Tim Gander's photography blog

Tim Gander’s photography blog.

June 16, 2015 by Tim Gander

Pink Elephants at Open Farm Sunday

The cliché of all clichés states that you should never work with children and animals, but I disagree. They can make excellent subjects and on Sunday 7th June I got to work with both as it was Open Farm Sunday, a national event and an opportunity for families to see the inner workings of farms all over the country.

I was booked to attend Meadowlea Farm in Somerset to capture a flavour of the day for sponsors ABP. The images were destined for press release and ABPs website and internal communications, so I needed to get a good variety of shots showing interactions between families, children, the farmers and animals.

I think my favourite shots of the day show a delightful young lad, Tom, doing some colouring in with one of ABP’s representatives, Robyn. The table was set up in one of the farm sheds, I just had it pulled forward enough to get the best of the daylight on them, then let them get going with pencils and crayons. After a few action shots I wanted them looking into my lens, so I told Tom if he looked carefully and smiled nicely, he might see the pink elephant that lives in my camera. It did the trick and Tom gave me a whole bunch of brilliant smiles, it was one of those moments you can’t help smiling at yourself. And of course Tom could see the pink elephant, children always can.

07/06/2015 Hosted at Meadowlea Farm in Compton Durville, Somerset, ABP Food Group staff get stuck in with Open Farm Sunday to help members of the public understand where their food comes from and how it's produced. Robyn Smyth of ABP helps young visitor Tom with a bit of colouring in. © Tim Gander 2015. All rights reserved.

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June 10, 2015June 10, 2015 by Tim Gander

Fancy a Challenge?

Last week was huge fun as I was booked to cover the IRTE Skills Challenge 2015 for the Society of Operations Engineers. The event, hosted by S&B Automotive Academy in Bristol spanned four days and involved teams of bus and coach technicians tackling challenges from diagnosing electrical faults in a wiring loom to repairing a metal box section in the bodyshop.

It was full-on and all-go as I set about making sure I had a good selection of photos of each of the 50+ competitors over the course of the event, as well as group photos, detail shots and general views.

The pictures will be used on the SOE website, on social media and in press releases and you can see an edited selection of the pictures here.

This was my first year covering the event which has been running for 5 years now, but hopefully I’ll be invited back next year. I was really impressed with how helpful everyone was, especially the candidates who were under pressure of time and having to concentrate while I worked around them.

It was a fascinating challenge to see how to get the best angles and light the subjects in the most effective way. Welding shots are always fun as they have to be done through a welding mask (or risk permanent eye damage!), but here’s one of my favourite images showing competitor Tim Laws Chapman of FirstGroup grinding a tidy finish to his welded section in the body shop.

Tim Laws Chapman of Arriva grinds a metal section he's just welded. He's wearing eye and ear protection as well as gloves as sparks fly.

May 19, 2015May 26, 2015 by Tim Gander

Case Study: Dental Laboratory

Judging by the number of photo shoots I’ve undertaken for dental practices over the last few years it’s become obvious that like most businesses, dentists have also come to realise that fresh, illustrative images really help to bring a website together.

When JSL dental laboratory first made contact with me to arrange photography for their new website, I could be forgiven for thinking they were another dentist, but JSL are a dental laboratory, not a dental practice. That is to say, they make the crowns, bridges, ceramic teeth, implants and so on which dentists use to make our smiles beautiful again.

JSL’s laboratory in The Circus in Bath is a tight space to work because it’s a fully-equipped lab, which meant my my main challenge was getting good angles on people and equipment as well as finding the space to place an off-camera flash when needed, but having gone over the required shots with marketing coordinator Joanna Lye we worked out the order the photos could happen in (bearing in mind it’s also an extremely busy dental lab with dental technicians Julian and Britta completing the team).

