Beyond the obvious

Flamenco is full of passion and fire. When these dancers tap out there vibrant rhythms the floor shakes. As you watch your heart beats faster, your temperature rises and energy courses through your veins. The dancers work incredibly hard. You'll see that in the images. We were fortunate enough to photograph an advanced dance class at one of the world's best Flamenco schools. Please take a moment to view the selected images from my photo-story . When the image opens you can click the i to see the accompanying text. Here are most of the same images on Flickr too. For those interested in the technical side, I used one flash, bounced on the white walls and 'dragged' the shutter to achieve a balance with the ambient light (which was mainly terrible overhead florescent). It was a real challenge. For the most part I used a 50mm lens. The wider shots were done with the 17-40mm on my Canon 5D. I did not use burst mode. It's too random and you miss vital moments - far...

Artist Willem Vermandere delicately uses a small file to express himself through his marble sculpture In my previous two posts I covered the topic ' the real value of social media to photographers '. These articles explored why and how you should use social media to engage with a specific audience. The thing that I did not cover in great detail was content, which, as the title of this blog implies, is the most important element to attract people to your work. Once people have found your website or blog you have to give them a reason to return. The simple logic is they have to find something of value in what you write about. There are many blogs that attract readers by simply being curators of content. In other words they find great content and then link to it and by doing this become a good resource, a one-stop-shop for people wanting to find valuable content. I prefer to create original content. This does not mean that I never link to anyone else. It just means that ...

Waiting for something to happen. People on a bench in Ostend, Belgium. Why should you use a professional photographer instead of downloading an image from a stock library? Well there are many good reasons and I hope that photographers reading my blog find something useful here when pitching for new work and marketing themselves. I've got nothing against stock libraries as such and in fact I contribute to a few. These days though the returns are diminishing and articles keep appearing challenging the viability of making a living as a traditional stock photographer. Enthusiasts and amateurs have swamped the stock library market with images and unfortunately designers and agencies, with pressure increasing on their budgets, all too quickly turn to stock libraries for their picture needs. So it is becoming more important than ever for good professional photographers to differentiate themselves from the offerings of stock libraries. Here goes... When a company hires a pro photographer ...

The white cliffs of Dover in gently evening light. How good a photographer do you really want to be? Where should you set your sights? The first rule of setting a goal is that it has to be realistic and achievable within a given timescale. It should also be measurable but that's fairly tough in such a subjective field. How do you measure how good you are as a photographer- sales, awards, praise, response to exhibitions, the opinions of critics or your peers? All of these methods are influenced by factors other than the pure quality and aesthetics of your images. You'll have to to decide on which measure works for you. One traditional way of trying to establish where you are in the vast range from novice to acknowledged master is to actually look at the work of successful photographers in their respective fields. How do your images measure up? If you're interested in portrait photography, find out who's hot and have a long think about what makes their work better...

Boys playing on a sea-saw in South Africa. This shot has been in my portfolio for a long time. It has won numerous awards and been in exhibitions all over the world. So now as I glance back over my shoulder at where I've come from it seems an opportune time to show it here. Best Viewed On Black EPUK has published a great article which ties in with my previous blog . The article asks ten top photographers, "What do you wish you'd known when you started out ?" I wish I'd known that things are not always fair and that taking good images is not enough. I also wish I had known how kind and wonderful people are all over the world. It seems the less people have the more generous they are, and often happier. I also wish I had known that I didn't need to buy most of the cameras and lenses that are sitting in my studio. I would have saved a fortune. I highly recommend reading this article . Cheers, Paul

I am not against amateurs and semi-professionals selling their photography. It's a great way to earn some extra cash. However I am concerned about the level of high quality published work and the standards that clients and the public accept these days. It seems that just about everyone is a photographer. The line between amateur enthusiast and professional is fuzzy to say the least. Photography enthusiasts are selling their images through stock libraries and microstock websites, directly to magazines or through their own and third party sites. They're accepting commissions to shoot weddings, being hired to shoot for magazines and selling fine art prints from their websites. They're teaching photography on the weekend and guiding photographic holidays and safaris. Photography became accessible to the masses with the first non-expert cameras and the famous Kodak slogan"You press the button, we do the rest." The digital camera age has taken the whole thing to a ne...

Descriptions about what it takes to be a professional photographer are often quite fluffy and insubstantial. So with my best analytical cap on I've decided look at what it takes to be successful professional photographer. Let's first clear a few things up. You don't need to own a camera, any camera at all, you don't need lights, you don't a studio and you don't need official qualifications. You can hire everything you need from cameras to studio managers and digital artists. You certainly need knowledge and skill but not necessarily a diploma to hang on the wall. To be a successful professional photographer you will have to develop four key foundations besides being able to make brilliant photographs and the traditional business skills which apply to everyone running their own company. The foundations are creativity, professionalism, knowledge and skill sets . Although this article is written for advertising and editorial photographers I am sure you will see ho...

A surprising number of photography enthusiasts do not have a clue about the absolute basics. Some of them are taking on commercial work and thinking of becoming professional. It's frightening. These days it seems like just about everyone wants to become a professional photographer. Thanks to outstanding modern Digital SLR technology, the ability to delete poor images and 'fix' others in Photoshop many enthusiasts believe they can produce professional results without having to learn and understand basic concepts. What's more the Internet provides a ready made audience of their peers and upload and share community websites ensure they receive a steady stream of praise for their efforts. All of this helps give them a false sense of confidence in their ability to be a professional photographer. I'm not saying the enthusiast without basic knowledge can't take a good picture but there's a world of difference between going out and capturing something on yo...

Every once in a while someone expresses what they feel about your work as a professional photographer. For me the greatest joy is when a client is really happy. Today I received an email from a client, Hayley, who wanted the say thanks to my wife Magda (also a professional photographer) and me, and she wanted to provide a testimonial we could use on our website. "A wedding day is an important day, and as a bride and groom you want everything to be exactly right. The last thing you want to be doing in the midst of all the excitement is trying to manage a photographer, and worrying that your photos aren't going to be exactly what you want. Luckily for us, our choice of photographer meant this was one less job to worry about and although hundreds of wonderful shots were taken I can honestly say that most of the time I forgot Paul and Magda were even there. In fact, when we showed our album to our friends and family they were amazed to see themselves in a lot of the lovely snaps w...