Toughest challenge yet!

It was with some trepidation that I agreed to take on my first piece of commissioned work recently – a music gig. To date I’d only taken shots for my benefit, not for others'.

It was an incredibly valuable experience and I’ve captured the key learning points below.

Before lifting the camera

Asking the right questions was critical.  Before the event I made a point of speaking to the band to understand what exactly they were looking for; whether there were specific shots that the band wanted; the light conditions that I could expect and how they intended to use the images.

This insight prompted me to research low light photography, specifically ISO and shutter speed settings.  This preparation removed much of the anxiety.

Manual vs. Shutter Speed Priority vs. Aperture Priority

Throughout the evening I chopped and changed my approach, but kept coming back to shutter speed priority.  Through advanced reading and initial experimentation, it became clear that I needed a shutter speed of at least 1/125 (if not 1/160) in order to capture the band members without motion blur.  Fortunately the band stayed relatively still throughout.

The light conditions were so changeable that shooting in manual mode was too tricky as I needed to be able to capture images instantly. The only exception was when I used my fixed 50mm lens, where shooting with shutter speed priority produced an aperture of f1.8 - resulting in the depth of field being too narrow.  I therefore experimented with aperture priority and manual.

(Throughout the evening I opted for an ISO of 3200/6400 and relied on reducing noise during post-production.)

Next time I'll start with shutter speed priority and be willing to improved but I've some further reading to do! I guess it also depends on the lens that I'm using at the time.

The more the merrier?

Over the course of the evening I shot 900+ images by using the burst function.  At the time this gave me the reassurance that it would increase my chances of getting a greater number of acceptable shots.  

In hindsight I should have had greater conviction and trusted my ability as it meant far much more work post-shoot and has brought about a couple of different problem... post-production workflow and storage (I shot RAW).

As for my chosen workflow, I tagged the images, sifted through them and picked out the stronger ones to work on before uploading them to my Flickr photostream. My mistake was not deleting duplicates and shots out of focus/poorly composed.  Next time I'll delete those surplus to requirements first.

For now, I've been able to delete a significant number of RAW files but it won't be long before I need external hard drives.


So, in summary, consulting with the band helped immensely but I need to find a more efficient workflow.

Fear not, I am still alive

Well, it's fair to say that the past couple of months haven't been the most productive as far as TAOP goes.

It doesn't seem too long ago that my tutor emailed and suggested that he'd be expecting my first assignment by 3rd October.  That was in September and I was motoring along.  It's now mid-November and it's fair to say that there won't much progress this side of Christmas.

Far from it being all doom and gloom I have taken a few decent shots that will form part of an exercise or the first assignment - one of which is this:

55mm, 1/125 secs at f/22, ISO 100

posted on Flickr, it's been viewed 335 times (far more than any of my other images), commented on 23 times and added as a favourite 18 times.  Lesson learned?  Find relevant groups and get your photos seen.  Not only was it a surprising response I've made some great contacts that will undoubtedly lead to more views and feedback on future images as well as inspiration.

I have done some reading of the recommended texts and I'll endeavour to do more over the coming weeks in the absence of getting the camera out.  Watch this space for more.

I'll sign of with details of one field trip in the next couple of weeks.  I've been asked to photograph a music gig; something I've never done before.  So whether or not the images will come in handy for an exercise I'm hoping to learn plenty.

New lens

When shooting the for the 'sequence of composition' exercise in Manchester over the weekend I was frustrated that I couldn't reach for a lens with a greater focal range. Up until now my Sigma 55-200 was the furthest I could get.

Yes, greater focal length would have been ideal for some of the F1 car shots, but this wasn't the source of the frustration. I'd never considered using a lens with a long focal length for candid street shots, and it was this inability to get close enough to subjects that caused me to consider purchasing another lens.

So having read some reviews of the performance of current lenses (at a reasonable price) I opted for an old Minolta 75-300 f/4.5-5.6 lens - 16 years old in fact - for a mere £72.

The FA Cup arrives in Ramsbottom on Friday where Ramsbottom United take on Salford City in a preliminary round of the competition. I'll be taking my new lens and turning my hand to sports photography.

