JULIAN LOVE PHOTOGRAPHY

New work from Jerusalem

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:07:00 +0000

I saw the new year in with friends in Jerusalem, and managed to spend a couple of days wondering around the old city with my camera. Jerusalem is one of the few truly medieval cities remaining in the world, filled with winding streets and guarded by giant stone walls. Of course the history and religious significance of the place is everywhere, but I tried to stay away from that somewhat and focus on capturing some scenic views that showed the beauty of a place that is often in the news for all the wrong reasons.

These were all shot with a single prime lens at 35mm equivalent field of view. Food for thought next time you are loading up the camera bag with 'just one more lens'...

See more in the Recent Work section of the the website here.

Portfolio video

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:57:00 +0000

My friends over at Wonderful Machine have a copy of my portfolio which they take around the US on their visits to ad and design agencies.

It's hard to put together a book for WM as they visit whole range of clients, whereas normally I tailor the contents of my portfolio depending on who I'm going to see. If it's a hotel group for example then I put in lots of my interiors and lifestyle images, whereas If it's a travel magazine then it will be landscapes, food shots and environmental portraits. So for the book they hold in the US I have a bit of everything, and hope clients will come to my website to see more of the particular genre they like.

Anyhow, a couple of weeks ago they were visiting some agencies in Minneapolis and as part of the trip made a video of my portfolio, which you can see here:

You can read about their visit on the Wonderful Machine blog, here.

What to do if your pictures are stolen

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 17:21:00 +0000

I'm sure many of you have found instances where your pictures have been used without your permission. Simon Crofts, a lawyer turned photographer, has given an excellent introduction to what to do if you find one of your images has been used without a license. Required reading for all UK photographers.

London interiors

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 11:07:00 +0000

I shoot interiors quite frequently as part of my travel work. But over the last month I've been shooting quite a few for the peeps over at One Fine Stay, a luxury rental company here in London. I've blogged about how to approach shooting interiors before. Here are a few from the last month.

Lightroom workshop with Martin Evening

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 09:35:00 +0000

Friday was a gorgeous sunny day here in London but I managed to spend most of it locked inside a blacked out studio. Why? Because I spent the day on an Adobe Lightroom workshop with none other than Mr Photoshop himself, Martin Evening.

Martin is a London-based fashion and beauty photographer who was part of the first wave to embrace digital imaging back in the late 1980s. Having cut his teeth on Photoshop 2.5 (we're now on version 12!), Martin has become one of the world's leading experts on digital imaging. His books on Photoshop and Lightroom are bestsellers and have become the "go to" books for using these complex pieces of software.

I use Lightroom 3 almost every day to manage, edit and print my images - so I like to think I know my way around the program pretty well. But I knew there was probably a lot more I could get out of it, and I wasn't wrong. Spending a day with Martin and 4 other photographers was a great experience and I learned an enormous amount about how to get the most out of my images - I took 12 pages of notes!

I'll share a few of the most useful tips on the blog over the next few months.

Prague

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 20:02:00 +0000

Well I'm happy to say that Hollywood has nothing to worry about - I'm just back from spending 4 days in Prague being filmed for an instructional DVD for Canon, and my acting skills still need a bit of polish :-) We were working some crazy hours but director Alun Pughe and the rest of the crew were great. Look for the DVD in October / November.

I only had a couple of hours to walk around and take pictures - here are a few of my favourites, all taken on a Canon 5D2 and 50mm:

More after the jump:

Fuji X100 review

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 23:03:00 +0000

Two weeks ago I finally cracked and bought a Fuji X100.

As someone who has used SLRs for the last 20 years, why was I interested in a £1000 compact? Quite simply there are times when I'm just shooting casually and don't want to carry an SLR, but I find traditional compacts, with their slow lenses, poor ergonomics and low image quality too limiting.

For the last 18 months I've been using a Panasonic GF1 with a 20mm f/1.7 for casual shooting. While it is much better than a compact, it still handles like one and so can be frustrating to use. The Fuji X100 was appealing because:
- it has mechanical controls for aperture, shutter speed an exposure compensation
- it has a proper optical viewfinder

Initial reviews were very critical of the firmware, but since Fuji made a major update a month ago that appeared to solve many of the issues, I decided to take the plunge. 2 weeks in and what do I think?

