composition

Re-working old files

With all of the time that I have spent recently trying to get used to the beta versions of Photoshop CS6 and Adobe Camera RAW 7 I have been having quite a few conversations on forums and over email with others going through the same process. One conversation led me to think about even older versions of the software and how I used them and in turn that got thinking about finding an old CR2 two file that I was never truly happy with and having another go with the up-to-date version of ACR. Without looking at the original “finished” JPEG I grabbed a CR2 file from 2008 that I remember being unhappy with and gave it “the treatment”.

©Neil Turner/TSL. May 2008 - RAW file straight out of the camera

©Neil Turner/TSL. May 2008. RAW file Converted with using .xmp settings from 2008 in Photoshop CS5

©Neil Turner/TSL. May 2008. RAW converted today using ACR 7 in Photoshop CS6 Beta

Whilst I was doing the conversion it became obvious to me that I wasn’t really comparing versions of the software – it was that my taste in the way images look has changed. I have no doubt that knowing far more about converting RAW files than I did four years ago helps enormously. You can also factor in the improvements in the adjustment tools available as well but the sum total of all of that means that the newer version is far more subtle and (in my eyes) far better. I made use of the fill-light and the graduated filters. I used a much warmer white balance and my approach to both noise reduction and sharpening has moved on too – although you’d never notice that from these 620 pixel samples.

So there we go. If it wasn’t blindingly obvious before, it is now. RAW conversions depend on a mixture of software and taste and this little experiment has proved to me that my tastes have changed and so, therefore, must the tastes of other people. The final conclusion has to be that every time you create a new folio, make changes to your website or supply a picture you have to make a choice between re-working the files to bring everything up to they way you like things now or leave well alone and allow your images to be “of their time”. Fat chance of the latter happening here…

Exceptional light, Barking Cemetery – July 2001

©Neil Turner/TSL. Barking, July 2001

Sometimes the light does all of the work for you. This photograph of a gravestone in an East London cemetery shot in 2001 is classic example of that. I was sent to illustrate a story about using graves and cemeteries as an educational resource and given a day to just find interesting examples.

One of my colleagues had said that Barking cemetery had a very wide cross section of styles of memorials and so I made it my first call as soon after breakfast as I could get there. Morning light in the summer in England can be glorious and on the day in question it was that.

Sitting under some trees with light streaking across the stone this particular memorial caught my eye and the way that the light fell on it made me want to shoot it – even if it wasn’t as historically interesting as some of the others around it.

Like I said, sometimes the light does all of the work for you.

Neil Innes in his pond…

From the days when he provided musical accompaniment to the Monty Python team and had his own hysterically funny television show I had always been a Neil Innes fan. Being called Neil myself I guess that I have always paid special attention to other Neils anyway but Mr Innes didn’t need any of that.

©Neil Turner/TSL. August 1999, Suffolk.

When I got the call to go and shoot his portrait I was delighted – even if the person on the picture desk had no idea of who and what he was. His home, at the time, was in Suffolk and when I arrived he greeted me as if it was him who was getting to meet a long standing hero. We had coffee, talked about all sorts of stuff and when we finally got around to shooting portraits he simply asked me “do you want funny or not funny?” I answered that a bit of each would be cool and we started with some simple head shots.

Within ten minutes “not funny” had become boring and so he grabbed his wellingtons and stepped into a lovely ornamental Japanese style pond in the garden (I believe that his wife was a garden designer and the whole place looked great) where he proceeded to fish with a small net.

It was amusing enough to watch him but if this were a video you’d now be listening to silly squelching noises and a completely bizarre and impromptu song that made sure that I was actually unable to take pictures because of the tears of laughter streaming down my face.

Photographers often write about what a privilege it is to meet some of the people we meet and to go to some of the places we go and I absolutely agree. Every once-in-a-while you also get a little private performance from a truly talented artist that money couldn’t buy and this was one of those priceless days.

Geek stuff: Shot on a Kodak DCS520 digital camera with a Canon 28-70 f2.8L lens, available light, 1/60th of a second at f6.7 on 200ISO. Converted to black and white prior to publication in August 1999.

BMX Rider: Contact Sheet
©Neil Turner. Ringwood, Hampshire. 2011

©Neil Turner. Ringwood, Hampshire. 2011

This was a set of pictures shot on location as part of a “how to do it” technique piece for Photography Monthly magazine. The idea was simple – use flash to make something very cool from some sort of active sport. I was put in contact with the tier, Keegan Walker, through a young photographer that assists me from time to time on commercial shoots and we arranged to shoot at the skatepark near where they both live which is about ten miles from my own home.

I used a couple of Canon EOS5D MkII cameras with 16-35 f2.8L, 24-70 f2.8L and 70-200 f2.8L IS lenses as well as the excellent Elinchrom Ranger Quadra flash system supplemented by a couple of Canon 580exII Speedlights with Elinchrom Skyport receivers triggering them. There were plenty of clamps, gels and light modifiers in use too – including my rather lovely modified beauty dish and the equally great Chimera 24″ x 32″ soft box.

