photographer

Folio photo #05: CEO portrait with tungsten light, August 2006

©Neil Turner/TSL, August 2006

In 2006 Ian Smith was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Oracle the software company based in the City of London. This business portrait was actually taken for the Times higher Education Supplement who were running a piece about Oracle’s connections with the education industry. The portrait itself was shot in under two minutes but I had set up with a ‘stand-in’ who posed for some test pictures for fifteen minutes before Mr Smith was available.

The really interesting thing about this portrait is that it was shot with deliberately mixed lighting: tungsten gelled flash on the subject and daylight behind with the camera on a custom white balance which was only concerned with the flash. I use this set of pictures a lot when I am teaching my location lighting seminars.

Waiting for the light, June 2011

There’s good light, there’s bad light and there is the right light. Sometimes the right light isn’t the good light and so on and so on…

Beautiful pool of light in the Jubilee Place shopping mall

Beautiful pool of light in the Jubilee Place shopping mall at Canary Wharf. © Neil Turner

One day earlier this year I was waiting for the right light to shoot a picture of crowded shopping mall when the ‘good light’ turned up. I took a picture that the client had no use for but it amused me and kept me interested. Pools of ambient light in just the right place happen on the right day, in the right place at the right time – if the weather is right. The rest of the time, if your patience isn’t good enough or the parking meter is running out you have to shoot with whatever is there or provide your own light.

I have enough patience to get the shot that the client asked for and I had enough spare time to wait for someone to walk through this shot. I have twenty variations on it with sixteen different people walking through but I like the way that this man looks.

Some 11 year old thoughts on lens selection…

Choosing the right lens for the job – written in 2000 for http://www.DPReview.com and it still pretty much stands up today – which cannot be said for everything that I thought that I knew when I’d only been in the profession for 14 years!

There are two ways that you can choose which of your lenses to stick on the camera:

  • You can say “there’s my subject and here I am, let’s see which focal length on my zoom works best”.  Sometimes at sports matches and political events you have your position and that is that, or…
  • You could say “I want the effect that my experience tells me a 28mm lens will give me so I’ll select that focal length and move to the right position to make that happen”.

Either of these could be a valid option and, in many cases, the first is decided for you by circumstance. Most news photographers use zoom lenses because it makes sense to have fewer lenses when you are never quite sure what kind of work you will be doing on any given day.

Personally, I use a combination of both approaches. If a position forces me to choose a certain lens then I’m with option 1. Given complete freedom to shoot what I want I’d go with 2. More often than not I’ll go with, say a 24-70mm lens intending to shoot at the 24mm end and get in a position to shoot that way. I will shoot several frames and then start to move around, zoom in and out and shoot a variety of similar images, each with subtle differences. I try to make a point of shooting with just about every focal length available to me on every job. Sometimes I am right about lenses first time but often I’m not. What had seemed like an obvious task for the 28mm ends up being a spectacular 200mm shot and vice-versa but the result is that you often end up with images that are just that bit better.

I nearly always shoot on location so I cannot preplan every detail. Going equipped with a range of lenses is vital. Your choice of lens will depend on so many questions running through your mind. How is this image going to be used? Big, small, upright, horizontal, front page? Double page, back page, website, magazine or newspaper? Is it going to have copy running over it? Will it have more than one usage?

If I cannot answer any or all of those questions, then I’ll shoot every variation I can. Shall I start with a long lens, if it’s a portrait then being further away may relax the subject and I’ll get in with the wide when they are more comfortable. Background, what’s behind them? Can I use a change of lens get rid of a poor background?

Answering self-set questions and making compromises is the key to news photography. Choosing the right lenses helps to reduce the number of technical compromises that you are forced to take, giving you more time to make the creative compromises that you want to make.

