Violin man

I thought summer would be long and fairly relaxing in between leaving college and starting university. That was before university gave me a holiday project to carry out!

I won't bore anyone with the details of the brief here. To cut a long story short, I decided to produce a series of photos of a violin-maker in Sheffield. And yesterday was my first visit to his workshop.

Stefano was wonderfully accommodating and gave me free rein to take whatever shots I wanted. And I came away with more than enough strong ones.

I do have one dilemma - and it is one I have faced before. The university wanted to see a test shoot before a final shoot, but Stefano is a long way from home and although he is happy for me to visit again, the 'test shoot' turned up so many decent shots I am quite happy to use them as final images.

New project

I have been asked to take photographs of a local venue and today was the first shoot. I think it went pretty well.

I am not under any time pressure to get the pictures done. It is rather like the steam railway museum project, featured elsewhere on this blog, in the sense that I can keep visiting the venue to focus on different aspects, compiling photos as I go.

I took on board some of the advice given out by Mike Browne on his tuition videos, mentioned in the previous post. I used only natural light and a narrow aperture for a deep depth of field, which meant quite slow shutter speeds. This was fine, though, because I want to feature motion blur for pictures that do include people.

I also took advantage of the live view feature of my camera and found this extremely useful - particularly for addressing converging verticals. I could alter the angle of the camera with one of my tripod adjustment handles and see on the screen how it affected the distortion introduced by my wide angle lens.

I'm back

Well, I have broken the golden rule of blogging by failing to post an entry for weeks. I will send myself to the naughty step in due course.

In the meantime, here is what I've been up to. My HND course is coming to an end, and the final flourish is an exhibition in Swindon featuring all the courses from the college School of Art.

I have been preparing for this for much of this year - planning my project and taking the photos, of course, but also writing up the background notes, designing and printing business cards, designing a portfolio book and sending out invitations etc.

The past week has involved mounting the exhibition - work that has the potential to be disastrous (requiring, as it does, precise measurements and some DIY skills), but which actually went remarkably smoothly. Some of the results can be seen in the picture above. Please ignore the rubbish-strewn floor!

Great to meet you

One of the best things about photography is that it provides opportunities to meet wonderful people.

I spent most of today in Birmingham taking photographs of members of a Christian community. They were great hosts, treating me to a delicious meal, and made every effort to accommodate my (sometimes demanding) photographic requests.

They even agreed to go out onto the streets of Aston and carry out a litter-pick so that I could get pictures of them working in the community.

But while we were doing this, we met other local people, who were so warm and friendly. The chap pictured above actually called me away from what I was doing and asked me to take his picture with a buggy-load of items he was taking for scrap.

I returned home boosted by the day and with a lot of strong pictures for my end-of-year show.

Showtime

My project involving the steam railway museum is well advanced, but when I was compiling a book of photos I had taken there, I realised that I still needed three or four more shots. So I paid a brief extra visit today.

One thing I have learned during this exercise is that there is always something to learn! And on this occasion, despite going there loaded down with flash equipment and light stands, I realised that experimentation with very long shutter speeds could produce equally good results.

So I took some close-ups of steam engine boiler rivets with the shutter open for as long as 20 seconds and I employed a similar approach for abstract photos of engine wheels and drive shafts.

The picture above was also taken without flash, and with a long shutter speed. It is the inside of a Punch and Judy-type show and I wanted the characters to be largely silhouetted, but the sharpest part of the shot.

Busy!

Broadway Tower, Worcestershire

To borrow a well-worn phrase, I have projects coming out of my ears at the moment. But I also have some time on my hands, so I have been trying to take full advantage.

Yesterday, I went to Birmingham to introduce myself to a religious community I intend to feature in a project, and to take one or two preliminary shots. I will be returning for a more intensive photoshoot in the near future.

On my way back from Birmingham, I visited Broadway Tower, in Worcestershire, to capture a photo for another project. The result is at the top of this entry.

