Photographic treasure-hunt

Combine a good old-fashioned team-based treasure hunt with a photography competition, and you’ve got a recipe for success, right?

Well, that’s what I thought too, when I signed up to attend Shoot London, an event based out of the Tate gallery, organised by Shoot Experience, a company who organises these kind of events for public and corporate events.

Sadly, it turns out that I’ll probably give future Shoot Experience events a miss – to find out why, I spoke to another participant of the event… 

Anthony was one of the people participating in the Shoot London event on May 17th. He was also on my team, so writing this up as an interview might seem slightly presumptuous, but then, this is my blog, and I do as I damn well please, thankyouverymuch.

Anyway. The basic rules for Shoot London are simple: you’re given ten clues, about the area of London, you have six hours, you submit ten photos. It’s easy to see why it is sponsored: it promotes interest in the city, and organisers end up with lots of creative photos that they have rights to.

In the event, sixty teams entered, and the four of us (Catherine, Daniela, Anthony and yours truly) made up team Auslanders (which, for some reason, the organisers kept calling ‘ozlanders’, as if they could spot the one-fourth-austrialian-ness of the team from a mile away).

The rules

The rules did not allow any photoshopping, which I’m cool with: it’s a completely different challenge (much, in fact, like the dpchallenge.com concept of days gone by – a photography site which I’m very fond of indeed) if you can only use in-camera effects. We ended up using in-camera settings which made the photos extra sharp; fuzzy; extra vivid; and black and white, depending on what the situation needed.

The rules were not opposed to us having any help at all – there were no restrictions on googling for answers, and we did find it beneficial to phone a friend (thanks for manning the intergoogles for us, Josh!). My iPhone also came in handy, both for quick Google-advice and for navigational purposes.

The ban on PCs was a bit arbitrary though, as we ended up deleting some very good photographs. As Anthony says, “it was emotional to go through the pics on the camera and delete four out of five good ones in order to keep one that was to be submitted”. In retrospect, I should have brought my EeePC along, if only to copy the good photos off the camera.

To be honest, we were also a little bit grumpy about the one-camera-to-take-the-photos rule – between us, we brought 6 cameras, I think (I brought my freshly acquired Canon 450D and my IXUS 960i).

One camera to rule them all

“Some of the rules seem to be limitations of organisational process more than anything else.”, Anthony muses. “Don’t think that if you have four good photographers with their cameras, you have four times as many chances of taking a good shot: All the photos have to be not just on the same memory card, but taken on the same camera”.

Presumably, this rule exists so the images come out in the same order (you could solve the clues in any order, but had to fill in a little form so the organisers can match the right clue to the right photo), and clearly, if one camera records ‘DC_0284.JPG’ and another records ‘IMG1948.JPG’, it’s hard to tell which photo was taken first.

Having one camera is a downside if the other team members aren’t used to shooting with it – but it’s not a total waste: “Having four team members makes a lot of difference,” Anthony explains, “to help carry gear and props, solve clues, come up with ideas and spot good shots, and to pose for shots. The other three don’t actually need to all be good photographers, but a good photographic eye will help.”

Learning to see what others see

It’s quite interesting to see how the other teams solved the riddles, though, as Anthony explains: “You can sometimes see a shot and think ‘wow that’s original’ … and then see four variations on it following”.

At the end most of the photos taken were shown, projected on a big screen in an auditorium. “I was seriously impressed with some of the photos, and saw some wonderful shots”, Anthony recalls.

“There was one photo with three people with umbrellas jumping on the millennium bridge – it was an amazing photo.”

Haphazard judging

Nonetheless – and this is what sort of ruined the fun for me, sadly – it seems as if the judges were just a little bit too rushed in their, er, judging. “But in many cases the winning shot wasn’t – in my opinion – one of the good ones,” Anthony says. “Judges seemed to favour an obvious joke – equivalent of a zany holiday snap – over a technically interesting or well composed art shot”.

Far more annoyingly, in one case, the judges ended up giving out a prize to a shot that plainly didn’t solve the clue correctly (they took a photo near the Globe Theatre, which was about a mile away and on the wrong side of the river from St Paul’s Cathedral, which was the correct answer) – while the photo itself also didn’t really strike us as being particularly amazing.

Of course, I fully expect comments along the lines of ‘sore loser’, but it wasn’t the not winning which grated on me: Most of the time, our photo wasn’t as good as some of the other photos which were shown for a given clue, but it was better than the photo which won.

Good fun, but not photographically challenging enough

As Anthony summarised the experience; “there is no shortage of takers for this fun day out, but if you’re already a DSLR-owning, multiple-lens using, flickr-account-holding arty-shot-taking passionate amateur camera geek, this contest may not be what you’re looking for”.

… Which is a damn shame, because the idea really is incredibly good.

Our photos

As mentioned before, we had quite a few photos we were rather proud of – in the interest of completeness, here are our 10 entries – including the ones that were not-so-good. The only editing done on them is a resize from 12 megapixels down to 650 pixels across so they’ll fit on this blog better

Borough market, photo taken by Anthony, Sigma 17-35mm, vivid colours.

Imax cinema, photo taken by Haje, Sigma 17-35mm, vivid colours, the zoom effect was done by zooming while having a long (0.5 second) shutter time. The lights? Well, that’s just the way the underpass by the IMAX looks!

South bank book market, photo taken by Haje, Lensbaby 3G, in-camera black-and-white. I love the retro look the Lensbaby lends to this photo, especially with the top-hat and the old-fashioned looking clothing Daniela is wearing. Oh, and the Moleskine, of course.

Gabriel’s wharf, photo taken by Haje, Sigma 70-200. Not really happy with the way this one turned out, I think this was easily our weakest photo.

Blackfriar’s pub, photo taken by Haje, Lensbaby 3G. A less-than-inspired photo, sadly, but it was raining, and we were a bit scrapped for ideas in this one.

Blackfriar’s pub, photo taken by Haje, Sigma 17-35mm. Yes, we wore hats for all of this, and this is our ‘team portrait’, which simultaneously answered the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ clue

The tube (‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’), photo taken by Haje, Sigma 17-35. We only had one stop to take this one, and the tube shakes a lot when it goes, so I had to shoot it at a high ISO (flash photography is strictly forbidden on the London Underground). I’m not really happy with the way this one turned out either, sadly.

St. Pauls, photo taken by 10-second self-timer, Sigma 17-35. On this one, we decided to try and do an ‘abby road’, to avoid the rather samey photos we expected everyone else was getting. This is one of the occasions where I was really sad to see the out-takes getting deleted, because we did have some wicked cool alternative shots on this one.

‘The sweet smell of success’, photo taken by Haje, Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 lens. On this one, we just decided that we couldn’t figure out a good way to answer the clue, so we decided to get ironic/sarcastic about it. Catherine went and spoke to the guy, and he was more than happy to be photographed – especially after we gave him about £5 in change. With a bit of increased contrast, I feel this photo would really be quite good.

The Millennium Bridge, photo taken by Haje, Sigma 17-35mm. It’s really difficult to photograph the Millennium bridge well, possibly because it is such an iconic landmark by now – everyone is so familiar with it, that once 60 different teams have had their way with it, there is little left. We did spot this grid, however, and decided to do something interesting. Anthony pointed out that “this photo looks like film frames, with the main frame being taken up by Daniela”, and I can’t but agree – I think it was conceptually one of the coolest photos we did.

This post was co-written by Anthony Steele

From microstocks to megabucks

The Problem with Microstock’ article a few weeks back. The curse of having a relatively high-profile blog, however, is that people tend to disagree with you. Well, that’s not really the curse, that’s a fact of life. The curse, specifically, is that you frequently get incredibly eloquent people disagreeing with you – people who disagree passionately enough to write their side of the story.

Seeing as how I’m not a politician, I’m fully entitled to change my mind about things, including Microstock. And while I still feel that the premise of Microstock is wrong for all the reasons described in that other post, I wouldn’t be much of an Economist subscriber if I didn’t see that there was a flipside to the proverbial coin as well – in this case, expressed by Willie Thomas, a man who makes his living with stock photography.

I caught up with him to find out how he does it…  

Selling for Pennies – Life as a Microstock Photographer

I make little secret of my dislike for microstock, as re-iterated in my ‘What is Microstock?

Things that define what a Microstock agency is are:

1. Sells images exclusively via the Internet.
2. More accessible to a wider range of photographers than traditional stock agencies.
3. Sell their images at a lower than traditional rate.

This last point is why most traditional stock photographers often foster a deeply ingrained dislike of Microstock.

The counter-argument put forward by Microstock agencies is you will make-up lost income on a higher quantity of sold images. Ultimately, it’s all down to how much you earn in the long run. Say you need an income of $2000 per month, for example – does it matter if you sell 2 photos at $1000 a piece, or 1000 photos at $2 a piece?

Photographers submitting to traditional stock photography sites will say yes, and argue that making $2000 on 2000 sales is preposterous.

If all things in the world of stock photography were equal, this point of view wins – after all, nobody would dream of argue against making more money with less work? In the stock photography world, however, that’s no longer the way it works. Just like in all other free markets, a photograph has no value other than what a client is willing to pay. In practice, this still means that extremely good photographers are probably better off selling their work under rights managed licences – but for anyone who is mediocre, there is a huge slice of the pie left, in the shape of microstock photography.

The birth of Microstock

“I found Microstock back in the days when it still was the “Designer’s dirty little secret”.”, Thomas recalls. “I knew a designer that had many small business owners, restaurants owners and auto repair shops as customers”. Needless to say, they were all in the market for a new website. The problem was that in order to get imagery, you had a few choices available:

1. Steal the photo off the internet and hope for the best
2. Get a professional photographer involved
3. Buy photos from the established stock photography houses
4. Take the photos yourself

Take a look at those choices. In effect, 1 is illegal, 2 is brutally expensive (and not always possible – a grocery shop might not actually always sell dew-fresh tomatoes, but might still wish to use pictures of them on their website), 4 is probably impossible because photography is quite difficult, and, again, you may not have what you actually want photographed.

Which leaves option 3, which is also brutally expensive. On the other hand, there are a lot of quite good photographers on the internet, who take photos that are good enough for the mom-and-pop shop. If only there was a way to tap the amateur and semi-professional photographers, pay them a small fee, and use their photos…

Thus, microstock was born.

The economics of Microstock

The problem with the small websites, of course, was two-fold. “On average”, Thomas says “they had $400-$650 to spend. This is not much of a budget, if they needed five images, the licensing fees at a traditional stock houses each image would cost about $50, which totals to $250 USD”. Obviously, you can’t have photography alone take up more than half of the budget that is earmarked a website.

This puts web designers in a tight spot: “My web designer friend could not make a profit and still pay the licensing fees.”, Thomas concluded. And while he would love to be able to help, he couldn’t afford to shoot custom images and license them for $10 USD each.

Microstock to the rescue. “The designer gets to pay a license he can afford, the business owner gets a website that looks good, I can shoot the images, then license them to 10,000 other small business owners who are in the same boat”, Thomas says. That should leave just about everyone as a winner, right?

Wrong.

“Traditional stock houses photographers weren’t happy. At all.”, Thomas recalls. “Now that we are selling to this segment of the market that they have ignored, we are bottom feeders and accused of stealing the food from their mouths.”, he says, but points out that there’s something the traditional stock photographers seem to be forgetting. “The people who buy RF Microstock are not the same as the ones licensing RM.”

Why aren’t they the same people? Simple: “They are not the same ones that can afford to license RF from traditional stock houses.”, Thomas muses, and makes it clear how he feels: “These are customers that because of greed, arrogance, and mistaking business for art, photographers told to fuck off”.

Why the numbers don’t quite stack up…

Bruce Livingstone created the first Microstock company iStockPhoto in 2000, and sold it to Getty six years later for a mind-melting $50 million USD. The cynical would say that he was the only one who got rich of micro stock, but they’d be wrong.

Getty Images reported earning of 857.6 million USD for 2006. This was an increase over their 2005 earnings. In the same year a PDN survey reported, “In general, stock incomes have stagnated for most photographers over the past five years, with slightly more than half (52%) of respondents reporting incomes that have stayed the same or fallen”.

Wait a minute… The stock agencies are making more money, but the photographers shooting for the stock agencies are unhappy? How could that possibly be right?

The rumour has it that Photographers submitting to traditional stock houses are making the BIG BUCKS – and you frequently hear success stories of photographers who are making a very fine living indeed. Is that true for all of them, though?