The sky at dusk is my favourite backdrop for all kinds of shoots and the May evening sky provided us with something special to work with. Keegan is pretty good at what he does and I had to ask him several times to actually get less height from the ramps so that my pictures looked better! Two hours on a nice evening messing around and shooting pictures is a pretty good way to make a living. The unfortunate part of this particular commission was that I had to write the words that described exactly what I had done and how I had done it. One day I will get around to reproducing the whole piece for you.

Training on Weymouth beach – an unusual portrait

Sometimes pictures come together without much effort and sometimes you almost kill yourself trying to get something just that little bit special. This portrait of a young athlete who was competing in the sport of Biathle for Great Britain at a junior level whilst studying at a college in Weymouth, Dorset definitely came along after a not insignificant struggle. Nothing to do with the subject – he was cooperative, willing and full of energy – I just tried to get pictures that didn’t seem to want to come off.

©Neil Turner/TSL. Weymouth Dorset, December 2007.

This frame was shot on a 16-35 f2.8L lens at its widest focal length on a Canon EOS1D MkII at 1/250th of a second at f22 and 200 ISO. I was using every joule of power from a Lumedyne Signature Series flash kit with no umbrella or soft box and I just had the power to get this. I have always liked the photo and I was always sad that the paper didn’t use this frame.

I guess that this picture is further proof that I love shooting beaches – especially Dorset beaches!

College Principal, July 2006, London

©Neil Turner/TSL. July 2006, London.

Jane Rapley was about to take over as the new head of Central St Martins College in London when I shot her portrait in July 2006. After 17 years at the famous arts college in a variety of posts she became the Principal in August 2007. I photographed her in her office and then in one of the galleries that they use for student shows at Central St Martins on Southampton Row in central London.

This particular frame was shot in case the designer wanted to use the portrait full page and run a headline and some text over the image itself. The rest of the shoot was more varied and included some very wide portraits, which seem to have been what I was interested in at that time. It is fascinating that when you look back at your own work on a chronological basis you can definitely see trends and fashions in the way you compose, light and post-produce pictures. This was one of my softer lighting periods!

The man who wrote “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”

Everyone who has ever read books to very young children should have seen “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”. It’s an absolute classic and, back in 1999 I had five minutes to shoot a portrait of Eric Carle, the American writer and illustrator who created it at a London Hotel. I should have had longer but I was badly late because I’d been given the wrong address but he was charming, patient and his PR people were relaxed as well. At the time, he was 70 years old and the book was coming out as a 30th anniversary edition.

©Neil Turner/TSL. May 1999, London.

As soon as I got there, I set up my Lumedyne battery powered light with a simple shoot-through umbrella and started to work.  The author was sat in a high backed chair and I decided to work around where he was already sitting – he looked relaxed and I was still in “full apology mode”.

Although this was nearly 13 years ago I can still remember a random throughout that came into my head “if I were casting someone to be Santa Claus, it would be this guy”. From then onwards all I could see was a really nice bloke with a twinkle in his eye that children would adore. The fact that he must have illuminated millions of childhoods was certainly in my mind and we shot some very nice pictures very quickly.

©Neil Turner/TSL. May 1999, London.

This set of eight pictures is all that remains from the shoot. Back in 1999 storage was still expensive and the company policy was to use Zip discs (remember them?). My laptop had a zip drive and I put the wider edit onto the “official” zip disc and kept the tight edit on another disc for my own records. The official disc with the Kodak RAW files was lost somewhere in the mists of time and we didn’t discover that it was gone until we started to upload the entire back catalogue into a managed and backed-up library a couple of years later. You learn from your mistakes.

I like the simple and innocent tight composition of frame 004 and I love the expression of frame 007. I have read his books to young members of the family ever since and I try really hard to do so with the same twinkle in my eye that the author had.

This was still the early days of digital and I was using a Kodak DCS520 (Canon D2000) with Canon 17-35, 28-70 and 70-200 f2.8 lenses. At 200 ISO, with good light and if you didn’t need to use the pictures too large the quality of the files was actually very good indeed.

Archive photo: Private investigator. December1990

©Neil Turner/Insight. December 1990. London

Back at the end of 1990 I was sent to accompany a reporter to do an interview with a private investigator. He was an ex-Metropolitan Policeman who had a very good reputation and track record in finding runaway children. He was possibly the severest looking person I had ever met and his penchant for big fat cigars did wonders for his image. The truth is that he was actually a very caring man and both the reporter and I liked him a lot.

When I did a quick “Google” for the man I found that he had given another interview to the newspaper ten years later and that he was still as forthright as he had been. I would imagine that he has since retired but I still look very fondly at this picture and remember it’s place in one of my old portfolios.

This was shot using ambient light at his office in Southwark. I was probably using a Nikon FM2 with a 180mm f2.8 Nikkor which I had at the time and the film is Kodak Tri-X. This was scanned from a fibre-based print which was printed full frame with the rebate showing.