I’m always over the moon when we get to shoot a wedding, but some weddings have that something a bit more special about them and last week we photographed Pam and Pete’s wedding at Balbirnie House in Fife and it was just amazing on so many levels.

As a venue, Balbirnie House is stunning, the house and grounds are extremely grand yet have a really intimate feel to them, the staff there are really friendly and I know the food and drink is great from being best man at my brother’s wedding there a few years ago. All of this really helps for a wedding shoot, but the thing that really makes a wedding is the couple getting married and their guests and in this case the bride Pam and her husband Pete were simply wonderful from when we first met and on the day all of their guests were great fun and as a result Sue and I had a great time whilst also getting what I would say have been our best wedding photos to date.

Pam and Pete contacted us around Christmas time and we jumped at the chance to shoot their wedding. They were kind enough to make some time in their schedule and I met with them about two months prior to the wedding at Balbirnie House and for me the preparation starts there, I want to take them examples of our work and show them what we can do, find out what they want from their photos and start to form some ideas. I also take a camera or two to get some snaps of the venue to help me think about how I will do the photos on the day and as usual, I instagrammed some of the prep:

As soon as we met it was obvious from the word go that Pam and Pete would be great to photograph; they had their own ideas of what they wanted, they asked for my input, they seemed up for having some fun and they were genuinely lovely people and when they walked me through the venue and we had a chat about what we could do with the photos I had my ideas flowing already and I took a few snap shots of where the ceremony would take place and where Pam and Pete would like their portraits to be taken so I could start to form ideas in my head. We talked about this on the day and very kindly Pam and Pete liked my ideas and they were happy for me to have a bit of creative license on the day and I was already on a bit of a high as I was leaving.

With two months until the wedding all we really needed was a list from Pam and Pete about the timings of the ceremony, what group photos they wanted and which possible portrait venues they really wanted to use and then it was just about going through the photos in my mind as much as possible and then getting all set for the day with all our gear cleaned, charged, backed up and ready to go from the day before the wedding which was to take place on April 11th.

We do take our work very seriously and we never take anything to chance, so as well as having all the gear in the photo above and also a couple of other back up cameras as well as tripods, light stands and even a step-ladder for the group shots, we arrived almost 2 hours earlier than we needed to be. I always think there is a chance of heavy traffic, punctures, armageddon or some such other things that could delay us, so better to be safe than sorry but being early allowed us to do some last minute checks, check the lighting indoors for where we would be working and relax a bit before the fun was to start.

Once everything started Sue and I just went into photo mode and kept doing our thing. We’ve shot so many weddings and events over the years it has become a bit like second nature and we start by documenting the guests arriving, the ceremony itself and then getting everyone ready for the group shots with the invaluable help of the ushers before whisking Pete and pam off for some portraits before letting them get back to their guests and we can follow them around for a little bit more before getting home, downloading all the photos, backing them up twice, keeping the cards with the images still full just in case, choosing a small selection of the images straight out of the camera to upload to our Facebook page for Pete and Pam to share straight away and then it was all about starting to work on the editing:

Editing takes the most time and I have to devote several full days as well as a few more half days around other jobs to get the editing done as soon as I can. I end up working late into the night but looking at the photos I just get really excited and it’s a case of I can’t stop editing as I am having so much fun, Pam and Pete let us share the most intimate day of their life, they trusted us to take their photos and when we saw the results we really felt that we had produced some great images and we have a few hundred photos all ready for the happy couple, but first of here is a wee taster, Sue and I hope that they love the photos as much as we do and thanks again Pam and Pete for all your kindness, your trust in us and being great sports on the day.

If you are asking yourself “My camera stopped working after using it in the rain, how can I fix it?” I may just be able to help….

Sometimes the elements, especially rain and dust, can get the better of our cameras and they stop working. I had this issue yesterday with rain but now my camera is working again normally after a few simple steps that didn’t cost me a penny. Whilst this worked for me after my camera stopped working after I used it in the rain for an extended period, I can’t guarantee this will work for everyone, but it’s worth a shot and as long as your camera hasn’t taken a complete and utter soaking (give up hope if it’s been submerged in water) and it could save a very costly repair bill. I did this as my camera is out of warranty (hence the prospect of a costly repair bill) but if yours is still under warranty and your warranty covers water damage (manufacturer warranty doesn’t cover this, but some store warranties do) it may be the safest option to let the warranty sort it out.

Here’s a bit of background and then a step by step guide to the repair.

Background: Yesterday I was teaching a photo lesson in Edinburgh and the weather was being far from kind. Usually these lessons take place solely outdoors, but the theory section took part indoors due to the rain and after the sky cleared a bit we ventured outside to put the theory into practice. It was drizzling a bit, but not too much to worry me as my canon 5D mkII is supposed to be weather sealed and I was mostly using my canon24-70mm f2.8L lens which is also weather sealed. After a little while the drizzle gave way to quite a good downpour and my camera went inside my jacket until I was needing to get it out but I had shot in worse before and been fine, so I wasn’t too worried. After a while it did get a bit worse and I was a bit soaked and my student and I decided to go practice indoors as bit and when we reached a nearby church I found my camera was no longer working. It would turn on and off, I could see readings in the top right screen, but I couldn’t see anything on my back LED screen, I couldn’t access anything from the back menu, turning the dials would not result in any changes in shutter speed or aperture and as soon as I lightly touched the shutter button a photo would be taken and I couldn’t view anything. Worrying. Luckily this was already time for the lesson to finish and I was near home, so as soon as I got in I double checked the camera and it still wasn’t responding, so I set about repairing the damage and hoping it would work and it would save me a trip to the repair shop again (last year I had a shutter issue repaired on the same camera).