“The PDN survey tells a different story”, Thomas says: Photographers selling images at traditional stock agency reported an average income of $86,400 (from all types of photography) half of that ($40,600) came from stock sells. Self-distributors those earned the majority of their stock income selling directly to clients reported an average income of $68,700 about 35% of that ($24,000) came from stock sells.

The big bucks microstockers feel they are missing comes down to $40,000 to $24,000 per year. These amounts are well within the range of any professional Microstocker to make. The survey also found that photographers that reported the majority of their income came from RF stock sales earning on average were $63,200 from this licensing model. For the photographers that reported the majority of their income came from RM stock sales the average was $38,500 in stock sales.

So, Why does the PDN survey reports an average microstock income of less then $1,000 per year? Thomas has an answer ready: “more people do photography as a hobby then a profession”. He also offers the flipside, though: “If you make it a profession, there’s ample opportunity to make a decent living in microstock”.

How can a photographer make a living on $.20 a download?

On any websites critical of microstock, you always see this amount ($0.20) reported. The chart above from the PDN survey shines a little more light on this subject.

As we can see, the only photographers making that amount are submitting to Shutterstock a subscription Microstock site. The other two sites shown, Dreamstime averages $1.15 per download and IstockPhoto $.85 per download payment.

Why are these figures per download payments so low? The majority of people submitting to Microstock site are hobbyist. These are the contributors with portfolio of 10-300 images and receive 2-4 downloads each day.

The professional Microstocker has much larger portfolios and higher download rates, though: “I define a professional Microstocker as someone with an average portfolio of 1000-10,000 images and an average download rate of about 30-250 images per day.”, Thomas says.

“In addition”, he claims – and I believe this is the crux of the matter “they treat working with Microstock sites as a business.” The problem with the large number of amateurs involved in microstock is that they have a very loud voice: Complaining about lack of sales or a low return isn’t countered by those who are doing well, because they’re too busy running their business.

“I will confine this discussion to Gold level exclusive iStockPhoto contributors, since I have the most knowledge about this level.”, Thomas says. “On average Gold, members have 1000 images in their portfolios, over 10,000 downloads and receive a 35% commission rate. The average payment per download would be closer to $1.54. A typical download rate per month would be about 1,100 images.”

If you’ve missed the math on that one, we’re talking pretty big money, but it doesn’t stop there, as Thomas points out: “Additional income consists of extended license sells, print sales, and custom jobs shoots from contacts made on these sites. Extended license sells and custom jobs shoots on average will add $50.00 to $100.00 to each month’s total. When we add these numbers together; (1.54 x 1100 = 1700 x 12 = $20,400) you get a better picture of the average professional Microstockers income.”

So, how does Microstock stack up against traditional stock photography?

At iStockPhoto a large file goes for $10 USD, a Gold level exclusive member would receive $3.50 USD or 35%. “Corbis licenses a 2 MB file for $140 USD of this I am guessing the photographer get about 20%, or $28 USD.”, Thomas estimates. “I have no way of knowing what the true commission is, but I know Getty pays a 20% commission. I can find no reason to believe Corbis would pay much higher.”

It is no surprise that the traditional stock houses photographer has made more money. The fact is he/she has made $24.50 more than the Microstockers.

How many large size downloads would it take the Microstockers to equal this income, seven large downloads. In the world of Microstock, images anything less than 10 downloads per month would be conceded a slow mover.

Buy for a penny and sale for a dime.

“I am not trying to convince photographers to switch over to shooting for RF Microstock.”, Thomas concedes. “Each person has their business to run and to make profitable”. He continues: “We really need really about how the new models of selling photography effect business and how we can capitalize on this new market.”

A keen eye for business can be as important as a sharp eye for a photograph: “Sometimes we treat our images like children, and we take things too personally. Stock photographic has always been about business, nothing has chanced in the last five years. What is the first rule of business? Buy for a penny and sale for a dime.”

By making a proper budget, doing the math, and operating like a proper business, you’re well on your way to making it big, then. Surely, there’s something missing from all of this… Oh, yeah. The photos…

So, what makes a good microstock photo?

There is little difference, as far as I can tell, about the type of photograph that sells well on Microstock sites or RF images sold by places like Getty or Corbis.

The only differences are the customer base and pricing. Some of the themes that seem to do very well are Business, Lifestyle images, and images dealing with concepts – think ‘illustration image’, and you’re thinking in the right direction.

Why choose microstock over big stock agencies?

“Microstock site are accessible!”, Thomas exclaims. “Microstock site do not ask you to submit 3,000 images for concretion. Microstock sites do not work under the “Good Old Boy” system of inclusion, and they’ve found new customer bases that were unable to buy images in the past. These customers are bringing lots of new money into the market”, Thomas enthuses.

In addition, there are a few advantages with the mediom of microstock: “Microstock sites have a very fast turn around time for getting these images on the market. An example would be, hot new media topic “world-wide food shortage”. I come up with a great idea for this topic, and submit images to a traditional stock agency. It may take weeks before those images pass thru the inspection and key wording process. Submitting the same images to a Microstock sites and the images can be online within hours.”

So, what does a good stock portfolio look like?

Willie Thomas is a successful microstock photographer, and that made me very curious about what his stock portfolio, in fact, looks like. Luckily, he’s happy to tell us: “As of April 23, 2008, I have 1176 images online. The pattern of downloads is 10% of these get multiple downloads each day. Another percent of the portfolio downloads once a day and some images download only once a month. What I am always surprise about is the total amount poor performers contribute to the bottom line.”

Despite all of this, he couldn’t quite live off his microstock earnings. “It question depends on how much money you need to support your standard of living.”, he quips. “You can find some very interesting ideas about this subject here. For mepersonally, I did not start in microstock to make a living. I started submitting images to supplement my photographic income.”

Thomas further explains that most of his images that sell well have people in them – not such a big surprise, really, considering his ‘day job’ is as a portrait photographer. “I shoot high-end portraits for business people, mostly”, he says, and believes that this gives him access to many location and models that work well as stock images. He has a few models he works with again and again, but is also on the look-out for new faces.

Investing in your stock portfolio

If you want to take (micro)stock photography seriously, though, you have to make some sacrifices. “Spend a penny to make a dime”, Thomas repeats, and clarifies that you really have to work hard and smart to make your stock portfolio pay for itself.

“With stock photography, since you do not know if or how long it will take to get your investment back, you must keep the costs low.”, he advises.

“I use 5% to 10% of each months earning and reinvest this into image making. This may not seem like much but so far, this has been working. I find you have to get creative to keep the costs this low.”

Just another grinder

When asked how good a photographer he is, Thomas jokes that he’s a “fucking rock star”, but once the laughter dies down, he admits he’s no better than many other photographers out there. “I am a grinder like 90% of the photographers working. I am passionate about photography and love my job. In my group of photo friends, I am the person who can light anything. In the end, I will let the images speak for themselves.”

“How long did it take you to build up your microstock portfolio?”, I ask him. “Hey, don’t ask a question like that – it make it sound like I have stop building it”!. The man’s got a point.

“I am a slow starter and it took me over six months to get 100 images into the portfolio.”, he says. ” Once I saw you could turn this into a profitable business I got serious about producing images. Remember selling stock images is just part of my photographic income. In the beginning I had to find a way to make, it fit into my schedule. To make this work and to keep cost low, my workflow had to be tight.”

A week in the life of a microstock star

Monday: Plan stock shoots/process images from last weeks’ shoots. I try to get two stock sessions done per week. For processing the images, I use Lightroom for about 90% of the work. I am a firm believer in getting it right in the camera, so I do not spend much time fixing images in Photoshop. I am a firm believer in Actions and Presets, if I do take an image into Photoshop more than likely I have built an Action to fix the problem.

Tuesday: Other studio business

Wednesday: Shoot stock images/upload images. A stock session last from two to three hours depending on what I have to shoot. After the shoot, it is back to other studio business for the rest of the day. I use software that allows me to bulk upload images, this part of the process is complete in the evening.

Thursday and Friday: Other studio business

Saturday: Flea markets/Stock shoots.

Sunday: Extreme couching!

Final advice

There’s no real secret to microstock photography: It’s all about the hard graft, putting in the hours, and delivering consistently good work. But then, that’s the case with all professions, right?

A huge thanks to Willie Thomas of EDPT fame – also check out his iStockPhoto portfolio!

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WINNERS: one of 5 copies of my book!

Right, the winners for the competition have been picked! By deadline, there were 151 competition entries, and I used Random.org to pick the winners.

The winners are:

#2 – ryan97ou
#88 – Luís Brás
#120 – John Jimenez
#116 – Tim Norris
#98 – Aaron Snowden

I’ll e-mail you all as soon as to get your addresses so I can ship the books out to you. CONGRATULATIONS!

Original competition for posterity: 

I know I keep harping on about it, but I’m rather proud of this thing – loads of you have already bought the book (just saw the latest report from the publisher – incredible!), but if you fancy winning one completely for free, then here’s your chance!

I’ve got 5 copies to give away completely for free, and I’ll even sign them for you, if you’re interested. To enter, simply add a comment to this post.

The winner will be drawn on May 5th this year, at random from the commenters (so make sure that you’ve entered a working e-mail address so I can contact you to get your mailing address!).

If you’re not sure what to leave a comment about, why not just post a link to your DeviantArt gallery, Flickr profile, or website? I’d love to learn a little more about you lovely people!

As an aside, would you guys be interested in more competitions on Photocritic?

Would you like me to run more competitions on Photocritic.org?

• Yes, that'd be awesome!
• Maybe, I'm not really bothered
• No, I never win anything anyway (sniff)

View Results

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Dealing with negative critique

It is relatively self-explanatory that doing a photo critique is quite difficult. What few people stop to think about, however, is that receiving a photo critique can be as difficult – if not more difficult: When you move beyond mere snapshots and start putting more of yourself into your photographs, you are a lot more intimately involved with the work you are putting out there.

Putting your photos up for criticism – whether it is at your local photography club, via a site such as DeviantArt, or even when asking a good friend to give some feed-back – is like putting your own head in the guillotine and taking a chance.

Nonetheless, it’s one of the best ways to improve as a photographer, and one of the best lessons you’ll learn is to discover how to deal with negative photo critiques…  

Hayley in the 1950s by Photocritic.org, on Flickr

1) It may come across as crass, rude, or wrong, but there may be a kernel of truth in it.

If someone tells you “LOL learn how 2 autofocus, you dweeb”, you need to do 2 things: Live in the happy knowledge that whilst your camera might have had an off day, at least you know how to string a grammatically correct sentence together.

And perhaps that picture is a little bit blurry, now that you look at it closely…

Take a step back, and take commentary on face value. If you honestly can’t say you agree with a piece of criticism, that’s perfectly fine, as long as you are objective enough to be able to try and see it from their viewpoint.

2) They might disagree, but they are your audience.

Ultimately, you are the photographer, and what you decide is how the final result gets done. Nobody can tell you what to do, and if you like your photo, then you’ve won one of the huge battles.

At the same time, it’s quite possible that the people ripping your photos to shreds are the people you were trying to target: whether you’re thinking about selling them as microstock, as art works, or just to give your mum a present is irrelevant.

Your photos are out there for interpretation, and if you care about the message you are sending, you’ll have to go the extra mile to make sure that they aren’t getting misinterpreted.

3) As soon as you let ‘em go, you no longer own ‘em.

It’s the curse of all writers and poets: They spend months – years, even – crafting their masterpiece, and then nobody ‘gets’ it. They all ‘get it’ wrong. Tell you what though, that’s where part of the beauty comes from: If you are taking a photo which you meant to symbolise the innocence of youth, and your first 10 commenters feel it’s a strong commentary on, say, child abuse, then they are per definition right.

It is not your job to interpret your own photographs, it is your job to take them. This is a good thing: if people can make up their own story to go with the photograph – their own connotations and bias, as it were – they are much more likely to connect emotionally with the photograph. If this is achieved; if someone is caused to feel something because of your photo; your mission is complete.

4) They talk. You shut up.

Remember that, just like you are not there to interpret your work, you’re not there to defend it either.

In a way, the best thing you can do is to never respond to any criticism. Let’s be honest – you will never be able to re-create the EXACT same image ever again anyway. Take the criticisms on board as points of reference for future photographs.

Learn from your mistakes, learn about what makes your audience buzz, and learn from your own opinions of your work.

5) Remember that the best works might be universally hated: Be thick-skinned.

Technical aspects of your photographs might be objective: A photo can be accidentally over-exposed, blurry, or have some rubbish in the background which makes your photograph less-than-perfect. Once you start killing the technical foibles of your photographic work one by one (don’t go too perfectionist on it though, it’s not useful to end up deleting all of your photos because of every little detail), the actual creative work starts shining through, and this is where the worst potential for getting hurt comes from.