More after the jump:

The good

First impressions are excellent. It is pretty to look at and very well made, with a fine metal body and beautifully damped manual controls. The shutter speed dial and aperture ring click reassuringly through their stops, and the optical viewfinder is clear and bright with a cleverly superimposed frameline and exposure information around the edges.

Ergonomically the shooting controls of the X100 are very good. The aperture ring around the lens is easily controlled by your left forefinger and thumb, while the shutter speed dial can be set by feel with the camera to your eye. If you are using shutter or aperture priority there is a handily placed exposure lock button under your right thumb, and the exposure compensation dial clicks positively, It too can easily be set with the camera to your eye and and presents information on how it is set in the viewfinder.

There is a programmable button that sits under your right index finger that can be set to ISO, so you can quickly change your ISO setting. There is also an excellent Auto ISO setting where you can select the maximum ISO and minimum shutter speed you are comfortable with.

The X100 is primarily an autofocus camera, and a pair of overlapping rectangles in the viewfinder show the selected focus point, which flashes green when focus is locked. This pair of rectangles can be set in the menu system and are required to account for the parallax error between the viewfinder and the lens at close distances. It works very well. The focus point can be changed by holding down the AF button with your right thumb and using the 4 way scroll wheel with your right thumb. After a bit of practice it is quite easy to do while looking through the viewfinder. There are focus points across most of the frame.

And when you download the images to your computer, prepare to be astounded. This thing is SHARP - even at f/2 and especially so at f/2.8 and higher. And noise is extremely well controlled at high ISOs. 1600 is excellent and 3200 is perfectly usable if the exposure is bang on. This is as good as a high end SLR. Sure it might be 12MP rather than the 21MP of my Canon 5D mark IIs, but in every other way it is at least as good.

So far so good - this is all exactly what I was hoping for. However, it's not all plain sailing.

The not so good

Autofocus speed is not great and it sometimes locks onto the background rather than what I intended. I don't expect it to be super snappy, but something as fast as my GF1 would have been much better. Instead autofocus can feel a bit slow and deliberate. It also doesn't focus particularly close - around 50cm - and there are often times I wish I could fill the frame a bit more with my subject. It will focus much closer using the electronic finder, but I didn't buy this camera to use an electronic finder.

And in very low light when any autofocus system will struggle, manual focus is very slow and frustrating to use. For whatever reason Fuji chose not to have a traditional manual focus ring on the lens, instead opting for an electronic focus ring. This in itself is not a great problem, my GF1 works the same way. But the focus ring on the GF1 takes an enormous number of turns to shift the focus even slightly, making it all but pointless in normal use.

Then there is a slightly fiddly wheel on the back for scrolling through images and menu settings, as well as selecting flash mode, white balance, macro and drive modes. Most of these things I don't use very often, but it does make it all feel a bit like using a digital compact and is in direct conflict with the lovely controls and ergonomics on the rest of the camera.

Next up, some of the digital controls are less than ideal and sometimes seem unnecessarily complex. For example there is a button for cycling through using the optical finder, the rear screen or both. A sensor will then switch between the two depending on whether you have it to your eye or not. Then there is a second button to cycle through what information is shown in the viewfinder and on the rear screen. The various combinations between these two buttons interact with each other and take a bit of getting used to.

Another example is that if you set the camera to automatically review images after they are taken, it will display them in the viewfinder when you are in viewfinder mode - which is totally pointless, and interrupts your shooting. So I have this set to off, and just review images on the rear screen when I press the Play button.

Finally, when you fit the the accessory lens hood (£80 extra, although there are knock offs available on ebay already) the lens cap and leather case no longer fit, which is just daft.

Conclusion

So after all that what's it actually like to use? In a nutshell - the good far outweighs the bad.

The actual shooting controls of the X100, the ones you use all the time, are a pleasure to use. Shutter and aperture controls fall nicely to hand, and the viewfinder is a joy to use. Autofocus is a bit pedestrian and I do sometimes miss shots from it, but most of the time it does a decent enough job. And finally, the images that come out of it are just lovely.

