Daily Photo Project
http://www.onecameraonelensonephotoaday.com/.
I really liked the concept. It will mean you are not neglecting your personal photography, it will start you taking your camera around with you most places (just incase the day’s photo op happens to be on the way to get milk), you can’t be too precious or perfectionistic about your work without driving yourself insain (what is going to be my biggest challenge), and most importantly it means you are spending a few minutes behind your lens every day. A great challenge for any photographer and one I decided to take on.
First Wedding Debrief
I recently shot my first wedding as “the photographer for the day” and this is a bit of a debriefing of what I learned for those of you who may soon be finding yourselves moving on from assisting to taking on your own jobs.
Your first wedding will probably be one of the biggest learning experiences in your photography career, it was for me. I had trained for this day, and I had made sure I was as prepared as I knew how to be. I had 6 different lenses ready and waiting should I need them, extra batteries for my camera and flashes, charged and waiting, a spare body, more cards then I knew what to do with, and hours of self talk in my back pocket. Little did I know that I could have had the whole Orms store in my bag and have spent a year with Oprah and it still wouldn’t have meant I was prepared.
You see I had no idea how much of the day the photographer is actually involved in the planning of a wedding. I had never really been to the pre-meetings, just the weddings, so I did not really know how they worked.
When I had the pre-meeting with the bride, I got the timeline for the day, a call shot list of the people she wanted formals with and we chatted about some picture and location ideas. Done and dusted surely? Not quite.
What I realised during the course of the day was that all those photo-sessions that seemed to happen so organically when I was shadowing ,didn’t happen quite so organically on this day, in fact they didn’t happen at all. We rushed from hair and make up to getting dressed and after getting dressed rushed to the ceremony, there was no time to show case the hair, make up and dress, or to go for strolls in the garden for a portrait session. We had a schedule to stick to ,and, were running late. As a result , I ended up shooting the entire wedding day photojourn (apart from the couple’s shoot which, thank the Lord, we had spoken about).
Chances are if you have not agreed upon the photojourn style of shooting, your bride is going to be expecting the wedding photography norms that she has been browsing through online for the last few months, and these take time, which takes planning. The awareness of these expectations, and what I could logically deliver, had my nerves on edge.
After the wedding I had a debriefing with a friend photographer and he told me that in his pre-meetings he usually ends up suggesting how the day’s schedule should run as opposed to having the bride provide him with a schedule to work around. He even gets the groomsmen to get dressed up before heading to the bride for her preparations, when the groomsmen usually get back into casual clothes until about 15 mins before they have to be at the ceremony 🙂 . This way he can get both the brides and the grooms prep shots, which would usually be happening around the same time and would leave him needing to be in two places at once, and whilst he is very talented, he doesn’t posses this ability.
So at their first meeting, months before the wedding, when none of the finer details have been formalised, he has a meeting with the couple about the timeline and makes sure they understand that if they are going to get the shots they are expecting, they need to give him the time to get them for them.
He generally makes sure that he has an hour with the groomsmen and asks that they are already dressed apart from their shirts and shoes when he arrives, he spends about an hour with them, which he schedules so that by the time his hour is up, he can then head through in time to catch the last hour of bridal prep and gives himself an hour after this with the bride to get the portrait session shots. After the ceremony he asks for half an hour to get the formals and an hour to get the couple’s portraits. IN this meeting he has effectively ensured that three and a half hours of dedicated photography time are scheduled into the day, something a bride to be could never be expected to schedule on her own steam.
After the debriefing I immediately got hold of my up and coming brides and scheduled meetings.
I also was not prepared for the guiding role I would need to do on the day.For most weddings, the bride and groom have never done this before and are so overwhelmed by the day that they have no idea what to do when, which means that they often look at their photographer with slightly panicky eyes and a big “what do we do now?” expression on their face, not really an expression you want to be reflecting back to them.
It goes from simple things, like being asked “is the bride supposed to wear her garter on the left or right thigh?”, to giving more emotional support, to actually guiding them in their wedding day proceedings. The latter is something I found quite difficult, being a introverted 20-something, it took a bit more confidence than I had packed to be addressing an entire wedding party of 30+ year-olds and telling them what they were doing.
So whilst this doesn’t involve too much more planning than knowing when key moment are happening and where (cake, confetti etc). Make sure you are mentally prepared for it. Your first wedding will be quite an experience and the possibility of being thrown into a directing role you were not aware of can be quite daunting.
Lastly, make sure you have spare cards and batteries on you, not in your bag. I had all my spare cards in my pocket and a spare camera battery in my pocket but, rooky mistake, I did not think to put flash batteries in my pocket, they were charged and waiting in my bag. None of my card changing needed to happen frantically during key moments, none of my camera batteries did either, my flash however, decided to run out of batteries as the first dance started, which resulted in one of every wedding photographers lowest moments, the re-run. The bride and groom were so understanding and great about it though, they simply decided to have fun dancing together room enjoying an excuse to be in each others arms again that day.
Its a common knowledge that most people learn how to do their job on the job, and it seems that your “on paper” skill is only a small part of what you need to know. Having done my first wedding, I can see why this is the case. Luckily the couple and myself had an understanding that this was my first wedding and had worked prices out accordingly, but not many people are able to make arrangements like this, so for those of you may not have this luxury for your first wedding, my advice would have very little to do with equipment choices or technique, it would be simply this…plan time for your shoots, be prepared for your role in the day, and keep your spares on you at all times.
IF you woudl like to see some pictures of the day check them out on my new website 🙂 …. http://sarahhowse.co.za/?p=336
Photo projects, creativity and limitations.
I remember getting really excited about school projects, well my English ones mostly. When we were given creative writing assignments I would spend a few minutes brainstorming and once I had hit on an idea I liked, my mind would start running and from there I would be lost to it, so wrapped up in the process that it did not seem as if I was actually in charge of the thoughts my mind was coming up with. It was like sprinting downhill, your legs move more out of sheer momentum than controlled intent. It’s exhilarating. Since leaving school, I have found this in some of the poetry assignments and philosophy essays I did at university, but not in much else. It’s strange, you would think that now with time on my hands and no one telling me what to do, I would be flinging myself at creative projects. I am not really though, sure I am constantly doing decently creative work, but not getting swept up in it. I have this creative energy welling up inside me and my attempts at doing anything with it seem stunted. I am frustrated by my inability to focus it properly. Just the other day I was feeling creative and instead of heading out throwing myself into a project to come home feeling invigorated and excited about what I had created, I actually wasted money on buying clay and ended up sitting on the couch with a movie, half concentrating whilst making a rather sad looking tree, which is now moping around my desk self consciously, rather embarrassed that its creator was an adult.
Recently however, I experienced a tinge of this excitement again; a photographer friend of mine asked me if I would be interested in us setting a photo assignment each month that we have to complete. I agreed and we set our first project this month, to shoot a 3 by 3 series of square crop images using a 50mm prime lens and a wide aperture of between F2 and F4. So there had to be an overriding concept that was consistent throughout the images, and this concept had to make use of a low depth of field, and I had to be relatively up close with my subject. I really enjoyed thinking about the different possible ideas and trying them out only to get swept away in a concept I didn’t plan for at all.
