CreativeLIVE - the world's best photography classroom!

For this post I thought I'd share with you one of the best online photography education sites out there,  creativeLIVE.  Based in Seattle, this company provides free online training for photographers, film makers, web designers and much more but the bulk of it's content is for photographers.  Each week they have an industry leading professional come in to their studio and they stream the work shop live and for free.  The workshops can last from a few hours up to mammoth 5 day events.  Not everyone has hours free each day to watch these work shops and so creativeLIVE makes the files available to download.  These files cost money to download but if purchased prior to, or during the workshop, there is a good discount.  For a three-day workshop (the typical length) the cost is $79-$99 for pre-orders and then $149 after the event.  The video files are all released in HD and are broken down in to chapters - great for jumping straight to the section for complicated bit you wanted to look up.  Occasionally creativeLIVE will have special offers and give discounts on some of their older courses so following their twitter feed @creativeLIVE makes sense.

Some of the courses that I've seen and are worth a look are listed below.  The images are screen captures and so any links there don't work.  I have provided a link to each workshop after a brief description of what you get for your money:

Jasmine Star Wedding Photography

This is a five day workshop that covers almost everything about wedding photography.  Jasmine is one of those really annoying happy American photographers but she is enthusiastic about her work and her tutorials contain loads of great information.  Her style of wedding photography has the american slant and is more the reportage style that is slowly gaining popularity here in the UK over the line up and grin pictures that are traditional.  The course covers subjects that include branding, second shooters, shooting during the ceremony, lighting, posing, working with groups and what to do after the wedding.  The six students on the course are taken to a set-up wedding and talked through everything and then, for one of the sessions, all their images are worked through by Jasmine.  You can find details on the workshop HERE.

Sandy Puc Babies and Bellies

So once you've done the round of wedding photographs then some time later your friends will start having kids and will be looking for a photographer to help them out.  This next workshop is a three-day affair that covers how to shoot from pregnancy to one-year old babies.  As with many of the creativeLIVE workshops the first day is taken up with business information and tips for actually making some money from your work.  It then covers twelve different actual 'live' shoots with babies of different ages and talks through all the different posing, lighting and baby wrangling techniques to create some brilliant images.  With only a few bits of inexpensive lighting equipment she shows how you can build a mini-studio at home to recreate some of the effects.  Sandy's workshop is HERE

Jared Platt The Ultimate Lightroom Workflow

If you still think you need Photoshop to sort out your images then you have obviously never some across Adobe Lightroom.  I was a real sceptic when I was introduced to this software as it just seemed to be a big database for my pictures.  The more I learn about Lightroom the more amazing I find it.  Yes it is a great way to catalogue and store my pictures but it does sooooooo much more!  It's a powerful image editor, it can apply filters to my images, convert to black and white, store geo-caching information, fix badly exposed images, crop and rotate pictures, fix red-eye, get rid of dust and spots, sort out noise, create books that can be ordered from Blurb, or give me total control over my printing from home.  This workshop is a real must and it delves into almost every function of the software.  Aimed at everyone from the novice to pro user there is something here for everyone and I still refer back to it frequently.  You can find the workshop HERE.

Lesa Snider's Photoshop CS5 Intensive Workshop

Whilst Lightroom is perfect for the majority of photo 'fixing' tasks you did still need software like Photoshop if you need to push pixels around a screen or create special effects (as seen in my first blogpost).  I've been fumbling around Photoshop for several years now but could have saved hours of my life if I'd watched workshops like Lesa's in my early days.  Some of the images and effects that are used in the videos seem ridiculously basic but it is all about building an understanding of the way that Photoshop works so you can apply the techniques to your own images.  You can find this workshop HERE.  Her workshop is one of the most popular in the creativeLIVE catalogue and she has recently returned for four one-day workshops that go into specific areas of Photoshop in real depth.

If you love Photoshop then you should also check out Ben Willmore's brilliant creativeLIVE workshop HERE.

