Category Learn photography

Fluid Dynamics

Dan Marchant October 21, 2019 0 Comments "Fluid Dynamics", Abstract Photography, Black & White Photography, Canon EOS 5DIII, Learn photography, Projects

“If you want to take beautiful photographs, point your camera at a beautiful subject”. I don’t know who first said that but I certainly agree that it is easier to take a beautiful photograph of a beautiful subject. Point your camera at a lovely flower or a handsome face, a top of the range super-car or visually stunning landscape and you will have the perfect raw material for a beautiful photograph.

Personally I prefer to stay away from beautiful subjects. I prefer to focus on, what are often thought of as, the ordinary, normal, even boring, places or objects; in an attempt to find the abnormal beauty we often overlook. I prefer the challenge of finding an interesting image that may not be obvious when you first look at the ordinary. One favourite techniques for accomplishing this/exercising those creative muscles, is to look at the same subject in as many different ways as possible, both physically, creatively and over time. “Fluid Dynamics” is project that started as just such an exercise.

Projects like this, I think, are best done over an extended period of time. Returning to the same subject and trying to see it in a fresh way each time really exercises the creativity. Unfortunately this particular project will be rather difficult to continue for more than a few months as the subject is just outside my home and we are planning to move thousands of miles away. I guess I will have to find a new subject once our relocation is complete.

Check out the current state of the project here.

Then and Now (3)

Dan Marchant December 31, 2018 0 Comments Black & White Photography, Colour Photography, Learn photography, Street Photography, Then and Now, Travel

How, What, Why – for me these were the three stages of photographic learning. How to operate my camera, what to include in a photograph and why on earth am I photographing this thing?

Over the last few years it has been the Why that has consumed my attention and had by far the greatest impact on my photography. I am pretty sure that some people would say it has had a detrimental impact because, in the early years, I focused on the What and the What was beautiful things. The result was pretty pictures of beautiful things which, within a couple of years began to bore me. The reason was simple. They had no meaning for me; no Why. Just being beautiful wasn’t interesting to me. I wanted to take photographs that were more than just skin deep.

A good example would be the above photograph I took in Sri Lanka in 2012. A beautifully detailed old padlock on a chest at the Dutch Hospital in Colombo. I thought it was pretty then and I think it’s pretty now but beyond that it has no meaning for me and as such doesn’t. If I were to photograph it now I might do so as a commentary on the power that colonial nations exerted on their respective colonies but at the time it was just a picture and for me retains little interest after the initial appreciation of its surface beauty.

I was reminded of the Dutch Hospital padlock while out on a photo-walk back in January of this year. I came upon another padlock (though this one was

certainly not as beautifully aged and wonderfully textured) attached to a set of shutters. I momentarily toyed with the idea of spending time photographic the padlock but very quickly dismissed that. Far more interesting for me was the idea of trying to capture (distorted) images of people rushing by reflected in the shutter; a rather abstract commentary on the speed of modern life. While I am sure many people will find the earlier image visually more appealing it is the latter image that I keep returning to, puzzling over the distorted shapes and trying to extract some little extra detail that I did not notice on a previous visit. In fact, while writing this I just realised that one of the figures reminds me of The Flash (the DC comic character) leaning forward at an extreme angle as he rushes along in a blur. Sometimes I think the greatest improvements in your photography come not from upgrading your camera’s firmware, but from upgrading your own firmware instead.

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Don’t let fear ruin your Street Photography.

Dan Marchant October 24, 2018 0 Comments Black & White Photography, Canon EOS 5DIII, Learn photography, People, Street Photography

There’s an awful lot of bad Street Photography floating around the Internet. Facebook groups and photo web forums filled with dull image of people walking down the street or standing talking on their mobile phones or, worse still, the backs of people walking down the street. Some of this, I’m sure, is simply the result of poor photography. The barriers to entry for Street Photography are very low. Got a mobile phone, live near a street? You can do photography in the street, even if you have no understanding of what makes an interesting photograph. But lack of photographic ability is not the only cause of bad Street Photography, at least it certainly wasn’t for me when I started out. One of the biggest causes is fear.

Fear of taking the shot

I spend a lot of time thinking about my photography. Not just about the pictures I want to take but also about the ones I have already taken. Am I getting better or worse? What did I do wrong and how can I improve in the future? One of the problems I recognised quite early was that, while shooting on the streets, I was afraid to take the shot. I would see something interesting about to happen but I would hesitate. I was worried I would miss the shot, I was worried my camera settings weren’t right, I was worried that my subject or someone else would notice me and react badly. All of this would go through my head and I would hesitate…. until it was too late. The moment had passed, the scene had shifted …. and then I pressed the shutter. The result was the back of someone walking away or a poorly composed shots of a potentially interesting subject obscured by the out of focus arse of a random passer-by.

Exception Alert: Photographs of people’s backs do work in certain situations.

Body Language – the subjects body language is clear enough to tell you what they are feeling.
You know something they don’t – Something interesting is happening that may impact on them but which they are unaware of – but you aren’t.
Joint viewer – They are not the real subject of the image but, like you, they are observing the real subject.

