Beyond the obvious

Mr Hewitt, a traveler, rests his horses on the way to a fair in Yorkshire. These images are from a series I recently shot with a group of travelers encountered on one of our road trips. We were made to feel very welcome and it was easy to come away with a series of interesting portraits. Jimbo. Looking after the horses. The Hewitts. Young Hewitt with his tattoos. Resting in the bow top. More can be seen on my Flickr account . Till soon... Paul www.indigo2photography.co.uk

Spurn Point lighthouse. Please click on the image to see the larger version. There are two fundamentally different approaches to photography. Identifying which type of photographer you are could help you focus your approach and remove inner creative conflicts that you were not even aware of. You have to ask yourself whether you prefer observing and capturing what you see happening in front of your lens or do you prefer to control your subject matter and direct the action to produce the result you envisage? Once you decide which type of photography best suits your temperament, creative approach and mindset you can focus your energy on playing to your strengths. Don't struggle against your nature. Go with it. The split between the two fundamental approaches is of course as old as photography itself. On one side we have the photojournalists, documentary photographers, street photographers and landscape photographers out to capture that special moment. And on the other side we have com...

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...

I recently had the great priviledge of spending time with a few of the world's best selling authors, including Lee Child and Harlan Coben . Many of the things they said struck a cord, an affirmation of the ideas that I've held for a long time. You'll probably recognise these ideas too but just like me I'm sure you won't mind hearing them again. There are many things which apply across all creative endeavours. Integrity to your art and vision is everything. You write a book, or in our case take a photograph, because it expresses something essential in yourself. It is your vision, your voice. If you're not true to your vision, your inner voice, you will never achieve your full potential. Do not copy others. It's got to come from inside you. This is true even when we're working for clients, to a brief. The client has chosen you because of who you are, your vision, the injection of that special something which is uniquely yours. If you see a band wagon the...

My last article on creativity went down so well that it's given me inspiration to write another. I thought it might be handy to take a look at some of the attitudes and psychology that underlie creativity. Some people are naturally creative while others have to work at it but we can all be more creative. To be creative you've got to let your imagination work. Don't judge things and apply reason and rationale to everything. Just think, what if we did...? The driver here is curiosity and the wish to challenge the norm, challenge assumptions and opinions. You shouldn't make it hard work either. Enjoy the freedom. Be optimistic in your outlook. Any problem becomes a challenge rather than something negative. Creativity can be stimulated by actively seeking out problems and then getting your creative juices to flow so you can solve them and remember there is often more than one solution. The true creative doesn't just stop at the first answer. Try a different angle and se...