Electronic Sound Magazine - Vince Clarke

I have been unbelievably fortunate to meet some amazing musicians whilst working for Electronic Sound Magazine. Up and coming stars like Karin Park and LoneLady as well as synth pop God Gary Numan, but the most personally affecting one for me was Vince Clarke from Depeche Mode, Yazoo and Erasure.

Growing up in the eighties my music of choice was acts like New Order, Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode and Erasure. All synth pop titans. So it was an absolutely pleasure to be asked to go to Vince Clarke’s Brooklyn home to take pictures for an article about his collaboration with Paul Hartnoll of Orbital.

When Neil Mason from ES mag contacted me he said we would be going into Vince’s Synth Dungeon and he wasn’t wrong. Wood panelled and completely fitted to house dozens of synths and other electronics, it was quite a sight. A table sat in the middle with his computer on and lots of spot lights all around, it really couldn’t have been a more perfect setup to shoot one of my musical heros.

If you’ve read the other blog posts about how I approached shooting the other artists for Electronic Sound you’ll know they are a mixture of pure terror and completely flying by the seat of my pants. This time I was more prepared.

The writer I was working with was Mat Smith (documentaryevidence.co.uk) and I asked him if this time he could do the interview before we take the pictures. The reason for this was on previous shoots I’ve usually hung around after I’ve taken the pictures and listened to the writer speak to the artist and for some reason (probably because I’m not yet that skilled at warming up my subjects) I’ve felt that after listening to them answer some questions about their work, I could take much better pictures of them.

So this time I sat and listened while Mat talked to Vince. It was also a good opportunity to take come pictures of the synths and of his conversation with Paul Hartnoll who was on Skype.

The other thing I did differently was bring my personal photography style much more to the forefront. I’ve been shooting people in bright sunlight against dark backgrounds in Manhattan and I really wanted to see how I could, in some way, replicate that in a studio setting. I showed Vince my work and we switched off all the lights and just used a small studio light I’d brought with me and tried to get a similar result. It was somewhat successful, I suffered from the usual problem is trying to do everything way too quickly and not purposefully slowing myself down. I feel like the subject is getting really bored but I completely forget that someone like Vince Clarke has sat in many photography studios and me taking twenty minutes instead of ten is no sweat. This is key in my next shoot.

The experience was fantastic, the shots were good and it was amazing to meet the architect of so much of my favourite music. I’d love to do it again and take a lot more time over it, but that’s all part of the learning process.

Get your copy at electronicsound.co.uk

Garry Winogrand and me

When Christine said I was the son of Winogrand, apart from the astonishing compliment of being compared to one of the greatest photographers of the twentieth century, I actually realised I didn’t know a great deal about him. When I started to look at his work, watch interviews and read about his life, a man appeared who had a startlingly similar ethos towards photography as me.

Born in New York, in the Bronx in 1928 he spent two years in the army after High School and then went to study painting at Columbia University. Whilst there he was introduced to a 24 hour dark room by a fellow student and never looked back. Still living with his parents he escaped home by walking around the streets and shooting, scraping money together to develop and print. This was a man with a clear vocation and he found it early. From then on he was a photographer, working in editorial with a brief stint in advertising before devoting himself to his personal work.

The most interesting thing for me about his work is that he clearly doesn’t know why he is making it, he just is compelled to. Not only that, but he doesn’t care to know why he is compelled to make it, just that he is. When I was going through a bad patch in London I spoke to Gina Glover of Photofusion and she asked me “Do you have to take these pictures? If you do, then you will” It’s something that has stuck with me and drives me on when the pictures aren’t coming. When you watch Winogrand being interviewed it’s clear he has no interest in the lofty theory of what he is doing, saying time and time again that the only thing that is important are the pictures.

I love his New York street photography of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. Sheer energy. Visceral and combative. Shots are presented at weird angles that are often used to squash as much into the frame as possible. There is enormous movement and people are clearly aware of his presence. This goes right to the heart of what I am trying to achieve. My work is directly related to my difficulties relating to people and I can feel it with Garry’s work too.

His most famous quote is ‘I take pictures to see what things look like photographed’ and I can really identify with that, as a designer I am fascinated by how we can use photography to capture a two dimensional copy of the real world and how that changes it, especially people.

He shot what he saw but it’s clear that that isn’t the whole story, failed relationships and a disorganised life must have coloured his shot selection and edits. In quotes he appears to be quite a pessimistic character but the people that knew him say differently, I think this contradiction is evident in his work which sometimes takes the form of visual jokes and jibes at the world.

The most astonishing part of Winogrand's story are the tens of thousands of unprocessed films and hundreds of thousands of unedited pictures. This is something that I cannot understand. For me the processing and editing are as important as the shooting, it’s all part of the story. When asked about his enormous backlog and chaos he said ‘I have no filing system, I’m helpless’.

However this doesn’t take away from his amazing achievements. He moved photography forward and created an aesthetic that at once looked casual but at the same time incredibly calculated and precise. His detractors used a term he hated - ‘Snapshot Aesthetic’ - but he argued that a snapshot was rigid and prescribed like a family photo. His work was fluid, always changing and moving. The narrative didn’t seem important to him, it was a moment captured between four edges. I am very sad I never got to meet him, I really think we would have got along famously.

Spotlight and Ray Metsker

One of the highlights of last year’s trip to New York was this picture.

Shot against the background of a street in shadow it captured this gent in perfect isolation. Every hair, wrinkle and fold in his coat caught with what must be the ultimate spotlight, the Sun.

It was very different from the rest of the pictures I was taking, usually straight on and often I wouldn’t be satisfied unless the subject and I had eye contact. This was quiet, solitary.

When I took the New Colour Projects course at International Center of Photography in February it was a picture I showed at the start of the course. However my usual type of shot quickly became the focus of the project I completed throughout the 5 weeks only coming back when I created my final piece.

In week 4 I shot this picture, the sun behind me and walking up 7th Avenue. Because of the angle of the light and the dark background it achieved a somewhat similar result and again it peeked my interest, it felt different.

