Lax Lee & wide angle hood woes

July 20th, 2010 § 0

I’ve always held Lee filters in very high regard.

The quality and finish of Lee filters is unsurpassed by the likes of Cokin et al. Well, least i thought, until today when my Lee wide angle hood arrived.

After trying to attach my polarising filter realised that the screws threading through the ring into the jhoods plate wouldn’t reach.

On closer inspection, looks to be that the the screws are mis-aligned, punched through off center so that the base of the bellows hood lifts the bottom half of the ring away from the plate.

Back to the shop it goes.

One other gripe (sorry Lee). Is the whilst i love your product range, you could do with some darn information in-box. I’m from the plug in and play generation (and university educated so of average intelligence) but i had to piddle about with screws and facia panels for a good hour before cracking how the 3 filters interacted. A diagram inbox … anyone?

Suffice to say a replacement is on the way.

f29

Online photography magazines

April 6th, 2010 § 0

I get very cynical in photography magazines.

Their content seems to revolve around mastering some skill inside 3 pages. Master landscapes. Master long exposures. Master masks. And so on.

And there little to zero differentiation between photography magazines in terms of content.

So trapped by a bad British winter and mid-buying a house I scoured the net in search of  decent photography based reading.

And lo two were discovered. And they were good.

Outdoor Photographer

Simply the best photography magazine for landscape or nature photographers I’ve come across.

Photography and photoshop techniques tend to be more advanced. Cloning with color or luminosity masks, the zone system for digital are some recent articles.

I don’t mean to be snobbish, those “basic” articles in Photography-everything-monthly have their place. There just seems to be little or nowhere for photographers to grow into once they reach a certain level of understanding — least not in the commercially published arena.

Regular columns and contributors cover philosophy and photographic approach in and amongst staple topics on equipment, and with heavyweight contributions from Art Wolfe and David Muench there’s always a insight to be gleaned from this magazine.

The Big Picture

Not a magazine technically, rather a stream of consciousness photo-blog.

Inspired by publications like Life Magazine (of old), National Geographic, The Big Picture focuses on current events, lesser-known stories and, well, just about any topics floating around the global newswire.

No politics though, everything is expressed in images with captions.

3 times a week themes are picked from water scarcity, a current war, to Kim Jong il. Whatever is current or topical in the global media, and the photography is world class. A cut above.

The huge diversity of topics brings together many styles of photography as well, landscape, macro, photo-journalism, reportage, portrait and on and on.

Sure there’s no articles to learn from, but just having so many images in one place to digest can’t help but influence upon  your own personal style and open your eyes. And so much diverse genre eye-candy condensed into one easy to consume site is a rarity.

I’m sure there’s more, and i’m going to keep on scouring. Any suggestions, please send them my way.

f29

Selling stock photography selling out?

January 17th, 2010 § 0

This week I Tweeted by submission of some work for review by Alamy and istock and was instantly met with the Tweet “sell out”.

Now why exactly am I selling out?

Scouting forums and blogs it seems photographers hold stock photography in contempt and joy in equal measure. These schizophrenic opinions range from espousing it as ideal way to make a photographic living, to the financial rack and ruin of photographers and photography.

In the alcove | Anasazi Granary, Cedar Mesa

In the alcove | Anasazi Granary, Cedar Mesa

The plan

Let’s be clear I’m not planning to give over my entire photography collection over to a stock library — Alamy, istock, Dreamstime et al — for a dollar a shot. That would (at least for me) be underselling my photography.

For portfolio (or fine art pieces of pride) pricing control will always remain with me when (if?) a gallery comes calling.

It’s more a question of what to do with the rest of my photography collection that I don’t view as being exceptional, but worth something.

Making money from chaff

My hard-drive is clogged with many images that I feel are quality, they just don’t have that certain something that makes me want to put them in my portfolio.

Or they are alternates (perspectives and framing) of shots that made the cut.

So why not sell some of these? Rather than have them sitting ‘dormant’ on my HD forever? If they make a few bob as stock photography over the course of a year, that’s a few more pounds and cents toward feeding my photographic habit I would not otherwise have made.

