Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize

If you’ve a little time to spare and you’re in central London over the next few weeks, do pop into the National Portrait Gallery and take a look at the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition. It’ll cost you £2, but there are some lovely pictures to be seen, all 60 of which were selected from the 6,000 competition entries.

The winning entry was taken by David Chancellor on his Mamiya 7 II, and is of a 14 year old huntress on the African savannah, a buck slung over her horse.

'Huntress with Buck' by David Chancellor

That bagged Chancellor £12,000, whilst Claire Shilland won the ELLE Commission with her portrait, Merel. She now has the opportunity to shoot a feature story for ELLE magazine.

'Merel' by Claire Shilland

Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Exhibition runs from 11 November 2010 until 20 February 2011 at the National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, London, WC2H 0HE. Between 16 April and 26 June 2011, it will run at the Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens.

Small gifts for the photographer in your life

Oxford Street has its Christmas lights up, which means that people are probably beginning to think about presents for Christmas, or Chanukah, or Eid, or Midwinter, or Yule. If you’ve been wracking your brains to find a little gift or two for photographer loved-ones, don’t worry, so have I. It did however occur to me that keeping my findings to myself would be rather selfish, and seeing as I rarely give presents I wouldn’t want to receive, possibly counter-productive, too. So here we have it, Daniela’s guide to sub-£20 photography-related gifts.

Level Cube

A diddy little spirit level that slots into a camera’s hotshoe will make sure that tripod set-ups aren’t off-kilter and wonky. No matter how carefully I think that I’ve arranged my tripod, I still have to straighten up things in Lightroom afterwards. This should help.

Roughly £5 (US$7) available from Amazon UK and Amazon US.

Lens cleaning kit

Grubby lenses are not the best when it comes to taking beautiful pictures. Which is why a kit containing all the lens cleaning essentials is useful. The ones that I’ve found on Amazon UK and Amazon US are slightly different, but they should do the job all the same!

About £5 from Amazon UK or US$7 from Amazon US.

Cufflinks

Now don’t tell me that cufflinks are just for men. They’re not. Plenty of women’s shirts are cufflink-friendly, too. I think that these are both cute and stylish.

Somewhere around £8 from Wheesh.

Pinhole Camera Kit

If you reckon the notion of building her or his own pinhole camera from scratch is a bit too much for your beloved photographer, you could always buy a kit instead.

£8.50 from Mensgiftshop.com (no, I have no idea why it should be a man’s giftshop, either.)

Make-it-yourself Canvas Kit

Granted, you can always go to somewhere like Photobox and have them print a canvas professionally, but there is something so very satisfying about doing it yourself.

£10 (US$16), or close enough, from Photofuse.

Coloured Filter Keyring

Eight different coloured filters, neatly hooked together on a keyring. Now your photographer-friend can have wickedly coloured flashes illuminating photographs, and no more crumpled gels lurking at the bottom of a camera bag. And seeing as they’re on a keyring, they can be clipped somewhere useful, too.

About £12 from Gadgets.co.uk or US$15 from Photojojo.

Camera Strap

I happened to find these awesome camera straps from Souldier when I was looking for guitar straps for my brother. The recycled seat belt straps start at roughly £12.50, but you can of course look through their entire collection and spend a bit more.

Starting at roughly US$20 (roughly £12.50) from Souldier.

Tiny monster tripod

These Digidude tripods are only suitable for compact cameras, but they are too cute to leave out. They’re tiny tripods that look like monsters.

Available from Gadgets.co.uk for about £15 each, or Quirky for US$20 each.

Reflector

There are lots of places out there selling lots of different reflectors. I happened to alight upon this £15 reversible number that’s 22 inches in diameter. You can of course buy them bigger, and spend a bit more.

£15 or thereabouts from Jessops in the UK, or US$17 from Amazon US.

Flickr Pro Account

If your favourite photographer doesn’t yet have a Flickr Pro account, it is super-easy to organise. You just follow the instructions.

$24.95 (roughly £15) from Flickr.

There. And they’re all available online, so you don’t have to brave the High Street for them, either!

Lightroom's Graduated Filter - not just for skies!

When you’re accustomed to using something, it’s easy to forget that its capabilities might stretch beyond just that for which you usually use it. You get into some sort of rut don’t explore whatever it is that you’re using, whether it is your food processor, your mixing desk, or your copy of Lightroom.

Jamie Gladden got in touch with us to tell us about a rather nifty way of putting Lightroom’s Graduated Filter to better use than just applying it to skies. Jamie, it’s over to you…

I recently posted an article on my blog describing some simple portrait retouching techniques using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. A friend of mine later commented to me that he wasn’t that familiar with some of the Lightroom tools that I’d mentioned, so he’d go off, find some tutorials, and play around with these new toys. Great! There are loads of cool tutorials out there, and he’ll definitely learn some useful techniques which will improve his photo retouching skills.

One of the tools I wrote about was Lightroom’s Graduated Filter, which was introduced in version 2 and is very handy. If you do a Google search for this, you’ll find lots of useful tutorials explaining how to use the tool to pep up your landscape shots, darkening a bright sky to add more detail and produce a more even exposure without changing the area of land beneath the sky. Cool! So that’s a new technique we’ve learned, the Graduated Filter is used to even up the overall exposure of your landscape shots by darkening the skies, just like using a Neutral Density Graduated filter in front of the lens on your camera.

