

Round here they've been replacing the old streetlights, the ones that make the sky glow orange, with what I assume are LED lights which cast a whiter light.

This actually feels a little disconcerting as I have come to think of night light as orange, and now it looks like a subdued daylight. What it does do is make for interesting possibilities with night photography. Especially so when the sky has the old orange glow.

To eyes accustomed to the old way the night looked it's other worldly. I think I might try some tripod efforts to see if I can improve on my shaky hand held efforts, an example of which is shown tiny here to cover up the blur!

You shouldn't need to ask

2011-09-24T09:00:00.000+01:00

"Does this processing work?" If you're asking, then odds on it doesn't. Then again a lot of people seem to like heavily processed images. It was ever thus. The attraction of effect over content all too frequently triumphs. One effect I've seen a lot of is one I've never been able to reproduce. Not that I've wanted to reproduce it, but I was curious to know how it was achieved. Having recently downloaded the trial of Lightroom I have now found out. Don't ask how I did it because I can#'t remember, but it is certainly something Lightroom can do which GIMP cannot - or not readily. Moving the Lightroom sliders about to see what they did the effect materialised on a B+W conversion. So I maxed it out! Quite why anyone would choose to apply such an effect to a candid, street, portrait I cannot say. But some do.

Over-cooked

This second image is what I started with. Just a touch of exposure compensation and some level tweaking. Much more to my taste.

Almost raw

Combing the two, however, gives the original a bit of a lift without looking too outrageous. I'm still not sure I wholeheartedly approve though.

Done to a turn

This whole digital processing lark is something I wish I didn't have to bother with. When I did my own B+W printing all I ever did was use different grades of paper and vary the exposure times. Dead simple. Now there are all sorts of tweaks that can be done. Many variations can be made without having to waste a sheet of paper on each to check the result. I do wonder that having so much flexibility is really a good thing though. It not only makes processing harder, it makes editing fro the options more difficult too. On the positive side it can make images look a whole lot better than they do when they come out of the camera. So I guess I have to keep on playing around and trying to make the final results look like I haven't!

As an aside, and not something consciously done in making the shot, the out of focus chair back serves to nicely separate most of Martin's head from the cluttered background. I should pay more attention to such details when looking through the viewfinder instead of noticing them later.

Spin

2011-09-23T08:46:00.000+01:00

I've admired Maciej Dakowicz's Cardiff After Dark photographs since I first found them. To me they are street photography at its best. And something that couldn't have been easily done before the advent of digital technology.

As far as I'm concerned the images simply show what goes on in a non-judgemental way, always trying to make pictures and usually succeeding.The captioning is generally sparse and without much comment. The viewer is left to interpret the photographs as they feel fit.

Dakowicz's photographs have rightly achieved wide acclaim in various photo publications, on websites, and in photography shows and festivals. It is really good photography.

When the Daily Mail gets their hands on his shots they are used (and cropped) to promote their particular vision of 'broken Britain'. A set of photos of upper class twits in similar drunken states is required to redress the balance!!

What this helps to illustrate is that photographs in themselves make no statements. That is all down to teh viewer to impose on them. Or in this case, for the media to ram down the viewer's throats.

PS - http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/st-mary-street/

Country shows

2011-09-22T12:13:00.000+01:00

I found these photos by Paul Russell via the BBC Viewfinder blog which I thoroughly recommend. I was aware of Paul Russell's photos, but hadn't been checking them out recently. Well worth a look.

Milestone

2011-09-21T10:01:00.002+01:00

A walk to the shops today gave me two more Lost Balls Found taking the total to 50. The interesting fact is that I spotted number 49 on my way out but didn't notice number 50 (which must have been there all along) until my return journey. It's always worthwhile retracing your steps or to keep turning round to get a different view. It's surprising what you can miss.

Number 50 - with 49 in the background.

The shock of the familiar

2011-09-19T08:00:00.000+01:00

One of the many things I don't understand about some people who take photographs is their apparent need to travel to far off places to take them. Even when this is limited to their own country they are, to my mind, closing their eyes to what is around them. For me one of the attractions of photography is it's ability to make you see things differently. By it's very nature it isolates sections of the world by placing them within the confines of a frame, and in the process transforms them. It is an intensity of vision rather than the subject which 'makes' a photograph.

"To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour."

If your subject is people they are no less interesting and varied in your own neighbourhood than they are on the other side of the globe. A Tibetan monk may be more colourful, exotic and picturesque, than an inner-city vicar - which may superficially enhance your photographs, but he is no more human. I've had my fill of orange robes. Photography is about seeing, not travelling.

There is always the problem when visiting places that others have photographed of repeating what they have already done. There's an iconography of accepted subjects, and of course the familiarity of the resulting images makes them palatable to an audience that doesn't like to be challenged. Making images of what is familiar to you is almost always going to be more challenging for an audience as they will most likely be less familiar with the subjects than they are with more distant but widely photographed subjects.

Perhaps this is why I find McCurry's photographs of people in far flung places beautiful yet somehow trite and Parr's work at times harsh, but fresh and intriguing. I'd rather look at photographs that withstand prolonged and repeated scrutiny to appreciate than those which satisfy the eye immediately by playing all the old tricks for effect.

Another benefit of taking photographs in familiar, often visited, places is that of time. Time allows for change, not only of light and the world itself, but also of attitude of mind. In one state of mind something may appear uninteresting, in another it could seem intriguing. The photographer of the exotic doesn't always have this facility available.

Writers are often encouraged to write about what they know, even if only as a jumping off point. Photographers should perhaps photograph what they know in order to see that unexpected world in the familiar grain of sand.

All this is, of course, is merely a way of justifying my banal and insular photographs!

Failure in the rain

2011-09-17T18:44:00.000+01:00

For some time I've been chasing pigeons with my camera, trying to capture an image of a bird with the street in the background making a picture. It relies a lot on luck, which so far has been mostly bad. While I may not be a stickler for sharpness I've not even got close despite trying various autofocus modes and manually prefocusing. While not a street scene the shot on the right is my best effort so far.

In a fit of inspiration I tried the same tactic on dogs being walked, and the ever-unreliable screen on the camera suggested it was a better option. The big screen on the confuser told another story. Blurry dogs. They look okay at minuscule size but a print would be disappointing. The idea is good. The execution flawed.

All was not lost. Rain makes for good street photography in my experience. People are too concerned with keeping dry to worry about a nutter with a camera. They're not the best pictures in the world but they have bits working in their favour.

What I like about this first shot are the colours and the way all the faces are hidden save for that of the sleeping child - which isn't immediately obvious because it merges into the pink bag.

I don't know what I like about the second shot. Maybe the limited palette and the graphic nature of the umbrella.

The graffiti certainly lifts the third shot. A bare wall would not have been anywhere near as visually interesting, not even given my taste for acres of negative space.

The final picture comes closer to succeeding in a sort of linear composition with figures (including the dummies) spread across the frame. A far more painterly approach to creating a picture. Oh well. Lessons learned I think.

Why did I take this photograph?

2011-09-13T20:18:00.001+01:00

That's a question you are supposed to ask yourself. Well, in the case of today's shot the reason I took it is different to why it intrigues me now.

I took the shot because I saw a man up a ladder and a woman's dress on a dummy and thought it made an interesting, if obvious, contrast.

Looking at it now it intrigues me because the image plays with perspective and the picture plane. Everything in the image is presented flatly, yet when you read the image there are multiple layers: the text on the window, the figures behind the glass, the perspective of the shop interior emphasised by the shelving and strip-lights, the reflections of the buildings and people. All these elements force you to change focus, although the image is flat.

Live view

2011-09-10T09:52:00.000+01:00

At last I've found a good use for live view on a camera. Okay, so it's useful for low level photography, but an angle viewfinder can do that job. No, where it really is useful is shooting in the dark. I tried some nightscapes last night, and composing in live view made the scene much brighter and the whole process easier. The photos could be better, so I'll have to try again and take more care, but at least now I have a handle on how to carry things out from a practical standpoint.

Nifty fifty

2011-09-08T11:45:00.000+01:00

As with 'bokeh' 'nifty fifty' is a term that didn't exist when I started taking photographs. A 5omm lens was what you got when you bought an SLR camera. It was considered to be a 'standard' lens.Today the 'nifty' seems to have gained a cult following. Perhaps this is because it provides a cheap way to get a fast lens and the 'bokeh' effects that come with that territory. Fine if all you are interested in is getting soft backgrounds for the sake of having soft backgrounds. Whatever happened to 'f8 and be there'? I choose a lens by focal length to make the photos I want to make. There's no point having creamy-dreamy backgrounds if you can't frame the shots.