Step 1: Put everything on a dry towel. Take off the lens, take out the battery and remove batter cover if possible, take out the memory card and dry everything externally as best you can with a dry cloth:

Step 2: Using a hairdryer either on a cold setting, or the lowest heat setting, gently fan the camera and all the parts from a distance to dry and get rid of any bits of moisture, especially in places like the menu buttons, inside the battery compartment and even the elements of the lens and the camera front with the dust cap off and the elements exposed. PLEASE BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN YOU HAVE THE DUST CAP OFF, DO NOT USE A STRONG SETTING ON THE HAIRDRYER AND KEEP THE HAIRDRYER MUCH FARTHER AWAY THAN WHEN YOU ARE DRYING THE BUTTONS. Just thought I would emphasise the last bit as you don’t want to do any internal damage near the sensor. I did this briefly with the dust cap off the camera and also my lens, then I put them back on and dried a bit closer.

Step 3: For good measure, I put the camera on the window sill for about an hour with the window open a tad and a strong breeze coming through. By now the skies were blue and there was no moisture, had there been any I wouldn’t have done this.

Step 4: I had already tried my lens and it was working perfectly OK on my other 5D mkII so I kept it on the towel but I placed the camera body and battery in the cupboard where our heating system is controlled. This cupboard is spacious, warm and dry so I figured it would help dry out the camera overall so I left it in here over night.

In the morning I checked and the camera was already working fine, but for good measure I did something else a friend suggested for good measure and even now my camera and lens are in the same state:

Step 5: Place your equipment in a ziplock bag with silica gel to help draw any remaining moisture out.

As I said at the start, this is what I did and thankfully it worked for me. if your camera stops working after being used in the rain it’s worth trying all or some of these steps to try and sort it our, but if your camera is still not working get it to a qualified repairer as soon as you can.

My first prime lens was a canon 50mm f1.4 lens which I really loved, then shortly after I bought a canon 85mm f1.8 and likewise I really loved this lens too. The narrow depth of field was great for portraits and it was always a feature in my bag and I was very happy with it’s performance. Then when I started working as a photographer and making enough money to buy some higher end equipment I got my canon 24-70mm f2.8L and canon 70-200mm f2.8L and I was so blown away that my 50mm f1.4 and 85mm f1.8 just weren’t getting enough time on my cameras as my new toys were getting all my attention and after about a year or so of sitting in my “back up equipment” bag I decided to sell them. For a while I was very very happy with my L series lenses, I was doing a lot of travel photography for Lonely Planet and these lenses really delivered, but when I started to do more and more portraits for magazines I really started to to miss my prime lenses and about a year after I sold my primes I decided to re-invest and get something a bit better.

I upgraded to a 50mm f1.2L about 3-4 years ago now and I am still extremely happy with this lens, it still looks new and the images are stunning. Just over a year ago I decided to get a 85mm prime and the “L series snob” in me wanted to go for the 85mm f1.2LII, I read the specs, looked up sample photos by it, read reviews and convinced myself it was the way to go, went down to my local Yodobashi camera in Tokyo and tried it out….but it just didn’t feel right. The build quality was amazing, the images looked brilliant, the nice red line spoke to me and said “you know you want me” but some things just didn’t seem right. The autofocus seemed really slow (I found out you can only use autofocus when the camera is switched on) and whilst the image quality was brilliant, I found that the autofocus was nailing the shots about 50% of the time, especially at f1.8 and lower. Also, there was no weather sealing like in the 50mm f1.2L. I was standing there, money in pocket ready to buy but it just didn’t seem right. I picked up the canon 1.8 again and after using the L series it didn’t feel so good in terms of build quality, but the autofocus was good, images were nice and I started to sway towards it but I also had some feelings of guilt after selling my old copy and it felt like I was trying to persuade an old lover to take me back (I get emotionally attached to my equipment) and something didn’t feel right. Then I spied the Sigma 85mm f1.4 on display and I popped it on a demo 5DmkII in store and had a play with it not really expecting much, but it basically ticked a lot of the boxes I was needing. It felt solid, it had the same size of filters as my 24-70mm and 70-200m, the autofocus was fast and more accurate than the canon f1.2LII and the images coming out looked really good too….but I had come in to get an 85mm f1.2LII and the time Sigma wasn’t a road I felt entirely comfortable going down, so I decided to think some more.

I was in two minds about Sigma. When I started out with photography as a hobby my first telephoto zoom was a Sigma, if I remember rightly it was something in the range of 100mm-300mm f3.5-f5.6 and I really didn’t like it. I paid very little for it new (probably about £150) and I got my money’s worth as after a few months there seemed to be a lot of dust inside it and whilst this wasn’t really showing on the prints I was making (it was back in the days of film) it just really annoyed me and as a result I didn’t hold Sigma in much regard and as a result I was prone to just ignore anything made by Sigma. However, a few years down the line a good friend of mine who I met at Japan fashion week working for getty images was shooting with a Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 and his images were outstanding and whilst I was more than happy with my canon 70-200mm f2.8L (and still felt it better than it’s Sigma counterpart on this occasion) I thought that Sigma must have come up in the world. So, I started looking more into Sigma and reading up on the 85mm f1.4 and the more I read the more interested I became, so once again I headed off to another store in Tokyo to try out the two canon 85mm lenses and the Sigma once again.

I decided to be as objective as possible, I was going to play with all three lenses and decide what I thought in terms of:

• Build quality – I rated the canon 85mm f1.2L II as the best, very closely followed by the Sigma and then the canon f1.8 a distant third. None of them had weather sealing which was a minus point for me for all of them.
• Autofocus ability – The Sigma won out easily, then the canon f1.8 and then the 1.2LII
• Image quality-The Canon 1.2LII just pipped it, then the Sigma and the canon 1.8
• Usefulness-The Sigma won, it could take my filters
• Price-the canon 1.8 was the cheapest at 50’000 yen (£350), then the Sigma at 77’000 yen (£540) and the canon 1.2LII was by far and away the most expensive at 192’000 yen (£1350).