What if you don’t shoot that many landscapes? You’ll never need to use that filter, right? Maybe, maybe not. It’s easy sometimes to get stuck with the idea that some of the features serve one purpose only, but with a little experimentation, you can find new and unexpected things to do with them.

In my own photography, I tend to photograph bands and people more than I do landscapes. If I’m working in a studio, then I’ll have full control over the lighting, and the light goes mainly where I want it to go – most of the time! Sometimes, I’ll need to make minor post-production tweaks here and there to compensate for areas which are a little brighter or darker than I’d like.

From the studio to the Lightroom

Take a look at these two photos.

The top shot is complete up to the point at which I was happy with all the retouching and post-processing work I’d done, apart from one thing. I thought that the model was just a little too bright on the right side of her face and neck for my liking. The main light is coming in from camera right, and I had a fill light off to the left, and it’s the main light which is doing the damage.

I wanted to tone this down a little, but only on the slightly brighter area on the right side of her face. Decreasing the exposure or brightness isn’t really an option, because that would change the exposure/brightness of the whole shot, and that’s not what I wanted.

I could also have used the adjustment brush to paint over the too-bright areas, and then adjust the brightness level which would change only the area I’d painted over. That would certainly do the trick, and it does give you more control, but it can be a little fiddly sometimes, and would take more time.

But wait! What about the Graduated Filter? Couldn’t we use that to give us a subtle darkening of her skin on one side which is too bright without darkening the skin on the other side of her face? Definitely. The grad filter is perfect for that.

You can see the effect in the second photo. It’s quite a subtle difference, but for me it was necessary to fix it. After selecting the grad filter tool, I dragged the crosshair across the photo from right to left, stopping when I thought I’d arranged the markers in the correct position.

Then, I adjusted the grad tool’s exposure setting down to a level that evened up the lighting nicely, and I was happy.

Outdoors, but not about the sky

Here’s another example. This is Alice:

If you’re working outdoors with natural light, then it’s not so simple to move the light source to where you want it to be, so you have to work the light to your advantage, and maybe use a reflector or diffuser to shape the light how you want it. Again, there will usually be some tweaks needed in post-production.

In the first photo, the background in the bottom left is just a touch too bright for my taste, and I think it draws your eye away from her face. Just a quick application of the Graduated Filter, as before, and it was fixed. Simple and quick. Which leaves you more time to go out and take photos, rather than sitting at the computer.

And even for concert photography

For a final, and more dramatic example, here’s a shot of Benjamin Curtis from the band School of Seven Bells:

When you’re shooting bands on stage, you’re totally at the mercy of the stage lights, which often change quite rapidly. Often, I like to make the lights a feature of my shots, rather than using them solely to illuminate the artist.

In the first photo, the lights are quite overpowering, and they detract from the shot, but by just simply adding a grad filter straight down from the top of the picture, we’ve toned it down a lot, and produced a really cool and striking effect from the stage lights.

So, there are just three examples of using Lightroom’s Graduated Filter, and not a single sky has been prodded. One of the real selling points of Lightroom for me is that it’s easy to experiment like this, safe in the knowledge that if it doesn’t work out, it’s so simple to go back to your original RAW file and start again.

About the author

This article was written by Jamie Gladden. Jamie’s a freelance photographer based in London, UK, with interests in music, fashion and portrait photography. He’s passionate about music and loves discovering new bands and artists. He reckons that there’s nothing better than seeing a really talented unsigned band in a cramped room above a pub. He’s similarly passionate about photography, and there’s no greater pleasure for him than being able to combine the two. Check out his site; 3 songs no flash.

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Cameras for kiddies

Here at Small Aperture, we like to get them hooked on photography when they’re young. That’s hardly surprising given that I’ve been in love with photography since I was about five, when my father taught me how to use an Olympus Trip. Soon afterwards, I was given my own 118 film camera, and in fact, I still have the photos I took with it.

But entry-level cameras today are a touch different from those twenty-five years ago. So where would you start if you wanted to buy something for a photographically inclined little one? Well whaddya know? I’ve done some research, I’ve trawled the High Street, I’ve asked lots of questions, and I think that I have some answers. (Yes, just in time for Christmas.)

Now, first things first. I’m no more inclined to suggest that you buy a ‘children’s camera’ for a small person than I am likely to endorse feeding her or him reconstituted meat shaped into dinosaurs and covered with breadcrumbs. Some things in life are worth doing properly from the get-go, and food and photography are two of those. This also means I don’t think that there needs to be a lower age limit on when to give a little one a camera; if your nephew is showing photographic talent at six, let him run with it – using a proper camera.

All the same, a dSLR might not be exactly what he needs. So I based my cameras-for-kiddies selection on five criteria.

The Criteria

Price

There are plenty of decent point-and-shoot cameras out there for under £100, but none for under £50. Spending somewhere between the two seems reasonable, so that was my budget.

Build

If you give something to a kid, it needs to be able to withstand a few bumps and knocks. Even if she or he does treat it with respect, accidents can still happen. Hell, I managed to fling my iPhone across the pavement last week. I was looking for a camera that felt sturdy, durable, and would be comfortable in little hands.