Table top still life and the news photographer

Most press photographers will have lost count of the number of times they have been called into the office of the newspaper they are working for to ‘do a quick still life’. These vary from the simplest product shot to some interesting concept ideas. I thought that I’d share a few with you here:

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As you can see, I sometimes go to town with them and the stories you see illustrated here are about:

  • The risks of cloning and everyone looking and doing the same (rubber ducks)
  • Managing your credit (cutting up credit card)
  • Handling your savings (fist full of bank notes)
  • The aftermath of a school fire (melted clock)
  • A debate about healthy eating versus too many sweets (cauliflower and mars bar)
  • Reading the fine print in a new employment contract (magnifying glass)
  • Taking a chance with the school your child is going to (rolling the dice)
  • The high cost of housing in certain parts of the country (Monopoly houses on the map)

The main idea is to us decent light, keep the idea simple and not be tempted to try to do too large a picture in the cramped and messy confines of the office. I deliberately added the rolling dice idea because we had some giant dice available, I had an intern to help throw them and there was a nice piece of open ground nearby on a lovely sunny day.

Studio based still life photography is a tough discipline and we still get asked to do creative stuff that should be done “properly”. It has been said that press photographers make great all-rounders because we have to think on our feet and adapt all of the time: I won’t be arguing against that one!

Define the word ‘portrait’?

The word portrait is used by photographers all over the world, but it’s meaning is a little blurred. Many use the term to describe photographs of people’s head and shoulders and others use it to refer to any old picture of a person so I want to tie down what I mean by potraiture and then talk a little bit about the subject.

©Neil Turner/TSL, June 2006

In my book a portrait is a photograph deliberately used to say something about the person in the picture. A simple ‘mug shot’ can be a portrait, but only if it says something about the subject and isn’t just an identity card style image. Even a characteristic expression is enough to turn the bland ID card photograph into a portrait. You then have a wide range of images that can legitimately be called a portrait until you get to the other extreme where a photograph of someone becomes more about an activity or a mood than about that person. Although there doesn’t have to be any interaction between the photographer and the subject for the picture to be a portrait, it really helps. I have read all sorts of nonsense about the kind of lens you have to use to make a portrait, or the kind of light that you must use. None of these things matters, a good portrait can be made using any lens and using a huge variety of lighting situations.

There are many traps in making good portraits, and I fall regularly into at least one of them, but the bottom line is that the photographer needs to free themself of as many constraints as possible in order to achieve creative results. With this in mind here are a list of do’s and don’ts that might help you to shoot good portraits – starting with my most regular failing:

  • Resist the temptation to always use the same style and fit each subject into it giving you the same picture over and over with different faces in.
  • Each face is different, so allow the light to help to show that. Not everyone benefits from soft lighting and good portraits are made better with thoughtful lighting.
  • Don’t crowd the sitter. If you get right in someone’s face, you will put them on edge and spoil the photograph – of course if you purposefully want to make someone uncomfortable, then go ahead. A relaxed sitter makes the shot easier to get.
  • Think about relating the sitter to their surroundings. One of the easiest ways of saying something about your subject is to shoot them in their own environment.
  • Think about using props. Well selected items can really add to the message of the portrait- it could be an author with a copy of their book or a child with their favourite toy, be imaginative.
  • Resist the tempation to always use the same focal length lens. Nothing annoys me more than to read conversations about “the ideal lens for portraiture”, it does not exist.
  • Try a wide variety of compositions, portraits can be stunning if the subject occupies only a tiny percentage of the image, and can be equally strong if just their eyes fill the frame.
  • There is no rule that says that ‘you must flatter your subject’ but harsh lighting and cruel angles should be kept for those situations where they are suitable.

To be effective a portrait must say more about the sitter than it does about the photographer and it must say more about the sitter than it does about what they are doing. Most great portraits have interesting but not overpowering light. If the first thing that you notice is the lighting then the photograph is not a complete success, if the first thing that you notice is the ‘nice blotchy backcloth’ then the portrait has truly failed.