John Greengo DSLR Fast Start Courses

What if you've always wanted to make the leap from a point-and-shoot camera to a 'real' DSLR with interchangeable lenses?  You take your shiny camera out of its packaging and realise you are entering a world of confusing buttons and dials, abbreviations and incomprehensible manuals so you end up shooting in 'full auto' mode and never unlock your camera's potential.  CreativeLIVE has this eventuality covered too!

They run regular workshops hosted by John Greengo.  Each of the workshops looks at one specific camera  and then goes through absolutely every function in a few hours.  With the video files you also get a pdf handout you can print for reference.  I thought I knew my way round my Canon 5D Mk2 but John really knows his stuff so I bought the workshop to keep in case I ever get a shooting situation I cant figure my way out.  The major Canon and Nikon semi-pro models are all covered and you can find the workshops HERE more cameras are added if a new model is released (and one for the Olympus OM-D EM-5 is available).

And so much more...

I've just touched the surface of the creativeLIVE back catalogue.  They have workshops on studio lighting, shooting fireworks and light trails, creating websites using Wordpress, getting portraits of strangers in the street, running a professional fashion shoot, creating apps for the iPhone, using Illustrator and so much more. New videos are streamed live most weeks from Thursday-Sunday, as I type this John Greengo has been teaching me how to use the Canon 650D - should I ever buy one :) and this weekend is a two day workshop on creating wedding and portfolio albums.

Check out creativeLIVE!

Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2012

The winning entries for the Astronomy Photographer of the Year2012 have just been announced and so I thought I'd share some of the winning entries with you.  All of the pictures shown here are copyright their respective photographers.  Information has been taken from the Royal Museums Greenwich site.  I'd recommend following the links to each of the photographers Flickr accounts for larger versions of the images.  I've included links to some of the telescopes and cameras used by these photographers - it's a field of photography I knew very little about until writing this post!

M51 Whirlpool Galaxy

This is the winning picture for the 'Deep Space' category and was taken by Martin Pugh.  He used an expensive Apogee camera mounted to an even more expensive Planewave telescope to capture this image of the M51 Whirlpool Galaxy.  The actual image is far sharper than shown here and the detail in the spiral arms is incredible.  Those dots that look like stars are actually other galaxies!  You can find more of Marin's images on his Flickr account HERE

Simeis 147 Supernova Remains

If you ever wondered where all the particles in your body came from the answer is from events such as this.  This image shows the remains of a star that exploded around 40,000 years ago.  The particles are still moving outwards and they now straddle several galaxies.  The photographer Bernal Andreo used a $10,000 combination of a  Takahashi telescope mounted to his SBIG camera to get this image - worth every penny I think.  You can find more of his work on Flickr HERE

The next category is one that everyday photographers like myself might have a chance of entering.  The Earth and Space category is for photos that include landscape, people or other 'Earthly' things along with an astronomical subject.

Ice Starfall

This is my favourite image from this year's competition as it is so full of mood and atmosphere.  Photographer Masahiro Miyasaka took this image in Japan using a Canon 5D Mk2 with a 14mm lens - so no fancy telescopes or complicated equipment.  The frozen ice streaks work perfectly to draw your eye up towards the heavens and the trees help to give a sense of scale.  His Flickr page is HERE.

In the next category I'm sure the runner up must be gutted because I thought his image was way better than the actual winner.  The Our Solar System category is for photos of our Sun and its family of planets, moons, asteroids and comets. 

Transit of Venus

This image by UK photographer Chris Warren was chosen as the winner by the judges because "for me this picture perfectly captures the excitement of the 2012 transit of Venus. After getting up at 4am on a cloudy morning it really didn't look as though the British weather was going to co-operate. But then, with just minutes to go, a gap appeared in the clouds and we got a precious glimpse of Venus in front of the Sun."  Chris has more pictures on his Flickr account HERE

The shot was taken using a Grasshopper camera mounted to a telescope.  I'd never even heard of this sort of camera but a quick search on the internet revealed some clips of it in action.  The clip below is, I'm assuming, a shot of the Sun in 'action'.  Sorry about the music!