Street scene. Elgin Street, Hong Kong — The group at bottom right with their backs to the camera are joint viewers.

Luckily I have always been very critical of my own work. I am usually able to admit that I did not get the shot I wanted, that the resulting image isn’t as good as the one I envisioned…. hell just admit it, it’s bad. It is speedily despatched to the Recycle bin or locked away in a dungeon to be visited only when I want to remind myself of all the things that can go wrong while shooting. Unfortunately it seems there are many people out there who aren’t as good at burying their mistakes. The result is the vast array of bad photographs similar to those described above that are flooding onto the Internet daily. Many of these images are accompanied by something I refer to as the “post script”. An often lengthy treatise written by the photographer on all the interesting features of the subject or a description of the really interesting things their subject was doing just before the image was captured; all of which are absent from the actual image. The post script is not a commentary/critique of what is in the image or why you like it, nor is it necessary context for the image; it is an explanation of the things you failed to capture that would have made the image good. As such it’s a clear sign that the shot was a failure.

Fear of missing the shot

Unfortunately, once you have overcome your fear of taking the shot there is an even more insidious enemy laying in wait at the next street corner – Fear of missing the shot. It’s a little more difficult to diagnose because it shares some of the hallmarks of bad photography – namely poorly composed or boring images. But it is not a lack of photographic skill that is causing the issue, it is fear of missing the shot. I remember being worried that if I took the time to compose the shot I wanted, or moved to eliminate a compositional problem, I would miss the shot. But the counter argument to that is that if you don’t wait for the decisive moment and you don’t compose the image properly you end up with a mediocre photograph that doesn’t properly show the decisive moment.

But what happens if, while you are composing the shot, the subject moves off or stop doing whatever it is, before you can get that great shot. Well, you just saved yourself from taking a mediocre photograph.

Then and Now (2) – Sports Photography

Dan Marchant October 13, 2018 0 Comments Canon EOS 5DIII, Colour Photography, Composition, Learn photography, Rugby, Shutter speed, Sport, Technical triangle, Then and Now

When you are new to photography you need to photograph everything. You need to try every genre of photography and photograph every type of subject in every manner imaginable. Don’t ignore a genre of photography because you don’t think you will enjoy it. Try it first. I certainly had zero interest in photographing sports until I tried it one day. Now I enjoy it almost as much as I enjoy street photography. Also, just like Street Photography, I am a much better Sports Photographer now than I was when I started. I know because I still have all the embarrassingly bad photos that I took in the early days. So here is what I have learned between then and now…..

Don’t panic

an old (bad) rugby photograph I took — Under exposed, poorly composed and badly blurred due to using all the wrong settings.

When you start shooting Sports, just like any genre, there are a host of new things that you need to be aware of. As a result it is easy to be overwhelmed and forget the basics. With the picture on the right you can see that the image was under exposed and would have benefited from a little more negative space in front of the main subject. More importantly the image is blurred because I was so busy thinking about all the new elements of sports photography that I forgot the basics. I turned up and started shooting without checking all my settings. As a result I shot the whole game at a much slower shutter speed than I should have.

Less is more

The first time I shot Rugby I shot over 800 images… of which 5 were reasonable. Many of them were bad for a number of the reasons mentioned in this article but many just shouldn’t have been taken. Put simply the players were too far away/obscured/had their backs to me. Even with perfect technique they were never going to be good Rugby photos so I should never have pressed the shutter button in the first place.

For example, It is possible to take great sports photos with an iPhone or a short focal length lens such as a 24-105 but it isn’t possible to take great sports photos of players who are at the opposite end of the pitch with this kit. When the play moves out of range stop shooting (or run down to the other end of the field). It will save you having to cull a bunch of useless images.

Similarly, when the play is heading away from you, it is less likely to produce interesting photos (just as taking a Street photo of someone’s back seldom results in an interesting image). There are some exceptions of course but generally you want to see the players face and the ball for an image to be interesting. This doesn’t mean you should stop tracking the play (after all it could quickly turn around) but you don’t need to keep capturing bursts of a players receding back.

Timing

rugby player scoring a try — Face and ball both visible – check. More importantly the body has not yet come to a complete rest/landed, making for a more dynamic image.

Another problem for novice shooters (Street or Sport) comes from an inability to read the game. Unless you are already a fan of the sport you are shooting you may not immediately understand how a particular play will unfold. From the start of the play where will the ball go. Will it be passed, if so in which direction, will it be kicked, if so where. There are decisive moments in sports as there are in Street photography. Learning when those are likely to occur will allow you to capture better shots. Learning where the ball is going to be is often more important than knowing where it currently is.

As well as the timing of the game itself there is also the micro level timing of the individual players. Sports photographs are a 2 dimensional representation of a 4 dimensional event. A sporting event unfolds over time with participants moving as it unfolds. Trying to maintain that feeling of movement can often be difficult especially when you are simultaneously trying to freeze the action in order to capture a blur free image.