With this, as with all such commissions, my job wasn’t just to photograph a variety of people and things, but also to consider different dimensions to give the web designer the widest choice for their page grids. With a combination of portraits, team shots, technicians-at-work and details, there was a good selection of images by the end of the half-day session and you can see the finished JSL site here and a selection of screen grabs below.

Screen grab from a page detail from the JSL Dental Laboratory website.

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May 12, 2015May 12, 2015 by Tim Gander

Tweaked Fees

Those of you familiar with my pricing structure will be aware that it’s based around the gallery delivery service, whereby I upload photos to the client’s gallery and the client gets to download what they need, when they need it. They can request access for their colleagues or designers – anyone who requires access can have it, but the gallery always remains secure to the client.

This service has been running incredibly well, but it occurred to me that the most basic package, Gallery Essential, was basically a waste of space on my website. Nobody used it because it was designed back when the economy was going in reverse. The idea was a business could get photos taken and held in the gallery for a very basic fee and then they would just buy individual images as and when they needed them and budget allowed.

Screen grab of Tim Gander's photography fee structure.

A new structure to help more clients

However, it became clear to me that most businesses want at least a basic set of images back from a shoot for immediate use and were always willing to upgrade to either Gallery 30 (now renamed Gallery Standard) or more commonly to Gallery Unlimited, which is by far the most popular package.

The other issue this presented was that it left me no obvious place on my website in which to inform potential clients that a package was available for shoots lasting just an hour or two. I hope I’ve fixed this now by replacing Gallery Essential with Gallery Starter, which gives a client up to two hours on-site for £250 and with unlimited image downloads.

The reason I don’t limit the number of image downloads on this most basic fee is because a typical two-hour shoot will be booked for covering a small to medium PR event or a short portrait session. The numbers of images taken by the end of this kind of shoot shouldn’t result in an unreasonable amount of post-shoot editing time, which is built into all my fees.

I still have limits on the Gallery Standard package because in half-day and full-day shoots the image numbers climb rapidly, and really these larger packages are aimed at different requirements.

In addition to the new Gallery Starter I’ve increased the number of image downloads included in Gallery Standard, and yet most clients will still want the sheer simplicity of Gallery Unlimited. It’ll be interesting to see how these changes work, but if you have any (sensible) suggestions, I’ll be happy to consider them. You know where to find me!

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April 28, 2015 by Tim Gander

Case Study: Communicate Magazine

A call out of the blue from a completely new client is always welcome, so in January when the editor of Communicate Magazine called me and asked if I could shoot some profile photos of an interviewee in Bristol, I was happy to pick up the brief.

Communicate Magazine, “The single voice for stakeholder relations,” focuses on PR and communications within the business world as opposed to PR and marketing to the buying public. One of its regular features is an interview with someone involved in PR or marketing, talking about their motivations, background, experiences and so on.

My task was to take strong profile portraits of Dan Panes, head of communications for First Great Western, at Bristol Temple Meads station.

When I met Dan at the station car park he was on the phone being interviewed by the Communicate editor. In fact he was on the phone for quite some time (it’s the nature of the job sometimes that you have to wait for the journalist to get their job done before you can start yours), in which time the weather went from cold, but dry, to hailstones and a blustery wind.

As Dan came off the phone and we got to say hello properly, it was obvious we were going to have to take the shots undercover. We did have a go at one location, but as hail stones started to bounce off our heads, we dashed for the main station.

We opted to do the shots on Platform 1. Not a simple task as I needed to take photos which would lend themselves to having text laid over. Too much clutter and distraction wouldn’t help this cause, and railway stations are often visually chaotic places on the whole, what with signs, gantries, people, barriers and, of course, trains all jostling for attention. The other problem was the light, or lack thereof. Dan reminded me I couldn’t use flash on a platform, so we moved further along to where the overhead canopy ended so I could get as much of the almost non-existent daylight on him as possible.

While this helped ease the distractions of having people, trains and signs in the background, it did bring in the mass of parked bikes, but in the final design I think the semi-opaque graphic overlay has helped relieve this to ensure the text remains legible.

