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The Starving Artist

~ Still an artist but no longer starving!

The Starving Artist

Monthly Archives: October 2012

Listen to your models

16 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in General

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Tags

beach, models, photo shoot, photography, vintage

Afternoon

Short (well, short ish) post today!

I shoot models. In fact, at some stage or another in their careers most “people” photographers shoot models too. You can’t always shoot for a client, you can’t be too creative with a client, you can’t do your own thing with a client.

So you shoot models.

But how often do you you actually listen to your model. I mean, you usually shoot a model because you have a specific shoot planned and you know what you want and you know how to shoot it, so what does the model know?

A lot actually.

A good model can usually pose and move with little direction, but a great model can give some great insight into what is working and what is not and can even change the direction of the whole shoot.

But you gotta listen.

I was shooting a vintage shoot on a beach with two models, blazing sunshine but bitingly cold, two girls in circle dresses having a vintage picnic on the beach, nice idea, great theme, good props, but it just wasn’t working.

One of my models then said to me, look, I have a vintage swimsuit in my bag, let me wear it and you shoot me walking up out of the sea? I wasn’t sure it was going to work, but I went with it

You know what – they were the shots of the day!

best – Colin


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Sometimes you just gotta break the rules

15 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Bridal Photography, General, Photography

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Tags

bridal, lens flare, Model, photo shoot, photography, rules, wedding dress

Afternoon

Having a thorough technical understanding of photography is a good foundation for working in the business, F-stops, apertures, ISO, Guide Numbers, it might sound like gobbledegook but unless you know that stuff you’ll never really take your photography to the next level.

There is a lot on the web about how the technical aspects of photography must be followed to get a good shot, and to some extent that is true, but there comes a point when you just have to say, stop, hang on a minute, that photo is “technically perfect” correctly exposed, sharp, rule of thirds etc, but…there is something missing.

That “something missing” bit is the most important ingredient for making a good photograph into a great photograph, the creative input of the photographer, the thinking outside the box, breaking all the rules

I was on a shoot recently photographing models in wedding gowns, for a wedding gown  supplier, pretty boring, but steady work. Towards the end of the shoot one of the models walked across a window and I noticed the sun streaming behind her, so I thought, lets see what that looks like.

The model was happy to “do her thing” in front of the window while I shot without my lens hood on (to accentuate the flare) and shot from a lower viewpoint to get the sun directly in the frame (whilst minding sure my eyeballs were not scorched to a cinder!!)

The purists amongst you will say the resulting image is a little soft, lacks a bit of contrast, has waaaay too much flare – and you’re right – but it’s a pretty darn good image, I love it, the model adores it and the client even asked for a copy!

Obviously I wouldn’t shoot ALL my work like this, but every now and then you just gotta break the rules.

best – Colin

 

 

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Do you carry a camera everywhere

14 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in General, Landscapes, Photography

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Tags

dog walk, Fuji, Nikon, photography, sunset, walking, x100

Morning

No, I don’t mean an iPhone (or other Smartphone cameras) – even though they can produce some pretty good images, my particular model is an 8 MP camera – wow – only a few years ago that was high end in a DSLR – how technology moves on. I mean do you carry around a DSLR all the time?

I don’t

And I don’t, because my D3/D4 are just too darn heavy and cumbersome to carry around everywhere. But what I used to find was I would come across a scene, probably walking the dog (I do that a lot – walk the dogs) and I’d either walk on by, or snap away with the iPhone. But getting home and downloading the image to a big monitor I would invariably be a little disappointed

Then along came the Fuji x100.

I was never really into “rangefinder” type cameras, although I did have an old Russian Kiev rangefinder when I was a boy. But after reading all the reviews and handling one down at the local Jessops, I persuaded the wife to buy me one. Now I’m not going to going into writing a review of the X100, there are plenty of reviews out there on the web, written much better than I ever could, but, if you have never used one, just go and have a look in your local camera store – they are immense!

The x100 has totally changed the way I go about photography (my personal stuff, not my bread and butter paying the bills work – I still have a D4 for that!!). The little camera (and it is little) is never left at home now, not even when I go on dog walks and I love it. It produces images that no Smartphone can better and it produces images that several higher end DSLR’s will struggle to produce and it just looks the business – a nice little retro camera that fits in the hand.

I was walking the dogs last night, walked over the canal just as the sun was going down and catching the sides of the narrow boats, the iPhone could never have reproduced this!

best – Colin

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Nothing ventured, nothing gained

12 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in General

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Hawker Hunter, Military, Model, photography, RAF, Uniform

hello

I’m always on the look out for props or things that can provide inspiration for my portrait photography business. It’s little (or big!) things like props that can really set apart one shot from another.

A few miles from my home is parked an old Hawker Hunter, bright red, you can just see it from the road and I have always thought how cool it would be to shoot, but never bothered to investigate further as permission would either be at very great cost, or there would be no permission at all.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I was approached by Holly, a model who had seen some of my work and wanted to collaborate. She had access to an old RAF uniform and wanted me to shoot her in it. After some thought I agreed and set about planning the shoot.

It was soon quite obvious that a pretty girl in a RAF uniform needed that extra “something” to lift the picture from the norm. I then remembered the red Hawker Hunter and thought, nothing ventured nothing gained!

I took a drive over to the plane location and drove up to it and lo and behold it was actually parked on the site of MOT garage along with portacabin coffee shops (the sort you see in “A road” lay byes). Ordering a coffee form the portacabin I asked if they knew who owned the airplane and we got talking and it transpired that the owner owned the MOT garage and was more than happy to allow snaps to be taken. (snaps??? – I smiled to myself)

Drinking up I wandered over to the garage and asked to see Bob (not his real name) and I was introduced to a chain smoking long haired hells angel biker type character (no offence to Hells Angels meant!!). This is not going to end well I thought, but I plucked up courage, introduced myself and started talking about my photography and how cool it would be to shoot his plane!

