The Photography Thread

[Nijo]

My guess is... having watched Spiderman... that you'll have to get yourself to where the news is, and that's not Brighton unless you want to take pictures of pride marches or naked bike rides.

You'll probably want to be freelance, which means you need contacts and a portfolio. Is your niche really war-torn Africa? You have some truly excellent motor racing shots... following the F1 or rally circuits doesn't appeal? Well if it's strife you want you might start with parts of east London or other inner-city areas (not Brighton): hawk them around the national newspapers with the aim to build contacts, not to make money. If you're good (which you are), they'll remember you.

How ambitious are you? Take yourself out to Africa and start shooting. Make contacts with Amnesty and other agencies - they won't pay you anything but they'll get you in. More portfolio and contacts. After a couple of trips you should start to figure out how the game is played, then you can freelance for the big news agencies.

Or you can jump straight into motor racing: send your shots to sports publications, get contacts. Pay your way to big European events: hopefully you can pass yourself off as a pro freelancer and get into special enclosures. More portfolio, more contacts, etc.

You can but try!

[Concrete donkey]

I work in a store where my boss has a column in the local newspaper and got noticed by our local football club. He got freelance work doing programs for matches before becoming a writing staff member on the clubs website. From there he got a freelance position with a national newspaper covering football matches in the local area and covering the local team when scandals break out to national interest levels. It?s not photography but it may give you an idea on ways to break into the industry.

[Garf]

Some great stuff in here as usual - I'm still learning, but was pleased with how this one turned out.

Click it for flickr, as it looks better large.




By the way, anyone seen this plugin for Firefox ? It's a cool way of viewing your photostream in flickr..

[Alastair]

My guess is... having watched Spiderman... that you'll have to get yourself to where the news is, and that's not Brighton unless you want to take pictures of pride marches or naked bike rides.

You'll probably want to be freelance, which means you need contacts and a portfolio. Is your niche really war-torn Africa? You have some truly excellent motor racing shots... following the F1 or rally circuits doesn't appeal? Well if it's strife you want you might start with parts of east London or other inner-city areas (not Brighton): hawk them around the national newspapers with the aim to build contacts, not to make money. If you're good (which you are), they'll remember you.

How ambitious are you? Take yourself out to Africa and start shooting. Make contacts with Amnesty and other agencies - they won't pay you anything but they'll get you in. More portfolio and contacts. After a couple of trips you should start to figure out how the game is played, then you can freelance for the big news agencies.

Or you can jump straight into motor racing: send your shots to sports publications, get contacts. Pay your way to big European events: hopefully you can pass yourself off as a pro freelancer and get into special enclosures. More portfolio, more contacts, etc.

You can but try!

I've not seen Spiderman, I may add it to my Lovefilm list. Sounds like it'd teach me a lot

Thanks for the post Nijo, it's very interesting and pretty inspiring too.

Motorsport, whilst I love motorsport shooting it to often leaves me cold. I've made money (not much) from selling motorsports shots before but the general gist of an event is this. Find a location that covers good angles and good scope for something to happen - done in advance usually by way of research or prior knowledge. Take a shot of everything that passes for an hour keeping the other eye open for a loon that looks like they'll crash. Rinse and repeat at other locations round the track. get home and look at 400 shots all the same, yawn. The only thing that keeps me going back is the lure of a decent incident in my range. It's not happened yet though and when someone did ditch a bike in front of me my old camera wasn't up to the job of tracking it fast enough.

I would like to think I'm ambitious but the truth of the matter is I'm far to scared to head off to Africa (which I would dearly love to do) when I have a house, job, GF of ten years and numerous other commitments to keep on top of. I do wish photography had grabbed me a little earlier though, then I think I would have just upped and left. You like film analogies, have you seen Last King of Scotland? At the beginning when Dr. Garrigan just chooses a place and goes, I wish I could do that now. It may not be my niche but I like the idea of actually doing something with photography that is important. Viewing those shots on BBC often gets news stories to me I'd never have heard of before of really brings home the actuality of the situations out there.

I've looked into the access at events for motorsport by the way, without a letter from the publication you are working for 95% of tracks wont let you anywhere near a press area or give you the hallowed vest, also, for sports shooting I'd need to invest another grand at least in glass.

Thanks also Concrete.

Maybe dedication and bottle is what I'm lacking

Bookmarked that plugin for the home PC, looks interesting.

[Nijo]

Yes I've seen Last King of Scotland. I'm not suggesting you do that as I know you have a life in Brighton - it's hard to make leaps into the unknown, especially when there are bills to pay. Having said that you can always take mini recon trips as part of your annual holiday (gf allowing), in order to make the unknown a little more known.

