Shotslot

Finding the Time to 'Do Some Photography'.

2012-02-13T07:00:00.000Z

Just too hectic!

Regular readers might have noticed me exhorting them (and myself!) to get out and do some photography over the past few weeks of posts, which is pretty reflective of the fact that I've been struggling to devote any significant time to getting out with my camera at all. As I write (early January) I think it's about a month since I actually took my camera out into the wide world and did anything more than shoot a few frames with it, and it's not just the photography either, all my other favourite activities have gone on the back-burner whilst I scrabble to deal with a series of ongoing crises. This isn't a rant or even a moan, but rather an attempt to explain what may yet be a small gap in the usual service.

The weather here in the UK has also been pretty uninspiring. In a not-so-stark contrast to the past few years, Winter has thus far proved to be a pretty mild affair, which as a hater of the cold I generally consider to be a good thing, but there are only so many variations of 'drab, grey and English' that I can be bothered to shoot. By the time this post is published I will in all probability have moved or be in the process of moving house, though I believe that once people reach the age of 35 they should be excused having to do this on health grounds. On the plus side, the new house should allow me some studio space, and that itself might help give me some more inspiration.

One of the things I've failed to do is to keep up with the various projects that I have at many stages started and got sidetracked from - in particular my 100 Strangers' Project only made it to no.5 (so far...), which is pretty pathetic - this sort of task usually tends to keep me better focussed, plodding away and doing something even if it's not particularly inspired. I think that setting myself up into situations where I might be able to shoot something interesting - whether that's a foreign trip, a project or a little challenge of some sort does help to keep me motivated, but equally sometimes you just have to accept sometimes that real-life wins!

Bridgnorth and the River Severn

2012-02-10T07:00:00.000Z

A look along the river towards the upper town.

Back in mid-January I grabbed a selection of images from a walk around Bridgnorth, a nice town in Shropshire right on the sedate River Severn. The river was once an artery of transport and trade, but now has now been somewhat gentrified. I was lucky enough to canoe down a section of the river back in the summer of 2011.

When I shot these images on the Severn Valley Railway I didn't get the opportunity to spend very much time in the town itself, but this time, whilst rounding up a lunch for whilst we were walking, I got to look around a bit and I was pretty impressed.

Unlike most of the former market towns of middle-England which have fallen foul of the rise of the supermarket, Bridgnorth still has a lively, noisy Saturday street-market. Vendors shout out the price of cauliflower whilst a bustle of pedestrians try to squeeze themselves down the thin strip of pavement left between stalls and shop-fronts. An assortment of the useful and the bizarre are on offer and it's really refreshing to see something other than the same old supermarket aisle or generic fashion store.

Anyway, here's a selection of pictures I took during my nine-mile tramp about the place. The walk was a bit average but the town was great!

A few of the locals. Despite their disdainful expressions I was entirely dressed!

One of those dreamy tonal shots my lens seems to do so well.

An alley in Bridgnorth

I loved the DIY sign.

A look along the river.

Meanwhile, I just noticed that the 19th Feb is day 50 of 2010...anybody whose got this far fancy another 50@50@50 challenge?

Got a Canon DSLR? You Might Want to Jazz it up a Bit!

2012-02-06T07:00:00.000Z

The amphitheatre at Aspendos, Turkey, 2011. Not particularly relevant to the post, I just like all the little people!

The proprietary firmware that comes with your DSLR (you know, the software stuff that gets updated a few times after a camera is released to fix obvious bugs and then gets abandoned as Canon tries to persuade you to upgrade) can be a bit limiting at times. My camera for instance exposure brackets in a way that is less than ideal for HDR work and it doesn't have a nifty 'trap focus' function, amongst other niggles.
From the manufacturer's point of view, I suppose they don't want to include everything they could on the firmware, not least because it would make navigating the menu system a nightmare for the unfamiliar user. Oh, and limiting the features of a given camera allows them to put exclusive features on more expensive cameras. I was reading a couple of days ago someone's opinion that the first company that allows third-parties to put 'apps' on their cameras will win the market...meanwhile, if you're feeling a bit limited by Canon's interpretation of your camera though, there may be an alternative.

Magic Lantern is an interesting piece of software that was originally developed by videographers to allow them to gain greater control over the 5D MkII, but it's now available for several other Canon cameras (though not the 7D apparently) It doesn't overwrite your existing firmware but actually runs alongside it, giving you access to great options such as motion detection. And...it's free!

I don't work for Magic Lantern or any affiliates, and neither do I vouch that the software won't damage your camera, though it seems unlikely. It does offer some really funky possibilities too, whether your shooting stills or using those new-fangled video functions (I still remain to be convinced that I will ever use such functions...I might though!)

Walking in Dovedale

2012-02-03T07:00:00.000Z

Flooded stones in the Dale.

In an effort to actually get out and shoot something interesting I had a wander through Dovedale, in a repeat of this walk over a year ago now. I grabbed a few shots but comparing the results from last time, I'm not sure I was quite in the mood somehow! Anyway, these at least convey something of walking the vale in the depths of a (so far) somewhat mild winter. There and back, it's a fairly gentle walk of about six miles with a nice lady serving tea and hot soup at one end.

Must remember to carry an ND filter and a tripod!

...and the right lenses! This is a fairly severe crop from the original. This chap (?) was in his usual fishing spot.

I always find myself drawn to these, I like this one because of the obvious impact of time, and the elements.

I still love these. The daughter wanted to point out her addition.

Social Networking isn't 'Being a Photographer'.

2012-01-30T07:00:00.000Z

I do wonder sometimes how much time the average photography blogger actually spends taking or editing photographs. Some people seem to spend so much time online that, taking into account the need to also have a life of some sort, they appear to have more time than can possibly be available to one human being. That, or they're insomniacs. It makes good commercial sense to self-publicise of course - a decent web presence impresses potential clients and helps to bring in work and money, but if you spend so much more time blogging than you do actually taking or working on pictures, doesn't that make you a blogger rather than a photographer?

It's the same with social networking. Some people seem to spend so much time polishing their profile or hanging out on Flickr that I wonder how they manage to find the time to take any actual photographs. The rise of the smart-phone may in some way be responsible - it's allowed us to check up on our cyber-buddies from almost anywhere - you're never out of touch or indeed without a lens - you can click a pic, swoosh the image through an app and have it up on-line for the world to see almost instantly. "Hey look, this is me eating a sandwich...with a cool filter" I don't mean to come across supercilious, but surely that's just the equivalent of those Facebook status updates or Tweets that inform everyone you're 'sitting on the sofa', 'thinking about making some toast' or 'going to the loo'? (yawn).

Because everyone under the age of 40 (and most over it too) has a reasonably decent camera in their pocket 24 hours a day, the number of images captured per second worldwide has rocketed - and by sheer weight of numbers the amount of dross collected has too. A different way of viewing images has come along too with the number of pictures actually printed dropping massively against the days of film (goodbye Kodak). Now we don't even really need paper at all - if you want to show a friend your holiday snaps you just whip out your phone and show them the screen, or else you email them a link. But it does make you wonder, if we're all wandering around snapping pics all day, is anyone really going have the time and the interest to acknowledge anyone else's experiences? As the number of people 'doing photography' climbs, does this technology actually lead to increasing isolation from others rather than the uplifting and chummy experience touted by the average social-networking web-site?

Maybe some people are life's 'shooters' and others are life's 'consumers'? Or maybe we should all record everything we can, and 'photography' as an activity separate from human experience is being lost? A bit like those experiments in the 90s when a number of cyber-geeks attempted to film and broadcast every minute of their lives. The evolution of tech has given us smart-phones that now do more than traditional digital cameras ever could. They have the same sensor technology, (albeit a generation behind the curve) and enhanced features that aren't just the 'geotagging' or 'filter effect' gimmicks found on traditional digital cameras. I was at a gig this weekend where almost all the crowd-members were using their phones to grab images - I don't know what they were intending on doing with them afterwards, but I have noticed that I spend a lot of time looking at pictures on other people's phones nowadays.

In the end there's two ways to look at technology, it's either a boon for mankind or it's something vaguely addictive that some clever bloke invented to earn himself a few quid. Staring into a monitor all day whilst wiggling a mouse or a finger over a screen, if not directly harmful, is probably hazardous to your health, since it takes up time that might be better spent doing something healthy, like taking a bit of exercise, or meeting some real people to go out for a meal or maybe just buying a nice new dog. So put down the keyboard, go out for a walk and take some nice photographs of the things around you, and get good at it too, because the people who blog or social-network all day probably don't do that much actual photography any more. And if they're not photographers, then why would anyone who is serious about photography ever want to listen to them at all?

Long Mynd Ponies

2012-01-27T07:00:00.000Z

A handsome mare

Last week I posted some images I took up on Long Mynd in November 2011, but omitted a series of shots I got of some ponies we encountered roaming free on the moors. I thought I'd just publish them separately here since they're some of my favourite shots of the day.

Approaching the herd.

Winter sunlight bouncing off horsehair

Friends

Long Lunch...

This roll on the grass shows just how unconcerned these ponies have become about people passing by.

Photographic Milestones

2012-01-23T07:00:00.000Z

This is one of my personal favourites, it looks incredible in print.

Unless you've more money than sense then you shouldn't invest hundreds of pounds/dollars/euros/cowry shells in something like a DSLR and then fail to put in the effort to get reasonably good at using it. Whether photography is a hobby or something you aspire to do as an occupation, the more you do it the better you (should) get. Over the past couple of months I've been spending quite a bit of time looking through my back-catalogue and taking note of the images that I really like, or those I am quietly proud of. I've also been trying to work out whether you can see developments and changes in my images over time.

One of the things I'm trying to identify is the first time I took a shot that I impressed myself with and where I actually understood how I'd done it and why it was any good. Why would I do such a thing? Because I'm trying to work out how photographic skills and abilities develop, which hopefully will be more useful to myself and others than the usual 'try and visualise...' of the typical 'How to do Photography' book.

Another thing I've been trying to work out is what my 'best' photograph is. It's all subjective of course...I could just use Flickr as a judge, but as I've already pointed out a few times I have my suspicions about the Flickr interestingness recipe, not least because any image which makes explore is automatically skewed. Maybe I should get someone else to judge, run a competition or something, but frankly it's only really of interest to me so I doubt anyone would bother to join in. 'Art' is such an abstract and personal thing - as a look at the average Turner Prize winner will demonstrate.

How about the best photo I have of a particular subject? Or my best black and white? All these are things that I could perhaps identify and attempt to improve upon. My favourite bit of editing? My best SOOC shot? I have a nagging feeling that my catalogue of images might well benefit from such an assessment. As I write, and for the first time since I don't know when, Lightroom doesn't actually have a couple of dozen images waiting to be polished. This might be an opportunity to sit down and work all these things out...but then again it probably just means that I need to get out and shoot some more!

A Misty Morning

2012-01-20T08:00:00.000Z

Sometimes simple is best.

I love taking photos in fog. The soft, diffused light from the right kind of fog is incredible and can be used to limit the viewer's perceptions by isolating a subject in a dreamy haze, it softens edges and it can even be utilised as a back-drop to make strong colours really pop. A few weeks ago I found myself wandering in the woods with Mrs S and grabbed this nice set of images:

I like the way the footpath is initially concealed by the fallen leaves, but the colour of the leaves still on the trees invites you in to the woods to explore.

We encountered this fallen branch that brought to mind a rib-cage.

Notice that despite the ripples the reflected trees are actually more defined than those above the water - the liquid has effectively added greater contrast.

This is the foliage of a single beech tree I found standing alone amongst numberless pine trees.

More pines loom!

An Equipment Dilemma

2012-01-16T07:00:00.000Z

Shhhh! Don't tell anyone but I'm going to buy myself a new camera. My 40D has been great - it's taken me all the way from digitally ignorant to vaguely competent, but there's no escaping the fact that it's getting towards the end of its useful life. It's taken a few knocks and bangs, has lost its USB and remote trigger ports (cameras are not footballs), and I'm aware that the total shutter-count is creeping ever upwards. For some time now I've had a plan to get a full-frame camera, I had the chance to spend 5 minutes with a friend's 5D MkII a while ago, and it really did start something. For some time I toyed with the idea of acquiring the 7D or similar but for the kind of photography I mostly do, a full-frame camera with its lower noise at high ISO and shallower depth of field has to be the way to go. Equally, I keep looking at the small interchangeable-lens options now available, but I'm still not convinced that the quality or versatility is quite what I need.

I'm tempted to pull the trigger on a 5DII right now, but I'm waiting. I'm the sort of person who loves to plan and anticipate a new purchase. When I first bought my 40D I think I spent about three months thinking about it, reading, travelling to shops to pick it up, judging it against the competition and planning what I was going to do with it when it was in my hands. Eventually I bought it though and cradled it lovingly until it got its first scratch, took its first drop and came out the other end still alive. If this were 12 months ago I wouldn't wait, I'd buy now because I already know the 5D's the perfect camera for me, but I worry that even more perfection may be on the horizon.

Chatter about the 5D MkIII, or whatever it might be called by the time it arrives, has been going on for a while. There's been discussion about the effects of the disasters in Taiwan and Japan, whispers about test bodies in the wild by the likes of Canon Rumours and a hundred interested commentators putting in their bids for what the features of the fabled future camera might be. The current model is approaching three years old and if you take the view that the best predictor of the future is the past, it's getting towards the time when Canon might be thinking about announcing a replacement, though no doubt with a premium price tag attached.

The killer reason to wait for me is that I want the very best possible ISO performance. To a certain degree higher ISOs negate the need to spend big on fast lenses. It might make the difference between needing an f/1.8 lens for the price of a cheap car or being able to settle for a lens with equally good optical performance but a maximum aperture of just f/4.0. It might also make the difference between being able to shoot at a particular gig or not - as I've mentioned before my current set-up is at the very limit of what I need to shoot things like live music - a bigger aperture is actually a hindrance here because it's an issue of depth of field at relative distance from the subject.

The current 5D MkII offers two stops more ISO at acceptable (to me) noise levels than I currently get from my existing camera, but you'd expect the next generation of camera to offer even more flexibility. Better high-ISO performance has been a key issue in the battle between the big DSLR manufacturers because at the end of the day, high image quality and the ability to shoot anywhere is what big sensored cameras are all about. The manufacturers know that if they can't improve on the existing performance levels then people will start leaving the pricey DSLR market and go elsewhere.

UPDATE: Since I originally wrote this post, more rumours have surfaced that the next 5D is on the way, and prices (including accessory prices) of the MkII have begun to drift downwards - all the more reason to hold out perhaps since you can wait to see what the specs on the new model are and if you don't fancy them, pick up the older model at a bargain price.

There's also an also lot of chatter from the big blogs about the latest generation of mirrorless cameras, with their electronic viewfinders and in some cases their ability to accept cheap legacy lenses. With image quality allegedly little different from the APS-C crop-frame DSLR cameras and the chance to be significantly less noticeable in public the latest set of DSLRs have got some way to go if they want to maintain their market share amongst the more 'serious' photographers. The recent launches at the CES in Las Vegas underscore that point - cameras are getting smaller, 'rangefinders' are coming back into fashion and it's quite possible that the DSLR may once again become the tool of the niche-shooter...I sure wish I could afford both!

On Long Mynd

2012-01-13T07:00:00.000Z

A nice view down the valley from near the summit.

Long Mynd, is a large hill or small mountain (I know there's a word for one of these in Spanish - I can't remember what it is though) on the Shropshire/Wales border and above the town of Church Stretton. It's a really great place to go walking and is just about an hour from my home. The scenery just cries out for someone with a camera due to its rugged, bleak and harsh heather-strewn landscape, wind-blasted trees and sprinkled hikers. There's some great routes across the hill and even a gliding club if you need to get a look from higher up. I took a trip out here in November 2011, and a six-mile yomp was a perfect way to blow out some cobwebs. Also, I wanted to say thanks to all those people who took up the suggestion from Monday and subscribed to the blog - cheers all, subscription rates went up massively, if you haven't signed up yet, please feel free to do so, I'll endeavour to continue to supply more of the same! Meanwhile, for more images...

