News from the South African Townships,Thanks to the Flash Centre and Velmex

Followers of this blog will know of my visit to the South African townships of Vrygrond and Overcome Heights earlier this year where I held held a Workshop for township youth's under the stewardship of the NGO True North.

It was a success in many respects with some of the students continuing to use the Canon 450D's to earn money in the community, photographing weddings, christenings and parties

The real sadness was that while computers are relatively affordable a good quality wide format printer which is capable of delivering great photographic and graphic results is out of everyone's league.

Why was I so stuck on a wide format printer? Well aside from the considerably lower running costs think of this...

In the townships HIV and AIDS is rife, there is a degree of awareness but imagine if it were relatively cheap and easy to print public health posters and post them in the community?

All of a sudden a printer becomes more than a way of the students seeing their own work and for the more motivated to earn some kind of living in a country where unemployment is the number one enemy.

Fast forward a few months to July and I'm visiting my friends in the Flash Centre.

Its stock taking time and everyone is wading through equipment in the bowels of the shop.

I'm chatting to my old friend Chris Whittle, the owner of the Flash Centre, he knows of my visit to South Africa and he asks me what is next with the project.

He listens with interest as I tell him just what a great impact the project has had with everyone involved and how I was trying to get a wide format printer to the community.

He smiles and motions to a Secondhand but very good Canon W6400 in the corner of the basement and says 'You can have that if you like'.

I accept his offer with indecent haste thanking him profusely.

Then it sinks in.

Chris Whittle of the Flash Centre has donated a wonderful Canon W6400 wide format printer.

Dimensions (in inches) 43.2 x 47.3 x 29.6


Weight 108lbs (around 50kgs)

How on earth am I going to get it to South Africa???????

So I rang Mark Keeley the CEO of Velmex, distributors of the fantastic Canon LFP products.

The conversation went something like this:

Drew.  'Hi Mark how are things?

Mark. 'Great thank you Drew'

Drew. 'The Flash Centre have donated a Canon W6400 printer to the Township project. Do you know of any good shipping companies who could ship it to South Africa?'

Mark. 'That sounds like a worthy cause, can we check it over, refurbish it and ship it for you?'

Drew 'That would be fantastic, are you sure?'

Mark 'Yes, we would love to help. We can throw in some spare ink and paper for it too'

Drew.'Thank you!!!!!!!!

Within the hour it was loaded in the back of my car for its journey to Velmex HQ in South London to start its long journey.

To be honest it was a much longer journey than any of us could have imagined as True North only got their hands on it in the past couple of weeks thanks to Customs and storage issues, leaving the NGO scrabbling to find funds to get the printer released.

So they are now installing it and within a short space of time it will be in full use with the students.

Without Chris Whittle of the Flash Centre who donated the printer and Mark Keeley of Velmex who shipped and prepped the printer it would not have been possible at all.

I cannot thank them enough for their contribution.

Their kindness and generosity will be felt by the the whole community, not just the students.

I will be travelling to the townships again early next year to run another week long workshop with the youths in the townships.

I will report back to you and let you know how the students are progressing, and the difference the printer is making.

Drew Gardner workshop Belgium- Hosted by Bert Stephani

There has been quite a lot to cram in of late, and the pace is not slowing at all, as you will see in the next few weeks

All a bit of a lame excuse for not getting this video of the workshop from the end of the Summer held at Bert Stephani's place in Belgium?

Belgium? Why Belgium?

Why not!

Workshops are driven by demand and Bert asked me while I was over in Belgium for a seminar

So I'm alway open to suggestions.........

It was a fun weekend with photographers sharing ideas and playing with a whole heap of Elinchrom lighting, aided in no small part by Servix the Elinchrom agent for Belgium

Drew Gardner Workshop at Bert Stephani HQ Belgium from drew gardner on Vimeo.