When I sat down and thought about it, I knew the canon 85mm f1.2LII delivered the best images, which is what it is all about, but with the autofocus being slow and not that accurate at the wider apertures I felt that it wasn’t worth all the extra money for the L lens if it wasn’t going to give me as many good shots as the Sigma. By the time I could fire off 15 shots with the Sigma and get 70-80% on the target at low apertures, I could only fire off 5-6 with the L lens and I was getting about a 50% hit rate. 7-8 useable photos versus 2-3 is a big difference, so overall the Sigma won out. Combine that with the ability to take filters and the price difference,  really just felt that I should give the Sigma a bash and that’s what I left with. Quite a fine looking lens.

I’ve now had the lens for over a year and as the pics above show, it’s standing the test of time pretty well and still looks in new condition despite me having already dropped it once on a job. Zero damage from that which shows how solidly it is built.

Image quality:

This lens does give really nice sharp pics, even when wide open at f1.4. When it’s at it’s widest you do get a very narrow field of focus so you have to get your focus spot on (focusing and then re-composing will lose your shot unless you micro adjust) at f1.4, but the images do come out great with really nice colour rendition as well:

 Purple fringing and vignetting:

As some reviews say and I also found, there is some purple fringing from this lens when it’s wide open, especially when there is some bright sun involved as well as you can clearly see in the ladle shot above. Here are some more examples below of the lens at different apertures shot in JPEG straight out of the camera (not that I advise shooting landscapes at f1.4 or f2, but for the sake of illustration) that show a bit of purple fringing and vignetting:

f1.4

f2

f10

At f.14 you can see a bit of vignetting and when you zoom into 100% you can see a bit of purple fringing on the castles windows and even the seagull above:

However, when you are shooting at say f10 the 100% view is much better with great sharpness all round (as you would want when shooting landscapes):

When shooting at f2 or so though, the purple fringing isn’t so apparent

f2

f2 @ 100%

When shooting out of the stronger daylight though for portraits, f2 is really sharp and I can’t see any fringing at all and the image is very very sharp:

f2 portrait

f2 portrait @ 100%

Summary:

I do really like this lens, especially for low light conditions such as weddings where I can’t be using my speedlites too much. The build quality is great, the image quality is excellent and the autofocus is faster and more accurate than the canon 85mm lenses I tried. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with the two canon 85mm lenses, having owned and loved the 85mm f1.8 and played with the 85mm f1.2LII a fair bit they are great (with image quality on the 85mm f1.2L II being the best), but for the price, reliability and image quality I do think the Sigma 85mm f1.4 is a great lens for anyone to have in their kit. Here are a few more photos from it as well:

“Bespoke” traditionally refers to items of clothing, shoes or apparel that are of an extremely high quality and made to order by craftsmen with the best tools and finest materials, but these days it’s often used in reference to a variety of services and it’s wonderful when we get referrals from previous clients who introduce us as offering a “bespoke” service.

So what makes for a “bespoke wedding service?” Firstly, it starts with service. When we are approached by someone requesting wedding photographs we always endeavour to meet them as soon as possible, ideally at their wedding venue, get to know them a bit better, find out what they are like as people and what kind of wedding photography style interests them before walking through the venue and making suggestions and listening to their input and then forming a basic plan from which we start off from and suggest how we would go about taking their wedding photos. Since moving back to Scotland we have met with several couples who have chosen us and other photographers to have an “interview” about the position of being their wedding photographer and so far 100% of the couples who met us here (as well as 100% of those we met in Japan) chose to hire us, so I guess service wise we are pretty good. Once we are booked we stay in contact via email, phone and sometimes in the person in the lead up to the big day and then thereafter as well to make sure everyone knows what is happening and what is to be expected.

Secondly, like a good tailor, it’s not a case of getting pre-made clothes to fit, but finding a style and to suit each couples tastes through meeting and discussing what they want from their photographs. Some people want elaborate poses, some people want discreet coverage with no “posed” shots, some people want a mixture of styles, some request colour only shots, some request mostly B&W but regardless of requests the main thing is that each couple gets exactly what they want…and then a little bit more.

Thirdly, you need to have the right tools for the job. For us our usual wedding tools involve:

• 5DmkII x2
• canon 17-40mm f4L lens
• canon 24-70mm f2.8L lens
• canon 70-200m f2.8L lens
• canon 50mm f1.2L lens
• Sigma 85mm f1.4 lens
• canon 100m f2.8L IS macro lens
• 580EXII speedlite x 3
• St-E2 transmitter
• Light stands, umbrellas, tripods etc

Having good service, being able to come up with the right plan for each couple and having the right tools for the job means little if the final result doesn’t quite come up to standard, but again I think we manage to deliver pretty well. We have testimonials, our work has been featured in several wedding magazines (mostly recently a feature in the “real life wedding” in Best Scottish Wedding magazine) and everyone we have photographed has only had good things to say about our work. Also, like any bespoke service we have our own style and we like to think that our photos stand out.

With several bookings for 2013 and even 2014 in so far we are looking forward to covering more weddings, helping people tell the story of their weddings and giving people memories they will treasure forever.

2012 ended on a happy note for me work wise with a return to one of my great passions in photography and in life; WHISKY!