Near the top of the Mynd, some of the moor ponies that live there, more of these soon.

On the ascent.

Walkers gather at the summit for some tea...well this is Britain after all!

And on the way down, this from on the ridge.

The View back down to the charming town of Church Stretton.

Holiday home for rent...

In the woods during the early part of the climb. Eastern European headgear always useful...

Some Notes About the Shotslot Blog

2012-01-09T07:00:00.000Z

The blog's more than two years old now and over on Google Analytics I've been trying to work out what the most popular and visited parts of the site are. Lots of new visitors seem to drop in at the pages shown across the top of the page (just below the main banner), especially the 'my kit' bit - so much so that I've recently added a couple of lines to the effect that I manage to take a few reasonable photos in spite of my equipment rather than because of it.

Regular visitors may also have noticed the 'site of the day' link over on the right, about half-way down the page. I'm still not convinced one way or the other about the usefulness of Entrecard as a way of increasing the number of visits to the site, especially since what I'm interested in is interaction rather than straight hits but hey, I'll give it a bit more time.

Meanwhile, I'd encourage readers with busy lives to subscribe via feedburner or the RSS feed (over there, on the left!) - it's easy to use, quick and means you'll never miss out on my pearls of ignorance - they'll be delivered straight to your in-box. I sincerely promise not to junk-mail anyone, or reveal anyone's address to others. That sort of thing drives me nuts...really...everything I have is plenty big enough, and I don't want to help out any poor but serviceably nubile heiresses if it's all the same...

Every now and again I toy with the idea of ditching the blog and moving on to something else, but having been here for a while I'm sort of comfortable. To say that growing a readership has been a slow process is kind of an understatement and really that's no surprise because Shotslot probably doesn't offer that much which can't be found amongst the thousands of other photo-blogs out there, apart from a large part of my own personal experiences. During the time the blog's been going I've watched many others come and go - often the blogs that go off-line are those which I'd least expect, as the owners get caught up with real-life concerns, exhaust themselves or else find some new obsession.

Meanwhile, I'm sure I'll just keep plodding on with it all. Like photography itself, motivation and inspiration for writing the blog comes and goes, ideas strike some days and not others, brilliant opportunities come to light or they don't. Today's not one of those days, but maybe tomorrow...

A Look Back at Autumn

2012-01-06T07:00:00.000Z

A Gamut of Colours.

Here's a few more images I shot back in the Autumn, by this time in the year a bit of colour's needed to cheer everybody in the Northern Hemisphere up a bit! You Southerners don't know how lucky you are!

Some early berries

Wilting thistle-down.

Amongst the leaves

Ageing

Fluffy!

Ready to fall.

Organising Your Photography - Are We Going to C Via B?

2012-01-02T07:00:00.000Z

Autumn's Triptych

Photography is my passion, the thing I spend my free-time doing, whether it's by blogging, reading or actually taking and editing photographs. It's the thing that I value above any of the other million things I could be doing (even drinking beer!) but for some reason I just don't seem to be able to find the time to organise myself properly. I have a big list of things I need to be doing, in particular I need to get some prints done of my best work and take them to the local gallery, but I've been putting it off (again!). I also need to get someone to go through my portfolio with me, so I can make a decision on what's my 'best' work (yes, I know this is all highly subjective), the stuff that might sell and provide me with significant additional finance.

Some time ago I wrote myself a to-do list, with 50 things of various importance that I wanted to get done, and looking at it now and the number of those 50 that I've achieved so far, I really have a long, long way to go. Maybe I'm just not taking it seriously enough. Today, I needed to call someone about some work I'd agreed to do helping him to put together a catalogue, but for some reason I put it off for half the day, despite the fact that I could really do with the cash. This lack of motivation is really bugging me.

So, I've decided I'm going to get organised. One of the things that's worked really well for me in the past is setting myself a strict timetable and weekly objectives in order to move myself quickly forward. One reason why I've been so lax up till now (well OK, one reason I've been using to justify not doing anything anyhow) is that I've been trying to build a stronger portfolio, to put together a really good set of images that I can show, but it's just another example of prevarication, I have plenty of good images that will look great on a wall. I'm scheduling one thing to achieve each week and shoving it into my Blackberry so I get nagged incessantly to do each task.

The New Year is a traditional time to make a few resolutions, but any time is a good one to take action and do something positive. I really want to move ahead over the next few months and so I've decided that in areas where I lack depth in my portfolio I'm going to start actively scheduling photo shoots rather than waiting for opportunities to amble along. Meanwhile, I'm getting some of the best of my work, printing it and hanging it in a friend's shop. Positive action is a much better strategy for me because otherwise I can tend to just drift. I think I've done as much of that as I can get away with so I'm going to start pushing on, otherwise I reckon I'll be lazily browsing through my images on Lightroom and doing nothing with them forever.

Happy New Year everybody!

A Selection of Macro Shots

2011-12-30T07:00:00.000Z

Definitely not a weed.

The arrival of a new way to shoot is an exciting time for any photographer and my new 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens has been strapped firmly to my camera for the past few weeks, and I've using it for both a close-up and telephoto images. I love the lens and can certainly see why it's proved so popular over the years, but I'm also finding that shooting Macros takes some getting used to. I've included a selection of images here which whilst I'm perhaps not 100% happy with give some idea of where I'm currently at.

An empty acorn cup, I was drawn to the texture which I'd never consciously noticed before.

Ladybird against a yellow lichen found on a fence post.

Fading beauty found in an Autumn hedgerow.

The gorgeous texture of a fallen leaf.

Wow! Flies are much cooler than I ever would have imagined!

A tiny, dew-filled seed-pod found on a fence-post

What the Heck is this Diffraction Stuff?

2011-12-26T07:00:00.000Z

I don't know about anyone else but for quite a while now I haven't really been dialling my lens apertures much below about f/11 because of the softness that I appear to get from light diffraction at smaller apertures. In short, small apertures make the light waves interfere with each other, especially in the green wavelengths. If you want a very detailed, if slightly mind-numbing overview of what the heck diffraction is you can check it out right here, there's even a useful little calculator that will help you too if you like to keep really, really sharp, and work out on the basis of your type of camera when diffraction might become a problem in your photography.

There's a balance to be struck, particularly in landscape photography, between getting sufficient depth of field and avoiding the softening effects of diffraction in images. Personally, shooting with my 40D and for the uses I have for my images I can usually live with apertures of f/11 in my landscape work. What put me in mind of all this was the announcement of Canon's latest pro camera the 1DX (this sounds more like a Citroen car to me!), which purports to have 'larger pixels'. What difference does big pixels make? Well as far as I can figure out it will act to balance out the effects of a climbing megapixel rate (which has been acting to increase diffraction at a given aperture) and mean that you can get slightly better sharpness for a given DOF and less noise at higher ISOs. Cool huh?

More of a bug-bear in my landscape work, since I always seem to be around at the wrong time of day, is the blue haze that reduces the apparent contrast and sharpness of distant objects on sunny days and which always leaves me with a slight air of disappointment. This is known as 'Rayleigh Scattering' apparently, and is the result of light waves hitting air molecules. You can read all about that over here (Warning: Hard Sums, though it does provide an answer to the question of 'why the sky is blue').

At the moment, I'm having to use the colour adjuster in Lightroom to try and get rid of the worst of this haze, which does work remarkably well, but sooner or later I'm also going to have to fork out the £70 or so for a circular polariser to shove in my bag. Why I haven't got one already is really just a matter of resenting the amount of money it costs - I can very nearly buy a whole new 50mm lens for that! If I could just source a decent second-hand CPL I'd be a much happier man!

Oh, by the way, Happy Boxing Day everybody, if you're reading this you should probably be eating left-over Turkey.

Happy Christmas

2011-12-23T07:00:00.000Z

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Shotslot is celebrating. The hat meanwhile was from my friend Jo, who worries that I just don't get into the Christmas spirit! The hat is part of a campaign over here which is supporting nine important charities, including the Samaritans, an organisation which helps those in despair all year round.

I will have some more to say later in the festivities, a peaceful Christmas to all!

This is Rather Embarrassing but I May Have Too Many Photographs

2011-12-19T07:00:00.000Z

Leaf-Kickers

A couple of months ago I was musing on the point of keeping all the 'middle' photographs - the ones I neither select for further work or reject outright and automatically consign to the digital dustbin. I have a burgeoning mass of these 'not quite good enoughs' which are clogging up my storage space, stuck in a limbo where nobody will ever see them, let alone subject them to the sort of post-processing that might see them improve overall.

Lately though, I have encountered a new problem. Where once I would shoot say 50 frames, delete ten immediately after download and then maybe use three of four, my 'keeper' rate for standard shooting has increased significantly of late and it's causing me a good deal of bother. To be clear, I'm not claiming to have 'mastered' this photography stuff, or to be any better a photographer than I was at the start of this blog or anything else, I'd be mortified to be considered so arrogant, I've just noticed that the proportion of shots I denote as keepers (or at least worthy of further attention) from a card of 300 or so frames has increased significantly. Note also that mastering the foibles of my new Macro lens is proving a significant challenge (it's an available light versus shutter speed issue) and when that's on my camera the keeper rate drops through the floor.

The reason this increase in 'success' is a problem is that whereas previously I might have to wiggle Lightroom's little sliders for three or four images in a set of 50 I now feel obligated to do it for significantly more. From a recent card full of shots taken over the course of a couple of weeks I ended up with about 60 keepers. Even with the wonder of presets I don't know when on earth am I ever going to get the time to properly process all those or indeed what I'm going to do with them when I have. It's somewhat different with commercial work where you essentially factor in that processing time and should have a pretty good idea anyway of the number of final images you need to produce. These are personal shots and working on them comes out of my personal time.

Maybe what's happening is that I'm really starting to appreciate and enjoy my own work, I'm starting to get a kick out of drawing in influences from the images of others and from pushing the boundaries of my skills. Perhaps I'm just selecting too many, being over-generous in my evaluation in the quality of the shots I'm taking. I've always been what in Yorkshire they refer to as a 'bit of a bugger' (this phrase doesn't have any sexual connotations in this usage by the way) for taking loads of frames of the same subject, and then using just one or two of the same.

Conceivably I'm just getting better at picking out good subjects and framing them better, the technical side of being a photographer, or maybe my significantly improved post-processing skills make me better able to see potential in shots that previously I would have ditched as unusable and keep because I know now how I can fix them. Maybe I just need to be more critical and caustic with my own work? Whatever the reason for it though it's starting to affect my workflow, and the space it's gobbling up on my drive means that I'm probably going to have to totally reorganise my existing image library. Some of the naive decisions I made when I first started using Lightroom are going to come back to haunt me.

As an intermediate step I'm going to have to delve deep into the depths of the back-catalogue and undertake the image cull I was threatening back in September. The problem is though, those improved post-processing skills might themselves cause me more trouble if I start coming across images that I can improve with 'just a little work'; up till now I've been very successful in mentally putting down such images and moving on. I have a collection of several hundred keepers which currently make up the 'raw' stock for my portfolio but otherwise I leave the back-catalogue alone.

I complain, but I can't say I don't look forward to the trawl with a certain nostalgia and anticipation of the liberation of hitting the 'delete' key. Wish me luck, I'll report back when the operation is complete!

Another Day Walking in the Peak District

2011-12-16T07:00:00.000Z

Look both ways!

A recent day out saw me taking in this walk in the Peak District National Park. It was a great day, the heather on the moors is the most wonderful colour, and fortunately the weather was spectacular with the sort of big, beautiful fluffy clouds which make shooting a real joy. I'd never done this walk before so it was fun too, not so challenging that you couldn't really take in the scenery. I'm finding myself hanging out in the Peaks more and more of late, as I look for interesting places to go and shoot. On the day I also saw another photographer up on the tops of the hill, armed with a graduating filter. It was one of those occasions when I was fancying a circular polariser, ah well, maybe next year!

The Path to the Clouds

The cooling towers of a distant power station are an interesting juxtaposition with this single tree - at one time all of the moors would have been covered in forest.

Alternate bands of bracken and heather make this interesting OOF colour pattern

A bokeh-bound hover-fly

Long way down! Taken from the ridge at the end of the walk.

I find myself increasingly unable to resist silhouette shots!

One of several climbers encountered on the day, this chap showed impressive upper-body strength to make the ascent.

Great Shots Very Rarely 'Just Happen'

2011-12-12T07:00:00.001Z

Right place, right time, right equipment? Nah...

Lately, I've been musing on how the really great shots that photographers take come into being, whether it's all about preparation, skill, vision, access to great subjects or just plain luck. The thing is, there seems to me to be a bit of a contradiction inherent in photography. If it really is all about capturing a tiny slice of time then surely it should be a wonderfully spontaneous art form? It should be a 'snapshot' of the world, a glimpse of the ephemeral?...a look at any photo-sharing site though will show you that that's not really the case.

Imagine the scene...there you are, you've got your camera in hand (well that's planned for a start, I rarely accidentally go out with my camera!) and you decide that you're going to 'do some photography'. No worries...you wander about, looking at 'stuff' or maybe you and a model go off to a cool location, or maybe you just randomly stop people in the street who you can add to your strangers project. None of these scenarios are in the least bit unplanned, all of them require some fore-thought and all of them make the assumption that for a given investment of time you will receive a reasonable pay-off in imagery...

It doesn't always work out that way of course. Sometimes I go out for a few hours with my camera and come home with very little and at other times the mood takes me and I'm filled with such a shutter-blitzing frenzy that I see ten subjects in just a few minutes and shoot a hundred frames in no time at all. So much of this seems to be about mood. I'm reminded of when I stupidly decided to make myself take a self-portrait every day for a year and how some days I seemed to spend hours staring gloomily off into space, desperately trying to come up with some 'good ideas'. It's so hard to force spontaneity, but some people seem to have an extra-developed 'imagination muscle' and appear to be able to bang out creative, interesting images day after day. Maybe that's the observable difference between a good and a great photographer.

I'm also reminded once again of the comments of a friend and fellow photog, who looked over my early portfolio and said in the broadest of Ulster Accents "Ye've sure gotta lotta of pictures of nothin'!" Trying to force yourself to 'see' great photo opportunities is largely a waste of time - I'm not saying that people can't learn to do it, but if you don't know what you're looking for it's very difficult to know when and if you've found it.

Traditionally the cliché goes that a great photo should tell a story, and for me at least that means that a story of some sort or other should be going on, so I tend to shy away from the formally staged rigid photograph, but there's also been a lot of great images made that obviously required a good deal of pre-preparation and, dare I say it, post-production. The balance between preparation and fortune is an interesting one, both need to come together at the same time for a great image to be captured, but clearly good preparation increases the chances of 'luck', whether that's making sure you're in the right place at the right time, having the right equipment to hand (essentially, having any equipment is better that none) or just keeping your skills sufficiently honed to be ready for the moment.

Of course, there's almost always a place for luck, even if it's just hanging out somewhere suitable waiting for luck to happen. This image is a great case in point. I'm sure that Frans Lanting didn't go around re-arranging the turtles into that nice shape! Sure, lots of famous images are deliberately and meticulously staged in the studio, a place where the aim is to exclude 'luck' as much as possible in favour of control, but really? The tilt of a model's head, the precise fall of a piece of fabric, nobody can actually control everything, as much as they might try, and have you ever noticed that when you do try and control every variable, the attraction of spontaneity and the appeal of novelty is utterly and unaccountably lost?

All true perhaps, but Lanting was at least in the right place at the right time and with the right 'stuff', so the old preparation vs perspiration balance still falls pretty heavily on the side of the man who happens to have the skills and opportunity to get the shot. So it's worth practising, it's worth persevering and it's worth actively looking for photo opportunities. It's only that way that your greatest shots will ever come into being!