This made me realise what had been missing since the school and university assignments…boundaries. I think creativity flows best not from unlimited freedom, but from boundaries, it’s the challenge of constraints, the focus of limitations that gets the mind on a creative buzz.
Setting boundaries is a great way to improve your skills as a photographer, teaching you better how to master your equipment, learning new tricks, and ultimately thinking out the box. Something as simple as constraining yourself to a prime lens (a lens that can’t zoom in and out-a fixed focal length)for a day will give you a better idea of what scenarios that lens works best in, and set a reference for that focal length in your head .
On this particular assignment I wouldn’t say that I learned anything groundbreaking but I did gain from it none the less. My original plan was to use the low depth of field to portray something about the persistent beauty of the living, the organic. To contrast sharp clear leaves, birds and all things living against blurry buildings, gates and constructions to communicate that even in the obscurity of a city, life grows through the cracks and is unavoidably a part of our world. Cheesy I know but it appealed to my romantic side and I liked the spiritual undertone to the message.
I headed off to Kalk Bay thinking of the train tracks, seagulls, and pot-plants and, whilst I was walking around, what ended up grabbing my attention had nothing whatsoever to do with my romantic musings. I came across a statue of a woman staring across the street and had the idea of doing a portrait shoot with her.
I liked the idea of trying to convey different moods and feels to a “person” and try “capture” personality, despite the fact that lighting, clothing, position, expression and body language would be consistent. So essentially all the work was left up to perspective. This became the focus of the day and every statue I met in and around Kalk Bay, I had a mini portrait session with. It was refreshing to do a shoot where your subjects have no issue with personal space, unlimited patience and is not at all self conscious.
I came back having re-visited some of my film and media lessons on perspective and what a powerful tool it actually is in visual communication, as well as gaining some new ideas for how to use shallow depth of field in a portrait session. Shooting with visual consistency in mind was also a good exercise, and a habit I need to get into if I am going to be creating wedding albums.
The real value of this project for me however, was simply heading out with my camera, with neither a client nor my portfolio in mind and getting carried away in a creative process, inspired not by freedom, but the challenge of limitations.
I ended up doing the series on a Buddha fountain I had found mostly because I liked the over-all look and feel of the images. All the photos were taken at F2 on manual with the white balance on fluorescent (4000K) which gives the images their blue toning. I did not edit them apart from resizing and sharpening for web…
Baking with Actions…
This last week I made a discovery which has kept me entertained for hours (and taught me quite a bit too ).The timing of this discovery is perfect as it makes for a quick, follow-on post to last week’s one on actions. If you liked the idea of actions, and want to get some, but are feeling a bit lost as to where to find some good ones, I would recommend getting yourself some Totally Rad Actions (TRAs) from http://www.gettotallyrad.com .They are not free, but if you have some cash to spare they are great to work with and you will get your money’s worth out of them.
I have been using a couple of these actions for a while now, but only recently discovered the page on the TRA website called “Recipes” (http://gettotallyrad.com/recipes/). This is a page where photographers can upload images they have edited using a mixture of different TRAs along with the original photo, the edited photo and the recipe for how they got this effect. I have really enjoyed this, not necessarily because I want to be able to replicate the exact effects, but because following the recipes is a great way to learn your actions, what they can do and what other actions they mix well with. I was lucky enough to have someone sit with me and teach me how to use actions, but if you are unfamiliar with them then following recipes would be a great way to get comfortable with actions and learn how to tweak and change them to suit your own tastes and style.
Whilst playing about with these recipes, I ended up looking through some old photos, trying to find images that would work well with the different effects, and I found a shoot I did last year with my baby cousin Sophia. She was in CT on holiday, and we decided on the spur of the moment to head out and have some fun taking pictures one afternoon. This was my first portrait shoot and Sophi is still to date the best “subject” I have ever worked with. She is natural and comfortable in front of a camera and completely gorgeous. It’s amazing how much fun you can have on a shoot when you are with someone who is not afraid of looking silly. The shoot was never posted online though, and so when I found the pictures, I decided to re-edit them using some of my own TRA recipes, here are a few of the pics….
Ithemba Kids
This last month I went to the Natal Midlands and whilst there spent quite a bit of time with the guys from Ithemba Projects, a wonderful group of people with huge hearts who work with children in the Sweetwaters community (http://www.ithembaprojects.org.za/). Whilst there I went along with them to a holiday project they were running in Sweetwaters and took my camera. It was great to see what they are up to hands on and I really admire what they are doing with the kids, not only academically educating but also building a foundation of strong values, in the belief that with education and good morals instilled during childhood, the community can be uplifted from within. I was touched most of all by the scincerity with which these kids got into the worship session- it was not as if they were just singing a song they learned , you could feel something more was going on, that there was real connection with what they were doing and what is was about . I was also struck by the sense of responsibility they had toward each other, the older kids really looked after and tended to the younger ones with patience and love. Here are some of the photos I took on the day…..
Creating an Action
Digital editing is a huge part of photography these days, and whether you do very little post production on your images or not, you are likely to be spending a significant amount of time at the computer. The chart below ( from http://www.ispwp.com/the-secret-life-of-wedding-photographers.html) displays how the average wedding photographer spends their time, and as you can see the largest chunk of it is not spent behind the camera but rather behind the computer.
In order to keep your sanity and personal life intact as photographer, the more time efficient you can make your editing, the better, which brings me to the point of my post, if you have not met yet, please let me introduce you to actions. Moreover, let me show you how to create your own.
Actions are basically a one click way of creating an effect or changing an image in a way that would usually take you numerous clicks. So, if you want to make an image look “punchy”, instead of going to your curves and creating an S curve to up your contrast, then heading to your saturation and upping it, you find an action that does this all in one click. This is especially useful when it comes to the things that you find yourself continuously doing to your images, such as adding a vignette, changing them to sepia, desaturating, sharpening them, resizing etc. There are thousands of ready- made actions online and if you are interested in buying some a simple search will lead you to numerous sites offering them.
I was recently taught how to create my own Photoshop actions and am really excited by the potential this offers me, and so I thought I would recreate the lesson for others who may share this excitement.
So let’s get to the lesson….
The first thing you need to do is enable actions in your Photoshop window, so head to “window”, and click “actions”.
Now go to your side bar and you should see that you have a panel for actions. I generally like to keep my actions in button mode, which is simple to navigate, but for this you will need your actions to be off button mode, so go to your side bar and uncheck button mode.
Open up any image and let’s make an action….
Before creating your first action you will need to create a folder or “set” in which you can save all the actions you create from here on. At the bottom of your actions panel you will find a button that allows you to “create new set”. I have creatively named the location where I save my actions – own actions.
Now to create the action, go to the bottom of your actions panel again and click ”create new action”.
A window will pop up and ask you for a name of your action, for this lesson I have decided to create a basic action that will make my images more “punchy”. To do this I am simply going to create an S curve to up the contrast and then up the vibrance. So dipping into my stores of unused imagination again, I am calling this action “Curves and Vibrance”. The window also asks you to choose; a set to put the action in (I obviously chose “own actions”), a function key or fast key (which allows you to run that action any time you press that key, I chose to make mine shift F10), and a colour- which makes the action easy to find in button mode- (I have made all my “own actions” violet).