Strangely enough it wasn’t until I moved to Japan that I started to appreciate single malts, then by chance when I was working on the drinks column at The Japan Times I covered a few whisky events, then I started working for Whisky Magazine japan, became the chief photographer and a lot of whisky related work in the forms of books and events came my way and whisky became a big part of my work life in Japan. Since moving back to Scotland last year whisky hadn’t featured so much which was a shame, but on Dec 23rd I got  an email came asking if I was available for a bit of a whisky product shoot and I jumped at the chance and set about getting things ready to make a “make-shift” studio.

The client, a lovely chap who just happened to live round the road from us, needed some bottle shots of rare whisky he had just been over to Italy to buy, so he came round with a few bottles on December 24th and I was rather impressed by the selection and I really liked the simplicity of the brief:

1. Don’t drop the product.

2. Don’t drink the product.

3. Take great pics (bottle front and back with black/white backgrounds + label shots) and more work would come my way.

The thing about product shots (as with most photo shoots) is that it doesn’t really matter what’s going on round about where the photo is taken, it’s about being able to control the environment where you are shooting. Most importantly, this means controlling the light, both ambient and from the flashes, so I decided to use our office room for the shoot as I can black it out quite easily as there is only one window with blinds and so the ambient light was easy to control, it was just a case of starting to work on where to place the bottles and how to light them. There was two ways of doing the mounting, one was to go down the expensive road of going to a photography supplier to buy a product tent/cube thing (which I don’t like as you have to work very close to the products which isn’t good for bottles), or going to the local stationery shop to get supplies and do some DIY. The latter was the choice I went for and I started off working with this:

Materials:

• Sue’s desk, pushed against the wall
• A2 size card (white and black) x 2 sheets each to place the bottles on.
• Sticky tape (for holding card in place)
• Surgical gloves for making sure I didn’t get smudges on the bottle.
• A coin for holding the place of the bottles when moving one bottle out and another in.
• Books with covers off to provide negative light.

Equipment:

• 5DmkII
• 100mm f2.8L macro lens
• ST-E2 transmitter
• Speedlites x 3
• Tripod
• cable release

And so the experiments began:

After a few hours of messing about with light and losing track of time (we were supposed to leave for my mothers about 3pm to kick Xmas off, but ended up leaving after 6pm) I was getting some images but not to the standard I wanted using some speedlites off to the side only. The black background was too black for the bottles, the white shots were too bright at the side and it just wasn’t working, so off we went to the family farm for the first Xmas with my family.

We came back home on Xmas day after lunch (quick visit) as Sue had some work to do and I was also hankering to mess about with light more. Mostly the black background was going to be the problem so I got stuck into it first, and decided to try light going up from the speedlites at 1/32rd of full power with the books being used to provide a darker outline to the bottles and white ceiling be used to reflect the light down and wrap around the bottles a bit more. The set up was like this:

And shooting at ISO 800, f6.3 for 15s seemend to be giving an OK exposure, but the liquid was just way too dark.

More light was needed, so I started messing about with a speedlite at different power settings directly behind the bottles with some black card running right from the speedlite to the bottle to stop light flaring out:

Things were starting to go in the right way, but with settings at 1/16 or higher the light was too much, so I brought the camera ISO down to 500, then took the speedliet settings down to 1/64th, then 1/128th power right behind the bottles but things still weren’t how I wanted them to be:

Sometimes there is no point banging your head against the wall and making yourself tired and exhausted over something that’s not going right, so I moved onto the white background and started messing about with similar settings on the speedlites at the side, but took away the speedlite behind the bottle and added a video LED light I bough to try and add a bit of light to illuminate the bottles a bit better to show the label once the lights in the room were off:

At ISO 200, f10 for 1/6 of a second it was beginning to look OK, but the label just wasn’t bright enough:

So, I started adding in another speedlite from behind me at varying power settings, I also had to tape over the flashing red light at the back as it was reflecting off the wall and into the bottles:

I experimented in a scientific manner (ie taking shots at different settings and seeing what looked best on the computer) until I found 1/4 power worked well for lighting up the label a bit more and I was getting nearer to where I wanted to be:

Then with the white background getting better I had an idea for the black background, using the LED video light right behind the bottle to make the contents of the bottle light up a bit more and also create a bit of a shape with light behind the bottle:

And after a bit of jiggery pokery (more scientific jargon) with distances between the LED and the bottles, having black card stopping light leaks from the LED and the speedlites behind the books and some playing with the settings, at ISO 500, f5.6, underexposing by -1ev a little bit of magic started to happen:

Getting to where I wanted to be with the black/white background shots I started to work on the label shots which were much easier, just keeping the white background set up on the go but moving in closer and shooting with the tripod, hand holding with the IS on, ISO 400, f5.6 and a shutter speed between 1/13 of a second and 1/4oth of a second:

With the shots starting to look how I wanted them and having sent samples to the client and getting his seal of approval it just remained to do everything again, back and front full bottle shots for the black/white background and then do the labels. Before shooting each bottle I wiped it down with a dry lens cleaning cloth and cleaned it with lens cleaning flid when need be and then used a blower to remove anything from the paper/label that could get in the way. After everything was shot I would sit with the bottles at the computer one at a time to make sure that the colours of the label and the liquid for each background colour was a good representation of what the eye would see in those situations:

I edited the images from the RAW files in Aperture 3, first of all removing any dusk particles on the bottle I missed when cleaning and then I used some custom programs in Nik software to give a bit more punch and then I had my final images, here is a small selection:

Job done and I had fulfilled my brief, no product dropped, no product dropped and seeing as how the client came round with another selection of bottles for me to photograph straight away I guess the final request of taking good pics was also fulfilled. Those bottles will be in a future blog.