Then in the last week on my way to the class I grabbed this shot but I never showed it or published it as it was simply too different to everything else, but again, on this new theme.

After the course I went to Seattle and didn’t get much chance to shoot but grabbed a couple of shots one of which again felt like a relation to those previous shots and it was becoming clear that there was something in this that I needed to explore explicitly.

When I had organised to meet up with Christine Callahan for some private mentoring sessions I only had a few shots to show. So on a visit to Governors Island, where I had switched my lens from my usual 35mm to my 50mm I grabbed some pictures in Wall St. It was late afternoon and the sun was really strong. The bottom of Manhattan is not on a grid like the rest of the island, it’s a crisscross of streets and perfect for isolating the Sun with backgrounds in shadow.

So this was now a thing, when I showed the shots to Christine she recommended I look at Ray Metzker. Studying in the 1950’s at the Institute of Design in Chicago. His early work comprised of darkroom composites, multiple exposures and collage, often compiling them in camera with bits of paper he introduced to the scenes he was photographing. However during that time he also took high contrast shots of cityscapes with people bathed in light while the rest of the shot was in almost complete darkness.

You can see the rest of the images here: http://www.laurencemillergallery.com/exhibitions/ray-metzker2

These works really speak to me, there is a loneliness of a city and quite possibly nowhere like New York. With so many people usually split between residents at work and tourists it’s loud and brash but many people seem alone, trying to get to where they are going and Metsker’s work takes those people and singles them out, gives them a spotlight.

When I think about my work I’ve been attempting to do something similar all along. My original shots of women on the London Tube were so close there was very rarely anyone else in shot, then subsequently the shots I’ve been taking use shallow depth of field to pull individuals out from the crowd. They say photography is a mirror so make of that what you will.

With all that in mind I shot these picture this week.  My work before was difficult enough - finding the people, being in the right spot and grabbing a fleeting moment - now I have to find all of that but with the perfect lighting.  It’s a hard life ;)

New Colour Projects at International Center of Photography School

So for the past 5 weeks I’ve been taking the New Colour Projects course at The School of the International Center of Photography tutored by Christine Callahan. I haven’t done a photography course since I learnt how to shoot on manual with Dave Hodgkinson back in the dark ages of 2009.

Christine’s course jumped out at me because I’m not interested in learning technical skills or any kind of processing or printing skills.  What I’m most interested in is where I take my work and how to form a cohesive project. Even though from the description I had no idea what to expect, I decided to jump in and take her course.

There were 6 students and from the get-go it was clear that this was going to be about looking, critiquing and editing. Something that was terrifying at first, but eventually became incredibly liberating was we were not allowed to present our work. Instead, we put it up on the screen or wall and the group discussed it without us saying where, when, how or why we took the pictures. It was a technique which set the work free, and it was masterful.

The first week was about our past work that had brought us to the course. Fifteen images of our choosing. I selected the best from London, some of my Car Boot Sale images, a couple of the St Pancras Piano and a few from my short time in New York.

The second week we were asked to go and shoot fifteen more, bring them in, and project them on the screen.

But it was the third week that things really changed.  The assignment was to go away and shoot 36 pictures and get them printed at 4” x 6”.  Not only do I very rarely print my work, but also, my output hardly ever exceeds 10-15 pictures in a week. It was actually a quite stressful assignment, but it forced me to be more proactive and also actually start a project I had been thinking about for a while.

When you come to New York there is something on the streets you cannot miss, they are everywhere and they are all the same but all different. There doesn’t seem to be a specific name for them, so I nominally call them Street Food Carts. They are most interesting at night because they have lights, big scrolling text displays and the menu sprawled all over the front of the cart.

So I took 15 pictures of the carts and pulled together 21 images from my street work. In my last blog post I had just discovered 7th Avenue and so I’ve been revisiting that area every day around lunchtime and it proved to be a great basis for my project.

I turned up for class armed with 36 pictures that I thought were pretty good, and the first thing Christine says after confirming we had taken 36 shots was, “Okay, now put 15 on the wall”. Holy shit. Everyone looked at each other and you could tell we were all thinking the same thing...we slogged to get 36 pictures at all!  As it turned out, this was simply the first stage in getting us to edit our work. There was one olive branch, she looked through our rejects and rescued the ones she thought were good.

I ended up with maybe 18 images on the board. This was interesting in two ways. Firstly  I don’t print my work so the only way I usually see it is one after another on a screen, in contrast, Christine’s method gives you a view that allows you to compare and contrast; a new experience. Secondly, not only had I chosen the first edit, the group then went through them and edited them further. Now, as Christine said, we have the power of veto because it’s our project, but I only really used it a couple of times because this was new and it was exciting to work like this. As they say, “kill your darlings” so I generally went with the group consensus.

The fourth week was the same with the only difference being that we brought in the previous week’s edit and displayed it next to the new images. At the end of the session we were also asked to talk about how we thought we would like to package the collection.  An exhibition? A book? A zine? I talked about an idea I had been thinking about where I would blow the images up to life-size which would mean each print would end up being a different size. So I was set the task to take one of my images and print it life size for the final week’s critique.

I decided to print the image of the lonely man, which is the first image on my website. I measured the width of my head and worked out the percentage increase and blew the image up and it ended up at 51” by 32”. Not small. I chose Duggal to get it printed which is on 23rd street and after looking at the example prints they had in the shop decided to have a Digital C-Print on Glossy.

In the final week we displayed our final prints and I also printed up some of the images that I had shown on the first week that I felt should be part of the project. I also had a couple of new shots and as before I put up the entire collection, old and new. The set came to 30 images and I asked the group to lose ten pictures and this final edit forms the collection on my site called “New York Street Photography Winter 15/16”. I’ve only added a couple of images I forgot to print up for the class edit, but that I feel should be in the set.

