the Photographer - Issue One 2019

Over land, under sea Nigel Hicks reveals his adventuring streak

Light from within Technical challenges in Ian Taylor’s world The Magazine of the BIPP / 2019 / Issue One

Let’s get to work Martin Baynes, the new CEO of The British Institute of Professional Photography, talks about his vision for the future

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Untold stories Simon Hill, Photographer of the Year, and his ‘English In Particular’

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Cover image © Simon Hill ABIPP

Introducing CEO / Martin Baynes 2 Simon Hill / Photographer of the Year 8 Capturing the otherwise unknown ‘great and good’, we open up Simon’s visual story book Nigel Hicks / Travel 18 From the Far Eastall the way back to his own doorstep, Nigel’s pictoral adventures illustrate his free spirit Catherine Beltramini / Best Licentiate 30 With an admirable work ethic and self-motivation, plus ambition

the Photographer is published four times a year by the British Institute of Professional Photography, The Artistry House, 16 Winckley Square, Preston, Lancashire PR1 3JJ T: 01772 367968 E: info@bipp.com W: www.bipp.com Company secretary: Michael Lane CEO: Martin Baynes Directors: Jonathan Beer FBIPP, Sean Conboy FBIPP, Kevin Weatherly LBIPP, Ioan Said LBIPP, Chris Wright ABIPP, Emily Hancock FBIPP

to match, 2018’s Best Licentiate looks to stay true to her own vision GFX open day / Fujifilm 38 Drop in and get hands on with Fujifilm’s acclaimed GFX system Color basics / Datacolor 40 Take the guesswork out of your colour work flow BIPP pages 42 Partners, benefits, regions, events and Regional Awards update and judges Photographer focus / Ian Taylor 46 Ian’s commercial practice takes him across genres, applying a Membership Services Advisory Board Chris Wright ABIPP - National Jonathan Beer FBIPP - National David Campbell ABIPP - Northern Ireland Sean Conboy FBIPP - North West Tony Freeman Hon FBIPP - National Dan Freeman FBIPP - South East Emily Hancock FBIPP - National Alan McEwan Hon FBIPP - Scotland Ioan Said LBIPP - National Denise Swanson FBIPP - National

high-level skillset whatever the challenge Beyond the light / Ian Taylor 56 Photographing stained glass in situ – a guide President’s column 63 Saraya Cortaville talks mentors, advocates and super-fans = encouragement, support and inspiration David Taylor FBIPP - Midlands Kevin Weatherly LBIPP - North East Katrina Whitehead LBIPP - Yorkshire Editor: Jonathan Briggs, editor@bipp.com Advertising: Tel 01772 367968 E-mail: admin@bipp.com UK Subscribers £20, EU £40, Rest of the World £50 ISSN: 0031-8698. Printed and bound by Magazine Printing Company, Hoddesdon, Herts

Neither the British Institute of Professional Photography (BIPP) nor any of its employees, members, contractors or agents accepts any responsibility whatsoever for loss of or damage to photographs, illustrations or manuscripts or any other material submitted, howsoever caused. The views expressed in this magazine are the views of individual contributors and do not necessarily represent the views of the BIPP. All advertisements are accepted and all editorial matter published in good faith. The Publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, that any particular product or service is available at the time of publication or at any given price. No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means whatsoever, or stored in a retrieval system, or broadcast, published or exhibited without the prior permission of the publisher. This magazine is the copyright of the BIPP without prejudice to the right of contributors and photographers as defined in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Registered at Stationers’ Hall, Ref B6546, No. 24577. © BIPP 2019 Issue One / 2019 / the PHOTOGRAPHER 1

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I NTRODUCI NG MARTI N BAYNES, CEO, BI PP

A fresh start

A

s Martin Baynes arrived at the office for his first day as the CEO of the British Institute of Professional Photography he couldn’t believe his luck.

Not because he had been chosen for this prestigious role in an industry he loves; no, he had earned that. It was the commute that he couldn’t quite believe.

Martin has spent a large part of the last 11 years on the M6, com­muting from his Lancashire home to the Graphistudio UK base in Watford, where as Sales and Marketing Director he has been one of the driving forces behind the UK operation, helping to successfully guide and build the business to the industry leading position and multi-million pound turnover it enjoys today. Before that, he headed up Spicer Hallfield’s sales division for 12 years, which involved a similar journey to Buckinghamshire.

