Your three legged friend

I, like a lot of photographers have a love/hate relationship with my tripod. I love the way I get sharper pictures,the way I have to consider my shots and the way it slows down my picture making. I hate lugging the thing around, cleaning sand out after a day on the beach and the way it slows down my picture making.

One of the joys of this here internet thingy is you can come across detailed articles about the minutia of life. One of my very favourites is this page on how to carry your tripod, don't say it's not educational here.

We got an award!

Well September has only just started and it's a pretty fine month in my opinion. After an August where events conspired to stop me taking hardly any pictures at all, I managed to get down to Leigh-on-Sea for the dawn on Saturday morning and capture some interesting light.

Moonlight Fossett
(Click to view Large)

In addition I am chuffed to bits that this site has been awarded "website of the month" by Outdoor Photography magazine. It's actually for the October issue but magazines being what they are the issue is out now. A big welcome to all those hundreds (indeed hundreds, I checked my logs) of people who saw the article and decided to check out the site. Hope you will stick around.

The final piece of good news is that I have a gig. Yes a gig, not an exhibition. I have been invited to exhibit my pictures as part of a charity concert. More details real soon.

Yup, September is a good month.

Julian Barkway is Photographer of the Month for September

Julian Barkway is a photographer who describes himself as a passionate believer in 'slow photography' where time is taken to 'make', rather than merely snap, an image. His site contains a number of very inspiring images, well worth a visit.

Rock and Pebble

(by Julian Barkway)

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Previous Photographers of the Month

Thinking of going Pro?

Paul Indigo has just produced another thought provoking blog (he does this a lot - that's why he is over there on the left in the section marked recommended blogs) about making the move from enthusiast to pro.

Give it a read - you know you want to.

Capture One 4 Beta

Ohhh, I'm so excited - I'm about to lose control and I think I like it!

Finally, Phase One have released the beta of my favourite raw converter Capture One. I have only just downloaded it so no conclusions yet but if the image quality is as good as Capture One v3 and the promised workflow improvements work I will be a happy bunny.

Why not give the beta a try too?

Update

I've been having a play with it, on some shots I took of a chair I found in the middle of Epping Forest, and I'm very impressed so far.

A Seat in the Country
(Click to view large)

• It seems pretty stable for a beta, certainly much more usable than the Lightroom betas.
• UI seems to have taken a lot of the good features from Lightroom & aperture and made them workmanlike rather than gimicky.
• Variants are a great addition to the product and seem to work well.

What's Important?

I was talking to another photographer about their workflow the other day and they said something like "I use raw for important stuff and jpg for everything else". I replied with 2 questions - "Why? and how do you know which is which?".

For me the best thing to do is to stick to one workflow and treat everything as important...

Take 2 workflows into the shower?...I just want to raw and go!

The important part about setting up a workflow is that it should become automatic for you. Once you have taken the time to work out what you do at each point, and made sure you have each part of the process protected from failures, the hard work is done. The workflow should automate as much as possible so you can concentrate on creating fantastic images and not worry about filenames/directory locations/backups/etc.

If you have two workflows, each will be slightly different and you have to think what you are doing - and that's not good. It also adds an extra stage when you come to access the images at a later date as the first thing you need to decide is "did I think these were important?" before you attempt to retrieve them.

So what's important to you?

The thing to note is that the importance of an image changes over time.

Many pictures simply have value through their age - take a look at any of the shops selling old photos of street scenes. At the time they were taken most of the photos were as dull as ditchwater, but now they have a value just due to them representing the time they were taken.

In The Meadow
(Click to View Large)

Pull out an old photo album and shots that had little importance then, seem to have a magic all of their own as you discover long-lost events and friends smiling back at you from the page.

I have misjudged the importance of an image too many times:

• A simple snap of a friend became very important when that friend died a few days after.
• Some snaps of dogs playing on a beach weren't important to me but one of the owners loved it and wanted a large print.
• Whilst staying at a farm/nature reserve - I just took some shots of the wildflowers to get to grips with a new lens, not important top me, yet the farm has asked if they can use them as 6 foot high posters in their new education centre.

A snap today could be an important historical record today.

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In Praise of the snap
Workflow

Elterwater Location Report

As I may have mentioned I am the Photo Locations Editor for Ephotozine. The idea of the Locations Section is for people to share their favourite photographic location with other photographers, whether it is ideal for Landscapes, Architecture, Wildlife or anything else.

I have just posted up a report for Elterwater which is one of the most beautiful parts of the Lake District. I was lucky enough to be in position overlooking the village as the dawn came up on a fine, cold winters day. The warm morning light made the foliage positively glow, a magical moment indeed.

Dawn from Huntingstyle Crag
(Click to view large)

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