You can kick yourself for small technical mistakes in your photographs (and you’ll continue making them for the rest of your photographic career), but if people start critiquing your artistic choices, it’s a different thing altogether.

The important thing here is to believe in your own work 100%: If you feel you’ve done it right, and if the image is an accurate representation of what you were trying to do, then all you can do is to shrug off their comments and move on.

Just think about it: Pink Floyd, The Decemberists, Pendulum, Metallica, Billy Joel, Leonard Cohen, Zero 7 – they’ve all been called ‘the best band ever’ by reviewers at one point or another, and yet it is never difficult to find someone who doesn’t care about – or even actively dislikes – them.

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How exposure works

To understand exposure in photographical terms, EV is probably the single most important number you will have to understand, to understand the theory behind the art of photography. This goes from your tiniest, least significant compact camera, to your cock-on-the-table style medium format camera with a digital back.

Non-technical

Let us imagine a value called TCE. This TCE (The Correct Exposure) does not exist, because you might for a variety of reasons want a different exposure than the TCE. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume TCE exists, and this is what you will want when you take a certain picture.

To get a correct exposure, you will want to have EXACTLY the right amount of light to capture your image. Not too much, and not too little.

So, what is it that might affect how much light comes to the film or imaging chip?

• Shutter speed – Imagine a mug with a lid containing a mysterious source of light, and the room you stand in is covered in darkness. Shutter speed would be how long you open the lid.
• Aperture – Same cup, same concept, but this time, how far you open the lid (if you open it a little – small aperture, i.e. high aperture numbers (for example f/22). If you open it all the way – large aperture – i.e. low aperture numbers (for example f/2.8)
• These are the two basic ones. The last factor that comes into play is your film speed, or the light sensitivity of your surroundings while holding the cup if you will.

That’s all there is to it – these three factors combined allow you to manipulate the light in all kinds of ways (big depth of field through small apertures, freezing motion through fast shutter times, etc).

So, to get TCE, you will want to combine these three factors into JUST the correct way. Now, if you replace TCE with TCEV (The Correct Exposure Value), you understand what I have been on about.

EV is a number describing an exposure – any exposure – regardless of its “correctness”.

Technical

The definition of EV=0 is an exposure of 1 second at f/1 using ISO 100 film, or any equivalent thereof (2 seconds f/1.4, 4 seconds f/2.0 etc)

The technical definition of EV is 2^EV = LS/C.

EV = the exposure value – explained above
L = field (or zone) luminance –
C = Exposure Constant – This is a constant that depends on what unit you are using to express the luminance (L)If you use candelas/ft², it is 1.3. If you are using candelas/m²*, it is 12.5*. If you use apostilb, it is 3,98.
S = film speed following the ISO standard

*) some of you might know cd/m² as lux or lumens/m²,

This also means that 2^ev = A²/T

A = the f-stop number of the aperture
T = shutter time in seconds

Combining these two; EV = log2(A²/T) = log2(LS/C) – which is the only formula you are likely to need, if you want to understand the basics of mathematics behind photography.

So what is the EV number used for?

Ah. Well, the EV number is used internally in cameras – an EV number of 10, for example, would refer to all the combinations of shutter times and apertures that would give a given exposure using ISO 100 film. This is useful, because a camera only has to add one thing to this equation; A light measurement. A camera with a lookup table or an algorithm to calculate the correct EV is all set for using all the different combinations that are able to give you the exposure you want.

But why would I care, if the camera handles everything?

Because the camera doesn’t always get things right. You may also want to use alternative exposures for artistic reasons.

Most cameras have an EV compensation wheel/dial, allowing you to choose how much you want to over/underexpose an image. This is usually measured in +/- 2EV, 1/3 steps. This means that you can over- or underexpose an image by two whole EV steps (which, incidentally, would mean the same as two full f-stops either way), in steps of 1/3 EV.

I hope that made things a little clearer – if not, leave a comment, and I’ll see what I can do!

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Making Google love your photo site

You’re working as a photographer, you take fantastic photos, and you’ve even got a pretty sweet website to show off your work… So why is your web server just sitting around in the corner, smoking a fag and nipping at a cup of coffee? Why aren’t the buyers running the door off its hinges, and, come to think of it, where are your damn groupies, already?

The internet is a cold and heartless place, and the biggest source of traffic to any website should be coming from search engines (Photocritic, for example, gets about 70% of its traffic from search engines. Mind you, it’s mostly people looking for pictures of nude women. Go figure.)

Luckily, there are quite a few things you can do as a photographer to make your site really zing in the search engines – and for the sake of making a nice round figure (and, of course, so the Digg and Reddit crowds will love it like a kitten loves tuna fish) – here’s a lovely top-10 list to get you started! 

For the sake of photography, you can basically optimise your site for two types of search: Text search (what most people think of when they think ‘search’) and image search (take a guess…).

It’s worth noting that this list is in no particular order – but the more of them you implement, the better you are likely to do.

First of all, check out the phenomenal SEOMoz, and check out their ‘Google Search Engine Ranking Factors‘ document. It outlines a lot of the stuff you need to know about making your site accessible to Google etc, the most important of which is ‘Don’t use Flash / Flex to build your site’, and ‘Make sure you haven’t inadvertently blocked search engine spiders from entering the site by using a drop-down menu for your navigation system’

1 – Update often

First off, you could do a lot worse than making sure to update your site frequently, no matter what kind of content you have. Many SEO experts have observed that Google tends to give higher ranking to sites that are updated more frequently.

That might mean that, instead of posting 100 new photos once a month, you post 10 or 12 every 3 days. Another way to have new content often is to have a blog. Sprinkle your photos throughout the blog content and the search engines will eat them up like the proverbial fat lady at a cake sale.

2 – Context and categorisation is king

Context is important. The search engines want to know what your site is about. You might want to use the word “photo” in all of your filenames, to keep the context of a photography website consistent.

The next step is to stop and think for a secon – what types of photos do you take? Try to organize them into categories and maybe even sub-categories, so that you have some context for each page. See Rolf Hicker’s Photography website for a good example of photo categories. Of course he also…

3 – Place text near your photos

Once you’ve placed your photos on their pages, the nearby text becomes important. Google gets clues about the content of images from the text near them. Consider using captions or quotes that have the same keywords as apply to your photos, and place them next to the photos for maximum value in the search engine ranking.

Linnea Lenkus Fine Art Portrait Studios website, for example, is an excellent example of good use of quotes next to the photo. Contrast this with the Chesler Photo site doesn’t come up on the first several pages in a “maternity” image search, despite having a whole gallery of such photos, probably due to not having enough textual content on the site.

The Digital Photography School website is another fab example of the use of text on a photography page.

4 – ALT tags are your friend. Use them

When you add an image to your website, you’re using an <img src="[URL]"> tag. You can – and should – add attributes to this tag, including an alt attribute.

Put an explanation of what the image depicts in your ALT tags. Not only do you make it easier for blind people to navigate your site (although why blind people would want to visit a photography site remains a mystery to me…), but it is one of the few sure-fire things that a search-engine has to go on when deciding what your photographs are about.

In addition to using keywords in your ALT tags, make sure that the actual file-name contains the same keywords.

Remember that your alt attribute can have spaces; use dashes to separate individual words if you want your filename to contain multiple words.

Don’t stuff the “alt” tag with lots and lots of keywords, however, or it will appear to be spamming; just describe the image honestly in the same way you would describe it to someone over the telephone.

Example: <img src="http://pixiq.com/images/kitten-eating-tuna.jpg" alt="Photograph of a black and white kitten eating tuna. Nom!">

The Mackins Design Studio website is an example of good use of descriptive alt tags as well as filenames. As a counter-note: PremierPhotographer Pat McNulty’s site doesn’t come up on the first several pages of an image search for “castles” despite having a castle category – there could be many reasons for this, but not using ALT attributes will be at least part of the reason.

5 – Add a blog to your site

You probably never knew that Photocritic started off as a blog-belonging-to-a-photo-site, but it’s the truth. I guess it says quite a lot about me as a photographer that the photography blog became at least a bazillion times more popular than my photography site(s), but I guess it was a godsent: I was always a better writer than a photographer anyway.

Maybe it’s because blogs are generally updated regularly, but images used in blogs are often numbered in the top of image search results, even for blogs which have as their regular topic something that has nothing to do with the keyword. See Mr&Mrsijunky’s blog for a good use of blog with photos. In addition, it’s a lot easier to SEO the hell out of a blog than to make an image-led site really fly. Sad, isn’t it?

6 – Start using the TITLE attributes

Use the image “title” tag. Similar to the “alt” tag, it isn’t compatible with all browsers, yet, but will be accessible to Firefox users, and the spiders from Google and other search engines will see it. You can put text similar to what you put in the alt tag in this tag.

Usability expert Roger Johansson explains:

[The ALT attribute] is not meant to be used as a tool tip, or more specifically, to provide additional information about an image. The title attribute, on the other hand, is meant to provide additional information about an element. That information is displayed as a tooltip by most graphical browsers, though manufacturers are free to render title text in other ways.

If you fancy geeking out about alt vs title tags, Johansson’s blog is the place to go…

7 – Keyword the hell out of your page title

Use keywords in the page title. The page title is a header tag that causes text to appear in the top bar of the window when the page is open in your browser.

Each page of your website should have a different title, a title that contains the keywords applicable to that page, but in title form, not as a list. Check out the browser window title of this very blog entry for a good example…

Also check out how the home page of Photocritic uses different keywords in the title tag, when compared to all the other pages on the site. This differentiation is designed to guide users (and, I admit, search engines) to the right place.

8 – Use keywords in the page URL

That really means the HTML filename for that page. Don’t name your pages page1.html and page2.html. A much better name would be castle-photo-gallery.html or dover-castle-panorama-photos.html

9 – Keep an eye on your directory structure

Use image folders and sub folders. Put all of your images into a folder called “images” when you upload them to your web host. Then, use sub-folders for common categories. The image named Sorbie_Castle.jpg should be in /images/castles/, for example. Not only does it make it easier for yourself, you’ll be able to

10 – Be smart when linking

Anchor text is the text that appears on a page when there is a link; it’s the text that is underlined and/or in a special color to denote a link. These anchor text links should be descriptive, and – if possible – contain keywords relevant to the page you are linking to.

If you put a link to your castles page somewhere else in your site, don’t say “click here” to see my castle photos. The text comprising the link should have the keyword in it, so it should say see my “castle photos” and the words “castle photos” would be the link to that page.

Do this on your own site and encourage others who link to you to do the same. You can even provide actual text they can use to link to you which contains your keyword. A good way to do this is to have a small note at the bottom of every page inviting people to link back to you, and including a link to a page containing the appropriate code with your keyword in the anchor text.

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Sharpening photos in the darkroom

In the past, we’ve covered why it is important to sharpen your photos, and how you can use the Unsharp Mask tool in Photoshop to make sure your photos look their best.

I am a firm believer of understanding how things are done manually, however. If you are to take shortcuts, you have to know the long road to get there first. So… If you have a darkroom, how can you sharpen your images without letting the film go anywhere near a computer?

Here’s how… 

In the old days, limited film and lens quality kept the sharpness away from photography. When the negative techniques started evolving, and lenses and film became the bottlenecks, people started to experiment with ways to improve the image in various ways. Contrast became one of the first improvements, but this was comparatively easy to correct in the darkroom. Now sharpness was a different thing altogether.

The first cameras used horribly show shutter times; This increases the chance of camera and/or subject movement. Slight focussing problems also frequently occurred. Remember that a regular 24 x 36 mm negative is enlarged significantly, and even the tiniest blurriness becomes visual: Which is why some bright soul came up with a way to sharpen the final results.

How to…

If you want to have a go at using unsharp masking in the darkroom (heh – if you want to put yourself through stuff like that, let me tell you; I like you), here is a concise guide how it can be done. I have had a lot of surprises when using this technique – mostly positive surprises, but every now and then, things go very wrong. Even then, it looks interesting, if nothing else.

Right. Take the negative you want to have sharpened, and place it on a photographical-grade glass plate. Underneath the glass plate, put some unexposed film. Now, make a contact copy of the film, and develop the film from under the glass plate. That should leave you with a positive copy of your negative. This copy will be ever so slightly blurred (because of the glass plate), which is exactly what you want. Align the two film strips, and put them both in your enlarger.

Right – let’s have a look what has happened now. Theoretically – if the contact copy was 100% exact, you shouldn’t be able to see through your negative. Why? Well – what was light in your original negative should now be dark in your positive (effectively a slide), and all the gradations should be cancelling each other out. However, you don’t have (and didn’t want) an exact copy – you need the small differences. When turning on your enlarger, you will see a strange outline of your image.