Having worked for marketing agencies, and having bought stock photography I’m not new to the bias in slice of the pie going to the stock agent, and nor do I expect to make my living primarily this way, but every penny counts.

f29

Featured photographer #1

December 31st, 2009 § 0

So this is the first in what I hope will be a bi-weekly series, sharing featured inspiring photographers and inspiring images I’ve trawled from the web, blogs, Twitter and Flickr.

< – - – - – - – - >

It was hard to decide on the opener, but I went with Adam Clutterbuck, whose Flickr stream I’ve long surfed.

The most fascinating aspect of Adam’s photography, is his mastery of the 4th dimension of photography – time – combined with an uncanny ability to create minimalist compositions.

Maer rocks by Adam Clutterbuck (used with permission)

Maer rocks by Adam Clutterbuck (used with permission)

In Adam’s super long-exposures, solid objects all along the English West Coast, both natural and man made, are contrasted beautifully with the sea rendered smooth, often mercurial like from exposure times that must clock in at several minutes.

Simplicity is also a defining mark of Adam’s compositions, there is often no more than a solitary element, a group of rotting groynes or rocky outcrop, isolated against a frame dominated by ethereal milky water.

Often with landscape photography so much forethought and work is required to break down a vista into what to include and exclude from the frame, however, Adam seems to handle this with ease placing rarely more than 1 or 2 objects in any frame.

Adam’s images remind me of the work of Michael Levin who also seems to be able to effortlessly deconstruct reality, simplifying it into opposing textured elements which only render their characteristics after an extended exposure – classic examples of previsualisation.

You can check out more of Adam’s work on Flickr, where he’s known by his handle of g r e e n g a g e – and I thought f29 was odd – or here at his online portfolio.

Enjoy

f29

——

Thanks to the excellent design blog Abduzeedo, which posts weekly inspiration — typography, web or print design — for giving me the idea.

Learnings from 2009

December 29th, 2009 § 0

As a year of photography draws to a close, and I spent some time thinking of my learnings over 2009.

For me this year has been far less focused on camera technique (the physicality of handling my equipment) and more the mental processes behind making images — which has a lot to do with having read David Ward.

Shoot less, get more

“Well, less is more, Lucrezia” – Robert Browning

Often time is always against us, I get 1 – 2 weeks annual leave for a photography vacation or a smattering of weekends each year. Add that to shooting in those precious times of day (sunrise or sunset) equates to some preciously short windows to capture something truly worthy (and shareable).

This can lead to cramming mode. Trying to fit several different locations in each day, with a new location each day.

But on shoots where I’ve planned 1 – 2 images across several days at a single location or area, the ability to return the next day to improve previous images or sample varying weather conditions has meant I’ve often achieved better images.

In the words of Alain Briot “to try and photograph everything is to end up photographing nothing well”.

Breaking convention

“Etonnez moi!” (Astonish Me!) – Alexei Brodovitch

Read most photography magazines, and they constantly teach (or regurgitate) the same photography mantra; the rule of thirds; framing; odd numbers; repeating patterns and deviations.

To rely solely on these rules is to create something contrived.

If everyone follows the same rules then only order and repitition reigns.

Only by breaking them (or bending) can we hope to create something unique — and commonly unseen.

Stop don’t shoot

“The camera doesn’t make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are seeing. But, you have to SEE” - Ernst Haas

There’s an adage that you must travel everywhere with your camera. I’m not so sure.

Visiting a location without a camera offer a certain freedom of seeing without the confusion of trying to find images that comes with having a camera in your backpack.

You can step back and think (or rather see) with a clear head and a new perspective. There is more to see and discover than your first (distracted) visit with a camera will allow.

Breaking Conditioning

If only I could tear out my brain and use only my eyes – Pablo Picasso

Evolution has taught us to see in one way, to break down and understand the world fast.

The eyes are our first camera, the brain the director. But trying not too look without our eyes, but with the brain is the (hard) trick, as that means running your thinking effectively counter to evolution.

It’s like thinking yourself a movie Director, it’s he (or she) who determines how to frame a scene or compose a movie scene in their heads or paper first. The eyes and camera are merely the means to execute that thinking.

What are the lessons you’ll be taking from 2009 into 2010?

f29

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