Martin says: ‘At the time I applied for the CEO role, the Institute was operating from its Aylesbury office, but when I read the e-mail inviting me to the interview day it said ‘at our new head office in Preston’. I actually showed it to my wife, Fran, as I couldn’t quite believe my eyes. Travelling to Graphi’s offices took me over four hours, now it’s a six-minute train journey.’

So what are these new offices like? The Artistry House is located in the historic Winckley Square, Preston, which is easily accessible from the motorway and a five-minute walk from Preston train station. The building is owned by creative agency Wash which occupies the top floor, architects Studio John Bridge is located on the middle floor and the BIPP’s office space is on the ground floor. In addition to our offices, we have access to reception areas, recreational and meeting rooms, as well as a boardroom. Far from the drab, uninspiring Aylesbury office, The Artistry House is bright, distinctive and creative.

The vision of Andy Walmsley and Lynsey Thompson – Wash Studio’s co-owners – The Artistry House is not only a home for Wash but a ‘place for big ideas, inspiration and art. A working building, full of creative people.’

In addition to being a working office, The Artistry House is also an art gallery. Every wall in every room is covered in art of all shapes, sizes and styles, lovingly selected and corralled for the space by Graeme Windle of Atlantic Contemporary Art. Far from being a standard gallery, the people and businesses based in the building are literally immersed in the art. It’s a living gallery. As Andy Walmsley puts it, ‘art should be enjoyed, let loose from behind the velvet rope’, so the regular rotation of artwork is accompanied by launch events where the doors are open to the wider creative community, fostering networking and collaboration.

Andy continues: ‘I’ve been working with photographers since year dot, with art direction of stills and video becoming a major part of my role as Wash Studio’s Creative Director. Much of what we do as a creative agency is photography led and, to me, good photography is the best foundation for great design. The photographers we work with are supporting us as much as we’re supporting them, so to have the British Institute of Professional Photography with us at The Artistry House feels like a perfect fit.’

Exponentially more interesting and economical than our previous office, there is no doubt that The Artistry House is a phenomenal home for the BIPP, but let’s not forget the raison d’être of the office is to serve the Institute’s members. Martin is in agreement: ‘We’ve moved to an office space that’s creative and purposeful, but the role of Head Office – the reason for it existing – is to report into the board for the benefit of members. We’re here to support the membership and the membership will lead what is done here. The job of the Institute

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remains – to support its members in their profession.’

Those 20+ years of senior management experience within the photographic industry have equipped Martin with the right skills to lead the BIPP. He knows how to run a tight ship and intends to do just that at the Preston office: ‘Although the Institute is not a traditional business, I intend to run it like one. Everything we do needs to be relevant and add value to the membership. Every penny that is spent here at the office will be balanced against the benefit that investment brings to the members.’

On the subject of pennies... it’s important to note just how many are being saved after moving to The Artistry House – the reduction on rent and utilities alone will total over £28,000 per year.

Martin’s initial goals are to fortify the Institute’s policies and documentation, making sure everything and everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet: ‘The directors have done an excellent job of implementing new accounting, expenses and banking polices,’ he says. ‘I will build on their efforts to ensure day-today administration is tackled efficiently and transparently. I set up and managed the very successful Graphistudio office structure and I want the BIPP’s office to run just as smoothly.’

At the core of any successful business is the right team with the right work ethic and Martin has wasted no time in this regard: ‘One of the first systems I have implemented in the office is a shared diary so all the staff know what their, and everyone else’s, goals are for the day. This, along with a daily morning briefing, are simple policies, but keep everyone (including me) focused, on task, and accountable.’

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I NTRODUCI NG MARTI N BAYNES, CEO, BI PP

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I NTRODUCI NG MA RTI N BAYNES, CEO, BI PP

move to a more compact and efficient staffing structure.

Instead of multiple part-time employees the office will be home to two full-time members of staff: Martin and an Administration Manager, making communication and delegation infinitely simpler. This alone has reduced the admin wage bill by £25,000. The Institute’s total annual salary costs are now £92,000 less than this time last year.

