Lucy And The Lens

Blog

  • Graves At Heysham Photowalk

    So last Thursday I went on a photo walk with Preston Photographic Society to Graves at Heysham near Morecambe. Photography is not just about taking pictures it is about capturing the essence and history of a place.

    For those of you who don’t know what graves at Heysham is, I didn’t but after reading the plaque and looking at several websites (National Trust, Time Travel Britain, Blogs) I did manage to find a little bit of information about it.

    At Graves at Heysham there is an old ruined chapel that stands on top of a cliff and it is up there that you see the famed stone graves used to bury high status individuals. These Graves appear on the front cover of Black Sabbath’s ‘The Best Of Black Sabbath’.

    Legend states that St Patrick was shipwrecked here after crossing from Ireland and established the chapel but in fact the chapel was built as a memory of his life 300 years after his death.

    St Peters church at the bottom of the cliff near the village is a still functioning Anglican church but we couldn’t go inside but when on these photo walks I like to think outside the box. I am always looking for that obscure shot and today my shot was taken from the outside looking in to capture the window and the pews at the other side.

    A great thing about going out with other more experienced photographers is that they give you ideas so we spent a little while capturing the sun flares through the archway of the ruined St Peters Chapel.

    All in All it is always good to go out and do some photography even if it means the subject is outside of your comfort zone because photography is something you learn by going out and practicing. Although I prefer shooting people I will not say no to an opportunity to shoot something different so don’t just read about different types of photography, go out and practice them.

  • Read This If You Want To Take Great Photographs by Henry Carroll

    I was given Read This If You Want To Take Great Photographs as a Christmas present by my uncle and auntie who clearly know me very well as anyone that I’m related to or good friends with knows that one of my greatest passions is my photography.

    Although I read this book and made notes about it a little while ago I was unsure at that point what I was going to do with the information other than let it help me inform and shape my photographic style. It wasn’t until I decided that I was going to pursue photography and create a website that I had an epiphany that I could use what I learnt from this book as my inspiration for a topic.

    My favourite part of this book is the bold subheadings that give you a brief overview of the fundamental principles of photography and I thought there is no better way to summarise my thoughts on this book than use those subheadings, which I loved as the building blocks.

    Composition

    This is the most important thing when considering how to photograph because it is the cement that holds your image together and like a puzzle without a great composition it falls apart. There is one tip on composition that I think is a brilliant piece of advice, which is, always look for something that draws the viewer into an image. I know photographers who have this down to a tee, they not only put themselves into the image by showing you what they see but they also add a little quirk, which is quintessentially them. For example, a red umbrella or a stuffed animal. But the thing that draws a viewer into an image doesn’t always have to be a physical object you’ve added to it you can also use leading lines as a way of adding depth and highlighting a key element in the image that you want the viewer to see. Creating foreground interest offers the viewer a stepping-stone into your image and ultimately makes it more intriguing to the eye.

    The rule of thirds involves picturing your image as if it was mentally divided using two vertical and two horizontal lines and you then place the important parts of the image where the lines meet. This is designed to make the image more interesting and dramatic.

    However if what I have just described are the fundamental rules of composition if I’ve learnt anything from my photographing experiences then I believe the most important rule is to not be afraid to break the rules and have fun. Also never be afraid to step outside of your comfort zone and photograph something that isn’t your usual style because the results might surprise you.

    Exposure

    The next aspect of photography that Carroll discuses in his book is Exposure. Exposure is about how you as a photographer create the image by using your camera as a tool, by using the exposure triangle (Shutter Speed, Aperture and ISO). The exposure triangle is the cardinal rule for a decent exposure, if you have a planned shoot always set the shutter speed, aperture and ISO before you do anything else.

    The shutter speed controls the length of time it takes for light to enter your camera, aperture controls how much light enters your camera and ISO controls how sensitive your camera is to light.

    If you are holding the camera the shutter speed should be no less than 1/60 because if it’s lower than that you will struggle to hold the camera steady. The more you decrease the shutter speed the more of a motion blur effect it creates and the more you increase shutter speed the more likely you are to freeze movement. I suggest if you’re shooting a portrait and you want the subject in full focus you should use something in between 1/125 and 1/250 depending on how close you want to be to your subject.

    When you want the subject to be seen but the background out of focus set the Aperture as low as your camera can but if you want a wider depth of field set the aperture as high as you can so everything in the frame will be in focus.

