Andy Dubreuil Photography

My Blog

[andydubreuil]

[andydubreuil]

Finding Flies - Apple Mac Way

As a photographer, I’ve accumulated thousands of files over the year’s and they are on external drives so that if something happen to the iMac, they are safe for a while.

Softwares

If you are like me, you maybe using Adobe Lightroom or Bridge. These are great, but you still need to organise your files into different groups like:

Import

Year

Month

Name

Export

You might have other names, then they are stored on external drives and if you fill them up, do you store them on the shelve for the rest of its life?

Different tools like camera’s, drones and suchlike use different file details like DMG, RAW, and device name with numbers, this can be hard work if you need to find a file or movie that you took maybe a couple of months ago or years ago, so how can you find the right file quickly?

TAGS

What ever you import or export has to go into a file, but you might have multiple files for clients that you do regular work, and they might be on different drives. 

So say that a customer contacts you and says “I need that image or video you did back in 2016 because my server has crashed and I’ve lost everything”.

If you are like me, I can take maybe 5,000 images a per a year, so I need to be able to find maybe the original or the edited file for this client, but I can’t remember where I put it!

Software like Bridge and Lightroom have search possibilities, but you need to have set your folders correctly so you can find that shoot easily.

Apple computers operating systems allow you to use tags for the simple purpose of finding folders at a click of a tag. They work a bit like hashtags, anything related to that tag will show folders that are linked to that tag.

Example

With the folder Tammy, I’ve created a tag and added a colour to it. This then shows up in my folder window as a tag for Tammy. So if I click on that tag it will show all the folders and images related to that tag.

I’ve done on for Funk It Up, which is a dance school that I do regular work with, but I’ve added another colour to it, as you don't have to add a colour to each tag you setup as you only have a choice of so many. But you can see that it shows all the files related to Funk it Up.

from the file window, I can click on the tags and then it shows all the tags I have in my filling system and with one click I can find all that related, it doesn't matter what year or drive you have the folders on. As long as you have the drives connected to the main computer, it will search for that tag added to that file.

Don’t lose sight of what you've done and when, setup your filling system by name, so when that client rings or emails, search that tag and find all that's related to them in an instant.

[andydubreuil]

Bristol Pride Day 2018

As a child I was brought up in the country and when I left school I went into the Army. It wasn’t really till I came out of the army and came to Bristol, that I knew what word gay meant. Going out on the town and making friends, which some of the were lesbians, introduce me to the gay community, and this was back in the late 80’s.

My friends took me to a gay bar and at first I did feel slightly uncomfortable, it was more about if someone tried to hit on me, how would I respond, what would I say, how would they respond if I said I was straight, would they all want to string me up? The thing was I didn’t need to worry about any of those things as people were just so excepting of me, they actually made me feel welcomed. Something at the time, most of society should of been like.

Hate crime, is a terrible thing, and I remember seeing or hearing stories in the 90’s of people being beaten up, because they are gay. People having to hide the fact from family and work because of being scared of outed by them. Its understandable why gay community was in a way was secretive, aware of how they acted around others, it must of been depressing and for some it was too much that they took their own lives, than to come out and be proud as the words of todays society.

It was the older generation that I feel suffered the most. For years they had to live a double life for some, if they were in the media’s eye, they would be ridiculed for who they were. 

But time and the work of groups has made a vast difference to how society see’s people that are gay, transgender, same sex marriage, same sex parents. But there are still stories of people not being excepted as being normal. 

I read a story of a husband and his partner that who are married and as two men they share the responsibility of a child they had by surrogacy and how difficult they find it when one is a stay at home dad taking their child to play groups etc. they have had women challenge them of their ability to care for a baby, from feeding it and caring for the child when crying, just some of things they had to face. But to me the is a gender thing, because if two women had a child by a surrogate women, they would be looked at the mother without question. So some things still need to change in society.

As a photographer, this is my first time covering Pride Day, and its an experience that I will cherish, and here’s why.

Because of being in a wheelchair and hot weather, I just can’t cover the parade like other photographers. So I had set myself up near to the venue where the parade will finish and everyone will enter the venue, which included stages with gigs and stalls for food and drink and place where everyone can get together and enjoy the day.

I had seen Facebook live streams of the parade waiting to begin and there was thousands of people taking part as they lined the street as far as the eye could see. There was a lot of people that had begun to cue for the main event where I was, but I got myself a spot where the parade would finish and everyone would join the venue.

As the parade came around the corner, there was two police horses dress in rainbow colours and the officers the same, then a police car with its sirens going with someone with a smile, waving to out the window towards me and seemed to be having a wale of a time, then the main parade began to come pass. It was great to see the people having so much fun, there were young people, middle aged, older, families, people holding hands and banners with different words upon.

As I photographed, I wanted to show the real people and the different ages altogether and enjoying the whole event. There were ones that smiled for the camera and stopped for their photo to be taken. It was full of colourful costumes and banners, and was just a lot of fun and brought a smile to my face.

I actually felt part of this great day and it felt a privilege to photograph theses wonderful people that where part of the parade. 

Pride Day means different things to different people. For some it was be able to say I'm transgender, I'm gay and proud, I'm happy in the skin I'm, in or the cloths I wear and the makeup I have on. For some it would be their first event and a way to say this is how I am and you have to except me for who I am, some of theses where teenagers and for them it must be huge to be not just be part of this day, but have others there to support them as well as family and friends, it was a great moment.

As I made my way to Millennium Square and carried on photographing, people were coming through a walkway that lead to the square and above the walkway was the words ‘The Curious’ this seemed poignant to the message of the day.

There were some wonderful drag queens in all their wonderful outfits and makeup that would put some women to shame, there were people offering to glitter people up as they queued to enter the main area. They main thing as I photographed was everyone had a big smile on their faces, how often do you see scenes like this?

I'm sure I was not the only straight guy there, but it shows how we respect others views, way of life, how they dress and who they want to be. Nobody has the right to question why a person is a certain way, I saw this as a child on how people saw people with down syndrome and other mental health issues were treated as they were put into mentally handicap hospitals. The words ‘mentally handicap’ has been written out through time, my hope is that the word gay will eventually evaporate. 