For some time I've had a 24mm almost welded to my crop sensor camera. The image quality may not be all it could be, but it makes good photos. Prior to that I had a 35mm which had better IQ and also made some good pictures, but not as many. I found the focal length neither here nor there for most things. Odd as it equates to 52.5mm on 35mm film and I used to manage okay with a 50mm on my Pentax. So I picked up a f1.4 'nifty fifty' to see what difference that would make.

As an alternative to the 24mm it's an improvement over the 35mm. It does require to adjust how I see though. For walking around the two lenses provide a nice compliment to each other and make different photos. I can't say that the faster aperture bothers me much. There's not a great deal of difference between the out of focus effect at 1.4 and 2.8. It's noticeable, but in most instances it wouldn't bother me. With the ability to use higher ISO values with digital than film there's no advantage to be had there as there was with film. For me it's speed is certainly no reason to choose the lens.

Why not use a zoom? Simply because a fast zoom, I have one which covers the same range and more, is big and heavy. With either of these lenses on the camera it's light and unobtrusive. The spare lens can also slip easily in a jacket pocket. Of course, I can use also use the same lenses on a full frame digital. And when I do fit a zoom one of these primes can go along in a pocket keeping me mobile (I hate carting a camera bag around) and giving me extra options.

The 50mm will also have a place as a fishing lens. My travelling light kit can now consist of the two primes and an extension tube - the fifty plus a tube does a good enough job of close up work. It's a pity I don't have a teleconverter that will fit it too.

Should the 'nifty fifty' have the cult status it seems to have? I don't think so. It's just another lens that does a job or two. It doesn't work magic.

Cropping and context

2011-09-05T16:13:00.002+01:00

I guess this is what could be called a 'street portrait', as it captures an expression and sort of works as a composition.

But it's not what I saw - and failed to capture well.

The point is that cropping can alter the meaning of a photograph. No doubt that is why early Magnum photographers filed away the edges of their negative carriers so a whole frame would be printed with a rough black border. The whole frame and nothing but the frame. Does cropping matter? I suppose it depends on how the photograph is used and the intentions of the photographer.

Iconic Photos

2011-09-04T20:56:00.000+01:00

Another site worth visiting added to the links list in the side bar is Iconic Photos. Good to look at and interesting to read.

I've got Photoshop so I'm going to use it...

2011-08-30T17:08:00.000+01:00

The title isn't something I'm likely to say. I prefer to do the minimum of processing. It's not that I'm a technophobe it's that I don't like doing more to a digital image than I'd have done when printing a negative.

The 'improvement' of photos by removing elements really bugs me. I know it was done in the old days, but when it comes to street photography, in particular, I think that whatever is in front of the camera should be recorded in the final image - print or digital file. I'd guess that all the iconic street photographs rely on framing and timing for their visual success rather than manipulation. It's the fact that the photographer has recorded what they saw as it was (within the limits of the medium) which gives good street photography it's vibrancy. It's because what has been captured hadn't been staged that gives this kind of photography it's appeal. But if the image has been manipulated, then it might as well have been staged.

Nothing added, nothing taken away

However what gets called street photography seems to have changed recently. More and more people are styling themselves as street photographers because they take photos in the street. It feels to me like it is now just enough to snap (and most of the photos I see are no more than snaps) someone who looks 'interesting'. It doesn't matter much what they are doing, how the shot is composed, or anything else much. They're someone you don't know and they're in a street so it's street photography. It's equivalent to the mentality in wildlife photography which Eric Weight wrote about a few weeks ago of going to the same places everyone else does to photograph the same creatures in the same way. It's a lack of imagination

I got drawn in by this attitude briefly. Realising that my best street photos were the ones I'd put some thought into drew me back out. It's the speed of digital and auto focus that is the problem. It's too easy to either rely on the automation and shoot from the hip, or to snap without thinking. When you consider the making of each picture everything works better. You may come away with fewer images, but the standard will rise. I had thought about going back to film for this sort of stuff, but changing my mindset to a filmic rather than a digital mode has done the trick. And I'm starting to 'see' in black and white again.

There are some who think 'having an eye for a picture' is a skill which can be learned through study and practice, and there are others who think it's something you can either do or not. I'm in the latter camp. It seems to be a fashionable belief that if you work hard enough at anything you can get to be the best at it. There are books written about it. When it comes to creativity I reckon hard graft only gets you so far.

There can't be anyone around today who would dare call a dyslexic person stupid because they struggle to read and write. Could there be a visual equivalent of dyslexia? Is it possible that rather than there being some people who are naturally able to see pictures (which is what those who advocate the hard work ethic deny) there are people who will always struggle to see pictures no matter how much they learn about composition or how many photographs they take?

It's commonly thought, or expressed, that digital cameras (and camera phones) mean there are more bad photos being taken today than ever before. I'm not so sure. Besides, if people are taking more photos then if those who say practice equals improvement are right there should be more good photos being taken! I have a feeling that it is the ability to show photographs to a potential audience of millions that is the real difference. How many rubbish holiday snaps tucked away in draws does each family have which haven't seen the light of day since they were picked up from the chemist shop? There have always been thousands of bad photographs taken every year, but only a handful of people ever saw each set. Now they are all put on-line for anyone to find.

I'm beginning to ramble, so I'll stop now.

Sandgrounding

2011-08-27T15:46:00.001+01:00

As I usually take my camera with me to town when I go to Southport and keep getting drawn to the beach and sand dunes I've started posting some of the photographs I take there to a new blog. No words, just photos. I've called the blog Sandgrounding - which is explained in the 'about' page.

Still life

2011-08-21T19:29:00.001+01:00

I'm gradually revamping the photos on my dlst.co.uk website, making the most of my DSLR kit to improve things. A subject was chosen to emphasise the handbuilt nature of my work, and a shallow depth of focus used to enable text to be overlaid. With the bridge camera I used to take the original website photos I'd have been adding the blur digitally. It probably won't increase sales, but it was kinda fun to do.

And one for some other possible use that has less space but is a more pleasing composition.

Consecutive frames

2011-08-19T20:14:00.000+01:00

I don't pretend that the second of the following two frames is a great photo. I'm not even sure it will resonate with anyone who wasn't there. It is the better of the two. The former is no more than a snapshot, the latter at least aspires to be a picture. Just a few seconds separates the two exposures, but enough has changed to make a difference.

I don't want to over-analyse it, but the placement of the figures is better defined, the figure far right keeps the eye from leaving the frame, and fewer of gazes are aimed at the camera. The rhythm of the photograph has altered.

Lens thoughts

2011-08-15T19:58:00.000+01:00

I think what I was driving at in my previous post was that a lot of photography is more concerned with technique than picture making. The advent of digital picture making and the ability to look at images on a screen far larger than they will ever be perceived if printed (given that a large print will be viewed from a greater distance) has made this quest for perfect focus more attainable. Reading forums it seems that lenses are likely to be discounted if they are not super sharp. Well, my favourite go-anywhere lens on a crop sensor is a 24mm. I like it because of its angle of view and its small size. It is capable of sharpness, but it's slow to autofocus so when I have to grab a shot it doesn't always quite make it. I could buy a faster focusing, sharper, lens, but it would be large, heavy and obtrusive. But the one I have does the job I want it to.

Look at the bokeh on that!

Quite in what context Henri Cartier-Bresson said that sharpness is a bourgeois concept I don't know, but the quote is out there on the web. Looking at photographs taken back in the days of slow grainy film it's quite apparent that critical sharpness wasn't always achieved, even by the masters of the photographic art.I can only assume that they were more concerned with making pictures that people would respond to rather than photographs that would impress people who carry magnifying glasses. Obviously in certain technical photography then sharpness is important, but in picture making it's not. And nor is the quality of the out of focus areas that some obsess over.

On the subject of lens obsession we now come to 'breathing'. usually a good thing, except when it refers to a zoom lens which changes it's focal length as it focuses closer. I have such a lens, one that one obsessive says he wouldn't buy because when he pays for 200mm he expects 200mm at all focussing distances. Well I know this lens 'breathes' but only because I've read that it does. Does this 'defect' affect my ability to make pictures using it? Does it hell! I don't even notice the change in focal length and manage to work within the 'limitations' of my equipment. Just the same as I don't find the 24mm lens limiting in terms of sharpness or compositional possibilities.

Trendy?

2011-08-14T10:41:00.000+01:00

Recently there has been much praise for a 'new' (read fashionable) photo-sharing site - 500px. Bloggers and forum users, notably those on Talk Photography, are raving about it's interface and the high quality of the photos on there compared to Flickr. Well, as usual, I'm out of step.

OK, so there is a lot of dross on Flickr, many photos are uploaded simply to show people something that occurred rather than for their artistic merit. I upload to Flickr because it's easy and easy to link from to forums and blogs. To me it's a hosting site that is (or was, easier to use than Picassa - although that has changed recently) rather than a sharing site. To be honest I have no interest in joining Flickr groups to get insincere praise, or geeky comments about technicalities that don't interest me, from people whose own photos show they have no concept of what photography can be.

