the Photographer - Summer 2014

the PHOTOGRAPHER

The big picture

Stanbury’s personal wedding service

The Magazine of the BIPP / Summer 2014

Rolls-Royce

A graduate in aerospace

Bryn Davies On art and design Summer 2014

Focus 2 Pro The shift in post

Trust the feeling Amanda Collins on developing style

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Summer 2014

The Editor / Comment 2 Photography forums: the good, the bad, and the critique Fine art / Bryn Davies 4 From commercial design, to fine art photography and bespoke printing, Bryn’s business is carefully defined to fit his chosen lifestyle and expertise

Weddings / David Stanbury 14 Big-budget weddings may not be quite as lavish as they were, but the Stanburys are still making the dream pictures come true

The Landscape 30 Paul Wakefield’s amazing new book is a benchmark in landscape photography of the highest order BIPP / News from the Institute 40 Company partners, benefits, and events coming up across the UK, plus Professional Photography Awards 2015 entry information Katrina Forey at Rolls-Royce 48 When you know what you want – go for it! Katrina made it her business to attain a rare full-time graduate position at Image Resource

Cover story / Amanda Collins 24 Our second visit to portraiture specialist Amanda, who is taking a brave new approach across the board from capture to print the Photographer is published four times a year by the British Institute of Professional Photography, The Coach House, The Firs, High Street, Whitchurch, Aylesbury HP22 4SJ. T: 01296 642020 E: info@bipp.com W: www.bipp.com President: Roy Meiklejon FBIPP Chief Executive: Chris Harper FBIPP Directors: Russell Baston Hon FBIPP, Kevin Pengelly FBIPP, Graham Rutherford FBIPP, Frank Tomlinson FBIPP

Membership Services Advisory Board Suzi Allen LBIPP (South West) Russell Baston Hon FBIPP (National seat) Tony Freeman Hon FBIPP (National seat) Richard Mayfield FBIPP (Yorkshire) Alan McEwan Hon FBIPP (Scotland) Ian Pedlow LBIPP (Northern Ireland) Kevin Pengelly FBIPP (South East) James Russell LBIPP (North West) Graham Rutherford FBIPP (National seat) Malcolm Sales ABIPP (Midlands)

Are ISOs all the same? 56 Real, digital pull, digital push?

We make a little sense of it all Focus 2 Pro 60 Post-production focus effects as a plug-in to your chosen software Frank Tomlinson FBIPP (National seat) Kevin Weatherly LBIPP (North East) Bella West FBIPP (National seat) Stuart Wood FBIPP (National seat) Editor: Jonathan Briggs, editor@bipp.com Advertising: Tel 01296 642020 Email: jack@bipp.com UK Subscribers £20, EU £40, Rest of the World £50 ISSN: 0031-8698 Printed and bound by Magazine Printing Company, Enfield

Neither the British Institute of Professional Photography (BIPP) nor any of its employees, members, contractors or agents accepts any responsibility whatsoever for loss of or damage to photographs, illustrations or manuscripts or any other material submitted, howsoever caused. The views expressed in this magazine are the views of individual contributors and do not necessarily represent the views of the BIPP. All advertisements are accepted and all editorial matter published in good faith. The Publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, that any particular product or service is available at the time of publication or at any given price. No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means whatsoever, or stored in a retrieval system, or broadcast, published or exhibited without the prior permission of the publisher. This magazine is the copyright of the BIPP without prejudice to the right of contributors and photographers as defined in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Registered at Stationers’ Hall, Ref B6546, No. 24577. © BIPP 2014

Summer 2014 / the PHOTOGRAPHER 1

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The editor / Comment

It’s good to talk A

nother – and there are many others – strange thing about photographers is our need for community. Maybe it’s because we can spend many hours locked away in a studio, or alone tramping up hillsides, or whatever the lone-wolf brand of photography might be. We seem to want to chat more than other professions.

And the internet plus social media helps us to do this a lot. It’s nice isn’t it having a good bit of conversation about something you are passionate about without the ‘other half ’ groaning and rolling his or her eyes at the mere mention of that thing that just happens to also pay some of the bills… But beyond it being nice, our profession is subject to perennial shifting sands of technology more than many others and hence there are new subjects and problems coming up all of the time that can be helpfully solved by a bit of information sharing.

This is absolutely fantastic – the idea of professional people sharing the love.

You find a service or product that does the job really well and you share that info when a relevant question is asked and a fellow photographer is in distress over it. Brilliant. I’ve shared a lot of information on forums in my time and have similarly made use of some stunning snippets of information that would have taken an age to find by oneself.

I can’t quite think how anyone coped before the internet came along and we

Forums – begin with the best intentions and often end ridden with rules, trouble and strife. Do we always have to be nice? were able to have it to hand 24 hours a day. Blimey, I might have had to trek to the library. I happened to be explaining the concept of the internet to my mum recently – she’s reasonably digitally savvy, but hasn’t gotten into the web very much, apart from an odd excursion onto YouTube. Really, people do exist out there… She likes history a lot and so I expressed it in terms of a library that contains all the information in the world (now don’t start arguing with me on this) and it’s available all of the time. She asked me how I knew all the information was accurate – and of course I had to admit that we didn’t. This seemed to be a problem.

But back to photography… the internet gives us access but it is people who know whether something or someone is any good or not, rather than the fact that it’s on the web. And so forums are enormously useful for bringing the professional human element into the ‘what’s the best x,y,z’ question.

So if it’s all so easy and a great big love-in, then why do forums always go wrong? In my experience it starts when photographers start asking dumb questions that could have been sorted out with a very tiny bit of effort with google on their part. For example, once I saw someone asking where they could hire a crystal ball from, rather than simply typing ‘prop hire’ into a search engine. I saw another one where a photographer was genuinely asking where he could get grass from.

Er, your local garden centre, perhaps? All this is just folk being lazy and stupid and you can’t legislate for that. But it seems to set the tone for things to go downhill.

The next biggie is of course that photography is subjective and we can get very hot under the collar when an image is criticised, especially when it’s our own. I recall an instance

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when a landscape photographer posted up a very mediocre shot of some scene or other and was talking about having done a reccy in the location. Hence everyone assumed, naturally enough, that this was a quick reccy shot and not something that was intended to hang on a gallery wall. A few comments later and all hell had broken loose since it wasn’t a reccy shot and was in fact taken with x,y,z fantastic camera never mind the lens and would the world please get lost. Ooops. A number of people then ploughed in pointing out the madness of the over-reaction and before we knew it admin had stepped in and deleted the post. That in turn led everyone who had seen a bit of it but had now realised it had gone to wonder – generally inaccurately – about what had gone on so fuelling more inaccurate debate and mud-slinging. Great.

So we now get to the real point of this issue’s missive.

Criticism, and how to take it. Good critique from someone in the know is priceless. The trouble is our hearts kick in and we come up with lots of reasons why we should ignore it. There’s two brands of bad reaction to criticism: (a) we don’t take it

seriously; or (b) we take it personally.

Both of these responses lead directly to a failure to challenge and progress. It’s because of the incredible subjectivity of a good image that this game is so interesting in the first place – and so the power of input from an experienced and knowledgeable head can power an amazingly steep learning curve. It’s just that the ego has to be put to one side and we have to accept that the person isn’t actually saying they hate you.

So the next time you get the opportunity to have some input into your work from outside, count to ten and disconnect your normal response wiring, and you might be slightly surprised by what the day then brings.

