by Tim Gander

The Only Constant is Change

Every now and then I review the way I shoot assignments. From the way I prepare for jobs, through shooting, to editing and delivery of the final images. The changes might be big or small, but they always have the goal of improving my client’s experience.

Sometimes the changes help me, and this also feeds through to the client experience. As an example, a couple of years ago I switched to using the Photoshelter system and away from sending CDs and DVDs of images to clients.

This was a big, scary change for me, but it paid off and clients find it incredibly useful to be able to view, choose and download the images they need directly from the service without having to get back to me to tell me their choices, then wait for me to do the post-production and send out the image disk. And if they ever lose the images, the can download them again.

That was a big change, and that was some time ago. More recent changes have included a move away from using zoom lenses to fixed lenses. The step up in quality is remarkable, and I’ve generally not missed the ability to zoom as I have legs which can take me closer to, or further away from my subject. I actually find it a quicker way of working because I’m not spending time zooming and recomposing my images like I used to do.

I haven’t dumped all my zooms. I keep a very wide zoom for when that’s really needed and a telephoto zoom because it’s useful for press events and it’s more telephoto than my longest fixed lens.

The strangest change of late is that I’ve started using a hand-held light meter more often. Yes, the thing that’s built into all cameras and tells you which aperture and shutter speed to set. You might think that with all the wizardry that’s built into a modern camera you could rely on the internal meter to set the right shutter speed/aperture combination, but I find the metering quite erratic, and there are many times when even the most sophisticated built-in metering system just seems flummoxed by the scene in front of me.

Instead, I find it easier to take a light reading using my Sekonic light meter, then I dial the settings into my camera. A slower way of working, perhaps, but it’s how I always work with studio flash anyway, so what’s the difference?

It might not be the most suitable way of working for faster-paced news events or where the light levels are constantly up and down, but for outside portraits and shots I’m setting up and have more control over it actually saves time and reduces the number of shots I have to take to get correct exposure.

I’m not sure what my next change will be. I’m probably already changing, and won’t even realise it’s a change until it’s complete.

Two portraits of women showing exposure contrast between subject and background

Wherever there is a strong contrast between subject’s skin tone, clothing and background, the built-in metering struggles to give an accurate reading.

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 by Tim Gander

Making an exhibition of myself

Some of you may know I’ve been a regular at the Frome Farmers’ Market at Standerwick for some time now. I’ve been attending as and when my paid work allows on Wednesdays and Fridays (the two market days of the week) to create a photographic record of the workings of the market, the people who work, buy, sell and trade there and their interactions with the livestock.

This is an un-paid personal project which I chose to do because I knew I needed to keep my brain creatively active at times when I tend to be shooting lot of corporate headshots. I chose Standerwick because it’s close-by, so more likely I could get to it at short notice, and because it’s something that interests me.

When I set out to do the project I didn’t have any particular goal in mind except to get along there, see what’s what and see what would come out of it.

Now I’ve started to gather up a fair body of images I’ve decided to move things on a step and have started to look into the possibility of mounting an exhibition of the images. This is a first for me as I’ve never exhibited before, but the idea is quite exciting as it injects new impetus to the project and gives me an end-goal.

This isn’t something that’s going to happen over night and I still need to shoot more pictures in order to complete the narrative which has developed, but I’ve approached one or two likely sponsors (I can’t afford to mount this entirely from my own funds) and things are looking quite positive.

Through this blog I’ll keep you updated on my progress and of course I won’t be shy in announcing the location and dates of the exhibition. Sometime next year and somewhere in Frome is as far as I’ve got.

If any businesses out there would like to talk about sponsorship, or if any photographers with exhibition experience have any advice they’d like to offer, I’ll be delighted to hear from you. As the saying goes, watch this space.

Standerwick Farmers' Market near Frome

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 by Tim Gander

Apologies!

An unexpected call to help with Olympic torch procession coverage meant my regular Tuesday article didn’t get published. I do apologise, I must try harder.

Tim

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 by Tim Gander

Ending on a high note.

Now I know you’ll all get emotional at the news, but this will be my last blog article until Tuesday 3rd January. I need a proper break to recharge the ol’ batteries. So I thought I’d share some pictures I shot at the start of December as a last bit of fun for you before the break.

