Do professional photographers love their job?

Pierre, framer and artist, Ostend, Belgium.

“Photography is my passion,” is an often used phrase. I’ve noticed that many amateurs are particularly enthusiastic about being photographers and dream of turning professional.

But when you look at a survey like the one done by jobsrated.com the reality of being a professional photographer hits home. You may be forgiven, after reading professional photographer’s blogs that every single one of them is as happy as pig in the mud. However in the survey which rated the top 200 careers photography only came in at number 125 behind jobs like bookkeeper (39), librarian (43), typest/wordprocessor (54), cashier (110) and telephone operator (115).

“Moving further down the rankings reveals an eclectic mix of jobs which either suffer from intense physical demands, such as veterinarians and construction machinery operators, or, as in the case of photographers, post mediocre scores in work environment and stress while offering exceptionally low pay,” writes careercast.com.

So having established that once you become a professional photographer life is not necessarily a bed of roses let’s take a look at what I think is the essential difference between those in the profession doing a job to put food on the table and those who are living the dream.

For me the fundamental differentiator is loving what you do. Through circumstances you may currently be doing wedding photography and you’re stressed out, tired and doing your best to deliver high quality work, but deep down you’re not loving it, and you’d far rather be photographing your favourite sport or fashion, or something else. Or it may be the other way round and you’re currently shooting fashion but long to get out of that slightly unreal world and work with ordinary people and share their emotions on the biggest day of their lives, their wedding, so you like to be a wedding photographer.

Every one of us is drawn to something in particular and the trick to being happy in what you do is to recognize what that is and then work towards making your job all about the photography you love to do.

The benefits are exponential because once you’re doing something you love you’ll be more enthusiastic, more dedicated and you’ll get better at it and more clients will want your work.

If you’re a professional photographer and you don’t love it then for heavens sake go and do something else. Follow your dream! And of course the same goes for photographers not currently shooting what they love. I urge you to do everything you can to rekindle the passion and love for what you do on a daily basis. It will bring you enthusiasm, energy and enhance the quality of your work.

Take the first small step soon. Go make a picture of something you love.
I don’t follow trends. I don’t chase after the latest money making ideas. I do what I love. It’s the only way to get ahead. I’d rather be making trends than following them.

Till soon,

Paul
www.indigo2photography.co.uk

Achieving success through improving communications

It’s never been easier to communicate; phone, email, text, instant messaging and traditional post. Information flows freely back and forth in blogs, magazines, tweets, forums, websites, podcasts and videos – the channels are many and varied.

However when I look at what is communicated I wonder about the real value of much of this information. When someone announces on twitter that they had a cheese sandwich and cup of coffee for lunch, I have to ask, “Who on earth cares?” I certainly don’t. By the way I plucked this example from thin air, so if you tweeted about your lunch please don’t take it personally.

Then there’s the endless regurgitating and recycling of information. I just did a quick search on Google for the ‘golden mean in photography’ and got 1,280,000 hits. Anyone who thinks they can add anything of value by writing about this topic again needs their head examined – total waste of time. But I bet right now there are people researching the golden mean by reading some of those articles and then paraphrasing them and rewriting the same stuff which has probably been written 20 times better in the past.

I know I’ve done this too but from now on I resolve to try to tackle things from a fresh and original perspective. I want to contribute something of value – not just add to the noise.

The other thing that bothers me is the quality of writing we are subjected to these days. The internet enables anyone to publish their words without the benefit of the slightest editorial control. Correct grammar and punctuation have become alien arts. People forget that there are reasons for rules and conventions. While I am not a language purist by any means I do recognize that the purpose of correct grammar, spelling and punctuation is to enhance the clarity of the message the writer is trying to communicate.

The reason why professional writers are successful is because they use language effectively to communicate ideas clearly – and that means conforming to the rules or bending them in a way that does not detract from the clarity of the message.

I receive numerous emails from students wanting to work with my company. Often their punctuation is poor, they don’t use capitals, their grammar is appalling and there are loads of spelling errors. In the worst cases they use phone text abbreviations. They forget that all I have to judge them on is a few sentences. What do I see? The student doesn’t care about making a good impression, can’t be bothered to put the effort in and pays no attention to getting detail right. Would I give them a chance ahead of someone who shows more diligence? No I would not.


The same logic applies to others who are trying to market their services. For example I often see photographer’s websites with appalling language errors. Again it indicates to me a lack of care and poor attention to detail. Immediately alarm bells start ringing. Would I trust an expensive shoot to this person? Not likely.

On the other hand I have tremendous empathy with people for whom English is not their first language. It’s a huge challenge to communicate in a foreign language and I can only praise their efforts.

Ultimately I believe that readers appreciate a carefully crafted and well written piece. The writer’s reward for putting the extra effort into their writing will be readers who are prepared to match their effort with their own effort to understand the ideas the writer is trying to communicate.

