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

orchids

Well today’s pic was quite a bit of work. I had shot two other setups before I did this one. The first was daffodils and it had some merits but I really didn’t like the composition and couldn’t find a way to do better with it.

The second attempt was with these using a shorter lens and again the composition just wasn’t working out. So I changed to a longer lens and adjusted the setup a bit and got this which I liked a whole lot better.

There’s no getting away from it I keep going toward a painter type of finish in my processing. It is not deliberate. I’m just looking at the tones or the details and looking to emphasise one thing over another or tone down another part. I just don’t care if it looks like a photograph as long as it works as an image.

In case you’re interested the flowers were in a pot on a small table in the studio with a green blanket way back behind them. The light came from a Vivitar 285 in an overhead softbox. There were three exposures used in this with the same settings on camera but with the flash fired at different power settings. The three images were then brought together and tonemapped.

Not a conventional type of HDR photography and it may have been completely unnecessary. I’ve not heard of anyone else getting different exposures in that way. It was actually incredibly hard to do even with a tripod because of the length of the lens. The tiniest movement of the camera would jiggle the image about wildly. I had to fire the shutter using delay as I dont have a remote for it.

Enough ramblings.

apple and bananas

Lit with two large softboxes one to the rear and the main one to camera left. Plus lots of processing to keep the fruit more or less natural looking while giving it centre stage over the wooden background.

Meet Max.

sad-max

Not sure if the mood matches the face. But what a face. He’s a wow with the girls.

Rosie

Well if the rest of this 365 is as interesting and revealing to me as the first two days then it won’t just be worthwhile it will be worthwhile in spades.

This is Rosie. She lives with a private tuition student of mine. I had wanted to  shoot her for ages, just as a lighting challenge, but what I got from this was far more than that. I’ve found that I like shooting dogs. This is the second one in two months. The first was with her owner so this is the first solo dog.

I treated it much like shooting a portrait as far as lighting her.  The processing is quite a bit different.

The cheese yesterday was fun and quite a change from shooting people. I will do a lot more food type shots in this project but I don’t expect them to be as satisfying for me as shooting live subjects.

Cheddar

I thought I’d start off with something different. I’ve never shot food before. It was a learning experience. Among other things next time I’ll know to make sure everything in the shot that isn’t part of the food doesn’t have a lot of distracting texture.

I started with what I thought would be simple. I love very strong and mature Cheddar cheese so this was a good excuse to go and buy some. This is a crumbly cheese rather than a creamy one and I wanted to show that.

I was in too much of a hurry with this. I washed the board before using it here but it wasn’t entirely dry and so the dampness shows up as darker than it would have if it were dry. But I don’t think it bad for a first attempt.

Here is a shot of the setup.

cheddar-setup

The camera was on the tripod. Behind the cheese is a mushroom softbox with a Vivitar 283 fired into it at full power triggered by a PT-04. The second light is a bare  SB-24 at 1/4 power fired at the ceiling behind the camera to provide some fill on the front of the cheese without removing it’s shadow completely.

So I’ve just this minute decided to do a 365 thing. Was it just an impulse? No. Truth is I’ve kinda been thinking about it for months. The reservation was that I thought I might not have the time to shoot and process every day. Well maybe the time will be tight sometimes but if I make the commitment then I will adjust the time accordingly.

Enough on the difficulties. On to the reason. I keep reading about the idea of developing a style and I keep thinking that most of what is said on the subject is b/s. I can shoot in many styles right now and so can most photographers who know their basics and are aware of styles.

A photographic style

The above pic is mainly created in the studio as opposed to in post processing.

An Old Master painter's style

This one is from the same shoot. The lighting is different and the clothes were changed. The post processing was also different. The result is a different style. You may prefer one to the other or prefer something entirely different. The point is they are completely different styles.

So why am I writing about style?  Dunno really. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Well style is the thing that is supposed to make you unique. It is supposed to be your trademark. That thing you are known for. I don’t know about this. It seems to me that anyone who comes up with something different and interesting will be copied immediately by others anyway. Regardless of whether the copiers are right or wrong in copying the fact remains they will exist and many potential buyers will not know or care who the actual originator was. So I’d like to refine the first three sentences of this paragraph.