Jonathan Briggs, editor

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Summer 2014 / the PHOTOGRAPHER 3

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Space defined Bryn Davies’ work expresses his natural strengths – composition and space. With a design background and a head for the long-term outcome, he also communicates quiet confidence in both the quality of imagery he’s producing and his chosen career path

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ryn Davies started working for IKEA as a junior in the design team 12 years ago. It began as an internship during a gap year before university.

But in the end he never went to university. Instead, he spent a couple of years shadowing colleagues on an in-store design team.

Retail design is a lot to do with concepts: everything from creating the footprint and layout of a store – and in turn considering how customers respond to different stimuli and the order such things come in – to product display, retail support areas and office spaces. Bryn says: ‘You work with art directors and graphic designers and it’s a very collaborative process. It’s a group dynamic.’

Spin on a decade and Bryn still has a strong relationship with IKEA via his own company: ‘I carry out design consultancy for them, usually abroad. You work within a brief but you have to understand the cultural and wider significance and local expectations.’

Bryn’s travels take him to China and Sweden, meeting people from different cultures but all the time working

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towards a shared overall goal and brand ideal. Thinking about how this side of Bryn’s working life educates his photography is itself many layered. Space is the first biggie. It’s noticeable how well his pictures sit on a page.

Then there’s scale – see left how his image contains both towering rock formations and what must be huge trees seeming small and fragile – that drags your eye up and down. You’re pulled inwards by the careful exposure that offers subtle distance detail. Hence the ‘potential’ of the image is by its make-up huge.

Now based in Liverpool, but still travelling on and off for perhaps six months of the year, Bryn mixes what we might loosely term ‘fine art’ photography with a specialist print service and his design consultancy business.

‘I began to concentrate on fine art photography about two-and-a-half years back,’ says Bryn. ‘It’s not a good business model to begin with, but I can be away for half the year and it fits well with that as I can utilise my travelling time to build up imagery and then print and exhibit on my return. Before I got so specific I was tending to promote myself as something I wasn’t always available for.’ A few years down the line and Bryn’s established a 50:50 split between fine art photography and design work. He has a healthy perspective on selling fine art: ‘The idea is that you’re expanding creative possibilities – in general I’d say fine art is the commercial workflow in reverse: you initiate a project and then find ways to make a £.’

Print sales themselves don’t make a proper living, but Bryn has developed a group of services around the time he spends on fine art projects, including photographing and reproducing other artists’ work and printing for other photographers. He says: ‘It’s a service and then you’re also expanding your own profile and network within an area. It’s about being a part of the collective and I have a passion for printing – it remains rather a lost art. So much photography comes to an end on a computer. It’s interesting when you’re printing for photographers, illustrators and artists how differently they view their own work. Illustrators are more likely to have the third party in mind. And it might be surprising to hear that often photographers hand over a file and have less involvement. But the best way forward is to be

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involved in the whole process.’ That, of course, demands a consistent workflow and knowledge the original work, the history of the file, and maintaining expectations and perceptions of the process. It’s such a difficult line to tread, printing for other image-makers: ‘If you go through the process step by step and are completely open about what is happening and what the variables are and why, then you can achieve success and develop a relationship with the artist and the work. When it is your own work you have the emotion attached to it, whilst as a printer I am working in a dispassionate way, and am only concerned with what is accurate and precise.’ Bryn works through an art agent and has invested a great deal in equipment and knowledge but is crystal clear in his communication about the process: ‘Print reproduction doesn’t aim to compete with an original work. Its aim is to be a work of art in its own right.’ This is a statement that can apply to all mediums of course. He’s working with an Epson Stylus Pro 3880 printer and museum grade 310gsm Canson paper: ‘The Baryta Photographique; Edition Etching Rag; and Arches Aquarelle Rag are my main offerings but it’s important to realise that the quality of a print is related to a good paper choice in keeping with the image. For instance, a high-contrast black and white photograph combined with a Baryta paper will maximise the tonal range, whilst a watercolour reproduction will benefit from the texture of an Aquarelle Rag. Then there’s other variables such as scale, sharpness and viewing distance.

It’s a bit of a melting pot and the only way forward is to fully communicate how these variables translate to the image to be printed.’

Bryn’s print services are just another part of his business that helps keep the pressure off of the fine art work he produces himself: ‘It’s a slow burning process, fine art photography. You have to give it time to let it grow.

The role of commercial work is partly to support your mindset when it comes to fine art. Or in other words it’s healthy to have a steady revenue stream to balance a risky or unknown side of your work. And then if you’re doing fine art just to sell prints then you might as well be working to a brief and it’s actually become a commercial job – you’ve missed the point entirely.’

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Design, of course, demands the ability to be objective and treat a brief as exactly that – not be promoting a vision of your own. It’s possible to detect the designer attitude in Bryn’s photographic work. Even where people are present in his images, he’s not in the way, not imposing himself on the environment.

‘A big company might have it’s own concept already,’ says Bryn. ‘I don’t have to enforce any developing ideas into a design assignment. The cultural inspiration I gain along the way is reinvested into the fine art projects. I have been in China for a year across the last three and it has had an amazing impact on my perceptions and it’s your influences, thoughts and feelings that go into imagery you are producing “for yourself ”.’

When the results are intensely personal, how do you distinguish and articulate what you do? Bryn replies: ‘It is something that you have to be championing – generic is nothing.

There are a lot of shortcuts but quality stands out over time. I am going for the long game. Very few will make a working income just from fine art activity so you have to be constantly developing a portfolio of skills. You have to separate everyday income from what you are trying to say as an artist – the two can’t get muddled up. And fine art is not about being a one-hit wonder – it’s about looking back over a long period of time and seeing that you have achieved a body of work that is part of you.’

Back on the print side people might come to Bryn and say they need this and that in two hours and yet there’s a lot wrong with the image and its technical aspects. Bryn comments: ‘They might be happy for me to wade in and

be in charge of it and that immediately builds a relationship. But I’m not a print factory – I offer a bespoke service, not a hot folder. Across all my work I’m looking to grow a reputation and develop on the scene. I think it has helped me slow down, to set my own goalposts.

Part of fine art is about dealing with rejection and opportunity in equal measure. An image might be of a good standard but communicates the wrong message.’

The personal in ‘personal work’ should be respected…

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Bryn’s series ‘abstracts of industry’ – part of which is shown here – started off as a reccy. Bryn says: ‘I was interested in artists from the industrial age and where their influences came from. I had proper location access and the initial work was then seen by a firm of architects – they asked me to develop the series for their office spaces. I’m printing these as large-format images – they were taken on a Nikon D800 so you can go to A1 and beyond without any resampling. But the fact of it becoming a revenue earning work doesn’t change the project – you’ve initiated the idea and present a series of those works. But I will stress I wasn’t just turning up and hoping for the best – it wasn’t a guerilla tactics kind of approach.’ Bryn concludes by offering an insight into the fine art mindset: ‘You have to be happy in your own skin, be happy with the work you have produced. That avoids envy and provides security in what you are doing.

There are artists who identify what the public wants, and sell more prints. But that’s not art – it’s a process.

You must eliminate the excuses. It’s not what you do but why you do it. That’s what fine art really is.’ tP indigenousimages.com

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The grand statement Classical, stylish, but definitely not over the top.

These are good descriptions of the Stanburys’ special brand of wedding photography. We find out that the husband-and-wife duo are a highly organised operation

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t was some 18 years ago that David Stanbury ‘stumbled’ into photography – so you could say he hasn’t done too bad. Now almost the ‘darling’ of the wedding industry and in some demand not simply for his photography but on the workshops and training circuit, the brand ‘Stanbury’ is a well-rehearsed and well-oiled machine – a husband-and-wife conglomerate.

