Just what does it take to shoot 31k portraits?

You may recall I blogged about Diego Huerta's quite brilliant and heartfelt project to photograph '31K Portraits for peace'

The genius of it is it was more about the sheer quality AND quantity.

Check the website out and find your favourite.

But what does it take to shoot 31k projects in a year?

Well, apart from a ton of determination the right gear.

Diego has posted this excellent photo description of all the gear he used.

Would it have been my pick of gear? Well not exactly but darned close.

I was truly inspired by the sheer effectiveness of his set up after shooting an image for 31k in my back yard, it was a multi handed operation which was not entirely successful, though the pic did work out well in the end.

Have a good look at his set up and I would be very interested to hear how your setup would differ.

In the meantime , let's raise four glasses to this fine human being and all he has done with his remarkable project.

My Ten tips for Great food photography.

I was fortunate enough to work on a now multi award nominated food book 'Loose Birds and Game' by Andrew Pern multi award winning chef and co-owner of 'The Star inn'

It was a truly mammoth undertaking, which has opened many doors for me in the world of food and drink, and bringing in a regular amount of work.

I like to think I picked up a couple of cooking tips along the way too.

Its worth bearing in mind if you have an interest in food photography that the self publishing revolution means there will doubtless be some good work to be picked up.

But how to go about it?

Food photography has more associated folklore than any other field of photography with stories of petrol being poured on food to 'give it the right sheen', a smouldering sanitary product placed user food to keep it warm and moist, hollowing out mass produced fish fingers and substituting it with a fine Cod fillet, not cooking the food at all and just using a blow torch, and of course the realms of using things that look like food which are not intact food at all.

All of these are reputed to be true, some I doubt, but a couple I know are.....I wonder if you can spot them?

But lets be honest here, there are two different types of food photography, one where you have a team, including a food stylist, who's services can be worth their weight in gold, the other kind a more 'real word approach, rather like the excellent series 'Heston's Feasts' on Channel 4, where a more real world aesthetic take precedence (I wonder what they filmed it on? some shots had a DSLR look to them but I suppose it could have been a Sony F3, though it would have been a bit unwieldy in a kitchen)

So this is post is not for you if you are about to shoot a major food campaign, it is aimed ay the smart one man shooter who has been asked to undertake a food photography project for the first time.

1. As I so very often say 'Shoot what you Love, Love what you shoot' if you have no interest in food at all and you try to convince the client you do, despite your lack of experience you are playing with fire. If you have no interest at all consider declining the assignment.

2. Try to get some sort of idea of what dishes/food you will be photographing, go away and research what it SHOULD look like, if cooked and shot well, this will give you some sort of target to aim for. Ask the client what sort of food photography he likes, will it be something like Jamie Oliver's photographer David Loftus? Or do they like the very clever and different food photography that one sees in Pret A Manger?


3. Work closely with the chef who is preparing the dish, perhaps spend time with them as they cook the dish for you, building great relationships is all
 This too will give you an idea of what the food should in fact look like and make the most of the that time to come up with a plan of how you both think it should look. Yes, have some sort of game plan, even if you don't stick to it.

4. You will need some sort of space, no matter how small, so work out where you are going to shoot it. It should be close to, or in-fact IN the kitchen for reasons I will come to shortly. And it should be near a window....

5. The cornerstone of good food photography is to shoot with natural light. Natural light is just that, and it has a look and feel which is very difficult to achieve by other means. You can, and I have shot with flash but the nuances of lighting food are not to be taken lightly. Lighting with natural light with a series of homemade reflectors to add or subtract light from areas of a dish will take you a long way. Make sure there are no artificial light sources anywhere even close, or at least that they absolutely cannot influence your dish, imagine the shadow areas of your beautiful dish filled in with the green of a fluorescent or the yellow of a warm plate....

If you have never ever used a grey card in your life, this it the time to start using one, at regular intervals throughout the shoot too. You know that that colours of the food are spot on

6. Timing. This is the big one that no-one talks about. It does not matter about anything else if you keep hot food hanging around on a plate, everything you will have done will be for nothing.
The food will flag, sag and the fat and juices will congeal and no matter what you do it will not look right.
Sometimes you will have minutes, sometimes only seconds.
When we shot the Gull's egg I reckon we had under 60 seconds to get the egg yolk running just right before it congealed. We shot six gull's edges which cost £80.00 from Harrods and only one shot worked out. Gulls edges are so delicate, cutting the top off ruined many and then we over cooked some too.
I'm very pleased with this shot though.

7. Find the way in to the dish, don't be afford of moving the plate around, there really is no hard and fast rule, the view point might look good from overhead but it really is down to you to move the camera around and find the 'right angle' but be aware that if you have shot all the dishes from overhead and you choose to shoot one at just below eye level it might look out of place.

8. Keep it simple. Don't go for the overcomplicated look. It can look fussy and down right messy.
With food photography, less really is more, I'm a big exponent of the simple white plate.