Many reviews have commented on how the X100 harks back to the golden age of rangefinders in the 1960s. However I don't think think that is quite correct and explains why some users are more frustrated with it than others. The X100 has been designed from the outset to be an autofocus camera, and should be used that way. Manual focus is an afterthought at best, and in that regard is more similar to a Contax G2. With a 35mm f/2 mounted the G2 even looks almost identical.

The acid test? I take the camera with me almost everywhere and shoot with it all the time. It's simply great fun to use, which is what a camera should be. So from that perspective it's a great success. Sure, I hope Fuji will go on to produce an X200 in a year or two and correct all of the flaws in the X100. However I also hope the success of the camera (a few months after release and supply is still limited) will encourage other camera manufacturers to develop high quality cameras with manual shooting controls for the enthusiast market. After all I'm still waiting for Nikon to build me an FM3D...

Pros:

- excellent manual aperture, shutter speed and exposure compensation controls

- bright and clear optical viewfinder

- sharp f/2 lens

- superb image quality, even at high ISOs

- beautiful styling and excellent build quality

- great fun to use

Cons:

- auto focus is a bit slow and doesn't always focus on what you expect

- doesn't focus very close when using the optical viewfinder

- manual focus is almost impossible

- rather fiddly digital controls

- using the lens hood means the lens cap and leather case don't fit

Overall - better than anything else available in the 'large sensor compact' market

Compared to the Panasonic GF1

For the last 18 months or so I've been using a Panasonic GF1 with a 20mm f/1.7 lens. It's a similar size, has a similar lens, and also has a large sensor in a small body. So how does it measure up to the Fuji which costs twice the price?

When it was released at the end of 2009 the GF1, along with the similar Olympus Pen EP1, filled a gap in the market. They provided a large-ish sensor in a compact body with fast prime lenses. This was exactly the kind of camera I wanted for casual use, so I picked one up. However I soon realised how much I missed having an optical viewfinder, and the slipperiness of the body made it tiring to hold in my hand for long periods.

To overcome these issues I pimped up my GF1 to include the optical viewfinder from the Olympus Pen - the field of view is about right for the 20mm lens, and I used some fine sandpaper to take off the silver finish leaving it black to match the camera. I also fitted it with Panasonic's half leather case which gave it a much better feel in the hand and made it easier to grip.

However, the optical finder accessory is far from ideal:
- it has a very soft plastic shoe, so it easily gets knocked out of alignment while in your bag causing me to misframe shots.
- it obviously does not show any exposure information so the rear screen is still necessary to check your aperture and shutter speed, recommended exposure and focus point
- it makes the camera taller and bulkier

And when you do make changes to your aperture or shutter speed, you have to use a single tiny wheel under your right thumb that you have to click to switch between one and the other, and look at the rear screen to see what you have selected.

So the ergonomics of the GF1 are seriously compromised compared to the Fuji X100. It handles like a high-end compact as opposed to a fully featured camera.

But what about image quality? While image quality from the GF1 is certainly a lot better than a compact camera, it is simply not in the same league as the X100. The 20mm lens is very sharp when stopped down just a little, and at low ISOs noise is well controlled. But by ISO 800 noise is very apparent, and ISO 1600 is very noisy indeed. At this speed the images lose much of their fine detail and and colours become muddy. Given the situations I tend to use these cameras, high ISO shooting is important to me.

The GF1 does have some advantages - AF speed is superior and it takes interchangeable lenses. The first is indeed a genuine benefit, but the second is not that important to me for this kind of camera.

So despite it's quirks, the X100 is a better camera for what I use it for.

Vivian Maier now in London

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 13:03:00 +0000

Back in January I wrote about the remarkable discovery of Vivian Maier, a Chicago nanny and amateur photographer whose archive has turned out to include some of the finest street photography of the mid-20th century.

I'm delighted to report that after a successful showing of her work at the Chicago Cultural Center, an exhibition of 48 of her prints, some of her silent films and a number of her personal possessions has now come to London.

See it this week at the German Gymnasium as part of the London Street Photography Festival and later in the month at Photofusion in Brixton. I'll be checking it out this weekend.