Really struck by the differences between the different approaches of the groups

It was a great fun, I hope to repeat it next year

Stanley Kubrick Fotografo 1945-1950, Venice

When I was in Venice a couple of weeks ago I caught the Stanley Kubrick Fotografo 1945-1950 show at the Istituto Veneto di Science

Kubrick started his career, not with moving images but with stills

He started shooting when he was just 17 years old for 'Look' magazine

It is an interesting exhibition for many reasons, with some very beautiful images

Even in his very early work you can see the visual language of his great movies

You get to see the very 'seeds' of his work, they are movies in still form

With a few notable exceptions, you don't see photojournalism 'per se' at work.

What you do see is beautifully directed still images and in my opinion is all the more interesting for that

I found it a real inspiration

The show runs until December 8th, do catch it if you get the chance

You can get a sense of the exhibition with this video, even if you don't speak Italian


Stanley Kubrick Fotografo - Milano from flywheel impresacreativa on Vimeo.

When I worked for a photographer for the 'Sunday Telegraph' I had the pleasure to meet and photograph the late Stanley Kubrick's widow Christiane at their home,  and his final resting place, outside St Alban's a year or so after his death.

I shot a portrait of her with her cats, I would post the picture but it is buried in my negative archive, perhaps one day I will get round to scanning it

We had a chatter about all sorts and we spoke briefly about Stanley.

Moment like that are what I became a photographer for.

Priceless

Teaser from the Zebra shoot, the Latest from the 'Forest' Series

My latest addition to the Forest series is soon to be unveiled and today I've got an exciting teaser to share with you, put together by my good friends the Bui Brothers which I hope will whet your appetites.

Post production is in full swing and the whole thing is set to be completed and online by the end of November.



Drew Gardner Zebra Shoot Teaser from drew gardner on Vimeo.

In fact if you want to know more about this shoot and the rest of 'The Forest' series why not join me (its FREE!) at my Manfrotto School of Xcellence Webinar Tutorial on December 6th.

You can ask anything you like and I will do my very best to answer your queries.

2010 has been a brilliant year for me, my 30th as a professional photographer, and before the end of the year  I have some exciting new developments to be unveiled in December which I hope you will all enjoy.

Eddie Jordan

I just watched the post Korean F1 Race analysis on the BBC (still inbox apocalypse from the move, so I did not watch the race...highlights for me, I'm afraid), with the excellent former F1 team owner Eddie Jordan making team owners squrim with his excellent insightful questions and comments.


It made me recall the time I had to shoot a portrait of him in 2004

It was a million miles an hour portrait, ie I had only a couple of minute's with him

So it was a matter of pre lighting the car before he came along and persuading him to sit down next to the car

He was initially reluctant due to time constraints but when I engaged him in a bit of banter about his first season in F1, where I watched Michael Schumacher retire in his debut Grand Prix race in the infamous green cars

I told him how it happened right in front of me at the spectacular Spa Francorchamps circuit (even if you are only halfway interested in F1 do go to the Belgian Grand prix at Spa, it is one of THE most spectacular sporting events)  and he was hooked


I only had a couple of minutes with him but he was on for it, a lovely passionate bloke who is nobody's fool

This portrait was a 3 light set up, all with Elinchrom Rangers, side lighting him with a medium Chimera softbox on him, an on axis backlight at the same ratio with barn doors and one light on the background at about half a stop under the other two lights, picking out the wind tunnel model

Exposed at 60th sec F8 on a Canon 1Ds Mk1 with a Canon EF 'L' Series 70-200 F2.8

I do hope the BBC retain this wonderful sparky man

One the greatest photographers who you should know about but in all probability don't

He doesn't blog.

He doesn't twitter.

He doesn't do workshops (though I think he should).

In fact the only tweet you will hear will be from his garden.

He is not in his first flush of youth.

He pioneered high speed nature flash photography before you could walk into a shop and buy it off the shelf (he used to make his own shutters and even his own high speed capacitors made from paper dipped in oil...)

He is one of the greatest photographers EVER (don't just take my word for it, he is one of 500 photographers featured in Phaidon's 'The Photobook' )


Stephen Dalton

Here is his photo of a drinking Swallow used on a Mike Oldfield album cover

And shot in the days before Speedlites.

On a Hasselblad.

In a single frame.

In his back garden.

