Professional photographer uk 2011-05

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MAY 2011 ONLY £4.20INSPIRING • INFORMATIVE • HONEST • ESSENTIAL

WWW.PROFESSIONALPHOTOGRAPHER.CO.UKPROFESSIONAL SINCE 1982

THE FUTURE OF PHOTOGRAPHY DISCUSSED, DEBATED & REVEALED

IN THIS ISSUE:HOW TO GET OTHERS TO PAY FOR YOUR PERSONAL PROJECTS, HOW TO BUDGET FOR A MULTI-PLATFORM SHOOT & HOW TO MASTER SUCCESSFUL PORTRAITS EXCLUSIVE:MAGNUM MASTER BRUCE DAVIDSON INTERVIEW& ARE CSCs THE NEW DSLRs?

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD?

USC cheerleader jumping by Jill Greenberg

“I’m looking for the unexpected. I’m looking for things

I’ve never seen before.”Robert Mapplethorpe

PLUS:THE DIARY OFA SOMETIME

WORKINGPRO,

& SHOOTINGLADY GAGA: THE TRUTH

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There are few subjects more likely to fill up my emailinbox or cause an awkward silence when brought up inconversation than the elephant in the room that isconvergence: the meeting of photographers withmovie making and film makers with photography.Some say that it is a gimmick, a fad, which will soon pass,

others that it has nothing to do with photography.

However, more and more people are embracing it and

creating jaw-droppingly impressive work. Whichever camp

you currently sit in, I want you to ask yourself just

one question: How many cameras have been launched over the past year and

a half without movie mode? Now I’ve got you thinking, take some

time to read the arguments and personal experiences of those

featured in this issue, you may just change your mind as to which

camp you should be in.

We take a look at how agents are budgeting and invoicing for

multi-platform shoots on Page 64 in The Price is Right?We celebrate 10 years of Nick Knight’s pioneering

SHOWstudio’s visual creativity in That Business We CallShow on Page 88, find out how to get other people to pay for

our projects thanks to the power of crowdfunding in Power to thePeople! on Page 83, and tackle the convergence debate in The Future isMoving on Page 76 by putting film maker Richard Jobson head-to-head with

photographer David Eustace to make sure we are giving you both sides of the story.

There have always been two sides to celebrity portraiture: the flattering and the

honest. Jill Greenberg could definitely fit into the first category and her

successful career seems to suggest that that is what her clients are looking for.

You can find out more in Picture Perfect on Page 54. Bruce Davidson is

someone who I’m both proud and honoured to have in the magazine.

I grew up with his images and bow to his brilliance. You can find out

why on Page 70.

Each month we hope to question, inform, debate and address

the issues which are facing you every day. I hope you agree that

this month we’ve managed to cover all of these bases and

that we are what it says on the tin!

Grant Scott, Editor

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NEW PHOTOGRAPHY8PortfolioThe best of your work posted on to our online portfolio.

53ExposureThe creative partnership between fashionphotographer Nick Knight and designer YohjiYamamoto is celebrated at the V&A.

NEED TO KNOW25Being TherePP Editor Grant Scott remembers a shoot with popstar Lady Gaga and photographic duo Markus Klinkoand Indrani that left him hot under the collar.

30DispatchesHaving captured London Fashion Week on HD DSLRvideo, Clive Booth prepares himself for the longediting process.

35 TheDenchDiaryThe sometime working pro returns to his olduniversity city and spends a day at the Ideal HomeShow in search of perfection.

42 TheWorld of ConvergenceFilm maker John Campbell’s regular news-packedtake on the world of convergence.

45 FrontlineWe talk to freelance stylist Karina Garrick to getthe lowdown on interiors shoots.

51Guess the LightingEver seen a great image and wanted to know how itwas lit? Ted Sabarese explains all.

64 ThePrice is Right?If a client asks you to shoot video and film on thesame job, how much do you charge? We broach thesubject with some industry figures in the know.

76 The Future isMovingFilm maker Richard Jobson and photographer DavidEustace add their views to the debate on convergence..83Power to thePeople!Have you heard about crowdfunding? Film makerRobin Schmidt explains what it is and how it couldhelp you finance your next project.

88 That BusinessWeCall ShowWe go behind the scenes at SHOWstudio, NickKnight’s groundbreaking fashion website.

94 Talkin’ About aRevolutionPP Editor Grant Scott looks at how compact systemcameras are taking the market by storm.

114 LegendPeter Silverton examines the life and work ofFrench photographer Jeanloup Sieff.

contentsmay

LisaLyon,1982 byRobertMapplethorpe is fromanewbookabout thecontroversialphotographer.TurntoClick,startingonpage14, formoredetailsonMapplethorpeX7 ,publishedby teNeues.

www.professionalphotographer.co.uk 5

23DiaryOur pick of this month’s most exciting photographicexhibitions around the UK.

103 StopPress...The latest essential news, gossip and kit from thepro world.

KEEP IN TOUCH28PodcastCheck out our free photographic discussion for themasses. Every edition we record a podcast debatingthe issues affecting professional photographers.

40 SubscribeCheck out our latest subscription offers so that younever miss an issue. This month you can save 33%when you subscribe by Direct Debit.

49 FeedbackYour thoughts, your opinions, your page.

INTERVIEWS WITH...54Picture PerfectLos Angeles based photographer Jill Greenbergenjoys making people look like better versions ofthemselves. She also uses her personal work tomake a political point. Here she explains why.

70BruceDavidsonPeter Silverton interviews the Magnum legendwho has dedicated the past six decades to capturingthe beauty in the ordinary and createdsome extraordinary pictures in the process.

NEWS & REVIEWS14 ClickThis month’s line-up of the best news, dreams,themes and photographic schemes.

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© Archant Specialist. Archant Specialist is part of Archant Ltd.�While reasonable care is taken to ensure the accuracy of the information in Professional Photographer, that information is obtained from a variety of sources and neither the publisher, the printers nor any distributor isresponsible for errors or omissions. All prices and data are accepted by us in good faith as being correct at the time of going to press. Pound conversion rates correct at the time of going to press. Advertisements are acceptedfor publication in Professional Photographer only upon Archant Specialist’s standard Terms of Acceptance of Advertising, copies of which are available from the advertising department. All advertisements of which the contentis in whole or in part the work of Archant Specialist remain the copyright of Archant Specialist. Reproduction in whole or in part of any matter appearing in Professional Photographer is forbidden except by express permissionof the publisher.

Competition terms and conditions: � The closing date for competitions/giveaways is displayed alongside the competition/giveaway online. � Employees of Archant Specialist, and those professionally connected with the competition/giveaway, for example, employees of the sponsor company, are not eligible to enter. � Unless otherwise stated, competitions/giveaways are only open to UK residents. � Prizes are as described and no alternatives can be offered.� The Editor’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into. �Archant Specialist may wish to contact you in the future, or pass your details to selected third parties, to introduce new products and services to you.If you are sending your entry by text and do not wish to be contacted, please add the word ‘NO’ to the end of your text message. If you are sending your entry by post, please tick the appropriate boxes on the entry form.

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GROUP BRAND EDITOR Grant [email protected] EDITOR Eleanor O’[email protected] EDITOR Rebecca [email protected] EDITOR Simon [email protected] ASSISTANT Kelly [email protected] ASSISTANT Jessica [email protected] EDITORSLondon: Suzanne Hodgart, Geoff Waring,Jonathan Worth. New York: Jake Chessum,Phyllis Giarnese, David Eustace

Richard is a founder member ofpunk band the Skids and as afilm director brings his anarchicspirit to the world of film making.A proponent of convergence, Richardis also founder of Converge, awebsite that brings together leadinglights in HD DSLR film making.In our article on convergence and thefuture of photography on page 76,Richard brings his enthusiasm andexperience to the debate on the futureof the moving image.

Scots-born photographer Davidshoots portraits as well as fashion,travel and advertising images; he isalso firmly embracing the world ofHD DSLR film making. He hasmade several films for advertisingclients, so is well placed to putforward the photographer’s point ofview in our convergence debate onpage 76. As well as relating his ownexperiences, David offers sageadvice for those teetering on thebrink of convergence.

Peter is a cultural writer and authorof several books; he also pens ourLegend page each month. When wewere granted a rare opportunity tointerview the Magnum iconBruce Davidson, it was Peter wecalled on for the job. A lengthyconversation between the two menensued and you can read Peter’sinterview on page 70. When you askan outstanding writer to interview alegendary photographer, you shouldbe prepared for great things.

Robin is a freelance director, editorand cameraman who has embracedHD DSLR film making. Earlier thisyear he won the Bahamas 14 IslandsFilm Challenge and was named bymovieScope magazine as “one towatch”. On page 83, Robin explainshow crowdfunding is being usedas a way for creatives to realise theirpersonal projects, and recalls howhe found himself doing a 24-hourjoke-athon in order to fund anoverseas shoot.

RichardJobsonFilm maker

DavidEustacePhotographer

PeterSilvertonWriter

RobinSchmidtFilm maker

may

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ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Eleanor [email protected], 01242 211092SALES EXECUTIVE Amy [email protected], 01242 216054CLASSIFIED SALES EXECUTIVE Bianca [email protected], 01242 211099GROUP COMMUNICATIONS MANAGERLucy Warren-Meeks, 01242 [email protected]

PUBLISHING PRODUCTION MANAGERKevin ShelcottPRODUCTION TEAM LEADER Mikey GoddenREPROGRAPHICS MANAGER Neil PuttnamWith special thanks to Mandy Pellatt


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8 www.professionalphotographer.co.uk

Each month we share the best ofthe latest postings from our onlineportfolio with our magazinereaders, so for your chance toappear in ProfessionalPhotographer, go online and startuploading your best images towww.professionalphotographer.co.uk. If you want to see moreof any photographer’s work, go totheir online profile to access theirwebsite details.

PORTFOLIOSIM TIAK SIEW,SINGAPORE

LAURA BATES,UK

JESS RIGLEY,UK

SVETLANA LEBEDEVA,UK

PP -PORTFOLIO -MAY 11/04/2011 16:20


DAN LACROIX,UK



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DARRAN ARMSTRONG,UK

IRINA BARCARI,MOLDOVA

DENIS GUICHOT,FRANCE

JONATHANMcGEE,

UK

CHRIS BURGESS,UK

RICHARD HORSFIELD,UK

JOHN JACKSON,USA



RICHARD PARDON,UK

SAM COOPER,UK



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ROMAN KIRILENKO,POLAND

IRINA BARCARI,MOLDOVA

BARBARA LUKE,UK

KAMIL SZKOPIK,UK

KHURAM CHOUDRI,UK

RORY O'TOOLE,IRELAND


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click the latestphotographic news,dreams, themesand schemes.edited by Eleanor O’Kane

InsearchofAmericaDennis Hopper was an actor, film maker, screenwriter, director and artist. From the 1960s hewas a photographer too and carried a camera –bought for him by his first wife Brooke Hayward– wherever he went, from film sets to bars, partiesand political marches. A new book from Taschen,Dennis Hopper: Photographs 1961-1967showcases pictures that Hopper took during adecade of revolution and change. Hopper’scultural and political awareness put him at theheart of 1960s’America. In the book images ofTijuana bullfights and urban street scenes sitalongside portraits of Martin Luther King,Andy Warhol and Tina Turner. Hopper’sphotography appeared on Ike and Tina Turner’ssingle River Deep – Mountain High.The book also contains introductory essays

by art gallery owner Tony Shafrazi and legendaryWest Coast art pioneer Walter Hopps, as well asexcerpts from cultural writer Victor Bockris’sinterviews with some of Hopper’s famous subjects.Hopper’s photography books are sought after: thelimited-run Collector’s Edition of this title, pricedat £900, has already sold out. We also spotted acopy of a previous book of Hopper’s work fromthe 1960s – 1712 North Crescent Heights: DennisHopper Photographs 1962-1968 – online for£700. At less than £50, this is the chance to savourHopper’s photographic legacy for a song.Dennis Hopper: Photographs 1961-1967,published by Taschen, priced £44.99,ISBN: 978-3-8365-2726-2. www.taschen.com

The immortal photographerswill be straightforwardphotographers, those whodo not rely on tricks orspecial techniques.Philippe Halsman

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

Lucky7A recent retrospective at the AlisonJacques Gallery in London celebrated theinfluence of Robert Mapplethorpe’s workon the rock band Scissor Sisters. Now anew book published by teNeues hasbrought together seven contemporaryartists who have chosen pictures byMapplethorpe that resonate with them.Among the seven are David Hockney, HediSlimane and Cindy Sherman, who haveeach reviewed Mapplethorpe’s entire bodyof work and selected images that conveytheir own personal relationship with him.For those who know Mapplethorpe only forhis sexually charged and homoeroticimages, this book offers new insights.Mapplethorpe X7, published by teNeues,£50, ISBN: 978-3-8327-9473-6.www.teneues.com

$30,000Applications for the 2011 W. Eugene SmithGrant in Humanistic Photography are nowbeing received. Deemed the most prestigiousprize in photojournalism, the memorial fundhonours the legendary American photoessayist (see our March issue for more onEugene Smith). The grant for 2011 is worth$30,000, with an additional $5,000 availablefor one or more of the finalists deemedworthy by the judging panel of specialrecognition. Applications are being accepteduntil 31 May.For submission guidelines visitwww.smithfund.org

IS UP FOR GRABS

IggyPop,1981.

PP -CLICK - MAY 12/04/2011 12:56

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BillCunninghamphotographing inthestreet.

StreetsmartLong before street fashion power couple Scott Schuman and Garance Doréprowled the streets shooting the sartorially elegant, there was BillCunningham. Born in 1929, the fashion photographer for the New YorkTimes has photographed New York street fashion for decades, movingaround Manhattan on his Schwinn bike. A new independent film from debutdirector Richard Press, Bill Cunningham New York, pays tribute to theoctogenarian street photographer and talks to some of those whose style hehas documented over the years. At the moment it looks like the film is onlyplaying in the US so we’re patiently awaiting the DVD release.http://billcunninghamnewyork.com

Arts Council England announced its latestfunding decisions on 30Marchwith thecuts of 14% for 2011/12 touching allareas of the arts, including photography.SideGallery inNewcastle, an independentgallery supporting concernedphotography, was one of those to have itsfunding axed,with theArts Council statingthat there are toomany galleriesdedicated to humanist documentary

photography in Side’s geographical location; a claim the gallery denies.Photographic organisations that retained their funding for 2011/12 includeThePhotographers’ Gallery, AutographABPandPhotofusion.

All togethernowThe directors of the Little BlackGallery in London have launcheda crowdfunding appeal to raise £75,000 to financeDarkRoom, theObsessions of BobCarlos Clarke, a film about thework of the Irishphotographerwho died in 2006. Anyone donating at least £100will belisted in the credits.More details atwww.thelittleblackgallery.com

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EyesontheprizeAmerican photographer and film maker Mitch Epstein has beenannounced as this year’s winner of the Prix Pictet, picking upa $100,000 prize in the process. Epstein was selected from a short listof 12, which included fellow photographers Taryn Simon andThomas Struth. Kofi Annan, the honorary president of the PrixPictet, announced the results at the Passage de Retz gallery in Paris.Growth was the theme of this, the third annual photography prize forenvironmental sustainability, which aims to search for images thatcommunicate powerful messages of global environmental significance.According to Sir David King, who chaired the judging panel, Epstein’sseries American Power was chosen because it delivered a powerfulmessage and met the three criteria of producing a coherent set of imageswith narrative power, artistic excellence and powerful storytelling.Images from the portfolios of each short-listed artist are being

shown around the world during 2011, with the exhibition reachingLondon in October when images go on display at the Diemar / NoblePhotography gallery.Formore onMitch Epstein’s American Power series visitwww.whatisamericanpower.comFor information about the competition visit www.prixpictet.com

BandofbrothersThe Bang-Bang Club was a pack of four fearless photojournalists,Kevin Carter, Greg Marinovich, João Silva and Ken Oosterbroek, whodocumented the harsh and violent conditions inside South Africa’stownships during the early to mid 1990s. The fates of the individualshave been decidedly tragic. In April 1994, just days before the firstfree elections, Oosterbroek was killed in crossfire. Three monthslater Carter committed suicide and last year Silva had both his legsblown off when he stepped on a landmine in Afghanistan. In 2000Marinovich and Silva published an account of their experiencesand now a film brings their story to the big screen. Starring teenheart-throb Ryan Phillippe, we’re hoping the intensity of the storyisn’t reduced to a rom com with Leicas. www.thebangbangclub.com

BillboardgreatesthitsThe 1995 ‘Hello Boys’ billboard campaign for Wonderbra, shot by Ellen vonUnwerth and featuring model Eva Herzigová, has been voted by the public asthe most iconic outdoor advertisement over the past five decades. Other adsthat have entered Campaignmagazine’s Outdoor Hall ofFame include a 1978/79Pretty Polly campaignfeaturing an image by JohnSwannell and a 2006 Nikecampaign featuringNick Georghiou’s portraitof Wayne Rooney.To see all the advertisements visit www.outdoorhalloffame.co.uk

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He’selectricAs if competitionwasn’t tough enoughfor photographers,electronic artist Mobyhas released a bookof photography tocoincide with his latestalbum, Destroyed. It features 55 photographs taken bythe artist, who carries a camera with him wherever hegoes. The images will also be on show at an exhibitionat Proud Camden from 18 May until 19 June. The book andaccompanying albumwill be released on 16May. The book ispublished by Damiani, RRP £25. To find outmore log on towww.proud.co.uk or www.moby.com

BPCarsonrefinery,California.

PP -CLICK - MAY 12/04/2011 12:57


Portraitsof thepastTwo new exhibitions featuring historic images by two British photojournalists throw the spotlighton the past. Thurston Hopkins at the Getty Images Gallery in London runs until 4 June andhighlights the work of one of Britain’s greatest photographers. As a staffer on Picture Postmagazine, Hopkins captured all walks of life, from actresses to children playing on the street; allthe images in the exhibition are taken from the Getty Images archive. For more on ThurstonHopkins and his wife Grace Robertson, read our profile of the couple in the May 2010 issue.Meanwhile, at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, Like you’ve never been away: photographs byPaul Trevor features 60 images of children playing among the terraced streets and high-rise flatsof mid-1970s Liverpool. Despite the fact that Trevor was working in deprived areas, the energeticimages reveal a positive side to inner-city life.Thurston Hopkins, Getty Images Gallery, until 4 June. www.gettyimagesgallery.co.uk;Like you’ve never been away: photographs by Paul Trevor, Walker Art Gallery13May- 25 September, www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/paultrevor

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Thecreamof thecropThe Guernsey Photography Festival is back for itssecond year, presenting some of the mostrespected names in photography during the monthof June. Martin Parr will be showing work fromhis Small World series, beside the black-and-whitephotography of Tony-Ray Jones, who documentedthe British at leisure in the 1960s before his death,aged just 30. Images from Richard Billingham’s1996 photobook Ray’s a Laugh, which set the barfor personal photography in Britain, will be onview as well as new work. Samuel Fosso willexhibit work from both his African Spirits andTati series. One of Africa’s most importantphotographers, he is known for his self-portraits,in which he borrows the identity of both fictionaland real characters.TheGuernseyPhotographyFestival runsfrom1-31June;allexhibitionsare freeofcharge.www.guernseyphotographyfestival.com

Above:TheChief (theonewhosoldAfrica to thecolonisers)bySamuelFosso.

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TheFrenchconnectionFrance has a long relationship withphotography and is home to two of the world’sgreatest photo festivals, in Arles andPerpignan in southern France. A new festival,Photomed, launches on 27 May atSanary-sur-Mer in the south of France andruns until 19 June. The festival aims tocover both traditional and emergingphotography. The ubiquitous Martin Parris a guest of honour and Turkey will behonoured with exhibitions of that country’smasters and rising stars.For more information on the festival visithttp://festivalphotomed.com

LemontAthos,2009.

THIS MONTH WE’VE MOSTLYBEEN LOOKING AT….

FURTHERMOREThe author of thisblog on photographybooks is a NewYork-based bookdealer. However,the blog is writtenanonymouslyin order to creatediscussion ratherthan business.http://furthermorebooks.blogspot.com

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We have done the hard work for you this month and chosen our essentialthree photographic exhibitions on show now or coming up soon. For a full listof exhibitions and events visit www.professionalphotographer.co.uk

Vera Lutter: EgyptGagosian Gallery, 17-19 Davies Street,London W1K 3DE0207 493 3020; www.gagosian.comUntil 21 MayGagosian Gallery in London presentsa collection of work from Germanphotographer Vera Lutter. Through herconceptual approach to the cameraobscura she manages to captureand create dramatic landscapes.This exhibition showcases images from her Egyptseries, in which she records ancient architecture.Lutter produced these photographs using an emptysuitcase lined with photosensitive paper, creating acovert camera obscura. With exposures taking daysor even months to produce, she has chosen toretain the negative image as her final printed work.

YeePeng.

Paul Graham: Photographs 1981-2006Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High Street, London, E1 7QX020 7522 7888; www.whitechapelgallery.org20 April to 19 JuneA collection of British photographer Paul Graham’s intriguing images areon show at the Whitechapel Gallery. The collection includes more than100 photographs taken over the 25-year period between 1981 and 2006.Many of the images included are of everyday scenes and experiencesfrom his travels, as well as vivid portrayals of the people that he met.The images on show demonstrate his unique style of documentaryphotography and showcase his ability to expose the beauty ofcommonplace scenes that might normally be overlooked. Paul Grahamproduced several books documenting his travels in Europe, Japan andAmerica, and some of this work is also included in the collection.

Sony World Photography Festival 2011Somerset House, Strand, London, WC2R 1LA020 7845 4600; www.worldphoto.orgFestival: 26 April to 1 MayExhibition: 26 April to 22 MayThe Sony World Photography Festival has come toLondon. The festival and exhibition at SomersetHouse features the 10 open category winningimages from the 2011 Sony World PhotographyAwards. The annual competition is open to anyonewith an interest in photography and this yearreceived more than 51,000 submissions fromabout 50 countries. The six-day festival consistsof seminars, talks, workshops and events.Full programme details can be found on the

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FOR DAILY UPDATES ON EXHIBITIONS ACROSS THE UK VISIT THEPROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER WEBSITE www.professionalphotographer.co.uk

Travelling through Egypt in 2010, Lutter experiencedsuspicion towards her photographic apparatus, as locallaw forbids the photographing of certain monuments.This led her to choose landscapes and pyramids as herfinal subjects. Lutter says of her work: “It’s fascinatingto me that these enormous buildings have been leftalone and are in a natural state of deterioration withinthe magical landscape of the desert.”

RedandBentpyramids,Dahshur,April142010.

World Photography Organisation website. The overallaward winner is being announced at a gala ceremonyat the Odeon, Leicester Square on 27 April.

GirlwithWhiteFace,Tokyo,1992.

PP -DIARY - MAY 12/04/2011 12:59

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There are times whenyou get to photograph acelebrity before theyare discovered (I’mlucky enough to includeBrad Pitt, Colin Firthand Elizabeth Hurley inthis category); or whenthey have settled into

their star status after celebrity madness andhysteria have died down (for me this wouldinclude Kylie Minogue, David Bowie andJennifer Aniston). And there are times when youcollide with the full-on celebrity hysteria moment.This was certainly the case when I art-directedshoots for Jason Donovan (please sign that theimages taken will not be turned into duvetcovers), Posh Spice (please sign that the imageswill not appear on anything), McFly (we ownyour pictures, err... no you don’t) and Lady Gaga.By the time I came to be on the Lady Gaga

shoot complete with the ‘Haus of Gaga’, inLondon in 2009, I thought I had seen andexperienced pretty much everything on a celebrityshoot (I once spent 24 hours with Janet Jackson,her caterer, florist etc etc to get three shots in astudio in Los Angeles, for goodness sake, butthat’s another story for another time). But howwrong I was.The concept for the shoot was that Gaga was to

be shot dressed in ‘stuff’ made from the Japanesetoy ‘Hello Kitty’ as part of the 35th anniversarycelebrations of the cartoon character, as well asin a series of suitably bizarre outfits for thephotographers’ own project. The photographerswere Markus Klinko and Indrani, who had flownin from Los Angeles for the shoot and brought

their entourage with them, which not onlyincluded their own creative director but also anentire film crew from the Bravo TV channel inthe US who were making a fly-on-the-walldocumentary series about how Markus andIndrani as photographers worked in locationsacross the world (it’s called Double Exposure andyou can also track it down onYouTube).This wasn’t a shoot as most photographers wouldrecognise it, this was a circus with more than 35cast members – and Lady Gaga was still to makean appearance.The location was a Masonic temple hidden

deep within a hotel just next to Liverpool Streetrailway station. It was a stiflingly hot day and thetemple was windowless and airless with atemperature racked up by the film crew lights anda couple of massive Broncolor lights andreflectors. The room was unbearably hot, temperswere definitely getting frayed and no pictures hadyet been shot. The shoot was meant to begin at2pm, but by 4pm Lady Gaga was still inwardrobe. No one was rushing her and althoughthe location had a penalty clause for overtimerental which began at 6pm and which no oneseemed keen to pay, we were all being patientwith Gaga’s creative needs.Meanwhile Markus and Indrani were checking

out potential setups, with Indrani taking the roleof Gaga while Markus captured her poses with hisMamiya RZ67/Leaf back setup, with a handlehand carved from a mammoth’s tusk!When Indrani was not creating poses she wasrunning around capturing possible angles with hercheap point-and-shoot. Whether or not thisprocess usually worked for them I was not surebut the air on the Gaga shoot was crackling withcreative disagreement. Markus and Indrani werenot seeing eye-to-eye on anything and thesituation between them was getting worse andbeing recorded by the Bravo team – everyglowering look and harsh comment.Throughout all of this I was sitting in the

background surrounded by miniature bottles ofwater trying to keep hydrated, unsure whether ornot to get involved. I’d been asked to come along

to put in some creative energy and be filmed byBravo, but my better judgment was telling me tokeep a very low profile.Finally Lady Gaga entered the dark-panelled

chamber room teetering on impossibly high‘Hello Kitty’ heels wrapped in white fishnets andwearing a black rubber bikini, leather jacket andfake eyelashes and eye covers. The assembled,overheated crowd cooed in admiration, of course.Markus let out the first of his many “Gaga, you’reso HOT” in his heavily accented Swiss-Germanaccent and we were off as the team carefullypositioned Gaga 12ft in the air on a narrowmarble ledge clinging to a Masonic column.

This month PP Editor Grant Scottrevisits a hot, steamy afternoonin the City of London and ashoot with Lady Gaga that testedeveryone’s patience.

