Let's talk photography

I'll get straight to the point, (mainly because if I ramble too much at this point, the most readers won't make the connection with the analogy  in the title to which I am about to reference) if we want to 'Talk' photography, first we must understand the language that is being spoken. We must understand how to 'Speak' and in-turn how to 'Write' photographically, from whacking-great novels and epic poetry, through the sentences and metaphors, right down to tiny constituents of language; the letters and phonemes. We must also understand syntax, tone, and grammar.


As with written language, there are rules, but there are also different angles or perspectives from which we can approach a photograph. We can look at aesthetics or the tone, the meanings and intentions, our emotional response, or if we want to be a little more impartial and objective, we can look at the smaller, more technical aspects that create the whole.


So here's my suggestion, next time you come across an image that really connects with you, take a few minutes to try and understandwhat effect it has one you, and why it has the effect or impact that it does. Yeah, sure, you can try and decipher how it was made (that's the technical side of things we mentioned earlier), but also take the time to consider the other aspects of the image, like the desired emotional response. A simple example of this would be the shots of starving African children used in charity campaigns. How are these images supposed to make us feel? OK, that's an obvious example, but there are, of course, more difficult versions of this game. Try also to remember to think about the tone of the image. Again, if it were being 'Spoken' would it be said quickly or slowly, softly whispered or shouted, maybe even screamed at you. Usually, we can, via context, quite easily understand how a piece of text is supposed to be read, and we need to learn to be able to do the same with photography - we just need to learn the language.

Moving-on from literature, and into the world of photography, we need to consider things ranging from the obvious, to the more subtle. Take posing for example. Posing can be as simple as making a larger person look thin, or it can offer a glimpse into the mind-set of the subject. Consider reading about the basic principles of body-language, and what these things tell us about the subject. For example, sowing the undersides of wrists suggests vulnerability. Other things to consider may include the lighting, depth-of-field, perspective, cropping, viewpoint, foreground, background, and expression - and the effect that these things have on the overall perception.


But even after we've considered all of these things, we have to conclude whether these individual elements are in harmony or discord. Do the elements of the image all fit together nicely, do they 'Rhyme', is there a discernible rhythm to the image? If not, why not? What effect does this have? Interestingly enough, I find that usually, a little conflict between elements is necessary to make the image stimulating.


Now, after all that reverse-engineering, comes the forward-engineering, or, as most humans would call it, simply 'Engineering'. This is where all the understanding, thinking, and practice comes into it's proper use. We can then use the skills we have learnt from deconstructing other people's images, to constructing our own. The important part to remember, is to actually make a conscious effort to think about all of these aspects when we engineer our own images. When shooting, we must remember to think, amongst other things, not just about the lighting and clutter in the frame, but also about the tone, speed, and intentions of our photographs - we must learn to speak the language.

I think we should see other people...

Right then, let's be honest: this blog is clearly the single best photography blog in the interwebverse. However, believe-it-or-not, it isn't the only one. Honestly! Not even joking. Now then, have five minutes to recover from the shock, then, once you've regained your breath, may I suggest that you go and have a look at (NSFW) Pretty Girl Shooter. It's written by a guy called Jimmy DiGiorgio, and I find it to be a constant source of intelligent posts, interesting ideas, and on-top of that, a healthy dose of photographic inspiration.


Jimmy is essentially a Glamour / Tease photographer, but one who writes posts about all sorts of topics, ranging from lighting techniques, photographic theory, equipment reviews, straight-forward practical advice, and occasionally he even sprinkles in a little Zen / philosophy. It's clear that he really thinks about what he does, and fortunately for us, he then shares these thoughts on his blog.


Personally, I really like his un-pretentious, practical, yet thought-provoking approach to photography and blogging. He's very up-front that he's only expressing his own opinion, and he's certainly not trying to convert any of his readers to any one particular way of thinking, but it is exactly that (i.e. his own opinion) that I find so interesting and informative. He usually writes one-or-two articles a week, in nice, easily-digestible sizes, which I can pretty-much guarantee will give you something to think about, and may well change the way you approach your next shoot.

Another day, another Dawn.

It's nice to be wanted. It's even nicer to be wanted for a good reason.

Well the other day, I got the opportunity to be both wanted, and pleased to be wanted, when I got a message via Facebook. It was a message from Aurora Dawn, a model that I have shot with before. She had an idea for a shoot, and she wanted me to shoot it with her. Now, this wasn't exactly a multi-million pound commission, but still, she does a variety of styles of modelling, and for this shoot, she wanted me as the photographer. So yeah, I was fairly pleased with that.