Today’s headlines read “Oscar Pistorius fatally shoots his girlfriend” and even though nothing has been confirmed about the details yet (was it a Valentines day surprise gone horribly wrong or something more sinister as allegations that the police had been called on several occasions to deal with incidents of a “domestic nature” involving Pistorius and his girlfriend) there are a lot of stock photos and stock video of the “blade runner” from south Africa looking pretty serious, either at training, competing in the Olympics or even a few with his former model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at an award ceremony a few weeks ago. 90% of the images are all of him in his blades, or changing into his blades, or with his prosthetic legs on and the camera always pans down to them as that’s what he is known for. In most of the stock images he has a stern look, you can’t read the emotions. Regardless of what happened, today was tragic in that a beautiful young woman lost her life and an inspirational young athlete is going to live the rest of his life with her death on his conscience.

I photographed Pistorius last year and I really enjoyed his press conference. I was up in St-Andrews for a Press Call with a Ryder cup winning golfer only to find the press call had been moved two hours forward and it had long since passed even though I was an hour early. However, I heard Oscar Pistorius was about to arrive and so I decided to wait about.

I didn’t know much about him other than the obvious, it wasn’t long after the Olympics and I’d read all the reports about his outbursts against other para-olympians he felt were wearing prosthetics which gave them an unfair advantage etc and I was expecting a bit of an angry young man with a chip on his shoulder, but I was completely wrong and a very polite and funny young man took the stage and I sat and listened and rattled off photos as he fielded questions. He was asked about the Olympics, asked about golf, asked about being a celebrity but every second question revolved around his legs; “Do you feel your prosthetics give you an advantage over other athletes?” “Will you be wearing your ‘blades’ when playing golf?” etc and you could tell he was fed up of being asked the same questions all the time, but he was always very gracious about the questions and he always answered and he was always very humble, never a sign of the anger that had flared up during the summer Olympics. Over the 10 minutes or so he was answering questions I was very impressed with him and a couple of things stuck out in my mind about a couple of his answers, one a bit serious, one a bit light hearted.

On the serious note he was asked about why he pushed so hard to take part in both the Olympics and the para-Olympics and he said it was to inspire people, to show them that they could achieve whatever they wanted if they worked at it. He was told he couldn’t take part in the Olympics, but he over time he did manage to and although he didn’t get a medal he got where he wanted to be and that was victory enough in itself.

Then he was asked about his scariest moment as a celebrity and he said it was when he appeared on an Italian Celebrity dance show and was really worried about his performance and he quipped “some people say if you’re not good at dancing you have two left feet, but I don’t have any feet so what chance did I have” and I sat their grinning away but also being very impressed with this young man. He handled himself very well in the interview, he played dow his own triumphs and he was willing to make jokes at his own expense and he also left me thinking that if he could overcome all his disabilities and achieve so much then I could get through whatever troubles came my way in life and I felt I could overcome them if I battled on like he did.

When I listen to celebrities or politicians speak, I get my own feeling about them and that’s reflected in my photos. For Oscar Pistorius I felt determination and inspiration coming through and I wanted photos of him smiling and that’s what I focused on. I remember as he walked a way a lot of photographers snapping at his legs (prosthetics in trousers) and thinking why bother, it’s been done a million times before, I’m happy to send something of him sitting down and grinning and that’s all I sent in from the day, some of them below:

I get mixed feelings when I see people I have photographed in the news, depending on what has happened the stock images reflect the news, happy, sad or angry pics of celebrities from years gone past suddenly appear that fit the description of the news event and then a story is finally complete. The photos I have seen today and the ones I took of him are in stark contrast, but the photos I took are an accurate description of what I saw and each time I take some photos that’s all I aim for. Today I see photos of him, face covered with his hood leaving a police station and he seems a million miles from the smiling young man with so much potential as well as so many previous successes.

Since last year I’ve really been enjoying taking some private clients on photo tours in Edinburgh. Some days you get amazing blue skies, some days it’s a bit overcast and raining, but nevertheless Edinburgh remains beautiful and very photogenic in any weather and a few weeks ago I got to experience it on a very cold and snowy day.

Under normal circumstances, I think most people about to go on a photo tour would ask to rearrange for another day when they saw the weather forecast, rain, snow, wind and cold, but not this was not normal circumstances. This time the “client”  Kenny, was someone I already had a good bit of prior knowledge of as he was a friend of one of my best friends from Japan, Stewart. Kenny also has the reputation for being a connoisseur of some of the finer things in life, notably whisky, so when he got in touch about a photo tour we some how ended up arranging a photo tour with a bit of whisky tasting after, so with two of my passions (photography and whisky) combined there was no way any kind of weather was going to get in the way of what was blatantly going to be a great day for Kenny or I. We checked in with each other the night before and decided thermals and waterproof clothes were all that was required to make it all do-able, on the day of the tour though the weather was a bit awful and the snow was horizontal for much of the morning, but both being resourceful Scots we formed a bit of an alternative plan, meet earlier, have a big lunch for sustenance and then start off with a whisky to warm us up. GENIUS!

So off I went to meet Kenny and I felt the need to start annoying friends in Japan with posts relating to what we would be doing via instagram:

Then I met up with Kenny and as promised our first stop was a pub on the Royal Mile called the Albanach which stocks about 250 single malts and also does some fine Scottish food, no better place to start off a serious discussion about all things photographic…and sample a wee bit of food and drink of course. A nice big plate of haggis with neeps and tatties to fill our bellies and a wee Glendronach 18 to accompany it. As any sane person knows, whisky on it’s own can be a lonely drink, so a nice wee pint of a local brew was ordered to keep it company (please note I don’t start every working day like this, but sometimes it is just necessary).