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“The room was unbearably hot,tempers were definitely gettingfrayed and no pictures hadyet been shot. The shoot wasmeant to begin at 2pm, butby 4pm Lady Gaga was stillin wardrobe.” Grant Scott

PP - BEING THERE - MAY 11/04/2011 15:30


Markus started shooting and Indrani moved intothe background. Gaga made shapes and Markuscontinued to inform her she was “so HOT” as therest of us boiled. Markus got the shots he wantedin no time and Gaga was slowly lowered down aless than fabulous ladder and manoeuvred (shecould hardly see due to the eye make-up or walkdue to the shoes) back to wardrobe to be preparedfor the next shot. The Bravo team immediatelymoved in on Markus and Indrani to get their takeon the take. They both agreed that Lady Gaga wasan icon and a phenomenon, and I’m sure I heardthe Virgin Mary referenced at one point.

With the first shot in the bag the tensionbetween Markus and Indrani softened a little andthankfully, before we all passed out with heatexhaustion, Lady Gaga returned to the chamber.This time she was wearing black fishnets, asequined ‘Miss Kitty’ bum bag (which shedescribed as a ‘fanny purse’!) and a sequinedoystershell bikini top with matching eye mask.Markus screamed out that she looked “so HOT”and we were off again with Gaga throwing evenmore dramatic shapes next to another column butwithout the need to climb a ladder this time.Just as with the first shot both Markus and Gagawere quickly convinced they had the shot in thebag and Bravo moved in again for more comment.

Next up was a floor-length (and longer) coatmade up of ‘Hello Kitty’ dolls, with Gaga seated

on a Masonic throne. For each shot Markus andIndrani’s crew had carefully rolled the vastBroncolor umbrella in front of Gaga for a verysimple lighting setup. As this was to be thelast setup, the lighting stayed the same for afull-length in the coat and close-up with ahuge red bow placed on her head. By this stagethe heat was truly unbearable for the crew, butMarkus kept up his rallying cry to Gaga of“you’re so HOT” and we all agreed. The overtimedeadline was just passed but with the last shotcompleted an end was in sight.

The moment the wrap was called the Bravoteam moved in again, interviewing Markus andIndrani together and apart. Everybody wasnow friends and the creative comedown could

begin but not before I was interrogated by Bravoabout the shoot, the photographers and howlucky we were to be graced by the talent thatwas Lady Gaga. I did my best to answer thequestions but may have fallen a little short ofthe praise required for all concerned to avoid thecutting-room floor.

Shortly after the shoot the finances of Markusand Indrani were called into question by creditorsand they briefly went their own way. Today theyare back working together. Me? I escaped into thegrubby, hot air of Liverpool Street, happythat the whole experience was over. I still wonderwhatever happened to Lady Gaga.

www.markusklinko-indrani.com

PP

GO ONLINE FOR MORE EXCLUSIVE TALES FROM THE WORLD OF PHOTOGRAPHY, VISIT WWW.PROFESSIONALPHOTOGRAPHER.CO.UK

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“By this stage the heat was truly unbearable for the crew,but Markus kept up his rallying cry to Gaga of “you’re so HOT”and we all agreed.” Grant Scott

PP - BEING THERE - MAY 11/04/2011 15:30

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THIS MONTH’S PODCASTMay IssueCONVERGENCE AND THE FUTUREOF PHOTOGRAPHYPP Editor Grant Scott and deputy editorEleanor O’Kane are joined by regular columnistand photojournalist Peter Dench to discussthe impact of HD DSLR film making on theworld of professional photography. With manyphotographers now being asked to shoot video,the team focuses on areas that are posingproblems for some stills photographers, suchas narrative, recording sound and the editingprocess. They also examine how the industryat large is reacting to the new challenges andincreased workloads that shooting video brings.

AND THOSE YOU MAY HAVE MISSED…April IssueGETTING YOUR WORK EXHIBITEDThe regular PP podcast team discuss theworld of exhibitions. As curator and exhibitorrespectively, Grant and Peter share theirexperiences and the team discuss the rightway to make an exhibition of yourself.

March IssueTHE PERSONAL PROJECT SPECIALThe team grapple with the importance of creatingpersonal projects for sustaining and developinga photographer’s career. Should a photographerapproach the project in the same way as acommission or adopt a different tack? They lookat photographers who have got it right and ask ifthere are too many introspective projects.

February IssueTHE BUSINESS SPECIALThe regular podcast team talk tax, finance andmarketing. They ponder whether possessingbusiness and photography skills go hand inhand, discuss potential areas where seekingprofessional advice could reap rewards and askif current photography students are aware ofthe importance of business skills when choosinga career as a professional photographer.

January IssueICONS OF PHOTOGRAPHYPP Editor Grant Scott and deputy editorEleanor O’Kane are joined by regular columnist

and photojournalist Peter Dench to discuss theimportance of learning from the masters, anddebate the point at which they believe aphotographer becomes an icon.

December IssuePHOTOGRAPHIC COMPETITIONSGrant Scott is joined by Eleanor O’Kane andphotographer Peter Dench to discuss the world ofcompetitions, the contentious Taylor WessingPhotographic Portrait Prize and whether there issuch a thing as a formula for winning.

November IssueSEXY OR SEXIST?Grant Scott, Eleanor O’Kane and Peter Denchdiscuss an issue that often crops up in theindustry: why some images are seen as sexywhile others are labelled sexist. Does it dependon context or are there other factors at play?

You can subscribe for free and download thepodcasts from iTunes by typing professionalphotographer into the search tab or listen viawww.professionalphotographer.co.uk. PP

WAVELENGTHEvery month we record a free-to-download podcast in which we discuss, debate and talkaround a subject featured in the magazine. We post them on our website and you can subscribefor free and download them via iTunes. So if you haven’t listened in yet it’s time to join us online.

ON YOURpodcast

PP -Podcast - MAY 11/04/2011 15:23

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dispatchestales from the frontline of professional photographyClive Booth

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As I sit and trawl through five hours ofHD DSLR footage from London Fashion Weekin February, attempting a first edit, colourcoding my favourite shots and putting theminto some kind of order, I find myselfpondering the crossovers between thestill and moving image.

As a photographer I have become used to beingin control of everything I shoot – the still imageand all it involves, from digital capture, to editing,post-production and printing. Of course, there aretimes when the post is outsourced, dependingon the type and complexity of the shoot. But forthe most part my pictures are all mine.It’s both incredibly hard and at the same timeeasy. Having shot the pictures I then strive todevelop a look, feel, atmosphere or sometimesan emotion, and it’s all at my fingertips underone roof without interruption or interference.The photographer’s life can be a lonely one attimes and yet I love the solitude and silencewhile immersing myself in the calm waters of thedigital darkroom; to relive the shoot, working myway through every frame and then finding thatspecial something which distinguishes onesnapshot in time from the next. Shooting stills isall about the captured moment and as such ourenergy and attention are focused on the minutiaewithin that moment: the location, direction and

This month:Clive sits down to edit hisLondon Fashion Weekfootage and finds that whatcan take just a few hours toshoot requires rather moretime in the editing suite.

PP -DISPATCHES -MAY 12/04/2011 14:05

“It is precisely because of the huge amount of energy we expendon a single frame, along with the video capabilities of our hardware,

that many of us are now turning to the moving image.” Clive Booth

type of light in combination with a subtle facialexpression, a nuance, eye contact, the shape of thebody or the simple movement of a hand.It’s instinctive and yet takes a huge amount ofsensitivity and practice, not to mention theexperience gained from many previous mistakes,before one can reach a point where this processeven nears feeling comfortable.

It is precisely because of the huge amount ofenergy we expend on a single frame, along withthe video capabilities of our hardware, that manyof us are now turning to the moving image. If weput this much effort into one frame then surelywe can work wonders when we have 25 persecond to play with? Maybe, but it’s going tomean facing a word that strikes horror into someand signals a challenge in others: change.

And just because our pictures move doesn’tmean they are going to move our audience.

My latest shoot at London Fashion Week wasreportage and not scripted; no storyboard, just adocumentary, a moving record of what I saw.My first edit of selected shots is completed, and Iam not sitting in the cosy, familiar comfort of myown home but teetering on the precipice about tofall into the unknown. Putting it another way, I’mtaking a leap of faith and placing my work in thehands of another. The work of the editor issometimes referred to as the invisible art, because

when it is well-practised, the viewer can becomeso engaged that we aren’t even aware of theirinput. And as I rush from Oxford Circus tube,hard drive in hand, just a day after completingshooting at Somerset House, it is the editor whomI am meeting at Therapy Films in Soho.

Since 2008 when I first shot HD DSLR,I’ve worked with several editors and each hasbrought something new to my work. While I likethe thought of being able to edit at home, much inthe same way as I do with stills, the comparisonends there. Editing is a profession and as such


Above:Modelcardsbackstage,CanonEOS-1DMkIV,85mmf/1.2.Right:Model inmake-up,1DMkIV,100mmf/2.8.Farright:Wardrobedetail, 1DMkIV,85mmf/1.2.Oppositepage:Runthrough,1DMkIV,135mmf/2.



dispatches

requires training, experience and, not least, talent.When I watch an experienced editor at work, itfocuses my energy on the other aspects of thefilm-making process and to work with the editoras a team, a collaborative creative partnership.Tristram Edwards is the first to admit that his

childhood was unconventional, having beensurrounded by creativity throughout his earlyyears. “I grew up in somewhat unusualcircumstances, around colourful, creative, slightlyeccentric people. My dad is a director andphotographer and mother a stylist.” Having leftschool at 16 and with no formal training, hisearly career included stints at film productioncompany Arden Sutherland-Dodd and Sue MolesEditing, Soho, specialising in TV commercials,where he learned his understanding of thepost-production process. “My proper, traditional,‘heat of battle’ training that I learned there is stillsomething I refer back to, even now.”His recent client list is impressive, including

Sony, Qantas and RBS, and his speciality is stillwith commercials for the likes of M&C Saatchi,along with putting up with photographers,experimenting with the moving image and cuttingshort films. His tools of choice are both Avidand Final Cut Pro, all packaged up in a 27in iMacand second monitor. I was introduced to Tristramvia my agent Mark George who felt that ourcollaboration would be mutually beneficial andadd something new and different to both ourportfolios – or should I now say show reels?I immediately liked Tristram; his enthusiasm,energy, drive and obvious talent were apparentfrom day one. With his darting eyes and handsmore akin to a touch typist than a film editor,I felt a surge of excitement at the possibilities ourpartnership could produce. After all, I could beat home this very minute fumbling on iMovie orFCP Express, faced with a mountain of footageand very little else.

Having made our selects, Tristram transcodesthe H264 files for FCP to ProRes. (FCP does notlike the native H264 codec.). It’s a necessary andfor the most part time-consuming process, whichwill make sure the edit runs smoothly and, to myeyes at least, the converted ProRes files seembetter. I feel sure this will all change in the nearfuture but for now we must work with it. I decidethat I will transcode the data myself next time, asthis could potentially save a day in the editingsuite. I laugh to myself; just three short years agoI wouldn’t have known the difference betweenFCP and an NCP, H264 could have been a boyband and codec a new form of Dalek.My five hours of footage is now five minutes

and organised into sequences, some of which evenstart to look like edits in themselves. Unlike mylast shoot – a perfume commercial, scripted andstoryboarded to a carefully selected piece ofmusic – this project is a blank canvas and in someways even more of an editorial challenge.Contemplating this, we sit in the peace and

quiet of the offices at Therapy Films. Tristram isfreelancing here and Barry Hughes, owner andMD, has kindly given us a working space forseveral days. Talking with Barry highlights thechanges taking place within the film industry, notleast due to the advent of HD DSLR, RED andnewer ARRI derivatives, with their savings inequipment and crew, plus the capability to editusing FCP on a laptop from almost anywhere.Even though equipment can never replace talentand experience, existing production companiesare having to change to remain competitive.The room is practically a Buddhist temple

compared to where the film was shot backstage atLondon Fashion Week. I peek through thewindow and watch the world go by far below onOxford Street, in stark contrast to my normalsurroundings of our 17th-century cottage inDerbyshire. I like the buzz of Soho, and being

able to walk out into the centre of a major city isstimulating and somehow appropriate whenediting film. Apparently a Soho address still haskudos within the film industry, and I suppose thatif a company is able to afford the rent, they mustbe good, very good! But for how much longer?As the property that we frequent is the intellectualkind and requires no fixed abode, we could just aseasily be editing this project in a bedsit.The phone rings and it’s Charlotte Lurot, my

collaborator, director of Bacchus Studio andLondon Fashion Week producer. This is ourfourth project together and I trust Charlotteimplicitly when it comes to fashion and film.It was Charlotte who gave us access to LFW andwe had been discussing making a film short therefor two years. I also trust Charlotte when it comesto that other most vital of film-makingingredients, music. Having sat through hours offootage, Tristram and I are feeling a bass beatthumping in time to models marching up anddown a catwalk in a show that never seems to end,an infinite loop of colour, clothes, flashguns, legs,heels and attitude. This contrasts with peacefulcutaways to the relative calm of backstage hair,make-up, wardrobe and line-ups. As alwaysCharlotte surprises: Piana & Murcof’s Amor fromMonteverdi’s Lamento Della Ninfa madrigal,Book 8. We listen, silence; we listen again, moresilence; and again. Our expectations are crushed;it sounds slow and has nothing in common withour marching army of mannequins. I listen to it30 times while Tristram starts to mould ourrough-cut scenes around the framework of itsdelicate tempo. Each sequence is starting to formas a ballet of movement and as we work, themusic grows on us until at the end of the secondday we couldn’t imagine editing this film toanything else. I like it so much I listen to it all theway home; there is depth to this piece, it iscomplicated and yet beautiful, emotive, ethereal

“Unlike my last shoot – aperfume commercial,scripted and storyboardedto a carefully selectedpiece of music – thisproject is a blank canvasand in some ways evenmore of an editorialchallenge.” Clive Booth

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GO ONLINE FOR MORE DISPATCHESFROM CLIVE BOOTHwww.professionalphotographer.co.uk

and above all atmospheric; all the things I strivefor in my pictures. The choice of music for film isso incredibly important that it could form thebasis of a feature in itself and when the subjectmatter is fashion the choice becomes even morerelevant, as the music should be ‘on trend’ as‘they’ say and yet fulfil the film maker’s vision.

This brings me to one of the single mostimportant and often neglected areas ofthe HD DSLR film-making process, ‘rights’,

including model release and music. What is legaland what is not? My agent is far better qualifiedthan I am to discuss this and maybe it’s a subjectfor future Dispatches. As these are internationalshows which are covered by hundreds of cameracrews we should not need to seek further modelrelease, but it’s always well worth taking adviceand much of what is and is not possible relates tothe final usage. Initially this will be a personalproject and is not promoting an individual,company or product, so it’s okay to use the music,make the film and show it on my website.If, for example, it is selected for inclusion onSHOWstudio or even shown at a film festival,then we have to seek approvals from the author ofthe music. This need not necessarily mean a hugesum of money and indeed the artist may well evenenjoy the collaboration, seeing it as being in syncwith their work and drawing attention to it in theprocess. Depending on the budget, it’s often agreat deal easier to have music written and agreethe terms before production but that relies onknowing talented musicians in a multitude ofgenres – not exactly realistic and sticking to onemay limit the creativity of the whole.

Tristram’s approach to editing is different toothers with whom I’ve worked in the past.“I believe in being unconventional (when I’mallowed) and that rules are there to be broken,provided that through proper training and hardgraft you know exactly what and why they arethere in the first place!” After four days I headhome to Derbyshire; Tristram and I screenshareand continue to cut and re-cut. It’s like a paintingthat we just can’t seem to finish. Working withTristram has taught me a great deal, and as we

enter cut 38 we wait for the music rightsapprovals; having cut and re-cut from the originalfour minutes we are nearing a final 2min 30secfilm short. There is still much to do, including atitle, credits and last, but by no means least, thegrading, colour timing or, as it’s sometimesknown, telecine: making sure the look and feelare consistent – colour temperatures, saturation,highlight, shadow, contrast etc. It’s similar tophotographic post-production, but dealing with25 frames per second over 2min 30sec, andrequires sophisticated hardware and softwarealong with the associated skills.

This project takes me well into double figureswith HD DSLR film making but in many wayshas taught me the most. My energy andenthusiasm for the genre only increase with eachnew opportunity and with that comes theeagerness to learn. Every personal project shouldbe a voyage of discovery and while the finalresult is, of course, hugely important to allinvolved, what I’ve learned in the process is equalto this and in some ways surpasses it.

To watch the latest version of Clive’s LondonFashion Week short film go to:www.clivebooth.co.uk/lfwaw2011

See page 88 for our feature on Nick Knight’sSHOWstudio online project.

PP

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Catwalkbootdetail,CanonEOS-1DMkIV,85mmlens.

“This project takes me wellinto double figures withHD DSLR film making but inmany ways has taught methe most. My energy andenthusiasm for the genreonly increase with eachnew opportunity...” Clive Booth


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thedenchdiary

This month, our sometime workingpro revisits old drinking haunts inhis former university city of Derbywhere his work is part of a majorstreet photography exhibition,discovers he’s the inspiration for aliterary character and goes in searchof perfection for a new project.

1stMy wife has taken to buying boxed wine inan effort to save money. It’s not going well.Paranoid because you can’t see how much is left,each of us secretly tops up. I suggest having onebox each that we can lug from room to room likea medical drip or reverse catheter. I’d hopedthat as I aged the quality of wine would improve.I once drank a 1989 Haut Brion (currentlyretailing online at £1,200 a bottle) from a glassantler as a guest at Chateau Lafite. That set thestandard. Today I find myself ripping out the foilinterior and maniacally pumping for the last dropslike some wheezing Scots piper.

3rd “If you can smell the street by looking at thephotograph, then it’s a street photograph.”That may be so, Bruce Gilden, but this is Derby,it mostly smells of Greggs and its Steak Bakesare selling well. I’m back in my old universitycity for the FORMAT Festival, looking at theMarket Square exhibition Take to the Streets, amajor survey of street life from around the worldby leading Magnum photographers. Before theofficial festival opening I take a tour of some oldhaunts. I stand on the spot where 18 years agoI was punched and kicked to the ground andmugged of my Mamiya RB67. The blood hasgone. I visit my former local, the CromptonTavern. I never took a girl there, didn’t want torisk ruining a good local if the relationshipwent flat. The day I was to move to London, afterthree years of lock-ins, persistent drinking andheaded goals for the pub football team, I took inmy girlfriend. “Hey Pete, we all thought youwere gay.” The landlord is a face from the past

PP -DENCH DIARY- MAY 11/04/2011 16:46

and I ask after my old drinking partner and filmtutor John Hawkridge. I find him for a fewat the home of great real ales, the Smithfield,before finally heading to FORMAT where it’sstraight into drinks with Twenty-Twenty Agencydirector Frede Spencer and omnipresent artistPollyCampanyDavidBraden. I totter to find mypictures on a digital loop. I submitted 85 but aseach frame remains for 15 seconds it’s tooprolonged to verify the number. It’s good to beinvolved and I’m in stellar company; surroundingexhibits include Raghu Rai, Vivian Maier, JoelMeyerowitz, Jeff Mermelstein and some striking,crisp colour prints of automobile breakdownsfrom the Amy Stein project Stranded. During theafter party at Revolution I say hello to formerMagnum snapper Paul Lowe, now course directorof the Masters programme in photojournalismand documentary photography at London Collegeof Communication. I haven’t talked to Paulproperly since 2002 when I was a student inAmsterdam on the five-day World Press PhotoJoop Swart Masterclass. Paul was one of theMasters. I’d hoped the week would be treated as afree-flowing exchange among equals. Paul wasmore of the opinion the Master would master andthe student would listen. When the course had runI stayed on a few days for a break. So did someothers. In the bar of Hotel Arena, Paul joined thetable where I was drinking with photographersTim Hetherington and Narelle Autio. He pickedup my pint and poured some into his glass. I let itpass. Then he did it again. Now, I’m fromWeymouth where people have been killed for less.So today I keep a firm grip on my tumbler as Paultalks excitedly about his anticipated slot spinningdiscs at the Revolution DJ booth. It’s a new Lowe.

4th Pop back to FORMAT and stand through abit more of my slideshow. Spot publisher DewiLewis chatting to Magnum’s Chris Steele-Perkins.I’m trying to get a book published and Dewi is akey figure. I really should say hello but it lookstoo tight to interrupt. Take in the Dougie Wallacecollection Reflections on Life on the flight downfrom the first floor and blink into the presentationby Flickr group Hardcore Street Photography.Settling down on the train home with two cans ofStrongbow and a copy of the Derby Telegraph Iabsorb the local news. “A man has been arrestedfor allegedly carrying out a sex act on a25-year-old donkey called Jane.” I was once toldDerby had the highest number of people born in acity that remain there for life, literally one big,

happy family. Remembering the women, I give asympathetic nod for the unnamed 39-year-oldman. “The donkey was checked out afterwards bya vet. She was found to be fit and well.”I toast Jane’s health and mentally pencil a returnto Derby in another 16 years.

7thVisiting Focus on Imaging at the NEC,Birmingham, I meet wedding photographer MrRoger Tyas, a PP subscriber for decades.Well, he was a subscriber but feels the contentrelevant to him has disappeared. I ask Roger ifthere’s anything he likes in the magazine,anything at all? “No.” He asks what I do,“Write a column for PP.” Pose for a picture withJake handing out bags for Aaduki Insuranceresplendent in orange-striped swimming pants.Scour the Sony ‘make.believe’ stand; there areonly soft drinks, ‘can’t.believe’ and defect tothe Denis Wright exhibit, ‘the longest establishedand most experienced manufacturer of albums,strut mounts, presentation folders and frames.’Denis has it right, bubbles and crust-cutsandwiches. I nibble with enthusiasm at the worldof strut mounts. There must be so much to learnhere, so much to see and much of it free.Instead, hot but not that bothered, I cool down


Abovetop:JakeandPeterat theAaduki InsuranceexhibitatFocuson Imaging2011.Above:Abearskin-toppedfootguardcollectsmoneyat the IdealHomeShow.

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“Meet with international thriller writer Tom Knox forI scan the acknowledgements. ‘My great friends and



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Left:AdemonstrationofZumbaat the IdealHomeShow,a fusionofLatinand internationalmusic thatcreates“adynamic,excitingandeffectivefitnesssystem”.

Left:Amodelposesonthecatwalk in the IdealWomansectionof theIdealHomeShow.

Above:Visitors to theIdealHomeShowtrythemassagechairs.

drinks in Camden. He hands me a copy of his new book Bible of the Dead.colleagues Peter Dench and Dan White, brilliant photographers both...’ ” Peter Dench



in the press room with a vodka tonic. On one lastcircuit of Focus I wait to be noticed at theCalumet stand. A welcome interception comesfrom chef and photographer Pete Cranston.I think Pete is looking for a Dench drinkchallenge. Sitting in Wetherspoons he shows hisintention and chugs the first two pints to my one.Four hours pass with our interpretation of theclassic Smith & Jones beer-darts sketch from Notthe Nine O’Clock News (visual onYouTube)before Cranston walks, a near-full Guinness lefton the table that I drain before the train.

11thMeet with international thriller writer TomKnox for drinks in Camden. He hands me a copyof his new book Bible of the Dead. I scan theacknowledgements. “My great friends andcolleagues Peter Dench and Dan White, brilliantphotographers both, have always been ready totell me – over a warm beer in London, or a coldbeer in Bangkok – just how wrong I am aboutalmost everything.’ Knox says the main character,photographer Jake Thurby, is part himself, Dan

and me. It’s fair to say Knox has had a ratherscandalous life; I’m hardly a role model and askabout Dan.Yikes! It seems he’s the dark DanDiary of Asia. Promises to be an entertaining read.

14th Last week saw drinking at its mostself-destructive; often without purpose or hope.On one occasion at university, Jonathan Worthasked me to meet for a quick pint. With a coursedeadline looming I was wary but Jonathan didn’tcome out much, so I agreed. Eight days laterI called time on the session. Jonathan had, ofcourse, left after one drink and completeda project in the interim. Keen not to fritter awayanother week I get to work emailing out PDFs ofnews-relevant images from my archive.

15th Arrive at Alphabet Bar in Soho for leavingdrinks with Joanna Moran, picture editor at Men’sHealth magazine. I’ve not thought this through.I’ve never met Joanna in person before. Order awine and scan the throng for familiar faces.MH has been good to me. Before Tom Knoxbecame an international thriller writer he washumble hack Sean Thomas. Together onassignment for MH we spent a week quaffing at aFrench vineyard; another sun-drenched on theCaribbean paradise of Martinique. When thetroops rolled into Iraq for Gulf War Two wewere safely waiting for Swifty the Swimming Pigto take the plunge at the Star of Texas Fair andRodeo. My highlight was the trip to landlockedBelarus, the only country in the developed worldwhere men die 11 years before women. Why?I think it was the heart-punching beauty of theladies. At times I felt like killing myself.We drank vodka with the locals to numb thesenses and watched the Slavic sirens pass.Photo director Cat Costelloe, who pours me intothe MH pool, rescues me from my reverie and

explains that the nation’s best-selling qualitymen’s magazine is looking for health-relatedphoto-essays, committing at times to eight pages.This is encouraging; I start to formulate a plan.

17th It’s good to have a project to shoot whenwork is slow and money is tight. I’ve been addingto one for some time. In an Ideal World is a studyof society’s perception of perfection. Today I’moff to the Ideal Home Show; a slap of the Oystercard and flash of the press pass and I’m in.As a compulsive cleaner keen to see what’s new,I zip past the bearskin-topped foot guards,ignore the pap pack chasing Prince Charles andsuck up to the houseware section. It doesn’tdisappoint. The ‘Magic Mop, Best Mop Ever’

raises the pulse, ‘The Amaze Brush, Good onFluff & Lint’ beads the brow and the ‘MiracleShammy’ (absorbs 25 times its weight in liquid)has me twitching for the wallet. Then I discovera jaw-dropper, never before seen in the UnitedKingdom, it’s the all-in-one more effectivecleaning, never again need for separate spongesand scourers designer glove Onhandz. The firm’smanaging director Colin O’Neil proudly showsme a picture of him with Prince Charles taken 20years ago. I humbly ask if I can snap this momentwith marketing director Angela Riviere, alsoselling the scouring sensation. It’s a good start tothe day. Move on to the Ideal Woman sectionto see if I agree, pause at the catwalk, seems I do.Last stop before bus stop the painstakingly

“It’s good to have a project toshoot when work is slowand money is tight.I’ve been adding to one forsome time. In an Ideal Worldis a study of society’sperception of perfection.”Peter Dench

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re-created Rovers Return Inn, with one thingamiss, no painstakingly re-created real beer.

18th Today I peed on the floor of the pub. I did itfor Comic Relief.

