Tim Gander's photography blog

Tim Gander’s photography blog.

July 13, 2016September 16, 2016 by Tim Gander

It’s SOE Challenging!

Last month I was asked, for the second year running, to take pictures of the Institute of Road Transport Engineers (IRTE) Skills Challenge which takes place in Bristol.

This is a three-day event during which teams of individuals are put forward by various bus and coach operators to test their skills in, amongst other things, vehicle electronics, braking systems, fabricating, testing and diagnostics.

The photos are used by the Society of Operation Engineers (SOE) to help promote the event through their website, printed material and for the first time this year I was also sending “rush” pictures to the PR team for live use in social media.

It’s fair to say the three days are quite a challenge photographically too. I have to ensure I get good pictures of each entrant because the photos will be used at the subsequent awards event to accompany the prize presentations to winners.

As the challenges are live and timed I have to ensure I get my shots with as little disruption to the participants as possible. At the same time, because of the nature of the challenges, it would be all too easy to just run around getting nothing more than pictures of the tops of peoples’ heads as they concentrate on what they’re doing when what I really want to see are their faces and expressions.

06/06/2016 IRTE Skills Challenge 2016 held at S&B Automotive Academy Limited, Bristol. Ben Gilmour of Go South Coast, Salisbury Red Bus Co. Photo © Tim Gander 2016. All rights reserved.

07/06/2016 IRTE Skills Challenge 2016 held at S&B Automotive Academy Limited, Bristol. First Bus, Sally Sheldon. Photo © Tim Gander 2016. All rights reserved.

07/06/2016 IRTE Skills Challenge 2016 held at S&B Automotive Academy Limited, Bristol. Arriva UK Bus, Ben Shirley. Photo © Tim Gander 2016. All rights reserved.

07/06/2016 IRTE Skills Challenge 2016 held at S&B Automotive Academy Limited, Bristol. Arriva UK Bus, Chenique Cawley. Photo © Tim Gander 2016. All rights reserved.

07/06/2016 IRTE Skills Challenge 2016 held at SB Automotive Academy Limited, Bristol. Arriva UK Bus, Stephen Dwyer. Photo © Tim Gander 2016. All rights reserved.

The lighting can also be quite tricky. Sometimes it’s relatively easy as the event takes place in a large engineering hangar with some daylight coming in through skylights in the roof, but this isn’t always ideal, especially when there’s not much sunshine outside or where a contestant is working in a tight corner with little light on their face. I like my lighting to be clean, with as little colour cast as possible.

So I work fast with a small set-up; usually with a wide zoom lens for flexibility and a single flash on a stand, firing into an umbrella for portability and to reduce the influence of the indoor lighting. The umbrella also keeps the light looking natural and soft.

The greatest challenge is always in the machine shop where contestants will be working with metal cutters, grinders and welding equipment. It’s hot, noisy and there are all kinds of health and safety issues to consider.

Photographing welding is an especially tricky art because I have to wear a welding mask to protect my eyes which means I can’t see so well to compose and focus my shots, but the results are often the most interesting, with sparks flying and the intense glow from the welding torch.

Of course a shot of someone welding doesn’t show their face, so I’ll always ensure I get a shot of them doing something else as well, such as inspecting a weld or measuring for a cut.

What’s really great though is that tomorrow I’ll see the entrants again as they go to a prize-giving at the Jaguar Experience in Birmingham. I’ll be taking pictures of the prize presentations and of the overall event for industry public relations and again to promote the event for next year.

As I’ve never been to the Jaguar Experience and don’t know what the venue will be like for photographs, it’ll be a whole new challenge!

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July 7, 2016September 16, 2016 by Tim Gander

Portraits of Brexit Britain

Overview of the call centre at Leave.eu's office in Bristol where fundraisers took pledges from the public. A large Leave.eu sign is on the wall at the back of the room as call handlers sit at desks, watching computer monitors and wearing telephone headsets.

Leave.eu call centre, Bristol. Photo © Tim Gander 2016

Sometimes I see a fellow photographer reveal a new personal project and it really interests me, which is why I’m sharing Steve Franck’s post with you here this week.

Steve is a London-based photographer working mostly for commercial and corporate clients, but he’s also pretty inspirational in his personal work too.

The plan for his latest project is to do a series of post-EU Referendum portraits, one each of 100 people (52 Leave voters, 48 Remain voters), in their own homes, examining their backgrounds and reasons for voting the way they did.