But is the standard on 500px really that good? I don't think so. I think it is superficially impressive. It represents the hobbyist's values of what makes a good photograph. You see the same styles repeated time and again - the wide aperture 'bokeh' shots, the super-wideangle landscape with a rock in the foreground and a slow exposure to make the sea turn smooth, and numerous compositional and stylistic clichés. It's a plagiarists paradise.

But that's seems to be what hobbyists want. They are continually seeking 'good places to shoot near' certain towns. I assume in order that they can go and make photos that look like everyone else who has been there. And therein lies the fault with seeking inspiration from sites like 500px. The temptation to replicate what you see is great if you lack imagination.

Looking at contemporary images only shows you the current trends. Not all of these will stand the test of time. Fair enough if you are a commercial photographer who has to make saleable work, trends have to be followed, but for personal work it is much better to take heed of what has gone before rather than emulate what is going on now.

That is why artists still study works from many centuries past. At the very least you ought to skip a generation of artists or photographers. Look back 30 years or more. Often work that was overlooked at the time (it wasn't fashionable) becomes highly influential at a later date. Colour photography of the 1950s and early '60s being a case in point. Serious photographers shot black and white, colour was for snap-shooters. Thirty years on some of those colour photos came to be considered ground-breaking and highly influential. Or is this just another fashion trend?

My 'serious' photographs aren't slick enough to fit in at 500px (although that could be a good reason to sign up!), nor can I be bothered making pretentious statements about them in order to make them into 'art' (although I easily could). At least I don't have to sell them to put food on my plate, so I can carry on making them because I want to. Every now and then I'll make a photo that surprises me. Which is why I keep doing this photography thing.

Visions and Images

2011-08-03T22:02:00.000+01:00

I don't 'get' artificial lighting, but the Strobist blog often throws up some interesting stuff. Today I found it had a YouTube video that was worth wacthing, and clicking through revealed a whole series of interviews from 1981 with well known American photographers talking aboput their work and working practices. Clcik on through and pass a couple of hours.

Something great about the internet

2011-07-20T20:04:00.002+01:00

For all it's faults the internet has the ability to provide pleasant surprises. I mentioned a post or two back that when I was at college (it was a polytechnic in my days, an school of art in John Lennon's) photography wasn't taken too seriously. The Open Eye Gallery had not long been open and was something of a novelty. Since getting back in to photography I've been checking it's website out for news. Not much has been happening to interest me (Martin Parr visiting the new site being about it), but this evening I clicked on the facebook link and checked out some of the FB gallery pictures. I was amazed and delighted when I instantly recognised a smiling face from all those years ago which I then clicked through to find on Flickr.

Not only does this go to show how great the internet can be, but also demonstrated the power of photographs. There's no need for the taste of a Proustian madeleine to take you back in time in a moment. A photograph can do it too. Su always seemed to be happy, even when suffering from a cold like I am at the moment. She was unendingly generous and like a second mother to generations of 'starving' art students. Seeing that she is still around and still smiling really perked me up.

Unexpected events like this occur in cyberspace. I'd downloaded the first two episodes of British Masters yesterday (an idiosyncratic take on British painting in the 20th century) and during the section in episode two about William Coldstream a couple of photos by Humphrey Spender (who I wasn't aware of) were shown briefly. A little searching soon revealed an archive from the Worktown project shot about Bolton in the late 1930s. What struck me most about them was how little Britain had changed between the start of WWII and the early sixties when I was growing up. Fashions were slightly different, but not much, and the Blackpool of the archive looked like the Blackpool I remember. Take away the cars and the clothes and the illuminations were just the same!

I don't know if all the photos from the project are digitised, but there appears to have been little editing done if not. Wonky verticals and horizontals abound. However this does give an idea of how Spender worked. Just the same as most do - working towards a good shot after seeing potential. Not all the shots are photographically interesting - that, perhaps, wasn't the concept of the project, but some are. Spender's nervousness about shooting, which is revealed in the biographical notes, is apparent in a number of the people pictures. A difficult site to find the gems on, though, as the design is cramped and clunky, but worth wading through.

PS A click from the Open Eye Flickr page revealed Paul Trevor's 1975 photos.

A point of view

2011-07-16T15:15:00.000+01:00

These two shots serve to illustrate how changing your viewpoint can make a difference to how photos look. The first was taken with a long lens and shooting into the sun. The long lens flattens the apparent space and the lighting leads to silhouetting and a graphic effect.

While still filling the frame with the subject a shorter lens used at closer range expands the apparent space, and the over-the-shoulder lighting lends a more pictorial air to the shot.

It did mean running the risk of getting soaked though! And that was why I was using less than optimal gear for the fast moving subject, the camera's focusing system not being brilliant at tracking moving objects, and the lens not the crispest. But it was a fun experiment.

Reading and looking

2011-07-11T14:19:00.003+01:00

Although I'd bought it a few weeks ago I had deliberately put off opening Joel Meyerowitz's Cape Light knowing that it's main subject matter is beaches. Eventually I cracked and began reading the interview that precedes teh photos, and in doing so I realised that photos taken in different places by different people at different times don't always resemble each other because works have been seen but because a similar subject affects people in similar ways. So I carried on to look at the photos.

Why this book passed me by before now I can on;y ascribe to the paucity of my college library when it came to photography. Many of what are now classic, seminal even, books of or about photography were in print back when I was a student, but they were not to be found easily. I guess that could also be seen as a reflection of how the art establishment thought of photography in the late 1970s and early '80s.

It's plain to see why Cape Light has been influential. It is very much a book about colour and light. Already it has given me pause for thought about what 'makes' a photograph. And although there are similarities with my beach photos there are enough differences for me to be unconcerned about repeating another's work.

Although the use of a 10x8 view camera is usually thought to change a photographer's way of working by making it slower and more considered, and to change the look of the images through both the film used and the slow shutter speeds and small apertures used, the simple matter of a change of format from the 3:2 ratio of 35mm film (or DSLR sensor) to 5:4 also gives the images a different feel. It must have an impact on the way a photographer sees.

Thanks to the miracles of modern technology I was able to alter my viewfinder ratio and give the 5;4 format a try. The difference was striking. A brief walk around the back garden revealed that I was looking in a different manner owing to the altered format. Something to explore further. No doubt there will be those who will ask, "Why not shoot in 3:2 and crop later?" Well, that way you are still looking in 3:2. It's the alternative way of looking that interests me.

Unconscious influences and disillusionment

2011-07-08T21:42:00.000+01:00

Looking at the work of renowned photographers can be inspiring and depressing in numerous ways. Good photos can make you want to go out and take good photos yourself. That's great. And when you realise that your shots echo those you admire it can be disappointing, but is to be expected. Disillusionment sets in when are taking photos that you think have some originality, only to discover someone else has been there before you. And when you think back you realise that you had seen their work earlier, but not picked up on it. That is annoying. Interesting, though, that images can work on us without our realising it.

In my case it was seeing some of Thomas Struth's Paradise series which reminded me of my 'smallscapes'. There is a distinct difference in that the Struth images take a wide view, whereas I am deliberately getting closer.

I was browsing today and came across a link to a photographer from across the estuary, who unsurprisingly photographs similar locations to those I frequent. There is a long-standing tradition in British photography of recording seaside towns, almost to the point of cliché. And for those who live in those towns the time when they shut down has a desolate appeal. I've been at it ever since I picked up a camera. It was looking at Joe Kennedy's gallery that I found a shot in his Off Season gallery (currently exhibited at the Harris Museum in Preston) which reminded me of one I had taken last year. The subject is the same, but the execution different.

Maybe it's because I have a background in painting as well as photography that I resisted the temptation to make an 'art' photograph by placing the subject centrally in the frame and chose to use the play with the picture plane. To me this is a complex image. It could be considered as three images in one - being deliberately divided in two.

The red left hand portion harks back to the Pop Art movement and painters like Peter Blake. It emphasises flatness and graphic elements. The colour range and texture are limited. The right hand portion emphasises tricks used to convey depth and space on a flat surface - converging lines and distant objects made small. The eye is lead to a white arch, centrally placed in the frame of the whole.

The two halves of the picture contradict each other in their rendition of depth, yet the colours play against each other (red and greeny-blue), and the brick work echoes the colours and tones of the painted wood. Another aspect of the photo is something that interest me which I haven't explored too much as it's potentially trite. The interplay between natural and architectural objects. In this photo that is represented by the bare branches of the tree overlaying the triangular lines of the distant suspension bridge.

It's good to revisit earlier shots. Sometimes they can surprise you, as this one has done me. Looking at it again has lifted the ennui which had descended following the Struth shock to my system.