Now for one of the highly commended shots in the same category - also taken of the transit of Jupiter past the Sun.

Venus Transit

This shot made me mouth a silent 'Wow'.  It's by Australian photographer Paul Haese and was constructed by using a mosaic shooting technique.  This uses the camera to capture a small area in great detail.  The photo is then pieced together with other shots, like a jigsaw, to create one large image.  This was made from 6 panels of images with each panel containing 750 photos!  Paul is clearly a keen astronomy photographer and his Flickr page shows entries for some of the other categories HERE.


The next category is the one that makes me green with envy as it is the Young Astronomy Photographer category.  It's sickening how much talent these young men, and all the prize winners were men, have already got.

Pleiades Cluster

I couldn't find a link to the photographers website so you'll have to settle for this screen grab.  Jacob von Chorus, a fifteen year old from Canada, took this using a Skywatcher Telescope with a Canon 100D Camera mounted on the end.  He used a total of an hour of exposure time to build up the picture.  It shows one of the closest star clusters to Earth, the Pleiades Cluster, better known as the Seven Sisters.

The final image here, from the same category, will hopefully provide a kick up the butt for any would be astro-photographers who think you need fancy kit to get impressive results.

Lunar Mountains

If you've ever tried to take a picture of the moon you will know it can be really difficult to get anything decent with even a 300mm lens.  You need a professional telescope and high end camera to get anything interesting.  Jacob Marchio, 13, took this with a budget level Orion Astroview telescope similar to this one, and a Canon Powershot SD1300!  

I was given a telescope not too dissimilar to the Astroview for Christmas a few years back.  I think it's time I got it out of the cupboard, dusted it off, and got a mount to fit my Canon 5D to it :)


Congratulations to all of the winners.  If this article has whetted your appetite for astronomy photography and  you would like to see more images then go to the competition result page at Royal Museums Greenwich

The BBC news pages have picked up on the story and there is a short video about the entries HERE

Essential iPhone Camera Apps

A few people have asked me what camera apps I use on my iPhone and so I thought I'd compile a list of my 10 most used Camera Apps.  I've included apps that change the way images are captured, apps for editing your images and two really useful little apps that will help lighten the load of your kitbag.

Camera+ (69p)

Camera+

If you only buy one camera app for your iPhone you need to get this one.  The current inbuilt camera app that comes with your phone is fine for normal use but this adds extra functionality.

Like the normal iPhone camera you can point on the screen to select a focal point.  This app adds an extra step - if you hit a small cross that appears near the focal point you can bring up a second aiming point.  This point can be moved around the image to determine which spot it takes a light meter reading from.  The overall image is then adjusted based on this point.  This works really well when dealing with tricky lighting situations like portraits against a window, or particularly bright/dark scenes.  You can also lock these points, or lock the white balance, based on the live meter readings.  It also has a stabilizer function - not an actual stabilizer but it will only take a picture when the camera is held steady.  There is also a burst mode and a timer mode, both very useful.

If that was all I'd still recommend the app but there is a second part to the software and that is an editing suite.  You can use the 16 presets to quickly alter an image for the style of photography. Settings include backlit, cloudy, night, portrait and my favourite - clarity (a subtle version of HDR).  There is also a wide selection of filters divided into Color (it's American!), Retro, Special and I Love Analog.  Retro filters replicate amongst others toy cameras, lo-fi, antique and Lomographic.  Special effects has nine modes including a full HDR mode, Color Dodge, Depth of Field and Miniaturize.  The I Love analogue filters cost an extra 69p to buy as a download and replicate nine old style cameras and film types such as Pinhole, expired (film) and Diana.  Each of the filters has an opacity slider and this gives even more control over the filters.  There is also a selection of nine adjustable borders that range for simple white/black borders to film sprockets and grungy torn edges.