And the reason I’m posting this here is because Steve needs volunteers from a range of backgrounds and situations in order to capture a broad section of society. So if you’d like to be photographed (and receive a free print for your time), head over to his project page to find out more and to make contact with Steve.

June 30, 2016September 16, 2016 by Tim Gander

Graduation Time!

If I’ve been a little quiet the last couple of weeks it’s because of sheer pressure of work; it’s hard to take photos and blog at the same time, but I wanted to give you a quick post to let you know I’m still alive and clicking (see what I did there?)

This week has been a busy one for me as I’ve been helping out with the University of Bath’s coverage of their Summer (haha) Graduations. In between other work, my task has been to capture celebratory images to show the joy and fun as students receive their certificates in Bath Abbey.

Within minutes of the end of a ceremony I’ve been dashing off to a quiet corner to edit, caption and deliver the images so the press office could get them up on Facebook and twitter. Apart from some torrential rain, it’s all been pretty smooth.

I leave you with a selection of photos taken over the last three days.

29010 28/06/2016 Image from University of Bath Graduation Ceremony 3, Bath Abbey. John Cleese (pictured during the procession from the Guildhall to the abbey) receives an honorary degree from University of Bath.

28/06/2016 Image from University of Bath Graduation Ceremony 3, Bath Abbey.

29/06/2016 Image from University of Bath Graduation Ceremony 4, Bath Abbey. Inside and outside the abbey, students receive and celebrate the culmination of their studies in spite of the rain!

29/06/2016 Image from University of Bath Graduation Ceremony 8, Bath Abbey. Students, familes and friends gather at Bath Abbey to celebrate graduations.

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June 7, 2016September 16, 2016 by Tim Gander

Paws for Thought

Sourcing photos for a local charity fundraiser is the kind of thing which all too easily falls into the “an iPhone snap will do” category, but when you’re aiming to gain PR exposure across a range of publications, there’s no point wasting good public relations effort with poor imagery.

That’s also the view of Jennie Wood of Avalanche PR, so I was delighted when she came to me for this particular project.

On Friday June 10th 2016, the fifth annual Kennel Break Challenge will be hosted at the Bath Cats and Dogs Home and Jennie was tasked with getting the word out to local business people encouraging them to get involved.

The idea is that participants get locked in a kennel with nothing but a laptop and mobile phone, which they use to raise pledges from their contacts. Once they reach £1,000 in donations they get released, ideally in under an hour, but up to a maximum of three.

For the press release photo session at Bath Cats and Dogs Home, ambassador for the home and former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies MBE, came to the Claverton Down centre so we could get a series of photos of her in kennels with rescue dogs.

Jennie and I arrived ahead of schedule so we could work out the best angles and options for the photos. I also wanted to ensure we had a choice of larger and smaller dogs to work with, so I liaised with senior fundraiser at the home Zena Jones who checked which dogs would be suitable.

Sharron arrived promptly and after introductions, and a few moments discussing what I was after in terms of photos, we got on with the task in hand.

In true April style the weather was a mixture of sunshine and heavy showers and bitingly cold, so I had to work fairly fast to ensure Sharron didn’t leave with hyperthermia. Even so, within half an hour we’d generated a selection of upright and landscape-oriented photos, with and without dogs and with a choice of large and smaller dogs (which created a choice of tighter and looser compositions). Job done!

This week’s gallery includes one of the cutest photos I’ve taken in a long time as well as some of the cuttings showing how the photos got used in both local and national publications, helping to raise the profile of this great cause.

Cute!

Yourcat

Screen grab of Bath Life use of the article and image

Bath Chronicle screen grab of the online article

Screen grab of the article in The West Wilts Magazine

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June 2, 2016September 13, 2018 by Tim Gander

Contextual Portraits

One thing I love about being a photographer is the chance to meet a wide variety of people, all with different backgrounds, interests and personalities.

As a prime example, this week started with a delightful encounter with local ceramicist Jane Gibson who runs a gallery in Bradford on Avon. Jane needed images of her work to send to art galleries and for her website update.

Click to enlarge

30/05/2016 Work by Bradford on Avon ceramicist Jane Gibson. Photo © Tim Gander 2016. All rights reserved.

With a simple backdrop and lighting set-up I was able to create lovely fresh images of Jane’s quirky work, but when I’d finished photographing the pieces I also felt a portrait of Jane would be useful for the promotion of her art. Thankfully she didn’t need too much persuading.

Although Jane’s specialism is ceramics, she also offers a selection of her paintings and I wanted to suggest this in the background of the picture without it overwhelming the photo or being too distracting. I think Jane looks beautiful in the soft window light of her studio with subtle hints of her work behind her.

