Beyond the obvious

I'm off on my travels again and will be back next week. Which means another break in the blog. In the meantime if you want to see the work of one of the most highly acclaimed wedding photographers then check out Joe Buissink . Yes, I know weddings! But these go beyond the normal pictures of someone elses wedding. He has an artistic flair, and a flair for business too, charging 10,000 dollars for a wedding reportage. I like many of Joe's images and believe it or not I really like photographing weddings too, especially when the client wants something special that goes way beyond the normal formal set of poses. You can see some shots from one on my weddings here . Catch you soon, Paul

Spent the weekend and monday in Dublin. Really enjoyed it despite the pouring rain on sunday. Anyway, I'm painfully aware of being a bit behind in posting, so here are a few news snippets. What Digital Camera Magazine has just published a comparison test between the Fuji S3 Pro, the Nikon D200 and the Canon 30D. The D200 came out tops as the tester's choice because of it's superior build quality, handling and superb image quality (although the camera performs best producing images from RAW rather than JPEG). The Fuji S3 still has the biggest dynamic range and best ability to deal with high contrast but is painfully slow. The 30D performed well in all areas but could not match the D200. In fact there's not much in it between the three cameras. Each one is a superb mid-range DSLR capable of delivering outstanding images. Testers are having to become increasingly picky when trying to differentiate between cameras because there's so little difference in quality. So wha...

If you’re marketing your images then hopefully all over the world art directors and graphic designers are looking at them and deciding whether to use them or not. Often the reason an image gets rejected is not something you may think of as photographer who’s taken care the image is sharp, well exposed and wonderfully composed. Here are three common reasons. Firstly, within the image there is not enough ‘neutral’ space where copy can be inserted. Although an image with a large chunk of nothingness may not do well in a picture critique it is definitely something graphic designers look for. A second reason is that the subject is difficult to cut-out. Frequently designers need to be able to cut something out from the background, so tight crops and busy backgrounds will make it difficult for them. Thirdly, if you want to get an image on the front cover of a magazine or brochure it usually needs to be shot in portrait format. Landscape format limits useability, so it’s best to shoot both for...

I regularly get asked for advice on what you should charge as a photographer. There are so many different areas to cover but for event photographers in the UK this might help. I commission photography fairly regularly and have just received prices for exhibition photography from a well established supplier. So this will give you a good idea of what you should charge to be competitive. Colour print of exhibition stand 20x30cm = £40 High res image on CD = £40 Both print and CD = £48 Extra pics with different views of stand £36 each Extra prints of the above 20x30cm £12 Medium format transparency or neg + 20x30cm print £49 Email a digital image £10 (res not specified) PR photography of event (30 minutes) up to 30 pics on CD £128 Pr photography of event-15 mins) up to 15 pics on CD £78 Full payment ahead of the event with guaranteed refund if dissatisfied. I plan to provide more commercially interesting information in the future and free help to photographers – if you want it. You know w...

For sometime I've been adding articles but not photographs to this blog. So the solution is a photographic blog dedicated to my images. Of course this blog you're reading will continue in the same vein as before, and I've got lots of interesting articles planned. I discovered the perfect vehicle for a photography blog in the form of fotolog.com. If you'd like to get your daily dose of an image from me then please visit my Fotolog here . You're very welcome to sign the guest book too :) So there we go. A blog for words and a blog for pictures . Hope you enjoy both. Cheers, Paul

Recently I was asked how to improve the sharpness of images. As with most things there are a few easy answers and there's the complicated way of explaining it all too. Defining and improving sharpness is a science. For this article I'm going to try to keep to the straightforward stuff. The first thing you should appreciate is that sharpness in a photograph is not easy to define - it's a perception dependent on numerous factors. These include; contrast, colour balance, definition, level of detail, grain or noise, level of blur across the image and difference in the levels of blur between adjacent areas etc. There are five main things that affect sharpness: the quality of the lens, the qualities of the sensor or film, the nature of the subject being photographed, focus and movement of the camera in relation to the subject. The single greatest cause of unsharp photographs is camera shake. Camera shake may be virtually imperceptible when you take a picture but it can reall...

