So, if you’re still left wondering what this whole ‘urban decay’ thing is all about… Here’s your chance to be flabberghasted!

Take it away Dave ‘Seinberg’ Feltenberger:

What is Urban Decay, and why bother with it?

Although it’s unfortunately becoming somewhat of a hip buzzword in certain areas of the photography community, Urban Decay remains a powerful subject matter for almost any medium. There’s something irresistible about these scenes, whether they’re urban, rural, industrial, or any human institution. Who lived there? What sequence of events led to the failure of this endeavor and to such a state of disrepair? The stories these places have—imagined or real—lead us to ask more questions and to be amazed by the smallest things. With age, decay, and a certain anonymity, something as simple as a reception desk at a hospital suddenly assumes gravity not matched by many feelings in our everyday experience. You wonder what the receptionist was like; the person’s feelings, ambitions, fears; finding a cheesy romance novel in the desk drawer blows your mind and you think, “Wow! Someone was actually here reading this!”

Well, so what? So somebody was sitting at a desk reading a book 50 years ago — why is a fleeting moment from an insignificant receptionist desk 50 years ago interesting? It seems like it shouldn’t matter, but these are feelings and thoughts that occur on encountering scenes of Urban Decay! What is it that makes Urban Decay so fascinating?

There’s simply the element of age, of course, just as pictures of New York in the roaring ’20s or Paris at the turn of the century are interesting. But Urban Decay is different: it has the age element and something else. I think at the heart of it is the jolt we get when we see human endeavors fail. Not in the way the Germans use the word schadenfreude—to delight in the failure or misfortune of others—but in fact the opposite of that. (I wonder: do the Germans have an antonym for schadenfreude?). In seeing Urban Decay, we have the gut understanding that we’re all in the same boat, and that everything ultimately decays. It takes constant effort to fend off the tendency of things to decay—but we know in our bones what our fate is, and the entropy of Urban Decay puts us face to face with it.

Whatever the feeling is for you, I hope the images collected below evoke some interesting feelings or if nothing else have a certain type of beauty that you enjoy. Oh, and the ordering is incidental; not meant to signify rank or importance; and similarly, there are surely other great examples out on the web, so this is to whet your appetite. Enjoy!

The 25 best of urban decay

1.) Ray Mortenson, Untitled

Ray Mortenson is sort of an Old Master when it comes to Urban Decay. He doesn’t own a computer and still shoots film (never shot digital). The image below is in a show of 1980s Bronx Urban Decay photography he’s having at the Museum of the City of New York right now.

I love the image here: a bull’s eye saying, “Here. This is where it’s happening.” It’s perfect as a political statement, too.

2.) John Feckner, Broken Promises

John Feckner is probably more well-known than Mortenson, and he photographed the same subject matter: Bronx Urban Decay in the ‘70s and ‘80s. But while Mortenson quietly sat on most of his photos for years, Feckner made it a political issue and created images that struck a chord with more than just art school kids. And he’s still doing it.

3.) Richard Nickel, Jr., Untitled

Okay, okay. I promise that not everyone will be from New York. But, uh, Richard Nickel Jr. is another New York photographer. There isn’t a lot of information available on him other than a short article from the New York Daily News, and his name is probably a pseudonym based on an early Urban Decay photographer named Richard Nickel, but Jr’s photography is certainly top-knotch. This photo is great in lots of ways; the framing is clearly meticulous: everything lines up perfectly. The light falling off to the left of the frame, the completely dark room ahead of us begging us to peek our head in. Beautiful.

4.) Troy Pavia, Posts

I’m personally not the biggest fan of the other-worldly colors Troy uses his flash and a gel to make, as I think it can distract from his great photography that stands on its own, but no matter what way you look at it his photos are excellent. Others tend to love the colors so he’s a must on a list of great Urban Decay photos. Oh yeah, except he doesn’t shoot Urban scenes all that often—it’s usually some secluded town, highway stop, military base, or junk yard out in the California or Nevada desert—but Urban or Rural, the feeling that ties this subject matter together isn’t the dense population!

5.) Mike O’Hara at Phattire.net, Sleeping

Full-disclosure on two fronts: first, Mike is also a New York photographer. And second, he’s also a close friend. His being a friend doesn’t change the fact that Mike’s a top-notch photographer, and incidentally one of the hardest working photographers I’ve encountered. Mike tends to be the brave one when shooting in (sometimes dangerous) abandoned spots, too—climbing fences, through asbestos-filled underground tunnels, slipping into small holes in windows…then yelling from the inside how to get in.

This image is titled perfectly: we see some machinery laying on top of rubble as if resting its head; the light is dim and fades off to the left. It’s literally like a hunk of metal is resting. Industrial decay at its finest.

6.) Erik van Hannen, The Master Bedroom

Erik is a Flickr’r, although thankfully not a New Yorker; he’s a compatriot of The Photocritic and from the Netherlands. This photo was taken in an abandoned house somewhere in France. I love how the blinds are still up, blankets are on the bed, a lamp is on the side table, and there’s only a minor amount of chaos. It’s as if whoever was living there decided one day, “I’m leaving” and left everything behind. You can practically feel the presence of the prior inhabitants. I wonder if there’s a trashy romance novel next to the desk lamp? ;-)

7.) Scott Haefner, The Thomspons

Scott is a photographer who shoots in California and some of his work is similar to Troy Pavia’s. This photo is a great example of leading the eye: the steps take us up a rickety path to a rickety porch where there’s a light waiting for us at the front door. Great stuff, and a good use of artificial lighting.

8.) SolusPharus, Last Smile

Another aptly titled image, this shows windows that are seemingly peering out at the viewer from the rubble of its decaying walls.

9.) Evan Helfrich, Untitled

Evan takes great abstract Urban Decay photography. Often you understand that it’s something decaying, but you can’t tell exactly what it is. And that’s the point: to grok it aesthetically, not intellectually.

10.) “ste-peg“, The last second before darkness

“ste-peg” is from Italy and has some really great industrial decay in addition to more unique photos as in the image below. Since he’s in Italy, he has access to some incredible abandoned sites that don’t even exist in places like the US: ancient churches!

11.) Andy Ilachinski, Untitled

Andy’s photography from his website is almost exclusively Black and White, and almost all of it is absolutely fantastic. His Decay photos tend to be simple compositions and high contrast, while expressing a loneliness that is very hard to capture.

12.) Patrick Joust, Hardware

Patrick is a Baltimore, Maryland photographer who captures the moments of Baltimore’s often depressingly decaying urban environment. His Flickr stream tends to focus less on abandoned buildings and more on the areas of decay that are still in use. His photo here is an all-too-common sight in Baltimore: a deceptively lonely area that feels abandoned but is in fact actively inhabited by people.

13.) Ben Borgman, Untitled

Ben doesn’t have much information about himself in his Flickr profile, but this snap of Winnie the Pooh forgotten next to a harsh concrete stairwell struck a chord. Pooh looks innocent, lonely, and concerned—or am I anthropomorphizing?

14.) sisms, House Print

This image has great contrast and composition, showing the only remains of a house that was removed from the side of a building.

15.) Hours of Darkness, Windows of the Past

Hours of Darkness is a good site for information about abandonments and documentary photography. This photo rises above most of the rest artistically, however, in its great night shot of moving clouds in front of an imposing building that’s now harmless and abandoned.

16.) DetroitYES, Untitled

DetroitYES might need a little help with site design, but the writing is good and there are fascinating documentary photos of important decaying historic buildings related to American industrialism. Detroit is a case study in Urban Decay: once the center of the universe for the automobile industry and American industrial might, but now bleeding population (and tax-payer money!) out all pores while the memory of its greatness rapidly fades. This image is a perfect metaphor for what’s happening to the city.

17.) Eric Gustafson

Eric’s site is filled with great photography (really—check it out!), including this one of an old truck that seems to still be holding its own against the forces of decay.

18.) Eric Hart, Standing Figure

This was taken in a nearly-abandoned town in the middle of Pennsylvania in the US. The town is Centralia, and that steam is coming from an enormous underground coal fire that’s been burning for decades, not the subway. This is very good treatment of the subject.

19.) Pascal Pollei, The final resting place!

Pascal has a whole Flickr set of Beelitz Heilstatten, an abandoned Soviet military hospital in what used to be East Berlin. This photo is a good disorienting composition of what must have been a disorienting place to be.

20.) Andrew Qzmn, “Байки из Склепа” отдыхают

Thanks to my great girlfriend and her father for the translation of the title from Russian: Nothing Compared to Tales From the Crypt. And I agree – out in rural Russia, a beautiful abandoned house like this has to have a pretty bizarre story attached to it.

21.) Ride My Pony, Sanvean

HDR can easily be overdone, and this teeters dangerously on that line, but the framing is exceptional and the content is also very interesting. Apparently the last person who used the computer wasn’t happy with his boss…

22.) Sleepy City, MIG

SleepyCity.net is filled with great adventures and photos. This is from an abandoned Soviet military base in Mongolia. How cool!

23.) Abandoned Japanese Bowling Alley

I can’t read Japanese, so perhaps a reader can translate the site, but those aren’t cannon balls: they’re bowling balls in an abandoned bowling alley in Japan. Here I thought it was all neon lights, cell phones, and top of the line DSLRs…who knew Japan had Urban Decay?

24.) Guillermo, Muro I

This is a good offset composition of what seems to be a door or shutter on a decaying building.

25.) Timothy Neesam, Broadway

Last, but not least, some God Beams as they’re sometimes called. It’s magical to see this type of thing in an abandonment: it shows signs of life and light in an otherwise dreary atmosphere.

A big thank you to Dave!

Dave has a photography exhibition of his own Urban Decay photography, titled Traces, in Rockville, Maryland (a Washington, DC suburb). Traces is a collection of images of institutional decay taken over the past several years along the East Coast of the US.

The exhibition is on the second floor at the Glenview Mansion Art Gallery; It started at the beginning of July and finishes on July 28th. Directions
to the Art Gallery can be found here – why not swing by and take a look if you’re in the area, or check out the exhibition online at Dave’s own website.

Finally, if you’re in a stalking mood anyway, why not check out Dave’s Flickr stream – and especially everything tagged ‘urban decay’, of course…

Got your own favourite urban decay photographs or photographers? Leave a comment with a link, I’d love to take a look!

A note on copyright

These images are all © their respective creators. They are being used in low resolution under the “criticism and [...] news reporting” portion of UK Fair Dealing law. If you like the photos above, please click on the links to see the full versions on the respective photographer’s sites. If you are the copyright owner to any of the above photos, and you prefer for your photographs not to be featured in such a manner, please send me an e-mail, and I will see to that they are removed.

Yes, that’s right, I was out globetrotting – on a motorcycle, to be precise. Due to the extremely limited space I had available to me, I didn’t bring my full assortment of lenses with me. In fact, I only brought a single lens; My mighty fine Canon 50mm f/1.4 prime lens (I know I keep banging on about it, but you need a prime lens). Then, as I was traveling around, something very, very interesting happened; I didn’t use my SLR camera at all.

What? No SLR?! You call yourself a photographer?!

I know, it surprised me, too; I brought my little Canon digital IXUS camera with me as a back-up camera, in case something happened with my big camera. And in case I was planning on going out drinking, in which case I consider the IXUS to be as close to you get as a disposable digital camera (have you noticed that you never lose anything you don’t really worry about losing, and always lose or drop your expensive stuff? Exactly…)

So anyway, I was riding along, and the first 1,500 miles, it was raining, and I had my Canon EOS 450D in the top box of my motorcycle. Which means that in order to actually get to it, I would have to:

• Spot something awesome
• Get on the brakes, nearly causing an accident with the car driving behind me
• Park the bike
• Put the bike on its side-stand
• Take the key out of the ignition
• Unlock and open the back box
• Take the camera out of the back-box
• Take off my gloves and helmet (can’t use the SLR with my helmet on)
• Point the camera, take the photo
• Put the camera back in the back-box
• Close and lock the back-box
• Get back on the bike
• Start the bike
• Ride off into the sunset

By comparison, taking pictures with my Digital Ixus was much easier; I was less worried about it getting wet, so I just carried it in the inside pocket of my leather motorcycle jacket. That means it’s protected from the rain by my outter rain layer and the jacket itself. As it turned out, this was more than a-plenty: The camera came out perfectly dry every time. Because of this, it was a lot easier to take photos:

• Spot something awesome
• Get on the brakes, still nearly getting myself killed because cage-drivers never pay attention, and because my motorcycle brakes are an order of magnitude better than any car brakes
• Find somewhere safe to stop, and hold the bike upright with my thighs
• Reach in my inner pocket
• Point the camera, take the photo
• Put camera back in inner pocket
• Ride off into the sunset

All about the opportunism and impulsivity

Now, the fact that I was able to stop on a whim, fish out a camera without having to stop the motorcycle’s engine, without having to lock and unlock the suitcase strapped to the back of the bike, and without having to take my gloves and helmet off, meant that I started the trip taking photos with the Ixus…

… And then never stopped. Sure, at one point (after it stopped raining, of course) I moved the 450D into the tank bag, so it would be easily accessible, but even then, the hassle of taking my helmet off (you’d be surprised: I have to take my gloves off, take my glasses off, then undo the buckle, pull it off of my head, put it somewhere safe so it doesn’t fall off. Then when I want to put it back on, I have to put my ear-plugs (or headphones, if I’m in a music-kind-of-mood) back in, because they invariably get unsettled by taking my helmet off) seemed like too much of an obstacle to bother.

So, despite riding 3500 miles through some of the most amazing landscapes known to man (Seriously, if you’ve never been to Norway, I highly recommend riding or driving from Oslo to Bergen via the Hardangervidda road over the mountain pass, and then follow the coast around all the way to Kristiansand. You’ll be awestruck in the original sense of the word), I never really felt inclined to dig out my SLR camera. In fact, of all the things I brought with me in my (admittedly very limited-spaced) luggage, there were only three things I didn’t use: My long underwear (It never got cold enough to warrant putting them on), my Tyreweld kit (because I didn’t have any punctures) and my Canon EOS 450D.

Needless to say, when you’re on the road for 3 weeks, it gives you a lot of time to think. In the last week, I spent a lot of time wondering if perhaps I should dig out my SLR camera and try taking some photos. And yet, I never did. Which made me think; am I really so lazy that I’m willing to pass up the opportunity for some awesome photos, just because I can’t be arsed digging out a proper camera?

But… Why?!

Part of the reason, I think, is that this tour was never really meant to be a photo tour – if it were, I think I would have taken the time. This trip was meant to act as punctuation between my previous job (which I hated with the passion of an iberian street argument), and my my new job as a writer. But ultimately, I’m still a photographer at heart… So why?

Then it dawned on me; the very same argument for not being bothered to dig out a proper camera is the precise reason why the Apple iPhone is topping the lists for most uploaded photos on Flickr, and why camera phones are so incredibly popular: Phones, by their very nature, have to be very accessible: It’s no good having a telephone which needs to be locked out of a case, taken out of a protective pouch, and pampered into life before you can answer a call. It rings, you fish it out of your hand-bag or pocket, you answer it. This accessibility – and expectation of accessibility – is what makes camera phones such great photography tools; reaching for your mobile phone has become a well-trained movement, whereas most of us are more careful with our cameras. When going out on the lash for a night, you do bring your phone, but you might not bring a camera, for example.

I know I have been slightly schizophrenic in my reaction to camera phones; my hatred of their poor quality optics and results is stemmed by their accessibility (’everyone’ has a mobile phone, and I defy you to find a mobile phone which doesn’t have a camera on it these days) and ubiquitous presence. Formally, and officially: Camera phones are a good thing. I’ll tell you why:

On this trip, I discovered that having a compact camera which I use is infinitely better than a SLR camera that I don’t use, even if the latter has has the potential for much better photos than the former.

The best camera you own is the one you actually end up using… and that’s worth keeping in mind when you pack for a trip, I think…

Read on to find out what it is, where it comes from, and what you can do about it!

A regular reader recently e-mailed me with essentially the above question – and it’s a good one: The inner workings of a digital camera are a little bit obscure to most of us. So, here is my imperfect and slightly simplified explanation of what ISO noise is, where it comes from, and what you can do to reduce it.

How does an imaging work?

Whether you use a CCD or a CMOS chip in your camera, the basic functioning of an imaging chip is pretty much the same: Imagine millions of tiny little light meters squashed into a tiny little chip the size of a postage stamp. How many million? Well that depends on the resolution of your camera, of course, but if you’ve bought yourself a Canon EOS 500D, you’ve got a 15.5 or so million pixels (of which 15.1 million are used), which are squished into a grid of 4,752 cells across and 3,168 cells tall. All of these pixels are somehow fitted on roughly 22mm by 16mm sized space – yes, that’s about the same area as the button on your average door-bell.

When you take a photograph, there are a set of shutter curtains which move aside – exposing the imaging chip for as little as one eight thousandth of a second – giving the sensor time to measure the light that falls on it. Then, the shutters close again, and the sensor sends the measurements to the camera’s cpu, which does some calculations, and then stores the whole thing as a digital file.

Where does ISO come into it?

Now you know pretty much how an imaging chip works – but where does ISO come into it? Well, all imaging chips operate at the lowest ISO your camera supports – usually ISO 100. In this mode, your camera takes its light measurements from its millions of tiny little light sensors, passes it directly to the brain of the camera, which then stores it.

When you crank up the ISO value to, say ISO 400, another step is added to the mix: Your camera still takes the same measurement, but in the CPU of the camera, the measured values are multiplied by 4, to get ISO 400. Or by 8 to get ISO 800. Or by 32 to get ISO 3200. Pretty straight-forward stuff, right?

So, er, Where does digital noise come from?

Silhouette in Concert by Photocritic.org – Also see the full-resolution image for an excellent example of digital noise in photography

Well, think about it: while chips have gotten much, much better in recent years, it’s still a case of 15 million tiny little sensors doing their thing in a space the size of your thumb nail.

