Ethics in street photography

Stopped to chat to a lovely elderly lady enjoying the sun and watching people pass by her bench.

She kept asking me whether my picture would appear in the local paper, the Zeewacht, although I had explained that I did not work for the paper.

As I said goodbye and left, I heard her say to her bench friends in Flemish that maybe the picture would still appear in the Zeewacht.

Next time I am Oostende I will look out for her and give her a copy of the picture. One thing my wife and fellow professional photographer, Magda, and I do is often go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that we keep our word, and when people have asked for a photograph, make sure they get it. It's the least one can do. We've met a number of people on our photo-travels who say they have been promised a picture by a photographer and never received it.

That's sad and makes it just a bit harder for the next photographer to build a relationship. Basically, if you don't intend to do something then don't promise it.

Till soon,
Paul
www.indigo2photography.co.uk

Challenges of using film

Magazine cover shoot on film

You could argue that professional photographers have it really easy these days. Let me explain why.

I shot this absolutely ages ago on film for a magazine cover. Great fun. In those days we checked exposures with Polaroids, except for this shoot I didn't have them.
 
The shoot was a real challenge. I had to balance ambient light in the casino with flash and the lights built into the table. The client invested budget, we hired the model and the first time we saw the results was when we got the transparency film back from the lab. Sigh of relief.

In retrospect I wish I’d added some back-light on her hair but the idea was to make it all a bit mysterious rather than kitsch and over-lit. So it worked out fine and most importantly the client was happy.

Digital has added an enormous safety net for photographers where you can check everything during the shoot, and on a big screen, if you shoot tethered. What a luxury!

See you soon,
Paul
www.indigo2photography.co.uk

Tips for good travel photography

National Geographic photographer, Bob Holmes, offers advice on how to take better travel photographs, actually his advice applies to pretty much all photography.

In this interview with Marc Silber he says something which I have often mentioned in this blog, it's not the equipment, its the your photographer's eye and the key to getting good images is 'access'.

Bob specialises in using natural light.

Hope you enjoy the video.



Till soon,
Paul
www.indigo2photography.co.uk

Photojournalism: World Press Awards 2013

Photojournalism is alive and well with photographers producing incredible work in 2012. The selection of work by the World Press Photo Awards show cases some of the best stories and images selected by the judging panel.

I highly recommend you browse the website galleries, which are packed with interesting information as well as the images.



It's not only about still images. The multimedia work is equally impressive. Here is the winning story, particularly interesting to me as I recently met several people who had migrated to South Africa. They were more fortunate than the people in the story "Into The Shadows" but also faced daily difficulties and challenges.

Two ladies originally from Zimbabwe,  Sharon the hairdresser and her friend Blessing who works at a hotel in Cape Town, chat while braiding photographer Magda Indigo's hair.

Sharon opened her stall on the Cape Town parade. Life is difficult. She has to pay for the stall as well as for storage of her materials. Every day she hopes to earn enough to have something over after paying her costs.

Comments welcome. What do you think of the level of work chosen by the judges?

Till soon,

Paul 

www.indigo2photography.co.uk

Combining photojournalism and commercial photography

The line between photojournalism, commercial photography and art has become less and less obvious. I am not surprised. Photography is a medium we use to express things and communicate, like a pencil and paper, and it should not be confused with the reason the image is created.

Commercial photography is all about selling something and photojournalism is about bearing witness. One photographer with an eye for creating powerful images can bridge these different worlds. Steve McCurry is a great example as you will see in the two videos below.

Before any photographer picks up a camera they do need to know why they are taking the picture. That mental focus is just as important as physically focusing the lens.

Here Steve shares the stories behind some of his most famous photo journalistic images.



2013 Pirelli Calendar. A totally different mission. I notice he prefers continuous light to flash.


Given how poorly photojournalism and humanitarian photography pays, I'm also wondering if more and more photographers are resorting to shooting commercial work to support their other work. Not saying this is the case for Steve McCurry but just a general observation. Another route photographers are taking is to use crowd sourcing, like kickstarter, funding for personal and non-commercial projects.

Hope you enjoyed this post. Comments welcome.

Till soon,
Paul
Find all my links and activities on www.indigo2photography.co.uk

How to fight procrastination

I guess we all have trouble with procrastination and, maybe I'm generalising, but I think artists are particularly  susceptible. Creative minds tend to fight discipline and jump from one thing to another. So when I read the post below by Oliver it struck a cord. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

The other challenge we often face is overcoming creative block and one of my earlier blog posts is often quoted, so if you've not read it before do take a look.

Read Quote of Oliver Emberton's answer to Life Advice: How do I get over my bad habit of procrastinating? on Quora

Thank you Oliver. So now we can tackle creative block and procrastination...let's crack on.

Till soon,
Paul
www.indigo2photography.co.uk

Live Street Music from Cape Town

I combined raw street footage of musicians performing in Cape Town with stills shot at the same time and one or two other images to set the scene in this short video (view on YouTube full screen in HD).

The video shows what the camera outputs natively and you'll see from the stills how I enhance the images using a touch of flash while shooting and Lightroom to process the final images.

Hopefully the video captures the relaxed fun spirit of Cape Town. Plenty more images from the Cape being added daily to my South Africa portfolio.

Thanks for looking.

Till soon,
Paul
www.indigo2photography.co.uk