Our May photo competition

Summer is on its way (in the northern hemisphere, at least) and I’ve already had to usher several bees out of the kitchen of the Small Aperture mansion. Unusual ladybirds have graced the pavements of east London recently, too. And we’re waiting for the emergence of dragonflies and mayflies a little later this month. For May’s competition, therefore, we’re looking for pictures of insects. And of course the super-dudes at Fracture are supplying a prize for our favourite entry.

You’ve from today (that’s Wednesday 4 May) until Wednesday 25 May to submit your picture (just the one) to the Small Aperture Flickr pool.

Any questions? Ah yes, the April competition winner, I hear you ask. We’ve been beset by a minor technological impediment there. Haje is currently incommunicado. As soon as he’s the chance to look at the entries and we’ve indulged in our ritual round of email indecision, we’ll announce the winner. I promise. Any other questions? No? Well, you know where to find me if you do.

As ever, I’ve reproduced The Rules, just in case.

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.

(The picture of the fly is Haje’s. Awesome, no?)

Postagram posts your Instagrams

After Haje’s dismal experiences with ShootIt postcards sent directly from his phone, he’s been looking for alternatives. Maybe Postagram, with their Instagram-stylee postcards, can help? The app is free to download and postcards are 99 cents each. You can expect delivery within a two to five day time-frame in the USA. Anything going overseas might take longer.

Unlike a traditional postcard, the image doesn’t take up the entirety of the front of the postcard. Instead, the square (2.5 by 2.5 inch) Instagram-esque image pops out to become a free-standing picture. There’s room for a Twitter-length message, too.

Postagram was initially designed for use with Instagram, but a recent update means that you can send a picture from your phone’s album, too.

This one might be worth a shot.

Postagram is available for download from the iTunes store.

Blurb's come a long way, baby

Back in 2006, when Blurb entered the brave new world of publish-it-yourself photobooks, it offered one type of paper, one size of book, and a plain black linen cover. How times have changed. Blurb grew in popularity, and so did its range. And from today, with the launch of the new ProLine, there’s even more swanky and professional-looking choices. You can choose from two new types of cover (charcoal or oatmeal, in linen), five new end sheets (charcoal grey, dove grey, warm grey, black and white), and two new types of paper from Mohawk Fine Papers.

Eileen Gittins, Blurb’s CEO seems really quite chuffed with the new ProLine and the degree of customisation it allows people. They’ve listened to their customers and given them more professional choices. That included making Mohawk papers available for Blurb’s customers. There’s a heavy uncoated paper that’s an organic-y feel, or the pearl photo paper, which makes it feel as if you’ve a personalised book of photographic prints at your fingertips.

This is the ProLine, it has been designed for professionals wanting to showcase their work and get the oohs and aahs that it deserves, so it has a price to match. But don’t worry, Blurb hasn’t lost sight of what it does best: allowing anyone to create a photobook and tell a story.

Want a make a photobook with Blurb? Head over to the Blurb website.

National Photography Symposium 2011

Do you have any plans for the weekend 13-15 May? How about attending the National Photography Symposium in Liverpool? (If I didn’t think that Haje would do something unspeakable to me for cracking a joke about Liverpool – he has a soft-spot for the city – I would. Instead I’ll say that I rather like the word ‘symposium’. If you went to one in Ancient Athens, it was a raucous drinking party.) The organisers have lined up a host of interesting speakers to discuss everything from ‘Photography, Espionage and the State’ to visions for a national centre for photography.

Now, The Financial Times has dubbed this event ‘the most important forum in UK photography’ and whilst I can’t vouch for that, the programme does look quite enticing. I’m quite intrigued by the session led by Sara Jayne Parsons on Gertrude Bell, a photographer (amongst other things) whose work in the region that we now know as Iraq contributed to its formation as a country. But you might prefer to discuss the impact of the Hargreaves report with Andrew Wiard, or perhaps think about how photography can work in conjunction with other creative media to preserve and protect rights.

It’s £100 for a weekend ticket, or £60 for just the Saturday session. There are concessionary rates available, too. For more programme information and ticket details, trundle over to the National Photography Symposium website.

News in brief: Ever lost your camera or had it stolen?

You may not be aware, but your camera probably embeds its serial number in every one of your photos – so if someone is taking photos with your stolen camera, you can track them down.

Now if only there was a way of doing that… Enter Stolen Camera Finder, a brand new website designed to help you get re-united with your camera.

How very nifty.

What is this? - In our NewsFlash section, we share interesting tidbits of news. Think of it as our extended twitter feed: When we find something that get our little hearts racing, we'll share it with you right here! Loving it? Great, we've got lots more News Flash articles - and, of course, we're still on Twitter as well, for even shorter news tidbits.