Success as a writer or photographer is far more likely if you communicate something of interest to your audience with absolute clarity.

Till soon,

Paul
www.indigo2photography.co.uk/
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How much photographic equipment do you need?

Part of our old Hasselblad system in its case

Many of us photographers get a little carried away with all the cool gadgets, equipment and cameras. We end up with lots of stuff – sometimes causing mild distress to our partners. Fortunately my wife is also a photographer although she takes a very practical approach to equipment. I’m definitely the Magpie in our family.

So I’ve ended up with truck loads of cameras and gadgets. And guaranteed when I open a photo magazine tomorrow I’ll see something else that ‘I need’. I’m sure that many of my readers will be nodding their heads wistfully at this stage. All sounds a bit familiar eh.

But sometimes all of this stuff can get in the way of good photography. I remember seeing a photographer in the street a while back with a backpack, a camera bag in each hand and a tripod, and two cameras dangling round his neck. The poor chap could hardly move, never mind capture the action on the street. He decided to go for a tripod shot and then spent 15 minutes struggling with various bits and pieces on his tripod and changing lenses – opening this bag and then that one, shifting things around. In the meantime several really interesting people walked by but he had his head down busy with his stuff. I stood there and shook my head in wonder. After 15 minutes of watching him fussing and not taking a single shot, I gave up and wandered off.

So what should you take with you on a photo-shoot. Well it very much depends on what you want to do. If you’ve got a big production ala Annie Liebowitz then you’ll need an articulated lorry. If you’re into flash and bringing your own light to the party like David Hobby or Joe McNally then a few bags of flashes and lighting paraphernalia are the norm. For photojournalists like James Nachtwey a camera and a 28-70 F2.8 will do nicely, or Steve McCurry – travelling light with his camera and three fixed lenses. Cartier Bresson famously took most of his images on his Leica with a standard lens.

The key questions to ask yourself are:

• What type of image am I after?
• What is the environment going to be like?
• Will I have somewhere to leave my equipment safely or will I need to travel light and move fast?
• What is going to cause me more hindrance than it is worth?
• If I leave xyz behind will that kill my chances of getting a good shot?

Am I going to swamp eBay with all my stuff now? Nope. I’ll be keeping it just in case, ahem… but I do think very carefully whether I need to take something with me and I go through the questions above every time I pack my bags.

Here’s another tip for you. If you’re travelling and don’t want to risk lots of expensive equipment in the aircraft hold then you may want to investigate hiring stuff when you arrive on location. It can save a lot of headaches.

Till soon,
Paul
www.indigo2photography.co.uk
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Beware of wide-angle distortion in portrait photography

The traditional wisdom is to shoot portraits on lenses ranging from 85mm to 120mm focal length when using a 35mm film or full frame DSLR camera. The reason is simple. You avoid distortion, and because of the slight compression produced by a telephoto lens the portrait tends to be more flattering.

However, in the world of photojournalism and reportage style photography wide-angle lenses are commonly used to give the viewer a feeling of being right in the middle of the action.

Nowadays in everything from weddings to corporate work, photographers reach for their wide-angle lenses and because we see so many images in magazines, books and online most people have grown accustomed to wide-angle distortion. It has become more acceptable to see celebrities, politicians and people featured in news stories looking slightly distorted.

I say more acceptable because we’ve gotten used to it. But at the same time I’d like to urge you to be cautious about how you use your wide-angle when it comes to photographing people.

I work with a business communications company and the company was in the news recently. A national UK newspaper wanted to run a story and they sent their own photographer to take a portrait of the Managing Director. This was a well respected, highly experienced photojournalist with many a story under his belt. He opted to shoot with a really wide-angle lens, capturing the MD in the foreground and his staff at their desks behind him. The newspaper ran the story and I’m sure that the readers just saw it as another typical news photograph.

However behind the scenes the staff of the company, family and friends all hated the picture. One of the directors commented that the MD looked like he’d been “photographed on the back of a spoon”. His face was distorted and anyone who knows him in the flesh would say that the image did not really look him, and it certainly was not very flattering.

Now if I had shot that portrait for the company’s annual report, do you think I would get another job with them? Of course not.

So the message of this blog is to use your wide-angle with care when photographing people. In certain circumstances you can get away with it. But overall if you want to take corporate portraits, or family portraits, wedding reportage etc do be careful about putting people’s faces close to the edge of the frame. That’s where wide-angle distortion tends to be worst.

The trick to using a wide-angle for a portrait is to keep your subject close to the centre of the frame, and also don’t press the lens right up against their nose. Play to the strengths of the wide- angle and let it do its work by showing the context around the person you’re photographing. After all that’s what wide-angles were designed to do – show everything in the scene while working reasonably close to your subject.

