Beyond the obvious

Wagon wheel in Normandy, France. Regular readers of my blog know that I'm generally against buying equipment unless it is absolutely essential. There's a lot to be said for keeping things simple and focusing your attention on creativity rather than lugging equipment around and fiddling with it. Give me any camera, with any lens and I'll come up with a shot that's interesting. It's a bold claim but I have every confidence in following the creative process. Each photographic opportunity can be approached in a million different ways. It's up to the photographer to find their own artistic interpretation with the equipment at their disposal. If my image is not all that it should be then I certainly will not blame the equipment. Now having said that; buying a new piece of kit can unlock a new creative experience. A good macro lens can open a whole new world to you as a photographer or a reflector panel can inspire you to explore doing different things with light. So y...

I meet a lot of photographers and often the same questions come up so I decided to write this little guide of practical wisdom gleaned over many years as a photographer. Always make sure your camera is set to standard settings at the start of a shoot. I call this zeroing my camera. For me that means IS0 100; AWB; single shot; centre autofocus point; F4; Aperture Priority; matrix metering; RAW etc. When I arrive for a shoot my camera is always set up in the same way, and batteries are fully charged and memory cards formatted. From the standard setting I then set the camera up to suit the particular requirements of the photo shoot. Lenses Always keep a UV or skylight filter on your lens. Replacing a scratched filter is a lot cheaper than replacing a lens Leave the lens cap off when you’re at a shoot. Putting it on and taking it off will just slow you down, causing you to miss shot Use a lens hood. Lens flare seriously reduces image quality. Only take the hood off when storing the came...