This outline consists of the original highlights (which were black in your negative – cause it’s a negative, remember?), and the blur is introduced into the transitions in the shadows of the image. What this means? Well – your shadows will ‘take more space’ in the image, and eat into the blurred edges of your original negative.

So – what you’ll want to do is to just briefly flash this unsharp mask on your photographic paper, and then expose the paper normally, using only the negative.

You should be able to tell the difference between pictures that have / have not had this done to them.

So how long should you flash the enlarger? I wish I could tell you. I have spent endless days in darkrooms, and eventually it becomes second nature. You can tell approximately how much exposure a particular unsharped image needs – just keep practising, and bracket all your tries (yes – half step bracket your unsharp masked image, and then see what works best. Take notes to find out exactly how you can make it all come toghether perfectly.)

Good luck!

Why sharpen your images?

This week, I received a rather good question from one of my old friends, Cindy. She was wondering “how come that whenever I’m taking digital images, I have to sharpen them afterwards?” Good question, and of course, it’s already one step ahead of the curve, in that the question presupposes that yes, you DO have to sharpen your images. Which is correct… But why?

Back in the days of film, things were simple: If you wanted your photos, you got prints made. These prints were predictable: They’ll be on paper, have a certain dynamic range, etc. Then digital photography came along and turned everything on its head, because suddenly there are so many more things you can do with your photos…

You can project them on a wall (in a series of different resolutions, depending on the projector), you can upload them to a website, you can have prints made, or you can print them in magazines in newspapers. This is where part of the problem comes from…

Mathematically, (which is, of course, how computers think), it is far easier to sharpen an image than to un-sharpen it – It’s important to remember, for example, that un-sharpening an image is not the same as merely blurring it: The quality of the resulting fuzziness is completely different.

Camera manufacturers know this, and this is where one of the biggest differences between the way images are processed inside an SLR and a digital compact are different:

Digital SLR versus compact cameras

The manufacturers assume (correctly, most of the time), that people shooting with compact cameras don’t plan to do much to their photos after they are downloaded onto their computer. So, how do you make the photos look as good as possible? By sharpening them in-camera, so they look gorgeous right away. You take one look at ‘em, are happy, and upload them to Flickr right away.

All good and well, but people photographing with an SLR camera are different. For one thing, they’ve paid a lot of extra money for the flexibility and choice that is inherent in a SLR: You can choose lenses, shutter times, ISO values, and all that wonderfulness. It is therefore safe to assume that an SLR user wants more control over the final image, and for this reason, photos coming out of a digital SLR are generally sharpened less – in some cases, you will even see that photos coming out of a digital compact appear sharper (and therefore better) than that from an SLR.

Quirks of sharpening

As already has been mentioned, it’s easier to sharpen than to de-sharpen an image. There is a second quirk too, however: It’s never a good idea to re-sharpen an image (i.e. sharpen a photo that has already been sharpened). This is the crux of why you can ultimately get better photos out of a SLR: you evaluate the photograph, and experiment with the amount of sharpening you do. Then, once the preview looks good, you run the sharpening on the photograph, and then never sharpen it again.

Photos from most digital compacts have, of course, already been sharpened once (inside the camera), so if you try and re-sharpen them to get more clarity out of them, you’ll never get the same level of woah-factor, because you’ll start getting sharpening artifacts (thin white lines around the areas that have been sharpened): What, in fact, happens is that the software isn’t sharpening the image itself, it’ll start sharpening the parts of the image which has already been sharpened. Sometimes this can lead to interesting effects, but often you just lose any subtlety to an image.

It’s also worth noting that sharpening often amplifies the downside of JPG image compression: If your photograph has been compressed too much (such as when you shoot on ‘medium’ quality on your camera, rather than ‘superfine’, or whatever the highest quality setting is), you might find that suddenly you’ll get a lot of ugly banding and compression artifacts showing up that were practically invisible before.

So, in-camera sharpening is bad?

Hmm. Not necessarily: I never really do all that much editing on casual holiday snaps, for example, so I leave my Canon IXUS compact camera set to ‘high sharpening’. It means I can upload my photos straight to Facebook, and they’ll look pretty decent.

When it comes to artistic control, however: Yes, in-camera sharpening is bad. There are two ways around this: Turn the sharpening down as much as you can in your camera (your photos will look a lot worse when you look at them the first time, but when you sharpen them on your computer, they’ll really zing), or shoot in RAW format (which, if you want full creative control, you should be doing anyway, but that’s for a different article).

So, how do I sharpen my images?

Hah, that’s a completely different article altogether. Luckily, I’ve already written that one – head over to Sharpen those photos: Unsharp Mask for more info than you ever wanted about this topic!

Which camera is this?

Update: This was an April’s fools’ joke in collaboration with DPReview. Sorry, guys ;)

Just a quick one – I had a day off before starting my new job, so I was out go-karting with my dad yesterday (I won, hah), and we went for a bit of a touristic travel around London afterwards. Near London Bridge, I saw someone who was taking some photos. Nothing unusual there, I hear you say, but what caught my attention was the camera he was using – what IS that thing? 

I only managed to snap one useable photo:

I like to think that I’m pretty decent at recognising cameras (I smile and nod whenever I meet anyone who carries a 40D, just like me, and I growl (only slightly) when someone’s looking smug, carrying a
top-end Nikon around), but this one is a bit of a mystery to me… It looks vaguely expensive, too.

The only dSLR camera I know of that has a swivel-screen like that is the Olympus E3 – which I reviewed for T3 magazine a few weeks back, so I know it quite well… And this is not it.

Do any of you recognise it? It’s driving me bloody bonkers!

Oh, since some of you e-mailed me to ask: This is the other picture I managed to snap – it doesn’t show the camera off as well, but perhaps it helps?

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The problem with microstock

We do an experiment with microstock, and discover that while I sold three times more photos, I earned 40 times less money from the micro stock sales than from a full-on agency – with the exact same photos on sale…

The lesson? If you’re a decent photographer, stay the hell away from micro-stock: The bigger agencies treat you better, pay you more, and actually make an effort to sell your photos on a bigger scale.  

A bit of background on this one: I used to work as a freelance photographer, and I have a huge back-library of photos that have been used in print, which is now sitting around, doing nothing much at all. I’ve long been selling them via Alamy, and have made a nice little income on the photos over the years.

A bit of history

The problem is that traditionally, stock photography has been a staple of high-end photographers who want a way to make a long-term investment into their photography: Huge agencies take on the very best photographers and represent them (hence the word ‘agency’), selling their photographs to newspapers, magazines, etc, and take a share of the money for their services, then look after the rest.

Then along came Alamy, which caused waves: It had high quality standards, and demanded the very best from its photographers, but it was one of the first times where any professional photographer could be tied to a large agency and start making money of their stock libraries.

Then something weird happened: Microstock. The basic idea of micro stock photography is that photographers upload their photos, which then are sold for what in the world of stock photography is a ridiculously low amount of money. How ridiculous? Well, a photo on iStockphoto sells typically for 20 times less than a photo on Alamy, which in turn sells for a third of the price of a photo from one of the ‘big boys’.

The real problem here, of course, is simple economics: Even if you have a phenomenally huge library, it’s nigh-on impossible to make a decent living off microstock, simply because the margins are far too low to bother. As a result, the entire low-end of the stock photography market is left to amateurs who want to try and break into making some cash of their photos. No harm done there, you may say, but the problem is that the amateurs – even though many of them are highly talented photographers – are grossly underselling their high-quality photos.

Whereas people used to turn to microstock with a slight tinge of disdain, and an approach of ‘these photos aren’t really good enough, but I can’t afford to use a big agency’s photos with this budget’, the current batch of photos on iStockphoto and the rest of the microstock brigade is actually pretty good.

Which is worrying, because it means that the people who are letting micro stock agencies represent themselves are probably underselling themselves quite drastically.

The experiment

Personally, I’ve got around 400 photos in my portfolio on Alamy, and I make a reasonably good amount of money per month – not enough to live off, but not bad either, considering it’s just sitting there, making money. In fact, 90% of the sales I make are of the same 3 photos, and that gets close to 100% when we take the top 10 photos. So I figured I’d try a little experiment: What happens if I take the same 10 best-selling photos, and upload them to iStockphoto? How many sales will I make? How much money will I make?

Quite apart from the absolutely ridiculous vetting procedures iStockphoto have (that’s another post waiting to happen – suffice to say that I’m vastly unimpressed how they reject photos that I’ve had in print in dozens of magazines, websites and books because of fictional ‘issues’ – and how photos that are very similar, taken within seconds of each other, but with a different angle – get accepted without any problems), the results of my little experiment were frightening.

Over the period I ran this test, I sold 3 photos from the top 10 via Alamy, and 8 photos from the same selection via iStockphoto. Not bad, you may say: I’ve just made nearly three times more sales via a microstock site. Which is entirely undeniable.

However, if you look at the paycheck, the difference is shocking: The 8 sales via iStockphoto put a total of $4.54 in my pocket: Definitely not worth the while it took me to upload, tag, and faff about with the photographs. In contrast, the pay-check from Alamy, was just over $200.

Apart from the entirely selfish approach, which can be summarised into ‘I would much rather make $200 than $4.54′, there is the grander scheme of things to keep in mind: It’s all fine and dandy to chuck your photos on a site and make some cash off them, but is it worth it if this means that you’re taking the bread and butter away from someone else?

The bigger picture

A recent article on the BBC News website explains what the problem really is:

“If photographers, like any artist, are going to continue to invest and create and be involved and if the business want to see the types of images from professional photographers that are really extraordinary then they are going to have to support the artists,” says Betsy Reid from the Stock Artists Alliance which represents professional stock photographers.

“Unfortunately, we need to be paid to survive. I have seen very little evidence, if any, that anyone can thrive on a microstock income,” says Reid.

Microstock has also put pressure on professional photographers like Shannon Fagan. He now has to produce 60 saleable shots in one session rather than the 10 he used to aim for and the budget cuts affect his entire operation.

“My fees are dropping. I presented that to the agencies that sell the photos, and said this is a problem. There is nothing they can do about it. It is not their problem. It gets transferred to me, the crew, the models, the locations,” he says.

Another piece of writing from the Photographers Direct site rings very true to me:

The painful injustice of microstock sites can be seen from the July 23rd 2007 cover of Time Magazine. The cover has 3 images. One is credited to Getty Images, one to istockphoto. How much did the photographers earn?

… obviously, both photographers were good enough to be featured on the cover of Time Magazine – but one of them screwed themselves over badly. While they can now say they’ve been published on the cover of Time Magazine, one of them hasn’t seen more than a few dollars for their photo, while the other photographer made enough for a week-end break in New York for his troubles. Does that seem fair to you?

A word on RF / RM

Microstock is typically sold as Royalty Free (RF). This means that once the end-user has purchased a licence to use this photograph, they can use it again and again without paying royalties – If a band decides to use your photograph on the front of a album cover, or if a magazine decides to use it in a mast-head (a banner that goes across the top, typically used to mark off a specific section of a magazine), they can use the photo again and again as often as they please.

Rights managed photography (RM), however, works differently – in this case, a publisher buys the right to use your photograph in a very specific setting (print run of up to 10,000, in the US only, in the months of April and May, for example), which means that if the magazine decides to use your photo one more time, they have to pay you one more time.

There has long been some animosity between professional stock photographers, who have traditionally been selling their images rights-managed, and photographers who have decided to sell their photos on an RF licence, because the former feel that the latter are devaluing the market.

The discussion rages further, of course, with the introduction of the microstock markets, where you not only don’t get a choice about which licence you sell your photographs under, but it’s also selling at much lower price

Some advice

If you’re good enough to take superb-quality photos, put some work into getting adequate representation, and sign with a good stock photography agency. Selling your best photos for cents is an insult – not just to yourself, but also to those who work full-time to produce high quality stock photography.

In the grand scheme of things, if you keep giving away your best photos for cheap, you’re doing yourself a serious disservice.

I, for one, will take down my photos off iStockPhoto. It’s not worth the hassle, and it’s just plain wrong.

Finally, you may be interested an article we wrote a while ago, entitled How Much should I charge for a Photo…

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Do you enjoy a smattering of random photography links? Well, squire, I welcome thee to join me on Twitter - Follow @Photocritic

© Kamps Consulting Ltd. This article is licenced for use on Pixiq only. Please do not reproduce wholly or in part without a license. More info.

Never miss an issue of Photocritic!