This was the combined 1st anniversary of the new landlord, Mark Birchall, at The Inn at Freshford, as well as a good opportunity for a bit of an early Christmas knees-up for the Freshford villagers and friends of Mark.

To make it extra special Mark asked Sgt Pepper’s Only Dartboard Band to come along as the live entertainment. Just a three-piece (I think Ringo was having a break; that or there wasn’t room for a drum kit), but they still rocked. I’d seen Sgt Pepper at The Cheese and Grain one New Year’s Eve, and I can testify that they’re great fun and very true to the sound of The Beatles, right down to the sarky remarks from ‘John’ and ‘Paul’.

sgt pepper's only dartboard band performing

The audience get into the spirit of the event

Not only was it a pleasure to work for Mark that evening, who has to be the most gregarious pub landlord I’ve ever met, but the music was FAB too. I hope the pictures captured something of the atmosphere which, Sgt Pepper outfits aside, was redolent of an early Cavern gig… not that I ever went to one. I was born in 1966.

Landlord Mark Burchill with the Sgt Pepper band

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my readers. Only my readers though 😉

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 by Tim Gander

Yep, that was 2010 all right.

view of tops of austrian mountains

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

This being my last blog post (or in the geeky spirit of the internet “blost”) before Christmas and the New Year, I thought I’d take a quick look back at 2010 and a quick look forward to 2011, trying hard not to pull a muscle in my neck with the effort.

2010 has been a tough year for the “industry”, as was 2009. Well actually, it’s been tough for professional photographers for about the last 10-15 years, but I’m not going to go into that now.

And so back to the year which is just staggering to a close. What thrills we’ve had in 2010! The fight against the Orphan Works clause in the Digital Economy Bill which photographers won by the skin of their teeth and as the Labour government drew its last breath. Looking forward to 2011 though, it looks as though we’re going to have exactly the same battle again. Only this time with those who had pretended to be on our side in the last battle; the Tories, with David Cameron apparently believing that businesses like Google couldn’t have started here because our copyright law is seen as too restrictive. I fear a knee-jerk (or just jerk) reaction will go too far the other way and kill creativity in this country.

I’m going to look at that situation in more detail in the new year, but suffice to say the signs aren’t encouraging.

On a personally professional level 2010 wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. 2009 had been awful, but things picked up again this year, and I noticed a marked change in attitude to professional photography.

All through 2008-2009 I’d been rebuffed by designers who claimed microstock to be the New Messiah. They didn’t need me because they could get pictures for a few quid. Their clients didn’t need me because their designer had told them they could get images for a few quid. I was beginning to feel a little unloved, but I knew this festival of cheap, cheesy stock wasn’t founded on a true design ethos and as we moved into 2010 I noticed a gradual change in the conversations I was having with designers; “I’m a bit fed up with iStock,” they started to say. At first I thought it was coincidence that a couple had said it, but the work started to build up and I realised that designers had realised what I’d been saying all along: Corporate clients’ websites are all starting to look the same, and that’s not good for business.

By the middle of 2010 some had started to convince their clients of the need for a return to real photography, and commissions started to come in thicker and faster than they had at the opening of 2010. I’ve always been fortunate to have loyal clients that I work for directly, but I do like to work with talented designers too, and I was starting to worry they’d all gone a bit iStock stark raving mad.

So for me, 2010 has been interesting. 2011 promises to start with a bang with large projects planned in for January and February, so next year I’ll hit the ground running, rather than just hitting the ground.

Politically it’s going to be a tough year again for the industry. I mentioned orphan works earlier, and there is a copyright review underway which will look at this and the extended collective licensing proposals, which may well cause more problems than they aim to solve. There’s also a review of online copyright protection underway, though that’s on hold while legal wrangling over parts of the DEB are on-going.

I’d say then that I’m personally more optimistic about my own business in 2011, but pessimistic about the future of the industry as a whole due to the lack of understanding among our political leaders of copyright and it’s vitality to our industry. This issue could go either way, but what little I’ve seen hasn’t looked pretty. Let’s hope that by this time next year I’m writing about how the professional photographic industry is safe for a few more years.

