I guess anyone who has a creative outlet is vulnerable to this “killing yourself for your art” mentality. If not addressed you can easily burn yourself out as I did, big time last year.

I have one more shoot on Saturday after which my email notification is going off, camera is being packed away and there will certainly be no business research or marketing podcasts!

Now some would say that I don’t have one, but i’m just going to switch off my brain. For those of you that have read some of my previous blogs will know that I am incapable of siting still and ‘relaxing”. So the idea of sitting round in my pants drinking beer is not optional. Il just stress myself out even more. What I need is a diversion tactic, so I will be taking a week out with my second passion, music.

I have neglected my guitar over recent times and its in serious need of dusting off. I’m going to take the opportunity to do widdling, lots and lots of widdling. I have found in the past that partaking in a creative pastime can  often have a knock on effect with something else.

For example i’m working on a long term project to film a life in the day style short in my home town, but all done in time-lapse rather than regular filming. Having done a test run and learnt the bare bones of this style, I soon found that without sound it just didn’t pack the punch I was looking for. I would need a soundtrack.

By doing these little test runs and viewing the end product I started to formulate a style of soundtrack I want over the top of my project. Something ambient, instrumental and maybe electronic. Listening to musicians like zero 7 and Hammock have given me some ideas to work from. I can almost hear the music I want when I play the clips I have thus far, I just need to figure out how to get it on paper and then recorded.

So although I’m taking time out from my photography, the knock on effect is that i’m inspiring myself to start laying some basic tracks and chord structures from my guitar. From here perhaps look at working with local musicians to produce the sound I desire. I could take the easy way and buy some stock music, but I want to keep it local and have an integral part in the whole project. I would just feel like I’m cheating myself otherwise.

I think creative individuals can learn something from other areas, weather its writing, music, art, drama. Ideas can be got, and inspiration achieved in there own journey by taking of the blinkers and seeing whats around.

Anyways until next Saturday, Adios.

Taken in firle village church near Lewes. This is a snap shot of an alabaster effigy of sir John Gage and his wife Philippa. Gage died in 1556 at Firle place which is still the current Gage family home. Im not a religious person but im fascinated by the architecture of churches, and was really glad to have found this hidden gem.

To date I have primarily been working with models that are still in the early stages of building on portfolios and experience, much the same as I am. Iv had the opportunity to work with both models that are on the verge of going professional, to those who are embarking on a first time shoot. The confidence in these models varied considerably, from knowing what to do from the outset, to having that rabbit in the headlights look the moment the camera comes out of the bag.

This has taught me that you need to deal with each individual very differently, and not just assume they know what they are doing. Some models require a bit of time out. Just shoot the breeze with them, get to know them and just talk for a while before even thinking about setting up the shoot.

Its amazing just how much of an improvement a relaxed model compares to a nervous one, it really shows out in the photos. I now make a point of showing new models the first pictures I have taken compared to the ones I have taken toward the end of the shoot. The difference is very noticeable.

Like many people, I don’t like having my picture taken, its something I have never felt comfortable with. Its probably one reason I feel better behind the lens.

And that got me thinking. I don’t actually know what it feels like to have a proper portrait shoot done, I could only guess what it feels like.

Once again the cogs in my mind started churning. If I was to really relate to the models / clients i’m shooting I should really know what it feels like to have it done myself. And thats just what I did.

I have a friend http://www.jlightphotography.com who is trying to make the break into wedding and portrait photography, and is at a very similar stage to me. His particular niche is in the use of off camera strobe lighting, something I have no clue on whatsoever . One thing that we really have in common is trying to find people to model for us while we are building on portfolios and experience, its not easy. In particular he was looking for musicians to shoot for a project idea. Well, when i’m not running around with my camera my second passion is music. Iv played guitar for more years than I care to remember, to the point it feels like an extra limb sometimes! This was around the same time I had been pondering what it was like to be the model / client,so I duly volunteered my services.

The shoot itself took place in an old tunnel in Lewes, where I work my day job. The tunnel has seen its fair share of wannabe banksy’s over the years and is littered with graffiti. ( to all overseas readers, banksy is an incredibly talented if not slightly controversial graffiti artist who’s images have caused quite a stir in the past, but certainly worth looking up on the google box )

I must admit, for the shoot I didn’t feel too nervous, but I can only assume thats because I knew the photographer and surroundings well. It did however feel a bit weird having to try and pose, and the passing pedestrians gawping at the flash setup didn’t help matters. But overall I actually quite enjoyed the experience, it was something very different to what I was used to. I came away from the shoot with a bit more insight into what it was like to be on the wrong side of the lens and has given me more of an idea on how to talk to models / clients in the future.