The next best thing

2011-06-28T21:11:00.001+01:00

If you can't take photos look at them, if you can't look at photos read about photography - and I don't mean the technicalities.

I re-read Parr by Parrover the weekend. I'm not sure I 'get' all of his output, but he has interesting things to say and his photos bear repeated consideration. Some of his comments are repeated in the brief interview in my latest book-buy, Image Makers, Image Takers.

Even though I wasn't au fait with many of the photographers, and not always keen on their work shown, I was struck by how similar their outlooks were even if their ways of working and images were different and wide ranging. I guess the commonality is the urge to make photographs.

It was both surprising and pleasing to read Anton Corbjin cite an approach to creativity utilised by Brian Eno - "limit your tools, focus on one thing and just make it work." This is an approach I have appreciated and used for as long as I can remember, and not just in photography. While many amateur photographers feel limited by taking just one lens in case they 'miss the shot', I am quite happy to do so as I feel it makes you look more intensely to find photos that it will make work.

While I enjoyed reading the photographer interviews, and those with photo editors, the few with gallery oriented people brought back my old feelings of mistrust of the art world and it's hypocritical embracing of fashionable trends and commercialism. The gallery system is less about art than it is about capitalism. But I shall resist that particular rant for now.

All in all a good book to read once and dip into again and again. Some good photos I was unaware of too, which will have me Googling some of the names.

Which makes me wonder why anyone who is interested in taking photos wouldn't want to look at photos by prominent photographers, or to read about their ways of thinking and working. But from some of the posts I see on photography forums it seems I am in a minority. I recall one thread in which the consensus was that you can learn to take great photos. The consensus of the interviewees in Image Makers, Image Takers is that you can improve, but you can't acquire 'a way of seeing' - you either have it or you don't.

As usual I'm out of step with hobbyist photographers. In fact I don't know where I fit in. I take my photos to please myself, like a hobbyist does, but I feel as if my reasons are different. I try to avoid the decorative for one thing, although I mostly fail. The images I consider my best lack the 'polish' that a camera club would praise. Looking back through my selection from 2010 there are some shots I like which look to me as if I took them, they fit in with what I think of as my style, and some which remind me of photos I've seen (even if only remembered unconsciously). The ones which I'm most pleased with are the few that do neither. Like this sheep.

"When you photograph people in colour..."

2011-06-23T15:14:00.000+01:00

"When you photograph people in colour you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in B&W, you photograph their souls!" - Ted Grant

Even though the colour version has a limited palette the focus does shift when it is presented in monochrome. To my eyes at any rate.

Editing

2011-06-20T17:30:00.009+01:00

I've just gone through all my photos from 2010 with the intention of selecting the 'best'. Goodness knows how many there were but I whittled it down to 64. I find putting photos together in book form, even if only virtually, helps me judge them better. So I did just that with Blurb's publishing software. With all the pictures loaded into a virtual book I was then able to further edit the selection, ending up with 43 shots that I like for various reasons.

Not all the photos I like are great. If I was being completely ruthless there would only be a slack handful of images in the set. Nonetheless the process has been a worthwhile exercise in self-criticism. I even found one photo I had neglected, that hadn't been copied to my 'good photo' folder. Looking back at shots after time has passed is always a good idea, as this is not the first time that has happened to me.

For what a soft back copy costs to have printed, compared to making individual prints, it's not a bad way to collate images to mull over away from the computer screen either. Even if the print quality is not the utmost.

Photos do 'look' different when printed and bound, and when displayed alongside other pictures. I suppose these books can also be a handy way to show people what you are about, photographically, as a sort of portfolio. Although what my photography seems to be about is some sort of unfocused eclecticism!

Lumbypics 2010 by Dave Lumb | Make Your Own Book

Steve McCurry

2011-06-18T22:00:00.000+01:00

The camera never lies

2011-06-17T10:28:00.003+01:00

The camera cannot lie, but its images can be misinterpreted.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/17/vancouver-kiss-couple-riot-police

The great leap forward - technologically speaking

2011-06-12T22:59:00.000+01:00

You see a lot written on nerdy forums about how much better 'full frame' DSLRs are. I'd seen the comparison shots showing the better high ISO and low light capabilities of these cameras over crop sensors and for a confirmed hand-holder that was the big attraction to me. What I didn't realise when I took the plunge a few weeks back was the other benefits that not only the sensor gave, but also the 'pro spec' body. Apart from the bulk and weight it's like going back to using my old Pentax ME - only better!

The handling, despite the number of knobs and dials, is simple, intuitive and fast. Much better than my D90s, which are a step up from an entry level menu and button driven camera. For example, even though it still requires a button to be pressed and a dial spun, changing ISO settings is a doddle. The viewfinder is larger and brighter. Everything just feels right. Sure it weighs a ton, but that's a much lesser price to pay than the financial one. Still, I think the price is pretty well justifed when I consider the performance.

ISO values up to 8000 at dusk give images with less noise and grain than I'd have got at half that value or lower. In good daylight ISO 800 makes hand-held macro shots without flash possible at shutter speeds that eradicate camera shake. This much I had expected. I'd heard the 51 point autofocus system was good, but I didn't realise how good. This has proved to be most beneficial.

Not only does the focus tracking work incredibly well, as opposed to hardly at all with the D90, but it has transformed my long Sigma zoom. I knew the lens was optically capable as it had produced sharp, detailed shots for me now and then. Either in bright sunlight or when I'd succeeded in nailing focus manually. On the D3s it auto-focuses spot on 90% of the time or more - even in light levels that would have sent me home with the crop sensor. And it focuses quickly. I guess the D90 just couldn't cope with the f6.3 maximum aperture.

So much for the technology working well. There have been two changes in the image quality too. Maybe it's a factor of the larger sensor's bigger photosites, or maybe it's the way the images are processed in camera, but the colours look richer to my eyes. It's subtle, but I like it. More noticeable is the way the large sensor alters depth of field. This really does have an impact on the look of the images, making them pretty much like 35mm film shots. I'd never been happy with the out of focus blur in images from the Sigma zoom. They looked sort of harsh. On full frame they are much improved. Perhaps not up to the standard of a better quality, faster lens, but far more to my liking. So much so that I can live with the reduced 'reach' the larger sensor provides at 500mm compared to the crop. In fact the overall image quality from the full frame is so good it can stand cropping on the PC and still look more than acceptable.

Drawbacks? There are some. The size of the camera doesn't lend itself to discretion when out and about, so for town shooting it gets left behind. The biggest drawback is financial. The initial outlay isn't the end of it. Most of my zoom lenses only suit DX bodies - I can use a couple of them at a reduced zoom range, but that's not ideal. So they will have to go to fund one or two replacements. A spare battery is always nice to have, but that's a fair old price too. Worst of all is that I have got used to having two identical camera bodies, which is making me hanker for another full frame job! On the plus side the camera does everything I could want and more. Although I know technology moves fast, I can't see me wanting to upgrade again for some considerable time. More pixels aren't going to tempt me, that's for sure. Now to get out there and do some shooting!

Self critique (2)

2011-06-07T13:27:00.000+01:00

This isn't a perfect photo, but I like what it nearly manages to do.

The young woman is too close to the bollard and her face isn't showing, the middle-aged woman isn't clearly defined against the window, the old woman's head ought to be in front of the doorway rather than the pillar, the 'wet floor' sign is awkwardly placed behind the bollard.

But graphically it works quite well. For example the manhole cover lower right breaks the monotony of the paving and subtly balances the shot. So it's another near miss.

Intellectual photography

2011-06-04T21:02:00.001+01:00

I read Parr by Parr last week. What I was most struck by was the intellectualisation of his work. Looking at the few early black and whites it's clear to see the compositional influence of the likes of Bresson. The photos are documentary and simply composed. The later colour works follow a different lead. they are more cluttered in composition, yet still documentary. The compositions are less formal, looser.

Reading the text it becomes obvious that there is a strong intellectual element to Parr's work. It is not enough for him to make an image, it has to make a comment - about the subject or the way it is photographed. Of course once this becomes a motivation the risk of great pretentiousness is run. The reason for the photographs becoming more important than the images. Soon the murky world of conceptual photography is entered where the image is less than secondary to the idea. Often only serving to record the idea. That's the problem with all conceptual art. It doesn't have a physical form!

Of course a lot of photography has an intellectual side to it. The difficulty is presenting this in a way that doesn't make the images, which to me are what photography is about, laughable. My Lost Ball project is conceptual, but where many conceptualists would make no effort to create images that had some individual integrity as images, I do - within the parameters of the project. If the images cannot stand as images then, for me, there is no point to them. Parr's images stand as images - to my eye.

