Beautiful Rain Photography
Living in Vancouver or anywhere in the Pacific Northwest there is one thing that winter will surely bring…rain. As a photographer this can be a huge barrier to productivity if you shoot predominately outside. I just came across this beautiful selection of rain photographs courtesy of Creative Design Magazine which have I am going to use as inspiration to get out of the house and shoot on the many miserable and wet days ahead. See the full set of images here.
Filed under: Inspiration | 1 Comment
Tags: cold, inspiration, Pacific North West, photographer, photography, rain, Vancouver, water, wet, winter
So every time I think that timelapse is getting played out, one jumps up and blows me away. This timelapse from Dustin Farrel is perhaps my favourite of the year. Shot predominately in his home state of Arizona with some shots of Goblin Valley State Park and National Bridges Monument in Utah thrown in, Farrell has really captured the stunning scenery and expansive vistas of the region. I am heading off on a road trip next year and will be driving through many of the areas where this was shot and now I am even more inspired to shoot this amazing scenery. You can check out more of Farrell’s work on Vimeo. Enjoy.
Filed under: Inspiration, Landscape | 1 Comment
Tags: 5d, 5dmkii, Arizona, Dustin Farrell, film, movie, timelapse, Utah, video
Candace Meyer is a Vancouver based fashion photographer. I just came across her work and was inspired by her use of natural light and creation of those beautiful soft tones. You can enjoy more of her work on her website.
Filed under: Fashion, Inspiration | Leave a Comment
Tags: Candace Meyer, fashion, light, natural, photographer, Vancouver
A beautiful and brooding short film from surf photographer Mickey Smith – Dark Side of the Lens
I just came across the video through a friend of mine and couldn’t take my eyes off it. Put together with Allan Wilson from Astray Films, Surf photographer Mickey Smith narrates about his work as a photographer, his passion, experiences and what drives him. The imagery that accompanies this video was put together on 16mm as well as some brillant HDSLR video, shot with Canon’s 5dmkii. The end result is stunningly brooding imagery and a fantastic short film.
Video courtesy of Astray Films on Vimeo.
Filed under: Inspiration, Sports | Leave a Comment
Tags: 5dmkii, Allan Wilson, Astray Films, Dark Side of the Lens, hdslr, Mickey Smith, passion, photography, surf, surfer, UK, waves
I have seen quite a few of lists but I think this one published on Photoshelter is probably the best I have come across. The quotes from the photographers are right to the point and although there are some cliches in there, I think a lot of what is said is very relevant. Some of the best quote from the list are below and you can read the full article and list here.
Casey Templeton on ‘How to price your work’
“Its never good to always be the lowest bid, if the client isn’t complaining a little about your prices, you aren’t charging enough.”
Tim Mantoani on ‘It’s not the camera, it’s the photographer’
“Steve McCurry’s famous photo of the Afghan Girl on National Geographic took a fraction of a second to record on film, but without years of practice and without traveling 1/2 way around the globe on assignment, again and again, it would not exist. That image took hundred and hundreds of hours of Steve being behind the lens to make. Don’t let the capture device fool you. The act of owning a camera does not make you a photographer.”
Joe McNally on ‘How to keep your head up, navigate obstacles, and handle rejection’
“This is a long and winding road, filled with far more valleys than peaks. One of the greatest talents one can have in this business has nothing to do with visual acumen at the lens. It is about the ability to sustain, to weather the storms, to shoot poorly and still survive a job, to fight out of inevitable creative slumps, to live with all manner of risk that lots of folks would find uncomfortable, to make uncertainty your friend, and to thrive despite sudden curves and happenstance. I guess what I’m describing is tenacity. To love doing this so much that you’ll go through 1000 “no’s” just to hear the one ‘yes.”
Brian Peterson on ‘You don’t have to be perfect’
“Perfection is the enemy of excellence! As a student fresh out of college it’s very hard to accept anything but perfection in your work, in your publication or in your editors. It’s why many photographers are such a bitter bunch! This world is not perfect. Learn to accept good enough!”
Scott Strazzante on ‘Where to find story ideas and things to photograph’
“What I really wished I had learned earlier was that the best stories are the ones that are right under your nose. The stories in your community. The stories that a photographer can shoot over weeks, months or even years.”