Sadly there are still some that think being a gay or transgender, is wrong. At the time of writing this piece, a ex GP doctor had lost his job, because he wouldn’t recognise people who are transgender by there new name. For me its right that he lost his job, but his argument is a religious one, as he’s a practicing Christian and says there is no such thing as transgender. He went on to say when he was at primary school he was brought up a certain way, well this for him must of been of 50 years ago. Schools now teach appropriately that two men or women can be together in a loving relationship, that one gender can feel that they are in the wrong body. 

As children, we do grow up confused in someways, knowing what love is for a family member can be the same for a friend of the same gender. If you’ve ever been in the forces, you learn to trust the person next to you, in some cases the bond is so strong that you will do anything for that person, including laying your life on the line for them as they do you. This is a form of love, call it brotherly love or sisterly love. 

I can't express how thought provoking this event was, even though it was for a number of hours, I have a sense that it would be great if this was the beginning of the end of ridicule for how people are and what kind of relationship they decided to have with another person. We seem happy to watch telly, with images in well love programs of same sex acting out a sexual scene, soaps of same sex people in relationships. Is this not hypocritical if your happy to watch this on telly but not except it in real life. The telly has brought 'being gay' a fact of everyday life, but in real life its not. 

I love my partner of 10 years and as man and women, we share the same views, our children are grown up, and in relationships of the opposite sex, but if one decided thats not them and they would prefer to be someone of the same sex, we would support them, but I can't speak for the wider family, as I don't know their views.

As you can see this photography shoot, has brought me to speak openly about how I feel and how I saw the day, and if Bristol was to hold another event, I would definitely go again. I took over 900 images, and out of those I've chosen 375 that I feel show a good representation of the day.

I will be putting as galley of all the images I took on the day soon as I have free time. 

Best Wishes to all, AndyD 

[andydubreuil]

Back Into Landscape

Now that the weather is full of sunshine, the trees and lush and green, and the investment in a new camera body, its time to get out there and take photos.

I loved my Sony A99, and have invested around the camera body in lenses to suit, that it was the right thing to upgrade to the new Sony A99II. There are new sensors and now images in 42MB compared to the 24MB and whole load other great improvements, if your interest then do some research as I did, it would take too long to go through everything about the new A99II

During my time sat at home, I’ve looked at work of photographer Jimmy McIntyre who does landscape and cityscapes as part of his work, but the main thing about his work is he works in luminosity, and thats a big area to learn about.

Jimmy McIntyre has come up with a video course called The Art Photography, and gives some really good key points about how to photograph to get the very best from you composition. There is always room to learn more when it comes to photography and someone’s take on doing something differently, helps in giving you a fresh approach to what you already doing.

One thing I found interesting is the use of hyper focal distance. This is the distance between a camera lens and closest object which is in focus when the lens is focused at infinity. There was a time when photographers would get out a tape measure to get the distance and then some of the older lenses had markings to give you the focal distance. But now with technology and apps, you can find out the information with a touch of button. 

The app that gets most talk about, is PhotoPills. A bit of a strange name for an photography app, but my take on it that you have a photography problem and you take a pill to sort it out (I might be way off base, but its one idea I came up, why they named it that). The app has loads of features and also uses Augmented Reality (AR), and with hyper focal distance, it works really well. You enter your make of camera, choose the lens size like 18mm and then scroll to your F-stop and then it gives you the distance, but then with AR and using you phone camera, it lays out the distance with your feet as part of it and then the distance shown on the screen. So if you have a rock in front of you that you want as part of the image, you step forward or back and set your tripod and your set. One other thing is that what ever is in the far distance, if you use the magnification built into your camera if you have it, you can make sure the object in the far distance is in focus and best to work in manual focus mode.

Doing luminosity for some gets mixed up with HDR, its not HDR even through you use bracketing to make a number of images and different exposures. Auto-bracketing is the far easiest to work with and using a light meter with a spot meter attachment makes it easier to get the right exposer and move down three stops from the average, seem to work for me. Auto bracketing can be set from 3 - 7 or 9 frames, and as your using a tripod and no movement, you can try at different exposures so you can chose from a number of images above 9 frames.

The way that Jimmy McIntyre works is looking through all the exposures and choosing one that is neutral, like a normal exposure and then one darker that has all the detail from the dark areas of the image like the sky detail, and then one lighter shows the detail of lighter parts of the image and the combining all three together. 

In the editing side of things, its working with a mask and you do need to have knowledge of how to work with masks, but Jimmy McIntyre has come up with a plugin called Raya Pro, that is packed full of actions to work on luminosity and is a really good plugin and comes with tutorials going through how it all works.

I’m only starting to get to grips with it all, but spending a couple of days working of composing my landscapes in auto bracketing, is coming together and I’ve spent a whole day across the Severn bridge and in the forest area around Tintern Abbey I’ve got some great images to play with and start master this luminosity side of things.

As I’ve said before, there is so much to photography, that is never a dull moment and adding new skills to you photography just expands what you can do.

So since I wrote this, I’ve worked on this image and thats looking up at the sky through the trees. I had to get the tripod to sit low to the ground and then the camera pointing straight upwards. For its not easy to do, as you really need to be on your knees to position the camera and focus in, but after many trials, I got there.

This image is an original, and you can see the sky it quiet white looking.

And this is the post edited version where you can see how the blue sky comes through and the green of the leaves shines though from how the light captures through.

Here is another image and shade in the woods is really dark and you cant see the detail of the trunks of the trees very well.

And this is post editing version that show the blue sky, the tree trunks detail and the light and shadow blends really well.

Working in luminosity is time consuming, and you have to take a lots images, which for me is a bit strange, as spend time to make sure the composition is at its best. Post editing is different from dodging and burning, but I don’t think I could get the detail of light and shadow done as well in my normal style of editing. I love post editing and making my images stand out, for others they prefer to make as little adjustment as possible, but how we see a scene with our eyes is very different from the camera and the camera sees it as best it can, but we can combine both things to come out with images full of detail and strength, we are making the best of both worlds.

