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.