I particularly enjoy taking portraits with context, and this is a good example of what I mean. A contextual portrait is a great way to broadcast not only what you look like, but also what you do or where and how you work. This can really engage the viewer and hold their attention in a way a headshot against a plain background won’t always achieve.

Most of next week I’ll be working exclusively on contextual and action portraits, which I hope to share with you soon. It’s going to be challenging, but huge fun.

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May 24, 2016September 15, 2016 by Tim Gander

Creative Field

Assuming for a moment that Mark Twain actually said “golf is a good walk spoiled,” I wonder if he would have been happier taking a good walk with a camera?

Last weekend I went for a walk in the countryside just outside Frome and as I returned across a familiar field, the way the evening sunlight glinted off the grass struck me as especially interesting. So I took a photo. Nothing special there of course, but having taken that photo I decided it wasn’t enough just to show the field as I saw it from my (approx 6’1″) stance. I wanted to explore other ways to convey what I was seeing and feeling as I stood there. I was getting dangerously artsy.

And so I used the same technique I employ when working for a client; I stood quietly for a few moments, considering options, looking at the light, the field, the grass and thinking about what other possibilities might present themselves.

Late afternoon sunlight glints off a field of silage grass on the edge of Frome, Somerset, UK

Just a field

Ground-level view along a trodden track through a field of silage on the edge of Frome, Somerset, UK.

Low angle

Grass is blurred into a circular pattern by spinning the camera as the photo is taken.

Spinny!

I tried a very low angle which emphasised the narrow footpath through the grass as well as the sunlight glinting off the blades and then I tried for one more shot. Far more abstract this time, but still making use of the sunlit highlights, I lowered the shutter speed and rotated the camera as I took the shot. I might have looked a little daft, but no one was around and I wouldn’t have cared if they were. I was having fun! To be honest, I could have spent hours there interpreting that field in different ways, but for this post I just wanted to illustrate what’s possible with something seemingly lacking in options.

It’s all too easy to see what’s in front of you and assume there is either no photo to be had, or that there is only one way to photograph it. Taking time, engaging the brain and having a think about what, if anything, you’re trying to capture or say in a photo is not only an excellent way to explore ideas, it also saves you taking up golf.

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May 17, 2016 by Tim Gander

Anyone for Tea?

In February this year I received an enquiry from a completely new venture. So new, in fact, that it hadn’t actually launched yet, which is always interesting because it often means I have even more opportunity than usual to add some of my creative input into the project.

The client, Tea for Three marketing and communications, consists of three directors, Helen Rimmer, Debbie Clifford and Michelle Gordon-Coles, and together they make a very dynamic team with backgrounds in journalism, public relations, charities, corporate communications and education.

Helen Rimmer, Debbie Clifford and Michelle Gordon-Coles of Tea for Three Marketing and Communications together, looking over a wooden field gate to camera with a field of sheep behind.

Helen, Debbie and Michelle

Helen Rimmer of Tea for Three sits chatting to a friend in a cafe over cups of tea.

Debbie Clifford of Tea for Three sits chatting to a friend in a cafe over cups of tea.

Michelle Gordon-Coles of Tea for Three sits chatting to a friend in a cafe over cups of tea.

It also has to be said, I’ve rarely worked with a team so completely on the same wavelength as each other. It’s obvious their personalities just mesh perfectly and I think this will feed their undoubted future success.

I gleaned all this from the pre-shoot planning meeting I had with Helen and the few hours I spent taking photos with the trio.

We started in a beautiful stone-walled meeting room at Glove Factory Studios where, having arranged Debbie, Helen and Michelle around a table in such a way as to keep the composition tight, I just left them to chat, smile, laugh and drink tea while I captured a series of moments from different angles until there was a good selection of images to draw on.

They had also arranged a trip up the road to Merkin’s Farm cafe for more tea (clearly their fuel of choice) so I could take more individual shots as well as a couple of more posed groups with a less “officey” look, aka outside with some nice countryside in the background.

During both sessions I was keen to not only fulfil the brief, but also to look out for angles and details that would give them those extra shots which are so necessary on a website; you know, those photos nobody knows they need until it comes to actually building it and realising they don’t have quite enough!

The end result is a set of photos which really show the coherence of this vibrant team as well as their very relaxed, friendly (while still utterly professional) approach to marketing. And judging from the testimonial Helen sent through (shamelessly requested by myself), I think Tea for Three were either very happy with the results or had got slightly tipsy on Darjeeling.