Instagram (Free)

Instagram

Ah, the bane of my life but also a great app when it isn't used for evil, and by evil I mean pictures of feet, kittens or clouds!  This is primarily a photo sharing app.  It is fast replacing Flickr as the depository for the millions of images captured each day.  Instagram has become part of the war between Facebook and Google+ for dominance of the social media market.  Facebook acquired Instagram and Google+ bought out Snapseed (discussed later).  This app has also changed the way that people visualise images - rectangular shots are so last year, pictures are square shaped these days!  Every image created by this app is square, you can import an image from your camera folder but before you publish it must be cropped into a square format.

Instagram lets you capture images using settings similar to the default camera app.  Once it has an image the image editor kicks in, and this is where the strength of the app comes in.  You can auto adjust image settings to get the best exposure with just one click.  Before you start messing with your images you can chose a spot to be in focus and it will blur out the rest of the image (lots of control options over what is blurred/sharp).   It isn't just the traditional tilt-shift look as it also has the option to apply the effect as circles.  There is also a total of 18 preset filters that give a wide range of looks from 70's cameras to Black and White.  Some of the filters include borders and these can be turned on/off as required.  There is nowhere as much control as Camera+ but there is still a lot of variety in the filters.

As I mentioned earlier this is a photo sharing app and there are loads of options for getting your image out into the world wide web.  With a few screen presses you can send your images to email addresses, Flickr, Twitter, Tumblr, foursquare and of course Facebook.  You can also create a photo map that records where all of your images have been captured - a great way of recording your exact location whilst on holiday for example.

Filterstorm (£2.49)

I believe this is the most powerful photo editing app available on the iPhone and it even beats Adobe's Photoshop Express app for its functions.

Once you have loaded an image into the software you have dozens of tools available to you in an easy to use menu system.  In the crop menu for example you can crop as normal, scale to fit an exact ratio, straighten an image, add borders, make it square or change the image size with pixel accuracy.  Other menus open to change exposure, hue/saturation, white balance and shadows/highlights.  All standard stuff so far but there is much more!

This is one of the few apps that lets you have different layers, have layer masks, use curves (luminance, RGB and CMY), and save your favourite settings as one click actions.  Best of all it has multiple 'undo' options for when mistakes are made.  If it all sounds daunting then don't be afraid as everything is controlled through sliders.  If you are not sure what a feature does just whack the slider up to 100% and see the extreme version, you can then back it off to get the effect you are after.  You can even split the screen in two and compare the effect alongside the original.  If you aren't happy then just click the big red X and your image is reverted to normal.

I have an iPhone 4 and if I work on an image a lot it can get a little clunky as the processor struggles.  The sharpen image function seems pretty power intensive but it still only takes a few seconds to complete.  Final images can be exported back to the library or emailed and there are further options to determine file size and resolution at this stage.

Snapseed (£1.49)

Snapseed

This is predominately an editing app that uses a wide range of filters to create the final image.  It has thirteen items in its main menu: automatic, selective adjust, tune image, straighten, crop, black and white, vintage, drama (a grainy HDR effect), grunge (dark vignetting, increased sharpness and a subtle background texture layer), center focus (another American app!), frames and tilt-shift.

Each menu opens into further options that give finer control over your image.  The control method is a little unusual but only takes a minute to get used to.  When you select a main category, Fine Tune for example, you are presented with your image and 'Brightness 0' at the bottom.  By swiping your finger left and right on the image you can change the brightness.  If you hold your finger on the screen and move up and down you open more menus, in this case Ambiance, Contrast, Saturation and White Balance.

From the Black and White menu you can control Brightness, Contrast and Grain and have access to yet another set of controls (all using the easy swipe feature).  You can control the effects as a neutral filter or have fine tuning over reds, oranges, yellows, and greens, much like in the traditional darkroom.  Frames can be added to your image before you complete it and there is an option for a randomised 'torn' effect.  The tilt-shift function has more control than most apps but only straight lines can be used (unlike the circle effect available in Instagram).