The quest for perfect droplets

One of the strengths of photography has always been its ability to freeze time. Before the advent of photography, it was impossible to see how a hummingbird moves its wings, how a tennis ball deforms as it is served, or what it looks like when a bullet hits an apple at the speed of sound.

In the microcosmos explored by macro photographers, there are hundreds of similar quick-moving phenomena that lay unexplored. I have a fascination with falling water and the way matches flare up as you strike them, so I decided to take a closer look.

Falling droplets

Edgerton nearly drove himself to despair trying to capture this one photograph

There are photographers out there who have driven themselves to the brink of insanity trying to capture the perfect droplet photo. Harold Edgerton, for example, worked several years of his life in the mid-1950s the hope of one day capturing the perfect corona—the splash impact of a droplet in a layer of liquid transforming into a perfect crown of droplets thrown back from the liquid. Eventually, through years of trial and error, he managed to capture his droplet.

Today, photographers have the advantage of being able to share experience online. Because most photographers work with digital cameras, the experimentation time also decreases drastically. Imagine the poor people who had to wait for an hour for their film to develop properly, just so they could see if they had finally captured the perfect corona!

This photo, by Mattheu Collomp, shows an alternative way of photographing droplets - click the image for a bigger version!

Despite the fact that the technical side of capturing droplets is a lot easier, it is still a labor- and time-intensive mission on which to embark. There is something unique about seeing liquids and their motion frozen in time, however, and as a macro photography project, it is excellent.

I have tried capturing droplets on impact on many occasions throughout my photography lifetime, and every time, I did it a little differently. On the first few attempts, I tried it with an old flash unit connected to a Kodak DC4800 with a PC lead (the same type of connection that connects cameras to studio flashes). The results were not terrible, but the limitations of a digital compact camera turned out to be prohibitive of capturing the photos I wanted. The second time I gave it a shot, I had graduated from digital compacts and was using my first dSLR—one of the first Canon EOS D60s, bought on the very day it was released. The result wasn’t too bad — but it wasn’t great either.

My first attempts at photographing droplets weren't, exactly, what you'd call successful (click on image for larger version on Flickr)

With my shiny new dSLR, I was trapped indoors in a typical miserable rainy day. What could I do other than try to capture some more droplets? This time, I decided to give continuous lighting a try, and I lined up a pair of 600w work lights. Although the light was blindingly bright, in retrospect, there still wasn’t enough light: Even the best of my shots that day had a slight tinge of motion blur on them. Although I did get some spectacular photographs, the blur meant that they weren’t as perfect as I would have liked.

Throughout my experimentation, however, I did discover one thing: The translucency of water makes it difficult to capture the true dynamic of the fluid. If only there was a purely coloured, perfectly opaque liquid I could use—and paint would have created such a mess. My esteemed photography assistant Katherine came up with the idea of using milk, which turned out to be a terrible idea. The hot lamps made the milk turn sour within half an hour, and the smell in my make-shift photo studio stayed for weeks. I’ve since discovered the perfect liquid: long-life coffee creamer! This liquid is slightly thicker than water, doesn’t go bad as easily as milk, and makes a wonderful splash, too!

It took hundreds and hundreds of attempts before I started getting images I started to be happy with. This wasn't one of 'em.

When I started writing my macro book (from which this article is a small extract), I decided it was time to revisit the droplet experiment. Armed with a few containers of coffee creamer and using a 28-135mm macro lens with a 25mm extension tube and the Canon Twin Lite macro flash, I started experimenting again.

There are many ways to capture droplets, all depending on your taste. It’s possible to create tranquil photos, like the one Matthieu Collump shot above, but personally, I prefer the drama of liquid hitting liquid.

For my droplet shots, I used a large, flat surface with a very thin layer of coffee creamer in the bottom. I then used an eyedropper to let droplets of creamer fall into the film of creamer. (If you don’t have an eyedropper, you should be able to buy one inexpensively at a photography store or pharmacy.)

After a few photos, I started getting the knack of the timing, so that I took the photo a fraction of a second after the droplet impacted. From then on, it was four hours of patience, changing the batteries in the flash and camera, and refilling the eyedropper.

A nearly perfect corona. But only nearly.

It is the kind of activity that makes your family and friends question your sanity, no doubt about it, but in the end, I was left with about half a dozen photos I’m very fond of, including the photo above, which is nearly a perfect corona.

But only nearly…

Learn more about macro photography

My book!

This is an extract from chapter 4: The Macro in Everyday Objects, published by Wiley Publishing, and written by yours truly.

Obviously, I’m biased, but I highly recommend you get hold of a copy of my book, because it’s awesome. You can get it from Amazon in the US and in the UK, and most other good bookstores around the world.

It’s also available in Polish, Czech and Chinese, so if you prefer reading one of those languages, nip along to your local bookstore or book-peddling interwebsiteshop.

Sony World Photography Awards - the winners!

