Photography
Photography has been one of the methods of artistic expression in my life; the method used to record events and also to allow me to become creative. This site has long been silent on the subject of photography because I had much to re-learn in the age of digital and now I'm presenting the mistakes I've made in these last few years, for your benefit.
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First of all, let me introduce you to Barry, large format camera in hand, trying to take a photo of me while I was taking a photo of him! A photographer for most of his life, his life had taken him to all sorts of places and he photographed many different things. No longer with us, unfortunately, he was a generous soul who played a solid part in my development as a photographer and he is much missed.
I started in photography in my early twenties when a fellow student was selling her camera, a K1000, with two lenses. That was how I started. Despite having taken a good few years off due to the cost of film, I have returned to digital and have started to go in to photography in a bigger way; this time making the jump from available light photography and in to the realms of off camera flash and studio lights.
This section of the site will thus start to gather some of the posts that I've made on the Shutter Fug blog and also the Shoot Green blog, in a more controlled and accessable manner. I hope you find the information here of use.
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These two pictures are an example of the power of a focal length of 1200mm. In the left photograph, you will have to work a bit to find the house that you can see so clearly in the right photo, but in the right photo you can even see the curtains in the windows. This is the power of a zoom lens of this type, and when you consider that both photographs were taken from exactly the same place, you begin to see just what this type of equipment is capable of.
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Let's face it. Cameras are fun. Taking pictures is fun. These days the price of flims and processing has risen sharply, but that still doesn't stop me from grabbing some film, slinging the camera bag over my shoulder and dragging it around somewhere. Photography is, to me, a form of expression. A picture consists of two parts, the subject that you're taking the phot of, and how you present it. To look at a photographer's work, anyone can see the subject itslef, but it takes someone with a bit of artistic feel to be able to interpret the way that the photographer has framed the shot, balanced the light or done any of a number of things to affect how the image will be captured on the film. I've now got a few digital cameras over recent years, a Fuji Finepix S5000, a Pentax *ist DS and last but not least a Pentax K10D. Digital photography is getting more and more detailed and has come a long way this last decade. Now, I'm not only using them for web design work, I'm also using them for advertising and A3 printing. This last few years has really marked a heavy change in my photographic life.
If I was to be asked for what the secret is to my photography, I would have to say framing. Although digital processing has opened up a whole new world of mistake correction, there is still no sweet a taste as getting the prints back from the developer and leafing through a catalogue of well presented pictures, or hitting the enlarge button on your computer and being met with a picture that sings. The ability to know how deeply in to your subject you should zoom, where they should be placed in the overall scheme of the foreground/background balance, which effects to apply, if any, and that all important skill, when to release the shutter.
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I consider myself very lucky indeed, in that a lot of what I do, I don't have to think about. Whereas other people use seperate light meters to gague the exposure time, and get calculators out to work out the right apature setting, I just more or less guess the whole thing. So long as I've got a simple in-camera light meter that tells me the shot won't be too light or dark, I'll go ahead and risk the shot. That said, however, I do have a light meter and I use it when I need it. Like many tools, the trick is to know when to use them.
And it has to be admitted, that I haven't done too bad a job of it, all told. I've taken pictures for various Sheffield magazines, this one being for the front cover of the widely read student magazine The Sheffield City Press.
A gallery of my early film photos is here that I, personally, like the best of what I've taken. Below are my tips and advice on photography and I hope that they help you in your own quest to become a better photographer.
I'm also not much of a begger, but as I've already parted with a not unreasonable sum of personal folding stuff in testing stuff out to pass on this info, and if you find what I've written useful and feel like parting with some cash by way of thanks, you could do much worst than take a look through my Amazon wish list and getting me something from there. My delivery address is already registered, all you'd have to do is part with the cash.
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