Adobe Photoshop Express (free)

PS Express

The last of the 'big 5' apps that should be on your phone.  This has been produced by industry giants Adobe in their attempt to spread their dominance of the photo editing market into the iPhone.  This is a free app but to access the full features you will need to pay more money as in app purchases - these unlock camera styles, borders and special effects.  I've purchased all the packs so I can't actually remember what comes with the standard free edition.

The camera function is almost identical to the standard one but also has a 3 and 10 second self timer.  This isn't a capturing app, the power of this software is its image editing.

All the standard basic functions are included: crop, straighten, rotate (in 90 degree increments) and flip.  You can also control the exposure, brightness, hue and temperature from the second menu.  The third menu has control over the pixels with filters like sketch, soft focus, sharpen and reduce noise.  The final menu has the special effects and borders.  There are 61 special effects (really just a collection of filters and presets) and they include things like four types of tilt-shift and six types of black and white.  Amongst them are more fun filters such as postcard, sparkle and my favourite photo-stack.  This last filter cuts your image into lots of smaller ones, like laying a series of polariods over each other or in horizontal/vertical bands.  If you have Filterstorm then you probably don't need this app but I have included it makes the top ten for its easy of use and price.

PicFrame (69p)

This is a much over looked app but it can really add to your images if you want to stand out from the Insta-crowd.  This app allows you to combine several images together in one - like the 'family' frames you may have seen in your local photography/department store.

There are five different ratios available for your final image, 1:1, 3:2, 4:3, 2:3 and 3:4 and all the different 'frames' are available for each ratio.  The makers regularly update the frames and at the time of writing there are 67 in total.  You can control the colour, width and style of the frames and can add labels over the top.  It's the best way of creating a story in a single image and you can have up to nine images in one photo like the one I created in under two minutes as an example HERE (links to my Flickr account).

Slow Shutter (69p)

Slow Shutter

This gives you control over the exposure time for the camera.  The standard iPhone camera will choose the best settings for a pin sharp image and you can happily snap away with those settings.  This app lets you chose just how long you want the shutter open.  The main use for this is creating light trails, an effect that is impossible to create without the app.  You can make rivers look silky smooth, create artistic blurred portraits or take it to the race track for streaking action shots.  If you do start using this app seriously you may need to invest in an iPhone gorilla-pod or tripod as some of the automatic exposure times are as long as 15 seconds.  There is also a bulb mode for those really dark spaces.  I used this app to shoot THIS image in an empty cinema - no other app could cope!

Hipstamatic (free)

Hipstamatic

This app would be rated much higher, but for the fact that too many of the filters need to be purchased once you've bought the basic app package.  The app simulates an old film camera.  When you run the app it shows you the back of a camera with a viewfinder and a slot for a roll of film.  You chose what type of lens, film and flash you want on the camera (a fancy way of saying, pick a filter!) and then can shoot away.  The filters are sold in packs called SnapPaks for 69p each.  The majority of paks have one lens and one film type, for example the Portrait SnapPak has a 'Foxy Lens' and 'Sugar Film'.  An inbuilt help menu gives examples of the components in use and all of the items are interchangeable for some weird and wonderful images.  There are at least ten paks available for purchase at the time of writing so that's £6.90 for the set!

Easy Release (£6.99)

Easy Release

If you want to publish any of your portrait pictures professionally then you may need to have a model release.  This app is an automated system for creating the legal form that gives you permission to use the images.  It may be easier to have a pad of preprinted forms in your pocket but the strength of this app is that it quickly builds to become an electronic database of all your models and automatically emails completed release forms back to your main email account and to that of your model.  I bought this app early and it was pretty cheap but the price is currently £6.99 so it may put casual shooters off.