When you are done, press the record button, and from now on everything you do will be recorded as part of the action you are creating. You should see a button at the bottom of your actions panel go red to indicate that it is recording.
The first thing I want my action to do is to create a new layer and name it “curves”.
I then want to create an S curve. For those of you who don’t know how to do this, you go to “image” ,”adjustments”, “ curves” and then you create an S curve as below, this effectively darkens your shadows and brightens your highlights thereby increasing the overall contrast in your image.
Between each step I like to create a new layer which enables me to adjust the effect of the action once I have run it by playing with the opacity of that layer, so I now duplicate the layer again and this time name it curves and vibrance.
Next step is to up the vibrance of my image. Again for those of you who do not know how to do this you go to “image”, “adjustments” and “vibrance”, and simply move the vibrance slider until it is where you would like it.
Now that you have a “curves and vibrance” layer you can go to the layers panel and delete the curves layer for a tidier action.
We have now done everything we want to do, so, head to the bottom of your actions panel and click the stop button, the red record button turns off and you are finished. You can now switch your actions back to button mode and go look for you new action 🙂 .Without much effort I have managed to shave precious time off my editing process for future images that call for that small bit of extra “punch”.
This is obviously a really basic example of an action and how to create one, but they can get very complicated and exciting completely changing the look and feel of an image all in one easy click.
Shooting Solo
This last week I did my first solo photo shoot of a couple. A friend photographer from JHB, Doug Place, was here in CT to do an engagement shoot with his wife Carla coming along to assist, and he suggested that whilst here, I do a shoot with them. The experience would be good for me, giving me the opportunity to practice doing a shoot on my own, and they have not had many photos taken together since their wedding, a win/win situation. Doug is a photographer whose work I admire (http://www.dougplace.com) and he is in there with the top 50 SA photographers, he is also someone who has mentored me on my journey with photography, so when I got a call from him suggesting that I do a shoot of him and Carla, I was mildly terrified but excited none the less.
We enjoyed a day of wine tasting where I took some very informal shots of them and the next day we took a stroll on Muizenberg beach for some more formal photographs. As planned I did learn a lot from the experience and these are some of the tips I took away from it:
Take time to consider all the aspects of your shot, don’t rush yourself. I had stupidly put allot of pressure on myself about this shoot and didn’t make space for the fact that this was my first solo job. I tried to work at the pace of someone who had been doing this for a while, instead of acknowledging that this was a first and I may need to build myself up to being as fluid, fast and confident as an experienced professional.
If you are rushing yourself you are likely to focus more on either what’s going on inside your camera or what’s going on in front of it and end up neglecting one, the other, or both. For me, in general, it was what was going on inside my camera that I gave all the attention to, I was focused on my settings, getting my exposure, depth of field, sharpness/movement and composition right and neglecting to assess the lighting how it was falling on my subjects, how they were responding to it, if shadows were falling behind them and how I should work with those factors. Looking back there were so many times when I thought why didn’t I use a scrim there, get them to stand further away from the wall there and why did I have them facing that way? I knew better. All the theory I needed to know was there but in my nervous, rushed state I was only using half of it, and had I stopped, taken the pressure down a notch and thought calmly before each shot, I would have given myself the opportunity to consider everything a bit better.
On two of the courses I have been on, I was told that as a photographer you need to act confident and do things quickly, even when you are unsure, because this way your subjects think you are super professional and won’t get restless when you are taking time between shots. Having been on a solo shoot now, I couldn’t disagree more, you will look like a professional when you hand over amazing shots and no one will remember that you took a little longer between getting them, and your confidence will grow naturally with getting results you are proud of.
Don’t be shy to do what you need to get a good shot, in the end the people you are photographing are there because they want good pictures, and if you are stopping yourself from doing something because you don’t want to put anyone out, you have missed the point. If you have a vision, go for it and don’t hold back. I had two shots in mind that I wanted to get Doug and Carla to do, nothing crazy or over the top, but a little more complicated than your average shot. Instead of going for them, I held back not wanting to send them up a hill, go scouting for that slope or make them roll their jeans up a little higher so they don’t get wet and I regret it now because those more creative shots are often ones that end up being your “cover shots”.
Don’t fall for the idea that the more shots you take, the more options you are likely to have. I tried to get as many shots as possible which took away from getting as many quality shots as possible. Fewer well thought out photographs are worth far more than many rushed photographs. The photographs that I had planned well came out beautifully and I didn’t need 4 or 5 versions of those photographs to choose from, the few I took came out as planned. The shots that I was a bit trigger happy on however, ended up being a bunch of relatively average shots, and those were often the ones I didn’t bother to “flag” in Lightroom.
Be aware of the comfort of your subjects. Doug has sensitive eyes and when there was bright light, he ended up squinting. We tried to do a countdown to each shot where he would open his eyes on the count of three but it didn’t really work, I should have been using a scrim. I didn’t notice it on the camera screen but when I pulled them onto the computer I had great shots that ended up being unusable because of the expressions. If your subject isn’t comfortable, do something about it because it will end up coming across in your image. Professional models train themselves to work with bright lights and look turned on even if they are in ridiculously uncomfortable positions. With wedding photography on the other hand, you are working with normal people who squint when it’s bright, shiver when it’s cold and generally don’t know how to look like they are head over heels in love or having fun if they are uncomfortable.
I am so grateful for this opportunity because I learned a lot from it. Even as far as the more technical things go I realised I had some misconceptions. For instance I had been told that the golden rule with getting sharp images is f8 is great, not so much the case, but that’s for another post.
If I had to make one strong suggestion for someone studying photography through shadowing, make sure you practice being the one in charge of the shoot. Take your friends out for shoots, if you are at a family braai, offer to have an impromptu family shoot in the garden. Just don’t think that you will be able to rock up on a shoot and apply all the theory you know. Driving back from the shoot I told my boyfriend that I was making a promise to myself never to watch a photographer at work and criticize how they are doing things. It’s harder than it looks and you may think you know your stuff, but it only counts if you know how to employ all that knowledge on the job, when the pressure is on, and the best way to make sure you learn to do that, is with practice. I have started to line up a few more solo shoots in my spare time so that next year, when I am in the driver’s seat, I am comfortable behind the wheel.
Here are some of the pics from the day…
Online Shopping
Professional photography equipment is hugely expensive and, when looking at buying lenses, a great thing to think about is buying them second hand. Most photographers I have spoken to have bought their lenses second-hand, and with all the online sites available for the selling and buying of second-hand goods, there is a good chance you will find what you are looking for. But this does mean knowing how to go about buying goods advertised online. Here is my story of my first online purchase and some of the things I have learned from it.
Part of this year’s goal, as I have mentioned before, is saving up to buy some professional equipment. I have been working as a waitron on the side to make the money I would need to do this, and I had finally got to the stage where I had enough money to look at buying my first L series professional lens. So, these past few weeks I have been scouring Gumtree and ODP (Outdoor Photo) for any one of the three lenses I am planning on buying.
