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.

Flash-Triggering Overview

• Alien Bees


• Bowens Pulsar


• Calumet


• Elinchrom EL-Skyport


• Gadget Infinity


• MicroSync


• MiniMagic


• PocketWizard


• RadioPopper


• Quantum

Photo Stock Agencies

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):

• Extreme Sports Photo
• RedBull Photofiles
• A-Frame Photo

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

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.

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.

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.

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