Unless of course you want to do a really wacky humorous image and your aim is to make it look like you photographed someone through a ‘door spy’ lens.

One of the greatest photojournalist portrait photographers in the world, Steve McCurry uses a few prime lenses, the widest is a 28mm and the longest is 105mm. Many of his famous portraits were shot on a standard 50mm lens (a 35mm gives you approximately the same focal length on a digital camera with a crop sensor). Others were taken on his 85mm and 105mm lenses.

As with all things photographic there are no absolute rules that we should slavishly follow. All I’m trying to say is beware and think about distortion. If you want to take a flattering, authentic portrait then the old conventional wisdom of not using a wide-angle holds true in most cases.

Also do not be afraid to put your subject in the middle of the frame. Many people harp on about the rule of thirds, which works a treat when you’ve got a scene and you want to control the viewer’s eye and get them to look at your focal point in the scene. But if you’re photographing a person and they are clearly the subject of photograph, then there’s a definite logic that says they have every reason to be in the middle of the frame. Don’t take my word for it. Just look at any master portrait photographer’s body of work.

Till soon,

Paul
www.indigo2photography.co.uk
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Do you speak light?

The prow of a fishing boat is caught in evening sunlight, as dark storm clouds approach. Note the warmth of the low sunlight, the contrast against the sky, the texture of the hull and the interesting shadows on the mast. This is a straight shot from the camera, without any enhancement in image manipulation software.

Light is the language of photography. To express yourself well and communicate you need to be able to speak with light.

Light determines what you see (and what you don’t see); the mood of an image; colour and tone. Light can be loud and brash or soft, gentle and soothing. It can wrap around something or cut across it as hard and sharp as a Samurai sword.

People have probably been writing about the qualities of light and how to use it in relation to photography from the moment the first print was made. Google “light in photography” and you will get millions of hits (well actually 68,800,000 hits to be entirely accurate).

In the past I’ve been complimented for explaining things clearly in plain language. So here goes on the subject of light…

Things to consider about lighting when you are about to make a photograph:

• What do I want to communicate about my subject? Consider, personality, mood, clarity, what you want to emphasise?
• What do you want to show and what do you want to hide?
• Pick your view point with the light in mind. Can you control the light within your frame? Can you make it say what you want it to say about your subject?
• How can you improve the light? By adding flash, using constant light sources, bouncing light, using reflectors, covering windows with a translucent material, using black cloth to absorb light, using Gobos and flags between the light source and subject, using gels, waiting for a different time of day etc

Here’s some layman’s science to help you understand light

The size of the light source and its distance to the subject affect how hard or soft it is and how deep the shadows will be. A larger light source like a softbox, large window, umbrella flash or bounced flash will produce a softer light. The smaller the light source the harder the light and stronger the shadows. Diffusion simply comes down to making a light source bigger in relation to the subject.

Light always hits your subject at an angle, whether it is straight from the front, at 90 degrees, behind, top, bottom or from many angles simultaneously. The angle of the light dramatically affects the look of the subject.

Light has colour, specifically it has a colour temperature, which means it can be warm, cool or neutral. The colour we see depends on the wavelength of the light reflected off the object we are looking at. Colour deeply affects our emotions. Warm colours seem to come forward while cold colours recede. Using colour of light in this way is a classic way to create a sense of depth and visual tension in an image.

The quality of the light will be affected by its intensity. For example the same flash reflected off a silver umbrella has a harsher quality than if it were reflected off a white umbrella surface.

So if you want to speak the language of light here’s a quick checklist you should run in your head:

1. How intense does the light need to be?
2. What is the best angle for the light?
3. What colour/s do I want?
4. What size light source?
5. What can I do to control and enhance the light?

Just remember every element above needs to contribute to the emotion you are aiming to communicate. Think of light as the language you are using to describe your subject; quite literally to show the viewer what you want them to see – nothing more and nothing less.

Controlling light and getting it do what you want it to is a technical art. It is not easy. But with perseverance, determination, close observation and loads of experience you will begin to master it. After all my years as a photographer I am still learning the language of light every day and this journey will continue until I shoot my last frame.

As ever, I hope you find my blog helpful and your comments are always welcome.

Cheers,

Paul
www.indigo2photography.co.uk
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Over use of image processing from RAW

In view of my comments in my previous blog, this is an interesting article. Danish judges in a prestigious competition have rejected a photographer's images as being over processed from RAW. The images were changed dramatically from the original versions. The judges have raised an interesting debate about RAW processing, especially regarding photo-journalistic images.

Read the article here and see the images for yourself.

Cheers,

Paul
www.indigo2photography.co.uk
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The photographs I hate looking at

When I visit just about any photo sharing website I am confronted with all manner of photographic horrors that induce in me anything from mild irritation to out-loud swearing.

