You and your photography

Can you tell us a bit about yourself – where you work, where you live?
I’m 23 years old. I live in Denver, Colorado, United States. I graduated from university in 2006 with of Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. I emphasized in painting and illustration.

How long have you been shooting and what attracted you to photography as a medium?
I’ve only been involved in photography for a short time. Less than a year I would say. I took a film photography class in uni for about 4 months, but my interest in photography wasn’t initiated until this past summer, with digital photography. It started as, and continues as a personal project on developing my aesthetic and growing as a human being and artist.

How were you taught?
As mentioned above, I took a film photography class in university briefly, and learned some of the basics in terms of using analog, and everything that I know now about digital photography is through my own discovery via other photographers and the internet

How often do you shoot. Commercially? Portfolio work? Just for the hell of it?
I am not a professional photographer or student, so I am able to shoot on my own time, whenever I want really. Sometimes I get into modes where I want to shoot incessantly, and sometimes, I don’t even touch my camera.

Which photographers have you found inspirational?
I don’t want to be picky with names, because many different kinds of photographers inspire me, including those who are not professional. I find work that speaks for itself, and is able to exhibit personality, concept and pure beauty without trying to hard I have always found inspirational. I have always been attracted to the concept of ‘less is more.’

Photography in general

Do you feel that photography is an artform?

Yes I do. Every art form uses certain tools to convey expression, concept and personal emotions. Photography is no different. The camera is the way in which a creator showcases his/her personal ideas. In my opinion, it’s less about the machine capturing the image and more about what the artist finds beauty in and makes a conscious choice to capture. That’s what separates an artist from a person just taking a picture of something, intention.

What is the most important aspect of a photograph for you?

Lighting and framing. To me, these two aspects can make or break a composition. Being innovative with the two can make your image stand apart from the rest or blend in with the rest.

How long did it take you to find your own style? How would you define it or how do you feel about the work you
produce?
Since I have only been involved in photography for a short period, I wouldn’t say that I have an established style as of yet. I am still experimenting and growing, however, all my work is very personal, primarily because they are self portraits. I would define them as being candid and revelatory without displaying much.

How do you feel about nudity in photography?
Considering that most of my work revolves around nudity, I feel incredibly comfortable about nudity in photography and in general. I’ve learned, more so through my photography, that the human body is something to be celebrated not ashamed of, and I hope that is conveyed through my photographs.

How do you feel about photography and expression of sexuality?
I support it to the fullest. I don’t believe people should be ashamed of their bodies or their sexuality. I know from personal experience how it feels to hide in a corner and not feel comfortable in my own skin or with discussing topics that are intrinsically human. Having now known how rewarding it is to be comfortable discussing and expressing sexuality and nudity, I would never back down from supporting it.

The Shoot
Do you plan your shoot or do you improvise it? Why?
Sometimes I plan because an idea comes to my head, and being that I am a painter/illustrator, I will sketch down certain ideas, so I don’t forget them, and having a visual documentation helps me maintain the original concept I had in mind. I also improvise at times. Perhaps I have an idea and it doesn’t turn out the way I had hoped, and then I play along with other ideas. You can’t predict what will happen, so you have to go with the flow of things, because sometime even your own creations have minds of their own.

We know you as a photographer specialising in self portraiture, have you been shot by someone else? How did it compare?
I have been shot by someone else, and I’ve realized when I compare being a model, being both model and photographer and shooting someone else entirely, that I prefer being behind the camera. I enjoyed being shot by someone else, because I am always curious as to what s/he will bring out of me as a model and I do like being a part of another’s creation, however, I feel more contributing, passionate and in control when I am the photographer. Because I am an artist, I like having direct control on how the photography elements coalesce, that being, framing, composition, lighting etc. I don’t have that control as a model, so I feel slightly more apprehensive, but I think the success of a photograph is not only dependent upon the obvious elements, but on how comfortable the model is with his/her photographer.

Have you shot other models at any point? Would you like to in the future?
I have shot other models, but not NEARLY as much as I would like to. While I find self portraiture rewarding, I would really like to focus on shooting other people.