I've been musing on this theme since starting to take photos that I feel are working towards something as yet undefined. What I think of as photographic sketches or studies. Where a painter will make sketches that are 'worked up' into a 'finished' painting that can be of a different size and in a different medium to the sketches, a photographer's 'sketches' are unavoidably in the same format as the finished work. There is therefore the problem in differentiating the one from the other. It occurred to me that there could be a way round this - by presenting the sketches together AS the completed work. The dread pall of pretentiousness hangs over this idea, especially if I were also to explain how this would highlight the process of photographic creativity and other aspects of my way of seeing.

It's something I might give a go to. Just to see what happens. In the meantime I hope to stumble on some lost balls. I set an arbitrary limit of 50 balls on the project and it's nearing completion. My major concern is whether to include one ball twice as it was shot in two locations. Decisions, decisions. But that's photography.

In close

2011-05-28T16:26:00.008+01:00

I thought I'd try my 35 for a change in town today. As a rule I find it either too short or too long on the crop sensor. But I like to think I can work with what I've got. Why some people are obsessed with having perfect framing by using zooms is something I can't grasp. So much so that I'm getting a strong urge to cop for a Fuji X100 - despite the pixel-peepers finding fault without having used one. I read one comment saying it does the important things well but is let down by other things. Sounds okay to me. On the street all you need to do is set shutter speed or aperture. Most of the time you can live with a fixed ISO - like when using film. Judging by the real world samples from the camera that I have seen it manages damned well at ISO 2000. Ian Berry's shots in the June issue of Professional Photographer look good enough to me. It seems like a nice unobtrusive camera that does a simple job, simply. Very tempting, and it has a shutter release screw to use with a cable or bulb release - so it would be handy to take fishing. Time to offload some gear!

The thing with DSLRs is that, even small ones, are large. My old Pentax ME film camera is much less obvious. Even so one thing I discovered today is that the closer you are to people the less likely they are to assume you are taking their photo. Not many worked as well as I'd hoped but despite, or maybe because of, the cropping in the shot below I think it captures a mood. The B+W conversion keeps it simple, but the colour version works too. Mono has a timeless feel while colour is more contemporary. Even so digital still seems more clinical than film, which is why I boost the contrast in mono to slightly degrade the image. Suits me.

I like this second shot for inexplicable reasons. It's a 'nothing' image yet I think it has an atmosphere to it completely different to the youthful energy in the first photo, and the straps at either side give it a graphic element.

I like this sort of photography because there's always something to look for. If I hadn't just snapped up a used all-singing-all-dancing DSLR I think I'd be tracking down an X100. For the mean time the 24mm is going back on the D90 and the 35mm is going up for sale. Or maybe not...

Inspiration

2011-05-23T14:27:00.009+01:00

It makes me chuckle when I read posts on forums asking where to go in a particular town or area to take photos, or even saying something like "I have the day off tomorrow what can I shoot?" There's a good line over on Pixiq about inspiration - "There is plenty of subject matter, so why make the same images that are already out there or the same images that we have seen hundreds of times before?" If you take other people's suggestions it's likely you'll take pictures like theirs too.

I find inspiration comes simply from having a camera with me. It makes me look at the world in a photographic way. So much so that if I am supposed to be doing something else I can get engrossed in the picture taking to the point of distraction.

Even familiar places can yield surprises. Nothing stays the same forever. I've lived round here for 40 odd years now, and there are still new pictures to be made. Just this morning I took a camera with me on a walk to the Post Office and made some 20 exposures. Some were rubbish, some I messed up, the two here I kind of like. But the point is, I was inspired to take the shots, not by some magical location or cunning plan, but simply by looking. Then again I do like photographing the banal!

Oh yes, I only had the one 24mm lens with me too.

War photography. Err...

2011-05-20T09:38:00.000+01:00

Telling a story in as few words as possible

2011-05-19T19:30:00.034+01:00

Or in photographic terms, making as much use of the picture space as possible to set a scene.

This is the evolution of a photo for my fishing blog.

In the first shot all the elements are there - barrow, spod and marker rod, bivvy. However they're spread across the picture in a literal way.

Move to the left to compress the space and bring the elements closer together. Frame vertically. Better.

Try it in landscape. Still not right.

A lower viewpoint is more dramatic. But the whole barrow isn't required to show it's a barrow and it's still not tight enough.

Much better, and the reels are now against a plain background but the differential focus isn't good.

Frame a little tighter still and stop down to get more detail in the reels. Job done.

I could have rearranged things to show them more clearly - like separating the rods a bit so the reels were both fully visible - but that's not my style. I much prefer to work with things as they are.

Bad info and a good lens

2011-05-16T16:20:00.019+01:00

It's apparently not just fishing forums where advice is given by people who don't have a clue, it's photography forums too (and no doubt every other specialist hobby forum). Misinformation is the norm.

And asking for an opinion about something (a photo or equipment) only results in as many saying yea as nay. I really do wonder what the purpose of the forums is. More to the point why do I keep looking at them?!!

Funny how you sometimes take photos that work as pairs. Two from today, not my best efforts, that seem to share a sense of colour and composition.

Both photos taken with the 24mm lens that's hardly been off one of my bodies since I bought it about a month ago. It just seems to suit me (on a crop sensor) for all sorts of uses, not just wandering round town. Zooms are great for wildlife and anything where the subject is active or when you are under pressure to get a shot, but they can make you lazy. I like the simplicity of primes and the way they make you think about composition. Primes seem to force you to look at subjects in a different, more intense, way.

I know what I like

2011-05-13T21:24:00.000+01:00

Is photography art? A question as old as photography itself. In reality a non-question.

Nobody ever asks if painting is art. An equally meaningless question. Both photography and painting can be art, but take a look at the daubs of any group of 'Sunday painters' and you'll soon realise, if you are at all visually aware, that painting isn't necessarily art simply because paint has been applied to canvas. No more is a photograph art because it has been put in a frame.

Art lies not in the medium (sorry Mr McLuhan!) but in the way it is used.

That said, I'm always wary of photography that presents itself as 'art' or 'art photography'. The former is all to often pretentious beyond interest, and the latter all to often merely office decoration. Great photographs are art because they are great photographs. Someone once told me that 'art is truth', I was taught to strive to make 'equivalents' of the subject when painting rather than likenesses, to seek Bomberg's 'spirit in the mass'. These aims apply equally well to photography - making photos that are about the subject rather than of it.

It sure ain't easy, because photos are always 'of' the subject. I think it's what I've been exploring with my recent 'studies', photographic sketches trying to make small things express a wider environment. It's just flailing around trying to find a direction at the moment. Pretentious? Probably. Art? I doubt it!

Stunning photos

2011-05-11T10:59:00.000+01:00

Why has it become the norm to refer to photos that you like as 'stunning'? Not that I care. Over on Talk Photography someone raised the age old question of what makes a great photo, well 'the perfect' photo actually, but I guess they could have said 'stunning' too. Perhaps 'memorable' is a better word to describe successful photographs?

For what it's worth I reckon photos rely on four keys to be stunning/memorable/successful:

Content, timing, framing, technique. Possibly in that order of importance.

Content - which can be abstract or figurative.

Timing - this can mean waiting for the light to change when the subject is landscape, freezing a moment when the subject is less static, or just being in the right place at the right time by chance.

Framing - the composition of elements within the picture area create harmony or discord, balance or tension.

Technique - affects how the image is rendered, and works best when it is not apparent.

The tyrany of the screen

2011-05-09T20:55:00.000+01:00

Historically there has never been a native format for photographs. 35mm film almost made the 3:2 ratio a standard, but 120 roll film could utilise other formats - even in the same camera. Then there is the ability to crop any shot to suit the subject - if you are not a purist bound to using the whole frame for either aesthetic reasons - or in the case of digital, to use all the pixels you have paid for!

With all but square format the photographer has the choice of landscape or portrait orientation. For prints hung on a wall or stuck in an album, or even in a well designed photo book, this is not a problem. The horizontally and vertically orientated images can be reproduced at the same size and resolution. The visual effect is not altered by tilting the camera through 90 degrees as the scale of the image is not altered.

This is not the case with digital images viewed on a screen. With early computer screens the ratio was that of a cathode ray tube as used in televisions (the ratio being 5:4) the difference in size between the two orientations was not great. But now we have the fashionable 16:9 ratio that LCD screens allow which plays havoc with photographs made in more traditional formats. The resolution of all portrait orientated shots is reduced, and their impact. To maintain consistency between your horizontal and vertical shots you have to display the horizontal ones at a much smaller resolution than the screen will actually allow.

For the majority of happy snappers this is no big deal. They only ever seem to turn their camera(phones) through 90 degrees to shoot video, which they then have to watch with their heads tilted to one side! For most people the size of an image doesn't matter. But for some images it can be critical. Fine detail or small, but important, elements cane be overlooked if the image is not presented large enough. For someone who frequently shoots in portrait orientation it's a major frustration. But a good reason for making prints.