Exercise twelve: Positioning the horizon

I approached this exercise already familiar with the notion that more often than not horizons tend to be positioned - and it's a reasonable rule of thumb. I looked forward to this exercise as an opportunity to challenge this.

So, in summary, the brief was to take approximately six shots of a landscape scene, raying the position of the horizon in the frame.

This series of images were take from a high vantage point during early morning. My intension was to capture some of the early morning mist. To cope with the bright sunshine I was shooting with an ND filter. I've given a brief analysis of the each shot below.

35mm, 1/60 secs at f/29, ISO 400

It's a pleasant image, as are the others, but it doesn't quite work. However, the issue doesn't lie with the horizon, it's the lack of foreground detail that means it lacks impact.

35mm, 1/60 secs at f/29, ISO 400

An improvement on the first shot as the lack of foreground interest is compensated slightly by the extra sky space. Still falls short though.

35mm, 1/60 secs at f/29, ISO 400

This is the first shot that conforms to the notion that sitting the horizon on either the upper third (as in this shot) or the lower third is more visually appealing. It works relatively well as you can clearly see that the scene is lit from the upper right of the image and there is a balance between the two contours of fields and the sky (each occupying a third each).

35mm, 1/60 secs at f/29, ISO 400

This shot still retains the sense of depth achieved by the two stretches of land but also brings the sun into shot; introducing an additional point of interest. So even though the horizon is positioned centrally, there's balance between green and blue, and the varying shades of blue along with the sun means that the scene isn't rendered static.

35mm, 1/60 secs at f/29, ISO 400

This one works well, and yes the horizon has been placed on the lower third of the frame. There's still sufficient foreground interest as it retains the view of both fields and the lower the horizon goes the more the eye is drawn to the mist that sits below it.

35mm, 1/60 secs at f/29, ISO 400

Shooting with the horizon so low can be hugely effective but it doesn't work in this shot, despite thinking that it would at the moment of capture. The sun isn't appealing and the huge expanse of sky without cloud now looks uninteresting. Seeing the tops of the trees at the bottom of the shot also gives the viewer the sense that they're missing something.

I do think that the final shot would work with a different subject (perhaps the wind farm that's also in shot) and in different conditions (dusk, dawn, storm clouds etc.).

Another enjoyable exercise that has questioned by preconceptions. Before the activity I would have taken just two shots: one on the lower third and one on the upper third. Having analysed the results one of the strongest images is the centrally positioned horizon.

Exercise eleven: Balance

This represents the first reflective exercise; requiring me to trawl through previous shots to see whether the images possess balance (or not!) and how this is achieved.

The majority of my previous shots have been family portrait shots but I hope I've been able to identify a sufficiently diverse set of images. The idea being that I may naturally achieve balanced compositions for one genre and not another.

50mm, 1/80 secs at f/2.5, ISO 100

I thought I'd start with a relatively simple one - a shot of my Grandparents at a recent family wedding. This one's a favourite shot and captures the character of both subjects - my Gran being more outspoken and noticeable and my Grandad slipping into the background whenever he can. And although in this shot he takes up more of the frame balance is achieved by the fact that it's my Gran that's in focus and is therefore more prominent.

18mm, 3.2 secs at f/22, ISO 100

Arguably my favourite ever landscape shot (well, that I've taken anyway) and my first long exposure. Two points of interest in the frame being the bring arch/waterfall and the boulder in the bottom right hand corner. There is a strong relationship courtesy of the flowing stream, leading the eye from the first point of interest to the second (which also portrays a contrast between liquid and solid). And although each point is diagonally opposite each other, balance is struck.

11mm, 4 secs at f/18, ISO 200

The first two examples contained two points of interest, so in addition to introducing a range of genres I also wanted to increase the complexity by introducing a third point of interest. This shot was taken on a recent shoot at Manchester's John Rylands Library.

Inititally the eye is drawn to the central light but then sweeps up to the arch at the top of the steps on the left, and then the past the arches down the steps to the right. The image therefore has a natural balance.

50mm, 1/80 secs at f/1.8, ISO 400

It took me a while to get to grips with this image as there are a number of aspects to it. Running from right to left and in decreasing importance/priority is the monkey in a seating position, the monkey lay down and the texture of the net. These aspects do not suggest balance yet intuitively I felt it was.

