Personal Work Archives - Page 9 of 9 - Tim Gander, Photographer, Bristol

August 27, 2013March 10, 2014 by Tim Gander

Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah

Cranmore Tower, off which I shall be jumping for charidee

A bank holiday week means no one will be reading this, so I thought I’d sneak in a bit of a charity appeal.

On September 15th myself and a number of colleagues from The Old Church School offices where I’m based will be taking a zip wire challenge off the top of Cranmore Tower, a 19th Century Victorian folly. It’ll be a 100 metre long wire from a height of 148 feet (the wire is metric, the tower is imperial). A reasonable height then.

Money raised through sponsorship will go to SOS Africa, which is “a small, non-profit, UK registered, predominantly volunteer-run Somerset charity, which funds the education and care of underprivileged African township children.”

I’m paying to jump off the tower, but anything I can raise from you good folk will help the chillun (less justgiving’s cut I guess). It beats climbing Mount Kilimanjaro which requires huge amounts of sponsorship, a comparatively large carbon footprint and just means I get a free holiday and a smug glow. This way I just get the smug glow, though that might be cancelled out if I spend the entire 100 metres screaming like a big girl’s blouse.

If you would like to chuck some money in the pot, go here. You never know, if you raise enough money I might do it naked. Raise even more, I’ll keep my clothes on.

Spectacular views from the top of the tower. Slightly stomach-churning when you look down.

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August 13, 2013March 10, 2014 by Tim Gander

Taking the weekend easy

I can’t really write about business this week, not after the weekend I’ve just had. If google wants feeding with keywords such as commercial photographer, press photographer in Somerset covering Bath and Bristol, it’ll have to look elsewhere (see what I did there?)

No, this week I have to tell you about my weekend bike ride with colleagues from The Old Church School (TOCS) in Frome, where my office is based. Ryan, recently qualified TOCS apprentice and resident cycling nut, decided to organise a little Saturday jaunt which anyone within the building could sign up to. It just happened to coincide with a free weekend for me, so I signed up.

7 cyclists in a row, ready for a 70-mile ride to South Devon.

Set to go (left to right) Rich, Ryan, Jennie, Paul, Gavin, Zuz and me

Originally I was told it was a 60 mile ride down to Branscombe on the South Devon coast, camping overnight and returning on Sunday by train or bike if preferred. I was tempted by the thought of cycling back on the Sunday, but the train prevailed in the event.

The longest ride I’ve ever done previously was a 46 mile circuit which meant I got to sleep in my own bed the same night. This trip would be a whole new experience for me and turned out to be over 70 miles door-to-tent-flap, including some hills that were put there to prove God hates cyclists.

I won’t bore you with a mile-by-mile account, but there were seven of us that set off from Frome on what would transpire to be the best part of 11 hours on the road including stops.

Some in our group were clearly seasoned cyclists, with Ryan heading the way as navigator going strong all the way and who cycled all the way home the next day. Did I mention he’s a nut?

I wanted to take some photos of the journey, but it’s funny how when I need to take snaps I struggle. I was enjoying the cycling and of course every time we stopped I was having to drink and take in food like everyone else. Not too much time for getting the camera out, but a few iPhone photos and the occasional shot on my Fuji X20 meant the event didn’t go completely unrecorded.

Cyclists at a village shop taking a refreshment break

Village shops were invaded by Lycra-clad, sweaty cyclists in need of sugar, carbs and water

We all rode pretty strongly until the very last few hills to our campsite just beyond Branscombe when Jennie, Gavin and myself started to find our legs had nothing left. Ryan, unbelievably, took turns with Jennie and I, riding up behind us and giving us a push up the penultimate hill. It was like having a jet pack strapped to your back. He must have been exhausted too, but he also knew we had to get to the campsite or sleep in a ditch.

Having beaten that hill there was a brief respite from the slog, but when we got to the foot of the very final climb to the campsite to see the warning sign which indicated a 20% ascent, three of us had to resign and walk it, which was pretty hard too. I must confess I was swearing a bit by this stage. Ryan, being nuttier than squirrel poo, cycled on up that hill like it wasn’t there. He showed God.

We’re still smiling at this stage. We had no idea the hills still to come

Anyway, we all managed to get there, had a fantastic meal (a drink or four) at the local pub and not much sleep under canvas.