9.Invest in a good quality tripod and precise head. I favour a Gitzo, with the brilliant Manfrotto 405 geared head, perfect for food photography with its precise adjustments (the Manfrotto 410 is much cheaper but nowhere near as good ), if you are shooting for a more depth of field you will be using a slow shutter speed if you are going for long exposures it is advisable to lock the mirror up and, you would be amazed at the amount of vibration mirror bounce can cause.

My well used 405...

10. Get a good macro lens. In my opinion there is simply no substitute for a really good prime lens for food photography. I shoot with Phase One and Canon and I have a macro lens for both.

The 120mm F4 Phase One Macro lens was used for all the plated dishes in 'Loose Birds and Game' while my Canon 'L'series 100mm F2.8 Macro with its very handy hybrid IS system was used for detail shots on the fly in the kitchen.

I reckon both of these lenses are some of the sharpest currently available anywhere.

So there you have it, if you would like to see the fruits of this project I have a limited number of books at a very special price available thorough my blog.


A mere £15.99 plus postage for a seasonal taste of the countryside.

I'm considering doing free webinar about food photography, if there is appetite for one, do let me know.

Another brilliant photographer that you may not have heard of....

I guard links on my blog quite jealously.

There has to be a very good reason for me to feature a link.

Justin Sutcliffe has been a friend for more than 10 years, but that is not why I link to his blog and website.

Justin is a super talented photographer of the Photojournalistic genre, and so very much more besides.

He started his career on the South West New Agency, before leaving to set up his own agency in New York City ultimately returning to work on quality broadsheets in the UK.

I used to work alongside Justin on the Sunday Telegraph, back in the day, I considered myself to be a pretty handy news photographer, but when working alongside him in a hard news situation, I never came out on top once.

Ever.

And so it went that he went on to become the man to send on any of the tough situations around the planet.

I have forgotten more of the mad, bad and dangerous to be in situations he has been in, but here are couple which just spring to mind.

One of the only photographers to get a photograph of one of the victims of the Moscow Theatre siege, where many people were killed by poison gas which was intended to incapacitate the Chechen gunmen.

For this he was nominated for a World Press award.

Pinned down for some hours in Afghanistan with the Parachute regiment and shooting a cracking set of images, this one made the front page of the Sunday Times, and I believe a large print hangs on the wall in their offices too....

A bonkers arrest situation in Pakistan where a very wise journalist thought it would be funny to put her name down as Osama Bin Laden, I received a voicemail from him via a smuggled phone that he was under arrest locked in a shed I seem to recall.

There are no pictures of this but it was quite a story...

Justin is an exponent of the risky, but ultimately rewarding talent of heading the other way from the pack in a news situation too, often getting a different aspect of the news story of the moment, like his striking take of the McCann's facing the massed media in Portugal.

It's not just hard news in which he excels.

Justin's reflective take is what sets him apart from many others.

I mean who would think that two smashed tree stumps would tell the tale so eloquently on the first anniversary of the Indonesian Tsunami.

And his shot of the Alison Lappa sculpture featured in the prestigious Association of Photographers awards.

Praise indeed.

He is pretty damn handy at portraits too.

My favourite being this super dreamy portrait of singer song writer Cerys Matthews. (like myself, Justin is a big fan of the Canon 'L' Series 35mm F1.4)

I wanted to start the day by saluting a single minded and great talent who after more than 20 years in the game is still shooting beautiful, considered and intelligent work.

Keep an eye on his site and blog, more great things are on the way from him.

A blast from the past- A very welcome one

My professional and personal photography is like most others I suspect, strictly digital these days.

I have half a dozen boxes of 5x4 sheet film in the fridge which, though currently in date, I'm not sure it will see use before the sell by date passes.

I have a Speedgraphic (somewhere) for which I harbour thoughts of a new as yet unspecified project.

Why film?

Why?

It is difficult to come up with a rational reason to shoot it.

Film can and does have a different quality which does stand out but cost, and general faffing around are, to my eternal shame, a little too much for me to bear, for all of its aesthetic benefits.

There is only one kind of Film that would make me change my mind and that is Type 55.

Polaroid Type 55 was a stunning black and white film which gave you an instant print AND a negative of great quality (providing you remembered dip it in a bucket of hardening fixer)

The results it gave would vary, quite drastically, depending on how you stored the film and by the batch you used

It gave you this wonderful wobbly edges on the rebate with little hole punches too.

I never used it in anger but my partner Lucinda Marland undertook a project which was featured in 'The Guardian' Weekend Magazine.

It was about 'The Lebensborn' the children who were the offpring of German soldiers in World War II.

The Lebensborn programme was established by Heinrich Himmler in line with the racial and eugenics policies of the Nazi's.

So a very sensitive subject matter to tackle.

Lucinda set off for Norway in her Citroen ZX loaded with Type 55 and stacks of hardening fixer to shoot some portraits of these remarkable people and tell the story of their fight for recognition and justice since the end of the war.