A few days ago I came across one of those lenses, a Canon 70-200mm L 2.8 IS, going at a great price on Gumtree. The seller, Steven, said in his ad that he needed a fast sale as he was emigrating and wanted to change from Canon to Nikon when he resettled, explaining the low price. I always search under Cape Town on Gumtree, so when I got hold of Steven I asked him if he would be keen to meet me at Orms (a photographic equipment store in CT) so that I could have them take a look at the lens before buying it. He said that he was actually in Plettenberg Bay and that I could fetch the lens from him there at the address he supplied or he could post it to me.
I replied to Steven explaining my situation and the fact that buying a faulty item or losing the money for this lens would be devastating for me and asked him to sign a contract stating that upon payment, he would send the lens to me taking all the necessary precautions to ensure it did not get damaged during transport and, that if it got here and was not the item advertised in the condition advertised, I would get a full refund. Steven responded immediately, saying that he completely understood my concerns and to put my mind at ease he wanted me to know that he was not a commercial seller, that this was his own lens purchased from Orms, that he was selling it to buy the Nikon D3S and that he was more than willing to sign the contract. He spoke knowledgeably about the lens assuring me that the Image stabilisation was working etc.
I faxed through the contract which required his full name, ID number and signature. I then asked him if he would send me a copy of his ID so that I could make sure the ID number and name corresponded with the ID number and name on the contract. Again, responding immediately Steven agreed and sent through a faxed copy of his ID. He was great throughout the whole process and was far more concerned with getting the details of where the item was to be delivered to than giving me his account details, which was reassuring. Contract signed and ID copy in hand I paid the amount, very nervous but hoping that I had taken enough precautionary measures to put off a scammer.
The next day I received a message from Steven telling me that he was at the couriers and asking me if I was ok with the amount it would cost to get it mailed overnight as registered mail. It was quite steep but not unrealistic considering the weight of the lens and the cost of overnight registered mail. Despite the price being steep I knew that registered mail was definitely the safest way to go and having it delivered overnight would put my mind at ease instead of worrying about it for days. I agreed and sent through the money with Steven saying he would get hold of me that evening when he got home from work to give me the tracking number.
I wish I could say that the next day I went to collect my parcel and that this post will give you some tips on how to make sure that you have the same success, but unfortunately it’s not. I lost the majority of my year’s savings thus far and this is actually a post about how to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to you.
Steven did not get hold of me that evening and he would not respond to my emails nor would he answer his phone. I started to worry and phoned the post office in Plett, they said that they did not have a parcel with my name and suggested that I try reversing the payment which you can do within 48 hours of the transaction taking place. I was in luck, it was still within 48 hours of the payment, so I rushed to the bank only to be told that the application for the reversal would take 3 days to process, cost R300 and may or may not be successful. The fee stands regardless to the success of the application and the application would only be successful if the amount was still in Steven’s account, altogether a useless endeavour. I then went to Steven’s bank, explained the situation and asked them to check if the money was in his account, which it was not. I phoned a lawyer friend of mine who looked up the ID number and told me it was a fake; the ID did not match the name. I had definately been scammed and all hopes of the parcel maybe turning up dissapated.
The next day I opened a police case, alerted Gumtree to what had happened and went to Steven’s bank again to make sure they red-list his account. Whilst there they told me that large sums of money had been transferred to his account the night before, probably from another successful scam or two. Steven definately knew what he was doing , I wouldn’t be surprised if this was what he did for a living. There are probably quite a few professional scammers out there, which is why you might find the following few tips I learned useful.
The first tip is to simply never buy something that you cannot physically go, look at and fetch. I had told myself I would not do this, but when this deal came along, I tried to find other ways of making it safe for myself instead of just sticking to the plan, which I obviously now regret.
Next, as I mentioned before in the post, it’s a good idea to get the person selling you the lens to meet you at a place like Orms where they can evaluate the condition of the lens for you and make sure everything that needs to be working is.
If you are going to be buying online though here are some hard earned tips I wish I had listened to.
The saying “too good to be true”, is a good saying to keep in mind when buying online, if something looks cheaper than it should be there is a reason for it and its most likely not because the seller needs a fast sale so don’t fall for that line. Trying to save yourself some money could end up costing you allot.
Only buy from sites that have trusted sellers. I have been told that sites such as Bid or Buy and Ebay are much safer to use because you can see if the seller is a trusted seller or not based on how many items they have sold previously and how happy the recipients of these items were. They also are a bit harder to scam on as they require more information from their sellers than a site like Gumtree does.
Make sure you get a fixed line contact number and that the number matches with the address of the person in the phonebook. When I realised I had been scammed I started trying to gather all the info I could on Steven and realised I had very little, in fact, the only thing I had was his account number. The contact number he had given me was a cell phone number, the email address was a Gmail account not a work account, the fax number he had given me was not a fixed line but an 082 number, and the address he had given me was obviously not his.
I have also subsequently been told that you should never pay for something using an EFT, as it does not require that the name be confirmed with the account number.
Try not to send all the money upfront. If someone is expecting you to take the risk that they will send you their item it is not unreasonable to ask them to share the risk with you and you can pay a deposit but not the full amount.
Make sure they do send the parcel as registered mail and try not to get it sent to your home but rather to your post office. Registered mail means that you will get a tracking number and greatly reduces the risk of theft. Having it sent to your post office means that you don’t have the risk of the parcel being stolen between the post office and your house, and it means that you are not handing out your address to strangers.
Buying online is always a risk and unless you can organise to meet the seller in person, make sure you are buying something for a price that you can afford to lose.
So that is my first experience of online banking and some tips I will never forget. At first I did not want to write this post as I was so ashamed of being foolish enough to fall for a scam,but I decided to anyway, in hopes that anyone thinking of buying their photography equipment online would see this as a reality check. If you tend to be a bit too trusting, make sure you are being overly sceptical about your online purchase, and if you feel at all uncomfortable about the purchase you are making, don’t do it, it’s not worth the risk.
White Balance
Before sharing the tip I have learnt recently about white balance and camera settings, I want to give a very simplified and brief version about why white balance is necessary.
So let’s start with an example, I am reading a book by candle light and I see a white page in front of me, and yet when I take a picture of that page it comes out with an orange cast and doesn’t look white at all. What the camera sees and what the human eye sees are actually very different when it comes to light. The strange thing about this is that what the camera is seeing is actually what is true of that lighting situation and what we are seeing is a colour corrected version of that.
This is because different light sources have different colour temperatures and our brains try to compensate for that. Colour temperature refers to the distribution of the colour spectrum in light, which varies from one lighting situation to another. Daylight has an even distribution of colour and contains equal amounts of the various colours in the spectrum, whereas candlelight does not. The light from a candle contains more reds than it does blues and would be described as a warm colour temperature. When we are reading in candlelight we see white as white because our eyes have adjusted their colour sensitivity to suit the situation. Our eyes will pick up that the light source is emitting more reds than any of the other colours in the spectrum, and will compensate for this by decreasing the sensitivity of the colour-receptive cells in our eyes responsible for sensing red light, allowing us to distinguish the colours of the objects in front of us correctly.