Success is no accident since David has a strong profile, a substantial track record, and is (so I’m told) easy on the eye – a marketer’s dream then… the relationships with major top-line brands such as Graphistudio and Hasselblad are the natural result. Yes, and did I say David can talk? For England… Getting a message across comes equally naturally and hence you might say wedding photography chose David, rather than the other way around. If this sounds like the ultimate picture of a modern-day successful photographer, the back-story is soaked in traditional practices.

We can keep this element succinct and to the point: he was given a camera for his birthday; went to college to learn how to use the thing; and fell in love with

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darkroom printing. It’s interesting, though, to realise that this is actually one source of today’s predominant, and fashionable, wedding style. David comments: ‘I was asked by a friend of a friend to photograph their wedding purely in black and white. You just didn’t do that then. I was one of the few photographers who would shoot a black and white wedding. It was only because I was doing darkroom printing and so could develop it too that it suited me – I do like a good black and white image…’

The Stanbury product of course is now about offering the grand service – the ‘big’ pictures that demand top-end equipment, luxury presentation and an ambitious photographer to do the business. But you don’t have to delve very deep into the Stanbury world to unearth the crux of the operation: people, and an understanding of their point of view.

David’s photography makes a point of featuring the locations, buildings and settings of a wedding almost as much as the bride and groom. As much as David tells us that he loves photographing people, architecture and using or creating dramatic lighting – what photographer wouldn’t? – there’s much more to it from a commercial perspective: ‘I like to get those elements into the pictures,’ he says. ‘The bride and groom get to see the venue that they’ve booked; get to enjoy the place that they chose for a personal reason; and get that sense that it was all worth it. I’m presenting elements that they’ve spent a great deal of money on, in a beautiful and stylish way. That really is all part of building the emotion in the pictures.’

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Hence finding the emotion is not just about being a people person and having the gift of the gab. David continues: ‘You need to get the emotion but certainly many of our clients book us for our skills and our organisation.

Some people might think that having a great venue puts the photographer in an easy position, but you have to make the special effort to get the best out of the venue and ensure you live up to their dreams of getting married there.

We make a fuss and take the time to get the best out of the venue and make our clients feel special. Just how you pose the bride can be a stand-out factor – get it right and you can make her feel like a movie star and you’re contributing to the overall feeling of the day.’

Clearly positioned at the top end of the weddings market, is the genre insulated from on-going austerity? David replies: ‘It’s crazy right now – the busiest period we’ve had in a long time.’

The Stanbury business focus remains narrow, however: ‘We shoot specifically towards the design of an album. We’re not the cheapest, but our model isn’t based on price. We target venues that are similarly targeting a level of client but recommendation is the name of the game. A lot of our couples really like our style of expressing the story of the wedding day. It’s wrapped around the purpose of the album – it’s not just for memories. If you weren’t a guest at the wedding then looking at the album should make you feel like you’ve been there. However, we offer more besides – at the higher end there’s a lot to be said for track record and experience. Clients appreciate our husband-and-wife team with years of photographing weddings

behind us and that gives us the ability to provide insight and little inputs that help them get more from their day.

Sometimes there’s a feeling that we are becoming wedding co-ordinators – but that’s just fine as we’re getting really embedded in the process and have generated trust when this happens.’

So it’s a serious business, personal service: ‘I do believe that personality is one of the overriding factors in being a great wedding photographer. It’s not enough to be a great photographer and it’s not enough to be using the best equipment. There has to be something more – you have to be a good people person. But do not misunderstand what this means. It is not about being some live-wire who never shuts up and gets on the nerves of half the guests; it’s not about butting in all the time and ordering people about. It’s actually about understanding the people who have hired you and their own aspirations for their wedding – it is not about you. I’ve photographed weddings where I’ve barely even talked to the couple! Of course, I knew that was the way they wanted it to be and there’s the confidence of a relationship that has already been established. I think there can be a pressure that some photographers feel to be in charge of the situation – and, yes sometimes the unexpected happens – but to us preparation is everything. You cannot hope to get it right if you haven’t made the effort to know your clients’ hopes and dreams.’

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Business is undoubtedly brisk, but a top-line wedding is not the same beast it might have been years ago.

David explains: ‘When I first started the big thing was to show off your wealth, there were doves released from cages… If it could be bought for a wedding then you had to have it. People are probably spending the same amount of money, but the style is different now – there’s been a definite move away from excess and over-the-top statements. I think as a business you have to be sure that you are in sync with your client base and our offering is aimed at being lavish, yes; grand, indeed; but classic and traditional in outlook, timeless. We want our clients to look back and be able to see something that was beautiful, to be able to re-live the dream.’

David is in demand, as already noted, on the workshops scene. Indeed he’s already booked in to talk at The Photography Show next year. Why does he do it? What’s the point? ‘In strict business terms, talks and workshops do nothing,’ David quips. ‘I’ve come to the point 18 years down the line with many boxes in

photography ticked, so I can break out and offer up my own experiences as a yard stick. We did a lot of learning and testing years back. We did that together and a lot of people really need to grab hold of that willingness and enthusiasm to be a better photographer. I get more out the talks myself – I enjoy it and I enjoy being passionate about my job – I wouldn’t have been successful if I wasn’t.’ He expands: ‘Despite the mistaken notion that anyone can be a good photographer, the craft is a journey – and not a destination – and learning can be hard. That fact is difficult for some people to accept.’

Even though David has a Fellowship in Wedding Photography, the FBIPP does not mean he thinks the job’s all done. He says: ‘I still haven’t shot the

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perfect wedding album in my mind.

It’s inside me and I hope that I’m so super critical that I’ll never think it’s done. We have a de-brief after every wedding we shoot – we’re truly always trying to do it better.’

Indeed it’s firmly rooted in the business routine: ‘We practise every week.

Half a day is put aside for research and development. It’s important to go out with the cameras and try different things, experiment with new approaches and see if there’s a place for different looks and different perspectives. Nine out of ten times it doesn’t work but the ten per cent when it does brings out a result that is what’s really keeping us on top of the game. Otherwise we’d be too formulaic – and similarly it helps keep you right on top of your technical skills. You just can’t be wishing you’ve done this and that on the job. We have a briefing every morning and a prewedding routine that guides our way through. I think it’s the only way that you can bring feeling and fun into a set of images. The technical and approach work has to be in the bag long before you begin.’

David Stanbury owns 26 cameras, but he’s not into gear, instead he just refuses to sell anything on: ‘I still have my first camera, right here in the studio,’ he explains. But there’s a purpose to everything: ‘It’s not difficult to know where to go next if you know where you’ve come from. Also, we do not take cameras away with us on holiday…’

Perhaps this is the commercial difference… tP www.stanburyphotography.co.uk

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Lasting impact Amanda Collins has consciously decided to find a style of portraiture that is more than the sum of its parts and a world away from volume sales and quick in-out sittings.

As her work continues to develop, we make a return visit to talk a little more about ‘artisitc’ style in the hard commercial world

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s we began to explore in our first piece talking to Chelmsford-based portrait photographer Amanda Collins, she had felt a need to move in a different direction than the crowd – to both fulfil artistic and commercial needs. A few months on, here we are again to see how this process is developing.

If you compare the two sets of work, from this and the Spring 2014 issue, it’s very clear to see where Amanda is headed. Working in a distinctly ‘artistic’ style, she’s looking to get across a different feeling than the run-of-the-mill high-key white background jump-inthe-air type of portraiture that dominates the market.

