photography

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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On holiday with my compact camera
Venice, Italy, during the Biennale. 09 November 2024. ©Neil Turner

Every time I get a new compact camera (and there have been quite a few) I come onto my blog and talk about it. Just under a year ago I got the Canon Powershot G5X MkII to replace my G7X MkII and took it on a family holiday to Venice. Earlier this month we were back in the same city with the same camera but this time the vacation was all about art. The Venice Biennale and all of the fringe shows that happen across the city are great places to see a lot of good, bad and occasionally indifferent art and, for a photographer, it’s a great place to see people interacting with it.

To save you going back and reading last year’s post I swapped from the G7X MkII for three basic reasons:

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Canon EOS R5 MkII – one month in


A couple of months ago I mentioned that I was due to take delivery of my first Canon EOS R5 MkII camera body. They are in great demand and the waiting lists at just about every retailer are pretty long and so I was delighted when mine turned up a little over a month ago. When work permitted I got down to the nerdy business of getting to know everything about it. Of course the menus were very familiar to my other Canons but different enough that they needed a few hours of study. The layout is also similar enough to my much-loved EOS R6 MKII bodies that the camera worked ergonomically from day one, hour one and pretty much minute two.

Having two different formats of memory card in the same camera has never been ideal and once again we have SD plus CF Express B and so it took a few minutes to decide how I was going to shoot making the best use of the two cards. In the end I opted for JPGs to the SD card and RAW files to the more robust (and larger capacity) CF Express card. Pretty much every other function is set up to match my existing cameras but it was the way that you set up and use FTP direct from the camera that took the longest to get my head around and become happy with.

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Another look at editing on iOS mobile devices

Back in February 2018 I concluded that I had failed to develop a decent workflow for the iPad or iPhone and that if I had the time I’d come back and continue with the quest. Since then I’ve occasionally used versions of my previous workflow and have dabbled with new options as they have come to my attention. Some six and a half years later I bring good news if you shoot with Canon and don’t mind paying for useful applications on subscription.

With the help of Canon and Adobe I think that I have now got a usable and developing workflow for importing, editing, captioning and transmitting images from my iPhone. All of this is currently only possible on my phone because my iPad is a bit out of date and cannot load one of the key applications. Apple announced a new version of the iPad Mini this week which prompted me to post this update.

Let’s talk about what has changed to make me so positive about what’s now possible:

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Down the YouTube photography rabbit hole

Over the last seven years I have posted a grand total of four YouTube photography tutorials – all on the rather niche topic of transmitting images live from Canon cameras. I think that they were helpful and I know that they are accurate. One day I might post some more and in planning that the other day I spent some time looking at what other people are posting. I disappeared down the YouTube photography rabbit hole for far too long!

There’s some great stuff there. I learned a couple of useful things and left comments to let the folks that had posted know that. There’s also a huge quantity of utter guff! For those who speak English but who haven’t come across the term guff it means a combination of rubbish, nonsense and just plain wrong.

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