View her remarkable work and learn more about her here.

Roof Unit

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 17:58:00 +0000

I've recently moved offices and rejoined the gang at Roof Unit.

Roof Unit is a shared office space and studio for creatives in East London. Originally set up by Toby Smith in 2005, I was based there for a couple of years until spending the last year working alongside with my friend Richard Hadley.

However when Roof Unit made the move to a gleaming new space in Bethnal Green with 20 desks, a photo studio and a sun-drenched roof terrace I decided it was time to rejoin my old friends, make some new ones, and settle back in. There's a great bunch of photographers working here so be sure to check out their excellent and diverse work.

And under the direction of Toby Smith and Alexa Montgomery there will be a program of events running throughout the year - so please drop in if you see something of interest.

Learn more about Roof Unit by reading the recent features about the space in the British Journal of Photography and spoonfed.

Scilly Isles extras

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 13:51:00 +0000

Inevitably when you shoot for magazines they can't always run all of your favourite images. For a 6 page feature, they might only be able to use 10 pictures, and those have to tie in with the storyline the writer has chosen. So here are some of my favourite images from the Scilly Isles shoot for Lonely Planet Magazine, only a few of which actually made it into the feature. You can see the whole set in much higher resolution in the recent work section of the website.

Scilly Isles with Lonely Planet Magazine

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Tue, 31 May 2011 02:08:00 +0000

This month's Lonely Planet Magazine is their Islands special issue, and I'm pleased to say I shot the feature on the Scilly Isles. For those of you whose geography is a little rusty, the Scillies are the most westerly part of England - a small group of islands off the South West tip of Cornwall. And to give you some idea of the lead time involved in the magazine publishing business, I shot this assignment in August last year, over 9 months ago!

The job was great fun but not without it's challenges. Firstly, the writer and I flew there in the worlds smallest plane, which meant baggage was at a premium, so I had to pack as light as possible.

Secondly, the Scilly Isles at first seems quite pedestrian compared to the locations I typically shoot. However after a while the place really grew on me. Dramatic landscapes, interesting locals and thankfully some wonderful weather made the shoot a lot of fun and I came away with a set of pictures I was very pleased with.

Here's the layout for the magazine. I'll post some of my favourite outtakes soon. Big thanks to Art Director Hayley Ward and Features Editor and Writer Orla Thomas.

New work online - New York City

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 01:29:00 +0000

I've just posted some new work on the website from a recent shoot in New York. Head over to the Recent Work section to take a look.

Big thanks to models Malliha Ahmad, Christina Galioto and Tatiana Eva-Marie, stylist Angelina Scantlebury and assistants Tommy Evans and Chris LaPointe.

Why you shouldn't post your photos on Flickr

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 22:58:00 +0000

Via Chase Jarvis via FStoppers

Ice Cave

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 16:46:00 +0000

I'm out in Verbier at the moment, one of Europe's biggest ski resorts, trying to shoot for one of my ski company clients. The only problem we have - which we share with most of the Alps - is that we have NO SNOW!

The last major dump was at Christmas, and since then we've only had about 3cm of fresh. The 45 consecutive days of sunshine we've been enjoying is the most ever recorded in Verbier.

So today I decided to do something a bit different and skinned up to a small tunnel in the mountain that a friend had told me about. The interesting thing about the tunnel is that it's filled with giant ice stalagmites - some of them over 3m tall. It's a rather spooky place and feels like something from the set of Aliens.

I went there first a couple of days ago, but the only camera I had with me was my iPhone. So today I went back and shot it with a 'real' camera... I rather like the results, and hope you do too.

Canon 200-400mm f/4 IS with built in 1.4x extender

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 18:52:00 +0000

Ever since I started using Canon cameras over a decade ago, one of the key attractions of the system was the huge variety of lenses available. Need a fast, wide prime? Pick a 24/1.4 or 35/1.4, or if budget doesn't allow get their cheaper f/2 or f/2.8 brethren. Need a telephoto zoom? Take your pick from the 70-200/2.8 IS, 70-200/4 IS, 70-300/5.6 DO and the cheap and cheerful 70-300/5.6 IS. If you need them there are also the speciality lenses such as the 24, 45 and 90mm TSE, the super-fast 50/1.2 and 85/1.2 and the full range of super telephotos all the way up to the monster 800/5.6.

