Innholdsfortegnelse for 23/01/2021 i Amateur Photographer

What do we do with our photos once we’ve taken them? Most of us want other people to see them, otherwise what’s the point? But how? In olden days we may have exhibited them in the local library but now that we’re all connected to billions of other people via the internet it’s possible to reach millions, and some photographers manage to do just that. This week we share some of their tricks to help you reach a wider audience with your work. We also talk to Patrick Van den Branden, whose captivating photographs are created using a mixture of digital technology, film and ancient Victorian processes, with large-format cameras and vintage lenses. I hope you find our interview as fascinating as I did. Finally, read our verdict on the…

It’s Not About Me – Greg Gorman: A Retrospective £70, TeNeues, 416 pages, hardcover, ISBN: 9783961712755 This weighty tome features portraits of some of the biggest names in Hollywood over the past 50 years. A major retrospective of the noted American photographer, Greg Gorman, there’s a foreword by Elton John and an afterword by John Waters. Turn each page and you see a global megastar staring back at you. If you happen not to recognise the face in front of you (a rarity), then you can flip to the back of the book for a full cast list, along with the year that the shot was taken. It might perhaps have been nice to include some more context (i.e. what the shot was taken for), but otherwise, the pictures don’t…

I assumed Patrick Van den Branden is a professional photographer for three reasons. The first was that his pictures are so good, the second is that he has a lot of them, and the third was that the sort of pictures he takes require an enormous investment of time and effort. I suppose reason three should have made me question my assumption, as professional photographers don’t usually have the kind of time that allows them to experiment with chemical formula or the sort of processes that involve a significant risk that the result may not be as intended – if an image appears at all. The Belgian photographer, in fact, does have a real job. Patrick works in the Belgian National Bank as a photographer for the internal staff magazine…

After taking early retirement from my job as an IT manager, I started selling framed pictures, canvas wraps and later submitted photographs to Alamy. I did get my work accepted by local galleries and tourist attractions, but one gallery owner said photographs do not sell. There is some truth in that statement, but I had a number of outlets for my work and sales were reasonable. Once you have passed an initial assessment of three images, it is then simply a process of identifying further high-quality images for submission to Alamy (www.alamy.com). Upload them using Alamy Image Manager, or if you’re a Lightroom user, you can use the Alamy-Lightroom Bridge plug-in (www. lightroomplugins.com). The uploaded images are assessed for quality, not image content, and pass through a quality control process.…

TREASURES FROM THE HULTON ARCHIVE Baby Cage by Fox Photos An example of the wire cage which East Poplar borough council in London proposed to fix to the outside of their tenement windows, so that babies can benefit from fresh air and sunshine. It’s hard to believe that anybody felt this was a good idea, despite its arguably kind intentions. The contraptions were patented by Emma Read, from Washington, USA, in 1922 with the idea of helping parents living in inner-cities without much space. Even more incredibly, the slanted roof of the cage is designed to ‘protect’ babies housed within from snow or rain. The Getty Images Hulton Archive is one of the world’s great cultural resources. Tracing its origins to the founding of the London Stereoscopic Company in 1854,…

NISI has released its first lens, a wideangle 15mm f/4 ASPH lens for Canon RF, Fujifilm X, Nikon Z and Sony E mounts. The lens features a metal barrel, 12 elements in 10 groups, one aspherical element and two low-dispersion elements. The lens also features a mechanical ring for continuous diaphragm adjustment, a 10-blade diaphragm, a minimum focusing distance of 20cm, and a 72mm front thread. The diaphragm has been designed with 10 straight blades to obtain a ‘star’ effect on points of light at any aperture, as well as maximising sharpness over the entire frame and aperture range, the company claims. As there is no chip to communicate with the camera, focal length and aperture information isn’t included in the EXIF data. You’ll also have to enter the focal…