You’ve probably heard of RSS – also known as Really Simple Syndication. You haven’t? Oh my golly, you really should!

RSS allows you to keep track of your favourite websites, when it suits YOU. You don’t spend hours and hours checking your bookmarks and seeing if they have updated their site recently, just subscribe to the RSS feeds. Use Google Reader, or any of the others of dozens of RSS readers, both on-line and off-line, out there.

You don’t get full functionality, but at least you know when something has changed, and is worth having a peek at!

So… Take the RSS feed from /feed, and add it to your reader or client.

Or, if you use LiveJournal, why not add the LiveJournal-friendly syndication feed to your friends list?

Rock on.

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Do you enjoy a smattering of random photography links? Well, squire, I welcome thee to join me on Twitter - Follow @Photocritic

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Nude photography 101

Portraiture is one of the most exhilarating forms of photography. It’s rewarding, exciting, challenging, and a lot of fun. But people have a way of hiding from the camera: Clothes. Nude photography is essentially portraiture sans clothing, which is what makes it such a fun topic to explore and develop as a photographer. Personally, I’m completely convinced that a photographer who starts developing their nudes also becomes a better portrait photographer.

One of the things people frequently e-mail me about is how to get started in nude photography – some of you want to make a living out of it, many just want to have a go and experiment, but don’t know how to begin.

Of course, Photocritic already has a series of articles on the topic already, including an introduction, and an interview with acclaimed nude photographer photographer Renoux.

Well, today you’re all in for a phenomenal treat, as my good friend Tammy guest-writes an article on taking the first steps into nude photography, by inviting your girlfriend to model for you.

Needless to say, depending on what you do for a living, this article may not be ‘safe for work’.

Take it away Tammy…

Let’s start with the basics: You already know that your girlfriend is gorgeous. While you may not be a digital pro, you’re still pretty handy with a camera, and you’d love to be able to capture some of your girlfriend’s natural beauty – if you’ve never tried before, here are a few tips to get you on your right way!

Ask permission.

Much like that nervous first date, the prospect of nude photography can be a little scary and intimidating, both for the photographer and the model. Though most women enjoy feeling beautiful, they also realise there is only room for so many supermodels in the world, and many women are self-conscious about how they look, particularly in the nude. There is great security in clothing and taking it all off, even for a camera, can be like having an audience when you’re at your most vulnerable.

If you are interested in taking nude photographs of your girlfriend (or girl who is a friend. Or boyfriend, for that matter), make sure you sit down and really talk to her about this ahead of time. If she doesn’t appear convinced, perhaps it’s worth reminding her how beautiful you think she is and that you’d love for her to be able to see for herself and let you try some nude candid shots. She might not leap on the opportunity, but give her some space to mull about it.

Sometimes the best things come to those who can wait patiently. Chances are good that if she didn’t have sex with you the first night, she might will not be ready to jump into nude photography the first time the two of you talk about it either.

Less is more.

Trust is an important aspect of every relationship, and there is definitely a deep kind of trust that needs to be present before a woman feels open to this sort of photography. Do not pressure her to do anything that she doesn’t feel comfortable with. In fact, do everything you can to make sure that she feels comfortable. Involve her ideas, discuss her fears and concerns, and find out what she might like to try.

Nude : Anonymous by Photocritic.org on Flickr

It might help to thumb through some photographs or magazines for ideas and possible poses. See what she likes. If she’s nervous about exposing a body part like her nipples, illustrate different ways that she can pose nude without having to show whatever part she’s shy about.

Of course, there’s myriad ways to get around the whole nudity thing – even if a model is naked, they don’t have to look it in the photographs. Come to think of it, even if they do look naked, you don’t have to show off all (or, indeed, any) of the ‘naughty bits’:

You can ask her to cup her hands around her breasts so that she feels less exposed. Or the first time she poses, let her warm up to the idea in a sexy lingerie outfit or a skimpy swimsuit in the bathtub. If she’s worried about her frontal view, she can pose on her stomach. Try shots that focus on the small of her back, her bottom, and her neck (they’re all vastly sexy bits of the body, if you photograph them right!).

If she’s worried about showing her face, allow her to hide it – get creative, and it doesn’t have to be of detriment to the final result. Try profile shots, silhouette shots in a dimly lim room, or experiment with black and white photographs. Often, you’ll find that subtlety is hot, and truly sexy photos are often the ones that hide more than they show, anyway.

If she’s concerned about anything, big or small, make sure to take her concerns seriously – I know we’re harping on about this point, but that’s only because it’s important: Listening and paying attention to detail are two of the greatest things you can do to help her relax and feel completely comfortable with the idea of being in front of the camera

Get Close. Closer. Nope, still not close enough.

The main focus of your photographs should be your girlfriend. Don’t be afraid to experiment with close up shots and interesting angles. If your girlfriend has a particular feature that you find very erotic or sensual, try to highlight that feature in the photo.

This is your chance to experiment and discover new sides both of her and what you think of her – and if the photos turn out as well as you hope, then chances are that she’ll appreciate your, er, appreciation as well!

Don’t act like an idiot.

After you find something she’s decided she’s willing to try, make sure to mention how beautiful you think she will look. Especially for a woman who feels shy or self-conscious, reassurance is a must. If she’s never posed nude before she may feel like she doesn’t know what she’s doing.

It’s important for you, as the photographer, to be prepared to offer assurance and encouragement, but most of all, instruction: you see how the photos are turning out, so you have to offer direction. Show her that you know what you’re doing, and even if you don’t, by all means at least act like a professional :)

Remember that she’s your girlfriend, not a porn star, and not a stripper (unless, of course, your girlfriend is a stripper or a pornstar, but in that case you’ll probably not really need this write-up).

If you are respectful and loving, chances are that she will relax and get more into this. Make it about her and about how beautiful you think she is, and she’ll return the appreciation.

Talk about how the photos will be used

A final word of warning: Taking the photos will be a learning experience for both of you, and you may end up with some mighty fine photographs. Nonetheless, take care to talk about how the resulting photographs will be used, and who will see them: Nude photographs might not be something that your girlfriend wants the entire world to see. Before you rush right out and upload them all onto your Facebook or MySpace pages, make sure you defer the control of the photos back to her. The photos are of her, so she should be the one to decide what you can and cannot do with them. Don’t be surprised if this is a private activity that she wants kept between just the two of you.

That means that if she wants the memory card formatted, or requests that you delete certain images that she doesn’t like it’d be rather rude not to.

Once she trusts that you’re really not going to do anything with the photos that she isn’t okay with, the chances are good that the next time you experiment with a camera she’ll be more relaxed and more willing to try different things.

Have fun!

If you’re being tense and worried about the experiment, it isn’t going to work. if you have to, take the memory card out of your camera, and just shoot ‘blanks’ for the fun of it. Get used to seeing nude skin through the viewfinder, and make sure your girl is comfortable with the sound of the shutter, the lights of your flashes, and with taking instructions throughout the shoot.

Basic rule: If you’re not both having fun, someone’s doing something wrong.

Good luck!

Models: Preparing for a photo shoot

The modelling industry is very competitive. Every photo-shoot is a chance for a model to show herself at her best, and any model is only as good as their last shoot – so there’s a strong incentive to make each photo-shoot count towards

This article highlights some recommendations that a model may want to review in order to prepare him or herself for a photo-shoot. While digital photo processing software such as Photoshop can work miracles, neither a model nor a photographer will take as much pride in highly photoshopped pictures. If you take the time to prepare well in advance of your photo-shoot, you will feel more confident and as a result, look better. 

Part 1: Show your body and skin at its best!

1. If you work out, you may want to vary your routine to show off the muscles you’re most proud of. Or, a week before the shoot, you may want to increase the intensity of your workout. For example, if you usually do aerobics or body shaping, switch to working with gym equipment for a couple days. You will notice how well your muscles will respond. In no way does this mean you need to have a stereotypical fashion model’s body. Exercise can be great for any body and can boost confidence – and confidence is really what makes you attractive.

2. Moisturize: Hopefully you moisturize your skin regularly. If not, certainly apply moisturizer on the days before and morning of the shoot. To make your skin look smooth, supple and glowing, consider using with a hydrating cream containing exfoliators such as hyularonic or glycolic acid.

3. Remove: If you shave, do so 2 days before the shoot, in order to give your skin a chance to recover. If you do it yourself, follow the main rules of depilation to avoid irritation and ingrown hair:

- cleanse your skin and exfoliate before depilation
- do not stretch your skin when depilating
- do not apply too much pressure when shaving or using hair depilation cream
- do not run the shaver over one and the same spot several times or you can create irritated spots. If you have to, reapply shaving cream.

4. Color: Instead of using a solarium and prematurely aging your skin due to UV damage, consider using self-tanning creams and bronzing products. Choose a light type that gives you a chance to regulate intensity with each application and to avoid disasters like uneven color, lines and spots. Experiment with these products well in advance of your shoot, so you know that the color will look right for you. Try to avoid tan lines.

5. Watch it: Avoid too much salt and iodine in your diet. Salt can lead to water retention in the skin and the skin surface does not look smooth and tight but tired and bumpy. Iodine, for example in sushi and marine dishes, can trigger break-outs. Include more fiber into your diet it will help your body to get rid of toxins, and drink plenty of water.

6. Spots: If you do get a pimple the day of the shoot, do not touch it, as you will make it redder and harder to cover. Most photographers have no problem with one or two pimples as these can be easily covered with makeup or digitally removed by photoshop. If you have serious acne problems, be sure that your photographer knows this in advance.

Caution: Do not experiment with new skin treatments the night before the shoot. Any new treatment can cause skin irritations or allergic reactions. Test out the treatments well in advance of the shoot in order to know how your skin will react and how long your skin needs to recover.

Part 2:

Okay, your skin and body look great! What else you can do to prepare for a photoshoot?

1. Hair: If you dye your hair, make sure that you have had your roots recently treated. Studio lighting can exaggerate dark roots.

2. Nails: Make sure your finger and toe nails look clean and manicured. Use a clear nail polish which will go with any color clothing. If you must color your nails use a neutral white or cream. Red nails will look strange if your outfit is blue.

3. Makeup: If there will be a makeup artist at the shoot, arrive with no makeup on. Otherwise, you will loose time and potentially irritate your skin (and your photographer) when the makeup comes off. If you will be doing your own makeup, remember that photography lighting and the heat from the lights tend to make the skin look shinier than usual. Do not use any shiny or bright make-up that might cause reflection or glare during the photoshoot. Apply a base to smooth your skin and make it look consistent. Use mascara to bring out your eyes. Bring several colors of lipstick that you can apply depending on the color of clothing.

4. Wear antiperspirant. Avoid using any deodorant which may stain clothing.

5. Tattoos: If you have tattoos, experiment to see what make up will cover them naturally. If you are interested in being a traditional fashion model, don’t get tattooed, as many photographers don’t like them. On the other hand, tattoos can make a portrait more interesting – just make sure the photographer knows about them ahead of time.

6. Posing: Practice your poses before the shoot. This is especially advisable if you are a beginning model. Flip through some magazines and find the poses you like. Practice your facial expressions and poses in front of a mirror so you can see how you look at your best. Often exaggerated or unusual poses look most interesting. Wild and disheveled hair may be better for you than the well-groomed look. Do not be afraid to experiment and try new things. It will be much better than standing like a stick in front of the camera.

7. What to wear to the shoot: If your shoot is glamour, swimwear or lingerie, wear loose fitting gym clothes which have no elastic bands. Do not wear underwear. Underwear leaves lines on the skin, which can require 30-60 minutes to disappear.

8. Get plenty of rest: Have a good night’s sleep the night before the shoot. Avoid partying the night before a photoshoot. Alcohol and cigarette smoke, even smoke in the air, can make your eyes red and puffy. Also, if you are a smoker bring down the number of cigarettes your smoke or stop completely before the shoot. Smoking deprives skin of oxygen and nutrients and makes it look gray.

Invest the time to make yourself look the best you can be so you can feel confident during the shoot. If you feel great about yourself, you will exude confidence. Confidence shows and will help to make your photos the best they can be.

This article was written by Eden Fenrick for Photocritic. If you fancy writing a guest article, get in touch!

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The death of photo journalism

“From this day, the painting is dead”, Paul Delaroche exclaimed when he saw the first Daguerreotype in 1839. He turned out to be wrong about the bit about the art of painting being dead, but photography certainly had a profound impact on our way of life.