Portraits, ID pictures and PR

I spend about forty percent of my working life shooting portraits for newspapers and magazines. It is my main passion as well as my career….

You will probably not be surprised to hear that I have some strong opinions about the art / science / craft (delete where applicable in your work) of photography. As an editorial photographer I am really lucky because there are three parties involved when I am shooting someone. There’s me, there’s the subject and there’s the paper – and that is really important to me and to the freedom I have to shoot the picture.

Social photographers usually have only two parties involved in the process – themself and the subject who often doubles as the customer. They are suddenly having to please the person who is sitting there in front of the camera. I really hate having to shoot portraits of family and friends because that’s even worse – imagine having the hassle of shooting a picture of someone who you love and care about and portraying them in a way that they may not have chosen. The freedom of being able to be objective and detached is a wonderful thing!

I have been involved in many arguments, both in person and on the web, about exactly when a photograph of a person becomes a portrait. It is really difficult to give a list of criteria about what constitutes a portrait, but somehow you can just look at a picture and say “yes” or “no” pretty much straight away.

I think that there are three categories of pictures of people. There are photographs that are merely record of what someone looks like that are perfect for ID badges or criminal records that say little or nothing about the subject. There are photographs where what is happening in the picture is more important than who is in it, such as a picture of someone playing sport or a musical instrument. Thirdly there are portraits, where there is enough in the image besides the subject to give a few clues about the subject, but not so much that the viewer is left thinking about what, rather than who. As a location only portraitist I have the added luxury of having the subject’s surroundings to help the image work. Studio photographers have to work really hard with fake props and painted backcloths to do what I can do very easily. Mass produced accessories, even student gowns, add little or nothing to the information that the photographer can give about their subject and can detract from the individuality of an image. You may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned any particular focal length of lens or lighting rig, and that’s deliberate. You can shoot a great portrait with any lens, and in any place – it’s all about your relationship with the subject.

Portraiture is something that you either find easy or you don’t. There are things that you can learn to make the whole process less painful and there are ways of shooting that eliminate risk (and creativity) if you really find that saying something about your subject isn’t what you were cut out to do with your camera. My advice is to talk to your subject, look around the room or the garden for something that they relate to and shoot a lot of frames. You can add a lot of athmosphere with lighting, but if you get the pose, props and position right you have the battle half won. Get your “bedside manner” right and you can call yourself a portrait photographer.

The relationship between the photographer, their subject and their client is vitally important. Editorial photography usually has three parties and it’s a great way to create good images. A while ago I shot a PR portrait of two businessmen. It had to be done in fifteen minutes and the deadline for the pictures to be with the designer was very tight. PR is a strange hybrid of social and editorial photography. There are usually more than two parties involved and they want editorial style shots but they have to be flattering to the subject. It doesn’t matter if the client is a PR company or if you are being paid directly by the company that you are there to promote – the images have to be positive and show no flaws. Is that a two party or a three party relationship? I would call it two and a half.

“Nothing unusual about this job?” I hear you ask. The answer is OH YES! The number of parties involved was as many as six and the decision making process was made harder by the two people in the pictures having the final decision about which image was chosen. Let me explain…

The end client was a European division of a multinational company who needed a picture shot in London. They had asked their London office to arrange a photographer to supply the pictures to the designer who was in another country (that’s three parties so far). The two men in the picture both had a say in the shoot (parties four and five) and then, of course, there was me (party number six). I had to set up the shot without the two businessmen but with the London PR people present. The two men arrived and I shot for ten minutes with two differing backgrounds and then offloaded my RAW files into my laptop. There then followed a quick Photo Mechanic slide show for the two subjects and the London PR where they selected two possible images in which they felt they looked good. We finally settled on the very last frame that I had shot – taken, ironically, about a minute after the two subjects started to make noises about leaving to catch a flight!