This means that if we want our cameras to see what we see, we have to set them correctly to do so. So my image in candlelight would have come out orange because it was not set to the correct white balance. Most cameras have different white balance settings on them that allow you to tell your camera what the lighting situation is and it will make adjustments based in this information. The list of options on my camera is as follows:
Automatic white balance, daylight (Approx 5200K), shade (approx 7000k), cloudy (approx 6000k), tungsten (approx 3200k), white fluorescent light (approx 4000K), flash and manual.
The approximate values next to each setting are the estimated colour temperature readings of each scenario. Colour temperature is measured in degrees Kelvin and despite what one would predict, light with a cool colour temperature (light which has more blues than reds) has a high Kelvin value and light with a warm colour temperature has a low Kelvin value (I know it’s confusing, but just go with it for now and I promise to give you some useful links on the topic at the end for a more in-depth understanding).
So if you are shooting in shade and you have your camera set to tungsten (a warmer light) your image will come out with a blue cast, and if you are shooting in a room lit by a tungsten bulb and your camera is set to shade, your image will come out looking orange.
To give you an idea of the Kelvin measurements of the different light sources you are likely to encounter here is a list I found…
| 1000-2000 K | Candlelight |
| 2500-3500 K | Tungsten Bulb (household variety) |
| 3000-4000 K | Sunrise/Sunset (clear sky) |
| 4000-5000 K | Fluorescent Lamps |
| 5000-5500 K | Electronic Flash |
| 5000-6500 K | Daylight with Clear Sky (sun overhead) |
| 6500-8000 K | Moderately Overcast Sky |
| 9000-10000 K | Shade or Heavily Overcast Sky |
As you can see these are just some of the lighting situations you might find yourself in and there are more here than there are options on my camera. But this doesn’t bother me, because to be honest I am not too worried about white-balance when I am taking pictures.
I have recently learnt two tricks with regards to choosing the right white balance setting on your camera. The first is that you don’t have to, and the second is that you have to shoot in Raw. This is because I am in the camp of evil photographers who think that it’s ok to correct your white balance on computer instead of getting it right on camera, and shooting in Raw allows me to do this.
The preset settings on the camera are not one hundred percent accurate, and often need tweaking due to the fact that it works on an approximate value to begin with, it can’t account for mixed light sources, there are more light sources than settings and the camera tends to get confused when there is a predominance of a warm or cool colour in an image and can read that as a warmer or cooler light source.
If I am looking for a completely 100% accurate reading, the best thing to do would be to use manual white balance, in which case I would get a piece of white/neutral colour card, take a picture of it and tell the camera to adjust its settings so that it reads that card as white. This works well if I have a controlled environment like a studio, or if I have the luxury of time, but in a wedding I have neither. I am constantly moving between different lighting situations and the action doesn’t wait for me.
Leaving my camera on one setting means that all of my images from one lighting situation will need the same colour correction, which allows me to batch edit them. If I were shooting in auto I would have a slightly different white balance for every image and would have to spend hours editing them individually. So I find it much more logical to simply lock my camera on daylight and wait till I am at my screen to correct. This way I save time, get consistency and can still get an image that looked like what I was seeing at the time I took it. As I am not a fashion photographer who needs 100% accuracy this works pretty well for me and using my eye in post is a perfectly acceptable way to get the image looking right. So if you are a fellow evil photographer willing to correct your colour balance in post, then I hope you find this blog entry useful.
I have tried to keep this as simplified as possible but there is a lot to read online about white balance and colour temperature and I had quite allot of fun getting a bit more into the science of it, so if you want to know more, I have some links that I found useful…
Duncan Davidson was able to write two blog posts on these topics that were in-depth and yet understandable with good illustrations and they were : Measuring the Colour of Light http://blog.duncandavidson.com/2008/04/kelvins-and-the-color-of-light.html) and Colour Temperature and white balance (http://blog.duncandavidson.com/2008/04/color-temperature-and-sensors.html).
If you are still with me, thanks for passing up on that warmer colours having a lower colour temp earlier, here are the links as promised(http://www.schorsch.com/kbase/glossary/cct.html, http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.html ) and a quick blurb on my understanding of this. To get a black body (as described in Duncan Davidson post on measuring the colour of light) to emit blue light means that you have to heat it up much more than you would to get it to emit red light. Typically “warmer” colours like your reds and oranges have longer wavelengths, and tupically “cooler” colours have shorter wavelengths, but it is these shorter wavelengths that actually contain light of a higher energey. If you have ever heard of something burning white hot and understood that it was hotter than red hot, or have ever been told that a blue flame is hotter than a red flame, and you apply that knowledge to this situation, then it all starts to make a bit more sense… (http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=1545) 🙂
Before sharing the tip I have learnt recently about white balance and camera settings, I want to give a very simplified and brief version about why white balance is necessary.
So let’s start with an example, I am reading a book by candle light and I see a white page in front of me, and yet when I take a picture of that page it comes out with an orange cast and doesn’t look white at all. What the camera sees and what the human eye sees are actually very different when it comes to light. The strange thing about this is that what the camera is seeing is actually what is true of that lighting situation and what we are seeing is a colour corrected version of that.
This is because different light sources have different colour temperatures and our brains try to compensate for that. Colour temperature refers to the distribution of the colour spectrum in light, which varies from one lighting situation to another. Daylight has an even distribution of colour and contains equal amounts of the various colours in the spectrum, whereas candlelight does not. The light from a candle contains more reds than it does blues and would be described as a warm colour temperature. When we are reading in candlelight we see white as white because our eyes have adjusted their colour sensitivity to suit the situation. Our eyes will pick up that the light source is emitting more reds than any of the other colours in the spectrum, and will compensate for this by decreasing the sensitivity of the colour-receptive cells in our eyes responsible for sensing red light, allowing us to distinguish the colours of the objects in front of us correctly.
This means that if we want our cameras to see what we see, we have to set them correctly to do so. So my image in candlelight would have come out orange because it was not set to the correct white balance. Most cameras have different white balance settings on them that allow you to tell your camera what the lighting situation is and it will make adjustments based in this information. The list of options on my camera is as follows:
Automatic white balance, daylight (Approx 5200K), shade (approx 7000k), cloudy (approx 6000k), tungsten (approx 3200k), white fluorescent light (approx 4000K), flash and manual.
The approximate values next to each setting are the estimated colour temperature readings of each scenario. Colour temperature is measured in degrees Kelvin and despite what one would predict, light with a cool colour temperature (light which has more blues than reds) has a high Kelvin value and light with a warm colour temperature has a low Kelvin value (I know it’s confusing, but just go with it for now and I promise to give you some useful links on the topic at the end for a more in-depth understanding).
So if you are shooting in shade and you have your camera set to tungsten (a warmer light) your image will come out with a blue cast, and if you are shooting in a room lit by a tungsten bulb and your camera is set to shade, your image will come out looking orange.
To give you an idea of the Kelvin measurements of the different light sources you are likely to encounter here is a list I found…
|
1000-2000 K |
Candlelight |
|
2500-3500 K |
Tungsten Bulb (household variety) |
|
3000-4000 K |
Sunrise/Sunset (clear sky) |
|
4000-5000 K |
Fluorescent Lamps |
|
5000-5500 K |
Electronic Flash |
|
5000-6500 K |
Daylight with Clear Sky (sun overhead) |
|
6500-8000 K |
Moderately Overcast Sky |
|
9000-10000 K |
Shade or Heavily Overcast Sky |
As you can see these are just some of the lighting situations you might find yourself in and there are more here than there are options on my camera. But this doesn’t bother me, because to be honest I am not too worried about white-balance when I am taking pictures.