Nikon have only recently updated their line to include a 24/1.4 and a full set of TSE lenses, and they still don't offer anything as fast as Canon's brace of f/1.2 primes. But if there is one lens that has caused some envy over last few years it is Nikon's well regarded 200-400 f/4 VR. It covers a very useful zoom range for sports and wildlife photographers with a reasonably fast aperture, and is pin sharp to boot. In fact Nikon released an updated version last year with better coatings and improved VR.

Canon have at last announced their own version of this lens - a 200-400 f/4 IS USM - but have upped the ante with a dedicated 1.4X teleconverter built in. The extender will allow the lens to act as a 280-560 f/5.6 when required. Many photographers are wary of using teleconverters as you do typically lose some sharpness - this is certainly the case with my 2X extender when used with my 70-200/4 IS. The advantage of having the extender built in is it can be optimised for that specific lens and so minimise the loss in sharpness.

We'll have to wait and see how successful Canon have been in achieving this, but if they pull it off I can see this being an extremely popular lens among sports and wildlife pros. I rarely need to shoot anything longer than 200mm, so I'll probably just stick to my 70-200 f/4 IS and pull out the teleconverter occasionally. But for people who a regularly working at these focal lengths I'm sure it will be a hit.

New print promo going out

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 21:04:00 +0000

Wonderful Machine are using one of my shots for their latest print promo, going out to 2,000 art buyers across North America. Which is rather fab.

UPDATE - you can read about how it was made here.

Check out the new Facebook page

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 14:17:00 +0000

In my attempt to keep up with the times I've finally gotten around to setting up a Facebook page - click on the panel on the left to head there now.

The idea behind it is to have a way of sharing more day to day things about what I'm up to. More significant events will of course continue to get posts right here on the blog, but if you want to follow along on a more day to day way about what I'm up to, thoughts on photography, and the odd iphone photo, then please check out the new Facebook page. When I post on the blog I'll include a link to it on FB too, so you won't miss out on anything.

So what are you waiting for? Head on over to the Facebook page and hit "Like"!

The extraordinary story of Vivian Maier

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 15:14:00 +0000

Once in a while an extraordinary discovery is made, such as Robert Capa's "Mexican Suitcase". Recently another great photographic masterwork has been uncovered, but the story could not be more intriguing.

In 2008 Chicago resident John Maloof bought a some boxes of old negatives at a clearance sale, and in the process stumbled upon what may in future become regarded as one of the great photographers of the 20th century.

He originally bought them thinking they might be useful for a book project he was working on, but as he began to scan them in he realised he was looking at street photography of the highest calibre, worthy of standing alongside mid-century greats such as Robert Frank and Walker Evans.

Although the 100,000 pictures included several self-portraits of a woman, her identity was a mystery until he finally found a document with her name on it hidden among the negative sleeves. Her name was Vivian Maier, she was completely unknown to the photographic community and and a google search revealed she had died just days before.

Watch this quick news segment to learn more about her, her work and her amazing story:

The first major exhibition of her work opens next month and the Chicago Cultural Centre. I only hope it makes it over to London some day. You can see more of her beautiful work at John Maloof's blog.

All images (c) Vivian Meier / John Maloof

Travel Photographer of the Year announced

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 16:26:00 +0000

Last week saw the winner of this year's Travel Photographer of the Year announced. A big congratulations to Larry Louie of Canada for a beautiful set of black and white photos shot in Mali.

Image (c) Larry Louie

Head on over to the TPOTY winners gallery to see the whole set.

New work from Sweden online

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 17:18:00 +0000

Back in August I spent nearly a month in Sweden shooting for Insight Guides. After a week in picturesque Stockholm I travelled south to the impressive fortress at Kalmar, across to the old university city of Lund, through the fishing villages of the Bolhousian coast towards Norway, then followed the Gota Canal back across the great lakes before heading up north to Lake Siljan and Dalarna county.

