Sussex Photographer Bernie Greene scratching out a tune while trying not to fall off the roof

room pano

This is an experimental picture of one of the more exotic rooms at ARTS House in Sharpthorne. It was made for day 32 of the 365 but never got posted.

I have decided to stop the 365 after 76 days. I loved doing it and it did me a lot of good creatively but it was also distracting me far too much from my business as a photographer.

One thing I found detrimental about it was that I am not a good instant editor. Editing is a very different hat to image making. Both are important. I found my editing job was suffering because of the daily deadline. To edit correctly I need at least 24 hours to go by after a shoot before I put on the editor’s hat. There were many times in the 365 when I made a bunch of shots and chose one that looked good at the time only to find a day or so later there was a much better one I had overlooked. This is obviously not good for clients or promotion of my work.

But I still want to post more or less daily. Well there are a lot of pictures that haven’t had an audience purely because they were made in the past that can now have that audience. The picture above for example.

This was made about 6 weeks ago as an experiment. I wanted to see if distortion was a necessarily “bad thing”. The cheap kit lens that came with my camera creates distortion at wide angles that other, more expensive, lenses I have don’t. Lines that are meant to be straight come out bent to a slight degree. I don’t use it when straight lines are important but that isn’t that often and I still like and frequently use the kit lens. But the above pic was distorted in a different and far more exagerated way.

This image is made up of nine seperate images using a relatively long focal length instead of one wide angle shot. The nine images were then “stiched” together with specialist and very time consuming software.  The software is called Hugin and you can get it for free on the internet if you want to have a play with it.

Gary Byrne

Sometimes being a geezer and a photographer is tough. As a photographer I think this guy is really good looking but as a geezer it just isn’t something I would openly admit. Such is life. Mr Byrne came to ARTS House today to meet someone. While he was waiting I grabbed about three minutes with him in the studio. We made eight shots. Any one of those eight could have been the chosen one. In the end I narrowed it down to two; the one above where he looks kind of like a good guy and another where he most certainly looked like a bad guy. It was a toss up. I chose this one mainly because I usually would have chosen the other.

So what of the 365 you ask. Well it’s back. Sort of. I like the project far too much to just drop it but I’m not going to continue it with subjects that aren’t really my bag. So if I don’t get to shoot someone or something that I want to shoot then I won’t post one for that day. It is still a 365 project but it might take 465 days to complete.

The project has a lot of value to me personally but it was becoming too expensive to maintain. It has already achieved a purpose I didn’t have for it which is to show me where my main interests are. These happily coincide with what I want to trade. But there have been many days where I was shooting stuff for the project that was not the kind of thing I want to trade. So I had some choices to make. I didn’t want to be posting stuff on my main website that I didn’t want to be shooting professionally. And I didn’t really want to start posting the 365 stuff somewhere else after having started it here. So the above is a workable compromise for me.

What is a portrait?

This is going to be one long post. If you aren’t an artist you’ll probably be better off skipping it. If you are an artist you might still be better off skipping it but you may find it interesting anyway as you may have had some of the same considerations. If you’re a prospective client you might gain an insight into some of what is different about me as compared to other photographers.

This is going to ramble a bit. I’m thinking it through as I go along. If I thought it through and then re wrote it I think it might lose something in translation.

What is a portrait? Well many dictionaries say it is a “likeness of someone, especially one showing the face, made by a painter or photographer.”

Hmm “especially”? Does that mean a picture could still be a portrait without showing the face?

Maybe. If I accept the idea of “likeness” first then I might be able to make a portrait by showing other parts of the body but excluding the face. That might be an interesting challenge. But it isn’t what I wanted to write about.

For some a portrait is any picture showing the head and shoulders of a person whether it be formally made or just a snap of the moment shot.

So it obviously means different things to different people. That could just render the word useless because none can agree on what it is.

But then it does mean something to me and as this is my website and as you might be looking at this site with a view to possibly having me make a portrait then my opinion on the subject, it seems to me, perhaps, maybe, is worth writing about.

Where am I coming from? Well I have studied some art history and I have looked at a lot of paintings and photographs and I have looked at the business practices of a lot of photographers. The end result was a bunch of confusion and the writing of this post is supposed to help me clarify my own thoughts on the matter and perhaps start a discussion on it.

