Beyond the obvious

Colourful fishing nets in Fuengirola harbour . What goes on in the mind of a photographer shooting a photo story? I thought some readers may be interested in a 'behind the scenes' insight into my latest story, "Catch of the day". You can see my full photo story here and a shorter version here on the International Guild of Visual Peacemakers website. Travelling with fellow professional photographer, Magda Indigo, to Andalusia in Spain, we had a number of ideas and shooting opportunities lined up. Photographing the fishermen in Fuengirola was not fixed but as we're always drawn to harbours and fishing we knew we would head down there. The fishing quay is not open to the public but we managed to gain access. The fishermen were mostly friendly and open. A few were suspicious of us and one was fairly threatening. People are people and you just have to adapt and deal with each situation. Communication consisted mainly of hand signals, facial expressions and I had learnt...

Intimate portrait of an orchid (jpeg cropped). Exif data . For years the jpeg v raw debate has raged. Advocates of both formats defended their positions and ‘wars’ were waged in internet forums. A Google search will bring up thousands of hits on the topic and you’re welcome to wade through all of it but if you’re short on time, here’s a quick summary. Proponents of shooting jpegs say: The files are smaller and don’t clog up your hard disk. The quality is just as good as RAW or so close it doesn't make a difference in the real world. Saves time as there is no RAW post processing to be done. Proponents of RAW say: RAW gives you all the options to tweak your images to your heart’s content, while jpegs lock you into the processing decisions programmed in by your camera manufacturer. You can easily correct white balance mistakes. You can retrieve more detail, particularly out of highlights. The quality of the final image is superior to a straight jpeg. ...

Taking a photograph that tells a story requires patience, knowing what you want to say and then picking the right moment. I noticed this lady selling jewelry on the market. She was chatting to customers and showing them her merchandise but nobody bought anything. She was aware of me taking pictures and didn't mind. I kept an eye on her and picked the moment that I thought told the story of her day on the market. There are still many businesses struggling with the recession and people have certainly tightened up their budgets, even on items like market jewelry. I decided to upload this image to illustrate how waiting patiently and picking the right moment can produce an image that communicates the story. A few seconds later her expression changed and the brave sales face was back on again. Sometimes photographers take a lot of images in the hope of getting one good one. Seems too hit and miss to me. The real key to getting that good image is figuring out what needs to happen in fron...

I had no idea when I was making this portrait, that Mrs M only had eight days to live before she passed peacefully at the retirement home. She had a full life and was one of the pioneering Belgian woman photographers, specialising in social photography. She used a large format, bellows camera. While I made the portrait we chatted happily about the changes in photography. Her hair was in slight disarray but she would not let her son touch it, leaving the sea breeze to play with the strands. That's how she was. At the moment I took the image she was staring out to sea, seeming to look past her mortal existence. When I look at this image and think of that sunny afternoon it touches me. I hope it moves you too. Photography is all about light and time - that particular, never-to-return moment we freeze forever in a picture of light that becomes an 'aide-mémoire' . Till soon, Paul www.indigo2photography.co.uk

Here's some high level advice which will strengthen your photography and boost your creativity. There are so many things to keep in mind when you take photographs. To help you I've tried to distill the essential elements. If you keep four things in mind all the rest should fall into place. And these four elements come from just two things: creativity and execution. Before discussing creativity, let's take a look at execution; visualizing your image and then making it happen. The three things you need to keep in mind are: light, composition and colour (LCC). I include grey values under colour here although black and white are not scientifically speaking colours. In most circumstances photographers are reacting to what they see in front of them. You can't run through a mental checklist of hundreds of items before taking an image. So just keep LCC in mind. Simple right? How you execute the image - shutter speed, aperture, point of view, use of flash etc will all be determi...

Everyone is telling you that you've got to learn the technical aspects of photography. Blogs, websites, books all hammer the message home and if you don't know your f-stops, the difference between a jpeg and raw file and how to use every tool in Photoshop, you're somehow inferior and can't possibly take a good picture. I suppose in our technology obsessed world it's not surprising that the how you do something takes precedence over the why you do it. Technique and the technical aspects of photography are vitally important. You have to have enough technical knowledge and craftsmanship to be able to create the image you envisage each and every time. As a photographer you have to have the skills and technical knowledge of a builder, or you house will fall down, but you also need the vision of an architect to create something beautiful and interesting. Recently on two separate occasions I saw promising new professional photographers at work. They knew their technical...

If you look at the great masters of photography and their images, many of which have become iconic, you see that there is a distinct gap between text book perfection and what they've produced. Most great pictures that touch our hearts have technical flaws. The technically perfect advertising shots will never have this kind of power and impact on humanity. There are so many examples I don't know where to begin. Look at Robert Capa's shots of the Normandy landing. Grainy, blurred, scratched (the negatives were trodden on in the darkroom during development) and yet all of that somehow contributes to their impact. Even top modern photographers like the legendary Annie Liebowitz get away with publishing pictures which would be severely criticised or ignored by the masses of photographers critiquing each other's work on the Internet. For example in Annie's book, Woman , there are a number of portraits which are not perfectly sharp (the greatest sin that can be committed a...

Antwerp successfully preserves a sense of tradition and history, here with the horse drawn carriage and the famous Cathedral in the background, making it attractive to tourists, while at the same time boasting some beautiful modern architecture. The picture above was a split second grab shot. As usual my Canon EOS 5D was set to AV (aperture priority) and I trusted my light meter to give me the correct exposure. As it happened the background sky was extremely bright and the foreground in deep shadow, so the background was a bit overexposed. Using the RAW file's information I was able to retrieve detail everywhere important. Read any guide to improving your photography, listen to photographers advice and you'll be told to set your camera to manual. Using program mode is strictly for amateurs we're told. Well I beg to differ and respected photography tutor John Wade shares my viewpoint. Camera design these days has advanced tremendously and automatic metering has become relia...