The beauty of Martin’s appointment is that it is truly a fresh start, an outside appointment not lumbered with the baggage of recent years, although he is not ignorant of the BIPP’s recent turbulent history: ‘Of course, I was watching with interest what was happening – as many people within our industry were. The British Institute of Professional Photography has been supporting professional photographers for over 100 years. With robust, open accounting polices and regular communication between myself, staff, directors, the MSAB and members we can learn from and avoid the mistakes of the past.

Add in a healthy dose of hard work and there’s no reason why we can’t continue to support photographers for another 100 years.’

How does Martin feel about leaving the Graphistudio family to join the BIPP at such a dramatic time in its history? ‘The directors were very honest with me, answered all my questions and made sure I was fully up to speed before I made the commitment to take on the role. I couldn’t have considered the move if it wasn’t for the work they’ve done to stabilise the Institute. Now it is up to me to pick up that baton. I will miss being at the centre of the Graphi family terribly, although many of the photographers I had such pleasure working with at Graphi are also BIPP members and the ones who are not soon will be if I have anything to do about it!’

As I draw Martin’s thoughts away from the office and towards longer-term goals there is one subject that

crops up again and again – the regions: ‘I firmly believe the regions are the cornerstone of the Institute,’ Martin explains. The networks, friendships and learning that the regional structures foster bring untold value to the membership. Supporting the regional committees in bringing a quality programme to venues across the country is one of my top priorities.’

Martin is, however, quick to point out that he’s not putting all his eggs in one basket: ‘Regional events will be part of a suite of ways we can communicate with the membership: this magazine, blogs, webinars, podcasts, studio and trade events, conferences – there are many ways in which we can deliver content to photographers.

We need to consider them all and weigh up the benefit to members. I have built up a formidable network of contacts during my time in the photography industry and will be utilising that to help bring better training, networking and business support to professional photographers through their membership with the BIPP.’ As we wrap up our conversation, Martin is keen to point out that this fresh start is a two-way street: ‘I am speaking with members every day, bouncing ideas off of them and soaking up their thoughts. My “office door” will always be open – it’s important members know they can get in touch with me at any time.’

Martin Baynes can be reached at the office on telephone 01772 367968 or via e-mail at martin@bipp.com To learn more about The Artistry House, head over to www.theartistry.house

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Tracey Blackwell, dry stone waller, High Birstwith, North Yorkshire. Image © Simon Hill

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SI M ON HI LL ABI PP P H OTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR

Common People

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liver Clarke, Groundsman, (near, right) began working at York Cemetery in 2007. It was only intended to be a temporary role over the summer but he ended up staying for three years.

Now he’s back for a second stint after finding he was missing work at the cemetery. Rob Harris, Head Groundsman, began his working life as a green keeper and joined the York Cemetery team nearly ten years ago. The cemetery was opened in 1837 but became a derelict wilderness during the 1960s. In 1984 a group of concerned local citizens decided to retrieve the situation and formed what eventually became York Cemetery Trust. Rob and Oliver call the beautiful 25-acre cemetery site ‘their garden’.

Photographer, Simon Hill, received a Silver award for this portrait portfolio in the BIPP Professional Photography Awards 2019 titled ‘The English In Particular’. His work was inspired by an unusual book, England in Particular: A Celebration of the Commonplace, the Local, the Vernacular and the Distinctive by Sue Clifford and Angela King. It is a tricky mash-up of archaeology, anthropology, social and natural history, ecology and importantly, storytelling.

It gives voice to numerous people who submitted their own experience of English landscapes. Simon’s own ambitions as a photographer revolve around recording general life where people come together.

Also featuring in Simon’s portfolio is Tracey Blackwell (left) – one of the few female dry stone wallers in the UK. She works all year round, in all weathers and on the day of her shoot – a dark and cold day in early April – she was wearing three layers and gloves… The work is very physical and being a perfectionist in her work, Tracey sometimes has to cut a stone many times before it will fit exactly as she wants it. Then there’s Alec Houseman (right) – part of a long-established farming family in North Yorkshire having farmed Wharfedale and the Washburn Valley for at least five generations. Including these characters, Simon’s first volume started to be pieced together.