In the message, she laid-out the theme for the shoot, which centred around a black PVC fetishy nurses outfit, in a derelict location in South Wales. As soon as I read the details I understood why she had contacted me for this shoot - this kind of stuff is right up my street!

The only potential problem was getting caught at the location by police / security which obviously would put a premature end to our shoot. It's somewhere we have both (individually) shot before, and we know it can be a little risky. Fortunately, nothing like that happened, and it all went off without any problems. Shooting with Aurora was, just like last time, really great fun. To be honest, it's times like that when I remember / realise why I enjoy shooting people so much. For me, there's an energy and insight that really makes everything so much more interesting. I love photography, but I really love meeting and interacting with people. Shoots with models like Aurora are just the best of both worlds.

The shoot itself all went pretty well, we got some great images, and we both had great fun! Aurora and I are comfortable enough with each other that we're able to do a little experimenting, most of which I'm pleased to say worked-out fairly well. It's a brilliant location, with so many areas that have so many different looks. We actually only shot in 2 places - one hall and a dried-out swimming pool, But even using just these 2 locations and 2 outfit changes, when you add to that a little creativity and imagination, we came away with a nice variety of images.

Here's a few frames from the shoot. In terms of nudity etc they're a bit on the tame side, but the upside of that is that I can safely put them up on Facebook without causing any problems, which means that more people will see them. Swings and roundabouts eh?

 

 

Thanks,
Matt

Watermarking?

Do you watermark your images? Why? Or, why not?

I'm often surprised at how much of a big deal this question is. I mean, when I first started putting my images online, it seemed 'obvious' that one should watermark images. But I kept reading articles / comments / forum threads about some people being really against watermarking, and, equally, some people are really keen on it. To be honest, I was surprised that anyone would be against it. Actually, as an aside, I once read an article where a photographer was slamming a new feature on Facebook and warning other photographers about it. He was saying how this terrible new feature allows users to download high-res versions of images you upload, and that this was really dangerous because if you didn't watermark your images, they could be re-distributed without any credit etc etc. And I just though, who the hell is uploading high-res images, without a watermark, and enabling high-res downloads?!?! Surely that's just asking for trouble!? Anyway, although I still advocate watermarking images, I do find it an interesting argument, and I think the 'non-watermarking' side have some good points, so I think it's worth mentioning some of them here.

First of all, allow me to make a small distinction. When I 'Watermark' my images, it isn't really a watermark as such. When I do it, its more like the way a painter signs a painting - its just a small, semi-transparent logo with my web address on it, placed down in the corner of the image. Some people probably wouldn't consider this a watermark, but even this small addition to an image is enough to put some people off (I'll explain that in more detail later).

So, the 'for' argument is pretty straight-forward, and for me there's really only one reason for watermarking. The kind of watermarking I do is more of a business-card, designed to work for me as a little free-advertising. At the end of the day, we live in an era where images are - rightly or wrongly - frequently, rapidly, and easily 'shared' across the Internet. I don't think there's much that photographers can do to stop this, and frankly, I think it would be futile to try, so if my images are going to get spread around the Internet (especially without a credit) I at least want people to know who shot it. Instead of trying to fight against photo-sharing, I say embrace it, knowing that anyone who sees the image can easily find my website. In this way, watermarking can help protect an image and a photographer, and is a simple and effective way of doing so.

Once an image is posted online, it takes-on a life of it's own, in what some people call a 'Second life', meaning that it could be re-blogged, emailed to friends, saved, used as a desktop wallpaper, put on Facebook, print-screened, or even printed-out. Now, obviously, if someone wants to get rid of a watermark like mine, thats going to be fairly easy to do just by cropping the image a little, or even cloning-it-out. Sure, that's certainly true, but for the casual re-blogger or Tumblr, I'd rather have a logo on there than not, you know?

Now then, the 'Against' camp tends to centre around one main reason as to why people disagree, often quite strongly, with watermarking. Essentially, the problem is one of aesthetic integrity. The fact is, when a photograph is taken, the watermark / logo is not part of the original conception - it's an afterthought, and arguably a distractingly ugly one. When posting an image online (or in print for that matter) one should want the image to look its best, and some would argue that that's simply not possible once an image has been watermarked. Watermarked images are often considered to be fundamentally less impressive. I think my own images have suffered a little from this, as on my Tumblr (http://www.latexandink.tumblr.com) I have the images watermarked, plus a little description in the caption, and to be honest, they very rarely get re-blogged. So maybe my watermarking is holding me back. Either that, or just no-one likes my shit photography. Well, latex, tattoo and fetish photography isn't for everyone!