It was then a simple case of converting the RAW file on site and sending it as a high resolution email attachment to the designer, copying everyone else who hadn’t seen the choice in at the same time. That, ladies and gentlemen, was a complicated relationship. Editing the images later to send a choice of twenty to the client I decided that there was a better file but by then it was too late.

The difficulty for me with this job was that one of the two subjects vetoed several of the images because he didn’t think he looked right in them and the other subject vetoed one or two as well. The old adage about asking a committee to design a horse and ending up with a camel comes to mind. If too many people have a right to say no, you inevitably end up with the least offensive and least interesting picture!

Professionalism 101 (or P101 for short)

©Neil Turner/TSL

The hardest part of the transition from good photographer to professional photographer is in understanding the difference between the two. I once wrote that the best definition of “professional” is someone who gets the shot 99.9% of the time and has a damned good excuse for the rest. Still true, but professionalism has another side to it – one that can be learned pretty easily.

Clients are used to dealing with professionals: Slick presentation, questions being answered before they are asked and great customer service. These are all things that we expect as consumers and in business we expect even more. As a professional, you are in a market place and you have to compete.

We work in an image-conscious business and we live in an increasingly image-conscious world. Even as self-employed freelancers we need to have corporate identities of our own. The vast majority of our clients have proper business cards and 99.9% of them have email addresses that tell you who they are and who they work for.

I am constantly amazed by the number of decent photographers who hand out slightly apologetic home-made inkjet printed cards and I’m shocked by the number of Yahoo and Hotmail accounts that people rely on. Webmail is useful but it does nothing to positively affirm you as a professional. Buying and running your own web domain is not difficult or expensive and it really helps to give potential customers the impression that you are in business and that you have been for some time. If your email address matches your portfolio website there is a certain synergy. If your on-line presence is a gallery on Flickr and your email is london-snapper@webmail.com then you really are missing a trick.

Keeping everything the same, presenting a corporate image and playing the game doesn’t detract from your photography. Quite the opposite; it removes a potential barrier to clients taking you seriously. Having a well-designed and easily navigated portfolio on the internet is almost as important as owning a camera. Being a member of at least one of the professional bodies that offer searchable freelance directories is also a very good idea.

Moving on in the story a little, you have met the client, they like your folio and they give you some work. Professionalism moves up a gear and this is your first job for them so you cannot make presentational mistakes now. Be clear when accepting the commission what the fees and expenses are, what rights you are selling them and what they are expecting from you. Get technical specifications, deadlines, delivery addresses (FTP, email or postal) sorted out and then go and do what you are there to do – shoot the pictures.

Let’s say, for arguments sake that the job requires a CD with twenty high-resolution, post-produced RGB JPEG files in the post. P101 says that the client will be used to proper presentation and so your CD should not be a PC World own brand disc with a few illegible words written in marker pen in a cracked plastic case. Printing proper CD labels is very cheap. Getting discs printed on an upmarket Inkjet printer isn’t expensive and having a few hundred professionally screen-printed will not break the bank. Slim CD cases are OK but softer plastic flexible cases are better and they will cope with the postal system far better. Of course the disc should be labelled with the date but the main impression should be that this came from Joe Bloggs – professional. The packaging should be professional, the label on the outside should be neat and tidy and you should have a properly printed compliment slip in there too.

None of this makes you a better photographer, none of this will actually impress the client. But none of this costs much money either. What it will do is not raise any negative thoughts. The hand written scrawl on the cheap disc stands a good chance of making a negative impression – yet hundreds of photographers still do it.

So what about what is actually on the disc. There are the pictures of course. It’s important to make sure that they meet any specification given to you by the client and it’s also vital to make sure that the client can open the disc on whatever system they use – but what else? Make space on the disc for a PDF file containing licensing information and a second PDF with the caption details (it’s amazing how many picture buyers still don’t understand or see the metadata that you embed in the images). For some clients a set of clearly marked low resolution, screen sized sRGB JPEGs can be useful too.