23rd “Squirrel.” I’m kneeling on the floor of aBelgravia flat. “Squirrel.” Shooting a portrait forStern magazine of Ingrid Seward, Editor-in-Chiefof Majesty magazine. “Squirrel.” She has whitePuffie on her lap. “SQUIRREL!” Apparently thismakes the Westie dog prick up its ears. I glanceacross at Coventry University second-year studentDean O’Brien on a two-day internship breathingthe life of a sometime working pro. He looksnonplussed. “FOSTER’S!” O’Brien’s eyes level

thedenchdiary

like a fruit machine triple bell jackpot. Job done,we twinkletoe into the sunshine.

25th Only one day’s commissioned shoot for thethird successive month, at least I’m consistent.Not too disheartened, I’m booked for the first 11days of April on three commitments: two days inGlasgow, three in Norway, six in Jamaica. Then Ireceive an email cancelling Norway; not toodisheartened, I’m still booked for eight of the first11 days of April.

26th Receive an email cancelling Glasgow;not too disheartened, I’m still booked for six ofthe first 11 days of April. Then I receive anemail... PP

“Not too disheartened, I’mbooked for the first 11 days ofApril on three commitments:two days in Glasgow,three in Norway, six inJamaica. Then I receive anemail cancelling Norway;not too disheartened, I’m stillbooked for eight of the first11 days of April.” Peter Dench

Left:Girlsdrinkbeer inasuburbofMinsk.Oppositepage:Avisitor to theIdealHomeShowatEarlsCourttakesapictureofhimself infrontofare-creationof theRoversReturn Inn fromITVsoapCoronationStreet.

www.peterdench.com

You can hear Peter inperson eachmonthon theProfessionalPhotographer podcast,available on iTunes oron ourwebsite at

WWW.PROFESSIONALPHOTOGRAPHER.CO.UK


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BLACK SWAN� Iron Man 2 used footage shot onHD DSLRs and the format is constantly beingchosen by film directors and directors ofphotography (DPs) for its ability to shoot inlow light, or because it is so mobile andinconspicuous. The fact it can be integratedwith more standard video means its place inHollywood is now secure. Matthew Libatique,who worked on Iron Man 2, was also DPof the 2011 Oscar-winning ballet movieBlack Swan, on which he used a Canon EOS5D MkII for all the rehearsal scenes, as wellas an EOS 7D or EOS-1D MkIV to shootsequences guerilla style on the NewYorksubway. With very few lights available andaware that he was shooting illegally, he had towork fast to capture star Natalie Portmandoing the scene in an uncontrolledenvironment, and shot at an ISO of 1600.With the Canon’s large sensor, the grain isminimised when shooting in low light, but Ithink plenty of extra work was done inpost-production. I can’t condone guerilla filmmaking, obviously, but it certainly lendsan air of immediacy that works for this scenein the movie. “We used a Canon 7D or 1DMkIV for all the subway scenes,” Libatiquesaid. “I could just carry a 7D and shoot on thesubway all day with a very small crew.”www.professionalphotographer.co.uk/0522

127 HOURSDanny Boyle’s film 127 Hours, based on thetrue story of a climber trapped in a canyon, hadtwo DPs: Anthony Dod Mantle, who won the2009 Oscar for cinematography on Slumdog

Millionaire, and Enrique Chediak. They usedDSLRs for some scenes and didn’t find theexperience entirely successful, but pushed thecameras’ abilities to the max and got what theyneeded. In an interview with HD magazine,Michael Mansouri of Los Angeles-based HDRentals which provided equipment, spokeabout the ups and downs of shooting on avariety of Canons. “We shot with the 5D MkIIas well as my favourite camera, the 1D MkIV,”he said. “Anthony was very frustrated with

the video mode out of the Canon cameras...We tried to figure out ways to break the code,get uncompressed RAW out of the camera –and there was no way. What he ended up doingwas shooting in still mode at 10-frame bursts,and in post he would double it to 20 frames.He definitely bends the rules. The 20 framesare an interesting effect and will look reallycool. The Canon cameras had their own set ofchallenges, as they were really designed forstill photography, so we had to come up withrigs to control the focus. We had questions onhow you monitor and how you get the directora video feed. We used the 1D MkIVs for a lotof high-contrast, overexposed sunlight, snowcaps and skin-tones-type shots. This cameracould hold those shots in still mode. In thevideo mode it wouldn’t get anywhere near.”www.professionalphotographer.co.uk/0573

24 AND NUMB3RS� It’s wonderful to see DSLRs being usedmore and more for big TV dramas, with manyDPs choosing to use them in specific roles.DP on 24 Rodney Charters picked the CanonEOS 5D MkII to shoot an intricate scene witha car. In this video he seems more in love witha new monitor, but it’s still good to see the 5Dbeing considered by such a blockbuster series.www.professionalphotographer.co.uk/0524� But even more inspiring is DP onNumb3rs Ron Garcia who has released twobehind-the-scenes films onYouTube showinghim using the Canon EOS 7D to shoot avariety of scenes, including extreme close-ups.The insights he gives help to explainthe industry’s increasing interest in HD DSLRsand the situations in which they will be used.www.professionalphotographer.co.uk/0566

To make sure you don’t get left behind in the rapidly changing world of DSLRfilm making, John Campbell brings you the latest news, the most exciting filmsand the best kit from this brave new world that is transforming our industry.

THE WORLD OFCONVERGENCE][

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PP -FILM SCHOOL - MAY 12/04/2011 15:06


Struggling tofind a cheapmedia converterto transfer yourDSLR footage toother formats?Well, a little piece of software calledMediaEspresso 6.5 will do just that,converting a variety of video, musicand image files to a multitudeof media platforms. A steal at only$39.99 (£25).www.cyberlink.com

BE INSPIREDICE AGE� Although you don’t get to see thefollowingmovie as a whole, the ‘making of’The Ice Book shows the kind of filmmakingthat I find inspiring. It was shot entirely ona Canon EOS 5DMkII, using the techniquesof a pop-up book, and tells of amysteriousprincess who lures a boy into her world.Husband-and-wife creative teamDavy andKristin McGuire got a grant and a studio inGermany, and spent fourmonths putting thislittle piece of art together, using cheap fabricfor a green screen, and builders’ lights.“Almost everything was shot on a Canon 5DMkII because of its super-duper imagequality,” said Davy. “The extra stops that the5D provided were amassive help in ourbadly-lit studio. The problem, however, wasthat all of the footage and all of the photosI took were actually too sharp and crisp, so Ihad to dirty everything up. At the time,the 5D would only shoot at 30fps. Themotionwas over-smooth for the aesthetic wewere after. I added a Posterize Time effectto simulate a 15fps feel. I then added lotsof dust and grain to give the footage an agedfilm look.” We could do withmorewell-thought-out pieces like this to combatthe overload of student zombie flicks.www.theicebook.com/Home.html

PARTY ON� Astropolis Starparty is a stunningtime-lapse film by director Patryk Kizny,following a group of amateur astronomers inPoland as they set up to view the skies atnight. I’m particularly impressed by the firstsequence, using amotorised track and crane.The shots produced are fantastic and thetreatment in post-production is something Ihave only seen in HDR photography, creatingan almost non-realistic style.http://patry.kizny.com/#148/vimeo

MASTERCLASSWe have occasionallycovered the exploits ofDan Chung, thejournalist/film makerfor satellite newschannel Al Jazeeraamong others, as hehas explored and usedDSLRs to makefactual films that havegreatly benefited the convergence movement.By showing the versatility of the DSLR inoften difficult situations, Dan has really pushedthe boundaries, so I’m quite excited that he hascreated a two-hour downloadable masterclass,filmed in Malaysia while he was on assignmentthere. I have no doubt that for him to share hisknowledge will help many photographers andfilm makers, especially those in news anddocumentary making, or even anyoneinterested in doing more real-life, fact-basedwork. For only £89.95, this has to be thebargain of the month, and you don’t even haveto leave your house!www.professionalphotographer.co.uk/0505

SOFTWARE

NAB is the world’s biggest showfor video professionals and aswe went to press the 2011 eventwas being held in Las Vegas.In the run-up, people in thecommunity were saying wemight see confirmation thatSony is looking at life beyondHD. They predict that within thenext three years we will seecinema standard resolution of4K (4,096 x 2,160 pixels) onconsumer displays at areasonable price. At a Sonydevelopment site, 4K SRmemory cards have been seenwith data rates of 5Gbps, anda CineAlta camera that shoots4K. At this rate, within six toeight years we could see 8Kdevelopments. Another rumouris that Avid will be producing anon-linear editing system (NLE)showing practicable 4K editing.If this is true, then we will seeall NLE editing going this way.You can check if these rumourshave been confirmedon www.nabshow.com

/////////ON THE GRAPEVINE–

READ ALL ABOUT ITLighting techniquesare the basis ofwhat we do asfilm makers andphotographers.It is one of thethings thatseparatesamateurs and professionals, so knowinghow to set up for any given situation is amust. Developing your lighting techniquesis a never-ending process, as even topDPs continuously hone their skills.One such is author, award-garlandedcinematographer and Oscar-winninglighting equipment inventor Ross Lowell,who shares his insight and decades ofexperience in an amazing book, Matters ofLight & Depth. This critically acclaimedmanual is a must for any film makerwanting to expand their own skills.The illustrations, photographs and textmake this a valuable resource – it wasoriginally a pamphlet on lighting, butLowell soon realised the need for a largervolume. The book is out of print,but I found a copy online for about £30(try Amazon and AbeBooks).www.lowel.com/book.html

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Tell me a bit about your background.I studied graphic design and illustration atMedway College of Art and Design. I laterapplied for a job as junior designer at ConranAssociates Advertising and was lucky enoughto be one of the three selected. I worked withTerence Conran and Stafford Cliff who werevery inspiring and both incredible talents.At the time I probably didn’t realise what ahuge opportunity it was, but looking back itwas very much a finishing school in the worldof advertising and design.

Everything was pre-digital then so a lot ofpreparation went on in terms of presenting ideas.I was working on the Habitat account producingcatalogues for the UK,France and USA.We hand drew everylayout in detail forpresentation beforeshooting it; not justa sketch but quite anaccurate drawing ofhow items would worktogether on the page.After three years I leftto work freelance andsince then I haveworked as a designer,art director and stylist.I still always start withdrawing up my ideas;it’s very importanthow a group of imageswill work together.Single images are rarely used in isolation so it’sabout creating a series with a narrative. I knowthat if my layout ideas work as sketches then theywill work on the shoot.

What are your visual inspirations?Inspiration is everywhere... in life and in nature.I can be inspired by a colour combination that Isee somebody wearing on the street, or the moodof a painting in a gallery. I have been inspiredby trash and things I find on the beach. I think

originality is very important, otherwise there’slittle creative satisfaction. Of course sometimesclients have a very clear idea of what theywant, so you need to be able to adapt to therequirements of the job.

Does photography inspire you?Definitely. I always carry a camera. I love asnapshot and use my Leica daily, in part to recordinspirational moments but also as a memorystick so I can remember things for later on. I lovephotographers whose work completely capturesa moment, like Robert Frank and Diane Arbus.I also admire the work of Willy Ronis and RobertDoisneau, Tim Walker and Wim Wenders.

Nick Knight too, for experimenting withtechnology and doing incredible things.

Can you define those factors thatmakeworkingwith photographers agood experience?Collaboration is important. I don’t think anyonethinks, “Well, I’m the photographer or thestylist so I won’t relinquish control over that.”It’s always nice to work with people where there’san easy informality. Sometimes jobs can be

frontlinefrom the

Karina GarrickStylist

Career history:Designer and art director: Conran AssociatesCreative consultant: live it, The ConranMagazineCreative consultant: HabitatStyle Director: Livingetc magazineFreelance stylist

“...clients have a very clearidea of what they want,so you need to be able toadapt to the requirementsof the job.” Karina Garrick

Need to put a face to a name, get the background story, the right advice and the insidetrack on how to get commissioned? This month we speak to stylist Karina Garrick abouthow to approach an interiors shoot and the best way to build a portfolio, and wefind out what the commissioning editors of interiors magazines are really looking for.

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frontline

taxing so it’s about keeping focused. A lot ofpeople can take a good picture but the measureof a really good and experienced photographeris being able to take a great shot in difficultcircumstances. In the commercial world thatcould mean encountering problems with theproduct itself, such as a sample that doesn’t standup to scrutiny, or a difficult lighting situation,so those who have consistency are the ones thatstand out. It’s very much a team effort. I’m veryfortunate to have worked with, and continue towork with, lovely people. If you like and feelcomfortable with the people you’re workingwith there’s every chance you’ll do a great joband have a good day doing it. It shouldn’t bea struggle.

On big interiors projects there are planningmeetings and discussions beforehand soeveryone knows what the goal is. After thatit’s about contributing your part to make ithappen. There should be no surprises, althoughsometimes there are logistical problems. So by thetime we start to really build the image everyonejust naturally plays their role.

Have you ever worked on personalprojects with photographers in order tobuild your portfolio?It’s something I’ve never done personally, but

some people do. Test shots are a good idea if aphotographer wants to explore a new area ofwork to show that they can do a certain typeof job. I worked on a magazine and used tocommission photographers. Often I met peopleI liked who didn’t have a certain type of shotin their book. Sometimes I felt by instinct thatthey had the capability to do a job, but that’snot always enough to say, “Let’s give it a go.”Those in commissioning roles do have toplay it safe, they can’t afford to gamble withtheir budgets. Often clients will want a certainphotographer because they like their style,

or they want a certain feel for their product.I think that the taking of test shots is quite auseful exercise when looking to attract a newarea of work.

Do emerging photographers seek out stylistsin the same situation to workwith in order tobuild their respective books?I think that does happen, certainly withphotographers’ assistants getting together withstylists’ assistants. Often the problem is havingthe time to do it and being able to source the rightprops, equipment and location. It’s best to workon a fairly small scale, be original and don’tattempt anything too ambitious, or worse, copysomething! As a commissioner if I see a greatpicture in someone’s book that I have not workedwith before I have to stop and think, “But howlong did it take them to create this? Was this whatthey were aiming for?”

When you’re commissioning you might wanteight of those shots in a single day. You knowthe photographer can get one, but you askyourself whether they were lucky on the dayor if this is a real indication of their skills.That’s one of the reasons why it’s hard for newphotographers to get into the industry, but if theyare prepared to take the small jobs, do a favourand always be reliable, they can build up

relationships and hopefully go on to do biggerand better things.

What factorsmake for a good shoot?Having a great team with the right people for thejob. The best atmosphere to have on a shoot is calm.It can be chaotic so everyone needs to be able towork under pressure. Preparation and focus are key,time is always tight and every day is different, soyou need to be on top of things and aware of that.

What do commissioning editors want to seefrom a shoot?For houses, magazines like to see a variety ofshots, a few details, some mid shots and somepulled-back room shots. It’s about documentingthe space, particularly the architecture and thepersonality of owners through the things that arein it. The images should link and work as a series.If a photographer is interested in getting intointeriors work they have to love it and they have tobe able to adapt. Shooting interiors isn’t easy, youhave to be ready to deal with what you find on theday and so it can be logistically and technicallydemanding. Some rooms can be very small, suchas bedrooms and bathrooms, and they need to beincluded, so it’s not just about the easy bits.

Do you think assisting is a good path foremerging photographers?I think assisting is an excellent idea.It’s valuable experience and a reality check too.There’s nothing like being on a job to seehow it all actually works. Many emergingphotographers do assist and even if they aren’tgiven a specific role they are able to observe.

Do some photographers work better withmodels than others?Yes, absolutely. It’s a real skill. There’s a bigdifference between working with a professionalmodel and, say, a homeowner who doesn’t likehaving his or her picture taken. A goodphotographer will make the subject feel at ease,take a few shots while talking to them, invite themto look at the pictures and once the subject seesthat they can look okay they usually relax and thenwe can do more. Like a good portrait, it’s abouttrying to capture an aspect of their personality.

Where should emerging interiorsphotographers be looking for influences?Never underestimate the value of your ownpersonal view. Don’t focus on analysing existinginteriors or architectural magazine photography,but do experiment, shoot some interiors and thenshoot some more. They don’t have to be specialplaces but document them as if they were.www.karina-garrick.com

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“As a commissioner if I see agreat picture in someone’sbook that I have not workedwith before I have to stopand think, ‘But how long didit take them to create this?Was this what they wereaiming for?’” Karina Garrick

PP -FRONTLINE- MAY 12/04/2011 10:29

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Dear Professional Photographer,Your decision to write an editorialpiece on mental health problems inthe professional photographiccommunity was brave andunsensational [‘Talkin’ PhotographyBlues’, April 2011 issue]. As aretired psychiatrist who hasreinvented himself as a professionalphotographer I feel in a goodposition to comment. Only now afterseven years am I beginning torealise the stresses involved in the‘creative world’. I realise that in theNHS I was protected on all levels.There is nothing now between meand my customers. I feel exposedin a way I never did as a doctor.I have experienced the profoundsatisfaction derived from publicationand recognition but also the intensedysphoria which comes from beingignored or rejected, or just losingmotivation. There is little or no gapbetween me and my photography,consequently there is nowhere tohide. The [accompanying] piece byAndy Craddock, ‘Loneliness(Depression) and Photography’,describes this turbulence beautifully.I am struck repeatedly that many

photographers are quite isolated andvulnerable despite needing toproject an image of competence andprofessionalism. There is littlecamaraderie and working in a highlycompetitive market makes this evenless. Support and understanding arethe antidotes to isolation anddemoralisation. An honest, truthfulsharing of problems goes a longway towards making them bearable.I wish I had some more tangiblesolutions but your establishmentof The United States ofPhotography is a commendableattempt to provide support.

Professional Photographer standsout as a beacon of common sense

and good judgment in this brutal,commercially driven environment.IanMacilwain, viaemail

Dear Professional Photographer,Over the past few years, I havefound myself becoming more andmore frustrated with the Focus onImaging show at the NEC,Birmingham, and what it has tooffer a commercial photographersuch as myself. I know many of myex-students affectionately refer tome as a ‘dinosaur’ but I do realisethat the industry I first enterednearly 30 years ago has changedmarkedly and this is now reflectedin the exhibitors at the show.I struggled to find many of my

old favourites such as Broncolor,Hasselblad, Sinar and ARRI, whodid not appear to be anywhere ineasy sight. This is so different to thedays when the show was calledPhotography at Work and held inLondon and Harrogate. Then therewas a profusion of studio-basedphotographic lighting and camerasolutions with major stands byHensel, Strobe, Balcar, Goddard andBroncolor. Now, I found myselfsurrounded by wedding albums, inkcartridge companies and sad,middle-aged men festooned with

cameras snapping frantically at anysemi-clad woman they could find(and they even brought their ownsarnies!). Is this what the industryhas become?I realise that the exhibitors are

in many ways responding tothe change in purchasing patternswithin the industry and the rise ofthe weekend warrior snapper as themajor purchaser of equipment.This new breed of photographer nolonger needs photography astheir main source of income, asthey rely on their weekday jobas an accountant or bus driver tofund them. To them, photographyis almost a status symbol toa more glamorous life with almostWalter Mitty pretensions. I amforever being introduced tothese types at parties and socialgatherings where they spend hoursdebating the virtues of Nikonand Canon lenses and how their nextfree shoot will be the ‘last one’and they will then charge a massive£75 a day.Don’t get me wrong, I am not

bitter – just perplexed at how we gotto this state in the first place.In some ways, I feel professionalsand the organisations that representthem have no one to blame butthemselves. We have encouragedthrough our openness new peopleto enter the profession but withlittle of the safeguards that otherprofessional institutions haveinsisted upon. Given that for manyof us over the age of 40, it took atleast four years at college and acouple years as an assistant tobecome competent to start shootingcommercially, wouldn’t some formof chartered institute have been agood progression for our industry soas to protect its members,standardise rates, promote career

development and present legislationto protect its customers fromcowboy operators?I can already hear the cries from

quite a few of my esteemedcolleagues that this form ofprotectionism is unworkable (itworked for accountants, solicitors,doctors, engineers etc). I would nowhave to agree with them. We missedour opportunity in the 1990s whenthe first signs of decline becameapparent but we chose to ignore it.We now sit on the edge of a perfectstorm: day-rates are substantiallyreduced due to the flux of incomers,retooling and running costs are high,the volume of work has decreaseddue to the recession and newtechnologies, and the quality oftrade craft being taught issignificantly poorer due to thedilution of teaching practices andlack of assisting places.So where do we go now? A hard

question but one that needs to beconfronted by all. Do we continue todefend our small patch of territoryand hope that we are ‘the last manstanding’ or do we as an industryfinally decide to unite, forgetour petty squabbles and confrontthe difficult decisions ahead?RichardSouthall, viaemail

Dear Professional Photographer,Can I say how impressed I’ve beenwith the magazine – since I startedreading it I’ve felt a load moreknowledgeable about photographyand the different photographers outthere. More importantly, however, Inow feel part of a community, withlike-minded people. It’s great andit’s the first magazine I’ve readwhere I can’t wait for the next issue.Keep up the good work and I hopethe standard you’ve set never drops.KristianLeven,viaemail PP

tell us what you think at [email protected].

PP -FEEDBACK - MAY 12/04/2011 15:11


Remember, this is called ‘Guess’ the Lighting. Therefore, all lighting, camera, lens, grip, f-stop, shutter speed etc informationmay not hold up in a court of law.Any guesses as to what the featured photographers were wearing, drinking or pondering while creating the shots are not necessarily subject to any reality otherthanmy own. Suggestions of marital problems, hangovers, jet lag, disease or any other contributing factors should, likewise, be taken with the proverbial grain ofsalt. There is a lot of guesswork in guessing – Ted Sabarese

ELLENVONUNWERTH/KATEBECKINSALEABSOLUTAD, 2009When Absolut Vodka asked ex-model turned fashion photographerextraordinaire Ellen von Unwerth to tackle its new ad campaign, shejumped at the opportunity. Working with [actresses] Kate Beckinsale andZooey Deschanel, Ellen brought a playful, enchanting aesthetic to theimagery (makes me fancy a tall glass of Absolut right this moment,actually). This enigmatic still (I’d like to be a fly on the wall of one ofEllen’s dreams) was created with four HMIs.CAMERA: Canon EOS-1Ds MkIII with 70-200mm lens, set on a tripod15ft back. Shot at 1/60sec, f/11, ISO 100.LIGHTING: The key light is a 6K ARRI Fresnel HMI at f/11 ½ (+½ stop)set on a high boy roller directly above and behind the camera. A set of barndoors helps to focus the light on Kate. A 1.2K ARRI Fresnel HMI withbarn doors at f/16 ½ (+1½ stops) sits just out of frame to camera right.

This light is aimed at the Absolut bottle and creates the alluring highlight onthe side of the bottle. A 1.2K Fresnel at f/16 ½ (+1½ stops) with a full CTOrange gel aimed at the rear wall rests just off the ground, directly behindKate. Another 1.2K Fresnel with barn doors at f/16 ½ (+1 ½ stops) sits onthe floor behind Kate and is focused upwards at the rear wall. This createsthe whitish glow on the wall as well as the floor.TED’S THEORY ON HOW THE SHOOTWENT: The set designer for thisshoot loved the creative concept but had some logistical problems with itsexecution. Born into an incredibly superstitious family, she was not willingto chance seven years’ bad luck (or worse, the death of a family member)propping the broken mirror. As a compromise, she agreed to watch via avideo feed from a nearby room and direct her assistant over walkie-talkies.

www.guessthelighting.com

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In his blog, professional photographerTed Sabarese tries to work out how otherphotographers have lit their images and offershis own theory on how the shoot went. In thisissue he brings his lighting experience andlimited drawing ability to Ellen von Unwerth’sold-school Hollywood lighting for Absolut.

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The creative relationship thatexists between photographerNick Knight and fashiondesigner Yohji Yamamoto beganback in 1986 just after Knighthad first appeared onthe scene. Knight’s intenselycoloured, soft-focus imagesperfectly captured the coloursand angular shapes beingcreated by Yamamoto. The firstcatalogue project they workedon became an instant classic oficonic images created incollaboration with the equallyiconic art director, Peter Saville(he of Joy Division and NewOrder album covers, amonga million other projects).That creative triumviratecontinues today, as this imageillustrates. If you want tocheck out more of Yamamoto’scollaborations and creations getdown to the Victoria & AlbertMuseum, London. You may bemore inspired by fashion thanyou ever thought possible.Our feature on Knight’sSHOWstudio is on page 88.Yohji Yamamoto,Victoria & Albert Museum,London, SW7 2RL,until 10 July, admission: £7.www.vam.ac.uk

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exposureImages that haveus thinking, talking

and debating...

PP -EXPOSURE- MAY 11/04/2011 15:28


Jill Greenberg’s flawless images cross the line from commercial to political and back again. Eleanor O’Kanetalks to the Canadian-born, LA-based photographer to find out what lies beneath her perfect images.

THE INTERVIEW{ }

PICTUREPERFECT

It’s 9am in Los Angeles, where Jill Greenbergis talking to me from her studio. I’ve managedto pin her down for a short while betweenshoots and already her day is in full swing.In the background a printer is whirringnoisily, I can hear her two children playingand, it transpires, a news story is breakingonline about a controversial cover thatshe recently shot for a major US magazine.A glance at Greenberg’s website gives you an

idea of just how prolific she is. Her super-glossy,highly stylised portraits are in big demand andshe is commissioned by major magazines andadvertising agencies on both sides of the Atlantic.Pop star Gwen Stefani specifically requested thatGreenberg shoot the cover of her 2006 album TheSweet Escape after seeing the photographer’s work.The name of her website, Manipulator.com, is

inspired, or “borrowed” in her words, from the titleof the large format German magazine, TheManipulator, published from the mid-1980s to the

mid-1990s. Growing up surrounded by images tornfrom pop culture staples such as The Face, fashionmagazine W and Interview, the glossy so-calledcrystal ball of pop founded by Andy Warhol, hasshaped her flawless style of photography.“I have always played with images and not

always used them in a straightforward way,”Greenberg explains. “I’ve always achieved differentkinds of effects. Before digital I was projecting onto subjects and projecting images on to crackedsurfaces and rephotographing them.” With anacademic background in art, as well as a lifelonglove of painting and drawing, Greenberg believesthe manipulation is a way of making the imagesbetter, more interesting.Greenberg has been working as a commercial

photographer for almost 20 years, something shetries to juggle with personal projects as well asbeing a mother to two young children. “I have beentravelling a lot recently. I do enjoy it but it’s hardbecause I have two little children; I miss them and

they miss me.” Over that time she thinks theindustry has got tougher for commercialphotographers. “There are a lot more of us thanwhen I started. Sometimes it’s hard when you’rebidding against someone who is just starting outand they’ll go with the cheapest photographer.”But perfection comes at a price, I suggest.“The production value is what’s expensive ratherthan the retouching. That doesn’t have to beexpensive at all. The number of lights and thequality of the camera: that’s what’s expensive.Also the quality of the hair and make-up people,the studio, the props...”What may come as a surprise is that Greenberg’s

trademark images owe less to Photoshop than to herdesire to achieve perfection in-camera throughlighting and make-up. “People assume my work ismore manipulated than it is. It looks like that in thecamera, it really does. I get the lighting andeverything looking perfect so it almost doesn’t needto be retouched.” JI

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Singer Joss Stone.Actress Lindsay Lohan.



