dslrBlog » MarkT

Wedding and Family Photography Snobbery

MarkT — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:22:21 +0000

Of late I have noticed many “serious” photographers claiming that they don’t do weddings and children. I even found myself removing a few flickr contacts last week because of this reason.

Let me explain my reasoning.

As a photographer I have covered many events, I have been on stage with the courteeners at a gig in front of 5,000 people, I have photographed features for magazines with bands such as the view and the Enemy and I have had the pleasure of meeting some amazing people (some I would class as personal heroes).

Now this all may sound like gratuitous name dropping, my partner and children will confirm I will quite happily name drop at will (don’t get my better half started on the email I received from Katie from the Ting Tings complete with a kiss), however it does serve a purpose. As much as working in this kind of environment is a bit of a buzz and quite exciting, it completely pails into insignificance when you compare it the stress and planning that is required for a wedding event.

During set pieces for photoshoot you can plan everything to the last detail, you are in control of the environment, the lighting and the people. When it comes to a wedding you need also need to be in control of your environment, however there are crucial key moments that you get one “pop” at. If you miss the bride and father coming down the isle or the you “may kiss the bride” moment then that’s it, it’s gone forever, you can’t stage a moment like that so the pressure is on. Couple this factor with the low level of light in the church and the fact that using flash within the service (from my perspective) would be completely disrespectful, then you are left with a pretty hard gig to cover.

So getting back to my point, to criticise photographers who cover weddings and children and to question their credibility in my view is ludicrous. Maybe these “artists” should stop taking self portraits in whacky situations, step up to the mark and take on a real challenge

Gig Photography Update

MarkT — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Well I’ve been doing this now for about 5 weeks and lots of things have happened in that time. I would like to think that I have now developed a style, a friend commented yesterday that they could recognise one of my gig images just by looking at it.

I’ve met some fantastic people and bands along the way. I now sit with the bands and drink with them, the majority of them are just really friendly people who play in bands, there’s not much of a barrier between yourselves and them. I have found myself gravitating towards the support bands, who haven’t necessarily had that many gig photographs taken. One band I loved were Hip Parade, a band from Glasgow, you couldn’t meet more pleasant upbeat people. I have to say the moob cards have been a godsend.

Last weeks gig was strange. The band are called “The View” and are becoming a quite a big thing in England. They are currently at no 16 in the UK singles chart and played Jools Hollands show on the weekend. Things had started to get a bit out of hand before The View even hit the stage. The bands manager was not happy with the barriers, he wasn’t happy with the beer throwing, I don’t think he was too happy that he was missing Coronation Street and he was not happy with me using any images outside of the venues site. Their manager told me categorically that if I used any images that I would need his “express permission”, anyway he didn’t make me sign a disclaimer so the images are mine! I usually leg it out of the pit after 3 songs, this wasn’t going to happen, I was penned in by about 6 bouncers, so I spent the next half hour picking off a few more shots and getting pretty good at dodging what I hoped was spent alcohol.

This hobby is starting to pay some dividends. I was on the guest list for
the cooper Temple Clause in Manchester last night and I got to sit with the band and have a beer, these guys are one of my favorite bands so it seemed a little surreal. Quite bizarrely I am taking photos of an evening with Darren Gough and I have negotiated a swanky meal for two with the wife out of it. I’ll also be photographing the remaining members of T-Rex in a couple of weeks, which I have been told will be paid work. I’ve also had images credited in online local magazines and also another printed magazine to promote the venue (and hopefully keep the night going). I’m also in talks with someone who runs a magazine, hopefully this will give inroads to other venues.

I have to say I am now hankering for more lenses, but these 2.8 and below lenses are not cheap in the least. I’m hoping that any paid work will simply pay for better lenses. It’s still a great hobby, and I don’t think I will progress any further than that, I’m just having fun and I think that’s as much as you can ask.

The image above is from the view set, check out the rest of my images at www.chimpola.com

Gig Photography Update – The Cooper Temple Clause

MarkT — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I shot my second gig last week at Lucroum. This time around it was my one of my favourite bands – The Cooper Temple Clause. I think I was more nervous this time around due to the fact that this was a band that I have been following for a while.

I got some decent shots in from the support bands, Vib Gyor and This Et Al. It seems that the lights aren’t half as good for the supports as they are for the main bands.

The earplugs that I bought really helped, they cut out all the low level noise and I could hear the bands perfectly, I was surprised at just how loud things were when I stood at the back of the hall without them in.

The light was great for The Coopers. I managed to get the ISO down to 800 and the shutter speed up to 160th. This config is almost unheard of at these club type venues, so I was well chuffed. The photo you can see here I almost lost. I was really proud of the image and I was showing my daughter it on the LCD screen of my D70 when horror of horrors I hit the trash can button twice – why I cannot say! The SANDisk recovery software worked really well and got me it back, so if you have rescuer pro that came with your CF then keep it somewhere safe.

Chris has also sorted me a blog server and I now have my own domain (Cheers for all the help Chris) at Chimpola.com

I’ve also sorted myself out some more moo cards which are really nice. An added bonus is that the venue now has flyers with one of my images on and a credit at the bottom with my name and flickr site on it!

This week is Little Ze, I’ll keep you updated!

Gig Photography Update – The Paddingtons Live and shot by me!