It’s obviously a brave move that demands the ability to set out your stall and stick with it, knowing that it will take some time for clients to become aware of your difference and engage with the offering.

It’s not that her portraits aren’t commercial, though.

Despite the fact that it can be hard to establish a niche style and therefore brand, once achieved it can be a great springboard that can power a photographer for many

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Image © Amanda Collins

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years to come. Set the experience against the notion of working flat out all of the time tying to get a slice of the volume sales that will always go to ‘standard’ family portraiture, and it’s not hard to see why Amanda has gone for it.

However, even in the few months since we last met, events have taken

an unexpected turn for Amanda. Not long after our last conversation Amanda slipped a disc in her back – a massive nightmare for anyone but for a selfemployed photographer a commercial headache too. ‘I was out of action for quite a few weeks, literally not able to do anything,’ says Amanda. My main worry was having to move lots of booked-in portrait sessions but thankfully my customers have stuck with me and been patient – which is certainly more than I’ve managed! So now it’s catch-up time and I’m working hard, which I suppose isn’t quite the idea. It’s the kind of thing that fills you with dread…’

But it hasn’t all been problems, as Amanda won the London and Essex Group Family Portrait of the Year award in May. ‘I entered four images and they all got placed, which was excellent news.’ But she seems curiously unwilling to do much PR around such events.

‘I’m not someone who’s going to run around shouting it from the roof tops,’ she says. ‘I might make a small comment on Facebook or something, but it’s not something that I make a lot of and I know that this isn’t how it should be.’

We have a look together at her entries and it comes out that Amanda also now undertakes all her own fine art printing: ‘I wasn’t able to get suppliers to produce my images how I wanted them and so eventually I took a deep breath and invested in a Canon Pro 1 inkjet printer and I’ve found that to be a great freedom, and I’m so pleased to be able to achieve what I want to achieve.’ Amanda printed this time on Pinnacle Antique Fine Art paper which is a matt stock that has a lovely ability to give the classic sharpness of an art

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photolease_fullpagead_Stopwatch-withsocial_BIPP_CMYK300dpi.pdf photolease photolease_fu fullpagead fullpagead_Stopwatch-withsocial_BIPP_CMYK3 Stopwatch-withsocial BIPP CMYK300d K300dpi.pdf pi.pdf 1 18/03/2013 18 8/0 /03/2 2013 11:07:48 11:07:48

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Image © Amanda Collins

g paper but retain the atmosphere of an

image. Amanda comments: ‘That’s in my mind exactly how my images should be printed, so coming to that point in my quest as it were to be able to control my own output, it’s a fantastic result and I’m very pleased that I took the jump.’

The media used certainly is a match to the images themselves, which is an element of printing that’s often forgotten about by photographers.

Atmosphere definitely plays a major part in Amanda’s work and there’s additionally the strong feeling that

it’s all coming right from the heart.

Amanda is the complete antithesis of a pre-programmed photographer going through the motions. It might well take her a few variations to get where she wants to go, but it’s all part of the creative development process. ‘I’m such a scatter,’ says Amanda, very endearingly.

‘You ask me a question and in my head I’m there replying to you but part of me has shifted to thinking about all the possibilities that your question has just triggered. Perhaps if I could stick to one line of thought my photography might be simpler.’ And what about customers, how are they responding to Amanda’s developing direction? ‘They absolutely love the style compared to my competitors,’ she tells, ‘but it has taken a little bit of time and so a bit of courage on my part. I like the fact that my style is very separate from that of other social and portrait photographers around me.

Importantly, I think that I’m starting to see a higher total value of portraiture sales, almost as a result of taking a more indirect approach and concentrating on this stylistic change and development.’

During our conversations it becomes clear that Amanda is getting more and more involved with each and every image she takes. ‘Sometimes you have time to sit and reflect and it’s possible to wonder whether you’re doing the right thing. Recently – unfortunately – I’ve had too much time. But I do have the support around me, including that of the BIPP, to keep a clear vision.’ What’s becoming obvious is Amanda’s developing calmness and gentleness of approach to portraiture, which promises longevity in the business to come. tP www.amandacollinsphotography.co.uk

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From

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P

aul Wakefield is a photographer you might not know. He doesn’t do workshops, trade shows, Facebook or Twitter, and an interview is a rare thing indeed. Yet Paul is perhaps the background inspiration for the current crop of ‘name’ landscape photographers such as Colin Prior, Charlie Waite and the chasing pack behind. His new book The Landscape has been a very long time coming – more than 25 years in fact. There’s a point in anyone’s experience of the photography industry when you come into contact with pictures that are of a quality that blows you away – it represents a step-change in your awareness of what’s top notch and what’s actually also-ran. Paul Wakefield provided one such moment many years back.

He has a commercial photography career that spans three decades with a blue chip client list to match and accolades to die for. He received a D&AD Silver Award back in 1990, an AOP Gold in ’97. That’s a

From The Landscape by Paul Wakefield. Seaward Kaikoura Range South Island, New Zealand, February 2000 © Paul Wakefield

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From The Landscape by Paul Wakefield. Mellte Gorge, Powys, Wales, October 2006 © Paul Wakefield

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pre-web era when awards were very serious things indeed, and ‘award-winning’ wasn’t a glib phrase found on every photographer’s website. He exhibited at The Photographers Gallery in 1984, the Saatchi Gallery in ’94, the Maritime Museum in 2005 amongst many, many others. Then there’s his repeated visits to India doing street photography before anyone really coined that term, and of course his vast catalogue of landscapes.

In the 1980s he produced four books with Jan Morris: Wales The First Place; Britain A World By Itself; Scotland A Place Of Visions; and Ireland Your Only Place. Four books in a decade is quite a mission and he says of it: ‘It was quite rapid whilst still officially my personal work. Commissions were going on around it. I had started to phase myself out of studio photography and landscapes were coming much more into advertising jobs.

Personal work was supposed to be a break from the rigours of commissions but with those four books it became deadline driven and in a way, not what it was supposed to be.’ Paul started visiting India, travelling very light with just a handheld 35mm and a couple of lenses, almost as an antidote to what the landscapes had become. He didn’t go back to shooting landscapes as personal work until the early 1990s. That’s where the timeframe of a quarter of a century comes from that lies between his Ireland book and this latest publication The Landscape.

I’m quite willing to admit that I could have happily put page after page of Paul’s work into this issue of tP, just so that you could all have a good look, just because all of the images are simply stunning. But it wouldn’t really be fair on the photographerPR agent-editor relationship – however I’m dying to put more than these five in.

Why? Because you can touch them, you want to experience the textures, smell the

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From The Landscape by Paul Wakefield. Isle of Skye, Highlands, Scotland, October 2009 © Paul Wakefield

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From The Landscape by Paul Wakefield. Sahara el Beyda, Western Desert, Egypt, November 2011 © Paul Wakefield

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moments. Paul’s images don’t rely on the viewer exclaiming ‘wow that’s so-and-so place in Scotland’ or wherever in the world it happens to be.

Paul says: ‘When I got back into doing the personal landscapes work again, I didn’t have a book in mind at all. It really was just for pure pleasure, not with any future commercial angle of any sort.’ The images in The Landscape span a period from 1987 through to the present and it is possibly this over-arching intention – to take personal images just for himself – that offers up a perfect stillness in his work. It borders on unnerving.

