I was thinking of an analogy to convey the pain of cliched photos last night as I was trying to avoid creating them, and it took me to a good friend of mine and his passion for telling stories.

I’m usually first into the pub on an evening out with friends, and this particular friend has a habit of being second. We usually exchange pleasantries then he tells me a tale from the last week. He goes into anal detail, laughing at his own joked throughout, but it usually us pretty funny.

After about 5 minutes, he’ll come to the end, there’s usually a good punch line and I’m usually amused – have a good laugh and get a new pint.

Then in comes the next friend, we exchange pleasantries, then my first mate says, “Oh, I tell you what happened to me this week…..”, then breaks into the story I’ve just heard.

This time, he’s done his rehearsal on me, so he embellishes certain points and builds up to the bits where I laughed… now I know what’s coming I politely smile and give a light chuckle at right parts. The story drags on for longer than before and at the end I’ve heard it all before, and just smile… the 3rd mate is quite amused and laughs, much the same as I did in the first place.

Then another mate turns up, the 4 of us get a beer in, now mate 1 says “Oh, you’ll never guess what happened to me this week…..”, then launches into the SAME bloody story again, I’ve heard it twice, it wasn’t that funny in the first place but you smile, and politely laugh whilst narrowly avoiding shouting “SHUT UP!!!! SHUT UP!!!! SHUT UP!!!! SHUT UP!!!!” or shoving your pint glass in his face and twisting it vigourously.

By this point your last mate turns up and makes the group complete, then after a little while, mate 1 starts on the story again and by this stage you just pair off with another mate and talk about something completely different, ignoring what mate 1 is talking about.
This is pretty much how I see “cliche” photographs, initially you’re impressed, maybe a second or third time is tollerable, but they’re the same story over and over; maybe with a few embelishments here and there, but essentially, there’s nothing new to look at or stimulate you. After a while, you just stop listening to the story, or in the photographic world, you stop taking an interest in that kind of photograph.

Seeing another classic shot of Glen Coe has the same effect on me as hearing a one-semi-funny story for the 1000th time; I turn off and just ignore it.

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The Life archive online is also posting current events images too, with some based around the current Swine Flu fears.  There are also some from the 1918 pandemic too.

If this carries on through summer we might see some interesting tan line photographs!

If you have not looked through the Life archives, it is well worth a look, some fantastic and inspiring images in there.

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Having just looked through some of the shots on the Photo of the Day links that Mark provided, it kinda confirmed something I’ve been thinking more and more about re. photography.

People add so much to a shot, be they the subject or part of the scene.

Things they add to a shot, amongst other things, are..

• sense of scale
• context
• sense of location
• emotional input

I’ve tended to avoid them in my photography in the past, looking for those perfect cliched landscapes that 10000 photographers have done before, but now when I look at a similar shot but with a person in, I think it does add so much more.

There’s a shot of a farmer tending his oil seed rape on one of Marks photo of the day pages. I’ve done loads of oil seed rape shots as it’s all over the place where I live, but the difference with someone in shot is that you:-

• get a sense of scale, these plants are tall – also you get a sense of how big the field is!
• get a sense of purpose, the bloke is clearly working the field so we know it’s a farmed crop
• get a sense of location, he’s in western clothes, so we know it’s probably in the western world

All of that comes from the inclusion of a tiny person in the shot – amazing what difference such a small addition can make. Were there no one in the shot, we’d just have an anonymous sea of yellow – I know, I’ve got loads of them!

I think the inclusion of people in a scene also adds that feeling of connection with an image we don’t get with people-free shots.

For example, if you see a photo of an indian slum, it looks pretty grim and you’d not really want to go there – add in some human interest, a dirty child with wide, sad eyes, and the whole context of the shot changes. The same scene with 3 of 4 kids playing cricket would give a whole different message again.

So I’m not saying that portrait photography is the holy grail, but adding human interest to a shot can add so much. You can’t always get the right people, they’re not as predictable as a sunrise, but rather than waiting for people to get out of shot, it may be worth waiting for people to walk in to shot.

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There are plenty of sites out there, picking their particular photo of the day, from a whole host of sources. There are two I regularly visit (one is only updated 3-4 times a week).

The first is PDN Photo of the Day… well worth a nosey through this site, as there some fantastic images in there and it can send you off in all sorts of directions.