The most obvious and clear distinction between a photograph and a painting is that a painting takes a lot longer to make, usually.

That is not always the case. I’ve made images that began with a 160th of a second in the camera but then took two or three days of work in processing to complete the image to my satisfaction. But that isn’t the usual case in photography, especially “professional portrait photography”.

On the whole the length of time to process film and then to make prints in the chemical age of photography was still a lot less than it took to create a painted portrait. Why is this important? Well time is a scarce resource.

If a painter was going to take the time to create a portrait he could not use that same time for chopping firewood or for baking bread. He therefore needed to get an exchange for his efforts in order to eat. So, if he was skilled and his work was well liked, he could offer his services as a painter to create a painted portrait. He would not as a rule create a series of painted portraits and have his clients choose which one they liked. He was not paid for his time but for his final painting.

In a sense this was a good time for portraiture. It took a lot more than buying a camera and some lenses and having some business cards printed to say you were an artist. Because of the effort and time involved there were fewer incompetents in the field.

In photography it has been very easy to be click happy. We can shoot at 5 frames per second or more during a session. We can have the subject take up several different poses and shoot dozens of frames of each of them. We can go to different locations and do the same kind of thing again and again. In the course of a couple of hours we can make hundreds of different looking frames. Even before the age of digital we would likely shoot several rolls of film in the same way. What this has done to the idea of a portrait is quite profound. It has gone from a one off once in a lifetime proposition to something you could have several times per year with a set of prints for each one.

I am not trying to debate whether this is a good or a bad thing. Economically it is obviously a good thing. It means people can have as many or as few portraits as they want. It also means a photographer can sell more than one image from a session. But I do believe, or perhaps it is just a fixed idea, that a portrait is supposed to be one image that rises above all other possible images. This is the idea I want to examine.

On the one hand it is ridiculous to think you could capture the essence, the ultimate image, of a person at one sitting and have that be the final word on the matter. People change from hour to hour let alone day to day or year to year.

On the other hand you could make an image that many would recognise as capturing the essence of a particular person and I think that is a valid pursuit. Or another goal could be to make a picture that no one will ever surpass. I’m sure that is a valid undertaking even if you never succeed as it pushes you to aim higher.

This discussion also has considerations to do with my pricing model which is very different to most other photographers. I like my pricing model and am very comfortable with it as a pricing model but it creates a conflict in my head nonetheless.

My pricing model is very simple and goes like this; The session is free. The client only pays for those images they want to buy. The session is my investment of time to produce images the client will want to buy. Why on earth should a client have to pay me for my investment without knowing they will get something they like? And why should a client pay for my time at all? They can’t hang two hours on a wall and admire it for decades to come. My time is valuable to me but it is not valuable to my clients. They just want good pictures.

Does this mean I’m cheap? It does if I don’t produce much of value to the client. Whereas if I produce many pieces of work the client just has to have then we both win and the client doesn’t have to take any risks with their money.

This model keeps me sharp. It forces me to work as hard as I know how to produce top notch work. It also forces me to study and work on all aspects of my technique. It also forces me to get into very good communication with my prospective clients to find out what they would really like to have and to let those clients go somewhere else if all they want is a passport photo.

So I like the philosophy behind the pricing model and I think it is morally right.

And I have achieved my purpose in writing this post!

Because the next step was to say that the pricing model says I need to produce lots of good images whereas my ideas on portraiture seemed to say that I must focus on making one exceptional image.

The resolution is this; It is a false purpose to go for making one exceptional image that will surpass all future attempts by anyone else. In order to do that I would have to know far too many things about the future that I couldn’t possibly know. That would lead to a freeze of indecision about how to proceed. My image may one day attain such a status but it is largely out of my hands if it does or not. Another and not unimportant factor is that I am making pictures for clients and not just for myself. It is they who must value the work and not some notion of posterity.

Last night I came across Chase Jarvis’s “The Consequences of Creativity” video. I remember seeing at least two of his teaser ads for this and a subsequent spoof of one of those by Joe McNally. These were really good but I failed to get that they were teasers for something I could have seen months ago! The main event (below) was missed. My view of Chase after seeing this went up by several notches and it was pretty high before.