[andydubreuil]

Sony A99II Wifi and Sony PlayMemories App

At first when I read the about the WiFi on the Sony A99II and the introduction for the app, I thought this is a waste of time.

The name for the app doesn’t do the app justice and in my opinion should be renamed to something like Sony WiFi Remote. Because when you read the review, it says the following:

‘Send photos and videos to your smartphone - you can easily send photos or videos taken with your camera to your smartphone. You have the choice to transfer all of your photos in either its original size or 2MP files in one batch. High quality images shot with the camera can be shared on your favourite SNS or was service.’

When I read this, I thought what a wast of time, as its quicker to take the SD card and connect and import into light room quicker than messing about with transferring images to my phone and then from there else where. But as I read on, there was an interesting part that I’m glad I read.

Remote shooting from your smartphone - You can remotely control the camera in any of the P/A/S/M exposure modes from your smartphone. While watching the live view of the camera on the smartphone - you can also intuitively control the camera, making in useful when taking a photo or video in situations where you don’t want to be holding the camera directly: such as night scenes, long exposure water scenes, or macro photography.

For any photographer that uses filters for long exposure, know that you either set the timer or use a remote. But this app does a lot of the changes for you without having to look at the settings on the back of the camera, specially if you have it low to the ground and hard sunlight. You can change the aperture, shutter speed, white balance ISO etc. This is really good and fast, but it doesn’t stop there. I’ve setup a number of custom settings and again it recognises these and works along side it. For instance I’ve setup for auto bracketing and the app displays the info that I need to change from the use a light meter and all at a touch of a button.

The display isn’t bad for live view within the app on the phone screen, but if you are doing auto bracketing, it will only show you the last image it took which is the lightest of five shots, and the image it shows doesn’t look that good in my view. Using filters, again really good, but you do have to change from aperture priority to manual on the camera, but again so much easier to make the changes in the setting via the app, and saves more time, what with having to fit the filter and and try to remember the shutter speed you need to work out what shutter speed you need with the filter.

It does save images to the phone, this I’m not happy with, but I can live with deleting them. The app has so much potential, but has come of the back of Sony’s App Store and for the moment is the only app that works with the Sony A99II.

I don’t know what other manufacturers are doing with their cameras that brings in wifi, if it’s anything like this, then it might be worth a look. As with Sony’s app, I would like to see bulb mode added to it, this would mean the end to have a wired remote control, which would be great as I try so hard to hinge the wire on the tripod so it doesn’t fall down, I have looked for a kind of holder that attaches to the tripod, but just can’t find anything like it, why don’t remote control makers do something like this?

[andydubreuil]

How I find my landscape images

Anyone that knows me well, knows I love technology, and in todays world for someone like me thats wheelchair bound its a god send.

My latest work is in and around Bath in Somerset. I haven’t been to Bath for a number of years and have found it in my Street Photography a great place to blend in as there are so many tourist, but with so many, its hard to find the street side of photography, if that makes sense.

Bath is an amazing historical place with some beautiful architecture and has the river Avon running through the centre of it.

In any city that’s vibrant and full of life and people, there is only one time in the day that you can find quietness and solitude and that’s before sunrise.

So with this shoot, I turned to Google Maps App to find an interesting and accessible place to setup. Google Maps in some places will include paths so you can see at street level, so I place pins and then do a 360 to look round for ideas. The satellite view gives me even more information thats useful for me to look at.

The river Avon in Bath has a weir next to a bridge that I found through Google Maps and really interesting building alongside the river called The Empire Hotel which is very Roman in its architecture style. This amount of information is enough for me to decide that I would like to visit and hope to get a good image, but the next thing to look at is the weather and the time of sunrise.

For the weather, there are so many weather app and I tend to use either the BBC Weather App or another one called Clear Day App. For information on the time of sunrise, there are some amazing apps that give you direction, time and real-time information. So in the past I’ve used and still do at times The Photographer’s Ephemeris or TPE for short. It uses a mapping service and GPS and search the location your looking for and then place a pin and then gives you direction of the sunrise and sunset as well as whole load of other information. But I was recently introduced to an app called PhotoPills (where do they get theses names), again very similar and also uses AR (Augmented Reality), I think this now available on TPE. The whole thing runs in realtime and you can use your phone and its camera to line up with your image view and get data on where the sun is and how high, and more importantly when its going to peek at the right moment for your image that you have in mind.

Link to Apps

PhotoPills by PhotoPills S.L. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/photopills/id596026805?mt=8 The Photographer's Ephemeris by Crookneck Consulting LLC https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/the-photographers-ephemeris/id366195670?mt=8 So with this information I can choose the right day for my shoot and set the alarm to get up in plenty of time to make it to my location and have time to setup, all of this with out waiting or guessing.

The day I chose ended up being early May Bank Holiday and was set to be the warmest day of the year, with a slight mist in areas, a perfect day that I couldn’t of asked for any better. I was up at 4am and enough time to wake up and have a coffee and some breakfast. The drive is only 40 minutes away and being that time in the morning, the roads are clear. I had packed my Sony A99 with three lenses, 1 Sigma Art 18-35mm F1.4 thats a nice wide angle lens, 1 Tamron 24-70mm F2.4 thats good for landscapes, and lastly my Tamron 70-200mm F2.4 incase there was something of interest that I needed that focal length. I also had a shutter remote and my LEE Big Stopper filter kit so I could capture the water with that amazing shine look on water. And lastly my light meter which is the Sekonic L-478DR with a NP adapter and Manfrotto sturdy tripod.

When I arrived I picked two spots along the bank and knew I had an hour to work with, thats the golden hour of the sunrise, and I had the ability to photograph the weir and then down river where there was barge along side under a bridge. My camera, the Sony A99 has a display on the back, but I never really use it except for reading information. I prefer to look through the viewfinder to the full image and how it really looks. LCD screens replicate the view but with its own colours.The golden hour changes very quickly, and its more of a case of taking an image maybe every 10 minutes during that our. Some will work while others either look the same of dramatically different, so its covering all that period.Once you get pass that golden hour, the light captures and makes great shadows on objects, but if your photographing and it has a building facing the sun, reflection can be a problem and reflect badly from a window. Best thing is to wait till it passes than try and edit it out. Working with water can be interesting, as this is river has a weir as part of the composition, it can make for a cool image with the use of filters, like the Lee Big Stopper which has a neutral density of 10X. You will need a sturdy tripod and a remote shutter release. 

