How To Take That Photo When Under Pressure - And What To Do If You Mess Up - 29 July 2014

I'll be talking about getting great photos in situations where you don't have control over the subject's movements - like concerts, sports, parades, photojournalism, street photography, celebrities in public, events & conferences and opportunistic shenanigans. 

Firstly, congratulations, you've made the right and conscious choice to improve yourself.

Now, let's start with the worse case scenario: there's a great photo opportunity, there’s only one chance to get it, you're not prepared and the moment is almost... nope the moment has gone. WHY ME?!!

Now that's out of the way, let's break down what you did wrong and how to fix it. :)

1. Pressure is to do with 'margin of error' as far as photography is concerned, while some say pressure or stress is self-inflicted,

Life in Trafalgar Square_Animated .gif

Thanks to Antony Gormley's 4th Plinth art instalment, Trafalgar Square has become much more relaxed and Mediterranean, with people fluttering about till the outer hours of the night. These images were captured just around dusk.

Animated .gif_What's Your Ologie?

British Museum

A popular English joke is that the British Museum is famed for having very little to do with Britain, and more to do with colonisation of the British Empire. As a photographer, I find the ambient light in the great hall fantastic. Photos on Canon 50D, Canon 70-200mm f4 L lens, ISO 1600, average 350th @ f4.

Photoshop Picture Framing Fun!

I found some old photo prints in my collection while rummaging for magazine clippings to work on my next photoshoot. With exception of the eye, the rest were taken with my old film camera Canon 300. The eye was taken on an old Polaroid 2mp camera. I got the images onto Photoshop and animated them a little.

I made the effect by first giving each rectangular image a light grey border. Then I used Warp (go to Edit - Transform - Warp) to bend the photos. Then the shadow was made, I used a copy of the photo then coloured that in grey with dark shades. Then I blurred the shadow, watermarked the image, and saved a jpeg. Easy to learn for idle thumbs. Might post a video tutorial later. Enjoy. :)

Some Days May We Ever See?

A mere 10 miles lies between me and the 45th President of the United States of America at the G20 convention. Usually separated by oceans, today that divide is in minutes. From a high vantage point in London I watch a pair of helicopters hovering over Bank like hawks and ask myself 'is this as good as it gets?' Hope. Expectation. Positive Action. In response to the death-by-police-brutality of innocent passerby Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protest today, the police need to have a better image and sort themselves out, because the worse their image becomes the more likely people will be to compare and liken them to criminals. And once protectors become criminals, who do the good people turn to?