So, in the end, this experience has changed me significantly.  Not only have I met some great photographers, been forced to get it together and produce a lot more work than I am used to, but it’s taught me to be even more laser-focussed on what makes a good project. I’m confident that the images that were discarded for this project will rise again in another one, and the experience has given me lots of new ideas. It’s also taught me that when Dave Hodgkinson said ‘A picture is not a photograph until it’s printed’  As much as I hate admitting it...he is absolutely right ;)

New York - February 2016 Pictures

I flew back to New York at the start of February after spending three weeks back in London. I didn’t really shoot in London too much because, well I’m not really sure why, I only really got one picture I liked at Brixton Tube, but it was a good one.

Coming back to New York was strange, after such an amazing two months before Christmas in which I stepped out my comfort zone, framed my shots differently, pushed the button at times I normally would never have; my photography felt fresh again.

So that’s the good news, after such a good first trip, settling back in on my return was hard. The first day back it snowed which, obviously was fabulous, but it didn’t result in anything amazing because I was having too good a time in the snow.

It was a full week of mediocre shots before I was on Times Sq on a very windy afternoon. With the light in front of me a woman confidently walked towards me and I fired off at least six shots and she passed me smiling. Her coat, lit from behind, her expression and her confidence made the shot.

The following days images were good, I tried to step back, widen my view and capture groups, people alone in the city and more than just my standard close up portraits.

Then it snowed again.

This time I was ready and made my way to Times Sq, I’ll do a separate post about Times Sq because it is very interesting simply for the fact that New Yorkers hate it. The snow was stunning combined with the electronic billboards lighting everything up. So many people were there, taking pictures and enjoying the weather that it was very easy to grab shots.

The next 6 days were relatively uneventful, I feel like I fall back on a standard image type and more and more become unsatisfied.

Because New York is on a North facing grid it means that as the sun moves from East to West it creates fabulous areas of dark and light. Walking Northwards up 7th or 8th Avenue in the afternoon creates an effect not unlike the work of Bruce Gilden, who shoots with a handheld flash. It’s similar because the subject is lit brightly by the sun but the background is in darkness and the result made me excited again, something fresh for me.

March looks like a very interesting month.

Street Photography in New York City

Almost to the day 12 months ago I blogged about how I was going freelance, changing my life and embarking on a new journey, one which would bring my photography to the fore and reorganise my priorities (if you haven’t read it read it here).

Well a year is simultaneously a long time and also no time at all. A lot has happened over the past year and yet I’m still shooting, seeking out new subjects, exploring different projects and striving for essentially the same thing. What has changed is that I am no longer aiming for a Photography MA, although this possibly could happen in the future, it’s unlikely. I won some great freelance clients and survived the summer up in St Albans but money was tight, I started to take on contracts and did a couple of great stints at Pearson but the game changer was in November when I became homeless, put all my stuff in storage and flew to New York for two months.

I had no idea what to expect, New York was nothing like San Francisco, which was the only other city in America I had visited. In some ways it was just how you see in the movies, in other ways it’s just different enough from the UK to make it odd. The tourist areas were incredibly touristy, and that was fantastic, Times Square was like shooting fish in a barrel and fantastic for every manner of citizen of the world, all wide eyed looking at the astonishing electronic billboards. The hipster areas like Williamsburg are so hipster it really puts Shoreditch to shame. The handlebar moustaches, wide brimmed hats and waistcoats were very plentiful.

The result was a breath of fresh air for my photography. Not only was New York immensely enjoyable to shoot in, it was easier to find the kinds of people I look for. I love well dressed and interesting people, generally young but occasionally older, I seek out the dapper members of a crowd and New York has them in spades. Wandering down Broadway, 42nd Street, Grand Central Station all resulted in characters and situations that I could only dream of in London.

For the first couple of weeks I was jumping at the chance at any shot I could grab because I was so scared of not finding what I wanted and this expanded my shot range and then when I realised the cool people were absolutely everywhere I relaxed and utilised this wider, more experimental approach with everyone I encountered.

On the 5th of February, exactly a year after my original post, I’m flying back for another three months, this time efforts are going to be taken to a whole new level, galleries will be sought, photography clubs and meetups will be attended and new projects undertaken, this is New Me 2 ‘Coming to America’.

My photography in 2015

2015 was a year of development, being published and taking pictures of people playing Pianos. It was also a year of taking what I had learned in an underground car park in Edinburgh and applying it to my street work. It's also the year I move my work from Flickr to Instagram, a much more vibrant community of varied photographers.

This was the first great picture of 2015 for me, on the Circle Line choosing the right moment to take the picture of this awesome scaffolder. I got on and saw him, hesitated and then someone came and stood in front of him, so I resolved that when they moved I’d shoot, and I did.

St Pancras has these types of scenes all the time but this couple were really going for it, completely unaware of who was watching. The picture is made by the woman in the background.

I rarely stand and wait for people but this guy in Kings Cross looked so good I had to capture him, it took a couple of minutes for him to look up from searching for his ticket to notice me.

This year’s alternative project apart from my street work was St Pancras Piano. When I was commuting every day past the 3 pianos in the station it was clear I needed to take pictures of the wide range of people that played them. Most photographers shot from the back, I chose to shoot from the side. My hashtag #stpancraspiano got picked up by the regular piano players on Instagram and soon lots of photos began to appear by other people using it.

2015 was also the year I started to shoot for Electronic Sound magazine, an iPad mag for the synth electronic music scene, spanning everything from classic Moog to new artists like Karin Park. I was sent down to the venue and told by Neil Mason, the Commissoning Editor, to just do what I do.

My street work has become wider, as in I have stepped back and aim to get a little more context to the photo than just a head a shoulders.

This is my picture of the year. A holiday in Helsingborg in Sweden, a fantastic Air BnB house with a pool, outside eating area and a pizza oven, the lights however were not so good, leading to iPhone lighting and a shot which looks like a Caravaggio painting (and quite possibly a Taylor Wessing entry for 2016).

Shooting Gary Numan was a highlight of 2015, frantic, very stressful and the time flies by like a blur but the result is a really honest portrait, I daren't ask him if he likes it though.

New York! The last two months of 2015 have been spent in New York, I came here to shoot and I’ve been very happy with the results. I was so worried about not getting the shots I wanted that I shot outside of my normal comfort zone and went for subjects I never would have gone for in London.