To my amazement this guy was a real character and spent the next hour telling me stories about his red plane and his other “pieces of military hardware” he has owned. He was delighted that I wanted to shoot a model “on the plane” and we left with him saying, “come along anytime you like, we’ll even wash it for you”

Getting back home and still filled with excitement (I’d never shot a model on a real plane before!!) I rang Holly the model and told her, over the moon was an understatement.

I got my team together, assistant and MUA (Make up artist) and we arranged a date to shoot.

On the day it was dull and grey with heavy rain forecast – but that didn’t deter us. Holly looked amazing in her RAF outfit, but with stockings and stilettos to put a different slant on it.

It did rain eventually and we had to call it a day – but not before we got some cracking shots

The moral of this story, and the reason for the post, is you never ever know what the answer will be until you just ask – so don’t be afraid to ask the question, the worst that can happen is they say no – and you expected that anyway!

Best – Colin

 


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Doing Business

11 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Business, General, Photography

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Tags

business, copyright, photography

Morning

A few tips today about doing business to business transactions or working together in a business partnership. This post is based on a very true story, the names of the parties will be changed to protect the innocent. This story is about the photographic industry, but applies equally to other industries.

Dave (not is real name) a professional studio photographer was just locking up after a long day in the studio when he got a tap on the shoulder from John (not his real name) a business tenant in the same building as Dave. John runs an online business selling specialist clothing to private individuals

John tells Dave he has been looking for a photographer to go into business with and he has a fantastic business proposition for Dave which will make both of them heaps of money. Dave is intrigued and decides to meet with John to discuss.

Over the next few weeks they meet regularly to discuss Johns proposition, the business idea evolves into a tangible plan of action to move forward. Johns business idea is to use models (supplied by Dave) to model his clothing lines and have professional location based photographs taken (by Dave). The finished photos to be sold on a subscription based website (by John) They agree on a 50/50 partnership with all profits split equally

Dave wants to put something down in writing and set up a company, but John wants some test shoots completed first. Dave organises a test shoot, finds a model who will work on a TF basis (TF = time for, model works for free but receives edited photos for her time) finds a location.

Everything goes well and a few days later John receives the edited pictures, he is blown away by the quality of the photography and the editing. He asks Dave to organise more shoots ASAP

There is still nothing written down or agreed in writing, but Dave is happy to organise more shoots. The next shoot goes as well as the first, John loves the photos but then out of the blue Dave receives an email from John saying that as the pictures are so commercially saleable they must not be released onto the Internet, the models must not be allowed to have more than a single image, John requires all the RAW images along with full Copyright of all the images.

Dave gets straight on the phone and explains to John that the industry does not work like that, models have to have the images else they either won’t work, or need to be paid, a photographer should never give up RAW files and there is no need for copyright assignment as a license to use agreement could be put into place.

A heated argument takes place, John does not understand any of this and just wants all the images and all the copyright. Eventually Dave convinces John that a license agreement is sufficient, RAW files are not needed and models will receive a limited number of finished images.

Dave had booked three shoots the following day with three different models at three different locations, all models were working TF and were travelling up to 50 miles.

On the morning of the shoot Dave receives yet another email from John saying after he had slept on it he wanted joint copyright to the images or he was not prepared to shoot. This was 1 hour before the first shoot of the day. As a photographer dealing with models he has a reputation to uphold, not just for quality of work, but also for reliability. So with that in mind Dave agreed to joint Copyright, sent an email confirming and got ready for the shoot.

During the shoot the tone of the posing and direction from John changed dramatically and Dave ended up shooting images he was really uneasy with. Upon reviewing the images after the shoot Dave said he was not prepared to shoot this type of images – John was angry, said shoot it or don’t work again, Dave walked away.

Dave spoke with a solicitor concerning the joint Copyright and asked if he could stop the images he was uneasy with from being published – he could not.

So, both parties ended up with joint Copyright of a single set of images, but the business idea failed as the two would never work together again.

Some lessons to be learned, know the industry you want to work with and if you don’t know it well, then trust that the person you wish to work with does actually know the industry and listen to them. Put written contracts in place before you agree work, not after you have started and photographers, never ever sign away Copyright before you have shot!

If there were binding contracts in place then Dave and John would more than likely be running a successful business together making lots of money.

But sometimes you just have to walk away – Dave didn’t and should have done, he ignored the alarm bells because he thought he’d make lots of money – which turned out to be a poor business decision.

Best – Colin

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Hello!

10 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in General

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Bit daunting this, never written a blog before, so used to just knocking out Facebook comments left right and centre from a mobile phone usually. But want a bit more than that (aside from the fact FB has just changed their algorithms and posts don’t show up in other users’ feeds – but that’s another story)

This blog will be very visual, I am a photographer after all and I hope to document my shoots and my life around those shoots and also hopefully give you a little insight into what’s its like being a photographer (its not all glamour!!)

I use Photoshop a lot (I mean A LOT) but its a tool, if the picture starting off is rubbish, no matter how much PP you use will make it better !

Well, to open up this blog I’m going to post a shot of the lovely Laura Mai – she was introduced to me as a lady who wanted to “get into modelling” and asked if I could shoot her, it turns out, after talking to her that she is actually an internationally famous  singer who has sung at the Royal Albert Hall in front of the Queen & Prince Philip! You’d never have believed it!

I’ve shot Laura a number of times over the last couple of years, mostly for her own promotional material and she always has “Harry” in tow – Harry is her microphone, encrusted with 1500 Swarovski crystals !

Hope to see you regularly on the blog

Best – Colin

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