Before I go out shooting I set up the basic details in the app and then if I need to get a release it takes about a  minute to get everything ready for my model to sign on-screen.  I find that it can add to the shoot and make a non-professional model feel quite special :-)

Pocket Light Meter (free)

Pocket Light Meter

This final app is for anyone who likes to collect and use old film cameras.  I have a handful, and in some of them the photosensor has broken (or doesn't exist).  The Pocket Light Meter app lets you use your iPhone as a light meter.  When you open the app you are shown the live camera image and three scrolling dials that display time, aperture and ISO.  You can set any of these values (I usually use the film ASA and camera aperture) and the app will calculate the missing elements, in this case shutter speed.  I've tested it against the meter in my Canon 5D Mk2 and the results are impressive as it gets it almost spot on every time!  On the downside there are a lot of adverts in this app - it doesn't reduce the functionality at all but they are distracting.

There are many more photo apps on my iPhone and I may revisit this subject at a later date.  Some of my apps have a limited use and have only been used a few times.  Apps worth looking at include Pic Grunger and Photo Studio for editing, Hueless for capturing in black and white, and WordFoto for creating quirky images as it converts your photos to blocks of coloured text.  If you have any great apps that should have been on this list please leave a comment and tell me why I should have included it.

Three photos that will change my life

I thought I'd share three photos that Hannah and I really very excited about.  These are the first scans of our first child who is due to arrive on 16 March 2013 :)

It's name changes each week based on the piece of fruit that matches its size so at the time of posting its currently being called 'Lemon Fox'.

 'Poppy (seed) Fox' at around 6 weeks old.   This was the first real confirmation we had that it was real.  This tiny blob was only a few millimetres across but you could still see a beating heart.

'Grape Fox' at around 8 weeks old.

'Kiwi Fox' just over 11 weeks old and the first chance for a proper check to make sure everything is growing as planned.  There was a lot of disco dancing from the baby during the scan - we'll have to keep the caffeine locked away!


I promise that I won't flood this blog with dozens of pictures so don't fear that it will become a glorified baby album (that's what Facebook is for after all!).

Recession Hits like a Hurricane

For this post I thought I'd show some of images I've taken for a long term project I'm working on.  The recession has hit British high streets very hard and it has not taken long for many shops, including those from major chains, to close.  These empty spaces are usually stripped bare and 'sanitised' so they can be put up for let.  As the recession has worsened I have noticed that newly emptied shops are being left in a worse condition.  It is almost as if the owners grabbed all they could and made a run for it.

Whenever I visit a town or city I'm always look for the tell-tale 'To Let' signs and making a beeline for the abandoned shops.  The spaces are usually left in darkness and the only light is from the street.  This makes capturing the images tricky as I need to use a long exposure and a steady hand.

I find the spaces eerie and they remind me of scenes from post-holocaust movies where disasters have swept through an area.  The bare walls and muted colours create a sense of loneliness and abandonment.  Some of the shops have been stripped right down with even the carpets removed but the majority are left with magnolia walls and dark blue carpets.  A scant few have traces that leave clues to their previous existence and the images shown here are amongst those.

So far I have managed to take pictures of over 80 empty shops in three locations, Shrewsbury, Wrexham and Liverpool.  There is definitely a pattern in where these spaces will be found.  In busy towns, like Shrewsbury, the main street there is little sign of the recession but if you step down any side street you can easily find empty shops.  In smaller towns or less affluent areas the closures are far more obvious.  I was shocked by how many empty shops I could photograph in the main shopping area of Wrexham, it felt like every other shop was closed.

Despite the implications of these empty spaces I think each of these images has a calm beauty about them.  They give an opportunity to see everyday spaces in a completely different way.  As a photographer I have found it very easy to take these pictures without being challenged by members of the public or security personnel.  If the shops had been occupied I have no doubt that I would have been moved along in a brisk manner and told to keep away.

I would like to think that we are near the very bottom of the second dip of this recession and that things can't get any worse.  I have returned to some of the shops to see what condition they are in and have seen signs that work is being done inside them for new tenants.