Note: panning and slow shutter speed are two great techniques for capturing the feeling of movement in a photograph. However, while creatively interesting they can be a little hit and miss to pull off and don’t work in every situation – hence the default option of shooting at higher shutter speeds.

The solution when shooting at higher shutter speeds is to focus on the individual timing of the subject. As the pioneering 19th Century photographer Eadweard Muybridge showed, people’s muscles expand and contract as they move and there are times when, while running, they don’t actually touch the ground at all (see the first photo above). Capturing a shot of an athlete during these times will result in an image with a greater feeling of action/movement. In the second image above Jamie Lauder (Hong Kong) lands after diving to score a try. Despite the fact that he is on the ground his trailing legs, still in the air, tell us that he is still in the process of landing, and thus make for a more dynamic image with a feeling of movement.

Who is your audience?

One final element to focus on is the editing – specifically in regard to who your audience is. When shooting for fun at my local rugby club (or for certain publications) I will edit images more loosely to show more of the players/story. Your friends all want to be in the photos even if they aren’t doing anything particularly interesting. On the other hand if your audience is a newspaper editor they likely want a much closer crop that focuses in on individual players.

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Then and Now

Dan Marchant August 14, 2017 0 Comments Black & White Photography, Canon EOS 7D, Fuji X-T2, Learn photography, People, Street Photography, Then and Now

Some years ago I wrote about the first Street photograph I ever took https://danmarchant.com/my-first-photograph/. In that post I mentioned that, while I like the image, the composition and content was pretty much luck. In other words almost nothing that I like about the image was down to me. The key word here is “took”. As a wise person once said “good photographers takes photographs, great photographers makes photographs”.

For me that means that anyone can take a good or even great photograph if you give them a camera…. but probably won’t know how they did (what makes it good) and would be unable duplicate it. A great photographer is one who makes a photograph by thinking about it before they even set out to take it. They know the type of photograph they want, the subject, the type of processing they will use. They will deliberately put themselves in a position to capture the photograph they want and they will think about what they want to include in the image before pressing the shutter. Now I doubt I will ever be a great photographer but I do think that it is worth making some effort to think about your work, to strive to make photographs rather than take them and to hopefully improve over time. To that end I thought it would be interesting to look at the first Street photo I made and compare it to one of my more recent images in a Then & Now comparison.

Note: The word make doesn’t feel right when talking about capturing a photograph. Take is the commonly used verb and so hence forth I will use the word take, even though I mean make.

Then

Back in 2011 I attended a photography course given by photojournalist and documentary photographer Michael Coyne. I didn’t take any interesting or worthwhile shots during the course but I did learn a lot that helped me develop as a photographer over the coming months and years. Read More

My first photograph

Dan Marchant July 1, 2010 0 Comments Blackbery mobile phone, Colour Photography, Equipment, Learn photography, People, Street Photography, Urban

I guess if I am going to write something about learning photography I should start by talking about my first photograph. By that I don’t mean the first photograph I ever took – I mean the first photo I took which interested me, beyond being just a simple snapshot. For several years I took photographs without a camera. I was constantly stopping and thinking “that would make a great image” but I didn’t actually buy a camera. I did this, at least in part, because I remembered my father owning, and never using, a rather nice Pentax film camera. I didn’t want to invest in a nice camera and then never use it, so I just carried on taking mental images.

Then one day I took a snap shot with my Blackberry mobile phone, which actually interested me as a photograph. I was walking through Mongkok, Hong Kong on a Saturday evening and paused to grab this photo looking down Sai Yeung Choi Street. It was the light, colour and busy crowd that first attracted me to the scene but, once I had taken it, the actual image had more to it. In addition to colour and light it also has mystery and movement. What are the young couple on the left of the shot looking at. Are they simply waiting for a break in the traffic or are they looking at something happening further down the street? What about the (what appears to be) family group on right of shot. What are they discussing and where are they going? There is also lots of movement in the image. People in the background are on the move; in couples and on their own. What about the man in the centre of the shot – where is he going hurrying down the street so that he is just a blur? On a technical level the image quality isn’t great but the image itself is well composed. The frame is filled with action and there is very little empty space. At ground level you have people everywhere and above them the buildings and neon signs. In addition the image draws your eye inwards because the yellow street markings and the buildings on either side act as leading lines, guiding you further into the image. I have to admit that the composition of the image is mostly down to blind luck. I did try to centre the image so that I was looking directly down the middle of the street. I also raised the camera angle a little so that I didn’t get too much empty road (I now know just how important it is to avoid empty/dead space in the foreground of images). But, as for the content, that is all luck. I didn’t see the man who was about to walk past, I didn’t see the taxi about to stick its nose into shot and I hadn’t noticed the people on the far right of the frame who, I feel, counter balance the young couple on the far left. I didn’t immediately jump into photography after taking this image. I kept coming back to it and looking at it, without really understanding why. Time to pinch my girlfriend’s point and shoot and start learning…..

Note: The above image was taken several years ago. This post has been back dated slightly to maintain a coherent time-line for posts that discuss images/events which pre-date this blog.