This is a view-point held by many photography bloggers, and just in the same way that a magazine wouldn't print an image with a watermark, many professional photography blogs simply won't post an image, or a set of images, if they've been watermarked. The justification is that any reputable, legitimate blog will credit appropriately, and so there's no need for a watermark. However, I would argue that this doesn't take into account the 'Second-life' that the image make take-on once it's been blogged - regardless of how respectable the blog. Personally, it's what happens to it afterwards that concerns me.

In this way, if you choose to watermark your images, it could actually have a detrimental effect on your exposure as a photographer. Yeah, your images will work for you in terms of free-advertising, but no bugger will see them because no reputable blogger is going to blog them. So it would seem like the options are that your images may end-up safe but un-heard of, or may enjoy a degree of popularity, but potentially without anyone knowing they're yours. Bit of a tricky one really...

Personally, I believe that it's best to err on the side of caution. I just can't bear the idea of having my images flying around the Internet without any logo, and no-one knowing who shot them. I don't want to sound egotistical, but if people appreciate my work, I'd like them to be able to find me, and commission me for something. Having said that, if a blog wanted to feature me, I would quite happily submit watermark-free images. Contradictory I know, but I'd take any and all exposure I can get. Yeah, so it's a little on the whore-ish side, but love don't pay the bills, and a brutha gotta eat!

So how do you feel about watermarking? Are you particularly for or against? Let me know, and also feel free to let me know your opinions, or if you think I've left-out any points for or against.

Thanks,
Matt

Define: 'Professional'...

It's been a few weeks since my last post, and if anyone cared then I would probably apologise, but I don't really think that'll be necessary...

So, anyway, like I said in my last post, I recently did another shoot with a friend of mine, Luke, and this one was arguably even more of an eye-opener than the first. Now, I'm going to do things a little differently here: usually, when someone tells you a tale, at the end, you get the, "...and the moral of the story is..." kinda bit. Well I'm going to give you The Moral right out of the gate. Okay, so here it is, the moral of the story is, "Professionals get results every time." That's the 'moral' from this story, and it's now my definition of who can be deemed a 'Professional', and I think it applies to pretty-much any trade / job / profession / skill-set etc, etc, an oddly enough, it can also be applied to photography! Now there's handy....

The thing is, being a 'Professional' isn't about getting paid to do something, or about certain documents which apparent;y make it an objective fact that someone is good at something. Nope, sorry buddy, I really don't think it works like that. But similarly, there are people who may carry things out to a professional standard, but still shouldn't be considered "Professionals". Not unless they can produce results every time. Every single time.

You see, the reason you hire, employ or just generally trust someone who is a Professional, is because they can get the job done every time, without fail. A Professional takes luck out of the equation. Obviously, if a little luck comes their way, then yeah, that's great, but they don't need to depend on it, they can get results without resorting to being lucky. That's what a Professional has to do. I think a good example of this would be a surgeon. A professional surgeon has to get it right every time, you know? If circumstances beyond his control make the job more difficult, he can't just leave the body half-way through the operation and say, "Ah well, I had a little bad luck at the beginning,  and to be honest it all went a bit downhill from there, so fuck it, I'm off." Sorry pal, can't really do that. Similarly, you wouldn't trust heart-surgery to a weekend-enthusiast-hobby-surgeon - even if he had all the equipment under the sun. You pick the professional because you know that even if things go wrong, he will make it work-out in the end. He will get it done, he will finish the job. A Professional, will get results.

I, however, am not a professional.

My job was simple, shoot a couple of reportage / environmental portaits for a local newspaper. My aims were clear, my day, however, was long and arduous ha-ha! Well, it wasn't actually that bad really. It's just that it was all a bit new to me, as I hadn't really done anything quite like it before, and I did find it a little difficult at times. I do mostly studio or location work with models. I use artificial lighting, take my time, and construct each frame carefully. At the other end of the scale I also enjoy street photography. This, however, was sitting uncomfortably somewhere between the two. And just to make things a little more difficult, one of my subjects hated having his picture taken, and the forced grimace that spread over his face was somewhat akin to what I imagine a rapist to look like just as he, 'Get's down to the business'. Cheers Luke.

In the end, we got the images we needed, but it had taken hours, a timescale which would not be possible for a professional photographer. Hence my realisation, that what separates the photographic men-from-the-boys was the fact that a professional can get results on-demand, and not just chance-upon what he needs after getting lucky. Overall though, it was a good day, and an interesting learning experience, I had a bit of a laugh, and got the job done. Just.