The problem is that – as with all precision measuring instruments – they can only be so precise: all of them introduce a degree of measuring inaccuracy. The problem with imaging chips is that they are internally inconsistent, and they are unpredictable.

The inconsistency is a problem which can largely be resolved: The camera can take a photograph, and realises that if one particular pixel always reads a little bit higher than its immediate brethren, it can calibrate so that one pixel is adjusted down to fit better. This calibration is done before the camera leaves the factory, and it’s trivial for camera manufacturers to built-in calibration checks on an ongoing basis – it’s relatively trivial to detect a dead pixel, for example, and then interpolate what its likely value would have been from its surrounding neighbours; and because there are 15 million of them, and we rarely check each individual pixel of a photograph, you’d never know.

The unpredictability issue is different, however; imaging chips are sensitive to temperature, and the act of taking a photograph actually causes the chips to warm up a tiny little bit (there’s a lot of electronics in a camera, after all, including the battery, the CPU, and all the circuitry to tie it all together – all of which generates various amounts of heat). Some cameras have a ‘noise reduction’ feature where they take another photograph immediately after you take a long-shutter-time photograph – but with the shutters closed. The theory is that it should be recording perfect darkness, but in practice it records a variety of readings from all the sensors. By subtracting these readings from the original image, you reduce (some of) the digital noise in an image.

Imaging chips are precise enough that at ISO 100, the differences in readings introduced by digital noise are practically unnoticeable. The problem comes from the multiplication process.

A thought experiment

Imagine you take a photograph of a perfectly gray wall at ISO 100, f/8 and 1/30 second exposure time. Three randomly selected pixels now read 100.5, 100 and 102. No problem; it looks great, and the stored values are within 2% of each other – the wall looks like a perfectly even, gorgeous gray wall.

Now, switch the camera settings ISO to 800, f/8 and 1/240 second. The final result – in a perfect world – should be precisely the same: We’ve reduced the shutter time to 1/8 of the original exposure, but the camera will multiply the exposure by 8 because we’ve changed the ISO. The same pixels now read 12.6, 12.5 and 15.5: The margins of error are the same as above. The camera multiplies it all by 8, and stores 101, 100 and 120 to the memory card. Suddenly, there’s a 20% discrepancy between the 3 values, which becomes very clear in the final image: What you’re seeing here is digital noise.

Now, imagine the same effect at ISO 3200: the pixels read 3.5406, 3.1250 and 5.1875, which the camera multiplies back up to 113, 100 and 166 – a far shot off from the 100, 100, 100 you’d get with a perfect imaging chip.

In reality, the metering tolerances in an imaging chip aren’t that pronounced; but the point is that if you multiply any meter reading with 32 (or even 64, in the cameras which support ISO 6400), you’re talking about pretty serious discrepancies, and some pretty serious noise in your final image.

How can I reduce digital noise in my pictures?

Use as low ISO as you can get away with; Often, it’s better to use a tripod and a remote release cable combined with a longer shutter time and lower ISO, than trying to shoot free-hand at shorter shutter times and higher ISO.

Use shorter shutter times; If you can, use shorter shutter times – the metering discrepancies will still be there, but less pronounced.

Keep your camera’s insides cool; when you take a lot of photos, you’re introducing more camera noise. Also, if your camera has a ‘Live View’ mode, it sucks battery, and means that the camera’s electronics are constantly working hard – which causes heat, and introduces more noise.

Use noise-reduction software; There’s a few options out there by now, and I haven’t used any for a while (Personally, I quite like a bit of noise in my photos – it makes them look more accessible and ‘real’, I feel – but that might just be me), but I know there are some very good options out there. I may do a separate post on noise reduction software when I can.

Before I embark on my new career as the boss of the freshly minted Kamps Consulting Ltd, however, I’m going to ride my rather awesome yellow Kawasaki Versys (FAQ: No, they don’t come in yellow. Yes, I painted it myself. No, it’s the kind of paint they use to paint lines on the roads with. Yes, I did paint it with paint rollers. Well, if you don’t come too closely, it looks quite good) all around northern Europe.

I’m setting off in exactly a week (the 10th of June), and will be gone the rest of the month, so there won’t be too many tweets or Photocritic updates in June – apart from this page, of course, where you can keep track of my progress!

Where are you right now?

By the power of the rather awesome BrightKite, you can keep track of my journey as it goes down.

I’m hoping to post some photos, updates, and – of course, my location so you can keep track.

If you’re particularly curious, subscribe to the RSS feed, or you can follow my progress on Twitter – I’ve set up @3500miles as a special account for this trip.

On the map below, you can to click ‘next’ and ‘previous’ to see how the trip has been progressing!

(Update: The map below only shows the 20 most recent updates – I’ll try to figure out how to make it show all of them, but for now, to read back in time properly, check out the BrightKite page for this trip)

Photos from the trip

These are the photos I’ve added to the Grand European Tour set on my Flickr stream:

Itinerary

Put simply: London – Dover – Dunkirk – Netherlands – Germany – ferry to Gothenburg – Oslo – Bergen – Kristiansand – Oslo again – Roskilde – Den Helder – Dunkirk – London… With a whole load of breaks and stops in between to visit friends, visit sights, and do whatever catches my fancy. I reckon it’ll be about 3500 miles (hence being able to follow me on @3500miles on Twitter, you see).

You can look at it below or open it up in Google Maps.

View Larger Map

So… When are you back?

I should be back in the beginning of July – so until then, have a very lovely summer, and stay awesome, everyone!

This little dial is called your mode wheel, and it’s your mortal enemy, the destroyer of creativity, and the root of all evil in the world including, but not limited to, wars, swine flu, and stepping in chewing gum with a new pair of shoes.

In this article, I’m going to show you the error of your ways (if you’ve been using it), or I’ll show you what each of the settings means, what it does, and how to recreate the effect by using the manual shooting modes instead.

Why do they upset you so much?

Good question. The creative automatic modes make me angry because they take important decisions out of your hands, but that’s not the worst of it: People who are using the creative automatic modes might, in the short term, be able to take photographs of a technical quality beyond what they would normally be able to, but if you resign yourself to letting your camera do the work and make the creative decisions for you, the problem is that you don’t understand the underlying theory behind what you are doing, and despite getting better results, you’re not becoming a better photographer.

Imagine, say, that you had an oven that would automatically detect what you put in the oven, then calculate how big it is, what you’re trying to do with it, and select the right temperature and time, before beeping at you when your Sunday roast / cake is finished or your socks are dry. (What? You don’t dry your socks in the oven? Hmm, just me, then.) Either way, the result would be perfect every time, but where’s the satisfaction in not knowing what your oven did to bake this cake? And more importantly, what if you want to take creative liberties – say, you might prefer your cookies a little bit American-style; gooey inside – or you might want to make them crispier, for example…

The purpose of this article, then, is to ensure that if you want gooey or crispy photographs, you know how much heat you need to turn on, for how long, and if your cookie tray needs to go in the top or the bottom of the oven.

Okay, enough of the dodgy similes already, let’s have it!

Right, in the picture above, starting from the top, going counter-clockwise, the modes are:

Suppress Flash

Photo: Into The Warmth by me on Flickr – no flash needed here, it would have ruined the effect.

Why this is even a mode to itself I have no idea – depending on why you want to shoot without a flash, the easiest thing to do is to use Program mode (but also see Tv and Av, below), which means that the flash will only come on if you tell it to.

If you’re in a low-light situation, pick a higher ISO speed – this will create a bit more digital noise in your photo, but it means that you reduce the need for using a flash. If possible, select a bigger aperture so your shutter speed becomes lower.

Remember the general rule that you can hand-hold a camera at a shutter speed which is the same as the focal length of your lens: So if you’re shooting at 300mm, you should use 1/300 second shutter time or faster. If you’re using a sexy little 50mm prime lens, you can hand-hold at 1/50th of a second. Zooms are the same: if you’re using a 17-35mm zoom, you can hand-hold at about 1/10th of a second at full wide angle, and about 1/30th of a second at full zoom.

Of course, it’s possible to bend these rules, but if you adjust your ISO speed and shutter time to stick with them, you generally get a good, blur-free exposure without having to resort to using your flash gun.

Night-time portraiture

Photo: Electric Light Afro by me on Flickr – By combining flash and a longer shutter time, you get the foreground sharp and the background bright enough to see.

Night-time portraiture is the only of these settings which actually has any merit, in my opinion – not because it’s that difficult to do, but until someone has explained to you how you can get good night-time portraits, it can be a little bit counter-intuitive.

Imagine you’re in Paris with a loved one, and you want to take a photo of them, at night, with the Eiffel Tower in the background. You take a photo with a flash, and you can’t see the tower. You take a photo without a flash, and you can see the tower just fine, but your friend, who naturally is unable to stand still for more than a microsecond at the time, is all blurry and hazy. What to do?

Actually, Av is your friend: In Programme and Tv modes, the flash and shutter time will combine to try to expose your foreground correctly. In Aperture-priority, however, your camera will measure the light that is available to you, and then fire the flash to ‘fill in’ the foreground.

What, in effect, is happening, is that your camera is taking a ‘normal’ photo – exposed for the background – but then also uses the flash to expose the foreground correctly.

For further control (you might decide, for example, that the full 3-second exposure to get the ‘right’ exposure for the background isn’t necessary, and that the background looks OK after only a second, or fraction of a second), you can use full manual mode. On most D-SLR cameras and some external flashguns, you can also set the flash output manually, or adjusting it up or down. This differs from camera to camera (on the Canon, you’re looking for Flash Exposure Compensation, or F-EV), so check in your manual.

Top Tip: For creative effect, try to take a photo in AV mode, but move the camera or use the zoom while you’re taking the photo. Because of the flash your foreground will be static, but you get a hugely dramatic and awesome swirling, moving streaks effect because of the lights in the background.

Sports

Photo: Skate-Zo-Phrenia by me on Flickr

Sports mode is a complete fraud: Use Tv mode, set to a fast shutter time (’fast’ in this case depends on the sport you’re trying to capture. For snooker, fast isn’t very fast, and 1/60 of a second should do, but for horse racing, you need a much faster shutter time), and see what your camera comes up with.

If the pictures are too dark, it’s because your camera needs to use an aperture which is bigger than your lens can do (say, it’s using f/5.6 but needs f/2.8 to do the correct exposure). This is signified by a blinking aperture in your viewfinder, and can be solved by either using a lens with a larger maximum aperture, setting a higher ISO speed, or using a flash gun (although, say, darts players don’t really like it when flashes are going off in their face when they’re trying to throw A HUNNNNDRED AND EEEEEIGHTYYYYYYYY).

Macro

Photo: Coloured Paper (macro) by me on Flickr

I know a couple of things about macro photography, and I genuinely can’t see a single good reason for that Macro mode being on a SLR camera. For a compact camera, sure: It puts the lens into a ‘focus close to the camera instead of in the far distance’ mode, which means that it’s not wasting its time trying to focus far away. On a SLR, if you’re savvy enough to have bought a macro lens, you probably will be fine with Programme mode, and if you haven’t got a macro lens, then you’re basically out of luck (unless you build your own, of course, but that’s a different article altogether).

To replicate this mode in the real world, use programme or Manual mode, use a macro lens, and snap away.

Landscape

Photo: Freedom in Black and White by me on Flickr

Landscapes, glorious landscapes. Set your lens to manual focus, and turn it to the little ∞ (infinity) symbol. Note that it IS possible to focus past infinity – that’s because when you’re working with infrared photography, the light is refracted slightly differently, and you may actually need to focus past what is ‘infinity’ for daylight.

Anyway, your lens at infinity, set your mode dial to Av, and select a large-ish aperture. f/8 or f/11 is a good starting point.

Select as low an ISO mode you can get away with (bearing in mind the rule about hand-holding your camera, above, or just go ahead and use a tripod), and bob’s your uncle.

If you want to get advanced, and you need a very deep depth of field – say, for example – you want a person in the foreground, but you also want the background in focus – read up on ‘Hyperfocal distance’ and prepare to be amazed.

Portraiture

Photo: Shaken, Not Stirred by me on Flickr

I can’t believe they created a separate thing for portraiture – do a search on Flickr for portraiture, and see what comes up. How can they possibly assume that one single mode fits all styles of portraiture?

Anywhoo – for getting good portraits, start with a reasonably long lens (130mm or so is perfect), stand back a little, use a large-ish aperture (f/4 or so) to throw the background out of focus, and start from there.

Full automatic

This mode will select whether you use a flash or not, your ISO speed, your shutter speed and your aperture for you. It reduces your nice, expensive dSLR camera to nothing more than a big point-and-shoot. If I ever catch you (yes, you, I’m looking at you) with your camera set to the fully automatic mode, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ban you from visiting this site ever again.

Go on, live a little, flick your mode dial one notch clockwise, and enter the world of Program mode. The camera still does most of the thinking for you, but at least you are controlling it, rather than the other way around.

P – Program mode

Is one step up from automatic mode – and I confess to using it on occasion: The photographer selects everything except the aperture and shutter time, which the camera calculates for you. If it comes up with a combination of the two you don’t like, use your index finger wheel to change them – turn one way and you’ll see the aperture get smaller and the shutter speeds get faster – and vice-versa for turning it the other way, obviously. Use EV compensation to over- or under-expose your images a little, etc.

Program mode is great if you just want to get the right exposure, and you’re concentrating on just getting the photo, without worrying too much about depth of field etc. I know quite a few news photographers (!) who decided that manual mode was too finicky for them, and are shooting in programme mode most of the time. If it’s good enough for the national press, it’s good enough for me.

Tv – Shutter-speed priority AE mode

In Tv-mode, you dial in a shutter speed (say, 1/200 second), and the camera will attempt to get the ‘correct’ exposure by using the aperture to compensate for varying lighting situations.

… Interestingly, I very rarely use Tv mode, but that’s mostly because if I find myself in a situation where I want to actually control the shutter speed directly, I’m already shooting in fully manual.

One situation where it might be handy is if you’re shooting sports – say, rally racing – where you know you want a fast shutter speed, but the light can change quickly. The other situation I can think of is if you’re panning (i.e. a bicyclist comes flying past you, and you want to get them in focus while the background is out of focus), and you need a slightly slower shutter speed.

One thing to be aware of is that most lenses have a far more limited aperture range than your camera has a shutter time range. Think about it: your camera can do from several minute exposures to a fraction of a second, while your lens will only usefully span a much lower range. If you’re shooting in Tv, keep an eye on which apertures your camera is selecting for you, because if it’s getting too big, some of your photos might come out over-exposed

Av – Aperture priority AE mode

Av mode is the opposite of Tv mode, above: You select the aperture, and the camera calculates the right shutter time. Generally, I shoot either in Av or in fully manual, because for most of my photography, the depth of field (i.e. how much of the photo is in focus) is more important to me than whether the motion is frozen or not.

You get a deep depth of field by selecting a small aperture (f/22, f/32), or a shallow depth of field by selecting a big aperture (f/1.8, f/2.8).

When shooting in Av mode, still keep an eye on your shutter times – if they are very fast without you needing them to be, you may be able to use a slower ISO (switching from ISO 400 to ISO 200), which gives images with less noise. If they’re very slow, your photos might be coming out blurry, and you may want to ramp up the ISO or use a slightly larger aperture.

M – Manual

Go on. Try it for a week. You’ll love it. This is photography at its most control-freakishly delicious.

A-DEP: Automatic depth of field

Is just plain weird. The idea is that you focus on the point that is furthest away, then on the point that is closest to you, and the camera will then focus and select the aperture you need for you. Basically, it’s using the Hyperfocal Distance (mentioned above, under landscapes), but in an automatic way which is actually more complicated to wrap your head around than just doing it yourself in the first place.

I think I can honestly say that I’ve never, ever used A-DEP before in my life, and that I don’t think I ever will. Give me manual exposure and a bit of guesswork any day of the week :-)

Go forth! Prosper!

So, in summary, what I would love for you to do is to reduce your photography to only 4 of the modes above: P, Tv, Av, M. if you’re feeling particularly hardcore, limit yourself to Av and M only.

And if you are a truly epic photographer with skillz beyond my wildest dreams, set your camera to M and pry the button off altogether. Chuck it away. You’ve graduated. Nothing’s gonna stop you now!

On the bright side, after the ‘twitter on photography’ thing became so popular, I decided to do a bit of PHP/MySQL magic, and I’ve integrated the list with Twitter itself.

On The fancy automatic version of my ‘photographers on twitter’ page, you’ll find loads of photographers who use Twitter – and the list is your chance to tap into an exciting, active community of some very talented photographers indeed. And the occasional talentless snapper, too, I guess, but I’ll leave it to you to separate the wheat from the chaff.

So, check out the new twitter photographers page here on Twitter. If you check back often, you’ll be glad to know that I’ve given you the option of sorting by most recent, which should make it easier to find only the photographers who’ve been added to the list since the last time you did a sweep.

Finally, if you want to be added to the list, all you need to do is to follow @TwitTogs – within a few hours, the little robot will do its little robot thing, and you’ll appear on the list :)

Follow me!

You can check the latest of my posts in my sidebar, on Twitter, as an RSS feed, or you can follow me by clicking ‘follow’ on the @photocritic page.

This is, in fact, true – it ain’t cheap to get your wedding photographed – but have you ever thought about why that might be? I decided to find out, and spoke to Randolph Quan, a London-based wedding photograher.

In Randolph’s own words…

Spring is in full bloom here in the UK, so the hectic summer wedding season is about to arrive. Lately I’ve been getting a lot of couples asking me why wedding photography prices are so expensive. While it may seem like wedding photographers live an amazing life by charging through the roof for a day of work, it’s hardly the case.

It goes without saying that weddings are a costly affair. From the venue to the caterer to the wedding favors, the tab just keeps getting higher, and it often seems that wedding photographers are charging a large chunk of that tab. But have you ever though why wedding photography prices are so high? It’s because of the associated costs of being a wedding photographer.