Design

The layout needs to be simple, the controls can’t be fiddly, and it has to look shiny. I want my camera to be relatively easy to use; the same goes for a camera used by young ‘un. And if I can carry a metallic red point-and-shoot in my handbag, then my imaginary seven year old niece can have one, too.

Toys and features

Of course it needs toys. And video. Duh!

Image quality

If we’re encouraging kids to take photos, to enjoy the process, and to be proud of what they produce, the image quality needs to be decent. Eight megapixels is plenty and if we’re lucky enough to lay our grubby mitts on some image stabilisation or anti-blur technology, then so much the better.

So to which cameras did these criteria lead me?

The Yeses

I saw a couple of cameras that I’d be prepared to buy for my imaginary niece. Despite its complete mouthful of a name, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W310S is shiny (in silver, black, or red), it has an easy-to-use interface, the layout is clear, it has image stabilisation goodness, and it has a film mode. It costs somewhere around £90.

The Fujifilm JX200 hit all the buttons with a swish, sleek metal body, easy interface, 12 megapixel sensor, low-light sensitivity, 5x optical zoom, film mode, and image stabilisation prowess. What made it stand out from the crowd was its panorama mode. Stitched-together-pictures-R-Us! All for around £80.

There was one camera that I kept going back to, though. Admittedly it might have been because it was purple, but it might have been because of the groovy on-off mechanism. Sliding down the front panel reveals the lens and powers up the Fujifilm Z70. And no, I wasn’t overlooking any of the other criteria because I was captivated by its shiny purple slidiness. It makes films, it has auto-focus tracking, it has a 12 megapixel sensor, there’s image stabilisation, the layout was clear, and the screen was large. All for around £90. (And it comes in four colours other than purple.)

The Nos

There are heaps of cameras that didn’t make the cut, for various reasons. You’d be very bored if I listed them all. Still, two deserve a special mention, so that you can steer well clear of them.

The Vivitar X225. I was convinced that just by picking it up, I might break it. At around £50, it is cheap, but I can only conceive this as a false economy.

The Samsung ES25. The zoom button on this irritated me. I can’t think that a seven year old would be any less irritated, either.

The Maybes

The Canon Powershot A495 is a great camera, but I wasn’t convinced that its plastic build was sturdy enough, even if it is excellent value at around £70. If you really want a Canon and their range of intriguing colours, the Ixus 105 is coming in at just over £100. Shop around and you might be able to get a deal.

Not to be outdone by Canon, Nikon also have some impressively specced entry-level cameras. On paper, the Nikon L21 and L22 offer just about everything, and at around £70 they don’t cost the earth. However, I wasn’t convinced they’d be durable enough. And I wasn’t convinced by the colours, either, but that’s me.

The conclusion

There are a lot of cameras out there for under £100 that would be ideal to give to give to a young one to let her or him explore photography. There are some shockers, too. But I’m still loving the slidable on-off function on the Fujifilm Finepix Z70. That’d be my first option. Then you just wonder how long it’ll be before she or he is asking for an SLR.

With very many thanks to John Lewis on Oxford Street, and especially Andy in the Audio-visual department. With significantly fewer thanks to various other camera purveyors on Oxford Street who were far from helpful. (Yes, I braved Oxford Street for this. No wonder I’ve spent the weekend at the Small Aperture country retreat, recuperating.)

Yet another copyright dispute... Texas-style

We’ve seen plenty of disputes in the past over photographs being used illegally for commercial purposes, including lawsuits filed by models… and uhh, astronauts.

Well, the latest dispute is kind of a shocker and involves the Texas Department of Public Safety. Apparently, photographer David Langford’s 1984 photo of a cowboy has been altered and used in over 4.5 million vehicle inspection stickers by the Texas DPS. He’s suing the state for damages and attorney fees.

While the stickers were made by state prison inmates, via contract with the Department of Criminal Justice, it still surprises me that something as simple as copyright-checking went over the heads of such a large government department. But then again, a team of state government workers and prison inmates aren’t exactly an intellectual powerhouse. If you’ve ever had contact with anyone at your local DMV, it’s not so shocking after all, is it?

(via The Online Photographer.)

Three blogs for inspiration

Suffering a bit from photographer’s block? There are a whole heap of ways to help you get over it, but sometimes a healthy dose of inspiration from other photos can be just what you need. If Flickr isn’t quite what you’re looking for, three of my current favourite sites might be. Two of them aren’t solely dedicated to photos, but inspiration can take many different forms. So enjoy!

PhotoDonuts might have a slightly odd name, but they showcase sets of work from four or five different photographers everyday. There’re all sorts of different styles to be seen; I’m particularly partial to the vintage collection, and there are some photos under ‘creative’ that’ll make you go: ‘How did they do that?’ What’s more, if you’d like see your work featured there, they are open to submissions of portfolios for consideration, too.

I Like This Blog isn’t just about photos – you’ll find videos, paintings, fashion, and design throughout its corridors of wow. And of course, you don’t have to take inspiration just from photos, do you? They have a team of people who ‘curate’ the site, but accept emails asking for a review, too.

Finally, there’s Yay!Everyday. Again, they don’t feature just photographs, but if there isn’t an image amongst their quirky posters, unusual paintings, or gorgeous photographs that makes you want to pick up your camera, I’m not sure what will. Go check it out.

And have your camera close to hand.