Times Square is my new favourite place to shoot. With such a varied group of people and lighting to die for it’s perfect for moments like this which look staged but are anything but.

As I raised my camera to my eye I hesitated thinking that this shot was not going to work. However, with all the other people looking left at the traffic, the couple looking up at the astonishing electronic billboards and the only person actually looking at me is the photographer, I think it kinda worked out.

The light in New York is amazing, the grid layout means the sun creates amazing shafts of light while leaving the background in almost complete darkness. This well dressed guy was waiting at the lights, holding his coat closed from the November wind, creating a perfectly lit moment of quiet.

The lighting in and around Times Square creates amazing pools of reds and greens as the adverts wash everyone with colour.

So another year of firsts, new projects, new people, new locations. It feels like I am still working towards something and at the moment I’m enjoying the journey and not worrying too much about the destination.

Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/edwalkerphotography/

Gary Numan - Electronic Sound Magazine

I think the most important thing about shooting someone like Gary Numan is that I feel like I need to slow down. You are obviously nervous about taking a pioneer of electronic music’s picture, but I always feel like I’ve done it too quick. When it’s happening your mind is going 100 miles per hour and you are adapting to your surroundings and making it up as you go along. Next time I’ll try and stop and remember that you need to make the most of the time you have. Even  though I was prepared with my Nikon and Speedlight, Sony and reflector I never got the reflector out and the shots with the Speedlight were not up to scratch because I didn’t think through the situation before it was too late. I even knew what picture I wanted to take and although I got the shot in the end it was a close call. However, each time you learn something new and take away another experience that feeds the up and coming projects…

Get your copy at www.electronicsound.co.uk

LoneLady - Electronic Sound Magazine

The Barbican is a fantastic venue for pretty much anything they want to do, so a series of gigs in their arts space sound like a fabulous idea, in theory...

Electronic Sound asked me to go to the Barbican to take some pictures of LoneLady, who by her own admission is not really an electronic artist, she sounds to me like a mix of Joy Division and, well actually I don't really know. She was resident in a small studio space near the gallery and in there she had been recording and practicing. The space was packed full of recording equipment, laptops and a big analogue synth. This belonged to another artist on the bill that night, Wrangler, who Electronic Sound asked me to shoot as well.

When I arrived I met the PR and she told me Julie (LoneLady) was pretty tired and could I make it as quick as possible. When I was introduced to Julie she was quiet and clearly tired and probably nervous about the gig that evening. The lighting in the studio space was just how I like it, low and ambient and there was also a lovely red desk lamp which helped colour the mood too.

We started by shooting Julie in front of the massive synth which Neil from Electronic Sound had specifically told me to make sure I get a good one of. It's a beautiful wood panelled machine with loads of inputs and knobs and lights so fabulous to shoot someone in front of. I'd been taking pictures of it on it's own and had pointed the red lamp over the top of it to alter the look and when Julie came in to be photographed I left it where it was so it was pointing over her shoulder at me.

Once we had a few shots in the studio I took her out the the foyer area where there were loads of amazing concrete pillars and rough textures, we shot by the lifts and in front of big signs using the available light. I still need to work on my directing of subjects, I'm so used to getting one or maybe two opportunities to shoot on the street that I forget that with portraiture I can take my time!

After that Julie went off to rest and Benge from Wrangler came in to be interviewed and I took the opportunity to take some shot of him playing with the synth and a couple of portraits too.

Once the interview by Danny Turner had been done it was time for their sound check. The space was truly a gallery space with white walls which had projected movies on and in the centre a square plinth which the artists were going to play from. All the equipment was set up and while they were doing their sound check I got some great shots, these turned out to be much better than the actual gig.

When the evening came around the people started milling into the gallery space something became abundantly clear, this is a gallery and not a music venue, which means there were hardly any lights. Also the PR told me that Wrangler has specifically asked for the lighting to be low. The result was that despite my best efforts I didn't get a single live shot of Wrangler I was happy with. When Lonelady came on the lighting was slightly better meaning I got one or two usable shots but I really wasn't happy with them. In retrospect I should have taken my tripod and in future I will because if I had I might have got something I was a little more happy with.

The result was that I was very happy with the portraits but not at all happy with the live shots. I should have been more prepared, I am so used to thinking that both my Sony and my Nikon can handle anything that when they can't I am taken by surprise; not next time!

Get your copy of Electronic Sound here!

Karin Park - Electronic Sound Magazine

Neil Mason is the commissioning editor at Electronic Sound Magazine (electronicsound.co.uk) and approached me about shooting an electronic musician they were featuring called Karin Park. He’s been watching my street work on my Flickr and blog for a while and encouraged me that he wanted me to do a similar style of thing for the feature.

I went to Olso in Hackney with the writer Danny Turner in the afternoon for the soundcheck and met the band which consisted on Karin Park, her brother David on the drums and bass and Juno on the keyboards. I started off by shooting Karin in her dressing room applying some makeup and chatted briefly to her about her music, I find this kind of interaction hard as it's quite intimidating and the whole patter of a portrait photographer something I’m not used to but as a former model she was an excellent subject, knowing just what to do to give some great close up shots of her in a mirror.

The sound check was a great place to get all sorts of shots, with the band being completely happy to have me move around them on stage and shoot completely unhindered from all sorts of different angles, they also had a YouTube music channel there shooting some film for a feature which meant that they did full run throughs of a couple of tracks with full lighting. It gave me one of my best shots where Karin was sat on a stool and the lighting guys bathing her in wonderful blue and purple light.

After the soundcheck was finished we shot quite a few backstage shots in their dressing room and in a small bar area. I found a spot behind the bar which had great lighting and took portraits of David and Juno, testing out a few different settings and getting ready to shoot Karin for what I felt would be a great intimate portrait of an artist just before she went on stage.

When Karin was ready I asked her if I could get a few shots of her and while she was quite busy and clearly nervous she agreed. She said she didn’t have much time but because I had already shot David and Juno there I was all set up and after only ten shots I said ok; which surprised her. ‘That’s the fastest photo shoot I’ve ever had!’ but she was pleased with the shots I had got of her and so was I.