Not just me

2011-05-08T18:03:00.000+01:00

I'm not the only one who finds the photo in my previous post intriguing.

Comment on the BBC and Guardian (final paragraph) websites.

Courtesy of The White House

2011-05-04T17:17:00.003+01:00

Yes, The White House is on Flickr! Which means I can comment on what I think could become a famous photograph. Even if it doesn't it struck me as interesting in many ways when I first saw it at a small size. Having access to a full size file makes it even more interesting to examine.

Although it is ostensibly a photo of the President of the USA and his entourage watching a live feed of the killing of Osama bin Laden, it's actually a photo of Hillary Clinton. The composition and the focus point, which is glaringly apparent when viewed full size, make that plain to me that the photographer made the picture to place the emphasis on Mrs Clinton - the only person visibly reacting in the shot.

The composition is well considered too, with the negative space top left pushing the eye down and right. There is also a spiralling curve of heads starting top centre and working to the right, the eyes of the man bottom right send your gaze to the left where it meets the out of focus back of a head which implicitly sends you upwards, where you then continue the spiral to Obama. The military gent on his right is looking down, stopping your eyes' travel as his eyes are not seen.

Close inspection shows that the piece of paper in the centre has been pixelated to hide whatever it shows. Yet the top secret password printed on the cover of the file on Mrs Clinton's lap hasn't been given the same treatment. Altogether a fascinating picture, on many levels.

Time changes everything

2011-04-28T19:53:00.000+01:00

You might think that faced with the same, static, subject you would compose a shot the same way any time you approached it with the same lens. However that didn't seem to be the case today when I 'repeated' the first shot below.

Second time around I seemed to have concentrated more on the 'wrapping' of the town hall than on the light's globe. And made a mess of the composition in the process.

Perhaps most peculiar is that I chose to rephotograph the scene. Then again such repetition never bothered Monet or Cézanne.

Reading and looking - and not looking

2011-04-19T20:47:00.001+01:00

I've mentioned before that I find 'hobbyist' photography magazines to be too concerned with selling you gear and showing you how to take photos that look like thousands of others. I'd much rather read how photographers work to get inspired. In the distant past I have bought the BJP but found it too much aimed at the commercial side of photography (fashion, advertising et al) although the website is worth checking out. So it was quite a surprise for me to find the April 2011 issue of Professional Photographer to be an excellent read. Far from one dimensional, I read everything in it and enjoyed it all. I'll be looking at it again next month.

Still seeking reading and looking material I ordered a couple of books from Amazon. The first to arrive was The Making of Great Photographs by Eamonn McCabe, who writes well on photography. Although I've not read it from cover to cover yet I do think it is an excellent book. The brief story behind each photograph is accompanied by a short biography of the photographer and a third box gives you hints how you can achieve a similar result.

This last box I can live without, but it probably makes the book appeal to a wider readership. I like to take my inspiration in a more nebulous fashion, so it is quotes from photographers and explanations of working methodology that interest me most - even if I have no inclination to copy them. I've also learned a few things I wasn't aware of, including a little about one of my favorite photographers, André Kertész.

On the subject of great photographs and great photographers I've been musing for some time about the reputations of certain photographers, and wondering if they have been built purely on the subjects they have had access to. Primarily I'm thinking of those who have photographed celebrity icons. I get the feeling that Eve Arnold is known because of her photos of Marilyn Monroe. I found here Eve Arnold's People book disappointing, with a handful of exceptions, when the work moves away from Monroe. And looking through the new Linda McCartney book on-line I got a similar feeling that it is the subjects that are interesting rather than the photographs. The images being compelling because of who the subjects are rather than for any photographic reasons.

Recently I have been doing a lot of 'shooting from the hip' (something I did many years ago) while walking around local towns. Basically this is pointing a camera at something and firing the shutter without using the viewfinder. You get a lot of misses, but when you do get something in the frame (and in focus) bits get cropped that you would normally have carefully included, angles get used that you wouldn't normally choose, and because you don't raise the camera to eye level the viewpoint is lower than normal. I like the way all this adds a tension to the images - when it comes off - among other influences it can have on the shots.

I feel inadequate...

2011-04-07T11:21:00.047+01:00

Some people have far more spare cash than I have to buy camera equipment. Still, I don't have to spend even more to hide the white paint on my lenses... And while I'm bitching, how about this for poor long lens technique? LOL (which is now an acceptable English word so I can use it without guilt!).

What gets me is that there are two low level viewing slots in that screen (for wheelchair users) which I find better for making good pictures, not great, but better. I've never seen anyone else using them to get a lower viewpoint. But because one of the blokes had his tripod and camera bag blocking them yesterday I was stuck with a high level slot. Anyway. This is what they were looking at.

So, being annoyed with the tripod brigade and being restricted by the viewing screen I went for a wander and stalked a lone avocet on the marsh proper, which I left alone without getting close enough for a shot when I saw it had a limp. Then I managed to get surprisingly close to a crowing crow.

I was hampered by the angle of the light, and the branches obscuring the bird just like I was with a male reed bunting that I got equally close too.

But my favourite picture of the day was one I'd taken earlier of some diagonals and verticals.

Quote of the day

2011-04-04T19:23:00.000+01:00

AGD: So what would your advice be to somebody who wanted to start in photography?

DB: You can’t do it unless you can do it. I knew how to take pictures before I knew what a camera was.

AGD: All the stuff about getting the aperture right and the exposure –

DB: All that s--- is just technical s--- that anyone can do.

Click here for the full interview.

ISO revisited

2011-04-01T20:20:00.000+01:00

I've had some pretty reasonable results from my camera at ISO 2000, considering it's not meant be a high ISO machine. Then again I've had rough looking grainy noise at lower ISO values like 500 or 720.

Here are two 100% sections of out of focus sky from shots taken (with the same lens) yesterday.

1/1000, 6.3, 2000

1/400, 6.3, 720

Go figure.

The dreaded UV/protection filter debate

2011-03-28T07:05:00.027+01:00

Quite why it should be that the use of a UV filter for lens protection should create such heated debate amongst some photographers is beyond me. The theory is that image quality will be degraded by a 'cheap' piece of glass placed in front of the lens. yet often those who argue against the use of a UV filter happily place resin filters in front of their lenses to create effects (e.g. Lee Big Stoppers to allow long exposures so they can take yet another milky sea photo like the thousands that have gone before), or use polarisers.

As a clumsy person who has twice managed to allow his camera to topple lens first into mud when it was on a low set tripod, and who habitually pokes his fingers inside lens hoods to remove lens caps that have already been removed, I tend to fit my lenses with filters for physical protection.

A while back I had been using one of my lenses sans filter as I'd put it on a new lens while I waited for another filter to turn up. Looking at the shots I thought they looked sharper and more contrasty than usual so I checked the lens. Blow me if I hadn't been using it with the filter on!

Only once have I noticed any adverse effect on image quality being caused by a filter, and that was a cheap UV filter on my Sigma 150-500. The out of focus areas took on a diagonal banding. As this lens has a huge hood I have managed quite well without the filter. So my advice is this: don't ask anyone if you should use a UV filter for lens protection, try it and see if it makes things worse or not, then do what makes you happiest.

Here's a quick quiz. Two shots, converted straight to jpeg from RAW with no processing at 100%. One taken with a cheap UV filter in place the other without. OK, I hand held so it's not strictly a fair comparison if you're a pixel peeper - but that's how I shoot 99% of the time, so it suits me. Answers on a postcard please!

Composition rules

2011-03-26T18:15:00.000Z

Most photographers become aware of the 'Rule of Thirds' at some time or other. It is a rule that can be broken, and one that I believe some people understand instinctively. There is another, older, 'rule' that the ancient Greeks developed to give harmony to images, sculpture and architecture and which I learned a little about (and subsequently forgot the detail of ) as a student. The Golden Section, also known as the Golden Mean or Golden Ratio. It is similar to The Rule of Thirds in that it encourages image makers to place the focal point off-centre - which in my opinion is all you need to know, the degree of 'off-centredness' can be varied (otherwise all your images will look a bit samey).

I was reminded of all this when I stumbled across a nifty little web-gadget for placing the Golden Section over a photo of your choice. Give it a try here.

When I uploaded a recent shot of mine I was quite surprised how it fitted the Golden Spiral. So much so I made a composite of the shot with the Golden Section and Spiral crudely superimposed on it for a bit of fun. I can assure you none of this was in my mind when I framed the shot, but it seems to fit quite nicely. Or am I seeing what I want to see?