As much as time and workload permits,Greenberg does her own retouching. “In the pastI’ve done it all personally but lately, because I’vebeen so busy, it’s being done externally. I will docertain commercial jobs from start to finish by

myself but because I’ve been travelling a lotrecently I’ve handed some jobs over completely,which is quite unusual for me. I’ve foundsome people I can work with who do what I wantthem to do without any interference from me.

Sometimes when they send me a rough draft I’ll dosomething in a layer and they’ll put the layer ontheir picture.” Does she have final say on how muchretouching is done to an image? Does it ever gofurther than she would like? “In some casesI drive how retouched the subject is,” she says,“but the client can have ideas about compositingand special effects.”

She guards her personal projects closely,however, retouching all of those herself. One of herfirst major personal projects – Monkey Portraits –was inspired by an advertising commission.“I came across that idea a bit by accident. I was ona commercial job and had to shoot this monkey.I had some time so I decided to do a portrait of it formyself. I was taken aback and very pleased with theresults. I realised I’d never really seen portraits ofmonkeys before and I wanted to continue to do that.It took off from there.” Although Greenberg had toreturn and reshoot the job with a poodle becausethe client thought the monkey looked toomenacing, the human resemblance and apparentintelligence of the monkey in the resulting picturessparked a desire in Greenberg to use her subjectsas a method of social commentary. This wasOctober 2001, the post-9/11 landscape.

Over the next five years, when finances and timeallowed, she shot 30 portraits of 20 different speciesof primate. The simian portraits are in turnhumorous, melancholy and menacing, with a slightsuggestion that the monkeys are looking back at ushumans, their genetic cousins, in judgment.From there, Greenberg has also done portraits oftrained bears for her Ursine project, capturing themlooking both ferocious and friendly. Like herurge to manipulate images, the fascination withanimals stems from a young age. “I’ve beendrawing and painting my whole life. I’ve alwaysdrawn animals that are interchangeable withpeople, so I draw people with animal heads orvice versa. What interests me are differentcharacters and emotions. I love doing portraits and

“I’ve been drawing and painting my whole life. I’ve always drawn animals that are interchangeablewith people so I draw people with animal heads or vice versa. What interests me are differentcharacters and emotions. I love doing portraits and I love doing portraits of animals...” Jill Greenberg

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Left:Aportrait fromGreenberg’sUrsineproject.Oppositepage:ActorAaronEckhart forLosAngelesmagazine.

THE INTERVIEW{ }

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I love doing portraits of animals, it’s just how mybrain works.”While the reaction to the animal pictures was

overwhelmingly positive, one of Greenberg’ssubsequent projects, End Times, was met with anoutpouring of vitriol for the photographer.The title, which refers to the belief held by someextreme religious groups that the second comingof Christ will be preceded by major naturaldisasters, famine and hardship, was Greenberg’sphotographic response to the George W. Bushadministration and its environmental policies.It was a series of portraits of angelic, luminouschildren sobbing their hearts out and the picturesbore titles such as Four MoreYears and Deniability.“It was a series of children crying as if they knew

the direction that the world was going, that theenvironment was being ruined,” Greenbergexplains. “They are crying because George Bushwas re-elected. Here [in the US], the religious Rightbelieves in something called End Times, whenpeople will go to heaven when Jesus returns.It’s total nonsense. The people who believe in EndTimes want horrible things to happen because thatproves the end is near. It’s a crazy, backwards logicwhere the more tsunamis and earthquakes weexperience, the better. At the time these crazyreligious fanatics had the ear of a lot of thepoliticians, including Bush, and a lot ofenvironmental policies were being affected by thislogic. The politicians didn’t care that they weretrashing the environment for the future, for ourchildren, and the religious Right wanted it to betrashed because that meant End Times wouldhappen sooner.”Instead of focusing on Greenberg’s message, the

public largely chose to fixate on the methods sheused to get her subjects to cry. One was to give thechildren – one of whom was her own daughter – alollipop and then simply take it away and wait forthe resulting wails. “People didn’t really talk aboutthe subject matter, they didn’t discuss the ideasbehind the work but just how I was a horribleperson for making children cry. Of course, childrencry as if the world is ending when they can’t havetheir lollipop! It was upsetting because at the timeit became a big deal for some reason.” End Timesresulted in national TV coverage in the United

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“In some cases I drive how retouched the subject is...

Right:An imagefromTheGlassCeilingproject, inspiredbyashootwith theUSSynchronisedSwimmingTeam.



THE INTERVIEW{ }

but the client can have ideas about compositing and special effects.” Jill Greenberg




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States, was the coverline of the Sunday TimesMagazine and provoked an outcry from outragedphotographers who posted online rants againstGreenberg. The title of one such blog posting ran:Jill Greenberg is a sick woman who should bearrested and charged with child abuse.Despite the negative reception for the project in

some areas, Greenberg not only made her point, butalso managed to woo new clients with thedistressing yet beautiful pictures. “When the EndTimes series came out I got a bunch of jobs becauseof the lighting in that work. People wanted me toshoot portraits just like those ones.” Around thestudio, the setup Greenberg used for End Times isknown as ‘monkey lighting’. “It’s a setup that weuse for the monkeys, the bears and the children, andone which I use for some of my commercial jobs.”Although the project brought her media attentionand new clients, Greenberg is keen not to bepigeonholed. “I don’t think it’s appropriate foreveryone to be lit that way. I have a bunch ofvariations on that lighting setup and I’m alsolooking at trying new things because I get bored ofit. Sometimes people think I only shoot that way,which I don’t like. It’s nice to show my versatility.”Three years ago she was shooting her slick,

stylised portraits, known as ‘shiny faces’, all thetime but says that as her commercial careerdevelops she’s doing more straightforward work.“I’m still exploring personal work and that can bemore stylised or more manipulated,” she adds.Working for so many different types of clientmeans she needs to “get into a different headspace”

for each one. “You think, ‘Oh, this will make sensefor this magazine’ or ‘I’m feeling this at thisparticular moment, a particular type of lighting’.That’s the fun of photography, it doesn’t have tobe so rigid.”Working as a professional photographer, she

says, means you have to be good at a lot of things.“Photography, obviously, but also client relations,marketing and recognising trends. You need to bebusiness minded so you spend the right amount ofmoney on photoshoots; you don’t spend too muchmoney but you don’t scrimp where you shouldn’tand you save where you should be saving.”She thinks she’s lasted because of her head forbusiness. “I wasn’t that great at math at school, butI’m good at running a business and not going overbudget. I’m good at keeping budgets in my head.Sometimes I have agents and producers who helpme with budgets but other times you have a clientwho wants you to do a job for $5,000 or $10,000flat and you have to figure out how to do that.I think it’s just the way I’ve been brought up, to becareful with money. It’s a nuisance this wholebusiness thing but that’s the way it is.”Although she loves shooting film, it’s her

business brain that often determines which camerashe picks up. “I use digital for commercial jobsbecause it’s easier. I don’t own my own digitalequipment but I do own my own film camera, aMamiya. If, for example, I’m doing a smalleditorial job where I’m shooting a portrait it’scheaper for me to shoot film rather than renting allthe gear that I don’t own. For private commissions

I like to shoot film and all the End Times portraitsand the portraits of the animals were film. I lovehow that looks.”Greenberg’s career seems to travel along parallel

tracks, the commercial one, with her glossyadvertising and editorial commissions, and thepersonal path, where she explores her thoughts andideas on society as she sees it. Sometimes thosepaths cross over, or blur together. A recent project,The Glass Ceiling, was inspired by a 2008commission to photograph the US Olympicsynchronised swimming team. In the series ofserene, dreamlike images, women wearing highheels struggle to break the surface of theirunderwater world. She mentions that she’s just donesome cat food advertisements because of all theanimal photography and is shooting a dog foodcommercial the following week. Personal projectsare still important, she says, but admits that foryoung photographers it’s hard to do everythingwhen you are trying to gain a foothold in thecommercial sector. “When I first started out I wasdoing art photography but when I was trying toestablish myself I had to focus on commercialphotography, getting work, working on myportfolio. It’s not easy.”The list of celebrities she has photographed is

vast, ranging from Arnold Schwarzenegger to

“You need to be business minded so you spend the right amount of money on photoshoots;you don’t spend too much money but you don’t scrimp where you shouldn’t and you save where youshould be saving.” Jill Greenberg

Above:ActorZacharyQuintoasSpock for the2009StarTrekfilm.Oppositepage:R&BartistNickiMinaj.


THE INTERVIEW{ }




actress Zoe Saldana, star of sci-fi epic Avatar.Which is tougher, I ask, working with bears orcelebrities? She laughs. “Well generally it’s easierworking with celebrities because you can tell themwhat to do. People are great because you can givethem direction but with animals you have to bereally patient. You are working with a trainer butyou’re working within the boundaries of what theanimal is going to do. Or not do. Animals can be

hard work so you need to prepare everything andtry to make sure they don’t bite you or fly away.”

She has just committed to delivering 110portraits of horses in a few months’ time, a prospect

she sounds somewhat concerned about. “I will haveto schedule that around my commercial jobs.I’m also thinking about directing videos andworking on some book projects related to fine artphotography; that, plus being a mother of two smallchildren, it’s a lot to do.”

As a guilty pleasure, she’d love to shoot fashion.“When I was younger I loved fashion photography.On a very surface level it’s fun to photograph

beautiful people in beautiful environments. I thinkall photographers love making beautiful images.”

During our conversation a furore is building onthe internet regarding a cover image she shot forthe April 2011 issue of US Wired magazine.“Good magazine is accusing Wired of retouchingthe subject beyond recognition,” she says. After wehang up I follow the story online. Amid cries of

“Photoshopped!” and “For shame!” Wired has beencriticised online for a ‘cartoonish Photoshop’treatment of its cover star, the young Americanfemale electrical engineer and entrepreneur LimorFried. In an attempt to show how manipulated thecover image is, a snapshot of Fried looking vastlydifferent – paler, wearing glasses and a lip ring andwith shorter hair – is circulating online. When Icheck back a day or two later, Fried herself has

stepped in and defended both Greenberg and theWired cover. It turns out that the ‘natural’ imagewas taken more than three years ago after a 20-hourflight and when Fried had short hair. Fried statesonline that due to the make-up and lighting she wasthe girl in the cover image on the day and is happywith how she looks. The only elements that hadbeen Photoshopped, she says, were the backgroundcolour and the power tool she’s holding.

Although Fried’s subsequent defence of theimage and its photographer were yet to come tolight, Greenberg didn’t sound in the least perturbed,confident in the knowledge of how the image wasachieved. She tells me that after our interview shehas to sit down and write a speech. She’s due toreturn to her old college, Rhode Island School ofDesign, during its Women’s Focus Week to talk tostudents about women’s body issues and the media.“It’s kind of good that there’s a scandal,” she sayswith a hint of glee. “It means I have something totalk about.”

To see more of Jill Greenberg’s images visither website www.manipulator.com

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FOR MORE INTERVIEWS WITH THE WORLD’SLEADING PHOTOGRAPHERS VISITWWW.PROFESSIONALPHOTOGRAPHER.CO.UK

“When I was younger I loved fashion photography. On a very surface level it’s fun to photographbeautiful people in beautiful environments. I think all photographers love making beautiful images.”Jill Greenberg

THE INTERVIEW{ }

Below: Atestshot foraRussianvodkaadvertisingshoot.Oppositepage:Trillions, fromtheEndTimesseries.

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Convergence has changed the role of thephotographer and brought an extradimension to the traditional stills shoot.Does this create new revenue opportunitiesfor photographers or does it merelygive clients a reason to demand even morefor the same fee? Julia Molony findsout by talking to those leading the way inmultimedia shoots.

THE AGENT: NIALL HORTON-STEPHENS“There is increasingly a need to have the ability to do moving images inthe skillset,” says leading agent Niall Horton-Stephens. “The choicebetween photographers remains based on the stills ability and the stillsportfolio. I think that’s still what drives things. [Moving image] is justanother box that photographers have to tick to be in the running.”Does he think that this phase, while the industry is still in flux, is

potentially ripe for exploitation? “Clients are trying to extract more valuefrom shoots,” he agrees. “In many ways it does make a lot of sense. If you’vegot props, hair and make-up and models, and everything all there, theadd-on cost of shooting some moving imagery isn’t necessarily that great.It’s definitely a good thing for the client. Things are evolving and thedistinction between different types of media is increasingly blurring, asclients look at integrated campaigns. And, of course, the poster sites aregoing digital now and showing moving image loops.”Pinning down specifics of cost remains an imprecise, informal process.

“In terms of the fee, it’s all worked out on an ad hoc basis. If you equate itpurely to the photographer’s time, you might be looking at perhaps another50% increase in their day fee. However, there is obviously a media and usageaspect which one might seek to factor in. It does depend on what’s beingshot and how it’s going to be shot. You might expect a shooting day that isalready full of stills to have to extend if it’s going to accommodate movingimagery as well. There are clearly going to be some overtime costs, somerun-on costs in any case,” he says.In general though, it’s all there to play for in these uncertain times. “In the

cut and thrust of the market these days, it’s more often than not part of thebargaining process. Clearly, if you can provide the client with more materialthat gives them everything they need, then in theory it should make morebudget available for the project. It may be that the addition of a movingimage aspect is the thing that makes the whole project viable. It might nothave been worth doing it just for stills. But if you can inject a moving imageneed as well then maybe it all comes right.”The challenge for him, just like other photographers and agents operating

in today’s competitive market, has been calculating the extra value that anincreasingly versatile and skilled photographer, able to operate across severalchannels, brings to the table. “Over the last while, photographers’ agents,models’ agents and everyone else involved in this world have been trying to

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“In terms of the fee, it’s all worked out on an ad hoc basis. If you equate it purely to the photographer’stime, you might be looking at perhaps another 50% increase in their day fee.” Niall Horton-Stephens

Stills from ConventionalSuperman by Gary Salter.

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find new ways of breaking down the new media,” he says.“In the stills field we are breaking down what someonemight initially describe as an online usage – we’ll beasking what a given commission is supposed to be used for.Is it for web banners, is it for the client’s own site; if so, isthat in a particular country, is it genuinely worldwide?As the whole thing grows, it needs to be broken down intomore sensible chunks.”When one of his photographers is asked to provide

moving image, one of the first questions Horton-Stephensasks is, “What is it going to be used for?” “If it’s web-native work thenclearly that’s going to have some technical requirements attached to it andit’s going to indicate the kind of media it will be used for. Is this alsobeing used for exhibition purposes? Or even, perhaps, broadcast purposes?”Each of these different territories of usage demands a different fee.“It is evolving quickly, in the same way that we’re seeing more stills work

commissioned purely for web use. Where five years ago, people wouldn’thave been looking for high-end imagery because of download speeds, nowit’s all up for grabs,” he says.Though the technology and skills may be changing rapidly, the rules of the

game stay the same. It’s still the strength of any given photographer’s identitythat keeps them in demand.“Photographers have always been interested in creating imagery,” he says.

“Now that stills photo equipment is becoming increasingly capable ofdelivering moving imagery, obviously it’s a rapidly opening door for all thewannabe directors out there. There are a lot of people out there using

equipment and, in theory, capable of producing technically proficient work,but it’s the age-old thing of actually stamping your style on it; being able tomarket yourself and lift yourself from the morass of people all trying to dothe same thing. Because an awful lot of photographers are trying to say,‘Yes, I can do that’ and very few are actually good directors.”As for how not to get ripped off? “Get a good agent! It’s the same advice

that you would give a photographer being commissioned for stills. Look atwhat you are being commissioned for. Try to get a feel for what the budgetshould be.You just have to negotiate really. It’s the same advice you’dgive to someone buying or selling a car.“You’ve got to fight your corner. Breaking down all the figures to show

the client where the value is going is obviously something that is going tomake a budget easier to justify. However, the truth at the moment is if aclient comes to you and says, ‘You’ve got to throw in that moving imagestuff because the other person we are considering for the job is going to dothat,’ then you have just got to weigh it up and decide whether you want todo the job or not.”Horton-Stephens believes that for some photographers, proficiency in

moving image may not necessarily be worth anything extra financially,but could simply provide extra leverage to win a commission. “If you canuse the ability to do moving image as a bargaining counter then it may endbeing no more than that for you as an individual.”

www.horton-stephens.comSee more of Gary Salter’s work at www.garysalter.com

“There are a lot of people out there usingequipment and, in theory, capable of

producing technically proficient work, butit’s the age-old thing of actually stamping

your style on it.” Niall Horton-Stephens

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THE PHOTOGRAPHER:GREG WILLIAMSThe chances are you’ve already seen GregWilliams’s multimediawork. Perhaps you were among the twomillion people who clickedon the viral hit he created, a lo-fi, raunchy video he shot of Englishmodel Daisy Lowe dancing in her underwear while on location forUK Esquiremagazine. The viral videos he made with Megan Fox andRosie Huntington-Whiteley for US Esquire and Agent Provocateurrespectively have drawn in six million views between them. If you haven’tcaught those, you’ve probably seen his moving image adverts, such as theones that covered London during the 2008 campaign for the Bond filmQuantum of Solace.For several years nowWilliams has consistently stayed ahead of the

convergence curve. But the video he made with Daisy Lowe demonstratesthe difficulty of navigating the as yet uncharted terrain of calculating aviral video’s value. Shot spontaneously as part of a day shoot, the video hasentered the internet hall of fame. It was a hit for him and for Esquire, but asan editorial rather than commercial job, the fee was below his usual day rate.“I don’t think I got anything else for doing that,” he says. “Obviously, with

advertising it’s very different. Magazine-wise you normally get anythingfrom 10% to 20% extra on the budget. But it’s not great and it needs tochange. The thing is that we’re in such a new turnaround.”As for the two million hits he attracted for Esquire? “I don’t know how

that relates directly to sales of their magazine, but inherently you are stillstuck into a market that pays very little. I don’t do editorial for the money,I do editorial for the exposure and to get material, and for the syndicationand the creativity.”

As one of the leading names capitalising on the convergence movement,Williams is more savvy than most about how to make sure that the newskillset he offers does pay. The bottom line? “I try to look at it from theclient’s perspective as well. I look at what value I’m adding and think whatthat could mean for them monetarily. If I make a viral film for someoneand six million people download it, all the blogs are talking about it and theend result is that someone is going to sell more underwear or moreanything, then you are worth something because you are adding value;as soon as you do that you can start putting your prices up.”Williams’s association with moving images goes back a long time,

pre-dating the wholesale movement to moving image that was ushered in byCanon. He spent his early career as a specialist photographer on film setsand during this time his work became heavily influenced by film lightingtechniques. By osmosis he quickly acquired the right skillset and visual styleto propel him through the transition.“For the past five years I’ve lit nearly everything I’ve done with hot lights

as opposed to strobe,” he explains. “That was a big thing because for a lot ofphotographers their entire look is based on a strobe setup and on that depthof field you get from strobe. To get that same effect from hot light eitherrequires a hell of a lot more light or a much smaller sensor on the camera togive that super-crispness. I’ve worked on about 130 movies as a specialistphotographer and that’s obviously been very helpful because I’ve watchedthe process.”In 2007 Williams even pioneered his own new unique take on

convergence; the Moto, essentially a moving photo, which first came into



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“ ...but inherently you arestill stuck into a market thatpays very little. I don’t doeditorial for the money,I do editorial for the exposureand to get material, andfor the syndication and thecreativity.” Greg Williams

Above:RosieHuntington-Whiteley inanadvert forAgentProvocateur,LoveMeTender... orElse.Left:DaisyLowe ina filmshoton location for UK Esquire.Oppositepage:CarlaGugino inTell-Tale.



widespread use during the poster campaign for Quantumof Solace. “I came up with the idea of doing these Motos in2007. I made my first one at the beginning of 2008,” hesays. His interest in film evolved into a couple of “one ortwo-minute films, which led on to doing 10-minute shorts.”He has recently been decorating his mantelpiece with theawards those shorts have brought in. Sergeant Slaughter,My Big Brother won him Best Direction at the 2010Chicago Short Film Festival and Tell-Tale won BestPhotography at the 2011 NewYork Short Film Festival.

“Later on last year I made a one-hour documentary, and I’m now in theprocess of starting work on a full-length feature. It’s really interesting howa still photo that started to breathe has led on in a really small space of time,just over two years.”This development had, however, been seeded in Greg’s work for a number

of years. Formerly a reportage photographer, his experience on film sets ledto the development of a unique way of working. “A lot of my portraitsessions turned into scenes,” he says. “I would light and create a scene for anactor and then would more or less do the job of a photojournalist once I hadcreated it and just shoot them running a scene; through that I started to getexpressions and things that felt less like poses and more like people being.That has all been very helpful. Ostensibly, I was directing films but theywere just being taken on stills cameras.”His Daisy Lowe video, however, was quite a different animal, being much

more spontaneous in the way it was created. He puts down its success to acombination of personality, coincidence and chemistry, as is so often thecase with the imprecise science of creating a viral, where luck so regularlyplays a part.“The reason that film was successful was because she was so natural and

into it and sexy and a great dancer. But she looked like fun, she looked likeshe didn’t take herself too seriously. She looked like you’d have a great nightout with that girl. That’s what people liked about it,” he says.“The only reason that’s good is because it’s totally her. We did light it, but

we didn’t light it much. It’s very, very natural. The biggest light source wasthe wraparound ambient light outside the windows.“All that happened was that we did a photo shoot and each time she

changed her clothes we put her in front of the camera and we played thissong again and she danced. I think if we’d known it was going to be sopopular we would have probably thought about it a bit harder. But I thoughtof it as we were taking the first photo.”That flexibility to create opportunities on the hoof is, of course, a real

talent. And it’s talent, Greg believes, that is still any photographer’s callingcard, over and above an expanding repertoire of technical wizardry withvideo. “The best advice is to make yourself indispensable,” he says.“You’ve got somehow to differentiate what you offer. This is advice toanyone trying to be a photographer or director. The people who get well paidare those who have an identity – a style, a look, a set of contacts, or anoutlook on life.”

www.gregwilliams.comwww.gandbandco.com

THE AGENT: MARK GEORGE“Every photographer is going to have to get into themode of shootingfilm if they want tomake it,” agent Mark George states bluntly abouthow important amultimedia skillset has become. “Media now is notcosting clients anything, because they’ve got the internet. They’re notstupid. They can save a lot of money and have the same amount ofrecognition of the product and the services that they are trying to sell,without any media costs.” For several years George, whose professional

background is in advertising, has been at the front line of the transition,setting standards of practice and financing that are fair to both thephotographers on his books and their clients.Though demand for multimedia still represents just a fraction of the

commissions which go through him, it’s an area that is growing all the time,especially as the technology continues to develop so quickly. “Because themedia is quite small the resolution is quite small, which means you can get

away with shooting it on a Canon camera, rather than getting into theRED Cam,” he says. This new phase favours the client in many ways, butGeorge is optimistic that it also offers greater opportunities to workingphotographers. The most important thing in maintaining the balance ofbenefit remains an assertive approach to negotiating fees.“My philosophy is that if you are doing something for a company in

order for them to increase their sales, you have to get compensated forthat,” he says. “You have to get compensated for when your pictures areused commercially; that’s your industry. If you shoot the film at the sametime as you shoot the stills, in terms of a day, you should be compensatedfurther for that. That’s the difficulty – how do you persuade agencies whothink, ‘We’ve bought the guy’s time from 9 ’til 5, if at 3 o’clock he stopsshooting stills and he’s now shooting film, he still finishes at 5pm.’Well, you still have to pay him more.” George is immovable on this point.“I am very well-known for being quite rigorous about fees in terms ofusage,” he says.There’s no fixed formula for exactly how much the ability to work in

multimedia is worth, but as a guideline, he feels that a good rule of thumbis to expect to “get paid twice. Even if it takes a day. The agencies don’tseem to mind, because they are saving so much money. I’ve always beenvery keen that if you shoot something and it’s going to go to the UK only,then you get your fees. If it’s going to go all over the world, then you getbigger fees, because that means it’s not commissioned anywhere else in the

“My philosophy is that if you are doing something fora company in order for them to increase their sales,you have to get compensated for that. You have to getcompensated for when your pictures are usedcommercially; that’s your industry.” Mark George

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world and worldwide the sales are increasing because of your ability toproduce an image that excites people enough to want to buy this product.So it’s part of that. If you are then going to be doing new media, then youshould be compensated for that as well.”

After all, photographers who can multitask offer something new andvaluable to advertising clients – creative coherence across all platforms ofa campaign. “It can be very creative, because they are using creativephotographers, and there’s a synergy between the press (the posters andthe paper campaign) and the film. Clients are jumping at it because theyhaven’t got all the big production costs for the film, they are gettingsynergy, and they are not having to spend money on media. Everyone iswinning really.”

He firmly believes there are greater earning opportunities for thephotographer who has the technical skills and creative nous to turn a day’sstills shoot into an opportunity to create video, which can then potentiallyreach an enormous market online.

“If photographers want to get ahead, they are going to have to be in aposition where they can be employed to do that (shoot film), becauseagencies at the moment are thinking, just as an afterthought, ‘I wonder ifthis photographer can shoot this film?’The next stage is going to be,‘Which photographer can we use who can shoot the stills and the film?’And that becomes critical.

“The canny photographers are shooting their stills with continuous light,which means they don’t have to change that. They literally just have the

same camera, same tripod, same lighting setup and they just have to roll thefilm rather than shutter it. And you can imagine how quick that is.”

One thing George is adamant about, however, is that in seeking to redefinetheir role, a photographer should not try to become a jack of all trades,stretching themselves too thinly in the process.

Rather than convergence representing the total integration of the twodifferent disciplines – stills photography and film directing – he suggeststhat a new middle discipline is emerging that is more within thephotographer’s remit.

“Photographers are not film directors,” he says, “until they down theirstills cameras and focus on understanding about film direction and all itscomplexity. They are photographers who have been asked to shoot somemoving image.”

“My experience has been that photographers are given an idea to shootand they want it to reflect what the photographer has done with the stills.In a way, you are being paid as a good technician and a good shoot director.Those are an extension of the skills that photographers already have.”

www.markgeorge.comSeemore of Jim Fiscus’s work at www.fiscusphoto.com

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Dolls.Oppositepage:Levis,bothbyJimFiscus.

TO SEE MORE INSPIRING FILMS GO TOWWW.PROFESSIONALPHOTOGRAPHER.CO.UK



Brooklyngang,Coney Island,NewYorkCity,1959.