Paul continues: ‘I have found a particular interest in certain types of landscape and keep going back for more. Certain types of formations and light resonate with me but there’s a strong link to a period of time I spent working on commissions for the National Trust. They would give me a location and a date that they needed the images by, but no direction, no brief, no attempt at control. Whilst many photographers would love it, the truth is you’re being sent places you maybe wouldn’t have chosen and have to find something special in a window of time. It made me look harder and made me more critical. And it took me beyond the notion of landscapes being at a place you [the viewer] know.’

The sense of calm you get from Paul’s work is very much intentional – just as much as a book was never a pre-formed destination: ‘When people look at landscapes on the whole,’ he says, ‘you see and you ask where it is. That’s the first question, and I fully understand why it comes. But I wanted to move away from that stock reaction and try to give my landscapes as a whole a sort of look and feel and purposely used nonspecific locations or unidentifiable sections

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The Landscape by Paul Wakefield with essays by the writer Robert Macfarlane, the curator Andrew Wilton and the painter Anthony Connolly is published by Envisage Books price £48.50 in hardcover, 128 pp, 80 colour illustrations (ISBN 978-0-9564764-9-4).

It is available from www.envisagebooks.co.uk.

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From The Landscape by Paul Wakefield. Senja Island, Nordland, Norway,May 2008 © Paul Wakefield

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of places. My plan was to present them with a narrative feeling and get to a point beyond the idea that I travelled to here or there.’

All of the images in The Landscape are shot on large-format film and considering this you’d expect Paul to be insistent about the role it plays in his work. But he comments: ‘The camera you use is just a personal decision and it should fit the job – however for me the choice of medium determines the way that I work. It is natural for me to work in this slow, methodical way. It instructs you to look very carefully at what you’ve got. I have to do my editing at the time I make the pictures and I might be taking ten images each day.’

But it should also be noted that Paul has no lofty ideas about his work either: ‘Of course I make loads and loads of mistakes, but I did learn from them and started filtering out approaches that didn’t work. You come across those situations again and you know that have to move on, difficult as it may be.’

Paul freely admits to being a traditionalist – and possesses many OS maps – but is also keen to point out that he has evolved, gradually fine tuning the feeling he sought to get across. So why now, all of a sudden after 25 years, does the book come? Paul says: ‘I do photograph for myself but I want other people to see them. I should have done it years back, and if you step out of an area of work you get forgotten easily and you have to make a strong impression to get back in there. I want people to make their own decisions about my work and I don’t want to say much about what it means to me – it’s what other people say and feel that counts. But yes the edit and the quality of The Landscape encapsulates what I see and how I think about landscape photography. tP Summer 2014 / the PHOTOGRAPHER 39

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BIPP / Company partners

Epson’s Large Format Printer range is the preferred choice of professional photography and fine art reproduction users. The Micro Piezo TFP print head features up to 360 micro-fine nozzles per colour, delivering incredibly sharp, grain-free images at high speed, ensuring that outstanding photographs and fine art images are created every time.

Epson’s family of pigment based UltraChrome inks offer a number of benefits including superior colour reproduction with exceptionally wide gamut, excellent black and white reproduction, consistency, stability, lighfastness and flexibility. The ultimate quality is reproduced on a wide range of media including gloss, matte, fine art and canvas finishes in cut-sheet and roll format. www.epson.co.uk Fujifilm is a global leader in imaging technology, products and services including digital cameras, photofinishing, digital storage and recording media, consumer and professional film, motion picture film, professional video, printing systems, medical imaging, office technology, flat panel displays and graphic arts. The company employs more than 73,000 people worldwide, with 178 subsidiaries stretching across four continents.

Uniquely placed to be a market leader in digital imaging, Fujifilm develops and manufactures its own sensors, lenses and processing technology. In addition to its production plants and R&D operations in Japan, the company has key manufacturing facilities in Europe and the USA for core products such as colour film, colour paper, single use cameras and CTP printing plates, and has further factories in Brazil and China. It has a global turnover in excess of £13 billion.

In the UK, Fujifilm has been supplying the imaging, printing and graphics industries, as well as consumers, professional and enthusiast photographers, with high quality, innovative products and services for over 25 years.

Fujifilm UK currently employs more than 400 people and has become one of the country’s most popular photographic and imaging brands. www.fujifilm.co.uk

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BIPP / Partner news

New Member Benefit from 4B4 4B4 Ltd is a media duplication company providing a high-quality service for professionally manufactured CDs, DVDs, and USBs, with a fast order turnaround.

A large proportion of 4B4’s customers are from the media industry, including professional photographers, and they are offering BIPP members the following packages which include a 20% discount:

BIPP members receive a 10% discount for products purchased through Tantronics.

Tantronics offer a wide range of battery products and a reliable and quality service. Products are supplied by well-known manufacturers and for sale at fantastic low prices.

Please visit www.tantronics.co.uk for further information.

Offer No 1 50 x DVDs printed in full colour + inserted poly wallets Delivered to one UK address £74.00 (+VAT) Offer No 2 100 x DVDs printed in full colour + inserted poly wallets Delivered to one UK address £99.00 (+VAT) Offer No 3 50 x DVDs printed in full colour + DVD cases + printed DVD wrap Delivered to one UK address £107.00 (+VAT) Offer No 4 100 x DVDs printed in full colour + DVD cases + printed DVD wrap Delivered to one UK address £149.00 (+VAT)

www.4b4.co.uk

Manufacturing for the trade and end users since 1961, Nomad have provided transit and display solutions for many different industries and applications.

It is important to remember that their boxes can be bespoke, as every client is unique, so do give them a call or request a call back from one of their sales team and discuss your requirements. No job is too big or too small!

BIPP members receive a 10% discount off all orders – please call 01858 464878 and quote your membership number. www.nomadplc.co.uk

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BIPP / Regions

Midland Paul Witney ABIPP pwitney@bgs.ac.uk

North East Kevin Weatherly LBIPP kevinweatherly@mac.com

North West James Russell LBIPP james@jamesrussell photography.co.uk

EVENTS & DATES COMING UP

BIPP EVENTS

SOUTH EAST

PORTFOLIO REVIEWS If you’re working towards your first or upgrading to your next BIPP qualification and would like to meet with an Assessor, we have the following Portfolio Review dates coming up soon:

Capturing Natural Light in Environmental Fine Art Portraiture with Bella West FBIPP & Chris Harper FBIPP Tuesday 22 July, 10am-4pm Whittlesford Bridge, near Duxford, Cambridge

Wednesday 16 July 2014 - Shaftesbury

Join two of the most respected photographers in the UK for this day of practical demonstrations and tutorials based around the use of natural light.

It’s a day of two halves – Bella will lead on how to achieve beautiful portraits of children and young people and we’ll contrast her style with that of Chris’ visually stimulating fitness photography. Learn the differ­ences between the two styles and discover how similar lighting and backgrounds can be used for two very distinct types of photography. Be less reliant on your kit and the limitations of the camera and use your eye to escape from ordinary images into something much more creative.

Thursday 31 July 2014 - London Thursday 14 August 2014 - Exeter Tuesday 19 August 2014 - Leeds Wednesday 20 August 2014 - Liverpool Thursday 21 August 2014 - Shrewsbury Thursday 4 September 2014 - Surrey Tuesday 30 September 2014 - London PORTFOLIO BUILDER DAY Wednesday 29 October 2014 – BIPP Head Office QUALIFICATION ASSESSMENT DATES Ready to book your Qualification Assessment?

The following dates are now available: 5 August 2014 - BIPP Head Office, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire (Submission Deadline 8 July 2014) 7 October 2014 - BIPP Head Office, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire (Submission Deadline 9 September 2014).