I would certainly recommend that anyone embarking on portrait style work, give it a go. Its the experience of having it done yourself that can help relate to the subject and perhaps build a rapport that gives you and the customer the results you desire.

Please check out my friends website http://www.jlightphotography.com

Image by http://www.jlightphotography.com

Image by http://www.jlightphotography.com

http://www.jlightphotography.com

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Taken whilst at work, i was really drawn to the texture of this old stable door. Once used to house Arabian race horses the stable is in much need of some TLC. Despite this the building has stacks of character, but really wanted to capture the texture of this door. Im not usually one for still life shots but felt compelled to capture this.

I took this on my phone whilst shooting example images for my filtered blog. Although i probably wont see it through, i want to try and upload a phone pic every couple of days. I recently saw one of chase jarvis interviews and something that stuck with me was the quote “the best camera is the one you have at the time”. Well this is the one i have with me most of the time.

I see so many inspirational things during my working day but i tend to put taking a pic to one side because i dont have a DSLR round my neck. Its important for me to remember that the recording medium is not important for this sort of thing. Its about just getting out there and capturing those fleeting moments of inspiration.

Just a quick addition to the big stopper project blog I did recently. I thought i would do a brief follow up showing the different type of results that can be obtained with different filters. I am rather limited to showing just 3 examples as I only have 3 basic filters that I use. But to be honest I don’t think you even need that. I have happily made do with just the one filter for for the last couple of years, its just that I reached a stage where I wanted to start exploring different aspects of seascape photography, nothing more.

Before I carry on I must point out that I am not a techno bod This is not an in-depth analysis on the physics of light and just my personal opinion. This will be written in layman’s terms, kept as simple as possible and written in a format that can be visualised. We make the world far too complicated as it is!

The filters I use are a neutral density graduated filter ( the rectangular one in the top image ) A Neutral density 0.9 circular filter ( centre of image ) and finally my ND 3.0 filter ( left of image ) The camera settings for these images were F11 at iso 50.

The first seascape shown was taken using the Neutral density graduated filter more commonly known as an ND Grad. As you can see by the image of the filter its a rectangular job with half the filter tinted and half completely clear (except for mine which is covered in scratch marks) You can see in the seascape that the detail in the cloud has been retained whilst still being able to slow the shutter speed down enough to capture some motion in the water and showing detail in the foreground. This was achieved by having the tinted half covering the sky. Had I of used the same shutter speed without the filter, the sky would have blown out completely and would have looked as white as a sheet of photocopy paper. In this example the shutter speed was 1 second.

The second image was taken using a Neutral density 0.9 filter which if you look through it has about the same density as a pair of sunglasses. Rather than “slowing” the amount of light reaching the sensor in only half the image like the ND Grad, it slows the light reaching the sensor throughout the whole image. Admittedly I blew this image out a little too much with an exposure of 5 seconds and haven’t really done the filter justice. I tend to find personally this filter is great for taking pics just before sunrise or just at the point the sun hits the horizon, and you get a bit more contrast in the foreground which can give a moody feel to the picture. This is a particularly good filter if you have fast moving and low cloud, it will capture some of the motion and give the image a little drama.

The final image was done with the ND 3.0 filter (the big stopper) The filter is extremely dense and you need to compose your shot before screwing it on to the lens I imagine its similar to a welders mask. Its the same concept as the other Neutral density filter, it just “slows” the light hitting the sensor even more. This filter doesn’t perform so well in low light for obvious reasons unless you are going for 10 minute + exposures in which case you can achieve some spectacularly surreal results. But for shooting in broad daylight this filters comes into its own. No longer will you be limited to those eye stinging early mornings but you have the freedom to go out at pretty much any time of day and still achieve long exposure shots.

This is just a very brief over view of these filters and you really need to get out there and experiment with them. As I said at the start, I was quite happy with just the one filter for a very long time and could achieve very different results just by shooting at different times of the morning / evening. But if i was to recommend a filter to start with I would go for a ND grad filter. Its one of the first I used and changed how I took seascapes.

You can get different density Grad filters, but don’t get hung up on choosing which one to go for initially. Just pick one and experiment with it. From there you can start to figure out weather you want to start using lighter or denser filters. I hope this sort of makes sense, I really do not like using techno jargon I find it puts people off. Me included.

As a Jerry Springer footnote, remember to check ALL your settings before a shoot. Having just done a time lapse shoot and needing bags of space on my memory card I ramped down the image quality from RAW to Fine. Unfortunately I forgot to change this back and only found out after uploading the images of my latest shoot!! Silly me.