Photo by Randolph Quan on Flickr

Being a good photographer is an expensive investment. Sure, you can find cheap wedding photographers out there, but they’re cheap because they’ve possible cut corners on equipment, and insurance. Or they’re just plain stupid (you hired cheap and stupid?) So let’s take a look at what goes into a photographer’s overhead that adds up to the final cost of your wedding photographer.

1. Labor costs. This one is pretty standard across all industries. A photographer’s work doesn’t end when your wedding does. After the 5-10 hours they’ve put in working (on a Saturday, no less) at your nuptials, the photographer spends hours and hours editing your images so you get a wide array of perfect photographs by which to remember your day. Its not uncommon to work a full 3-4 days editing a wedding. Their time is even more valuable when you factor in the limited number of weekends in a year there are for a photographer to work.

2. Staff salaries. If you book a photographer that comes with assistants or second photographers, your cost is going to be higher. In return for getting more images from various places on your day, your photographer is going to have the pay those assistants.

Photo by Randolph Quan

3. Equipment. The pieces of equipment a photographer carries around is not your typical point-and-shoot. High-end lenses and bodies average around £1500 each. Photographers also carry back-up equipment in case their primary equipment fails, which adds to the cost of the wedding photography prices. In case your photographer is living in the Jurassic period and hasn’t switched over to digital (there are a few out there, somewhere), you also have to factor in the cost of film. Good wedding photographers easily can bring over £10,000 worth of equipment to shoot your wedding. Add in the prices of computers and editing programs like photoshop ( you did buy it right?) and costs begin to skyrocket. Luckily, its not always necessary in the UK to own a car so let’s not go there.

4. Insurance. Because cameras and equipment cost so much, photographers are smart to insure them. Just in case your drunk (who your mom insisted on inviting) cousin Jimmy decides he wants to spray champagne all over the wedding photographer’s equipment for a joke.

Photo on the left by Randolph Quan

5. Web site. In this day and age, a photographer has to market himself with a very high-tech, professional Web site, which can cost a lot to design and maintain if the photographer doesn’t have web design skills. Its not unreasonable to spend over £5000 a year on website updates, and online marketing such as the sponsored links on Google.

6. Advertising. In that same vein, photographers also have to spend money on other types of advertising such as ads in the newspaper, business cards and brochures.

7. Photo extras. If you knew how much albums cost you’d have a heart attack. Albums are extraordinarily expensive and are often added into the wedding photography prices. Don’t forget the time it takes to design them as well.

Photo by Randolph Quan

8. Education. The more educated a photographer is, the better techniques and specializations will be used while shooting a wedding. As everything else, that education comes at a cost through instructors, college degrees, extra classes and seminars, etc. Intangibles such as expertise aren’t easy to measure monetarily, although we try!

So while you may be asking, “why does photographer X cost so much more than photographer Y?” the answer might be simple: Photographer X has spent more money developing his or her business into a full-fledged photography service, which ends up costing more money than an inexperienced photographer who moonlights part time on the weekend.

….And those Porsches we drive up to your wedding in just don’t pay for themselves now do they? :-)

About the Author

Randolph Quan is a London reportage wedding photographer. You can follow Randolph on Twitter and Flickr or contact him via his website if you’d like to get a quote to get him to photograph your wedding

If you would like me to critique your photographs, please do the following:

Follow these steps

1) Get a Flickr account (you should probably do this anyway, it’s free, and Flickr is awesome)

2) Upload 3 photos you’d like me to critique 3 is important, because it’s difficult to give systemic advice on a single photograph. Also, it may be worth not necessarily taking your 3 best photos, but do pick photos that you are proud of, but which you feel might be improved – and yet you don’t know how. NOTE: Nudity etc is perfectly OK, but remember to mark your links with (NSFW) – I don’t want to get my readers in trouble at work or with kids just because they clicked on a wrong link

3) Check your Flickr settings Please ensure that you allow notes on your photos, as these make critiquing much easier for me. Also, the photos have to be of a reasonable size – I can’t critique thumbnails :)

4) Add a comment to this post where the URL leads to your Flickr stream. In the comment itself, please tell me your name (or the nickname you’d like me to use) and link to the 3 photos you’d like critiqued on Flickr

What happens next?

As far as possible, I will follow the structure I’ve outlined in my Doing a Photo Critique article – it’s worth a read if you haven’t yet.

Finally, remember what I said in my ‘dealing with negative photo critiques‘ article – you may not like everything I have to say, but my intention is to help you become a better photographer. If you only want to hear that your photography work is ‘OMG AWESOME LOL’, then you’re not in the right place :)

Also, it’s worth nothing that despite of persistant rumours of the contrary, I’m only human, and I will only do critiques when I feel I can actually make a useful impact – sometimes I may do 3 people in an evening, other times I won’t do any for a while. Partially, it’s because I’m crazy busy with work some times, but sometimes, I’m just plain lazy – do forgive. If you’re desperate for me to critique you immediately, buy me a few beers and I’ll think about it ;-)

The boring bits

By following the steps above, you give me a non-exclusive license to use your 3 photos as illustration images to a photo critique, if your particular critique somehow works well as a separate article on Photocritic. I will not use your photos in any other circumstance without conferring with you first.

I will pick and choose which photographers to critique first – it’s not meant as an insult if yours sits there for a while while I pick off newer entries first – it may just be that I haven’t got much useful to say about your photos because they already are perfect, or perhaps I’m struggling to vocalise what I like / what I would improve about your particular photos. Don’t take it personally!

Photo: Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II by Photocritic.org on Flickr

Photo Critiques Competed so far

You don’t have to submit your own photographs for critique, of course, it’s entirely possible to learn huge amounts about photography by reading good critiques of other photographer’s work, so here, I’ve collected the criticisms and praise I’ve done on Flickr so far:

May 25 ‘09: Jacob Wighton Ants!, Flight of the Birds and Sneaking!

Jul 7 ‘09: HeraldK – Admiration, Shadows and Irish Coastal Road
May 1 ‘09: Jack Makio Ugandan Mother and Child, Dasiy and Plazma light
May 1 ‘09: Jeff The Remarkables and Milford Road
Apr 28 ‘09: Jack Fussel Speckled, Bar Bar Bana and Stunning.
Apr 27 ‘09: MrSimbol Manila by the bay, Business as Usual and High and Dry
Apr 26 ‘09: Per Heavy Lifting, Bench and Martin Luther King Memorial.
Apr 26 ‘09: Ilan (Final) Rest, Man and Together and Alone II
Apr 26 ‘09: Mark – Holy Trinity Silhouette, The Long Drive Home and Autumn
Apr 25 ‘09: Adricv – Jean-Claude, de Haiti, Puppet Shop and Moving Sculpture
Apr 25 ‘09: Gary Kurtz – Photo 1, Photo 2, Photo 3

I was one of the judges, and Christ with a jetpack, if people didn’t come up with some absolutely awesome ideas…

The winner, Picture Hope is a well put together bid for a photographic project full of hopes, ideas, and more than a little bit of passion for a cause – and a well-deserved winner, in my opinion. Also check out the two runners-ups!

Incidentally, the Lenovo laptop the 3 winners win is pretty damn awesome – a huge 17-inch screen and a built-in Wacom tablet to do your photo editing on might actually be enough to (gasp) make me consider having a closer look. Now if only I could run Mac OS X on it somehow, I’d be a very happy bunny indeed…

Anyway, a huge congratulations to the winners, and if you didn’t win – go ahead and fulfill your dream assignment anyway. Especially you, Doubletrax – your Changes in Latitude project deserves a special mention here, because it was the one I found myself telling people about in the pub!

If you don’t care much about design or logos, feel free to skip this post :)

Oliver, do your thing:

It starts off pretty simple. I lean back in my rocking chair and wait until things come to mind which are related to “photography”.

A lens, eyes, a finger pushing the shutter release button, aperture, light, photos, my DSLR, photographic history, the photo development process and other things. Then i pick up my pen and throw all this on
paper.

While doing this I might start with quite complex shapes, but I keep simplifying over and over again if I like an idea and follow it.

For the Photocritic logo I first thought of the people that make photos. I used simplified shapes of a finger pushing a button, a person holding a camera, a human head which contained a camera… but
this was a dead end.

Then i focused on the photos. I drew a piece of paper with a stylized glow, a polaroid and some more paper-like items that didn’t work as well. Here you get a bit of frustration. On the 2nd idea already!

But the ideas will not stop flowing through my mind. Some results looked rather weird and totally out of context: Film rolls, crippled fingers, human heads with lenses as eyes, some alien hand holding a
head… that’s enough!

Then I drew a stylized eye just for fun and started modifying it… suddenly it clicked!

CLICK! I remembered my focusing screen I bought a few weeks ago. I wanted it because of the grid lines which makes composition a lot easier. Bam! I thought of my first camera and the focusing screen that
was inside. Those were the times… looking into the viewfinder and then match the two half circles to get a sharp image. High Tech!

I sticked to that idea pretty quickly and liked it from the start. I was sure that the “distortion” inside the focusing screen could add a nice element, but won’t be very easy on the eye on first glance. At this point I turned to Photoshop and started the design in there. The design was already done in my head (after looking up what those focusing screens actually looked like haha).

And then there was the word “Photocritic”. Hmm. What should I do with it? I just used “PC” and put it inside my design. It didnt work. Changing fonts. Hmm. Another font. This one is good! The font was the hardest part. But luckily I had hundreds to choose from. I was still a bit sceptic if people would misunderstand the letters as “PC = Personal Computer”. But hey, people are not stupid – they are one a photo blog and will make the connection quickly.

Then I was satisfied and started on the colour palette. I picked the colours from the photocritic site and made variations of the surrounding circle, the PC letters and the other elements. Its just a matter of finding a good contrast, I have no specific rule when I like a certain colour combination. Haje liked one combination in particular and me too. So I sticked to it and submitted the final design.

Haje then spent quite a bit of time fiddling with the logo, but ultimately decided that it worked very well as it originally was: After a few emails it was agreed that the logo worked fine. Nothing was really changed afterwards. I hope you like it too ;-)

Thank you!

Check out Oliver’s work on Flickr, stalk him on Twitter, and check out his website while you’re at it!

Since, I’ve spoken to Laurie, who is a friend, Ruby on Rails coder, dancer, and fellow photographer, who offered to write me an article explaining how to get dance photography done The Right Way™. His top tip: Learning about dancing makes you a better dance photographer!

Take it away Laurie…

Ballroom dancing is the hardest photographic challenge I have personally come across. It seems everything is set up to make it hard, and nothing makes it easy. Everyone moves too fast, the lighting is horrible, and getting a spot to stand can be a challenge in itself. None the less, after years of working on it. I finally think I know enough to pass on some advice.

Photo on the right © Laurie Young – see it bigger on Laurie’s Flickr stream!

The first thing, as with any photographic trip is to know what you want to get. For me there are three different goals I can be thinking of. The first is to try and great stunning photos. The sort that i want to frame and maybe even sell as art. Secondly I want to document the dancing, including all the bits that don’t look so good, the mistakes and the moments in between the rehearsed lines. Surprisingly this is what most dancers are looking for when they ask to see my photos, as it helps them improve. Finally I want to capture the emotion of the day, the excitement and nerves before the competition, the release after coming off the floor, and the joy or disappointment that any competition brings. I’m not going to talk about this one today, as technically its similar to portraiture, and so off topic.

Like any demanding field of photography, the equipment you have really makes a difference. You are just not going to get really good photos with anything less than a semi-professional DSLR.

The biggest single leap I took was getting my hands on a camera with no shutter lag. If you are waiting between when you press the shutter and when it takes the photo, you have no chance of getting anything, dancing is ALL about timing, and so is dance photography. Hand in hand with this is a camera with fast autofocus. More than anything else you can spend your money on, no lag, and instant AF will improve your pictures.

For the choice of lenses, I like to go for the extremes, either a telephoto, or a wide-angle. Standard lenses have little to no place in my kit bag. Having said that, I use the telephoto to pick out just one couple or dancer, and if the competition is in a small room, then this job is done best by a slightly longer than standard lens like 70mm.

Either way, the lighting is going to be low, so the fastest lens is going to pay dividends. Personally I use a Sigma HSM 70-200 f/2.8, and this seems to be the lens of choice among the other photographers. For wide angle I like about 20mm, which i use mainly for the Standard (ballroom) dances from right up close.

Photo on the right © Laurie Young – see it bigger on Laurie’s Flickr stream!

Flash is a good next addition to your kit. You are going to be taking a LOT of photos, so it needs to recharge really fast. In a dark room you are going to be dumping a lot of charge with each flash. I use a Metz Hotshoe Mounted gun, charged from a Quantum battery pack, and even then can easily go through 2-3 full charges of it in a day.

The last thing you need is memory cards. Lots. If your shooting an all day competition, you are probably looking at between 1000 and 5000 photos. At full quality thats a lot of GB, so stock up, or bring a laptop to download onto.

When I arrive at the competition the first thing I do is get a feel for the light levels. Competitions are held in lots of different venues, from community halls with lots of windows and ample natural light, to the Winter Gardens in Blackpool, a massive hall with quite dim lighting. If you are lucky there will be some spots of lights from down-lighters, or even follow spots, which can make for some great photos. Personally I prefer not needing to use flash, it is hard to avoid flash shadows, but its not always an option.

I tend to meter manually, taking some sample shots till I am happy with the ambient light, then setting the flash on auto, (use the most advanced form of auto your camera supports) which will generally do a nice fill in. Because the dancers are moving so fast, and because the background at competitions is typically horrible, a wide aperture and really fast shutter speed is the best. Autofocus should be on, but if your camera can’t focus fast enough, then pre-focus on a specific part of the floor, and only take photos when people dance on that spot.

Next decide where to position yourself. My two favorite spots are on the balcony, looking down with a telephoto, or right on the edge of the floor, close enough to get hit by the girls dresses as they go past.

Photo on the left © Laurie Young – see it bigger on Laurie’s Flickr stream!

If you do this, be nice to the judges. They are competing for the same floor space, and often have to stand right in front of you to get their job done. It can often feel like part of the judge’s training is learning how to stand right in front of photographers, but I have been assured this is not true. Annoying as it is, its something you have to accept. If you are at the floor edge, then kneel down. Your camera should be at or below the dancers waist height. Otherwise you are going to foreshorten their legs, and no girl, and pretty much no dancing guy is going to be happy with that look. The lower the camera is the nicer the legs will look. Just don’t get so low you get accused of trying to take photos up the girls skirts!

Now its time to take photos. This is where your biggest problems are going to begin. At first it will feel like lots of random motion is going on, and you only ever see a good photo after you have missed the chance to capture it. To fix this, you need to learn more about dancing, and learn the individual couples routines. Here Latin and ballroom start to differ. Ballroom is all about motion, so still photos are always going to be difficult. Add that to the fact that each couple is effectively embracing each other for the whole dance, you will always get the back of one persons head.

Except in the “lines”, those moments when the dancers stay on the same part of the floor for a bar, and show how they can stretch, and create impressive shapes. Learn the routines. If you watch them for a lap or two of the floor you can start to see that they repeat the same steps each time. This lets you predict when such a line is about to happen.

In the Latin dances, there are lots of accents. Highlights in the music where the dances do something dynamic, powerful, or sudden. As you learn more about the music these become more predictable. In Cha Cha, its normally on count 1, in Rumba, its on 4. In Paso there are two specific highlights. Learn the music and you can tell when these accents are coming. If you have learnt the couples routines, you can know when they are about to go into a line, if not, assume they are going to do something that hits the accent. You will be surprised how often you are right.

You really have to listen to the music, and be as aware of it as the dancers are. Its the only way to get good photos of dancing.

Thank you!

Thank you, Laurie, for writing up your guide for us. If you liked Laurie’s writing, check out his website, and of course, give his Flickr stream some love, too.

Inspiration

As with so many other things in life, Flickr is great for inspiration for finding great dance photography. Plug in the name of the dance and search by most interesting, get a feel for what can be done!

Can’t be bothered searching yourself? Can’t blame you – here, let me help: Tango, Paso Doble, cha cha, Rumba, Salsa, Merengue

Other searches worth trying: Latin dance and dance, of course.

After gawping at his photos in incomprehension, I just had to ask him if I could interview him about his technique, and see if I could get some tricks of the trade out of him – luckily, Sion was happy to oblige.

So, if you have an iPhone and want to learn how to put its camera to good use, or if you just want to find out how you can take incredibly moving photographs even with inferior equipment, you’re in for a proper treat…

King of the Castle by Sion Fullana on Flickr

1) Why do you take photos with your iPhone? What other cameras do you
have, and why don’t you use them?

There are various reasons why I love using the iPhone for photography. I guess the most basic is that you carry it on your pocket all the time so you have a photographic device always ready if the opportunity shows, instead of having to wear a big bag with a heavier camera.

Secondly, even though I know the 2MP lens of the phone is not too much for quality, I am convinced that under the appropriate amount of light and holding the iPhone very still, you can get images that would put to shame some great SLR cameras. It’s something about the colors and the light that the iPhone captures beautifully, and it allows you to go for certain type of shots that may be less perfect but with a very special and distinct signature.

Last but not least, since I do mostly street photography, the iPhone certainly allows me to get some good “sneaky” shots of people without them noticing. Something that with my bigger camera I couldn’t be able to do.

When I don’t shoot with my 3G iPhone, I take out my Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50, a camera that despite being considered a point and shoot still, has all controls and zoom manual, like an SLR. I use that one mostly when I cover journalistic events, or when I’m exploring a new area in the city where I want to take some wider shots or some street portraits from a bit further, zooming in.

Gentleman on a rainy day by Sion Fullana on Flickr

2) How long have you been using camera phones for photography?

Well, my iPhone was my last birthday’s gift from my boyfriend, on July 2008. So I’ve been using iPhone for 8 months, and taken around three thousand pictures with it. Almost 400 per month. Not bad, i guess.