Spring is sprung

2011-03-22T19:45:00.000Z

I had a timely reminder yesterday that toads were spawning. Last year I missed the toads crowding into a small pond, but when I dashed over yesterday they were there in numbers. I grabbed a few shots in the late afternoon sun and planned a return visit today if the sun was playing ball. It was.

I couldn't make it to the pond until after lunch, and the light direction wasn't great. However I had planned for this and for getting down to water level by putting my chest waders in the back of the car. The pond is very shallow and all but dries up in summer, so all I had to do was paddle out, kneel down, and get close to the toads. Some of them were spooky and dived as soon as they saw movement, some didn't. Once I was in the water more would let me get close with the macro lens. Some seemed to see me as a rival and would approach me quite aggressively - maybe! Others came up and rested on my waders.

I'm really not suited to hand holding unstabilised lenses so the aperture had to be kept fairly wide so I could keep the speed up. Using the af-on button for focus helped me enabling be to turn the focus ring to trigger the shutter (with my finger pressed down on the shutter release button). A nifty trick for macro I find. Even so the depth of field was minimal making for many rejects. I spent about an hour with the toads, and maybe should have stayed longer but I was running out of picture ideas. And I felt a bit of a fool sitting in a pond with people passing me by...

A brief walk then followed when I heard my first chiffchaffs of the year and saw one flitting about high in a silver birch. Later on I heard larks up on high, and peewits beginning their whirling and diving displays. I might do some more wildlife stuff this week if the weather holds.

I'll not be doing that again in a hurry

2011-03-16T21:19:00.002Z

A while back I got the urge to shoot film. HP5 through my old Pentax ME like I used to do 30 years ago. Using the camera was great in some ways, less great in others. It's small enough to hide in my hand, and the clunk of the mirror/shutter is sweet. Remembering to focus the damned thing was annoying at first, but not as annoying as waiting to get the film back - my developing tank being long since consigned to the bin.

While some say that using film slows you down and makes you consider what and how to photograph more I can't really agree. Even with digital I turn the lens away from subjects without releasing the shutter. What did slow me down was knowing the shots HAD to work in black and white. With digital you have the option of colour or monochrome.

The two biggest handicaps are the lack of instant review, which is more a frustration than a handicap in truth, and the negatives. Nasty dust attracting negatives. Dust was always the bane of my printing life - apart from my horrible cheap Russian enlarger and it's distorting lens. One thing that HP5 does give you that digital can't is that look of gritty realism and instant nostalgia. The feel of the images is just the same as the ones I took in the late 1970s and early '80s.

For the look I can understand why people shoot film still. But for practicality and speed - I always have been an impatient photographer - there's no beating digital, even if the images may look a little 'clinical'. There's no doubting that digital images do look different to those from film. It's not a worse look, it's a different one, one I like partly because I seem to be able to make decent colour pictures from digital files when I never could from colour films (print or transparency). Much as I like the look of the HP5 photos I doubt very much that I'll be shooting film again, digital is so much more versatile and life's too short for all the messing about it requires to either print or scan the negatives. No wonder Garry Winogrand left thousands of rolls of film undeveloped before his death.

Lessons

2011-03-10T09:05:00.000Z

A brief session at the beach drove home a few lessons in image making. It's all well and good freezing the action and getting the whole kitesurfer and board in shot, but that's the equivalent of birds on sticks. After a while of that I started doing different things, and I think it began to pay off. Tighter crops, slower shutter speeds made for better, if not perfect, images. I reckon.

I also managed to get this shot, which I've been after for a while.

And this one which I like for it's almost lack of subject.

My panning skills still need honing.

Tight framing for impact.

All good fun and plenty more scope for experimentation.

Vision. Perspective.

2011-03-05T20:11:00.000Z

There's this avenue of trees that I've 'seen' a photograph in all winter. Sometime it was going to happen. Exactly what it would be like I had no idea. This happens to me a lot. I sense there's a photograph waiting to be made if certain things come together, but I couldn't tell you what that photograph is. It's more a feeling than an image that forms in my mind.

The other afternoon the sun came out late on and I decided to spend an hour looking for barn owls at the marsh. None showed up before the cold drove me away. A spectacular sunset wasn't on the cards as the sky was pretty much cloudless. There was nothing to hang around for. As I turned off the track onto the road the sun was a low orange disc ahead of me. As the avenue of trees came into view an image came to mind, but the sun was too high. Knowing that the closer I got to the trees the lower the sun would appear in relation to them I slowed down (there was no traffic behind me) hoping things would line up right. They did. I pulled over. Lowered the driver's window. Poked the long lens out, framed, and fired the shutter. A review on the screen and away I went.

Sounds simple. Technically it was. The complicated part was having a vague notion that there would be a photo to be taken one day, understanding how perspective alters objects' relationships to each other, and not getting rammed by a following car! Somewhere in my subconscious the composition had already formed and I knew what was required. Very strange. I could have agonised over composition, trying different framings, but there was no point. It might have turned out more 'correct', but that 'not quite' perfect quality that gives an image vitality can be lost if the composition is too carefully considered.

Rules and how to break them

2011-03-02T15:49:00.002Z

The technology packed into modern cameras makes getting perfect exposure pretty easy. You can read up on all the rules for making 'correct' exposures and apply them to the display on the back of a digital camera. Far simpler than the days of film. The display will even blink to show you where you have over-exposed and burned out the highlights. That's all well and good for 'average' scenes. But there are times when the exposure can't be got right for the entire scene.

I spend a windy weekend photographing kite boarders, and at one point when the sun was low in the sky trying to compensate when shooting into the light was impossible. So I worked with what I'd got and chose to blow the highlight big time, which needed very little work on the PC (conversion to black and white and levels adjustment) to get the contrasty graphic look I was after.

Shooting action like this is a whole new learning experience for me. Maintaining focus on fast moving subjects, keeping them in the right place in the frame and using the zoom while doing so is vastly different to photographing birds on sticks! My hat goes off to anyone who does this sort of thing for a living.

It's a test of the camera and lens too. I got a much better success rate with the fast 70-200 on day one, but the reach of the 150-500 was more suited to the job on day two. I reckon Nikon's 200-400 would be ideal, but it would be an expensive luxury. Again digital makes it much easier. I made over 1200 exposures over the weekend and got less than a 10% hit rate of shots that were in focus, well framed and captured the action well. If I'd been shooting film I'd be skint, and probably disappointed.

The picturesque and how to avoid it

2011-02-23T22:24:00.000Z

Popping in to my local library the other day I picked up a book I'd thought of buying but new I'd regret doing so - Landscape Photographer of the Year: Collection 4. It's not that I consider myself a landscape photographer, just that I like looking at photographs. As expected there were numerous wide-angle shots in portrait format with 'interesting' foregrounds. Plenty of 'moody' skies. And quite a few alternative views of particular landmarks.

In amongst the expected picturesque shots were some really inspiring pictures. Most of these seemed to take a liberal interpretation of the term 'landscape'! The ones I liked most I'd class closer to being portraits than landscapes. They certainly seem to me to be primarily about people in an environment rather than an environment with people in. Of the landscapes without people the ones I think are most successful are the ones that don't rely on technique but use technique to make the shots possible. Stitched panoramas being some I didn't expect to like, but when done for a reason they work well. When done for the sake of doing them, like most techniques, they are annoying.

The images I like least are the ones that are trite, relying on dramatic light for example, and those dreaded wide-angle shots! When people think of making good landscape pictures there is all too often a tendency to take the easy option of shooting either at sunrise or sunset, or on days when the sky is either blue and filled with fluffy clouds or dark and menacing. It's an easy option and neglects the fact that most of the time in this country the sky is a uniform pale grey.

Despite my dislike of picturesque landscapes I have succumbed to the temptation of a neutral graduated filter. Even an overcast sky can make exposure difficult, particularly at the coast where there is a lot of sky. I tried it out for the first time this afternoon, when another sunset was threatening. This time the sunset almost happened. Not too dramatically though and the shots I took of it were pretty dismal. I really should take the tripod and get more depth of field in, but I'm lazy and impatient at the same time. I keep seeing different ways to frame shots and need to try them all to decide which works best. Maybe it's easier to be disciplined with a tripod when there are some features to frame and the options fewer rather than just the horizon and sand?

Anyway... The filter made a difference. When the sky is correctly exposed the land lightens up revealing more detail than would be the case without the filter. When shooting into the light the chances of blowing the highlights in the sky are reduced. So it was money well spent. In fact I think I'll invest in a stronger filter too. Not that I want to get into the overuse of 'grads'. They can be as obvious and tedious as the low level wide angle shots of rocks at the water's edge. Luckily there are no rocks on my part of the coast!

One way I try to avoid the picturesque is to keep as much obvious 'interest' out of my shots as possible. This is reasonably easy at the beach. In am ore complex environment other strategies need to be adopted.

