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Brighton Pride in Black and White

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This post  is a bit random. I’ve been trying out lots of different social networks and portfolio sites. Some of them provide a beautiful interface to display your work. I set up a Behance account not long ago. I haven’t really worked out how to use it to market my work yet, although I admit I haven’t given it much time. My first project “Brighton Pride in Black and White” displays quite beautifully as a stream of images.

One thing this illustrates is the importance of creating themes and sets, organising your images where ever you post them. This is something I have been quite poor at so far, so I’ve got a lot of cleaning up to do, better to remember to do it as you go along. Collections of well selected images on a theme look much better than stand alone images.

I’ve taken a screen shot and I’ll post it on Pinterest where long images look great (see my photography board). Fist I needed an excuse to post it on the website so I have somewhere to pin it from! So here it is.

Brighton Pride in Black and White

Brighton Zombie Walk – Beach of the Dead Photography

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The Beach of the Dead is approaching. An event that creates infinite opportunities for fun, colourful and eye popping images.

I’m best known for my event photography and each time I write a post after the event I always think that it would be more useful to post advice BEFORE the event. I remembered this time. Here’s my “getting the best out of Brighton Zombie Walk” post for photographers. It’s on Saturday 20th October and the walk begins at the West Pier at 3pm.

The easiest times to get the shots you want are before and after the actual event.

Arrive an hour before kick off and you’ll have plenty of time to mill around an ask characters to move or pose for you.

Don’t be afraid to talk to people, they are usually excited and pleased to be of interest. I really enjoy this part of the day, chatting and laughing, finding creative angles and working with people to achieve them. It’s a good idea to show them the really good images afterwards, if you get an interesting shot they’ll be even more keen to help you get more.

This lady was happy to pose. I explained what I needed to do to get the image, I had to practically rest the camera on her ample bosom, she was happy to oblige. I could never get this kind of shot if I didn’t engage with my subjects.

Beach-of-the-dead-brighton-photographer

Talk to your subjects, get their trust and make them laugh

Think about different angles, looking up, looking down, finding symmetry and strong diagonals. Choose your backgrounds carfully, consider turning the camera for a diagonal portait.

Beach of the Dead Brighton

Try tilting the camera for a different angle – taken with my fisheye

A lot of my images are shot from a low vantage point. This started as a way of getting clean blue sky backgrounds and became a style, I often take these without looking through the lens.

With a wide angle lens like mine, 16-35mm full frame, this means getting very close to your subject’s face. Another good reason to understand your lens. An ultra wide can include too much background if you are not close enough. Whilst you can use this to your advantage when the background is great, sometimes you want to cut it out of the frame.

Beach of the Dead Brighton-2

looking up adds an interesting perspective and keeps the background cleaner

With practise, you can learn how close you need to be and what angle to hold the camera so that you can keep talking to the subject. Holding the camera about chest height, get in close while distracting your subject with chat.

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Street Photography – Eric Kim Workshop

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I attended an Eric Kim workshop last Saturday. I attend a lot of workshops even when I cover some of the same ground there is always something new to learn and great people to meet. I had intended to write some philosophical street photography musings based on the workshop, but when I looked at my notes, all just keywords and short sentences, I thought that’s it.

Street Photography workshop – 50 tips from Eric Kim

1. Smile

Happy Lady

SMILE – LOOK HAPPY – (click image to buy)

2. Look Happy

3. Capture the essence of people

4. Opportunities are all around

5. Jump in

6. Work fast

7. Have courage

8.  Take risks

9. Tell stories

 

tell stories

 

10. Pick the moment

11. Take candid photographs

12. Interact with Environment

13. Forget about Kit

14. Get Passionate

15. Capture the human condition

16. Open your Eyes

17. Look up

Look Up - Brighton Pride

Look Up – Brighton Pride – (click image to buy)

18. Look Down

brighton naked bike ride - looking down - (click image to buy)

brighton naked bike ride – looking down – (click image to buy)


19. Use your Lunchtime

20. Notice the unnoticed

21. Be bold

22. People love having their picture taken!

23. The doubts are in your Mind

24. Forget what others think

25. The more you do it, the less awkward it will be

26. Creepiness is proportionate to focal length…

27. Get close

Pug Brighton Pride Dog Show - GET CLOSE - (click image to buy)

 

28. Shoot wide

Crawford Market, vegetable market, Mumbai, India

SHOOT WIDE – Crawford Market- Mumbai – (click image to buy)


29. Be invisible

30. Try P mode

31. Use a small camera

32. See beauty in the mundane

shoreditch london street

 

33. Relax

34. See things form different angles

35. Small aperture – Fast Shutter

36. Faster or equal to 250th sec

37. Turn off Image Stabilization

38. Experiment

39. Always have a camera with you

40. Look for Juxtaposition…

41. Capture relationships between people or things

42. You only need a handful of good photos…

43. Be easy on yourself

44. Look for signs and objects that interact

45. Get your timing right

46. Practise

47. Wait for the moment…

48. Grab the shot

49. Look for texture and shadow

50. Have Fun

If you liked this you’ll love Eric’s 100 things I have learned about photography.