The sweeping curve of the canopy and rails pull the viewer’s eye to Dan and create impact and direction to the photo. I tried a couple of other angles and locations around the station as well as upright options, but this is the only one which tells the viewer we’re looking at someone connected to rail travel, all the other options being more abstract.

Dan Panes, director of communications for First Great Western, at Bristol Temple Meads Station, Bristol, UK

The double-page spread

An alternative background

I enjoy the challenge of making a picture work in circumstances which are less than ideal, and taking into account the considerations for page layout, the weather, location and the fact that you can’t spend all day on a set of pictures of a busy person, the resulting images worked well within the article.

Communicate’s editor was pleased with what I submitted, and to be honest it doesn’t matter how happy I am with a set of photos, it’s the client’s opinion which matters.

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April 21, 2015 by Tim Gander

News of Frome Views

Earlier this year I left the Alamy stock image library in order to preserve my professional integrity (I won’t bore you with details here), since which time I’ve been giving some thought about my future relationship with stock photography in general.

I’ve never been a great fan of stock photography partly because I always prefer to work on commission, where a client knows what they want and therefore I know I’m taking pictures which have a definite purpose. Stock photos mostly exist for no reason at all and will never be published; the idea of taking photos which just languish on a server somewhere seems sad to me.

Additionally, because stock photography is a numbers game, a photographer has to dedicate themselves pretty much full time to taking stock photos in order to make a living from it. The lack of motivation I have for doing nothing but stock shots all day combined with the exclusion of all commissioned work would kill the joy I have for my job.

Having said all that, I have decided there is room in my professional life to spend time taking pictures which interest me and which might also have a stock image value. I don’t have to offer them through an agency and I can set my own prices, but there is an additional benefit which you don’t get with a stock library, namely that by hosting the photos on my own gallery, I create content which is indexed by Google. It creates another small piece in the search engine optimisation jigsaw.

Even if I never sell a photo, the photos I host will have the benefit of helping to attract search result enquiries. I can adjust, chop and change what I offer, which will also signal to Google that I’m an active, creative photographer based in Somerset. They also show potential clients another side to what I do and might offer inspiration for their next project. All of this can only happen by keeping the images closely tied to my own website. When they’re held remotely by a stock library, the link between the image and the creator is weakened.

The images here are just a small taster, and though the collection itself is very small at the moment it will grow and you can see the full set here.

An Independents for Frome board in the shape of a speech bubble is erected on a wooden baton in a resident's garden.

An "I'm For Frome" board displayed in a garden in Frome

Looking at The Cheese and Grain building across the Market Car Park in Frome, Somerset

The Cheese and Grain in Frome town centre

A view from the South side of the Cheese and Grain car park with the old foundry buckets, blossom trees, pedestrians, cyclists and cars and the Button Bridge in the distance.

Cheese and Grain car park, Frome, Somerset

Looking towards High Street from Market Cross car park in Frome Town Centre, Somerset.

A view of Frome town centre in Somerset

A view of Frome's Bath Street taken from Cork Street showing the shop buildings, road, traffic and pedestrians

Bath Street, Frome, Somerset

Cheese-maker cuts a round of cheese at Frome Super Market

December: Frome Christmas Super Market, including delicious cheeses from Somerset

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April 14, 2015April 27, 2015 by Tim Gander

All Dressed Up…

Not all my work involves taking portraits of business people in offices, though it’s fair to say a lot of what I do is exactly that.

Just before Easter I started on a project with BBSRC, one of the UK’s research councils, to produce a set of images of their facilities for use in their new website, on social media and in printed reports – in fact all their corporate communications. They’re moving away from using generic stock wherever possible and towards featuring their own research scientists and facilities to better communicate what they do.

This first stage of the project required some forethought and planning, because I was going to visit research units where biosecurity is a consideration. In other words, I couldn’t just walk in from the outside, with my camera, and start snapping away.