The other is the Boston Globe’s Big Picture,  a blog that I have followed since it first started. Today’s images also match up with the PDN subject, on the subject of Earth day.

Anyone else got any favourite Picture of the Day sites?

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My ever growing fondness for weirder images hit a zenith yesterday when I collected my Zone Plate/Pinhole camera optic for the Lensbaby Composer. 

For those of you who don’t know what a Zone Plate is, look no further than here.  

So the effect of a pinhole camera is pretty well known, really small aperture (F177) which has no optics, creates a dreamy yet recognisable image on your sensor. I found that you could just about hand hold in bright sunshine at ISO1600, but you really needed something like the sun in shot to use as a compositional aide. You can see less through this baby than an IR filter.

But the results are a beauty, faded colours, ideal for those card manufacturer’s that like pastel images for smoochy cards, or maybe for a bored photographer looking for a new edge.. albeit a blurred edge

I tried out the optic on some bull rushes and on a field of yellow oil seed rape. Here are some nice images for you…

So the Zone plate

As you can see, the effect is basically “abstract watercolour”! It’s very dreamy and gives a really warped effect on reality. I can see it being useful for flower shots in good light, you’d end up with lots of stronger colours making a nice blobby thing. It’s F19 and you can see outlines of things when looking through the view finder and it’s definitely hand holdable in good light. It’s pretty far from a traditional photo, I’m not sure I’d be using it at a wedding or anything like that, but for still life or generally getting something totally bizarre, it’s quite good fun. 

Probably more of a fine art tool than a traditional photographic lens – but that’s just it, it’s not a lens! It’s a zone plate and that uses diffraction rather than refraction

Just awaiting my 21mm ultra wide adaptor and I’ve got everything I need for my lensbaby

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For quite some time I’ve been looking for a camera for street use. A small discrete camera that can be used for street photography. Ricoh Sigma and Canon all had some good offerings but nothing really grabbed me enough as being what I wanted or needed, so I’ve waited. Now it would seem that the wait is over after seeing some samples of the New Sigma DP2, I must admit it looks very tempting. If it has improved in its speed of operation and handling, I may have to get one   Lets hope it has improved the shutter lag somewhat!

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Like James, I’ve got a couple of ongoing portrait projects one of which is all about people, what they wear for work  and their homes.  The concept behind the shoot is one of comparing ourselves and our homes.  I’m taking people that wear a uniform/gear for work and take their portraits in their house. I’m also looking to expand it too, to take in hobbies and pastimes that require gear/uniform. I’m also experimenting with the Tilt and Shift lens too, using it for portrait sessions.

Well this weekend, I had the first shoot for this project and the sitter is a “Horticultural Education Officer” The uniform is quite minimal consisting of branded t-shirts and fleeces, but I do want a range of people and outfits. Anyway enough waffle, here are a couple of shots from the session.

oh and if you wear a uniform, use special gear for work or a pastime, and fancy being part of the series… get in touch via the comments.

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verb – To work together, especially in a joint intellectual effort.[dictionary.com]

It’s almost impossible to avoid reading or hearing about the “financial crisis” of World economies, and all the doom & gloom that is to follow.  It’s also difficult to avoid feeling some sense of insecurity and fear…and guess what, you’re not the only one.

So, what can we do?  There are many ways out of this storm.  For me, it’s to team up with other like-minded people and together, I believe, we can survive and then prosper on the up-swing.  This is what I find special and encouraging about 4togsblog.co.uk.  In fact, 4togsblog was the root for an initiative that I’ve recently started called United Photographers, a site for creative wedding photographers in Cape Town, South Africa.  At the heart of United Photographers, is a blog aggregator.

While, 4togsblog looks at the social lives of it’s members (much like Mammoth Men), I took the concept and applied it to the business of photography…in my case, wedding photography.  What if you collaborated with 10 of the most creative wedding photographers in your city?  How true would it be to be judged by the company you keep?

So, why would you want to mix with the competition?  Well, if you’re offering the exact same service/product, then there’s competition.  However, if there’s diversity, then it’s not competition…just opportunity.  Opportunity to cast a wide net and feed off each others opportunities and in the era of SEO, blog aggregation is a funnel for web traffic.

To conclude, I encourage you to look out for examples of collaboration between “competitors”.  You can leave them as comments to this post.

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