As a matter of fact, as early as in 1900, it was said that “the daily press, advertisements, posters, scientific literature, the popular lecture, decoration, and now the kinetograph, not to speak of the coming colored photography, have all contributed what is probably slowly coming to be a new mode of pictorial thought” (Goldberg 1991, p16) 

The Past: A brief history of photojournalism

Since the turn of the last century (1899 has been pointed out as the year photography really gained foothold in print media), pictures have become one of the sources of information newspaper readers have grown to rely on. (Lebeck & Von Dewitz 2001) As technology improved and the introduction of graphical images and photographs into newsprint became possible, editors realised that photographs were important additions to their journalistic textual input. Fred Barnard, a writer for Printer’s Ink, nailed the place of photojournalists firmly into history in 1921, by coining the phrase “A picture is worth a thousand words”. (Stevenson 1948)

Technology continued improving and photojournalism slowly became more significant. In terms of layout, photographs were more often than not the first thing people noticed about an article – even before headlines. (Hodgson 1998) The newfound love of graphical input on news pages spawned the first wave of photojournalists, some of whom became world famous. Mathew Brady (1823-1896), Jacob Riis (1849-1914), Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971) and Robert Capa (1913-1954) are but of a few of the pioneers who shaped the field of documentary photography and photojournalism in its early days.

After the initial impact of photographs in print subsided, new publications appeared, focussing specifically on photojournalism as a form of journalism. Magazines such as Life, Picture Post and Look raised important issues in society almost exclusively through the art of stills images and image captions.
The images come to life
With the introduction of moving images, photojournalism took quite a punch: The newsreels being played in cinemas in the 1920s and 30s were seen as a dangerous competitor to stills photographers, but its threat was eventually brushed off, as people realised it could take weeks – in some case even months – before news stories made it to the cinemas, whereas photographs could appear in the newspaper within the same week. (Goldberg 1991)

All of this changed drastically with the invention of the tape-based (as opposed to film-based) cameras in the early 1950s (Bellis 2003), when news could be edited down and transmitted the same evening. Still, the news photograph as a medium of art and communication kept growing: “During the 1960s, still photography and television news played off one another, boosting the power of images yet another notch” (Goldberg 1991, p217). In 1980, CNN was started, increasing the ever-growing tempo of news publishing, simultaneously hammering in the first nail in the coffin of photojournalism. The CNN, transmitting 2,592,000 news pictures a day (30 frames a second, 24 hours a day), has saturated the market for pictures. Whatever people want to see, they can see 24 hours a day. Despite the fact that although “television news has produced many memorable moments, photographs are more fully and easily remembered” (Goldberg 1991, p218). Simultaneously, investigative photojournalism has a possibility of being more in-depth than television. This, however, costs money. And money is scarce in the world of hardnosed competition within the media.

The Present

Things have changed since the early days of photojournalism. The media in general have undergone some significant changes. From being sources of reasonably unbiased public information, the current media climate – at least for the largest media organisations – is that of a world where profits are the key priority. For smaller publications such as local and small regional papers, the question becomes less one of profitability and more one of survival.

Perhaps because of this, The art of photography as a journalistic media “has been consigned to history because it is no longer regarded as an important medium of information for mass readership” (Lebeck & Dewitz 2001, p7) The pictures themselves, however, are still as important as ever. As Harold Evans puts it: “Everest is undeniably climbed, but we want to see the photograph of the man standing on top.” (Evans 1978 p5)

We still find pictures – a great number of them – in newspapers every day. The difference lies in who takes the pictures. Many publications, in particular smaller regional papers and the locals, have done away with staff photographers completely, or have kept considerable fewer than the size of the publication would dictate. Consequently, these publications rely heavily on news photo agencies, public relations material and (to a lesser degree) freelance work. A fourth option that is becoming more and more common is the journalist going out on an assignment being equipped with a digital camera, taking some snaps during or after the interview.

A journalist who takes pictures vs. a photojournalist

Photography and journalism, while often being seen as the pair of horses pulling the chariot that is newspaper production, are completely different on many different levels. Photography as a profession is often placed in the same bin as painting, illustrating and other visual arts (Evans 1978), while journalism is more closely related to linguistics and academic work.

This difference is significant, as it ties in with the theories on usage of the brain. The left brain is linear, logical, sequential and verbal – containing all the points an editor would look for in a journalist. The right side of the brain, on the other hand, is holistic, nonverbal, intuitive and creative – also good characteristics of a journalist, but arguably far more important to a photographer. We all use both sides of the brain, but most people have a dominant side (MTSU 2002). A corollary of this is that most people will be better at taking pictures or researching and writing up stories. Practical experience has shown that – more often than not – brilliant journalists make appalling photographers and that the best photographers are nigh on illiterate . This means that editors have three choices: hire a good photographer who can write, hire a good writer who can take pictures, or hire somebody who is mediocre at both. The obvious choice is to choose somebody who can string some decent sentences together. The result? Photography suffers.

This never used to be a problem until the photographers were taken out of the equation. In the Norwegian local press this is particularly noticeable, but the same tendency can be found in the in the US regional press. The pictures used in the news sections of these publications are often rather uninspiring. The problems are normally not technical: modern digital cameras are as close to foolproof as we are going to get, especially because the results of the exposure are evident seconds after the picture is taken: If something is very wrong with the picture, it is always possible to retake it, and the majority of errors made in the process can be fixed in the digital darkroom.

The problem with using journalists as photographers is of a different character, which is far more difficult to define. The solution, here represented by the words of Margaret Bourke-White, is simpler: “While it is not necessary to return to the photography of 25 years ago, I think students of photography should work for a while with the view camera and do their own lab work” (Bourke-White 1958, p182). The point made here is important. A photographer is more likely to be familiar with the whole process, from the split second when the shutter goes ‘click’ to the hours a print hangs to dry after its baths of developer and fix.

Good photographers feel when something is wrong about an exposure, and change the settings on their cameras accordingly. The camera becomes an extension of the eye, in a similar way that experienced drivers don’t have to think about when to change gears, and how an adept journalist doesn’t have to think about how to write “skilled occupation” in shorthand. Or, back to the eloquence of the professional: “It is very easy to chase around with a little camera, shooting all over the map, and saying ‘Oh, they can fix that in the darkroom.’ But that’s not the place for fixing. Photography is a creative medium, and the creating should be done on the spot” (Bourke-White 1958, p182).

Despite the fact that these words were written 45 years ago, they are still remarkably applicable: Digital technology has come far, but there are limitations to how much information that is viable to remove from or add to an image. In addition to this, there are all the ethical limitations: What can be done to an image that is to be passed off as ‘the truth’?

Obviously, journalists are not stupid. Much like journalism, however, photography is a skill that cannot be fully taught in courses and instruction manuals: “Electronic transmission and manipulation are a boon, as is the compact disc is a boon for music, but the disc needs Mick Jagger or Mozart, and the page needs the Don McCullins and the Eddie Adamses of this world as much as ever.” (Evans 1978, p6) It is when the instructions and photography-rulebooks run out and intuition begins that a true photojournalist is born. This is a process that cannot be demanded or expected of every journalist

Observations outside the Norwegian local press
Having seen the worst-case scenario in the newsrooms of the Norwegian local media, it is worth taking a wider look at some parts of the rest of the world. For example: During a recent work experience session at Your Move magazine, a local Liverpool property and lifestyle magazine, I experienced that the market for photography is still there. It is, however, outside the scope of news photography: Most of the photography work done was in the commercial genre; portraits, product photography, fashion and architectural shots.

Other publications I have worked for, such as Norwegian VG and VG Nett, still employ full-time photographers. The problem is that there are not enough of them, and (again in an effort to save money), no more are employed. The result of this is that, while being able to run the newspaper more efficiently, the photographers have to be prioritised. In my experience, the priority will more often than not be on sensationalist and / or celebrity news. The reason for this is probably that this is what sells the newspapers. There is little time and other resources for in-depth photo assignments.

In the UK, things are a little better than in Norway. The reason for this is probably that a bigger population causes a bigger audience. A bigger audience causes a larger budget, and with a larger budget, allowances can be made for photography features and a different approach to the photojournalistic side of the publication. Aside from the thriving paparazzi culture (which arguably is the most visible group and possibly contains some of the most skilled photographers), newspapers like the Observer and other major Sunday papers make space for special feature sections. These sections often contain significant photography work, proving that the genre of photojournalism may not be quite as dead as portrayed elsewhere in this essay.

Conclusion

This essay has focussed primarily on a dark future: While the technology has gotten better, the average photography quality on exhibit in the press is deteriorating. The essay has shown why giving journalists cameras is not a substitution for specialised photographers, but the question remains: What can be done?

24 hour television news is here to stay, which means that news snaps have lost all value: the television media runs circles around snapshots. The only area where news photography can compete is in the area of human affairs: Vivid portrayal of strong moments, events and charismatic people can be done better by a still frame than a television camera. The medium for seeing such pictures is newspapers or magazines. Because of this, perhaps the need for more news photographers than today is absent, but the media is gasping for better photographers. Men and women who still know the trade of telling a story through photographs.

Bibliography

Bellis, M (2003) The History of Video and Related Innovations. / http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blvideo.htm

Bourke-White (1958) Photojournalism Now and Tomorrow. / In Smith Schuneman, R (1972) Photographic Communication. / London: Focal Press

Evans, H (1978) Pictures on a Page: Photo-journalism, Graphics and picture editing. / London: Pimlico

Goldberg, V (1991) The power of photography: how photographs changed our life. / New York: Abbeville Press Publishers

Hodgson, FW (1998) New Subediting / London: Focal Press

Lebeck, R & von Dewitz, B (2001) Kiosk: Eine geschichte der fotoreportage 1839-1973. Cologne: Steidl

MTSU (Middle Tennessee State University) (2002) Left/Right Processing. / http://www.mtsu.edu/~devstud/advisor/LRBrain.html (last verified May 18 2003)

Stevenson, B (1948) The Home Book of Proverbs, Maxims and Familiar Phrases. / New York: Macmillan

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Your photos in a photo gallery

Have you ever thought about having your photos in a photo gallery? I have, and it’s bloody nerve-wrecking. Whether your work is displayed for sale in a pub, for the sake of art in a gallery, or whether you just printed off a picture and your mum stuck it on the fridge with a magnet, it opens it up to a whole different type of scrutiny than if you post your images, say, on DeviantArt.

Why? Because this time, it’s real, flesh-and-blood people who look at your photos, not strangers with a broadband connection and a dinky laptop.

Having your photos on display for real strips away all the excuses. It can no longer be their monitor. It will no longer be that they are looking at things out of context… It’s all you.

I’m a passionate believer in the idea that you should display your photos – and so is my good friend Bobby Friske, who shares his first experience of a gallery showing, and the lessons he learned in the process…  

Take it away, Bobby…

My back-story in two sentences: I started off in audio, and then moved to video/film. I’ve done 3 short films and been an amateur photographer all along. I’d been photographing the urban jungle for awhile and thought I was finally getting some shots that were good enough to be put in front of other people. Pompous? Maybe. Completely clueless? Yeah, that’s more accurate.

Armed with a portfolio of about 40 photos I’d picked out of my collection I casually mentioned to my girlfriend I was ready to attempt to get into a gallery showing. Call it fate, dumb luck, or the photo gods in my corner… my girlfriend found a local gallery accepting submissions. Look in your local entertainment paper if you have one, it’s a great place to start.

Getting ready for exhibition

Two emails later I’m sitting in a local gallery in front of the woman who looks at your work and tells you “yep” or “nope”. Next thing I know she’s asking me how I plan to mount the photos, what I plan to charge, etc. This is where you can learn from my mistakes. First off, in situations like this I generally nod my head and BS my way through things, so there was no reason to start a new trend. I told her my made up plans on mounting, asked her what she thought I should charge and went with it.

It’s an exciting and scary thing to know you’re about to have your work on display with a gallery. I’ve done film work where I talked in front of 200 people, but that was a collaborative effort. People were going to see these photographs I had taken and like them, or dislike them, plain and simple! Needless to say it’s a little intimidating.

I’m lucky enough to have a photographer mentor, i.e. she makes her living as a photographer. So, of course I solicited her help. Some things she taught me:

1. Have a beginning, middle and end to your photographs on display. This was key and a no-brainer in hindsight. Learn about triptychs, basically the beauty of 3′s.
2. Have multiple sizes of your photographs available. (More on this later).
3. Be ready to “talk artistic” with people who want to know more than you may have ever thought about the picture in front of you. What was your inspiration? Why did you shoot that? What camera, settings, lenses, lighting, etc did you use?

Framing

Next is framing. Yes, I had to provide my own frames and that seems to be commonplace. I had quite a few 8″x10″, and some 13″x19″ photographs I’d printed up. Framing can be costly, but I chose to do it on the cheap. I chose Hobby Lobby for the 8×10. I bought the $2 plastic frames with glass front. What I did to make the look “artsy” was turn the backing around. It has more of a corrugated board look that worked well for my city shots.