Stephen spent some time working out the path the swallow would take and then set about 'steering ' the swallow gradually over many days so it had to take a route which would go between his remote triggers.

He then had to work out the lag between the time that the swallow broke the beam and the time it was in front of the lens.

Think of it, no 10 frames a second, no 10 zillion ISO, no off the shelf wonder flashes.

Stephen has published many books of his photography over the years, 15 in total, amongst them...

Secret Worlds, Borne on the wind, At the Water's Edge: Secret Life of a Lake and Stream, Caught in Motion: High Speed Nature Photography and last year he published Spiders: The Ultimate Predators

The CPN website interviewed him last year.

My favourites? Well there are simply too many...

I love one of his earliest works, the Barn Owl flying back to the tower and I love the shot of the Rat leaping from a litter bin if you can find them out there, the rat was part of a show at the Tate for a while.

His work for me is where art and science meet.

His passion for the environment and photography still burn brightly, though with a Canon 5d MkII in his hand these days not a Hasselblad.

A pioneer, a gentleman, a kind, generous and wonderful human being.

When I went to see him on Sunday one of his parting shots was 'the trouble with photography these days is that its too easy' well maybe back in the day it was too hard, either way I can't help but agree with him.

To be a successful photographer these days one needs to be so much more than 'just' a great photographer with all of these fancy tools at our disposal.

Which is why I'm always banging on about getting out there and doing it......myself included.

'Shelfstackers' F1.2 an F -Stop too far?

The arrival of the Canon 5d MkII nearly two years ago was a great day for anyone wanting to shoot full HD video affordably for the first time

It has made a real positive impact on the world of moving images

A many wonderful projects have been shot on it, including an episode of 'House'

However some TV channels have been and remain sceptical of the Camera's output

I have been and remain a great advocate of the format, and have long held that if used intelligently and one works within the limitations of the medium it is more than up to the job

Last week I watched the new BBC sitcom 'Shelfstackers'

When I sat down to watch it I had no idea It was shot on a Canon 5d MkII, however within a few minutes I did, but for all the wrong reasons

I love shooting wide open on the Canon 'L' Series lenses, particularly the 85mm F1.2 and the 35mm F1.4

But one really does have to chose the right moment and occasion, in other words there is a right time and place for everything

And in my opinion some scenes of 'Shelfstackers' went up to and then well beyond the limit of good use of superwide apertures

I read the interview with Director Dom Bridges, but I still just don't buy it.

This is not the episode of 'house' where wide apertures were used in emotional way, very well too I might add

This was a sitcom, and in some shots, half of the actors face was out of focus, and not in a nice creative way either

And by the end of the programme I was wincing.(To get the full effect do watch it full screen...)

Why should I care? Naked self interest actually.

I can anticipate the scenario where there will a meeting with a TV company and I will suggest using a Canon 5d mkII to shoot a project and they will say they saw 'Shelfstackers' and they don't want their programme to look like that thank you very much, they want it to look........in focus.

Like good Photoshop where one should not see the 'joins' I don't feel it is good to see gratuitous use of F1.2 on sitcom, shouting to the world that 'this programme was shot at a super wide aperture because the budget would not run to any lighting'

I have in all probability watched TV shows which were shot on a Canon 5D MKII and just did not realize it, and I think that is the way it should be

I have considerable sympathy for the makers of Shelfstackers as this is part of the BBC's £1000 a minute experiment for programme output. And understand the scenario, no budget for lighting so push the ISO as far as you dare and then shoot at the widest aperture so enough light hits the sensor

I'm in no position to offer advice as I have never made a TV programme and they have actually made a whole series

I can't help but wanting to suggest that they somehow beg, steal or borrow a couple of 2x2 LED light panels or a Chimera Triolet or something similar, filter it to the same colour temperature as the florescent tubes and use it as fill lighting so they can use F2.8 or even F4, and get adequate depth of field

Good on the makers of 'Shelfstackers' as they have actually done it, but I can't help they have made selling in a Canon 5D MKII project to a TV channel that little bit harder

As for me? I'm trying to raise funding for my own documentary right now

Time to put my money where my mouth is