I spent four years in neighbouring Norway while growing up, and passed through Sweden on one of our epic family road trips in about 1986. This was the first time I had been back since, and one of the things that struck me was just how wonderfully empty and unspoiled the country is.

Coming from crowded South East England, Sweden is quite literally a breath of fresh air. Outside of Stockholm and Gothenburg there are very few cars on the road, and forests and lakes stretch across the landscape as far as you can see. If you love the great outdoors there is much to like.

I took my old Nikon FE2 along for the ride to shoot alongside my Canon 5D mark IIs for a bit of fun, and you can see the results in the Recent Work section on the website.

Canon's new 70-300 L zoom

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 17:01:00 +0000

Back in august Canon announced a slew of new lenses, including updates to their super telephoto range and the remarkable 8-15mm fisheye zoom. But the lens that held the most interest for me as a travel and outdoor photographer was the 70-300mm f/4-5.6 L IS.

I currently use the 70-200 f/4L IS, and I used to use the non-IS version before that. It is pin sharp even wide open, and with today's cameras producing clean shots at ISO 800 or even 1600, I'm more than happy to trade a stop of aperture for a lens that is half the size and weight of it's enormous f/2.8 cousin. All in all, I'm a fan.

The new 70-300 L is therefore pretty interesting. You get 100mm more reach at the long end, at the cost of up to a stop of aperture and 300g extra weight. It's also a bit shorter, which helps.

I played with the lens at Photokina at the end of September, but for me it's a bit too heavy and bulky and doesn't offer enough of a benefit over the 70-200 for me to replace it. So the 70-200 f/4 will still hold it's place in my camera bag as the ideal telephoto zoom for travel and location work.

Anyway, for those who want to know more about it Canadian snowsports photographer Dan Carr recently posted a detailed review on his blog. You can read it here.

Runner's World gear shoot

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 16:03:00 +0000

Last month I was lying face down in the mud shooting a 5-page gear spread for Runner's World.

The brief was to create a set of sport fashion images showing the season's latest gear in dramatic lighting. So we headed into the woods south of London and shot 4 setups using a mix of Elinchrom Ranger Quadras and Canon Speedlights, all triggered by the ever reliable Pocket Wizard Plus IIs.

I had about an hour to chose locations and set up lights before the models arrived, and was looking for places where the trees of the forest could provide a backdrop we could sculpt with the lighting. Once the models arrived, we only had 30 minutes per setup, including time for changes in outfits, locations and lighting between each shot.

After 4 static shots we wanted an action shot for the final picture to open the feature. The light had dropped sufficiently by this time we took the models out of the woods and had them running across the park. The shot we got is at the top of the post.

All in all the whole shoot lasted three hours from start to finish - pretty damn quick if you ask me! Check the full feature out in this month's Runner's World and see the pictures in higher resolution on the website here.

A big thanks to RW art director Russell Fairbrother, my assistant for the day Adam Swords, and models Guillaume and Julia from Snoop.

Shooting in Istanbul with the new Canon 60D

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 10:47:00 +0000

As mentioned previously on the blog, back in July I was on a week long shoot in Istanbul. At the time I had to be a bit cryptic about who it was for, but I'm now allowed to spill the beans so here goes:

The shoot was for Canon, to create all the still images and video to support the launch of the new 60D digital SLR.

The brief was simple - create a set of iconic travel photos and accompanying 3-minute video of Istanbul. The idea was to end up with something that was beautiful, but that purchasers of a mid-range camera could aspire to. At the same time it had to show off all the features of the camera.

I was shooting the stills while my good friend Richard Hadley at Ballistic (who also worked on the India ski vid with me) shot the video along side. The pictures are being used for brochures, in store promotions, sample images and press kits across Europe, while the video is being used in stores, at trade shows, and of course on YouTube (you can watch it in HD at the bottom of this post).

So after several pre-production meetings in London and a lot of time on the phone to Istanbul, Richard and I flew out on the Saturday and met up with our producer and fixer, Munir Ackdogan and Nihan Ozkan, and our driver Mehmet. We spent the next 48 hours travelling all over the city, scouting locations and coming up with our plan of attack.