Luke on Radio

I've got this friend Luke, and he's got this project on the go, which is to get together a collection of poems by local writers. I'll go into that in another post, but the point of this post is that one day I was over his house discussing the project, and he turned to me and said, "Oh yeah, by the way, I'm on the radio tomorrow," so I thought oh cool, that's really great. It turned-out he was going to be on BBC Radio Wales, so that's pretty big news. Ever since Luke got me involved in the book project I've been helping him out with trying to build a brand. Its all stuff that I've been learning about through my escapades in photography, about how to get your name out-there and that sort of thing. It's basically been me been passing-on (a very limited) knowledge to help build a blog and a Facebook page, and all that sort of stuff. So in light of that, I said, you know, he should get some photographs while he was there, and we can stuck them up on the blog and that, and use them to promote the Facebook page etc. As I'm saying this now, I realise how stupid I was being at the time, but, to be honest I didn't realise it at the time. He looked at me with this look that said - 'You're supposed to be a photographer!', and there I was, saying he should ask someone to snap a few frames on their mobile or something! So he just said "Well why dont you do it, you know, do you want to come along?". I'd never done aythig quite like this before, and to be fair to Luke, he does give me lots of opportunities for interesting experiences, so I though yeah cool, let's go. Although I would have liked more notice - we were having this discussion at about 10pm and he was supposed to be on at 9am the next mornig. I'll be honest, at first I was a bit apprehensive, but I thought, yeah go on, it'll be good experience. And it certainly was that!

We got there, got in, all ok, no problems, great. But one of the first things I noticed about being in the BBC building was that I was surrounded by young, professional, attractive people - so clearly I was out of my depth in 3 different ways! We eventually got to the place we needed to be, and there were basically two rooms, one was the actual studio where the presenters were, and then there was another, seperate room with the mixing desk etc, where the producers sat. The producers said I would be allowed into the studio to shoot a little, but I would have to come out before Luke actually went on air. So that meant that obviously I wasn't going to have much time, and unfortunately I wasn't going to get any shots of the actual intereview, which did present me with a bit of a problem. So I went into the studio section, and it was really quite tense, as I was really conscious about not wanting to make any noise or anything. The presenters were really cool about it though, it was Jamie Owen and some other lady whoise name I can't remember. I said for them to just tell me whenever I needed to leave, but Jamie Owen said not to worry, I could just stay in the studio and it would be fine (even though I had just been told by the producers that I wouldn't be allowed to do that). So I thought great! More opportinnuty to shoot, cheers Jamie Owen! So while they were still off air, I was ahooting-off a few frames, but it was a little difficult, as Luke wasn't actually being interviewed at this point, he was just sitting at the desk, which led to some fairly mild and uninteresting images.

There were also a few issues, photographically speaking, with reagerds to relatively low lighting etc. Now, I quite enjoy street photography, I like documentary / reportage etc, but that all revolves around a degree of emotion, action or intereaction between people and / or people and things. But in this specific situation there wasn't actually anything happening. At this point in time, the presenters were shuffling through paprerwork while they were off the air, and my friend Luke was just sitting at a desk, waiting to be spoken to. I also had to ramp the ISO right up, I cant remember exactly, but it was on at least 800 or something, which is pretty high for my gear. I've got a Nikon D80, which is a little old, so high ISO is pretty grainy - it's not like having a Canon 5d mk II or a Nikon D3s, where it's like, 'Oh yeah, I can ram it right up to 3200 or something and shoot an entire wedding by candle light' - unfortunately I really cant quite get away with that sort of thing on my camera. Plus the lens I'm using (a Sigma 18-125mm f/3.8-5.6 DC OS HSM doesn't stay wide open at the longer focal lengths, so I was down to f5.6 too.) The biggest challenge though was the fact that I was only in there for about 2 minutes max, during a period of fairly mundane inaction, and then I had to leave when the real action started. Then some kind of countdown began, and the producers called me out of the studio, and into the production room. I managed a few shots through the glass in the partitioning wall, but it didnt really work.

The interview itself was somewhat on the interesting side, as at one point Luke talked about how he got expelled from school for cutting a kids ear off with a can of Coke. He quickly added that he hadn't actually done it, he was just scape-goated. I had the pleasure of being in the production room at this point and experiencing the audible silence that followed this statement, along with the dropped-jaws, aghast faces, and wide-open eyes. Nice one Luke, subtle mate, subtle...

