The art of image making
Andrea Again
This is another composite image. Andrea was shot at my underground car park high tech studio in East Grinstead several months ago. The background image was shot about a week ago in London. I shot the London image as a background with the Andrea image or something similar in mind. This was practice for a couple of very interesting assignments that should be coming up soon but which will remain nameless until they are in the bag.
I love this kind of work and see a lot more of it in my future. Some might say that it isn’t really photography and maybe they have a point. But I couldn’t care less. This could have been shot in the same session but that would have meant arranging a whole new shoot. Sometimes it’s better and cheaper to do it all in post.
Camden Town Shoot
Which Witch?
This may not be the best example of standard portrait photography but then I’m not much of a standard portrait photographer. I find myself getting more and more involved in making images that are themselves made up of several other images. This is from 3 images made of Julie, who describes herself as a witch, plus some other layers that include spiderwebs and lightning forks.
I love this kind of work even if it does add many hours to the process of producing a final image.
Live Band Work
There is some aspect of any kind of work that has the potential to be fun to do. At least that’s my theory. In photography there are all kinds of work I don’t particularly like. Event photography is one of them. Weddings come into that category and so does shooting live bands. But ….
I’m finding that aspect that I like. And without going into it in any detail I’ll just put up a few samples from the “Smoke on the Water” live outdoor concert that took place on Saturday as part of the Saint Hill Arts Festival.
2190
This is 2190.
Naked Bass
Naked Bass
The Press Gang
The Press Gang
Press to Meco
Press to Meco
Tenyson
Tenyson
Blu Monkey
Blu Monkey
Shoe Box Cover
This also came out of the other night’s one light shoot. Sort of. Well the face did. The rest is entirely fabricated.
There is no client for this. I’ve just been exploring different ideas for where I’m interested in going which is currently CD and book cover type stuff. A little more “out there” than yer average PR type shoot. Unlike similar work where there is a client this was quite straightforward. No one looking over my shoulder or asking for “tiny” changes that will “only take five minutes”. This was pretty much just for fun.
I’m really liking not being limited by the word “photographer” and therefore being free to do things photographers seldom get a chance to do. Planet building and galaxy spinning for instance.
Sometimes It Happens
…. and a piece of kit stops working. In this case the second flash I was to be using on this shoot just refused to work correctly. Fortunately the other one still worked fine. But this totally changed the mood I was going for and the look I had wanted was no longer possible with what I had to hand. I had intended to go for a wild man of the woods kind of thing but with limited time and a cold model I decided to go for something completely different.
The shoot is just the first step for just about every image I make where I intend to make a scene with a character rather than a portrait. Shoots don’t usually take very long when props, make-up and all that stuff is at a minimum, compared to the next stage which is the processing, after editing down the images to the ones I want to work further on. These are tweaked in various ways until I end up with the final image. Someimes it takes a few minutes and other times several hours. The shoot lasted about 30 minutes total. The processing considerably longer.
Thought I’d Spring This on You
Did a fun shoot today with Aled and Sian. Sian was very excited to be asked to wear a dress and they were both very grateful to be having to walk a bicycle about half a mile up the road from ARTS House to what I call the Plawhatch Lookout. It was not as hot as recent days either.
Aled, Sian and bike
This one and the one that follows were shot with a long focal length, 210mm, but made to look as if shot with a much shorter lens. Why? Because shots made with the long lens have much smaller frames. These images were made with around 8 to 10 frames each stitched together to make one very large image. The composite image has the quality of an image made with a far more expensive large format camera. What does this prove? Probably nothing more than I’m sometimes cheap even if not always cheerful.
Aled, Sian and 2 bikes
Processing Other Peoples’ Pictures
I have been friends with Ping since about 1995 when she walked up to me and with a very happy smile said “Hello, I am Ping”. She is an artist who now lives in Scotland but is originally from China. She sent me the following images to process.
Old Man straight out of camera
Old Man after processing
Before
After
Before
After
For me the object of image making is to make an image that communicates. I don’t care what is done or not done during the process. It doesn’t matter if it is “pure” photography or if the original photograph is merely the first part of the process. What matters is whether or not the final image works.