Filed under: Advice | 1 Comment
Tags: advice, learned, photographer, photography, professional, school, tips
Everyone knows that as a photojournalist you can be put in dangerous situations, covering wars with bullets flying over your head and so forth. So if you had chosen the path of a sports photographer covering golf events, you would assume that you would be about as far away from danger as one could get. This reality was shattered for Mail photographer Mark Pain during the Ryder Cup. Tiger Woods was lined up to chip his third shot on the final hole and miscues. The ball came squarely at Pain and he stood his ground, or perhaps lacked the reaction skills to move out of the way, and managed to grab this amazing shot just before he caught the full force of the shot. One further point of interest in this shot is the gentleman just behind Tiger on the right, who is sporting a turban, cigar and a killer mustache and looks like distinctly like a character from Happy Gilmore. Full story here at the Mail Online.
Filed under: Sports | 2 Comments
Tags: amazing, chip, golf, golf ball, golfer, Mail, Mark Pain, photography, sports, Tiger Woods
Eugene Smith was undoubtably one of the worlds greatest photojournalists. He started his photography career at a young age, taking photographs of planes at a local airport after borrowing a camera from his mother who was also an amateur photographer. In his highschool years he began working for two local papers covering local events. He continued his passion into his university years where he worked under a scholarship and following his graduation he moved to New York from Wichita Kansas to work for Newsweek.
His departure from Newsweek was perhaps symptomatic of his artistic integrity and stubbornness. He was fired for using a smaller camera after he had been told not to by his superiors. Smith had felt the small cameras had given him advantages in certain situations and rather than heed the warnings, he persisted in using the camera resulting in his dismissal. Smith later joined Life Magazine under a retainer after freelancing for a period of time. However, he left Life Magazine in 1941 and returned to freelancing after being unhappy with the perceived rut he felt he had slipped into. In 1942 Smith took a new direction which would dramatically change his life, he became a war correspondent
Smith’s work was focused mainly around the fighting in the Pacific Islands and he covered 26 carrier combat missions and 13 invasions. He had been in Okinawa on D-Day and was committed to getting his photos back to Life magazine as fast as possible that he hitch hiked 1200 miles back to Guam to do so. However his luck ran out in May 1945 when he was hit by a Japanese shell fragment while trying to get a shot. In true Eugene Smith style he later commented “I forgot to duck but I got a wonderful shot of those who did… my policy of standing up when the others are down finally caught up with me.” His wounds were serious however and he spent two years in hospital recovering and in that time he took no photographs at all. During his recovery after this period however Smith went for a walk with his two children and took what was one of what was to become his most recognizable photographs, ‘A Walk to Paradise Garden’.
Following his recovery Smith once again threw himself into his passion and from 1947 to 1954 he produced several seminal photo-essays for Life magazine such as Country Doctor, Southern Midwife , Spanish Village, Albert Schweitzer - Man of Mercy and Hard Times on Broadway. In 1955 however Smith once again had a run in with his employer, this time Life Magazine. He became disgruntled of Life’s usage of his photos of Albert Schweitzer and so they parted ways.
It was now 1955 and for the next three years Smith took on what was perhaps his most ambitious and defining project, a pictorial essay on the city of Pittsburgh. He had originally gone to Pittsburgh for his first routine assignment for the Magnum picture agency to come up with 100 photographs over a three weeks to celebrate Pittsburgh’s centenary celebrations. Three weeks turned into three years as he attempted to understand and portray the city and in the end produced an astounding 21,000 photographs.
Smith eventually died in 1978 from a massive stroke which which was thought to have been brought on by his longterm consumption of amphetamine and alcohol which he had used to fuel his workaholic ethic throughout his life. Eugene Smith while revered for his uncompromising ideals, perfectionism and passion also found these same traits to work against him in other areas of his life including his professional career and his home life. Smith wrote this to his mother in 1953.
“ I have a cult of followers throughout the world who look up to me as the shining light and the protector of integrity and as the one who never compromises my beliefs before pressures of the commercial and outside world. Perhaps this… is a reason I am unhappy because I am afraid I will let these people and the world down …..”
This is a curse that seems to be shared by many artists who become thrust into the limelight. One that comes to mind is the late Kurt Cobain who had also echoed similar musings about his fame and the expectations that came along with it. You have to admire someone who can cast aside everything for their craft and pursue it with such unwavering vigor, Eugene Smith is a definite inspiration to not just photographers but all who pursue their passions.
Filed under: History, Inspiration, Photojournalism | 5 Comments
Tags: A Walk to Paradise Garden, Albert Schweitzer, alcohol, amphetamine, black and white, Country Doctor, essay, Eugene Smith, Hard Times on Broadway, Life, Man of Mercy, Newsweek, photo, photography, photojournalism, Pittsburgh, Southern Midwife, Spanish Village, war