MarkT — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Well, that’s the first one done! I think it went pretty well. I got there bang on time and was more than a bit nervous. After scrambling about for a pint for 20 minutes, I realised that my access all areas pass got me into the private party upstairs!

After speaking to the organiser I was given a photo pass and told that I could pretty much do what I could. I decided to create my own rules and follow the “3 songs no flash” etiquette. I also spoke to the bouncers about getting in the pit, I was told “there’s only two blokes in this pit, me and him cocker!” I spoke to the organisers who told security to let me in. In all fairness security were spot on after that, they helped me in (and out more about that later) to the pit and stored my equipment for me.

The supports were pretty good, Polytechnic were the usual Indie fodder and the first support was possibly the most avant garde artists I’ve ever seen but very entertaining.

The paddingtons made it onto stage about 10:30 and I got into the pit and shot for my life in several modes. I shot at 1600 to be on the safe side, everything was going great 1 song in and I was having a ball. At the start of the second song I saw that security were really struggling, they were having problems keeping the crowd at bay. I was oblivious to what was going on around me and kept shooting, at this point a full glass of “castaway” hit me square and covered the camera. I just laughed it off till the security said “GET OUT QUICK”, I legged it out and the pit came down, the place was going mental.

After this I shot as well as I could but the place was just in complete mayhem. I put my camera away and just enjoyed the melee.

The reaction from the organisers has been pretty good. The Lucorum website now has my images on line and I’ve been allowed to shoot again this week for the Cooper Temple Clause.

So here are my observations up to now.

Shoot RAW, the white balance changes so quickly with the different lights it’s hard to judge.

Buy earplugs, even though this was such a small venue the sound from the PA amp was incredibly loud, loud enough for it to ruffle my hair (what’s left of it) and leave me with ringing in my ears afterwards.

Keep upping the ISO till you get 160th of a second, anything else is just a blurry haze without it, I tried to use shutter priority with 160th with varying success.

Have loads of memory. I filled up my 1 gig car 3/4s of the way through. I have another 1 gig on the way.

Be polite, everyone was extremely nice to me. Many people wanted to know who I was shooting for. I’m thinking of getting myself some cards printed to point at myspace/flickr. When the bands on be thoughtful of the crowd, try not to get in their way (though it is inevitable).

Hopefully I’ll have some more to share next week. In the mean time have a look at my flickr set here.

The Paddingtons live at Barnsley Lucorum

I got the gig! – Getting a Gig Photography Press Pass

MarkT — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

A new venue has opened In town, well when I say new it’s simply expanded into doing indie evenings on a Friday. I was really impressed when I saw who is going to play there; one of my favourite bands The Cooper Temple Clause are playing in a couple of weeks.

I took a chance and emailed everyone on the website to see if I could take photos at the venue. A lady replied and asked for some photos, now I’m not the most seasoned gig photographer and have only ever shot some small bands at a local music festival. I sent her my flickr slide show of all my “Interestingness” stuff and lower down in the email sent links to some band photos. Within a couple of hours I had an email telling me I could have a press pass – Result!

Hopefully I’ve sourced a 28-70mm f/2.8 from eBay, but this week I will have to get on with my 50mm 1.8. I’m really looking forward to it but I’m a bit apprehensive.

I’ll post how I get on, but in the meantime if anyone wishes to share any pearls of wisdom please comment. Oh yeah and the list of gigs can be found here at the Half Cut Website.

Little Britain

MarkT — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t blog enough, I know. These days I seem to be short on ideas and inspiration, something that Chris seems to have spades of these days.

Anyhoo, when I do see something that I enjoy I’m sure to jump on here which leads me to this. B3ta is a must (if you’re not offended easily) for really good photoshop type malarkeys. They also run a newsletter which sometimes throws up the odd photographic gem.

Slinkachu has been taking little people on a tour of London and photographing them. I love this type of stuff, I would go for ideas over technical abilities anywhere. Check it out here Little people project

New FD Profile Widget

MarkT — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 11:32:19 +0000

I’ve noticed over the last couple of weeks that people had some nice montages in their Flickr Profiles. It seems there is a new profile widget over at Flagrant Disregard. Anyhoo here’s mine….

Get your own here.

Amazing Composite Images

MarkT — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t usually go for composite images, they generally leave me a bit cold, but I just had to post a link to Mattijns images.

I’m not sure how he creates these images, but they are simply stunning. You can find his work here.

Mattijns Playing Around Flickr Set. If anyone has any information as to how he creates these images I would be very interested, but I would guess there is a lot of digital art work going on here before he adds his composite images.

Colour or Black and White?

MarkT — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

OK here’s the deal. Stare at the image below for 30 seconds, then roll your mouse over the image. Is it black and white, or is it colour?

Weird huh.

Here’s an article that describes how to achieve this effect.

Flickr Interestingness (Again)

MarkT — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I often wondered why my photograph taken in the museum at Leeds generated so many hits with little promotion, then I received an email a couple of days ago. The email asked for my photos that had been on interestingness to be posted to a pool, which got me thinking.

When I got home I checked the calendar in flickr and there it was on the 1st of March. I’m well chuffed, though I wish I had known at the time – I could have really hammed it up!. Maybe the flickr system could automatically add a tag to your photos or send a mail telling you that you have been featured.