The Lee 100mm system is very easy to use and setup. The simple rule is to turn your camera onto aperture priority and choose the F stop that will suit the composition and then take a meter reading. Lee actually gives away a card to work out how the long the exposure should be based on the shutter speed. They also do a real cool app that does the same and comes with a timer if you dont have a remote that has a timer. Once you have the information, then recompose the composition and for best results set your camera or lens to manual. Then you get this real nice creamy look to the water, you can this effect with the sky if there are clouds. With the 100mm system you can add other filters, for instance one that has gradient on it and then this darken the sky a bit more. It can be a lot of fun working with filters and Lee is one of the best manufacturers out there.

Link to Lee Filters

http://www.leefilters.com/index.php/camera-directory/camera-dir-list/category/the-big-stopper

So here are the results from my shoot.

This one taken naturally without a filter, and has a nice look and having a few birds flying around at to the scene.

This one is done with the Lee 100mm system, and that nice smooth silky look to the water, but very thing else nice and sharp, I was lucky and no real wind that would of made the trees a bit fuzzy, but if they were I could of taken a normal shot and then mask the trees from that image onto this one.

And finally looking down river that has the nice cures to the path and fence, the barge just in the distance and then in the far distance a church spire and a little bit of the mis that was in the air.

So they you go, this is how I set about finding a location and work out the details on when best to photograph and arrive in good time. Sometimes it is good just to go out on a whim, but if your looking to a sunrise or sunset, having the information of where and when the sun is going to be can make o much difference, the only thing is that you can’t guesswork the clouds unless the weather info says it going to be cloudy, but then you not going to know what kind of cloud formation it will be, but then thats half of the fun and why we go back to locations time and time again.

[andydubreuil]

Working With Funk It Up Dance School - Bristol

The New Year has started off well and work is progressing, but there is always time to look at something different.

I saw a post for a dance school looking for a photographer to offer their services in help getting a new website off the ground. They did make it clear they were looking for someone to do this for free. Voluntary work sometimes can be rewarding, and so I answered the message and arranged a informal meeting at a cafe in Millennium Square in Bristol.

So for the first time I met Philippa who works as a member of the school as the owner wasn’t available on the day, so Philippa stepped in. I’d done my research on the school and she had already seen my website, so we had partial info on each other that really does help break the ice.

The schools website is due for a revamp, and Philippa had ideas on what she wanted to be shown and how. The current site has black background images that are outdated and needs a fresh approach, so we talked about white backdrop images that could show off the school merchandise as a starter, then some images of the kids actually dancing, and all of this would be shot at the school in there dance hall.

From my perspective, I had to think about lighting, type of backdrop and how best to capture the images that will reflect well what Philippa was asking for.

The meeting went well and exchange email addresses and then looked to move forward from there. In the coming weeks issues began to arise, like having a certificate to work with young people, which I dont have and was asked about this. As its not something that I do all the time, its not worth me investing into a certificate, and so made the point that a member of certified staff would have to be with me all the time.

Kids and paper backdrop, dancing around, track shoes are not a good combination for an all day shoot and paper isn’t cheap, so I had to explain that there might be cost to the shoot in replacing the paper if needed. The location of the school and the dance room is upstairs, and so I had to explain there would be a lot of equipment that I needed to bring and would need help getting it from the car to the room. All of the issues that were raised by us both were overcome and a date was set for the shoot.

One thing with lots of people or young people is safety. Power leads running across floors need to be taped down and able to seen by all, backdrop secured, entrance and exit to the popup studio made clear. Then there is model release forms prepared and agreed upon, consent forms signed by parents, all needs to be covered and sorted.

On the day I was introduce to the young people that ranged from about 7 upwards and they all seem excited by all of it, which was a great start. Thankfully I didn’t have to sort out who was going to wear what and when, as Philippa had done all of that and done a good job.

We got all of the merchandise photograph and then it was Photographing the dance group. I came up with a plan for them to show me and Philippa the routine and choose certain points that could make images by them performing and freeze at each point so to photograph, this gives the impression of the dance routine. Some of it was hit and miss as they would be jumping into the air, and this took timing on my part to close the shutter at the right moment. 

The whole day went really well and and young people seem to of enjoyed themselves.

In the post editing, I had chosen the images that I felt were right for the website and what they represent, the great news is that the dance school wanted all of the images, which I’m really pleased with, and means I’ve done a good job.

We have some more shoots booked for later this year and will be on the stage of a local theatre, and really looking forward to that.

The school is looking to put a link to me on their site and encourage the parents to look at the images and maybe look to get a print from me. I hope that with the parents they will see the quality in the images and maybe consider commissioning me to photograph their kids or the family in the studio. Sometimes offering your services for free, can bring in work and I’m hoping this might be the case, you never know and it does help to get your name out locally for your photography.

[andydubreuil]

Photoshoot with my old tutor.

Things are moving in the right direction with my studio work, and so thankful to the people that I've photographed over time. I had an idea back last year to contact my old tutor to see whether he would consider sitting for me. With some surprise, he welcomed the idea and we said we would make arrangements after the Christmas just gone. 

So when I emailed him a fare few months later, and I asked if he was still interested, I was delighted that he said yes.

Chris has been a photographer for many years and as many as a tutor and head of his course for a number of years. Now he is starting to sit back a bit and handed that over to another senior tutor. He always pushed people to get the best out of them and for them to see the possibilities in the industry. With that said, Chris knew that my situation would be different, due to my health problems, I couldn't go on to do a BA or start up a full-time photography business, even though I do have a good head for business. 

What I do, is firstly for myself, as love photography, but if I can help new models or people that enjoy modelling in front of a camera to achieve good images for their portfolio, then I'm happy, anything else that comes along from that is a bonus.

As the time of the shoot grew closer, I looked at what style I could put forward to Chris. I've found Pintertest really useful to make a sort of mood boards with styles of shots to think about. I've also invested in some new prime lenses, like the Sigma ART 35mm f1.4 and a Tamron 85mm f1.8 for my portrait work and this gave me the golden opportunity to put them to good use.