Many congratulations to the winners of prizes at last night’s Sony World Photography Awards, in particular Alejandro Chaskielberg who took home the Iris d’Or, Chan Kwok Hung who was named as overall Open winner, and Bruce Davidson for his Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award. It was a very swanky night, and indeed the first time that the awards have been hosted outside of Cannes, with lots of lovely pictures to contemplate.

Chaskielberg won the People award in the Photojournalism category with his ‘High Tide’ series that explored the lives of a community of islanders who live on the Parana River Delta. He then went on to compete against the twelve other winners from the Photojournalism, Commercial, and Fine Art categories. Given the ridiculously high standard of all the entries, it was surprising to hear that the judges found it relatively easy to pick their overall winner: ‘These carefully directed pictures tell solid truths – about toil and communality and marginal economic survival – in a splendidly allusive way.’

The Hunter 1, part of L'Iris d'Or-winning series, © Alejandro Chaskielberg - courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards 2011

I thought that all three of the selections in the campaigns section of the commercial category were fabulous. And I did wonder if the judges might have second-guessed themselves when Fabrizio Cestari’s series of Christ-like surfers, which came third in the Lifestyle section of the Commercial category, raised the first spontaneous round of applause of the evening.

Surfism - A New Religion, third in the Lifestyle award, © Fabrizio Cestari - courtesy Sony World Photography Awards 2011

Amit Madheshiya’s series of images that recorded people attending travelling tented cinemas in India brought a huge smile to my face. That won the Arts and Culture award in the Photojournalism category.

Winner of the Arts and Culture award, © Amit Madheshiya - courtesy Sony World Photography Awards 2011

Congratulations are also due to Will and Matt Burrard-Lucas for their film ‘Migration‘, which won the Moving Image Award and the Student Focus winner, Louis Boulet of the Ecole Superieure Louis-Lumiere.

Winner of the Open Award: Buffalo Race, © Chan Kwok Hung courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards 2011

But the final word should go to Javier Arcenillas, who won both the Current Affairs and Contemporary Issues awards in the Photojournalism category: ‘Photojournalism… it’s very hard.’

Sicarios 10, © Javier Arcenillas - courtesy Sony World Photography Awards 2011

You can see all the winning images on-line at the World Photography Awards site, or take a look at the exhibition at Somerset House, which runs until 22 May.

Jim Goldberg wins Deutsche Börse Photography Prize

Jim Goldberg, who works for Magnum Photos, has scooped this year’s Deutsche Börse Photography Prize with his exhibition Open See, which documented the lives of immigrants and refugees from war-torn countries as they began anew in Europe.

He beat Thomas Demand, Roe Ethridge, and Elad Lassry to the £30,000 first prize at the awards ceremony last night. As runners-up, they each walked away with £3,000.

Brett Rogers, director of the Photographers’ Gallery which hosted the event, described Goldberg’s approach as ‘timely and inventive’. You can go look for yourself until Sunday 1 May as the winning series, together with the runners’-up pictures, will be exhibited at Ambika P3, at the University of Westminster.

Paid-for photo competitions

The blog you’re currently reading is relatively high profile. I have written about photography competitions in the past (including the inspiredly-named ‘How to win photography competitions‘, which, if you haven’t read it, is worth a peek, if I may say so myself, and I may, because, well, this is my website, and I happen to quite like promoting my own articles in ridiculously long run-on sentences in parantheses when I really ought to be writing about completely different things, like the actual topic of this article, and I hope that you might in time forgive me for wasting your time with this aside). Anyway, as a result, I frequently get approached to help people judge their photography competitions.

Recently, however, I’ve received a series of e-mails (about ten in the past few months!) asking if I would pretty please judge their paid-for-contests. The idea is that aspiring photographers pay an entry fee (anything from $10 per photo via a $500 site membership to a $100 per photo fee structure). They then get entered into a photography contest, and the best photo wins.

Personally, I think paid-for photography competitions are absolute shite. Why? Well, for one thing, there are plenty of free photography competitions out there – witness the site ran by my good friend Will (of Earthshots fame), and there’s no way that you should be paying silly money to enter a competition.

Goldmines for the organisers

Okay, so this photo has nothing to do with this article, but how do you illustrate something like this anyway? Click on it for my recent gallery of photos from Vietnam.

Look at the maths – at some of these competitions, they charge $100 per photo entered (!) and offer prize values of about $10,000. I imagine the ‘values’ are retail values, which means that they can pick them up for cheaper, either as gray imports, or via discount retailers, for about $8,000 or so. That means to break even, they have to get only 80 entries into the competition. Of course, to get enough people entering, they need to get a lot of photographers to enter. And how do they do that? By approaching high-profile bloggers to be competition judges, in the hope that the judges will blog, tweet, and promote their competitions for free.