3) Your work is quite amazing – your iPhone photos (despite all the limitations of the iPhone) are better than many people would be able to do with a DSLR – can you pick one of your favourites and talk us through your process step by step, from fishing the camera out of your pocket to people being able to see it on Flickr?

Oh, thank you very much!! Let me actually use for this the last photo I have uploaded on Flickr, as I really like it.

So here’s the story: I was on my way Uptown for a birthday dinner and I take the subway towards Times Square. In front of me, on the platform, I see this beautiful, elegant girl with her boyfriend. They both look awesome and I decide to take their picture, using the Camera Bag application, Helga Style (my favorite!). Unfortunately, the app decides it’s one of those times when it will crash and force you to restart the phone, losing your good image.

A bit down, we all enter the train, super packed in rush hour. The girl is sitting right in front of me, while I stand up. And suddenly, even with the movement of the train running, I see her using her pocket mirror to put some make-up on, and I’m fascinated. So I quickly snap the photo and off we go, Times Square…

Hours later, back home, I download the photos to my MAC, I see and like the image of the girl, and I go straight to Picnik, my favorite processing software. I tweak the image a bit by using the Cross Processing and the Orton-ish effects, and I upload it to Flickr and start spreading it around in my favorite groups.

So you can see here the original image and the final result (which you can also see (and comment on / favourite etc) on Flickr, as “Paint my eyes in blue“). I love post-processing and what you can achieve sometimes with it. It’s a fascinating part of the process of taking photos, for me.

4) What are your top tips for people trying to wrangle some sense out of the iPhone as a camera?

I would say “Don’t stop trying”. Shoot, shoot, shoot. Experiment. Look for reflections, seek for rays of light in the hours after lunch on a sunny day, stay quiet for a while in a corner and hold your iPhone very still and snap at everything that crosses your path. Try movement effects. And also, do not hesitate about using photo applications.

My truly favorite had been VINT B&W, that allows you to get some beautiful black and white images, with the right contrast and tone… until I have recently tried and fallen in love with the CAMERA BAG app, specially the Helga and 1962 styles.

5) What would you improve about the iPhone to make it a better camera?

Obviously, there are things that could improve the experience of iPhoneography, indeed. Giving it some extra resolution wouldn’t be bad at all (more Megapixels for better quality). Some settings straight from camera (some control of shutter speed, or white balance) would be great too.

Woman on Heels by Sion Fullana on Flickr

6) Are you a professional photographer? Tell us about yourself!

Well, when do you get to call yourself a professional photographer? When you work exclusively taking photos? When you have made any money with them? When you are famous because of your images? :-)

Right: Mirror of Soul (Self Portrait) by Sion Fullana on Flickr

Let’s just say for now that I have become more serious about photography in the last year and that I love documenting the world through my lens, and that I have been selling my first images recently. My greatest goal with photography is try to raise awareness of the small details and the special moments in daily life that surround us but we tend to overlook in our rushed lifestyle.

When people have told me that this is one of my strengths, I feel I’m on the right path. Whatever the future may bring me with photography, let it be welcome!

The Yellow Line will take you home by Sion Fullana on Flickr

As for my background, I am originally from Majorca (Spain). But I have also lived eight years in Barcelona, two in Cuba (where I graduated in filmmaking) and now I reside in New York, where I am currently since 2006. I am a journalist, writer and filmmaker.

I work freelance as a reporter / photographer, and I’m currently in the very early steps of investigating a documentary film project about GLBT homeless kids in New York. You can see some of my previous work on my Youtube page and -if interested- purchase some of my photos on my website.

Thank you!

Thanks for helping us along and explaining your work, Sion! you’re a star!

If you liked this article, why not take a closer look at Sion’s work on YouTube, Flickr, or his own website?

Now, the other day, one of my readers, Brad, posted a rather fantastic and soberingly clear comment about what the law actually means to photographers. It was written from an US point of view, but frankly, the law is similar in much of the world. Beyond the law, however, you should be looking for a helping of ‘common sense’. This ‘common sense’ thing isn’t as common as its name would indicate, so hereby; a healthy dose of common sense and a quick refresher of what you can and can’t do when you’re out and about with your camera…

I was so happy to find this in my comments, that I figured it’d be a crying shame if it stayed hidden away as a comment on a long-forgotten blog post, so hereby, republished in all its glory. That means that some of the comments (where they are replying to other comments) are a little out of context, but I’ve linked directly to the correct comment where possible, to clarify.

Take it away Brad:

The law can essentially be summed up like this:

1. You can take a picture of anything you see – especially when you are in public.

2. You CANNOT take pictures where there is an expectation of privacy such as in a rest room or locker room. (more about Expectation on Privacy on Wikipedia)

3. You cannot legally trespass, but if you are on a side walk and you were so inclined you can photograph people in their back yards or on their porch. I think the back yard is over the line though.

4. You can take pictures of people or children in any public context. BUT DON’T FOLLOW LITTLE KIDS OR YOUNG WOMEN AROUND AND SCARE THEM. Legally though, you can follow people to get that shot – remember the Princess Diana chase. Perfectly legal.

5. You cannot profit from your work without signed releases. But to restate, feel free to snap away. It is only your commercial use that is limited.

6. You NEVER have to surrender your camera to or discuss the nature of your photography with anyone without a court order.

The photo with the guy wearing the ‘I ♥ Michelle Obama’ shirt is Me to, brother. Me too. by Photocritic.org, on Flickr. It was taken street-photography style without permission – but sits very nicely in my portfolio, which is perfectly legal.

Protecting your right to taking photos

I hate government oppression too. I was oppressed last summer at a pool. The Captain of the Guard approached me and asked me about the nature of my photography. I advised him that it was none of his concern as I was in a public place photographing what is in the public view. Furthermore, I told the “Captain of the Guard” to call the police expecting them to tell him there was nothing they could do about it. Without rehashing the whole story, the police can stay there and observe you. They may lie to you and try and intimidate you even making threats such as banning you from a public park (which they cannot do). Luckily, I happened to be on the phone with an attorney at the time. As an aside, you ARE required to provide police with valid ID if asked.

In a case like this, take pictures of the police officers, their badges and their cars. Indeed, take pictures of all the people involved and go public with it. Continue taking pictures of your original subjects. It is perfectly legal, they cannot prohibit it unless you are on a restricted government property or at a nuclear facility. You can also take as many pictures as you want of whatever and whomever you want including the person escorting you out of a private place(for example you are at a mall and being escorted out). If you are alone, get somebody on the speakerphone as a witness to what is being said.

Assault (fear of harm), Battery (physical contact), Terrorist Threats (threats of violence), vandalism (damage to your property) are serious offenses. If someone like an angry spouse or parent threatens you with harm or attempts to seize your equipment calmly offer them the opportunity to stand down and walk away. Suggest that they call the police or their attorney. If they do not stand down, call 911 and press charges.

How to avoid being photographed

For better or worse a person’s sole recourse is to seclude themselves should they wish to not be photographed.

So:

1. When you are in public, dress and behave appropriately or you may find your picture on MySpace or something similar. I don’t know what your son was doing when his ex photographed him, but if they are all appropriate the pictures may convey a different sense than the words the ex is using. Whatever the pictures convey however, is true for that moment in time.

2. Dress your young children appropriately even at the pool. They may be photographed. You CERTAINLY DO NOT want them to appear older or sexually appealing.

3. Encourage your teens to dress and behave appropriately. They may be photographed. Do NOT buy them clothes that you do not want them seen in.

4. Do NOT threaten or harass a photographer. You may find yourself in front of the magistrate if you do. You most certainly will if you threaten me.

5. Be conservative. Do NOT make yourself into an irresistible subject.

As for the lingerie store worker: The contents of the store are NOT copyrighted works. That is not what would prohibit this person from entering the store with a camera. Indeed, unless it is posted otherwise, he can walk into the store with his camera. He CAN be ordered to leave and must comply since it is PRIVATE property. He can enter in the first place by virtue of being a store open to the public. Permission to enter is implied. That is why your store my wish to post a prohibition notice against photography inside the store.

Now, if this is in a mall, mall security can escort him out. He can of course take as many photos of anyone or anything he wants while he is being escorted out of the store or mall.

If he is on the side walk outside the store unfortunately, you are out of luck. He does not need your coworker’s permission to photograph her.

Good photographers are ALWAYS looking for a good photo opportunity. That could be a beautiful woman, a handsome man, a child playing (some facial expressions are golden), an animal, sunset or barn. Who knows.

Young Jealousy by Photocritic.org on Flickr – an example of a street photograph involving children. As I do not have model releases for them, I cannot sell it as stock, but (at least in the UK), I can use it in a newspaper article related to the event in which it was taken (St Patrick’s day parade), or I could post it on Flickr and use it as part of my photography portfolio.

I recommend getting your shot and moving on though. The longer you stay, the more likely you will be noticed.

I don’t know what this guy was doing at your store. If it was a one time thing hopefully he just found her an attractive subject, But admittedly, it sounds “creepy.”

There are times when I may sit or stand somewhere for more than an hour or two just taking pictures of people maybe trying to catch their expressions on an amusement park ride or a water slide. Little kids ooing at zoo animals and the like are awesome shots.

Advice, if someone is trying to seclude themselves from you (the photographer) such as moving to an area out of your view, though it may still be public, respect their privacy. If someone POLITELY asks you not to photograph them or their children you should respect that. If they are rude, screw them. Do what you want. NEVER FOLLOW A LITTLE KID AROUND.

Lastly, there is no expectation of privacy when you are in public. That is why I suggest being conservative. A “peacock” will almost always get its picture taken especially if it spreads its tail. If someone is taking your picture and you do not like it:

1. Politely ask them to stop
2. Leave if they won’t

Consult your attorney if you have any questions.

Brad

Closing notes

Please note:

This post was excerpted from a comment of the ‘Your Rights as a Photographer‘ post, and was republished as an alone-standing article with permission from the original poster.

Please note that nothing on this blog can be considered legal advice – if you have a query, please contact your attorney.

The photo at the top of this post is Boston Police – Special Operations, by Paul Keleher on Flickr. The photo is Creative Commons-licenced, which is why I used it; I have no opinion on whether the Boston Police force is better or worse when it comes to matters of bothering photographers, so it serves purely as an illustration image.

There’s something really difficult about looking after your copyright on the internet. Every single word I’ve ever typed in this blog, for example, is duplicated at least a couple of times around the web. The problem is that words are easy to find. Pictures, on the other hand, are a different tumbler of guppies… As Maciej Dakowicz found out, when his photographs suddenly surfaced on the Telegraph’s online edition…

Photos going astray…

What had happened in this case is that someone found his rather awesome Flickr set called Cardiff at Night. Go look at it. Maciej is a brave, brave man for taking a Canon 5D out on the streets of Cardiff. It’s not the roughest city in the world, but, well, look at the photos; I did a photo project like this in Liverpool once, and people tried to mug me on several occasions. As for Maciej’s set, see Be Blessed, Night Calling, Cold Night and Police Car. In fact, look at the whole set, it’s a rather fine collection of night-time photography.

I’m digressing like a drunken prostitute in a snowstorm. Let me try to start that sentence again. What happened in this case is that someone found his rather awesome Flickr set, and posted it on an Hungarian site, probably with a title along the lines of ‘lol look at thz drnk english twats’, which would be largely incorrect, because the spelling hurts my eyes, and Cardiff is, in fact in Wales, so it’d be more fair to assume that the bulk of people in the photos are Welsh. I digress again.

Facsimile of Maciej’s Cardiff at Night Flickr set. (screenshot used under Fair Dealing)

After suffering the injustice of having his photos nicked once, someone at the Telegraph came across the photos, hashed them into a photo gallery, and published them. A lot of people – myself included - were impressed by the photo gallery, and ended up linking to it via blogs, Twitter, etc.

I shan’t speculate as to what sort of procedures the Telegraph have for checking copyright and reimbursing the photographers involved, but it’s pretty safe to say that whoever they got permission from didn’t have authority to give such permission. Someone subsequently recognised some of Maciej’s photos, and notified him. Understandably, he was pretty damn pissed off, grabbed a screen-shot, and e-mailed the Telegraph.

The Telegraph apologised and took the gallery down, offered their ‘usual fee they pay for online galleries’, says Maciej, which comes to £125. Nice of them, and I guess they’re making some sort of effort to solve the situation. My personal opinion is that offering up £125 for having stolen a gallery of photos is an insult, and that Maciej should get in touch with a solicitor to get suitable compensation, but that’s not the point of this article.

The point is, however, that this could have happened to just about anybody – .

So, what do you do when this happens to you?

First off, calm down.

No, really. Calm down. Flying off the handle is not going to do anyone any good – lot of people (yours truly very much included) get very indignant and angry about things like this, but naming and shaming (or ranting and raving, for that matter) is generally not the right thing to do – there are systems in place for dealing with copyright infringement, so use them…

If the people using your photos are a professional outfit (like a company, as opposed to, say, some random blog), your steps should be as follows: First off, immediately send a NTD – Notice and Take Down. This is a legal request in which you’re demanding the website in question removes your images immediately. In effect, they’ll have to remove them as quickly as possible, which normally means within 24 hours. For a publication (websites, newspapers etc), send the request to the photo editor – if the photo editor’s contact details aren’t on the website, give them a bell and ask for their details. CC the editor of the publication.

Now, hopefully, they’ve taken down your copyrighted material (if they haven’t, contact a solicitor, because they are now knowingly infringing on your copyright, which raises the stakes all around), and it’s up to you what you want to do. Personally, I’ve on occasion guilt-tripped the photo editor in buying other photography work from me in the future (with the idea that if my work is good enough to steal, it must be good enough to pay for), and in effect, I still supply photographs to one publication which stole my images by accident.

Alternatively, you can send them a bill (see how much shoudl I charge for a photo for an indication of how big that bill shoudl be) for unauthorised used. If they don’t pay, then file a small claims court judgement (this normally costs £25). What normally happens when you do that is that they’ll get in touch with you and settle well before it ends up in court. If you billed them £1,000 for a set of photos, and they offer you £600, I’d go for it, it’s more money than nothing, and it saves you the hassle of going through the legal system.

What if you can’t get in touch with them?

Some times, it’s nearly impossible to find out who is actually responsible for the copyright infringement – if someone posts your photos as their own on Flickr, you contact Flickr and they’ll deal with it for you. If it’s a hosted blog (like wordpress.com or blogger), you can report them to the host, and they’ll deal with it. If, however, it turns out that it’s someone running on a foreign domain, without any contact details (or, say, whenever you call the phone number on the domain registrar you get through to someone who only speaks Chinese – which happened to me once), you might find yourself in a spot of bother. This thread from 2004, for example, outlines what happened when someone nicked around 100 photos and placed them on a Russian site.

Lots more advice is available from the UK Copyright Service (like their Copyright Infringement Fact Sheet or the very useful 10 copyright myths). The Publishers Association Infringing Websites helps with some terminology which may come in useful.

Finally, it’s actually possible to go after the ISPs of the people hosting your content – which only helps if you can actually contact them, of course. If any part of the hosting business is based in the UK or USA, you have a case for going to them directly – they can then shut down the entire site if necessary – but only if they are co-operative, of course.

Finally, you can ensure that the enfringing site gets de-listed from Google by filing a Google Digital Millennium Copyright Act Infringement Notification, which takes a while, but might at least mean that the site hosting your copyrighted content gets less traffic than they normally would.

Further reading

I’ve done a lot of writing on this general topic recently – check, for example, Photo Licencing and the Law, Be careful what you sign, Can I use the photos I’ve taken? and how much should I charge for a photo?.

Finally, please note that I’m not a solicitor, and nothing posted in this blog may be construed as legal advice. Contact a solicitor for advice.

Well, if you can imagine such a thing, you’ve just imagined the bright art of painting with light. I’ve spoken to my good friend Brent Pearson who is ‘a bit good’ at this light painting malarkey, in the same way that Pele is a bit handy with a Football, and Antonio Lucio Vivaldi knew a thing or two about chord progressions.

“I have enjoyed landscape photography for almost 30 years”, Pearson told me in a recent interview. “However over the past few years my landscape photography has evolved and I’ve started doing more and more long-exposure photography.”

It was as part of this long-exposure work that I first ‘discovered’ Pearson – he has an amazing way of combining the zen-like peace of landscapes with the chaos of motion and light.

Getting into light painting

“I enjoyed capturing the movement in landscapes and the abstraction that long exposures introduced to my images allowing me to simplify my compositions.”, Pearson explains. Night-time landscape photography was the natural extension of that work

Of course, landscapes are tricky enough when they’re done during the day – take away the sunlight, and you’re up against a whole new set of challenges. “Composing and focusing when you can’t see through the viewfinder is tricky”, Pearson laughs, but obviously there are issues beyond merely not being able to see what the hell you’re doing, like the challenge of calculating your exposure at night without the aid of a light meter, and managing noise of long exposures with a digital SLR.

“With a reasonable amount of experimentation and trial and error I started understanding the techniques that would give me consistent results at night and wanted to continue exploring and experimenting with night photography.”, Pearson explains “… And that is how I was introduced into the world of light painting.”

Light painting is a term that often associated with the creation of light trails in an image, however there is a totally different type of light painting that offers the landscape photographer unprecedented levels of creativity – the painting of landscape images using light sources that are not visible to the camera.

“By photographic standards, this is the Wild West!”, Pearson claims, “There are new frontiers to explore and new trails to blaze. There aren’t many photographers doing this type of photography… perhaps because of the technical challenges associated with photographing at night, or perhaps because there are not a lot of comprehensive guides or manuals to help photographers climb the learning curve without becoming frustrated. ”

The Benefits of Landscape Lightpainting

By having control over the light, light painting is like unleashing the control and creativity of studio photography into the outdoors. With the long exposures that are associated with night photography, you are not limited to lights being statically positioned; “free to wander around a scene with various light sources literally painting landscape features with light means you get a completely different level of creative control.”, Pearson says, and lists off some of the extra control you’re granted by taking the camera outside in the dead of night:

You get the chance to control the direction and intensity of light, the quality (by changing your light sources) of the light, and the focus and colour as well, by using light painting techniques, coloured gels, ‘barn doors’, etc

In post-production you also have incredible control to blend your light painted images together with the control of a lighting director using a light mixer.