I am always open to processing other peoples’ pictures though I have only limited time to do this. But please don’t expect miracles. If the original image was badly composed I can’t do much about that. These were great images to start with. They were not made by processing alone.
Uninspiring Locations
Aled
I don’t always get to shoot on exotic beaches or fabulous ruined mansions. In fact I pretty much never get to shoot in such places. Some photographers can rely on their locations to inspire. I love good locations but they are not usually part of everyday work. I like the challenge of having to find ways of making the mundane look a bit more interesting. Like today.
Aled is a student I tutor in photography for two hours each week. Today we were playing around looking at different lighting effects and what can be pulled off in an uninspiring room. It was fun and I quite like the result which was mostly achieved with camera and lights with a small amount of processing.
Photographers can be Poets
“Photography will thrill you and she will break your heart. Sometimes on the same day. Sometimes within the same moment. And know that she will not be true to you… she will desert you with her BFF ‘talent’ and go to Vegas, spend a ton on your credit card, meet some young hotshot whippersnapper and run off for a few days, trashing the Mustang and shootin’ up a casino, get drunk and possibly arrested.
But she will come back – unrepentant for sure, without apology and with a bit of an attitude… but back indeed. And you get to start the whole damn passionate thing over again.”
Taken from a post by Don Giannatti called “Why do you make photographs?” today.
It just about says it for me.
Are You My Type of Client?
Bram
So I’ve been studying some marketing stuff (again). I came across an idea that has been around for some decades. It’s one of those questions that I would ask if someone came to me asking for marketing advice. The question is who is your target market?
It’s a very easy question to ask but a much more difficult question to answer.
The usual answer from small business owners is either “everyone” or “anyone who will pay for what I do”. Seems like a perfectly reasonable answer doesn’t it? But if you look at the question from the point of view of a potential client you begin to see what is wrong with it. I don’t want to be serviced by someone whose only interest in me is that I can afford the service. I would much prefer to do business with someone who specialises in people like me. And my first thought when in seeking out someone with some expertise in an area I don’t have expertise is to ask if they have much experience in working with people with my particular problems or situation.
This is kind of related to figuring out what business I’m in too. As a fairly experienced and quite knowledgable photographer I can do all kinds of photography. But one of the most valuable things I got from my 365 project, even though it only lasted about 75 days, was that the kind of pictures I most like to make are people pictures. So I decided to be a people photographer. Even that is quite a wide field. There are formal portraits, candid portraits, casual portraits, studio types and available light types. There are fun portraits and there are men or women in suits that are most often quite stiff and serious.
So putting what I want to do together with the people I most like to do it with I came up with “wow” pictures. These are not passport pictures. The object of the whole process is to get your friends and associates to say “Wow. Is that you?” I want to create images that attract a great deal of positive attention or “wow”.
So who is my ideal client? Is it just anyone as long as they’ll keep me in capuccinos? Well yes of course but also as long as they are up for being somewhat outrageous.They can be; young or old, male or femaile, individuals or businesses, but they are creative people for the most part whether or not they work as such. And they are willing to collaborate in the process of picture making. They may know exactly what they want, but probably don’t, but they are willing to explore ideas with me.
So how do I market to such people? That’s a good question and one I’m very glad you asked. I’m open to any and all ideas on how to best reach people who are willing to be and do outrageous things in order to get some cool pictures. Help me out here. And don’t start by asking which way I came in.
Barbara
Louise
Say Something
Outside My Window
Yes there’s a tree*… but also some other interesting looking stuff at around 5:30 in the morning recently.
The picture is gratuitous. I wanted to make a post and posts on here look ugly without pictures.
This post is about “art” again. And “rules”. All over the internet I see people saying the same thing almost like political correctness. “There are no rules” they say. Often qualified by “you have to know the rules in order to break them”. I think this is bunk.