The busy day inspired me to get out with my camera again today, but I had mixed results. I wanted to get a strong picture of Glastonbury Tor, in Somerset - hopefully with flood waters in the foreground. I have seen this kind of shot in the past and it can look very atmospheric.

Do it your-selfie

I'm not exactly into so-called selfies, but my course required me to take one and then work in Photoshop to produce versions that looked like different Hipstamatic filters/lenses.

So here's one that emulates the Salvador 84 lens, with its surreal look in the style of the eponymous artist.

Actually, while I might not be a fan of selfies, the exercise itself was extremely valuable. I ended up using layer styles, layer blends, opacity, colour balance, colour mode, layer masks, vector masks and so on and so forth.

I was also pretty chuffed to discover that a 100 round brush with bristles is perfect for erasing the border to produce a distressed effect. Useful stuff.

Another cuppa

This is the second shot in a planned series on roadside cafes (see January 18 entry). They were another great team and Abdullah is a keen photographer himself, so it was nice to share tips.

I had to use a flash to get a decent exposure - hiding it away in the corner of the cafe - but maybe it's a little bit harsh on some of the foreground elements. It's quite difficult getting the right position for the speedlight and strength of light when you have to work quickly.

As I said in my last entry, I have a good feeling about this series and I was very pleased when the chap interviewing me for university yesterday said the same thing. I was even more delighted when he offered me a place on his course!

I haven't got the same feeling about the ill-fated project I mentioned a couple of posts back. The idea was to photograph what are called 'intentional communities', which are groups of people who live together with a common social, religious, political or spiritual vision.

Roadside cafes

Vanessa at Old Sodbury, South Gloucestershire

One important lesson I have learned when planning projects for my college course is that there is no easy route to success. You have to be prepared to work hard for your pictures.

Last year, I carried out a project focusing on Bristol's Spanish community. It involved lots of travelling round to introduce myself to people, before staging several shoots. I lost count of the number of individual visits I made overall.

The reason I say this is because the project I mentioned in my last post has proved extremely difficult to get going. I've been firing off emails to potential subjects, but it looks as though I am going to have to work a lot harder than that to get my foot in the door. The response has been abysmal.

Plan of action

It's that time again - the start of a new photography project. In this instance, I have my eyes firmly on my course and, in particular, work suitable for the end-of-year show.

I have been mulling over a number of ideas and have one particular theme in mind. But I'm keeping that under wraps just for the moment while I explore its feasibility.

I have learned over the past couple of years that this is a hugely important stage. I have thrown myself into projects in the past only to discover that - for various reasons - they have limited mileage.

I have come up with a method to give myself a better chance of success, and I have already put this into action with my new project.

Family album

I turned my attention to a different project today, recruiting my daughter as a model in the process.

My blog entry on October 4 described a project concerned with the visual language of the photograph and my intention to use as an example a picture Norman Parkinson took of the model Anne Chambers in Bath.

I liked Parkinson's idea of using a pillar to emphasise the rule of thirds and chose to take my picture at the Pittville Pump Rooms in Cheltenham - a building blessed with a number of doric columns.

I also tried to employ some of the other techniques Parkinson used, such as using contrasts in tone to make the model stand out and trying to introduce an air of mystery by partially obscuring the model behind a pillar.

Lessons learned

This shot was taken on my latest visit to the steam railway museum and was subjected to hefty Photoshop work to make it interesting enough to post on here.

The truth is, I screwed up with this particular scene and am going to have to do it all again. I had much better shots than this, taken from behind the chap at the desk, but it was only when I was tidying up the best of these images in Photoshop that I realised I had left some of my kit at the back of the shot.

There are so many things you have to remember as a photographer - and only a fraction of these things involve aperture and shutter settings. One of my weaker areas is remembering to tidy up the scene before shooting. If I had a pound for the number of times I had taken a picture, then spotted later on that there was a piece of rubbish in the background, I would be a very rich man.

Anyway, not too much damage has been done. I'm back at the museum again this coming week, so I'll get it right next time.