Simon comments: ‘Clifford and King’s book is an alphabetical catalogue of everything that’s quintessentially English and struck me as a fantastic

Oliver Clarke (L) and Rob Harris (R), groundsmen, York Cemetery, North Yorkshire. Image © Simon Hill

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Alec Houseman, shepherd, Calcutt, Knaresborough, North Yorkshire. Image © Simon Hill

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Lesley Benton, allotment holder, Harrogate, North Yorkshire. Image © Simon Hill theme for a project. I couldn’t do all the characters and themes so I set out to cover three from each letter of the alphabet. Subjects wise, this gave me a plan but around the same time I was looking at The Great British: photographs by Arnold Newman, 1975-79.

Newman photographed the iconic British Prime Ministers, Nobel Prize winners, the great and the good as it were. It’s a marvellous record but it also struck me what a shame it would be if no-one ever photographed the otherwise unknown “great and good” of the common people, rather than of the famous and celebrated and I felt I could express it with a Newman-like aesthetic and complete that picture.’

Simon’s eventual project became a coming together of the two forks of inspiration. He spent a year working on volume one, publishing a short run of the book, sold online and through the blurb website – all of which sold out.

As is hinted at in the display of this work here, everything for this series was shot on Ilford film using a Hasselblad 503CWD (which Simon

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John Holmes, caretaker and gardener, pictured in front of Lady Anne’s Yew, Skipton Castle. Image © Simon Hill uses with a 120 roll film back) and, usually, a Carl Zeiss Distagon 60mm or a Carl Zeiss 150mm Sonnar. Simon uses medium-format film for almost all of his environmental portraits – the choice of format was partly decided upon to determine the pace of the work and partly to honour Newman’s past work. His portrait of Lesley Benton (left) is perhaps a particular example

of the success of the approach, unifying environment and subject, each complementing the other in perfect harmony. There’s no awkward sense of ‘just standing there’ that tends to haunt so much of today’s environmental portraiture and there’s a satisfying lack of competition in the frame. Lesley’s story itself is gentle and illuminating. She helps out at her friend Lottie’s allotment. There is an atmosphere of camaraderie, with friends turning up to socialise, exercise and learn about growing produce. In their shed they have a teapot and deck chairs and take it in turns to bring homemade cakes. There is always time to chat. By profession, Lesley is a civil engineer and she has two children at university. Lottie used to be

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Tom Brackenbury (left), fireman, and Stuart Whitter, driver, North Yorkshire Moors Railway, Grosmont, North Yorkshire. Image © Simon Hill

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a portrait photographer and landscape designer – her allotment is the most well-ordered on the site.

Simon’s winning work, earning him the title ‘BIPP Photographer of the Year’ is, then, both a small part of an already very significant body of work and furthermore a continuing journey. He says: ‘I naturally became acquainted with many traditional events and customs that occur around the country each year, forming the rich tapestry of English life. I have been photographing these events now for ten years or more and it’s a rich seam of work for me creatively speaking. There’s a true balance to be found between competing subjects in the frame – it’s essential to understand how the viewer will likely consume the story in the picture, and I try to optimise that. A little activity will often add to the portrait but it has to be real or the whole premise of the picture falls down. I suppose my job is to let the character sing out, even if they’re not in action. I think the medium of film in this case has a great deal going for it.’

A case in point, therefore, is the image, left.

England in Particular tells us: ‘Despite attempts by I.K. Brunel to popularise a seven-foot railway gauge, the width between rails was standardised at four feet, eight and a half inches, perpetuating the Roman wagon gauge. Around 19,000 miles of rail had been laid by 1900. As the network spread across the country, “railway towns” grew up. Swindon still has its “railway village” – streets of distinctive terraces built for employees of the enormous Great Western Railway works – for example. Around ten thousand miles of rail routes closed between the 1920s and 1990 and more since, mainly a result of Beeching’s restructuring of the 1960s.’

Simon explains: ‘Tom’s interest in railways was inherited from his father, a lifelong railway worker from signal box boy to locomotive “second man”.