The final image I'm sharing with you may not look like much but perhaps there is hope that the British high street can be saved.  there is still life in these empty spaces and new shops will hopefully step up to take the places of those that fell.

Camera usage on Flickr

For this post I thought I'd show some geeky stats about the cameras that are currently being used to take photos that are posted on Flickr.  Flickr is a photo sharing site that used be to be haven for fine images but over time has become swamped with pictures of clouds, feet and kittens.  Thankfully it's not as bad as instagram or iPhone photo apps for these sorts of pictures, but there is a growing trend.

For this test I selected cameras and camera phones from each of the major manufacturers choosing their most active models based on the highest rank on Flickr.  Flickr bases rank on the amount of activity that is generated by each camera over a given period (in this case 24 hours).  If a second model had a much stronger presence, i.e. more images, then it has also been included.

The columns in the table are:

Camera Name and Release date - the given name is the European market name and the date is the official UK release date.

Mega pixels - the quality of a camera cannot be judged by megapixels alone and yet continues to be a selling point for any new camera.  I've included the information here as it will be interesting to see how much change there will be when I repeat this experiment in a few months.

The next two columns give the total number of images taken by that camera that are currently stored on Flickr.  This does not include images marked as 'private'.  The next number is the 'daily users' and this is the number of individuals who uploaded images in the past 24 hours.  This is the most important figure for me as this will allow me to track trends. 

The final column is a graph showing the trend of uploads over the past 12 months.  This is also a great bit of info as it shows which cameras are dwindling out and which are the rising stars.

All stats figures given were taken from Flickr’s pages just before midnight on 16 August 2012.  

So it can be seen the Nikon D90, Olympus E-PL1 and Sony NEX-5 are really on the decline.  These are still great cameras and can easily be picked up for a good price on eBay.  The graphs are not to scale and the D90 has almost as much activity as the 5D Mk2.  The Canon 5D Mk2 continues to grow in strength and this may be due to more second-hand models becoming available as pros upgrade to the Mk3.  The newly launched Olympus E-M5 is growing in strength but it will be interesting to see if there is a peak once the novelty of the launch wears off.  I wasn't even aware of the Pentax K-5 but it has consistently grown in usage over the last year.

Cameras only make up half the story on Flickr and the growth of camera phones and so I checked out the stats for the most popular models.  It should be noted that Flickr isn't the most popular dumping ground for phone pictures - facebook and instagram seem to be leading the way in this field.  The stats are not a true reflection of the flow of traffic from phones but, again, it will be interesting to see if there is a shift by this time next year.

All hail the iPhone 4 and 4S phones!  Apple's top four phones are responsible for almost 108 million images on Flickr.  That's a lot of angst ridden teenagers taking pictures of themselves in the mirror.  The camera on the 4S is really good and with the addition of a few choice apps can easily take pro level images.  Hopefully this is the reason why the phone has gone from strength to strength on Flickr.  There are rumours that the iPhone 5 will be launched later this year and I predict that the 4 series will dwindle in the same way the 3 series has done.

I have no idea why the LG VX 9700 and Sony K800i have spiked so much, perhaps there was a series of special deals form mobile phone retailers?  More realistically the graphs show such low usage that one busy week can cause a spike that looks out of proportion to the other tables.



Ok, so a graph heavy post that probably looks terrible for anyone looking at it on a tiny phone screen.  I created this post so I would have a snapshot I could look back on over the coming months and years.  Hopefully next year there will be marked differences and we can all look back with rose-tinted glasses at cameras that have fallen by the wayside.  That is assuming that Flickr will be still around then.  Whilst I was gathering the data for the post I came across a Flickr group that charts the number of images uploaded each month, it seems that it may have peaked!  Check out the image HERE and read the updates in the discussion below the image.

You Are Not A Photographer!