I have recently learnt two tricks with regards to choosing the right white balance setting on your camera. The first is that you don’t have to, and the second is that you have to shoot in Raw. This is because I am in the camp of evil photographers who think that it’s ok to correct your white balance on computer instead of getting it right on camera, and shooting in Raw allows me to do this.
The preset settings on the camera are not one hundred percent accurate, and often need tweaking due to the fact that it works on an approximate value to begin with, it can’t account for mixed light sources, there are more light sources than settings and the camera tends to get confused when there is a predominance of a warm or cool colour in an image and can read that as a warmer or cooler light source.
If I am looking for a completely 100% accurate reading, the best thing to do would be to use manual white balance, in which case I would get a piece of white/neutral colour card, take a picture of it and tell the camera to adjust its settings so that it reads that card as white. This works well if I have a controlled environment like a studio, or if I have the luxury of time, but in a wedding I have neither. I am constantly moving between different lighting situations and the action doesn’t wait for me.
Leaving my camera on one setting means that all of my images from one lighting situation will need the same colour correction, which allows me to batch edit them. If I were shooting in auto I would have a slightly different white balance for every image and would have to spend hours editing them individually. So I find it much more logical to simply lock my camera on daylight and wait till I am at my screen to correct. This way I save time, get consistency and can still get an image that looked like what I was seeing at the time I took it. As I am not a fashion photographer who needs 100% accuracy this works pretty well for me and using my eye in post is a perfectly acceptable way to get the image looking right. So if you are a fellow evil photographer willing to correct your colour balance in post, then I hope you find this blog entry useful.
I have tried to keep this as simplified as possible but there is a lot to read online about white balance and colour temperature and I had quite allot of fun getting a bit more into the science of it, so if you want to know more, I have some links that I found useful…
Duncan Davidson was able to write two blog posts on these topics that were in-depth and yet understandable with good illustrations and they were : Measuring the Colour of Light http://blog.duncandavidson.com/2008/04/kelvins-and-the-color-of-light.html) and Colour Temperature and white balance (http://blog.duncandavidson.com/2008/04/color-temperature-and-sensors.html).
If you are still with me, thanks for passing up on that warmer colours having a lower colour temp , here are the links as promised(http://www.schorsch.com/kbase/glossary/cct.html, http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.html ) and a quick blurb on my understanding of this. To get a black body (as described in Duncan Davidson post on measuring the colour of light) to emit blue light means that you have to heat it up much more than you would to get it to emit red light. If you have ever heard of something burning white hot and understood that it was hotter than red hot, or have ever been told that a blue flame is hotter than a red flame, and you apply that knowledge to this situation, then it all starts to make a bit more sense… (http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=1545) J
Visual Learning
There are many, many great photography resources out there, and, allot of them are free. I am currently reading up on flash from a site called Strobist, http://strobist.blogspot.com, and it’s great because the archive of info is sequenced and you can go back to the first post as a beginner and read through from there.
Other good photography resources include:
http://www.nobsphotosuccess.com/
http://www.prophotoresource.com/
http://digital-photography-school.com
But of all the resources out there, I would have to say that the most valuable ones are not the ones that explain techniques and tips, but other photographer’s portfolios. Whilst the educational sites are definitely useful, I find I learn the most from looking at other photographer’s pictures.
I don’t realise that I am learning at the time, I am just admiring photographs, but all the while I am subconsciously absorbing information about what good photography is. Looking at pictures where all the “rules” are obeyed and it is beautiful for it, looking at pictures where the “rules” are broken and it’s beautiful for it. I find that after a while of looking at photos, an idea or a way of shooting something that would not previously have popped into my head suddenly does. Looking at this stuff online somehow gets my head into a different space, the more I look at photographs, the more opportunity I see for them around me.
Photographers train themselves to look at things differently, to know how to find the angles and details that will make for a dynamic image. It is interesting to watch how Greg (the photographer I am shadowing) who has been photographing for over 10 years will choose to shoot something. A fairly basic example of this can was when I was assisting Greg at a weddinga while ago and I was taking pictures of the bouquet. I had found an area with good lighting and a decent background, placed it there, got close up and started playing with depth of field and angles. Greg walked in the room, saw the light, lines and reflections, and said that whilst he would have placed the flowers in the exact same place, he would take a few steps back and shoot from a different angle. When I saw what he was looking at I couldn’t believe I had not seen it beforehand. Here are the two shots.
The first shot.
The shot Greg suggested.
Obviously he did go in and get some close-ups too but the point was he had recognised an interesting lighting situation happening as soon as he saw it and later asked the bride to go sit there for some portrait shots. He went on to say that it’s simply an experience thing. Over the years he has just learned to see things differently, to always be aware of what the lines, angles, shapes, light, textures and colours are doing around him. He has also credited allot of his education as a photographer to his photo-browsing and I am sure most photographers would say a similar thing. When pouring over the work of other photographers, you get to learn from their experience. You are building mental catalogue of angles, poses and interesting ideas.
It’s also a great way to start developing your own personal style as a photographer. The other day I was chatting to my boyfriend Sean (www.mergestudios.co.za) about consciously moving towards a more consistent photography style and he said to me; “Finding your style is all about finding who your heroes are”. And there is allot of truth to that, the people you admire and whose works you follow are going end up having a huge impact on your own work as a photographer.
When I first started getting into wedding photography, a friend of mine, Doug Place (http://www.dougplace.com), sent me some links to the blogs of internationally recognised wedding photographers, specifically for this purpose saying, “No photography study would be appropriate without a careful study of the masters”. Since then I have added some of these blogs to my bookmarks and check them regularly as a conscious way of investing in visual learning. It’s great because most photographers will post links or talk about peers whose work they respect and you get introduced to more and more photographers as you go along. You also get a feel for what is happening in the industry, what competitions are being entered and won by whom etc.
So if you are interested in wedding photography (most of these are links to wedding photographers but there are one or two that are not) and would like some ideas on where to start looking for inspiration here are some of the links I was sent 🙂
Shooting Semi-Auto
I have recently started shooting in AV (aperture priority) and my word what a difference it has made.
Having previously been under the impression that shooting in manual would make me a real photographer, I refused to do anything else. I got this impression from the very first photography course I went on. The lecturer told us that from now on we were going to be real photographers and as such, would be shooting only in manual. We had to be in control of the images we were creating and shooting in and manual would give us this control. He was probably only trying to get us comfortable with adjusting our settings and knowing why we were doing what, but I translated this to mean that a real photographer shot in full manual all the time and pretty much dismissed the AV and TV (shutter priority)settings on my camera as semi-automatic cheats.