Where it gets really sinister, however, is that several of the people who have contacted me recently, have also offered me a commission for each person entering the competition – so in effect, they’re not even trying to be sneaky about it: They just want to make a crapton of money, and are willing to give the judges money (!) based on how many people they manage to get involved in the competitions. Most recently, they said they would “like to offer you $10-$20 per every person signing up through your link. $10 for the first 5 participants, and if you bring more than 5, we will pay you $20 per each participant including the first 5″

Only 50% spent on prizes

Next, they made the mistake of apologising for the low kick-back – and revealing how much money they are making off these competitions: “I know [$10-20] doesn’t sound much with the entry fee being a $100, though please bare [sic] in mind that 50% out of it will go to prizes.”.

So the business model is like this: Profit = Entrants * $100 * 40%. So 100 entries into the competition is a $4000 clean profit, $1000 paid back as commissions, and $5000 spent on prizes. With numbers like these, no wonder these paid-for competition sites are popping up all over the place.

Finally, many of these competitions will make you pay money to enter and try to grab your copyright off you at the same time (more about this in my Be Careful what you Sign article), making it doubly sinister.

So there we have it. The honourable, exciting activity of photography competitions reduced to a simple, affiliate-driven business model. Is it just me, or is that bloody appalling?

Photographers' rights flashmob

Ever been part of a flashmob? No, neither have I. But if you fancy giving it a whirl it the name of photographers’ rights and in celebration of International Press Freedom Day, the dudes who run I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! are organising one on Tuesday 3 May, 12:30, at London’s City Hall. It’s to highlight the increasing restrictions that private management companies are flinging at photographers who want to take pictures in public spaces. We’re talking about places such as Canary Wharf and the Thames Path between Tower Bridge and City Hall, here.

Ostensibly, anti-terrorist legislation is what justifies this behaviour. Having been on the receiving end of some vile, heavy-handed treatment by a security guard, I don’t wonder if they’re not just getting off on a power trip. Anyway, before I manage to ruin my peaceful Tuesday afternoon by getting worked up that street photography is going to be consigned to the albums of history, I’ll remind you: Tuesday 3 May, 12:30, City Hall, London. In case you were wondering, the National Union of Journalists London Photographers Branch is supporting it.

If you happen to have a tripod that you can bring along, too, then do.

More information from I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist!

World Photography Festival

This week is already pretty groovy: the weather here is glorious and owing to Easter and some minor royal wedding business, only Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are working days. Now add in the World Photography Festival that’s happening in London and we’re notching up towards awesome. We just have to hope that the weather stays glorious and that the wedding doesn’t grind London to a complete standstill. To be perfectly honest, I’m not optimistic on either count, but the line-up for the festival is looking good.

There’s a full schedule of events; I think you’d be hard-pressed to find something that didn’t appeal to your photographic soul. How about some in-conversation sessions with luminaries from the photography world, say, Bruce Davidson, Tom Stoddart, and Carol Allen Storey? If that doesn’t do it for you, there’s the iStockphoto Guerilla activities, giving you the opportunity to go out and shoot around London or in Somerset House. The self-publishing people Blurb are running workshops all week, talking about – slightly unsurprisingly – self-publishing.

There are sessions helping you to become a better photographer (including how to spot a photo to improving your portfolio), exhibitions of student work, film screenings, and panel debates (I’m looking forward to the photojournalism one, but the black and white one looks interesting, too).

The royal wedding has even managed to make its presence known, with the ability to track it pictorially, seeing who got the best photos and where they were used.

And don’t forget, the World Photography Awards ceremony takes place tomorrow night, too.

Honestly, I’ve barely scraped the surface there. You can look at a complete schedule and organise tickets over at the festival website.

Get the eyes in focus.

The very first thing you need to know about getting people to look awesome, is that their eyes have to be in focus. This is absolutely, completely non-negotiable. If they have their eyes open, get them in focus. If they have them closed – get them in focus. Is your model wearing sunglasses? Well, get them in focus. You see where I'm going with this.

The reason for focusing on the eyes is simple: Whatever your photo, this is really where you want your audience to be looking. In a good portrait, the eyes are a window into the soul, and if you want to move people with your shots, it's important to get (make) that 'connection'.

As you are starting out on your journey of improving your portraiture concentrate 100% on getting the eyes right. Trust me: everything else will eventually fall into place.

Focusing and composing your portraits

If the eyes are so incredibly important, how can you ensure that you get them in focus? Taking a photo is a multi-step process. First of all, check your camera settings. Is your camera in the right file format? Are you in the correct auto-focus mode? Is your camera in the camera mode you were planning to use? Is your ISO set correctly?

Next, Check your exposure. If you're shooting in Program, Aperture-priority or shutter-priority mode, you need to ensure that you haven't changed the exposure bias. If you have ventured into manual exposure, you should check whether you've dialed in a useful aperture. And if you are in a fully automatic mode, you should buy my book and turn to chapter 3 - and be deeply ashamed of yourself.