Anyway, after the interview was over, I went back in to take a few straight-up promo pics, including such classics as, 'Yeah, shaking a man's hand,' and 'The standing-awkwardly-next-to-a-minor-celebrity-whilst-awkwardly-smiling' shot etc, etc. But yeah, I think overall it went well, certainly a good experience. By the end I had a few good images, that I was happy with, and certainly worked well for the blog and Facebook page, and that was the main reason I was there.

I'll be writing another post soon about another shoot I had with Luke, and that one was even more of a challenge, so I think that'll probably be my next post.

Cheers!

Impromptu Collaboration Part 02

So, the next day, I ventured back to the location for the shoot. Once there, I met with Tom, and the model, Nancy Harry, who was really great fun to shoot with. I've wanted to work with her before, mostly due to the fact that she's fairly tattoo'd. She's one of those models who really just gets-on-with-it, and just does what you ask, without complaining of being cold, dirty tired, etc, she was really great, we all had a good laugh, and there was a genuinely relaxed but energetic vibe for the shoot, which put everyone at ease.


We basically had 2 different locations, one was a multi-story car park, and one was an underground loading bay for a shop above. Tom's proper job, when he's not running-around filthy holes taking photographs, is a graphic designer, and the multi-story car park was actually a small part of a larger project that he was working-on redesigning so we had the whole place to ourselves. The other location, the underground loading bay, was truly one of the grungiest places I've ever shot at. It was one of those places where you walk in and you think, "Actually, am I 100% percent sure I've had all my hepatitis injections? What about Tetanus?" It really was on the trampy side of derelict. You know the kind of place with that wonderfully rich and distinct aroma of cider-fueled piss?


It was only while really shooting together that I realised just how different our styles were. Although we both lean towards the alt / fetish side of things, and kinda steer-away from straight-up glamour, our actual shooting techniques were completely different. Tom was mostly available light, chiaroscuro etc, spending most of his time with long shutters on a tripod. I, on the other hand, work mostly on punching the subject with flash, and getting (frankly) invasively close to the model with a wide-angle lens. I found it really interesting to see us both working in such completely different styles, and of course, afterwards, seeing two completely different sets of resulting images. It really was an eye-opener. Obviously, I can enjoy the privileged position of having produced the vastly superior images, but Tom's weren't too bad either. He's not bad, you know, bless his cotton socks, he's coming along...

Here's a few of the images I shot:

Most of these were shot with a very similar set-up. I was using a single SB600 speedlight off-camera, with a warming gel and a honeycomb grid, with radio triggers. The idea was to warm-up the subject, with a fairly harsh and focused light (speedlight manually set to zoom), then slightly under-expose the background, with the White Balance set to create a cooler ambient light. In some situations I was also able to use any available light sources as a rim light. There was a certain amount of experimentation on this shoot, and I'm pretty happy with the results. I'm also pleased with the various individual elements that make-up the images, i.e. - a tattooed model, grungy locations, bright colours, wide angles and under-exposed backgrounds - all of which are things I find visually pleasing in my own photography and other peoples.

We have more plans to collaborate in the future, with the aim of producing something between us, and we're definitely looking at getting together again in the near future. Interestingly, the next one could be  a really significant step-forward for the both of us. This time, the model was working TF and it was all a bit last minute. However, the plan is for the next shoot to have a much more collaborative foundation, involving hair and MUA, and maybe hiring-out a location for a day. So with a bit of luck, we'll both have something really special for our portfolios in the near future.


So, as the cool kids would say, watch this space etc etc.

Impromptu Collaboration Part 1

Yeah, so, I've talked before about the advantages of being on FaceBook, and here is another example of that. I really do believe that it offers us opportunities to engage with people we might not otherwise get the chance to meet, and recently, that's exactly what happened to me.

There's this local photographer called Tom, actually he's more of a digital artist, but he also does some photography. Basically, he commented on one of the pictures I put up on FaceBook, and so that made me want to look at his profile and have a look at his stuff. I liked what he was doing, so that led me to commenting back. Basically, over the period of a couple of months or so, we were just commenting and messaging back-and-forth, you know, offering support / critique, ideas, locations, that sort of thing. One of the biggest things that we had in common was that we were both at similar stages in our photography, and we both had similar goals for the near future. But maybe most importantly, we both had a the same kind of open attitude, meaning that he would gladly share any information or knowledge that he had with me, and vice-versa - there was absolutely no pretentiousness.