When a shoot is finished, what do you try and take from it? Do you generally feel you’ve got what set out to achieve?

I usually feel satisfied after shooting. It doesn’t always turn out the way I had hoped. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, but the only thing I am ever trying to achieve with my work is a matter of personal expression. I think any artist knows, it’s difficult trying to harbor several ideas and emotions, sometimes they just need to be released cathartically and as long as I’ve done that, I am satisfied.

Where can we see you

How do you find the internet as an advertising medium?

I owe a lot to the internet. It has it’s downsides, but so does everything. If it weren’t for the ability to showcase my work on the net, especially for free or at a low cost, I wouldn’t have the relative exposure that I do currently. I love connecting with people, especially artists and particularly from across the globe, so I support the internet largely for artistic advertising.

Have you any up coming projects that you are especially looking forward to?

I don’t have anything that is set in stone currently, but I would like to start working with photography as an art therapy. Given how powerful the influence has been on myself, in regards to my attitude towards my own body and nudity in general, I would like to work with people, who have the same issues I once had, and create beautiful work that is also very personal and helps the model evolve into a individual who can appreciate his or her own body.

Anything else to declare

Anything missed you feel is important?
I feel, having been involved with this personal project of self portraiture for some months now, that self portraits aren’t so largely appreciated as they should be. I’m glad to be a part of this magazine that is in support of such work, however I think many people may find self work boring because the subject at hand is repetitious, however there are many facets of a single human being to be revealed and discovered. I may not continue with self portraiture as prolifically as I have been, in the future, but it is something that I find truly rewarding and I think every artist should at least experiment with.

See more of Marquita’s work at here website and on deviantart

Press Gazette - Photographers lobby parliament over police curbs

The post-Polaroid age: some still cling to instant film | csmonitor.com

You have all of 25 minutes to shoot Admiral William J. “Fox” Fallon for an Esquire Magazine feature story. They need a portrait that conveys intensity, but you will be shooting in a typical office setting.

And on the day you show up, your subject (who also just happens to be the U.S. CENTCOM Commander) is busy focusing on the fallout from the just-announced assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

What do you do?
Strobist: On Assignment: Peter Yang Shoots Admiral William Fallon

Edie sez, “I’m in the market for a digital SLR, and found something rather disturbing. B&H Photo says that to purchase a Fujifilm IS-1 camera, you must fill out an end user license agreement. Even weirder is the EULA itself: It asks what ‘legitimate business purpose’ (their words, not mine) the camera will be put to. Additionally, if the camera is sold, lost or transfered, you have to notify Fujifilm. WTF BBQ?”

Read Whole Article 

Ms. Beckham, the former Spice Girl whose marriage to the soccer star David Beckham stirred the British press to the point of obsession until the couple moved to America, is not a conventionally beautiful woman, but, to judge by Juergen Teller’s pictures of her for Marc Jacob’s ads, she is a good sport. Instead of looking like a glamorous celebrity, she has been rendered as an abstraction, a living doll. In the most disquieting image, we see only her bare, high-heeled legs flopping over the side of a shopping bag Mr. Jacobs had specially made to hold her.

Read Full Article

You can see his current project Cara’s Troubled Pony : http://www.carastroubledpony.com/

His main website is at : http://www.john-gray.co.uk

Can you tell us a bit about yourself – where you work, where you live?

Well, I’m 35, I live in a little country town called Ballarat which is about an hour from the Capital City Melbourne in Victoria Australia. I love this town mainly because of it’s isolation to the outside world, it is virtually un-touched from it’s goldfield days in the 1860’s, so affords me a beautiful vista on the outside world with many locations and people that make my work unique.

I have loved photography all of my life, and took it up when my primary school moved into the most advanced school building in the country in Grade 3, and had a working darkroom and camera’s at disposal. My professional career took me in a slightly different direction for many years, working for a local television station, but photography always occupied my mind, and after having enough of the high stress life, I decided to focus my attention on my true love photography about 3 years ago.

