Featured 'tog Tuesday - Andy McDonald

This week's featured 'tog is Andy McDonald, a professional photographer just starting out in the world of professional photography with his wife Erika.

Firstly, a bit about Andy....
My first camera was bought as a present by my parents & was a Russian manual 35mm camera called a Zenith E. My first Canon camera was an Ae1 which I still have in the loft & this really allowed me to work semi automatically Av etc & get prints back from the lab which were of a reasonable quality. Although my last film body was an EOS 1N I really believe that my photography began to improve far quicker when I purchased my first digital body which was a 20d, this allowed me to try things out & understand the impact, I have learnt more in the last 5 years than I did in the previous 20…

Erika and I love photography and “McDonald Photography” is our first step towards creating a successful business which supports our goals to do something we both love for a living. The challenge of creating images that your clients adore up against tight timescales, with what can be, to the un trained I everyday surroundings really keeps me on my toes, but without Erika having a guiding hand in to the styling and final presentation of our work Im sure we’d be less successful than we are today, taking the image is just a part of the process, I know great photographers who cannot “sell” their work at the right price and sustain a business simply because they haven’t got an end game, their images are sat on a HDD rather than providing entertainment.

First up and the only one we ask to everyone:
BLAB: What colour would your Ferrari be?

Well, it would have to be Nero with cream leather. In fact any other colour than red, I know this is against all the rules, but I don’t know cars just look great in black….

BLAB: What's your best bit of advice for a new photographer?

I think that far to much energy is given to have faster newer equipment, is this really what photography was about for you as a youngster? i would guess not. So to answer your question I would have to say

1/ Get a camera that has manual controls and learn how it operates. Understand how iso, shutter speed and aperture work together to create magic.

2/ No matter what lens you have, dont let it restrict your imagination, far to often i hear people saying i need a wide angle lens to take landscapes or you need an 85mm 1.x to take a portrait, i say rubbish. Your eye sees the image. No matter what lens or camera you have go take some pictures and enjoy them, in time you will know the improvements to be gained from specialist lenses and you can then go and buy with confidence.

3/ Find your self a forum, online or face to face where you can talk & mix with other photographers, its a great way to learn and ask questions you also get to benchmark yourself you may well be surprised.

4/ I think one of the hardest things to do not only as a beginner is decide what to shoot, so it’s a good idea to give yourself a brief, for example this could be a colour, a location, like a local landmark & take 10 images all different, this will get you thinking beyond the obvious and will stretch you. Try it its not easy.

5/ Although I use Lightroom and Ps to create a look, I have always tried to get it right in the camera, I think its best practice to do this and enhance with software, not rely on it to save you bacon… well not all the time ;-)

5/ Don’t give up, good luck.

BLAB: If you had been paid ten thousand pounds for being our 'Tuesday
tog', what photo equipment would you spend it on?

Ok 10K that sounded a lot, but its not really when you start to think about it. I think I’d really like some broncolor portable lighting. I’d like some tungsten lighting. A 50mm 1.2 and a 35mm 1.4 a new Billingham bag please and a new Mac book pro.


BLAB: Natural light or flash and why?

Either, I’m happy working with both, I don’t think you can beat the excitement of the start & end of the day, maybe its because you have tight timelines to work too and the light is never the same twice. I’m currently loving working with my speed lights as I can be a creative as I like, Manchester is a great inspiration for me at the moment, the back drops are fabulous, one minute you’re shooting a derelict area the next a fabulous multi story Hilton hotel…so I think that I’ve got the best of both worlds and yes I’m just beginning to understand how fantastic finding that balance could be.

And now for some images:
A straight from camera shot as I always try to get it right in-camera:

The same shot but this time after the only editing that was done. I really try and stay away from Photoshop if possible and currently do all my editing in LightRoom 2.

A shot from a quite recent shoot with a local model

Another recent shot - I thought it best to show recent stuff rather than the selected best!

BLAB: Thanks for taking the time to come in and answer our questions Andy. Since you're quite new to this professional game (although your images and website show quite a talent), if possible we'd like to come back to you in the future and see how you're getting on? It'll be interesting to see how you and your business have progressed especially in these difficult financial times. Best of luck for the future.