The shoot lasted no more than an hour and Chris was intrigued in my popup studio that happens in our kitchen, and so took pictures himself which I guess he will share with his current batch of students to show that you don't always need a big space for a shoot. As far as I could tell he liked the setup I have, and was surprised a the organisation with realtime images coming through MacBook Pro and then via my iPad. I explained that with using Sony A99, I cant tether to Lightroom, which has been a bug bare for many Sony photographers and is to do with the licensing between Sony and Adobe. But I have a copy of Phaseone Capture Pro on my MacBook and the Phoseone app Pilot on my iPad. The software streams images via a network setup between the MacBook and iPad and shows images in A4 size. I Don't use Capture Pro for editing as I prefer using Lightroom to catalog the images and work between that and Photoshop.

It was a great shoot with Chris and once the images were chosen and edited, he was really happy with them, so much so that he agreed for me to enter two of them into the PX3 competition for this year.

For me to photograph Chris, means a lot and his feedback has been great. Chris always wanted me to read books or look a them, and I have to say I'm not a great reader and found it at times hard, but now I see the benefit of all of the FDA degree I did has been of use and I've learnt from it all a great deal. With that said, you can only really learn by taking photos after photos, and that also goes with editing. Its worthwhile as you progress and get better and find your own style, to go back to some of those old images and rework them.

Chris, if you reading this, thank you so much once again for your time and it was a pleasure to have you in my home and photograph your good self. 

[andydubreuil]

Bronze Winner In 2017 Tokyo International Foto Awards

Last year I entered the TIFA Competition with a set of portrait images that I had taken during the course of the year. Choosing the images was a hard task and I wanted to show a broad view of what I can do.

You have to give details about yourself and explain each image and what it means to you in a narrative.

On the 3rd of April I got an email from TIFA, and at first I didn’t really understand the email and had to read it again. It was the word ‘Congratulations’ that got me and it went on to say ‘awarded a winning placement in the 2017 Tokyo International Awards’.

I’m so thrilled with this, that my work has been recognised internationally out of the thousands of entries put forward. There are 19 in the jury and come from all over the industry, from photographers, professors, curators and magazines just to name a few.

There is no big prize, apart from a official seal you can put on your website and certificate, but the biggest prize in the recognition by people that are at the top of their profession, which have seen something in your work. It also maybe used as part of TIFA magazines use and galleries that images are chosen to be shown.

Putting work forward for international competitions, is a good idea and helps build your confidence. It’s a great motivation to keep doing what your doing and to improve upon your skills and style that your making for yourself. 

This is the image that the jury chose thats a fellow photographer, Jeremy Fennell, who is a fantastic Street Photographer. He sat for me twice and this was the one that use, because you can look into his eyes, you can feel something from it, which is why I called Vision of Soul.

Jeremy quietly does his thing in street photography, and just got a two page spread in the local newspaper, which I’m so pleased for him. As like me he does it for the love of photography and has the same view, if one person likes your work, then that makes you happy.

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I love what i do...

It’s about 8 years ago now that I took up photography for real. So much so I ended up doing a FDA degree in Professional Photography, it gave me a heads up on how photography began, then through history I could see how the technology had changed, but the principles for taking and constructing the composition were still the same as it ever was.

I look at images that I’ve taken and see where I can take them in post editing, it calls for skills thats looking at an image on a monitor and seeing what possibilities there within the constructs of editing software. 2018 and editing software opens doors to new ideas on an image, by controlling light and shadow and giving an image strong or a soft look, theres so many choices and as long as you keep the original, you can rework as many times as you want.

Portraiture is my thing, I’m a people person when it comes to photography. You can craft a person in the studio with lighting to bring shadows and light, but it’s taking that a step further in those’s areas in the post editing. You can take an image from colour to B&W or tinted, theres so many options and so many images that can be created from the original.

This black and white of Igor, a fellow photographer, is one that I’ve done many edits, each with a different look and style, but none are better than the other, its just the chance of creating a new look for the original. But the edit brings certain parts of the face into view compare to the others.

The eyes have been worked on to make them more sharp, so to draw you in. The shadows around the nose has plenty of shadow to bring the face alive. Then the scarf is lightened to give a sort of 3D look to the image and works inline with that side of the face. I could only create this look by converting into B&W, this is what I love about B&W as you can bring features alive to fill the image you view.

I love taking peoples picture and bringing the very best out of them. In someway I find it very therapeutic as I look for the flaws like dust, hair, and many the odd hair that still attached to head. Its not about making it perfect, because we all have in perfections that makes us who we are, but just tidying up those little things I notice.

Photography to some is an art, to me its an expression that is hidden within the image and drawing them out in the different ways we can through look at a single image, as its ever evolving on my screen.

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Still Life Portrait - Garden Of Eden

I’m not known for still life photography and have only done a small amount over my time as a photographer, but I’ve used it to help teach me more about the finer detail on portraiture.

What do I mean by that? Still life is about having everything in the image just right, something that can get lost when working with people, because of time restraints or not having a direct idea on how things should look. You capture an image and then try to play on that to make it slightly better with movement, angle or light. But then when you come to editing you see the flyaway hair strands, slight loss of makeup, a crease in a shirt that looks out of place, things that could of been fixed before taking the image.

The process. This still life is full of objects, but you have to strip it right back from that. I have a glass plate thats about 90cm X 90cm that sits nicely on a small coffee table thats on wheels and is great to move around freely. To keep that blackness, I used a black cloth backdrop I have and setup a rig so that it went from around the back and round the left side of the table. I should of ironed the backdrop and stretched it round so no wrinkles could be seen, but I wasn’t too concerned about the backdrop and cleared that up in post-editing. I got a wicker basket bowl off eBay for £7.00 which is large and I thought was a bargain, and the fruit and flowers were from a local supermarket. The flowers I did put some thought into as I wanted some green in there to blend in with the fruit. My idea was a big pineapple as the centre piece and then everything blending in, this didn’t work at all. It took me a couple of hours just playing with the each piece of fruit and flower and rearranging time after time. This gave me a big respect for flower arrangers, I can tell you!