On a day that saw the first, and probably only snow fall of the year in Sussex. I was working!!
I was presented with a quick opportunity to snap this pic on my iphone. Seeing this snow covered lane reminded me of a road that lead to my grandparents cabin in Finland. Even Made me feel a little homesick.

Image was edited using the snapseed app

The last week has seen a bit of an “imbalance” which has needed a little time and thought to resolve. A while ago I made a decision that lifestyle photography would be my bread and butter work, eventually leading to include wedding photography. In the meantime I would be grasping at almost every photo opportunity available.

So far this has seen me shooting portraits, household pets, horses, musicians, models, commercial and sports. This approach has been as good as it gets when it comes to fine tuning my technical development and working in some pretty diverse environments. Being in environments ranging from dimly lit recording studios to be submerged in the english channel has taught me the hard way what to do and when, both with camera settings and how to approach a subject.

However on the flip side of the coin the experiences have opened up new genres for me, which has thrown things up in the air and added some confusion to the mix. I am aware that to get a foot in the door in a saturated industry you need to ideally focus on a very specific niche and customer, to start with at least. Thinking with my business head on, if I advertised myself as a jack of all trades photographer, my target audience would be so varied that I would struggle to get one message to everyone.

My approach to an engaged couple will be completely different to a band looking for a promo shoot. A few months ago I decided that Lifestyle photography would be how I advertised myself and my landscape work would be for the craft fair market. But I was making these decisions before I really got my teeth into these other genres and started looking into local markets with my business plan (or what I now like to refer to as business guesses, which I will be talking about in the future) This situation arose after I had a spring clean of my picture folders and archives.

Going through all of the work over the last couple of years made me think about the variety of shoots I had tried my hand at and just how much I really enjoyed that variety. Business VS Creativity came into play once again, and I was left feeling as the title suggests, Discombobulated (My favourite word) or out of sorts. The creative me wants to be a jack of all trades photographer, and maybe one day when those vital contacts have been made I could follow that path. But at the present time, I’m as unknown as a bar of marmite flavoured chocolate.

My business head is telling me that this would be a bad idea and that I need to focus on a niche subject and be very very specific about who my target audience is to get the ball rolling. I needed to find my balance again, find that happy medium. First I needed to look at what I am enjoying in particular compared to what is a local and sustainable market.

To start with I looked at what I had planned to do and broke the term lifestyle down, as it has a very broad meaning and could be interpreted in several ways. What I meant by Lifestyle was outdoor family portraits, so why wasn’t I calling it that to start with? I think I was trying to intentionally keep the term broad so that it showed variety, but I don’t think its helping me.

Perhaps if i’m very specific in my written introduction for example “I am an Eastbourne based Family portrait photographer” rather than “I’m an Eastbourne based Lifestyle photographer” i’m narrowing down the field already. I’m not doing this to get less interest but I am trying to get straight to the point when someone looks at my website. As I have said for some time now, its about keeping things simple and providing a 120% service and being efficient with it.

I need to keep reminding myself that when i’m doing these tweaks to think like a customer, not a photographer! From what I have seen, being a (non studio) Family portrait photographer in my local area could well be a sustainable market, IF promoted correctly with a specific client in mind. By breaking things down further I would need to look at which family member is likely to want the service in the first place, and I think we can all guess who that would be! Its unlikely to be us chaps and certainly wont be one of the kids.

By then breaking things down even further I would need to look at where the target audience would most likely frequent and perhaps feel exited about getting some family pics done. This I think is where it gets a little murky and I need to start asking around. Approaching female friends, work colleagues etc. Have they had pics done before, if so what made them decide to do it etc.

This approach all gets a little psychological and may take a while to get a clear idea on where best to promote your work. But I think its one of the best approaches I can take at this time and will hopefully pay off in the long run. I just don’t have the money to carpet bomb advertise and personally I think its a really bad way to do things too, a complete waste of money. But what about all these other genres I now enjoy?? Well this is where balance comes in.

The lifestyle, or family portrait genre may well become my primary business. But for the time being anything else will be there to fuel my creative side. A good example would be music. Now I love music, I have done for a very long time and my flat is overrun with guitars! If I could mix music with photography I would be a very happy chappy. I have recently been given that opportunity and many of my saturday mornings will now hopefully be spent listening to live performances while photographing them for web promotions. I’m not doing this for a fee, I’m doing it because it gives me the feeling I got when I first picked up a camera. It reignites my passion for the art.

Its no different to me donning my wetsuit and waterproof casing, spending summer afternoons with friends messing around in the sea on windsurfers. I’m not doing it for financial gain, its because I love being in that moment. If one day these experiences lead to business opportunities one day then great, so be it. But i’m not going to lose any more sleep over it. In my blog about balance I mentioned that the times when things go a little askew are when life’s little challenges come along.