The photo below is a shot of sand, water and light in a very limited and muted palette - almost two tones each of blue-grey and buff. There is little in focus, a thin band of sand about a third of the way up in fact, and the high ISO gives it a soft overall feel.

What makes the picture work (for me) are the gently zig-zagging bands of colour leading the eye into the picture space. The rising dune to the right alleviates monotony (my sole concession to 'interest') and stops the eye, turning it along the horizon where the wind turbines come in and out of view through the misty haze, just rising above the darker band that is the far side of the Mersey estuary. The grey cloud at the top of the picture completes the frame and mirrors the colour of the band of water at the bottom. It may be better viewed on black.

Self critique

2011-02-19T22:07:00.000Z

All too often I manage to take shots that are 'nearly' pictures. Or is that all the time? If truth be told I'm hardly ever 99% happy with any of my photos. There's always some flaw, however minor, that is all I see whenever I look at them.

At first glance I was happy with the shot below. The good points are the composition, the light (particularly the long shadows), the muted colour scheme, the guy's pose and the dog being on the point of leaping. But...

The niggles are a slightly too slow shutter speed giving motion blur where it's not wanted. This isn't apparent at the size the image is shown here, but when viewed larger it is. I can live with the blur in the throwing stick, but the dog is blurred a little too much. The throwing stick is also too close to the edge of the frame. It's only a midge's, but it's enough to niggle.

The most annoying flaw is the dog's pose. It's great that the front paws are off the ground giving a sense of movement and anticipation as it watches the ball, but they should be visible rather than implied, and if it's head was in profile, even if just the tip of its nose turned into view to the left, the picture would be far better. More definition of the dog's tail would have made it complete. To top off the annoyances is a hint of unsightly green flare. Flare can be good, but in this case it isn't.

So it's another 'nearly' shot.

Book learning

2011-02-17T21:02:00.000Z

I've been buying a few photo books lately. Thanks to Eric Weight mentioning Sam Abell I ordered his 'Life of a Photograph'. One very interesting aspect of the presentation in this book, which I found slightly disappointing in the amount of text given how well Abell talks about photography, is the presentation of similar pictures of the same subject.

Most of us try a few variations of composition, I am sure. Most times one picture stands out as being the 'best'. Every now and then there may be two that are impossible to choose between. Sometimes there might be one stand-out shot and others that work to place it in context. It was reassuring to see this in action in a renowned photographer's work.

Another book which has more text and is part autobiography and part retrospective is "William Albert Allard: Five Decades". I'm not yet right the way through this, but it's a good read, filled with superb photographs, and again chimes with my experience of photography in many places.

Neither of these photographers is easy to pigeon-hole, their work is varied yet consistent and individual in style. If that makes sense. They are just out to take (or make) great photos - which they do with a greater regularity than most of us!

This leads me to ponder on the value of photographic workshops. I am sure that you can be taught to be more technically competent. I am sure you can be taught to improve your compositional skills. So I guess that means you can be taught to make better photographs. I don't think you can be taught to see. And seeing photographs is what it's all about really. It is for me. Although I don't always manage to capture what my eyes and mind see as a photographic image. This I have always put down to my slapdash technique. So it was heartening to read Allard saying that he frequently finds his images (shooting film and not seeing the results until after the fact) fail to capture the moment as he saw it. Cheered me right up did that!

Yesterday I had intended to have a wander round town, but ended up in a park I hadn't visited for some thirty years. I had a camera with me then and must dig out the negatives. It proved to be a worthwhile couple of hours in bright sunshine. A theme of shadows and fences emerged. I'm not sure why. An example of each here, and more on Flickr.

Trickery and cliché

2011-02-10T23:02:00.000Z

Some time ago I found something on the internet about making daylight shots look like they were taken at dusk, or later. I've been wanting to try it out for some time, and today I did.

Basically you set the white balance to give a blue cast, underexpose in manual, and use the flash with a warming gel to highlight the main subject.

I need to practice some more, but the photo below gives a rough idea of what is achievable. It was taken at quarter to three on a sunny afternoon. A handy trick, if a touch journalistic in style.

On the subject of journalistic style, there is one technique that is used regualrly in mainstream fishing publications. The ultrawide close-up with fill flash. It's used so often as to have become the norm. And I hate it. I hate it so much that when I try it I can't go to the extremes that the journo togs do. When used in moderation it, too, can be effective. The trouble is that in the mainstream mags it is used as a matter of course. A lazy way to give a photo an impressive gloss.

I used to be indecisive

2011-02-05T18:50:00.001Z

Looking again at the posts in sand photographs I find myself swinging back to preferring the one without the figures. As an image I think it's better constructed. But then the one with the figures makes a better picture, having an element of narrative.

Likewise the original and the crop below. The original, with the parked vans, gives a sense of space and place, while the crop is more graphic. The original is a picture, the crop an image. Which I think is 'better' depends on what I think their purpose is at any given moment!

Reappraisal

2011-02-01T20:02:00.001Z

Contemplating those two shots of posts in the sand I now think the one without the figures works better. Jeeez! But that's what the distance of time does to how we evaluate images we make. I dug out some contact sheets just over a year ago that I guess I last looked at in 1982 or thereabouts. Among the frames I had never printed at the time was one that I now like so much it's my only photo I have on the wall. You can't judge images immediately after creation.

That said here's one with a bird in it that I like from today, plus a bird photo.

I spent half an hour, maybe a little more, in a hide photographing feeding pintail this afternoon. I rattled off well over 100 shots and ended up with three that were sharp and pleasing in lighting and pose. It was fun, again, but I prefer ending up with images that I can look at time and again - like the one on my wall. But birds are an easy subject, in as much as you have a good idea where they will be and what they are going to do. While photos of 'stuff' needs hunting down, and more difficult still, seeing. Birds are easy to see, even their behaviour is fairly predictable, but images that are pure abstraction of the everyday world don't reveal themselves so readily.

I guess the only way to remove the temptation of bird photography is to get rid of the long lens. Do I want to? I found some approachable tufted ducks today...

Okay, I lied

2011-01-30T21:07:00.000Z

I was tempted by some geese, and took some photos! Didn't manage to capture the image I had in my mind's eye though. It did make me reconsider ditching the wildlife photography. So I might carry on with it in a focused way. Rather than chasing after this and that I'm planning on sticking to a couple or three projects. Dull subjects that are often ignored - starlings and feral pigeons. Two birds that can be quite approachable. I love pink-footed geese, but they'll be heading north soon. Maybe next winter I'll get the shot I'm after...

Earlier I'd been to the beach and the dunes again where I got a lesson in composition. A figure, or figures, in a shot can help it a lot. Well, I think the second shot works better than the first.

Content, technique, and style

2011-01-29T20:46:00.000Z

Looking through the pile of prints I'd made I got to thinking about why my photos don't look like the ones I see in photo magazines. It must either be that I'm a happy snapper with no idea what makes a photo, or I have a style of my own. I can't decide which. Maybe it's not for me to decide. What I did notice was that in the shots I think work best there is a lot of space. Negative space. I think that's why I like shooting along the beach in winter - big sky, loads of empty sand. But it's there in other images too.

One thing that I find difficult to discern in my photographs is any trace of technique. That's really where I think my pics differ from those in photography magazines and camera club shows. When I examine the majority of those images all I see is the technique (graduated filters, slow shutter speeds and so forth). The content appears to be of secondary importance. They are images more about technique than subject. Surely all photographs should be about their subject and not, primarily, about the way they were made?

While musing on this over the last few days I found this article on Pixiq (one of my favourite photography sites) which makes a similar point.

I'd go further and say that a photograph works really well when subject, technique and abstract form combine in equal measure. But two out of three ain't bad.

I also picked up a photobook from the library, 'A Portrait of Southport'. As I flicked through it I saw a couple of shots that reminded me of subjects I've shot (Southport being where I roam the seafront). Getting the book home I realised that all they had in common with my images was the subject. And they weren't representative of the rest of the book. Almost every photo in the book had been taken on a bright sunny day in spring or summer.

Almost without exception the shots were picturesque. None had an air of gloom or melancholy. There was no untidiness. It was a book the tourist office would love. I was relieved. When I looked again at my collection of Southport photos they had a very different collective feel. Possibly because they were made in winter. Even so, I have shots of the public art similar to those in the book, but there wasn't a photo of a cracked window in the book!

The trouble with discovering your photos often feature a particular trait, is that when you next venture forth you might be conscious of it and try to overcompensate for it, or play up to it. This concerned me. Until I put the camera to my eye it concerned me. As soon as I started framing shots I automatically made them the way they looked right to me. When I reviewed them there was still plenty of negative space and off-centre subjects. Oh yeah, there were a few that had the frame cut in two by a harsh vertical too. Something else I seem to do without realising it. Picture postcards they are not.