22 January 1912 TAKE a gander at the cover of the AP 22 January 1912 issue. The author of the photo ‘So Glad Christmas is Over!’ was the subject of the lead story on the Editorial Comment page, which focused on various talks given at clubs and societies around the UK. ‘The camera of the future,’ according to Mr W Thomas, who entertained the Camera Club with a lecture on his photographic tramps abroad, ‘will be very small and, consequently, very costly, for you cannot expect to have compressed efficiency without paying for it.’ The report went on to describe the ‘very satisfactory’ image quality of his large exhibition pictures that were made with a ‘waist-pocket instrument,’ although they perhaps had ‘not quite the same delicacy and tone value and…

SEO can be a bit of a dark art but getting it right can make a significant difference to the success of your efforts. Optimising your site so that it ranks highly on Google searches will help to drive more traffic to your site and therefore hopefully increase your business. Everything from your website’s URL (address) and the layout can affect how it performs. 1 Add a blog page to your website A blog page allows you to add meaningful and helpful text information to your website. The benefit of this is that you can target potential questions that prospective customers may have. For example, writing a blog titled: ‘How to take good product photos’ will drive traffic to your site from people who could benefit from your tips. In…

Sometimes, when I’m commissioned to shoot a portrait, it’s a big production. I know the image is going to be used on a cover and I have all day to shoot it. I can get to know the sitter more and take my time photographing them in different areas around the location. Those shoots are a luxury in some ways, but there’s also more pressure to come up with something really special. On other shoots, I’m under a different kind of pressure because I have literally five or ten minutes to come up with a memorable portrait. I have to admit that in a perverse way I like not having much time, because nobody expects you to get anything good in the time allowed – and then when you do,…

I MUST admit to being surprised when Fujifilm first showed me the X-S10, as those analogue dials for shutter speed and exposure compensation have become such an integral part of the firm’s DNA. But here’s the thing; the twin-dial control scheme that the camera adopts has been hugely popular among DSLR buyers for decades simply because it works so well. As a result, the X-S10 operates in a fashion that will be instantly familiar to DSLR users of all brands. Indeed it probably handles better than many of the cameras that it aspires to replace in photographers’ kit bags, thanks to its uncluttered design and eight-way AF joystick. So if you own an APS-C DSLR and want to switch to a smaller, lighter mirrorless system, quite simply this is the…

ONE OF the things that’ll strike Canon users about this lens is that it’s not as fast at the long end as its EF-mount predecessor. Compared to the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM, which can be used at f/5.6 at 400mm, this zoom has a maximum aperture of f/6.3 at 400mm. Thankfully, this third of a stop difference isn’t a deal-breaker thanks to the highly effective in-body stabilisation and sensational ISO response on Canon’s latest EOS R cameras. Though there’s nothing to stop the lens being used with Canon’s EOS R and EOS RP models, the fact that neither features IBIS or are able to shoot above 5fps in Servo AF mode highlights it’s better matched with the R5 or R6. The difference between 400mm and 500mm doesn’t seem…

I wonder if George Marks is in Heaven. George spent a lifetime shooting stock pictures in the days before stock was truly popular. And he was a pretty big player, operating out of his The Black Box studio in New York City from 1928 until he died in 1985 leaving behind an enormous collection of photographs. The Getty Image Library has over 12,000 pictures of his, showing the sorts of constructed scenarios that could be used simultaneously to convincingly illustrate multiple forms of editorial, marketing and advertising material. He wouldn’t just photograph a lady speaking on the telephone – oh no! He’d have ten large-format and beautifully lit prints of her bursting with a series of reactions to the ‘news’ being conveyed down the line; from surprise to joy, sorrow,…

AP picture of the week Frozen Staircase by Emma J Smith Canon EOS 5D Mark III, 70-200mm at 200mm, 1/6sec at f/16, ISO 200 ‘This photograph was taken in Iceland at the site of the famous Seljalandsfoss waterfall,’ says Emma, who lives in Berkshire with her husband and their three sons. ‘I arrived on a very grey November day disappointed that there were no “wow” shots I could see of this majestic waterfall, the light was incredibly flat. Then I spotted this staircase encased in ice. In warmer seasons it’s used by visitors to get behind the main fall of water. On that day it looked otherworldly, reminding me of Narnia.’ It’s a wonderful image – not the one Emma first envisaged, but so much better, and more unusual, than…