There are few nameswithin the world ofphotography that bringthe sharp intake ofrespect due to the greats.Bruce Davidson is oneof those names.His images speak ofNew York, of Americaand of the heritage ofMagnum. Peter Silvertoncaught up with himrecently to shoot thebreeze and get behindthe images and theman; this is the evidenceof that conversation.

Bruce Davidson

When Saul Bellow, that great chronicler ofthe American male, wanted a phrase thatwould sum up – no, embody – the ambitionand desire and drive and confidenceand grasp that made the 20th century theAmerican century, this is what he wrote:“I am an American, Chicago born...”

That’s the opening of The Adventures of AugieMarch. (Bellow himself was Canadian and onlymoved to Chicago at the age of nine. But no matter.)Bellow continued: “Chicago, that sombre city – and[I] go at things as I have taught myself, free-style,and will make the record in my own way: first toknock, first admitted; sometimes an innocentknock, sometimes a not so innocent.” It wasBellow’s third novel – and his first great one. It is

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the story of a man making his own way in theworld, getting there on nothing more than his own‘pluck and luck’. It appeared in 1953.

In that year, Bruce Davidson – who was and isan American, Chicago born, in 1933 – was justsetting out on the life behind the lens which wouldpretty much follow the parabola mapped out inthat combative Bellow opening. In half a centuryor so of photography, Davidson has shaped aworld for himself – and therefore us. Us all.Like W. Eugene Smith, he has not just takenpictures – lots of them, lots of good ones, somegreat ones – but created a world. Or rather, like hisfirst mentor, Cartier-Bresson, he has hung aroundlong enough to have created worlds. As that othergreat chronicler of American male desire anddreamings,WaltWhitman, put it, in Song of Myself:“I encompass worlds and volumes of worlds.”

In 1953, Bruce Davidson was a student at one ofthe world centres of photography – Rochester, NewYork, which was to 20th-century photography whatAuguste Belloc’s studio on the BoulevardMontmartre was to its 1850s predecessor. It waswhere the technological standards and methodswere set out and determined.A small city just southof Lake Ontario, Rochester was home to Kodak.So it was where film stock was not just made butbalanced. Kodak film was set to Rochester’slatitude, longitude and climate. Whenever welooked at a Kodak picture, we were looking at the

world and experiencing it through the filter ofRochester’s particular light. The city calls itselfTheWorld Image Centre. (It’s also home to Bausch& Lomb, original makers of Ray-Bans. So it alsoliterally coloured the way we view the world.)

Davidson was at the Rochester Institute ofTechnology – one of the things he learned from ateacher, the photography writer Ralph Hattersley,was ‘the idea comes first’. He was a good student.Happy, too, and diligent. Here is something hewrote at the time: “In opposition to most othercollege campuses, which tend to shield the studentfrom life as a reality, RIT’s campus is life itself; lifeand its realities are all around us... Let us find thethings here that are here.”

Life itself. Life and its realities. Let. Us. Find.The. Things. Here. That. Are. Here. Life, here,reality, us, find. He was 20 years old when he wrotethat. It was a manifesto of sorts – a declaration ofintent and purpose and desire and aims. Give ortake a commission or two, he has stuck to it ever

since. Six decades of work since that youthfuldeclaration, all of it shaped by the rhythm of hisown pragmatic philosophy. “We all fail. The Earthfails. The sun will fail. You have to have stayingpower.” That’s how he put it to me when we talked.I thought of the French philosophe RomainRolland’s guiding principle: pessimism of theintellect, optimism of the will.

He has just won the Outstanding Contributionto Photography prize in the 2011 Sony WorldPhotography Awards. Previous honourees includeEve Arnold, Marc Riboud and Phil Stern.The judging committee included photographerssuch as Anton Corbijn, Dafydd Jones, TerryO’Neill, Nan Goldin, Elliott Landy, Susan Meiselasand Magnum’s Martine Franck and Elliott Erwitt.The exhibition opens at Somerset House on26April – and there’s another of Davidson’s work atthe Chris Beetles gallery in May.

In his three-volume career retrospective,OutsideInside, he wrote: “Through 50 years inphotography, I have entered worlds in transition,seen people isolated, abused, abandoned, andinvisible. I work out of a frame of mind that isconstantly changing, challenging perceptions andprejudices. I view my work as a series. I often findmyself an outsider on the inside discovering beautyand meaning in the most desperate of situations.”Some highlights of beauty and meaning from thosedecades behind a lens...

1950s:A Brooklyn gang, not much younger thanhe was. They were called the Jokers – a mordantirony not lost on him. “Those pictures are not aboutgangs, they are about abandonment – how a cityabandons people.” As a photographer, he hasalways packed a social conscience in his kit bag.

1960s: Having joined Magnum in 1956, he wasone of the agency’s four photographers on theset of the Marilyn Monroe picture, The Misfits.He went down south with the civil rights freedomriders, to Welsh pit valleys and to the west coast,where he took the picture of Tiny Naylor’s drive-inwhich was later used on the cover of the BeastieBoys’ Ill Communication album. At the end of thedecade he made East 100th Street, a record of apoverty-wracked block in East Harlem, shot withthe deliberate formality of a large format camera.

1970s: Down on the Lower East Side, there forthe last knockings of its Yiddish-speaking,semi-shtetl culture. Among the images is one ofa woman with aged parents, a death camp tattoo

clear and gut-turning on her forearm. I don’tthink it’s stretching it too far to see in all hispictures a determination to record, to never forget.A shadow of the holocaust falling on his heart andwork, perhaps.

1980s: Subway, a series of pictures taken on theNew York transport system when it had reachedsome kind of nadir – albeit a colourful one.“Almost novelistic in its multilayered ambition,”wrote Michael Brenson in the New York Times in1982.Above all, Davidson has been one of the greatchroniclers – and imaginers – of the poetics of theNewYork Street.

1990s: Central Park. Oklahoma City and thesurvivors of Timothy McVeigh’s truck bomb attackon a government – in which 168 people were killed.A return to that block in East Harlem, muchchanged after two decades. A series on SenatorMax Cleland who lost both legs and one arm inVietnam: a portrait of survival, direct andcompletely unsentimental.

2000s: To Paris, where he’d taken quite a fewpictures over the years. This time, though, he waslooking not at the people or the buildings but thetrees and the grass and the sky.

So what of the 2010s? Well, Davidson is 77 nowand still living and working in the same UpperWestSide Manhattan apartment he moved into some 40years ago. His apartment is full of stuff – books,equipment, boxes of prints. Stuff. “Oh, my god.”

It’s in the Belnord, on 86th between BroadwayandAmsterdam. It’s an enormous cod-Renaissancebuilding, a quarter of a century older thanDavidson, with a garden courtyard and fountains –the kind of place that a documentary photographerwould live in if life were a Woody Allen movie.(Right now, there’s a two-bedroom, two-bathroomfirst-floor corner apartment vacant if you’reinterested – $11,500 a month.) For a while at least,Robert Frank – “a master, a living legend,” saidDavidson – stored his films in the building.

The last great writer of Yiddish, Isaac BashevisSinger, also lived there. One of his stories wasturned into the Barbra Streisand movie Yentl.In 1978, he was awarded the Nobel Prize inLiterature. In 1974, he starred in Mr Singer’sNightmare and Mrs Pupko’s Beard, a short fantasymovie directed by Davidson who also made a bookwith and about Singer, too – Isaac Bashevis Singerand the Lower East Side. “He reminded me of mygrandfather, who was from Poland. We weren’torthodox or religious, so he was a missing link tomy upbringing.”

When we talked, he was preparing for aretrospective. “To edit is to face your truth.” He hadjust come off a 10-day stretch in his homedarkroom, probably listening to Maria Callas, as heoften does when printing. “Her voice is so strong ithides the sound of water.” As ever, he did all the

“We all fail. The Earth fails. The sun will fail.You have to have staying power.” Bruce Davidson



master prints himself. “Every one. When you’re inthe darkroom and you’re making a print, you’recoming close to the meaning of that photograph.I’m a Midwestern morning person so I got up at5.30 and printed until two in the afternoon.”When I wrote that he was Chicago born, I wasn’t

being quite accurate. He was born in Oak Park –now a western suburb of the big city but then, inDavidson’s words, “the first village west ofChicago.” Biographies generally describe him ashaving been raised by a single mother but, whilethat’s technically true, it gives the wrong flavour ofhis beginnings. He was never poor-poor, just notwell-off. “Poor but middle class in outlook.”His brother is a senior science academic at RutgersUniversity in New Jersey.His mother just made a bad marriage is all, to a

lawyer who preferred to gamble than work.Then she moved on, and has lived long enough notto regret it. She’s still around, at 100, still livingalone, still ‘feisty’. When Bruce was young, shewas a real-life Rosie the Riveter, making torpedoesin a wartime factory. She helped him to build abasement darkroom. There were uncles around, too.“They supported my work but thought I was a bit...sensitive. They were all on varsity football teams.”His first camera was a Falcon 127 – using a

46mm-wide film format that Kodak stoppedmaking in 1995. He was given it when he was sixor so. “Cost four dollars. I have it still these days.”Later, for his Bar Mitzvah, he got an Argus A2, a35mm rangefinder that was made not that far away,in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He still has that camera,too. “I have most of my cameras.”Then came one that was “really amazing”.

His stepfather was a commander in the navy andKodak gave all US Navy commanders a Medalist,a two-and-a-quarter rangefinder – a “big beast of acamera,” according to one fan. “He gave it to meand I was about 15 at the time, so I could explorethe city with it.” Oak Park was close enough to thecity that Bruce could take the El into town – adozen or so stops to the Loop. There, he was free toprowl and learn and take some pictures – so long ashe was not back home too late.

He won his first award, the Kodak National HighSchool snapshot contest, at the age of 16 with apicture of an owl. After college in Rochester, hemoved on to a graduate degree at Yale. There, hestudied with mid-20th-century photography’s mostinfluential non-photographer, Alexey Brodovitch.His precociously professional pictures of the Yalefootball team were published in LIFE magazine.Why did he take up photography? “The need to

have a friend. I would have a friend with mewherever I would go. A way of exploring life andbeing part of life and giving life to others – all thosethings came into play.With my camera I could findmy way inside. Photography for me has alwaysbeen my encyclopaedia, my literature. It was theway I learned, the way I understood the world.There’s always been that passion for photographywhich has sustained me.”So focused is he on photography that, even

though he took those pictures of the Brooklyn gangand even though he took pictures of LeonardBernstein around the same time, the fact that the

composer-conductor’s NewYork gang musical WestSide Story was the big Broadway show of themoment, that just didn’t get through to him – thenor now. “No, don’t think I was that aware of thatplay at that time.” A focused man. When he wasfirst commissioned to shoot Isaac Bashevis Singer,he thought he was photographing a singer.His first significant pictures – “my first serious

body of work” – were taken out west, where he wassent for training when he was drafted into the army.One day, he was hitchhiking down to Mexico foradventure – something he got more than hebargained for on another trip when he foundhimself locked up in jail for taking a picture in atown where photography was illegal. This time,though, his eye was taken by an old man drivingan old car – a Model T Ford. He and his wife –John and Kate Wall – agreed to be photographedby Davidson. They put him up, in their oldminers’ bunkhouse.“They let me stay in one room. There was

something about them. They were very close to

“Those pictures are notabout gangs, they are aboutabandonment – howa city abandons people.”Bruce Davidson

Brooklyn gang,New York City, 1959.

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each other and isolated in a defunct mining world.I don’t know how they existed. I just felt veryintimate and close to them and close to thebarrenness of the desert. It was very intimate,seeing them go to bed by kerosene lamp. It wasimportant to me. It put me in touch with the beautyof ageing.” Loving couples are a constant in hiswork, from that 1950s Arizona desert to analmost-coupling couple in the back seat of a car in1959 to a pair of young lovers framed by leafybranches in 1990s Central Park.Posted to Paris, he took a series of photographs

of a very old woman – The Widow of Montmartre,as they are known, a record of the aged wife of aminor Impressionist painter. “I was looking at thepast. She knew Toulouse-Lautrec and Renoir.”We see her from behind, pinning up her hair, atender view of a tender moment. And we see herframed in a doorway, dusted with that painter’sfriend, soft, overcast north light. And again, everycentimetre of her age showing as she rises to herfeet from a park bench – while a young coupleembrace in the foreground.By the end of the 1950s he had made his first

defining work, his pictures of a Brooklyn gang.He spent about 11 months on the project, workingthrough the winter without getting many pictureshe liked. Then the sun came and the action moved

to Coney Island. “It was spring-time. It all becamemore juicy and sexual and vibrant. Sometimes youfeel you’ll never get there. Then the clouds part andyou do get there. What keeps me going is thechallenge of finding the truth of what I’m workingon. My first photographs are often dumb.Then I awaken and begin to understand what I’mlooking at.”He found and made images which are rooted in

the moment yet so lucent that they still echoedenough for Bob Dylan to have used one of them forthe front of his most recent album, the suitablytitled Together Through Life. Magnum put togethera slide show of a number of those gang pictures andset it to a soundtrack of Beyond Here Lies Nothin’from Dylan’s album. (It’s easy to find online.I caught it at amazon.com. While you’re at it, havea look at the official video for that song. It’s a wholeother thing. It starts with a blood-decorated motelbed and gets rougher and tougher from there on in.Blood, syringes, knives, a hit-and-run and a final,tender loving kiss.)

“Do you know what was dangerous aboutthese kids? They were poor, deprived. The familieswere basically alcoholic. They had nothinggoing for them.” Unlike his own single-parentfamily. “My mother was working. We didn’tdrink. My uncles would buy us baseball gloves.These kids were isolated and didn’t even realisehow poor they were and how drunk their familieswere. This was before drugs came in and when theydid, it was devastating.”Strangely – particularly from the perspective of

2011 – his Brooklyn pictures gave Vogue the idea tohire him to shoot fashion. “I did it for a couple ofyears. Then I started going down south, for thefreedom riders.” He spent a good deal of timephotographing the Civil Rights struggle – and thepoverty, oppression and social devastation whichdrove it. “I couldn’t come to grips with thedichotomy between doing high fashion for richpeople and what I was doing down south.” So hestopped and did corporate work to support himself,his family and his personal projects. Even thatdidn’t last all that long.Mostly, he got his money from grants and

scholarships – a Guggenheim, in particular. And hedid editorial work. Commissions such as the Duffyfamily circus in Ireland, for Holiday magazine in1967. “My wife and I were newly married. I took

her there on honeymoon. It rained every day. I wasvery moved by that family. As a group, thosepictures are some of my strongest work.”One image among them holds my eye. It’s of aflaming-knife-throwing act – a woman in cowboyhat, boots and spangly swimsuit. What traps myheart, though, is a boy in the background, in a palesweater with a look of wonder, his right eyecatching and reflecting the glare of the flamingtorches. I look at it and think: that’s me. I thinkothers do, too. The universal in the particular.He did portraits, too, particularly for Esquire and

Harper’s Bazaar. “Very often environmentalportraits which showed the life of the person as wellas the person.” He did a series of Diana Ross andthe Supremes, for the Sunday Times Magazine,when they were just becoming stars. He had no ideawho they were.The 1970s were dominated by his East 100th

Street project. He used a large format camera togive it a gravity and sense of historical purpose.As ever, he was bearing witness. The 1980s took

him under the ground beneath his feet, to shootSubway – which, like nearly all of his work, wasput together over time. “I didn’t know what wasgoing to happen for me, I just rode the rails, so tospeak, for almost a year.”His images found and explored the aesthetic

potential of the awful. Previously, photographs ofthe subway – notablyWalker Evans’s secret, stolenones collected in Many Are Called – were in blackand white. “I found beauty in the graffiti, thepeople, the fluorescent light. So I switched toKodachrome 64 – which was just as well as it’s theonly film that lasts in darkness.” Which made itpossible for Tate Modern to show newly created,large format dye-transfer prints and for Steidl toproduce a new version of Davidson’s book of hispictures. “The colour was its meaning,” he says.They are often intimate and grimy images.

When asked what he was doing, he’d tell people hewas doing a book on the subway and the way itreally was – all fucked up. “What I didn’t tell themwas that I saw the subway as both beauty and beast.Some things that were horrible were beautiful andsome things that would be thought beautiful werebanal. I didn’t tell them what was going on in mymind. The man on a platform in the snow – it wasbeautiful, like a snow scene in Japan, like aWernerBischof photograph. I should have titled the bookTrain of Thought.” He’s not good on titles.He wanted to call his Steidl retrospective Journey ofConsciousness.The 1990s found him in Central Park, taking

pictures more or less on his doorstep. He arrivedthere by a diverse route. “There was a time in mylife when I wanted to be a National Geographicphotographer. That way, you can stay in goodhotels and you can spend time on a project.”The magazine invited him to do some work. “I saidI wanted to go to the Congo. They said, Chicago.”So he retraced the roots and routes of his boyhood.It worked out and they asked him to do anotherproject. He suggested Central Park. “I asked to doit over four seasons. They said that they could onlypay for three.”He wanted to do the project in black and white.

They wanted colour. So he did colour. He startedon the job, put together a presentation, showed it tothe National Geographic people. “They hated it,practically kicked me out of the office. A mancalled Grave told me, “We’re going to pull theplug.” So he spent another three years shooting thepark in black and white. “Ironically, people collectthe colour pictures. They weren’t bad, just too manyhomeless people for National Geographic.”He’s been around long enough to have been

friends with Diane Arbus. She took him on one ofher bus trips, to a burlesque show in Atlantic City.“I think we had a mutual respect. We hada friendship based on respect.” He explained by

“Sometimes you feel you’ll never get there.Then the clouds part and you do get there.”Bruce Davidson

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way of one of his own pictures, of a circus dwarf,JimmyArmstrong. “I was encountering somethingpainful in myself. I looked straight at him andhe looked straight at me.” But while Arbus homedin on one image, Davidson’s approach is wider,broader. “My work has an accumulative effectfrom several pictures.” As he put it in a 2009New York Times interview, “a series of images thatare kind of like charcoals that catch fire and burninto each other.”A life lived behind the lens then but also, I think

and feel, a life lived beyond the lens. Unusually fora photographer, he seems to have made himselfa sensible and rational home and personal life.Just the one wife and still with her after morethan four decades. Two daughters, one of them aphotographer herself – she was conceived inDeath Valley when he was on set for Antonioni’sZabriskie Point. Grandchildren to play with – andoccasionally photograph. Very occasionally.The relationship in the moment, as he told me,should always trump the distraction of image-making. Of course, you can never know another’sheart but, as far as I can make out, he’s had a funand sensible and productive life, making a fair fistof the balance between desires and possibilities.“Photography is democracy. It’s a democratic art

form, not a snob form. If the Beastie Boys andDylan find meaning in my photographs, that’sgreat. But we’re very careful. We’ve turned peopledown. I wouldn’t let a perfume company use myphotographs. I wouldn’t allow them to be used tosell cigarettes.” Which would put paid to thepossibility of an approach by British AmericanTobacco for his shot of one of the Brooklyn gangguys cupping a cigarette below a sign which reads:‘Kent filters best for the flavor you like!’Right now, he’s working on his Los Angeles

series, a topographical project, patrolling theboundaries between the city and the country –rus in urbe, as old Romans put it. He’s using a largeformat camera, a conscious echo of Americanlandscape photography’s early glass-plate years –Muybridge, Ansel Adams. “Plants kind of speak tome, and trees, particularly palm trees,” he told the

New York Times in 2009, perhaps seriously.“Birds less so, but I’m getting very interested inthem, too.”He hasn’t taken a picture for nearly a year,

though. The weather has been too good. “I wantedto photograph some places in the hills that had beenburned out. I hired someone to find them but theywere green again. He found one canyon, though, atan elevation of 3,000ft and five miles from a road.We’d have to backpack it. I said, ‘Wait a minute,you give me chills, I’m not going to do that walk at77. If it were at sea level, maybe.’”That’s when, he said, he realised it was time to

find a subject he could handle at his age. “Nudes,”he told me. “I’m the right age.” He was joking.He’s never done nudes. Well, hardly ever. There area couple of rather odd ones in his East Harlem workand one of his wife and their two daughters on theirUpper West Side apartment sofa. It’s sweet andtrusting but he couldn’t have made a living that way.“Our children got teased.” Surely not. In truth, he’sthinking not of flesh but of Los Angeles.

“I’m going back in June, when the hills get brown.I’m not hoping for a fire but...”Does he have a favourite among his own

pictures? “The one I haven’t taken yet.”

www.magnumphotos.com

The Sony World Photography AwardsExhibition is on at Somerset House, Strand,London WC2R 1LA, from 26 April-22 May.www.worldphoto.org

Bruce Davidson is on at Chris BeetlesFine Photographs, 3-5 Swallow Street,London W1B 4DE, from 4-28 May.www.chrisbeetlesfinephotographs.com

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“I was encounteringsomething painful in myself.I looked straight at him andhe looked straight at me.”Bruce Davidson

FOR MORE GREAT INTERVIEWS WITHPROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHERS VISITWWW.PROFESSIONALPHOTOGRAPHER.CO.UK

TheDwarf,Palisades,NewJersey,1958.

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Thefuture

isThe photographic world’sapproach to convergence

seems to be creating hard-linecamps, both for and against.

So we asked film makerRichard Jobson and

photographer David Eustaceto put their cases from

the perspective of the twoconverging disciplines.Their responses are

passionately held and filledwith common sense

and personal experience.


The past few years have seen the beginning of a new movement invisual language; convergence is a celebration of both the movingand still image, creating opportunities for people to realise theirnarrative ambitions with a low-cost, polished product withhigh production values. This was unimaginable in previous years.The awakening is global, communal and thrilling.The first Converge event, held at the National Film Theatre in London in

2010, presented a variety of ingenious work created through the lens of theconvergence breakthrough camera, the Canon EOS 5D MkII. The eventpresented an eclectic mix of film work, from Dan Chung’s Chinese parade

Richard Jobson is an internationally recognisedfilm maker and figurehead in the UK for the worldof convergence. Here, with typical robustness,he sets out why he believes photographers cannotafford to ignore the new world of imaging.

THE FILMMAKER’S VIEW

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through Tiananmen Square to Philip Bloom’s work with film director GeorgeLucas. All of the work screened caught the scale, the invention and thebeauty of the finished image, and was created on DSLRs.

On the narrative front I presented my film, The Journey, also createdon DSLRs, a harrowing depiction of the experiences of a young woman asshe suffers being sex trafficked from Eastern Europe to the UK. It wasbrutal and violent, and showed the camera in a series of different situations,delivering everything that was asked of it.

Also using the camera to maximum effect was the war photographerturned documentary film maker Danfung Dennis, who presented raw,unedited clips from his experience of being embedded with the American

Marine Corps in Helmand province in Afghanistan. His film at this stagedidn’t have a shape, it didn’t even have a name or the funds to becompleted, but what was shown on that particular day was enough for theproducers we put him in touch with to support and complete what hasbecome an astonishing piece of work.

If there were any doubts about what could be achieved with this camera,especially in the hands of a photographer who understands how to push it toits limits technically, then Danfung’s film Hell and Back Again has endedthem. At the Sundance Film Festival in the Utah mountains this year it wonthe grand jury prize for best documentary film and, amazingly, bestcinematography. This festival is regarded by everyone in the world of cinemaas the most important platform for innovative, independent new work – thecompetition just to get in, never mind win, is frightening. This film has

changed the game for everyone. It’s beautifully shot and every frame isa near-breathing photograph, combined with a narrative edge that is anall-consuming, emotional roller-coaster that is full of the contradictionsand paradoxes of war. Hopefully you will be able to see it later this year ina cinema near you.

It’s the combination of the stunning end image and the liberation of usingsuch a small device that has excited film makers. The photographic eye isnever lost to the HD DSLR user, it forces you to think in a different way, toconsider the image in front of you more carefully than simply capturing themoment, the motion, the action. Convergence is not a new idea, it has beenaround for a long time, but it has been carefully categorised in different

places as we cultural librarians tend to do; it makes everything easierknowing where they are rather than why they might be there.

When I think of convergence the work of director Godfrey Reggio anddirector of photography Ron Fricke in the stunning collision of images intheir film Koyaanisqatsi comes to mind. This montage of machines,architecture, people, skies and explosions creates an epic journey throughmodern-day human endeavour with both its destructive and constructiveambitions. It’s the cinema of photography. The image is king, it dictates thenarrative and in essence gives the impression that the sequences are simplybeautiful stills into which someone has breathed life. French director ChrisMarker was also way ahead of the game with his 1962 film La Jetée, amovie of stills telling a story that was both complex and profoundly moving.

I look at the stills of Gregory Crewdson and think of narrative cinema, oreven the art photographer Cindy Sherman’s peculiar and mystifyingcharacter re-creations. My favourite photographer is William Klein, whoseimages present layers of storytelling caught in the same whisper of time.


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“Great photography captures a moment when duration is measured not by secondsbut by its relation to a lifetime.” Richard Jobson

Above:RichardJobson’s latestDSLRshort filmproject, IThinkYouNeedALawyer.