Our November photo competition

Welcome, welcome! We have another lovely competition with a groovy prize lined up for you this month. Last month, we went technical, so this month we’ve opted for a topical theme. We thought that darkness could make for some fun pictures. Yes, you can get creative with it however you wish.

The competition opens today, that’s Wednesday 3 November, and runs until Wednesday 24 November 2010. Please submit your entries to the Small Aperture pool on Flickr.

The rules are the same as October’s, but I’ll reproduce them here for you. Again, Haje and I will aim to have the results to you within a week of the competition closing (which’ll be my birthday, so’s you know).

Good luck!

The Rules

• If you decide to enter, you agree to The Rules.
• You can’t have written for Small Aperture or be related to either me or Haje to enter.
• One entry per person – so choose your best!
• Entries need to be submitted to the right place, which is the Small Aperture Flickr group.
• There’s a closing date for entries, so make sure you’ve submitted before then.
• You have to own the copyright to your entry and be at liberty to submit it to a competition. Using other people’s photos is most uncool.
• It probably goes without saying, but entries do need to be photographs. It’d be a bit of strange photo competition otherwise.
• Don’t do anything icky – you know, be obscene or defame someone or sell your granny to get the photo.
• We (that being me and Haje) get to choose the winner and we’ll do our best to do so within a week of the competition closing.
• You get to keep all the rights to your images. We just want to be able to show off the winners (and maybe some honourable mentions) here on Small Aperture.
• Entry is at your own risk. I can’t see us eating you or anything, but we can’t be responsible for anything that happens to you because you submit a photo to our competition.
• We are allowed to change The Rules, or even suspend or end the competition, if we want or need to. Obviously we’ll try not to, but just so that you know.

Stopping down a Canon EF lens

If you’re used to manual lenses, you know how easy it is to stop them down. If you are a little bit more advanced than that, and have ‘graduated’ to more advanced lenses, stopping down a lens (i.e making the aperture smaller) while it is not attached to a camera body can get a little problematic. There is a way to do it, however… 

All of Canon’s newer lenses (the whole EF and EF-S series) have electronically controlled aperture. Normally, that’s great, because you can select what aperture you want with the thumb wheel or via the camera’s menu system, instead of having to do it with a wheel on the lens itself.

There is a trick you can use to stop down lenses, however. Mind you, this is probably a bad, bad thing to do, and it may break stuff. Having said that, I have been doing this for years, and it seems to work fine, without any adverse effect.

A stopped down lens should look a little bit like this. Or a lot like this, in fact. The size of the hole depends on how far you've stopped down your lens.

Stopping down a lens is done by putting the lens on the camera, and setting the camera to either manual aperture (A or Av) or fully manual (M). Select the aperture you want. Then, press and hold the aperture preview button. If you don’t know where that button is, it is probably the one near the bottom of your lens, on the side. The one that you never use. Yes, that one. Press it, hold it, and then take the lens off the camera exactly like you would do normally.

If you have done it right, you are now holding the lens, which should still be stopped down. It should look approximately like in the picture with the red circle.

Finally, this trick for setting the aperture is not a “recommended” method (not that there really is one), but at worst the “ERR 99″ or “ERR 01″ it may produce on the camera can be cleared up by turning the camera off and back on.

So why would you bother?

Well, this trick will come in most useful when you’re using your lens detached from the camera, obviously. This would come in particularly useful in macro photography, such as if you are using non-electronically connected spacers between your lens, so your camera can’t send the right signals to the lens to make the aperture change.

If you are reversing your lens with a set of reversing rings (or using my nifty homemade lens extender), it would also be useful, if you want to use the lens at anything other than fully open.

And hey, it’s a nifty trick. Sometimes, that ‘s all you need, right?

Finally, if you like this post and want to learn more about macro photography, check out my book on macro photography (in the sidebar over there →).

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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.

October photo competition winner!

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. Welcome to our announcements show for the results of the Small Aperture October photo competition, the theme for which was long exposure. If the sun is over the yard-arm where you are, please help yourself to some virtual champagne and canapes. If that’s slightly early for you, or you don’t drink, we have a selection of virtual teas, coffee, fruit juices and pastries for your delectation.

We received some great entries (you can see them all here), and Haje and I enjoyed the selection process. We are, therefore, delighted to unveil the winner:

'Swingspace 1' by Samuel Hall

Many congratulations to Samuel Hall for his photo ‘Swingspace 1′. If Samuel would like to get in touch with me via email, I can arrange for his awesome prize to be sent to him!

The November competition is coming up shortly. We’re looking forward to judging that one.

Pictures for the neat and orderly

If you’re even ever so slightly OCD and like things organised just-so (my kitchen cupboards are an homage to this), the collection of photos at Things Organized Neatly will sate your desire for straight lines, neat piles, and perfectly formed boxes.

Austin Radcliffe, who runs Things Organized Neatly, thinks of himself its curator. Some of the photos are his, but many are found or submitted by other followers. None is available to buy, which is a pity because some would make terrific postcards.

My favourite happens to be the radial carrots, but go take a look for yourself and let me know what you think.

(Headsup to The Guardian.)

Swings and roundabouts when it comes to rights

The last week feels as if it has been a bit of mixed bag when it comes to photographers’ rights. The Home Secretary, Theresa May, has acknowledged that the Association of Chief Police Officers must play a greater role in ensuring that police officers treat photographers appropriately. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is planning to release guidelines covering online privacy related specifically to images. Meanwhile, I was involved in a run-in with an aggressive security guard.