    ISO is to do with how sensitive your camera is to light so the general idea is to set it as low as possible when your in a bright place or a studio and set it high in a dark place. Increasing ISO is essential for using fast shutter speeds in low light.

    Another useful tool for brightening and darkening your subject is exposure compensation. Boosting it draws out detail in the shadows and decreasing it creates awe-inspiring silhouettes.

     Light

    The only way to learn about light is to observe it constantly even if you don’t have your camera on you. Hard light creates contrasts by using shadows and highlights, which adds depth and definition to an image. According to Henry Carroll these are unforgiving and expose all, which makes the photograph more dramatic. Soft light is the opposite of hard light and is used mainly by portrait photographers to subtly draw out form and features.

    Lenses

    Lenses radically alter your relationship with your subject and the way you take pictures. There are two types of lenses, zoom and prime or fixed lenses. At the moment I only own two lenses the 18-55mm that came on the camera and a 55-200 mm telephoto zoom lens, which I now use pretty much all the time. According to Carroll Telephoto lenses transform you into a hidden observer-someone who is suddenly able to capture subjects unaware.

    I will be buying my third lens at the end of the month as I don’t know about you but every time I start a new job I like to reward myself with some kind of incentive and this time I know exactly what I’m buying. I know I’ve mentioned this lens before and I will mention it many times because I think it is absolutely fantastic and unusual. The lens I am buying is the Lomography Petzval 85mm Art Lens, which I first saw on Emily Soto’s (NY Fashion Photographer) Facebook page and I have had the pleasure of testing it out once. This is a manual focus lens, that comes in brass or black with a variety of filters that you put inside the lens to change the colour cast or shape of your image and it creates a vintage feel to your images.

    Seeing

    Read this if you want to take great photographs states that to take great pictures that stand out from the crowd, you need to stop looking and start seeing. This is extremely true I’ve learnt that I am an observer I’m not always looking for things sometimes I see things and have a light bulb moment, get my camera ready and take the shot and if I don’t have my camera on me I will try and find a way to create the image I want using my phone. If you see something while doing street photography capture it anyway even if your camera settings are haywire as if it’s the right moment chances are one shot is better than no shot.

    Another great piece of advice I gained from reading this book is ‘don’t feel like your photographs have to explain themselves. Hold a little back. Give the viewers imagination somewhere to go’.

    So all in all as you can tell you don’t just learn by taking the photographs, you learn by reading other peoples ideas on photography and I have definitely learnt a lot from and been inspired by Read This If You want to take great photographs by Henry Carroll. So if you’re a photographer or want to get into photography I suggest that you start by reading this book and gaining a deeper understanding of the rules and how to break them.

  • Charity Photowalk In Liverpool

    Charity Photowalk In Liverpool

    Last Sunday I went on a Charity photo walk organised by Terry Donnelly in Liverpool to raise money for a little girl with eye cancer. You can find the go fund me page here:Go Fund Hayden

    It was a dreadful dreary day for a photo walk but we didn’t let that dampen our spirits. We started of in St James’ Gardens at Liverpool Anglican Cathedral and then explored the inside. In the gardens we found the perfect spot to shoot the three models that Terry had organised and it’s always nice to have the opportunity to shoot a variety of models.

    One of the highlights of the time spent in St James’ Garden was when I asked one of the photographers if the lens he was shooting on was the new lomography lens and he said yes would you like to try it, and gave me a master class for a couple of minutes. I never would have known what it was if I hadn’t seen fashion photographer Emily Soto shooting with it on her Facebook page and Instagram. That’s the best thing about going out with other photographers they are generally open to letting you try out their lenses as they know that photographers have a sense of pride looking after their own lenses so they will be careful with yours.

    Inside the Anglican Cathedral my main fascination was with the stained glass windows I was amazed at the intricate and beautiful detailing when I used the zoom on my lens for a couple of shots.

    The next part of the walk consisted of some street photography and finding some stunning textured walls to shoot the tattooed model Rhi against and it was hard to take a bad shot of her. As we were in a big group it became increasingly difficult to get any one on one time but the model Rhi had this great red hood and some interesting tattoos and I had got some shots earlier in the day but I had this particular shot in mind. What I wanted was a shot of Rhi with the hood up, where she was holding it in her hands and I wanted to add the feature of the finger tattoo while looking for the perfect background to compliment her. With a little help from my photography friends I found this sign that looked like a magazine style poster that was perfect for my idea.