For the 13×19 I had to spend a little extra, but not much. I got deep black foam core for $2, cut glass from Home Depot for $10 each and mounted everything with heavy duty clips from my local office supply store, around $5 for all of them. To hang them I used thin steel wire from Home depot with wire clamps. For each large frame it cost me about $15. The other plus to the cheap cost was they looked like the belonged with the photos.

Opening night

Now, the big night. It’s a cliché but true that it all went by very fast, but here’s some things I noticed. You get all kinds at a showing. Friends, co-workers, email buddies and the gallery regulars that are usually on the studios email list. You basically are there to mingle and talk about your work. It runs the gamut from the person who says “I like, or hate” this” to the deep intellectual that wants to know every facet of how the photo before the two of you came to be.

Prices you ask? I’ll tell you. For the 8″x10″ photos I charged $35.00, for the 13″x19″, $85.00. Now here’s where the mentors advice came in handy. She said have 2-3 reprints of each photo in 4″x6″ format, sell them for $10 each. Let me tell you, that’s the ones people bought. Yeah, I sold a few at $35 and a couple at $85, but I sold a LOT of $10 pics.

It’s quite a wild feeling to have someone actually pay you for a picture you’ve taken. It’s even further gratifying when they send you a picture of your photograph hanging in their house.

Lessons learned

It may sound corny, but it’s true: Just do it. You’ll learn a lot about how others view your work, more than a photography group, more than online chat.

People that make an effort to come to a show want to see something visually appealing and if they don’t like something, they’ll tell you. I learned to have multiple copies of small photographs. I also learned people will show up if there’s food, even if it’s snacky stuff.

All in all it was a great experience and I look forward to my next showing…

You can see the photos from Bobby’s gallery showing at his website. Like it? Well, check out his Flickr site as well, then!

Images © Bobby Friske

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Lens Flare - and how to avoid it

I get a lot of people sending me images with ‘mysterious’ problems, and I figured it was only fair if I run a series of articles about how you can alleviate these problems. The most frequent problem is actually a lens-flare related problem, and there seems to be some confusion as to what lens flare actually is.

I suppose the first thing we should discuss is just what lens flare actually is. Most commonly seen in photographs, lens flare can appear as bright circles, smears of light or glimmering lines.

On some occasions, it can even appear as a thin film over the entire picture that makes the image itself lighter.

Why does this phenomenon occur? Lens flare is normally seen because the photographer took the picture into the general direction of the sun. The basic idea is this – some sunlight gets into the camera lens at just the right angle that it bounces around the interior of the camera until some of it ends up on the film.

If that’s the case, then how can you test your camera to see how it deals with the lens flare issue? First and foremost, there is the obvious way of aiming it right at the sun and taking a picture. This is the most common way to get your lens to produce lens flare, but not the only way. In fact, some lenses have no problem taking photos towards the sun, but fail miserably in other tests.

A second way to test for lens flare is what is known as the ‘window test’. Aim the camera someplace indoors, but have a bright window just out of the view of the lens. If your image, upon developing ended up with the tell tale signs of lens flare, you know your camera can’t handle that sort of situation so well.

Another way that you can test your lens is the ‘bird in a tree’ approach. For this, aim your camera at a bird (or something of similar size and detail) against a bright sunny sky, but without aiming directly at the sun. Check for contrast loss at the edges of the bird or object. Generally, what you will see is the light ‘swallows’ up the outer edges of the bird. The more of the bird that is ‘swallowed’ up, the more lens flare is occurring in this case.

These aren’t the only ways to come up with lens flare. In fact, you don’t even need to have lens flare show up in your original photo to have it appear later. But why is this? Well, Photoshop has come up with its own ‘lens flare effect’ that you can apply to your images long after you’ve originally taken them. It offers a wide range of options to choose between to get you the look you are after.

Okay, so I thought we were trying to avoid lens flare. Why would Photoshop come up with something people try to avoid? For the simple fact that lens flare shouldn’t always be avoided. In fact, it can a little something extra to your images when used in the right circumstances.

Thing is, well, there are very rarely ‘right circumstances’ for lens flare: There’s an excellent reason for why photographers have been trying to avoid them for dozens of years, and it’s a bit daft to try and use software to put ‘em back in…

Is there an easy way to avoid lens flare?

Why yes, there’s a very easy way: Keep your lens-cap on your camera when you’re taking photos!

Okay, so maybe that’s not the most convenient piece of advice. It does have a kernel of truth, though: If you can stop direct light (from flashes, reflections, or sunlight) hitting the front element of your lens, the lens flare effect will be reduced significantly, or even eliminated altogether!

To keep the light out of your lens, you can block it out with your hand (not particularly convenient, as you’ll need both hands to operate your camera most of the time), you can get a friend to block out the light with a reflector, or just by standing in the sun so the front of your camera is in the shade.

Alternatively, you can use a lens hood (it’s one of those attachments that go onto the front of your lens – on the picture above, it is the flowery-shaped attachment), which will go a long way to blocking out stray light. You can also get straight lens hoods (without the flower-shape), or you can even make your own.

Guest article by Amanda Stachowski (thank you, Amanda!). Photos are all CC photos from Flickr, by Ian BC North, Yuan2003, ratkinson and K Sawyer.

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Photocritic Greatest Hits

Hey all! First of all, a quick apology – I’ve been so busy with my day-job that I haven’t had time to update Photocritic nearly as often as I would like. Having said that, it’s practically 2 months since my last update, which is downright embarrassing. I’ll have look if I can’t come up with updates at a more reasonable interval.

If any of you fancy writing a few guest articles (quite a few people have done so in the past), get in touch!

Anyway, I know it’s a dirty little cop-out, but I thought I’d do a top 10 of Photocritic’s most popular articles – you know, just in case you’ve missed any of these gems, until I manage to pull my finger out, and do some actual updates. 

Photo: Skate-zo-phrenia by Photocritic.org on Flickr

1 – Try nude photography was our introduction to nude photography – where do you find models, what do you have to think about, etc…

2 – Macro Photography on a Budget is my how-to guide on how to make a macro extension tube out of a Pringles can – it became phenomenally popular, and was one of the things that caused a publisher to notice me – it became the first step towards me writing a book on Macro Photography

3 – Photographing smoke was an interview with one of the guys who pioneered the technique which was vastly popular in 2007 – I wrote it up in a way that allowed everyone to have a go.

4 – Nude Photography avec Renoux was another interview, this time with Pascal Renoux, who is one of my favourite nude photographers.

5 – How to win a photography contest came out of me being the judge at a photography competition, and I started thinking about how I judged images, and what I felt strong photography is all about. Well worth a read, even if you have no intention whatsoever entering a competition.

6 – Creating a photography portfolio does just what it says on the tin, but it also muses on the different types of portfolios you may have to create

7 – Your Photos, 300-style is about the visual technique created in the film 300, and how you can recreate the effect in your own photographs. 300 became a rather popular film, and so did this write-up, obviously

8 – Concert Photography is something I’m passionate about, and I decided to try the be-all and end-all guide on the topic. I failed, but I since wrote several other guides – you can find them all tagged with the concert photography tag.

9 – High-speed photography is a bit of a surprise on this list, actually – I never realised it was such a popular topic. Then again, the results that come about through using HS photography techniques are rather stunning, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised.

10 – Create your own IR filter is a goofy little article – basically just a simple tip – but it could potentially save you quite a lot of money, if you’re not sure if IR photography is the thing for you.

Photo: Grolsch beer bottle by Photocritic.org, on Flickr

So there you have it – hope you like some of these articles!

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Photocritic's Christmas Gift Guide

It’s that time of year, and all that, so I thought I’d put together something of a christmas list: What can you get your photography-addicted buddy for the holiday season?

But first, let’s help the readers of this post with a poll. Here’s your chance to tell people what you’d really like!

You are a photographer. What would you prefer to get for Christmas?

• New digital SLR
• New digital compact
• New camera lens
• Photo accessories
• A photography trip
• New large-format camera
• From my GF: A voucher saying she'll model for me - nude!
• all of above
• "Peace and love for everyone" :)
• A Hasselblad, full complement of lenses and a new Phase One Digital back
• Nude models, and plenty of them!
• A fully equipped 2500 sq.ft. photo studio
• world peace and around the world plane fare to document it!
• Old film camera
• flashes strobist sets
• Any photography related products (it can even be a website domain!, a trip, monitor...)
• Add an Answer

View Results

Finding gifts for a photographer is difficult at the best of times. When you remember that photography gear is really bloody expensive, the truth hits home: What can you get for a photographer who’s got it all, without breaking the bank?

Up to £10 / $20

You cheapskate! Only joking. It’s quite difficult to buy for photographers on a tight budget, but on the other hand, it allows you to get creative. There are some photography books out there that cost less than £10, and there are a series of great magazines on sale. If you are on a limit, you could always buy one magazine now, and add a card saying that you’ll buy them the magazine for the next few months to come. It’s not quite a subscription, but at least you get off without bankrupting yourself!

Of course, there are other things you could do for very little money. If you are buying for a loved one, get a photographer mate to take photos of you, use the £10 to get the prints made, and give them a picture of you to carry around, hang on the wall, or add to an album – always a welcome gift! You could even use PhotoJoJo’s fantastic mailable photo frames. Stroke of genius!

Finally, it is terribly naughty to subscribe someone to a mailing list without asking them, but the best thing you can do is to subscribe your mate to PhotoJoJo. Those guys send out a couple of e-mails a month, and they really know their stuff. Best of all? It’s completely free!

It’s an unusual gift, for sure, but hey – no photographer should be without their own domain! Even if they aren’t interested in building up a website or blog for themselves, you can easily redirect most domains to a specific Flickr page or DeviantArt gallery. Combine the internet domain with some Moocards with the new domain printed on one side, and some of their photos on the other side, and you’re definitely going to get a smile out of them!

£10 also gets you DVDs so you could could consider getting a film which is vaguely photography themed. City of God (Cidade de Deus) is a fantastic film which is about a Brazilian kid who turns into a photographer for a newspaper. Gripping, moving, not too expensive, and photography related – what more could you want? Of course, you get extra bonys point and street cred for buying a foreign arthaus film! (US / UK

Sure, it’s a cop-out, but if you’re really struggling – or if you’d rather contribute to a bigger gift – why not get vouchers for a big on-line store? Amazon, for example, sell most types of photography gear, along with books etc. Shoppers can combine several vouchers towards a big purchase, and they can even add some money themselves as well, if they’re after a bigger item. Get the gift certificates from Amazon US / UK

Up to £20 / $40

In this price group, the definite winner is the Gorilla Pod. Sure, it looks daft as a paintbrush, but it always gets looks. I got one for review from Joby recently, and I had to call them up and ask if I could please keep it – it really is that good. Basically, it’s a fully-fledged tripod that weighs next to nothing. Wrap it around just about anything (so far, I’ve had it around a car seat, around a desk, around a street lamp, and around a pub bar stool), and your camera is rock-solid. It beats the other micro-tripods hands down. Read more about the Gorilla Pod here, and then run off and buy one. The good news? It’s only $21.95 (around £19.99 in the UK), and it’s the best gift you can give to a photographer! Amazon US / Amazon UK

Photography are another brilliant idea – they generally come in two flavours: Coffee-table art books, or how-to guides. The former is great for inspiration, but might I humbly suggest that you consider the latter instead? Inspiration can be had from many sources, but a good, thorough how-to guide is more difficult. You can choose to buy a guide to something that you feel your giftee would like to learn more about, or perhaps something that they know nothing about at all.

Might I humbly suggest you buy a book from the excellent Photograhy Workshop series – My own book, Macro Photography Workshop (Amazon US / Amazon UK), teaches them everything they need to know about macro photography – fantastic both for beginners and intermediate Macro photographers.

Alternatively, you can to be a little bit less specialised about your book choice and consider a few other books from the same series: Composition (US / UK) or Lighting (US / UK). Hell, if you decide to buy one of those, they even do a special deal at the moment, where you get the second one at a massive discount. Strike while the iron’s hot!

You should also know that photographers can never have too many camera bags, in fact, Philip Greenspun wrote something to that effect here, and he’s damn right. If you’re pushed for an idea, a small backpack or similar is perfect! (Lots of different choices available – US / UK

Up to £50 / $100

Perfect for getting creative, a Lensbaby offers a whole new way of looking at photography. Basically, it’s a bendable camera lens, which gives a selective, narrow focus, and is essentially a freely movable tilt-shift lens. Not convinced? You should be – check out the Flickr lensbaby group for inspiration. Buy them from Lensbabies direct, or get them from Amazon (US / UK)

Finally, you should be able to pick up some pretty nice digital photo frames at this price, which never goes amiss.

