Blog@RogerOverall.net

Just a reminder of the Bid for Haiti auction coming up this Sunday, 14th February (Valentine’s Day).

Artists, photographers and sculptors are donating works to be auctioned to raise money for GOAL’s relief effort in Haiti.

The auction will be held at the Gresham Metropole Hotel in Cork. Viewing of the lots and bidder registration starts at 11am. The auction itself is from 3pm onwards.

An online catalogue is starting to build up here: Bid for Haiti

Please tell everyone you know.

If you are an artist, photographer or sculptor and would like to donate a piece of art to the auction, please get in touch with me on 021 451 8000.

I use prime lenses only

USP 3 is a little ambiguous, unless you’re a photographer.

For many, the words “prime lens” might mean a lens of the finest quality. While I do use the best lenses available at the time of purchase, that’s not what I mean here.

Among photographers, “prime lenses” means fixed-focal lenses. Which still doesn’t help normal folk.

Maybe its easier to explain what a prime lens is by telling you what it isn’t. It isn’t a zoom lens. Prime lenses don’t zoom in and out.  If you want to get closer, you have to step closer yourself. If you want to zoom out, you have to move backwards.

Prime lenses have a number of advantages over zoom lenses.

Firstly, high-quality primes are smaller than high-quality zooms.

Because they are smaller, they are lighter.

Thirdly, they are faster. That’s photography speak for a lens that can be used at higher shutter speeds because it is able to let in more light due to a bigger maximum aperture. The bigger a lens’ maximum aperture (the hole the light travels through into the camera), the more light it can let in, the less time the shutter needs to be open. That helps prevent camera shake. This is especially useful when there is little light to begin with. Admittedly, with the astonishing light-sensitivity of modern cameras, this advantage is diminishing.

Faster lenses also mean a much brighter viewfinder experience.

Advantage number 5 is the ability of fast primes to render irrelevant bits of the photograph out of focus. Also referred to as shallow depth of field, this is a characteristic of many of my photographs. I won’t dwell on this. We’re now perilously close to the realms of bokeh from which few people make it back intact.

Lastly, because prime lenses don’t offer a zoom range, it’s easier to get to know them thoroughly. Without the distraction of a variable field of view, I can work faster. I know before I even raise the camera to my eye what I’m going to see.

Most photographers I know use zooms – in fact, nearly all of them. The fact that I don’t helps my photography stand out.

Just to complete the picture for the photographers reading this, here are the three lenses I use most: 24mm, 50mm and a 135mm.

Everyone knows that photographers and their families get all the nourishment they need from the air they breathe. They do not need to eat or drink like other people.

Nor do they have to make mortgage payments. Banks generally give them their houses for free.

In fact, they never have any bills to pay. Ever.

It’s great!

At least, it would be if it were true.

Yet somehow a lot of people see the world this way. None of them photographers, mind.

How else to account for the large number of requests we get for free pictures?

And nearly always we’re told that giving free photography will benefit our business. The classic one is that the picture  is for newspaper use and that it will appear with a byline – free advertising!

Rubbish. Bylines are often omitted and even if they aren’t, they are useless. Do this quick test: Without looking, who is the most published photographer your daily newspaper? The paper you read everyday.

Most people can’t answer this. Most people can’t name a single photographer from their daily paper. Nobody reads picture credits, except for photographers and their mums.

Yet a single mention is going to propel me to fame?

At the recent BNI Big Breakfast, a number of people came up to me for free photographs of themselves at the event and gave exactly that reason.

It’s insulting.

So how should people ask and make it an attractive proposition?

Offer something tangible in return. Ideally money, but how about this:

“Hi, I see you’re taking photographs. I’d love to get one to use for some self-promotion, but I’d like to give you something in return before you do. Where do you get most of your business from and which of my business contacts could I introduce you to with a personal recommendation? Let’s meet for coffee and I’ll bring my contacts book along for you to look at.”

Now, there’s a proposition. And it’s applicable to any business. Importantly, it gives proper balance to the proposal. Reciprocity is key to any healthy business relationship.

Or, in my case, I will shoot for cupcakes.

A shot from a recent shoot I did for Margaret Smith of Um Num Num. A box of cakes came home with me. More on this shoot soon. (c) Roger Overall 2010

This is not one of my pictures:

"North Sea" - A rare depiction of a modern ship at sea by Danish maritime artist Johannes Moeller

I do own it, however, and I love it.

It was part-payment for a job I did many, many years ago when I was a freelance PR consultant in the UK. It is both beautiful and significant, as there are very few paintings of modern ships at sea by significant artists. [UPDATE: My good friend Paul O'Mahony found this on the internet: North Sea.]

I am donating it, along with prints of my own work, to the “Bid for Haiti” auction that I am helping to organize.