Back on track

My apologies to anyone interested in these posts for the long gap since the last entry. Sadly, my father passed away two weeks ago today, which meant my photography, my studies and pretty much everything else came to a shuddering halt.

But I was back behind the camera on Friday for the latest in a series of shoots at the railway museum and I focused on the engine Caerphilly Castle, which can be inspected from a pit running directly underneath it.

It allowed me to have some fun with flashes. I positioned them at the far end of the pit and asked two models to stand midway between them and the camera. I exposed for the ambient light and let the shutter stay open for about half a second.

I was pleased with the result, which captures some of the atmosphere of the place. I particularly liked the starburst effect of the flash.

What the picture doesn't show are the groups of schoolchildren and other visitors to the museum I had to dodge all morning before getting the shot I wanted. These visitors understandably take priority over photographic projects, but luck was not on my side when it came to the timing of their respective tours around the museum. I think they call it suffering for your art!

Steam: third visit

Our project to compile a series of photos for the local railway museum is now in full steam, if you pardon the pun. On our third visit to the facility I concentrated on taking photos of two subjects in particular - one of which was a display showing a woman working in the smoke box of a locomotive (above).

Anyone who saw my entry for September 28 will have read that the overall aim of the project is to produce images that convey the atmosphere of the museum. It's not an easy task photographically, but I thought that one way of doing this was to use flash to communicate drama.

That September 28 blog entry also included a series of pictures showing promising locations, one of which was the smoke box exhibit. As soon as I saw this engine, I had a picture in mind that made full use of my flashes. I'm glad to say the end result was pretty much what I had imagined.

I positioned one flash inside the smoke box directly behind the mannequin, pointing away from her. I placed a second flash on a light stand high to my right, with the flash pointing across the mannequin's face. Both were triggered using radio-controlled Pocket Wizards.

Steam Museum - first shots

The operation to take a series of shots for a new book for the local steam railway museum began in earnest yesterday. I concentrated on photographing the entrance to the museum - particularly a couple of scenes I highlighted in an earlier post.

I put my camera on a tripod and used long shutter speeds to capture visitors to the museum walking into the entrance area. I was using a Sigma 10-20mm lens - ultra wide angle - and this allowed me to capture the whole of the scene, including a number of television screens and the main welcome sign.

The slow shutter speed created motion blur as the visitors walked along - an effect I had been looking for mainly because it adds to the atmosphere. I had to experiment a little because if the shutter speed was set too low, the subjects almost disappeared entirely from the scene. The results are shown in the following shot:

However, I might have a further attempt on my next visit - not just because the man pictured is too static, but because I want to get the visitors' shadows on the facing wall.

'Parks'

Spring Hats in Bath (copyright: Norman Parkinson Archive)

I have been enjoying revisiting the work of fashion photographer Norman Parkinson with a view to basing one of my course projects on him.

I felt the picture above was perfect for an analysis of the visual language of a photograph. Parkinson has used a pillar to emphasise the rule of thirds and has positioned model Anne Chambers's face at the golden mean intersection. The road leads the viewer into the photo and the buildings provide leading lines pointing towards the model's face. I also like the way the model is a darker tone from the rest of the image, making her stand out even more.

Welcome to Steam

It’s always exciting when the opportunity comes along to carry out practical work - even more so when the work is for an outside client and will result in a book.

A local steam railway museum has asked the second year HND group of which I am a member to take photos that depict the atmosphere of the facility.

The museum has commissioned photography from the college in the past, but this previous work has had a different emphasis - focusing more on the minutiae of the exhibits. I think our task is particularly challenging because it demands creativity and a mastery of certain techniques to pull off effectively.

Today was our first visit to the museum, so we were given a look round and the opportunity to take test shots.

The pictures I have posted simply display scenarios I would like to explore further. I have in mind using off-camera flash and models, but today was not the day to experiment with these. Nevertheless, I was excited by the potential presented by some of the settings.