Up to £100 / $200

Up to £100 / $200, we are in the territory of some mighty fine tripods. It’s the first thing you should have as a photographer –
Look for brands like Velbon (US / UK), Slik (US / UK) or Manfrotto (US / UK) for the best quality!

Around this price, you can also get prime lenses. If your photographer dearest one doesn’t have one, surprise them with a 50mm prime. No photographer should be without a good prime lens: They are nothing short of amazing, and for what they are, they’re complete bargains as well – I wrote about them earlier this year, if you’re curious!

If they don’t have a camera yet, this price group also encompasses the fabulous Nikon Coolpix L11 (US / UK). A bargain-priced heavyweight, if I ever saw one, I mean, just read the review on Steve’s Digicams – sure, it’s basic, but hell, it’s brilliant.

Note that even advanced photographers should have a small pocket camera – a photographer without a camera isn’t a photographer, just a mug without his tools. Since a compact is a lot easier to carry around than a dSLR, you’re likely to shove the small camera in your pocket. Hey, my Digital IXUS (known as ELPH in the US) has gotten me out of more clumsiness than I dare think about.

Up to £200 / $400

For this kind of price, you can buy a lot of tasty photography gear, but why not think out of the box? For £200, you can fly just about anywhere nowadays. Why not buy your favourite photographer an airline ticket to somewhere exciting? You can do a lot of picture-taking in about 3 days, you know.

Alternatively, how about giving them a tent, and a huge ‘petrol voucher’? If this is for a good friend, invite them along on an epic journey by car. Sure, the oil prices are rising, but £200 / $400 still gets you pretty far, and there’s nothing quite as inspiring to photography as a good, solid road trip!

Up to £300 / $600

In this price class, you can also buy some seriously exciting lenses, but you might be best off buying a gift voucher from Amazon (Amazon US / UK), or another photography retailer, because, well, your gift-receiver is likely to know what s/he needs, and it’d be very annoying if you end up buying something that overlaps with their current photography equipment, or if they have decided what they need already!

Up to £500 / $1000

Oh my, now we are suddenly in proper digicam territory. You should be able to get a Canon 400D / Nikon D40 digital SLR camera body, and if the person you are buying for doesn’t have a dSLR, that’s definitely the way to go. The first step into the digital SLR world is definitely the most exciting, and you’ll be loved forever if you help them take that step!

So, I wanna buy someone a camera. What should I get?

Well, based on a poll we ran a while ago:

n

What is your main camera?

• Medium Format
• Analog compact
• Digital compact
• Analog SLR
• Digital SLR
• Other

View Results

n

What brand is your main digital camera?

• Canon
• Casio
• Contax
• Fujifilm
• Konica / Minolta
• Nikon
• Olympus
• Sony
• Yashica
• Cosina
• Pentax
• Kodak
• Panasonic
• Mamiya
• Holga
• Agfa
• HP
• Samsung
• Add an Answer

View Results

… In other words, it seems as if most my readers have Canon dSLR cameras, so if you can afford it, get your loved one a Canon 400D, a Canon 40D or a Canon 5D – in that order of pricy-ness. Having said that, I have no beef with Nikon either, and their cameras are pretty much identical in quality, features, and price. Also read my post on choosing the right camera.

One thing I would say, though, is that if you are buying a compact camera, buy a camera from a company that is famous for making cameras, rather than electronics equipment. But I did a separate post about that a while ago, so you might want to go and read that, too.

Finally, remember that we tag all our stories quite cleverly, so if you ever want buying advice, check out all the stories tagged with buying advice. Clever, eh?

Oh, and finally: Happy Christmas! :)

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A final note: You’ll have noticed that a lot of the links point to Amazon. This is partially out of laziness – I’ll probably do most of my christmas shopping via Amazon – but also because these links are so-called ‘affiliate links’. In other words, if you buy something after clicking on one of the links in this post, I get a kick-back from Amazon. That doesn’t mean you should only buy from them though – while they often have good prices, you can some times find better deals from elsewhere – shop around!

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© Kamps Consulting Ltd. This article is licenced for use on Pixiq only. Please do not reproduce wholly or in part without a license. More info.

The 12 best photos of 2007

I first covered Earth Shots, the photo of the day contest, back in November 2006 and ever since, I have displayed their photo of the day widget in the side bar of Photocritic (see right!). Even when there’s a rather long time between updates, I keep checking back on my own site just to have a quick look at what the talented Earthshots submitters are up to.

It’s surreal to think about it, but this week Earth Shots celebrated their first birthday, and what an incredible first year it has been! Scanning through their archives you can see 365 fantastic images of our planet and among them are some truly spectacular shots.

To celebrate, I got the guy behind Earth Shots – Will – to pick some of his favourites. 12 months, 12 pictures – makes perfect sense, yes? 

1. Music Man of Jaipur by Sam Stearman »

Will: This was one of the first images to be shown on Earth Shots. For me it epitomises a great travel photo; it’s exotic, vibrant and full of character.

Haje: I love the colours in this shot – there’s something incredibly passionate about it. Gritty, well-composed, and genuine. Oh, and did I mention the colours?

2. Rainier Fall by Dean Zulich »

Will: This was the most viewed photo of the year on EarthShots.org (mainly thanks to StumbleUpon). It is technically excellent and has been processed to perfection; it is razor-sharp, vivid and well composed – a textbook landscape image.

Haje: I can’t fault Will on this one – it’s a positively stunning photograph. There are so much potential for screwing this one up, but the composition is flawless, and yet again, the colours are wildly attractive.

3. A Potter Wasp by Poras Chaudhary »

Will: This is a wonderful macro shot that has been perfectly set up and executed by the photographer. The lighting, composition and timing are all top-notch.

Haje: As some of you will have noticed, I know a thing or two about macro photography, and this photo embodies everything I love about the genre. I wish the background was slightly differently coloured to make the foreground stand out better, but that’s nitpickery – a masterpiece!

4. Eagle Snatch by Mart Smit »

Will: This is a spectacular photo which illustrates both the power and grace of nature. Another well-timed and technically excellent shot – it takes a skilful photographer to keep a fast flying bird in the centre of the frame with a telephoto lens and to snap such a sharp image!

Haje: There is nothing shy about catching this photo – it must have taken the photographer days of patience and scores of attempts. Boy, did it pay off: I’d be very surprised if they didn’t make a small fortune of it as a stock photo.

5. Tse Bighanilini by Hans van de Vorst »

Will: There is a strong sense of both art and earth in this image… it is the perfect expression of Earth Shots.

Haje: I’m a sucker for unique textures, crazy colours, and inventive lighting, and this photo really ticks all the boxes. It captures the true beauty of the earth, ironically, by making it look like what I imagine a martian landscape would look like.

6. McNaught’s Comet by John White »

Will: This photo adds an extra-terrestrial dimension to Earth Shots. It is a reminder that our Earth is just a small part of an infinitely large and wonderful universe that lies out beyond our reach.

Haje: Night-time photography is a past-time that many photographers give up all too soon. It’s truly inspiring to see White’s interpretation of what happens at night captured this beautifully. Of all of these photos, I think this is the one that got my shutter-finger twitching the most. I may just have to dust of the ‘ole lenses, and see if I can capture something similar some day. I doubt it though.

7. Dancing Japanese Cranes by Simone Sbaraglia »

Will: Art and the grace of nature again meet in this exquisite shot of dancing cranes. The symmetry and monotones make it all the more striking.

Haje: This photo agrees with my sense of minimalism and high contrast. I find it a bit disturbing to look at, actually: the first impression I had of this photo gave me images of melodramatic death – not really a picture I want to associate with cranes.

8. Looks Like Hail by Steve Wall »

Wil: This image shows an incredible natural phenomenon that looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. These striking clouds helped make this the second most viewed photo on Earth Shots (again thanks to StumbleUpon).

Haje: This has been one of my all-time favourite Earth Shots photos. I described it to a friend on the bus once, as ‘imagine a flock of sheep captured in a supernova, but with a wind mill in front of it’. Okay, perhaps not the greatest of descriptions, but it’s one of those photos that really stick with you in your mind. Fantastic.

9. Tea Plantation by Katie Doran »

Will:A beautiful abstract photo; the shades of green, the curve of the hill and the patterned plants makes this one of our most delightful images.

Haje: There is something stunning about combining a monotonous colour palette with wildly varying hues, textures, and the grandeur of rolling hills. I adore this photo for so many reasons, but I think my adoration of it doubled when I discovered what it actually depicts. Black, two sugars, please.

10. Viper by Gunter Leitenbauer »

Will: Another technically excellent photo; the background blur (bokeh) is to die for! You almost feel like the snake could jump out of the photo at any second.

Haje: A great example of how carefully applied narrow depth of field can add a tremendous sense of speed and urgency to a photograph. It is as if the photographer had to take this photo and get the hell out of the way. The tension is really what makes this picture work, and there’s plenty of that.

11. Jurassic Park by Dennis Walton »

Will: This is like looking back in time at a world that is still being forged by the elements. The shadows created by the low sun emphasise the scarred texture of the barren land. It is a spectacular vista.

Haje: Another unbeatable landscape, serving as a very firm reminder that everything that seems important probably isn’t. Sometimes, I feel as if a photo like this really helps put things into perspective: Those mountains have been there for a million years before I was born, and they’ll be there for another million after I die. I can’t quite make up my mind if that’s a comforting thought or not, however.

12. Great White by Terry Goss »

Will: Earth Shots has had many great underwater photos but this one is one of the best because it has so much character… here you go, meet the ocean’s top predator!

Haje: SharQ has been my nick-name on-line for a very long time and I have always had a strong connection with the beasts. Normally, people go out of their way to make sharks look like savage creatures, and in a way, I much prefer this version. The notion of implied threat is as scary as a gob full of teeth, and yet, there’s also the subtle play of light, water, sunshine, and all the shark’s food swimming around it, waiting to be transformed into supper. Glorious.

Of course there are many more great images on the EarthShots.org. If you fancy it, take a look through their archives! Also, why not post links to your favourite EarthShots photos in the comments below?

If you fancy your chances then why not submit your photos to Earth Shots… anyone can enter and if you win photo of the day three times you’ll get $50. If you want to follow Earth Shots then you can subscribe to their photo of the day by rss feed or email. Or, y’know, just keep checking back here at Photocritic – Earth Shots have proven to be well worthy of their space of honour in the side-bar.

I raise a finely prepared Gin and Tonic to Will and the boys at Earth Shots – here’s to the next year, fellas!

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Pan and scan, baby

If your digital camera has just packed it in, or you just feel like shaking things up a little bit, why not consider alternative photography? After all, using a camera isn’t the only way to get stuff into your computer for processing… Instead of scanning your prints, why not skip the camera altogether and scan the objects you’re photographing?  

It ain’t nothin’ new – at the dawn of the internet, there was a site where people put their kittens on a scanner, and saw what came out – normally, little blurry bunches of fur that were confused by the sound and moving light – but good fun nonetheless.

Of course, you can go beyond the nefarious business of scanning your pets – Use your imagination, and you can use your scanner to scan 3D objects: Cigars, apples, bugs – all you need is a bit of imagination.

Using a scanner for capturing your images has many advantages:

1. You will get a great exposure of the object

2. You can do macro photography using your scanner

3. You can scan anything you can place on the scanner

A couple of tips:

1. Clean your scanner properly first, because if you don’t, you’ll find yourself spending hours in Photoshop cleaning it all off.

2. You can remove the top lid of your scanner and turn the lights off to get a black background.

3. You can use any kind of material above the object you want to scan to get a different background. Want blue? Try a sheet of paper or a t-shirt!

4. Macro photos? No problem! Scan in high resolution, and crop in on what you want to cover.

6. Most scanners will allow you to scan in very high resolution

7. Scan scan scan and experiment with any kind of objects.

Give it a shot – dust off the ‘ole flatbed scanner, you’ll never see it in the same way again! Happy scanning!

Have you tried it? Post a link to your Flickr gallery in the comments!

(This article is based on ‘Scan your Imagination‘ by Raymundo Panduro. All photos © Raymundo.)

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Do you enjoy a smattering of random photography links? Well, squire, I welcome thee to join me on Twitter - Follow @Photocritic

© Kamps Consulting Ltd. This article is licenced for use on Pixiq only. Please do not reproduce wholly or in part without a license. More info.