The feed and the drink an advance was a great move as outside it was wet and cold, but it did make for some beautiful scenes in Scotland’s ancient capital and Kenny and I suitably warmed made our way around town where I explained a bit more about his camera (Nikon D7000), what functions we needed to know about and play with (shutter specs, aperture, white balance ISO etc) and off we went and put the theory into practice and for the first time in a while, I also started playing about with B&W as the snow filled skies just seemed to scream out for some of it to make it look at it’s best. Although it was more about Kenny taking the photos and me talking him through things (although he already had a great bit of photographic knowledge) I took a few wee shots as we moved through Edinburgh for the next few hours:

After a few hours out in the elements my hands had long went numb, my hat was soaked through and my camera was getting a bit wet, but being canon and being pretty weather sealed I wasn’t too worried about it.

However, with the light fading and Scottish winter starting to overcome our earlier sustenance, there was only one recourse to take and that was to get to another pub quick smart and Kenny having been a student in Edinburgh had an in-built radar for such things and in no time at all we left the howling wind and horizontal rain and snow and found ourselves in a cozy wee pub where the difference in temperature actually made my 5DMkII and lens all steam up so I was left with my iPhone to take a few pics to upload to further the jealousy of friends in far flung places.

Whilst having a pint and a chat we dried out a bit and kenny brought out his laptop and showed me some of his landscape photography from his travels around Scotland and even some from a Christmas visit to Egypt where he did a lot of diving and got some amazing underwater shots. He’s one of these people with a good natural eye for photography and I loved looking through his pics and hearing some stories about his work life and all the amazing whisky he has tried. I like to think I know a wee bit about whisky, but Kenny is definitely a man with a great bit of knowledge about anything worth drinking (and eating for that matter) so although I’d maybe taught him a bit abut photography it was now my turn to sit back and learn a bit about whisky from him. In fitting with this whisky chat, we decided to make our way back to the Albanach for another whisky, but one more turned into about 6…not sure how that happened:

After a very nice couple of hours near a fire with some whisky I was a very happy man and we ventured out to the train station for Kenny to go home, but the snow was coming down thick and fast and we felt the need to wander a bit more and get some pics and with a bit of whisky power in us we set off like intrepid explorers (who had maybe had a wee bit too much to drink and felt impervious to the Scottish winter), but it di make for some good photos, even when I was shooting hand held in low light with an f1.2 lens at f1.2:

More of a fun day than a work day for me, it was great to get to know Kenny and share some stories, talk about photography and sample a few of the drinks that make life in a cold climate worth living.

Now, who else is up for a photo tour with a whisky tasting at the end of the night? Any takers, let me know, this is a service I will be offering from now, watch this space…

Just before Christmas Sue and I got an email asking if we would do a maternity shoot in Edinburgh and we were more than happy to oblige, we did a few in Japan and it’s something Sue really wanted to do more of here so we jumped at the chance. Our clients, Renata and Lucas were from Brazil but living and working not too far away from us and asked if we would be willing to shoot within a week as Renata was only a few weeks away from giving birth. Usually we like to shoot outdoors if possible, but with the Scottish winter not really being conducive to showing off baby bumps Renata requested a studio style indoor shoot with a plain background and we were happy to set up shop for an afternoon in their friend’s spacious apartment in town. With a backdrop holder, some material and few lights it’s not too hard to quickly put something up.

We scheduled an hour for shooting time and arrived early as always and had with us:

• 5DmkII x 2
• canon 50mm f1.2L
• Sigma 85mm f1.4 DG HSM
• canon 580EX II speedlites x 2
• canon 580EX speedlite
• canon ST-E2 transmitter
• Calumet heavy duty backdrop support
• Black and white backdrop materials (ended up not using the white)
• Lastolite refelctors (which we ended up not needing)
• Speedlite stands with a shoot through umbrella and a soft box
• some pretty big bits of material (6x3m we bought in Japan and spent a bit too much to ship to Scotland but that’s another story)

We arrived slightly before Renata and Lucas and decided to go for a white backdrop first, seeing as how the walls in the venue were white anyway we decided just to use what we had on offer first as Renata had stated a preference for a white backdrop, so just a case of setting up lights and testing a little bit, when you see a wide shot of what’s going on around what’s being photographed it always looks far from glamorous, but the whole point of what we do is to get the best images possible from any situation so as always we adapt to where we are and do what we need:

A bit of testing the lights showed us that ISO 400 over exposed by 1/3 of a stop was hitting the mark we wanted for the white background and then it was just a case of having Renata and Lucas get changed into whatever they wanted, go through some poses with each clothes change and generally just have a chat as we worked. We don’t go in for dictating poses to people, it’s more about getting to know each other, have everyone relax and get the photos that we are asked to take.

We shot for about an hour and ended up giving about 30 photos on a disk to Renata and Lucas and as usual we had some happy customers. Here are some of our favourites, mostly just with a white background but for one shot that Renata wanted we quickly set up a black background as well:

Maternity photography is something we love doing and is something we plan on expanding. We’ve also been contacted by Britain’s leading maternity boutique rental specialists , Hire Expectations which is run by twin sisters Pippa and Robyn and they have added us to their recommended photographers list for Scotland. They produce a variety of bespoke dresses for all occasions and anyone hiring us for a maternity shoot can get discount on any hires, so hopefully in collaboration with Hire Expectations we can start to give any future clients a photo shoot that is just that little bit more special.

Here we are in 2013. 2012 seems to have went past in a bit of a blur but what a year it was. This time one year ago Sue and I had started to sell all our possessions we’d amassed whilst living in Japan for almost 11 years, we’d started to send boxes of our books and clothes to Scotland and the future was a blank sheet. Our backyard was the cityscape in the photo above. From January we started selling all our possessions and sending boxes of our clothes and books to Scotland. We arrived back in Scotland at the start of April and now we’ve been living in Edinburgh for 7 months and we are only 5 minutes walk away from the photo below, we’ve found more and more work as time is going on and each day we are achieving more of our goals and moving forward. It’s been a big move, but one that is so far making us very happy.