Getting started with light painting

Probably the most important component of light painting is the light source(s) that you use.

“Over the past 12 months I have been trialling a variety of light sources from the humble house torch through to home-built high powered light sources that emit a very even high-quality light”, Pearson says. “My light painting kit now includes three light painting tools: My workhorse light which is a high powered fluorescent light, my camera flash unit, which is great for lighting interiors with colour, and my high-powered head torch LED that can light objects up to 80m away.”

Learn from the master

Pearson has been noticed, and is often approached by people who want to learn the tricks of the trade. “I’ve had numerous photographers ask me how they can learn how to light paint landscapes.”, Pearson says. Like any good teacher, he decided to seize the opportunity and run with it: “I have finally put together a comprehensive step-by-step guide to night photography and landscape light painting” – which is available on his Night Photography Guide website.

“If you feel like your ready for the next photographic challenge”, Pearson concludes, “then I urge you to get out at night and start discovering a new photographic world!” – and I couldn’t agree with him more! Get over to Brent Pearson’s site and grab a copy of his eBook – it’s well worth the cash, I reckon!

If you’ve taken any light-painted landscapes (or any other style of photography for that matter), do post a comment with the URL in the comments below – I’d love to have a look!

Have you made any cool images using this method? Post them somewhere on the internet – your blog, perhaps – and add a link to the comments, so we can admire the photos!

Starting with a series of photographs taken with the camera on a tripod, to ensure that the angle doesn’t change:

I loaded all of them into Photoshop, and copied them to the same document in different layers. When doing this type of editing, it makes sense to arrange the images in a way that allows you to work from top to bottom, or from left to right. So the first thing you need to do is arrange the layers in a way where they have a logical progression. In the case of the images above, I layered them in the order 4 – 5 – 2 – 1, with 1 on the bottom

The easiest way of doing these photos is by doing it in a way that the character doesn’t interact with itself, but on the other hand it is a lot more believable if they occupy the same field of view (i.e overlap) or interact in some way – getting them to hand things to each other, or similar, is an additional layer of messing with your readers’ brains.

Now, in the top image, carefully cut out the area you don’t need. The trick is to cut off as little as possible. For the sake of example, I’ll show you what I would do if I were to add another photo all the way to the right of this montage:

By leaving as much of the image intact as possible, chances of getting the cut-out wrong are limited. In this case, because the right side of the girl isn’t cut out at all, there are no mistakes to be made!

Hide this layer, and move on to the next one, and the next one, etc.

Finally, you’ll probably spend a bit of time carefully polishing your cut-outs. You may also need to darken some areas to ensure that the shadows look genuine – do you remember what we said about that in How to spot Photoshopped Images? Exactly.

Now, when you’ve put all the photos together, you get a result that looks like it could happen, if it hadn’t been for the fact that this lady doesn’t have any siblings, much less quaduplets…

Couple of examples

Do you like this stuff? Well, have a go at it yourself! And just to get you on your way, why don’t we add some more examples? The following three were taken free-hand, with quick series of five shots for each photo. In case you recognise the background: Yes, it’s taken in Vigerlandsparken, in Oslo, Norway. I think it was around 2003 or so.

Photo: Skatezophrenia by Photocritic.org on Flickr

Photo: Skate-zo-phrenia 104 by Photocritic.org on Flickr

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

So, what do you reckon? Can you do better? Of course you can! Get cracking, and post the results in the comments – I’m curious!

Couple of other examples

Photo: Self portrait with self by Photocritic.org on Flickr

Photo: Jonathan Squared by Photocritic.org on Flickr

Finally, if you like these, you can get loads more inspiration on the Multiple Exposure group on Flickr!

This post was originally posted in 2006 (which is why the observant among you will notice a couple of old comments on this post – so no, you’re not going loopy:). I’ve updated it and added a few more photos, hence the re-publish.

A sad state of affairs – especially as I recently bought a gorgeous Canon 50mm f/1.4 prime lens. (I could rant about prime lenses for hours, but I’ve done so in a previous post, which (if I may nest my parantheses and be so bold as to recommend one of my own articles) is well worth a read), and I have a fabulous city right on my doorstep.

Anyway, so I have never really done that much street photography before, but I figured it’d be a crying shame not to have a go at it…

For someone who hasn’t done much (read: any) street photography before, I think I did pretty well – these are some of my favourites:

Mean Fiddler

This photo, Mean Fiddler by Photocritic.org on Flickr, was a lucky one indeed. Shot from the hip just as he was finishing playing a song, the colours came out magnificently, and I got quite lucky with the focussing as well – Seeing as how I was shooting from the hip at f/1.4, it wasn’t as if I had a lot of leeway with my depth of field.

Technical Details: Canon EOS 450D with a Canon 50mm f/1.4 prime lens. 1/320 second at f/1.4 and ISO 100, metered in Aperture-priority AE with a -2/3 stop EV bias. More tech info here.

"Is he taking a picture of me?"

This photo, "Is he taking a picture of me?" by Photocritic.org on Flickr, was taken in the midst of a St Patrick’s day parade on Trafalgar square. She was hanging out with some of her friends in front of a fountain, and the light kept catching her, so I figured I’d try and capture that. The back-lighting was quite tricky (and, considering that all of these photos were taken on a single attempt, with one shot at getting it right, I think I got lucky), and I’m happy that I was shooting this in RAW, because I needed to do a few adjustments to make the photo come out well.

Technical Details: Canon EOS 450D with a Canon 50mm f/1.4 prime lens. 1/1250 second at f/1.4 and ISO 100, metered in Aperture-priority AE with a -2/3 stop EV bias. More tech info here.

Dreaming over Coffee

This particular shot, Dreaming over Coffee by Photocritic.org on Flickr, came about right at the beginning of the walkabout in London – I was in line for the queue at Nero coffee, and spotted this girl, who was sitting there, enjoying her coffee, and being rather blase about checking out the cute guys walking by – what is more summerly than that? When the moment came, I simply lifted the camera to my face, snapped the shot, and paid for my coffee. Simples.

Technical Details: Canon EOS 450D with a Canon 50mm f/1.4 prime lens. 1/200 second at f/1.4 and ISO 100, metered in Aperture-priority AE without EV bias. More tech info here.

Me too, brother. Me too.

This one, Me to, brother. Me too. by Photocritic.org on Flickr, was taken immediately after the girl above. We were sitting on the statue in the middle of Seven Sisters, and were watching the world go by. This fellow just showed up, stopped right next to me, and stared at the sky for a bit – His T-shirt made me laugh, so I couldn’t not take the shot.

Technical Details: Canon EOS 450D with a Canon 50mm f/1.4 prime lens. 1/200 second at f/2.8 and ISO 100, metered in Program-mode AE with a -2/3 stop EV bias. More tech info here.

MOAR!

If you want to se more, you can see the whole set on Flickr.

Also, if you haven’t seen many updates from me recently, it’s because I’m out of the country for a while, doing a load of photography and eating a lot of lovely food while visiting my parents in Mumbai, to be precise. When I come back, I’m finally moving back to London again – if I can find myself a place to stay, that is.

So why am I being whiney? Well, just like horsepower isn’t everything on a car (a Mazda MX-5 would trash a 1000 horsepower drag racing car on a twisty race track) and clock frequency isn’t everything on computer processors (a 2 Ghz current-generation processor wipes the floor with a 4Ghz Pentium 4), Megapixels by themselves mean absolutely nothing.

The first prosumer-grade dSLR – the Canon EOS D30 – only has 3.1 megapixels, but the photos it was capable of taking is a world of difference from even the best current camera phones.

“Three megapixels”, I hear you cry, “That is laughable in a world where you are buried in a deluge of 5- and 6 megapixel chattersticks the second you step into a Carphone For You!”. And you’d be right. Nonetheless, the fact that the D30 takes high-quality glass means that the photos it delivers is sharper than any camera phone (and most compact cameras, for that matter).

What happened to the Old One? by Photocritic.org on Flickr

The point is that even though it’s possible to take some fantastic photos with a simple camera phone (I recently wrote about the amazing stuff people are doing with the comparatively inferior iPhone camera, for example), the phone manufacturers need to get their priorities straight: Megapixels only affect the size you can show (or print) a photograph. Most of us post our photos on Facebook, Flickr or send them to our mates, so size clearly doesn’t matter – but quality does.

Most photographers would much rather have a 2-megapixel camera with a good lens than a 20 megapixel camera with poor glass at the front.

So Sony Ericsson, LG, Apple, Nokia and the rest of the gang; if you are reading this: give us proper auto-focus, faster and higher-quality lenses, flashes, proper shutters, and the possibility to manually override the automatic exposure.

This article was originally published on FiveFWD.

The reason for repeating it is down to a comment by Sharon on Twitter, who mentioned that she loved Strobist, but hadn’t really gone through much of its backlog – which is a shame, really, since the Strobist blog is positively awesome. While I’m no Strobist, I’d like to think that Photocritic also has some articles in its history that are worth visiting – so hereby, a list of ‘if you read nothing else, read this’

Most commented, most viewed, and most awesome – all for you!

Most popular in 2008

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

1 – Extreme Macro Photography on a budget
2 – The dirty tricks of food photographers
3 – Nude Photography 101: Photographing your Girlfriend
4 – Try nude photography
5 – Top 50 Photography Websites
6 – The top 15 digital SLR cameras
7 – Concert photography
8 – Creating a photography portfolio
9 – Nude photography Avec Renoux
10 – The Ultimate guide to HDR

Above right: Missy in Liverpool by Photocritic.org on Flickr

Most popular of all time

Glass, wood, brick, sky and lens flare by Photocritic.org on Flickr

1 – Extreme Macro Photography on a budget
2 – Photographing Smoke
3 – Try nude photography
4 – Concert photography
5 – 100 amazing iPhone photos
6 – How to win a photography contest
7 – The dirty tricks of food photographers
8 – The 12 best photos of 2007
9 – Top 50 Photography Websites
10 – Your Photos, 300-style

Above right: The Darkness in concert by Photocritic.org, on Flickr

Haje’s favourites not in the above list

Photo: Freedom in Black and White by Photocritic.org, on Flickr

Just because an article is popular doesn’t mean it’s necessarily best. You’ll notice there’s a lot of nude photography stuff in the list above, so it’s obvious what kind of things people were searching for to find it :-) I have some more ones that are worth reading, though, if you fancy it.

In general, I turn my favourite articles into ‘featured’ articles, which means that they get ‘featured’ on the Photocritic home page that you can see all of them by checking out the Featured category. If you can’t be bothered, though, then check out these 10:

1 – Creating your own photography blog
2 – Teaching yourself photography
3 – Lens Flare and how to avoid it
4 – The return of Street Photography
5 – White balance explained
6 – Prime Lenses and why you need one
7 – Dealing with Negative Critique
8 – Expose for the highlights
9 – Teaching photography to a 5-year-old
10 – How to do a photo critique

Above right: A Very Sharp Photo by Photocritic.org, on Flickr

It’s a while ago since I asked now, but after I redesigned this site in the beginning of February (Yup, everything you’re looking at here is my heavily modified design-hack based on the B Social theme for wordpress), I’ve been meaning to get a new logo. I haven’t had one for quite a while, actually, and I figured it was time to change that.

Trickier than it looks…

The problem is that it’s actually damn tricky to design a logo which screams ‘Photocritic’. What does a photo critic look like? Is this site even about photo criticism anymore? It started off as a DIY blog – but that was mostly because the first article I posted on here was about DIY stuff.

Since, as you’ve been able to tell, Photocritic has been a lot less about equipment (although we do have a lot of articles about equipment – if you’re curious, check out the equipment category list), and a lot more about doing fun things with photography.

In trying to design a logo, then, I was stuck with the ‘how the hell do you illustrate ‘fun with photography’. I had some ideas, tried them out, and subsequently threw them all out. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I’m not much of a designer (I’m not much of a photographer either – for proof, check out my Flickr account), so finally I gave in and asked for help via Twitter, which got me a few responses, including one response from the amazing Oliver Ruehl.

Logo concept

His idea was to get a lot more abstract with the logo – moving away from the idea of ‘pictures’, and towards the idea of ‘taking photos’, which was a shrewd idea. From here, he came up with some interesting concepts, including the idea of using a split-image focussing screen as the main element of the logo.

This has a couple of benefits: If you have no idea what one of those things is, then the logo still looks distinctive and recognisable. If you do, you’ll probably be overcome with nostalgia and reach for your analogue SLR camera, just to re-experience the brilliance of manual focussing without the guesswork.

Applause!

Check out Oliver’s work on Flickr, stalk him on Twitter, and check out his website while you’re at it – he’s a legend and a gentleman. Hereby publically; Thanks for making me an awesome logo, Oliver!

I admit it; I’m as bad as the next man. “Hell, I’ve earned this”, I tell myself. “I paid a lot of money for a camera that has a good light meter, who am I to second-guess it”? And I’m right of course – Programme mode is great for snapshots. I use Aperture priority mode frequently when I want the fastest possible shutter time. And I override the light meter too, by setting a -2/3 Exposure value, because I’m petrified of over-exposures.

Rusty by boliston (Creative Commons) on Flickr

But here’s how the boys are separated from the men, and the girls from the women: Unless you have an instinctive feeling for how shutter times and apertures work in perfect harmony, you’ll be struggling to really realise your visions as a photographer. Opinion? Fact? Who knows, but what have you got to lose? Go on, go manual, and add your photos to the Manual group on Flickr while you are at it. (Or you could, y’know, start the manual mondays challenge!)

For one week only, set your camera to Manual, and take photos only like that. Don’t cheat even once. At the end of the week, if you still don’t like it, then you’re welcome to switch back.

But I bet a good few of you would benefit greatly from making the switch, if but temporarily. I know I will.

Good luck!

Big thanks to @Patryk for the idea, and to boliston for the illustration image.

Every reasonably enthusiastic photographer eventually gets asked if they wouldn’t mind photographing a wedding. That, my good friends, should be your cue to run. Run for the hills, run for the bus, run for you life, just get the hell out of there. Leave it to the professionals or those with worse judgement than yourselves. Just don’t do it.

Ah, what am I saying, as if any of you were going to take my advice on that point anyway. Right – so if you really have to do a set of wedding photos, remember rule number 1: Get it right. No, seriously. Get it right the first time. Don’t screw it up. It’s a big deal.

To help me convey quite how big a deal it is, I’ve got some help from the amazing Tom Wicky, who has taken some mighty fine wedding photos in his time.

Isn’t it just portraiture on steroids?

Well, yes, sort of – Wedding photography is a lot like most portraiture: Your job as a photographer is to capture people. Capture the spirit of the events, the tears and laughter, and the raw, sheer emotion that comes bubbling to the top whenever two people get married.

It’s more complicated than that, though.. “Wedding photography is different than most types of photography because there are no retakes.”, Wicky explains. “Sports photographers know the pressure I’m talking about. In fact, wedding photography gets me in to a very similar state as sports. As a former swimmer, I get the same butterflies/nervousness in the church as I did on the starting blocks.”

And he’s not wrong – there’s something magical and awesome about wedding photography: you get to see people at their most intimate (okay, perhaps they get more intimate later in the evening. About as intimate as they’ll get with their clothes on), but the moments are very, very short indeed, and if you miss them, they’re done.

When I photographed my very first wedding, I was absolutely bricking it, never been so nervous in my life. What if my camera fails? (I brought a spare). What if my autofocus didn’t work? (I shot the whole thing on manual focus). What if my memory cards got corrupted? (I went out and bought some very expensive SanDisk Extreme cards to safeguard against that). What if… What if… I couldn’t sleep the night before.

Stealing a glance by Photocritic.org on Flickr

In advance, I’d met the bride, who was a friend of my then girlfriend, and seemed nice enough. Then I met the groom, who was a friendly guy indeed. But then I met the parents, who were intimidating, including a mother who, during the 20 minute introduction, managed to ram home ‘this is a once in a lifetime experience, you know, I’m very worried that you’ve never photographed a wedding before’ about seventy eight times.

Wicky experiences weddings much in the same way: “I even have a pre-shoot ritual like in swimming that I do to get ready for the event to get my mind clear and focused. It sounds nuts, but if you’ve every been lead on a wedding gig, you know the butterflies and sweaty palms I’m talking about.”

But don’t let me scare you out of it, because – as with every other harsh test of reality you’re likely to come across – there’s gold at the end of the rainbow. “Funny thing about weddings is – and here’s the good part – when all is said and done, all the wonderful food, dresses, the location, the atmosphere, the huge budget… it will all slowly fade over time… only the pictures will remain”, Wicky explains, and summarises in a few words how I feel about wedding photography: “I’m proud and honored that people trust me to record these memories for them.”

Formal wedding photography

If you get over the first hurdle, and you’ve decided that, yes, it’s worth going through all of this, then you’ve got another barrier to scale: There’s a lot of etiquette and expectations around wedding photography. I’ve shot one formal shot where I was asked to reproduce the bride’s parents’ wedding photo from the early 70s – both of them standing on a stairway, one step up from each other, in glorious 1970s dresses. It sounds god-awful, but the result was bloody awesome, because it meant something, and they both wanted to nail this one particular shot. I’ve done other photo shoots (thankfully not as part of wedding shoots) where the well-meaning art director had a brilliant idea which Just Didn’t Work – because one of the models was too tall, and another model was wearing a skirt where (I’m sorry there’s no truly polite way of saying this) there was no way of photographing her without showing off her girly bits.