Detail - Detail Once I got so far with the arrangement, I then moved it onto the table and then it all change again. I soon worked out that I didn’t need to have everything laid out like it was on show and to be viewed from above. I remembered watching a video on food photography and how actually everything was place forward to look like it was the whole thing, when in fact it was only half and more of an illusion. So the rearrangement went on a lot longer, and to the point I felt that it looked good in that it all blended well together. Then I introduce two candles and played with that for a while, till I realised just the one was enough. With the first couple of shots, I just used a single light with a grid on a reflector. The light looked good, but I soon realised that another light with grid reflector needed to be added. I like grids as they don’t give that harsh light and gives you more room to play with the lighting. So by my 20th image, it all seemed to be coming together with the look and style, but now it was about detail. In my setup, I use Capture One tethered and then my MacBook wirelessly connected to my iPad with the use Capture Pilot App that lets me see the image on a large screen. As you begin to look closer at things, you see that one grape stands out as looking odd, a petal of a flower bent out of shape, all the small things that you only see when you look properly at the image in front of you. If you were doing this from the back of the screen on the camera, you would have problems. I just kept thinking detail, detail till I felt from my perspective, it looked good. For the final piece, I sprayed water on all of the fruit and flowers. Having those water droplets gives a sense of freshness, like they had just been picked straight from the garden.

Final Image It wasn’t till the 82nd image did I felt I’d got it. For me theres shaping and blend to the still life image, but all of the objects look right in angle and shaping. There is a point that you have to work with shapes as they can’t change, but makes a difference to where placed. This could be transform into portraiture in the way you place not just a hand, but a finger, an arm or leg in a certain direction that makes for a good image. Its just the final detail of things that move by themselves as the sitter relaxes during after taking of an image, its these little things that have to be constantly looked at again and again. I don’t believe it taking hundreds of images for the sake of it, just get it right within a few that shows the composition that you and the sitter are happy with, and means less of each other’s time wasted. Organic objects are harder to control than solid objects, they want to do things thats based on how they got there. So maybe my next project will be a box and how I can make that interesting, who knows, photography has no bounds.

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Portrait Image And What It Means To Me

Photographing people, isn’t just sitting someone down in front of a camera and taking hundreds of shots, not to me it isn’t.

People I meet for the first time when they come to the studio, get offered a drink and then just sit and chat for a while. Finding out about people gives an insight into what they do, where they come from, what their views are and what their looking for. Doing this makes studio canvas come alive with them in it, with thought on what’s been spoken about and carry’s on through the shoot.

Emotion is everything and comes through when you communicate and gets driven into the image thats created. You have to look at the person, and look into their eyes, because the eyes are everything to expression. My camera technique is “push button focus’, I focus the camera on the eyes and then move the camera to make the composition, that way I know the eyes are sharp in every image. They say the eyes are the window to ones soul, they don't lie and tell how the person is feeling, whether they are happy or sad, angry or just frustrated, they are everything and anything.

It took me some time to working this out. I looked at old work and recent work, and every time, what I see the most is the eyes. I can see where my mistakes were and what made them bad images, most of it was the fact that the eyes wasn’t in focus and ruined the image. Back at the beginning I was a thinking of lighting and composition, and taking loads of images that many just looked the same. I ask myself why did I do that? I wasn’t recognising what was going wrong I was just taking shots and hoping something would look good. Then one day I did a shoot as part of my degree and in my final year of uni. We had 15 minutes to get to know the person and take portrait images that they would use as part of their portfolio. They were drama students and looked to us to capture the essence of them that would tell their story of why they want to become actors. Each student had two photographers to photograph them within time limit. I was the second photographer to photograph this guy, and I asked the other photographer to show me quickly what they had done with them, why, because I didn’t want to do the same shots. All we had was one soft box to work with, and it was down to us to decide on lens and shots to be taken. This drama student, was black and had his hair short and a little bit of stubble on his chin, but he had theses amazing bright eyes. I decided on a 35mm prime lens and asked him to look into the reflector and look slightly upwards, and took the shot. I looked at on the back of the camera and I loved it, then I showed the student. He said “you have captured everything that is about me in one shot”. Fromm that moment I understood what he meant, I had captured his soul.

J. Fennell Image

This guy is a great friend I've made over the past couple of years and he is in his own right a fantastic landscape and street photographer. I asked him if he would sit for me, and had agreed. He doesn’t see himself as photogenic, but who does, but we talked so much through the shoot and putting the world to rights, while I photographed him just looking at me and looking round the room. He has the long beard and his hair tied up, and wears a baseball cap or another kind of hat. Most of the shots, were half body shots, but then towards the end, I said I would like to use 35mm lens, which meant I had to get up close to him. I asked him to look slightly away from me as we were talking, and then there was this moment of silence and him looking away, the look spoke to me and I took the shot. Out all that were taken and seen by some, say he looks slightly like Fidel Castro, and there is a slight look, but he’s had these comments made before and he laughs at it. But this one shows him in thought with that wide eye look. You still see the beard and baseball cap, but you are drawn to the eyes and thats what makes him the person he is. He has seen this image and he doesn’t normally like images of himself, but this one he does, its him and how he sees himself and what I was looking to get in the shoot.

K. Bristow Image.

Mr Bristow does modelling as a hobby and loves the studio and guessing dressed up in different outfits for photographers. He had offered to sit for me, and had brought a number of outfits along, incase I wanted to try something different. The idea of outfits and props I'm not appose to, but at the moment I want to work on real life, real looks. He has this real gentleman look about him and in work I've seen him, is very much that style. But this was stripped back and a two light setup. He has great futures and strong bone structure, so putting this altogether, comes from the eyes and how sits slightly forward and just captures that twinkle in his eyes with those strong wrinkles and eyebrows. Wrinkles to me are not a bad thing and add to the portrait, so much so that they are made strong in the post editing. That one light reflecting in his eyes is what I always try to capture, having too many reflectors ads confusion for me. Its funny, when I look at other work, I look to see what kind of reflector has been used, its a photography thing, that I think many do.