When Tom turned 16, he became a volunteer in the locomotive department at North Yorkshire Moors Railway (NYMR). After two and a half years he became a fireman, finally passing out with the NYMR at Whitby on the Network Rail lines. Tom is now working towards becoming a steam and diesel driver with the NYMR. His father is a driver on the NYMR, the only heritage train-operating company in the UK, and has been a qualified steam and diesel locomotive driver for over 35 years. Stuart has spent the majority of his working life as an engineer in the

Sue Hobson, bee keeper, Addingham Moorside, North Yorkshire. Image © Simon Hill

Lynda Bullus, parish councillor, Marton-cum-Grafton, North Yorkshire. Image © Simon Hill

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Below: The 160th Great Yorkshire Show. All images © Simon Hill

Right: Commissioned by GAMMA Photos, a UK-based photo-documentary organisation, to document The People’s Vote March, 20 October 2018. Simon took almost 1,500 images which are now part of a major national archive. Image © Simon Hill rail industry and now works as a consultant on rail industry projects worldwide. His love for the steam locomotive goes back to boyhood, when he saw the last days of the great steam expresses on the West Coast Main Line near his home in Wigan, Lancashire.’

Beyond the The English In Particular, last year Simon published his fourth limited edition book to commemorate the 160th Great Yorkshire Show. Including a foreword by Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal and a preface by His Grace The Duke of Devonshire.

Simon was the first professional photographer, in the 180 years of the Show, to be given special ‘open access’ behind the scenes of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society as staff worked to organise the annual three-day event, which attracts more than 130,000 visitors every year. Subtitled ‘A photographer’s view’, it’s a very personal perspective, unregulated by commission, that says much about Simon’s attitude to his own work: ‘You have to bring something new into the mix as the technical elements of being a photographer can – at face value – be tackled “easily”, certainly from the point of view of a nonspecialist. It’s the creative pursuit that excites me. The Great Yorkshire Show is a highlight of the agricultural calendar, not just in Yorkshire but nationally. I hope my photographs will be a lasting tribute to the work of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society. I think a photographer can record the diversity of human life and I hope I do that.’

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This spread: Appleby Horse Fair, photographed 6-7 June 2013, was Simon’s fifth photographic book in print.The photographs were taken as part of his on-going personal project to document English customs, the subject of a forthcoming major photographic book and exhibition. Appleby Horse Fair is held each year in early June when up to 15,000 Gypsies and Travellers gather to buy and sell horses, meet with friends and relations, and celebrate their culture.

The Fair is not organised by any individual or group. It is, in essence, a spontaneous gathering. Scores of horses are tied up opposite The Grapes Inn public house in the town centre. From here the horses are walked down to ‘the Sands’ on the bank of the River Eden, a little way upstream of the bridge, where they are ridden into the river to be washed.

Most of the horse trading takes place at the crossroads at Salt Tip Corner and on Long Marton Road, known to the Gypsies and Travellers as the ‘flashing lane’, where horses are shown off (or ‘flashed’) to prospective buyers by trotting them up and down the lane at speed. Images © Simon Hill

Simon really was almost born with a camera in his hands. He has the picture to prove his photo­ graphic initiation at just three years, eight months old. He went to Blackpool College to take an HND in photography and was BIPP Student of the Year in 1984. He later added a BA, an MA and an MDes to his impressive list of photographic qualifications and distinctions. Despite a relatively brief deviation into advertising photography, he’s worked a dual and complementary career as both professional photographer and designer of exhibitions for museums, galleries and visitor centres for the last few decades. He boasts both a bronze and silver from the Chelsea Flower Show and was the designer of Europe’s Leading Tourist Attraction at the World Travel Awards 2017, a world-class heritage tourist attraction on ‘Ireland’s Alcatraz’ – a former prison island in Cork Harbour. JANVS | VIDAR was the lead consultant and project manager for the entire interpretative works, for which Simon is Group MD and Lead Designer.

Simon comments: ‘I actively combine both sides of my work and they work with one another – I design guidebooks myself and provide photography for exhibitions. I think that the two sides of my working life help me consider scenes with more emphasis on the viewer – and so perhaps the story might be clearer. I like the measured approach of using film. It’s all too easy to shoot digital – and I was an early adopter of digital capture… but “hands up” that was a mistake. With files lacking bite and physical size I went back to film and still shoot around two-thirds film. I do my own processing, scanning and printing.’