After a while, we just thought, you know, lets go for it, lets actually get our asses in gear, sort something out, get it together, and produce something. As it turns-out, he already had a shoot lined-up for the end of the week, which was 3 or 4 days away. We hadn't actually met 'in real life' at this point, so the day before the shoot, we met at the location, in Newport. We thought we'd just meet-up, have a bit of a chat, and see if we thought we could work together, plus discuss plans for the actual shoot. So I made my way over to Newport, of course, the closer I got, the less sunny it became, slowly sucking any joy and warmth out of the weather. Welcome to the wonderful, glorious city of Newport. Ah well...

Tom and I actually got on really well, which was a bit of a bonus. I mean, at first there was that thought in the back of my mind, "Hmmm...so you've decided to meet a complete stranger you met on the Internet, in a disused car park? Smart. Maybe just make-out a quick will before you leave home, as you probably won't make it back " you know? Fortunately, he didn't even try to murder / rape me, which was lovely. Bonus!

So we pretty-much just kinda chatted for a few hours, and it quickly became quite clear that he was a lot more technically proficient then I am (in just about every aspect conceivable!) but, despite that, we were both at very similar stages of our photography, and we both wanted to achieve similar things in the near future. We talked about the layout of the shoot, and any ideas we had, then went back home.

That's it for this post, but I will be following-up on this story in the near future about the actual shoot. The point of this post was to show what came out of a chance encounter on FaceBook, an encounter which will hopefully lead to some great photography, but in the very least, led to me meeting an interesting and artistic contemporary.

By The Way, You're Supposed to Enjoy It...

I'm not sure if this is going to sound stupidly obvious or obviously stupid, but it seems to me like a lot of photographers need reminding - You're Supposed To Enjoy It."

A lot of photographers get into photography almost by accident - someone gives them a camera, they take some pictures, they don't stop, they (eventually) turn pro - that kind of thing. I don't have a problem with that, I think thats great, I love the idea that some event or person nudges you in a certain direction, and then some innate un-tapped passion just takes over, and consumes you. That is a true joy. Wonderful!

However, I don't want to sound patronising, and I'm (very much) aware of the fact that I'm not exactly a seasoned pro, but vast swathes of the articles I read on photography are constantly focusing (yeah that's right, I'm punnerific, puntacular, and puntastic) on the negative aspects of photography. To be completely honest, some of it seems to be boardering on fear-mongering. And I just find that kinda strange...


I'm aware of the uncomfortable-yet-true, cold, hard facts. For example, yes, it is a completely saturated market, yes, its difficult to make a lot of money from it, yes professionals are under-fire from amateurs / Flikr. But lets not forget, some photographers really do make a veritable shit-load of money from photography! Whilst doing something they love. I understand that just because you enjoy it, that doesn't guarantee success or money, but I'm not entirely convinced that the people who make money from it could do so without enjoying it, or at least having some passion for it. Yes they have to work hard, but I honestly beleive that nothing drives you harder than passion and desire. Actually, that last sentance is sounds like an Alfa Romeo advert, but, you know what I mean.


Personally, I liked tattoos before I liked photography. I would go to tattoo conventions with my girlfriend, and whilst there I would snap away at all the stuff going-on. Before long, I saved for my first DSLR (Nikon D60), and started getting creative and experimenting. I then realised that what I was really shooting wasn't the tattoos, it was the people. So I followed that thread, and started shooting portraiture. Now, my preferred area of portraiture is latex, fetish, and...drum roll...tattoo! So its kinda come full-circle for me. Lovely.


Anyway, my point is, don't forget to enjoy it. Even if the commercial side of things bores you, set yourself projects for your free time, shoot the stuff you want to shoot, then build-up a portfolio that will get you the kind of jobs you really want to shoot. Get that fire on-the-go, get excited, be inspired!

Easy! Right? Well, obviously there will be complications and compromises, and I don't want to sound like I live in some dream-land where all your wishes come true and elephants can fly, and spanners can drive cars, and Jeremy Kyle contestans are culled, but there's nothing wrong with aiming high, and being a bit of an idealist. 2 or 3 of my tattoos are essentially indelible notes from a younger, more idealist self. The fact that they'll be there forever means that I'll forever be constantly reminded of the passion (there's that 'Alfa' word again!) I had when I was younger. I don't think thats a bad idea, and I think that approach can be used to drive (another 'Alfa' word) your photography forward.

Anyway, thats enough tenuous puns and metaphors for now, just remember what got you started, and why you enjoyed it so much, and go from there.