Portraiture is a kind of art for me, its thinking what can be achieved, which for the most part is the person and for them to see something in it, which they can related to. There are some amazing portrait photographers out there that have their unique style, its hard to fine your own, but if you think about the face, the look, the style and end image, before you meet the person, then your not wasting time and effort.

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what I use in my work and how I post edited particular image.

Equipment and Software.

From the off, I’ve built up my equipment over 7 years. Starting out you buy what you can afford and some things don’t need to be expensive, but you find yourself in a space where you make the decision to invest in certain things.

Camera

When I first decided to buy a decent camera, I researched and was in mind at the time to but Canon, was that a mistake, I don’t know, but I do know that my choice has paid off for me personally. I bought a Sony A65 and at that stage I didn’t understand the difference between full frame cameras and the smaller more consumer style camera like the A65. But when I started my degree and saw the full-frame cameras that were being used by the university, it wasn’t long before I traded in for the full-frame Sony A99. 

I’ve grown to love my Sony A99 and I’ve overcome the problems of it having a unique hot shoe unlike the industry normal hot shoe for all cameras.

Lenses I like the idea of being able to buy different branded lenses, but glass is so important that again I found out at a later stage, as I had bought cheaper lenses in the beginning before making the investment in quality glass. I at this stage had a choice of buying the most expensive Carl Zeiss lenses, but after research went for the Tamron F2.8 versions at half the price. So my lenses comprise of the following: Tamron SP 24-70mm f/2.8 Di USD Tamron SP 70-200mm f/2.8 Di VC USD Telezoom Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 DC HSM Art Sony 35mm f/1.8 Prime lens Sony 50mm f/1.8 Prime lens Sony 85mm f/1.8 Prime lens

Studio lighting and equipment My first two lights I bought were from eBay and are Newman strobe lights. They do the job but you can’t adjust to that fine tune look, like you can with the Bowens Gemini 500s. The Bowens are again what was used at UNI and I invested this time last year in two of them and use them on main stands, but use the cheaper ones on my Phottix C stand and Boom that I recently got in the Black Friday deal for just over £100. Stands I’ve got from what use to be Calumet but recently bought by Wex Photo & Video. Background stand from eBay, and all my reflectors from eBay as well. Regarding Speed Lights, I have 5 Yongnuo YN568EX II TTL, which again I’ve got from eBay.

Studio I have what some would call a popup studio that doubles as our kitchen, yes I said kitchen, its an on going joke in our house. I have a disabled built bungalow and we are lucky that the rooms are really big, well big enough to set up a 2.72m x 11m background with ease.

When working in the studio, I have a MacBook Pro with PhaseOne Capture Pro thats tethered to my camera. Some might ask why not use Adobe Lightroom, the answer is that Lightroom for some reason after many complaints from Sony users, doesn’t support Sony. There is a add-on from a software company in the USA, but every time theres a major update, the company wants you to re-buy the add-on, where as Capture One does support Sony. I also have an iPad Pro that PhaseOne has come up with an app called Copilot that allows you to setup a wireless connection between the iPad and MacBook and shows the images captured in realtime. This has turned out a great add to my work, I can see the image A4 size and so can the model or sitter, it makes for a great experience and allow you to make decisions on the go and save wasted images and time.

Editing and equipment Again, when I started out, I had an old HP Pavilion tower computer that ran Windows. But I invested in a Apple iMac, which is the 4k version with 16GB memory and a Fusion SSD drive. Getting the 5k is just not worth it to me as I only do photography and not video, and the screen is big enough for me. My screen is calibrated with Datacolor SpiderElite5.

Regarding storage, I use a external hard drive with the MacBook thats then connected to the iMac to transfer the RAW files to larger backup drive thats dedicated to my images. I also have a NAZ drive that I was given that allows me to backup everything and then some with a cloud drive. Digital images can’t be replace like using film and having the negatives to revert back to, so backup, backup and backup is so important so not to loose images. I also invested in a Wacom Intuos tablet. Working with a pen to post edit, is smooth and makes light work of fine detail that you just can’t do with a mouse.

Adobe in my view is the industry best photography software out there, so I use Lightroom and Photoshop, with add-on’s like Google NIK Collection, Topaz and Portraiture. My workflow is that I import the RAW images into Lightroom and then use that to choose the images that I feel worthy of being edited and putting them into there own catalog. I make adjustments for camera calibration, highlight, shadows, sharpening. From there I can move them into Photoshop to post edit and then when done they come back into the catalog, so I know where to find them at any time. It might seem a long winded way of doing things, but its how I work and its about finding what works for you.

Post Editing this image.

When I bring the image into Photoshop, I do the following: 1.Make a copy and then go to filter and add smart filter 2. New layer with 50% grey 3. Dodge and burn parts of the image that I feel is right to do. 4. New layer and use the healing and clone tool to clean spots, blemishes and anything like hair. 5. Make a copy of the image and add quick mask to highlight the eyes, then use selective colour adjustment and go to the neutral and brighten or darken the colour of the eyes. 6. New layer and use the sharpening to bring out the eyes, I roll over them no more than 5 times. 7. Group the layers and call the Clean. 8. New copy of image. Now I look to smooth the skin. I change the image to vivid, then go to image, adjust and invert. The filter High Pass set to 20, then blur, Gaussian blur set to 3.5. Then go to blend mode and the upper levels hold option and break the slide into two and drag to the opposite side (do the same with both left and right). Bring the opacity down to 70% then add mask and a soft brush go round the edges that look blurred. Brush set to black. 9. New copy of image. 10. Choose colour lookup table 3 times and choose green, amber and set to 15% opacity, film stock set to 10%. Then chose gradient and B&W and set to 10%. Group all of theses and then select mask. I then choose the brush, press / key so I can see where the brush is making the changes and go over just the skin of the model. Then change density to 50%. Group these layers and call the LUC 11. New copy of image, then filter noise set to 10% 12 new copy of image, the high pass, set to 3.5, then change mode to hard light.

Choice New image and then go into camera raw, and use circle and make oval on image and change exposure to add a darken silhouette around edges. Or use gradient at sides and top and change exposure.