For the next while I was happy shooting fully manual because I was able to take my time with most shots, but as soon as I was thrown into a wedding situation, being a “real photographer” stopped working out so well for me. Being under pressure to capture all the right moments in a fast and continuously changing environment, have them framed well , exposed correctly, have the right things in focus, as well as be creative about my images did not leave space for me to be adjusting settings with my eye glued to my light-meter. I needed to be able to make quick adjustments easily. Eventually I decided to get over my puritan ideals and shot a wedding using my AV.
I did not feel like I was any less in control of creating my images or that I was any less of a photographer for using these semi-auto functions, quite the opposite in fact. It was great, not being distracted by my light-meter, I could think my framing and composition through more carefully and less fiddling with my camera meant I was better able to catch those fleeting moments that make for a special picture. Best of all, I still had all the control I needed over the movement and depth of field in my images.
I am still learning both Av and TV and have not yet found a favourite. During the ceremony and pre-reception, I stuck to AV wanting to control the depth of field in my images as much as possible, but when it got to the reception I was using flash and wanted to make sure that I didn’t get any black bands in my images and so changed to TV.
I don’t regret thinking manual was the only way, by starting there I was able to learn my camera and its settings and get comfortable with them, and I would probably suggest to anyone starting out that they shoot in manual for a while but that is where the manual snobbery would end. I actually think that for a photographer in training, shooting in a semi-auto function will give more space to develop an “eye” and enjoy the creativity of photography, not being so bogged down by the technical.
Here are some of the images I took at my first semi-auto wedding 🙂
Photographing boys and girls.
I am really enjoying doing photography workshops and short-courses , not only do you learn allot from the actual course, but you meet with other aspiring photographers, crazy good hobbyist photographers and just generally people who share your passion. It’s great because allot of the same faces keep re-appearing and it starts to feel like a bit of a photographer’s community.
The last course I was on, I met someone who went to the very first introductory course I did in photography and now, about a year and a half later, this guy had left his job, started up a business in photography and was already hiring people to work for him! Inspiring stuff.
One of the workshops I attended this month was on beauty and portraiture, and whilst allot of it was geared towards more studio set up than anything else, I did learn some good tips on how to go about photographing men and women. Turns out that what works best for men is almost completely opposite to what works best for women, which is an interesting concept for a wedding photographer to try work around ;).
So gentlemen first…
If you are photographing a guy, you want to accentuate the lines angles of his face and create more texture and contrast for a more “manly” feel.There are a couple of ways you can do this, the first is the direction of your light source or main light source. Guys tend to look best when photographed with side lighting. This casts some shadows in the face, which in turn brings out the angles and texture accentuating features such as the jaw bone.
Next you can look at your light quality. Light is judged from hard to soft. Soft lighting is diffused lighting where the shadows are gentle/light, whereas hard light is more concentrated, and casts darker shadows. Guys work well with harder lighting as it creates more contrast in the face.
Then there is the lens you use. Different lenses have different effects on what you are shooting. An easy example is the fish eye lens which is basically an extremely wide angle lens. The wider the lens the more you are going to have distortion or widening at the edges of the picture. Most portraiture lenses are around 70-135mm to avoid this and even give a very slight slimming effect, but guys can often look better with wider lens especially if they are skinny. Shooting in the 50-70mm range will give your male subjects a complimentary broadening effect.
And now for the ladies…
When shooting portraits of women the general aim is to have them looking young and feminine, so you want to go for a soft, smooth result.
Having your main light source come from a frontal direction will mean that the face will be evenly lit, minimising shadows and lines. Frontal direction does not mean straight on though, you still want shape, so for example, if you are using a flash, rather position it slightly above your subject and tilted down or just off to the side than having it staring her directly in the face. If you can’t remove your flash from your hot shoe, bounce it off a wall or the ceiling.
As far as the light quality goes, women look better with softer lighting that casts gentle shadows. So if you are taking a picture of someone in the middle of the day, rather than having her outside in full sunshine go indoors and have her look out the window, the netting will act like a soft-box diffusing the light and giving your subject a smoother complexion.
When it comes to the lens/focal distance you choose, as you could have guessed, you don’t want to be using wider angles. Most women don’t appreciate being broadened. If you are photographing a woman, work in the 100-135m range for a slimmer result.
Obviously though, these are all just guidelines and the look and feel you are going for, what your are trying to convey about the person being photographed and the unique features of that person will determine how you go about your portrait. What I found most beneficial from learning these tips, was that they taught me to start examining light more closely, how it works on a face or body and to what effect.
Unfortunately we did not get to take our own pictures on this workshop so I don’t have any of my own to share, but I can direct you to the website of the course instructor, Christiaan Diedericks http://www.christiaanphoto.com and the course itself was held by the Cape Town School of Photography http://www.ctsp.co.za if you are interested in attending it.
Framing
I shot my first wedding as an assistant the other day. It was great to get a feel for the photographer’s experience of a wedding and I gained a new respect for how fast they have to think on their feet and react to fluid situations. I enjoyed myself, the couple seemed to complement each other so well and I found myself really invested in their experience, I even got teary eyed in the speeches.
Whilst I learnt allot from being on the actual shoot, most of my learning from the experience came when I was reviewing the photographs I had taken on my pc. The thing that stuck out the most about the images, was framing. Looking at the pictures I had taken, there were a few which would have been so much better if I had just taken that extra split second to make sure I had things framed correctly instead of being so caught up in what was happening in front of me and trying to capture it. So I thought I would spend a few moments rehashing some of the framing and composition tips I was taught.
- As has been previously mentioned, there is this rule called the rule of thirds and it goes something like this. Over your image you should imagine a grid, the grid is divided equally into 9 blocks by two horizontal and two vertical lines, so it is your basic 0’s and X’s board. The rule states that the compositional elements of your picture should be found at the points of intersection between the dividing lines of the grid. I have been told by more than one photographer however, that they don’t really stick to this rule exactly, but rather take away from it that centre framing is generally the least aesthetically pleasing way to do things.
- If someone is not facing/looking directly into the camera, then it’s better to try and get them looking into the frame than out of it. This means that if you are taking a picture of someone who is looking to their right, it’s generally best to place them in the left of the frame and vice-versa.
- Apparently the eye naturally looks at a picture from top left to bottom right, so if you are placing your subject in the corner of your frame, the bottom right is a good one to choose as the eye will be lead into the subject.
- Try not to cut anyone off at the joints; it always looks awkward when someone is cut off at the elbow or knee. Also it’s generally better to cut a picture above a joint than below, if you look at a picture where someone is cut off mid thigh it looks allot better than when someone is cut off mid shin.
- Hands are a very expressive part of the body so where you can, try keep them in frame. Whilst there are exceptions, it tends to give the feel of an unfinished story when the hands are cut out.
- Make sure your subjects neither too much nor too little head room in the picture. Most people tend to frame their subjects too tightly when they are not actually taking a close up shot. A good trick is to imagine that each person has a coffee cup on their head and make sure you get the cup in frameJ.
- The same can be said for feet, if you are taking full length shot try to imagine that your subject is standing on a coffee cup as well as balancing one on their heads.
- And lastly one of the good compositional tips to remember, especially in event photography, is to include context into your shots. At this wedding I ended up taking a picture of the father placing his daughter’s hands into the groom’s , and it would have been a great shot of a special moment, but the problem was that without the context of the people’s faces, it is really just a picture of three random sets of hands. I also found that I had neglected the guests a bit during the ceremony and there were a couple of images where I could have widened the angle to get the bride and groom in context with their guests.