Oh you want an explanation? Okay. Let’s see now. Okay I’ll be politically correct and say “this is my opinion” and YMMV, etc. but there is a rule and it always applies no matter what kind of work I’m doing. The rule is “say something”.
The rule can be broken just as any other one can. But when I break this rule I get bad pictures every time. There is no way to get a good picture when this rule is broken except by complete accident. So it’s a rule.
I see lots of discussions where people seem to have a very narrow definition of communication. They think it only applies to commercial work and that “art” is exempt from it. Communication is getting something across to someone else. And that doesn’t apply to “art”? Are you kidding me? Well I guess it might not apply to a bunch of what is supposed to pass for art today but maybe that isn’t truly art.
Something should be gotten across to the viewer. It could be a feeling or an idea. Whatever is supposed to get across is the “message”. And that only means that which is communicated. It is not limited to “buy this” or “believe that” though it might do if that is what you wanted to say. It could mean “I love her” or “Wow look how yellow that flower is”.
In the picture above I wanted to show what early morning light does for the view outside my window. I’m not often up and about at that time so it was meant as a reminder to me so I can say “I’ve seen that. Yeah it looks good”.
*Cream “World of Pain” You’d have to be “of a certain age” as they say.
What is Art? A rant
I was looking over a web based catalogue of products for photographers; frames, cards, books, etc.
They had a category called Photoshop actions in which there was an action that would take “your photographic images and turn them into beautiful one-of-a-kind pieces of art”.
As I cleared up the mess from the coffee I had spurted on to the screen I got the idea for this post. What these people were saying was interesting. First off these people are not my people. Second they don’t regard photographers as artists. Thirdly by the use of their one click photoshop action they were saying my mere photographic image could be transformed into art.
So you bust your butt coming up with ideas, fighting through the doubts and wondering if your work has any value, planning, organising, lighting, composing, coaxing, collaborating, shifting furniture and lugging gear only to have a photographic image at the end of the process. A lot of sweat and a lot of work but all you have is a photographic image. Now if you want to elevate it to the status of “Art” all you need to do is buy this action for $95 and there you are.
From this apoplectic state I calmed down and decided to think about this. I have seen many a discussion, and taken part in a few, where someone was having a rant at the latest photoshop craze such as the use of HDR or something like that. My attitude to these has pretty much usually been to say live and let live and don’t get your knickers in a twist about what other people are doing. Use whatever you like to create the image you want to create. I’m happy with that stance. But seeing how I could become an artist by the use of someone else’s photoshop action left me feeling like those who rant about HDR being cheating at best. It was recognising that that led me to figure a few things out.
First off I consider myself to be an artist and not “just” a photographer. I don’t shoot for documentary reasons. I don’t “capture” images that just happen to be flitting by so much as grab the elements from wherever they might be and push, cajole, and manipulate those elements until they “work” for me. So because I consider myself to be an artist when some marketer helpfully suggests to me that their piece of software will transform my mere image into a unique work of art it kind of gets my back up a little. But is this any different to those who rant against the use of HDR?
In a word no. It is no different. But we have to start with a definition of art. I have seen many. There are lots out there. Most of them are not helpful to me. It has nothing to do with something looking “good” or “cool”. Because “good” and “cool” are totally subjective. I don’t think art is totally subjective although it is partially so. Art for me is communicating something in a way that gets noticed and then understood and doing it with elegance. The understanding might be very simple like a “stop” sign or it might involve some thought and reflection on the part of the viewer. But being first and formost a communication it’s source can only be an artist and not a piece of software. This is not to say that software isn’t part of the process. It most certainly can be but it is the artist who has something to say that is using the software, or lens, or shutter speed, etc. to communicate something.
Art is subjective in the sense that it is personal. It starts in one person, the artist, and through his use of whatever tools he finds necessary it arrives eventually at the viewer who is also a person. It is obective in the sense that it is not entirely personal. Art forms have a language that has to be understood by both the artist and the viewer and that language is not subjective.
