I know that I can connect the camera to the computer via USB or Firewire, but that limits my freedom of movement – not to mention creating a trip hazard that can damage both clients and equipment. I did consider the Canon wireless adaptor for my 1Ds Mk3 but at about £800 it was never a serious option.

In the summer of 2008 I was in Iowa, USA and came across a device called the Eye-Fi, an SD compatible wireless adaptor that would apparently solve my problems as it would allow me to upload images as I shot them directly to my laptop as well as store them locally in the camera – unfortunately it was not available in the UK and whilst I could buy it in the USA and take it home there was no type approval in the UK and no support available.

Now, however, it has got approval in the UK and I’ve just bought one – timely enough for me as I have recently been in the situation of shooting images at a Santa grotto and needed to show clients the images immediately so they could purchase them.

So, has it solved my problem – and does it actually work ???

Well yes it has and it certainly does work. I bought the Home Video version which has 4Gb of onboard storage and works with JPEG images only- perfect for the event type shooting I envisaged as I wanted to quickly get the images over to the laptop and in front of the client and without the need for complex editing or large sizes. 

Configuration of the device was easy and I had it working in about 5 minutes, took it out on location and away we went – worked pretty much without issue and pushed 12Mb JPEGs across the wireless network in only a few seconds each, pretty much had the images on screen by the time the client had got back from the grotto and in front of the desk. There were a couple of occasions where the card just didn’t want to release the images onto the network so I just stuck the Eye-Fi card into my card reader and the images shot straight into the designated directory immediately.

So was it a good choice to solve my problem – certainly yes

Should I have got the Professional version which supports RAW – no, I only need JPEG in event shoots

Does it have other uses – yes !!, it can upload via a wireless hotspot to Flickr or Facebook, so if you are shooting in urban settings you can usually get connected to a BTOpenzone or similar and have your images send immediately into your online gallery – handy if you fall foul of an over-zealous Policeman or Security Guard who wants you to delete perfectly innocent images taken in public places – however I’m sure that eventually someone will spot that ‘terrorist’ angle and have the functionality removed. At present though the ability to upload your images via the Internet is a very useful backup option and one which I will be exploring further (I live in a very rural environment so wireless hotspots are few and far between !!)

You can find out more about the Eye-Fi at Eye-Fi

Last Sunday (11th October) saw photographers around the World uniting to raise money to help find a cure for cancer, and I was one of the photographers who took part.

My shoot was a set of family lifestyle sessions which we held at Jonathan David’s coffee shop in Epworth, North Lincs which was kindly opened and staffed by David and Jo at their own expense to support what I was doing.

We opened for shooting at 10am and our first session actually started at 11am with Dylan & Dalton

Pictured here with their Dad.

Then we had the reluctant Hannah who turned up with her Mother, God-Mother and assorted relatives – filling the shop nicely !! Hannah was not having her picture taken, but we soon got her into the swing of things and had loads of fun with various combinations and permutations before we ended up with this one

After the family we had a 1 year old litle boy to shoot – he was quite excitable but understandably nervous – but I started off with him being held by his father and took a few pictures and then eventually he was happy to run around on his own which allowed me to get some lovely images

After this little boy we moved straight into a shoot with a baby – which was a completely different challenge and a baby doesn’t take direction or pose, has to be placed and arranged carefully – and doesn’t like being taken out into the cold to be shot in the nice light !!

But once again we were able to achieve some great results, here is baby Eva

Eva’s shoot was quite brief and then we had a small break – and then my own little bundle of energy arrived for his shoot, enter Josh !!

And despite me being a professional photographer, it’s not very often I get the chance to shoot Josh in a ‘real’ shoot so it was nice to be able to direct him and see how he would react to the setting etc. as you can see I think he enjoyed himself !!

Finally we had Jodie and Joseph. Jodie was raring to go the minute she arrived but Joseph was not at all sure and refused to have anything to do with me or the shoot – so we worked with Jodie on her own for quite a while capturing some beautiful images. eventually curiosity got the better of Joseph and he joined in to which enabled me to get a great set of brother/sister images as well as lovely solo shots – here we have Jodie

By now it was 4pm and time to call it a day – I was shattered as I normally only shoot a single session in a day so to manage 6 I think I did pretty well !! and we raised £120 into the bargain.

I now have to final edit all the images and upload them to the online gallery so the families can get to them

Bring on next years session

I was recently re-reading Bill Bryson’s ‘The lost continent’ and was quite amazed to find him mention the little brown church in the vale, Iowa. Amazed because I photographed a wedding there last summer and it was quite an experience – let me elaborate.