    Photography is all about seeing something in everything, in every wall, in every sign, in every building that is worth shooting. You must use your eyes to see what other people don’t see. Photography is a similar medium to film in that every person watching the film sees something different, every photographer sees something different in an image. You may submit your image to one photography competition and the judges will love it but submit it to another and the outcome may be quite the opposite.

    After the street photography we looked around Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral but having been there twice previously I found less to shoot. Finally we ended the walk back at the Anglican cathedral and then I spent the rest of the day editing a few of my images and then looked at them again to do some more editing on Thursday.

    All in all it was a great day and each photographer contributed £10 for the little girl with eye cancer and some giving even more money and its always rewarding to raise money to help someone or to help out a charity. Photography isn’t always about taking photographs for yourself or a client it can also be about coming together and doing something you love to put a smile on someone’s face.

    So I hope you were inspired by this post to not only photograph for yourself or a client but to raise money for someone else.

  • My Camera and Lens Collection

    For this post I have decided to discuss the types ofd cameras and lenses i typically use and those I want to try and use in the future. I will be discussing my phone camera, digital SLR and my Polaroid Socialmatic Camera.

    First of all I am going to talk about my phone camera. I know this isn’t technically a camera but this is something I always have on me and there are lots of apps you can download to make your photos look more professional. At the moment my friend has inspired me to do a 366 days of positivity thing on my personal Instagram where I have to do 1 post a day. Sometimes I use quotes and screenshots but most of the time I take pictures and I admit when I first started to do the 366 days I used images straight from the mobiles camera roll. But now I have started downloading post edited images from my camera on my phone to use for my Instagram and now if I do, do mobile photography itself I have a photoshop express app for slight touch-ups. Another trusty sidekick app for me is Layout for Instagram so I can create a simple collage of multiple images for my accounts. Another Great app is Vsco cam because it has professional camera settings and it comes with its own filters and you can also buy filters for different types of photography. There is also a range of free filters you can download and add to the app.

    Typically I shoot on my  Digital Slr which is a Nikon D3200 with an AF-S Nikkor 55-200mm Telephoto Zoom Lens. Either these shoots are planned days out with Preston Photographic Society or Lancashire photo walks. I also take this camera on Holiday and pretty much everywhere I plan to go and sometimes even on spontaneous trips away. The subject of the shoot is the deciding factor for the settings I normally use.

    A studio portrait shoot is typically shot on a 70-200mm focal length depending on how much of the subject you as a photographer want your viewers to see. For this Kind of shoot the ISO should be no more than 200 because the studio lights already brighten the subject so you don’t need to add even more brightness. The shutter speed is set at 1/125 to avoid camera shake and if the subject isn’t moving and you up the shutter speed it will become blurred. Only up the shutter speed if you are doing an action shot.

    For most of my shoots I tend to use the manual setting on my camera and you can usually end up with a pretty good guide of what your aperture and shutter speed need to be and adjusting accordingly.

    Finally I am going to discuss my most recent addition to my cameras, the Polaroid Socialmatic. So for months I had been looking at Polaroid cameras on the Polaroid website and I got one a couple of months ago for my birthday. There’s a funny story behind this though. I was planning on getting a Polaroid Z3100 as I thought the Socialmatic was too expensive. However on my birthday I happened to be in Cardiff and I knew they had cameras in urban outfitters and so I went in on the off chance and there it was the exact model of the polaroid Socialmatic I’d seen on the polaroid website at a bargain price, so I was ecstatic. But I had no idea why until I got home, the camera was in Chinese and although I did Chinese Gcse years ago I just didn’t have the skills to figure it out. So I spent a couple of months with a camera I couldn’t use until earlier this month when the problem was finally solved.

    So now I’ve told you this story I am going to talk about the camera itself. The Polaroid Socialmatic is a modern version of the vintage polaroid camera in that it has its own phone network that allows you to upload pictures straight to Instagram as well as choosing and printing the shots you desire, straight from the camera.

    What’s Next?

    Now I have a Digital SLR camera and a telephoto zoom lens my plan is to keep adding lenses every Christmas and for birthdays and also saving up money to buy my own lenses.

    There are four lenses I currently have my eye on but I am waiting for a defining moment to buy one, as that is when I usually tend to indulge in material things.