If you'd like to be one of our featured 'togs, drop us a line in the comments and we'll be in touch. 

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Featured 'tog Tuesday - Chris Neill

This week is the turn of Chris Neill, who recently turned professional to be our Featured 'tog on Tuesday. We asked Chris about his background and how he became a professional before rolling out some of blabpictures finest questions.

CN: I grew up in a small village in Kent where people either worked on the farms or down the local coal mine. That was not a life I imagined for myself, so at 16 years of age I joined the Army. I first started photography as a hobby during a tour of Northern Ireland in the late 70s. Despite the obvious travel restrictions imposed on me I was inspired to try and capture the natural beauty of the country and not the troubled times it was suffering.

BLAB: It's possible Chris and the last Tuesday 'tog Joe Fox saw similar things in Ireland but maybe from different vantage points; strange these kind of coincidences.

CN: In a career spanning 23 years I travelled to some amazing places with some amazing people. Consequently, taking photographs of where I’d been and who I was with was almost a natural thing to do. Some years I did more photography than others but I was always taking pictures so that I could return from my travels and share images of the life I was leading with my friends and family at home. On ‘retirement’ from the military I moved into General Management, the transition from ‘Army life’ to ‘Civilian life’ also meant that photography took a back seat for a few years, the need to share images with family no longer applied.

Not long after the Millennium my brother in law decided he was going to sponsor a rider in the British Superbike Championship. This introduced a whole new world to my wife and I, we soon became avid fans of the series going to as many races as would could.
Of course I would take my camera and as our interest grew so did my interest in capturing the action. I bought a new ‘digital’ SLR camera an EOS 400D, and an EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens. I talked to as many other photographers as I could at the circuits (and still do) trying to learn the secrets of motorsport photography. I’m now a regular at the circuits throughout most of the series and my images have been used by some of the teams, so I must be doing something right. I also found I had a knack for taking pictures of people, starting with simple portraits and progressing to weddings and then commercial style fashion photography. I also found I was competent at taking pictures of ‘things’ so another progression has been product photography.

In June last year I was made redundant and decided that I would have ago at photography full-time. It’s been a tough 8 months and my timing of starting a business just as the economy crashed could have been better. But I’m still here although it is getting tougher each week to find enough work to keep going.

BLAB: Time for the blabpictures questions; What colour would your Ferrari be?

CN: Perhaps the question should be why would you want a Ferrari in any colour but red? If you must have a Ferrari (and it would not be my first choice) then it has to be red!

BLAB: What's your best bit of advice for a new photographer?

CN:Assuming the new photographer is a complete novice my advice would be

1. Read the manual that came with your camera; learn how to change the controls and what each change does to the pictures you are taking.
2. Take loads of pictures; take pictures when you are out and about with friends or family, when you’re on the bus, nights out, long walks with the dogs, everywhere and anywhere.
3. Then check the results; notice how the light in your pictures change throughout the day, how different exposure settings affect the picture, how different angles of the same subject can change the picture from a ‘snap’ to an image to be proud of.
4. When you have a good image try to work out why it’s good so that you can do similar shots another time with a similar result. Conversely try to analyse why some of your shoots did not give you the result you were looking for so that you don’t repeat the mistake.
5. Don’t expect to become an expert overnight and even having the best equipment money can buy will not make you a great photographer. Like all skills practise makes perfect and I for one am still practising.

BLAB: If you had been paid ten thousand pounds for being our 'Tuesday tog', what photo equipment would you spend it on?

CN: An easy question for me; A new Canon 5D Mark II to replace my 5D Mk I, a Canon 50D, a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM, Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L IS USM & Extender EF2x II. Not much change from £10k there & if you made it £20K I could go on...

BLAB: You can't have seen the latest list prices for the EF 400mm f/2.8L IS, that'll be most of the 10k gone!

BLAB: What would your dream photo opportunity be?