Happy Christmas everybody, and all the best for 2011.

Tim

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 by Tim Gander

Head Above the Parapet

I just want to say (smiles coyly to camera) what an honour it’s been (wipes tear from eye) to be (voice cracks) Freshly Pressed by WordPress.com (fans face with hands).

No, this article isn’t going to read like an Oscar acceptance speech, but of course I’m really pleased with all the attention my blog received as a result of being Freshly Pressed. I’d seen the Freshly Pressed feature of WordPress when I very first signed up and presumed it was just something that happened to other people’s blogs, never mine. So I was somewhat taken aback by the sudden spike in views and comments on my last post, and at first didn’t twig what had happened.

LEGO figure with huge camera

Since becoming a full-time LEGO photographer, I find the equipment heavier than ever.

And now I need to thank a lot of people for reading, liking, commenting and subscribing to my blog. However much emotion is removed from text on a screen, believe me I’m quite humbled by all the attention my blog has received by being “Pressed”. Thank you to everyone, and of course thank you to the human/and/or computer algorithm that chose my blog to be featured.*

The nature of the post that got featured was, perhaps even more so than previously for me, Ranty with a capital “R”. I’d seen a link to the article and accompanying photo about wild horses in Peterborough, the red mist descended and I was off. I probably wrote the “LEGO photo” article more quickly than any since my very first blog article.

But whenever I write about issues surrounding photography about which I feel strongly, I worry. Am I going too far? I know some of my clients also read my articles and I’m mindful of how I come across (just cross?) to them. By airing issues that are important to the future of professional photography, am I risking alienation from those who give me my living? I sincerely hope not. The clients who use me probably know me better than to confuse the professional photographer with the amateur blogger, and of course I know the difference between tackling issues that matter in a mature way, and ranting in a “life ain’t fair” sort of a way about how the World owes me a living.

It’s clear though that while I’m willing to stick my head above the parapet on issues I feel strongly about, other photographers stick firmly to the cuddly corporate line; their blogs being purely geared to Google rankings, crammed with keywords designed to get them up the search tables.

That isn’t to say I don’t use my blog to promote my work too. I sometimes publish case studies, which are my way of highlighting some of the work I do at the same time as giving those clients I feature a little added publicity, however modest.

Even with case studies I hope I give business owners and marketing managers ideas on how to use photography more effectively. Oh, and of course I need the added Google juice the blog brings. It’s the only way I can get my site listed higher than all the social photographers who pretend to do commercial photography, but who pay lots of money to get higher listings for work they don’t specialise in… but that’s another rant, which I’ve already had.

Perhaps it’s unfortunate that an article which is more strident than my norm should have got the “star” treatment, but I hope all my new subscribers (as well as my dedicated clients) will stick around because through these articles, in between flogging my wares and airing my views, I’ll still be writing about issues which have a great impact on the Profession and its future viability, because I don’t believe in pretending the issues don’t exist.

Gosh, I got a bit serious for a moment there. So I’m just going to say thank you again and please pass on my link to anyone else you think would value what I have to say, and I look forward to writing many more articles. From the ranty to the corporatey to the downright silly.

Thank you (runs off-stage, sobbing and clutching huge bouquet of flowers).

*Erica Johnson, Editorial Producer for WordPress.com assures me the featured blogs are chosen by human beings, not algorithms. Thank you Erica!

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 by Tim Gander

From sperm to commercial photographer. An incredible journey!

Many a photographer will tell you they knew their calling right from the age they could hold a camera. Some will boast that they were checking out the possibilities of light and shade even from inside their mother’s womb. Well I can beat that; I was getting ready for the press photographer’s scrum even as I approached my mother’s egg.

Ok, I exaggerate a little there. The truth is, and to cut a soul-crushingly long story short, I’d known since leaving school that I wanted to take pictures for a living, but had no idea how to proceed until someone introduced me to the picture editor at The Bath Chronicle.

school boy feeling sad at school party.

I may have been happiest at “The Chron”. Not all my subjects felt the same way.