“We had a very specific brief for Tim to follow, we didn’t want to come across as too corporate or stuffy and wanted our photos for our website to show us as friendly and down to earth. We were a little bit nervous but Tim soon put us at ease. He was great fun to work with and very patient when we laughed too much!

“Tim has a great eye for detail and came up with lots of ideas we hadn’t thought of. We were really pleased with the end results and would definitely recommend Tim.”

Helen Rimmer, Tea for Three Ltd.

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May 3, 2016 by Tim Gander

Victoria, London

Street photography isn’t something I get to indulge in often, but on Saturday I was in Southwark, London, with barely an hour to spare before going to see a concert in the cathedral. To make use of my limited time I had a wander round Borough Market with my Fuji X20, bags of really interesting late afternoon sunlight filtering through the structures of the market and little scenes of traders winding down from a busy day.

With all the shoppers gone, or congregated at nearby bars, I was able to move about and frame scenes without too much clutter, and as I rounded one corner I was struck by this vision of a waitress with red hair, concentrating on her mobile phone and smoking a cigarette while the evening sunlight lit her up brilliantly against the shaded backdrop of a closed stall.

Now I’m not a natural street photographer and on the whole I don’t like to snap pictures of people without their knowledge, especially if I intend publishing the photos in some form, so I approached and asked permission to shoot.

Victoria (for ’twas her name) agreed, but at first she wasn’t sure if I wanted her to pose, so I explained that if she went back to what she’d been doing, that would be just the ticket. Within seconds it was as if I wasn’t there. I took 10 frames, three of which worked well and two I’m posting here.

Once I’d done taking pictures I went back over for a chat, to take her name and some details and to give Victoria my email address so she can have a copy if she wants. Then her cigarette was done, her break over and she dashed back off to the wine bar to continue her shift. Click photos to enlarge

30/04/2016 32-year-old Victoria Venteo takes a cigarette break towards the end of her shift as a waitress at Bedales wine bar in Borough Market, Southwark, London, UK. Photo © Tim Gander 2016. All rights reserved.

Victoria Venteo, waitress from Spain takes a break

I’m not saying these are prize-winning photos, but the big step for me is that unless I’m under pressure of a brief, I find it incredibly difficult to approach strangers and ask them to pose for me. I generally need to know the pictures have more of a purpose than just my own joy of taking a photo, which is silly. As a photographer of almost 30 years’ experience I really should know by now that I have absolutely every right to record what is around me.

And as long as I do this with dignity and technical ability, I really should get over myself and just get on with it.

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April 26, 2016April 26, 2016 by Tim Gander

A Wee Bit of PR Goes A Long Way

At the start of last week I was asked by University of Bath to come into the Department of Chemical Engineering for a photoshoot with a difference. They needed pictures to accompany a press release for their research into urine-powered fuel cells (see what I did in the headline? So droll…) So, forget rechargeable batteries, these new cells take a trickle charge!

It’s not easy working in gown and goggles (a prerequisite of being in the lab) and there was some time pressure and not a huge amount of space to work in, it being a working lab, but by the end of the session I’d captured a range of shots suitable for different outlets.

What I perhaps hadn’t appreciated was just how far and wide the images would go. I knew they were being distributed by the university press office and Press Association, and they appeared on the BBC and Sky News websites, many newspaper sites (as well as in print) and on industry and tech-oriented websites.

So next time urine the need for some PR, why not give me a call? Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Below is a selection of hits from around the web. Click to enlarge.

Screen grab of online use of image sent out with University of Bath press release explaining the research into urine-powered fuel cells.

Screen grab of online use of image sent out with University of Bath press release explaining the research into urine-powered fuel cells.

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April 20, 2016April 22, 2016 by Tim Gander

Postcards from Derby

Aerial view of a red car blurred along a dual carriageway in Derby, UK

I've arrived at a sun-drenched Derby

Sunlight catches a bright yellow-painted brick wall in an alley in Derby town centre, with bar signs silhouetted above.

Yellow Alley Derby

Paul Herrmann of EPUK and Redeye introduces session speakers

Graham Harrison talks about Photo Histories

Colin Ford opens proceedings

Michael Terwey "too much stuff"

Michael Pritchard, DG of the RPS

Martin Barnes of V&A

Sarah Fisher of Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool

Francis Hodgson, professor in the culture of photography, University of Brighton

Francis Hodgson, University of Brighton

Today I’m off to Derby for the National Photography Symposium as a representative of Editorial Photographers UK (EPUK). My role as an EPUK forum moderator has landed me this dubious gig, but I have to say I’m really looking forward to the event.