In my last post I mentioned the structure of an image. One of the most important aspects of visual structure is the range of tones between light and dark and their distribution across the frame. Imagine a photograph of a white fish bone skeleton lying on a flat, almost black stone surface. The white bones stand out against the dark background. The contrast is easy to see and you're literally looking at the skeletal structure of the image. Of course every image you take has skeletal structure. The success of the composition often depends on getting the distribution of light and dark right. The Great Masters of painting knew this as did the impressionists but sadly this way of seeing is often not taught to photographers. Yes, photography is all about light but even more it is about the distribution of that light within the image. If you've worked with black and white film and viewed a negative in front of a light source the structure is easy to see. With digital its a different ...

What do you look at when you compose an image? There are millions of things to consider but you've often only got a split second to calculate whether the composition is going to work or not. When you distil it down to its simplest components there are a few key things to consider, which are often not covered very well in books and articles about learning photography. Firstly you should have an idea of why you are taking the image. The clearer the intention behind the image is in your mind the better the shot will be. Photography is about framing a section of reality, it's about deciding what to leave in and what to exclude. Secondly at the same time you need to look at how you can make the most of lighting to enhance the image. Beautiful, interesting lighting that compliments your subject is essential to creating striking images. Thirdly, and this is the one that often gets left out, look at the structures within the frame in terms of their relative values. These values can be ...

I'm acutely aware that it's been almost a week since my last blog. Apologies! I'll write out a hundred lines "I must not neglect my readers". There's a lot planned in the near future so please hang in there. In the meantime if you like fashion photography of the highest caliber you should take a look at Michael Thompson's work. The Jed Root Agency represents several top fashion creatives and their site is well worth a visit as it gives a good international overview of the industry. Catch you soon, Paul

While in one of my favourite bookshops this afternoon I came across An Inner Silence: The Portraits of Henri Cartier-Bresson also available on Amazon (should charge them for advertising). Cartier-Bresson is legendary for his composition. He never cropped, to my knowledge, always preferring to use full frame for his compositions. Looking through his wonderful portraits I was struck by how much space his subjects occupied in the frame. Fashions and trends have changed in portrait photography. It seems to me that photographers these days are afraid of 'empty' space. The subject is crambed into the frame, every pixel filled. Elbows and the top of the head are cropped out, fingers and feet rest on the edges. In contrast Cartier-Bresson lets his subjects breathe. He often puts them in the bottom right of the frame with loads of space above them filled with a staircase, a wall, a window frame, the corner of a building and so on. His images are beautifully balanced and nothing in the ...

Today I saw a picture of a number of enthusiastic amateur photographers all holding their cameras taking a photograph. Although many of them have been taking photographs for several years I was surprised to see about half of them were holding their cameras incorrectly. I was baffled, finding it quite unbelievable that so many photographers don't know simple basics. So I've decided to do a few articles covering some of the basics. Number 1 Support your camera with your left hand, palm upwards, under the body of the camera or lens. The right hand grips the body of the camera with your finger ready to release the shutter. Whether you're shooting portrait or landscape formats always support the camera body with your left hand underneath it. The biggest enemy of sharpness is camera shake, so supporting your camera properly will help you get sharper images. Hope this helps. Paul

I got a comment today on one of my images along the lines of "I like what I see but I don't know anything about the technical stuff." How refreshing. All I've ever wanted to do was take pictures which people like. I don't want to be admired for my technical expertise. To me that's all background stuff. You can take any work, apologies for the comparison here, but say you take a poem and tear it apart, analyse every word, every verse - surely that's not the way to appreciate it. I find you can't really be open to enjoying something if you're deconstructing it and analysing everything at the same time. Like a poem an image needs to be experienced and enjoyed as a whole. Afterwards you can consider the technique but it is surely not the most important thing. Yep, all I want is for people to enjoy what I do and get something out of it for themselves. I suppose a good image is like a bit of magic. You don't have to know exactly how it was done to ap...

Following on from a debate with a friend we realised that though so much effort is put into creating the perfect landscape, still life or portrait, the photographs that have really moved the world are almost all photojournalistic images. Even the formidable and masterful beauty of Ansel Adams' landscapes or Mappelthorpes' flowers are far less well known than the Eddie Adams photograph of the execution of a Viet Cong guerilla in 1968 or Don McCullin's haunting image of famine in Biafra . In a competition between the pure aesthetics of an image and the capture of a truly meaningful and symbolic moment in history it is always the latter that wins. Having said that there are usually many images taken of an event but only a few grab the world's consciousness, and in this purely visual elements such as composition do play a vital role. An example here is Richard Drew's " Falling Man " image taken on September 11, 2001. Richard and other photograhers took severa...