Going deeper still, think about the metadata that you attach to the files. Professionals have to add IPTC caption details. Who, what, why, when and where. No matter which imaging application you use you have to put into words what is in the picture – which balding middle aged man is which, where they were taken with a date and possibly a time. You also have to add your details. Stamp your identity right there in the metadata. Use the © symbol liberally so that everyone knows who owns the pictures. The tricky thing here is to know which box you put this information into. Many newspapers want you to put everything into the main caption/description box. Others only want the names and places in the main box. Most magazines and commercial clients don’t have a preference. If in doubt put it all in the main caption/description box and add it all in the other relevant boxes too.

Metadata has another face – EXIF. These are the shooting details that your camera will add to digital files. Some are useful – time, day and date. Others are annoying – which lens, shutter speed, white balance. Does the client need to know this stuff? Probably not – so delete it.

This is not rocket science 101. This is, however, a very competitive market. P101 says that you have to do everything that you can to give the client confidence that you are a pro and that you will deliver the goods. I was giving a talk on this very topic at a college when a very-self-assured young man told me that he wasn’t interested in any of this “plastic b******t” and that his clients would have to take him for what he was – an excellent photographer. This kind of approach might have worked twenty years ago but it doesn’t have a snowball-in-hell’s chance in the 21st Century.

Having a “USP” (unique selling point) is a great idea as a photographer, but being the one who eschews good presentation and good practice is a pointlessly high-risk strategy. If you want to take pictures for a living, you have to get people to pay you. Most of the people who control the market place wear suits and respond well to corporate image. It’s a game and you would be well advised to play it.

In my camera bag

Nothing much has changed with my kit for everyday jobs, so here is a refresher of what I use…

It seems to me that every web site about a photographer or photography has to feature a shot of the packed bag with an accompanying view of all of the kit laid out. I’m going halfway with the obligatory bag shot but you are going to have to settle for a bulleted list of the contents. We all know what an EOS 5d MkII looks like and I’m pretty sure that you can guess at what a pile of 8 Gb compact flash cards look like too. My old site has quite a bit of this stuff if you really need a fix!

©Neil Turner

So, what’s in your bag mister? (sorry Mr Lehman, I know that’s your line). The bag that I’m using most of the time is a Lowe Pro Stealth Reporter 650AW, and from the left the main items are:

  • Two Canon EOS 5D MkII bodies
  • Two Canon 580exII flash units
  • Canon 16-35 f2.8L sitting above a Canon 1.4x extender
  • Canon 70-200 f2.8L IS
  • Canon 24-70 f2.8L sitting on an ST-E2 flash transmitter

The back section is able to hold an Apple Macbook Pro 15.4 and the various cables will go into one of the front pockets if I need to pack a whole kit into the bag for travelling. There are plenty of bits and pieces in the bag:

  • Think Tank pixel pocket rocket CF card holder with 8 x Sandisk 8Gb CF cards
  • Notebook, pens, business cards
  • 16 x 2700 MaH AA rechargeable batteries
  • 2 x Spare Canon LP-E6 batteries
  • 2 x Honl Photo Speed Straps
  • 1 x Honl Photo Speed Gobo
  • 1 x Honl Photo Speed Snoot
  • Canon RS-80N3 Remote Switch
  • Various bits of coloured gel (red, green, blue, Full and 1/2 CTO orange, 1/2 CTO blue, purple)

Added together, this is one heavy bag. If it has the laptop and all of the computer accesories as well it is barely portable. If I’m travelling on the London Underground or having to do a lot of walking for a job I will try to cut things down and even spread the load in two bags. I’ve written before about the search for the perfect bag and all I can say is that the search continues.

Sometimes I use a nice small Domke J3 bag with two EOS5D MkIIs and some prime lenses – 28mm f1.8, 50mm f1.4 and 85mm f1.8 but most of the time I rely on zoom lenses.