Be true to yourself!

My good freind Marcus Doyle was in the area and came to see me last night. It always amazes me how he can just stroll in like a traveling nomad, and even after months of never seeing eachother its as if he has just came from next door with a muffin basket and get the latest gossip.(That's a camp way of saying its as if he never left.)
The kids adore him and can be a right pain in the bum to him I'm sure. Beth,who is my 10 year old is fascinated by his bald head for some reason and can't stop touching it. Funny thing is, she is very shy with most people but she always looks forward to a suprise visit from the traveling Doyle. I have said this before but I just love the way he is uncompromising with his landscape work. He does them his way and that's it! Its hard for a wedding photographer to do things without compromise as the client gets so much choice. The only wedding photographer I know of that does it his way and that's it is Jeff Ascough. He doesn't give the bride and groom a choice of photo's for their album. Instead he chooses and they just receive the final product as he wanted it to be. After all its his art and why should he change it? Doyley once told me of a time he was asked to change something about one of his prints. Basicly they were asking him if he would print it a certain way rather than how he had. Of course the answer was a massive no! I'm sure you will agree its very cheeky to ask for an artist to change something about their art. Do you do this in a different size may be acceptable but that's about it. Although even then, the artist may have always meant the picture to be a certain size and would not wish to compromise on this.I think all photographers should be true to themselves and their art should not be dictated by anyone else.

The art of black and white printing

I have mentioned my best friend Marcus Doyle previously but I have not mentioned his skill of printing! Marcus is not just a fantastic photographer but has an amazing skill as a printer. In fact it was Marcus that made me jump on in leaps and bounds as a black and white printer. I could see his skill was far greater than mine as a printer so I asked him to teach me his secrets. He did more than that! He actually wrote me a personalised book showing me the best ways to get superb results. The book had examples, prints he had done and was written in a way that he must have known I would understand. The book was funny as well and had me laughing out loud. How you can make a book on printing that is funny is something I'm sure very few have done.I will dig it out and scan a page from it to show you when I get a chance. I know marcus will admit he never gives much away to do with his skills and tecniques and it was a real honour to get such an in depth step by step guide to his way of printing. I mention this as I know as I have not printed anything in about 5 years I will be very rusty at it. So its time to blow the dust from his big black book and refresh my memory. Sorry I have posted no piccys but my computer is still away at the moment.

Its a Personal Thing

After weeks of thought, I have started preparing for my personal project.I have also decided to do it entirely with film. I have spent so long emulating film on my digital work I figured why am I doing this if digital is up to the standards I want. Its not a matter of quality or how large I can enlarge photo's, but a matter of the look and feel of film as well as the quality of a final fibre based print. I simply just love the film I used to use. On a lot of my older photo's grain is very visible and a lot of my 35mm images are quite high in contrast. Some of my digital images still are quite high contrast but I have to be so much more careful with the digital stuff that I don't go over the boundaries of what the medium can do. I used to love a lot of Ellen Von Unwerth's work. Not all of it by any means, but I still do like some of her images. The thing I don't like a lot about photographers like her, is that they are normally technically completely inadequate. They shoot a load of images and can compose and focus a shot, but somebody else brings it to life for them. The skill of the developer and printer is sometimes much more than the photographer. The other thing is that they always shoot pretty people! No offense to any of my clients but I'm sure its easier to make Kate Moss look good than somebody that isn't a top model! So it begs the question, is it the photographer I like or the photography. Well with Ellen Von Unwerth it is certainly the photography. What I mean by this is that I love the finished photo that was a combination of not just her work but the models, make up artists, stylists, and maybe most importantly in her case, the printer. The beauty of my personal project is I will make sure I do all of the work, except the makeup and hair though! My models will be real people also and hopfully this will compliment my wedding work.