Currently I work in a local professional photography lab, processing and restoring old images and working with digital and film cameras, and shooting and creating in all my spare time.

How would you describe your work?

I think my work is constantly changing, so it’s hard to describe. The easy explanation is it’s my view on the world, and what I find interesting.

But the longer explanation is it’s really a personal journey, to make ordinary women into amazing beings, showing there power and passion to the world. I primarily choose to use normal women over traditional models for a couple of reasons, at first it was out of necessity, living where I live supermodels don’t walk down the street like in New York. So I started using my friends and people I met in my work, with the plan of moving onto real models in the future, but as my work got technically better and better, I found that the exploration of working with real people was a very valid way of exploring real feelings and emotions, and showing someone that is seemingly a normal person in there best light and showing them they can be incredibly beautiful was immensely satisfying. And so instead of moving on I have found that my work has continued on that path, and hopefully exploring real people makes my work stand out from the crowd.

How long have you been shooting and what attracted you to photography as a medium?

Well as mentioned earlier, it’s really been quite a long time, but as with every passion there have been prolonged breaks throughout that time. But I keep getting drawn back to the medium for it’s instant nature, because I paint and sculpt as well, I know that art when done right takes a lot of time, but the instant nature of photography of going out with someone amazing and creating some beautiful work in a fun afternoon in a field is very appealing to me. The technical side is sometimes the killer, although I have been working within the digital realm, I still believe true photography comes from film, so over the years I have continued with my education on the technical side to film, exploring 35mm, and 120mm Medium Format and a range of Polaroid films. The technical side is much more complicated than digital of course but the personal satisfaction of getting something right on film is the ultimate goal. I have recently been trailing out cross processing, which is the art of shooting on hard to come by E-6 Slide Film and processing it in incorrect C-41 chemicals, the end result being unknown, but mostly it offers a high contrast and highly saturated image which is perfect for the fashion edge my work has recently taken.

How were you taught – did you have tuition/self taught?

I certainly think that you can be taught the technical side to photography, as is displayed in many courses around the world, but a lot of photographers with all the technical training have no soul or heart for it. They are trained to be able to actually capture an image, usually working on commercial shoots with technical and creative directors, so all they are employed for is to actually capture the image.

When you work by yourself with limited resources you learn to do all the jobs in the creation of an image, so along with the technical side of actually capturing the image, that is only the final part in a long journey to get a piece of art completed.
So I have tried to skill myself in many areas with only one reason, to make my work better because in the end I am a perfectionist. So although I have taken a couple of classes on Darkroom Techniques and Lighting, most of it is self taught from trial and error. It is also amazing by how much you can learn by looking at others work, and trying to work out how they created something that wow’s you. I also believe any creative process is helped along by having a mentor. I know that Harmony (dalaiharma.deviantart.com) has not only been a creative muse for my work but has been a mentor to me in technical aspects of my work, mainly with her extensive use of film, and whenever I have a question she is always there to offer an opinion or advice on what film does what. She has introduced me to many elements that my work would not be the same without, so it’s great having someone like that in your life.

But to me, real art in photography can’t be taught. I can take someone, and teach them everything I know about the technical side of capturing an image, but without the ‘Eye’ for it, and the ideas to create them there images are going to lack any real impact and feeling.

How often do you shoot. Commercially? Portfolio work? Just for the hell of t?

Honestly, I live to shoot. But being where I live I don’t have too many models at my disposal, so it varies in the availability of people. I have a couple of close people that I have worked with on a regular basis over many years, and that is where my work is based, exploring the world through them. Every now and then I meet someone new and do a series of images, but it is the regular people that I work with that inspire me to create more. But I am always on the lookout for wonderful people to work with. I don’t tend to work commercially, I shoot because I love it, and go in with set ideas and concepts usually. I have done some portfolio work for aspiring models, but even then I put my flair on it, I can’t imagine ever just shooting straight up images without putting some kinda SJP twist on it.

Which photographers have you found inspirational?