The final steps are to focus and compose your image:

Step 1

The first step to get your focus right is to zoom in all the way on the eyes of your subject. This helps the camera's focusing mechanism get the focus right, and it reduces the risk of the camera focusing on the wrong thing. Obviously, if you are shooting with a prime lens (i.e. a non-zoom lens), this step doesn’t apply.

Step 2

Now, half-press your shutter button. Your lens will attempt to focus. Since you've zoomed all the way in, it will be very clear when your subject is properly in focus. If your lens gets it wrong somehow, let go of the shutter button and half-press it one more time. Once your subject is in focus, keep the shutter half-pressed.

Step 3

Now, whilst keeping the shutter button half-way down, you can zoom back out, and compose your photo. Take your time, there's no rush.

Step 4

When you're happy with the way your photo looks through the viewfinder, all you need to do is to press the shutter all the way down, and your camera will take the photo.

Finally, you edit your photo to your liking, and bonza - you're ready to go. How you can edit your portraits for best effect is, of course, also covered in Focus on Photographing People.

Like this quick tip?

If you enjoyed this quick tip, there's loads more where this came from. My newest book, Focus on Photographing People, is chocker-block with hundreds of photos, tons of tips, and fist-fulls of advice: All to help you become a better Photographer of People. Find out more about the book on my website, and then head to your nearest brick-and-mortar or online bookshop to buy yourself a copy!

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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.

My new book: Photographing People

The day I was born, my father took one look at me, and walked to the nearest camera shop. He bought his first SLR camera – a Canon A1 – and a couple of lenses. I still have that camera, and it serves as a reminder of why photography is so important - and of why people decide to start taking photos in the first place.

To me, photography is very closely linked with people. Don't get me wrong, I love taking photos of landscapes, and I have been known to take the occasional still life and macro photo in my time (I even wrote a book on the latter). Nonetheless, to me, photography really comes alive when I'm taking photos of people, be it in a formal setting (like studio portraiture or wedding photos), a bit more relaxed (impromptu photo sessions with friends) or even if I'm sneaking around taking photos of complete strangers when I'm abroad somewhere.

As such, it made sense that I would write a book on how to take photos of people. A lot of hard work later, and it's going on sale imminently. Go on, you know you want a copy...

(The images in the gallery above are a small selection of the pics from Chapter 5 - 'Getting Creative')

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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.

TIPA awards 2011

The Technical Image Press Association has just announced their favourite products of 2011 from their General Assembly, which convened in Istanbul (lucky sods). Representatives from 29 member magazines didn’t just discuss which cameras and imaging products they liked the best, but that does seem to be the most interesting bit. There were over 40 categories, from best entry level dSLR to best photo kiosk (yes, really it was the Mitsubishi Gift Kiosk, by the way), so here are the edited highlights.

dSLRs

They’ve shared the love around here:

• Best entry level: Canon Eos 600D (yes, I want it even more now)
• Best advanced: Nikon D7000
• Best expert: Olympus E5 (it must be the being rugged thing)
• Best professional: Pentax 645D

Compact cameras

Nikon's P300

Again, there’s been another even split across different manufacturers for these prizes.

• Best general: Nikon P300 (did they read our reviews round-up yesterday?)
• Best expert: Olympus XZ-1
• Best superzoom: Canon PowerShot SX230 HS
• Best premium camera: Fujufilm Finepix X100

Mirror-less cameras

Okay, so they called them compact system cameras. And there aren’t so many from which to choose. But anyway.

• Best entry level: Samsung NX100
• Best expert: Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2

Sigma 70-200 lens

Lenses

• Best entry level: Tamron SP 70-300mm F/4-5.6 Di VC USD
• Best expert: Sigma APO 70-200mm F2.8 EX DG OS HSM
• Best professional: Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM

And some of the rest

• Best film: Kodak Professional Portra 160
• Best tripod: Vanguard Auctus Plus 323CT
• Best imaging innovation: Sony SLT, Translucent Mirror technology

You can check out the full list of winners, including best inkjet paper and photobag, on the TIPA website.

Get to know CS 5.5 better, for free

The dudes at Adobe are offering a one-off workshop-come-seminar-come-learning event to get to know Creative Suite 5.5 that bit better. Guess what? It’s free. If you already use CS3 or CS4 and are thinking of upgrading, they reckon that it’ll be especially useful for you. You’ll get to see the new features in CS5.5, as well as learn lots of tips and tricks to make the most out of it.