It could have been possible on digital, but just look at them.

Type 55 is simply another dimension.

But that was 3 years ago, Polaroid no longer make film and Type 55 has gone forever...

Or so it seemed.

Until I stumbled across this amazing and welcome piece of news.

A gentleman by the name of Bob Crowley is trying to bring it back to life, under the name 'New55'

Bob might well be considered by some as mad as a box of frogs by some for attempting this, but not by me.

I see he is reconsidering a kick-starter project.

And judging from the traffic if he did try he would succeed.

I know by the following that this great film had, that if he got anywhere close in terms of quality he would have a hit on his hands.

The last batch of Type 55 was selling for around £300.00 a box.

So I think it could work out.

Why do I care?

Firstly, there is a really big project that I would like to shoot on this new film.

Secondly, it would open many photographers eyes to such wonderful photographic possibilities.

When Lucinda started to shoot 5 x 4 type 55 it was a steep and somewhat fraught learning curve, but she mastered it, in my rather biased opinion.

As Lucinda herself says 'When I started to shoot with it is was so difficult, it did make me slow down and consider every shot so much more carefully, it made me such a better photographer, even when I use my DSLR the type 55 experience is with me'

Perhaps we could all do with a dose of that?

ps if anyone out there is interested, Bob Crowley is seeking someone to make a short video for his kickstarter, if you live anywhere near Boston and you want to help this wonderful project get off the ground do get in touch with him.

Infra Red Update from Mike Curry

In response to my Infra 'appeal' to Phase One, London based photographer Mike Curry got in touch via Twitter and told me of an interesting route he had taken and that it WAS actually possible to get a Phase One back which is sensitive to Infra red.

Though it does involve it going back to the factory.

The result is not the true flexibility of the Achromatic but it does deliver some cool results

Mike had his Phase One P21+ modified and this is what the test shots look like so far.

So there you have it, quite some sparkle....

To be honest I had heard of this route before, but I had not expected it to be quite so effective.

Though Mike has put quite a bit of work in experimenting with different lenses.

Summer days- IR from PODAS Weston Park

I have been doing some rather belated filing and I was sorting through some shots from the PODAS workshop at Weston Park late Summer 2011.

It was great to meet some new people who's passion for photography had bought them from the four corners of the world to experience the pinnacle of currently available Medium format photography in the shape of the astonishing IQ180, in surroundings that were considered good enough to be the retreat for the leaders of G8.

If you ever get the chance to go there do take it, Weston park is simply wonderful, with an art collection that includes a Caravaggio or two.

But for all the new photo friends and sublime surroundings, they were not the highlight.

Not for me anyhow.

The highlight for me was that I got further hands on time with the photographic world's equivalent to a limited edition carbon fibre Lamborghini - the Phase One Achromatic+ back.

It is out of this world in so many respects, price (the priciest back that Phase One makes) in rarity (there truly must be more carbon fibre Lamborghini's) oh and yes, in sheer superlative photographic quality.

What is this rare, expensive, exotic back?

To quote Phase One

'Achromatic+ is a 39 megapixel medium format digital back designed specifically for black and white photography, with Bayer filter, and no interpolation'


In other words a digital back which captures 'pure' black and white.


And not just in the visible spectrum, it records all the way from Ultra Violet to Infra Red.


And it is the Infra red spectrum that I like to shoot in, through a Lee 87 Infra Red filter (focusing is a matter of trial and error. 

Why do I love it so much? I have waxed lyrically about it before in other posts and you may have seen a rather fun bts video too


You see things the human eye cannot (which as a matter of interest why I feel we all love super slow mo photography)


This shot is not from Weston but it is one of my favourites....

So why this post?


I will never be able to afford one of these remarkable devices.


So this an appeal to Phase One.


Can you please make a version that has some, but not all of the capabilities of the Achromatic back but at a considerably reduced price.


It would create a generation of shooters of a different kind, and further build the Phase One brand I think.


I know nothing of the technicalities involved and how difficult it would be but this back in hundreds of peoples hands would be wonderful.


One can but dream, unless someone out there knows differently....

Living the dream -31k Portraits for Peace by Diego Huerta

Earlier this week I blogged about Diego Huerta and his highly ambitious and remarkable '31K Portraits for Peace Project'

And yesterday I conducted an interview which him and his producer Dany Gutierrez via Skype where they describe their remarkable journey, share how Diego lit the portraits and how to carry on when people are firing automatic weapons into the ground at your feet...(no joke)

So, brave as well as talented.

Remarkable project, remarkable people, and some really damn fine environmental portraits.

If you want to be truly inspired and learn a photographic trick or two, take time out to watch the interview.



The exhibition opens tomorrow at the Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, Texas at 7pm

I just see that perhaps modesty prevailed and they neglected to mention that they have been announced as finalists in the SXSW Interactive Awards

Accolades come no higher.

They are looking for more exhibition space at the moment in Europe and the rest of the world too, if you can help do get in touch with them, and be part of something truly special.