official photographer...

"A thing that you see in my pictures is that I was not afraid to fall in love with these people." 
- Annie Leibovitz

I was asked to photograph the Green Gathering this weekend as their official photographer (unpaid but 'official'... got to start somewhere!). 

I thought it would be a good opportunity to build my portfolio and my experience so of course I said yes and I'm glad I did. It was a lovely festival with lots of lovely people, both working and visiting. It turned out, however, it isn't as easy as you'd think to photograph a 3 day event, get the shots you want as well as the shots the organisers want, and it is actually pretty knackering! Although it was hard work it was good fun and I have definitely learned a few things...

Next time I do an event similar to this I will try and remember that the more photos I take the more time it will take to go through, edit and tweak them. In retrospect 2000 photos might have been a bit excessive ;-)

Permission and consent for kids in any public event is a bit of a jumbled nightmare. I researched it and was told a lot of different things in advance by different people about the legal side and the moral side of taking shots of children with or without their parents permission. So, I took consent forms with me to ask the parents/guardians but quickly realised that group shots of kids in the 'kids' area could not be done that way.

The lady in charge of the kids section thought we could put a couple of signs up saying that photos were being taken for the event and that if you had a concern about your child being photographed tell the photographer.

I then found out that something was written on the ticket/website that said that photos were being taken for event promotion etc. and that I was able to take pictures of anything without worrying about my forms.

In the end, I just went with asking the parents if they were around and the children if not... most people were okay with it anyway although I did have the occasional tricky customer, which is frustrating when you are just trying to do the right thing!

Wet weather was another challenge. In great British fashion it rained on and off all weekend. Capturing good images whilst holding an umbrella is not very easy, do-able but not easy!

If I was to do it all again I think it would go a lot smoother but I was happy with the resulting photographs so that is the main thing. There are loads of them but I have chosen a few of my favourites...

some lovely people...

"For me the subject of a picture is always more important than the picture. And more complicated."

 -Diane Arbus

 

 ... just thought I'd post a couple of portraits I've been working on of some lovely people. They are not a collection or anything just all a bit different, bit experimental.  

before and after...

"Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs." - Ansel Adams

I am currently without camera so my plan to conquer the world of portrait photography has been put on hold! I am also without my hard drive that has all my photos on it so I am at a bit of a loose end...


So, I went in search of an image I can play with on photoshop and I found an old photo I took at a friends wedding on my flickr account. It was a lovely day and as she didn't have an official photographer I got to have a go at wedding photography. It was pretty simple and fun to shoot but I found that some important moments of the day were in dark rooms with no natural light. Because of my lack of technical knowledge at the time the result was that some photos only really worked in black and white. I could adjust the tones/curves/etc of those ones until they looked quite nice but I couldn't do it so much in colour without getting purple faces or green hair!


Anyway, I have recently got my hands on an old version of photoshop so it has opened up a whole world of image manipulation I used to only dream of!  I plan to go over some of my old photos and correct things like overly warm tones, grainy qualities and just general mistakes I made first time around.

...after

before...

...my first attempt. The photo was definitely not the most interesting portrait of the day but it was a good example of the type of colour and quality I wasn't happy with at the time. It's not perfect by a long way but I think it's noticeably better...if you have an opinion I would welcome any feedback on my 'Before' and 'After' :-)

going pro...

“ Which of my photographs is my favourite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow." – Imogen Cunningham

I have always loved taking photos of people; capturing an emotion, holding on to a gorgeous little moment or somehow catching a kind of essence of the person I'm photographing. Someone told me that the difference between an amateur photographer and a professional is really just the amount of photos they have taken. I want to take that step and make this my full time career so I'm going to be taking a hell of a lot more photos!

I don't have any qualifications, not much training and in fact I'm pretty much self-taught but I really believe you don't have to go through the usual university route to become successful. It's a little more scary but there are other options. I'm going to continue to study and get as much experience as possible, maybe from becoming a photographer's assistant, maybe studying a course by myself or maybe just jumping in and seeing if anyone wants some portraits done! At the moment I don't actually know which route I'll take but it's going to be fun, after all who wouldn't want to take pictures for a living...

is it even work if you love it that much?

So... please critique, nudge, nitpick and comment. If you are a pro photographer or just know a little bit about it please share your tips, opinions, and advice. Any help welcome!