02/28/12

The World’s Most Boring Awards

Some of the 2012 IPPA National Photographic Awards trophies © Roger Overall 2012

This year’s IPPA National Photographic Awards were the dullest I’ve ever attended.

God, the evening was turgid.

It’s not that I was bored or that it wasn’t a well run event.

Quite the opposite.

I had good company on my table and engaging conversation.

There were lots of colleague photographers to talk shop with.

Great photographs were on show.

I even had a job to keep me occupied. I was tweeting and broadcasting audio snippets via AudioBoo on behalf of the association. I think we even started to trend on Twitter at one point. (How do you check that, by the way?)

Yet, it was still a snooze.

You see – I wasn’t in the running for anything. To be frank about it, that just made things… well, a bit like watching the Oscars really. All very nice and pleasant, a nice frock here and there, but from a selfish point of view a bit… “meh”.

In it to win it

In previous years, I’ve lamented the long wait between final submission to the awards and the announcements of the winners several months later at the gala dinner. Gradually, the tension would rise in the run up to the event, eventually reaching almost intolerable levels. It would almost drive me nuts. Certainly, my wife would be driven round the twist by my constant wondering how my photographs had fared.

Now I realize just how lucky I was to be in that position. It made me feel alive.

Deprived of the tension this year, I’ve come to appreciate just how much I revelled in it in the past. It’s a shameful thing to admit to, but there you are. That’s me. That’s how I’m wired, for better or for worse. I want to be part of the awards – down in the trenches competing, rather than on the sidelines.

Yes, it was great to have participated in the final judging process this year. I do recognize that honour.

Yet it didn’t give me the same satisfaction as scrapping it out with my colleagues over a piece of glass.

Sad, isn’t it?

Winning is bestowed, not earned

All of which leads me to a flash of the blindingly obvious.

The important people aren’t the winners of awards. They think they are. I know this first hand. When you win, you think the world, however briefly, revolves around you and your achievement. You’ve earned it.

This is nonsense. I see that now.

Winners are inconsequential compared to the people who really matter: those who organize the awards.

If it weren’t for the massive and unselfish effort put in by a relatively small group of people, there wouldn’t be an National Photographic Awards in Ireland. And no awards means no winners. I’m not saying this because I played a teeny weeny role in the past year’s process (and it really was miniscule), but because it is true.

We should take time to tip our hat to those who make it possible for their colleagues to win. Without them, there wouldn’t be a single “Award-winning Photographer”.

Bravo.

02/23/12

The Circle Of Confusion – Episode 20: The Ice Man Goeth

Episode 20 of The Circle of Confusion podcast is live.

Click the button below to go the podcast page.

02/22/12

How To Photograph Food – Lighting Part 1

Food photography lighting is ridiculously easy.

I mean stupidly, falling-off-a-log easy.

Are you sitting near a window?

That is all the light you need to bring out the texture and beauty of food. The only other bit of lighting gear you’ll need is something to bounce light back into the areas of the food facing away from the window. Tinfoil will do.

And that’s all.

What if you don’t have window light, though? What if you have to shoot in a studio? Or at night?

We’ll come back to that.

Meanwhile, here’s the diagram for all three of the photographs above:

Simple food photography lighting diagram

02/17/12

Vision And Voice Mentoring Programme

Vision And Voice Mentoring One of my passions is helping photographers connect with their own personal vision and then showing them how to express that in a voice that is peculiar to them.

Too often, photographers stunt their own development by limiting themselves to pretty pictures. Often these photographs are very similar to what they have seen others produce. That is a shame. Within each of us there is a singular identity that we should express in our own way in our photography.

In the past, I’ve given informal advice and guidance to photographers when asked, and found it really, really rewarding. So much so, that for a while now I’ve been trying to come up with a more structured way of doing this in the future.

Seminar vs Mentoring

Initially, I thought that I could do this by hosting a seminar. However, it soon became obvious that helping someone find their own personal style requires a more dedicated, one-to-one approach. A classroom simply isn’t the best place to do that. You can give someone the bare bones of how to go about it in a seminar, but after that they are on their own.

A better approach, I think, is to offer a personal experience that has accountability built in. By guiding, cajoling and encouraging people directly, there is a better chance that they will work through the tough process of connecting with their own vision and voice.

A mentoring programme is a better vehicle to achieve this.