    The first of these is a 50mm prime lens to give my images a wider depth of field.The second is the most expensive of these which I recently had the opportunity to test it is the Lomography 58mm f1.9 Petzval art lens which comes in brass or black and allows you to alter the distance between the lens elements. Any lens that gives your image a different perspective like the fisheye and the wide angle also fascinates me.

    I hope you enjoyed this post, stay tuned for photographic ideas, additions and events I’ve been to.

  • UCLAN Colour Run

    UCLAN Colour Run

    This weekend was one of the most exciting but unconventional shoots I have ever done. I was at UCLAN Sports Arena shooting a colour run with Preston Photographic Society, which people of all ages participated in to raise money for Marie Curie Cancer Charity.

    What’s a colour run you ask? It’s a new craze where people run a 5K and get coloured powder thrown over them throughout the race and it’s brilliant to photograph. The key to taking a great image at this event is trying to press the shutter as the volunteer throws coloured powder at the runner and then either boosting up the contrast or saturation on photoshop to enhance the colour burst effect.

    Now to the race its self, before the race starts the runners each have a bag of coloured powder to throw up into the air for dramatic effect and to give us photographers a chance to set the scene of the event. For this throw I managed to acquire a nice position on the stage, which gave me the ability to see all the runners but to only focus on a few as, I was using my 55-200mm Zoom Lens. What I loved about this particular starting set-up is that there were about fifteen photographers but we all managed to get a different perspective of the starting throw.

    I started off at the yellow station where I ended up with my favourite shot of the day as I learnt that the most striking shots were those with the most colours and I managed to capture the volunteers throwing yellow powder at a lone runner.

    All in all what I liked about the day is that this shoot was completely different to anything I’d done before and I loved looking at the images after the shoot and spending time editing a selection of the images from each of the stations the yellow, the red and the multi-coloured. I also found it interesting to see that every photographer saw the colours with a different eye, a different view of this world in a colour burst.

    So if you are a photographer I recommend that you make it your mission to have a go at shooting a colour run. If not I suggest that you participate whether it’s for charity or for fun.

    Below is a selection of my photos from this event depicting my photography at every stage of the race:

     

     

  • Photographers That Inspire Me

    So for my second post I have decided that I want to discuss photographers I’m inspired by.

    I’m going to start with old school photographers like David Bailey, Annie Leibovitz and Norman Parkinson. Then I will move on to my impression of modern photographers like Mario Testino, Lara Jade and Emily Soto.

    While at university in my final year I undertook a fashion photography project, which involved researching into fashion and portrait photographers, and also helping to organise my own exhibition and create a photo book.

    One of the first photographers I chose to look at for this project was David Bailey, who is mostly recognised as a Vogue photographer over the last 50 years. He is a renowned fashion and portrait photographer. From the 1960s onwards name any celebrity megastar around and you can pretty much guarantee that Bailey will have photographed them.

    But for me it is not always about the glamour, fame and fortune of photographers’ models because what inspires me about Bailey is the overall look and feel of his final image. To me his portraits have a sense of class about them as he often displays his subjects in a monochromatic way but he still manages to stay current through his choice of models and the ever-changing style of outfits in his images.

    David Bailey Photography and Articles

    The influence of Norman Parkinson’s photography was a little bit different for me than David Bailey’s. Ever since my university days I have been inspired by one shot of Parkinson’s in particular titled Audrey Hepburn and Bougainvillea, which was shot in Rome, Italy in 1955. Audrey is wearing a pale pink cocktail dress and standing by a Magnolia Tree.

    Audrey Hepburn and Bougainvillea

    I love everything about this shot of Audrey and from the day I saw this shot I have been aiming to find the perfect floral accent to frame my shot so I can recreate it or take inspiration from it to create something entirely new using a similar idea.

    Annie Leibovitz was another photographer I looked at during my degree, especially her editorial shots of Nicole Kidman in Vanity Fair and Vogue and yet again it’s not about this specific model having red hair like mine. It is the eclectic opulence and strikingly beautiful effect of the backgrounds she places her models against in her editorial shots that create a sense of vintage nostalgia and appeal to the eye.

    To me Annie does standard portraits well but also adds little quirks to her images that draw your eye towards them. Her most recent work that I know of is the picture of the Queen with her two youngest grandchildren and five great grandchildren that has been circulating social media because the Queen has just turned ninety.

    I am also currently signed up to the mailing list to be notified about an online master class run by Annie when it becomes available, thanks to a friend, for recommending it to me.

