My post about being down and out over dance photography the other day garnered quite a lot of comments and more e-mails that I’ve had over a blog post in quite a while… So now I’m properly curious…
Of course, there are lots of difficult things about different genres of photography. Portraits can be devilishly difficult, because it can be fiendish to get a good rapport with a model. Sports photography can be tricky because things are moving so fast – and indoor sports are even worse. Music photography can be a right bitch; landscapes are tricky because it’s all been done before; photographing fireworks is just plain hard; nude photography can be daunting because it’s a bit taboo, Food photography is hard because the photography subject spoils nearly immediately… and don’t even get me started on Macro…
In fact, I can’t really think of a single genre of photography which doesn’t bring its very own set of challenges to the table… What I’d love to know, however, is which particular genre is which gets you every time… Cast your vote below, and sound off in the comments if you’ve got a particular arch-enemy!
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John has had an interest in photography ever since he was a kid. Like so many of us, his passion was ignited by being given a camera for Christmas. Dabbling off and on, he became more serious about photography when he was at university, and started using a Canon EOS 500, following a photo journalism course. Of course, this degenerated into doing darkroom work, and he has been hooked ever since.
Other cool projects John and I have a common love for is 
“I originally set up my photo blog as a way to be proactive with my photographs and show my family what I was doing.”, John explains. “I was taking hundreds of photos and leaving them on my hard drive”. Which, to be honest, is not a particularly useful thing to do with your photos. Interestingly, it turned out that more people than just his family started paying attention “I’ve been receiving more and more comments lately and I really enjoy that people are returning to look at my images”. The first tastes of internet success aren’t enough yet though, grins John, and lets the cat out of the bag; “I’d like to hold a real exhibition in the future but I think I’d be too indecisive of which images to include.”
Seeing some of John’s photos, you’d think he uses full-on professional equipment – but not-at-all: “I have a variety of cameras that I like to use. My primary camera is a Nikon D70, but I always have my Holga 120 with me. I have a few lenses for my Nikon, a 50mm 1.4, the standard 18-70 3.5, and a 80-300 zoom lens. Recently I’ve been using a Mamiya 645j with a 80mm prime lens, as I’m trying to get back into film. I have a small tripod I use and multiple memory cards and batteries.”
Just think about it – you’re in a dodgy-looking room, with crappy backgrounds, poor lighting, and the dances normally last only for about 90 seconds at the time. The people you are trying to photograph aren’t just moving – they’re moving fast (which necessitates a fast shutter speed), in 5 dimensions (back / forward, left/right, up/down, around each other, and in time), and they’re on the dance-floor with anything up to 10 other couples, who twirl their way in front of your lens just when you think you’ve got the killer shot lined up.
Anyway – I have to honestly admit that there is very little point to this post – I just figured it’s been a while since I last posted anything, and I wanted to share some of my not-very-good photographs with you guys…
You know how it goes – you want to find a photo of the Mona Lisa, so you go onto Google Images, you type in Mona Lisa, and you get hundreds of results. But what if you have an image, and you want to find out what it is of? Or what if you want to find out where else on the world wide interwebs this image is used? Cue Idee’s Tineye.com, an image search engine.
Start a search, and Tineye.com will find how many times this picture has been represented on the internet – a feat accomplished by comparing images pixel-by-pixel, and creates a so-called “digital fingerprint” for each image found, determining which pictures are similar to the one you searched for.
For now, however, the limited search index meant that the first photo I entered into the search engine, did not return any results, even though it was sourced from photocritic.org.
The final search was done with a detail of the head of Venus (picture on the right, the original used for this review is 
Photojournalist James Nachtwey is considered by many to be the greatest war photographer of recent decades. He has covered conflicts and major social issues in more than 30 countries. Last year, he won a $100,000 prize, which he decided to re-invest into a special project… A story he felt needed to be told, which no magazine wanted to support or fund.
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“My husband Mike has had a talent for photography for over 20 years”, Lisa Burkhart recalls, explaining why she decided to get into photography – but while Mike was off photographing beautiful sunsets, stunning landscapes and other things of conventional beauty, Lisa decided to look a little bit beyond.
“People keep telling us that beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, Lisa laments, and wonders why so many photographers seem drawn to the same things. Surely, there should be a stronger sense of fun and individuality about all of it? Looking beyond colourful butterflies, fields of daisies, perfect rain drenched red roses, and vibrant sunsets, Lisa explains she has a different vision: “I am drawn to the “less obvious” beauty. The allure of an old abandoned house has much beauty and mystery with the tattered, torn curtains that flow like ribbons in the breeze through the busted out windows.”
So what better way to re-immortalise these memories, than with a photographic fervour? “What about that big, old, tangled, spooky tree that gives out an eerie presence”, Lisa wonders, “We’ve all seen them, the one that when you see it you reflect back on your childhood and have vivid images of that huge beautiful, dark, scary tree that stalked you from outside of your bedroom window… The tree with shadowy branches that looked like long arms reaching for you, making you pull the covers over your head and pray for daybreak.”
Photocritic runs on WordPress, which I cannot recommend highly enough. It’s easy to use, easy to customise, doesn’t cost a penny, and can be made to look quite good.
So, you’ve chosen which blog you’re going to use. Now, if you don’t have a website already, I would strongly recommend setting up two blogs right from the start – one for every blog entry you do, and one for photos you are particularly proud of.
I know I wank on about things at great length about all and sundry in this particular blog, but that’s because I’m fond of writing. I’m fond of photography, too, of course, but that’s not the point – the point is that even if you don’t write a single word, you can still create a photography blog that is useful to yourself.
Peterson skips the basics and the theory behind exposure – for which I’ll be forever grateful, because frankly, it’s not that exciting. Instead, the whole book is filled with a vast number of breathtakingly gorgeous photographs (about 160 pages worth, which means around 150 photographs or so, I think), and a fair chunk of text.
The best way to use the book is probably to leaf through it, find a photograph you like (and you’re bound to find many), and then read the description to learn how it’s done.
I’ve done canvas printing a few times before, but I figured I’d give it another go in order to create a present for someone who’s got a birthday coming up (so if you are my sister, stop reading now. If you know my sister, don’t tell her, because that’d just be cheating).
Enfin, I was shopping around for a decent printing site when I came across 
My initial idea was to go to town on the print with thick, translucent lacquer. By adding a layer of brush strokes, I figured, the photograph could turn into a half-painting.