On the Monday, Miles Willis from Canon flew out to join us. In his luggage were 3 pre-production 60D cameras and an enormous Peli case full of lenses - everything from the el-cheapo 18-55mm kit lens to exotic beasts like the new 17mm f/4 tilt-shift and 300mm f/2.8.

Now the cameras were in town we could shoot - so we immediately set out to start working through our shot list. What followed was a frantic 5 days seeing us up at 5am every morning to catch the sunrise and not getting back to the hotel at 10pm after we had shot sunset. On the final day, we were up at 4 in order to drive 2 hours over to the Asian side where we rented a helicopter to shoot some aerials over the city.

By then our work was done and on Friday afternoon Miles flew back to London with the cameras, and we had a chance to relax and enjoy a night out on the town before Richard and I flew back on Saturday.

Using pre-production cameras in a public environment is not without its risks. Although we were taking precautions and they were covered up with black tape, on a couple of occasions we were approached by people asking what cameras we were using. We simply told them it was a secret and moved on.

Another catch of using pre-production cameras was that my preferred editing software, Adobe Lightroom, didn't support the RAW files from the 60D. So I was having to shoot in RAW and JPEG and review my shots each night using the JPEGs. Then, half way through the shoot Canon were able to supply me with a beta version of their Digital Photo Professional software that could convert the 60D's RAWs to TIFFs, and from then on I could work with the TIFFs.

We got back to London on Saturday evening, but with the print deadline looming there was no time to rest. My Sunday was spent editing and processing images ready for a review meeting back at Canon the next morning. Here we made the final selects and delivered the images, while Richard spent the remainder of the week editing the video for delivery on Friday.

Despite the last minute location change and the quick turn around on the edit, everyone has been thrilled with the results and the 60D looks to be selling like hot cakes. So mission accomplished.

It also shows that shooting stills and video along side each other can be a very simple and cost-effective way to deliver a high quality shoot for a client. You get stills and video that work seamlessly together, as we were at the same locations at the same time of day, and the simplicity of dealing with one brief, one PO number and one invoice.

I'll talk a bit more about some of my favourite pictures in future posts, but for now head over to the Recent Work section of the website and see them for yourself. Click below to see the video:

Street Photography Now

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 17:36:00 +0000

My good friend Laura Willis, the Marketing Director at art book publisher Thames & Hudson, has just informed me they're running a street photography project in collaboration with the Photographers Gallery to coincide with the recent launch of their new book Street Photography Now.

From the website:

"Street Photography Now Project is a collaboration between The Photographers’ Gallery, London and Sophie Howarth and Stephen McLaren, authors of Street Photography Now (Thames and Hudson).

Each week from 1 October 2010, a leading contemporary street photographer will issue a new instruction, written to inspire fresh ways of looking at and documenting the world we live in.

Over the following six days photographers around the world are invited to upload one photograph in response, to form part of a Street Photography Now Project Gallery on Flickr. After six days the next instruction will be issued.

The Project will run for 52 weeks. The aim is to build a global community of photographers exploring the rewards and challenges of documenting public life. All photographers, including those who contribute to the Instructions, will be encouraged to comment and respond to the images posted to the Flickr groups.

Though not a competition, at the end of the Project one photographer will be chosen who has made the most outstanding contribution to the project across a number of weeks. They will be awarded £1000 of Thames & Hudson books and have their work displayed on The Photographers’ Gallery digital Wall for All.

The Street Photography Now Project was launched in September 2010, as The Photographers’ Gallery closed its doors for the redevelopment of its building on Ramillies Street. The Project will run for one year and is scheduled to end when The Photographers’ Gallery reopens in late 2011."

Visit the website to learn more and to take part.

The temple of football

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Love) — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 15:22:00 +0000

While in Rio, Carlos Vergara's son Joao took me along to see a football match at the legendary Maracana stadium. And it wasn't just any old football match - it was a face off between Rio's arch rival clubs of Flamengo and Botafogo.

I was an honorary Flamengo fan for the day, but unfortunately we lost 2-1 after a thrilling match. I later got to shoot some aerials over the city and I made sure the Maracana was on my hit list.

Here are few shots: