January. People don’t give it much thought, other than the occasional shudder of dread. After the build-up to Christmas and the alcoholic anti-climax that is New Year, the only thing that most people associate with January is cold weather and an unwelcome return to work.

We at the 4 Togs Blog are sympathetic to your feelings. We don’t want you to feel lost and alone, cold and unhappy. First of all, we’d like to remind you that there is a cause to celebrate in January – My birthday falls fairly squarely in the middle of the month and I’d like to invite your participation in celebrating with me, no matter where you are! However, with a view to the fact that a birthday is but one day, Matt has devised a plan to keep you occupied and happy the whole month through: The return of the 31-day Photo Challenge.

The premise is simple: Pick a camera, pick a lens. Take a photo each day for all of the 31 days of January and upload them, daily, to our Facebook group. Beyond that, there are no rules other than the ones that you choose to impose upon yourself. Some people like to try and maintain a theme through their images… Others are just happy to maintain the goal of taking one picture a day.

So, think of it as an early gift for you all. Please take a look at the Facebook page and sign up – we’d love to have your participation!

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Dear Inspirationally-bereft Fauxtographer,

If you love the text on my website sooooo very much, how about when you copy it into your own site, you at least make some tiny attempt to change the words about some, so that it’s not so flinkin’ obvious?

Seriously… The only reason that it’s taken me so long to find, is because it’s for an old domain that pretty much looks after itself. The reason that it looks after itself, is because the copy text is well-written, specifically with a view to making it easy to find from a search engine. I suppose you at least had the good grace to just steal my text, as opposed to lifting my actual photographs too, but it’s nothing more than laziness and theft.

You’re supposed to be a photographer… Maybe you should take some time to learn about intellectual property rights? Failing that, you’d be well advised to investigate the Copyscape search engine and realise how simple it is to find people who do this. I have better things to do with my time than starting to organise more take-down notices with webhosts.

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The Press Photographer’s Year (PPY) is a competition open to all press photographer’s working in the UK (or outside the UK for UK-based publications) and showcases some of the very best editorial photography around. The 2009 award-winning entries have recently been chosen and you can now view them all on the PPY’s website.

There are some incredibly inspiring shots on there, not to mention winners from previous years to browse through if you have the time.

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Don’t worry, I’m not honestly suggesting that you go out and plagiarise someone else’s work or ideas. As creatives, it’s almost certain that the idea fills you with revulsion in any case. However, a certain amount of duplication can be entirely healthy when attempting to learn new skills, or to push yourself just a little bit further than normal.

Take the above picture of Ade, you might recognise it as the full version of the one that I’ve used as his avatar photo at the very top of the page… It actually came about as a discussion on an online photography forum. A bunch of people were discussing the influence of films on photographs, at which point someone else chimed in wondering how to get a “Sin City” effect on their photo’s.

A long discussion followed, most of which dealing with the processing after the the image had actually been taken. Hardly anybody, other than myself, made any mention of the lighting involved. In order to give myself a bit of a challenge (and also, I admit, to make a point) I set about taking a photo to see if I could replicate the style. I used this poster from the film as my starting point.

By dissecting the lighting used, we can see that Hartigan (played by Bruce Willis) is lit from behind and from either side, creating two strips of light down either cheek and backlighting the hair, but leaving the majority of the front of the face in shadow. I replicated this by using two speedlights 45 degrees to Ade’s back and above him. Another speedlight on-camera provided some fill to keep detail in the face and give catchlights in the eyes.

The resulting image was then processed to black & white, with a slight red tone added to maintain the feel of the film production.

So there’s today’s challenge: Find yourself a film poster or another image that you like (or find inspirational). As part of your ongoing photographic education, attempt to determine the lighting used and then go off and attempt to replicate it in a shot of your own. If you have the time, leave us a comment with a link to the original, and a link to your take on it.

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It’s way too easy, photographically speaking, to lose your way a little. I find it very easy to become stuck in a rut with my work and it’s clear from discussions with the others (and a wider photographic audience on the web) that plenty of other people feel the same way too. The important thing is to recognise the symptoms and to work to counter them to stop yourself from feeling stale.

Mark has already mentioned one great blog post from Chase Jarvis: Shake Your Tree. It’s something that I’ve referred to a couple of times myself… Whilst my video-making antics in Cornwall might have seemed like I was solely looking to ridicule Mark (as if I would!), another part of it was curiosity to see if I could adapt to a different medium other than stills photography. Another good project that I’ve only just remembered is Learning to Love You More, which features a wider range of 70 different assignments for you to attempt.

It’s said that familiarity breeds contempt. My own personal opinion is that the best way to avoid the contempt is to move away from your familiar comfort zone. You love landscape photography? Then book a model and try some portraiture. Find yourself fixated by your histogram? Then tape over your LCD display and shoot fully-manual for effect (Hell, you could even shoot some film!)…

Ultimately, photography is a creative art and unless you actively challenge the boundaries of that creativity, then you’ll become stuck doing the same-old every time. Push yourself harder, reap the rewards…

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Following our recent trip to Newquay, along with another weekend of photo-related shenanigans with our friends, the 4TogsBlog is pleased to announce some very exciting news… We’ve secured our very own movie contract to tell the story of the one who got away.

That’s right! 4TogsBlog, in association with Bearded Productions (Scholey Division) Ltd, are soon to release a new epic: “The Many Faces of Scholey“, in cinemas this summer. It’s going to be an action-packed thriller full of low-speed chases, big waves, hot sun and cold cyder. It’ll be the most fun that you’ve never had.

To whet your appetite, it gives me enormous pleasure to bring you a sneak preview of this awesome cinematic experience. Please sit back in your seats, pump up your volume and take a hold of your bladder!

(Please also note, that due to the size of the movie, and the crap-ness of our server, this may take a while to load!)

The Many Faces of Scholey (Trailer) from James Burns on Vimeo.

Edited to add: I’ve just noticed the poor audio quality during the first half of the trailer… I’ll fix that tonight… Sorry!

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Always on the lookout for inspiration, Mark has recently perfected a new lens, whilst not on holiday in Cornwall:

Tilt-Shift Lens from James Burns on Vimeo.

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Speech of Scholey from James Burns on Vimeo.

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