So as it is around an hour long I thought I’d tell you a bit about it so you can decide whether or not to bother seeing it. I suggest you do bother if you are a creative and want to continue to be one on your own terms. That is what this is about and I found it to be a great help in sorting out my confusions regarding what to promote myself as. In a recent post “In Search of Style” I pondered the problem of whether to portfolio the work I want to do or the work I know I can sell. Chase answered that for me. So if you are in a similar position this would be a good one to sit back and watch.

And a most welcome one at that. I have been busy in London for a few days and just got back. So I’m catching up on email and blogs I follow and there is what looks to be a cool piece in Lighting Essentials

Lighting Essentials is a pretty high profile blog by a successful pro photographer who teaches others as well as shoots commercially.

So I read the post and start to look at the images. I’m thinking there is some cool stuff here and then…

I almost fell off my seat. It isn’t just one of my own pics, it’s a self portrait. You can see the rest of the post here.

So why is this posted under “business related” and why should you care? Glad you asked.

I re-started my career as a photographer in January of this year after a 25 year break mostly in IT. This domain name was only registered in mid January. I have worked daily since then to promote the site and myself as a portrait shooter. I have a Facebook account along with Twitter and Flickr and others are coming soon. I have studied SEO for photographers and other kinds of businesses and am putting it into practice as I go along.

I’m not sure I’m doing everything right but it is good to get an acknowledgement that I have at least been doing something right.

What Kind of Photographer Am I?

One of the purposes of putting up this web site is to showcase my work to potential clients. For that purpose I have a section called “portfolio”. In that section I put some examples of my work. The question is what should go in there?

It doesn’t necessarily contain my best work. “Best” is a totally subjective term anyway.

I have been pondering this for a long time and changing the images in the portfolio accordingly. Should I show the kind of pictures that are most likely to pull in work? Should I show the kind of pictures that I want to make? Is there a difference?

Well there certainly is a difference. I can make pretty good pictures of children. It is also something I really enjoy doing. But it is not something I wish to do day in and day out. Likewise I can make the kind of portraits seen in many high street studios. They are fine if that is what you want to do and I also like making them. But what really excites me is the idea of heroes and villains. “Bringing out the hero or villain in you” is the signature line in all my emails. And it is this that I find the most fun in exploring and creating.

I also wonder if the term “photographer” truly applies to me. I use a camera and lighting gear and I work as hard as I can to get the image as right as possible before firing the shutter. But I don’t always stop there. When I see the results from the camera they are usually perfectly well exposed and lit. I don’t use Photoshop to correct errors at the time of shooting but raw digital files do not usually look right straight out of camera. They are often flat and need a contrast tweak. Or the white balance is a little off. So far these are the kinds of changes that most photographers make. But I sometimes go further. And sometimes a lot further.

I do not have the consideration “it is a photograph and it is supposed to look like a photograph”. I am making an image on the screen, or in the print, that corresponds with an image I have in my head – my idea of what the end result should look like. That idea isn’t always a high fidelity portrayal of what was in front of the camera. It is certainly true that I could achieve with lighting some of the effects that I now achieve with Photoshop and where I can do that without adding a lot of extra time to the shoot, or without spending a fortune on gear, I will do that or learn more and then do that. But the main point here is still that I work to achieve as close a representation as I can to the image I have in my head.

The last paragraph is about what you might call my “art”. At this exact time I do not know that my art is something that will enable me to eat. I haven’t sold enough of it and it is still in an early stage of development. But there is also “art” in making pictures that I already know people will buy because they already have that aren’t what I would most like to be doing.

I do have the consideration that being a starving artist is not cool. I agree with Steve Jobs that “real artists ship”. So do I have a problem? Yes, and that is okay. The problem is to survive long enough to prove or disprove whether or not “heroes and villains” is a viable product.

Time will tell. I’ll give it a couple of months anyway.

Here is yet another pic from an old shoot that I had overlooked at the time.

There was another image of this same subject that I liked a whole lot better, in fact it is in my portfolio for that reason, but it still has much that I like about it. In hindsight that is. At the time of the shoot it was completely overlooked.