Your style won’t make you unique but it is something you could be known for. I don’t believe it is possible to come up with a style that retains some aesthetic qualities without it being copyable by others. Neither do I believe it necessary.

The kind of style I want to develop isn’t really a style at all. What I want is to get my attention away from any kind of technically derived “look” and on to communicating something in the most powerful way I can develop. Technique will certainly be developed. Looks might be more developed. Everything I know about technique might be used. But the primary purpose of any image I create should be to communicate something to a viewer.

So I want to do a 365 project with the sole purpose of leaning how to communicate better.

I love shooting portraits but I think this project will involve many other subjects as it will not always be possible to find a new sitter every day and it might become dreary using the same sitters too frequently.

* A 365 thing is a commitment to making at least one image per day, every day, for a whole year.

Or any other kind of art really? I’ve just been cruising around the net looking at  work by other portrait photographers I admire and had a thought that I thought worth sharing.

Have you ever tried to watch a movie from a detached point of view? I mean where you are studying the actors and how they act? Or the lighting or direction? What I have found is that the better the performance of any and all these people the harder it is for me to remain detached studying their techniques. Has that happened to you?

I think it is because the purpose of these skills is to get the viewer involved in the story or the person in the portrait and the more their performance is aimed at pulling you in the more you get pulled in.

The reverse is true as well. If you find yourself without any effort noticing the technique of the artists then to that degree they aren’t getting you involved and therefore those techniques, or their performance of them, aren’t good enough.

In portraiture a good artist has to have enough technique in the way of posing, lighting and composing to pull the viewer in to see who the person in front of the lens is. He then has to bring out something from the sitter through his immediate relationship with the sitter that he wants the viewer to get to know.  That takes a lot more skill than having enough light, a correct exposure and good focus. That, to me, is artistry.

And one day I hope to approach it.

Aled and Sian came over yesterday for a shoot. Here are some of the shots. These are the English equivalent of high school senior portraits if there is an English equivalent. If there isn’t then I’ll just have to get it started.

Aled was suggesting a good location for a softbox placement.

Sian was real easy to shoot. I placed the chair and she just went straight into this as if she’d been doing it for years.

Another idea straight form Sian.

They only get to see each other in the school holidays as they live about 150 miles apart.

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.

“Yes but if you get your clothes wet you’ll have to walk home. I don’t want my car seats to get wet and muddy”.

So off she goes with her sister and cousin and they look so good with the strong backlight that I figure I’ll see what I can get here. So I ask her to splash and throw some water about coz it looks cool and I got this.

Which I think just about sums up being a kid and having fun in the water. So then I made them all walk home.

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.

These two guys looked okay in the studio shot, which is straight out of camera, but I felt they needed to be somewhere grittier. I also wanted more of a documentary style and more of a film look. This is the before.

A bit too cute for my liking.

Here’s the after

What d’ya reckon?

Another from the same day as Orv below. This is Lacey. In fact this is another one I missed when I first looked at what I had.

It has been very slightly cropped and colour balanced but other than that this is straight out of camera. It was made with a single light going through a shoot through umbrella camera left just out of frame.

This was shot around Christmas 2008 but I only just got around to processing it. I had setup in a room and just had people come down and made several pictures of each of them. At the time my only camera was a Fuji point and shoot. It was a terrific session and produced at least four portfolio pictures. That is quite outstanding for me in one session of around 300 total shots.

This one wasn’t even in my first list of likely shots to use. I have long believed (but have seldom practiced with photography) that you shouldn’t edit anything you create for at least a few days. That way you can separate yourself from your thoughts at the time of the shoot and look at the results with a fresh eye. At the time I thought I had a much better shot of this guy but looking at that one now it doesn’t work nearly as well as this one.

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?

Two great friends Ann and Farouk (see their site here) agreed to act out one of my darker fantasies on Sunday night. I had several shots in mind but the weather (at least -50 in London) put paid to that idea in a hurry. Managed to grab this before hands were shaking so hard as to overcome the image stabilizing.

If there is a hero or villain in you and you’d like to take part in one of these types of sessions let me know. I would prefer it if you were in London or the South-East of England. I am based in Sussex but will travel for a good project.