It’s a hard question really, because I see inspirational work everyday, it’s usually in individual pieces rather than stand out people who constantly amaze me. I love when someone can capture something real, an emotion, or a look that can never be seen again, it’s the way light hits a curve or a glint in an eye that inspires me. Also I am amazed by people that think outside the square, and go beyond what most of us think about, opening there mind fully to explore ideas.

Some names that come to mind that keep pushing the boundaries are Harmony Nicholas, Spencer Tunick, Herve Lewis, Helmut Newton and Gregory Crewdson. But really this is just a tip of the iceberg because there are hundreds of photographers that inspire me on a daily basis through Deviant Art and many other sites.

Do you feel that photography is an artform? Could you explain why you do or don’t?

Like any form of expression Photography is most defiantly an artform. I think it’s rudimentary form of being used to capture snapshots has dulled that slightly, but anyone who pushed the medium past it’s obvious task can certainly create art with a camera.

What is the most important aspect of a photograph for you?

Probably it’s impact on a viewer. If I get everything right leading up and including actually capturing an image, then it should hopefully touch people, and when it does I feel I have achieved my goal.

How long did it take you to find your own style? How would you define it or how do you feel about the work you produce?

I think like any artist I am constantly refining my style. I tend to want to try and master something before I can move on, I also like to try and bring something different to everything I try. So as far as personal style goes, I think everything I do has my signature on it, my unique way of looking at the world, even if the images themselves are constantly changing themes and ideas.

Definitions are so limiting, but the way I describe my photography is I am looking for a different way of looking at things, a different angle, a different situation. I try and bring my own emotions and past into my work where I can and try and bring out the same in the people I am working with. I am also looking at exploring odd ideas, because as a photographer you have an excuse to buy 1000 coloured balls because you can always use them in a photo……lol….. So, my style is weird, it’s personal and quirky, it’s weird colours, it’s odd angles and it’s like looking at the world through a circus mirror, it’s recognizable to you but it has a twist to it.

How do you feel about nudity in photography?

It’s an interesting question………..Nudity has been a staple of my work for a long time, and it will continue too, but rarely is it treated in a sexual way. I put a lot of work into my nude images, to ensure a couple of things, one that the model is part of an environment so the it’s a compliment, rarely is the focus based on the model herself, the model is part of a scene, and two that the model is always strong, I like to show the female form as a thing of beauty and strength, rather than a sexualized being. It’s a hard balance to keep, but I endeavor it with all of my nude images.

Do you plan your shoot or do you improvise it? Why?

It really depends on the shoot. I certainly like to have a list of ideas I want to try whenever I’m shooting with someone, I rarely go into a shoot without a concept.
But the ideas are certainly not set in stone, improvisation is a key to any successful shot, it’s really about taking an idea and working on that with a model to get the best result, rarely do I storyboard an image and have it come out perfectly on film, it’s usually a basis for a concept and then it’s tweaked when shooting.

Do you feel location is essential to the photograph, how do you like to use space you shoot in?

My locations are everything to me, they tell the story as much as any model can, so I spend a lot of my time finding amazing spots to shoot in. Living in the area I live in I’m lucky that a lot of old buildings survive from 100 years ago, so I have a lot of textures to work with. But as I travel around I am always on the lookout for amazing places with great light, then once I do see something I plan an idea around it to use it best.

What equipment do you use including lighting?

I use a variety of different cameras, my favorite is defiantly a Nikon F5 film camera, I own two of them, one is usually loaded with either Kodak Portra or Ilford XP2 and the other is loaded with slide film for cross processing. Those two cameras go with me everywhere. For medium format work, I own a Hasselblad 500ELM, and Salyut S and a Pentax 645N, all of which are wonderful cameras and work best in certain environments. In terms of Polaroid I work with a 600SE Profession model which produces amazing results, but I own about 20 different Land Cameras and experiment with them all. In digital I work with a Nikon D2X and D70, I also experiment with a Panasonic Lumix and a Sony Cybershot. Although I seem to have a lot of toys, each does something different with different light, so I plan on where I’m shooting and bring the right tool for the job.