I’ll be contributing as a panelist for a session which will discuss new online photographic communities, their role, value and future, among other things, which will be followed by a Q&A session. That’s probably the scariest bit for me as my mind is quite good at going totally blank at the very moment I wish it wouldn’t.

My plan is to update this blog post, if possible, with some words and pictures from the symposium which starts this evening and concludes on Friday.

Sadly I have to catch a train around Friday lunch time, so won’t be able to stay right to the end, but I’m looking forward to attending some of the other presentations as well as meeting photographers from other fields and ultimately getting some insight and inspiration from the other photographic disciplines and communities that will be there.

So watch this space for further updates!

21/04/2016. Yesterday evening started with a quite head-spinning keynote address by curator and author Hester Keijser which asked questions about the “island mentality” of photographer communities and the challenges of preserving photo archives into new millennia. I struggled to keep up, but that was the gist of it.

And now I’m off to the symposium to see this morning’s presentations exploring the intersection between photography and digital culture before I make my own presentation about the work of EPUK in a session looking at new photographic communities. I will catch you later!

It’s after lunch and I have to say I think my presentation went pretty well, albeit rather rushed as we were starting to overrun, but the other two speakers I shared the session with were very interesting as they spoke about new online communities and photography’s role in education.

We then had a panel discussion with all the speakers on the stage and one of the issues raised was that of the role of copyright, sparked by my talk about EPUK and its defence of photographers and their rights. It was interesting to detect that in the audience (consisting of photographers, archivists, editors and educationalists) there was a mixture of the real understanding of the importance of a robust copyright economy in photography as well as some scepticism that copyright could survive the digital onslaught. On balance, copyright won the day.

We’ve just had presentations by Joy Gregory who showed the parallel stories of the disappearance of analogue photography and the disappearance of ancient native languages in South Africa, which she has spent a decade documenting. Then Alan Ward showed us how he reconstructed a family history dating back to the turn of the 20th Century from a collection of nameless glass plate photos he bought on Ebay.

Another session is about to start so I’ll update here again later at the end of the day’s sessions.

21/04/2016 18:08 GMT Just got back to my hotel room for a freshen-up before dinner, but again this afternoon’s second session was fascinating with EPUK member Graham Harrison talking about Bert Hardy in his Photo Histories project and Sarah Fisher talking about her work as director at the Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool.

Gotta dash now, dinner reservation at 6:30, don’t you know. Toodle pip for now!

22/04/2016 08:24 GMT This morning’s session is a discussion about the plans to move the National Photography Collection in Bradford to the V&A in London. It should be a lively debate. There will be some heated debate around this!

I’ll update again today, but I’m catching a train back to Somerset at lunch time, which means I’ll miss the conclusions from this morning’s session. Still, there will be write-ups elsewhere and I’ll post links here for those of you wanting to read further.

The session is now open:

Colin Ford, first director of the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, has given us the inside story of the founding of the museum, followed by Michael Terwey, head of collections at the now-named National Media Museum who has notably said, “[museums have] too much stuff.”

We’re now listening to Michael Pritchard, director general of the Royal Photographic History, giving a history of the society. It’s interesting to hear the story behind why the RPS couldn’t stay at The Octagon in Bath. Dwindling visitor numbers and stored collections sitting in leaking basements…

Martin Barnes, Senior Curator, Photographs, Victoria & Albert Museum, is filling us in on the history and role of the V&A in photography. The V&A is to be the new venue for the collection currently held at Bradford.

There’s now a panel discussion involving all of this morning’s speakers. It could get heated as there’s disagreement over whether a national photography archive should be lumped in with collections from either art of science histories. I won’t take a photo of this, it’s too dark! #irony

11:57am GMT My head’s spinning already from this morning’s session. We’re just having a very brief comfort break before resuming. I’ve got until just before 1pm, then I have to make my way to the station and my train home. If I can I’ll do one more update from here, or it might be from the train.

Next up, Sarah Fisher, Executive Director of the Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, as the seminar starts to discuss how the photography sector can be strengthened post-Bradford, when the National Media Museum moves to the V&A in London.

Finally from me from the seminar hall, Francis Hodgson, professor in the culture of photography, University of Brighton, has a few pretty critical views about how collections have been handled in the past and how they may be handled in future. I’m sure he’ll give you the full write-up on his blog in due course.

Now I need to get to my train!

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