From work experience at The Chron to trusted freelance happened pretty quickly, and hitting the FFW button again brings us to where I wanted to be – working for national titles, specifically and almost exclusively for the News of the World, where I spent the best part of two years shooting celebrity nonsense.

However, a fairly terminal disagreement with “The Screws” meant a very sudden exit from the stable of photographers there. Something to do with them owing me about £3,000 in unpaid expenses and them not wanting to pay, as I recall. Nothing important…

So there I was, having dedicated a couple of years of my career almost exclusively to them, to the exclusion of my previously regular clients, and not a lot on the diary. So I picked up my book and tear sheets and started to call in at the other news and magazine picture desks. Strangely enough though, a fistful of cuttings from The Screws doesn’t exactly open doors at The Sunday Times or The Guardian. And after the constant stress and under-payment of one national, my heart wasn’t really in it any more. I could see the industry was going down the pan, and decided to turn the break into an opportunity.

Which brings us neatly to where I am today. I’ve taken my press training and experience, adapted to commercial photography, and combined the two disciplines to give my clients something a bit unique. This isn’t a sales pitch though, so moving swiftly on…

Of course I’ve also had to work on my business skills and adjust to the fact that I won’t get a bollocking for doing everything right. I’ve had to break the instinct to shoot all my pictures from behind a bush in the car park (I’ve found that tends to unnerve some people). But I do enjoy being given some creative freedom, being asked for picture ideas and not having to pee into a bottle in the back of a surveillance van.

I do miss press work sometimes though. When I see a big story break, I might wish I was there to cover it, but apart from the occasional magazine commission, I don’t work directly for newspapers any more. Taking into account all the costs of being equipped to do the job and running a professional service, the fees offered by the press mean they’ll be drawing on an ever dwindling number of professionals who can still afford the cost of working for them. I’ve grown up and moved on to where I can be of most use, and still make a living.

This article is soon to be a film starring Jim Broadbent and Matt Damon. If Matt can fit into the sperm suit.

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 by Tim Gander

What does the photography client want?

This maybe a dangerous question to ask, but then they don’t call me Mad Crazy Tim for nothing. Ok, so they don’t call me Mad Crazy Tim, but it’s a dull Wednesday morning and I’m struggling for jokes here…

I ask the question because while some of my articles are aimed at those with a passing interest in photography, some at designers and others at the voices in my head telling me to burn stuff, I’m also aware that existing and potential clients sometimes swing by and read these articles, so this time I’m asking them/you the question – cue close camera shot of my screen as I type, á la Carrie Bradshaw:

What does the photo-buying client want?

Hmm, that’s not as sexy as the stuff Carrie asks.

female with brain activity recording cap on.

If only I could read clients’ minds.

You see it’s all very well me putting up a website, getting it found, showing my work etc, but as with any business there are two sides. There is the quality, service and pricing structure I put out there, and then there is what the client actually wants from a photographer. And unless I ask the question every now and then, how can I possibly match what I offer to what you, the clients need and want?

I know many clients want a fast turnaround. They’re keen to get the ball rolling with their project, and waiting to see the results of a shoot can be frustrating. Especially now we all expect things to happen instantaneously through the web. I know when I order something from Amazon, I’m expecting the courier to be knocking on my door within seconds of me hitting the Confirm Order button. To this end, I aim to have the client gallery up within 24 hours. With afternoon and evening assignments the link is often with the client by the following morning. Even Amazon would struggle to compete with that speed of delivery.

And all this speed of service is fine and dandy, but I want to know what clients, either design or direct clients, want even before the shoot begins. How much involvement do you want from your photographer?

I know I’m always keen to speak to designers and their clients at the earliest possible stage. It means I can have input and also see how everyone else’s minds are working before I start taking pictures. I need to know what pictures the designers and clients have in their heads, because the last-minute brief may not convey this. But sometimes (ok, often) I can see I’ve been called long after the creative discussions have happened. Maybe that is what clients want, or maybe they don’t know it would be better to involve me sooner.

What else might clients and their designers expect? Ok, free photos would be nice but let’s stay in the real world here. What I mean is, is there some service, some input or anything else either before, during or after a shoot that clients wish could be done to help them?