How do you work with models? Do you find a muse or do you prefer to shoot more detached?

I certainly have both. As I mentioned before I have a few muses that I have worked with on a regular basis over a few years, and those relationships have certainly bought a new dimension to my images, when you get close to someone and work with them a lot the images get more intense and personal which is never a bad thing in photography. I do have one off shoots as well, mainly they come about because sometimes you feel you can capture everything someone has in one day, a muse is someone who you never feel you can capture everything no matter how often you shoot them.

When a shoot is finished, what do you try and take from it? Do you generally feel you’ve got what set out to achieve?

That’s a very individual thing, I have certainly had shoots where I have walked away thinking I have got the best images of my career, and this person pushed me past what I thought they and what I could do. Those are the great days. The connection is there, you fall in love with someone for a few hours, capture there soul on film, have some laughs and create stunning images that can never be repeated.

But then there are the days where you push and push but people don’t open up, so you get what you can with what you have. I am quite an open and careful person when I’m shooting, and try and open up the lines of communication so we can get the best shots, but that being said my part is only half of the process, if someone doesn’t bring there A game to a shoot there is nothing I can do to make wonderful images.

It seems you use dA as a gateway to the masses. How do you find this as a medium?

It is yes. I have found it a godsend really. Before dA I was producing images thinking I was the only one, and had no-one in my life that really “Got it”. Being exposed to an artistic community who understands what I do and why has been really good for me and my art. It has pushed me to be better, introduced me to some wonderful people and entertains me no end.

Have you any up coming projects that you are especially looking forward to?

I tend not to do projects, each shoot is an individual thing, so I have people interested in working with me that I am certainly looking forward to working with, but at the moment I am coming up with ideas for those shoots, which is always the first step in the process.

Have you scheduled any exhibitions?

Not as yet this year, with me I am still defining my style, getting images I love enough to put up on a wall, once I have a collection I’m truly happy with I will seek out a place to display them.

Of your published books, which one are you most pleased with?

With my books I’m always most proud of the last one, because as I get better and define what I love the most my work gets better, so it makes sense that the latest book would be the best.

If you could be published in one magazine, which would you like?

There are magazines all over the world that I would love to see my work in, just to expose it to a larger audience, you know. A local magazine that interests me is a wonderful glossy photograph based work, Black+White http://www.studiomagazines.com/htdocs/homepage.htm it has always been a dream of mine to get a write up in there with some of my images. I would buy a million copies and could show my mum that the effort I put into this crazy pastime is worth it.

Anything missed you feel is important?

I really think that amazing photography is having an eye for it, it’s about the idea’s and the concepts, it’s the craziness, it’s fun, it’s a pain in my ass and a major distraction on my life but it is also everything to me and I will never give up perfecting what I do.

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Get Scotts newest book 2am here or see his previous books at lulu.

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You can read her blog and see more images at http://www.sarahoates.co.uk or http://oatcakes.deviantart.com

These days, assuming for the moment the you have made the decision to shoot digitally, the roughly equivalent choice is between JPG or RAW capture. So what is the difference? Is one fundamentally better than the other, and if not, how should you choose between them?

To answer these questions it helps to have a basic understanding of how digital cameras capture and store image data.

At he heart of almost all current digital cameras is a light-sensitive chip (the sensor) that takes the place of the film in a conventional camera. The surface of the sensor consists of an array of light-sensitive elements or pixels (known as photosites) arranged in a rectangular grid. The number of photosites that the chip has is the camera’s resolution, usually expressed in megapixels. Fuji sensors use a diagonal array of hexagonal pixels, but for our purposes this difference is minor.

The sensor itself is a monochrome device - each photosite records only differences in brightness, so it is roughly equivalent to B&W film. To record a colour image a camera needs to record a red, a green and a blue image of the scene. A film camera does this by using film with with 3 layers with red, green and blue filters between them (a scheme that is replicated by the 3-layer Foveon sensors used in Sigma cameras).

