Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Make the pictures speak

"You are not going to be in the room when people look at your pictures. Your picture has to speak for itself"
Joe McNally

That's a quote from Joe McNally's book 'The Moment It Clicks'. I have just found that one out myself, but it took reading those words in a book for me to realize that realization. I had my first 'exhibition' few weeks ago. Lots of people came to see my work as part of the Hackney Wicked festival few weeks ago. It was a brilliant time - I never realised how self-obsessed I had become since I started calling myself a photographer. That's the main thing I noticed when frolicking amongst the guests in our improvised gallery.


The other - more puzzling - thing for me was that people were generally interested in different pictures than I was ready to tell a story about. It's McNally's little piece of wisdom that made everything cristal clear for me. It is not the pictures that have a strong memory for me that are interesting to others, it is the pictures that bring interesting memories to other people that are the most fascinating.


I am not sure how this 'heureka moment' will affect my shooting, but it is surely going to influence the way I think about picking the pictures that are going to be shown to others from pictures that mean a lot to me.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Photo Stock Agencies

Cambridge cycling kitch

I have joined PhotoShelter! Big deal - my first submission was 80% unsuccessful, but I did manage to get 1 out of 5 submitted images accepted to their ProCollection of stock. I am now officially offering my picture(s) for sale. It sounds as trivial as it really is - but somehow it feels like a milestone for me.

My camera has been broken after I dropped it from waist high onto a concrete carpark, so I have had time to think and research. There is actually a lot of agencies that might be more suitable for me than regular stock. Here are some of them (mainly found through lists such as this one):

There are more to be added to this list in the days to come.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Redscale Photography

JPG Magazine has a tutorial on a cool photographic technique. It uses film, so I am unlikely to try it out any time soon, but here it is: redscale photography.

It is about flipping your film so that the "wrong" (i.e. rear) surface is facing the light. That produces quite a heavy reddish cast and burned out colours. It looks very radical, yet seems really easy to try out.

Monday, July 07, 2008

Reflective vs. Shoot-through Umbrellas vs. Softbox

As all strobists do, I experiment with light modifiers. One that I have not tried yet is a softbox. Atlanta-based photographer Zack Arias has a great demonstration of the difference in light coming from a shoot-through umbrella, reflective umbrella and a softbox.

His 5-part tutorial on white backgrounds is great too.

Saturday, July 05, 2008

ProPhotoLife

These videos are really useful for relative beginners (like myself) to see the box-standard studio setups. The guy's website has links to images and text.

It's at least a weekend's worth of stuff to try out.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Sigma 50-150mm f/2.8

Sigma 50-150mm f/2.8 is my main lens when shooting sports. It is a handy reach for a gym (Roller Darby) or a dirtjump/BMX track. Aperture of f/2.8 means that shooting at ISO800 in a badly-lit gym will often enough give me acceptably short times to freeze action with shutter speed and/or use flashes at lower power (so they recycle quicker).

The focal range of 50-150mm on a Nikon DX camera is the same as a 75-225mm on a full-frame (35mm), which is pretty much the standard sports telephoto range all the way from film times - but with this lens it comes in a surprisingly compact package! The price you pay for weight savings is that the lens is DX-only (Sigma call it DC). The HSM version auto-focuses even on Nikon D40/x/60 cameras.

When buying this lens I was replacing the Nikon AF-S 55-200mm f/4.5-5.6 VR which I was disappointed with for a number of reasons. You get what you pay for with that lens, at least in build and physical construction. I dunno why I was expecting a pro lens at a hundred'n'fiddy squid. Aperture of 5.6 is useless for trying to freeze fast moving people with low shutter speed (VR or no-VR has no effect on that). I needed something with a tough build and f/2.8 or faster.

Looking at the options that I could afford and was willing to carry around, I chose this Sigma lens above the more expensive and heavier options. I played with the idea of one of the AF-S 70/80-200mm f/2.8 Nikons or Sigma's version of the same range. I haven't regretted this choice since I got the lens about 6 months ago.

Nothing external moves on this lens - it has internal focusing and zoom. The whole thing feels very solid; lot of the exterior seems to be metal - the two rings each have their own rubber pattern and turn very smoothly. The lens is not sealed against weather, but it does have a lot fewer "entry points" for dirt/moisture than other lenses in this price range. It is also affordable compared to (supposedly much better, but much larger/heavier) Nikon f/2.8 glass which costs 2-3 times as much.

The only thing I mind is no optical stabilization. It would have been useful in a telephoto lens combined with f/2.8 aperture. Focusing from 1m is OK but not great.

I also feel a lot of wrist strain (biking injuries catch up) when using a telephoto with the D40's small grip - although that's something that would be even more of an issue with the Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8 VR that I was thinking of as my first choice until I found this sturdy little thing at 50% of what I was about to spend.

There are some reviews at:
Pop Photo, ePhoto Zine,
and a Flickr Group