So thats me. I can’t stress enough that it takes time, patients, practice, conviction. I’m still learning and breaking new ground, new ideas, meeting new people and sharing ideas. To a point you have to invest if you want to make a go as a photographer. Its taken me a long time to get where I am, and thats with doing a degree in professional photography that set me on this road and helped me to learn and except certain things like critique to what I do, but it helps me get better at what I do. I’ve found my unique way of producing my work in the way I do, others have their own ways of working, but your producing for you firstly then others, and they will either like it or hate it, but thats life!

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Tripod and Head’s working with your camera.

Over the years, like others, have bought a tripod and head, a year later bought another one. I guess its part of the learning process in photography that we start out with the basic and as we improve in our work, we find the need to upgrade to the next.

At the moment, I have two tripods and one head that I use, one is a Manfrotto 190XPRO Aluminium 3-Section tripod that you can get for £200 and Giottos Silk Road YTL8383, which was around £220 which is no longer available but the model thats replaced it is the Giottos Pro Series 8383 Carbon Fibre YTL Silk Road Tripod. The head I have currently is the Manfrotto Mag Ball Head 057 Q6, which is around £219 and has the Arca Swiss plate system on it that quick release.

Different types of photography call for different types of tools, so the aluminium tripod is used for the studio and in the field when working with filter systems like Lee Filters, so you have a sturdy tripod thats not going to move. The carbon fibre is for that track in the country and because its light but strong, is easy to carry. The 057 Q6 is a smooth magnesium ball head and one of the best I've had and easy to control and smooth and will hold a heavy DSLR and large lens when needed.

When doing portrait work, you want the camera turned on its side to be in portrait mode, and the good thing with the Q6, is that it has a slide that won’t let the camera go passed 90 degrees, which is helpful.

But wouldn’t it be great to be able to take the camera and turn it portrait and lock it into the head?

The Bracket So this is where I'm leading to, a simple device that fits onto the camera, which is L shaped so you can turn the camera from landscape mode to portrait onto the tripod head. It seems that no one talks about it or promotes the idea of a bracket that can make life so much easier and work more effectively.

I only found out about a L bracket while seeing a fellow photographer doing a Facebook live video of him at a waterfall with his filter system. He had the orange bracket on his camera and so I was interested what it was. Once he explained, I thought this is a great idea and would be perfect for me and my work.

Now I like Manfrotto equipment, so I looked online for an L bracket that would fit my ball head. It was confusing at first and ended up calling customer services and was told that the Q5 L bracket would fit my ball head. Now the price was £119, which is a lot of money for what it is, but I ordered it only to find that it wouldn’t fit as it wasn’t a Arca Swiss connection. This is slightly annoying as I had to send it back, but it turns out that Manfrotto don't make a L bracket for the Arca Swiss, which doesn’t make sense to me. I was about done with the idea, but I rang Wex Photo and ask the same question, but was there another make that had the Arca Swiss design.

They came back and said yep you can get the ‘3 Legged Thing QR11-LG L Bracket’, this turn out to be the same bracket that I had seen in the video the fellow photographer had. They do two colours, orange and black (strange idea of orange), but the price was just £44! As I do I did some research and looked at some reviews and they were good, so I ordered one and it arrived today, but I got the black one.

The Manfrotto L bracket doesn’t have anyway of being able to access the ports on the camera, so tethering is out of the question, if you use a battery grip the L bracket just wont fit. I know all of this as I looked at it when the one I ordered arrived. Things like this being miss out in design isn’t good in my view, I think that even though it would fit the ball head, I still would of sent it back.

3 Legged Thing QR11-LG L Bracket is so much use friendly as you have the ability to open port and tether amongst other things.

As you can see in the images that with a battery grip on the camera, the bracket doesn’t even come into connection with the port doors. The only thing that gets block is the battery compartment, but to me thats a small price to pay. The bracket has a grip floor that connects to the camera, so it won’t move around if it works loose, its sturdy and easy to put on the camera and the manufacturer actually includes a multi tool that has flat screwdriver head and a Allan key thats all in a D-ring shape that you can hook onto your tripod or your belt.

With the Arca Swiss quick release, its a solid feel to the whole thing and quick to use.

If you are getting into portraiture, then maybe this might be for you, then maybe not, but at least its been put out there what it can do and help your workflow.

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Artist at Work

This was an interesting project that I was invited to go along and photograph an artist that has a workshop onsite at Spike Island in Bristol, which has a large gallery as well.

I had no idea what kind of artist I was going to photograph or what the place might be like. The idea of taking studio lights was my first thought, but then I thought, what if its messy or small, that I wouldn’t be able to set them up. So I decided on using speedlights that would be easy to setup and use umbrellas with them to soften the light. This was a good choice as the artist studio was small, dusty and full of things that he had made or was to use with his work. So me with my wheelchair, camera rucksack and stand bag, soon filled up the space. The artist works with clay and stone in different formats, but his current project was making house bricks that had poetry on the side of them. How he does this is by having a wooden mould that he presses red clay into and then once pressed, unscrews the wooden mould. It was interesting to see how he went about this and gave me ideas of doing a portrait of him at his bench.

I had done images of him at work, but it didn’t show him as an artist in the way that would work as a portrait. He had this stool that had dried clay on the legs and plastic containers under his bench and then shelves with bits and bobs.

It’s difficult to fill the frame of the camera with objects that can be seen and make some any sense, but he has a press and wooden mould that he uses all the time. So we put this into the shot and him holding a tool and if you look closely he has a screw half undone.

I know I’m explaining the image but part if this kind of image is to like pass the person and whats around in the image that then tells its story just by looking at it. There is plenty to see in the image, and for the artist, you can see he has workingman hands, which look rough and play a big part in the image. The lighting is subtle and just lights him and the room enough, thats not over powering, so I was pleased with the choice of lighting and couldn’t of got it any bette than it is.

The artist was really interesting to listen to, and you need this to get to know the person and what they are about. I don’t like the idea of just turning up and directing them for what you want and not taking into consideration of they want from the experience. The final images I sent him, he was extremely please with and this is an edit that makes more for a portrait image, while the others are used for his website, so he can show what he does.

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The Family Women.

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Working Women