Photographing live music can be very rewarding but difficult at the same time (as evidenced by the fact I couldn’t condense it to just 10 tips!)

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People ask me how long I’ve been into photography and they are always surprised when I say I’ve really been doing it for less then three years. That’s not quite the whole story however.

I tried to recall my first experiences with photography when I was interviewed recently by friend and fellow photographer Tom Hole. I had an old manual SLR which I learned to use but never stuck with. I was visiting my parents for Christmas and I thought I’d try and see if I could find any of my old prints, and to my great surprise I manage to track down the exact photographs I referred to in the interview:

“I remember being obsessed with creating double exposures, making my friends look like ghosts, and trying to recreate scenes from top gun using model aircraft stuck to the inside of my bedroom window”.

…so here are two photos I took in 1993 when I was 11 years old:

Even at that age I was interested in creating the image from scratch rather than photographing the world around me. And now that I think about it everything I have done since has been preparing me for where I am now - my early experiments in photography were followed by years of working with computer arts packages. This all leads to the creation of composite images and complex work with strobes which are my main passion now, when I finally pick up a DSLR and reignite a dormant interest in photography.

MG

I had to post this as soon as I saw it - vandals/subversives/pop-culture philosophers/bored design students have pasted photoshop toolbars and menus over heavily airbrushed advertisements displayed in the city’s subways, in a bold and candid statement about the spurious nature of the images beneath.

Or so it seems. The cynic in me at leasts entertains the idea that this was in fact carried out by the Ad agencies themselves as part of some guerrilla marketing campaign. Weclome to the age where nothing is real and even some of the hoaxes are a hoax.

It’s fairly clever either way, I’m sure it brightened the odd commuter’s day! And before anyone accuses me of referring to a cream cake in my headline, take a look at this.

MG

Originally uploaded by
ɹǝɯıʇɹoɯ

I have just received notification of the following response to an e-petition filed last year by Adam Jones, which stated “We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to clarify the laws surrounding photography in public places”:

Thank you for your e-petition asking for clarification of the law on photography in public places.

There are no legal restrictions on photography in public places. However, the law applies to photographers as it does to anybody else in a public place. So there may be situations in which the taking of photographs may cause or lead to public order situations, inflame an already tense situation, or raise security considerations. Additionally, the police may require a person to move on in order to prevent a breach of the peace, to avoid a public order situation, or for the person’s own safety or welfare, or for the safety and welfare of others.

Each situation will be different and it would be an operational matter for the police officer concerned as to what action if any should be taken in respect of those taking photographs. Anybody with a concern about a specific incident should raise the matter with the Chief Constable of the relevant force.

This simply reiterates what photographers already know; that what we have been doing for over one hundred years is not against the law. Clearly causing an obstruction constitutes a legitimate offence, however if we try and be too discrete then we face being arrested under the Anti-Terrorism Act, as happened recently. And this is not an isolated case, see here, here, here, here, here.

Whilst it’s good to see that the petition actually solicited a response, in this case it pretty amounts to a denial that a problem exists, despite the fact that Austin Mitchell MP tabled an early day motion on the subject in March of last year.

A petition was never going to really solve anything. If you want to make a difference, the website theyworkforyou.com allows you to find out who your MP is so you can write them directly about the issue. If they were one of the 245 MPs to sign Mitchell’s EDM they might just listen. In the meantime we must still fear unwarranted searches when engaging in a perfectly legal activity.

MG

In November I did a shoot to promote a new student night in York called Tequila. Amonst other things the images were going to be displayed on a large plasma screen in the venue so I wanted them to carry maximum impact so went with a bold white background look. I was uploading a few of these images to flickr and thought I’d write a short post about how I set up the shots.

Zack Arias has a written very good set of tutorials on working with seamless backgrounds in this way. The background is lit separately from the subject to make it easier to get the exposures right and to “blow out” the background (make it show up pure white in the camera). Gobos (go betweens) are used to stop background light hitting the subject:

It is stated that three lights is basically a minimum for this (two for the background, one for the subject) however it’s not an absolute necessity as we shall see…

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Chains
Originally uploaded by
Michael Nilsson

• Firstly, Phil at DPreview sets out to objectively test the widely held belief that noise in high resolution images is mitigated by downsampling, and further highlights the disappointing trend of marketing over content which causes manufacturers of compacts to push megapixel counts ever higher at the expense of image quality.
• Here’s a great blast from the past courtesy of Ken Rockwell’s fantastic photography satire website. This is sure to make you “LOL” (and possibly even “ROFLMAO”), look out for the following phrases: “pick up your tool in your own bare hands”, and “Tripods are no longer required, and actually often degrade sharpness”. Classic stuff.
• As all serious photographers know, Apple products are intrinsically better for any creative task than PCs (even when running exactly the same software). You will then be pleased to hear that Apple has once again revolutionised the computer market with it’s revolutionary new keyboardless laptop. I can’t wait to try Photoshop on it!
• Finally, is this the worst photograph ever taken? Whilst you decide, this followup post goes onto to shed some light on what probably went wrong and demonstrates that money does not always buy quality (and that branding distorts markets).

MG

Here’s to the photograph of 2009, may there be many more to follow! This year I had the pleasure of being official photographer at Bobo Lobo’s red carpet new years eve party in York. Read on to see some more photos from the night (all taken with the Orbis ring light adaptor). A very happy new year to all.

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