It wasn’t a full “hazmat” situation, but I was required to take a shower and change into supplied underwear, scrubs, disposable boiler suit, gloves, hair cover and face mask before going in, and although my camera gear was unlikely to cause a problem, I opted to use it for the most part inside a waterproof housing. Not least because at a future date, I’m going to have to use the housing in a facility requiring even greater biosecurity than at this one, so it was a good opportunity to try using the camera in the housing while wearing a face mask and gloves.

Thankfully I didn’t have to spend the entire day shooting like this because an underwater camera housing is rather like a penguin; graceful under water, unbelievably clumsy on dry land. It was great practice and I learned a few things about what I could and could not do when working this way, but it didn’t half make my hands ache as I tried to work the lens and controls through the PVC camera housing. I also discovered that with the face mask, my view into the viewfinder would steam up every time I breathed out. I did a lot of breathing control during this session!

To respect the client’s licensing, I won’t be sharing the photos I took for them here, but as the project progresses I hope I can show you some behind-the-scenes and outtakes along the way.

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March 24, 2015 by Tim Gander

My First Digital Photos

I’d like to thank commercial photographer Chris Pearsall for the inspiration for this week’s article when he posted his very first digital image to a photographers’ forum on Facebook.

My first digital SLR was a Canon D30, a 3.1 megapixel camera which I bought at the tail end of 2000 for about £1,600. It was a pretty terrible camera, but I was shooting a lot of news at the time and it saved me a lot of rushing to 1-hour processing labs to get my images ready for scanning and sending to the picture desk. The next model up, the rather more capable 1D was I think about £3,500 at the time and on the shift rates I was on at the time would have taken forever to pay off.

Its main drawback was the slow, and not very reliable focusing. I could have my finger jammed down on the shutter button, desperately trying to get it to lock focus and take the photo of some celebrity or other rushing from their front door to a waiting taxi. If I was lucky I’d get a photo of the back of the taxi as it pulled away.

On slower-moving people and static objects it was fine, but not perfect. It’s fair to say that digital cameras have come a long way since 2000.

The earliest image I can find is a rather dull exterior of a house. It was to accompany a non-story about a gameshow contestant.

A big house at a distance… yawn

Another story I covered using the D30 (I wasn’t using it for everything at this stage) was something of a struggle, it being a nighttime air crash near Aldershot. Focus was difficult and the image noise further softened the images. Nothing I took that night made the paper.

Late in December 2000 I covered a visit by the then Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott to the Millennium Dome before it closed and went on to become the O2 Arena. This shot of the director of the attraction, P Y Gerbeau, is a typical example of the struggles I had with that camera to get sensible colours and to get fill flash to work convincingly. I’m so glad things have improved since then, but it was interesting to go back to my very first CD of digital images. Another thing it showed me is just how much my photography has improved since then too!

firecrews examine the wreckage of an aircraft after it crashed into an industrial building near Aldershot.

It was a tragic accident on a dark, wet night and the D30 struggled to work reliably

P Y Gerbeau at the Millennium Dome, Greenwich, London

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March 17, 2015June 19, 2015 by Tim Gander

On The Mount

Tip: To see the image in full width, click the title of this post to lose the sidebar.

A bit of a change of direction this week; I recently started something which I hope will become a coherent series of photos journaling the real Frome town. I want to include the people and the places that get less of a look-in, which are often ignored for not being pretty enough, retro enough or chic enough for our attention. Like Standerwick, I want this series to inform the viewer without pushing an agenda. You see the pictures, you decide what they mean to you.

I don’t want this to be just another series of “petty observations” the like of which you see on Instagram or twitter every day. Certainly Frome gets its share of those with many snaps of Catherine Hill and Cheap Street, or the Independent Market. I’m looking for the slightly grittier side of Frome.