Till death do you part by Photocritic.org on Flickr

Anyway, do excuse my rambling – the point is, as Wicky points out, that “at first glance it appears that the photographer is limited in creativity. Every has seen the stereotypical bossy obtrusive wedding photographer, who all get the same shots. It’s like getting your picture taken for your high school yearbook – but you don’t have the text or your senior quote to set yourself apart.”

As for myself, for one of the weddings I photographed, I was approached by the bride’s mother, who had a neat Excel spreadsheet with a list of the shots she wanted – 45 of them. Of which 30 were various combinations of ‘bride, groom, family member A who doesn’t like family member B’, followed swiftly afterwards by “… and family member B and C who can’t be seen in the same photo as A”. I got through it (and subsequently – most unprofessionally, I admit – drank a prodigious amount of strong brandy from the free bar to get over the ordeal), and vowed never again.

Don’t get me wrong – wedding photography can be lucrative business, a lot of fun, and perhaps even both – but your biggest strength as a photographer will always be to know your weaknesses. Me, I’m not much for patience, and I much prefer doing things my own way, so I can’t give much advice on the formal shots.

Stolen kisses by Photocritic.org on Flickr

But seriously – think about it this way: you were asked, chosen, or blackmailed into doing wedding photos for a reason, right? That reason is probably that they like your photos, not that they want you to operate as a technician. The key thing is to be clear, frank, and upfront about this with the bride and groom: Tell them clearly what you can and can’t do (and what you will and won’t do, even if you can), and then it’s up to them to decide whether you’re the right photographer.

As my favourite wedding photographer Wicky puts it: “I think as photographers, all this parity in the marketplace is the opportunity to set yourself apart”. Amen.

Documentary style wedding photography

Most of the weddings I’ve photographed have been 90% documentary style (as in – everyone, please get on with what you’re doing, and please ignore the camera altogether). I guess perhaps that’s why I was drawn towards Wicky’s style as well, as it’s similar in philosophy (As he puts it: “I like to think of my photography as natural and intimate. My best shots are emotive with a journalistic, street photography edge to them.”), yet quite dramatically different in execution.

Right: Trash the Dress by Tuffer on Flickr

So, how do you shoot ‘documentary style’? I find that it’s useful to let everyone know what you’re doing, and why you’re there: That you’re taking photos, but that you just want people to ignore you. At first, this is a little bit tricky for people to accept, but the trick is to shoot a lot of photos in the beginning of the event – even if you don’t see anything worth photographing. Once the initial edge wears off, people become more off-guard, they get used to the incessant clicking, and you are able to blend in much better.

Once people are used to your presence, the time has come to do what you do best: Observe.

The Bridesmaids by Photocritic.org on Flickr

Wicky explains it best: “I get my best photos by looking for things and observing things that most people miss. Whether that is a pattern in the audience, a background hiding somewhere, interesting lights sources or color arrangements – I try to exploit these differences so my work stands out from other photographers.”

Wedding photography, like portraiture, is a constantly changing landscape where people are the chief ingredient. Observe, and you’ll find the most amazing pieces of theatre playing out right in front of you – all you have to do is to catch a sixtieth-of-a-second slice of the action.

The key is uniqueness – every wedding is different, and so every set of wedding photos will be special, unique, and exciting. But you’d be amazed at how much of the photographer you see in the photos. “It is very hard to get shots that truly differentiate themselves from my competitors”, Wicky muses, “but that, make no mistake, is the goal.”

Photo by Tom Wicky

Play to your strengths – I, for example, have a lot of experience with doing live gig photography, and so I feel most at home with a long, fast zoom lens (my preferred weapon is a 70-200 f/2.8) or a fast prime (I’ve been using a cheap-as-chips 50mm f/1.8 so far, and can’t wait to put my new 50mm f/1.4 in use, if I’m ever invited back to photograph anyone’s wedding, but that’s a story for later in this article)

In short, if you’re used to working in a studio, then set up a makeshift studio. If you prefer high-ISO, tricky-light situation shots, then stick to that. By all means, get creative and explore, but ultimately, someone else’s wedding is probably not the right place to try out a new lens. As Wick illustrates: “I wouldn’t know what to do with a softbox or an umbrella if you gave them to me – besides the obvious.”, and so he has the wisdom to just leave them be.

Photo by Tom Wicky

Is that a Canon in your pocket…

When it comes to equipment, you have to be quite clever, but ultimately, if you’re comfortable shooting street-style with a Leica M-series, if you love shooting film instead of digital, if you think it’s a wise idea to shoot a wedding with a Lomo (and, I guess, if your bride and groom agree), then have at it, and knock yourself out.

The most important thing is comfort: You don’t want to pick up a hired top-of-the-line Canon digital SLR only to discover that it’s too heavy for you to operate comfortably, or set out to take a set of photos with a lens that turns out to be too wide (or too much of a tele, for that matter).

Father and Bride by Photocritic.org on Flickr

Personally, I shoot weddings – as already mentioned – with whatever Canon EOS dSLR body I’m currently using (right now, a 450D because I’m not working professionally at the moment and my 30D wasn’t too fond of being dropped from a great height), my 70-200mm f/2.8 lens and a fast prime. I’m itching to photograph a wedding where the starring pair are willing to let me experiment with a Lensbaby – which could cause some absolutely awesome photographs, but may also end up with a load of photos that are a little bit too wacky to be useful, and I haven’t been brave / stupid enough to try.

Wicky shoots with a Canon 5D MarkII and a Canon 450D, with a variety of Canon L-series lenses.

Top 10 wedding photography tips

Tom, who has far more experience than me in all of this wedding photography lark, helped me put together Photocritic’s top 10 tips of type absolute golddust – if you take away nothing else from this article, go ahead and memorise these – they’ll come in handy some day, I promise:

1 – Create your own style

Be yourself. Post authentically. Don’t try and be someone you are not. Find a style and vision that is your own. Make sure it matches what you believe in and stick to it. Study others but let that influence translate into your work and push your work to a new level.

If you don’t have a style yet – keep shooting! Following on the sports metaphors, the more at-bats you get, the more time you spend on the range, the better you know your equipment, the better your results will be.

Make a Wish by Photocritic.org on Flickr

2 – Build your portfolio

When starting out it is vital to gain experience, so build your portfolio carefully. It is a bit of chicken or egg dilemma but eventually someone will let you shoot their wedding for free. Once you have one, use that work to get another one.

At first, look for unique weddings (e.g, exotic locations, ethnic weddings, unique style of wedding, etc.) to shoot – this will allow you to distinguish your work more easily. Be prepared to shoot many wedding for free as you build your portfolio. When you have enough excellent shots, put together your portfolio and begin telling your story.

Dance little sister by katialo on Flickr

3 – Use color

Many ‘experts’ insist on B&W and many clients will tell you they only want B&W – I don’t buy it. At times will B&W give a better feel? Sure. But not always. Use color as an additional element in your work. Watch how the light hits colors in your frame and capture it. Look for patterns in colors or color sequences and see let them work for you…you can convert to B&W anytime.

Touched by Photocritic.org on Flickr

4 – Use the internet

I can’t imagine building a wedding photography business without it. The internet is a great equalizer. it let’s you broadcast your message, your style, and your work just as wide and far as the other professionals in your field.

Leverage Twitter, Facebook and weddings sites where potential customers hang out online. Build a blog and update it often with valuable information. Spend time and energy in building your online portfolio – this is your virtual handshake and look in the eye. It better make a good first impression.

5 – Use a Second Photographer

As there are no timeouts and no retakes, consider using a second photographer. Be sure you can work with him before jumping into a partnership. It is very important his style meshes; if his style is highly post-processed with studio lighting and equipment – probably won’t mix well with your handheld photojournalistic style.

Right: A Bride by Neona on Flickr

6 – 3 G’s – Get Good Glass

Lenses – buy the best glass possible. Digital cameras might be the biggest marketing hoax in the history of marketing – buy the glass. Going from standard kit lenses to professional series lenses is a watershed change in quality. Forget megapixels, forget sensor size – it’s all in the glass boys and girls…

If you can’t afford Canon L-series (or whatever Nikon’s top-of-the-line equivalent is), try using high-end Sigma or Tamron lenses (their cheap lenses are even worse than Canon’s own kit lenses, but the top-end stuff is 90% as good as L-series glass at 40% of the cost). Failing that, buy yourself a couple of nice prime lenses.

7 – Be Ready

Adrenaline junkies apply here. You’ll love shooting weddings. You should always be ready to shot – keep your finger on the trigger – you never know when the shot of the wedding is coming. Without fail, the shots that are the best are never the ones you think they are or going to be. I almost always find them when searching through pics afterwards….

8 – Know your bride

Well, yes, and the groom as well. Getting to know your bride/groom/wedding party is critical. The better you know them, the more comfortable they will be with you and the easier time you will have make them at ease and getting your shots. As you get to know them, you will feel more and more comfortable moving them around and asking them to try different things.

Most importantly you will be more likely to get authentic, true emotion. Like here:

Photo by Tom Wicky

If I had not been on good terms with this wedding party – I never could have gotten them to light up like this. That emotion makes the shot.

9 – Be Prepared

Go to the venue(s) ahead of the big day, get them to provide you with a brief about who the key people are (Bride and Groom are obvious, but can you tell the groom’s mother from the groom’s mother’s best friend?), and find out if there’s any issues or frictions you should be aware of. I (Haje) once screwed up really badly in one wedding by asking the groom’s mother to pose with the groom’s father – only to discover that they hadn’t been married for 20 years, had gone through a deeply acrimonious break-up, and scarcely were able to stay in the same room together. Needless to say, the photo didn’t come out very well.

The last wedding I did – for a good friend of mine – I didn’t actually make it to the wedding ceremony in time. I blame my satellite navigation system, London Traffic, and the weather, but nonetheless: If you think it may take you 5 hours to get somewhere, plan 10 hours. There’s absolutely no excuse for not showing up at least an hour in advance – in fact, I’m damn lucky they’re still talking to me.

10 – Visualise

Would you let you shoot your own wedding? If the answer is ‘no’, then don’t even embark on this particular adventure – but if it’s ‘yes’ – how would you shoot it? What would you want to have photographed? Which of your guests would you definitely want to appear in the photos somewhere?

Go on, storyboard the top 10 photos you’d like of your own wedding – and then do the same for the wedding you’re about to do. Whatever you do, don’t show these storyboards to anyone, but the process of putting them together will go a long way towards thinking up new ideas ahead of a photo shoot.

Walking down the aisle by Photocritic.org, on Flickr

Recent favourites

So, of course, between Tom and myself, we’ve got a couple of favourites up our sleeves.

Tom knows what his recent top shot was… “My favourite has got to be this one from the mountains in Austria. We were in a little village in the middle of the Austrian Alps. The church we were in had no heating and was poorly lit. Outside, the fog rolled in the morning of the wedding and was thick as soup. I was worried I might not get 10 ‘keepers’ from the entire job. But about 10 minutes after the church ceremony ended, a crack of sun broke through the clouds. The ray of sun was there for literally 5 minutes. I quickly got the bride and wedding party out behind the church in the snow and the outcome was magical. The white dress on pure white snow with a peek of sun through mysterious clouds was truly a once in a lifetime shot. The bride and groom were thrilled.”

My shot has a similar story behind it – this is by far my most favourite wedding shot I’ve ever taken. They wanted some photos done in a field with sheep (they’re both from Texel in the Netherlands, which is famous for sheepswool). All the way at the end of the shoot I had an idea – which came perfectly true in this shot. Needless to say, they loved it.

I pronounce you… by Photocritic.org on Flickr

About Tom Wicky

Tom’s love for the lens developed in 2001 over a six-month trip through Europe when his Canon 2-megapixel beauty was his only currency. His days consisted of documenting his travels and finding creative ways to offload images from his 128MB CF card in remote places that had never seen a digital camera before.

Tom is the publisher of popular photoblog ZoomVienna - a photoblog detailing his life as an expatriate living in Vienna, Austria. In 2005, Tom captured an image a day for a year documenting a year in his life on the road. Since then his works have appeared in various travel books and magazines, music CD covers, textbooks, and in United Nations brochures. National Geographic considered ZoomVienna a top photo resource on Vienna in its November 2008 issue.

Tom brings his vibrant street photography style to weddings which allows him to cover different angles than those typically seen from other traditional wedding photographers. Although happy to shoot the compulsory ‘formals’ of the wedding party, he prefers to blend in with the guests letting his photojournalistic style document the action as it unfolds. Check out his website – Tom Wicky Photography, or find him on Tom can also be found at tomwicky.com, zoomvienna.com and on twitter!

I was on the train the other day, and spotted the light hitting my book in a gorgeous way. Cursing that I didn’t have a proper camera with me, I decided to try and capture the moment with my iPhone. The results were actually really quite good, which piqued my interest; are there people out there taking works of arts with their iPhone?

It turns out the answer is a resounding ‘yes’ – and I wasted most of the evening and night collecting 100 fantastic examples of people taking gorgeous photos with their iPhones. Without further ado…

The Apple iPhone as a camera

The iPhone is many things. It’s the most flawed phone I’ve ever owned (which I wrote about here back when I was still editing T3.com), but it’s still heads and shoulders ahead of any other phone I’ve ever owned, too: It’s the first device that does everything I need to, the apps functionality is a stroke of genius, the built-in GPS and maps has saved my bacon so often I’ve lost count, and I’m a recovering Trism addict, too. It’s got the best screen on any phone I’ve ever used, and the whole touch-screen thing is fab.

Having said all that, the iPhone’s camera is pretty damn inferior compared to the current slew of camera phones out there. I had a couple of Sony Ericsson phones that had better battery life AND a far better camera (with – gasp – autofocus!) than Apple’s raprod.

And yet… it’s the first camera phone I’ve used where I’m taking photos all the damn time. It helps that the iPhone makes uploading photos to Flickr / Facebook or e-mailing them to friends very easy, and the fact that your photos are Geo-tagged for you is pretty nifty as well.

So yes, the iPhone is a rather fantastic machine overall, with a sub-par camera. That doesn’t stop people from making some damn fine artwork with it though…

(Top tip: the iPhone takes the photo when you release the on-screen shutter button, so you can find it, press and hold, frame, and then just release the button when you’re ready)

So – despite its shortcomings, it turns out there are some pretty awesome iPhone photgraphers out there. I’ve collected some of the best…

The best of the best

In my research, I found a few photographers in particular that are worth taking a special look at for their work with iPhone cameras: Sionfullana has more than 400 iphone photos in his stream, and his iPhone set is full of absolutely fantastic photos, including tons of great street photography around New York.

Update: I’ve done an interview with Sion Fullana about how he takes his amazing iPhone photos!

The other photographers that kept coming up time and time again are Steve Bluestein, whose abstract work is fantastic indeed. Finally, Bananajode, and carolthome both have really distinctive styles which is an inspiration in itself.

Between these four, they’ve got art with an iPhone camera covered – but there are so many others out there who dabble in iPhone photography – with fabulous results. Witness…

100 fantastic iPhone photographs

It took me a hell of a long time to collect all of these, but they’re all worth taking a look at – first off, 55 with thumbnails…

photo by bananajode

photo by pierre bédat

photo by breamarie

photo by bfscott2007

photo by imagohun

photo by Silence99

photo by Hieroglyphics…’

photo by pouwerkerk

photo by pressapposky

photo by clearstyle

photo by clearstyle

photo by Richard Sintchak

photo by 03ｗ

photo by kcvsf8

photo by clearstyle

photo by toalston

photo by photo_aperture

photo by kayakvarberg

photo by tsurujun

photo by raney_day

photo by presuggan

photo by bananajode

photo by bananajode

photo by Jonas

photo by imago2007

photo by stevebluestein

photo by cruzan

photo by kt

photo by ascott

photo by stevebluestein

photo by chrishalford

photo by stephenhackett

photo by bleak

photo by zach_manchester

photo by guest_family

photo by badastronomy

photo by pixelhound

photo by ath-har

photo by bananajode

photo by libratem

photo by stevebluestein

photo by guest_family

photo by tsulacus

photo by mackro

photo by stevebluestein

photo by guest_family

photo by stevebluestein

photo by stevebluestein

photo by bananajode

photo by stevebluestein

photo by andyi

photo by libratem

photo by mattloveskicks

photo by psylense

Even more!

Still haven’t had enough? I don’t blame you to be honest, there’s a lot of awesome iPhone photography going here, so you may as well keep going! The next 50 or so haven’t got thumbnail images (partially out of laziness, and partially because these users have chosen not to share the ’small’ versions of their images with the world) – but have a click, have a look, and enjoy!

photo by AdamBaronPhoto
photo by ilyysamanthaa
photo by shoken
photo by rayguntv
photo by uncommon
photo by carolthome
photo by version-3-point-1
photo by carolthome
photo by bitrot
photo by steviezj
photo by the-challenge
photo by studioh
photo by jswright
photo by carleton_hall
photo by big-e-mr-g
photo by jswright
photo by junku
photo by petermarik
photo by maitexu
photo by dogmatic
photo by sionfullana
photo by ronlemise
photo by alexthegirl
photo by x-cao
photo by x-cao
photo by antomic
photo by davidwatts1978
photo by journalrevolution
photo by hrtwrk
photo by littlepretty
photo by romeez
photo by gabo
photo by funcrodrigo
photo by yusheng
photo by sionfullana
photo by michaelnyc
photo by big-e-mr-g
photo by jswright
photo by sionfullana
photo by Otto K
photo by sionfullana
photo by sionfullana
photo by skyblueskin
photo by marcel83
photo by Matthew Burlem
photo by carolthome
photo by sionfullana
photo by Tabangel7
photo by sionfullana

And finally, the photo which set me on this wild goose chase in the first place; the only iPhone photo I decided would be good enough to place in my main Flickr stream:

On the Train by yours truly

Join the fun

Want to get in on the fun? Check out the Taken with iPhone group – or check out the there’s currently more than 30,000 photos to be looked at, and they welcome you to add your own, too. Or you can check out ‘taken with iPhone‘ camera browser on Flickr.