As I said, you don't have to start with Africa. Shooting people is much harder than inanimate objects, so practice with what you have at hand. Do a series on the tramps in Brighton, trying to capture the experience in their faces. Take a trip to Slough, east London, etc, to show off the contrasting communities. Take the gf to New York, Philadelphia, Washington for more of the same. Even if the professional life doesn't take off it should still be rewarding.

I know that Pete wants (or wanted) to go to Africa to try some wildlife photography, so the same advice goes to him: go to Longleat first to get some practice in and see how that goes, then build it up to something more adventurous.

Above all, get out there and do it.

[MartyG]

Maybe dedication and bottle is what I'm lacking

You're just lacking this book - it's the freelance photographer's bible which I purchase annually.

[Alastair]

Nice one Marty, think I'll pick that up soon.

[funkydan]

Haven't been up to much of late but found this, which I took before Christmas while a friend's band was doing some recording. I like the soft tones of it:



Hoping for pleasant weather this weekend as I would like to take some nice landscape shots - fingers crossed

EDIT: Ooh, I think I'll pick up a copy of that book too Marty - thank you

[Alastair]

Like that one Dan, vey nice colours and textures. Was it really that colour though or is the white balance a bit off?

Good luck with the weather then. I'll be in Scotland on Saturday and there is between 4 & 8 inches of snow forecast! Great in a way bit not so great as I'm driving there!

[MartyG]

I got the 10D this morning. I'm impressed by the image quality from the 6MP sensor - it's certainly an easy match for the D50, if not a little better and it's definitely a lot quieter in operation. The D50 gives a solid clunk with the shutter release, the 10D is a lot quieter, perhaps even more so than the D80. It's got a good solid feel to it and handles well - I quite like the jog wheel, but I do prefere the menu navigation of the Nikons. I reckon it slightly over-exposes, so I knocked it down by a 1/3rd of a stop half way through.

I grabbed these shots on the way in to work - nothing special, but considering the lens is a bargain basment jobby, I think they're quite sharp and well constrasted.

[funkydan]

Like that one Dan, vey nice colours and textures. Was it really that colour though or is the white balance a bit off?

Good luck with the weather then. I'll be in Scotland on Saturday and there is between 4 & 8 inches of snow forecast! Great in a way bit not so great as I'm driving there!

Thanks Al - yeah, it was that colour (a darkish beige I guess you'd call it). Also, in the studio, there were sheets over the window to keep some of the light out and there were just a couple of uplighters in the corners which made the light nice and cosy too. It was a little dark in there but I used my trusty 50mm f1.8 and I am pleased with the way it turned out - a nice angle as well I thought!

Thanks re: weather. I was thinking I might head down to Ashdown Forest or around there at least and see what I can find (I require blue skies really, as I would like to do some more HDR). Good luck with driving in Scotland (are you driving up from Brighton?). If the snow has settled, you might get some nice shots

[Alastair]

Glad you're getting on well with the 10D Marty, I sense the beginning of a swap to Canon glass now. How are the start-up and write times?

Dan, yes, driving to Northumberland tomorrow then up to Aberdeenshire on Sat. Lake District on Wed and home on Friday, mega, probably around the 1500mile mark when all's done. Hoping for lots of nice shots though yeah, that's one of the reasons we are driving rather than flying, much more scope to stop and snap away.

[funkydan]

Well, take care on the roads Al and try to stay on them. Enjoy the scenery and I look forward to seeing your photos

[MartyG]

Glad you're getting on well with the 10D Marty, I sense the beginning of a swap to Canon glass now. How are the start-up and write times?

Start-up times are a little slow, the write cycles aren't too bad - definitely not as quick as the Nikons I have, but I'm prepared to live with it. Working out all the control adjustments is a bit strange as the buttons are dual function, with both the front and back dial adjusting things - I managed to get the camera into self-timer by accident because of that.

Took a couple more at lunch which I quite liked

[Alastair]

Start-up times are a little slow, the write cycles aren't too bad - definitely not as quick as the Nikons I have, but I'm prepared to live with it. Working out all the control adjustments is a bit strange as the buttons are dual function, with both the front and back dial adjusting things - I managed to get the camera into self-timer by accident because of that.

Same sensor (I think) as my old 300d so I know well what it's capable of, the results so far seem great, what lens is it?

I still get the buttons wrong on the 30D as they've kept the same dual function buttons through to the 20&30. Bit annoying sometimes but I do love the big jog wheel, feels so natural.