I discovered the most amazing website whilst exploring the wondrous internet.  The 'you are not a photographer' site looks through countless facebook pages and looks for dubious images from 'professional' photographers.  Digital cameras are getting cheaper and more powerful and it's easily within the grasp of many to get hold of kit that looks impressive.  The problem is that being a photographer is not just having a big camera and Photoshop.  This is not the place to argue what actually makes a good photographer, but an understanding of composition and light has got to be on anyone's list.  Photoshop and Photoshop Elements are amazing pieces of software but it takes more skill to apply the tool subtly than to drag out every trick in the box.  All clearly things that some of these 'professionals' have not yet grasped.

When you look at the photos in this post, and hopefully go on to the 'you are not a photographer' website I hope you'll find a few images that make you laugh.  Remember though that these individuals are charging for their service and have the audacity to call themselves professional. 

All of the images are the copyright of their respective photographer, thank goodness!  Website link to the 'you are not a photographer' site at the bottom of this post.

Here are some of my favourites - your comments are more than welcome!

Semi-transparent layers are fab, everyone loves then and when used properly and with some thought can literally add depth to a photo.  Used badly though and it goes horribly wrong.  So to start us off at number 10: this poor baby that hopefully didn't actually have a deformity that turned it's head into a giant foot.  With an ill-fitting toe ring!

At number 9: there are times when using 'spot colour' is perfect.  Those times were in the late 1990s and that fad should have passed a long time ago.  Applied with the gentle touch of a bear swiping a bee's nest from its honey soaked face this image is just plain bad.

Number 8: for all those people that like crazy filters and plug-ins.  Bubbles are great but sometimes a photographer can just get carried away.  Would you pay for this shot if you were the couple in the image?

Number 7: solarisaton.  This is a process that originated in the very early days of photography and is like a negative print that can be done in colour.  This possibly cute kid has been turned into an evil zombie baby with just a few clicks of a mouse.  What mother couldn't possibly want a massive print of this on their living room wall.

Number 6: a sweet little kitten.  By controlling the depth of field a photographer can decide what is in focus and what is an attractive, non-distracting blur.  This professional photographer has been taking pictures of pets for over twenty years.  Just how bad must those early shots have been if this is the pinicle of his/her career!  I might be wrong thugh, maybe this was a shoot for a brush lovers website.

Number 5: the pointless portfolio shot.  When putting together a portfolio a real photographer realises that the whole thing will be judged by the weakest shot.  With that in mind what the hell was this 'professional' thinking when he included this.  More importantly what the heck is going on under that towel?







In at number 4: the professional portrait shoot.  Every aspiring model wants a few headshots in her books so she can show potential clients.  It is important that these images reflect the actual model the client will be booking and so they should look as natural as possible.  The photographer obviously knows that it's all about the eyes but has clearly forgotten one of the golden rules: Less is More!





At 3: blown highlights.  They are often a problem for photographers, but modern software can usually take these overly bright spots and work miracles to bring back some of that precious lost detail.  At the other end of the scale are those photographers who are trying to create a perfect blank background to allow their subjects to stand out.  When it goes wrong the effect is anything but special. What makes this image for me is the photographer's defence to the comment about the brightness...

Almost done.  At number 2: a perfect excuse for me to share an important photography tip.  When I'm shooting I don't check the centre of the frame first, I check the four corners to force my eye to look at the whole picture.  This simple trick means that you can spot anything distracting in the background that is easily missed if you are focusing on the subject first.  The follow image shows what happens if you don't use this technique and then post the image in your 'pro-photographer' facebook page.








And finally my favourite shot from the website.  Baby photos are snapshots of cherished moments when your little one is changing rapidly from week to week.  Great baby photos are actually very tricky to capture properly but done properly will be looked at by their parents for years to come.

I'm sure the client asked for a cute shot of their baby dressed in Christmas clothes for a lovely card for grandma.

What they got was a shot of a dead baby that had just been dropped on the floor.  More disturbing is that someone actually clicked 'like'!

The link for the full website is HERE.  Many of the older pictures are no longer available as photographers remove them from their sites, so enjoy them while you can!