This article is essentially a plea for help and information, because designers and businesses will often raise with me issues they’ve had with other photographers, but I know that unless I directly ask for feedback (which I often do) I might never hear good ideas on improving my service. I also ask because non clients have good ideas too.

Of course if I get no feedback at all, I’ll just have to assume I’m perfect, which is what I thought all along…

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 by Tim Gander

A Brief Interlude

Cue tacky music while there’s an interlude in my blogging. I’m away next week on holiday, so I thought I’d give you next week’s blog early, and just use it to give you some links to other useful/entertaining blogs that I’ve also enjoyed immensely.

First up is Jaded Snapper, a local newspaper photographer who has run the gauntlet of top local stories, from the church fete to the giant charity cheque.

Or, if you’re planning a wedding, why not give Derek Pye a call? You’ll see why you wouldn’t want to when you visit his site. Not updated as much as it should be, but then Derek is probably busy shooting weddings.

If photography-related cutting satire is more your thing, try The Russian Photos Blog. Beware if you’re the kind of business that likes to run dodgy rights-grabbing competitions or you’re a micro-payment stock photo agency though. You might be the subject of a future article.

Finally, for a soberererer (easy for you to say, you’re not drung…) view of the professional photographic industry, news views and general bits and bats, I highly recommend the Neil Turner and Black Star Rising blog sites.

And now, I’m off for a week of R&R in Austria. Please behave while I’m away, and try not to miss me too much.

Auf wiedersehen!

Tim

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 by Tim Gander

I’m sorry, your credit’s no good.

“If bylines were money, I’d have paid off the mortgage by now” so the saying I just made up goes.

Last week somebody emailed me saying they’d seen a photo on my blog which they liked, and could they reproduce it in their magazine. Of course they couldn’t pay me, but I’d get a byline next to the photo.

While trying to hammer out this article I received an email from someone else, working for a large representative trade body, asking if they could use one of my photos in a report. Again, payment would be in the form of “Photo by Tim Gander.”

I’m going to hazard a guess that there are people out there who live in a world where they work hard, but for no money whatsoever. They don’t need to because in the night while they’re asleep, the food fairies come and stock the fridge; the pixies and the mice come and sew beautiful clothes and shoes for them, working until their teeny tiny fingers bleed, so that when the magazine editor and the corporate communications director come down to a breakfast of fairy-baked muffins and Fairtrade coffee, everything they need is there for them. And they can leave the house they built out of hugs and smiles, drive to the office in the car that runs on love and angel wings, to put in another day’s unpaid graft.

This must be the case, because they assume I can work for free too. Unfortunately (despite my excellently fairytale surname) I don’t own a goose that lays golden eggs. My house isn’t visited in the night by waistcoated mice with sewing needles and bolts of beautiful yarn.

marilyn monroe look-a-like

A favourite request is for this Monroe lookalike shot.

Here’s the problem I have; I tried offering a brown envelope stuffed with bylined cuttings to my bank manager to pay off some of the mortgage, but apparently these are no longer considered legal tender in this country. They must have been once because the byline seems such a popular form of payment. Don’t get me wrong, bylines are nice but few people look at them, and they very rarely bring in new work. They do more for the photographer’s ego than his/ her bank balance.

A byline shouldn’t be seen as an alternative to payment. And the way web theft is going, I would go as far as to say that crediting the photographer in online use should become mandatory in all but the most tightly defined exceptions.

Personally, I love to help people whenever I can, but I can’t afford to give my work away for free. I don’t know anyone who can, and certainly not at the frequency with which these requests come to me. I’d also risk the wrath of fee-paying clients who have bought licences to my images.

I suppose I should be grateful that some people are still honest enough to ask, rather than just going ahead and stealing the photo and using it anyway. If you want a textbook example of wholesale copyright theft and its consequences, read up on the case of EPUK v LPA as it highlights the schism between what some people believe is perfectly acceptable netiquette, and what right-thinking people would view as theft. That story is still rumbling on, so I’ll leave it there as a festering reminder of what happens when people nick stuff off the web.

In the meantime, I’ll be happy that people ask me if they can use my work, so long as they’re not offended when I say yes, but not for free. Last time I checked, Tesco don’t accept my bylines either.

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