An Aurora Dawn

Taking my photography onto FaceBook has definately helped me reach more people. Its not without its drawbacks, but on the whole, I would highly recommend that any photographers / models get a seperate page, and present yourself professionally. FaceBook puts me in-touch with photographers, MUA's, models, clothing designers and all-sorts of other people too. One such person, was model Aurora Dawn. I've noticed her profile around on other sites before, and I've always been interested in working with her, but I never really got round to actually organising something. Well, not long ago, she contacted me over FaceBook, and we organised a shoot together.


We sent a couple of messages back-and-forth talking about ideas / themes but we couldn't really settle on one specific thing that we wanted to shoot. Obviously, she was aware of my style, and was looking to shoot the same sort of thing as me, namely latex / fetish / Alt. imagery. In the end, we just agreed that she'd bring various fetishy clothing and props, and we'd just spend a couple of hours shooting and experimenting.

This was the last of my shoots in the hotel I've been using, and I booked a different room to previous visits, which threw a few new options into the mix. At various times Aurora was on the bed, sofa, chair, toilet, bath, and at one point even in a wardobe. She didn't really want to go in the wardrobe, but I really just had to shut her in there for 5 minutes peace and quiet...

Anyway, we tried quite a few different outfits and lighting setups and I think we came away with a nice variety of images - ranging from the dark and intense S&M type, to the brighter Alt-Glamour 'FRONT' magazine kinda stuff. Overall, it went pretty well. She was great fun to work with, great personality, with tons of character. Unfortunately, I did make a few school-boy errors during the shoot, but I kind of didn't mind. The whole purpose of the shoot was to try some stuff out, see what works and what doesn't, and at the end of the day, I'm happy with the images.

What exactly is your 'Photographic Style'?

What is my Photographic Style? I don't really know. That's the simple answer. And just to let you know, I don't really have a complex answer either. Arguably, I have no answer at all. So feel free to stop reading now, and skip the following ramblings...

For the fool-hardy amongst you who are still reading, this post is more about establishing, and then developing and cultivating your own style than defining it. Personally, I'm not that bothered about what its called, whether its this genre or that genre, I just want to improve my photography, and understand it more.

So, there are, as you might imagine, loads of varying definitions as to what constitutes a photographic style. But what is your photographic style?

Although I'm not exactly a seasoned-pro, when I was just starting out, I read as much as I could about photography, and consumed as much high-quality photography as I could (and, I might add, I still do, and recommend you do too). I read about the technical side, the theoretical side, even the philosophical side of things. I specifically read a lot advice for beginners, and one thing that kept cropping-up was 'Style'.

I kept reading advice on 'Establishing your own unique sytle', or as marketers would say, your 'USP' (Unique Selling Point), and how important it was to differentiate yourself from others. But how does one develop one's own style, and what the hell is it? I mean, really, how exactly do I go about creating, defining, and delivering my own style?

Well, while there was plenty to read about the importance of having a style, there was really very little advice on the practicalities of developing or even understanding it. Then, recently, I found a very practical, (and I think very useful) bit of advice on the Internet. I read it, re-read it, then thought about it for a while, and I've come-up with my own adaptation.

[OK, so you don't have to go through every single step of this, but here is an outline, or guide to the process.]

First, I'm going to assume that you have, somewhere, a collection of images that inspire you, or that you would like to re-create. Now, print-off (yes, actually print them off onto paper) around 10 of your favourite images - not too many, but enough that you can see a pattern or connecting theme(s) between them. These may even include images that you have shot yourself, it doesn't matter, as long as they are the kind of images that you like, and would like to be able to shoot more of.

Then, just study them for a few minutes. Take them in, and mentally note what you like about them.

Next, grab a pen (or if pens are too complicated, try a crayon) and physically annotate the images - circling and describing the various aspects of each image that you like. Is it muted tones, low angles, atypical composition, the use of harsh flash, selective focus, whatever.

The next step is optional, but I find it helps really organise my thoughts: write down all the things you like, then tally the number of images that include this element and that element. This way, you end-up with a clear, quantitative picture (pun?) of exactly what it is that you find most appealing throughout your favourite images.

OK, that's the easy part. You now have a clearer unerstanding of what you like in photographs. Now comes the hard part where you have to go out there, put this knowledge into practice, and actually shoot with the intention of specifically incorporating those elements that 'scored the highest points'. This may feel a little uncomfortable at first, but if you get good results from it, keep pushing yourself in the direction you find visually pleasing, and soon it'll become a natural part of your photography. If you don't seem to be getting good results, you may wish to re-consider what it is that you find so appealing in your set of inspirational images.