Everyone has their own taste. Overall my blog is nice and warm and positive in tone but for once I’ll let out the dark side and tell you which types of photographs I hate and why. Within each category there will be exceptions of course, because the first rule of photography is that there are no absolute rules except the first rule.

In no particular order then...

Bad HDR

Over 90% of HDR images are absolute rubbish. They’re flat, lacking in contrast and it often looks like someone has smeared black pixels across the highlights and mid-tones. HDR generally looks unnatural and cartoonish. It produces bland pictures with no sense of light; without mood. Everything is on display, depriving the image all quality and character. In contrast (no pun intended) non-HDR images do not give up all their secrets. The viewer is left to use their imagination, to fill in the shadowy areas and their eye is led skilfully by the photographer from one light area to another as they are seduced by the mystery and tension in the frame. Women have long understood that to preserve a little mystery makes you far more attractive. HDR photographers on the other hand believe in baring all.

Sharpness issues

I come across so many images that are unsharp. I don’t mean completely out of focus. I mean that search as you may you will not find a single area that is completely sharp in a huge number of images. Usually the cause is camera shake but sometimes it’s bad processing too where the pixels have been so messed about that they fall apart.

Of course poor focus also has to be mentioned. I see a small thumbnail on screen of a lovely portrait and open it only to be thoroughly disappointed. The photographer has focused on the tip of the subject’s nose or their ear instead of on the pupils of the subject's eyes.

Then of course you get those photographers who over-sharpen their images producing all manner of unpleasant artifacts. I suspect over-sharpening is often resorted to by photographers who are trying to compensate for unsharpness in the original. Forget it. Unsharp is unsharp. No software can match getting it right in camera in the first place.

Colour casts, heavy vignettes and effects filters

I’m all for using colour creatively but I hate ‘artistic colour casts’ applied without any rhyme or reason. Colour has meaning. It conveys emotion. So why for example take a picture of a young pretty lady and then obliterate her with a bilious green colour wash. It doesn’t make the image more interesting or artistic. Newsflash: art does not equal going mad with the hue and saturation sliders in Photoshop or applying one or other kitsch effects filter.

And please spare me from the arbitrary and random use of blur, dark vignettes, lighting effects and assorted filters which photographers apply to make their images look like anything except a photograph.

A few, a very, very few photographers can get away with using the full Photoshop and assorted plugin arsenal of effects because they ultimately create an image which has the power to move the viewer's emotions and it communicates. It is such a rare treat to discover one of these.

I also do not like the highly oversaturated images with eye popping intense colours, which would be totally unprintable. Just because you can move the colour saturation slider all the way to the right doesn't mean you have to do it!

An image file is a delicate and fragile thing. Apply auto levels, use massive curves adjustments and push contrast and brightness sliders too far at your peril. Image quality will suffer. It is always best to get the image right in camera. Besides saving image quality you also save a lot of time sitting at the computer and the ultimate frustration of producing an image which looks OK on screen but is totally unprintable in a book or magazine.

Assorted other reasons

To me every element and aspect within the frame should contribute to enhancing the image. In a way it is like a piece of music and the photographer is both the composer and the conductor, bringing everything together in way that the audience can enjoy and instantly grasp. But if the percussion instruments are not keeping time, the violins are doing their own thing and the brass section is off key – well you've just got a noise – or to transfer the metaphor back to photography a badly put together disharmonious image, unintelligible to the viewer.

In summary here is a list of comments I could make when looking at images on the internet:

• Skew horizon for no reason (sometimes it can add a dynamic element but most of the time it just looks bad)
• Poor composition
• Too far away from the subject
• Boringly photographed subject matter
• Poorly lit
• Boring light
• No clear focal point
• Underexposed
• Oversaturated
• Overexposed
• Colour cast
• Overmanipulated
• Poorly manipulated eg bad cut outs
• Oversharpened
• Bad or awkward pose
• Disturbing visual elements eg an unattractive foreground
• Camera shake
• Blurred
  
• Badly focused
• Cliché
• Bad make-up on the model
  
• Airbrushed to death – you know these portraits with plastic skin and not a single bit of skin texture left, and eyeballs as white as a ping pong ball in the sun.
• Bad vignetting and unexplainable dark patches clearly added in Photoshop.
• Texture filters and 'arty' effects

While writing this I had a chat with my wife, pro photographer Magda Indigo and she made an interesting observation. She said that it seemed like a lot of photographers were trying to make their images look like paintings while at the same time there are painters who try to make their paintings look like photographs. What's that all about?

In this day and age of digital photography it has never been easier to produce a technically perfect picture. Why not aim for pure photographic quality? It's far harder to achieve than taking a mediocre snapshot and messing around with it in a software program. The true art of using image manipulation programs is knowing when to stop. I wonder how many really good photographs are currently buried under a ton of software filters and effects.

There I've said it.

Cheers,

Paul

www.indigo2photography.co.uk
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