Further Reflections on Liverpool

2011-12-09T07:00:00.000Z

Face in a box

I thought I should probably devote a whole post to the fact that when I visited Liverpool recently much of my photography involved gazing at reflections. I always think it's funny how I start out with a specific plan in my head when I head out for a fun shoot (in this case, getting loads of candid street portraits) and end up with something totally different. The lack of wind on the day, and falling in love with the crazy pink mirrored box at the Tate, both left me with a number of reflections that I really liked. Anyway, here's the pics...

The box from the outside, and a bloke with a camera, who has something on his shoulder. I just couldn't frame this without the background sculpture (or the doorway), so I decided to make the most of it in the end

The warehouses on the East side of the Albert Dock.

Reflections of the old and new.

I suppose if you're going to build something modern and plonk it down in the middle of a load industrial heritage it's better to go the whole hog.

I don't think the light boat gets used for its original purpose any more but I think this again shows the charming mish-mash that Liverpool has become. Note the Liver-building on the right behind the glass box.

How People Use Flickr

2011-12-05T07:00:00.002Z

Some of my captured bounty! Sorry if they don't link directly, see credits below:
1. Grand Canyon Afternoon, 2. Art., 3. In a Dream., 4. iN CeLeBraTioN oF LiFe!, 5. Sofia, 6. In a Spin, 7. Untitled, 8. focused, 9. We Are One Tonight!, 10.*298* Listen and you will hear, 11. october 25 sunset, 12. Gone fishin' - Little People, Big World #18, 13. Decent into madness, 14. Wine and graffiti, 15.Untitled, 16. Spirit, 17. Early Sky 443, 18. Untitled, 19. masked, 20. At every occasion, 21. _DSC6022-2, 22. Untitled, 23. Hello Kitty Haunted House of Horrors, 24. Staffage, 25. bloat, 26. Long feet - Life in Tokyo 020, 27. Lo “sfilato” Siciliano – The “sfilato” Sicilian, 28. [ I ], 29. Untitled, 30. Filthy Bastos, 31. _48, 32. 1000 Faces of Canada # 0084 - Zombie Walk - Explore!, 33. Aga, 34. Dead Eyes, 35. -Deben caer., 36. IMG_0259b

Something's been bugging me for a while now, and I think it may well be my own fault. I have limited time to do all the things I have to do, and one of the most important things that I like to engage with is catching up with my Flickr contacts, seeing what they're up to and telling them what I think about their work. As everybody who uses Flickr knows, that's pretty time consuming but building up good, useful Flickr contacts builds friendships. I value some of those friendships pretty highly and I respect what my contacts say, because I know from their work that they're skilled photogs.

In many senses, I'm actually much more interested in the useful comments from that reasonably small circle than I am from the whole bunch of random people on Flickr who I never encounter, never view their images and who live a parallel Flickr life to me. I only really tend to add people who comment on my own work, and because I spend all my Flickr time commenting on the work of my contacts I don't really have much time to make new contacts (i.e. looking at the work of others) of my own. I rarely go hunting for people whose work I like because if I had too many contacts then I'd be swamped and I wouldn't be able to comment on people's work at all. This then is my error.

When someone adds me as a contact I generally feel like I should do the same for them - they're interested enough to add me so I should maybe check them out too, right? Doing that has led me to meet all sorts of interesting, innovative and funny people and has helped make me into a better photographer. The problem is, I also use Flickr as an advert to draw people to the blog - I don't pay to use it, I don't normally post to Flickr any more than about twice a week, and I shove my best stuff and my general ramblings over here. To be truthful, I don't think people check out the groups on Flickr very much, if you really want to go viral and draw attention you need to hit explore regularly, and with a fairly small group of potential commentators, that's really not going to happen very often.

I recall a wise man once telling me that he'd had to delete a couple of his previous Flickr accounts because he just had too many contacts, and it's taken me ages to figure out what he meant. There are good Flickr contacts and bad Flickr contacts, he's a good one incidentally, and says useful stuff and shoots interesting images. He must also spend a lot of time talking to people on Flickr - much more time than I could anyway, but presumably talking to new people is how he became so Flickr-famous.

The conclusion I've reached is that if I want to increase exposure I've been doing it all wrong! Maybe I've got to be more 'selfish'? Since I don't have the time to talk to everyone, maybe I should get people to add me as a contact and then mostly ignore them? I've been doing some of what I shall henceforth call 'contact fishing'. I've concocted a reasonably generic comment to add to people's images and I'm trawling the big groups, commenting on other people's photos that I like, and sprinkling faves as I go. I'm hoping that lots of people will add me as a contact, visit my images more and through that get drawn to the blog. To me, this feels like I'm subverting the system. On the plus side, I'm getting to see some really inspirational work, but I'm also never going to be able to keep up with everyone who adds me. I'm going to do it anyway, just to see what happens. I feel bad about this. Should I?

Meanwhile, if you've found your way here and have done so through what you feel are false pretences, please feel free to add your ID to the comments and I promise to relent and add you as a Flickr contact!

A Nice Walk in the Peak District - Part 2

2011-12-02T07:00:00.000Z

Shuttlingsloe . Third highest hill in Cheshire

This is the second half of the set of shots I took during the late September Peaks walk. You can find the first half here. Anyway, here's just some more nice pics I managed to grab. Now I look back on it, it all seemed a bit wuthering...

A very friendly youngster. He asked if I'd seen someone called Elana. I had to correct his pronunciation, obviously.

Two walkers descend from the height.

I don't know what they are, but I like them.

More Cow Parsley, with the reservoir's shore behind.

A gorgeous path we found through the early Autumn trees.

Are You Even a Photographer if you Don't Print?

2011-11-28T07:00:00.000Z

An image worthy of a wall?

Back in the depths of time, before around about 1990 or so, 'serious' photographers were known to invest rather more time and effort into producing a physical, actual product than they do today. What was this product? A real, honest to goodness picture, something you could hang on your wall, give to your best friend as a memento, tear in two when you separated from a significant other or just stick in an album to wistfully browse through at some undetermined time in the distant future.

Traditionally, real photographers (well 'jobbing' ones, perhaps not celebrity ones so much), had to master the dark arts of both photography and printing. To produce something real. Nowadays the vast majority of images just exist as a string of ones and zeros on a gazillion (wow, my spell check reckons that's a word!) hard-drive platters and flash cards around the world.

You could argue of course that the beloved sepulchre of Photoshop (or similar) has taken the place of the darkroom at the production end, making up in creative potential for the actual reality of the print. Undoubtedly, the massive boom in photography brought about by the digital age has required a whole new set of skills from the modern image artist. It's still difficult to beat a great, straight-out-of-camera genius shot though - so many of the images that pass before my eyes nowadays look more like the sort of high-fantasy airbrushed marvels that grace the covers of 1960s science fiction novels than anything one might recognise as a 'photograph'. I like those kind of images by the way, it's just not what I personally want to make right now.

To be fair, most photographers have probably always made use of the services of the third-party printer, (and often with mixed results) be it for a set of holiday snaps or to produce high-end studio work, and choosing that final printer was essentially dependant on the quality of the end product required - oh and what one was willing to pay of course. Always though, you ended up with a tangible, feelable and usable end product, something you could appreciate as a real thing, something to be cherished or disdained, treasured or trashed as you saw fit. The world has definitely changed.

You can print. You can buy one of those oddly-priced inkjets (how can a printer, copier and scanner possibly cost less than the refill inks for the same?), a big wodge of shiny paper and get down to covering your walls with your own creative masterpieces. You can even exert some control over the final product, twiddling around with profiles, colour spaces and the like to get what you perceive to be the perfect reproduction of your vision. Not so many people seem to though, and if truth be told if you really want to produce great prints of your images then you need to be using a great printer, mechanical or human.

So can you be a 'proper' photographer without having at least some knowledge of printing? I expect it largely depends on what you want to do with your final work but I have a sneaking suspicion not. Even stock photographers have to appreciate that their images may well get printed at some time. A friend recently sold a series of work specifically because she had it printed and put on the walls of a local cafe. And you know what else? Over at TOP Mike Johnston is running a competition to get the best all-comers images sold as commercial prints - i.e. win the competition and you can sell prints right off the blog, one of the most-read and best-respected around. You might want to head on over there if you're a 'proper' photog...

Photos at The Albert Dock

2011-11-25T07:00:00.000Z

Hey Hey! The Blog is two whole years young! To celebrate, here's some nice images of Liverpool, one of my favourite British cities where from the once abandoned industrial heritage has sprung an amazing metropolis of regeneration. Most non UK people (well, those over 30 maybe) probably knows it as the home of The Beatles, but I love it as an architectural jewel where friendly graduates drive cabs and where you can still eat good food for half the price you'd pay further South. It was European city of culture a few years ago and at the time there was much talk of inflated prices and the massive building projects. I love the fact that mixed in with some of the best of imperial architecture is a collection of bold, shiny modern buildings where someone's apparently decided that each must have at least one wonky line.

I spent a day at the Albert Dock recently, the latest in a line of visits going back 20 years to when the regeneration of the city first started. Previous visits have been marked by the freezingly ferocious wind that always seems to blow right off the Mersey, but this time was rather delightful because of delightful sunshine that even the Labour party conference that was also going on couldn't quite spoil. There was even an excellent photography exhibition on Apartheid in the Museum of Slavery whilst I was there. Here's a selection of the images I captured that day.

In the Tate gallery on the Albert Dock.

The reflection of the Mersey in the glass of the Museum of Liverpool (a visit for next time).

Even the cinema insists on wonkiness!

From the Tate Cafe - so nice not to be ripped off at a gallery coffee shop!

By the bus station

My favourite piece at the Tate.

How to Photograph Bands - Part 2

2011-11-21T07:00:00.002Z

You can use stage lighting to good effect

The second of my two posts on the subject of shooting bands and covers the technical aspects of shooting live bands. The first of the posts offers general advice about how to go about getting the most out of your shooting experience, and can be found over here. Want to know how to get images like the one above or better?
I tend to do most of my band photography in challenging lighting conditions - it's usually dark with lots of coloured lights, which is both a blessing (the lights help give your shots atmosphere) and a curse (the lights can mess with the contrast of your images, and there's a fast transition between very light and very dark). I shoot with a 50mm f/1.8 lens, cranked all the way open. This has sharpness implications (lenses aren't at their best when pushed to their utmost) but ensures I get maximum light to the sensor. Shooting digitally, I don't think I could do this with anything less than a DSLR, I shoot at ISO 1600 and frankly, my camera's at about the limits of what I consider acceptable in image quality terms in those conditions, I would really like a later generation of camera, or a Nikon, to improve IQ. Having tried to shoot with borrowed compacts, the image noise is just too great. I don't use a speedlite of course so I'm always trying to get my shutter speed up as high as I can. From a creative angle, you may want to consider the motion effects you can achieve from a relatively low shutter speed against the drama of freezing the action with a high one.

Smoke and lights

I shoot in AI mode to take account of performers' high likelihood of moving (that's the mode that gets the camera to track focus on moving objects, though different camera manufacturers call it different things) and I use both spot and matrix metering, depending on what conditions are at the time. Because of the fact that I'm shooting at the margins of what my equipment is capable of, getting the exposure right is critical. Even with a great program like Lightroom, if I have to start adding lots of fill light and generally boosting exposures then I'm going to start getting a lot of ugly noise in my images. Even with a good noise-reduction feature, that's going to mean lost detail and a less useful shot.

Getting exposures right doesn't end there. Digital SLRs have a well-known limitation in that their dynamic ranges (their ability to show really light to really dark in a realistic manner, all in the same frame) aren't perfect so you're almost certainly going to get highlight and lowlight clipping. White balance is going to be an issue with lots of different light sources and types, so if you want to accurately reproduce the colours in a scene it's probably sensible to be shooting in RAW. Using a grey card isn't going to help much here - the light is constantly shifting so you'd need to shoot the card at the same instant as every frame.

Given that I'm shooting with such a wide aperture and at a fixed focal length I'm very aware that the closer I get to the subject the narrower my depth of field (the bit that's in focus) is going to be in my final image. That 1.8 aperture, while great for getting loads of light into the viewfinder and onto the sensor, isn't so good if you want sharp focus from the front to the back of the frame. It's worth using the depth of field calculator prior to the shoot so you have in your head some approximations of how the DOF is going to change as you move toward or away from the stage. As the lighting changes you may be able to jiggle the aperture somewhat, but when time and light is limited it isn't always an option.

Pure silhouettes can work well too.

Keep an eye out for smoke, it's great for adding atmosphere to a shot because it scatters the light that hits it, making lasers and strobes much more visible, but equally there has been a lot of discussion about lasers destroying camera sensors, so you might not want to point your camera directly at any lasers lurking behind the smoke. Personally I have never had any problems but there have been occasions where people have apparently damaged their equipment, apparently. Or maybe it's that whole 'the net is full untruths' thing again.

With this set-up you should be able to produce some reasonable shots in most conditions, with a latest generation DSLR you could do even better in the dark, since the greater ISO abilities will give more creative potential. Shooting bands in daylight is potentially much easier than shooting them indoors, there are still issues but the light conditions aren't quite so variable. The most important thing is always to try and capture the energy of the people on the stage, that's what will make later viewers sit up and take notice.

Images of Autumn

2011-11-18T07:00:00.001Z

Red and Green...

Or 'fall' if you prefer. Autumn was really quite strange here, it seemed to come very late and unlike in previous years when all the leaves on all the trees changes to beautiful reds all at once, as I wrote this the trees outside were either totally bare (the horse-chestnuts), in traditional Autumn colour (Oaks) or still in full green leaf (almost everything else). I had actually got ahead of myself with the blog as I was writing, so if time's slipped a bit and it's blowing a howling blizzard outside your door, (it's probably nearly Christmas by now!) my apologies. I don't know much about Autumn and what drives the changes of the leaves other than it getting colder (maybe oaks react to shorter days rather than the cold?), but it's all been rather odd.

Thus far then, I hadn't been able to catch many huge forests of reddy-browns, but rather a strange mix of greens and browns which didn't quite have the same effect. Balanced against this is the sheer joy of having a new lens in hand, which has allowed me to try some new (to me!) composition ideas and play around a bit with the really small. There'll be another set of images along in a few weeks no doubt, meanwhile...

I love the shiny nuttiness of these acorns.

Heather Belles?

In the Mushroom Forest.

A Fallen Fly-Agaric in all its bold beauty.

A Cliché but I liked the stark shadows in particular in this shot.

Photographing Farm Animals

2011-11-14T07:00:00.000Z

Several cows in various shades of brown...

I note from my blog stats that weirdly, several people are finding their way here through Google searches for 'Brown Cows'. On the assumption that this isn't some international resurgence of elocution or something I'm a bit puzzled as to what it means. On the further assumption that people might be looking for images of brown cows I thought I might share a few words about capturing images of cows and things for yourself, particularly if you come from an urban area and don't have much experience with domestic livestock.

Everyone loves young animals

The first and most important thing to say is that farm animals are someone's property and their livelihood, as well as being creatures in their own right. You should never do anything that would distress an animal, cause its owner concern or that you wouldn't want done to a priceless pet of your own.

Secondly, you need to be aware of your own safety and that of others who are with you. A photographer friend of mine is terrified of cows and often finds herself being chased out of fields where she is trying to produce her latest masterpiece in rural self-portraiture. I sent her a link to the Cow Attack Survival Guide. Note, an oft-quoted statistic is that 4 people in the UK die each year whilst putting on their trousers. Extrapolating that to the US population, trousers may actually be considered more deadly than cows, overall. Generally speaking cows, especially young ones, are extremely curious creatures and will come and investigate you if you hang around at the fence to their field for a while, giving you plenty of opportunity to take great images. It's much better to do that than to go into a field with young calves and their mothers, where you risk being considered a threat.

Baaaarrrbara

Cows, sheep and horses are all herd animals, and they expect to be eaten by predators with forward-facing eyes. You are that predator, so don't be surprised if when you stare into an animals face it shies away from you. As you approach an animal you should do so from the side where they can see you, and avoid approaching anything especially horses from the rear. Don't pursue skittish animals.