Nationally- and internationally-renowned artists, photographers and sculptors will be giving original pieces to be sold at the event, which will be held on Sunday 14th February at the Gresham Metropole Hotel here in Cork. Viewing and registration will be from 11am, and the auction itself will get underway at 3pm.

This is going to be a phenomenal opportunity for bidders to acquire original works, none of which have a reserve price on them.

All the proceeds from the auction will go to GOAL’s Haiti relief effort.

Please spread the word about the auction. Blog, twitter, facebook… anything you can do to help publicize the event would be fantastic.

And if you have a chance, please come along. There will be some wonderful things up for auction. What could be more rewarding than filling that blank space on your wall with art that helped alleviate some of the suffering in Haiti?

I hate 4.50AM.

I loathe it.

Normally, it passes me by and leaves me be.

Today, I had to stand up to it in all its horror. I wasn’t really prepared for the fight after two days in Dublin, during which I walked a marathon, and barely five hours’ sleep having arrived back in Cork late last night.

But people were depending on me, so I rose from my bed with the elegance of a zombie from its grave, and ventured out to this year’s BNI Big Breakfast.

It was worth it.

Three measures determine the success of my business day:

1. Did I take a worthwhile photograph?
2. Did I learn something valuable?
3. Did I strengthen my business relationships or start a new one?

Simply attending BNI’s annual Big Breakfast pretty much guarantees that 2. and 3. are taken care of.

As far as item 1. goes, I was asked to take documentary photographs of the event. In particular pictures of Rob Brown, the keynote speaker, in action. One of those is already one of my favourites for the year.

I got lucky. Sure, I recognized an opportunity when it presented itself and planned the shot when I saw the potential, but luck did play a part.

One of Rob’s final presentation slides showed a lighthouse.

I knew immediately what I wanted to do, but I needed him to move towards me into a band of ceiling light.

Rob’s a walker-talker, so the odds were in my favour. As he stepped forward, he raised his hand as he spoke.

Rob Brown, an expert in reputation, speaks at the Maryborough House Hotel in Cork on 3rd February 2010 during BNI's Big Breakfast event. (c) Roger Overall 2010

“Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out.”

This was a quote that Dominick Cullinane, the garden designer in my BNI chapter, added to his 60 seconds last Friday. I love it.

It reminds me of a scene in Madagascar 2. Faced with the utter wreckage of their aeroplane on the plains of Africa, Skipper, the leader of the penguins, can only see a benefit: they will be able to improve the aircraft starting from scratch.

Not that I take business advice from fictional penguins as a rule, but you have to admire their outlook on life.

Having had a corporate job canceled at virtually the eleventh hour just over a week ago, I decided that the way forward was to turn the situation to my advantage. Instead of a shoot in London, I would spend the two days gifted to me preparing for a trip to Dublin to visit advertising agencies.

Now, at the close of the first day in the capital, I’m feeling a whole lot better about the canceled job.

The feedback on my portfolio presentation has been good to down-right enthusiastic; and the first steps to forging long-term, mutually-profitable relationships have been made.

Tomorrow, I have four more meetings and I have no doubt that they will be equally positive.

Yet I have to make a confession. I’ve discovered that the great reception I’ve had is the least of the benefits of traveling up here.

As I walked about Dublin, some insights awakened within me. The most important of which is this:

Get to the next stage of your ambitions as quickly as you can, so that you can move on to the stage beyond that.

For me, this is a real flash of the blindingly obvious. A moment of true clarity.

For a while now, I had put visiting the ad agencies in Dublin at the pinnacle of my marketing efforts. It was the ultimate goal beyond which lay nothing. If I could start to get ad agency work, I would have arrived at the last, most ambitious stop on my career trajectory.

Having this final goal has held me back.

For a long while I told myself that I wasn’t ready for such a giant leap. My work wasn’t good enough. I didn’t have the right print portfolio. I lacked the stature required. Anything to stop me from actually picking up the phone and making the appointments.

Turns out that all of this is nonsense.

I and my work are good enough. End. Of. Story.

Not only that, after my second meeting my mind was already projecting forward to the next stage – the stage beyond the ad agencies. Because, of course, there is another. And beyond that another again. And so on.

That’s not to say that I am discounting working with ad agencies. Quite the opposite. With the right creative at the right agency, there will be some wonderfully fulfilling assignments ahead.

But having achieved what I thought was the summit, I have a clearer view. I can see huge possibilities beyond the fruitful work that the agencies will provide. The trick now is to figure out how to get to them.

One thing I won’t be doing, though, is wasting any time in starting the journey.

Last Sunday, I started a series about unique selling points. Important to any business. My first USP was that I’m a documentary photographer.

My second unique selling point is this:

I use a 24mm lens for 80% of my work

One Sunday morning after a shoot I noticed something in my post-production software. I could organize the photographs I had taken the day before by the lens they were taken on. So I did.