I’d never heard of Robert Blomfield. Not until AP published a stunning selection of his Edinburgh pictures (AP 21 November 2020). He captured its 1950s and 1960s perfectly: grey tenements looming out of the fog, kids playing in cobbled streets with almost no traffic. I pored over his website, wondering why he wasn’t recognised as one of the greats of street photography. The simple reason: no one saw his photos. This very private man made stunning prints, then put them in a box, gathering dust for half-a-century. Spookily, I was transported back 70 years, because these were my streets, my childhood, the people and places so real again. By the time of his Sixties photos, I was a journalist, and local newspaper people knew everything and everybody in their area.…

You’ve made the leap; you want to be a photographer full-time. Perhaps you’ve been making photography work as a side hustle for years. Perhaps you’d never considered it, but the past year has helped you discover a hidden passion and talent for taking pictures. Whatever has brought you to this decision, I’d like to share what I’ve learned about marketing oneself for success in a challenging climate. I’ve worked in marketing and technology journalism for approaching 14 years cumulatively. My focus has been on communications, brand storytelling and gadgets. I like to think of everything that companies and individuals do to ‘sell’ their goods and services, as a process of finding an audience, connecting with them by appealing to their sensibilities and then delivering or speaking to the needs and…

GOOGLE receives approaching 4 billion search queries daily, and Facebook has almost 2 billion active users. If you’re going to invest money in online advertising then these are likely to be the best platforms to consider. Google advertising is split into two categories: display and search. You can choose to bid for search result prominence based on specific keywords and terms relevant to your business. Alternatively, you can pay for advertising space that occupies banners and boxes on websites that are part of the Google Display Network, which spans almost 98% of the internet. Display ads are best for building brand recognition because they’re more visible. The big benefit of advertising with Facebook Ads is the extreme granularity that you can get into when targeting your advertising. You can segment…

Sensor 26.1MP X-Trans 4, 23.5 x 15.7mm Output size 6240 x 4160 Focal length mag 1.5x Lens mount Fujifilm X Shutter speeds 15min-1/4000sec (mechanical); 1sec-1/32,000sec (electronic) Sensitivity ISO 160-12,800 (standard); ISO 80-51,200 (extended) Exposure modes PASM, Auto, 4x Custom Metering Multi, centre-weighted, spot, average Exposure comp +/-5 EV in 0.3EV steps Continuous 8fps mechanical; 20fps electronic; shooting 30fps with 1.25x crop Screen 3in, 1.4m-dot LCD touchscreen Viewfinder 2.36m-dot, 0.62x magnification AF points 117 or 425 Video 4K up to 30p; Full HD up to 240p External mic 3.5mm stereo Memory card SD, SDHC, SDXC (UHS-I) Power NP-W126S Li-ion Battery life 325 shots Dimensions 126x85.1x65.4mm Weight 465g inc battery and card…

The crops shown below are taken from the area outlined above in red In terms of image quality, unsurprisingly the X-S10 behaves in much the same way as its siblings that use the same sensor. It delivers clean, detailed files at low sensitivities, with a little luminance noise only appearing when you crank it up to ISO 1600. Even so, I’d still be happy to shoot at ISO 3200 and ISO 6400, with the top standard ISO 12,800 setting also being acceptable when lighting conditions are poor. However, I’d avoid using the extended ISO 25,600 and ISO 51,200 options. Unusually, if you don’t have to make large tonal adjustments, you’ll get as good results from camera JPEGs as from processing raws.…

Panoramic The frame’s 12cm-wide opening allows reproduction of panoramic negatives up to 6x12cm. Non-slip feet Four soft silicone feet are supplied to stop the device sliding around on a light box. Gates A set of clip-in black plastic masks adapt the device for use with 35mm or 120 film. Legs A pair of push-on detachable legs allow Pixl-Latr to be stood up in front of a light source for copying. ● £39.99 ● www.pixl-latr.com OVER the past few years, film photography has seen a resurgence in popularity. But few users are stubbornly 100% analogue; instead, most like to digitise their pictures for sharing on social media. This is where a device like Pixl-Latr comes in. It’s designed to hold your film flat in front of a light source for copying…