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Most digital cameras (Sigma excepted) encode colour information into the monochrome image using a Bayer Mask Filter - a fixed pattern of red, green and blue filters placed over the sensor’s photosites. This causes each pixel to record either a red, a green or a blue value. To produce a full-colour image the missing colour information must be filled in for each pixel.This is done by estimating the missing colour values for each pixel from the values of the surrounding pixels of the missing colour - a process known as demosaicing. A red pixel will be given blue and green values based on the levels of blue and green in the surrounding pixels. Thus the colour (chrominance) resolution of the image is slightly lower than the brightness (luminance) resolution. For most purposes this difference is not perceptible - indeed, image and video compression schemes often exploit this fact by compressing colour information more than the brightness information (chroma sub-sampling).

When you press the shutter on a digital camera, this Bayer Masked data is captured by the chip and passed to the camera’s processor. Here, one of 2 things can happen: Either the data can be written to the camera’s memory card unaltered (this is a RAW file) or it can be processed into a JPG file and then written to the memory card. In some cameras there is an additional 3rd option where both files are written.

You might think that it would be much faster to just write the raw sensor data straight to the memory card rather than doing all the processing required to make a JPG first - however, this is not the case. The internal memory and processor in a digital camera are much faster at compressing data than current flash memory technology is at storing it, so the camera can make a jpg and write it to a flash memory card in much less time than it would take to write the raw data. This internal compression also frees up space in the camera’s buffer, allowing more shots to be taken in a burst.

It should be clear, therefore, that there considerable speed advantages to be gained from shooting JPGs. So why not just shoot that way all the time?

To understand that we need to examine the JPG file format a little. JPG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, and is an industry standard method for storing compressed image data - that is to say, storing images in smaller files that take less space and can be uploaded and downloaded more quickly. JPGs are very good at this, but to achieve such high compression ratios the JPG algorithm has to be what is known as “lossy”. This means that data is not just stored more efficiently (as in “lossless” formats like TIFF), with JPG compression some of the data is actually thrown away. The file you get back when you view a JPG is not the same as the file you compressed. It might look the same, but it isn’t. The reason you don’t see a difference is that the JPG algorithm throws away detail that you probably wouldn’t see anyway.

This is both the strength and the weakness of the JPG format. The JPG engine in the camera has optimised the image for the way it is currently displayed. In the process it has discarded shadow detail, dynamic range and colour information. It has created a lot of problems in the image, but has hidden them neatly under the carpet. If, at a later stage, you want to alter the image in some way, you may end up exposing some of these hidden problems. The most obvious example is brightening an underexposed image and finding noise or compression artefacts hidden in the shadows. A less obvious impact is in subsequent B&W conversion. The eye is not equally sensitive to all colours, being more sensitive to green and relatively insensitive to blue. The jpg algorithm exploits this peculiarity by compressing the blue channel more than the others. If you use a lot of the blue channel data in a B&W image conversion it may be noisier than you expect.

So which should you use? It depends entirely on what you are doing.

JPG is a great output format. A well compressed JPG is practically indistinguishable from the original image, and is a lot smaller. When uploading images to a lab for printing I have no problem with using a low compression JPG. If you’re shooting images that will go straight to print or will have minimal post-processing, this is almost certainly the way to go.

RAW files on the other hand, contain a lot of extra information, giving you more headroom for adjustments. They also preserve the original image data, before the demosaicing process is run. As this processing adds estimated colour information to the file there is more than one way to do it. Different RAW file processing software, therefore, tends to produce slightly different results. Effectively, you can experiment with different developers on a digital file. So when the additional size and write times are not an issue, and there will be sufficient time for the required post-processing, RAW files are hard to beat.

The pragmatic approach would suggest that if you’re using JPGs and don’t see a problem, you should stick with it. But it’s worth experimenting with both, as it’s not uncommon for a computer-based RAW conversion to be slightly better than a camera JPG, as the computer has more processor power to apply to the job and doesn’t have higher camera frame-rates as a design goal.