I love how they don’t freeze time like most photography but seem to flickerwith life, not death. James Nachtwey’s photography records grief, loss,injustice, suffering, violence and death. The images are haunting and eternal,and bear witness to the horror of war. He says he is seeking a deeper andbroader treatment of events – something with a narrative, cinematic quality.All of these amazing, creative voices seek to enter the mind and reach the

heart with the power of photography’s immediacy and that for me is thesingle most important philosophy at the heart of convergence. The commongoal is to use these new tools to establish powerful work that is bothcaptivating in the traditional language of cinema, which is based oncharacter and action, but also through the potency of photography. There isno excuse for even micro-budget work to be of poor quality. The handheldcinema-vérité style can no longer use the excuse of hopeless, cheap cameraswith fixed lenses. There was once a commonly held argument that cheapHDV cameras empowered us all and gave everyone the opportunity to shoot

their own movie and that this was democracy in motion. In some ways theadvent of HD DSLR technology has created a massive rift in this argumentas the technical superiority of the finished image in the hands of the peoplewho know what they are doing as opposed to those who don’t is seismic.This brings me to an interesting area in the somewhat unbalanced area of

how film makers are embracing the new photographic tools in comparison tophotographers. I feel film makers have truly embraced this creative ‘turningpoint’ and used the opportunity to put innovation to their advantage butphotographers in general seem to be less willing to engage with motion andhave dragged their heels to the point of denial; however, the truth is thatconvergence is wrapping itself around them, whether they like it or not.This is not a time for intransigence but a moment to revitalise your game

plan. Why not think of your work as both stills and motion, why notchallenge your own fears and insecurities about pressing the 25fps button?Photographers are best placed to create sensational images, that’s whatthey do, that’s what they have worked towards, so why not do both? We allhave stories to tell, but photographers are in an amazing place to tell thembetter, make them look better and make them breathe.This year’s Converge Festival at the NFT was all about ideas, about

people taking the technology into new places, yet the work coming fromphotographers was disappointing. There seemed to be a collective sense thatreportage was enough, that just pointing the camera would do the job. It hadthe flavour of immediacy but also an inert laziness. Where was the plan?Where were the characters? If character is defined by action, where the hellwas the action? The fashion work offered to us, for example, was littlemore than electronic press kits from a client’s stills shoots – big deal!Where were the ideas? Where were the images to compete in a wider,more exhilarating market? The tricks were there: the Lensbabies, thetilt-and-shift blurs, the wide-open apertures and the occasional swish ofslow motion, but so what? Where were the stories?Great photography captures a moment when duration is measured not by

seconds but by its relation to a lifetime. I wanted to see great photography inmotion that had challenged the banal and comfortable superficialityof modern living; it’s almost as if there is nothing beyond leisure, thewhimsical, the pretty, the luxurious and the defined. What would WalkerEvans or Robert Frank do with one of these cameras? Certainly not the

ordinary. Would Richard Avedon have turned angst into his vocabulary ofloveliness? Probably. Would it have been mind-blowing? Definitely.There are too many photographers out there looking the part without

being the part. I think it’s time to stand and be counted, make the seriousfrivolity of fashion more interesting, make the dull thud of lifestyle andleisure more brutal, make reality less colourful and more perilous. It’s time.In some ways the world doesn’t reward ideas or emotions, it rewards‘coolness’. But for me that as an objective is spent, tired and exhausted –what’s cool? It’s a retro term for a retro world; what about engaging withwhat’s in front of you rather than dipping into the ink of the past?It’s a peculiar paradox that the tools are in front of us but some people feelthey are the wrong tools in the wrong time. I’m afraid it’s the other wayaround; if you don’t engage with this phenomenon, then you will be theright person at the right time who just happens, through your own choice,to be doing the wrong thing.

For me the future is clear. Like punk rock somebody kick-started an ideathat nobody was ever going to hand to you on a plate, you’ve got to get outthere and do it yourself. The beauty of convergence in its current state is thatit has now moved into moulding technology to its own needs. The iPad appPOST Matter is a prime example of how photography, cinema, ideas, musicand words converge into a virtual magazine that is more a completeexperience than a pale imitation of another type of media. It’s bold inambition and inspiring in execution. It makes no play at futurology butsimply creates a world that demands that progress will win. It’s a stunningventure that blazes with confidence on a platform that was being lost toarcane game and information-busting apps.POST Matter is not about information, it’s about ideas. It’s when ideas are

suffocated by the repetition of commerce that creative photographers aregenuinely at their most vulnerable. The fear of the client, the terror of therecession, a world in flux, a desire to return to how it used to be, are justsome of the elements to confront a technically brilliant, smart photographerevery day. The response so far has not been challenging. The determinationof the many to continue along the same old worn-out path against the will ofthe few to embrace the new is quite tragic. Tragedy after all comes fromthe encounter of human will with fate, and this is a time, one of thoseexciting moments when the only thing to do is to respond, do something;doing nothing is not an option.HD DSLR technology is improving by the day, but it’s only the tool, the

rest is up to us and for me it feels similar to the moment when I was 16 andstrapped on a guitar for the first time and found a way to channel myfeelings through a song with my band the Skids. It’s the same buzz, thesame passion, just different tools; after all, there’s plenty to be angry aboutgoing on in the world right now as well as much to admire and love.Convergence is not an HD DSLR movement, it’s bigger and more

complicated than that. Convergence is essentially about the meeting point ofideas that revitalise our desire to tell stories with a visual aesthetic, it’s apost-modern hybrid that has no parameters other than excellence. If you’rereading this magazine you already have that quality – now go get the rest.

www.richardjobson.comVisit the Converge website at http://theconvergence.co.uk

“The common goal is to use these new tools to establish powerful work that is bothcaptivating in the traditional language of cinema, which is based on character andaction, but also through the potency of photography.” Richard Jobson


I try to embrace anything and everything new within reason, as I seeno point in trying to fight innovations. But I also hold on to the beliefthat whatever innovation comes along none will ever provide auniversal answer. To me, just like any camera, one that shootsmoving images is just another tool, it’s something that allows me torecord my vision and lets me capture something that fascinates me.The current fashion for photographers to add film making to their

portfolio is not going to suit everyone. Film making and photography havecome closer to each other as disciplines but they must remain astwo separate ways of creating, two different ways of telling stories.I try to keep these two disciplines separate in my head but they do sit side

by side on my website.I recently shot two commercials with DSLRs on the Canon EOS 7D and

5D MkII. In the past I’ve used more traditional film cameras, but thebudgets on these particular commissions made me suggest to the client thatwe worked with DSLRs instead. Having completed the commercials I cansafely say that the pluses of working with them greatly outweigh thenegatives. The flexibility and ease of use, as well as the ability to control andwork with small budgets and teams, are major pluses for me, but there is onedefinite negative. When I shot with an ARRI 35mm film camera the clientrespected my discipline in shooting; each shot was carefully constructed andcontrolled due to the fact that film is not cheap and the time and cost insetting up new concepts can eat up budgets. But with the DSLRs they wantyou to try lots of different takes and ideas, as there is no extra cost incurred.This results in shooting way more footage than I would previously have doneand therefore creating a lot more work for my editor and me in the editing

process. The reason for all these extra client demands is that they now wantthe finished work to appear on so many different platforms, includingtelevision, the web and general promotion, so they try to cram as much intothe shoot day as they can and the DSLRs let them do this.Today every client’s main priority is budget and although I could try to put

the case for using larger film cameras, the fact that DSLRs are so cheap towork with is always going to be a compelling argument. The budget isalways the first box that needs to be ticked. From a creative’s point of viewthere is no point trying to put a screw in with a saw so you have to getthe right tool for the job. On that level the quality with DSLRs is there.The quality is incredible.The two films I shot with them had very different scripts. The first was for

a travel company and the script presented the ideal scenario for workingwith these cameras. The whole film was about capturing moments, snippetsof people and things. With DSLRs you can do that because they are almostpoint and press. You can just let the camera roll.I seem to remember years ago David Bailey saying you can point a

Hasselblad at someone and they know you are a photographer; if you pointan 8 x 10 at them they panic; and if you point a little cheap camera at themthey pull a funny face. The same thing happens when you are shooting films.Most of the actors I work with on these commercials are not Robert De Niro,they are jobbing actors and the small cameras help them to relax and go withthe film-making process. The camera is less threatening and intimidating tothem and therefore helps me to get a better performance from them.Even though I am a photographer when I’m shooting these commercials,

I still try to work with a director of photography (DP) and I take the role ofdirector, but increasingly I am forced to take on both roles. Again budgetsare dictating the process.For the second film I shot on DSLRs I had to take on both roles but that

was a very different script from the first film’s. This one was for VisitScotland and was full of highly scripted landscapes. I picked the landscapesbut the client and agency had strong ideas about what kind of action wasgoing to take place within them. It required big vistas and I was amazed atthe latitude of the DSLRs and how they were able to maintain quality. But toget the quality you have to implement traditional photographic disciplines of

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David Eustace has worked as a stills photographerfor a variety of clients for more than 25 years.He has also directed commercials with traditionalfilm-making equipment. Having just completedtwo more commercials using DSLRs he tells usof his reservations about photographers shootingmoving image, his thoughts on convergenceand the cold reality of shooting both still andmoving images for commercial clients.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S VIEW

“Today every client’s main priority is budget and although I could try to put thecase for using larger film cameras, the fact that DSLRs are so cheap to work withis always going to be a compelling argument.” David Eustace


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Above:HappyFeet,aTVcommercial commissionedbyJamesVillaHolidays.



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understanding light, taking readings and using filters; you can’t just forgetall the things that make you a good photographer.For me the ability to make films is definitely something which I need to

offer my clients, but for a lot of photographers it’s something that has landedin their laps and there is nothing they can do about it. You have to be awareof it and also that film making is being devalued by clients in exactly thesame way as photography was with the advent of digital. People want longtracking shots but are not willing to pay for the jibs or cranes needed tocreate that shot. The more that clients think they understand the process offilm making as well as they do photography, the less they will want to pay.Clients think they understand but they rarely do.Just as not all clients will understand film making or photography, it is

unrealistic to think or expect that every photographer can be a director, DP

or producer. Just as owning a camera doesn’t make you a photographer,having a camera that can shoot moving image is not going to make you afilm maker. Some photographers are able to combine still images to createnarratives or shoot projects and they should be able to transfer comfortably,but if they can’t they will face difficulties. Photographers who go out andshoot one shot will not become film makers, you need a sense of narrative.Just because a photographer has a Canon EOS 7D or 5D MkII or any othercamera that shoots moving image it does not mean they are going to be ableto shoot a 30-second commercial. They are not going to understand how oneimage needs to follow another, or about scale or proportion or any otheraspects of the film maker’s art.I’m pretty stubborn and try to keep the two professions of image making

separate but if a client asks me to do both, then I will. I currently have aclient in the US to whom I’m talking about a project; it’s a small, internalcampaign for a car manufacturer which they came to me to shoot because Icould do both, but I’ve asked for a DP as well because I’ve told them that ifI’m shooting stills I can’t shoot the commercial at the same time. I can tellthe DP which lens to use and how to shoot for me – it’s like having a secondshooter on a stills shoot. But again I am only going to be able to do this if thebudget allows; if not, I’m going to have to do both, even though it is not mypreferred way of working. I can do this, but I’m always honest with myclients and would tell them that if I worked this way the final result wouldprobably be okay, but if they wanted something special that was only goingto happen through luck with this setup. Whereas I can guarantee somethingspecial if the right setup is put in place. As in all things there are reasons fordoing things properly. For example, if a shoot is of someone dancing in a

studio, then shooting both myself is not a problem because everything can becontrolled, but problems can develop when you are not completely in controland that’s why you should have a full team.Seamus McGarvey, who is a friend of mine and one of the world’s leading

DPs (Atonement, High Fidelity, The Hours, Charlotte’s Web, World TradeCenter and many more), is also a beautiful stills photographer. He hasalways been able to keep the two creative disciplines separate but has alsoallowed each to inform the other. The problem for the rest of us is that clientsare looking at photographers and saying, “You own a camera, you know howto use it, cameras now make films, so you can make a film.”Can photographers capture something interesting? Of course they can butwhat are they capturing for the client and what is its true value?In addition to film making, another issue that photographers are going to

have to come to terms with is a technical one: many now work with varioustypes of strobe lighting which don’t work for the moving image, where youhave to work with continuous light from HMIs or LEDs. That’s a whole new

way of lighting to master and a steep learning curve for photographers. It’s abig jump for photographers to become film makers but a much smallermovement for film makers to shoot stills; even so, I think photographersshould get involved with convergence only if they are interested in it, notbecause they think they should do or feel pressured to. As an image maker,I can’t help but be interested.I understand that some photographers will want to remain purists and not

engage with the moving image, as many have not engaged with digitalcapture. I think other photographers will embrace convergence because theyare fascinated by its creative possibilities and I’m sure some will see offeringto do both as a new way to make money, whatever the quality of the workthey produce. Sadly, it is the last group who will probably be the mostsuccessful and their clients will not know whether what they are being givenis good or not. This may seem brutal but I am just being honest. I just wantthe client to walk away thinking that I’ve done a good job, whether it’s stillsor moving image.Whatever your attitude to convergence, one thing is for sure – you will

lose out on commissions if you are not able to offer it. So before you dismissit you have to be aware of that. But losing commissions is not why I aminvolved with convergence – it’s because as an image maker I’m fascinatedby ways of creating images. I can’t understand why a photographer wouldn’tbe interested in new ways of creating images. Photographers should not feelthreatened by new things, that is not what photography is about.

http://davideustace.com

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GOT SOMETHING TO SAY? TELL US YOUR VIEWS, GOOD OR BAD AT [email protected]

Above:Thesecondcommercial thatDavidshotonDSLRswasforVisitScotland.

“... losing commissions is not why I am involved with convergence – it’s because as animage maker I’m fascinated by ways of creating images.” David Eustace



RobinSchmidt,pictured,pitchinghisprojectoncrowdfundingwebsite IndieGoGotoshoothiscomedyadventureseriesSuperMassiveRaver inHongKong.R

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The social media revolution hasmade it easier than ever toget your name and work seen bynew audiences, but it couldalso help you pay for your nextproject. HD DSLR film makerRobin Schmidt breaks down theworld of social media andcrowdfunding and explains howfar he was prepared to goto finance his latest project.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE!Social media can sometimes feel like a dirty

phrase. It still retains slightly seedy connotationsand I couldn’t have cared less about it until a yearand a half ago. But what is it exactly? A coupleof wise web people named Andreas Kaplan andMichael Haenlein wrote a definition in theirarticle [in the Business Horizons journal],‘Users of the world, unite! The challenges andopportunities of social media’. It goes: “A groupof Internet-based applications that build on theideological and technological foundations of Web2.0, which allows the creation and exchange ofuser-generated content.”

Boring. Who cares? This sounds likeYouTube,it sounds like Facebook, and it doesn’t soundparticularly relevant to professionals – amateurcreatives, maybe, but the pros don’t need that,surely? I dug around for a better definition andhere’s one that really nails it for me:“Social media is the blending of technology andsocial interaction for the co-creation of value.”

“For the co-creation of value”, now that’sinteresting. In the digital world our work in itselfis becoming valueless. The turning point was thearrival of Napster [the music download site],which effectively ripped the heart out of the musicindustry business model. Increasingly, it’s in thearchitecture surrounding the work – the brand, orthe real-world interactions you can build aroundthe work – where the value resides. That’s veryhard for us to stomach when it requires suchdedication to get the work right in the first place.Social media, at its very best, is a dialogue withyour peers and with your consumers, the veryheart of which is the reinforcement, developmentand enrichment of value. And value is importantbecause it’s how we stand out, it’s how we retaina competitive edge and ultimately it’s why we getchosen. Facebook accounts for 25% of all pageviews in the US. That’s powerful.

So where do you start? Well, that’s entirely upto you, but I would suggest the first place is onTwitter. There’s an incredibly verbose, helpful,entertaining group of photographers and filmmakers on Twitter and the community is generousinto the bargain. It’s not about telling people whatyou’re having for breakfast and it would take toolong to go into the finer details about Twitter

Is it just me or does it feel like everything’sa bit bleak at the moment? During arecession creative industries tend to feelthe squeeze more than most and, combinedwith the plummeting cost of tools, thelandscape looks more than a little scary.Everyone seems to own a DSLR these days and,as a film maker, I’m seeing my territoryrapidly inhabited by crossover stills/motionprofessionals. I’m seeing less traffic in the otherdirection but photography has been far morecompetitive than film for a long time and thatshows no sign of stopping.

It’s not all doom and gloom, of course, andI wouldn’t be writing this article if I didn’tthink there were some interesting ways to dealwith it. When faced with commoditisationand increased competition, your skillset, yourexpertise, sadly becomes less important thanyour ability to stand out, market yourself andcarve out a unique position for yourself.This is where the opportunities afforded by socialmedia and crowdfunding become more than alittle exciting.

PP - CROWD FUNDING - MAY 11/04/2011 16:39


SOCIAL MEDIA{ }

etiquette and strategies. Suffice it to say thoughthat I’ve won jobs simply by being a good tweeter.I also write a blog about shooting film on DSLRsand that has helped considerably in building myprofile both here in the UK and overseas.You can’t turn around now without bumping intoPhilip Bloom’s name when researching DSLRsand that ubiquity is solely down to hisunderstanding of the power of social media.People like to pass work around, to play the roleof the discoverer and they like to share that withothers. This is where the co-creation of valuereally starts to happen. More important thananything else, this costs nothing but time.With your social media interactions, whether

they’re commenting on videos on Vimeo, sharingphotos on Flickr or just tweeting, comes the great

joy of being able to build an audience. It’s a bitlike a band getting on the road and touring tobuild up a following. The only difference is thatyou can do it from your desk and it doesn’t needto take too long. Audiences are powerful thingsbut social media audiences are particularlypowerful. They’re loyal, they’re invested, they’reself-empowered and they’re generous.The co-creation of value. Social media requirestime, patience and generosity. Unless you’reCharlie Sheen or are on The X-Factor you’re notgoing to see your following suddenly growovernight. It’s a two-way street and you can’t justput something out there and expect people toflock to it. You have to cultivate your interactionsbut it’s worth it. The top-rankedYouTuber, RyanHiga, has three million subscribers and his videos

have been viewed more than 630 million times.That’s powerful. The ultimate goal is to be able tocontinue doing what you love, to create. It mayseem an almighty schlepp sideways to commit somuch time to social media but the opportunitiesthat will come and the alliances you can forge,not to mention the direct access to others’expertise, mean it simply cannot be ignored.There’s another benefit to building an audience.

Audiences watch, audiences talk, but nowaudiences fund.Yes, your audience will take outtheir wallet and give you money, but only if yougive them a compelling reason. Welcome tothe distinctly peculiar world of crowdfunding.It really galls me when people tell me they shot

this or that for ‘nothing’. Nothing costs nothing.Creative projects still need funding and, with allthese cuts going on, there’s very little to be foundfrom public bodies. Crowdfunding is anincredibly powerful mechanism through whichyou can go directly to your end consumer andhave them fund your project. The secret lies inmicro-payments. Having many people fundingsmall amounts means you can build your total R

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“Suffice it to say though that I’ve won jobs simply by being a goodtweeter. I also write a blog about shooting film on DSLRs andthat has helped considerably in building my profile both here inthe UK and overseas.” Robin Schmidt

A scene from SuperMassive Raver shot onlocation in Hong Kong.


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without asking people to take a huge risk on you.It’s another way of growing an audience and it’sparticularly powerful because your funders feelempowered, feel ownership and part of a smallcommunity of ‘discoverers’. The more I’velooked into this the more I’ve realised that formany people, there’s just a vicarious thrill insupporting creatives.

It’s important to stress right now that there’s avery big difference between funders andinvestors. Funders don’t expect to see any return,investors do. Funding is philanthropic, investingis business. The reason this is important boilsdown to ownership. Using crowdfunding youretain 100% ownership of your project and that’svery important. Once the project’s done you canexploit it commercially to your heart’s contentwith no obligations to give your funders theirmoney back. That’s not to say your funders expectnothing in return, but it’s not money they want,it’s a copy of the film, it’s a chance to come on setand watch you work, it’s a chance to meet you, it’sthis peculiar thing we call ‘perks’.

There are now two prominent websites that hostcrowdfunding projects, IndieGoGo andKickstarter but the former is the only one you canuse in the UK. It’s pretty simple: write a shortdescription of your project, upload a video ora picture, say how much you’re looking for andset a time limit for your campaign. To giveyour funders an incentive you’re encouraged tooffer perks triggered by donation brackets:$10 might grant you a signed photo, $1,000 mightmake you an executive producer. It’s really up toyou how to stagger those and there’s a bit of an artto it. Once you’re up and running it’s your jobto drive traffic to the site and do whateveryou can to encourage people to pledge funds.IndieGoGo takes a fee for hosting the project:4% of your final total if you make your target,9% if you don’t. It actively promotes those

campaigns that are working hard to drive trafficthrough to its site and this is where all thathard work in social media ought to pay off.

I launched a campaign last year for a comedyseries I shoot which would enable me to go toHong Kong for two weeks. We set the time limitat two weeks (very, very short) and set just oneperk level, $10. This isn’t the normal way it’sdone but we felt we wanted to make it easy forpeople to say yes. We raised $1,500 very quickly,then stalled. That’s actually normal, but it felthorrible. I then had an idea and for 24 hours Ibroadcast live from my house, telling jokesnon-stop, encouraging people to fund me, just tomake me stop telling awful jokes. That reallyworked and I think it showed people howdedicated I was to the project. We were lookingfor $5,000 and raised $2,500 through IndieGoGo.However, as a result of having the project we

found the rest of the money through other sourceswho couldn’t fund us within the time limit we’dset but the campaign had given us a reason to putourselves out there. We went to Hong Kong, weshot our mini-series and I own it. The tiny perklevel I set means I also have a very manageablecommitment to my funders and very little adminassociated with fulfilling my obligations to them.I’ve seen campaigns with wildly ambitious perksbeing offered and I don’t think that’s the right wayto go. The project itself is the prize and you don’twant to handicap yourself by offering the earth toyour funders through perks.

Crowdfunding is not a handout. You have towork really hard at engaging with potentialfunders and there are a lot of projects looking forfunds. I spent a year and a half blogging hard tobuild a core audience and a large chunk of myfunding came from people I’ve met in the USthrough the blog. I simply wouldn’t have hadaccess to that without my social mediainteractions. As I said, it takes time to build upthese connections but the fact remains it’s verypossible to do so and to persuade people to getinvolved in what you do, to invest their time andgive their money. That’s incredibly empowering.So, get up to speed with Facebook, learn howWordpress [the blogging tool] works, sign up toTwitter, dip a toe and start engaging with yourpeers on social media. The end goal is the workand this is how you make it work for you.

Visit Robin’s website and read his blog atwww.elskid.com

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“Crowdfunding is not a handout.You have to work really hardat engaging with potentialfunders and there are a lot ofprojects looking for funds.”Robin Schmidt

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THE IN CROWD: There are dozens of crowdfunding websites out there and one of themmight just hold the key to financing your next project.GLOBAL PROJECTS - www.indiegogo.com US SITE - www.kickstarter.comUK SITE FUNDING CREATIVE PROJECTS - www.pozible.co.ukUK SITE FUNDING CREATIVE PROJECTS - www.wefund.co.ukNEWLY LAUNCHED IRISH SITE - http://fundit.ieFOR PHOTOJOURNALISM PROJECTS - http://emphas.isUK SITE FUNDING CREATIVE PROJECTS - www.wedidthis.org.uk

Thispage:Althoughhedidn’t reachhis target in thetimeframe,Robin’scrowdfundingprojectstillhelpedtopay forhisSuperMassiveRaverproject, stills fromwhicharepicturedhere.



For the past 10 years legendary photographer Nick Knight's SHOWstudio has beenworld of fashion. Alannah Sparks takes a look at what it has achieved, the shock

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embracing new ways of making and showing images, democratising the often arcanewaves it is still generating, and what it means for the image-making world.

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In the 1980s, Nick Knight brought a videocamera on to a setwhere hewas shootinga fashion editorial. “Don’t mind this,” hesaid to the team of models, make-up

artists, stylists and lighting technicians, andthey all continued with their day’s work asusual. The result was a very natural, candid,fly-on-the-wall observation of the image-makingprocess. The more Knight filmed, the more he sawthat he was lifting the lid on a closed world, onethat fascinated people beyond its glossy walls.Those who remain outside this ivory tower oftentrivialise or are scandalised by fashion and imagemaking, but for Knight, looking through reel afterreel of people just doing their jobs – the passion,the details, the inspiration and the hard graft – itwas something that deserved to be shared.And thusthe idea for SHOWstudio was born.It took 15 years for technology to catch up with

him, and on 27 November 2000 Knight finallypushed the Go button on SHOWstudio, beaming itout to the world with a video of fashionphotographer Elaine Constantine in her room athome getting ready for a night out on the town.With the launch of SHOWstudio, Knight set out tocreate a new online platform for fashion and imagemaking, free of the constraints of advertising andeditorial schedules. Now, more than 10 years afterits launch, his embryonic idea has become acreative behemoth, straddling the worlds of art,fashion, music, architecture, food, design andperformance. It has been involved with more than300 projects with creative luminaries from all ofthese worlds: from Tracey Emin to HestonBlumenthal and from Brad Pitt to Björk, themagnetic field that surrounds SHOWstudio hasdrawn many and varied creative talents to its core.“Working with SHOWstudio is like being

involved with something that is actually alive andkicking,” saysAlice Hawkins [see PP July 2010 forour interview with the photographer]. She has beena regular contributor to the site ever since Knightbrought her into the ‘family’ in 2003, after he wasa judge in a photography competition she hadentered. “I didn’t win first place, but I felt like I hadwhen he invited me to the SHOWstudio office.It’s been one big adventure ever since.”

Hawkins has contributed to projects as diverse asa three-day live fashion broadcast from AbbeyRoad Studios and an intimate shoot done with oneof the first mobile phone cameras. One of herfavourite projects is Vegas or Bust, the film shemade while on her hen trip, after only being giventhe brief of ‘Breasts’ by SHOWstudio. “It has thatcheeky ‘Carry on Brits Abroad’ feel with a twist ofsexual adventure and high-end fashion,” sheremembers. “It was made as part of a much largerproject called Moving Fashion Body for theSHOWstudio Fashion Revolution exhibition atSomerset House [in London]; as with everythingwith Knight, it’s all part of a bigger picture.”The adventure of SHOWstudio has been enjoyed

not only by its galaxy of illustrious contributors butalso by an enormous audience. Since its launch, theshowstudio.com site has attracted hundreds ofthousands of viewers and followers from Bahia toBeirut. Its reach is phenomenal and it has paved theway for a new kind of fashion consumer, one whoisn’t content to sit back and watch, but who wantsto participate.Yet browsing through an archive thatranges from films depicting the ‘anechoic sound’of clothes to live discourses about fashion inpolitics, one wonders who exactly SHOWstudio isfor. Has it intellectualised fashion beyond the reachof common people, or has it opened it up too muchfor creative people within the industry?“Well, my mum loves it,” says Ruth Hogben,

director of fashion film at SHOWstudio, and oneof Knight’s right-hand people. “She’s a school headteacher with only a passing interest in fashion, butshe checks it regularly, and not just for the thingsI’m working on. I don’t think SHOWstudio isdesigned for any particular person; it’s more of aninvitation to be involved. Here is an incredibleplatform for creative people to say what they wantto and it’s allowing people to wonder not only atbeautiful end products but also to wonder at thereality of it.”The big players in the fashion world are

beginning to realise that an open-door policy isessential to stay ahead of the game. Fashion showsused to be attended by a select few editors whoseedicts went on to dictate the trends of the followingseason, but now the pictures are blasted out almostinstantaneously to the world, opening up thefloodgates of debate before the clothes even go intoproduction. SHOWstudio offers what Voguefashion photographer Norbert Schoerner – whocontributed a film to a project early in thesite’s development – calls “democratic texture”.While some brands initially saw this as a topplingof authority, others embraced it. In October 2009the late Alexander McQueen pioneered fashion’sjourney into space with a live broadcast onSHOWstudio of his spring/summer 2010 collection

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“I don’t think SHOWstudio isdesigned for any particularperson; it’s more of aninvitation to be involved.Here is an incredible platformfor creative people to saywhat they want to and it’sallowing people to wonder notonly at beautiful end productsbut also to wonder at thereality of it.” Ruth Hogben

Previouspages:ThevideoforBornthisWay byLadyGaga,directedbyNickKnight.Oppositepage:TomorrowNightWe’llGoAnywhere ,editedbyJamieHarley, is thefirst inaseriesof filmsfromtheEditingKateproject.Videoeditorsarebeing invitedtocreatetheirownfilmfromthefootageofKateMosscapturedduringNickKnight’seditorialshoot fortheDecember2010issueofVogueItalia.Thispage:FashiondesignerGarethPugh’sPitti Immagine#792011filmshowcasesacollectionofclothing inspiredbyreligious iconographyandtheopulenceofFlorence.R

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in collaboration with Lady Gaga. It was amasterstroke and the worldwide response to theshow was so huge that the server crashed. “We areseeing a fundamental revolution in fashion,” saidKnight later. “Why even bother with a fashion showwhen you can just make a film?”Clothes are designed to be seen in movement and

many fashion houses are beginning to come aroundto the idea that their designs could be broadcast tomillions using the film format. Ruth Hogben hasbeen creating the films to showcase London-baseddesigner Gareth Pugh’s collections for threeseasons now. “A film brings emotion to clothes.I am obsessed with making films that appeal to thewomen who are buying the clothes, and I do believethat film can become an alternative to showingfashion.” Indeed her film for Pugh’s spring/summer2011 collection is emotive and demonstrative inequal measure, starring supermodel KristenMcMenamy in an abstract, visually-led narrativeviewed by hundreds of thousands across the world.Pugh isn’t the only designer to have grasped the

potential of fashion film to reach a wider audience.The series of Lady Dior movies starring Frenchactress Marion Cotillard and directed by DavidLynch has done much to raise the fashion house’sprofile in Asia. The high street is catching on too,with clothing retailer H&M releasing a teaser videothat brought the blogosphere to fever pitch beforeit announced that Lanvin was to be its nextdesigner collaboration.