The wedding I photographed was quite a low key affair, 2nd time around for both Bride and Groom, not a huge number of guests and quite informal – but I was not prepared for the controlled chaos that greeted us at the church.

The little brown church is hugely popular in the area and it is apparently quite normal to see 12 weddings in a single day there – when we arrived there was a service taking place, a photo session outside from the previous wedding, and a wedding party waiting to go into the church ahead of us.

The service was quite unlike any I had been to in the UK, and the minister told me that I could shoot from anywhere in the church (including up on the dias with him if I liked !!) and I could shoot at any time during the ceremony – there were no restrictions at all. Inside the church was beautifully light and airy and I was able to shoot at 800 iso handheld no problem, but the ceremony was only about 20 minutes long so not much time for overly creative stuff !!

After the service the scene outside was being repeated, except we were now the ones doing the photography whilst others were either getting married or waiting their turn – quite unusual for a UK photographer to see.

Interestingly it turned out that the majority of the local photographers there would have several clients in a day and used the same locations and shot setups repeatedly – this lead to a bit of a queue for the most scenic area’s, but all very good natured.

And a picture of the venue ??

But then Mr Bryson had a second sirprise in store for me – just a little further on in the book he mentioned that he crossed the mississippi river at Prairie du Chien – and I did that too !!, on the same old iron bridge he talked about. however, unlike old Mr Bryson I stopped in Prairie du Chien for lunch, and had the most amazing fried catfish platter – caught straight out of the river by the locals, yum. The venue by the way, was Coaches Family Dining.

So that’s my link to Bill Bryson exhausted for now, but I’m sure there will be more when I read more !!

So this can lead to a bit of a dilemma – how do you find the subjects to effectively practice on without breaking the bank on courses and professional models.

Well for some time I have been a member of a number of model boards where new and experienced models (and photographers obviously !!) advertise their availability, experience and prices to try and find work. Amongst these adverts you will often find people who work on a ‘time for prints’ (or TFP) basis – that is, the photographer provides his expertise and the model hers, in exchange for the photographer providing a few images at the end of the shoot.

I’ve found this to be a great way to develop my expertise without impacting on my paying clients – and they in turn are reaping the benefits.

However, there is a risk in this approach – you may be working with an experienced model who needs little direction – hardly what you find with the average family lifestyle shoot where they need all the direction you can give them. I’ve got round this issue by only working with new, inexperienced models who have had little time in front of the camera and thus enable me to develop my client handling skills as well as my photographic ones.

Recently I had one of these TFP shoots with a new model on Purestorm, a very well respected model board – her name is Gemma – this is how it went.

Gemma is a student at York University so we decided to carry out our shoot in York as she knows the city well (and I get to park for free, so a bonus) and she suggested we start in the Museum gardens which is the site of a ruined monastery so very atmospheric.

Although a public space, and with plenty of public milling around – Gemma was quite professional and relaxed and we had a great time working amongst the ruins

But I also wanted something a bit more urban and funky, not just ruined buildings – and as luck would have it there was a small refreshments hut a little way apart from the ruins that had been graffitti sprayed, almost as if they knew what I wanted !!

And as Gemma has quite reddish/ginger hair it made a really nice contrast with the building.

After we had spent a couple of hours around the gardens I needed fresh inspiration so we headed off to the river where I hoped to find something a bit different – and we did, some old warehouses which had been converted into apartments but with the old loading equipment left on the dock

and also some funky steel shutter doors closing off the car park

We had just finished exploring this area and were considering where to go next – when the rain started and looked like it was in for the day, shoot abandoned. Obviously had this been a paying client shoot then we would have just found an alternative venue and carried on but it didn’t seem fair to expect Gemma to do so – so Starbucks beckoned !!

As a way of developing both your photographic skills, client management skills and location shooting skills then TFP with new models has got a lot to recommend it – and the model gets to work with a talented photographer and gets some high quality images for her portfolio that are a bit different from the usual studio ones she will normally get.

Give it a go – I can highly recommend it.

She recently entered a national photography competition run by the charity ‘CLAPA’ (Cleft lip and palate association) to celebrate it’s 30th anniversary. The competition was on the theme of ‘Friendship’ and Abbie won 1st prize in the 12-17 category (she is currently 15).

The competition was judged by photographer Bill Zygmant, and if you have never seen his work go and give him a look at http://www.billzygmant.co.uk – he is quite an amazing photographer.

And her winning image is

The Winner

Whilst I was over there I obviously was going to look for any opportunity to be the photographer – not just the tourist thing, but looking out for lifestyle opportunities.