The show itself was full of a really enthusiastic audience and I took quite a few shots from in front of the stage. This was the most challenging aspect of the day as getting a great shot of her live with people all around you proves hard. It really goes to show that getting a really fantastic live shot is a lot harder than you would imagine. The lights are moving and changing, Karin was very energetic in her performance and this made it hard for my Nikon and Sony to freeze her in the action. I never use flash and obviously this is not desirable to the artist while they are in full flow so shooting at f1.8 on quite a slow shutter speed makes this challenging and tricky.

I moved to the sound and lighting booth for some wider shots which encompassed the whole stage and audience and while this made of a couple of interesting shots I can see now why most photographers don’t do this, the intimacy is lost and the shots look a lot less exciting from this far back.

The performance was fantastic and the new album ‘Apocalypse Pop’ sounded superb live, if you ever get a chance to see her live I would highly recommend it. Make sure you check out the article in Electronic Sound Magazine and I look forward to my next assignment!

You can see even more pictures from this shoot on my flickr page

Wizard of Oz

When I was living in Edinburgh I took some pictures for Ikram Gilani who was putting on a show about the boxing industry as part of the Edinburgh Fringe. The shots were simple as the show was basically a couple of spot lights and a couple of chairs. The lighting really suited my style of photography and you can see the set here.

Brett Hunter was at one of those shows and worked on some post promotion and I shared the pictures with him. This year Brett as part of Bright Ideas CIC was putting on a production of Wizard of Oz for all the local schools in the Lanarkshire area and asked me to come and along and shoot the production.

One of my stipulations was that I would be given full access to every area of the production, I would be able to get on stage during rehearsals and shoot a couple of the public performances. I essentially wanted to shoot in a candid manner but with everyone knowing I was there and giving me that freedom.

I flew up to Glasgow on the Saturday and went straight to the rehearsals which were double interesting because it was the first time some of the cast had met each other and also the entire set was being built at the same time. I wanted to get as much of the build up, backstage and practice as I could and on the first day I shot over 1000 pictures with around 70 being in the final edit that night.

Astonishingly that one and only run through was all the practice they had and on the Monday morning they had their first performance, I shot lots of backstage stuff and build up and on the first day tried to get more behind the scenes images. On the monday there were two performances, the first was (as you would expect) quite rough with technical issues with sound and almost everything that could go wrong, going wrong. In that kind of environment it’s hard to be sensitive to the panicking stage hands, music and lighting people and actors frantically trying to pull something together when everything around them is not working. To that end I don’t think I got a picture which eloquently illustrated this, only close.

The afternoon show was 100% better and it was only after this that everyone relaxed. The backstage shots from this afternoon were much easier to shoot as they were certainly more confident in their roles.

The second day I went out front to shoot the show from the audience's perspective, crouching in the pit and also moving out between the audience. I’ve never really been a fan of music photography where the shooter only gets to take pictures up the nose of the artist from the pit, I also now realise quite how difficult it is to get anything decent from that angle.

Now that I was familiar with the show and the way it was being performed I could start to think about the set pieces that I wanted to shoot that would give us the promotional type shots that could be used by the production company. I wanted to do family portraits and this is an area I certainly need to improve on, directing people and having the confidence to keep going until I get the shot I want. Knowing people had lunch to get and not wanting to hold up actors is all well and good if you’ve got your shot, I didn’t feel like I devoted enough time to this and the result is good but not spectacular.

After 4 days I was shattered, it was such hard work being on throughout three days of shooting, most of the time spent on your feet moving from one area to another and constantly looking for a shot whilst managing the multiple cameras was exhausting. Coupled with the editing in the evening, not enough sleep and a few takeouts ment by the time I got home on Tuesday night I was done for. Next time I shall do it differently, take better care of myself and be better prepared.

St Pancras Pianos

Between December 14 and the end of January 15 I was walking through St Pancras Station every day. I noticed people playing the three pianos that are along the walkway towards the tube station and after a few days I realised I needed to be taking pictures of them.

Before my car boot sale pictures I had never worked on a project that had and start and finish, my work was ongoing and I always assumed it would be, but the benefits of a project with a finite life are much clearer to me now. A change of scenery and a different approach is a breath of fresh air after being stuck down those tube tunnels for so long.

If you Google for them you get hundreds of pictures of people’s backs so I decided to get parallel alongside them to capture them in portrait, it also means they sometimes see me and look over. It’s an interesting angle for shooting these pianists as you also capture the bags and personal items they bring with them, the people watching them and the other commuters walking past; it makes for an great picture.

It also works quite well for a square format and perfect for an Instagram project. I’ve been experimenting with growing my audience by trying to come up with separate projects for Flickr, Instagram, Google + and soon Pinterest with only Twitter and Facebook the aggregators, so only subscribers to those social networks get to see them all. I’m not sure it’s going to work but personally it annoys me when I get a Facebook post, Tweet and Google + update which all contain the same content, so I’m trying to get away from that.

So while these pictures are processed in Instagram they are not taken on a phone camera, but on my Sony A6000 and wifi’d over to my phone for processing. This means that I have the original raw files and plan to give them a second life in much higher quality and processed differently in the form of submissions to magazines, exhibitions or a book.

But back to the pictures themselves, I’ve had an amazing response to them I think because there is a story in each one that leaves the viewer wondering what made this person sit down in the middle of a crowded train station and start to play the piano. Where did they learn, can they play well or just a few notes and where are the going? It’s an extraordinary public place to play the piano and while they might shy away from performing in front of an audience normally maybe they feel like no one is listening, although people do.

Some of the same people crop up again and again and some people bring sheet music or play off an iPad so they clearly came to play there while many others just simply sat down while they were waiting to get on their train, it’s a fascinating slice of human life.

I no longer commuter through there so whenever I go into London I have to make sure I grab a few shots as I still feel there are legs in this project and it’s ongoing and shall continue. I hope you like it.

