Despondency and Depression

One of my favourite things is just chatting to other photographers about life and image making. it's always interesting to share views and news from the world behind the lens.

One thing that seems to come up from time to time, is a crisis of self confidence. It's often surprising to hear photographers ,who's work you really admire, to tear their latest creations apart or listen to them despair that nothing they have taken lately is any good. This is often followed by talking about giving up completely or deleting their websites and portfolios.

I think this is an inevitable side effect of striving for perfection. If you are lucky enough to create an image you are completely happy with then your own personal standards go up in accordance with it. This new standard becomes your new target for every image. Landscape and outdoor photography can be particularly harsh in this respect as one day you can have fantastic lighting and every shot is a winner.Then a whole week of drab grey skies can appear to completely destroy your mojo.

Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer - and often the supreme disappointment.

Ansel Adams

Sunset at Strawberry Hill Ponds, Epping Forest
(Click to view large)

Unfortunately real life intervenes and most of us don't have the luxury of waiting a whole week at a location till it all comes right like David Noton or Joe Cornish seem to. As an aside I visited David Notons stunning exhibition a while back with a friend and decided that he must be one of the most unlucky photographers in the world. Every image seemed to have a description of how he had waited days for the light to be right or trekked for miles to get to the location - by the end of it you willed him to say "I opened my hotel window…to be greeted by this scene". Still his dedication has been duly rewarded by some amazing images.

So if you are despairing of your images at the moment it is important to recognise the reasons for this:

• Your standards are high
  
• Your previous images were good
• You are striving for perfection

I think these are all good things so there is really no need to be so down in the mouth - just get out there and take some more pictures.

Turn Your Point-and-Shoot into a Super-Camera

I came across this posting today: Camera Hacks: Turn Your Point-and-Shoot into a Super-Camera. If you are feed up with the limitations of you point and shoot, it might just be the thing your looking for.

I might give it a go with my G9 - though I think it might be best if I read the manual to find out what it can do first!

Summer in the City
(What I can do without reading the manual)

Mari Sterling is Photographer of the Month for May

These days I keep spotting work by Mari Sterling in UK photography magazines. A quick visit to her website and it's not hard to see how she gets so much coverage.

Pebble Pool 4
by Mari Sterling

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Previous Photographers of the Month

Photographing Shops is Illegal...

...apparently! Yet another case of security guards harassing photographers.

Whilst we are on the subject, check out photographersrights.org.uk it's a new website created by John Stolz to provide a hub of information about our rights in, what used to be, a free country. Please give it all the support you can

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Big Prints

There are few times in my life when I have unrolled the contents of a cardboard tube and exclaimed "wow" but this weekend was one of them!

I have just had some large A1 sized prints made of some of my favourite pictures and I have to say I am very impressed. Up till now I have not bothered getting large prints done as finding a supplier who can reliably reproduce images at a reasonable price can be a bit of a pain, I often have been disappointed with the results…but not now!

My prints were produced by Dave Newton of Photopositive, for those of you who don’t know Dave he is the technical editor of CPN (Canon Professional Network) and EOS Magazine and more importantly he is very, very picky. Years of testing cameras and lenses means that he knows "pin sharp" from just "sharp" and he knows a good colour rendition from a bad one. Dave’s site features printing services, which uses a simple 4 part process to produce your prints:

• Preparation - simply sort out the pics you want printed and create a text file explaining what you want printed.
  
• Upload - either ftp or snail-mail the files.
  
• Payment - The site features a rather wizzy javascript calculator that works out the pricing for you. You then click the paypal button to pay (using either your paypal account or a credit card).
  
• Wait - for your prints soon your prints will arrive through your (or even your customers) door.

Defences at Dawn (looks great printed large)
(Click to view large)

Now I have a reliable supplier, it won't be long before I am offering large prints of some of my more popular shots.

Fotoritim Photo Magazine

I am rather chuffed that the Turkish web based photography magazine Fotoritim have just done a feature on me. If you don't read Turkish the English translation is further down the page.

A big thank you to Levent Yildiz at Fotoritim for taking the time to produce such an excellent magazine.

Patrick Smith is Photographer of the Month for April

Patrick Smith is a San Fransico based photographer who produces work of remarkable clarity and perfection. A visit to his website is a real treat for the eyes.

Rust & Surf
by Patrick Smith

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Previous Photographers of the Month