There’s very clear guidance out there for police officers, informing them what photographers’ rights are. Unfortunately, there have been numerous incidents where it is painfully obvious that some of them just aren’t aware of, or understand it. Let’s hope that the Home Secretary’s clout has a positive impact here.

What the guidelines produced by the ICO regarding the privacy of online images, and in particular those taken in public places, is anyone’s guess. In the past, the ICO has requested that photographers’ adopt a ‘common sense’ approach when placing images online. Let’s hope that they adopt a similarly ‘common sense’ approach.

As for my own experience, you might have noticed that very late on Thursday night I mentioned on Twitter that I had just seen a security guard threaten to toss a photographer’s camera into the Thames. How I ended up on the Thames Path with a group of people, some of whom were taking photos, and being intimidated by security guards is a bit of a long story, but key element here is that we were on a public footpath and the photographer was well within his rights.

This security guard was a singularly unpleasant bully, but he did have a bit a shock when the 5’1″ woman was insistent that no, we were allowed to take photos, really. I’m not sure how much the general public’s ignorance of what can and cannot be done with a photograph and the police’s lack of confidence when it comes to dealing with photographers feeds off of each other, so perhaps both the guidelines from the ICO and increased responsibility laid on police chiefs to keep their officers’ behaviour in check will help.

At the moment, I feel as if we’re taking one step forward and then another backwards when it comes to our rights to be able to take photos. The best solution that I can think of is to just keep on taking them.

(Thanks to Amateur Photographer for some news updates.)

Better ways than 365 days?

If you’re serious about improving as a photographer, there are better ways of accomplishing it than taking a photo of yourself e

I think that the statement I’m about to make could unleash something of a furore. (Give me a moment: I’m going to batten down the hatches and take a deep breath.)

I have a loathing for 365 self-portrait projects.

I can’t bear them. They irritate me. Sometimes they even bore me. They don’t quite make me want to scratch out my eyeballs, although occasionally some of the pictures might. There, I’ve said it. Admission made. Given that the 365 Days group on Flickr has 19,175 members, I suppose I ought to qualify this statement, because there are a whole host of people prepared to disagree with me.

There are two predominant reasons that 365 self-portrait projects give me a shudder of discomfort. First, I don’t think that they necessarily encourage good photography; second, I think that they do encourage some sort of egotism and narcissism. Want me to unpick this a bit more? I thought that you might. Here goes.

Yes, it does seem counter-intuitive to say that a project that demands you take a photo every day doesn’t encourage good photography. If you’re shooting every day, surely it can only help you to improve. (This does seem to be one of the major driving factors in embarking on a 365 Days project.) But I’m not convinced that deliberately setting out to take a photograph of yourself every single day of the week for an entire year does that. Instead, I think that the combination of obligation to take a photo and limited subject matter stifles creativity. Having to take a photo of myself, a photo that I’m willing to present to the world, a photo that conveys my story, every day for a year sounds more like an exercise in endurance. And that does not good photography make.

So not only am I concerned by the potential for uninspiring, leaden self-portraits, but I can just see how the necessity to take said daily self-portrait becomes all-consuming and and obliterates the opportunity or the desire to take other photos. Don’t forget about landscape and macro and street and architectural photography.

What’s more, there are some days when you really don’t want to be photographed. Or is that just me? How on earth is that sense of being camera-shy, of feeling miserable and unphotogenic, of being tired or drunk or ill, ever going to make for a well-composed, intriguing photo? I’m not sure how many images of my feet, or any other sufficiently abstract body-part, people would be able to take, even if I did succeed in posing them creatively, using a thought-provoking depth-of-field, and arranging moody lighting.

Looking beyond portraiture

If you can keep your self portraits interesting, it's worth continuing to experiement.

Becoming a better photographer isn’t just about portraiture. Or self-portraiture. Or going off and getting yourself a Photography Masters Degree.

And this leads me into my second point of pique. If it is all about documenting my life (another key reason for starting the project), who the bloody hell is really that interested to know the minutiae of my day-to-day existence? I’m not that thrilling. Yes, there are things that I do from time-to-time that might ignite a frisson of excitement, but they’re relatively limited in the grand scheme of things. Keeping a pictorial diary could well be an unusual take on a journal, but my desire to lay myself that bare in public is supremely limited. You can tell me that we live in the age of social media and that I just need to get on and accept it all that you want, but the concept makes me itchy. My entire life isn’t for public consumption and I doubt that every Tom, Dick, and Harry, and Emma, Jo, and Kate need, or even want, to know what I ate for breakfast (Homemade spelt bread toast with blackcurrant jam, seeing as you asked. It was tasty).

If you know me well enough and you know that I’ve written about how photos are an incredibly valuable historical resource, especially those that tell the narrative of the mundane, you might find that statement a little perverse. But I’m talking about making sure that people in the future know about our unextraordinary lives so that they will enjoy a better understanding of how our society functioned. (And indeed the social media phenomenon will be something that future historians will pick apart and examine and debate and turn into theses.) Someone living in 3010 who uses my writings and my photographs in an attempt to build a picture of life in 2010 is a bit different to me contriving a shot for uploading to Flickr.

Widening the horizons

Documenting your life is about a great deal more than just taking self-portraits.