Finally, as your photographic style, and tastes, evolve over time, it may be worth repeating this exercise periodically, just to remind yourself of what you like, and how you want to shoot. I know it sounds obvious, but physically setting-it-out in front of yourself can really help clarify things.

I usually say that I like to shoot latex, fetish, tattoo, and Alt.portraiture, but for me, the things that scored highly on my list were bright colours, quirky composition, and hard light, on alternative subjects. I suppose its the combination of these things - subject matter + visual themes - that constitutes a style. Maybe. What do you think?

I don't claim to be perfect (well, not out loud...), but I like to think I've done a fairly good job at including these aesthetics into my photography, and people (occasionally) ask to work with me because they are 'looking for something different', and I think I can offer that.

Of course, I still have a long way to go, but I really enjoy the journey...

Hotel Shoot

So, if you read my last post, you'll kow that my first shoot of 2011 used the model's home as the location for the shoot. Perhaps the main advantage of this appraoch, is that the model felt very realxed, and that comfort really came through in the images, and made my job a lot easier. Although there were some challenges, namely shooting in someones home, whilst trying to make sure that it didn't look (too much) like you were shooting in someones home, you know?

I thought I'd like to experiment more along these lines, and so I decided to offer a limited number of TFCD shoots to allow me to experiment in shooting in a small area like a room or house. The location for these shoots would be an hotel in Cardiff. I arranged with the hotel to allow me to use a room for only a few hours, for a reduced fee. The hotel were great, really accomodating, and we organised a deal that we were both happy with.


The purpose of these shoots was to really expand upon what I had learnt from my previous shoot, and hopefully get a couple of good images out of it. My previous shoot had centred around a latex dress, leaning towards a fetish sytle, and so most of the images were kinda edgy, using hard light. For my first shoot in the hotel, I wanted to go to the other end of the scale and shoot something brighter and softer, leaning more towards glamour - not quite my usual cup of tea, but like I said, it was a chance to try-out something different.


I've got a few hotel shoots lined-up, but I've only actually shot one of them so far, and I'm really looking-forward to the rest of them. The first shoot was with Amanita Mascara, a great model, with plenty of ideas, and a load of different outfits / accessories. These were all shot with just a speelight and a shoot-through umbrella:

Recently...

2011 has started with a bit of a bang for me, and that's a good thing - I've met a few new people, done a few new things, and learnt a lot!


One of my first shoots for 2011 was a latex shoot at the model's home. Now, I've never done a shoot at someones home before. I've shot out on location, and I've done a bit in the studio too, but never in someones home.Unsurprisingly, this did present me with a few challenges. I found that anything even approaching a wide-angle shot needed to be quite meticulously framed to keep distracting backgrounds to a minimum. Similarly, coming-in close, and getting a tight crop on most of my shots helped fight against this. One of the main reasons for not including too much of the environment was because I kinda thought that kids toys might detract from the sexiness of a latex outfit - just me?

The model, Natalie, was a real pleasure to work with. She contacted me a few months ago, saying that she had a new latex dress, and wanted to try something a bit more fetish than usual, which is exactly the sort of thing I like to shoot! She pulled some great poses, and was really confident and comfortable.

I spent quite a bit of time experimenting with lighting, using a mix of both hard and soft. I really like the effect that a honeycomb grid has on latex, but of course the harshness is not great for the model's features and skin. I tried to offset that by using a shoot-through umbrella for fill, and I think it worked-out OK. Yeah, overall, I think it went well.



Here are a couple of the images we shot, let me know what you think...

Welcome to my Blog!

Hi, my name is Matt Punktum. I'm a photographer. This is my blog.


I'm a photographer. I'm not a professional, but I am a committed and serious amateur, looking to gain experience, with the aim of turning pro in the future.


I specialise in Portraiture, and my preferred area of work is Alt. Portraiture including Tattoos, Latex and Fetish.


I'm always looking to expand my portfolio, and I'm keen to work with models who share my interests.


Shooting with me is energetic, creative, and productive, yet relaxed, informal, and most of all enjoyable.


I'm happy to work with models on a TF basis, so if you're interested in collaborating please get in touch.


I've set up this blog to let you know about what I'm doing, what I have been doing, and what I'll be doing in the near future. I'll be posting images from recent shoots, as well as ideas for future shoots, and of course, many incoherent photographic ramblings - so enjoy!


Of course, please feel free to visit my Website, or my FaceBook page, and if you see anything you like, please let me know!


Cheers,

Matt