“Outlets for moving fashion films are moreimportant and developing all the time,” says AliceHawkins, “now websites are getting equal attentionto magazines, so you have to be able to adapt.”As Norbert Schoerner puts it: “The work of a

photographer or film maker today must be effectivein a digital environment – anything you do has to beable to end up on multiple platforms, whereas 10years ago your work was destined only for thegallery or a magazine.”Embracing new methods of image making is the

nucleus of what SHOWstudio is about and itcontinues to be in the vanguard of technologicaldevelopments today. The Fashion Revolutionexhibition at Somerset House was a gloriouscelebration of the most daring, provocativeand visually arresting projects that SHOWstudiohas produced in its first 10 years. A giantmonolithic sculpture of Naomi Campbell greetedvisitors, who were able to draw messages on to thecontours of her body with a laser pen. Visitors tothe exhibition could then take part in a live casting,submitting their photos and vital statistics, withsome being chosen to participate in a photo shootand installation.On the eve of the exhibition’s opening, Knight

said: “We are now entering the restless world ofinteractive, self-created, digital-imaging: accessible,downloadable and constantly changing.”Like bacteria, the technology of today is acontinuously morphing monster, ever growing, ever

FOR MORE GREAT INTERVIEWS WITHPROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHERS VISITWWW.PROFESSIONALPHOTOGRAPHER.CO.UK

David Bailey, photographerFabien Baron, creative directorBjörk, musicianErwin Blumenfeld, photographerHeston Blumenthal, chefGuy Bourdin, photographerAlex Box, make-up artistNaomi Campbell, modelJake and Dinos Chapman, artistsDavid Chipperfield, architectDonald Christie, photographerLily Cole, modelMatthew Collings, artist and writerCindy Crawford, modelSophie Dahl, modelOscar de la Renta, fashion designerPatrick Demarchelier, photographerRobin Derrick, creative directorAgyness Deyn, modelKaren Elson, modelTracey Emin, artist

Katy England, stylistLinda Evangelista, modelMarianne Faithfull, musician and actressMike Figgis, film editor and directorJohn Galliano, fashion designerPhilippe Garner, auction specialistBobby Gillespie, musicianKatie Grand, stylistJefferson Hack, writerInez & Vinoodh, photographersMarc Jacobs, fashion designerDavid James, footballerRichard Kern, photographerWilliam Klein, film maker and photographerNick Knight, photographerLady Gaga, musician and performerPeter Lindbergh, photographerChristian Louboutin, shoe and bag designerMassive Attack, musiciansStella McCartney, fashion designerSam McKnight, hair stylist

Alexander McQueen, fashion designerKylie Minogue, singerKate Moss, modelRoland Mouret, fashion designerErin O’Connor, modelHarri Peccinotti, photographerBrad Pitt, actorTerry Richardson, photographerLiberty Ross, modelSergio Rossi, fashion designerPaolo Roversi, photographerPeter Saville, graphic designerDavid Sims, photographerMartine Sitbon, fashion designerMario Sorrenti, photographerJuergen Teller, photographerStella Tennant, modelGavin Turk, artistMax Vadukul, photographer and directorTim Walker, photographerVivienne Westwood, fashion designer

in flux and it takes a true visionary to be ableto harness that power.SHOWstudio has established itself as the hub

where brilliance can really be fostered. This isbecause it has opened the doors to everyone –professionals and the public – creating a uniqueenvironment where, as author and journalist MattRidley might put it, “ideas can have sex with ideas.”At the end of our interview Alice Hawkins

reasserts her opinion of SHOWstudio’s importance:“Whatever else is going on, I think SHOWstudiowill always be a step ahead. It’s unique, it standsalone as a solo fashion medium, and it can invitethe best creative people from all different areas ofthe fashion world to work for or with them.You getthe cream of the crop together in one amazingplace, and I think they have achieved this becauseNick Knight is a visionary leader of our time.”

http://showstudio.comwww.patriciamcmahon.com for AliceHawkins’s portfoliowww.dayfornight.tv for Norbert Schoerner’swebsite

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Over the past decade SHOWstudio has worked with hundreds of names in the creative industry, fromactors and fashion designers to writers, chefs and architects. Here are just some of the people who haveeither inspired or collaborated on SHOWstudio projects.



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Scenes fromInConversation,AboutYohjiYamamoto inwhichgraphicdesignerPeterSaville,artdirectorMarcAscoli,photographerNickKnightandwriterMagdaKeaneydiscuss thevisual identityof theJapanesedesigner.R

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m going to start this article with a truestory that happened to me recently.I was on an assignment for RussianVogue shooting a highly respected

fashion designer on location in her studio.As always my bags of kit contained a number ofcameras and various pieces of kit I drag fromshoot to shoot ‘just in case’. As any regularreader will know my first cameras of choice arestill my ever-faithful Canon EOS 5Ds and onthis shoot, as on any other, these were thecameras I chose to use. The shoot went well andthe designer and I connected, so I decided toexperiment with some more informal portraits,knowing that I had the portraits that Voguewanted in the bag. To do this I pulled out myPanasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 fitted with the20mm pancake lens and started snapping.Its arrival on the shoot brought a cacophony of“What’s that?” from the assembled fashionistas.The GF1 had created a moment.

Having downloaded and edited the shoot Iwas happy with a number of frames from boththe 5Ds and the GF1 so I sent them off to the art

director as low-resolution images for them to layout the pages. A week later an email arrivedasking for high-res files for five images in total.– two from the 5D and three from the GF1.These were the five images they liked best andthey were more than happy with the quality.What’s my point? That theydidn’t care what cameraI had used, only the imagesI had shot.

As with all good ideas theone behind the CSC (CompactSystem Camera) is simple:a great-qualitycamera you can fitin your pocket and onwhich you canchange the lenses.It’s something everyserious photographerhas wanted for yearsbut which, due tovarious technologicalproblems concerning

lens construction, wasn’t possible. That’s thesimple answer but what exactly was thechallenge the manufacturers had to overcome togive us what we wanted? Traditionally, DSLRcameras are defined by having a through-the-lens(TTL) optical viewfinder which allows light toenter the camera through a lens and into a light

box; it reflects off a mirror and then off apentaprism (or pentamirror) beforeexiting through an optical viewfinder.When a picture is taken, the mirror flipsout of the way and the light hits the

digital sensor instead.The only way tochange this andmake the cameraboth smaller andlighter is toremove thesemechanisms.Without a mirrorthat flips there is

The history of camera development is filled with technological novelties and highlyinnovative formats, but over the past year a dominant new force has enteredthe market and seems to be working for photographers and manufacturers alike.As PP Editor Grant Scott discovered, it should be making a lot of pro photographersreconsider what to grab first from their kit bag.

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TALKIN’ABOUT AREVOLUTION

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no need for a light box or pentaprism.The traditional viewfinder is then replaced by adigital display screen on the camera, althoughadditional digital viewfinders can be added tosome models. If the lens is then positionedcloser to the sensor, smaller and lighter lensescan be used, which is particularly significant forwide-angle lenses.Over the past few years manufacturers have

been able to come up with a range of solutionsto tackle these problems and companies such asOlympus, Panasonic Lumix, Sony, Ricohand Samsung are now tapping on our wallets.They’ve created what we said we wanted,but are we buying?If we take Panasonic Lumix and its sales

figures as an example, the future is lookingpocket sized. Compact System Camera sales inJapan grew by 33% last year. Although theoverall market for sales of DSLRs is down 9%year on year, the CSC market has risen by astaggering 261%. It’s clear then that the CSC isno gimmick to file alongside Laser Discs andBetamax. It’s a growing market whichmanufacturers are taking seriously, meaning that2011 is going to bring even more models andfurther developments.The first of these has come already from

Panasonic Lumix with the launch of its

replacement for the much-loved andhighly-regarded DMC-GF1. The simply-namedDMC-GF2 sees upgrades on its predecessor’svideo capabilities, with 1080i 60fps full HDvideo (from 25p sensor output), continuousshooting at 2.6fps with Live View, a built-instereo microphone, the introduction of a touchsensitive LCD screen, an increased maximumISO of 6400 and a fully customisable Quickmenu. All good stuff but it is also smaller andlighter than its predecessor. This is a camera

which has taken the threat of theSony NEX-5 seriously and responded.

But in doing so it has taken the CSC into aninteresting new area, that of the compactphotographer upgrade. Suddenly the CSC startsto look like a very serious contender to thebeginners’ DSLR throne.Although all of the CSC manufacturers are

rapidly expanding their ranges of compatiblelenses, an interesting and fervent community hasalready developed and taken to the format.With a wide range of third-party adaptors nowavailable many photographers are using thelenses they already own and existing classicvintage lenses on CSCs. Third-party adaptorsnow exist for classic lenses such as those withLeica M, M42, Nikon, Olympus OM, Pentax Kand C mounts. Although the autofocus may notalways work (there was a time when we were allhappy to focus our images, remember), theability to combine classic lenses with modernmicro technology has proved too good anopportunity to miss for many people.It seems that now the CSC ball has started

rolling there is no stopping it. Olympus isconstantly refining and developing therelaunched PEN series, Sony has come into the

“...an email arrived askingfor five images – two fromthe 5D and three from theGF1... What’s my point?That they didn’t care whatcamera I had used,only the images I had shot.”Grant Scott

Sony NEX-5.

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“Although the overall market for sales of DSLRs isdown 9% year on year, the CSC market has risenby a staggering 261%. It’s clear then that the CSCis no gimmick....” Grant Scott

market with the excellent NEX-5and, as I have mentioned already,Panasonic has evolved the GF1 intothe GF2 for a less professional user(not something I was that pleased tosee, I must admit).At the beginning of this year Sony

announced projections for its camerasector that would see CSC salesincrease by 80% while DSLR saleswould go up by only 12%. Now I knowwe need to bear in mind that the CSC growth ispretty much from a standing start and thatSony is not a leading manufacturer of DSLRsbut even so these are still pretty confidentexpectations. Its NEX-5 is fast becoming aniconic camera with its super-fast HD moviefocusing and recent announcement that Sonyhas made available to other manufacturers thebasic specifications of its E-mount system.What does that mean? Well, put simply, lensand adaptor manufacturers such as Carl Zeiss,Cosina, Tamron and Sigma are now ableto create lenses which you can bolt on to theSony CSCs without an adaptor. This is agame-changing move which opens up all sortsof creative possibilities.But who is buying these CSCs and why?

Well, from a personal perspective I can tell youthat my move from having the Ricoh GR IIIin my pocket as my sketching camera to thePanasonic Lumix DMC-GF1was based purely onmy need to have agreat-quality cameraalways at hand which gaveme the option of addinglenses. The fact that I couldalso use the GF1 for HDvideo was a great bonus.I was moving from ahigh-end andexcellentcompact to aCSC, a simple

and obvious step. Any regular reader of camerareviews will have got the message by now thatmanufacturers are constantly upgrading andrefining their existing models with smallerand smaller versions of the previous offering.There has been a big influx of femalephotographers into the camera-buying market(and the pro market) over the past few years andthey are definitely being catered for with boththe smaller DSLR and the CSC. As the type ofpeople now using cameras and the ways inwhich they are used evolves, so the type ofcamera also changes to meet that demand.Of course, the big question facing pro

photographers has to be ‘when’ or ‘if ’ Nikonand/or Canon will enter the CSC market.So far there has been an extended silence fromboth camps but as the CSC market continues togrow, surely they will both have to address the

issue of photographers starting to work withnon-traditional photography brands such asSony and Panasonic.All of this may seem a little strange to

consider for those who see the CSC asnothing more than a compact on which youcan change the lens, but if you have yet toget your hands on a CSC to see what they

are capable of (and I am sureyou will be bothsurprised and impressed)I suggest you waste no

more time and try one out.

I’m not saying it will replace your existing kitbut I know that mine has become an essentialpiece of my photographic arsenal which I wouldnot want to be without and it will definitelybe in use on my next commissioned shoot.After all, wasn’t the Leica M series the firstCSC? And few of us have a problem shootingwith a Leica! PP

CHECK THESE OUT

Sony NEX-5The NEX-5 ismirror-less, whichmakes it both smalland lightweight. It packs thesame 14.2-megapixel sensor as theNEX-3, plus it takes the same E-serieslenses or conventional Sony-mountdigital SLR lenses with the aid of anoptional adaptor. The single biggestdifference, however, is that the NEX-5shoots full high-definition 1,920 x 1,080i(interlaced) video compared with theNEX-3’s HD 720p (progressive) video.The NEX-5 has a wide range of exposuremodes, including aperture and shutterpriority, as well as the opportunity towork manually. There’s also a healthyselection of exposure overrides andmetering options. Add to this its rapidautofocus capabilities in movie mode andyou have a camera not to be ignored.PRICE: £559 www.sony.co.uk

Olympus PEN E-P2The E-P2 was the secondPEN model to beintroduced andfeatures all of thekey functions andadvantages of theE-P1 with the addition of an accessoryport, which allows you to attach anelectronic viewfinder or microphoneadaptor for improved sound with movingimage capture. The styling of the E-P2 isvery similar to the E-P1. There’s nointegral flash (only the E-PL1 has this inthe PEN range) but, like the E-P1, theE-P2 features an all-metal body.PRICE: £699.99 www.olympus.co.uk

Aboveandbelow:PanasonicLumixDMC-GF2.

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RICOH GXR 28-300mm lens kit

It’s fair to say I’m not the most technical or

practically gifted individual. I’ve never put

up a shelf, tinkered with an engine or

completed an instruction manual. I was

fourteen when I changed my first light bulb.

I will never wallpaper a room or build a shed.

So it was with some hesitation that I embarked

on a journey to construct a website using the

Clikpic system, a web service for professional

and amateur photographers and artists.

You can sign up for a free 14-day trial before

subscribing. The standard subscription in the

free trial, and the one I opted for, is £35 per

annum for a maximum of 100 photographs.

For the more prolific snapper there’s a package

to suit escalating through Intermediate

(200 images), Professional (500 images) to

the Super Pro account with bulk load ability

of 2,000 images – an option perhaps more

suited to clubs and societies or those looking

to sell photographs in large numbers.

One of the advantages of a Clikpic site is

that photographers can think about having

separate niche sites that may be more search

engine effective and may not be appropriate

to include on the main domain. Or you could

just reinvent yourself as a totally different

photographer altogether. I’ve photographed

at weddings before, I could create a site as

wedding photographer Richard Splash or

Clikpic is an easy to use webservice created especiallyfor photographers andartists to present their workon a website which they canstyle and edit themselves.We put award-winningphotojournalist Peter Denchto the test to build himself aClikpic website and find outjust how easy it really is.

YES,YOUCAN

CANYOUBUILDIT?

PP - Advertorial Click Pic MAY 12/04/2011 10:54

ADVERTORIAL

combine images from events documented and

Clikpic them together as event photographer

Hunter Nelson or perhaps food photographer

Charlie Shark. Then again, perhaps not. The

truth is I like my work, and I like my name. As a

photographer I want to be accountable for the

images I unleash into the world. I don’t even

put a pseudonym on my stock.

I think hard. I’m probably best known for my

quirky reportage style documenting the

English but I have created skilled work in

advertising, corporate, fashion and portraiture

in particular where a significant archive of

eclectic individuals has been produced.

While I do have a few portraits on my main site

the Clikpic opportunity seems ideal to

showcase them all in one place. I edit a top 50

and prepare the files for upload. True to form,

it’s only afterwards that I download and print

the 35-page Clikpic user guide that states

different file sizes are required. This is not

a problem. The oversized JPEGs are

automatically resized. I’m advised this may

cause blurring or ‘artefacts’ but detect none.

Images are uploaded quickly as singles without

diminishing the colours, saturation or

brightness. Each image can be assigned to

a gallery, sorted, captioned, dated, accredited

and keywords added on its own page.

Clikpic claims you can create and edit your

own website quickly, easily and very cost

effectively. I scoffed and with the images

uploaded prepared to dedicate the next month

on and off to creating the ultimate Dench

Portraits website. Two and a half hours later

I have the basics done to a standard that would

have been acceptable for the site to go live.

It seems the claim was correct. However, it

would be rude not to explore the depth of

choice offered by the system. With this in mind,

it’s advantageous to have a clear idea of what

type of site you hope to achieve. Before you

start, have a careful look at the extensive

sample sites to visualise how you would like to

apply the templates to your own. The clearer

“One of the advantages of aClikpic site is thatphotographers can thinkabout having separateniche sites that may bemore search engineeffective and may not beappropriate to include onthe main domain.”


100 TURNING PRO

you are at the outset the easier it will be.

The first decision was to choose one of the

11 site styles. I tried them all. Simple 2 with

the black and blue combination appealed to

me. The background can be jazzed up and

customised with your own repeat or single

photographs but it worked better, well – simple.

In addition I wanted it to reflect the style of my

main site, which it does. For48 hours I skipped

through the Clikpic experience accompanied

by various snacks and beverages. The website

design oscillated from extremes. Slideshows

were applied, fonts pillaged and colours

liberally splashed around. One behemoth

moment saw a blog, calendar, guestbook and

various sub-galleries all applied. Caught in the

moment I contemplated going Super Pro.

You can upgrade your subscription at any time;

the price will be recalculated according to how

far along you are in any one subscription.

All decisions can be previewed and reversed.

Personally, I prefer the undiluted basics of

photography, to see a photograph clearly,

cleanly and where possible without distraction,

gimmick or fuss. You need to let the image

breath and confront the viewer with all four

fixed corners firmly in place. I found myself

stripping the website back to basics to many of

the default settings that suggest Clikpic is in

tune with what works visually. I kept the

default that selects images at random to show

on the non-optional home page and the default

text caption colour but changed the rollover

highlight to white. The random home page

image was aligned top right, the text to the top

left. The system provided the necessary tools

for a photographer’s website – it concentrated

on the photographs and showed them off

to their best effect, allowing for the images to

shine as the beauty queen while the system

performed as a buffeting, preening and

supporting aid.

I divided the portraits into two galleries

of 25 and arranged them in a grid format of

applied rows of five with the captions located

beneath. You can size the thumbnails to crop

and fit so they are all square but mine looked

strong and balanced on the eye so were left as

they were. In addition to the gallery button

I kept the useful links and contact section.

Going live is done at the click of a button.

Between two and five minutes later it was done

and I began to mail out the link to clients and

post it on social networking sites.

“Within the Clikpicsystem you can set upyour site to have ashopping basket facilitythat links directly into apayment provider(currently PayPal andGoogle Checkoutsupported).”


Already having a Google Analytics account

I was able to add my Clikpic domain and

began receiving web traffic statistics within

24 hours. The results it showed were

extremely encouraging.

You can work on your website while it’s live.

Selling online I think in time will appeal.

Within the Clikpic system you can set up your

site to have a shopping basket facility that

links directly into a payment provider

(currently PayPal and Google Checkout

supported). You can use the shopping cart

whether or not you have integrated an

external system into your site. The order

details will either be sent to the payment

system for the visitor to make a payment or

else they are saved in your admin system for

you to process as you wish. It’s a welcome

facility in the battle for a photographer to

regain control of fees for sales without them

being shaved off by second and third parties.

The website www.peterdenchportraits.com

is now a strong and useful tool for the

business and the brand. A Clikpic website

can be developed as your main site. It can

be as detailed as you want it to be. If you

have an idea of how you want to customise

your site, chances are there is a way of doing

so. The user guide isn’t overwhelming and

doesn’t have to be read from cover to cover.

The answers can be extracted painlessly

by dipping in and out. If you do get stuck

there’s an email support team who respond

swiftly and clearly. This sometime working

pro is pleased. Now I’m off to build a shed.

Well maybe.

ADVERTORIAL

Using Clikpic’s admin system anda choice of stylish template

designs, you can create and edityour own website quickly, easilyand very cost-effectively.Visit www.clikpic.com fora free 14-day trial.



ADVERTORIAL

If you listen to the news then one mightsafely assume that the economy isabout to close down, or if you listen to theweather reports you may have been safe

in the belief that January was going to bea whiteout.However, neither was evident due to the

buoyant mood of attendees at this year’sSocieties Photographic Convention inHammersmith, London. It proved that thingsmight not be as bad as they sound.Around 14,000 eager photographers

descended on the Novotel London West forthe eight-day feast of photographic educationand comprehensive three-day trade show.The convention started on the Monday with

hit US photographer Doug Gordon presentinga dynamic full-day seminar on all aspectsof wedding photography. Doug, a popularspeaker who has lectured at numerousconventions, wowed his audience with hisenergetic approach, which went straight tothe core.Tuesday saw the start of the ever-popular

SWPP Business School programme, whichfocused on all aspects of the tricky taskof running a successful photo business.Headed by Catherine Connor, lectures werealso given by such leading lights in theindustry as John Denton, André Amyot,Andrea Barrett, Michael Turner, JoeCogliandro and Andrew Collier, all of whomare successful entrepreneurs within theindustry. Doug Gordon also ran a successful‘Fashion Meets Wedding’ seminar for thosewho wished to focus on the taking end.As the convention moved swiftly on to

Wednesday’s programme the successfulBusiness School continued with MarkCleghorn teaching how to ‘Sell, Sell, Sell’.Other classes were given by Jane Breakell,Xander Casey, Charlie Kaufman, StewartRandall, Glenn Hoy and Christopher Becker.While the Business School was in

progress, three superb off-site photographicexcursions took off. The ever-popularBig Red Bus Tour was conducted by topAmerican lecturer David Beckstead withenthusiastic photographers keen to learnthe secrets of his success.John Denton led a group deep underground

visiting disused Aldwych tube station to

demonstrate various posing, directing andshooting techniques.Doug Gordon also led a trip entitled

‘Change The Way You Think and You WillChange Your World Forever’, visiting some ofLondon’s most iconic landmarks.By Thursday attendance had swelled even

further with the well-liked Members’ TrainingDay, which gave an exclusive unrivalled ninehours of top-class education to members forjust £40.Renowned lecturer Damian McGillicuddy

headed another subterranean team.Damian, often referred to as the lightingwizard, dazzled the group with his wealth ofknowledge as he guided them throughthe mechanics of a full-on fashion shoot.American legend Joe Photo visited some of

London’s most historic locations using themas fashionable backgrounds to shoot a brideon location at London Bridge, Tower Bridge,and the Tower of London.In the meantime the convention team

welcomed the 250-plus trade exhibitorsas they arrived to set up for the three bigshow days ahead. By the evening it was greenfor go as everyone was in and settled.Friday morning saw hundreds of early-bird

Masterclass attendees arrive for the 8 o’clockstart of an intensive three-day programme,comprising more than 300 hours of primeeducation. The classes touched on a broadrange of topics, from wedding to sport andportraiture to landscapes, and just aboutanything in-between. An amazing total of203 classes in three solid days saw manyphotographers blown away by the depth andbreadth of the educational content.Trade show attendees thronged the

aisles every day, at some points makingit a challenge to get round. All exhibitorswere delighted by the response, some‘complaining’ that they had run out of orderpads by Friday afternoon and were havingto send out for supplies to keep them goingover the weekend! A popular stand was thatof Canon, who had brought along their latestgear and a full complement of staff whowere kept constantly busy. Canon werenot alone, however, with all stands beingmobbed by eager customers keen to see thelatest offerings.

Saturday evening saw more than 200trade representatives gather for theprestigious 2010 Photographic Trade Awards,as voted by consumers. Among the winners,Best Professional DSLR went to the CanonEOS 5D MkII, Best Professional Lab wentto ProAm Imaging, Best ProfessionalPhotographic Service went to Loxley Colourand Professional Product of the Year toediting software package Portrait Professionalv9. Other companies celebrating successincluded Nikon, PhotoTraining4U, Elinchrom,PocketWizard, Epson and Fotospeed.At the end of a hectic week, the highlight

was Sunday evening’s glittering awardsdinner. Guest presenter, TV personalityPhilippa Forrester, was joined on stage byconvention organiser Juliet Jonesto announce the winners of the Societiescompetitions. In total an unprecedented 50trophies were awarded. Six Master awardswere also presented to George Dawber, SteveAllen, Michael Ayers, Kevin Casha and Trevorand Faye Yerbury. Four hundred guestsattended the glitzy occasion, which was alsobroadcast live on the web and watched bymore than 200 viewers.For those still standing the convention

rounded up on Monday with a full-dayseminar by celebrated US master Gary Fong,the father of ‘storybooking’ — now theindustry standard in wedding photography— and the inventor of the Lightsphere,Origami and Puffer diffusers.The convention also included two hectic

days of judging with an unsurpassed level ofsubmissions for qualifications for all levels ofdistinctions.Now as the convention team rest their

weary legs it’s time to start planning for2012, when we can do it all over again. Lookforward to seeing you all there.