Simon gets back to basics when finally trying to sum up his creative life: ‘My press card sums up what I am – a photojournalist – I document and write pictorially about stories.’ Those stories tend to link back to his fascination with heritage and tradition, no matter whether it’s photographing the Common People on the one hand or designing a Silver Medal winning garden at Chelsea (2014) for The Woodland Trust. The latter took visitors on a multi-sensory journey into dappled ancient woodland, which is very much what his photographs of the English (in particular) also succeed in doing. www.simonhillphotos.com

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NI GEL HI CKS T RAVEL & PUBLI SHI NG

The far and the wild

All images © Nigel Hicks

N

igel Hicks has been producing photography-led travel books for over 25 years, focusing mainly on the Far East as well as his own doorstep of South West England. Nigel worked out of Hong Kong and Japan for more than a decade, beginning in the editorial field and naturally forging links with publishers as he went. In the early 1990s he was approached to provide photography for two books on China, followed by four books on the Philippines – the mould was set. Although he established strong links with publishers New Holland and John Beaufoy concentrating on travel, natural history and adventure, Nigel also developed his own company, Aquaterra Publishing. His working portfolio is completed by commercial work and the natural avenues of stock with the National Geographic Image Collection and an extensive programme of photography tours all the way from one-day workshops located around the South West through to five-day trips to Iceland, for example.

What’s also particularly noteable, however, is that Nigel’s publishing work often delivers the whole package of images and words, even going as far as looking after an entire project.

He has plenty of writing experience in both the creative and technical spheres, and close links with design and print, too. In other words, there’s no excuse for a project stalling.

His latest book, Wild Philippines, (right) is due to be published in August 2019. The cover image shows a male Samar Hornbill (Penelopides samarensis) – highly endangered

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“A juvenile male Island Flying Fox (Pteropus hypomelanus), a species of fruit bat common in rainforests across Southeast Asia.

This little youngster had become separated from its family, and at the time I found it was roosting in a tree barely above head height close to one of the visitor centres at the forest resort village of Mambucal, on the edge of Mt Kanlaon Natural Park, on the Philippine island of Negros. As soon as dusk fell, the fruit bat departed, presumably to rejoin its family.”

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and unique to the rainforest of just a handful of islands in the south of the Philippines. Nigel says: ‘This individual was part of a group that landed in a tree hanging over the Ulot River, in Samar Island Natural Park, just as I was travelling past in a boat. Cutting the engine and allowing the boat to quietly drift in under the trees enabled me to come in really quite close.’

Indeed, Nigel’s quite the adventurer, regularly trekking through dense rainforest accompanied by local guides to access remote locations.

However, because of the critically endangered nature of many Philippine species, not every wild icon can be photographed in its pure natural habitat. Nigel explains: ‘The Philippine Eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi), right, is one of the world’s largest raptors, king of the Philippine rainforest and icon of the country’s conservation movement. Utterly unique to the Philippines, the eagle is hugely endangered, due to the inevitable mix of habitat loss and direct hunting. With

All images © Nigel Hicks

“A pair of Gray Glassy Tiger butterflies (Ideopsis juventa kinitis) mating in forest on the Philippine island of Bohol.

Common across southeast Asia, it is easily confused with a host of other black-and-white butterfly species. Getting this one right took a bit of time with experts.”

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All images © Nigel Hicks

just a few hundred left in the wild, a major captive breeding programme has been gaining momentum in the south of the country, and that’s where my image was taken. It is, alas, very rare to see Philippine Eagles in the wild, and even if it were possible I would never be able to get such an intimate portrait. It’s better to use this captive animal as an ambassador for its wild cousins, to show off its beauty and pose the question: could anyone really allow such a magnificent beast to become extinct?’

The Whale Shark above (Rhincodon typus), is the world’s largest fish, swimming in waters off the town of Donsol, in the south of the Philippines’ Luzon island. While these 15-metre behemoths are generally solitary creatures and hence rather hard to find in the ocean, there are a couple of sites around the Philippine coast where they congregate for feeding. One such place is Donsol, now the country’s premier spot to see these wonderful fish. Nigel says: ‘When the presence of Whale Sharks off Donsol was first reported to the outside world in 1998, I was one of the first foreign journalists to photograph and write about the phenomenon. My return trip in 2018 was quite exciting for me, and I was hugely pleased to see what a positive impact whale shark-watching is having on the town’s economy, and how well controlled and organised the activity is, despite its great popularity. Interacting with the Whale Sharks involves snorkelling alongside any surface-swimming shark for as long as it will tolerate human presence. This photo was shot – strictly no flash allowed – during one such interaction.’ You might be wondering why only the head is included in the frame. g

A Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas) swims across a sandy seagrass bed, alongside coral outcrops close to tiny Balicasag Island, off the coast of Bohol, in the south of the Philippines: “Balicasag is surrounded by almost perfect coral reefs that drop away into deep waters, providing a wealth of reef life, and making

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it arguably the country’s leading dive site. I’ve dived here several times over the years, and have witnessed the island becoming increasingly popular both with divers and general visitors, to the point now where daily visitor numbers are tightly controlled. On my latest visit, I came across this beautiful turtle right at the start

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of the first of my several dives. As I allowed myself to drop gently to the sand alongside the turtle, the animal remained calm and rather unconcerned, allowing me to swim alongside it for several minutes, before it effortlessly accelerated away from me – a wonderful experience and one that netted a good set of photos!”

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All images © Nigel Hicks

The answer comes down to the nature of the water. Nigel comments: ‘The water off Donsol is immensely cloudy due to the amount of plankton present, which is what attracts the Whale Sharks in the first place. When I was at a shark’s head end I couldn’t see its tail, and vice versa when I was by its tail.

So I had to be selective in what I shot.’

Nigel learned to dive and take underwater photographs 20 years ago specifically so he could capture the Philippines’ wonderful submarine world. In the years since then he’s observed the majority of the country’s protected reefs to be actually fairing quite well, with some even improving, although fish numbers seem to be in steady decline. He comments: ‘Sea turtles, principally Green and Hawksbill turtles, seem to be a lot more common on many reefs than they used to be, and are certainly much less nervous of divers than they were 20 years ago. It is a rare positive note in the struggle to protect the Philippines natural environment.’

Gorgonian sea fans (in this case, above, the Acalycigorgia species) are among the most spectacular of all the hundreds of coral species found around the Philippine coast. Nigel

says: ‘Often brightly coloured and up to two metres across (sometimes even more), these delicate fan structures are an underwater photographer’s dream. Well, they’re a dream for me, anyway. I love to photograph these wonderful corals, though sometimes it is hard to remember that they are actually a colony of animals. This one I photographed on a steep slope close to one of the many islands that litter Bacuit Bay, in the north of the Philippine island of Palawan, caught in-camera as I drifted past on a gentle current. Its stunning colour is shown off best by a pair of flash guns.’

Wild Philippines was shot in quite a short timeframe. Nigel undertook two trips for the project, in January and April 2018 and more

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NI GEL HI CKS TRAVEL & PUBLI SHI NG

“A male Mindanao Wrinkled Hornbill (Rhabdotorrhinus leucocephalus), complete with a magnificent red bill. Restricted to the far south of the country, this hornbill is officially classed as Critically Endangered, meaning it is in imminent risk of extinction. Rarely seen in the wild and barely researched, not much is known about this bird. Not surprisingly, then, I photographed this fine male in captivity, at a zoo near Manila; another example of using a captive animal as an ambassador for its wild cousins.At present, it seems that little is being done to save the Mindanao Wrinkled Hornbill from extinction.”

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NI GEL HI CKS

than three-quarters of the final book is new content produced over those periods. He selected 17 protected areas to work on to create a snapshot of the state of wildlife and an overview of what makes the wild environment so special across land and sea.

The capture numbers run into the thousands, and Nigel supplied a big edit that then came down to around 300 in the design phase. He says: ‘All I have to do after a trip like this is wade through thousands of photos and write 50,000 words…’ Other than help from the tourist board and conservation NGOs, he’s essentially working on his own, but rarely by himself. Of the process he says: ‘I guess I have a sharp view of the eventual deadline and that everything I shoot must fit the project – I can’t disappear down a rabbit hole doing my own thing. Equal time needs to be given to everything that has to be shot, there’s no getting carried away.’

However a whole lot of work goes into the project before Nigel even arrives in the country: ‘There’s a great deal of research to do before you get on a plane, optimising the plan to get the best weather for example – it’s a serious business and you have to run a tight ship. Sometimes even I get too strict with it but you just cannot lose control. I can’t fly off shooting everything in the depth that I might like – at the end of the day, the book is to contain 300 pictures and not of the same thing.’