The journey home the next day required a few more miles in the saddle (Ryan The Nut cycled all the way home), but I was chuffed to manage the first big ascent out of Branscombe, but once we got to Seaton it was clear we were going to struggle to make our train home, which was a few more miles away and we simply didn’t have the legs for it. Luckily I managed to track down one taxi driver who could help us and I’d like to say a big thank you to Floyds of Charmouth who came to our aid with a seven-seater which took the three of us and our bikes to Axminster station where we caught the train home.

Resting on Branscombe beach on Sunday morning (honourable mention to Jen, second from right, our support car team)

I wasn’t firing on all cylinders on Monday, but it was an excellent break for me and I’m so glad I did it. Given the opportunity, I’d do it again. Ryan’s nuttiness is clearly contagious.

Four people, backs to camera, walking up a grassy meadow

Walking back to the tent to pack and start our journeys home

in Personal Work 2 comments

October 9, 2012April 8, 2014 by Tim Gander

An Instagram Update

Those of you who pay attention will recall I recently wrote about my first foray into Instagram. I said it was more about the filters and effects than the content of the photos and I now think I was wrong.

It’s true many people shoot and edit their images in Instagram, but the beauty of Instagram is that it is primarily a way of sharing images. The pictures themselves don’t have to be shot in Instagram, or even on an iPhone to be shared this way.

I’ve uploaded images from my professional portfolio as well as more fun pictures from my personal life. A more recent fascination for me has been the introduction of the Panorama mode with the new iPhone operating system. Not only can I now shoot panoramas using this function, I’ve also been experimenting with it to see what weird effects can be achieved by panning in a way the phone and software don’t expect and seeing how they deal with it. As an example, see my “torn” ukulele photo below my more standard panorama.

panoramic photo of heathland near Bournemouth, Dorset

A fairly standard panorama, though I’m impressed with the iPhone’s quality here.

photo taken using the iPhone's panorama function to create an abstract photo of a ukulele

Torn Ukulele effect using the panorama mode on the iPhone4s

Other Instagrammers build up massive followings and the most successful of them do it by shooting in a very consistent style – whether on their iPhone or by uploading images from their SLR cameras isn’t always clear, but consistency seems to be the key issue. I personally prefer to share a mixture of portfolio, experimental and personal-moment (drunk in the pub) snaps. I might take a photo of some recently published work and share it on Instagram so people get a better idea of the kind of work I do. I simultaneously share my Instagram posts on Twitter and sometimes Facebook too, which means I can reach an even wider audience.

If you’re on Instagram look me up @takeagander and let me see what you do. One account I’ve been especially impressed with recently is @tonytanktop who creates larger images from tiles of individual ones. A brilliant way of using the technology and the sharing platform in an unexpected way. I suggest you look him up too and prepare to be dazzled.

I think it’s fair to say, I’m starting to understand Instagram a lot better. It’s becoming a business tool as well as a way to have fun. My initial cynicism (and I’m a natural cynic about these things) has given way to greater curiosity to explore more boundaries.

May 1, 2012August 29, 2014 by Tim Gander

Film isn’t dead, it’s just resting its eyes

Getting rambly and nostalgic in my middle (going-on-old) age…

Remember film? I do. I remember hand-processing black and white film in the Bath Chronicle dark room. I remember chemicals that stained my clothes and made them disintegrate. I remember the beautiful, shiny strips of cellulose hanging in the drying cabinet, fluttering ribbons of potential Pulitzer prize-winning images awaiting the lightbox, the loupe and the enlarger.

And now I’m getting all nostalgic again because for some strange reason I went from preparing to sell my last film camera (a Canon EOS 1N) on Ebay to buying black and white film and shooting some photos with it the other week.

This change of heart/mind came about partly because having seen some of the feeble prices the 1N commands on Ebay I knew I’d get more than 90 quids’ worth of fun from using it again.

I hadn’t used the camera since the year 2000 when I went digital, but it still works perfectly, and going back to film has re-informed how I shoot digital.

As an example, because I was shooting film that I didn’t want to waste I decided to be extra careful with the metering, so I used a hand-held light meter instead of relying on the built-in one. Seeing the consistency in exposure across the negatives, and thinking of all the times I’ve had to override the metering on my digital cameras, I think I’ll use a hand-held meter a lot more often when shooting digitally.

Now as tempting as it is to go back to processing my own films, and I do still have the tank, bag and reels for doing that, I don’t think I’m going to go that far. At least not yet.