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Photographic Essay in the Open with Denise Swanson FBIPP Tuesday 12 August, 10am-4pm Upton Broad & Marshes, South Walsham, Norfolk Get up close and personal with nature! Spend a day recording nature at Upton Broad & Marshes, an area of quiet beauty and wildness located in the Bure Valley of Norfolk. It is protected by the Norfolk Wildlife Trust and supports some of Broadland’s rarest wildlife, from swallowtail butterflies to water voles, otters, and a host of wetland plants.

David & Goliath: Creative Wedding Masters at Work with Kevin Wilson Hon FBIPP & David Wheeler ABIPP Tuesday 12 August, 10am-4pm BIPP Training Facilities, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire

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Northern Ireland John Miskelly LBIPP john@johnmiskelly photography.co.uk

Scotland Mike Brookes-Roper FBIPP mike@brookes-roper.co.uk

South West Suzi Allen LBIPP info@suziallen.com

South East Chris Harper FBIPP chris@bipp.com

Yorkshire Stuart Clark Hon FBIPP stuartclarkphotos@ talktalk.net

EVENTS & DATES COMING UP

For the very first time, witness the battle of the giants! Kevin Wilson is known globally for his wedding photography and for the support he gives people coming into the profession. David Wheeler is one of those people. Experienced in other fields but only starting to shoot weddings a few years ago, David has become ‘one to watch’. He achieved the Peter Grugeon Best Associate Award in 2013 and continues to learn from the Master.

SOUTH WEST Commercial & Portrait Photography with Andy Whale FBIPP Wednesday 24 September, 1.30pm-4.30pm Wessex Royale Hotel, Dorchester In this relaxed afternoon talk, Andy will show examples of his work and share his experience of working in the commercial and portrait sectors, including recent projects, relationships with clients and agents, and the inspiration and hard work behind his Fellowship portfolio.

HDR Processing & How to get it right, with David Stoddart Monday 15 September

MIDLANDS Regional Meeting with Vicki-Lea Boulter Tuesday 29 July, 7.30pm-10pm Lea Marston Hotel, Sutton Coldfield, B76 0BY For this meeting we are privileged to have the very talented Vicki-Lea Boulter coming to show us her exceptional work. See - http://www.vickiboulter.com £10 BIPP members/friends; £5 with NUS Card.

SCOTLAND Steve Howdle ABIPP Lighting Workshop Wednesday 22 & Thursday 23 October Hunting Tower Hotel, Perth Steve has agreed to return to Scotland to hold a full two-day workshop.

BIPP Qualification Blocks – New stock in!

Our acrylic Qualification Award blocks are available for qualified BIPP members to purchase online.

Display them in your studio, office, trophy cabinet or on your mantelpiece, take them with you to your next wedding fair or promotional show – wherever they will be seen by potential clients!

Promote your achievements, your BIPP qualification and your status as a professional photographer, while raising the profile of your profession. The awards are available to BIPP Qualified Members ONLY, who must hold the relevant qualification and all online orders will be confirmed before the blocks are posted.

There are three options for you to choose from: Licentiateship (7x5) £40; Associateship (8x6) £45; Fellowship (9x7) £50 Prices are subsidised by BIPP and include VAT and UK postage & packing. Visit www.bipp.com/shop

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BIPP / Awards 2015

Professional Photography Awards 2015 Call for Entries: Deadline (with no extension!)

First Round Judging: Presentation:

1 July 2014 31 October 2014 November 2014 January 2015

CATEGORIES Wedding & Portrait Commercial Science & Technology Visual Arts, supported by Towergate Camerasure Non-commissioned With the exception of ‘Non-commissioned’, these categories are for images produced with commercial intent, and they must have been commissioned or available to purchase or exhibit.

If you are no longer in practice, please consider entering the ‘Non-commissioned’ category.

OPEN TO © Kevin Wilson Hon FBIPP, South East Photographer of the Year 2013

• Qualified BIPP Members – enter for your chance to win a Gold, Silver or Bronze Award, and the opportunity to be the BIPP International Photographer of the Year 2015.

• Provisional BIPP Members – gain valuable experience as you work towards your qualification by entering these international awards. You could be the BIPP’s Provisional Photographer of the Year!

• Friends of the BIPP – your chance to enter professional standard international awards – and be titled BIPP Friend of the Year – a great way to kickstart your career in photography.

• Professional Photographers who are not BIPP Members – BIPP always looks outside of the box. Make the most of this opportunity to have your work judged against some of the very best in the profession – you could win the BIPP Open!

© Annemarie Farley, FBIPP Silver, Portfolio 2013

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DEADLINE 31 October 2014, 5pm

SELECTING & PRINTING YOUR IMAGES

NAMING YOUR IMAGES

• Entry is by a portfolio of 5 prints.

We would suggest that you title each portfolio that you enter. Please also number the individual images 1-5, so the judges can view them in the correct order.

• The work should be fresh and creative • Each set of five images must sit together as a portfolio.

• You can enter any category as many times as you like.

• Each portfolio entry must consist of 5 (10 x 8 or A4) prints, numbered 1-5.

• An image may only be used once within the competition.

• Entries must have been taken within 5 years of the entry date of the competition.

• No text or way of identifying you, as the photographer, must be seen on the front of the image.

• An image can bleed to the edge of the paper or have a thin key line around, with a white or black border. No other mounting or overlay is required.

• Any shortlisted photographers will be asked for a high res digital file after the first round of judging.

• The judges are explicitly looking for fresh, creative work, but some of the factors in their decisions will include: Image content, subject matter, interpretation, composition, centre of interest, perspective, direction, use of & control of light, style, expression, narrative, print quality, tonal range, graphic stability, design, texture, workmanship and technique.

• By entering the Awards, you acknowledge that permission has been obtained for that entry to be published and exhibited by BIPP and any necessary copyright or release has been obtained.

Any incorrectly labelled entry will be disqualified, as will any which exceed the maximum entry requirement or are deemed to have been placed in the wrong category.

COMPLETING YOUR ENTRY FORM & PAYING • A completed entry form and payment must be included with each portfolio.

• Each portfolio is £15 plus vat (total of £18) and should consist of 5 images. Eg, if entering a portfolio in Commercial and a portfolio in Visual Arts, you would send in two portfolios of 5 images (10 images in total) and the charge would be £36.

• Payment must accompany each entry.

This should be by debit/credit card (details to be written on at least one of the entry forms that you submit) or by cheque, payable to ‘BIPP’.

• You must read the full rules before entering. PLEASE TURN OVER g

POSTING THEM OFF

Post your prints, payment to:

International Entries – ensure your package is marked ‘Temporary Importation - Exhibition Material.

No Commercial Value’.

BIPP cannot be responsible for VAT/Customs duty on packages with a declared value.

BIPP 2015 Awards!

BIPP, The Coach House The Firs, High Street Whitchurch, Aylesbury Bucks HP22 4SJ

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BIPP / Awards 2015

Professional Photography Awards 2015 RULES • BIPP reserves the right to disqualify any entry that fails to meet the criteria or, in its opinion, may breach or contravene legal guidelines on public decency or may otherwise bring the photographer or the BIPP into disrepute. Any costs incurred by the BIPP in such a situation will be reimbursed by the photographer.

• Entries produced on workshops/ training courses (as a delegate) cannot be submitted.

• All entries must have been taken by the person named on the identification label.

• BIPP Members & Friends must be in current membership during the entry period, through to and including the presentations.

• BIPP will take all reasonable care in handling entries, but can accept no responsibility for loss or damage, however caused.

• Entries that have already been entered into any other national or international competition cannot be submitted (including those of other associations).