A new me

So as of the start of February 2015 I’m going freelance, I’ve done this before but for different reasons, this time I’m doing it because I want to readdress the balance in my life and buy back some time. I’ve been a Digital Designer for nearly 20 years, in that time I’ve launched a Print Design company, a Digital Agency, a music dot com, I’ve also worked in e-learning, live music, publishing, finance and, just recently, communication companies. I’ve also been freelance a few times before. But this time it’s different.

Ever since I left my job at Immediate Media a year ago there has been something nagging at me and photography has been a massive part of that. I’ve always thought I was a pretty good designer but never great and I’m ok with that. I’ve never strived to better myself in any extraordinary way, just what was needed at the time and situation I was in. However, when I re-discovered photography that all changed. Suddenly I had found an art form that I was fully comfortable with, I can hear my voice finally, something I never have been able to do with design. When I joined Immediate Media after a month I very nearly left the company because I didn’t feel like I was doing very well and I also watched this video:

http://vimeo.com/39578584

Now I don’t want to make massive wet plate photographs, although that would be cool, but I want to commit myself to my art like this guy is committed to his. I will always have a backup because I can go back to work, what I do is actually very much in demand at the moment and I’m good enough to get a job at reasonably short notice but in many ways I don’t want that, I want no backup, I want it to be this or die.

It’s taken my recent experience with my last job, where the whole company has to hot desk, the equipment is poor and the tech support even poorer, the whole organisation is a mess and no one really cares to make me realise, life is too short for this.

I don’t know why I take the pictures I do, I don’t know what pictures I could take if I had a lot more time to devote to it and that is much more important to me than earning enough money to buy a house. I need to get to the bottom of why I’m so drawn to the images I make and the only thing I really want is to find out how great I could be at making pictures, where that could take me and how much better my life could be as a result.

To do this I’m thinking of doing an MA in Photography, the project needs to represent a further understanding into my process but also look at another aspect of my work and I’m not sure what that could be yet, but I’m working on it. I’m also going to travel and shoot in different places, interested to see the difference in responses and reactions to my style and my approach. It’s going to take a lot of networking, something I really find hard.

The ultimate goal is to find a way through my passion to a satisfactory result. The best thing about that is I have no idea what that result will be, it’s also scary but there is nothing I love more than a clean sheet to start again and make something new. A new me.

Four edits

There are only a few common pieces of advice I take stock in when it comes to Street Photography. With so many photographers out there trying to come up with regular blog posts you often get bombarded with do’s and don’ts that are just nonsense. But one of them will absolutely improve your photography, edit your work like a beast. I have a process, it’s very simple and it removes a lot of the hand wringing you get when trying to whittle down your work. I call it the four edit process.

Stage 1. Import

In the import screen don’t just import everything. I used to do that and would carefully go through each image looking for something that I could use in each one. But some shots are not even worth importing and your hard drive will thank you for getting rid of them right at the start. Make the thumbnail size large enough to weed out the missed, out of focus and just plain rubbish shots.

Stage 2. Process.

Now go through your images and decide which ones to process. If you’ve done stage one really well you should be processing most of the ones you’ve imported because you’ve deemed them worthy to live on your hard drive. The ones you thought might be ok but when looking at them large won’t cut it should be deleted completely.

Stage 3. Export.

Now of the processed images decide which you will export to jpg and at this stage in Lightroom you could probably lose a couple. Once they are in your folder on your drive open them in your image viewer and go and weed out the ones that aren’t as good as the rest. Be vicious, you’ve got this far so be really strict with yourself and even if you think a picture has potential, if it doesn’t stack up to the others in the folder, leave it behind (but don’t delete it).

Stage 4. Publish.

My online platform is Flickr, it’s where I put everything and see how it performs. I upload the images to my account but set the visibility to just me. This gives you another opportunity to view them in context with your other images in your photostream and every morning I set a new image to public and post it on my Facebook, Google+ and Twitter streams. The result of this is that some images never get published, they stay in my photostream unseen because I shot something better the next day.

The result is you publish the very best of your work but you get to contextualise it with the stuff that nearly makes it but not quite, which I think is sometimes the most valuable comparison.

Check out my Flickr page

My photography in 2014

A year of new projects, new cameras and new focal lengths.

During December 2013 and the early part of 2014 I was looking for a new job so my photography took a back seat. I'd also just bought a Fuji X100 and was struggling to get anything other than out of focus rubbish.

I found a role in Edinburgh and moved up there in February and during my first weekend Enna took me to an underground car park in the city centre. We walked down the stairs to level -4 and when we went through the doors I knew I'd found my new project. Taking place, far underground, was a car boot sale.

When I think about my photography it's all based around people standing and waiting on platforms, perfectly lit by spotlights with loads of texture and depth around them. I pull people out of the crowd and freeze them; constantly fascinated by interesting and unusual faces. With my Nikon I'd been getting closer and closer to my subjects on the London Underground but when I bought my Fuji it's focal length was 24mm and the autofocus was much slower. As it turned out the underground car park was perfect for the new camera, I was stepping back and observing so a lightning fast autofocus wasn't always needed, also the wider lens actually brought more to the scene. Each bay was lit by a spotlight and also down the centre of each corridor, this meant that everyone was steeped in light and shadow which made for some excellent shots.

I went back to the car boot sale every Sunday morning for four months, I played with using my Fuji on numerous settings, took the Nikon a couple of times and eventually bought a Sony A6000 but the best shots were taken on the Fuji on almost auto settings. It brought back my days at Borough Market but enhanced by the months and months on the London Underground building up the nerve to shoot people who were looking straight down the lens of the camera.

After 4 months I felt the project was finished, I’m not sure why but it had come to a close. I used a website called The Newspaper Club to create a newsprint tabloid of the project and had 10 copies made, I sent them to various magazines and in early 2015 my shots will appear in Amateur Photographer.

The Sony did allow me to get back into close up work on Princes Street in Edinburgh, my Lunchtagram project was a combination of the new super fast autofocus on the Sony, it's Wifi function to send a shot directly to my phone and Instagram. I had wanted to get back into using Instagram for a while but never saw much point because the camera on my phone was just not easy to use. When I got the Sony suddenly I could go out at lunchtime and have a shot up on Instagram as soon as I got back to my desk at work in the afternoon.