For my first outing with film in 12 years I opted for Kodak BW400CN, which is black and white film you can process in a colour lab, which means that having shot my film I was able to drop it into Boots and have it processed and printed in an hour.

The next stage was to choose a couple of negatives and have them scanned by the lovely folk at click2scan who by amazing coincidence have just expanded into a premises in Frome. The photo here is my favourite from the roll of 36, which was mainly test shots for metering, contrast and the like.

Catering staff on cigarette break in Frome, Somersey

Smokers, Apple Alley, Frome

I’ve put another roll of the 400CN in the camera and might shoot colour after that. If I do, I’m sure I’ll keep you updated here.

In the meantime, why not dig out your old film camera and try some shots (instead of taking snaps on your iPhone and trying to make them look like old timey Polaroids, Kodachromes or sepia prints) But be prepared for something that took me by surprise; at first, every time I shot a frame, I’d find myself looking at the back of the camera where the digital preview would be. A slightly embarrassing tic I need to deal with.

in Personal Work 9 comments

October 25, 2011September 5, 2014 by Tim Gander

What the flickr should I do?

The Law of Flickr dictates that for every opinion applied to the subject, there will be an opinion of equal and opposite force. Despite this, I’m going to ask the question, “Should I be on flickr?” and hope for some kind of definitive response.

In truth, I already have an account there, but like many internet things I’ve signed up to over the years, I’ve never got around to doing anything with it.

This is due to a number of reasons. Perhaps the primary reason is I can’t see the point. The secondary reason is it probably doesn’t suit the work I do. Flickr strikes me as the kind of site where you upload a picture of a flower, kitten, sunset and wait for the heaps of praise to come in from your fellow flickrati.

Probably fine for flickr, but will it help my Google ranking?

Occasionally I’ll shoot something just because it’s fun to take pictures. My weirdly-lit, low-angle fungi shots are just that. It gets me out into the woods, gets me in the fresh air, experimenting with light, but I don’t shoot them in the expectation some large corporate organisation will licence the pictures for fantastic sums of money (if you’re a large corporate organisation, do please get in touch). They would be perfect flickr fodder though.

Before you ask, no I’m not posing this question because I’d like to sell my snaps through the flickr/Getty deal. I’d rather sell my soul to someone likely to pay a fair fee than licence any images I take for 6p a download.

If I use flickr at all, it would be with a view to attracting the corporate commissions I rely on as the mainstay of my business. I want to know if flickr adds Googlejuice to my website, if people looking to commission new work (as opposed to buying stock images) use flickr to find someone who shoots the kind of work I shoot, or if it would just be another account to maintain and feed with no real benefit beyond the fun?

Is flickr only (or best suited) to the keen snapper or professional selling prints or stock?

This week, I’m asking you, my loyal and beautiful readers, for your opinions based on the parameters I’ve set out here.

I fear I’ll end up on flickr posting endless corporate headshots and wondering why no one is telling me I’ve got nice bokeh, it’s a “cool capture” or a great use of light. It might be a lonely time there, but if it gets me more enquires for paid commissions, you won’t find me complaining.

Opinions please!

in Industry Comment / Personal Work 16 comments

October 11, 2011September 5, 2014 by Tim Gander

Why wasn’t my Dad Vivian Maier!

Those of you who follow me on twitter (those of you who don’t, why don’t you?!) may have read my tweets over the past weekend that I am currently looking through a box full of old transparencies taken by my late father. Most appear to date from the very late 1950s and early 1960s, though not all are dated.

Of course I was hoping to stumble across a veritable Vivian Maier-style collection of emotive, historical images. Unfortunately for me, my Dad wasn’t the street-photographer type.

Many of the images were taken in Germany of the places my Mother and Father visited when making trips to see my maternal grandmother in Ludwigshafen am Rhein where she lived, but Dad always liked taking pictures of landscapes, old houses and castles. None of which change much even in 50 years.

I’m still working my way through the slides though. There are maybe a couple of hundred in all. Again, not exactly Maier proportions, but some have caught some interesting fashion styles and cars and I need to look at them all before deciding if there is anything worth scanning.

One of the main problems I’m finding is the deterioration of the slides. Some have fungi growing on them. With some the slide mounts have sprung open, and others have lost all colour except magenta. Bit of a mixed bag of problems really.