• It is the photographer’s responsibility to ensure all appropriate criteria are met.

• The entrant must have been the official photographer for the shoot from which the image originates.

• No entries will be returned, unless you expressly wish them to be and you pay the full cost of postage and packing.

© Paul Coghlin FBIPP, Gold, Portfolio 2013

• BIPP reserves the right to use any image, and the photographer’s details, for publicity purposes.

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DEADLINE 31 October 2014, 5pm

• By entering the Awards, non-members agree that BIPP may contact you from time to time regarding our services.

If you do not wish to be contacted in this way, please email info@bipp.com, with your details, using the subject heading ‘do not contact’.

• The decision of the judges is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

• Check every portfolio is labelled correctly and in the correct category.

• Check none of the images have been entered into another national competition.

• Check you have full permission to use the image and have obtained all necessary releases.

• Check you have read the full rules of the competition.

• Check your images will reach BIPP by 5pm on 31 October 2014 at the latest!

LASTLY – remember that we want to see that ‘wow factor’ with fresh, creative work – please take your time in choosing your portfolios. Good luck!

© Dave Hunt ABIPP Bronze, Portfolio 2013

• Information correct at time of publication - BIPP reserves the right to change any of the above without prior notice.

CHECKLIST

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What you really, really want It can be easy to think that nothing gets made in the UK these days – but you’d be wrong. Rolls-Royce operates a high-technology aviation plant in Derby on a large scale. It was an attractive idea for Katrina Forey, to work here as a photographer and she went about making it happen. Simple as that…

T

he scale of the place is what’s immediately impressive. The Rolls-Royce site at Derby is the kind of plant you move around in a car.

A mix of older industrial buildings along with glassand-metal modernity, it’s absolutely a town all by itself.

This is not about cars, by the way – this is Aerospace and Marine & Industrial Power Systems, but the RollsRoyce name holds a similarly lofty position. There’s also a sense of community here – from the endearingly terse and jobsworth security guards, to the overall buzz of activity and purpose. You get the feeling that people like working here.

To explain, Rolls-Royce operates a section called Image Resource and to Katrina growing up in Derby this was somewhere she was certain she wanted to be.

It’s a large department with 11 staff and very significant facilities. The role of the resource is to provide photography, video and design across the enormous spectrum of Rolls-Royce activity and at the top of the specialisms is high-speed photography. Rolls-Royce produces

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All images © Rolls-Royce

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jet engines and these have to be tested, including the incredibly detailed analysis of what happens when any number of phenomenon take place. The fan blade-off test is one of several fundamental milestones an engine manufacturer must successfully demonstrate before aviation regulators will stamp an engine’s certificate to fly and the performance of the test is witnessed by only a small group of technicians and engineers – including the Image Resource engineers. Setting such a test up is a one-off multi-million pound production since the test engine can only be used once for such a destructive test.

The cameras for such a job are an array of 35 highspeed digital Phantom cameras capable of up to 50,000 frames per second together with ten HD video cameras and a dedicated control centre in a 42ft truck – so able to be transported to any facility in the world. The test is lit by 30 Arrisun 120 lights giving an approximate total intensity of 250,000 lux. The intensity of data acquisition and handling is also truly mind-boggling for footage that lasts a very short time. For the fan blade-off test the cameras ran at 10,000 frames per second and recorded 0.7 seconds of footage. Of course, it’s the ultra slow-motion capability that is required – think back to how this was done before digital capture – a mass of halogen lights and 25kg acetate film-reel cameras – today’s workflow is about five times faster, let alone less cumbersome.

That’s the ‘glamorous’ part of the Image Resource’s job at Derby and you can easily see why Katrina was extremely keen to be part of it. She had an awareness of the department and what it did and very much had an eye for the main chance when it came to finding a

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route in. Remember that the Image Resource is a place that counts on the vast knowledge and experience of those who work there and it hadn’t taken on a full-time graduate in about a decade…

Katrina began her path to Rolls-Royce by undertaking a foundation year in art and design at Loughborough University after doing a photography A level just because she’d ‘run out of things I wanted to do’… then headed to the very well respected Newport University in 2010 for its Documentary Photography degree. She faced projects such as being given a random square mile in which to find a story and cover it over a three-week period. But it was with work experience that we get to the crux of the matter. Katrina says: ‘I decided to set up work experience in my second year and I didn’t want to go anywhere other than Rolls-Royce. Obviously I was on an arts-based course at Newport and it was quite a shock coming here.

On a course you might be looking at abandoned buildings and here we’re looking at everything having to be perfect and beautiful and detailed. On work experience I shadowed on stills and I hadn’t been taught much at college about software – Jonathan Green FBIPP here taught me Photoshop. I spent two months shadowing the various aspects of imaging including the high-speed work and that was it, I kept coming back.’

The experience made her want more and she says it made her realise that she needed some studio experience out of her third year and make it a real knowledge gathering time. But Katrina was unusual in doing work experience in industry, and she kept coming back to Rolls-Royce in vacations to do more work experience and in the nicest possible way make herself indispensable… ‘Everyone back at Newport thought I was off driving cars,’ says Katrina. Cut to Christmas of Katrina’s third year and she’s back in the Image Resource office and Simon Pank, the Manager of almost 20 years, starts talking about the future. Himself a graduate of Blackpool College of Art, he told Katrina that there was a graduate position in the offering and she’d just had a 15-week interview. Hence Katrina found herself on a photography degree with a job contract going into the second term of her final year. Not a lot of people do that.

All images © Rolls-Royce

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Katrina began working in threemonth segments around the different aspects of the department – beginning with the graphics and design side, learning InDesign and Illustrator alongside Image Resource’s graphics specialist Nicky Muckelroy. It was all highly structured whilst ‘on the job’ and she was very much expected to get stuck in: ‘I felt I had some catching up to do, particularly on the software side as this is a very wide-ranging department with some specialist fields. But I quickly felt that I was properly part of the company.’

It should be noted that not just anyone could have got into a company like Rolls-Royce in the way Katrina did.

She’s a highly motivated individual who realised that giving up her own time in order to learn and therefore shape her own future was absolutely required.

She’s also really quite brave – throwing herself into a company and department awash with knowledge and tradition, to

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All images © Rolls-Royce

be judged by colleagues who have been working in their fields for many years. The huge vaults filled with terabyte hard drives are testament to scale of the work here, and some of the remaining analogue equipment – such as an astonishing reel film to digital convertor that looks like it could have come out of the Tardis – illuminates a company steeped in aviation history.

However, most noticeable of all is how Rolls-Royce’s Image Resource is firmly rooted in skills, expertise and professional qualifications. Katrina boasts an LBIPP

but is surrounded by colleagues such as Malcolm Thomas ABIPP and boss Simon Pank FBIPP. Indeed Katrina’s career here is officially linked to qualifications progress and for her that can mean only one thing – she has to keep her ambition and drive energised and set the controls firmly towards an Associateship. We’re more than confident she’s up to the challenge. tP

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ISO: a shot in the dark?

How do you make the decision of which ISO setting to use? Is it simply a matter of which do you need? Or is there anything to the supposed wisdom that says some ISO settings are better than others? Is it just a myth? Here’s the reality, at least

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ome may argue that ISO is the one thing you don’t have to worry about – the lower the better, but everything else is just a matter of what is required to get a suitable shutter speed for the chosen aperture in the light circumstances you’re in.