I’ve been cleaning up one of my hard drives and clearing out pictures that I know I will never use. Once I had decided to delete those images I would never use I took a more critical look at the images and found quite a few that may well be used one way or another.

So I’m adopting a new practice with my files. I will continue to look at them and get what I consider the best of them out soon after the shoot but I will look at them again after at least a week has passed and do a new edit.

Sometimes you have to separate yourself from your most recent work in order to see it better.

I’ve been wanting a studio for at least two years. Pretty much since I got a reasonable grasp of lighting. Since then I have dreamed of having a space I can have lights permanently set up with some props and backgrounds and stuff.

Yesterday I was offered some studio space about 3 miles from where I live near Sharpthorne in Sussex. It is available pretty much whenever I need it from a good friend and fellow shooter Sam Wordie. This is very good news and I intend to make good use of it.

However…. I’ve come to realize that having a studio might give me total control of lighting but it doesn’t give me everything I could possibly need. Take this picture for instance.

Ken is a cantankerous wonderful subject. As a former photographer himself he knows how to sit and criticize your lighting setup pose.

The gorgeous oak paneled wall just out of focus in the background will not be available in the studio. This was shot yesterday at home in a small room I have been getting by with as a studio. It too doesn’t have oak panels on the walls. In fact the oak comes from a different location altogether. But it dropped in nicely.

I always make a point of getting shots of anything that might make a good backdrop. It is amazing how frequently they come in handy. I have several types of wall and am always looking out for new ones as well as other kinds of props that might come in handy.

Here is the same shot before dropping in the wall.

Ken still looks like a fine figure of a man but oak panels say one thing and blinds, a desk and a radiator say something else.

The point here is that if you’re half decent with photoshop and you make a habit of collecting background and prop shots you can save a lot of time and money and get pretty good results.

Been thinking about my business, my blog and my future.

Every day I read several blogs by other photogs and have been doing so for at least two years. I am on several mailing lists to do with photography. I go to trade shows and attend seminars. I do something active to do with photography every day. But I don’t yet have a thriving photography business. And I want one.

I’ve been using the internet since 1992. I became a pretty hot software developer and all round IT guy mostly through the help available through the internet. I have developed a lot of confidence in the people who use it. For the most part they are very keen to help out anyone who asks for help on any subject. That is an incredibly powerful resource and I have used it a lot to get answers to thousands of questions. I have answered a lot of other people’s questions too but not nearly as many as I’ve asked.

I still love development work but I am increasingly more passionate about image making and more importantly image making as a profession. So I’ve been using the internet to learn about photography both technically and as a business. I have learnt a lot and now it is time to put it all together.

So I decided about the turn of the year to get my photography business truly established this year. I wrote out a plan as far as I could see at that time of what it would take and the steps needed to make progress. This website was one of those steps.

That plan has been a tremendous boost. It tells me what I should be working on and just knowing that means I have things to do every day that should advance my business. Little by little things are beginning to happen. Prospects for portraits are finding out about me. Prospects for collaborative work are becoming aware of what I do. People are subscribing to my blog feed. My work is being seen.

So why might I regret this post later? Because this post is my declaration of independence; it is my public commitment that I am putting myself out there as a photographer who intends to create a flourishing, prospering business doing what I love. It marks my decision. So if a year from now I’m working at the drive-thru window at McDonalds you will be quite justified in driving by and making snarky comments and having “Would you like fries with that?” as my only response.

If there is a chance I may regret it why am I doing it? Oddly enough the main reason for it is so that I don’t regret it. Not only do I know I have made this commitment but you do too and some of you will be checking back now and then to see how I’m doing. Will you be checking back?

I saw the news about the new Apple iPad and instantly thought it would be an amazing device for showing my portfolio. I have actually gotten work as a result of showing some portfolio pics on my Sony Ericsson w580i and that has a pretty small screen. The iPad is just a little bit smaller than a 10×8 print!

I love Apple design but have yet to buy a single product from them. This is quite likely to be the first even though it lacks several features I would have liked. As Scott Kelby says, “It isn’t what it does it is HOW it does it”.  Jeff Revell has a good post on it too. In fact these two are the best I’ve seen so far.