Busy Busy Busy

Apologies for not posting anything over the last couple of weeks. I have been so busy with weddings I just never took the time out to do this, which I know I should have.
For some reason I am getting more enquiries at the moment than I ever have and its taking a lot of my time up. Obviously I'm loving it as it shows that more and more people are seeing that a lot of wedding photographers are a pile of poo compared to me! Happy days!!! I will share over the next few days what I have decided to do about my film/digital dilemma that haunts me every day! For now I must dash!

Whatever the weather

Ahhh the british weather! I must say that at most of my wedding last year it was raining as it did the year before. Last year though was a rubbish summer. It seemed to start too early and only lasted a month. After that it rained a lot of the suimmer. This meant that all those summer weddings were either entirely done indoors, or we just popped out briefly. The rain isn't my favourite for weddings but it never fills me with dread. Its my job to capture that day whatever the weather and here in the lakes its more likely to rain than not, even in the summer. As I've said before, I love the surprise on peoples faces when they see the photo's taken on one of those rainy days. They just can't believe there are so many superb pictures! People still think sunny weather means great photo's. I still take great photo's in sunny weather but its a lot harder at times as there is always much more contrast on a bright sunny day. I have seen so many other photographers crumble under the strain of worry about what the weather will be like. It simply doesn't matter to me. Still its April now and I do hope for the brides its a sunny summer this year. With a few clouds for my benefit!

Two more from London

Just a quick one, as I don't have as much time at weekends for my blog!

Just to say I received 2 more bookings yesterday which were from London.

What a funny old place this is! I get people travelling for 5 hours to see me from London but people getting married just round the corner don't even travel 5 minutes to see me. My good friend Marcus who did live here a long time ago doesn't seem really surprised and neither am I really. I guess its just one of those things!

And anyone that looks at that image and starts to criticise it saying they dont like the way you cant see the detail on the bridesmaids dresses can bog off because I meant it to look like that. If it was a Persil Automatic advert you wouldnt say that! As I say, I do it my way always!

Perrrrrrrsillllllll!

There he is!

http://www.jeffascough.net/

So Jeff Ascough is my fave wedding photographer!
For me he captures the moments in low light situations in an amazing way. Have a look at his website and take a look for yourself. One thing which would make him more of a photographers hero would be if he hadn't changed to digital recently. The kit he was using before was amazing expensive leica rangefinders and super fast lenses. I can understand why he moved to digital otherwise I would still be using film myself. But I can't help envy people who still use film! I have always been close to returning to film and maybe I will for some personal projects.
I think I should make a point of doing this really. I think film is always going to haunt me if I don't use it even if its as well as digital. The leica gear that Jeff Ascough used to use, I would just love to have! The look and feel of a leica goes far beyond how it feels to be holding my digital slr. Don't get me wrong, I believe I could still do a better job than most if I shot a wedding on a fun snap disposable camera! I really should do that sometime! The equiptment is very important to photographers but the clients are not interested in such things. Mind you I would like to see a bride and grooms face if I pulled a funsnap out at their wedding. What an experiment that would be though! Maybe I should put an ad in the local paper asking for a couple to volanteer to take part in my little indulgance. Fun snap, its the future! Will talk more tomorrow!

So who is my favourite Wedding photographer? Well 6 months or so ago I didn't think I had a favourite wedding photographer as I knew nobody with the same views and approach as myself.

Then one night I decided to google the top ten wedding photographers in the world. This came up with mostly photographers who still really didn't do it for me! One stood out amongst them and I no longer felt like Charlton Heston in the film The Omega Man. I was not alone in the world and there was another photographer with the same views as myself.

Even better I could see someone who I felt was better than me. This may seem a funny thing to be happy about, but I think everyone needs heroes and I have had nobody's wedding work to look at and say I WISH I TOOK THAT!

I remember years ago when my friend Marcus Doyle and I would take photo's right at the beginning of our interest in photography and there was that little bit of competition between us.

It was healthy, and I think way back then it made us both strive to capture better images. As I've said before our Photography careers took completely different paths over time. But we both loved photography the instant we both picked up my fathers camera's and started messing about with them.