The image below is just the first instalment, a bit of a scene-setter if you like, and it shows The Mount, Keyford, Frome, which is just one of the areas I’ll be chronicling. This series will eventually get its own gallery on my website and perhaps become an exhibition somewhere in the town. Well, that would be super, but we’ll have to see about that.

In the meantime, here goes nothing, as they say…

Feltham Drive looking towards Austin Close, The Mount, Frome, Somerset

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March 10, 2015May 26, 2015 by Tim Gander

An Alamyighty Mess

It’s sunset time for Alamy

I believe I joined online photo library Alamy in 2004. Back then they were offering half decent rates and a healthy sales percentage to photographers.

Over the years the rates have fallen and the percentage paid to contributors has tipped inexorably in favour of Alamy.

However, it’s time to withdraw from what has become a rather photographer-un-friendly agency. The latest revision to their terms and conditions means even less power to the photographer wishing to keep control of their copyright, and even less likelihood of being paid for re-uses of images when a client decides to extend their original usage. It’s an issue too involved for this blog, and anyway you can read all about it over on EPUK.

Alamy’s reputation amongst photographers has been further strained when this week they sent out an email (which I also received) to thousands of contributors telling them the interest in their work had spiked. That is to say, more people were clicking on more of any given photographer’s images to view them. Not buy them, mind you, just looking. That’s lovely then, my bank manager will be pleased.

The problem with this email is it quickly became apparent that they had sent this to a very large number of contributors, telling them they were in the top 10% of contributors being sought out by potential clients.

Mathematically, not everyone can be in the top 10% (to be precise only 1 in 10 can), but while Alamy claim to have informed 4,000 of their almost 40,000* contributors of their good fortune, it seems odd that so many, like myself, only have a few hundred images on the site and personally I’ve not seen any spike in my statistics. I’ve certainly not seen any extra sales either and I hear I’m not unique in this.

It’s impossible to verify that Alamy really has only informed the top 10% contributors, we’ll have to take their word for it, but some have questioned the timing of this email while there are so many complaints about the new T&Cs and quite a few photographers already pulling their collections from the site in protest.

I’m sure Alamy would say that the email and the change in T&Cs are pure coincidence, but if that’s the case, who sanctioned the release of the email now? Did they not know about the T&Cs furore? Are departments within Alamy so unaware of each others’ work and the PR crash this would cause?

tweet and reply between Tim Gander and Alamy

Alamy denies all their contributors got the same email

Another problem with the figures is no one outside of Alamy can question them. Even contributors posting on the members’ forum about the new T&Cs and/or the “10%” email are finding their threads removed by forum moderators, presumably to stop a full-blown revolution and a loss of more contributors.

Now it’s worth mentioning I have 652 images on sale through Alamy. That’s a teeny tiny number compared to more than 55 million they host (again, how did I make the top 10%?!) My point being, if I leave Alamy they will notice my departure in much the same way a cow poo notices the exit of a single fly. Equally, my sales are so infrequent and the rates paid so utterly miserable, that like the aforementioned fly, I will barely notice that I’m no longer standing in poo. But being part of the fly swarm means all the work I do is devalued, and I think it’s time I valued my work more.

When I leave Alamy, which I’m 90% certain I will do (note to Alamy: that’s 90% of 100%, in case percentages are tricky for you) it’s possible I will not offer those 652 images anywhere else. If I do it’ll be through my own website and at prices I set. I might never sell a single frame, but at least I won’t have to get angry at the risible fees and overgenerous licences Alamy sell my work for.

So good bye Alamy. I’m sorry it’s come to this, but clearly you don’t need photographers who care about the value of their work.

PS. If Alamy are having a hard time, you should see the mess Getty Images is in. They’re so much in debt, they can’t even pay their interest charges.

*Alamy’s figures. In fact if they’ve got just under 40,000 contributors (see twitter grab), 4,000 must account for more than 10% of them.

Update: As of this evening I have given Alamy my formal notice to quit as a contributor.

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