The plan is for Team Adobe (or at least members of it) to show off some of CS5.5′s groovy new features. How about the content-aware fill in Photoshop or the bristle brush and beautiful strokes from Illustrator? Maybe you’re more of a web-design person, in which case you’ll be introduced to the new-fangled HTML5/CSS3 support and jQuery Mobile/PhoneGap integration, as well as being able to preview designs for desktop, tablet, and smartphone browsers alongside each other.

There are also fancy new tools that work in conjunction with the Digital Publishing Suite. Interactive publications here you come!

Fancy going? It’s at the Vue Cinema, Fulham on 11 May, from 09:00 to 16:00. Tickets are free, but space is limited. Head over to the Adobe events page to register.

Obituary: Tim Hetherington

It is with great sadness that we report the news that Liverpool born British photojournalist Tim Hetherington has tragically been killed whilst covering the conflict in Libya.

Tim studied literature at Oxford University, later returning to college in order to study photojournalism. He was a fearless and admirable photojournalist, famous for his long-term documentary project work: Tim lived and worked in West Africa for eight years and reported on social and political issues worldwide.

Portrait of Tim, copyright Matt Stuart.

Tim was not only a photojournalist but also a film maker, his directorial début being Restrepo – a documentary following a platoon of soldiers in Afghanistan. It was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

Unfathomably brave photojournalists like Tim ensure that the truth of faraway conflicts and incidents is told and not simply seen as a statistic or an abstracted headline. I won’t do Tim an injustice by attempting to analyse his work beyond this: his images are both incredible and incredibly important.

There are many, many quotes and statements to come out of this tragic incident but we’re going to go for a very simple one at Small Aperture. Tim was a regular contributor to Vanity Fair magazine and photo director Susan White said that she would always remember his ‘magnificent, warm smile’.

We must also take time to remember similarly incredible photojournalist Chris Hondros of Getty Images, who also died in the attack.

Take a little while to learn more about Tim today:

Tim’s Website

British Journal of Photography’s Report

Guardian Article

Parting Glance: Tim Hetherington – Article by The New York Times

Daily Mail Accused of Stealing Image from Flickr

Last week, the British Journal of Photography posted an article explaining that photographer Steve Leachan had discovered that the Daily Mail and Mail Online had delved into his Flickr account and used one of the images therein without his knowledge or permission. Steve had uploaded the image to his Flickr account under an “All-Rights Reserved” notice. Not only that, but it also appears that the watermark on the original uploaded image had been removed using the clone stamp tool.

An update was posted the following day to indicate that photographer Vicky Tuff had been in touch with BJP to inform them that she had suffered from copyright infringement by the Daily Mail. The BJP article was updated again yesterday, on the 18th of April, when Nicholas Smith got in touch to say that one of his images had also been used without permission in the very same Daily Mail article.

This is the latest in a growing number of cases BJP has reported of the Daily Mail taking images and using them without the photographer’s knowledge and / or permission: it’s sickening and infuriating.

Once the bile stopped bubbling and boiling inside me (although that could’ve been the waffles and coffee I had this morning) and I had some time to reflect, one question arose in my mind and is now floating there, dead centre, white on black: why are photographers treated like second class citizens?

If it isn’t our images being used without our permission, without credit and without pay, it’s being hassled by authorities in the street for taking photographs in a public place. As a freelancer, I’ve had my share of horror stories in the past and have heard many from colleagues and fellow photographers. A couple of years ago, I had a most unpleasant experience with a client who I did some work for in exchange for credit and exposure. When it came to it, the client flat out refused to credit me for my work. I informed them that I wouldn’t be releasing the images to them if they weren’t happy to put any kind of credit on the images and an angry torrent of abuse ensued from said client.

With copyright law being so gleefully abused by major organisations, it's important that we stand up for ourselves.

Add that to the dozens upon dozens of stories I’ve heard from some of my peers about companies offering an absolute pittance for lifetime rights to an image and then failing to understand why they’ve refused the offer and it becomes distressingly apparent that photography and photographers are seemingly held in very low regard by the rest of society. I’ve had people come up to me in the street when I’m shooting architecture and ask, with a bewildered expression on their face, what it is I’m doing. This usually happens when I’m not pointing the camera directly at a landmark. I tend to reply with “I’m taking a photograph”, which tends to invoke an incredulous “of what?!” response.

With our list of aggressors including authorities, (certain) newspapers, businesses and the general public, it’s a wonder any of us make money, especially when combined with the current economic climate. To bring this slightly ranty tangent back to the original copyright theft issues, don’t resign yourself to the fact that “this is just the way it is” when it comes to what happens to and with your images. Don’t work for free and don’t be afraid to charge for your services. It may feel strange to turn work down from time to time, when the client is offering too little, or indeed, no money, but working for free and letting your work be used without your permission has a knock-on effect to all self-employed photographers, because it drives the value of photography even further down: I don’t remember any of my photography kit being free.

