photography

A quarter of a century of blogs
I shot this portrait on a Kodak/Canon DCS520 in April 2000 and posting it online was the start of something that has been part of my life for twenty-five years. ©Neil Turner/TES.

I’ve been blogging now for over a quarter of a century. I’m not directly aware that it has brought me much work as a photographer but it has definitely led to some interesting teaching gigs and quite a bit of consultancy too. Most importantly, it has given me an outlet for what I want to say, a great deal of satisfaction and a profile within the industry far higher than I would have ever had without it.

Back in the year 2000 I didn’t know that I was blogging because I had never heard the term. The word ‘blog’ entered my consciousness during a discussion with a good friend of mine who couldn’t understand why I hadn’t monetised my monthly posting of technique and opinion pieces on my website. He pointed out that other people were doing it and asked why I wasn’t? That would have been in, or around, the beginning of 2004. There were a couple of reasons; the first was that I didn’t own the copyright to the images that I was posting and was only able to run the website with the permission of my then employers. The second was that I didn’t want commercial factors to influence what I posted and when I posted it – something that I imagined would take the fun out of it.

The website had evolved from something that I had started using members.aol.com webspace and a very basic web design application that they provided free of charge. That would have been in early 1999 and every month I was uploading between six and ten of the most interesting images that I had shot in the previous twenty-eight days. I learned quite a bit of html coding and moved to some professional web design software, my own domain and some rented web space as dg28.com was born in a very different form than it exists today.

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I’m sorry Elinchrom, I hate to do this, BUT…

I’ve lost count of the number of times I have raved about the various incarnations of the Elinchrom Ranger Quadra and Quadra ELB 400 flash units that I have owned and used for fifteen or more years. At the end of 2023 I named it as “my favourite piece of old equipment” and in 2013 I wrote that the development of the lithium ion battery for the Ranger Quadra was one of the best things that had ever happened to my kit.

Those things are still true. I still use the gear on an almost daily basis and even a quick outing with some very nice Profoto kit didn’t make me want to switch. I used capital letters for the word BUT in the title of this post because I am really disappointed with Elinchrom.

I have used their gear since I left college 1986 and I have always appreciated their service and the way that they supported old equipment. It hurts to have to call them out on this point but less than seven years after buying my last Quadra ELB 400 pack and battery they no longer sell, service or even support the Lithium Ion batteries that the whole system depends on.

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#REALPHOTO
© Neil Turner. 2025

I have been toying with all sorts of social media for quite a while and my presence on any of them would best be categorised as “modest”. For the first time in my career I have been asked to actively engage with Instagram on behalf of a client and we have been discussing what sorts of hashtags should accompany any pictures that I post. I have been very keen to use something that makes it clear that mine are real pictures. Not adulterated, filtered, AI generated or in any other way the product of anything that would make a responsible photojournalist unhappy or even uncomfortable.

I did quite a bit of web-surfing before going onto a closed Facebook group made up of my peers and professionals whose opinions I respect and asking the question “what do other people do about marking their work out as AI FREE on social media posts?” There was a short but interesting discussion and one or two of my colleagues advised against my initial thought of #AIFREE on the grounds that it could be interpreted as being AI generated and/or free to use. The general consensus was to avoid the letters A and I altogether.

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RAMS for Photographers: Health and Safety Essentials
What would the risk assessment look like for this legal agricultural stubble burn? ©Neil Turner. August 1992

I doubt that I am being remotely controversial when I say that no photographer wants to do more paperwork than is absolutely necessary. Time spent filling out forms, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s feels wrong – especially when your work and your passion is all about the creative process.

The regularity with which I have to complete RAMS (Risk Assessment and Method Statement) forms and declarations has grown. Conversations with colleagues appear to confirm that this is happening right across the photography industry.

During my first spell as freelance photographer (1986-1994) most of my work was editorial and when I did one of the few advertising and corporate jobs that I was offered, the subject of RAMS was never mentioned. Back then nobody asked about public liabilities insurance either.

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Almost 4,000 schools in over 30 countries

After posting my previous blog entry about a moment in time that I will probably never forget I was reminded of quite a few more that I still have clear recollections of and it surprised me just how many of them were taken in schools.

When I left the Times Educational Supplement in 2008 after fourteen years as a staff photographer there and another seven years prior to that freelancing for them I had a month of ‘gardening leave’ before I could resume my freelance career. One of the things that I did during that time was to radically re-write my CV and that included trying to calculate just how many educational establishments I had shot photographs in up to that point. By going back through diaries and counting them up the figure that I came to was 4,334. That’s pre-schools, primary schools, secondary schools, colleges and universities all lumped in together. Stripping colleges and universities out of that figure I calculate that I am getting close to having made 4,000 visits to schools and that is stretched across 32 different countries.

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A moment in time that I doubt I will ever forget
Photo: © Neil Turner for Lambeth Palace.

For well over two years I have been carrying out assignments for various institutions within the worldwide Anglican Communion. I have blogged before about a couple of the events and trips but mostly I have been carrying out the work quietly and very much enjoying it. I’ve lost count of the plane journeys taken, countries visited and extraordinary people that I have worked with and met but it was a simple service earlier this month that might just be the one that remains in my memory for the longest.

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He’s making a list…

He’s checking it twice… and so on. Yes, Santa Claus is coming to town very soon.

There’s a serious point here, though. As a self-employed freelance photographer working with and for your clients you really cannot afford to forget anything. We’ve all done it and I have been a little more than fortunate because it has never ruined an assignment. When I was younger I used to be amused by the number of lists that my wife would produce both for work and in our home life. I learned my lesson and now lists form a big part of my existence too. If anything is part of an assignment then it has to appear in at least one list.

From the obvious shot lists that clients give me outlining what they need through packing lists for clothing and toiletries to the duplicate lists of equipment and serial numbers or the even more bureaucratic (and expensive) carnets that customs in so many different countries require (thanks Brexit) I have come to rely on lists to make my jobs go smoothly.

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iOS editing update
Screenshot of Lightroom on an iPad Mini.

A couple of months ago I posted the latest update about my long-term quest to be able to do quick edits and add full captions to my Canon images using Apple iOS devices. At the time I was using my iPhone because the apps that I wanted to use weren’t compatible with my old 2017 iPad Mini. Then Apple released a significantly updated version of the smaller iPad and I dived in and bought one (256 Gb wifi + Cellular model).

Bingo.

I am delighted to announce that not only do I have a shiny new iPad but that I have pretty much nailed down my iOS workflow whilst using it. I went for the Mini simply because I like the size. It is easily hand-holdable, is significantly bigger than the largest iPhone and it fits in my Think Tank Press Pass 10 bag which has become a very regular part of my day-to-day shooting kit. It’s clearly not as powerful as the larger and more expensive iPad Pro models but it fulfils my requirements rather well – even when working with the larger files from the EOS R5 MkII.

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