Realisation came when I stopped looking for physical subjects in the frame. So in this instance, although the texture of the net is a worthwhile inclusion, it's the lack of a subject on the left that gives the image balance - in other words, the space that the primary monkey is gazing in to. Should he have been looking to  his left the shot would not be balanced.

45mm, 1/80 secs at f/5.6, ISO 160

Following on from my observations of the previous shot I chose a shot with similar traits (not subjects!), so here's another with a significant amount of space. Once again, based on the physical elements of the scene the weight of the shot is skewed to the right hand side. However, it's the space the subjects are peering into that gives it balance (and makes the viewer strain his/her neck trying to peer around the left hand side of the frame). What struck me by this point is that I'd not made conscious decisions about the balance that compositions of this nature gives... it has been natural until now.

160mm, 1/640 secs at f/4.5, ISO 100

Again, a difficult one. On the face of it there's one subject positioned heavily towards the right hand side of the frame as the bushes over to the left are of no interest. Rather than the previous two images achieving balance because of the space the subject(s) were looking into, this one is balances by virtue of the direction in which the bird is hurtling towards (between the bushes on the left and the tree). This is also emphasised by the outstretched wing pointing towards this space too.

I found this exercise so valuable and really enjoyed analysing previous shots, not least because I was able to determine whether my images had natural balance because I'd certainly not been conscious of balance before now. I was really pleased to find that far more often than not my images had balance.

Even after reading the exercise I was looking for physical attributes of an image to determine whether it had balance yet what I discovered was that space can provide balance, as can selected focus/clarity.

From here on in I intend to be much more conscious of this aspect of composition.

Exercise ten: Focal lengths and different viewpoints

This exercise is a progression from the previous exercise which demonstrated the difference between focal lengths from the same viewpoint. This exercise aimed to highlight the difference that changing your lens and viewpoint would have on perspective.

The subject I chose was a local monument, the Ramsbottom Urn, which possesses the necessary depth for the exercise to be effective.

80mm, 1/160 secs at f/11, ISO 400

Ideally I would have liked to have shot this from a greater distance, making more of the 55-200mm lens, but it wasn't physically possible. The subject has interesting contours and shooting it from this angle does portray some depth and is likely to be pretty close the standard focal length of the lens.

10mm, 1/220 secs at f/11, ISO 400

Positioned some 25 yards closer to the subject, it felt unnaturally close - more so than the final image suggests - and it certainly portrays depth... too much of it! It has the effect of exaggerating aspects such as the nearest handle, and yet it also reduces elements such as the base. In addition to changing the dimensions of the subject, by being so close the the subject, the most interesting feature of the subject - the opening - has been removed completely.

Ultimately, neither image is particularly visually appealing and I suspect the better shot lies somewhere in between. The wide angle shot starts to give some perspective but the composition lacks anything interesting. Turning the left a composing a shot that contrasts the motionless urn with the speed of life passing it by.

A good exercise that has already influenced some shots that I'll be using for assignment one.

Exercise nine: Focal lengths

The exercise represented an opportunity to find a scene that I could take a wider shot of, and gradually increase the focal length to get a close up of a subject.

This was another opportunistic shot and as such I only had my 55-200mm lens with me.

55mm, 1/200 secs at f/20, ISO 400

60mm, 1/200 secs at f/20, ISO 400

80mm, 1/200 secs at f/20, ISO 400

100mm, 1/200 secs at f/20, ISO 400

130mm, 1/200 secs at f/200, ISO 400

150mm, 1/200 secs at f/200, ISO 400

200mm, 1/200 secs at f/20, ISO 400

In the first shot it's possible to make out that people are surrounding the stone by without understanding a great deal else with any accuracy. By the time we reach the closest shot, 200mm, you can make out the number of people, their positions and the colours of their clothing.

55mm, 1/200 secs at f/20, ISO 400

This is a magnified shot of the first image and, although the people in shot have changes positions slightly, it's pretty much the same shot.

This is something that I didn't expect. I'd assumed that that moving from 55mm to 200mm would have had some affect.