So the point of this rant is just to say that if you have something to say and you say it you are a communicator. If you say it well you are an artist to that degree. A writer like Nabakov uses language that anyone has available to them yet he uses it in such a way that I am amazed when reading him. He communicates very well. I feel the same way about a Stan Getz solo. I could play the same notes but he does it so effortlessly and with such feeling I am profoundly moved. The notes are important but the communication is paramount.
This idea of art helps me look at the work of others and not get bogged down in their technique. I either get it or I don’t. If I do I look to see how they got it across to me. I may learn some new language skill. If I don’t get it I have nothing to learn from just looking at the work. That will probably be considered a brash statement but I stand by it.
Even More For Aled’s Website
Shot yesterday. I like ‘em both but I particularly like the second one. It was an experiment with HDR and people. I wanted to create an eerie light effect that was kind of like an old film to give the image a nostalgic quality. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
What Happened?
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.
72/365 The Lemonade Cookie
The Lemonade Cookie
A cookie (or cookaloris to give it it’s full name) is something placed between a light source and the surface that light is intended to fall on. It’s purpose is to make the light more interesting by introducing shapes for the light to pass through. The above pic is a demonstration using a glass of lemonade. Usually the lemonade would not be included in the picture.
The above is intended to eliminate any snarky remarks about little things and little minds.
Note also that this lemonade is Shweppes Lemonade. It probably wouldn’t be as good with a cheaper brand.
71/365 Petroula
Petroula
Did a headshot session today for Petroula Kaneti-Dimmer. The above was my favourite. Just got through editing.
Headshot sessions are interesting but I have discovered they are not the same as portrait sessions and the end results might be very different. With headshots my own likes and dislikes don’t come into it. They are made for a specific audience the actor wants to communicate with. My job is to help the actor communicate and to keep myself out of the way as much as possible. So I don’t do anything that would in any way render the sitter unrecognisable! The only processing is contrast and colour tweaks and a black and white conversion which is the accpeted form in this country.
With portrait sessions it is me who is communicating something about the subject to the viewer rather than just being a relay point. Portrait sessions are more fun for me and usually the sitter too. With headshots there is a certain amount of wondering what will work for the casting directors who aren’t there to consult.
With portraits I please myself first and hopefully but not necessarily the sitter too. But we are both there and can discuss the point and look at the current results and see if we are heading in the right direction. I want my sitters to like my work but it isn’t absolutely vital because if they chose me to shoot them they have a pretty good idea of what they’ll be getting. And if they didn’t choose me then I chose them and so may be only shooting for me anyway.
It is true I will not make any money if the sitter hates the work but I’m finding that if I consult the sitter more than myself we both end up with results that are less interesting.
The reason I like this one is that it is closer to a portrait than the others I shot today. And by that I mean that it shows Petroula in a way I would like to show Petroula.
I wonder if this post made any sense to anyone other than me….
68/365 Watching
Watching
Yes this is late. It was shot at about 11:00pm last night and processed immeditaely. At the time of the shoot my right eye was streaming tears. With every flash it was like a needle poking around in my eye. Somewhat nasty. Then I had to remove said tears in Photoshop. This was very hard as I could only see out of one eye. By the time I finished I couldn’t look at bright areas of the screen so I decided to not try and get it uploaded till today. The eye is still painful and streaming but not as bad as last night.
Not asking for sympathy here just letting you know the dedication I’m giving this project!
I’ve been asked how I manage to compose these shots. Well it isn’t as hard as it might seem. I pretty much know what I’m after before I set up so I set up to get what I’m after. I think that is the secret of all photography.
So here I have the camera on a tripod and the lousy model in a chair. Before the camera is mounted I focus on the tripod from the chair and roughly set the frame size (I’m using an 18-70mm lens here). Then I set the lights. Then I make some test shots and adjust position and lights accordingly.
For this shot I wanted the background to be dark. There was a room light on so the flash I was using had to be set to a high enough level to completely overpower the room light. The flash output was restricted by a snoot which meant the light would be in a tight beam. So I had to sit where I could see the flash knowing that if I can see the flash then the flash can see me too. I also wanted the hat down over the streaming red right eye. This is also totally uncropped. What you see in the picture is exactly what the camera saw. So now you know how it doesn’t seem quite so remarkable eh?