CN: I’d love to do a portrait of the Queen. I was lucky enough to be awarded an MBE in 1998 and it was presented to me by the Queen at Buckingham Palace. She is tiny, but has an aura about her that just makes her special. Now if I could capture that in a portrait... Seriously it would be the ultimate portrait session, the pressure to get it right in the small amount of time that would be allocated for the job would be immense. It is certainly not a job you could afford to get wrong.

BLAB: Natural light or flash and why?

CN: Without doubt flash, I’m a self confessed control freak and I like to control the light in my images. Purists will argue you cannot get better than natural light but it is difficult to get right and you have to learn to compensate or compromise on the image you wanted.

BLAB: Which photographer's work do you most admire and why?

CN: Another easy question... Paul Sutton of ‘Postscriptphoto’. This guy is a master of landscape photography and he has a real gift for processing, giving his images the right amount of light, colour and toning to provide atmosphere. Landscape photography is a skill I have yet to master to any degree but one day...

BLAB: So how about some photos Chris?

This is my current favourite image of the moment. Taken at the Adrian Pini Studio in West London using a single light, high to the right to simulate a street light. It was taken as part of a series of images to demonstrate the differences in make-up and style through the decades 1950’s to the present.

Canon 5D, EF 24-70mm f/2.8L, ISO 100 f/11 1/80s

One of those images that is guaranteed to get an ‘Ahh’. Taken at the Wildlife Heritage Foundation in Ashford, Kent. My wife had bought me a ‘Big Cats Photography Experience’ run by Peter Davey, it was cold and wet but it did not stop the lions from posing as if it was all they had to do all day. A great day out!

Canon 400D, EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM, ISO 100 f/5.6 1/100

Canon 5D, EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM, ISO 100 f/9 1/200s
Taken at Druids Bend Brands Hatch in October 2008, the last round of the British Superbike Championship. ‘Druids’ is one of the most accessible places to take unrestricted photographs at Brands Hatch and is popular with amateur and professional photographers alike. I have developed my own ‘panning’ methodology which means I can get shoots like this on a consistent basis

An example of my ‘things’ photography, in this case a thin slice of apple. The apple slice was placed on a sheet of glass; I placed a light under the glass as well as lighting the subject as normal.
Canon 5D, EF 24-70mm f/2.8L, ISO 400 f/5.6 1/60s

Thanks indeed to Chris for some valuable thoughts and pictures on a Tuesday. If you have a need for a photographer do stop by Chris' website www.chris-neill-photography.co.uk.

If you want to be here one Tuesday, and wake up to a whole new set of fame, then leave a note in the comments and we'll be in touch.

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5D II Movies

For some, this may seem obvious. For others, it'll be a confusion then a hassle if they get it wrong. Which group do you fit in?

When you're shooting movies and stills with the EOS 5D Mark II, there is something you really need to remember. It's obvious once you've been told, but easily forgotten in the heat of the moment. 

So there you are at a wedding. You're shooting a lovely portrait shot of the bride walking down the aisle. Mmmm you think, a bit of movie would be nice for the DVD. You enter Live View mode. You start shooting movie. You grab the odd still image as well. All's going great. 

You get home and download the images and movies. You start sorting out the movie clips and...... bugger ........ yep, you shot the movies in portrait mode and now you need to turn your screen on it's side .... or bin the file. 

Yep, that's it folks, if you're shooting movies remember that turning an HDTV on it's edge is really not conducive to the health of your back or your tv so make sure you only shoot in a landscape format or you'll be throwing away footage left, right and centre. 

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Featured 'tog Tuesday - Oliver Godby

This week's featured photographer is Oliver Godby, Oliver contacted us through the comments in reply to our first featured 'tog James Corrin.

Oliver's Biog

I’ve been taking photographs for around twenty-five years, but I’ve only been taking the pursuit seriously since I was about sixteen. A good friend of mine at school was considering submitting some of his photographs for a GCSE and looking at his portfolio and talking to him about how and why he had taken them I started to realise that I too could see another level to photography, beyond that of capturing a moment or a memory. I realised that one might create something larger and more meaningful with a camera; I have been trying to do that ever since.

