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Plate Painter in Malta

People pictures like this candid portrait of a plate painter in a Maltese Pottery present a special challenge from the stock photography point of view.

So many stock photos of people are of stereotypical business people, doctors, pretty women, laughing old people and so on. Some of these are used over and over again on different sites

There’s a good reason for this of course – it’s all about model releases.

To use a photo in a commercial context it’s a good idea to have a model release which means that the model has agreed that the photo can be used in this way.

For photos like mine of a plate painter in a Maltese pottery model releases are not always practical and of course crowd scenes in the street are even worse.

This means that a picture like this can only be used in news or editorial context which limits its sales appeal.

Still as a photographer I prefer to take candid photos of people in their everyday lives.

Plate Painter Photo Facts.

The quality of a photo depends on light.

In my film days, shooting on slide film I would have needed to compensate for the colour temperature.

With digital it’s easier providing you shoot in RAW.

RAW is often preferred for greater quality over jpeg but one advantage is that the colour balance can be decided at the post processing stage.

Another point in photographing the plate painter was the need to use a fast shutter speed to keep the subject movement to a minimum.

There’s a danger that people using image stabilizing lenses may think they can use slow shutter speeds.

Of course, the point in a picture like Plate Painter is that I wanted to prevent not only camera shake but subject movement.

The final point is that only experienced models can pose so that they look natural.

For this reason I almost always prefer to take candid portraits of people engaged in some familiar activity so that they are not tempted into unnatural poses through self consciousness or fear.

England T Shirt in Veliko Turnovo

This England T Shirt exemplifies one of the peculiarities of the times we live in – the use of English as an international language.

Huge numbers of people who use English are not native speakers and this can lead to some bizarre results.

I’ve been fascinated by the way the language is used on items of clothing often originating in China, Turkey or other mass production countries.

This England T Shirt is fairly typical and I think qualifies as a sign of the times.

England T Shirt Photo Facts

I take it as one of a photographer’s duties to document the changing word around us.

The changes happen almost imperceptibly but look back only a few years and see how things have changed.

Fashion, of course, change frequently.

Travelling around I’ve noticed that for a while there’s been a fashion of wearing clothing with all sort of texts.

This England T shirt is a good example.

It was behind a plate glass in shop window display.

The good point was that it was static, so I could take my time.

The problems included:

The possible reflections caused by shooting through glass.

The fixed position.

There are several ways of dealing with reflections of this type.

On this occasion I chose to use a rubber lens hood and placed it directly on the glass.

This deals with the reflection problem and any imperfections or dirt on the glass are out of focus.

As the lens is against the glass framing is not possible with a prime lens.

For this reason I used a zoom lens, this time my 28-75mm Tamron SP.

As the camera is supported by the glass it’s possible to use relatively low shutter speeds.

Probably this England T shirt has been sold.

Possibly it has been thrown away or has worn out.

Still one role of photography is to capture (semi) permanently an image of an ephemeral event.

The England T Shirt may be gone, but the photo lives on.