I’m not saying that there are no good 365 self-portrait photographers out there, I’m not saying that people won’t learn from the experience, and I’m not saying that they aren’t valuable in some sense. I’d have to be blindingly ignorant to think anything of the sort. And if you want to commit to taking a picture of yourself every day for a year, go ahead. But let me give you something to think about first.

If you’re serious about improving as a photographer, there are better ways of accomplishing it than taking a photo of yourself every day. In fact, I most definitely endorse taking a photo every day. But just make sure that you expand your subject matter and your technical repertoire beyond pictures of yourself. Borrow your friend’s macro lens and have a go at photographing teeny-tiny things. Drag your tripod out from beneath your bed (what’s it doing there, anyway?) and try your hand at some long exposures. Pick up some filters and mess around with their different effects on your images. Play around with reflectors and diffusers, artificial and natural light. Hell, try shooting on film or build yourself a pinhole camera.

These seem like real challenges to me, challenges that will help you to develop your craft as a photographer.

Now, if you want to document your life in pictures, remember that the picture doesn’t have to be about you. The things that you see, the places that you go, the people whom you meet; all of these contribute to your life and would be worthy of photographing. I bet that you’ve a camera-phone that would do that job pretty well, although I’d recommend shopping around for a compact camera to keep in a sock in your bag. This will tell a much richer story of your life, for you and for anyone else who stumbles on some cache of a fragment of this weird photo-sharing website that seemed be called Flickr in 1,000 years’ time.

For sure you’re going to end up with very different types of photographs if you adopt either of these two approaches, but the results – whether you’re aiming to improve your photography skills or record your life – will be something altogether better than 365 days of self-portraits.

This post was written by Daniela Bowker, who usually is the boss over at Small Aperture.

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Postcards from an iPhone

Imagine that you’re standing on top of Kilimanjaro and you want to send a postcard of your view, right at that moment, along with a note, to your great aunt Phoebe. Well, there’s a groovy little app that’s just been released for iPhones that’ll allow you to do just that.

It’s called Simply Postcards, and the app is free to download. You take your picture, you write your note, you select a recipient from your address book, then it is all down to Simply Postcards. Your first postcard is free, and each subsequent postcard will cost you upwards of $1. You can pay with a credit card of via PayPal.

This might put an end to my tacky postcard challenge, but at least they have a better chance of arriving home before I do.

(Headsup to Photography Blog.)

This week-end, try nude photography!

Actress Mae West is known for many things, not least the quote “I’ll try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure.” That’s pretty much my approach to photography as well; you never know what you’ll like (and, for that matter, what you don’t).

One of the many challenges photographers have to consider dealing with is that of nudity; many of us live in frankly ridiculously puritan societies (don’t get me started on how American films don’t think twice about showing someone murdering someone else – which is frowned upon in real life – but god forbid you show a nipple or two…), and yet; nude photography is a long-standing tradition in photo world.

I recently got an email from a reader on Photocritic, Ken, who shared his story of his first steps into nude photography – I figured it was worth sharing…

Go ahead, Ken, the stage is yours…

The annual World Nude Bike Ride is a sobering revelation; turns out that not /everybody/ is shy about being nude, even in public.

I have been an advanced amateur photographer all of my life. I’ve been published in magazines, newspapers and books but had never taken nude photographs until 2007. I friend asked if I would take some nudes of her and I agreed since it had been a life long dream.

She was in her mid-thirties, beautiful blonde hair, slightly overweight but willing to learn. I have read articles over the years of how to take nude photography but this was my first chance.

Since my model was willing I was over the first hurdle but I found that most everything that I had read was useless when it came right down to the shoot. The two of us worked together well and since I was shooting digital and not film the shutter button was almost worn out that day.

In the end we had well over 200 shots in the camera and, together we looked over the pictures on the computer. It was a learning experience for both of us. She was very happy with the results as was I.

We trashed about 40 of the pictures for various reasons but what was left was a nice group of excellent quality pictures.

She was so pleased that she entered ten of them in an on-line photo contest and won third place out of probably 800-1000 entries, not bad if I do say so myself!

Even though your models may be nude, you don't /have/ to 'put it all on display'.

What I learned from the experience is most of the stuff you read in books is common sense; lighting, composition, etc. You really get your education from doing an actual shoot and then being objective about the results. Having a willing model is a big help so find someone who is comfortable with their body.

A little coaxing may be needed at first but you will get there. My model had a thing about keeping something on but when I finally talked her into getting completely nude she was thrilled with the feeling and said “This is the first time I have ever been naked outdoors and it feels wonderful,” as the warm sun bathed her body.

If your model is shy, or worried about what people may think about her in her day job, for example, get creative...

So don’t sit around reading books and dreaming! Find a lady who is willing and learn together! It’s just like any other hobby. You can read every book written on a subject but until you actually do it you aren’t learning anything. Learn by doing.

Good luck to all you want-to-be’s out there. Keep the pictures tasteful and learn from your mistakes but remember you aren’t going to get those nudes in the camera reading books.

Get out there, take pictures and LEARN!

I couldn’t have said it any better myself. Great work, Ken!

Fusion: breaking something to make something

Destroying something in order to create something can sound a bit counter-intuitive. Then you stop to think about Eton Mess, and how battering meringues into chunks leads to the creation of a delicious dessert, and it makes sense again. Or you could go look at the gorgeous images in Alexander James’ ‘Fusion’ series.