During my time at FreeAgent Roan Lavery asked me to take some pictures for him as an Australian magazine called Offscreen was doing a piece on him. They gave us reasonably strict style guides and we shot lots of pictures around the office, in coffee shops and the back streets of Edinburgh. The resulting article and shots looked fantastic. It's also reignited my curiosity in taking portraits.

Coming back to London in the Autumn ment back on the Tube! I had missed it so much and now my commute involves going through two major stations, St Pancras and Paddington, and using a very busy tube line. Using the 35mm lens on the Sony means my shots have been wider and much more like the car boot shots. I’m hoping to build another portfolio of tube shots that are less portrait and much more about the life of the commute and find some interesting scenes. I’m also looking for another project, something like the car boot sale that I can regularly go to and build up over time.

So overall this year has been excellent, I feel I’ve grown and expanded my work while still maintaining the overall themes and style.

Car boot sale newspaper

I’ve been going to the Edinburgh Omni-centre Car Boot Sale every Sunday for about 5 months, in that time I think I must have taken hundreds of pictures but at the start of August I felt that I had come to a natural and logical close to the project.

I’ve been looking around for different types of ways to present my work and for a while I’ve wanted to experiment with a tabloid newspaper format. A company called The Newspaper Club digitally print onto newsprint and in this case I felt the subject matter suited the newspaper format perfectly.

The results are great, naturally the newsprint sucks some of the depth out of the images and I don’t think this is something I’d do on a large scale but as a promotional item to send to magazines and galleries it works perfectly.

Strictly limited to 10 copies, signed and numbered a copy is available for £9.99. If you would like one drop me a line on the contact page.

Lunchtagram

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There are two things that really move your photography forward, new technology and a new setting. When I moved to Edinburgh one of the things I was most worried about was the lack of Underground system to shoot my close up portraits on.

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When I started shooting in Edinburgh I went to the underground car boot sale for my low light stuff but it wasn’t the sort of environment that I could practice my close up portraiture but then two things happened. I rediscovered Instagram and I bought a new camera, a Sony A6000. It was only the super quick auto focus and WiFi connectivity of the A6000 that allowed me to get back into the close up work.

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Every lunchtime I go out and walk up and down Princes street taking pictures of tourists and locals; practising my technique of walking across their path or quickly darting in front of them to get a close up shot. I love the work of Bruce Gilden but don’t quite have the courage to get right in the face of my subjects like he does yet, however I managed to get some quite impressive shots of the unusual and interesting women who populate the city centre.  It’s not the perfect time of the day to shoot, in the midday sun, but I was surprised by the results.

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Instagram evolved earlier this year to give you much more editing power over your pictures adding vignetting, sharpening and much more control over your colour as well as the standard filters it’s always had, this allowed me to get the type of results I always look for. In addition the WiFi connection between my phone and my camera allowed me to get my pictures into Instagram immediately resulting in an ever growing set that allows me to scratch my itch of close up work once again, let me know what you think.

You can see the full set here

Sony A6000 first thoughts

So this is not a technical review, specs don’t interest me at all. This is a short piece on my reaction to this camera after one week of using it. If you don’t have time to read it the TL:DR is the Sony A6000 is the best camera I’ve ever used.

I’ve been slugging my Nikon D7000 around for three years and it’s heavy and big and cumbersome. The reason I’ve been doing that is that it performs, no other camera I’ve ever used could match it’s autofocus, it’s low light capability and it’s immense battery life.

For the past 8 months I’ve been struggling, persevering and becoming more and more frustrated with my Fuji X100, a camera which takes amazing pictures but has a glacial autofocus and a dreadful battery life. I experimented with zone focussing but found it just too difficult in low light and I’ve tried slowing down my photography, but I wasn’t getting the results I wanted. I would often go out and shoot, miss shot after shot and find myself cursing it all the way up to the moment the battery died.

The one aspect of the Fuji that I did like was it’s size and weight. Being able to just slip it into my pocket was really appealing so I’ve been looking for something for a while but of all the mirrorless cameras out there I haven’t been able to find one that was the right price coupled with the right performance. I need fast autofocus in low light, it’s what my photography is based on and I can’t compromise on that.

So when the Sony A6000 was announced I read the reviews and after a particularly disappointing evenings shoot with the Fuji I just went ahead and bought it.

I’ve been shooting with it for a week with the 35mm f1.8 lens and it’s speed, accuracy and image quality has blown me away. The electronic viewfinder is bright and clear, the menus are pretty good compared to even the Nikon (and head and shoulders above the puzzle menus of the Fuji) but it’s the autofocus that really stands out as a stunning feature.

With face recognition switched on it locks onto people so well and so quick that it feels faster than the Nikon and whilst I’m still getting my head around the other focus settings, so far it’s performed amazingly well. I’ve been able to point the camera in someones general direction and it locks onto their face and gives and clear sharp image at f1.8 focussed on their eyes.

The low light outperforms the Fuji with far less grain and even at the lowest light levels the autofocus didn’t even blink.

Battery life too is great due to some neat power saving tricks like a proximity sensor next to the eyepiece so the electronic viewfinder only comes on when you look through it. I shot for around 3-4 hours without a charge and still had around 30% left however this is all academic because the A6000 uses an Micro USB cable (like Android phones) so you can charge it from your computer, lovely.

It’s also tiny, with the lens on it’s not quite small enough to put in your coat pocket but taking into account the performance this is still a very compact and light camera which is comfortable to hold and much lighter than my Nikon.

So it’s only been a week but I’ve decided to go all in and sell my Nikon and lenses, I’m that confident in the abilities of this little camera. I’ve bought a 50mm f1.8 lens to accompany my 35mm and I’m looking forward to combining the wider style shots I’ve been getting at the car boot sale with much more intimate close up portraits, I finally feel like I have the camera that can deliver the performance I need without compromise.