… And if you find any amazing gems I’ve missed, do leave us a comment – I’ve been thoroughly amazed by peoples creativity so far, and I’d love to continue being flabberghasted! :)

Peter chats with PICTURE in his cozy Brooklyn workspace about his roundabout path towards editorial success, and shares some tips on the dos and don’ts of photography.

This awesome guest article was contributed by Anna Sian, who normally writes for Picture Magazine. This article has been generously contributed to Photocritic as a sample of the writing you’ll find in Picture (a bit more about the magazine can be found at the bottom of this article)

WHERE DID YOUR PASSION FOR PHOTOGRAPHY START?

I went to the University of Texas in Austin, where I was a business major. I had to get in a suit three times a week and go to meetings and career fairs – it was all pretty depressing and I had no idea what I wanted to do. I saw a tryout for the student newspaper (which ended up being a big paper, and their photographers win a lot of Pulitzers) tried out for it, never really having taken a picture before, and I had a point and shoot camera.

I think I was just too ignorant to be intimidated by it all – I was just happy to be there. But I worked really hard and it was something I felt really passionate about, and I started seeing pictures everywhere, that I’d never noticed before. So that’s how I got started, taking the journalism route at the beginning.

AFTER SCHOOL, DID YOU ASSIST SOMEONE? HOW DID YOU LEARN?

I got a job at a newspaper coming out of school and I assisted myself a lot. I would read magazines, look at pictures, and try to figure out how they did it. There are things that took years to figure out that I think an assistant could have gotten by just asking a simple question, but the process of making so many mistakes trying to figure things out.

I went through about 900 different styles during that process, any gimmicky thing you can think of, I tried. Actually, there’s just kind of no replacing actually doing it yourself. Having not assisted, it was tough at first because I was doing it all roundabout and backwards, but I think in the end, it worked out.

HOW DID YOU GET YOUR FOOT IN THE EDITORIAL DOOR?

I come from a rich family. I just sent loads and loads of cash and they hired me. I’m actually much in debt right now. No, um…I feel really blessed that I started the way that I did. Well, while I was working at the newspaper I was based out in Texas and I was considered a regional photographer. And I started working for Texas Monthly which I had always heard was a mg that was always respected around the country – I knew a lot of people shot for them, Keith Carter, Mary Ellen Mark, Jeff Minton, and all these folks today.

Scott Dadich was there at the time, now the Creative Director at Wired. He was pretty new there and I think he liked what I was doing and so he called me for a shoot and I did another and they got bigger and bigger. It was fortunate for me to start that way, because he really encouraged me to experiment. And it was like someone was paying or me to do personal work.

Everyone has a label on their heads. Every time you see someone, you can read two words about them. People just have to know you as the Texas guy, the funny guy, the quirky guy, the dramatic lighting guy, the guy you call when no one else is available, guy or gal, whatever it is. I always encourage people who call me to really figure out how to conquer their market before they try this. But I guess if you’re already here, and you’ve already done it, you just assist.

All my first assistants, when they’re ready to go out on their own, I always put them in touch with all the editors I think they would work well with. And they usually have a relationship with them somehow already. But starting from scratch can be pretty tough.

SO HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR STYLE NOW?

I’ve been shooting for about 10 years, and I’ve been doing this kind of magazine stuff for about 5 years. When I started out, I think I was a much quirkier photographer. I never wanted to take a picture that didn’t have a point of view or a sense of humor, always looking for something a little bit off, or a little different. I think where that made some really good images, it was also a point of undue stress.

I figured out eventually that not every shot has to have a punchline. It could just be a nice intimate portrait of someone, and I think that’s what really helped me where I am now. I do try to find something interesting or funny to say but if its just a really kickass picture or a nicely lit picture of someone, that’s fine too.

DO YOU PREFER STUDIO LIGHTS TO NATURAL LIGHTS?

All of my pictures are lit in one way or another. The more I do this, the more i’m allowing the natural light to get in there somehow. and if the natural light isn’t available, I create light from natural situations.

I think a big difference between pictures now and a few years ago is that there’s always kind of a light where the sun would be overhead and behind a little. It takes a lot of gear, really long stands and big booms and all this stuff just to get a light that’s way up – it almost always simulates the sun shining dwn on someone. I feel like actually it looks a bit more natural even though its more lit than it happens to be.

HOW DO YOU USUALLY APPROACH A SHOOT?

The way I usually approach it is to do a lot of research on the subject, you know, with wikipedia and everything, you can find out all this stuff about people and you find out later that everything is not necessarily true, but at least you think them, going in. I usually try to find a location that is cool and that has different options. I try to bring props, and I have an idea of what I want but it’s not very often that I go into a shoot with exactly planned out. When a photo editor wants to say exactly what they want, I love it.

Because I can go in and get that shot and then I can do something that I think is cool too, and half the time, they love what I thought was cool.

As far as how a shoot goes, it really depends, because I do a fair amount of editorial but also a good amount of advertising too, and they’re just two completely different things in production. But at the very least there’s two or three assistants and a couple of carts worth of lights. I always try to keep it as simple as possible and stay low key.

HOW IS SHOOTING CELEBS DIFFERENT FROM SHOOTING ORDINARY PEOPLE?

It’s vastly different. It’s very much like you’re working ideas out with the publicist, there’s a set time that you have, you chat a little bit but both of you are working, they’re there to promote their new movie or their new album and you’re there to get the best picture you can. I think I get along with everyone, we click in a photographic way and once in a while, on a personal level.

SO YOU AND BARACK ARE TIGHT?

Yeah, we’re buddies. I feel like we clicked, but I kinda feel like, watching him, that he clicks with everyone. It’s usually not the bigger names—it’s someone I have a common interest with. Like when I shot Dana White, from the Ultimate Fighting Championship. I was really into martial arts and we talked about that.

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU’RE NOT TAKING PICTURES?

I like to read books and watch movies and take walks on the beach. But more recently, I’ve been making stuff out of wood.

ANY FINAL WORDS OF ADVICE?

I think it’s important to be really persistent. And constantly creating your work – I used to do a ton of it, I used to shoot every day and find a reason to shoot something, and sometimes it would just be like, a macro picture of a lego guy, but it was a picture. I find that a lot of people don’t shoot enough.

If you don’t feel the want and the motivation to be shooting all the time, you have to really ask yourself if this is what you want to do; because that kind of enthusiasm decreases over time and if you’re already not feeling it– and people will say things like “well if I can just get someone to hire me, and I don’t even have to get paid, they can just assign me something to shoot and I’ll shoot it” – well that’s not how it works. You have to prove that you can do it. It’s just way too competitive, and if you don’t have that kind of desire, you’re probably not going to make it. So keep taking personal pictures.

And everyone has pictures of their friends. It’s sort of like the young hipster portrait, with natural light or something. Some are better than others, but you see that a lot. And then there are people who take pictures of a funky or weird looking guy. Don’t do that. What you should find are images that really tell a compelling story. I would just say stay away from the homeless people or a portfolio comprised of all of your friends that are under the age of 19. Diversify.

See Peter Yang’s Website for more of his photography

About Picture Magazine

Maybe you’re stuck in the prehistoric ages and you have yet to flip through the pages of Picture Magazine. Evolve! A leader in the photographic marketplace, Picture is as much a creative inspiration to emerging photographers as it is a valuable industry resource for the professional shooter. In circulation for over 15 years, the magazine continues to shine. Honored for photographic achievement in design and editorial vision, Picture has been nominated for a “Lucie Award” for best photography magazine by the International Photographic Awards.

The magazine’s great visual detail is what Creative Director Yukina Korenaga is all about. Since March 2008, Korenaga has wedded bold graphics and provocative imagery to editorial content designed to inspire, educate and support its readers. Korenaga, a native of Osaka, Japan, studied magazine publishing and advertising communications at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.

Korenaga creates luminous spreads which feature photomarket updates and bi-coastal studio reviews, reviews of photography in recent advertising campaigns, annual photo school reviews and roundtable forums, equipment, stock photography, news, and current trends. Her expertise covers much ground, from creative layouts to styling of photoshoots. Korenaga’s extraordinary creative vision coupled with the acuity of an accomplished team of editors makes for a smart, timely, and inspired photo source.

Picture magazine is a bi-monthly NYC-based national photo industry publication, providing news, calendar, and event information, photographer profiles and interviews, advertising and magazine reviews, digital and Internet columns, and equipment and product information. The magazine has grown tremendously over the past fifteen years to emerge as an acute, intuitive and valuable monthly photo industry resource. Picture fills the niche for a smart and insightful look into the current photography market. For further information and subscriptions, visit the Picture Magazine website.

So many, in fact, that I figured I might as well turn them into a piece of art…

I created a 7500×5000 pixel Photoshop document, and split it into a grid of 2,730 squares of 1cm each, with a small gap in between. These squares were to become the framework upon which I was going to crop the images of all my friends.

In the end, I lost track of how many photos I used, but it must have been about 200 or so. The whole job took more than 100 hours work and resulted in a 400 MB Photoshop file

I had Photobox print me a huge poster-sized photographic print of it (and by huge, I mean a whopping 20×30 inches). The poster is now hanging on the inside of my door. Whenever I let my eyes scan across the photos, I can’t help but think there’s a lot of people out there – so many people, so many friends, so many memories.

You can’t be lonely when you have a poster of that many people close to your heart on the wall!

Check out the much-higher-resolution version on Flickr, and if you fancy having a go at making your own, you can download the Photoshop grid (76kb ZIP file which expands to a 7.8mb(!) Photoshop PSD) I used to make this. Enjoy!

Graffiti, buildings falling apart, and Mother Nature reclaiming what was once rightfully hers all have a place in my heart – so it was pretty awesome that Roy Barker decided to approach me with an idea for an article on the topic – without further ado, Roy Barker’s guide to photographing urban decay…

Above: Fallen Arches (cc) by iboy_daniel on Flickr

Some of the most telling photos come from the stark reality of street shots of the buildings and people living in urban decay. And, as a photographer, you either need to be up early or late to catch the true essence of life on the streets.

Getting good photos of urban decay is not necessarily hard; it is more a matter of patience and understanding of the subject. So what is it that can help you become a better urban landscape photographer? Here are 10 tips for great urban photos:

1 – Get Up Early.

Early morning is one of the best times on the streets as the light is diffused and the sky is like a giant light filter that gives amazing results. Also the street cleaners are out and there are not many people around.

2 – Get it into Perspective.

When shooting urban shots the buildings should alter the way you use them to frame your photos. Make sure there is always some background behind buildings to give the viewer some perspective and appreciation of its form. Square buildings look their best when the photos are taken from a 40 to 60 degree angle.

3 – Get Permission

It may be that you need permission to take photographs in some public places. In some cases, this can mean the difference between you owning the images or not (i.e. if you have climbed over a wall or trespassed, you may find yourself in court with no rights to your own photos)

Right: Go Ahead, Open it (cc) by stephcarter on Flickr

4 – Photograph Buildings as they Grow – and as they Fall

Take photos of urban landscapes as they are built as well as the finished product, shots of construction can make for some interesting urban shots, but it doesn’t really matter if they’re putting the buildings together or taking them apart.

5 – Attack from Different Angles

Look at buildings through a different perspective. Look for shapes, patterns, textures, angles and reflections that make your work completely unique.

6 – What Lenses to Use

Take a wide angle and a zoom lens that is up to 300 mm. This will give you the flexibility you need to capture any angle. Be aware though, a zoom lens is great for capturing street scene details but can flatten your photo if you are not careful.

A wide lens gives a bigger depth of field to your photos in an urban landscape as they can capture the whole picture – and urban stuff is particularly well suited to Lensbaby photography, too…

Garbage in Madrid: Lost in Lensbabyland © Photocritic on Flickr

7 – What else to take on Location

This obviously depends on your individual style and budget but you might also want to take a tripod for night photography on the streets, UV and polarizing filters, an external flash, and a camera bag that sits over your shoulders with easy access to everything you need.

8 – Do your Research

While most people think that great urban shots come from being in the right place at the right time, this is not generally the case. It takes good research and planning to get those spectacular photos.

You will be amazed how the one spot in a street can change and be completely different depending on the time of day. How much the dynamics and contrasts change with the light and the ever-changing activities of daily life.

Lights Out (cc) by B Rosen on Flickr

9 – Plan your Photos as Themes

Urban landscapes are full of diversity but there are always common themes that run through them. For example, a series of shots about where people live – park benches, a warehouse, a modern penthouse to a period home or an old people’s home or hostel. These can be incredibly powerful when displayed side-by-side.

10 – Capture the Night Life

Urban landscapes become a completely new landscape at night. Everything changes. A city that is featureless and dull in sunlight can be an exciting, vibrant scene full of character that presents good opportunities to an urban photographer.

Right: Bright Rust (cc) by tanakawho on Flickr

The twilight zone is also a great time to shoot in the city streets as the city street lights reflect into the sky as the sun goes down.

The great thing about digital photography it easy to experiment and delete what does not work. Now get out there and try these tips for yourself – you will surprise yourself with the results.

Guest writer Roy Barker provides further information you can read on his site about the subject of photography.

And now… It’s your turn

As always, I’m curious to see your photographs – Why not share your finest urban decay photos with me and my readers? Add a comment with your link below!

Think, for a moment, about every single photo shoot that somehow went wrong. The props you wish you had, the equipment you wish you could afford, the models you wish you could hire, the locations you wish you could scope out, light properly, and use as you please. Imagine for a second that you could hire the best make-up people, the best lighting assistants, the best stylists – everything you could possibly dream of.

Sounds insane, doesn’t it? Perhaps not – There’s a lot of limitations on your photography, but many of them will be entirely artificial. To find out what’s actually holding you back, put away your camera, and grab a pen and a ream of paper.

I have done a lot of ad-hoc photo shoots. Glasses of water perilously balanced on top of books. Tripods that didn’t quite reach high enough perilously balanced on top of books. Needing to get higher up, I’d stand on books. I guess a lot of my photo shoots involve books. Or stacks of paper. Or dodgy tripods.

Either way, I once had an imaginary photography teacher who I wish would have come up with the following exercise: Design your perfect photo shoot. Hold nothing back.

If you can dream it, you can do it

Think about the location – where would you do your shoot? Personally, I’d head straight back to Utah – and bring a polarizer filter – some of the best skies I’ve ever seen was in northern Arizona and southern Utah. Perfect, deep blue skies with tiny clouds dotted across the heavens, combined with the rich red sandy colours of the ferrous desert, and the deep black asphalt with its bright, pearly white stripes down the middle snaking its way through the landscape. To me, that’s America – and I’ve only seen it once. It was awesome. It was amazing. And I want to shoot there again.

Arizona by me, on Flickr

So, you’ve got yourself a location and a perfect day – what’s next? Seeing as I’d want to photograph late in the evening to catch the golden hour, I’d need a bit of help – specifically, I know that lighting is my weak spot, and I’d need a bit of help getting the lighting right – someone to hold some huge reflectors to lift heavy shadows etc.

One of the things that makes me a great photography blogger is that I know my flaws as a photographer. Of which I have many. Embarrassingly many, in fact. Truth be told, my faults are pretty much universal, and I haven’t got any strengths beyond nattering on about things I’d love to be good at on this blog. (Prove me wrong by friending me on Flickr and favourite some of my photos already :-).

Nonetheless, I know that another huge weakness is that I’m rubbish at make-up. I had a brief stint of wearing black lipstick, but that’s many moons ago, and it never looked good – so the next people I’d get involved is a good make-up artist and a hair stylist. Sounds poncy, but the photo shoots I’ve done where I had professional help look universally better, and if I’m going to put together my dream photo shoot, then hell, I’m going to take all the help I can get.

Finally, I need a concept. I’m a huge fan of surrealism and such, so here’s my idea: The old Highway 66, rolling off into the distance. Sun is about to go down – golden light everywhere. There’s a young lady standing there – in her mid-20s perhaps, with unfeasibly large breasts. The light hits her from the front and the right. She’s standing there, in a pair of loose running trousers, legs quite a distance apart, one foot on each side of the centre line of the road. She’s got bare feet. A sports-bra. A general Aura of Awesome™.

Completely gratuitous shot with boobies; Tina Nude 1, by me on Flickr

A wind machine is sending her hair flying in all directions, and a spot flash from behind is turning her hair into a fantastic glow. On her right is a perfect tiger, just standing there. On her left, a toy Fisher Price tractor with gloriously garish colours. She has a look as if this is the most natural thing in the world. The photo is taken from low – very low, in fact, so she and the tiger tower out of the tarmac. She’s gorgeous. The tiger is gorgeous. The tractor just adds a very strong undercurrent of random.

The piece is called “Tiger, Tits and Tractor – Business as usual on Highway 66“. Because I like crude. I like fun. I like unexpected.

Making it realistic

Once you have your ‘perfect’ dream, you can start turning it into reality. In my day-to-day job as a digital producer for a TV station, we’d call this exercise ‘cutting scope’: You find out what the base level of functionality you think would work, and then you take it from there. In the above, I can probably find a buxom friend of mine who would model for the fun of it. We could make do without make-up – or perhaps I can get someone to do that for fun. As for hair – it’s entirely possible to go to a hair dresser and get it sorted for relatively cheaply.

As I’m stuck in rain-heavy London, I don’t think there’s much of a hope of being able to recreate the actual Highway 66 feel – and seriously, you ain’t going to get much use out of polarizer filters in this neck of the woods. But there are some bloody gorgeous back roads running through forests nearby. Outside East London, Epping forest does the trick. Down south, the New Forest is awesome. Heading north, the Nottingham Forest is gorgeous. Out east (and abroad – ooh, amazing) is Wales, with tons of cool little places. You need to recce, and you need to get a bit lucky, but it’s doable.