Move calmly but confidently. Be alert to potential danger but realise that the likelihood of actual danger is quite low. The countryside is a good deal safer than the town, even with the addition of large animals. Don't be carrying loads of stuff, it'll make a noise and scare your subjects away. If you're photographing animals within a field, keep to any public footpaths where possible. Make sure you secure any gates you go through and if the device securing the gate looks complicated it's better to climb over than risk the ire of the landowner.

Many horse owners ask you not to feed their horses whilst they are in the fields. There are some good reasons for this, not least that horses will come to expect to be fed and will bite people who come to pet them in order to try and get food. Horse bites hurt, believe me, I speak from experience! It's unlikely that you're going to have much luck getting close to animals if you've got your dog with you (see the point about predators above) but if you do, make sure it's on a lead and that you're able to juggle both camera and lead safely.

Look out for unusual groups of animals

When shooting animals it's always a good idea to get down to their level or lower. This can add drama and an interesting angle to your shot and helps reduce the amount of intimidation they may experience (and thus stops them wandering off too soon). If you're shooting any animal, wild or domestic, it's always a good idea to know as much as you can about the animals habits and behaviour. It will help you in your photography because you will be more able to predict and anticipate what they are going to do. Did you know you should avoid sheep if pregnant? Also useful to know if you want to photograph them is that sheep have poor eyesight but good hearing - it's tricky to creep up on them from upwind, because the sound of your feet (and your smell) will travel.

When shooting, you can get away from the usual boring 'photo of a cow' shots by using the usual dawn and dusk rules, but it's also really worth keeping an eye out for unusual weather and for what else is going on in the frame. Trees and clouds can add context or clutter, one of my favourite ways to shoot farm animals, regardless of size, is to try and capture them on the brow of a hill and against an attractive sky. I always find pictures of animals behind bars (like a fence or gate) essentially unsatisfying, because as much as the fact they are domestic animals, they look much nicer in a 'natural' habitat.

The right weather can make all the difference!

Creating an interesting photograph of domestic livestock can often be a challenge whether you live in the town or the country, but it's one that's well worth the effort because the skills you learn will be transferable when you want to capture other creatures in their natural habitats. I'd encourage anyone who hasn't done so already to give it a go - it might not win you any World Photography Awards, but it might just get you something you can enter for the Countryfile Calendar.

A Nice Walk in the Peak District

2011-11-11T07:00:00.001Z

A Dreamy Place

I've had a bit of time to go out and enjoy a bit of walking recently, and have been hanging about in the nearby Peak District with my camera more. This walk was one I did back in the nice weather of late September, though I warn you, if you're ever going to do the walk you'd better get a decent map, because the directions are some of the worst I've ever come across...still, it was a nice walk...

The gorgeous old MG we found outside the Hanging Gate Inn

Another reservoir view

And back to the pub - this the blurred-out view over Cheshire. Pint called 'Thirst Aid'. Delicious!

Dry-stone wall and into the valley.

The reflected colours here were irresistable

So You Want to Take Great Photos? You've Got Some Way to Go Yet!

2011-11-07T07:00:00.000Z

Another shot in the dark - taken at a friend's garden party, late in the night.

As someone who regularly hangs around the various photoblogs, on-line photo schools, self-help sites and generic image bins that proliferate the internet you can't help but blunder into brilliant every now and again. I was wondering about what makes a 'great photographer' a while ago in another post and today I stumbled into the website of professional microstock photographer Yuri Arcurs for the first time.

Yuri is, according to his own publicity, the most successful microstock photographer in the world, clearly works hard and earns a reasonable income from his efforts. Today's post isn't really about Yuri though, it's about that moment when as a photographer you see someone else's work and go 'Wow! I wish I could shoot like that!' Some of the themes I've been exploring over recent months include storytelling in photographs, doing a better job in post-processing and getting your preparation right in order to maximise your chances of capturing the shot, and the greatest photographers are experts in all of these areas.

At the same time, photography is such a wide field that there's no realistic way that you can be a master at everything, so sooner or later you have to make some choices about what things you're going to specialise in, or at least focus on improving your skills in a particular area for a while so that you can gain the proficiency and experience you need to become a particular 'type' of photog. Of course, you could just aim to be ok at everything, stay mediocre, but a lot of the keen photogs I talk to have a hankering to at least make some money from their passion and if you look at the best of the best, they only do their commercial work in one or two key areas. Besides, who wants to be average?

Whilst the likes of Yuri appear to benefit from having a team of assistants around them when they shoot, they are still specialists in their particular areas. Stock photographers need to be masters of lighting and storytelling, they need to be able to produce an endless stream of blandly attractive, (I use the term in a positive sense - stock photos need to be appealing to as many people as possible so they can be used to sell stuff!), perfectly finished images that broadcast health and happiness and suggest transferable wealth. Landscape photographers need to be wizards in the arcana of filters, patience and research amongst other things, whilst Macro specialists need to be right there with their depth of field calculations, their perfect diffusion set ups and tripod-bound stability.

It's when you encounter masters of one particular branch of the art that you really grasp just how dumb and inexperienced you really are, and how much effort you actually need to put in to achieve apparently effortless perfection. Like the swan gliding serenely across the lake whilst wind-milling its legs like mad under the water, to become a real expert takes a whole lot of commitment, skills and practice. Most of us, even with the benefit of obsessive self-training, will probably never become true masters but still, it's good to have something to aspire to.

On that basis, it's worth looking at great photography not just for inspiration but to get ideas on techniques that you can attempt to replicate. I certainly don't mean you should do so in order to become like every other photographer out there, or to steal other people's work, but you should do it so that you can develop the range of skills that you can match together to come up with something different yourself. Innovation is very often driven by the act of taking two or more previously unrelated things and putting them together to make something new.

In photography, a discipline already somewhat overcrowded with the driven and the talented, the chances are that you're never really going to make it to the dizzying heights. No photographic Simon Cowell is going to pluck you from the depths of artistic obscurity (thank God!). If you're lucky, innovative and gifted enough you might make a reasonable living, but it's going to be hard work. Does that mean it's not worth trying? Certainly not. After all, who wouldn't want to do something they love for a living?

How to Photograph Bands - Part 1

2011-11-04T07:00:00.000Z

The Stage Awaits

Anyone who has been hanging around the blog for a while will no doubt have noticed that I have a reasonable amount of experience shooting bands, and I've been developing my skills in this area so that I can get the best out of every opportunity. I thought it might be useful to try and sum up what I've learned along the way, both in technical and practical terms. This type of photography can really be fun and challenging, combining candid shooting with a need to quickly think out your framing and exposures. Getting the best shots does require some planning and perseverance to get away from the norm, but the pay-off is well worth it, producing some stunning images that you will be really proud of. In the first of two blog posts, here I discuss general advice and ideas to try and get the best from any gig.

Assuming you're not shooting on a purely casual basis, it's really worth taking the time to get to know the people organising any event, they will be able to give you some ideas to work from and might even get you access to areas you would otherwise be excluded from, whether it's the bustle backstage or even the stage itself. Your relationship with the event staff can be crucial to getting the sort of leeway that puts you in a position that other photographers might not be able to achieve. Introduce yourself, be nice, see what occurs.

I am well aware that other, richer photographers than me tend to tote two or three bodies with a variety of pricey wide-aperture lenses. Personally, I prefer to travel light, I use a single body and a cheap compact lens - I'm sure a body or lens will fail on me one day, but unlike when shooting at a wedding, equipment failure will not spoil someone's entire day. It's quite enough for me to think about trying to get myself in places where I can produce something interesting. Having to squeeze myself and a lot of long lenses through crowds and PA equipment is more that I can really be doing with.

Try and get the acts to engage with the camera

The downside of shooting with a single fixed focal length lens in that sometimes you have to get what can feel uncomfortably close to performers to really get good images. It may well be worth investing in a long prime too but remember, most people up on stage are well used to being looked at, photographed and generally showing off, so they probably wont feel as uncomfortable as you. The old 'zoom with your feet' advice about prime lens shooting really comes into effect, not least because you may need to fill your frame with your subject to cut down on all the extensive on-stage equipment that can needlessly clutter your shot.

You should try and arrive early, during the set-up stages for the gig if you can. Scope out potential shots, identify places to get them from, test light levels if you're indoors and generally familiarise yourself with the surroundings. Frame a few practice shots, you'll probably need to be quick on the button once the gig gets going. Good composition is crucial to making effective images of musicians or other performers. Even now I am all too often guilty of getting carried away with the lights and music and doing something stupid like needlessly cutting a performer off at the ankles. You need to try and think very carefully about the framing of your shots, you want to try and involve the viewer in what's going on, rather than leave them feeling vaguely uncomfortable with an unconventional framing. Go all tilty with your framing by all means, but make sure it's done is such a way that it looks deliberate!

You get a great view from behind the performers

A good way of conveying atmosphere in any image is in capturing movement from the subject. Whether that's a slight blurring of a strumming hand, a flick of hair or a a skyward leap. Another way is to get behind a crowd and show them absorbed in the performance on-stage. The dual aspects of the audience dancing and the performers in the background can make for an engaging, if conventional, image. For those seeking the unconventional it's worth trying to get shots from a more unusual angle. Everyone who goes to gigs is used to seeing band members from pretty much a front-on perspective. If you can take shots from the side, or even from behind or amongst the band and include the audience in the frame, it provides viewers with an interesting insight into what it's like to be up on the stage.

A final thing to consider is timing. Lighting will combine with the performers' actions up on stage to provide some great opportunities to capture exciting and dynamic images, but you need to identify and frame your shot and then time your shutter release to get the stage lighting is at its best. An image flooded with coloured light can lack contrast but smaller streams of light can be really interesting. I'll discuss this a bit more in the second post on this subject, which will cover more of the technical aspects of shooting at gigs.

A Landing at Whitby

2011-10-31T07:00:00.000Z

St Mary's Churchyard at Whitby, with the Abbey in the background.

"There was a bright full moon, with heavy black, driving clouds, which threw the whole scene into a fleeting diorama of light and shade as they sailed across. For a moment or two I could see nothing, as the shadow of a cloud obscured St. Mary's Church and all around it. Then as the cloud passed I could see the ruins of the abbey coming into view, and as the edge of a narrow band of light as sharp as a sword-cut moved along, the church and churchyard became gradually visible. Whatever my expectation was, it was not disappointed, for there, on our favourite seat, the silver light of the moon struck a half-reclining figure, snowy white. The coming of the cloud was too quick for me to see much, for shadow shut down on light almost immediately, but it seemed to me as though something dark stood behind the seat where the white figure shone, and bent over it. What it was, whether man or beast, I could not tell."

From Chapter 8, Bram Stoker's Dracula, 1897

How spooky - it's Halloween! I thought that since it is I'd throw together a suitable photographic post on the subject with some old and new images. Funnily enough, I've been reading Dram Stoker's original book on and off for months, after a visit to the town itself back in June. It's a great place, though often heaving with visitors, with good seafood, pubs and more. It's a big vampire hangout too of course, which the locals seem to tolerate fairly reasonably...

"This is to my mind the nicest spot in Whitby, for it lies right over the town, and has a full view of the harbour and all up the bay to where the headland called Kettleness stretches out into the sea. It descends so steeply over the harbour that part of the bank has fallen away, and some of the graves have been destroyed."

From Chapter 6, Bram Stoker's Dracula, 1897

"The wind suddenly shifted to the northeast, and the remnant of the sea fog melted in the blast. And then, mirabile dictu, between the piers, leaping from wave to wave as it rushed at headlong speed, swept the strange schooner before the blast, with all sail set, and gained the safety of the harbour. The searchlight followed her, and a shudder ran through all who saw her, for lashed to the helm was a corpse, with drooping head, which swung horribly to and fro at each motion of the ship. No other form could be seen on the deck at all."

From Chapter 7, Bram Stoker's Dracula, 1897

"Beside the bed, as if he had stepped out of the mist, or rather as if the mist had turned into his figure, for it had entirely disappeared, stood a tall, thin man, all in black. I knew him at once from the description of the others. The waxen face, the high aquiline nose, on which the light fell in a thin white line, the parted red lips, with the sharp white teeth showing between, and the red eyes that I had seemed to see in the sunset on the windows of St. Mary's Church at Whitby."

From Chapter 21, Bram Stoker's Dracula, 1897

In Praise of the Photo-Essay

2011-10-28T07:00:00.000+01:00

Maybe this could be a candidate for an essay entitled 'pissed people at parties'?

Stumbling around in the darkness of the interweb as I do, I'm consistently seeking a coherent way to view interesting photos and the work of inspiring artist in a manner that is less disjointed than that of viewing them on Flickr or Google or whatever, and I've recently been hanging around the sort of places where people publish photo-essays.

I really enjoy photo-essays because they present a much more cohesive body of work than someone's day-to-day photostream, they often include images taken on a number of different occasions but linked by a single theme, processing style or guiding principle and can provide startling insights into the lives and experiences of the individuals or subjects they feature. They're usually examples of what the artist considers their best work too, so if nothing else it gives you something decent to aim at!

In case there's any of these sites that you've missed I've listed some below. I don't know about you, but whenever I come across a site that I've never visited before that's really useful, I always feel like I'm late to the party - like "of course everyone knows about uberphotomeister, keep up man!". Anyhow, these are my current favourites:

Photography Served A slick site with plenty of essays to see, you can even request an invite to submit your own work!!

Burn Magazine Burn describes itself as "an evolving magazine for emerging photographers" and is curated by Magnum's David Alan Harvey. They offer a grant too, if you have the talent.

Fraction Magazine Also focussed on emerging work, Fraction publishes regular on-line issues containing the work of several artists.

UNICEF Photo Essays This hasn't been updated for a while but contains rather more positive (ie hope-inspiring) images than you might expect from the average essay, regardless of the work that the charity do. A nice place and a worthy cause.

Magnum Photos The daddy of them all, Magnum, that club for the truly brilliant, offers a large collection of essays from its "Magnum in Motion" studio. Top class.

Moving in London

2011-10-24T07:00:00.000+01:00

Beauty amongst the grey

Recently I was lucky enough to take a trip to London with the daughter whilst visiting my extended family. As ever, the chance to travel with camera in hand was not to be missed, as tricky as it can be to shoot candids with a big DSLR, I still love to do it, the constant rush to 'get somewhere' when in the city hides you somewhat, nobody has time or inclination to stop, talk or anything else.

Train please!

Strangers

Tunnel to the museums

Going Up!

Waterloo Bustle

I Wonder...

Some New Equipment Arrives

2011-10-21T07:00:00.000+01:00

Sharp Water

I hate to moan but money's been tight over here at Casa Shotslot lately and so I've had to reign in the impulse to buy the various pieces of photo-gubbins that I've felt a desperate need for. Looming on the horizon is that new camera body purchase that I've been grumbling on about for a while and if I'm ever going to get the cash together for the next iteration of the machine I want, all other purchases are going to have to be put firmly on hold...

Building up my lens collection has been what I've been working at until now though, and I've been steadily drifting towards a full-frame primary set-up. I reckon that full-frame will suit my shooting style best (I like to mess around with shallow depths of field and I'm not too worried about shooting things at a distance) and so I've had in mind the need to keep my options open and avoid lenses that only work with cropped-sensor DSLRs. At the same time, the last time I bit the bullet and bought a lens (over a year ago now!) I went all reckless and bought the Canon 24-105 f4 L IS, a purchase that I congratulate myself on every time I pick up my camera, it is rarely off it and suits my shooting style just fine. That L quality is pricey though!

Part of the thinking behind that particular purchase over the even more expensive and apparently luscious 24-70 f2.8 L IS lens was that I primarily wanted to use the lens outdoors (so the extra stop didn't mean that much to me) whilst out on long walks (so less heavy was better) and I wanted to get the best contrast and colour I could. I always had in mind that I intended to keep doing my portrait and indoor work with prime lenses since sharp, wide aperture lenses are always better than the best telephoto zooms, especially when you want to bring out the best from models and at indoor events.

The final (heh, yeah right!) part of the lens collection puzzle was to acquire a reasonably wide aperture telephoto prime which would ideally additionally serve as a macro lens. Much reading, soul-searching and wallet poking eventually led me to the rather venerable but still highly regarded Canon 100mm 2.8 Macro. How I would have loved to hold out for the image-stabilised 'L' version, I swung between the two for months as I struggled to save enough money from an increasingly diminishing disposable income (thanks baby-boomers, enjoy your retirement huh?) to make the purchase. In the end, I decided that the £300 difference between the two is probably going to be needed for a new camera body more than it is for the image stabilisation, kudos and improved build quality of the L.

I ordered the lens from SimplyElectronics, with some reservations about the amount of negative on-line reviews of the tardiness of delivery and condition items arrived in, deciding that I'd rather pay £50 less and wait an extra week because after all, delayed gratification is what photography is all about. In the end, the lens took about ten days to arrive, a bit more than the week or so promised by SimplyElectronics, though to be fair to them they did have a sale on and would have been busy. I've had stuff take longer from Amazon plenty of times. The lens arrived in perfectly good packaging and I'd certainly use them again if they're going to keep under-cutting the other on-line competition. Meanwhile, watch out for a sprinkling of macro shots in amongst the blog pics.

Severn Valley Canoe and Railway Trip - Part 2

2011-10-17T07:00:00.000+01:00

Going the other way...

Now, I wouldn't want anyone to think I'm a train nut or anything, but the sheer number of nostalgic photo opportunities available from a visit to a steam railway are immense! I know it's all a bit twee, but for anyone like me who can just about remember when carriages had compartments, or for any lingering Harry Potter fans, a journey like this is loads of fun, but gone in a flash! Part 1 of this series is over here.

Judging by the deposit prices on these boxes they've been unreturned for a while...

The Station at Arley

Inside the carriages.

Another Engine Arrives

Gorgeous classic deco carriage stylings

Do Great Photographers Need to Travel or Can They do it Anywhere?

2011-10-14T07:00:00.000+01:00

A sky whale...luck or an over-active imagination?

This is a quandary that has been bugging me for some time now, as I look droolingly at the work of the international jet-setting photographers whose images I continue to admire. Do you need to regularly go to new and exciting places in order to get jaw-dropping photographs? Do great skills and a sharp eye mean you can produce stunning images wherever you are? To put it another way (to return to that monkeys and typewriters analogy) could you take any fool with a camera, point them at something suitably 'wowy' and have them produce an image which is half-decent?

Or, are the best photographers those who can take the most seemingly mundane subjects and make them visually interesting? I've had a hunch for some time that the best work is that which makes people look at a common subject in a new and exciting way, like a novel change in perspective or a look at a hidden element of a previously familiar experience. A great individual photo tells a story, as does a photo-essay or indeed an entire body of work. Maybe the best photographers are those who are adept at extracting a story from any given scene.

Certainly one of the reasons I like taking candid street portraits so much is that it's relatively easy to tell a story, be it quirky, romantic or just plain silly, you just find an interesting background and wait for someone to happen by...or else be quick on the shutter and keep an eye out for those never-to-be-repeated opportunities. To do this well though I find that a measure of anonymity is best, I'm quite well known in the small town where I live so people would quickly get wise to me pointing my camera at them when I did it, and if familiarity breeds contempt, irritation breeds probable verbal abuse!

Novelty is important too, endless images of the same old thing are wearing for both the viewer and the photographer, though apparently there are some scenes that people 'never tire of looking at'. Really? I reckon that if I had to look at images of the visually stunning Grand Canyon (for example) every day for a year, I'd get a bit fed up. And quite possibly stale, or maybe I'd be able to highlight some nuance that has passed other photographers by? I doubt it.

Perhaps the answer to the travel/no travel question depends upon the type of photography you're interested in and that you are good at. If you only work in a studio you can have all your subjects come to you, be they funny little things you want to shoot in macro, models, products or whatever. None of these are areas of photography I'm particularly familiar with but clearly a lot of studio images are deeply creative and can thus be considered examples of art, and those that create them highly talented photographers. For me, and given the type of image that particularly interests me right now, the opportunity to go out somewhere new and capture interesting subjects, especially people in novel environments is somewhat exciting. It stimulates my creativity and makes me work harder at creating something unusual, gets me away from the hum-drum.

And maybe you need to travel for inspiration, even if you do all your best shooting at home? Maybe if you want to appeal to a wide audience you need to know who that audience is and meet them face to face? Certainly I consider that my photography gets a little better the more I talk to people about it, especially people who are knowledgeable about photography, by which I mean have an actual conversation about it, rather than just geek about it. Oh, for a 5D MkII, a couple more lenses and a round-the-world plane ticket!

Severn Valley Canoe and Railway Trip

2011-10-10T07:00:00.000+01:00

All board for another set of images...

This set is from a trip I took in August with the daughter and with these folks. Basically, you meet up at the river Severn in Bridgenorth, Shropshire, spend the morning paddling downriver (with a pub stop with good beer for lunch) and then get the Severn Valley Steam Railway back to the start. The crew from Sun Valley looked after us really well and I'd recommend this to anyone for a good value physically active day out.

I know the post has 'canoe' in the title so you'd expect at least some shots of people in canoes, some actual canoes or at least a lot of wet people but I kinda chickened out when it came to taking my camera on the boat and got the blokes with the van to drop it off for me after the wet bit had finished. The river was gorgeous in places but hey, it was better to be able to leap in and out of the boat with having to worry too much, and besides, paddling is a two-handed job!

A chap I saw contemplating life on the platform.

Squashed hat and a dreamy depth of field

This chap looks like he has a few stories to tell, not sure if it's a voluntary job or not but no doubt it's his dream one!

Coming into the station

One of the few actual shots of the river that I managed!

Sometimes You Just Don't Seem to be Able to Capture it.

2011-10-07T07:00:00.000+01:00

It's just not right...

Sometimes I get a little buzz when I see something I want to shoot, a little frisson of excitement as I raise the camera to my eye and attempt to grab what I think will be an amazing, awe-inspiring image. It might be a nuanced tilt of someone's head, the wide-open vistas of a local landscape or maybe just a glint of sunlight from the raindrops on an umbrella, but I get a little rush of blood when I see it, one which makes my shutter finger twitch and my brain to kick into 'what's the best composition' mode. Sometimes though, it just doesn't work...
As an example, the above image is one that breaks all my rules about what to post here on the blog because it's one that I'm just not even nearly happy with. It's a scene that I've attempted to shoot many, many times, altering composition, my viewpoint, lenses and time of the year but it just doesn't seem to 'work'. I appreciate that this is by no means the most exciting landscape in the world, the composition is by no means perfect, neither is the time of day, but for some reason every time I see the scene something about it - the angle of the footpath or the buildings in the background perhaps - makes me reach for my camera.

What I do know is that the best photos, or at least those that I like the most, convey a mood, and I wonder therefore whether the problem with this picture is one of 'mood failure'? When I look at the scene with my own eyeballs it makes me feel good, but cold pixel light just doesn't evoke the same 'rightness' that I get in real life. It could be that I've been looking at this scene on and off since I was about 8 or so years old and that its very familiarity is what I enjoy so much, but I'm really not sure that's true. Maybe that very familiarity is confusing my brain into thinking a scene that I like is good whereas actually it has little to recommend it all. Maybe I just haven't yet got the skill or had the inspiration to take the scene and capture it in such a way that best illustrates the strong image that my instincts tell me is there for the taking, and in that this scene as a subject would certainly not be unique. Maybe I'll just have to keep visiting now and again, to try and get a grasp on the answers to all these questions...

Some of you might have noticed...

2011-10-06T07:14:00.002+01:00

...that Shotslot looks a bit different at the moment. I'm still trying it on and I'm not sure how it's going to work out yet. Blogger (the platform that we publish on, more by luck than judgement) promises that it's going to add a few more customisable features in coming weeks, so expect everything to look a little bit odd for a while. If anyone has any comments, good or bad, I always welcome suggestions. You need to click on each post (like this one) to open up the full article, which isn't immediately obvious. I appreciate that this is a rather early adopt of the new design technology but I feel it's better to evolve than become a dinosaur. On that note, anyone with an older browser probably wont see the changes but will continue to see the old blog... I don't work for them but I write and work on Google Chrome, just because I find that it's fast and clean.

Selecting any of the images in the Lightbox will open up the relevant post, or if you want to change the look of the blog to something more your liking, click and change 'magazine' on the top left of the main page. I just selected this look as default because I feel that it best suits the current content.

Meanwhile, there's lots of new images on the way and even as I speak a fabulous and much-longed-for new piece of kit is winging its way to me through the magic of the interweb, so watch out to some rather different shots over coming months as I get to grips with what will probably be my last lens purchase (sniff) before I start trying to finance the next camera body.

Seeing in London Part 2

2011-10-03T07:00:00.000+01:00

The photography exhibition in gallery 38a on the day I was there. I enjoyed watching my fellow photo-fans almost as much as the images themselves. This collection entitled "Signs of a Struggle" runs until 27th November.

This second set of images of my most recent London trip is all from the Victoria & Albert museum. The museum touts itself on its website as "The world's greatest museum of art and design." but as a good friend recently said to me when I mentioned I'd been '...it's like a spectacular jumble sale.'. Much of it is a hodge-podge of amazing things collected during the period of Empire that we seem to have failed to give back! Now, one of my failings as a photographer is that I don't go to London much, it's like a foreign country to me despite being just an hour and a half away by train and I had never visited the V & A, always keeping at the back of my mind the fact that I really would like to go one day.

I just adored it, not only is it full of the most marvellous treasures but the building itself is a great example of the best of Victorian OTT architecture and it's an amazing place to shoot candid portraits. Even better? Like the other great museums of London, entrance is currently free!

Insert your own comedy comment. This location was a great find.

"Wonder where this goes?"...the joys of a dislocated doorway.

Tired of Endless Visitors?

Rest and a Quick Texting Opportunity

Flat Horns with Strings. No idea what it's really called but I thought it was fun.

Reflections on a Thousand-Year-Old Carpet.

Knowledge is All. This lady was generously imparting hers for curious visitors.

It was a grey day outside.

What DSLR to Buy Now

2011-09-30T07:00:00.000+01:00

Ask 10 photographers which way to go and you'll probably get 10 different answers

Ok, I know I said I wouldn't do any tech posts for a bit but recently I was chatting to a chap in the pub who was asking me what DSLR he should buy, with his spare £800. Wow! There's a loaded question I thought, but actually he genuinely wanted to know what he should spend his hard-earned cash on.

I chatted to him a bit about glass, and how the cameras themselves, despite costing the earth are essentially junk after a few years (he's a former analogue shooter so is used to bodies being around for longer) and the best I could do really is tell him what I would buy, with the benefit of a lot of time spent with my Canon kit. You get loads of people asking this sort of question on the forums - I did it myself as part of loads and loads of research on the subject, before choosing the Canon brand largely on the basis of the available lenses and perceived durability. Out on the forums you get loads of people cheering for one brand or another when essentially the end product in that 'enthusiast' end of the market is much of a muchness. Yes, some jpeg output is a bit more vibrant than others, some have 18 megapixels and some 16 squillion, but lets face it, it's not really the camera that makes the picture.

The answer for me then, comes down to what is the most versatile piece of kit, whether it's a Canon 60D, a Nikon D7000 or whatever. Which is the camera that's going to last the longest, be able to shoot in the most difficult and challenging conditions (or best in the studio if that's what you like), fits you like a glove and is simple enough to use that you can get into it easily? Because I guess that if you're just starting out you want something that's technically brilliant, but not so brilliant you can't get the damn thing to work. So for instance, the step up from a point and shoot to a Canon 7D with no full-auto modes is massive - you need to have a deal of skill and expertise just to get something that looks like what you want out of the back of the thing.

In truth, if an SLR is what you've set your heart on, then pretty much any of the entry-level models will suit you just fine to start. If you're the sort of person who gets addicted to stuff then you need to choose something with longevity but most people I know who have bought one seem to get bored pretty quickly when they realise that it isn't just as easy as pointing your uber-expensive camera at something pretty in order to get a great picture. If you think you are going to get hooked though, pick a brand you can live with.

With hindsight, I believe I may have made an error. It's not one I could have avoided because the camera I would have bought didn't come out for a couple of years after I bought my Canon and the reason I can't now swap is that I just have too much money in Canon-mount lenses. There are a number of things about the current crop of Canon cameras that niggle me. Nikon appears to be winning the ISO battle, not so much that it makes that much difference between Canon and Nikon, but if I were going to be shooting in the dark a lot that's the brand I'd probably choose. Canon also seem reluctant to properly weather-seal their cameras. A few months ago this cost a friend of mine several hundred pounds when he had so shoot in the rain and then pay the repair bill when his Canon equipment failed. He used a shooting cover, but the sheer amount of moisture in the air meant that there was water ingress. Sure, you can buy the top of the range model and get weather sealing but it seems daft to me that proper sealing is only given to the most expensive equipment. There are brands out there that provide proper sealing even on consumer-level models and that aren't afraid to push the envelope with new models rather than de-feature them so they don't get ahead of their 'premium' products. My advice to my drinking friend? "I really have no idea.". I don't usually link to articles on the big sites much because everybody already tends to read them but for an interesting piece about what 'waterproof' means check out this DP Review article.

Beggars' Ballroom VIII

2011-09-26T07:00:00.001+01:00

The Waiting Stage

Beggars' Ballroom is a six-monthly charity night that showcases local bands and is becoming a regular shoot for me. This time, funds raised were donated to Ataxia UK, a charity which helps people with Ataxia in their day-to-day lives. As usual, much merriment was to be had at the event, as a selection of artists belted out an assortment of popular standards and their own material, and as usual a chilled atmosphere built to one with plenty of frenetic energy (read alcohol) later on. This post contains a selection of shots from the night, though there are earlier posts here and here.

The beautiful and talented Alicia Feledziak

Audio Rampage's Young 2nd Guitarist

Arcade Parade's bassist and background, drummer

In the smoke and lights is Arcade Parade's Lead Singer with 2nd Guitar just visible behind

Pedals in the light during a break

Dan and Andy from Fumar Matar

Dan again, picking out a few notes.

Taking Great Shots Sometimes Seems Easier than Taking Mediocre Ones

2011-09-23T07:00:00.000+01:00

Points awarded to anyone who can guess what this is...

A perennial favourite on photo-sharing sites are images with loads of specular highlights, bokeh or just plain blur. It's somewhat odd that in an age where cameras are designed to make everything as perfect as possible, many photo-junkies are addicted to looking at pictures where a lot of the image is just plain indistinguishable. You'll have noticed there's been a few shots like that on the blog recently too, I'm as guilty as anyone else as loving a bit of circular confusion.

There was a time when something out of focus was considered a 'bad' photograph and something pin-sharp good. Even now, there are ravening hoards of pixel-peepers abroad on the internet, determined to convince the world that perfect image resolution is the key to making the kind of images everyone wants to enjoy. And for that of course, you need the perfect equipment, costing several thousand pounds, which I suppose keeps the camera companies in business, if nothing else.

Actually though, some of the images of mine that people seem to appreciate the most are the ones where I turn off all the gizmos and gadgets, de-focus the lens and just shoot shapes. Soft pastel colours, warm circles and indistinct forms fill the frame and all of a sudden a scene seems to take on a whole new feel. And in some senses, taking this type of shot and getting a good result is a good deal easier than taking a more conventional photograph - just find a likely subject, preferable with some pretty lights, open up the aperture, turn off the autofocus, twiddle and shoot.

It's not just blur though, nowadays we seem to be over-run with photo-apps, actions, presets and gadgets designed to take a thousand pound camera and make it produce images that look like they were shot with a cheap toy. Instagram-style images are appearing more and more everywhere you look, and I've seen quite a lot of commercial work that's coloured, mis-framed or otherwise deliberately flawed in order to evoke a retro style. As ever, there's a certain amount of 'shabby-chic' going on as image-makers seek to evoke nostalgic feelings from the viewer, and the thing about shabby-chic of course is that getting the right sort of shabbiness can be an expensive business - you only need to look at the catwalk to recognise that.

And it's all about style. Photographers are trying to make their work different from that of others by deliberately breaking 'rules', laid down in the past and as an art-form photography seems to be mimicking the painting world in its variety - from the dreamy impressionism of out of focus shots through to the Pre-Raphaelite tones of HDRs. The thing is though, where Monet might have spent all his life working up to the endless series of water-lilly paintings he produced in his latter years, a photographer just needs to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right gadgets and the image is pretty much made. Sure, you have to have some skills too, but perhaps not those of a master painter. I'm not sure if this represents progress or not, but it sure makes for some pretty pictures.

Seeing in London Part 1

2011-09-19T07:00:00.000+01:00

People of Light

Anyone who's visited will probably recognise the exhibits of London's Science Museum. The focus of much of the museum is interactivity, exploration and knowledge, and it's a great place to hunt for candid images of people absorbed in learning about the world around them. It's also a really great place to see some of the machines that have changed our world over the past few hundred years. Great for the kids!

Original Apollo 11 suit. This thing has been to the moon!

Science, sponsored by pharmacy.

It's well worth hanging around these exhibits.

Behind You!

The architecture's pretty cool too.

You Know, it Tends to be the First One You Shoot that's the Keeper.

2011-09-16T07:00:00.000+01:00

Good lenses make life a whole lot easier.

Amongst the many strange things I have observed this month is that my tendency to shoot two or three frames of any subject that comes into my viewfinder is becoming less important to getting the shot. I've had the luxury of a little bit of time to shoot for fun lately, some places to do so and some appropriate subjects, so watch out for some more candid portraits from London and a retro-looking set of old trains coming up on the blog in the next few weeks, oh and in case you missed it did I mention that there's kittens at Casa Shotslot? Here's my thoughts on why I perhaps don't need to endlessly shoot the same image any more...
It's a feature of the digital era which I seem to have taken to automatically, I see a subject, raise the camera to my eye and fire off a careless series of several frames without thinking about any financial or temporal consequences. I do it because I don't want to 'miss' the shot, but lately when I come to process my images I find that whereas when I first started using my camera it took me a few frames to 'get it right', I now have a series of near-identical frames.

Those near-identical frames mean that two out of three images I get are becoming largely surplus to requirements. I'm not going to process them, I'm probably never going to have the time to use them and they therefore serve little practical value whilst taking up lots of hard-drive space. And there's something else funny too, shots two and three (etc.) are likely to be more alike to each other and less visually appealing than shot number one. Whether this is due to improving skills on my part, better instincts, or maybe just learning to 'see' an image more quickly I don't know. I had been thinking that I might try and pay more attention to what frame rate my camera is set to - I really don't need six identical frames of anything that isn't in motion - and maybe it might make me consider the images I was collecting more deeply before I raise the viewfinder to my eye.

I expect I could achieve much the same thing by going back to shoot film for a month. Or doing a project where I only allowed myself to shoot one frame a day (which by the way would drive me totally nuts, and is making me nervous just thinking about it!) for a fortnight or something. Anyway, this first frame fits phenomena is an interesting one and puts me in mind of the whole monkeys and typewriters analogy which would seem to support the idea that any idiot given infinite opportunity and resources (i.e. a digital camera and a nice big memory card) should be able to produce a half-decent image from a given subject, eventually. It just takes time. A better photographer meanwhile, should aim at being an expert in 'capturing the moment' and extracting the maximum bang from a photographic opportunity at any given time. Thankfully, I'm beginning to feel rather less like the monkey.

Some Killer Kittens

2011-09-12T07:00:00.000+01:00

Greetings Earthlings!

Normal service will be resumed next week but this week's photo set is of the kittens which have filled most of our Summer and will (mostly) shortly be leaving us. A considerable improvement on TV, I'd recommend having some kittens to anyone who really can't face another round of 'I'm a brainless idiot, pay me.', or whatever they're calling the latest reality show. Anyway, here's a selection of shots of our four little additions, three are off to their new homes next week, they'll be sadly missed by us, if not by their poor harassed-looking mother!

Tasty Feather.

Dangerous fluffy stick

Stop that!

Round 397 of the endless wrestling contest

Food?

Did someone say 'opposable thumbs'?

Round 398

Exhaustion wins, these slippers were actually already occupied...

The Turn of the Seasons

2011-09-09T07:00:00.000+01:00

This is a post I originally published 12 months ago, oh the irony of it now! A few weeks after I wrote this I became really ill and missed most of the best of the Autumn (or 'fall' if you insist...). Maybe this year...anyway, I've broken with my usual tradition of not repeating myself unless drunk and re-posted it here because it still sums up how I'm feeling about the change of seasons. Remember, make sure you always travel with your camera!

It's coming, I can feel it in the longer, cooler nights and the dewy morning air. Autumn is on the way and even as I write in early September the leaves on the trees have lost their bright lively tones and are starting to look weary and ready to give it up for another year. This turn of the seasons always brings for a me a mixture of delight and dread.

I am by no means a winter person, and I know that Autumn means that the ice and bitterness is coming soon, but the colours...the colours of the landscape as the leaves start to fall are just mind-numbing and this year I've got several shoots all planned out. I feel I'm so much stronger as a photographer than last year too, I feel I can get some of the shots that I want, that my investment of time and effort are paying off, and that I'm going to be needing some really big walls to fit some of my favourite images on!

Autumn has to be the best of seasons for photographers, when we get really lucky we have warm days and can go running through piles of russet leaves...oh the ideas I've got, even if only 1% of them come to fruition I'll go away into the dark winter a happy man. My camera will be at my side whenever possible (I saw an amazing shot whilst out running yesterday, DSLRs are not made for running with, even I am not that crazy!) I've already got my eye on a number of my favourite locations as I drive around the country...watching for that time when the colours are just right.

Ah, I guess all the Southern Hemisphere people are heading into Spring...ah, Spring...what a season...seems so long ago now...

An Afternoon Portrait Shoot

2011-09-05T07:00:00.000+01:00

It's a tough life being a kid, all that swinging around...

Photographing kids for people is always fun and recently I did a shoot for some friends, of their daughter in the local play-park. My friends wanted a picture to give as a gift to another family member and I was happy to oblige, though after my recent bike crash crabbing around on the floor was somewhat awkward.

Given my style of photography, this was never going to be formally posed photographs - I always think you get a much better sense of who someone is, big or small, if you try and capture them doing the sort of thing they usually like to do. All the same, it's worth considering what it is that your clients are looking for before you actually get down to taking the photographs. Half an hour's chat can save a whole shoot and it's worth keeping in mind that what's technically good and interesting to other photographers isn't necessarily what your clients actually want. They might well not understand about depth of field, colour saturation and the like - they just want you to make their kids look good! Generally speaking, I think kids, colourful characters that they are, look best pretty much as they really are, without messing around too much with tones, colour temperatures and stuff.

I also like to take along a few props to play with - bubbles always work well for kids, and hats and other stuff they like. And be prepared to run around a lot! This particular shoot was made a bit more complex because it had to take place in the middle of a sunny day - not ideal and kids aren't exactly going to hang around whilst you mess about with reflectors and the like!

The perfect prop for kids! Especially from an automatic blower.

Quick! To the see-saw!

Faster!!

Delete or Not Delete? Should You Really Keep All Those Digital Photos?

2011-09-02T07:00:00.002+01:00

A recent keeper, in the background are pig-arks and you can even see some of the residents!

There's a real difference in philosophy when it comes to deleting digital images - some people say you should keep everything you shoot because you never know what you'll end up 'discovering' later, whilst others urge you to be ruthless and cull anything that doesn't make the grade at the first opportunity. A significant problem with digital imaging is that you can very easily shoot more images in a day that you can actually view in the same time period (assuming you spend time actually 'looking' at the image), so if you're too shutter-happy you'll never really get chance to do anything useful with the pictures at all.

As a regular photographer you can very quickly build up a back-catalogue of thousands of images which you glanced over quickly at the time that you first processed them, and then consigned to a massive and unwieldy library of images you aren't actually going to use for anything, especially as your skills as a photographer and your tastes change. Shots I took two or three years ago hold limited attraction to me - when I changed from a desktop to a laptop 18 months ago, I just imported all the best images I had onto the laptop and the rest (other than backing them up on an external drive), I haven't needed or bothered with at all.

Relatively cheap storage and quick and easy cataloguing systems do seem to lead you down the road of keeping everything you can, but realistically, when are you ever going to get chance to view these images again, let alone process them, print them or whatever - there was a reason that you rejected them in the first instance, why bother to keep them after that point?

The converse argument of course is that once images they're gone they're gone forever! I am by nature a bit of a hoarder, I admit it. Mrs S is driven slightly nuts by the sheer volume of old science-fiction (etc) paperbacks hanging around the house, but actually the amount of physical space required to store several tens of thousands of digital images is pretty negligible - about the same as a medium-sized paperback book in fact. But I do wonder...who is ever going to look at them?

This post leads me to think that those photos that something has already been done with are the only ones that will be of interest in the future - either to myself or maybe others, since if I haven't bothered to do anything with them, I can't really expect anyone else to later. Would it be better to treat photo storage like the RAM of a computer, a working area where one does what needs to be done, then rejects and quickly over-writes information that is no longer 'relevant' and might as well never have existed?

Perhaps the key to this problem is developing a new strategy. As part of my workflow I've recently begun doing an active select/reject sweep for client photos and immediately deleting anything that is an automatic reject. This takes time of course but in truth, I have to select the winners anyway, unfortunately it also leads me with a whole lot of images in a middle category (often images which are functionally identical to ones I've selected for processing) which I've neither selected nor rejected. Clearly, deleting these immediately would be an error, because I might come across an otherwise excellent shot in the select few which has a key flaw I hadn't initially noticed and is not evident in other shots. But maybe I should revisit them delete them at a later time? Say a few months later?

Perhaps such a move would be liberating, freeing me from the seemingly endless task of backing up and keeping an eye on tens of thousands of images? Or maybe it would be the worst mistake of my photographic career and I ought to just spend some more cash on storage...I'd be interested to know what other people do - not for 'advice' so much as for ideas I issues I might not have considered.

Middle-England Mid-Summer Marvels

2011-08-29T07:00:00.002+01:00

Gate, House and Flowers, Gnosall

The English summertime, with it's random rain-storms, occasional breaks in the cloud and other unexpected weather events is just the perfect place to go for a walk with your camera. You have to have something waterproof to wrap it in of course, and a handy cloth to wipe the raindrops from your lens. This set was taken on the 16th July, just about slap bang in the middle of what we call summer round here, and represent a little wander through the fields, lanes and canals close by.

No rush for this chap.

I could watch these all day.

Grain prices high, fencing prices low.

Thistle encroaching on the grain

The Flower/bee competition shot Tony Eccles requested.

Canal tunnel through the rocks - I loved the light.

Get Pushed!

2011-08-26T07:00:00.000+01:00

Some Pushed Ducklings

You know, the problem with people is that they get comfortable in a their little niches and struggle to embrace change. Not that change for its own sake is a good thing, but then neither is getting stuck in a rut, whether that refers to life as a whole or just that little bit of it called 'photography'. Like anyone else I can slip into a tendency to just work around my comfort zone, being reluctant to push boundaries and try new things with my camera and my technique and that can lead to monotony and worse, boring images.

Photography is all about learning - when you stop learning you've lost the battle, you can no longer be any better than you are and you might as well hang up your gear and take up something new. Who would ever want to do that? In the same way, 'learning' means that you often have to reflect back on what you've done in the past and recognise the weaknesses in your work. That's not to say that old stuff is no good, even if you now have more know-how, think you know more about 'art' or have got a new super-whizzy camera with wowee resolution (or whatever), work that you did right at the beginning of your photographic exploration is probably just as valid (or even more so) as what you've shooting now, it's a representation of where you were, what you saw and how you saw it, even if you'd have taken the shot in a very different way now. Hindsight's a wonderful or a terrible thing, depending on how you look at it. If you can look at old work, say 'I could have...' and then accept that the image is as good as you knew how to make it at the time, it's probably more productive than a chant of 'this is crap'.

Anyway, verbose diversions aside, I've recently joined a Flickr group called 'get pushed' the object of which is to get paired up with another keep photographer, so you can set each other challenges which are outside your comfort zone. You can just volunteer yourself in, put yourself a list and a little while later (you need to check up on the group) you get matched up with someone else and you set each other the challenge. My first challenge was set by John Bingaman a talented photographer of fast-moving things like planes and horses and tiny things like insects and was to shoot 'something that moved'. Big, fast-moving things are in pretty short supply locally during the hours I have available, except cars and they're pretty dull, mostly. In the end, I settled on shooting something small and fast-moving in the shape of some ducklings (though I did take a few comedy pictures of some snails, they just weren't so cute!). I set John the challenge of shooting a street portrait, which he didn't quite manage but came fairly close.

My second challenge was set by JLfromSF and was to take a 2nd curtain sync shot, whilst I set him the challenge of taking a good out of focus portrait. He did a great job...me? Not so...I don't really want to make any excuses so I'll just say I failed the challenge, or at least, I failed to complete the challenge within a reasonable amount of time. Am I going to enter again? Of course, and the opt-in system means that I can just register when I think I'm going to have the time. A big shout of to JordyR for doing a great job with the group.

The Camera Obscura Edinburgh

2011-08-22T07:00:00.000+01:00

Clever Technology

Open a tourist attraction with 'camera' in the title and the chances are I'll be right there, and in this case am I ever glad I was. The Camera Obscura on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh is the most fun I've paid £10 for in ages, a building packed full of illusions, light-tricks, holograms and more, I went in expecting to be there for half an hour and ended up staying the whole afternoon. Easily pleased? Maybe, but as a photographer I'm always interested in things to do with light - it's the medium I work in, so a place that's all about messing with light is just perfect. And the camera obscura itself, an original Victorian wonder, is still pretty impressive even in these days of superzooms. Images from my visit will probably be appearing in my photostream for years (I shot about 300 frames), but meanwhile here's a selection of a few things that made me go 'wow'.

Lots of photographers - you need to see this big!

Bokeh anybody?

Amazingly Spooky

Give me a distorting mirror and just leave me...

Size is always important.

Heat Camera!

Choosing the Right Digital Photography Processing Software

2011-08-19T07:00:00.001+01:00

Another Summer scene near Wall, Northumbria.

Back in the dark days before I acquired my first DSLR I, like many people, used free software like Picasa to manipulate all my images, and when I was trying to make that tricky Nikon/Canon decision (I'd probably have a Pentax were I making the choice now) one of the things that I considered was that Canon supplied their products with some digital editing software.

I think I actually used DPP (the proprietary RAW editor Canon uses) for about a month before I junked it - it was ugly, clunky and slow and I wasn't even sure I understood or liked the way that it processed my images. Now, I don't mean to diss Canon's DPP here - I'm sure it's good at what it does really, because Canon keeps saying it is, but I just couldn't get along with it. In a recent review I read of the Sigma SD1 (SD must stand for 'Stupid Dollars') over at The Luminous Landscape, Nick Devlin describes the Sigma Photo Pro Software:

"This software is functionally unusable (like every other camera makers’ crappy software), and makes getting the best of the camera challenging."

So perhaps it's not just Canon. I think that a big problem with these proprietary programs is that they are just so visually and functionally limited. Many of the the things I can accomplish using Lightroom, such as perspective correction, cropping and changing the white balance I can achieve using DPP, but in Lightroom, in development terms alone, I can do so much more. If I want to dodge and burn a bit or paint something on I can, if I want to quickly apply a tonal cast it's easy, and if I then want to take my image and do something useful with it elsewhere, no problem. Oh, and I can do it in a visual environment that doesn't look like it was designed in 1980s Russia.

Like choosing a good suit, choosing a good post-processor is a matter of taste, comfort and practicality. Unfortunately, no single program seems to do everything, so you have to match your choices to your needs and your technical abilities. There's really no point in shelling out a couple of hundred pounds for a copy of Photoshop if you're only ever going to take snaps of you and the kids on holiday.

Equally, you might find that the very handy Piknik online editor just doesn't give you enough oomph to drop in new skies, liquify your Aunt Doris' legs to supermodel proportions or take the full pixel-by-pixel control of your images that you feel you desire. The great thing about Piknik and Picasa though are of course that they are free, whereas many of the commercial programs represent a substantial amount of potential 'lens money' as an investment for an amateur photographer, and in some cases, don't offer much more functionality than the free programs either.

At the same time, complex and powerful programs like Photoshop are really quite a challenge to learn how to use, and that challenge is made more formidable by the fact that some people find the user interfaces of such programs a real problem in themselves. When software gets really powerful it is by its very nature complex to interact with - a user has to make decisions about what they want to do with an image from a list of seemingly endless possibilities and those possibilities can often be presented in a less than intuitive way.

All of which adds up to quite a headache if you're just getting into photography and want to find a cheap, accessible and quick way to add a little more zing to your photographs. You might try asking around other photographers whose work you admire as to their opinion on the place to start. They're fairly likely to say 'photoshop' (or CS5 or whatever they're calling it this week) because that's the conventional favourite, Adobe's powerhouse has become a by-word for image-manipulation, and not always in a good way. You should probably check out Photoshop Disasters for a quick look at where it can all go horribly wrong and consider that were it not for this one software program much of the visual and commercial world could be very different indeed.

I digress...Once they've gone to the trouble of learning how to use a particular program most people seem to stick with what they're familiar with, which makes getting your choice right at the start (or at least a willingness to change your mind!) all the more important. Many companies offer free trails of their software and I'd really recommend trying them out, but remember, with a really powerful program you'll probably spend most of the month's free trial just getting yourself to the stage where you can understand what's going on, get quite into it and then your time will run out - that's the nature and purpose of free trials after all. Or, you'll very quickly decide a program isn't for you and you can move on to something else. I, however wouldn't pay for a program that isn't extremely powerful indeed because so much is already on offer for free. You can get most of the features of a program like photoshop for zero cost by using open-source programs like GIMP or GIMPShop. Sometimes you have to move beyond the conventional, traditionally quoted choices to identify what's best for you. Although it's quite old now, there's a good list of alternatives (and more in the comments) available here.

For me, what's most important is workflow. I want to take an image, push it quickly through some software and get something good out of the other end as fast and as effortlessly as possible. I don't get a thrill out of perfectly crafting layers in an image to produce a visual masterpiece; if I did, I'd paint. At this stage with my photography I want to show what is rather than what could be, and for me that makes my choice of program pretty obvious. It is so much a preference though, some of the photographers I admire the most just can't get on with it. Diversity is good - if we all used the same thing wouldn't all our pictures look the same too?

Walking the Wall

2011-08-15T07:00:00.000+01:00

In the footsteps of the legions

Over the past ten years I've been lucky enough to photograph ancient Roman sights all over Europe, including several sights in Turkey earlier this year so it would have been remiss of me to fail to visit the Northern border of the Empire during my recent trip to the North-East. Hadrian's wall might not compare so well with the Chinese equivalent but is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and apparently the most popular tourist attraction in Northern England. The short section we walked included a brief detour to a Lough, complete with typically Northern weather!

The rebuilt section of the wall near the ruin of Housesteads Fort.

Stones in the Lough

Brooding clouds that soon brought rain..and hail!

And another...I did like the Lough!

View of the wall toward Housesteads

Why You Should Probably Have a Photoblog

2011-08-12T07:00:00.001+01:00

Piggies and Poppies

A photo-friend of mine has been setting up a photoblog recently and we were having a discussion about why I run Shotslot, what I get out of it and whether I thought it added anything to my development as a photographer. My answer, impassioned as ever, was that what started out as an experiment in dipping my toes into self-publicity has ended up as a bit of an obsession and a way of charting my progress. It's an ongoing journal in which I can, from anywhere with net access, look back at shots I took ages ago and get an impression of what was obsessing me at that time, but also one that encourages me to keep going and keep developing my work and which allows me to communicate with the outside world in a more meaningful way than the odd post on Flickr.

If I did just want to post the odd image to the web then sure enough, Flickr (or 500px or whatever) would serve that purpose, but I don't find that such a service is able to keep pace with either my shooting or what I have to say about it - post more than one shot a day and the chances are that most of your contacts wont see 'em, meaning some of your best images, or those which people are most likely to talk about, disappear into the virtual Flickr hole that is 'the past'. The fact that such sites are also social media is also a problem - too often in a busy life I find myself rushing through the images of my contacts when really it would be better to stop and say something useful. It becomes a bit of a chore and it really shouldn't be.

Probably the main purpose of a blog is that it's an excellent place to keep people abreast of what you're up to day-to-day and an active blog, run in conjunction with a more official 'store-front'/portfolio site, is (in theory at least) a good way of keeping potential clients in touch with the sort of work you're doing, the sort of photographer you are and more. That sound like an advert for Blogger or Wordpress? In a sense it is because both these options are free and pretty straightforward to use, Shotslot blog uses the Blogger platform for nothing more than those reasons, oh and the fact that it plays well with lots of other programs that I use.

A blog is a great way to have little mini-exhibitions of your work - and that's what I mostly do, so that people who are interested can dip in and out again as they please. I consider photography 'ART' so I'm only ever trying to show people the world the way that I see it - what better way to do that than in your own little corner of the th'internet? A little corner where you have absolute control of what's on display, and how it's shown off?

The internet is a funny place though - there are thousands upon thousands of active photoblogs out there, with the number growing every day as photography continues to gain in popularity and more and more people want to get in on the act. Increasing the number of visits to this blog and its general readership is highly dependent on me occasionally publishing an article on one of the megasites like DPS. Such articles draw in thousands of readers and one or two stick usually around. It's actually pretty difficult and time-consuming to generate general traffic because the internet is over-run with people offering tips, advice and reviews on photography-related stuff. Realistically you have to be very lucky, very talented or very highly financed to hit the big-time. So that's not why you do it, because it can feel like you're talking to yourself at times (you are), so if you start a blog don't be expecting a thousand people to suddenly be talking to you about apertures or anything.

Another good thing about blogging for the photographer is that it acts as a central contact point - if you want people to see your work but aren't necessarily touting for business it sounds better to say "check out my blog" and hand them a card than just saying "Facebook me" where you're just another of the millions doing the same. Art is about expression right? So unless it's part of your thing to make like everyone else, why not do something (moderately) different? Effort in, results out? Maybe.

Addendum: Oh, I nearly forgot to add this, here's the friend's shiny new blog, check out her work she's cool!

Fatherfest Birmingham Part 3

2011-08-08T07:00:00.001+01:00

Bars so often look like this to me...

Ok, these are the last few from the Birmingham meet...

An unusual angle on a popular building

A more colourful (con)version of an earlier shot

"Stand there and I'll get us all"

A box of musical frogs-legs (really!!) and some interesting reflections.

A young lady with a colourful style.

The sort of ironic counterpoint that I love about cities - The Big Issue is a magazine run by and for the homeless.

Being Ready to Get the Shot

2011-08-05T07:00:00.002+01:00

"Don't look now, that bloke's got a camera!"

Street shooting is one of my favourite ways to make images, although it often requires me getting in some sort of vehicle and going somewhere that there are lots of people. It's fun to pick somewhere interesting to sit and try and and capture a slice of the world, or to wander randomly grabbing frames as you go. The problem with the way I do street-shooting however is that a DSLR isn't always the best tool to use. Apart from the fact that you look pretty obvious with a great big pointy lens which people tend to shy away from, it can be difficult to lug around on the streets.

There's a couple of approaches you can take if you want to avoid being noticed - get a really long lens so your subject wont see you off in the distance, or get a wide lens so it doesn't look like you're it pointing at them (the subject will be included anyway). Actually, I do neither, using a pretty obvious 25-105 lens and tending to get into people's faces - I figure that sometimes being noticed can make a picture - it engages the viewer and can be quite fun.

DSLR's shine is in their ability to capture the moment - there's none of the shutter lag you get with most point and shoot cameras so the fleeting image you saw isn't gone by the time the frame has been grabbed. The recent Birmingham photowalk though, reminded me that there are different options out there both in terms of equipment and technique. Tony was using a funky Fuji X100, a thousand-pound technological marvel which impressed me from the first moment I picked it up with its build quality and clever hybrid viewfinder. These things have been getting rave reviews and it was pretty obvious why. On the down side, you are limited in frame-burst length by a fairly low write speed (compared to an SLR) and you are stuck with just one lens. On the up-side, there's little lag if you get your technique right, if you pre-focus the lens and act cool nobody realises you are shooting at all. Pre-focusing is done by calculating the hyperfocal distance of the lens you're using and turning off autofocus. For maths-heads there's an in-depth description of hyperfocal distance over here, meanwhile, if you just want to work out how to do this cool pre-focusing thing there's two techniques. One is to calculate the hyperfocal distance, check out this explanation of what that's about by Tony - for your lens at a given distance from the subject (DOF Calculator) and another is to use the similarly straightforward Zone Focusing Method. By the way, whilst researching this I was again struck by the number of people who believe that to shoot great street photos you must have a Leica. Money...sense...

Whilst it might seem counter-intuitive, taking the crazy step of turning off the autofocus is actually a liberating thing to do. It's actually pretty difficult to have your camera set up to grab fleeting scenes while at the same time putting together a great compositional masterpiece. Also, unless your lens is lighting-fast, you could miss out on a great shot whilst your lens gets itself together. Finally, it gives you the very useful option of shooting 'from the hip' in situations where you don't want to be noticed.

Fatherfest Birmingham Part 2

2011-08-01T07:00:00.000+01:00

This is an amusing mix of self admiration and photography

These are a while ago now but I thought I should get round to posting the another few images I took during the Birmingham Flickr meet-up. Not sure where the next venue is but I can't wait!

Preparation is key! I think these were promo ladies getting ready to swoop on the city.

In places Birmingham has some gorgeous architecture

In others, art distracts from 60s nightmares

Two ladies and a camera. They weren't part of the meet, this was a lucky spot

I include this because it looks to me almost South American. Birmingham seems full of the unexpected.

Remember! What You See is What You Get at Maximum Aperture!

2011-07-29T07:00:00.017+01:00

Can't see a thing!

Mrs S was playing with my camera the other day as I drove the motorway network, and complained that the images she was seeing through the viewfinder weren't the same as those coming out of the rear screen of the camera once the photo was taken. If you have a DSLR and you're new to it, a good compositional habit for those who are playing with the Aperture Priority settings of their camera is to take conscious note of what's in focus when you half-squeeze the shutter button. This might seem obvious, but until you get to the stage where you can mentally guestimate the relationship between aperture, focal length and your distance from the subject, this tells you what will be in focus at maximum (i.e. wide open) aperture or near to it, before you fully depress the button.

It's not so good for judging what's in focus at smaller apertures though, because when you look through your camera's viewfinder your lens is as wide open as it will go - so you can see what you're shooting at - and it 'stops down' (closes up) to whatever setting you've selected in the instant before the shutter opens and the image is recorded by the camera's sensor. If you're lucky, your camera comes with a Depth of Field preview button (this is strangely hidden and unlabeled on Canon cameras, as if the manufacturers are vaguely embarrassed by it - it's that little one by the lens mount) and when you press the button, the lens stops down to the aperture setting you've selected. Everything goes dark! If you're at a significantly smaller aperture than the lens' maximum however, (and there's enough light) you might also notice that a lot more of your frame is now in focus. This is what will be in focus when you press the shutter.

Of course, some photographers will shy away from the maximum and minimum capabilities of their lenses since the 'sweet spot' of lenses is usually considered to be (generally speaking) in the middle of the available range, but as a learning photographer you need to experiment, and besides, you might not be that bothered by a little 'fringing' or 'softness' in your image in any case, so long as you get the shot you were looking for. The shallow depth of field look is always a popular one on the photo-sharing sites as well and it's certainly worth a little experimentation if you get the chance.

Of course, all this may be a moot point if the Lytro Camera concept takes off.

An Afternoon on Lindisfarne

2011-07-25T07:00:00.001+01:00

A Northumberland Weekend Residence

Lindisfarne or 'Holy Island' is a delightful little tidal island on the North-East Coast of England, famous in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as being the first place pillaged by the Vikings, it's also believed to be have where early Christians based themselves so that they could convert the Mercians and other residents of mainland Britain. It's worth noting that Christianity came to Ireland, on the other side of Britain, a good few hundred years before. Lindisfarne itself boasts both a castle and a monastery (destroyed at the behest of Henry VIII and now a ruin) and is designated an area of outstanding natural beauty. There is a community living on the island, which even boasts a couple of pubs and for those who like walking, plenty of peace and quiet to go with the gorgeous scenery on a good day. As usual I shot a couple of hundred frames, there was just so much to see..

In the harbour.

Daisies on the shoreline

Destination Anywhere

Ok, ok, it's another poppy, I just can't help it!

Monastery and cross

A bench with a view

My favourite, grabbed as I crossed back over to the mainland.

Going up Against the Competition

2011-07-22T07:00:00.003+01:00

Man and a Paper - I'm not entering this for anything, I just like it!

Over the past few months I've been thinking about getting round to entering some photographic competitions as an alternative way to get potentially increased exposure. I don't really know much about competitions overall but reckon that if nothing else a 'shortlisted' or other accolade has got to be good for the CV. I know this sounds like a sort of crazy half-assed and ill-considered approach to trying to do anything but I reckon that everybody must start out something like this and that the evidence suggests that some people do win these things - why the hell not me? Or you?

Not that I think my photography is of Sony World Photographer of the Year standards or anything like, but I think that trying to work towards a greater level of proficiency will eventually pay dividends. Or else I'll enter loads of things and I'll never get anywhere but at least it might persuade me to focus a bit more clearly on putting together a formal portfolio.

You see, one of the things I now know is that social networking sites like Flickr, Facetube etc are really just that - social networking sites where people can get online together and say nice (or nasty) things about each other. "40,000 views on Flickr" isn't really the sort of thing that you can put on promotional material though - it's possible to come across people on such sites whose perfectly ordinary though no less important to them photography attracts masses of views and comments, because the reciprocal nature of this type of site encourages you to improve your social skills more than your photography. By this I don't mean that there aren't millions of talented photographers out there on the net, and neither do I mean that my own photography is 'just tragically mis-understood' because not enough people like/fave/sponsor my work that I get on Explore every day, I just mean that I doubt the true value of such sites other than in helping photographers/net users connect with each other - controversial I know, but I'm also aware that I'm not the only one to share this view and some people who hold this view are really good photographers but this article says something different and suggests that you don't mix business and pleasure.

Anyway, to get back to the point, I came across this link recently, which I apologise may be considered a bit Eurocentric...this one might be better for US/international readers, which details known competitions available for entry. I think I'm going to give it a go - it's got to be better than entering the lottery and how else am I going to pay for a 5DMkIII?

FatherFest Birmingham - A Flickr Meet 'n' Greet Part 1

2011-07-18T07:00:00.002+01:00

Quick! Everyone make like a photographer!

It's amazing how much you can learn from meeting up with a bunch of other photographers, both about the technical aspects of shooting and about your own work and style. The on-line world is really not the ultimate tool for becoming a better photographer because you're normally working in your own isolated bubble and you just don't form the same connections and understanding that you can from doing things with others in 'real' life.

My recent trip to Birmingham to meet up with six other photographers (one of whom then cried off and went shopping!!) was truly inspiring because it taught me a lot about how other people see photography, how they approach capturing an image, oh and how boys talk about numbers more than girls! It was also a whole lot of fun, and here's a bunch of the images I grabbed along the way. Meanwhile, I'd recommend meeting up for a session like this to anyone, it's so nice to talk about f stops, creativity and cameras and have people not yawn!

I wish we were...this was a case of seeing the shot and just waiting for the right person to come along and be in it.

One of my favourites of the day.

Parkour. A great opportunity to go into the city and show off!

This is actually about 12 feet up.

"Let's sit here and ignore the TV"

It beats Wheelbarrow races.

Google+ Takes Over My World

2011-07-15T11:42:00.001+01:00

Oh dear, this is quite dreadfully off topic, but there's something new on the social network scene and it looks like it might stomp all over Twitter and Facebook. I don't Facebook because I find it too much - just looking at it confuses the hell out of me. Truth be told I never really got it, found it invasive, pervasive and irritating.

So, welcome Google+! It's still in beta and although it looks like there are currently a few issues with sharing photographs it is rather more intuitive that Facebook, allows you to do more than Twitter and may be advertising/publicising tool that the little man was looking for. I say the little man because if there's one thing that grates me about social networking sites it's that you tend to get bombarded with corporate nonsense, and you can't buy a box of cereal nowadays without being entreated to 'follow us on Facetube' or something. Yeah, because I'm so in to doggy-milky-treaty-bits I want to hear everything the manufacturer's PR department has to say on the subject.

Interestingly, France have just banned exactly that sort of announcement from their news programs, citing that it is actually advertising. I'm sure it wont last but Google+ looks clean, straightforward and apart from the inherent googliness, advert-free! Meanwhile, like twitter you have the option to share something with the world, but unlike it it's easy to share with just one or a circle of people. Genius!

The bad side? It's slightly addictive. Especially since it's a good place to post links, chat and actually have a conversation, rather than just post that you were 'nipping to the loo' or 'eating' or some such ridiculousness. Will it be any use to me as a photographer? I guess time will tell, I'm still learning to use the interface, trying to understand it as a concept and get my head around what it 'does'.

Meanwhile, someone has kindly written me a summary of their thoughts here. If anyone wants an invite to Google+ they are welcome to email me! Apologies for two posts in one day!

Slow Down - Get Your Post-Processing Right and Enjoy Your Images

2011-07-15T08:28:00.000+01:00

Always follow instructions...

In my efforts to 'get on with' my photography lately, I've been feeling a good deal of pressure to process images fast so that I can move on to the next project, the next set of images to be forced through the Lightroom grinder, and the next bunch of chances to make a great image. Part of the problem here is that I've been finding the endless repetition of digital processing activities really rather dull...

In truth and as I've said several times before, I much prefer having a camera in my hand than a mouse. I take photographs because I like capturing images, not because I love fiddling with sliders on the computer, so coming back from a trip or session with several hundred shots on a memory card almost depresses me because I know that I then have to sit down for several hours over the following weeks and process what I got from the shoot. I then start to worry when I start to get behind with my processing - you can capture an image in 1/100 sec, it takes considerably longer to get it from the card into something you'd be willing to show, even with the maxim to 'get it right in camera'.

The temptation in this situation is to immediately start taking short-cuts, shoving on ill-considered presets and tweaks for each image in a set, to hastily assemble a bunch of images from the shoot with little regard or consideration for the potential available in each shot and the ideas I had in mind when I originally squeezed the shutter button. Clearly this would be an error.

This reluctance to engage with post-processing has led me to examine in more detail what I'm avoiding and the reasons behind it, and to conclude that I'm not as comfortable as I'd like to be with my post-processing skills. 'Being a good photographer' is a learning process - you don't wake up one morning with all the experience and tools you could possibly require to go out and earn a living. As a self-taught photographer I haven't had the opportunity to spend three (or more) years 'studying' the craft at College or University, even if I sincerely wish that I had. Even then though, the skills you learn can quickly become outdated - digital technology moves fast and the photographer who wants to stay current has to do the same. I'm pretty confident with many aspects of digital post-processing now (my photoshop skills aren't great because I rarely use it, but I do at least have an understanding of what different settings do) but there are things I need to work on and I think you really have to master post-processing if you want to be the the best you can be.

I'm always looking for the next step forward that I can take, whether in skills or inspiration and so with some trepidation, I've started delving really deep into the heart of Lightroom in order to try and get my proverbial black-belt. I say 'delve into the heart' because this program really is a masterpiece of complexity once you get into it - who knew that you could leave off the saturation slider altogether and just play vibrance to get a more accurate/pleasing effect? Not me, apparently, or at least not consciously and with a fuller understanding of what the vibrance slider actually does.

And this decision to brush up my skills has led me further to make another decision about my photography - I'm going to try and slow down a bit and work consciously on individual shots for a longer period, rather than be tempted to rush from one to the next in an effort to produce quantity. Quantity was important for a while - I needed to learn fast and amass a decent body of images, but now I reckon that I can afford a little more time to craft images rather than mass-process them - maybe that way I'll begin to appreciate the images themselves a little more and get more out of my post-production commitments. And that appreciation may feed back into my photography so that I take more account of what I'm shooting whilst I'm shooting it, so I can have more consideration for the final outcome and more enjoyment from my photography overall.

Images of Edinburgh Castle

2011-07-11T07:00:00.004+01:00

Castle Postcard

Well, the third of the Edinburgh posts is this little one on the castle. Teeming with tourists, all happily clicking away sometimes it's nice to just blend in with the crowd. The castle itself has some of the nicest views of any I've visited, leastways whilst the sun shines!

Shoot now!

View to the hills

Sorry about the ankles soldier!

Any English out there?

Must make call....

The Lure of Film

2011-07-08T07:00:00.000+01:00

There's no denying it - they don't make 'em like they used to!

It must be six years since I last took a serious photograph with a film camera (the throwaway ones you get at weddings and the things I shot with them, I'm not going to count) - I know because it was on the occasion of my honeymoon when I'd bought a cheap underwater camera with which to record the watery delights of the Maldives...I wish I could do that trip again! Recently, whilst rooting around at the back of the sofa for something I came across my old Pentax K1000 and a load of Fuji Superia film (expiry date 2006!) and immediately considered having a little tinker with analogue, since one of my contacts on Flickr has been doing the same with some interesting results.

I can't see me shelling out for more film so I'm only realistically going to use the expired stuff I have, and there's no way I'm going to start messing about with darkrooms and smelly chemicals, I know it's very retro-fashionable and all that but I really don't have that much time...or money. I see though that there's kits you can buy (£25ish) to help you do it...still, no thanks, I can get a machine to do it for me. A quick google shows me that there's still a few places (like Kodak, bless 'em) who still offer a film developing service, but wow it's still not cheap, I can see why someone invented digital!

I'm not sure whether the cost involved is really going to be worth the effort for me - I'm unlikely to actually want any prints as such, just the film developed and provided in digital format but I reckon I might give it a go sometime soon, just for the fun of the mechanics rather than the various beeps, whirrs and flashing lights you get nowadays. I still have a number of images displayed in my house of shots I took years ago on holiday in Italy, and actually the prints themselves haven't stood up to well to exposure to light - the vibrant colours have been washed away from many of them and it might be worth me printing them again. Ironic really that prints (modern or traditional) only seem to survice well if kept where nobody can see them.
Anyway, if I get round to it I'll certainly be posting a few images here, I have a 50mm, a 70-200mm and a 24mm Macro lens (Now there's an odd one!) so there's plenty of opportunity for variety. I think that shooting with digital has without a doubt made me a better photographer and I'm certainly not one of those who considers that you have to do analogue to be a 'proper' photographer (I actually think that they're rather different 'arts') but I think it's fun to experiment, I doubt I'll ever buy any more film for my old Pentax, so I may as well use up what I've got!

More Street Scenes of Edinburgh

2011-07-04T07:00:00.000+01:00

Rain? Who'd of thought it?

This is the second of the Edinburgh photo sets, taken in and around the city whenever something caught my eye. A couple more to come yet - I just love that street shooting, and every time I hit a city I just can't seem to help myself.

Drippy Graffiti!

At the Cameo

I have no idea - 'Vote Bag'? What does that even mean?

Castle Climb

Cool & Colourful

Another Time Machine

Light in the Alley

Street Elevator

A Well-Earned Break

Post 200

2011-07-01T07:00:00.001+01:00

200! Another milestone achieved and since this is probably the last one of those that I'll be pointing out for a while I thought it would be nice to take a quick review of the blog, point out a few of my favourite posts and talk about what I'm up to next. Post 100, way back in July 2010, discussed a few of the earlier posts, what I was trying to do with the blog in the future (essentially categorise my posts better...it might be post 500 before I finally get there!) and the remodelling of the blog that had gone on a short while before. The remodelling itself has only really been (semi)finalised in the past few months...I'm ok with it for now anyway.

I haven't always had as much time to devote to the blog as I would have liked but overall I'm pretty pleased with it as a record of what I've been up to, my progress with my camera, what and where I've been shooting and who I've been pointing my lens at. There's a list of the most popular posts over on the right hand sidebar, but I think that overall 'popular' is down to clever titles leading in from google rather than because one post is better or worse than another. Having said that, I note that most of those popular posts were written during the period when I had rather more time on my hands so perhaps I did do a better job of putting together something interesting then.

Regular readers will have noticed by now that I try and keep the blog in a pattern of two posts a week - one post with a set of images from a photowalk or event and another on a subject broadly connected to, if not strictly about photography, and I prefer to do this than just post an image every day because it allows me to do more than just shoot and publish - after all if I was just going to post an image every day I could just use Flickr (assuming I reinstated my pro account). This pattern gives me a certain amount of encouragement to get out and shoot regularly, but also keeps me continually assessing my progress, my learning and my knowledge base because I like to generally avoid posting what's immediately available elsewhere, which means that I have to keep up with my reading so I don't just repeat the work of others - not that anything I have to say here is particularly unique, it's just that I try to provide a different set of insights than those that might be given by other blogographers (TM).

I particularly enjoy that this is a little corner of the internet that's all my own and that it reflects something uniquely 'me'. I really like that people stumble across it and offer kind comments or thoughts about what I've been up to, which it's probably why I've kept going, building what started out as a way of charting my work into what's now a fairly substantial body of work.

Which leads me into the bits that I like best so far. Most of all I enjoyed the Anniversary Photo Submission posts and the http://www.shotslot.net/2011/03/my-favourites-from-505050-challenge.html which leads me to conclude I should probably include more photo-submissions on the blog; however that's already available on a great many photo-sites and I'm aware that drifting in that direction is likely to make the blog very like so many others, not necessarily a bad thing or a good thing, but something I need to be aware of. Also anything that requires significant additional admin needs to be avoided unless I can find someone else to do it!

I have this vague concept that it would be a good idea to put together some more mini-challenges and maybe develop some more themes but I'm not 100% what they should be yet - better to keep an open mind! I certainly want to do some more writing for the big photosites - I feel that this complements the blog and my own work really well, not least because it increases my own 'web-presence' (that sounds like some sort of line out of Poltergeist..."I feel a presence in the web") and, when I get round to submitting anything photographic, gets more people to see my work.

Essentially then, just more plodding on, though I'm always interested to receive suggestions and comments from readers, especially anyone who has a great idea of collaborative piece they want to work on. I'm much more interested in learning than in becoming an internet phenomenon and find that that the best way to learn is to do stuff with others.

Overcoming a Photographic Flat-Spot

2011-06-27T07:00:00.000+01:00

A Good Crop?

It happens to everyone now and again, you want to produce some great new images but utterly lack any inspiration about how you should go about it. Getting tied up with other work projects, becoming distracted by important family responsibilties or just being bogged down with hum-drum processes like editing several hundred of your photos can all serve to de-motivate and de-inspire, and stop you from going out and reminding yourself why you got into this photography stuff in the first place - you like it remember?

If you don't remember then perhaps it's about time you planned to spend some quality time with your old shutter-buddy. Set yourself a little goal. Come up with a little mini-project or maybe just set aside a couple of hours for a local 'field trip'. I usually like to have a couple of things on the go at once, so that when I get bored of one I can focus in on another. Lately I've been trying to get myself going properly on a couple of projects, the 100 strangers (finally, only 99 98 to go!) and some colour projects, I'm thinking that I might spend a week shooting everything interesting I see that's coloured blue.

Why should I bother? Well, because I really like 'doing photography', particularly when I'm learning something new or when I'm shooting something that I've never pointed my camera at before. I like messing about with different techniques, or trying to reproduce techniques that I've seen others use. I'm fairly sure I'm not going to discover anything that hasn't been done a million times before but it all adds to my skills base and unless I get out with my camera I'm not actually going to learn anything.

I also think that time spent looking at the work of others - whilst often inspirational - can also be rather demotivating. "I'm never going to be as good as..." is a thought that can cross ones mind and is an encouragement to fail. 'If you're going to fail then why bother?' is the obvious conclusion to the thought process and before you know it you've put your camera down and gone off to do something much more worthwhile - like watching trashy TV.

I hate trashy TV, it makes me all shouty and I try not to get drawn down into that "I'll never be..." thought process. Instead, I'll try and plan a trip based on how far I can get on my limited time/financial budget - it might be just a walk in fields on a really limited day - but getting out and taking photographs definitely inspires me to do more. Someone pointed out to me the other day that road-running is a habit that you can get out of if you don't keep doing it - photography is the same, the more you shoot, the more you want to shoot...editing can always wait for a (really) rainy day...

One Saturday in Edinburgh

2011-06-24T07:00:00.000+01:00

Bustle!

The editing is finally underway for the 1000+ images I brought happily back from my recent trip to Scotland and the North-East, there's some real peaches but these first few represent a day arriving in a new (to me) city, wandering about with my camera to my face shooting everything that caught my eye. I loved the city, it was a friendly place with great food and beer, and really what more do you need from a city? Mrs S liked it for the shopping too, and I'd encourage anyone who doesn't know the place to give it a go. There's a lot more images to follow, but it is taking me time to work through them all...

Mmmm coffee! I liked this cool machine

Faces in the window

Make Art Not War! There was quite a lot of anti-war protest going on in the city, I was really pleased to catch this shot!

Staffordshire in Edinburgh...this was a beer and oysters stop.

Time Machine? You don't see many police boxes any more, but they've been made a feature here.

How Many Other 'Serious' Photographers Do You Know?

2011-06-20T07:00:00.006+01:00

Film Nikon Master

The other day I happened to watch the movie 'Close Encounters of Third Kind' for the first time in about 20 years or something with Mrs S and the daughter, neither of whom had seen it, and in a line from the (1977) movie one of the characters states that Americans were thought to have taken about 1 billion photographs that year. Assuming that the scriptwriters got that figure right, I thought Wow! That was a lot in those days of film, but then I got to thinking about how many photos must be taken around the world, nearly 35 years and a lot of technology later.

The answer? I have no idea, google didn't seem to know either which seemed odd, maybe there just aren't enough noughts! Eckstein though reckons that 3,000 images are uploaded to Flickr alone every single minute and presumably for most people that's just the good shots that they take! Anyway, all that got me to thinking about the number of people I've seen knocking around with fancy cameras lately, every time I go anywhere that there's more than 50 people at the same time there always seems to be loads of folks with DSLRs in their hands, clicking away like mad. Recession eh? Maybe...
though, my interest in photography has made me increasingly photog-sensitive, more likely to spot other photographers because I'm always intested in the the tech they're carrying and the things that they're shooting, so I got to thinking how many 'serious' photographers I actually know. The loose definition of 'serious' I used was anybody who I knew used anything more than a basic point and shoot (though I'm happy to admit that lots of 'serious' photographers do great work armed with just their 3 meg cameraphone). I only included people I know pretty well on a face-to-face basis in my everyday life, otherwise it'd become some sort of ridiculous problem trying to judge whether I really 'know' someone on-line or whether that bloke I met at the camera show last year counted. The answer I finally came up with was 11 ish, almost all of whom use SLRs. I'm not sure if that's a lot of people or a few, and I'm not sure either whether I have an observation bias towards DSLRs, but anyway I thought it would be fun to ask Shotslot readers how many 'serious' photographers they knew (you can use your own definition) I'm not going to do anything in particular with the information which will be anecdotal at best, it's just for fun and to see if it's just me or that there are rather a lot of photographers around right now. I'm going to hold the poll open for a few weeks (it's over there on the right hand side of the page! I do hope it actually works this time.) so vote and let me know.

NB: I fully appreciate also that just having a DSLR doesn't make one a 'serious' photographer - I'm sure there's plenty of people out there with Canon 7Ds which they use as a point 'n' shoot.