50/365 Liz Lets Loose
Liz Lets Loose
Yesterday you saw Liz on one of her few and far between better days. Today I’m aftraid she reverted to form after drinking some camomile tea.
And today is day 50 of the project. It has gone remarkably fast. I’m very glad I started the project. It has so far been the very best creativity exercise I’ve ever done. I am much more familiar with my kit and with the whole process of image making. It is amazing how fast I can now go from the idea to the shot in the can. I can place lights and get their settings right in about the same time a waiter can lay a table with cutlery. Well maybe a little slower but not that much.
I have learnt many things in the last 50 days. One of which is that I am pretty much uninspired by inanimate objects. I can shoot them but I have to work at it. Whereas with people it comes very easily.
I have also found that scenes are a lot of fun. Noir lighting is great fun. Lighting on two or more planes in the picture gives great depth and separation of image elements. I often like to restrict the colour palette and go for comic book type images.
If you’re a shooter and have wondered about doing a 365 but haven’t I can heartily recommend it.
Edit: Just found out that 48/365 was chosen as 1 out of 2 favourites for the month on the Digital Photo Experience blog. The guys that run that blog are way up there so this is a pretty cool thing for me. You can see the post here.
30/365 Ideas
Ideas
Every day that same lousy model. I hear you.
Spent about 10 hours today working on marketing. Things are happening but because of that I didn’t get to even leave the house. And as usual at around this time of night no one else is around.
So I only had this one model and no idea what to do. So I asked a friend for an idea. He came up with something awful and in that moment of telling him what a bad idea it was I was inspired to come up with this. Ain’t that the way?
I promise something/one new tomorrow.
18/365 Red Hot
Jasmine is back.
Red Hot
This was one of those times when the idea came in a flash, the setup took about 5 minutes, the shoot took less than 5 minutes and the processing took two hours.
For those who might not know what processing is it is a bit like sculpting. You know the image you want is in there. You just have to chip away at it toning down certain parts, toning up other parts, adjusting the colours and contrast and level of sharpness and blur and light and dark, etc. until it finally comes right.
This was always going to be a composite image, meaning there were two images shot that had to be put together for the final image. The hands were to be disembodied so the body had to be removed. (Don’t ask where I put it. Nobody has to know. And besides that if there isn’t a body there isn’t a case against me.)
Art and Creativity – The Short Answer
I just read a question on Flickr. Someone asked if certain kinds of graphics software is taking the art and creativity out of photography. This was my short reply.
I’ll be gentle:-)
Where does the “ART and CREATIVITY” lay?
When you take a shot you choose the subject, the angle, the lighting, the lens choice, the composition and several other possibilities.
When you process you choose a colour palette, a dynamic range, what to emphasize and what to de-emphasize, to make it literal or fantastic or in between, plus several other choices.
When you print you choose a paper and a printer and a size and maybe a crop, then maybe a frame, with or without a matt, etc.
And behind all the above what do you want your picture to communicate?
None of these can be answered by software or a camera no matter what kind of clever settings and adjustments they may include. Some parts of the craft can be automated but you would still need to know when to use them or not and how much.
Only you can be an artist.
And only when you are somewhat down that road will you begin to find out what it means to be an artist in the eyes of other people. For only then will you hear “Wow you must have a really good camera.”
Horsted Keynes Station
This is Horsted Keynes Station which is part of the Bluebell Line in Sussex. The line is shortly to run as far as East Grinstead to Sheffield Park. I’m intending to get some movie scene type shots at this station in the coming months. I’ll be needing models so if you are in the East Grinstead area or near the border of East and West Sussex and want to join in the fun let me know.
Horsted Keynes Station
It is a fine station filled with posters and decor of the ’50s and ’60s. A time that in many ways was more free than today.
The picture is not a straight photograph. It is a merger of 4 different images. 3 are different exposures of the same scene. The sky is from another picture entirely.
What Makes For A Good Portrait?
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.