So 2012 got off to a good start. Our first publication was the cover of The “Tokyo Encounter’s” Lonely Planet guide book.

We continued our assignments for various media clients, I took a few photo lessons in Tokyo and in March I really enjoyed my final assignments for my favourite Japan based client Tokyofashion.com, covering The Mercedes Benz Japan fashion Week for the umpteenth time and I can honestly say there was a bit of a lump in my throat on the last day when I filed my final images and said goodbye to some great friends and fellow photographers I’d got to know over the years covering this world class event. After finishing up I went home, we packed our suitcases and left Japan a couple of days later.

We arrived back in Scotland in April and set about setting up shop and we had about a month where we didn’t do much in the way of photography as we had to find somewhere to live, sort out transport, buy new equipment and most importantly find some new clients. We moved into our new apartment in Edinburgh on May 1st, we got the internet in on May 7th and if I remember rightly, I started working on May 8th for some Scotland based news agencies answering press calls with my photos appearing in local and national newspapers. Most of the time Sue was with me, we covered the Queen’s Jubilee

The Duke of Edinburgh’s 91st birthday celebrations at Edinburgh castle.

Scot’s Maka Liz Lochead and renowned writer Iain Rankin promoting national reading week.

The Olympic torches traveling through Scotland.

The disbandment of some army regiments in Edinburgh castle.

The Dalai Lama in Edinburgh.

Alistair Darling trying to persuade the people of Scotland we’d be “Better Together” and Scotland should stay as part of the UK.

Some people who didn’t quite agree with Mr. Darling.

Some movie stars at Edinburgh International Film Festival (Robert Carlisle here)

Some musicians at Edinburgh Jazz festival.

The Disney-Pixar animation “Brave” premiere.

Some National and International treasure bing unveiled at the National Museum of Scotland.

Some kids getting into the spirit of the Olympics.

Some authors launching their books.

Some people having a jig.

Some naval musicians arriving for the Military Tattoo

Some great Scottish comedians getting ready for Edinburgh festival.

The Edinburgh Military Tattoo (again in Edinburgh castle)

Tony Mill’s busting a “freeze” atop Calton Hill before his festival performance.

Eddie Izzard for a broadsheet.

Some more festival performers…now what’s the building in the background again?

Some people lit up for the Edinburgh International Festival’s NVA speed of light.

A songstress getting ready for edinburgh International Festival.

The only known surviving letter written by William Wallace.

Lady Rizo, an Edinburgh festival winner.

The Axis of Awesome, an Australian favourite at Edinburgh festival.

A big black and white bear that had a birthday.

Some aliens who caused traffic congestion.

A happy couple who had just tied the knot with Edinburgh Fringe Festival going on around them.

Some performers telling the stories of Shakespeare in unique ways.

Comedian David Walliams at Edinburgh Book festival.

The Virgin fireworks to celebrate the end of Edinburgh festival.

Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond with future voters.

Photos for housing brochures.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh furniture up for auction.

The First Minister at an auction.

An old ring for auction.

The start of a run.

The First Minister and The Prime Minister David Cameron not quite seeing eye-to-eye.

Some maternity shoots.

Another wedding.

The sun going down on another year.

And finishing off the year with some fine whisky

I’m used to shooting full frame “professional” canon cameras, but recently I got a loan of a Nikon D3200 and more for fun than anything else I thought I would write a review of it. To be honest, I wasn’t really expecting that much from it, after all it’s just an entry level DSLR but I was actually surprised by how good a camera it actually is and for someone who is aiming to move up from a compact or bridge camera and have an easy to use DSLR that takes fantastic images, this camera is just about perfect.

Here’s what it looks like with an 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 VR lens that it came with:

For anyone familiar with a D-SLR it’s really intuitive and easy to navigate, for someone new to photography it’s also pretty easy to get used to. The on/off witch is next to the shutter (as is the movie record button), the top dial runs through the manual modes (M = fully manual, A= aperture, S=shutter, P=program) as well as automatic modes denoted by fairly clear symbols: full Auto-a camera with “Auto” written next to it,  flash off (the lighting bolt with the line through it) and the more obvious portrait, landscape, baby, sports, close up (macro) and night portrait modes. The dial can move clock-wise or anti-clockwise and each mode is selected by lining it up with the white line to the left of the dial (right in the photo above). It also has a “GUIDE” mode which I will explore more below as it’s something unique to Nikon.

The Nikon D3200 key features:

The Nikon D3200 builds on it’s predecessor, the D3100 in more ways than just bigger megapixels.

• GUIDE MODE – designed for those new to D-SLR photography, text and sample images with instructions on how to take great photos within a few simple steps.
• Selection of automatic modes (portrait, landscape, sports, close up, sleeping faces, night scenes) as well as full manual modes.
• 24.2 MP DX-Format CMOS sensor – provides very sharp detailed images. This blows the D3100′s 14 MP out of the water, but do remember it’s not just about MP, it’s about how good a processor is in a camera, too many MP on a processor that isn’t up to scratch makes for bad images.
• EXPEED 3 processor – provides the same high speed image processing capabilities as the top end professional Nikon DSLR.Shoots NEF (RAW), large, medium and small JPEG with NEF + JPEG options. This builds on the EXPEED 2 of the D3100 and gives much nicer images which copes excellently with the 24MP the D3200 produces.
• Uses SD cards.
• High ISO 100-6400 (expandable to 12800) – produces great images in low light, once the ISO gets up to 3200 + noise becomes more prevalent.
• 11 point autofocus system.
• Exposure compensation from -5 to + 5 in increments of 1/3 EV
• 4 frames per second (fps) continuous shooting.
• photo retouch menu – allows you to edit the photos in camera.
• Active D-lighting – helps you capture more detail in high contrast situations.
• D-movie – the ability to shoot Full HD (1080p) movies, external miss add to the sound quality.