    Annie Leibovitz Photography

    To me modern fashion photography is a little bit different than the vintage influences but it is also important to look at who’s current in the fashion photography world.

    Mario Testino’s shoots are still in the fashion photography dynamic but rather than impressing me with his monochromatic images I cant help but be amazed by what he can convey by using a pop of colour in his images. He is what I call the Andy Warhol of the photography world, artistic and almost pop art like photography.

    Yes, you are drawn as a viewer to black and white photography, which gives a vintage feel. But for me bright, bold and daring colours are just as appealing and Mario Testino reflects this in his photography by his use of yellow and red items.

    In his images I am drawn to the most important part of a portrait, the eyes. The eyes are the windows to the soul, you can tell a lot about a person from gazing into their eyes and Mario Testino makes sure that they are the first thing you see when you look at his photographs. He does this by having his models wearing either dark or vibrant make-up.

    Mario Testino Photography

    Fashion Photography is becoming less understated and more artistic with American photographer Emily Soto and British photographer Lara Jade making a name for themselves in New York. These two are my most recent discoveries in the Fashion photography world.

    When I noticed several of my photography friends were following Emily Soto on Social Media I took a look and I was overjoyed with what I saw. The inspiration started off with watching her video tutorials via Facebook and then I started to look at her photographs on instagram. What I love about them is the different lenses and types of cameras that Emily gets to test. Recently I have seen a lomography daguerreotype lens, a vintage Polaroid camera and the standard Digital SLR camera that every photographer has. I have recently obtained a modern Polaroid camera and I am looking forward to planning a day to go out and use it and I get full use of my Digital SLR every time I go out and shoot.

    Emily Soto Photography

    My discovery of Lara Jade was actually through one of Emily Soto’s videos from a couple of weeks ago that she shot in Paris discussing a new vintage polaroid camera and how they both started off as photographers. So after this discovery I looked for Lara Jades Facebook page and started watching her fashion Friday video tutorials for inspiration. This is a weekly segment on her page, which shares her fashion photography knowledge, and it is always worth a watch when you’re looking for tips. What I like about her photography is the props she uses in her shoots such as her whimsical headdresses and the locations she scouts for her images. Today I have also purchased Lara Jade’s Fashion Photography 101 book, which I look forward to reading and posting about soon.

    Lara Jade Photography

    I hope you enjoyed this post and think about who or what inspires you, what do you enjoy.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Photographing People

    So for my first blog post I wanted to go back to my roots, where I started to discover that my favourite subject to photograph is people. Why people in particular you ask. I believe that everyone has a story to tell, you can tell a lot about a person by the way they express themselves and I want to capture that in my photography.

    If I’m going to talk about photographing people as a subject then I think it’s important to discuss my approach to photographing them and how it has changed over time.

    Yes I’ve been taking photographs for as long as I can remember, but I still believe your always learning with photography because there’s always something new and exciting to try.

    So I’m in college and it’s my first shoot with a model, and the nerves start to sink in, but I have my accessories and my magazines open at a wide variety of different poses for my model to try and I absolutely loved doing it.

    So I’m a final university student and I’m doing my final year project on fashion photography and my model has a broken leg. This shoot was probably one of the most eye opening shoots I’ve ever had to do, how do I shoot my model without her legs. As I always say photography is about working with what you’ve got and using your imagination to think outside the box. If a model is still willing to pose for you while in a cast you work with that, put her in maxi dresses or long flowing skirts to hide it and take more close up shots cause the chances are you will still get something your happy with.

    So what portraits have I done recently? The models are more studio based and organised as part of Preston Photographic Society, this is more up close and personal with the model, I have no magazines and no props just me, the model and a few other photographers. Your one on one with the model interacting with the model, directing the model and moving around to shoot her/him from different angles and the more of these shoots you do the more comfortable you become with talking to the model.

    Now as well as doing more of these studio shoots I’m trying to branch out, looking for new and exciting people to model for me, I’m open to portraits, fashion, fitness and themed photography so if you would like something a bit out of the ordinary then ask me as I’m always happy to do something different.

    Below is a gallery detailing my progression the first two shots are from when I was in college, the next two are from university and the final three are from recent studio shoots with Preston Photographic Society.

    I hope you enjoyed my first post, be sure to follow me here or on my Facebook page Lucy And The Lens or on my Instagram @lucyandthelens to discover more.