Regardless of whether it’s a high profile case like the Daily Mail’s atrocious behaviour or a small, personal issue, don’t be afraid to kick up a stink if your images are being used without credit and without your permission. It’s probably a bad idea to immediately go steaming in because it’s not always the case that people are deliberately avoiding crediting you: smaller businesses or people unused to dealing with photography might just need a friendly reminder of the process (initially, at least). It’s when the big guns who should know better start taking the mick that we need to take action.

In short, if we truly care about what we do, we must educate people about the value of photography. Make yourselves heard.

Attracting better feedback

As photographers in this Internet age we read about photography, and share our work, in hopes of honing our craft. You could be pursuing a career as a wedding photographer or a sports shooter and either way you’re searching for articles, subscribing to photography blogs, and participating in photo forums in hopes that there are gems of knowledge that will take your photographic prowess to the next level.

What most photographers, especially those that didn’t do any formal art training, are missing from their arsenal of learning tools, is the art of critique.

Defining Art Criticism

Sometimes, it can be fiercely difficult to know what's missing in a photograph. The easiest way to get a bit of help is simply to ask for it - but you've got to do it right.

Simply put: Art criticism is the discussion of the evaluation of art.

And having your peers, especially those whom you respect, evaluate your photography in a constructive manner will make you a better photographer.

And yes… it can seem scary.

We often think of critiques as negative and judgmental. They don’t have to be. And if they are…well, you just shrug it off. Chalk it up to the learning process.

There is an alternative.

You could upload your images to Flickr and join groups where they require comments and post badges and prizes galore! You’ll be inundated with happy unicorns and shiny gold medals. Comments like “Wow!” and “Nice!” will flood your comments sections and you’ll be able to see through rose coloured glasses for days!

While that may be okay for the occasional ego-boost I’d argue that those kind of groups are doing you more harm than good.

I mean, let’s get real for a second…did you actually learn anything from those kinds of comments? Did you become a better photographer because you got a scripted response from someone else looking for tons of comments filled with other scripted responses?

I didn’t think so.

Get Better Photo Critiques

I know from experience that there's nothing more difficult than getting harsh critique or a ton of suggestions for improvement on a photo you're particularly proud of. But stand tall and take it like a (wo)man - it's the fastest way to get better.

Getting better photo critiques starts by going to the right places (hint: you’re already at one of them).

• You may already know that Photocritic does photo critiques and I highly recommend adding your photos to his queue.
• Flickr has a rather large assortment of groups that are dedicated to criticism and critique. Simply search Flickr for “critique” and find the one that best suits your tastes and style of photography.
• DeviantArt also has groups dedicated to criticism. What’s unique about DeviantArt is that you’ll get critiques from artists of varying mediums, not just photographers, which can add a different perspective and unique insights.
• Photography forums often have sections dedicated to critiques. You’re probably already part of a photography forum, or know of a good one, so search for critique threads.

So you found a place that does critiques. Now what?

• Upload some of your photographs then submit or post them to the groups or threads in the critiques section.
• Participate! When you join a new group or forum you’ll likely get ignored for a little while in the beginning. Don’t worry, this is natural in every social setting. You need to be pro-active and start conversations. Critique other photographs. When you start critiquing other people’s photographs you are essentially inviting them to critique your work as well.
• Keep the conversation going. After someone has left a critique of your work it’s a good idea to thank them for their time and/or insight. This simple act of “conversation” will encourage more participation from others who may be sitting on the sidelines.

Keep it constructive or you won’t really gain much.

The day you think there's nothing left to learn, you may as well eBay all your camera equipment and give up. Trust me; that day will never come. And if you think it has, you're wrong.

• Feel free to set guidelines on your work. Not everyone will pay attention, but many will. On every image I post on my flickr account I add “While your comments are greatly appreciated, your presence is enough reward. Please do not post awards or banners, leave a comment or a thought instead. I know you can!” in the description box. Think about how you could set guidelines on your work to get the best comments and critiques that you can.
• Make friends with photographers that you respect. Keep in contact with those that do constructive criticisms and maintain a conversation with them.
• Give the best critiques you can give by avoiding annoying and overused comments and critiques and other’s will more likely reciprocate.
• Be as objective as you can. You aren’t going to agree with all of the comments and criticisms you get and they’re not all going to be right. One of my best selling photographs got slaughtered in two separate critiques (one group critique and one published *yikes!* critique).
• Research. If someone calls your photograph out for not having or overdoing a certain artistic element you need to look it up (especially if you think you know what it means) before you disagree with them in an open platform. Otherwise you alienate anyone else from leaving critiques
• Be gracious and objective. This can’t be stated enough!

Following these guidelines will help you garner better critiques and comments on your photographs. You’ll learn how others look at your photographs and you’ll learn whether or not you are achieving your goals as a visual story teller. Did I miss anything? Do you actively pursue critiques?