Vision and Voice Mentoring Programme

***SALES PITCH ALERT – What follows is a blatant bid to get customers to sign up for the programme. Just sayin’***

So, I’ve spent time trialing and developing a mentoring programme that I’m confident will help people to connect with who they are and subsequently improve their photography.

This one-to-one mentoring process is designed to help you discover your own personal vision (the way you view the world) and voice (how you express your vision).

We’ll work together to discover your specific outlook and mould that into a distinct portfolio of work that is an expression of who you are as a photographer.

This isn’t an easy process, but the reward is worth it. While other photographers may be content merely to copy what others are doing, you will be able to produce fresh and engaging photography based on who you are. Being able to do so will set you apart from other photographers.

If you’d like to know more about this one-to-one mentoring programme, just email me at roger@rogeroverall.net and I’ll send you a PDF overview of how it works.

***SALES PITCH OVER***

The WRONG way to win an audience

I realize that the past few blog posts have been heavily about me and things that I sell.

I realize that this is not the way to keep you coming back as a regular reader.

I shall make amends.

02/16/12

Ankle Deep In Mayo

Video and audio are great ways to augment the content of a blog. They allow you to do things that you can’t with the written word.

Last weekend, I was in Co. Mayo with Neil McShane and Peter Cox to do some location scouting ahead of next month’s filming of Dynamic Range episode 2.

I could tell you we had fun. Or I could let you watch for yourselves.

If you enjoyed the video, you’ll also enjoy its sister audio piece, which makes up most of this week’s episode of The Circle of Confusion podcast.

02/13/12

The Long Road To Production

I’m just back from a weekend in Co. Mayo, where Peter Cox, Neil McShane and I were location scouting for the next episode of Dynamic Range, our photography video series.

If you’d like to know more about how we’re preparing for episode 2, why not head on over to our Circle of Confusion blog?

02/9/12

The Circle of Confusion – Episode 18: CanonMan To Switch To Nikon? Sky May Fall

Episode 18 of The Circle of Confusion podcast is live.

Click the button below to go the podcast page.

02/8/12

The Online Income Experiment – Launch

Making a living from photography has become increasingly difficult. We all know that. The question is, what positive action can we take to change our situation?

Over the past few months, I’ve been researching the possibilities of online income (passive income in particular) and how it might benefit me as a photographer. Gradually, I uncovered a model that would allow me to draw together several of my core competencies into a potential passive revenue stream. In fact, several models appeared.

This is very exciting, and not just because it could bring me financial stability in a volatile market. I started to wonder. Wouldn’t it be great if others could replicate the model to safeguard their own photographic careers? That really would be something.

Continue reading →

02/5/12

Forget f/8 – Just Be There And Learn

Edmond Terakopian tweeted a link to a video last week. It shows Don McCullin talking about his documentary work in the East End of London, along with some of his most iconic images.

The video is just over four minutes long. Short, but laden with learning for documentary photographers.

Don McCullin on Social Documentary Photography from National Media Museum on Vimeo.

What struck me most about what he says is the importance of being present and observing. He likens it to angling. A fisherman on a riverbank isn’t guaranteed a catch. Yet there is pleasure to be had in simply being there and doing the thing. As documentary photographers, our mere presence doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll produce worthwhile photographs. What we will do, McCullin says, is learn about humanity.

There is a saying in photography, applied especially to photojournalism, ‘f/8 and be there.’ It is clinical in its description of the mechanics of photojournalism. It seems to describe a haste and a fleetingness that goes against a thorough observation of the subject. Yet many photojournalists spend a lot of time with their subjects. The moments they capture are brief, but they occur in the context of lengthy observation.

‘f/8′ refers to the technical. The camera is set. Its depth of field fixed. Primed.

There is a soullessness about it. It is clinical. It suggests a quick-fire, in-and-out approach. That’s my sense, at least. It seems at odds with McCullin’s learning about humanity.

As documentary photographers, I think that taking time to understand humanity is vital if we are to discover our vision of the world and connect with what we consider to be essential.

We need to expose our minds to the world.

For a documentary photographer, ‘Be there’ are the two most important words in the English language. The next most important is ‘Learn’.

02/2/12

Expanding Your Reach

As photographers, we tend to be very visual people. So we market ourselves through visual means – we show our work.

Yet the internet allows us to do so much more. Lately, I’ve become very interested in podcasting, and what it could do for my business. Already, I co-host The Circle of Confusion with Peter Cox and Neil McShane. We use it to keep interest going between releases of Dynamic Range, our video series.

But I think I could do more and I’m currently exploring the possibility of a new podcast.