In your hands it feels fairly lightweight, about 500g for the body alone and add on a few hundred grams for the 18-55mm lens. Body is made from industrial plastic but the rubberised grip area makes it feel more secure in the hand than some of the entry level DSLR that don’t have this. It’s not as solid as the higher end DX format Nikon cameras but more than adequate for someone starting out who won’t be putting the camera through a regular gauntlet of extreme conditions.

Baring in mind it is a camera meant for beginners I wanted to try out the camera in it’s GUIDE mode, which as the name suggest is the mode which guides someone through the shots they want to take. I think the people at Nikon who were put in charge if making these modes were put in a room and told to come up with a variety of scenarios that anyone could encounter and they did so and then divided these situations into the categories of “Easy” and “Advanced” operations. Whilst this as introduced in the D3000 and refined in the D3100, it’s been raised several notches in the D3200.

Easy mode options (very similar to those on the top dial): night portraits, portraits, landscapes, moving subjects, sleeping faces, close ups, distant subjects, no flash and auto.

Advanced mode options: soften backgrounds, bring more into focus, freeze motion (people), freeze motion (vehicles), show water flowing, capture red sunsets, take bright photos, take dark (low key) photos and reduce blur.

In the easy modes, the camera does everything for you basically, it selects your aperture and shutter speed but you are given information about what is happening in the form of text and a photo to illustrate which perhaps gives a little more in the way of the potential to learn than just using the top dial.

In the advanced modes however, Guide mode comes into it’s own as you are given a bit more control, the guide mode talks you through changing your aperture and shutter speed and has photos that change to illustrate what will happen when you change settings. For example, in “freeze motion (people)” mode there is a photo of a small boy kicking a ball and you are given the option of changing the shutter speed, at 1/32oth of a second and up the boy and ball seem frozem but as you make the shutter speed slower the ball is seen in motionfrom about 1/125th of a second and from the photo to go along with 1/15th of a second both the boy and the ball are seen in motion in the example photo.

Working the Guide mode is easy, when you select it with the top dial options appear on the back screen and you use the arrow keys around the OK button to toggle through the options and then press “OK” to select “shoot”:

Next, press OK again to reveal “Easy” or “Advanced” operations:

Again, toggle through the options with the arrow keys and select the option you prefer, then go through the options until you find what you want:

Once a mode is selected information is given about what is going to happen (here in easy operations for portrait it’s all automatic, in advanced mode shutter speeds and aperture are changed via the arrow keys):

Then you press “OK” again and the shooting options (using viewfinder or live view) are given and you select which you want and start shooting in either still or movie mode:

The top left of the LCD screen tells you which mode you are in (Portrait mode via Guide below), in the top middle it tells you the ISO  is at automatic, in the middle of the LCD you see the shutter speed as 1/15th of  second and next to it the aperture (F value) is at f3.8 and there is also a diagram of what the aperture looks like on the middle left, here the aperture being a small number means the aperture is wide open (this is good for doing portraits as it makes for good “Bokeh” or background blur).

Even when you make changes in the manual modes via the top dial the information about your changes is apparent on the LCD screen at the back of the camera so you know what is going on. Here via aperture mode (A at the top left) we see there is an aperture (F value) of F 25 which shows a very small aperture on the diagram middle left, this allows less light through and gives more detail to your photos, but can result in slower shutter speeds (here 1/4 of second) which means it’s best to have a tripod to hold your camera steady:

So, now we have seen the camera is easy to use, but is it any good? As I said before, it is really good, for someone about to start out with photography it’s as good as you’ll get.

Nikon D3200 sample photos: All taken on a wander about Edinburgh on a cold winter’s day, using a variety of manual and automatic/guide modes to see how things turned out. All photos were shot in JPEG and for each photo the ISO range increases, from ISO 100 in the first photo to ISO 5000 in the final shot.

Shutter priority mode, ISO 100, F 6.3, shutter speed 1/160

Close up mode via the automatic dial: ISO 140, F8, shutter speed 1/125

GUIDE MODE: easy operation, portrait: ISO 160, f 4.2, shutter speed 1/125

Portrait via automatic dial: ISO 360, f5, shutter speed 1/125

GUIDE MODE: Landscape: ISO 400, f9, shutter speed 1/160

GUIDE MODE: Landscape: ISO 400, f9, shutter speed 1/160 @ 18mm

GUIDE MODE: Landscape: ISO 400, f10, shutter speed 1/250 @55 mm

GUIDE MODE: Landscape: ISO 400, f9, shutter speed 1/80 @ 18mm

Aperture mode: ISO 400, f10, shutter speed 1/250 

Aperture mode: ISO 400, f10, shutter speed 1/200

Automatic landscape mode: ISO 400, f9, shutter speed 1/125

Automatic landscape mode: ISO 400, f9, shutter speed 1/160

GUIDE Mode advanced options, capture red sunset mode: ISO 400, f8, shutter speed 1/60

GUIDE Mode advanced options, capture red sunset mode: ISO 500, f8, shutter speed 1/60

GUIDE Mode advanced options, capture red sunset mode: ISO 800, f8, shutter speed 1/60

Shutter priority mode: ISO 2200, f4, shutter speed 1/25 with VR enabled on lens

Shutter priority mode: ISO 3600, f3.5, shutter speed 1/13 with VR enabled

Shutter priority mode: ISO 5000, f5.6, shutter speed 1/25 with VR enabled