Just out of curiosity, I’m posting a small selection of them here. These aren’t proper scans and I’ve left them deliberately messy – let’s call them instagrams that took a little longer to develop.

With all these issues though, it makes you wonder what state our digital files will be in 50 years from now. One solar flair and perhaps all digital photography will be wiped! Hmm, if only I could control the Sun, then I could control the digital photography market! MWAHAHAHAHA!!!

*Tim has gone for a lie down and nurse will be along shortly with fresh medication.

View of Pultney Bridge and Empire Hotel, Winter 1961

Taken circa 1961, of the Empire Hotel and Pultney Bridge, Bath

Trees in a park. All the colour dyes apart from magenta have disappeared.

In those days you dressed smart for holiday.

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August 16, 2011September 5, 2014 by Tim Gander

Busman’s Holiday

I’m going to start by apologising that this week’s posting is late, and that it’s a bit lightweight, but I only got back from a trip away (see below) late last night and have been playing catch-up with work all day.

There’s a certain inevitability that a photographer on holiday still takes pictures, but for me it’s a struggle to take landscapes and holiday snaps that really please me, so when I went up country to visit my brother in County Durham last week, what was the photo I got the biggest kick out of? A bowl of fruit of course. Obvious, innit?

The only camera I took for myself was a Canon G11, and a Yashica T3 Super film camera for my son. We don’t have the photos from that yet, but I wouldn’t mind betting they’ll be pretty good. That camera always had a brilliant lens on it, and my son can spot a decent photo sometimes.

In addition to the G11 I took an ancient Vivitar 283 flash with the thyristor connecting cable, which allowed me to use off-camera flash with the G11. I know I’m getting more technical than usual here, but some of you will be intrigued I’m sure. And it’s with this simple set-up I shot the bowl of fruit one rainy afternoon when there was nothing better to do.

You might think that being a photographer I’d have taken some big flashy camera with me, but we were flying and I didn’t want to lug it about. The G11 is a good camera for what it is (a compact), but I’m convinced it’ll do some kinds of pictures brilliantly, while others are a lot more work. For example, landscapes. It might well be me, but I can’t seem to get a decent landscape out of it. I’ll freely admit I’m not much cop at doing the kind of landscape shot that makes you gasp, but there’s something about the detail in nature which seems to baffle the G11. It’s the grass and the leaves on the trees that just seem to turn into a big greenish blotch.

As for pictures of my son as he runs about, the G11 suffers from the shutter lag that still hobbles a lot of compact cameras.

So here it is, a still-life that reminds me of the holiday without being a typical holiday snap. I hope you enjoy it.

Still life of a Durham fruit bowl.

in Personal Work 6 comments

May 4, 2010September 5, 2014 by Tim Gander

On the Button

Boy awaits arrival of Jenson Button, holding Jenson Button book.

Waiting for his hero.

A slight departure from my normal blog, but it’s been a bit of a special occasion in Frome today.

On a beautiful sunny Spring day, in the Frome Market car park (dolled up for the occasion) Jenson Button, Formula One World Drivers’ Champion, was granted the Freedom of Frome Town.

By my guesstimate there must have been around 3,000 people there to greet him as he took to the stage to be presented the award by the town Mayor, Councillor Damon Hooton. Children craned to get a glimpse, women shouted their love, and men cheered his every word.

The whole shebang was over in just under an hour, during which Jenson was introduced, the Mayor did a recap of Jenson’s life in Frome and presented the award, after which Jenson answered questions previously submitted by members of the public.

He was very PC, denying ever having raced the roads around Frome as a youngster, but charming, humble and down-to-earth.

Once the main duties were completed, Jenson set about meeting his fans, posing for photos, signing autographs on everything from post cards to books to bits of car. All the while smiling, and clearly enjoying the whole event.

Enough of my blather, here are some photos from today.

Jenson receives the Freedom of Frome Town from the Mayor, Cllr Hooton.

Fans of Jenson pack the car park.

jenson button in frome, somerset, england

Jenson waves to fans. Lots of them women, for some reason…

Jenson signs cards, books and bits of cars.

If you’ve tuned in for a bit of a photography perspective, I shot these photos on a Canon 5D with 1.4x converter on a 70-200 f2.8 lens (pre-IS model), apart from the crowd and signing photo which was shot on my new Canon G11, which I’m testing out prior to using it for a bona-fide shoot.

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