Whilst I could have benefitted allot from thinking my shots through a little more carefully and applying this knowledge, I did get a few images that I liked, so here are some of those…
Becoming a Shadow.
I was really lucky when I started looking for a photographer to shadow, mainly because I had received some priceless advice from a fellow self-taught photographer, Doug Place (http://www.dougplace.com/). Doug’s advice got me to see the attitude that I should have towards being a shadow and was the reason I found a photographer to shadow.
He told me that when he asked to shadow someone, he made sure that he made it worth the photographers while to have him along, and encouraged me to do the same. He did not go in thinking that he was offering a free service that every photographer would be keen to have.
Doug was aware of the fact that he would be getting far more out of the situation than the photographer. Sure you do get photographers who see assistants as nothing more than light holders and won’t really care too much to make sure you get anything out of the experience, but if you are shadowing someone who is going to be answering questions , explaining what he/she is doing, and basically teaching you, then you are asking allot of them. Most good photographers will have many aspiring photographers asking to assist them, allot of photographers actually prefer to work alone and don’t really need an assistant, so going in with the right attitude might be what makes all the difference. It did with me.
I had decided I wanted to shadow a wedding photographer, I am not the type who thrives in a commercial setting , I would like to have a fair amount of creative freedom and I would like to take pictures of natural, normal people, all of which you get to do at a wedding. I found a photographer whose work I liked, Greg Lumley (www.greglumley.com), and gave him a call. I asked him if he was looking for an assistant photographer, and he told me that he does not actually take on assistants as he tends to work better alone, but I was welcome go on one or two shoots with him or ask him questions when I needed to. I asked if we could set up a meeting some time to chat and he said yes.
At the meeting we chatted for a long time about equipment and photography and after a while the subject turned to shadowing. I told him that I understood that he preferred not to have an assistant, but if he changed his mind I would make sure I made it worth his while to have me as an assistant. I offered to come in for two days of the week to help him with the admin side of running a photography business, client liaison, photo-editing, fetching and dropping off pictures etc. (this is actually something that helps me too as I get to learn the ins and outs of running a photography business). Greg’s attitude completely changed when he heard this and he got excited about the idea. By the end of the meeting it was official; I was going to be Greg’s assistant photographer.
Greg knowing that I genuinely want this to be of benefit to him and I understand that it means allot to pass on your hard earned knowledge in such a competitive field, has meant that he is keen to make it worth my while too, he takes the time to go through my pictures with me after each wedding, discussing what works, what doesn’t and how to improve things, and he is more than happy to share his knowledge and resources with me. Its amazing how far having the right attitude can get you.
Studying Photography
When I decided that I wanted to study photography, I was scared. I was choosing this over doing honours, something not to be taken lightly considering the scarcity of jobs here in South Africa and how much qualifications help one’s CV. Add to that the fact that there are thousands of photographers out there these days, and this decision was a pretty daunting one. It would have been an easier if I had been doing this for years or if I was a photography prodigy who was taking award winning shots from the moment I picked up a camera. But the truth is, I am still relatively new to this, and I am going to need to develop and work at my photography before I can compete proudly with the pros whose work I admire, and even then success is never guaranteed. However, I had chosen to make a go of becoming a professional photographer, even if it wasn’t the safe choice, but if I was going to do this, I wanted to make sure I did it right.
My first thought , as would be most people’s I would imagine, was that studying through an institution is the sensible, logical way to go about this and that I should find the school that boasts the best reputation and student portfolio and go there. But I ended up choosing to do it differently, and here is why:
Whilst comparing the different institutions, I found that the curriculums involved allot of theory and would spend a couple of weeks at a time on subjects such as the history of photography, ethics, building your own pinhole camera etc. For me, this felt like it was drawing a one year course over two-three years (which is the duration of pretty much all the diplomas offered).That would mean spending another 2 years studying before I even started to get any experience in the actual field.
I was also feeling a little weary of doing something too theory based for such a practical subject, I had previously done a degree that spent allot of time on theory , was very interesting, but it did not leave me feeling at all equipped to actually do the job I was supposedly being trained for. I wanted intensive, practical training.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying I think theory is irrelevant, not at all, especially with the ethics of photography. You need to be prepared for what kind of ethical dilemmas you might be faced with, where you stand with your views on them and the laws you will need to know etc. I had however, already covered these topics in previous courses at great length and was not looking to repeat them.
I was feeling a bit frustrated and did not know what I should be doing. Not wanting to make a hasty or ill-informed decision, I started seeking advice on whether to study at an institution or not. If so, which one? If not, how should I go about teaching myself photography?
I called up a photographer friend I looked up to and asked him for advice. He had taught himself everything he needed to know through shadowing a photographer, reading blogs, finding resource material and building a network of photography contacts which he could turn to when he needed ask questions or seek advice. He felt that the courses/diplomas were “criminally overpriced”, and with each one costing around R45000 a year, I had to agree. His advice to me was not to go through an institution but rather to shadow a photographer and invest the money in equipment.
I started to get very excited about the idea. What my friend said made sense, with photography you do not need a degree or diploma to show that you have what it takes, everything people need to know about your ability as a photographer is in your portfolio. Whilst shadowing a photographer, not only would I be learning about photography, building up a portfolio and gaining experience in the actual field, but I would be learning the ins and outs of running a photography business as well. It would also mean that when I started doing my own weddings, I would have some professional equipment.
As I said I wanted to do this right, and so before making a decision, I looked for some second opinions from other photographers whose work I respected. I phoned both photographers who had studied at an institution, and those who had not, and everyone (apart from one, singular person) said the same thing, don’t study, shadow. They all seemed to share the opinion that the money could be far better invested in equipment, and that by shadowing, you would be able to learn everything you would have learned at an institution and more.
So, I have decided to follow the advice of the pros, and this year I am going to be shadowing a photographer, reading blogs, finding recourse material as well as doing a couple of workshops at the Cape Town School of Photography. This way does mean that I am going to have to make sure I am taking responsibility for my own education, setting up my own syllabus and asking the questions I need to, but I am happy to trade some added responsibility in for an intensive, practical learning experience.
A Short Introduction
Hi, just a quick intro. My name is Sarah, I am a 20-something who after finishing my BA decided that, instead of doing honours or getting a job in my field of studies, I wanted make a go of becoming a photographer.
I first became interested in photography a few years ago, when I took a photojournalism seminar as part of my degree. It was during this seminar that I was introduced to some of the photography greats such as Henri Cartier and Robert Capa, as well as some of the photography basics such as the “rule of thirds”, aperture, shutter speed and ISO. I was immediately captivated, and decided to learn more in my spare time, I got an entry level SLR, did a couple of short courses, taught myself to work in Photoshop and Lightroom and started following photography blogs.
With the degree over and a basic knowledge of photography, I have taken this year to learn everything I can about photography and running a photography business. In this blog I am going to be sharing some of the tips I learn, links I find, and pictures I take along the way, as I explore the world in thirds.
The World in Thirds 