He’s photographed the results of starting chemical reactions (flames! smoke!) inside of beautiful balls of flowers. The flowers are gorgeous to start with, the chemical reaction within the ball looks incredible, and then eventually there is nothing left but cinders.

If you want to see an edited selection of the images in high res, head over to the DistilEnnui website. You’re even in with a chance of winning a framed limited edition of 10 prints. (It’s worth £1,260!) Either register as a user on Alexander James’ stock library, or follow his Twitter feed!

Nokia's short film

A few weeks ago I mentioned that Nokia had made a short film shot entirely with the camera on its new N8 phone. The idea was to show you just how good the camera on it is, so wasn’t just a recording of ducks in the local park. It was made by the up-and-coming McHenry brothers, and starred Dev Patel, amongst others. Well, they’ve released it now.

It’s called The Commuter and it charts one man’s rather eventful journey to work.

Now, when I saw it on a big screen there were a few moments that made me wince a bit, but I thought it was a cute story and a fun way to show off what the camera can do. I especially liked the scene with the bankers. What do you think to it?

More foundation or more photoshop?

High horses. I reckon that we’ve all got at least one stabled somewhere. I know that I have a couple that I take out for a gallop every now and again. But there was one issue over which I never really held such strident opinions, and for people who know me, it probably surprised them. It was about digitally manipulating images of models. There are plenty of groups with louder voices than mine to shout about the negative effects that flattening models’ tummies has on the self-esteem and body-image of young women (and in fact, of young men) without me wading in.

And what exactly would I be able to say to a group of people such as Real Women and their ‘Take Action Against Airbrushing’ campaign? They want to implement a system whereby any image of a model that has been digitally altered should bear a ‘kite mark’ indicating this. Would they want to listen to the moderate views of someone who has seen other photographers brush out spots or blemishes on her chin and is happy about this, giggles at Photoshop Disasters, and regularly bats away the statement: ‘Wow! Aren’t you thin!’? (Would anyone ever say: ‘My! You’re fat, aren’t you?’) I get the feeling I’m their problem, not their solution.

The Real Women group had this image banned on account of false advertising. The skin around Twiggy's eyes was made to look better than it is, using photoshoppery. Bit of a problem for an eye cream.

But here I am, having a rant on a Monday.

So what made me change my mind? It was a 19 year old pop star whom I saw on TV on Saturday evening. Her name is Pixie Lott. Her makeup left me temporarily speechless. Then I managed to find my voice. Then my friend had to put on the film we were supposed to be watching to stop me from losing my voice.

Pixie Lott, who started my rant

She didn’t look real. Her skin tone was so artificially translucent and even that she resembled a Barbie Doll. Who needs to brush out spots and blemishes when you can apply foundation an inch thick? I’m serious. We can introduce a system that flags up images that have been digitally altered, but what about the actual presentation of the model? Add another layer of makeup and request that she lose another kilo before her next photoshoot and we’re still conveying a manipulated, idealised image. We’ve not solved the problem. If anything, we’ve just made it worse because the unreality is being given the kite mark seal of approval.

The young people whom it was intended to protect from unrealistic, potentially unhealthy images have just been exposed to something definitely more insidious.

Before anyone wants to hold a stiletto to my throat, this doesn’t mean that I condone making models’ arms thinner and their boobs bigger with the use of a computer screen; what it means is that we have to be more realistic about why people choose to manipulate images, and what the effects of this are. A kite mark isn’t going to help.

Anne of Cleves, who was, in reality, scarred from Smallpox

You see, image manipulation isn’t new. The Roman emperor Augustus was an aficionado when it came to conveying a message and projecting an ideal through images. Henry VIII threw an enormous hissy fit when Anne of Cleves stepped off the boat to marry him and he realised that she looked nothing like the portrait he’d seen of her, painted by Hans Holbein. I’m pleased I wasn’t there. He ranted and raved and allegedly called the poor woman a ‘fat Flanders mare.’ Oliver Cromwell insisted that his official portrait show him ‘warts and all,’ knowing that they would be carefully omitted otherwise.

There’s a whole package of images out there that are manipulated in different ways, for different reasons, with myriad different consequences. Give people the tools to recognise this and analyse this for themselves. People seem to be far too willing to reduce difficult decisions to the lowest common denominator because this makes dealing with them easier. How about giving a difficult problem the difficult solution it deserves? In the long term, the results will be far more beneficial.

Photography is an art-form. Don’t let’s forget that. As photographers, we know that shooting in black and white will give a far more even skin tone in portraits. I suppose that we could always shoot in colour, instead. I’ll stop photographing someone I love very much only from her right side so that we can always see the extensive scarring on her left cheek. That’ll do wonders for her self-esteem, I’m sure. Maybe we should stop using gels and reflectors, too. Lighting isn’t important in photography, is it?

Teach young people how powerful images are; teach young people how images have been used across time; teach young people to paint, to draw, and to take photos; teach young people to recognise and to create their own beautiful things; teach young people to think for themselves. Stop applying sticking plasters to problems that have far deeper roots. Or, if you want another image-related analogy, stop powdering more arsenic and lead over your arsenic and lead-eroded skin.