We were staying in a typical Ethiopian guest house in one of the sub-cities of Addis and it turned out to be quite popular with other adoptee families so we had a few come through whilst we were there for out extended stay – the first of whom were Rachel and Jedd from the US.

Rachel and Jedd were there to adopt a little girl aged 8 months, whom they had decided to call Eden – and I offered to do a little lifestyle shoot with them to help them remember their time in Ethiopia, so just before they left for their return trip we got going.

As you can see she is old enough to support herself on the floor but was not too sure about this strange man pointing a camera at her !! – so we brought in Dad

As you can see she was much happier – so then we decided to introduce Mum

So that made her even happier – time to go for broke and get everyone in there !!!

Then we have to try for the obligatory detail shot

Before we close with one last shot with Mum

So it wasn’t a big shoot – 30 minutes or so, tops – we didn’t change clothes or locations just stuck with what we had in the Guest House compound – but it was a fun little shoot and I enjoyed being able to share my talents with some people I will probably never meet again, but I’m sure they will treasure the pictures.

In a local village (Epworth, by the way) a new business had started up providing bespoke celebration cakes and hand made chocolates – they also opened up a lovely little coffee shop on the premises.  This turned out to be something of a blessing as it provided me with the perfect venue for client meetings – albeit it at a risk to the ever expanding waistline.

during the course of one of my visits to the coffee shop I got into conversation with David the owner – and happened to mention that I was a photographer, he immediately got interested in my ability to provide him with new imagery for his website and advertising. I did point out to him that I didn’t do food photography and that I was a contemporary photographer – this didn’t put him off a bit and he wanted his cakes photographing my way.

So here we are, Jonathan David cakes photographed the Steve Oatway way !!

Of course this is all very well and good – but I was there primarily to photograph the celebration cake. But I didn’t want to photograph cake – I wanted to put across the ‘idea’ of cake, I wanted to suggest cake without actually photographing a whole one – so off I went down my own little path

And one more

So is this a different way to photograph cakes ?? – probably not, I’m sure it’s been done loads of times before, but it was fun for me and made for a few eye-catching images for the shop.

And where is the shop I hear you all asking, whilst trying to decide if you want Torte or Scone – In Epworth, North Lincolnshire – Jonathan David

Since I started this wee blog I have received 45 comments, of which 38 have been spam !!. I know it’s my own fault for not obfusticating my email address but I wanted to make it easier for people to find me. However I’ve finally got round to installing and activating Akismet which claims to solve my spam problems for me – so rest assured, I’ll let you know !!

As I’m a member of the SWPP (Society of Wedding and Portrait photographers) and they hold monthly competitions I decided to give it a go and enter a couple of pictures.

Accordingly I entered images in 3 categories :

1. Children

2. Traditional portrait

3. Contemporary portrait

None of the images were shot specifically for the competition, they were client images that I was quite pleased with at the time and thought were a fair representation of my style.

Couple of days ago the results were announced and I got a bronze award for each image – which is a great result as far as I’m concerned as it tells me that other people (and judges) see merit in my work.

So now I’m off to start putting together a panel to submit for my LSWPP accreditation – I need 30 fantastic pictures to wow the panel judges and get my award, better get selecting, editing and shooting !!!

Link to the SWPP

And by the way, thanks to Nikki, Sarah and Kristie for their images.

First off I had to arrange an exhibition of some of my work, this is going to take place at a local trendy cafe where all the young and affluent set take their children to eat – highly appropriate venue for a lifestyle photographer to exhibit in. I had been asked to provide 4 large framed images for display so I’ve been selecting, polishing and ordering them from the printers (I use Loxley by the way).
Once they are delivered they will be off to Kaleidoscope for framing ready for the show.

The venue is The Pink Pig

Another little project I’ve been working on is a Blurb book using images from my last shoot (the one on the farm). I really wanted a single theme book so I could try out the whole Blurb experience and also use the resultant book for some marketing, well the farm shoot provided more than enough images.
The book arrived today after a painless designing and ordering process – it really is a joy to make these books with their system – and I must say I’m really happy with it and the Mother of the two girls already wants a copy.

My Blurb book -  Lauren & Holly

My final bit of word spreading has come about through Photo Pro magazine. They kindly wrote a feature about my photography business, and especially about how I work with the wonderful Abbie, The article finally hit the streets this week. It’s a great story in the magazine and I would (obviously !!) be delighted if you could get hold of a copy and give it a read.

Photo Pro magazine

Tomorrow I’ve got a meeting with a marketing and PR person to investigate ways to capitalise on all this great publicity, so looking forward to that, and then next week I’m back to shooting !!