Almost all of my photography revolves around people and or life. That’s not to say that I don’t often try my hand at landscapes, architecture and other disciplines, but I tend to find that time and again I return to what I seem to be best at; people. Whether we are talking about club photography, event photography, weddings, candid portraiture, portraiture, fashion, nudes, erotic or anything else involving people then I am interested in shooting it. For me, the way that I see people and the way that I try to express the wonder, beauty, darkness and light of the human experience through my photography is a necessary part of my passage through life; when others see something that they like or moves them in what I create then I am even happier.

Caution
Some of my current work is of a particularly erotic nature and maybe not appropriate for readers of the BLAB Blog in an open office. It is not my only interest by any means, but if readers are interested in seeing that side of my work, then please contact me via the website at the end of the article.

As is usual for featured 'tog on a Tuesday, we ask tough questions to see what makes the 'tog tick.

BLAB: What colour would your Ferrari be?

Oliver: Red, of course. I realise that a different colour would trumpet my individuality or something, but the truth is that a Ferrari should be red, even if they were originally all yellow. I used to despair of people in the eighties who bought the Testarossa, which means ‘Red Head’, and then ordered them in a colour other than red, but that’s just me…

BLAB: What's your best bit of advice for a new photographer?

Oliver: Take a camera with you everywhere you go and take lots and lots of pictures. With digital being the financial godsend that it is you can make a lot more mistakes without it costing you a fortune, but there is no point taking lots of pictures and making those mistakes if you don’t learn from them, so be prepared to get some criticism and __really__ listen to it. I can’t recommend Flickr enough for positive and constructive peer review.

BLAB: Rucksack or shoulder bag and why?

Oliver: When I started out in the world of digital SLRs I was all about the sling or shoulder bag, and I had an awesome one (that is no longer produced) called “The December Quarter” by Crumpler. I could fit two bodies and three lenses, plus a half decent sized laptop and enough clean underwear, socks and t-shirts for a weekend away without having to check my luggage. Can you see the problem? Yep it was an unwieldy bastard. So I started to look for the perfect backpack, and I think that I’ve found it. It’s a camera and laptop backpack by Kata, an Israeli company that started out making equipment for media personnel in dangerous environments. They still make stuff for those kinds of applications, including kevlar helmets with cutaways for camera viewfinders and the like, but they now also make really well designed and rugged camera and kit bags for the pro market. They are a little bit more expensive than Lowe Pro and the like, but I have never been so happy with a bag. So in answer..? Rucksack, every time.

BLAB: Natural light or flash and why?

Oliver: I know that this question appears to be an “either or” kind of deal, but my feelings on this argument are very strong and somewhat contrary to the spirit of the question; there is no definitive answer. In terms of my own photography, I like to use natural light, and I like to construct the light that I want, and in the end this all comes back to what the shot needs in order for it to be right. Taking a purely strobist approach removes natural light from the toolbox, and saying ‘I only use natural or available light’ creates the same restriction in reverse. I suppose that the important thing is to look at any shot and understand what adding a flash, or several strobes can do for it, and also what they may take away. Some of my most treasured images have been taken based entirely on making use of available light in odd situations from windows in a run-down section of a practice studio to the outside light at the back of a pub, but at the same time I have created images based on camera mounted flash or even studio heads (when I have had access to them as I do not currently have my own set) that I am not only proud of but that achieved everything that I had wanted for them. While I understand that many who espouse the strobist ethic feel that one can only ‘paint with light’ if one is in control of it, I firmly believe that a photographer needs to see in both ways, to see the potential of the light around them and what effects and emphases it can offer, and also how to change those potentials with a well placed flash. Once you can do that you won’t ask the question ever again, you will simply do what is needed to make the shot that you want.

BLAB: How about pictures, we love pictures?

The first is a portrait that I took as part of my project that ran from 10/05/2007 to 09/05/2008 wherein I undertook to and succeeded in creating a portrait of a different person every day for a year. It is a portrait of my paternal grandmother taken under purely natural / available light in a snatched moment on one of my rare visits to the North West during that year.