About the Author:

I’m a huge fan of Damien Franco’s work. He’s obviously exploring; finding his feet as a photographer, but more importantly, he’s always ready to share what he knows. He works as a contemporary fine art photographer working in West Texas and writes photography tutorials when he’s not fighting tumble weeds, cactus, and oil tycoons. You could do a lot worse than following him on that there Flickr thing.

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A Closer Look: Rania Matar

As of late, I’ve become more and more drawn to portraiture which makes extensive use of the surrounding environment to tell us more about the subject themselves, to the extent that it is now creeping into my own work. Although I love the intensity that an intimate close up portrait can bring, the creative freedom that is afforded to you in an environmental portrait allows you to tell a story, to show more of the subject and who they are. This, amongst other reasons I will explore in this Closer Look, is what drew me to Rania Matar’s beautiful portrait series “A Girl and Her Room”.

Last week, I looked at Anastasia Taylor-Lind’s Women of the Cossack Resurgence – a look at a female-dominated society, photographed by a female photographer. I wanted to further explore this area with Rania’s work. Much of Rania’s work is focused on women and women’s issues, “A Girl and Her Room” being one such project. The project examines those difficult teenage years, looking at the strains associated with the transition from childhood into adulthood and the various pressures experienced by girls growing up in today’s society. One the one hand, they are children. On the other, there is pressure from peers, media and popular culture to move into adulthood.

Geneva, 22, Brookline MA, 2010

The series is excellent at exploring that confusing period of your life, where half of you desperately wants to grow up and be taken seriously as an adult and the other half doesn’t want to fully let go of childhood. Rania often portrays this in the series by juxtaposing themes of adulthood with themes of childhood. This is sometimes reflected in the subject’s choice of clothing, which indicate physical and social maturity – “going out” dresses, evening gowns and the like. Sometimes, it is reflected in their surroundings – a shelf full of various make-up, bags, shoes and posters of models and bands. In the same glance across the image, you notice paraphernalia associated with childhood: stuffed toys, bunk beds, colourful drawings and photos of themselves as a younger girl.

The very first image you encounter in the series – “Siena 17, Brookline MA, 2009″ – implements this juxtaposition extremely well. Siena’s wall is plastered with posters of models in bikinis and adverts for fragrance and cars, whereas her bedsheets are patterned with pictures of farmyard animals and a large stuffed teddy rests in front of her.

Siena 17, Brookline MA, 2009

There’s just so much to talk about here, I’m finding it hard to be concise (surprise surprise), but what I find really wonderful about the images is the different degrees of maturity and each girl’s unique response to growing up. Girls the ages of 12 through to 21 and 22 are photographed and it’s fascinating to see what items incrementally change in the room – a sort of battle for room space between objects of the past and objects of the future. It’s also interesting to note that there is no hard and fast rule to what stage of maturity a girl is at relative to her age – everyone goes through that change at their own pace, and this is demonstrated by the incredibly diverse personalities on display.

There are many themes running through the images: the extensive inclusion of the mirror and how it reflects the subject’s preoccupation and concerns with self-image: the inclusion of pregnant girls and the even greater gulf between being forced to grow up and accept responsibility and the desire to remain a child: the subjects who live in other countries whose rooms, although initially seemingly different, follow the same patterns and reflect the same anxieties, concerns and desires as those of the North American girls.

Aside from being rich in thematic detail, the individual images are also rich in physical detail. Rania includes dozens of little touches in each image. Initially, I consider the subject and her expression, then my eyes move around the room at every little detail, then back to the subject again. What is truly magic about Rania’s work is her composition – some of the rooms are absolutely packed with bits and pieces yet Rania manages to include all this without losing the subject herself in the background. That incredibly clever use of space is the master stroke that sets these portraits apart, as it would be all too easy for them to feel too busy and overloaded.

Shannon 21, Boston, MA, 2010

The series has inspired me to really look at and develop my own environmental portraiture, paying very careful attention to use of space. I urge you to go and look at the “A Girl and Her Room” project as a whole – it’s important to view the featured images here as part of the whole series, because not only is a story told in each picture, but a story is told as you progress through each image. Plus, they’re great, so why wouldn’t you go and look at them all?

http://www.raniamatar.com/portfolio/recent/girl-room.php#girl-room/1-01.jpg

It's Just Not Cricket. Oh Wait, Yes It Is.

At the end of last year, we looked at the announcement of the Cricket Photograph of the Year Competition. Entrants were allowed to submit up to three images that were linked to cricket in some way. Needless to say, I was furious to discover that my photo of a box of crickets didn’t even get a look in.

Eleven images were shortlisted, with one winner being announced (pictured here, image by Scott Barbour). Go and have a quick peek at the eleven finalists on the Lord’s website.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I just have to run out. Run out? Geddit? Sorry.

The winning image, taken by Scott Barbour.