Small Victories

You’ve probably noticed that the Small Aperture crew is pretty passionate about photographers’ rights. Whether we’re promoting your ability to be able to photographs in public places, ranting about peculiar photographic restrictions, or explaining what sort of authority you can exert over your own images, we’re pretty vocal about things. That’s hardly surprising: we love to take photos. And I doubt we’ll keep quiet until other people, from the police to shopping mall security guards to the general public, really begin to grasp what photographers can and can’t do.

The good news is, though, that over the past week two separate incidents have occurred, albeit over 3,000 miles apart, which have helped to promote photographers’ rights that little bit more.

Edinburgh, Scotland

Last week, in Edinburgh, photographer Stefan Karpa was harassed by security officers while taking photos at the Multrees Walk shopping district. Security had been beefed up recently as a result of several “ram-raiding” robberies. And while Multrees Walk is a privately-owned street, Karpa was photographing from the public highway, which is completely within his rights to do.

Karpa then posted a video of the confrontation to YouTube, and after making its rounds on Twitter, the response was huge.  A few days later, a small group of photographers decided to organise a flashmob at Multrees Walk to protest the incident. Police arrived and watched carefully, but the protest carried on peacefully.

Here’s the video to show you:

Photo Flash Mob on Edinburgh’s Multrees Walk from Tom Allan on Vimeo.

Later, Multrees Walk spokesman Stephen Spray stated that their blanket ban on photography would be reviewed. While not necessarily a legally-successful story, the fact that twenty photographers showed up to protest and photographed the store fronts on private property without being harassed by police and security shows that management is listening and perhaps willing to compromise with photographers.

New York City, USA

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, photographer Antonio Musumeci reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in regards to a lawsuit filed on his behalf. In 2009, Musumeci was arrested while filming another arrest of a protestor outside a New York City federal courthouse. The settlement states that members of the public have the “general right to photograph the exterior of federal courthouses from publicly accessible spaces.”

His primary camera had been confiscated at the time of his arrest, but a secondary camera captured the entire incident. Unlike many protesting photographers, Musumeci kept his cool the whole time, which I’m sure didn’t hurt his case.

While this is a more significant win for photographers than the Edinburgh case, both are equally important during this on-going clash for the right to shoot in public places. As more and more of these types of incidents end with favourable results, it’s only a matter of time before a compromise can be reached and photographers can continue to comfortably do what they do best… shoot pictures.

Ten Awe-Inspiring Apples

So, what did you do for National Apple Day yesterday? Nothing?! Nothing at all?! You mean to tell me you didn’t graze on a Granny Smith? Gobble a Golden Delicious? You didn’t so much as bother a Braeburn? For shame. Next you’ll be telling me you didn’t partake in the annual apple-based food fight – it’s a bit like the Spanish Tomatina festival, except with significantly more injuries.

OK, so I’ll admit, I didn’t do anything for National Apple Day, either. I’m feeling a wee bit guilty, so I thought I’d alleviate that guilt a little by trawling through the Flickr dungeons (so you don’t have to) and finding some interesting, beautiful or generally noteworthy apple-themed images. You wouldn’t believe how many people have inserted some rather distinctive white headphones into an apple. None of those images will feature.

That said, here are ten of the best. Chomp away. You can count this as part of your five-a-day.

1 – Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost by petervanallen

2 – The Untimely Death of Granny Smith

The Untimely Death of Granny Smith by Mr. Moog

3 – Rinfrescante…Refreshing…Refrescante

Rinfrescante...Refreshing...Refrescante by Oceano Mare

4 – Qué

Qué by Ibai Acevedo

5 – Apple Jumping Out of the Water

Apple Jumping Out of the Water by AHMED

6 – Frost Crab Apple in the Garden

Frost Crab Apple in the Garden by Steven House Photography

7 – Apple

Apple, by Dragan*

8 – Temptation, Taste, Venom

Temptation, Taste, Venom by dogfaceboy

9 – Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy

Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy by au tum n

10 – Wet Fruit

Wet Fruit by Leo Druker

All photos used in this article are used as ‘fair dealing‘. If you have strong reservations against your photos appearing on Small Aperture, please contact us, and we’ll get them taken down. Please support the artists creating these photos by clicking on the photos to take a closer look at their work!

Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year

The winners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition have just been announced, and boy are there some cracking photos on display. You’d hope so, as well, knowing that the winner was bitten all over by chiggers when getting his shot, one guy lost his camera to a polar bear, and another had to avoid being chomped on by a caiman!

Last year’s competition might’ve been bathed in scandal, as it emerged that the winner’s photograph of a wolf wasn’t quite as authentic as he’d claimed, but that didn’t deter the entrants (or the organisers) this year. If anything, it made them up their game and submit some eye-watering images.

A Marvel of Ants, by Bence Máté

The overall winner was Bence Máté, with his picture of leaf-cutter ants doing their thing in a rain forest in Costa Rica. The Young Photographer prize went to Fergus Gill, for a glorious shot of a fieldfare feeding on a frozen Rowan tree.

The Frozen Moment, by Fergus Gill

The exhibition of the winning and commended photographs opens at the Natural History Museum in London tomorrow. But if you can’t make it there, then spend a while wandering through the online gallery. It’s all worth a look, but I’d especially recommend the young people’s photos.

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition runs from 22 October 2010 to 11 March 2011 at the Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, UK.