Then there’s another camp that claims there’s actually ‘better’ ISO settings and ‘worse’ ones. The gist of this is that some say ISO 160 and its multiples produce a cleaner image than ISO 100 or 200 for example, claiming that 160 is the real ‘base’ ISO. So for a little bit of fun and to put the record kind of straight we felt a test was in order. In our image, right, the full image at the top is there just so you can see what you’re looking at. It was shot on a Canon EOS 5D with a 24-105mm F4 L lens, just for the record. A series of the same image was recorded with just one variable changed, the ISO setting. Beginning with 100, we went all the way up to 1600 but the middle and bottom images, zoomed in to 500% in Adobe Photoshop are the key comparisons. In the centre is ISO 100 (left) and 160 (right); and then at the bottom is ISO 200 (left) and 320 (right).

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500% ISO 100

500% ISO 200

500% ISO 160

500% ISO 320

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500% ISO 100

500% ISO 200

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It’s immediately obvious in these mid-tone to shadow areas that 100 is smoother and cleaner than 160 and the same can be said for 200 against 320.

But there’s something rather deeper to notice in the files.

Look again and it’s possible to see that there’s less dynamic range in the ISO 160 and 320 (right-hand) files than there is in the 100 and 200 files. The deepest shadow point in the left-hand frames is more detailed and deeper than in the right and then also the gradients between colours and tones are longer and more varied on the left than the right.

What’s this all about? How can this be?

500% ISO 160

500% ISO 320

The reason is that different ISOs are not actually created equally. Some are ‘real’ in that they produce the natural state of the sensor’s capability at a given level of light sensitivity. They are 100; 200; 400; 800 and so on.

In contrast, some ISOs are digitally produced on the camera. This latter scenario means that there is either a digital exposure pull or push going on – which means slight under or over exposure. Again in the example above, ISO 100 and 200 on the left are ‘real’ whilst ISO 160 and 320 on the right are ‘digital’ pulls. In real life this means that ISO 160 is in actual fact an underexposed ISO 200 so you are losing about 1/3 of a stop’s worth of exposure for your image. Similarly ISO 320 is actually ISO 400, with a 1/3 stop digital exposure pull.

Those are the ‘pulls’ dealt with and are the lesser of two evils when compared to pushes. The ‘pushes’,

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500% ISO 100

500% ISO 250

or digitally over-exposed ISO settings are 125; 250; 500 and so on. Obviously, with over-exposure, there’s a loss happening and whilst we’re being quite brave trying to show this to you in print, there is less colour information in the 250 version above right than the 100 above left.

Even when we look at the 125 version (far right) a slight loss of information can be detected in the file.

So, in conclusion, think of it like this: 100, 200, 400, 800 are your first points of call. Then ‘pulled’ ISOs are better than pushed… tP

500% ISO 100

500% ISO 125

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Focal shift Macphun software hails from sunny California and despite the name makes some serious and capable photo apps. Whilst one of the founding principles is simplicity, there’s actually a great deal you can get out of post-production plug-ins such as Focus 2 Pro that we’re looking at here. It has a depth of development that’s just as encouraging as the price tag

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ubtle changes can make a whole world of difference to a picture.

The journey that the viewer goes on when faced with an image is something that is hopefully seriously considered by the photographer. In short, without it photography becomes little more than a recording process, and that’s not enough.

Let’s begin with the carefully composed, exposed and conceived image above. This is entirely untouched by post-production software and for many it’s a joy of near-perfect horizontals and verticals and fastidiousness over flat-to-camera set-up. It’s sharp front to back and sports the kind of histogram you could happily use in an exposure workshop.

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As a technical exercise, then, it’s doing just fine.

However, in terms of impact and engagement, something is definitely missing. Once upon a time I showed my father a landscape picture that I was particularly proud of and it boasted similar technical prowess. He said: ‘That’s great… but what’s it of?’ It remains one of the biggest put-downs of my photographic and related career to date! So, a quick summary of what’s lacking in the picture, above left: There’s no pathway through the image and its very correctness means it’s kind of dead.

Compare it with the version, above, and what has been done of course is to shift the focus and depth of field. This has been done using Macphun’s Focus 2 Pro plug-in to Adobe Photoshop, starting with its architecture pre-set then customising as the work-up proceeded.

The result is most powerful in comparison as per above and I think it’s fair to say that the care with which the original was taken has actually helped the effective re-working. The all-important factors here are control

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of the fall-off between in focus and blurred areas and the quality rendering across that change, and both are tackled extremely well by the software. Whilst presets are considered by some a dirty word, it’s actually good to have a starting point (top left). Clearly the grid is the wrong way around for the purposes of this picture, so you spin it around using the green axis control in the centre. The further you are from the centre point with the cursor when you do it, the more fine control you have. Once orientated correctly for the image, the next job is to drag the now horizontal grid lines to positions that suit what

you’re attempting to create in the image. In this example, the natural constraints were to have the top of the lamppost sharp and also the edge of the platform. However it’s also a somewhat challenging image to achieve a natural and realistic flow between in and out of focus edges. There are lots of similar colour and tonal areas and it’d be horrible if there was distortion or evidence of degradation of shadows and so on.

But there isn’t. If anything, this is where the plug-in really shines – it simply does what it says on the tin.

So much of the time we witness image manipulators creating miniturisation effects by mucking around with focus in post-production and indeed Focus 2 Pro can do that for you in tilt and shift mode, but really that’s been done and we’ve all seen it time and again now. The side of this to be taken notice of is this more subtle but

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none-the-less effective creation of high-quality interest in a frame. Hence, see it more as a compositional aid, and the bonus is that the better your original capture, the better your end result.

As can now be seen immediately above, there is motion to play with in Focus 2 Pro also, with angle and amount being the two control sliders. Once again, the result is high-quality and believable. On the motion side you’re somewhat prone to going back over the same image thinking maybe that’s too much or not quite enough but you get there in the end. Indeed in both scenarios looked at briefly here, the effect is to put the photographer in a place – looking out or passing by – rather than just being there.

Focus 2 Pro is the latest version of Macphun’s software that runs as a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Lightroom, and Apple’s Aperture – in other words there’s full RAW support. It lets you begin with one of five preset focus structures – for

Portrait, Nature, Architecture, Macro and Tilt-Shift – or go straight into a full custom build of the tools. But because a picture will always change its make-up as actual focus alters – Focus 2 Pro additionally offers adjustments to brightness, colour, sharpness and contrast local to either the in focus or blur areas to ensure realism can be achieved.

I think that’s why it is truly a usable ‘pro’ tool.

The plug-in when triggered from Adobe Photoshop launches from the Filter menu and creates a history state once the work is done, so moving back if you wish to start over is no problem at all. It operates in very similar fashion in Lightroom or Aperture, placing the result back into your library.

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Working from the Portrait pre-set offers up a different operation of focal shift, operating in circles rather than straight lines this time. The idea is much the same – controlling the in focus and out of focus areas separately in the control sliders area and having the ability adjust contrast, highlights and saturation in the blur areas, and then brightness, sharpness, clarity and vividness across the in focus areas. The overall effect is to bring the subject forward in the image, or indeed the viewer into the picture, as can be seen above. There’s two sides to this however.

Notice that the angle of the circles is not straight, it has been set to follow the line of interest in the image – put another way you’re able to carefully preserve the important elements of the picture, that being the compositional line from her ear, across the eyes and nose

and through to the finger tips. With the focus control circles being so orientated you can be sure that you’re getting more out of an image rather than just applying a possibly inappropriate effect. As anything really, if you take a few moments to think about the composition of an image and have the base quality to play with, then a strong result is going to come out of the other end.

Oh yes, and the price? Focus 2 Pro is available for less than £30 including VAT in the UK. tP

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