Phil Jones, CEO, SWPP

For more information on SWPP and the 2012event please visit www.swpp.co.uk

No doom and gloomas The Societies 2011Convention sparkles

PP - swpp Advertorial -MAY:Copy of Layout 1 13/04/2011 09:54


stoppress...NIKON D5100 AND ME-1STEREO MICROPHONENikon has added a new DSLR to itsrange, the D5100, capableof shooting full (1,080p)HD video. To completethe video package, ithas also released its firstexternal stereomicrophone, the ME-1.With a 16MP sensor, thecamera is the successor to the D5000 andfeatures an improved vari-angle LCDscreen. Allowing you to shoot video at up to30 frames per second, the D5100 hasin-camera editing functions and can beconnected to an HD television. RRP for theD5100 is £669.99 (body only) or £779.99(body and 18-55mm lens). The ME-1’s RRPis £119.99. For full details of both cameraandmicrophone see www.nikon.co.uk

MANFROTTOLAUNCHES THE057 SERIESA new range of carbon fibresupports has been added tothe Manfrotto tripodcollection. The 057 seriesfeatures a versatile andergonomic design to meet thedemands of the professionalphotographer. The tripodscome in four configurations, so the photographeris free to combine two different leg extensionswith two different types of column, giving rapidadjustment and control, and allowing the camerato be repositioned quickly. This flexibility isthe result of testing and troubleshooting by a teamof working photographers. Light and portable,the 057 series has a magnesium castingconstruction and 100% carbon fibre legs.RRP: £549.99-£649.95.www.manfrotto.co.uk

We’re always keeping our eyes open and our earsto the ground to make sure we bring you the latest news,industry rumours and kit from around the world...

ALL IN THEFRAMETokina’s AT-X 16-28mm f/2.8PRO FX is the first in a new generation of fullframe (FX) lenses. It includes a super-wide-angleview and a newly developed silent DC motor thatallows the lens to focus more quickly and quietly.With a new GMR magnetic AF sensor, this lensprovides an increased AF speed and has three SDsuper-low dispersion glass elements throughoutits optical design. It also features Tokina’sexclusive one-touch focus clutch mechanism,allowing you to switch between AF and MFsimply by moving the focus ring. It is availablefor either Canon or Nikon fit. RRP: £1,072.www.kenro.co.uk

UPDATE FOR LEICA X1Leica has announceda firmware updatefor its X1 camera.The firmware bringsmany improvements to manual focusingas well as better autofocus speed in lowlight and with low-contrast subjects.Users who wish to update their camera orsee a detailed description of the firmwarecan do so at www.leica-camera.co.uk

AQUATECH SOUND BLIMPSUS underwater housing manufacturerAquaTech has releaseda new line ofsound-reducing casesfor professional DSLRs.Cameras are held in placeinside the case by custom-cut,sound-dampening foam, which the makerclaims cuts noise by 98%. However, theyare not waterproof. There are six modelsavailable to fit both Canon and Nikoncameras. All feature a tripod mount, a singlequick-release clip with safety latch anda two-stage shutter release. US RRP is $995

(£610). A variety of lenses may be used withAquaTech’s range of interchangeablefront lens port systems, which can be boughtseparately. www.aquatech.net

� The internet is awash with geekyexcitement at a concept Photoshop appfor the iPad that was demoed at Adobe’sPhotoshopWorld Conference.Although you can already get Adobe’sPhotoshop Express app for the iPad,it simply does not compare with whatwas shown in the video. A release datehas yet to be announced…� We’re always saying that being a prophotographer requires skills ina number of disciplines but, um, we didn’trealise jewellery design was one ofthem. Check out the lens bracelets wespotted on the internet...http://store.adamelmakias.com� Photographer CaryNorton has built a 4 x 5camera out of LEGO.Yes, LEGO. He haseven shot someportraits with it...http://carynorton.com/legotron-mark-i� Doctor Who star Karen Gillan is to play1960s model Jean Shrimpton in a BBC 4film with the working title of We’llTake Manhattan about Shrimpton’s loveaffair with photographer David Bailey…� We loved Anton Corbijn’sportrait of Sean Penn forthe New York Times StyleMagazine’s travel issue...� A row has erupted in theUS concerning a poster fora law firm that specialises in 9/11 legalcases. The controversy centres ona stock image of a firefighter set againstthe words ‘I was there’. Robert Keiley,a Brooklyn firefighter and part-timeactor, who only joined the fire service in2004, posed for the picture last yearbut says he did not know how the imagewould be used…

LATELYWE’VE BEENHEARING...

CAR

YN

OR

TON

PP -STOP PRESS - MAY 12/04/2011 15:09

WANTED

Nikon D3X body

£4989

Nikon D3S body

£3589

U.K. Stock ONLY

U.K. Stock ONLY

Canon EOS 1D

MKIV body

£3399Canon

EOS 5D MKII body

£1697

Canon EOS 7D body

£1147

U.K. Stock ONLY

Canon 70-200mmf2.8 IS LII

£1789

Canon 500mmf4 IS L U

£5599

Nikon

D700 body

£1799

Nikon D300s

body

£977

U.K. Stock ONLY

Nikon D90 body£539Nikon D90 + 18-105mm £669

Nikon 200-400mm f4 VR£4299

Nikon 500mm f4 AFS VR £5849

U.K. Stock ONLY

Canon EOS 600Dbody

£649

NEW!U.K.

Stock ONLY

Nikon 16-35mm f4

AFS VR£869

Nikon 28-300mm

f3.5/5.6 G ED VR £737

Nikon 85mm f1.4 AF-S£1299

Nikon D7000 body£889D7000 + 18-105mm£1049 U.K.

Stock ONLY

EOS 60D body £769EOS 60D +18-55mm IS £885EOS 60D +18-135mm IS U £997

Canon EOS 60D

U.K. Stock ONLY U.K.

Stock ONLY

Nikon 24-120mm f4 G ED VR£859

Nikon SB-600

£199Nikon SB-700

£259Nikon SB-900

£349

Nikon TC20EII

£219

Canon 70-200mmf2.8 L

£997

www.mifsuds.com updated daily - 1024 bit encryption

We are happy to reserve new and used stock for customers travelling long distance. Prices subject to change without notice so please check availabilty to avoid disappointment. Family Run Pro Dealership with Friendly, Knowledgable Staff. Part Exchange Welcome.

Prices correct when compiled 13/04/2011 and inc VAT @ current rate. E&OE. Quality and Service from one of the U.K’s Best Stocked Pro Dealer’s Mifsud Photographic Ltd. 27-29, Bolton Street, BRIXHAM. Devon. TQ5 9BZ. (OPEN 7 DAYS PER WEEK)

Mail order: 01803 852400 Email: [email protected]

Ring the Buy-In Hotline 01803 852400 or email [email protected]

Pigment Friendly LustreFotospeed are proud to win the SWPP Best Inkjet Paper for the third year running. A fl at stiff heavyweight paper with a bright white base and a real photographic lustre fi nish.

“comparisons withthe legendary

Fuji Crystal Archive papers are not

misplaced”Tony Worobiec, FRPS

AND THE WINNER IS...

For more information or to fi nd your nearest stockist, please call

us on 01249 714 555 or email [email protected]

Image: Leo Palmer - FRPS, EFIAP, APSA

professional inkjet media

www.fotospeed.com

PRICES INCLUDE VATH4D - 31 + 80mm HC lens KITspecial offer £ 9499H4D - 31 + CF Adapter £ 9499H4D - 40 + 80mm £13933H4D- 40 + 35-90mm kit £17730H4D - 40 Body set £12877H4D - 50 Body set £19536H4D- 50 + 35 - 90mm kit £24388NEW H4D- 60 Body KIT £27984

“Contact us to arrange a Demo”CFV - 39 £ 9709New CFV - 50 £11336

HC LENSES28mm Lens HCD £ 312635 mm Lens HC £ 266235 - 90 HCD £ 496250 - 110 mm zoom HC £ 319150 mm MK II Lens HC £ 291080mm Lens HC £ 1711100mm Lens HC £ 2370120mm Macro Lens HC £ 2694120mm Macro MK II HC £ 3310150 mm Lens HCN Lens £ 2478210 mm Lens HC £ 2586300mm Lens HC £ 3083HTS Tilt + Shift adapter £ 37741.7 X Teleconverter £ 1139GIL - GPS £ 523Battery Grip 7.2V £183X1 Scanner £ 9499X5 Scanner £ 15095

MORE LISTED ON OUR WEB SITENikon D300 body £650Nikon MB-D10 Grip £149Nikon MB-D200 Grip £75Nikon D60 + 18-55 VR £329Nikon D80 body £250Nikon D3X body £4399Fuji S5 Pro body £395Nikon F3HP Body £395Nikon F3/T HP body £395 Nikon F5 body £449Nikkor 17 - 55mm f2.8G AFS £675Nikkor AFS 24- 85mm £250Nikkor 14mm f2.8 ED AFD £695Nikkor 18 - 35mm AFD £295Sigma EX 50mm f2.8 Macro Nikon £169Sigma 18 - 50mm f2.8 DC - Nikon £229Nikkor AFS 24-120mm f3.5-5.6G VR £325Nikkor 300mm f2.8 ED AIS £595 Nikkor AFS 24-120mm f3.5-5.6 VR £325Zeiss 18mm f3.5 ZF.2 Nikon £895Zeiss 85mm f1.4 ZF.2 Nikon £825Zeiss 100mm Makro f2 ZF.2 Nikon £1215 Nikon SB600 £175Nikon R1C1 Macro Kit £495Nikon SB R200 Flash £149Canon EOS 1D MKIV body £1495Canon EOS 60D Body £675Canon BG-E4 Grip £99Sigma EX DC 17-50mm f2.8 OS £395Canon EF 24-85 f3.5-4.5 USM £139Canon EF 20 - 35mm f3.5/4.5 £ 250Canon EF 28 - 135mm IS £199Canon EF 28 - 200mm f3.5-5.6 £250Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS USM £995Canon EF 70-300mm DO IS USM £695Sigma 28 - 300mm Macro EOS £149Sekonic L359 £149 SEE OUR WEB SITE FOR LATEST USED

LISTINGS

BILLINGHAM STOCKIST550 £475 445 £263 335 £242 225 £233555 £297 307 £ 272 207 £255 107 £233

LIGHT METERS UK STOCK Gossen Sixtomat Digital £ 188Gossen Digi Pro F £ 152Gossen Starlite 2 £ 458Sekonic L 308S £148Sekonic L358 £ 209Sekonic L 758D £ 392Sekonic L758 DR £ 432Sekonic C 500 £ 799

POCKETWIZARDMini TT1 CE NIKON IN STOCK £199FLEX TT5 CE NIKON IN STOCK £216BUNDLE 1 x Mini 2 x Flex NIKON £529Mini TT1 CE Canon IN STOCK £197FLEX TT5 CE Canon IN STOCK £216BUNDLE 1 x Mini 2 x Flex Canon £520PLUS II TWIN Pack £249

NIKON Professional DealerALL UK STOCK FROM - NIKON UKD300S Body £ 999D300S + MB-D10 Grip £ 1195D300S + 17-55 f2.8 D £ 2099D300S + 10 - 24mm DX £ 1579D300S + 18-200 VRII £ 1529D300S + 16-85mm VR £ 1459D700 Body £ 1899D700 + 24 - 70mm f2.8 AFS £ 3100D700 + 14 - 24mm f2.8 AFS £ 3199D700 + 24-120mm f4 VR £ 2749D700 + 28-300mm AFS VR £ 2599D3S Body £ 3599D 3S + 24 - 70mm f2.8 AFS Lens £ 4849D 3S + 14 - 24mm f2.8 AFS Lens £ 4899D 3S + 70 - 200mm f2.8 VRII £ 5248D3X Body £ 5199D 3X + 24-70mm f2.8 AFS Lens £ 6199D 3X + 14-24mm f2.8 AFS Lens £ 6299D 3X + 70-200mm f2.8 VRII Lens £ 6649D7000 + 18-105 VR II £ 1049D7000 £ 89914 - 24mm f2.8G AFS £ 136716 - 35 mm f4G AFS VR £ 87717 - 35mm f2.8D AFS £158124mm f1.4G AFS £173524 - 70 f2.8G AFS £ 1282New 24 - 120mm f4G AFS VR £89910 - 24mm f3.5/4.5 DX £ 68312 - 24mm f4 DX £ 85516 -85mm f 3.5/ 5.6 DX VR £ 46917 - 55 mm f 2.8 DX £110918 - 200mm DX VR II £ 624NEW 28 - 300mm AFS VR £ 779 PC-E 24mm f3.5 Tilt +Shift £144935mm f1.4 G AFS £149950mm f1.4G AFS £ 30770 - 300 mm AFS VR £ 44970 - 200 mm f 2.8 AFS VR II £ 168980 - 400 mm f 4.5 / 5.6 VR £ 1099200 -400mm f4 AFS VR II £ 5199200mm f2 AFS VR II £ 4432300mm f 2.8 AFS VR II £ 4265400mm f2.8 AFS VR £ 6999500mm f4 AFS VR £ 6153600mm f4 AFS VR £ 743360 mmf 2.8 AFS Micro £ 40885mm f3.5 AFS Micro £ 42685mm f1.4G AFS £ 1399105mm f 2.8 Micro VR £ 639SB 700 Speedlight £ 259SB 900 Speedlight £ 342SB-R1C1 Macro Flash kit £ 608Nikon TC 14 EII / TC17 £ 323

NEW FUJI GF670

medium format, rangefinder6x6 / 6x7 folding camera, withlens hood + case + film £1699

Canon UK StockUK STOCK- FROM CANON UK7D Body £ 11897D + 18 - 135mm IS £ 14797D + 15 - 85 IS £ 16725D MKII Body £ 16995D MKII Body + 24-105L IS £ 23445D MKII Body + 24-70 f2.8L £ 25755D MKII + 16-35 f2.8L MK2 £ 271960D Body £ 83960D + 17/85 IS Lens £10792 Free sensor cleans worth£90 when you buy a Canon5D II, 1DS MkIII or 1D Mk4EOS 1 D Mk4 £ 3679EOS 1 DS Mk III £ 53991 Free sensor cleans worth£45 when you buy a Canon7D / 550D /600D/60D camera2600D +18 -55 IS £ 729600D Body £ 639550D +18 -55 IS £ 659550D Body £ 549Powershot G12 £ 41916 - 35 f 2.8L MK2 £119917 - 40 f 4 L USM £ 60917 - 55 f 2.8 EFS £ 82910 - 22 EFS USM £ 63317 - 85 EFS IS USM £ 38518 - 200mm EFS IS USM £ 42960 mm EFS Macro £ 34724 - 70 f2.8 L USM £98724 - 105mm f 4 L IS £ 89924 - 105mm f 4L IS White Box £799TSE 17mm f4L £1999 TSE 24 mm f 3.5 L II £174924mmf1.4 L II USM £ 137550mm f1.8 II £10150 mm f 1.4 USM £ 32250mm f1.2 L USM £131070 - 200 f 4 L USM £ 53970- 200mm f4 L IS £ 922 70 - 200 f 2.8 L £ 98470 - 200 f2.8 L IS MKII £ 1864 70 - 300mm f 4 / 5.6 IS £ 41770- 300 f 4 5.6 L IS £ 119985 mm f 1.8 USM £ 31985mm f 1.2 L II USM £ 1813100 - 400 f4.5 / 5.6 IS £1243100 mm f 2.8 Macro £ 417100mm f2.8L IS Macro £ 749300 mm f 4 IS USM £ 1195300mm f 2.8 L II IS £ 5999400mm f 5.6 L £ 1149400mm f 4 DO IS £ 5344400mm f 2.8 L II IS £8899500mm f 4 L IS £ 54991.4x EXTENDER III £ 4992x EXTENDER III £ 499580 EX MKII Speedlight £369430 EX MK II Speedlight £199

Hasselblad H4D -50 Body £13995Hasselblad H4D - 40 Body £9995Hasselblad HM 16/32 Film back £ 395Hasselblad 28mm HCD Lens £2295Hasselblad 50mm HC Lens £1995Hasselbad 35-90mm HCD Lens £3495Hasselblad 150mm HC Lens £1795Hasselblad 150mm CF Lens £450Hasselblad 210mm HC Lens £1895Hasselblad 300mm HC Lens £1995Hasselblad H 1.7X Converter £695Hasselblad GIL £399Hasselblad 160mm CB Lens £595Hasselblad A12 - Latest type £295Proshade 6093T + 060 adapter £150Bronica RF645 + 65mm Lens £595Bronica 40mm PE Lens £295Bronica 40mm E Lens £195Bronica 50mm PE Lens ETRS / i £ 250Bronica 150mm E lens £ 125Bronica 150mm MC Lens £125Bronica 250mm E lens £ 195Bronica 50mm f3.5 PS Lens £ 195Bronica 65mm PS Lens £ 195Bronica 150mm PS Lens £125 - £195Bronica 250mm PS Lens £ 195Bronica S-36 Tube £ 75Bronica E-42 Tube £ 125Mamiya 645 AF 55-110mm New £ 695Mamiya 645 AF Polaroid Back NEW £95Mamiya 645 110mm f2.8 Lens £ 179Mamiya 645 210mm f4 Lens £ 105Mamiya 645 210mm f4 Lens £195Mamiya 645 300mm f5.6 Lens £ 199Mamiya 7 - 43mm Lens + finder £995Mamiya 7 - 50mm Lens Ex Demo £995Mamiya 7 - 150mm Lens £505Mamiya 7 - 150mm Lens + finder £695Mamiya 7 - 210mm Lens + finder £607Mamiya 7 - 35mm Panoramic kit £78Mamiya 120 back 645 Super £ 50Mamiya RZ 180mm Lens £ 125Mamiya RZ Polaroid back NEW £ 125RB67 Pro SD + 50 + 90mm lenses £895RB67 180mm PRO SD Lens NEW £195Mamiya RB 67 210mm Sekor £ 150Mamiya 6 - 50mm Lens £ 350Contax 645 Film back + Insert £ 195Contax TVS £149Pentax 645 - 200mm f4 £ 295 Pentax 6x7 300mm f4 £ 249Rollei 40mm PQ f3.5 super angulon £1495Minolta booster II £ 50Leica Tri Elmar 6 bit £3250

WE STOCK LEE FILTERSBig Stopper £100 In Stock

POLAROID FILMPX100 Silvershade B+W £18.38PX600 Silvershade B+W £18.38

USED EQUIPMENT

Zeiss Lenses - NIKON + CANON18mm f3.5 Distagon - Nikon ZF.2 £ 109818mm f3.5 Distagon - Canon ZE £ 105521mm f2.8 Distagon - Nikon ZF.2 £ 139521mm f2.8 Distagon - Canon ZE £ 139525mm f2.8 Distagon - Nikon ZF £ 78028mm f2 Distagon - Nikon ZF.2 £1006 28mm f2 Distagon - Canon ZE £ 98235mm f2 Distagon - Nikon ZF.2 £ 84635mm f2 Distagon - Canon ZE £ 84650mm f1.4 Planar - Nikon ZF.2 £ 56950mm f1.4 Planar - Canon ZE £ 55050mm f2 Makro-Planar Nikon ZF.2 £100650mm f2 Makro-Planar Canon ZE £ 98285mm f1.4 Planar - Nikon ZF.2 £ 100685mm f1.4 Planar - Canon ZE £ 1000100mm Makro-Planar - Nikon ZF.2 £1415100mm Makro-Planar - Canon ZE £1423

PRICES INC VAT. UK STOCK - NO GREY HERE

60-62 The Balcony, The Merrion Centre, Leeds, LS2 8NG.

TEL 0113 2454256 email [email protected] (Prices subject to change)

www.dalephotographic.co.ukVISA, MASTERCARD, Maestro, DELTA, 2 or 3 Year LEASING and PART EXCHANGE.

8.4.11

LeicaM9 STEEL GREY BODY £4899

M9 BLACK BODY £4899

M9 demo in stock - take a look

ALL LENSES 6 BIT

21mm f2.8 Elmarit asp M £280724mm f2.8 Elmarit asp M £257335mm f2.5 Summarit M £115350mm f2.5 Summarit M £88350mm f2 Summicron M £134775mm f2.5 Summarit M £112290mm f2.5 Summarit M £1122

X1 STEEL GREY £1377X1 BLACK £1395V-LUX 20 £489D - LUX 5 £645

BOWENS Lighting500R/500R Kit £887500/500 Classic kit £730500/500C Pulsar Kit £820500R/500R Travel Pak£1326500R/500R/500R Kit £1299500/500 PRO Kit £1075500/500 PRO Travel £1541500/500/500 PRO Kit £1741750/750 PRO Kit £1291750/750 PRO Travel £1719750/750/750 PRO Kit £19941000/1000 PRO Kit £15171000/1000PRO Travel £1999QuadX Studio Set £ 3298QuadX 2400 kit £ 2532Explorer 1500 - 2 Kit £ 2552Fresnel 200 £ 449Pulsar twin pack £ 233Pulsar Trigger Card £75Pocket Wizard card £107

SIGMA 8 - 16mm f4 - 5.6 DC £ 529

10 - 20 mm f 4 / 5.6 EX DC. £ 41010 - 20mm f3.5 EX DC HSM £ 47912 - 24 mm f 4.5 / 5.6 EX DG£ 64210mm f 2.8 EX DC Fisheye £ 487 24 - 70 mm f 2.8 EX DG £ 44724 - 70mm f 2.8 EX DG HSM £61085mm f1.4 EX DG HSM £669 70 - 200mm f2.8 DG OS £979120 - 400mm Apo DG OS £689150 - 500mm Apo OS £ 79550 - 500mm Apo OS £1197

TOKINA10 -17mm f 3.5/4.5 ATX Pro £ 50911 - 16mm f 2.8 ATX Pro £ 56016 - 28mm f2.8 ATX Pro DX £ 84916 - 50mm f2.8 ATXPro £ 621100mm Macro f2.8 £ 407

ColorMunki Photo £299X-Rite Eye 1 Display 2 £139X-Rite ColorChecker Passport £79Spyder 3 Pro £107

ALSO AVALIBLE AT WH SMITH AND SAINSBURYS STORES

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Jeanloup Sieff

French-born photographerJeanloup Sieff is best known forhis iconic nudes, era-definingfashion images and simple style.Peter Silverton looks at hisenigmatic personality and career,which spanned five decades.

Jeanloup Sieff was born in Paris onNovember 30 1933 to Polish parents.Like many a child of immigrants, he neverreally found where his own home was.“My childhood companion was solitude,” hewrote. “A lost father – the wanderings of wartime.But I came to accept it and the pain it gave me.”He spent his life making pictures filled with

longing for a past that he may or may not haveknown. “I have been searching for time past allmy life.” His work is, in a sense, a popularresponse to Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past.“I remember states of accidental euphoria, certainspring mornings, caused by the unexpectedcoincidence of a ray of sun, a forgotten scent and

a childhood memory.” He turned this sensibilityinto rapturous, sensual black-and-white, fixedforever via that most plastic and textural of filmstocks, Kodak Tri-X 400 ASA.He always stressed the pleasure of taking

photos. If his favourite source of that pleasure wasin what was behind us, it was also in behindsthemselves. No one can ever have been moretaken by and taken more pictures of femalebottoms. (In French, derrières.) Not arses, note.Or bums. “It is the bottom that remembers; itfaces the past, whereas we advance inexorablyinto the future,” he wrote. He was, unsurprisingly,a great admirer of the Anglo-Germanphotographer Bill Brandt and the French painterPierre Bonnard – both great poets of the femalebottom. “For it is the most protected, the mostsecret part of the body, and retains a childishinnocence long since lost by gaze or hands.”He started taking pictures as a teenager. Why?

“Because someone gave me a camera,” he alwaysreplied, with a characteristic insouciance – whichmay or may not have been genuine but whichcertainly became one of his defining stancestowards the world, along with an almost WoodyAllen-ish anxiousness. He was vain, too, alwaysdressed à la mode, always working out.Having studied photography formally in Paris

and Switzerland in the immediate post-war era,he quickly became a professional. Like otherFrench photographers – Cartier-Bresson andBourdin, to take just two obvious examples – heabsorbed Man Ray’s surrealism and distilled itinto the everyday.For someone so focused on the past, he moved

forward at pace. And kept moving...1954: Elle magazine and fashion shoots.

1958: Magnum, the unlikeliest of homes for sucha sensualist. 1959: Jardin des Modes and a tightworking relationship with the magazine’s artdirector, Jacques Moutin who, according to Sieff,was “attempting to do what Alex Brodovitch haddone in NewYork.” That is, revolutionise fashionphotography via a small group of newphotographers – notably Sieff and Frank Horvat,who shared a studio for a while.

1961: NewYork, where he both realised hispotential and that he belonged back in France.He did a lot of work in England and Scotland, too,using his wide-angle lens to create many of thedefining images of London fashion as Biba andShrimpton swung it towards the Beatles andTwiggy. Landscape, flesh and cloth all meld andmesh in these photographs.1966: Paris. “Living with my Abyssinian cats,

working for FrenchVogue, still wandering aroundwith my old Leica.” And that’s kind of how it wasfor the rest of his life. For a while, he was the newkid in town, making pictures which broughtthe scent of the world to Paris – a city so oftenparochialised by its own self-regard.It was then and there he made the work that

made him famous beyond the tight world of artdirectors – the nudes, luscious yet neverlascivious. You never get the sense he was pokinghis lens through the keyhole – as you do in, say,Steichen. Nor, though, is there the dangerousthrill of Newton, let alone Mapplethorpe orGoldin. The archetypal – if not the best – Sieffimage of female sexuality is the smart, sweetpicture of his wife Barbara exposing her breastsin Death Valley, smiling.Then, somehow, he went from tyro to elder

statesman – maybe even has-been – seeminglywithout passing through the status between.He had a first act and a third but no second.“Can it be true that after 41 one merely repeatsoneself? I refuse to believe it, but I fear it maybe true.”He never stopped taking pictures, though.

He did campaigns for Patek Philippe watches andwas used, in the early 1990s, to rebrandHäagen-Dazs ice cream with his sensuous – andsmutless – nudes.He died, aged 66, of cancer, in his beloved

Paris on September 20, 2000. “I don’t believe inGod,” he wrote. “But women and trees are proofof his existence.”

www.jeanloupsieff.com

PP

GO ONLINE FOR MORE FROM THE LEGENDS OF PHOTOGRAPHY, VISIT WWW.PROFESSIONALPHOTOGRAPHER.CO.UK

“Can it be true that after 41 one merely repeats oneself?I refuse to believe it, but I fear it may be true.”

legend1933-2000

PP -LEGEND - MAY 11/04/2011 14:59

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If you need expert advice on which are the best photographic, video and imaging products, look out for products with the TIPA Awards logo. Every yearthe editors of 30 worldwide leading photography and imaging magazines vote to decide which new products are the very best in their respective categories.The TIPA awards are judged on quality, performance and value, making them the independent photo and imaging awards you can trust.

Professional photographer uk 2011-05

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Transcript of Professional photographer uk 2011-05