This was actually taken about a month ago when life went a little crazy – nothing bad, in fact a lot of work came my way so it was good. So here is the Thames, as seen from London Bridge on a spring evening in early April. It was beautiful – and it will be again.

The week Sunlight reappeared in Britain, its so beautiful at this time of year. But don’t worry, its gone again. I swear if the weather continues to be so grey for 28 days each month by summer we Brits will all have skin the colour of porridge.

London / Thameside / London Bridge

I love shooting under this bridge at dawn / dusk, the light is great.

Patches of light near an office building

 

Portraiture with Ade – my 1st choice – think this will end up on my site

I went out with an old work friend of mine, Ade who also does a lot of client photography – we wanted to tackle the idea of slaving a flash (so one sets off the other) to enhance natural lighting – which was under a flat grey sky. This is an ongoing exercise to further develop my portraiture, for something else planned a little later in the year.

Portraits to my mind are meant to be more than just pictures of people – but to capture a little something about them. Its not always possible – it’s a concept that the best way to do this with people who are not always comfortable in front of a lens is to spend a little time with them. I spoke to Ade about this (he does a lot more portraiture than me), and he agreed it has a much more natural effect.

It’s also interesting looking at the way men and women are captured by camera. These are much stronger than the pictures of women i’ve recently taken, orr the children in my last post. Anyway i’ll put some more portraits up soon.

Comparing the below to this picture (above) where only one flash was used you can see the effect of remote (off camera) flash can be quite dramatic.

Photostory – Guardian Masterclass

Anastasia Taylor Lind and Sebastian Meyer held a ‘Photographic Storytelling Masterclass’ at The Guardian Building last Friday.

Keen to improve my practice I attended, despite the particularly high price tag of £39. However the Q&A aspect of it did provide value as it was entirely open. There were a whole lot of photographers there keen to ask questions about everything, from the Kit these photographers used to questions about travelling abroad for projects such as using fixers, networking and access.

For my benefit, as much as that of my subscribers, my notes are attached here, they would otherwise become more rubbish in my room. Before reading them its important to highlight that loads of the questions asked – and some of the responses i have heard from amny sources – so i’m not going to write everything! Anyway here goes:

Sebastian Meyer:

Background: American. Self taught – interned at Magnum. NY based. Worked on a paper in Manchester – did his first project in his spare time on Manchester canals.

He uses the journalist ‘standard’:  “Who, what (subject), Where (location), When (time), Why (the hard part). Says to “Ask yourself ‘why am I doing this?’ and affirm the answer to yourself all the time”. SM also states that the devil (or God if you prefer) IS indeed in the detail. Using small elements to suggest whats going on is often as or more effective than being explicit. (see the condoms in Manchester Canals Series).

On access to street (relating to questions to all projects – Manchester Canal. Addiction in London, Libya):

• GIVE your subjects prints if they want them, encourage people to BE subjects in your photos
• Be direct – “Can i take your photo” “I want to take your picture”
• Take your time with people, get to know the moment  you want, invest in people – let your subject(s) relax.
• “Remember what I said about details”
• Dont hide your camera – show people why you’re there.
• Be patient
• Mix people, architecture and objects for a rounded story
• Don’t be po faced – keep your sense of humour (‘soapy tit wank’ graffiti picture)
• Relating to above: Show the breadth of emotion: Humour / Sadness / Violence / horror / relationships etc
• A benefit of using a film camera is that people can’t see the image held in a camera on a screen. Including police if you’re photographing drug users.

SM was asked about taking beautiful pictures of terrible things. He responds instantly “Would you have me take a terrible picture?”.

Anastasia Taylor Lind:

Background: BA & Later an MA – won Guardian Award for this image. Starting her career – uses funding awards to start projects. Mostly Med format Bronica and now Hassleblad. Represented by VII after entering a mentoring program with them. Says only other mentoring program like this she knows of is with Getty.

ATL says she never uses release froms ever. (Does not do commercial?). Paraphrasing ATL: “The subjects verbal release is enough and obvious because of the type of portraits i do”.

• Use a shooting list: Her recent marriage project needed: Marriage, Maternity, Birth Children growing up all represented
• Research extensively (the larger part of her work) – refer to SM “what am i trying to say?
• Says she can now recognise her style when shooting instead of just when editing.
• Like the very still effect Med Format has. Also used 5D (I?)

Recently Seen Exhibitions:

Photographers Galley: Tom Wood – Men and Women
Good collection of reportage / street / street portrait – Seperated by gender. Watch how he handles men and women differently in his images – I wonder if he realised at the time or after. I loved this – and its free

National Portrait Gallery: Taylor Wessing Prize
Great to see ex-classmate Clare Smarts picture from her Bosnian Series exhibited! 🙂 Worth the £2 entry

Roxy – Borough High street – Portrait Salon
As organised by the very informed Carole Evans – one night event, of unseen Taylor Wessing entries.

Natural History Museum – Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Things like this are subject to some snobbery by some sections of the photographic community. But as ever the quality of images is amazing – expensive though!