New subject, new camera

One of my concerns about moving the Edinburgh was that my best work has always been in artificial light, tube stations and darker environments. There is something about this ‘stage’ type lighting that I love. Shooting on the London Tube has formed the majority of my work and where was I going to find that in Edinburgh?  Luckily on the first weekend here Enna took me to a car boot sale held on level -4 of the multistory car park in the centre of town; perfect.

Not only had I found a great setting with great lighting but also a subject to explore that was different to my work in London. Now I just had to find a way of shooting it.

I’ve been using the X100 for about 6 months now. It’s pretty much been my only camera and I’ve tried numerous different approached to shooting with it. Each week I’ve been trying a different approach to shooting with widely different results.

Week 1 - Fully Automatic : Dynamic ISO - autofocus - aperture & shutter speed on auto with flash switched off but focus light on.

Really just walking around to see what it was all about and shooting to see peoples reaction and what I could get. The result astounded me.

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Week 2 - Manual - Dynamic ISO - range focus (set to about 2 to 5 metres) aperture set to 2.0 shutter speed around 125

Disaster strikes, I thought I would try and see if I could get better results with a more manual setting but the shots were often out of focus because estimating the distance is hard and also under exposed. So much so that there wasn’t one good shot.

Week 3 - Semi Automatic : Dynamic ISO - Focus set to infinity - aperture & shutter speed on auto with flash switched off.

There is one thing to be said for shooting with the focus set to infinity, fast, instant actually. You can see why in the daylight, where you can set the aperture to f16 this is a solid approach but it’s a lot more difficult in low light, you have to stay very still because the shutter speed plummets.

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Week 4 - Back to fully auto

As you’ll see with the image below with autofocus on twitch shots are really difficult, I came to the conclusion that it was time to see what the Nikon could do.

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Week 5 - Nikon d7000 - 50mm f1.8 - Auto focus but manual everything else. Settings changing shot to shot.

I thought I would try taking the Nikon and seeing if the old girl could outclass the Fuji with my old approach and shooting style. The result was underwhelming. I realised the autofocus on the Nikon was only marginally better than the Fuji and it’s size and weight meant it attracted a lot more attention.

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Week 6 - Fuji X100 - fully auto

So back to the Fuji and while this week was a very poor show (the clocks went forward which I think might have had something to do with it) the same autofocus problems raises their head.

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So what conclusions do I come to? well the Fuji needs more time. You need more to autofocus, and shoot and I can’t manage as many ‘snatch and grab’ shots that the Nikon is better at achieving. But more time isn’t always bad and a new approach is always a good thing for your photography, wouldn’t you agree?

Thoughts on my Fuji X100 one month in...

So this is not a traditional review, I won’t be talking about tech or specs or even pretend I understand all that stuff. This is an account of my experiences with my second hand Fuji X100 after a month of playing with it. However if you want the short answer, it’s awesome (if challenging).

So to say the Fuji X100 is a challenge for my street photography is a little bit of an understatement. My work relies on a split second of engagement with my subject. My Nikon’s autofocus can just about capture the decisive moment I am looking for, the Fuji X100’s autofocus cannot; it’s just too damn slow. To give you an idea of the difference, I think I manage to capture about 25% of the pictures I take with my Nikon, on the Fuji it’s less than 5%

So why did I buy it? Well it was somewhat of an impulse buy. I kept reading reviews of the X100 and the X100s and people praising it’s beautiful image quality, retro looks, great viewfinder and most of all, how great it was for street photography. As the X100s had been on the market a little while the second hand X100 was starting to drop in price and I found an Ebay listing that was just at my sweet spot, I bid and I won it. I knew the autofocus was going to be slow, all the original reviews said so, I’d even played with one in a shop and dismissed it completely. But I still bought it.

So after a couple of days with it I switched to using manual focus, ranging it to about 2 metre, setting the aperture, shutter speed and ISO to auto and seeing how far I got. It took me a few days to even get a shot in focus, nevermind one I liked, however there was one thing that kept me going; it was fast. Faster than my Nikon, silent, it slipped into my jacket pocket and most people reacted differently to it. It’s less intrusive on all counts and eventually I got this shot.

It almost looks like it’s painted, the flesh tones are beautiful and the depth is amazing. Very pleased, I’ve been gradually moving the focus closer and closer.

Because I am used to using a 50mm on a cropped sensor which makes it about an 80mm it was a massive jump to go down to what is effectively 35mm lens. All my shots with the Fuji have been wider and further back. This is something I need to rectify but it’s also something that I’ve enjoyed. It’s been a breath of fresh air to step back even if in reality I’ve exactly the same distance from my subjects.

Another advantage of manual focus is that in very low light the AF doesn't hunt and get lost resulting in you missing a shot, you click and go and be damned with what you get. However it means you can get images like this with lovely motion blur.

So they are all the things I like about it, what don’t I like? The menus are simply horrible, over complicated and baffling. I managed to get the flash to work once, can’t now, not because it doesn’t work but because there is something in the menus that I haven’t discovered. Apart from that (and thats enough, I hate badly designed menus), the battery doesn’t last long enough but worse than poor battery life, it gives you no indication how long you have left before it’s too late. You need two batteries to even make this thing viable. Ergonomically I found it hard to carry before I bought one of the thumb grips. The dial to change the exposure compensation is right on the edge and I’ve turned that by mistake a few times.

Someone (or rather a committee) at Fuji decided the send this camera out with a stock charger which was too big for the battery and to rectify this by adding a little plastic piece that snaps onto the end of the casing. This is classic corporate stupid and it means you need to be very careful when moving the charger around not to lose this tiny piece. I hope they fixed that in the X100s.

None of these things are insurmountable and once you have it set up how you want it its a beautiful little camera to have in your pocket. It feels like it has a personality and after one month I can’t even begin to say I’ve got to know it, it took me over a year to learn my D7000 so I predict this will be just as long, however right now it feels good.

As Ken Rockwell says, no one needs this camera, it’s a luxury but it’s a lovely luxury and even though I’m still not 100% sure that I will completely retire my Nikon for street photography, the Fuji X100 definitely has something special about it.