Welcome to my blog. While you're here why not browse through my extensive library of articles covering everything from tips on how to do things photographic to help with the mental approach you need to become a successful photographer. You'll also find articles with some of my unconventional views. Yes, I've rattled a view cages in my time. Hope you have as much fun reading them as I did writing them. You can view my more serious work on www.indigo2photography.co.uk All the different types of photography With the help of acquaintances on a photographic site I've tried to compile a list of all the different types of photography out there. I'm sure there are many still missing but the list is pretty impressive so far. We have identified around 80 descriptions. For fun I've highlighted in bold the different types I've done so far... 3D photography Action photography Advertising photography Aerial photography Amateur photography Animal photography Architecture p...

South African singer Thandi Klaasen embodies the passion of an artist. I took this quite a while back but it remains one of my favourite images because I think I captured that passion here. It's the same passion that drives me forward in my photography. "Klaasen had mixed fortunes when she was a teenager in Sophiatown. Her life changed when her friend betrayed her by getting tsotsis to pour thinners mixed with petrol on her face. This damaged her face permanently and she spent almost a year in hospital." Catch you soon. Paul

This couple came for a formal portrait, all dressed up. She was the real Hyacinth Bucket (if you happen to know the English TV series). The whole experience was quite surreal. Her very expensive dress did not fit perfectly so we ended up using washing pegs on the back to tighten it up a bit - an old fashion photography trick. Ever at the ready, working toward that special moment I had my finger on the shutter release when the magic happened. Often the best images come from those unguarded, unexpected, fleeting moments. Cheers, Paul

Two comic talents give an impromptu show on a street in Grahamstown, South Africa . Usually people smile when they see this image. At first it's the expressions that catch the eye, then the hands and finally the tiny details like the dummy in the one guy's hand. I think my composition, the moment I captured, adds to the humour with the raised finger appearing to be under the nose of the other chap and direction of his gaze, all adding to the dynamism of the image. In an earlier blog I talked about what makes us respond to an image. As I listed there are several factors but the second last point I made in the list is the most important one. We respond to an image because of personal associations and experiences. The best term I've seen to describe this deep connection that one can have with an image is that it resonates. You can go to a gallery and admire the esthetics, the lighting, the composition, the subject matter and all the rest but if the image does not touch you on...

I saw a guy with a camera the other day stalking a homeless person. The homeless person was sitting in doorway with his dog. He was unaware that he was being photographed. It made me wonder about the intentions of the photographer. Why was he taking the picture? Who was he taking it for? What did he want to show? Street photography has become more fashionable with the ubiquitous digital camera and even camera phones. Self appointed 'photojournalists' are out and about snapping everything in sight. It makes me feel uncomfortable because I'm not sure of the ethics of all of these photographers. The questions, why, who what keep bouncing around in my mind. A true photojournalist is a witness to an event or story. He or she is the representative of all of those people that have not been able to see something for themselves. Photographing someone who finds themselves in unfortunate circumstances should only be done if the photographer is ethically motivated to seek and show the ...

What's the number one ingredient that gives an image a sense of quality? It's something that's free and readily available. Hmm so not that new state-art-digital camera then... nope. Well it's got to be the lens then. Nope. "Free", oh I see, well it'll be the composition, depth of field and colour then. Well no it is none of the above. I am sure you must have guessed already that I am talking about light. Photography is after all drawing with light. It pains me to see so many photographers spending a fortune on new equipment in the pursuit of clear, sharp images that exude a feeling of quality only to get knocked back with disapointing results. If you have an understanding of light you can use a toy camera with a plastic lens and achieve a feeling of visual quality. Put that same knowledge together with a great camera system and you're on your way to quality Nirvana. There are many excellent books and articles on the net about lighting so I'm not go...

I really enjoy travelling, meeting people, listening to their stories and learning new things. In a way taking pictures is an interesting by-product, a way of recording and remembering things. Life is made up of an endless series of stories and experiences. There's an interesting zen of photography idea that I'd like to pass along in this article. To some of you it will seem so obvious that you'll wonder why I bother to write it and to others I think it may be a bit of a revelation. Here it is. Your photography will become more meaningful and powerful if you stop concentrating solely on taking the perfect picture. By that I don't mean you shouldn't strive for perfect composition, lighting and all the other technical aspects. Sure you've got to get all of that right but you should be doing that without having to think about it too hard. A good photographer focuses on far more. It's about being open to the world, the experiences, listening keenly to the peopl...