Because Marcus and my work went into two completely different directions I can now admire his work and love it without wishing I had taken it. His Landscape photography in my opinion is amazing. I just love looking at his images because they hold such real natural beauty that he has captured from something he has seen that nobody else could have.

I think there is so much of Marcus's heart that goes into his images and he has stayed true to himself by not conforming to the horrible clinical look that is so popular now in his field.

He also shoots on film only which I envy greatly! It would be stupid of me to shoot my wedding work on film as digital has now surpassed 35mm film camera's for my line of work. For landscape though I believe film is still king and when you think Marcus uses 10x8 format and has exposures that could last more than an hour, digital comes no where near. Even at low iso's there would be so much noise from the long exposure's that his images would be ruined! I doubt this problem will be solved for a good few years. For me however using shorter exposures and with iso's up to 6400 and fast canon L lenses, I can acomplish much more than I did with film for my weddings. But I miss the stinky darkroom and printing my own work so much at times. To be honest,if I shot just portraits,landscape,still life or anything else I would return to film for certain. I loved the days where my photo's were just for me and I could take my time in the darkroom to hand print my masterpiece. Even the early weddings I did were entirely hand printed by me. And those fibre based prints were so beautiful!
The fact Marcus still uses film and keeps things real is a true credit to him.
I will continue this tomorrow along with revealing my favourite wedding photographer!

Just get on with it!

No more ranting and raving about me being the best photographer in Carlisle!
Unless something changes and I start to get more clients from this area I will talk no more about it. I do have some fantastic clients from this area and they are quality clients. They look at my work and know straight away that they must have me to do their wedding! I have decided that I shouldn't be chasing after poor quality clients who the photography maybe isn't that important to anyway. If my style isn't for them then so be it. That's their choice and as long as I am still getting bookings from the rest of the world then I shall no longer worry about!

Then the phone rings

I have had a few enquiries since the wedding fayre on Sunday. But guess what, nothing has changed! All of the enquiries have had nothing to do with the wedding fayre.
All of the enquiries have been from people from the uk but not from Carlisle.
I just think its a real shame that most people here can't tell good photography from poor or average at the best.
I did have a look at the other exhibitors work and the emotion and true capture of the moment just wasn't there.
I can't keep investing in marketing in this area to receive nothing back! I noticed one traditional photographer was diplaying large cross process look wedding photo's. She never even had that right. They looked awful! She is following a trend that started 6 or 7 years ago also.
Those photo's even if they had been digitally cross processed well, will look dated in no time! All this digital jiggery pokery! Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it! I think photoshop is abused so much. Before digital I would make the best quality print I could with a bit of dodging and burning. Maybe enlarging through a silk stocking to take the harshness from a brides skin at times. When I started shooting digital I still used the same techniques. The only things I have done with digital at times that I couldn't do in the darkroom is stitch some photo's together and more contraversial, add some clouds into a bland white sky!
I know, I know, I'm not completely proud of myself for putting something in a shot that wasn't there in the first place. But you need to remember that these aren't landscapes I am doing. Its merely in the background. Its the emotions and beauty in the people that is most important to capture in my shots.
After all I would spend a long time burning in horrible white skys when I printed in the darkroom.
I feel that I use photoshop but not abuse it!
I also noticed that none of these photographers had they're own style and had very traditional shots mixed with what would look like a photo journalist approach to some. They're albums were a mix of modern and traditional. I just feel all this is so confusing. Even they're so called reportage stuff looked staged!
In the same way as when watching you've been framed and suspecting that the guy who falls into the swimming actually staged it to get 50 quid from beadle. I look at these staged reportage shots and cringe, and mumble to myself "That's not real".
I don't wish to sound arrogant or bitter. I will tell you of photographers that I admire. None of them live here in carlisle though. There are actually 1 or 2 in Cumbria that are pretty good! In my next post I will share my favourite wedding photographer with you.