This has been one of those times for me. In the grand scheme of things its nothing, a blip on the radar. But by addressing the issue and re balancing myself I have a little more clarity on what I need to change and how I need to continue. To start with tweaks will need to be made to my website and in the long run I wont be having landscapes and lifestyle pics on one site, it doesn’t feel right. They will need to be independent of each other, but one step at a time!

I hope this makes sense, i’m writing whatever pours from my brain!! So if you are ever feeling discombobulated, give it a little time and thought. Don’t push to resolve straight away otherwise you will end up hitting that mental brick wall. The answer will come, just don’t try to force it.

Some of you may have noticed that recently I have been going a little tilt shift crazy.

Alas, I have not been using an actual tilt shift lens. That would require a small fortune and a diet of bread and water for the next couple of years! Now I have never been into the whole built in camera effect thing except for messing around on my iphone. I have always avoided using the DSLR effects, preferring to shoot just in RAW on neutral settings. But I have to admit, while fiddling with my camera one afternoon I had a go with the “miniaturisation” mode and I was seriously impressed.

For a built in effect the manufacturer had pulled off quite a decent job, and the cogs in my mind starting turning again.

I started by trying out some seascapes in this mode, then moved on to more urban areas. It was a bit of fun but not something I would ever consider using in a more professional capacity. Or would I?

While shooting a band recording session recently and having bagged the shots I was looking for, I had a brainwave (which doesn’t occur to often) Why not shoot the rest of the session in tilt shift. It would certainly produce some different results. Weather they were any good remained to be seen but went for it. Anyway after uploading the images on to the big screen and showing them to the band I got some great feedback. The images just had a very different quality to them, and in monochrome they had an ethereal moody feel to them.

After a couple of months and only a few days ago I did another shoot, this time for a singer songwriter. The environment was very different, and outdoors but after doing most of the shoot in RAW I suggested trying some shots in tilt shift mode. I fired of a few rounds, ended the shoot and went back to process what I had done. I uploaded the pictures and compared the two types of image. And I must say I preferred the tilt shift for that particular shoot. I’m not sure what it was that drew me to the tilt shift pics, and I don’t like to analyse stuff like that too much. You like something or you don’t.

I repeated this process yesterday whilst doing a shoot during a live performance of local Eastbourne band Gadzooks. I ensured that around 30 minutes before the end of the performance I had a play in tilt shift effect. If anything it would give the band and venue organiser a nice range and selection of images to choose from.

Maybe Its just a fad that I am going through at the moment that will wear off with time, but its about exploring those avenues and trying new ideas that keep ideas fresh for me.If I was ever to use this style in a professional capacity, I think I would seriously have to consider saving and investing in a TS lens. I would have the luxury of being able to produce similar results but in RAW mode which has become second nature to me now.

Anyway I have added a selection of images I used in this built in effect. Feedback would be well received on this as like I say, i’m not sure if this could just some fad I’m going through. Some impartial feedback is where it counts.

Cheers

WOW! Thats all I can say. The last 24 hours have been absolutely unreal. I started blogging early last year to record what some have seen as a rather crazy idea in this current climate. A climate that is having life changing effects to many. To try and go it alone and live a dream of being my own boss and being my own ultimate decision maker.

Up until yesterday afternoon I think I had topped around 150ish views. When I last checked a few moments ago it had topped 4723 views!!! All this in 24 hours. Never underestimate the power of the internet! From the amount of positive feedback I have received it has confirmed for me that perhaps this isn’t such as crazy idea as I first thought. It has also confirmed for me that i’m not the only one on this roller coaster, that others of you out there are wanting to do there own thing which is fantastic.

This has proved a huge motivational boost, and all I can say is thank you. I will endeavour to respond to as many of you as I can, but please go easy on me. Until yesterday I knew how to upload a blog, and that was  it. I wasn’t really up on how to respond to comments and the concept of re blogging is new to me. I certainly didn’t know what freshly pressed was, but boy do I now. (its all part of the learning curve I keeping banging on about I suppose).

To those of you that have chosen to follow me. Well all can say is that I will do my best to keep the blogs interesting, and more to the point as transparent as I can. The whole idea was for me to be as honest as I could about the journey and include all the bad stuff as well as well as the good. Anything I learn along the way I will continue to share as best I can. Its a scary ride, but I cant turn back now. I don’t want to.

So all that leaves me to say is a rather HUGE THANKS to you all. It means a hell of a lot to me that people are paying attention.