Archive for the ‘Conversation – advice and tips’ Category
It’s in the Bag – Part 1
A rucksack used as a camera bag.
No this isn’t a stock photo. But perhaps it could be.
My point in this post is to look at my approach to camera bags.
Like a lot of photographers I’ve got lots of camera bags.
In some bags I keep cameras and accessories that I’m not likely to use but I treasure like the body and lenses for my Medium Format Great Wall reflex.
Other bags are too big to carry but have a whole lot of stuff in them.
Still, when it comes to going walkabout I like to travel light and straight away I have a problem with commercial bags.
What do I want with a camera bag?
First and foremost, I want my camera equipment to be well protected.
This seems fairly obvious but I’ve found too many bags where the straps are flimsy and the bag opens round the top when you lift it up.
Still, when it comes to commercial bags there seem to be two basic types.
There are bags which seem to scream, “Look I’ve got loads of photo equipment with me!”
I think this is asking for trouble.
Other bags are more discreet.
The famous Billingham range is a good example. Billingham bags don’t specially look like camera bags but with their beautifully crafted canvas, leather and brass construction they still look very expensive.
Of course it’s probably too much to ask manufacturers to produce tacky looking bags that no thief would want – but that’s what I want!
Many years ago I went on a tour of Peru.
It was election time and both main candidates, Fujimori and Vargas Llosa were promising not only sound economics but also to fight the Shining Path Guerilla movement.
The Shining Path threatened reprisals.
I was warned that even on a good day the cities were full of pick pockets and pilferers.
So, I borrowed an old canvas bag from a carpenter I knew and carried my trusty Bronica up the Andes to Machu Picchu.
I should say, by the way, that I had no trouble at all. Peruvians laughed at my precautions and everybody I met treated me with friendliness.
But I still think that it’s a good idea to be as inconspicuous as possible.
So, what else do we need in a bag?
Caption :
The Famous 12 angle Hatunrumiyoc stone in Machu Picchu in Peru
Description:
This stone show how the Inca stone masons were able to join stones without mortar.
This twelve angle stone is one of the most famous examples.
If you want to use this stock photo of Hatunrumiyoc stone go to Alamy
Photo Comments:
This is a straightforward “record” shot taken with a medium format Bronica film camera.
I prize this camera for travel photography for a number of reasons:
It’s completely mechanical so there’s no problem with batteries.
It produces an exceptionally high quality photo.
Interchangeable backs mean that you can take different film stocks with only one body.
But
With only twelve shots on a roll of film you need an awful lot of film to get a good variety of pictures.
As it happens I found it very difficult to get film at all in Peru at that time and this was the downside to my trip.
Now the opposite is true:
With a digital camera every day there is the worry of battery problems and storing memory cards and backing them up, but it’s possible to take hundreds, maybe thousands of pictures in a short time.
Dragonflies in the Agora in Thassos, Greece
Caption:
Dragonflies in Thassos
Description:
These dragonflies were in a marshy spot in the grounds of the Agora or ancient public square in Thassos.
Thassos is known as the emerald isle because of an abundance of grass and trees.
It is the most northerly island of the Aegean group and is just opposite the mainland Greek town of Kavala
If you want to use this stock photo of Dragonflies in the Agora in Thassos go to Alamy
Photo Comments:
I have a strong interest in macro and wildlife photography.
One corner of the Agora or ancient meeting place in Thassos was marshland and an ideal habitat for dragonflies.
I made a number of trips in the early morning, evening and mid day to check when the dragonflies would be active or resting.
One problem was that the ground was really marshy and I could not get too close even if the dragonflies had put up with me.
Dragonflies, like other living creatures have a comfort zone and will take no notice of other creatures – even humans if they stay outside.
I had my macro lens with me, my favourite Canon 100mm and I was using a crop sensor camera which provided a focal length equivalent to about 140mm in 35mm terms.
I took some good photos with this combination but I was still not able to reach into the centre of the marsh and get close enough.
For this picture I switched to my 80-200mm Canon zoom and used a close up attachment.
This gave me both the distance and magnification that I needed.
It seems to me that the use of macro lenses has changed with digital imaging.
In the past I would have used my macro lens to photograph stamps, postcards, old bookplates and other things which needed a flat field and great overall sharpness.
Nowadays, unless I need some particular lighting effect, I just use my flatbed scanner.
The point is that for many macro shots it’s not important to have corner to corner sharpness as most of the picture area is an out of focus background.
This means that a zoom lens with a close up attachment, if stopped down a bit, can provide excellent image quality.
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Stockphotos and Personal
I started my photo website before I started blogging and understandably quite a few people contact me through my site and I’ve just realised there are a number of differences in the sorts of questions that people ask.
I suppose it might be because my site is clearly divided into photographs which are personal and for stock photography.
Now of course it may seem a bit strange in a way that I’ve had little to say about stock photography in particular but one or two people have asked me have asked me about stock photography and also what is the difference between what I might call my personal work and stock work.
Of course in many cases there isn’t any difference. I just love photography and many of my favourite personal pictures have turned out to be good stock sellers.
Nevertheless there is a difference in some cases and so I thought I might try to show some pictures every now and then which would show the particular aspects of my personal and stock photography.
As far as stock photography is concerned I’ve been involved in stock photography for a long time. The first stock agency I worked with was the Keith Jones Picture Library. Now as far as I can see this doesn’t exist any more. For a while I was with Barnabys and interestingly this turned up when I was looking for something quite different and I think it’s incorporated into the Mary Evans Picture Library.
Another agency was called the Northern Picture Library and as far as I can see it’s also disappeared and the name is used by a pop group which shows just how things have changed. For some time I was with the Freelance Photographers Guild in New York which I think has probably been incorporated into Getty.
This just shows how the stock photography business has gone up and down partly as agencies tried to move or perhaps not to move into the digital age. I had my fingers burnt very badly with an agency which accepted transparencies and changed them into digital works.
At the moment I’m with two all digital agencies. I’ve been a few years now with Alamy which is an interesting operation – I might have something to say about that – quite a lot of photographers are interested in an agency that has no internal formal editing procedure, and I’ve also recently joined an agency called Photoshelters.
I might comment on this in the future. This is an agency with editors and so far they seem happy enough with the small sample I have given them.
As far as the stock market is concerned it’s changing very very rapidly. So many pictures are used now online in websites and blogs and these pictures don’t have to be as large as pictures for print because of the nature of computer screens and the need to show quickly. people get very bored waiting for pictures to load.
Also a lot of people today have digital cameras.
Partly my thinking is coloured by the fact that when I started out in stock photography it was considered that the minimum equipment was a medium format camera using either colour transparency film for slides on the light box or monochrome film for black and white prints.
This meant two largish cameras or one camera with interchangeable backs. So I bought into the Bronica system – I still have my Bronica, backs and lenses. I’ve taken them to the top of Macchu Picchu and along the Silk Road and on various other journeys. Sadly, Bronica is no more the last models coming in 2005.
But it all means that when photographers look at pixel count and point out that the Canon range includes cameras with 21 mega pixels it’s still all in comparison with the traditional 35mm camera when they compare quality.
When you’re accustomed to the quality of medium format it’s a bit of a shock to work with cameras that have 8 or 12 pixels though it’s important to remember that the type of picture produced with a digital camera is different in all sorts of ways.
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