This second photograph is an entirely constructed picture, created in a kind of minimalist-strobist approach with a single, camera mounted flashgun, firing away from the subjects and to the right and bounced off a silver reflector held by an assistant. This gives the sharp, stark light you can see in the image, but it generalised the light so it is not as directed, giving compelling highlights and light in general to the surroundings as well as the models.



This third is an example of some of my gig photography shot with only the available light in the venue, and just to own up to it in advance, I was using a VERY wide aperture in order to keep the ISO as low as possible, but I don’t consider that cheating - I got the lens in America when the dollar was almost 2 to the pound!



I have also developed an interest in nature photography on a recent trip to South Africa, and am now beginning the mammoth task of trying to save for another trip and the glass that my experience has told me that I am going to need to create the images that I want to create in that arena. Still some of the images that I managed to create on that trip were worth showing off, and so I leave you with this, captured on a cloudy morning in Kruger, at a doubled 200mm, with a stabilised Canon lens that I would not be without for love nor money:



I’d like to thank the BLAB Blog for the invitation to be their Tuesday ‘Tog, and to offer any readers who are interested in seeing more of my work to visit my website here: http://www.techno-mage.co.uk/blog/photos/

If you want to be our featured 'tog on Tuesday in the coming weeks, then leave a comment on this post, it could be you here.

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Twelve hours left for free registration to the SWPP show

If portraits and people pictures are your thing then you will most likely know about the annual Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers convention in London from 14-19 January. What you might not know is that free registration for the show closes today at 10pm London time.

Here's the link you need http://www.swpp.co.uk/convention/

If you've never been to SWPP before, it's a convention and trade show aimed at professional photographers. There's always lots of manufacturer stands as well as seminars to help you advance your knowledge. Looking at the SWPP site, it seems Canon will be using one of their "Ambassadors" to give some seminars about video with the EOS 5D Mark II and some WiFi things, so it should be worth turning up to. 

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Back to basics, Portrait mode

Moving the mode dial just one click round from green square to Portrait (the head symbol) mode changes your pictures quite significantly.

In short the camera changes the main program to try and give you less depth of field so that your perfect portrait stands out from the background; out of focus background, sharp subject. It does this by opening the aperture more than the green square mode, which also helps you by increasing shutter speed and reducing camera shake and subject movement.

Second big change is to continuous shooting, you hold the shutter button down and the camera keeps on taking pictures until the buffer fills. The idea is that a portrait picture capture the fleeting expressions of people, continuous shooting gives you more chance to capture a good expression by taking more pictures. However the expectation of the Canon engineers is that people are stationary when you take their portrait so the AF mode is set to one shot. You get focus lock with one of the AF points and then all the rest of the sequence of pictures you take whilst mashing down the shutter button will be focussed at the same point. Get the focus wrong for the first shot and you get a set of nicely out of focus shots. Also if your target is hyper active children and pets then this is not the mode for you.

The camera will also select the AUTO ISO setting, but lock it to ISO 100 in daylight to give you the maximum noise free picture quality. When the flash is popped up then the ISO will be ISO 400 to help the little on board flash reach a bit further.

As the light levels drop you will find the camera will pop up the built in flash when needed and it does a good job to try and fill-in shadows on the face as long as the person in your portrait is around 3 meters away. 10 meters and you will run out of flash range. You can't manually pop-up the flash in this mode.

The next and most striking change to pictures is how the camera processes them. Skin tones are a little more subtle, dayglo clothing tends to look a bit muted as the camera selects portrait Picture Style [much more to come on Picture Style in a future article]. This tries to give a good skin tone and softens the skin a little so that you don't get super sharp wrinkles on the models face; in camera botox lite!

As with many of these basic zone modes, selecting the appropriate mode gives the camera more information about what you want to acheive, the more you tell it what you want to acheive the better it can take photos to match your intentions.

Most digital EOS cameras have the portrait mode, though if you're using an EOS-1D or EOS 5D series model then you have to make all the settings yourself.

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