Silicon Beach Training offer workshops in Lightroom,  Photoshop, Advanced Photoshop and have recently added Premiere Elements Training for all of you budding video fanatics who want to edit video for your blog.

Lomo Kev and Using Flickr for Photographers

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Great night at the camera club last night. Kevin Meredith AKA Lomo Kev talked us through his impressive photography achievements from the early days of flickr to the publication of his books.  52 Photographic Projects and Hot Shots: How to Refresh Your Photos and of his upcoming publication Toy Cameras which I’m looking forward to.

Lomo Kev at Brighton Camera Club

Lomo Kev at Brighton Camera Club

Using Flickr as a platform to publicise your work is a must in the array of Social Media options for Photographers. Kevin is a shining example of someone who used Flickr to show his images, and gain world wide recognition for his unique and quirky style. Over time, people started to hire him for commissions; He has worked for Dr Martins and The Times newspaper – all because of his evident passion for photography displayed in his account on Flickr. One thing he mentioned in in talk is that it is good to create themes and sets of subjects. His interesting collection of shoe images and of course the reputation that he had built up, were key to  his Dr Martins commission for which he was sent to LA – not a bad gig. His wellie collection lead to the Times Newspaper feature, and his portrait montages have lead to fashion commissions.

Flickr’s big strength is in its communities. There are Flickr groups consisting of photo libraries and discussion forums for nearly any topic imaginable. Whether it’s a type of camera, a technique, a theme, a location, or even a color, there’s a Flickr group of fellow enthusiasts devoted to that topic.

I myself have sold work through flickr, got commissions etc. I have had enquiries from magazines, newspapers, sportswear suppliers, families the list goes on. People have found me by searching for location or subject matter, for example when I cover an event I often get enquires as my images are well tagged and will come up prominently in searches for the event name. Flickr supports a wide range of metadata. Keywords are the most obvious (Flickr calls them tags). I have been asked to exhibit through Flickr and requests often come in to use my images on the web with credits or links to my site, that’s all great for SEO (search engine optimisation).

My flickr account: Heather Buckley on Flickr

Lomo Kev’s Flickr account: Kevin Meredith on Flickr

Here are a few reasons why, as a photographer you should be maintaining a Flickr account:

  1. It is the #2 rated photography website in the U.S., UK, it holds a near 40 percent market share in the U.S. Photobucket is still the leader, – Flickr’s global presence could still be greater.
  2. Yahoo! acquired Flickr in 2005 – so it has been optimized with the Yahoo! Image Search tool.
  3. Flickr’s photos are listed in the Google, Tag your images properly and it is not too difficult to appear in on the front page of Google’s image search.
  4. Technorati, personalised and start pages, as well as various other portals, websites and blogs will pull in and display Flickr pictures through RSS feeds.
  5. All of these direct sources can be funnelled back to your website, and at least make others aware of your brand and/or product.

It’s not just photographers that can use Flickr for SEO and Publicity gains, although you need to use it creatively as it’s not supposed to be used for commercial advertising.

So if you are not already using Flickr as a photographer time to get started and if you already have an account time to seriously start tagging your work.

Silicon Beach Training run a great set of Social Media Training, SEO Training, WordPress Training and Blogging training courses.

You can see Kevin talking about photography and Social Media at Google headquarters;

Renaissance Photography Competition

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This image was one of four images chosen as a winner and finalists in the people category for the Renaissance Photography Prize 2010.

brighton pride

Fish chips and Mushy Peas – Please click to buy this image

It’s called Fish Chips and Mushy Peas.  I had to move Manula nearer to the fish and chips sign to get this image. She is just giving me a telling off for my cheekiness!

Although it didn’t win first prize in the category, it was used on all the publicity posters and flyers, was in the times newspaper and it was fun to go to the celebrity gala and see my image in the exhibition. the image did sell on the night raising even more for the charity.

The Renaissance Photography competition raised  over £40,000 for The Lavender Trust at Breast Cancer Care. Incidentally this image is of Barry Love AKA Manula Bang Bang, who was sponsored by Marks and Spencers to wear this dress for Brighton Pride 2008, she told me this on flickr when she first saw the image, so that’s twice this dress managed to help breast cancer causes, a lovely coincidence,