The point of this exercise is to see how good you can make something, and then start replacing. You probably can’t get Nathalie Portman to model for you (although I know you want that – as do I), but there are lots of models who money can buy; and there are probably a lot of beautiful people in your vicinity who can model for you for your project – simply create a list with your ideals, and think hard at where you can replace the ‘perfect’ solution for one that is merely pretty damn good – because you’d be amazed at the results.

But what if…

But what if you didn’t have to make short-cuts? What if you had an opportunity to make your full photo shoot, with all the bells, whistles, artists, models, and experts you need to realise your perfect photo shoot? Well, there is one way… The clever folk at Lenovo (Never heard of ‘em? They took over IBM’s Thinkpad range a while ago, and undid all the damage that IBM did to their own reputation. If I wasn’t such a mac addict, I’d probably buy a Lenovo laptop) and Microsoft have a photography competition going – with a twist: You don’t submit photographs, you submit ideas – and the best idea wins a semi-obscene $50,000 towards realising their photography idea.

Shaken, not Stirred by me, on Flickr

Rent a hot-air balloon or a helicopter; rent the most expensive cameras you can think of. Hire all the staff you need, fly out to any location in the world – imagine what you could do if you had $50,000 to spend on a single photo shoot. I know, it boggles the mind – but wouldn’t it be awesome? Hell, who knows, for $50,000, you may even be able to convince Nathalie Portman to model for you.

So here’s the deal: I want you to think hard, and to do the exercise above: Remove any financial barriers which might stand between you and your ideal photo shoot, and write up your perfect, ideal scenario. Then, if you are happy with it, submit it to Name your dream assignment – and, what the heck, post a comment to this post with the outline of your idea too – I’d love to hear about it.

On the even brighter side, I just might be one of the judges for this competition, so I’m looking forward to all your outlandish ideas.

Money-back guarantee

And what the hell – even if you don’t win, I’m convinced that putting together an idea like this is going to make you a better photographer. In fact, if you’re not a better photographer after writing down this idea, I promise you your money back. If you’re not happy at the end of doing this, and if you don’t feel that you have improved as a photographer as a result, I’ll send you 3 sheets of blank A4 paper and a pen or pencil (which is, in fact, the money you’ve invested into your idea)…

Go on, you know it makes sense.

At first, I thought this was completely ludicrous, and that the good man was completely a) insane, b) computer illiterate and c) on a spamware-infested computer. Upon closer examination, however, it turns out that I was, indeed, the culprit.

It turns out that there is a security flaw in Wordpress – the nature of which I haven’t quite been able to identify – which managed to insert a snippet of obfuscated Javascript code into the header of the blog. I had a look at the header file in my new theme template, and there was a block with the header ‘Searchbot_111’, which inserted an encoded block of JavaScript, which in turn pulled in the malicious code.

I have no idea what Exploit-IFrame.gen.c actually does, and there’s not a lot of information on the internet with specifics.

I’ve removed the offending code from my blog and I’ve locked down my file permissions – it turns out they were set to ‘world write’ (or 777 in octal, if you’re into that kind of thing), which is of course a complete beginner’s mistake – for which I hope you’ll be able to forgive me: Trust it won’t happen again.

I know most of you will be doing this already, but please remember to update your anti-virus software, ensure that you use a decent browser (use IE7 if you must, Firefox or Safari if you can, and trash IE6 if you’re still using that).

My apologies again,

- Haje

PS: I endeavour to track down how this happened in the first place and update this post with a guide as to how it can be avoided if possible and removed if necessary

Additional information about this server

This site is running the latest stable Wordpress release (2.7)

I’m running a series of plug-ins to WordPress: Adsense-Deluxe v0.8 (ad serving), Akismet v2.2.3 (Spam blocking), Democracy v2.0.1 (voting/polls), Digg This v1.0.1 (social network promotion), FeedBurner FeedSmith v2.3.1 (RSS feeds), FlickrRSS v4.0 (Flickr pics in the sidebar), Google Sitemaps v2.7.1 and WP Super Cache v0.9 (caching)

In addition, I’m running a series of widgets: Democracy Widget 1.0 (voting/polls), KB Advanced RSS widget v2.1.2 (Twitter feeds) and PHP.Text widget v1.3 (To show the FlickrRSS as widgets).

The server is running a Ubuntu 8.04.1 (Hardy Heron) LTS virtual shared server hosted on a 1GB slice at Slicehost. I’m running PHP Version 5.2.4 hardened with Suhosin Patch 0.9.6.2 and MySQL 5.0.51a on an Apache 2.2.8 server.

Update

The symptom of this problem can definitely be removed by deleting any lines you don’t recognise from your header file. It’s likely to be right before the </head> tag. Look for a PHP snippet which appears to be trying to identify search engines.

It appears that the cause of this issue is an cross server scripting vulnerability in the RSS/Atom engine in Wordpress, which appears to have come to light late in 2008. There is quite a bit of information about this all around the internet, but the technobrabble is a little bit beyond me. I’ll try and put together an understandable explanation for what’s going on as soon as I figure it out myself.

If I grok this correctly, It appears that the exploit is fixed in versions of Wordpress beyond 2.6.5, but that the WP Super Cache plug-in continues to allow the exploit somehow.

If you’re affected by this, fix the issue, and then read Hardening Wordpress and Did your Wordpress Site get Hacked – both of which give a lot of starting points for research into how you can stop this happening again.

There’s also a plug-in which can help you scan your Wordpress for exploits.

More updates to follow as the investigation continues

So… What can you do to get out there and beat photographer’s block? What can you do when your camera’s batteries are charged, your memory card is fresh, the weather is fabulous, and the light is reflecting tantalizingly off your expensive glass lenses, but your inspiration is just kicking it on a rocking chair on the porch with a cold ice tea, like a metaphor stretched to well beyond the sensible breaking point?

Fear ye not, my photo siblings… Here’s my Top 10 tips to breaking the photographers’ block (or: Ideas for an uninspired photographer)

1. The 100 step challenge

The 100 step challenge is one I’ve promoted here on Photocritic before – because it’s one of those things I’ve found work incredibly well indeed. It’s easy: Grab your camera, and start walking. Count your steps. After 100 steps, stop where you are, and where you’re standing, you have to take a photograph.

“But there won’t be anything there”, I hear you cry. Well, yes, but that’s the point. The idea behind the 100 step challenge is to force yourself to see scenes and to create pictures even if there’s nothing there to be seen. It’s kind of like free association writing, where you just start writing, and keep your hand moving even if you have nothing to say – sometimes, the greatest things are created when you’ve run out of things to say.

Even if you don’t get a single good photo out of your 100-step challenge, you’ll have had a nice walk out of it, right?

2. Recreate a photograph you love

Everyone has a photo that they really like. Hopefully, you’ve got a few hundred photos in mind – think about the great photographers who’ve lived before you, and pick one of their photos. Then go ahead and copy it – sure, it’ll be plagiarism, but you’ll learn something in the meantime.

The photo on the right is Still waiting (Yorgos III), from my Flickr stream. Click on it to see it bigger.

3. Learn from the greats

Only in the last few weeks, I’ve written about The top 50 photography websites and 50 amazing flickr streams. That’s 100 URLs worth of inspiration. Pick one at random, study their style, and either recreate one of their photos, or use the observations you’ve learned about style to create a photograph in a similar style.

Flickr especially tends to be open to questions, so if you’re struggling to recreate a style or a ‘feel’ – go ahead and post your best try to Flickr, and ask the photographer whose work you’re imitating where you went wrong…

4. Self Portraiture

The only model you’ll have consistently available is yourself – go ahead, do something awesome. Use make-up if you don’t usually use make-up. Wear girl’s clothes if you’re a boy, or vice-versa. Try to make a recognisable portrait of yourself without showing your face. Go crazy.

5. Rapid Fire

120 minutes – 120 different photos. Related to the 100 step challenge, but more hectic. This works well with street photography especially – go ahead, shoot first and ask questions later. You may end up with 120 duds, of course, but hell, it’s a lot of fun to come up with them anyway, right?

6. Play the Random game

Play the Random Game – which you do by calling up a random word of the day. That’s the word you have to try to illustrate with a photograph.

If you’re struggling, plug the word into Google Image Search. If it comes up with something, then go ahead and try to copy it!

Bonus challenge: As I was writing this, the word that came up randomly was Bloviate. Illustrate that :)

7. Flickr’s Interestingness

This is Skatezophrenia, from my Flickr stream. Click on it to see it bigger.

I keep telling people this, but if you manage to stay uninspired even after browsing Flickr’s Interesting in the last 7 days for half an hour, you may as well hang up your photographic spurs.

If you want to continue exploring, find the Flickr name of a photographer you admire (or one you’ve just discovered), and plug their name into the Flickr Scout tool from Big Huge Labs, sorting by Best Position – that’ll list a users ‘most interesting’ photos – a great way to get an introduction to a user’s most popular photographic work.

8. Try something new

Photography generally comes in a ton of genres, and I bet you a lot of money that you’re not as conversant in all of them. So why not try to work on improving your work in one genre? For me personally, portraiture really clicked after I had done a load of animal and live band photography.

Not convinced? Well, then… Have you tried panoramas (see CleVR)? HDR (see our guide / HDR on Flickr)? Portraiture (see “Portraiture: Borrow their soul!” and Do It Yourself: Build A 1600W Studio Broadlight at Shutterbug)? Nude photography (see Renoux’ work and my own Nude photography 101: Photographing your girlfriend)? Macro photography (on Flickr)? Long exposure photography (on Flickr)? Photojournalistic photography? Astrophotography (on Flickr)? Street or candid photography (on Flickr, Wikipedia and Photo.net’s guide)? Paperazzi-style photography? Food photography (for all the icky tricks, read my article)? War photography (my modest contribution can be found in this Flickr set)? Kite aerial photography? Lomography? Night photography? Infrared photography? The list is long, and this is only a small sample…

Surely, there’s one style or another where you feel that perhaps you could try it again, and improve a little?

9. Don’t take any photos

Perhaps if you don’t feel like taking photos, it means that you’re not ready to take any photos. Hey, it could happen. Dig out your library, see if there’s any of your photos you’ve missed. Re-edit some photo sets. Re-upload some of your photos to Flickr, and see if you can’t get some inspiration from your old work.

10. Stop procrastinating

What are you doing reading these guides on the internet anyway? Grab your camera, get out there, do stuff. Stop moaning. No, seriously, outside. Or inside, for that matter. Just do it already!

11. Help your fellow photographers

Do you have something that breaks you out of a rotten spell of photography block every time? Or even just some of the time? Or perhaps just once? The tips above do it for me every time (especially 7, 5 and 2, to be honest, but I guess it’s more important to find something that works for you)… Go on, leave a comment and tell us how you broke your dry spell!

Hat tip to @karbassi on Twitter for the idea for this article! Also, I’m still on @photocritic :)

But what if you can’t be bothered getting your hands dirty with sheet film, developing or even having to build your own pinhole camera? If you fancy having a go at pinhole photography while using your trusty digital SLR, then this is everything you need to know to build your first pinhole ‘lens’.

It starts with a body cap

The first thing you’re going to need is a camera body cap.

You can either use the one that came with your camera (but you’ll be cannibalising this body cap, just like you did when you followed the instructions to create my macro extension tube out of a Pringles can) of you may want to get a second one. They are cheap as chips on eBay these days (I bought 2 of ‘em for £3), so you may as well get a spare…

Now, to prepare the camera body cap, I used some coarse sanding paper to take the logo off, then some finer sanding paper to get the coarseness down a little. There’s no good reason for doing this, other than that it’s a little easier to work with a flat surface than one with the logo of your camera embossed on the front.

If you wished, you could just drill a hole in the body cap and mount the actual pinhole to the inside of the cap instead, but seeing as how I’m planning to experiment with different pinholes in the nearby future, I like the idea of having the pinhole bit mounted on the front – easier to work with that way.

Now, you’ll have to forgive me for the blurriness of this illustration image – it’s tricky to hold a drill and a camera cap and a camera to take the photo all at the same time.

The real reason for taking this ‘action shot’, however, is that I didn’t want to look like a complete amateur, even though I was using a masonry bit in my drill. Of course, going through all the trouble to avoid showing you lot, only to then go ahead and tell you in the body copy anyway is a bit of a waste. You’ll have to forgive me.

Anyway, you end up with a body cap with a hole in it. Finish the hole by sandpapering down the rough edges both on the front and the back of the body cap, and remember to sandpaper the inside a little bit too – if for no other reason than to get a prettier finish.

Now, a very important step: you need to wash the body cap very well indeed. after all the sandpapering, it’ll be covered in black dust, and this is the kind of stuff you really don’t want to be stuck inside your camera – especially not on your imaging chip!

Creating the pinhole itself

Next up, we’re going to create the pinhole itself. There’s tons of way of doing this, but I’m a big fan on using whatever you have to hand. You need a material which is soft enough to work with efficiently, but it needs to be firm enough to be at least a little bit durable.

A coca-cola or beer can is perfect, but since I didn’t have any of those kicking about (I know, it’s mad, isn’t it? I seem to have lots of empty beer- and wine bottles, though, but they don’t make for great pinhole photography), I decided to use the side-wall of a tea light instead.

Drinks cans and tea light are made of soft aluminium, so you should be able to cut them with a pair of kitchen scissors without any problem. Beware that the edges may be very sharp, though, and you don’t want blood everywhere, so be careful.

With a very sharp implement (like a safety pin or similar), push gently into the aluminium. It helps if you have a soft-ish surface like a writing pad (that’s why all the photos are taken on lined paper. Well, that, and laziness). You want to push and turn the needle so you can only just barely see a hole.

Now, using extremely finely gritted sanding paper (I used 1200 paper), polish down the opposite side of where you poked the pin through.

The reason for the sandpapering is two-fold: for one, you don’t want the burrs on the other side of the metal, but you also want to make the metal as thin as possible, because the thinner the metal is, the finer your pinhole photos will be.

There are advanced ways of making the metal thin enough, or if you’re properly hardcore, you can get a professionally laser-cut pinhole body cap (see the ‘further reading’ section below for a link), but as long as you’re doing your best with making the hole a) as small as possible and b) as round as possible, you should be able to start making pinhole photographs soon.

When you think you’ve had a pretty good stab (haha, see what I did there) at making your first pinhole, hold it up to the light. If you can see that it isn’t perfectly round, discard your piece of metal and try again. It should look roughly like it does in the photo. Of course, the size of the pinhole is very important as well, but for now, we just want to make images appear, so this is a pretty good start.

Putting the two together

Now, you’re going to want to mount the pinhole to the centre of your body cap. Measure the centre carefully (or just take a wild guess, it’s up to you, really. I’m firmly in the guessing camp on this one), and simply tape the strip to your body cap. Also, I wish to apologise for the blurriness of this photo – you’d have thought I was capable of taking a sharp macro photo by now, but I guess that’s not the case. I blame my camera, the light, and London Transport Police because obviously, it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with me just rushing things a little bit in my excitement.

Next, use a sharpie (or whatever black permanent marker you might have handy at the time), and black out the front and back of the visual metal. I’m not sure if this is actually good for anything, but it makes me feel better thinking that I’ve at least tried to reduce the refractions on my aperture ever so slightly. That, and it makes the lens cap look more home-made, which is always a bonus.

After the previous step, you’ve actually finished everything you need to do to create a pinhole photograph! I decided to add an extra step, which is to add an additional white cover to the front of the pinhole body cap (because, obviously, if it’s a DIY project you have to add such adornments. And also, it’s a marvelous excuse for me to post a photograph of myself on my own blog), but that’s just me.

Now, it’s time to actually start taking some damed photographs, finally! Put the body cap on your camera, and set your mode dial to ‘manual’. Turn to a low-ish ISO (100 or 200 are good starting points) and a long shutter time. If you’re taking photos outdoors, start with 10 seconds and then adjust.

If you can’t see anything, you need to check if you’ve accidentally put the wrong body cap on your camera, and then select a longer shutter time.

With all the equipment finally put together in a half-way meaningful fashion, I figured it was time to start shooting some photographs…

Time to experiment!

Coca-Cola

Coffee cup

Coffee

Portrait

Autopsy of my photos

As you can see, all the photos came out a little bit on the fuzzy side.

One of the big problems you have when you’re shooting digital pinholes is that your imaging chip is absolutely tiny – the camera I was using here, a Canon 450D, has a 22.2 x 14.8 mm CMOS sensor. Compare that to a 36×24mm ‘normal’ negative, or the 60×60mm roll film (or even sheet film) that they’ve got in the analogue world, and it becomes clear that you have an awful lot less leeway.

The tiny sensor also has implications on how precise your pinhole needs to be – both in roundness (which is nigh-on impossible to get right with a safety pin) and in size (which, again, is tricky, although there is a way of measuring the size of your pinhole with a scanner)

However, the purpose of this exercise wasn’t to get perfect, super-sharp photographs, but go get a feel for how it’s actually possible to take photographs without having a lens attached to the front of your camera, for next to no money at all!

Further reading and inspiration

If this article has whet your appetite for pinhole stuff, but you just can’t get the tooling right (or if you’d rather be out there taking photos than actually mucking about with drills and bits of metal), you can buy a specially made body cap with a laser-cut pinhole.

Wikipedia, as always, has a pretty good article on pinhole photography, and in the Pinhole Camera Model article, they go into ludicrous detail of the mathematics and optics behind pinhole photography.

The Pinhole Visions website over on Pinhole.com is a huge and useful resource for learning more about pinhole photography.

For inspiration, I direct you yet again to the awesome Slowlight.net belonging to Katie. Also, hidden deeply inside her site is a list of links (see the bottom of this page) which has links to a ton of interesting pinhole photographers.

You can also try Flickr, where there are a whole load of interesting and quite active pinhole photography groups, like Pinholers, Pinhole Photography, and the oddly apt, considering this article Digital Pinholes

As usual, I’m sure I’ve left off tons of links, but that’s where you guys come in – Got ideas or recommendations? Post a comment!