To my astonishment, easily 80% of the pictures were taken with one lens: a 24mm wide angle.

The remaining 20% were taken mostly with a 50mm standard lens, with a slack handful using a 135mm short telephoto.

I’d always known that I favoured the 24mm, but never realized the extent. We’re talking borderline addiction.

Wide angle lenses suit documentary photographer very well. Context is important to proper storytelling, and wide angle lenses allow photographers to include plenty of that.

Wide angles also make me more unobtrusive.

That may sound counter-intuitive. After all, isn’t it more unobtrusive to stand well away and use a big telephoto lens?

Oddly enough, no.

If I stand amidst or very near people as if I belong, they soon forget about me.

My wedding clients are often asked why they didn’t hire a photographer, even though I was openly walking among their guests all day.

Same with my corporate shoots. After 15 minutes, people don’t see me any more.

If I were to stand well away with a big lens, people would feel spied on. That would inhibit them and change their behaviour.

Another reason I like my 24mm is that it allows me often to tell two stories at once. Often things happen concurrently that make for a really interesting photograph.

One of my favourite photographs from last year, and a typical example of a wide angle shot. There are two stories that combine to make one. The first story is the bride being readied to enter the church, made more powerful by the smaller second element of the reverend looking on. I was standing right next to the clergyman when I took the picture, but he had long forgotten about me. (c) Roger Overall 2009

I have a Facebook page.

Who doesn’t?

Mine is specifically geared towards my wedding clients, and is designed to encourage interaction between couples and the business.

Thing is, I don’t get on with Facebook at all. Having moved from PC to Mac just over a year ago, I can best describe my feelings towards Facebook as follows: It was surely designed by a PC guy.

Fortunately, I have help. My wife runs the page for me in her role as the business’s marketing angel. I have to say, she does a pretty fab job too: Roger’s Facebook Page.

Here’s a great example of how documentary photography (and a documentary photographer) can be incorporated into a business promotion:

Yes, I really am that plummy when I want to be.

Right now, I should be in London shooting an annual report assignment. It’s a regular gig. But for the second year running, I missed my flight.

Last year, I missed the flight because I confused the arrival time with the departure time. I rolled into Cork airport just in time to see the plane lift off with roughly the same speed as my heart sank into my shoes. That’s quite some feeling, I can tell you. It cost me €100 or so to buy a last-minute ticket on the next flight that evening, but I did make the shoot the next morning and there was a happy ending for all involved. Me especially.

This year, I wasn’t on the flight out of choice. A choice that wasn’t entirely mine, but a choice nevertheless.

The shoot was canceled last Friday at 5.55 PM by a very apologetic client.

For me, that was bad news. Four days later, it still is. January and February are quiet months at the best of times, and a corporate shoot scheduled for next month had already been postponed indefinitely. Losing a second assignment is going to upset the cash flow projections a smidge.

In hindsight, I’m glad the call came on Friday evening. It gave me two days to get my head straight. I sawed a lot of wood and pondered things. (By the way, the wood didn’t last nearly half as long on the fire as I thought it would). I also walked the dog quite a bit. She was thrilled.

Therapy in times of extreme stress. The sawing of wood, not the drinking of beer. (c) Roger Overall

The way I saw it, I had three options:

1. Go to London, visit friends, take in an exhibition or two, drink a pint of bitter. I’d already paid for the ticket, so why not go?
2. Stay at home and use the two days gifted to me by the cancellation to research new clients, finally finish my print portfolio, and make a bunch of appointments for next week.
3. Give up. It’s all far too hard and quite frankly I can’t be bothered anymore. Perhaps insurance brokering is more my thing?

While 1 was appealing, it wouldn’t have got me very far. By this Thursday I’d be back to square one, most likely having bought some outrageously expensive photography book at a shop on Charing Cross Road.

Option 3 would be the hardest of all. My wife has invested far too much of her own spirit in my career to let me walk away from it every time the frikkin’ gods go out of their frikkin’ way to frikkin’ plot against me personally in every frikkin’ way conceivable (they shot JFK you know) there’s a challenge to face. Besides, isn’t insurance just a respectable form of gambling?

So, that leaves option 2.

Yesterday, I took some additional photographs to put into my commercial portfolio.

Today, I worked on those and other image files, compiled a 20-page portfolio and got prints made. Along the way, my printer told me that he thought my work was art. He may have been being kind because I was giving him a cheque at that very moment, but I’ll take the compliment. Anything to lift the spirits.

Tomorrow, instead of shooting annual report photographs in London, I will spend the day on the telephone making appointments for next week.

My biggest regret in all of this is that tonight I missed out on a wonderful meal with friends in Twickenham. We always have haggis and whisky round about now, and a lot of fun. Sigh.