A dusk view of the rocky coastline near Hartland Point, on the north coast of Devon brings us back to Nigel’s home turf. With his own company, Aquaterra Publishing, Nigel gets increased editorial control of course but its inception was also to do with the reluctance of publishers to go for ‘niche’ products. Nigel explains: ‘Nationally oriented publishers are happy with a proposal that encompasses the whole of the UK but something talking only about the South West for example is a problem. They would want to sell rights to other countries so interest in regional titles isn’t really there. I shot this view (left) about 30 minutes after sunset, when the light levels were really falling away, giving me an exposure time of about 40 seconds. The result, of course, is that the surging surf has completely blurred out, leaving a rather calming silky effect, wafting around the rocks in an ethereal kind of way, resulting in a very moody photograph.’ g

All images © Nigel Hicks

TRAVEL & PUBLI SHI NG

A column of spray created by the Strokkur Geysir in Iceland: “The Geysir filtered the sunlight into a wonderful star as the water slowly dispersed at the end of an eruption. Most people photograph this extremely well-known site with the sun behind them, giving a front-lit fountain. This looks kind of all right, but much more dramatic is to move to the other side and shoot into the light, using each column of water (it erupts roughly every 15-20 minutes) to filter the power of the sun.”

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NI GEL HI CKS

He continues: ‘The downside of getting that image was finding myself pushed ever further back against the cliff by the surf rolling up the shore towards me on the rising tide, until I was almost out of beach to stand on. Fortunately, by then the tide had peaked, and I was able to safely finish what I was trying to do. All that remained was to find my way back up the cliff path to the car in darkness. I’m happy to be known as a South West photographer as well as an internationally based photographer.

I trust to my own devices but I don’t see the South West books as showcasing my photography – they are books that showcase Devon or Cornwall, not art books about me. They are carefully thought through products.’

His latest book, Beautiful Cornwall, hit bookshops in April this year and is available on the high street and on-line. It showcases many of Cornwall’s most beautiful locations and some of its most popular annual festivals. It takes readers on a tour around Cornwall, separating out East Cornwall, the North and Bodmin Moor, the South Coast, and the Far West as well as covering the Scillies. It illustrates perfectly what a busy photographer Nigel is.

He quips: ‘Beautiful Cornwall is going quite well. I’m still losing money on it, which isn’t entirely unexpected. A long-term goal of mine is to make some profit!’

Image © Nigel Hicks

TRAVEL & PUBLI SHI NG

Nigel is offering BIPP members a 10 per cent discount on the cost of his upcoming photography tours, which are to Iceland (Sept 2019), the Isles of Scilly (Sept 2019) and the west coast of Ireland ( June 2020). For details go to www.nigelhicks.com/ Photography_tours.html.

To find out about one-day photography workshops in SouthWest England, and to see galleries of his photography portfolios go to www.nigelhicks.com.

A dusk view of Trevose Head, on Cornwall’s Atlantic coast, near Padstow (right): ‘This shot was included in my successful 2012 panel of images for my BIPP Fellowship application. I planned this shot for months, waiting for the right weather and time of year. With this view looking almost directly northwards, I knew that to be sure of having pink sky as a backdrop I would need to shoot it in mid-summer, when sunset would be in the northwest. So, come one clear mid-summer’s evening I found myself on the remoteness of Trevose Head, lining up this view. It was shot about 45 minutes after sunset – so at about 10.30pm – by which time the light in the lighthouse was clearly visible, though there was still enough light and pink colouration in the sky. Exposures of nearly a minute gave me this very moody shot, the waves on the rocks – even though it was quite a calm evening – blurred out to give the illusion of strong surf.”

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CATHERI NE BELTRAM I NI BEST LI CENTI ATE 2018

Catherine Beltramini ABIPP was awarded Best Licentiate for 2018 and has already progressed to her Associateship.

She answers a few questions about her first years as a professional photographer.

Was there a particular moment when you knew professional photography was going to be your career?

I became a professional photographer five years ago, but have always had a love of photographing people. What led me in to children’s portraiture in particular was photographing my own two children and finding that I really love capturing the innocence, fun and freedom of childhood. With that knowledge I decided to take it to the next level.

Has life as a professional photographer turned out to be what you imagined before you stepped into this world?

For me, being a professional photographer is not a job, it is a passion. So yes, thankfully, it has turned out to be what I imagined as I enjoy each and every project or commission that I undertake. The biggest challenge has been to get recognised, and to become known and trusted in my community.

Do you pro-actively look ahead at projects and plan new approaches, subjects or styles you might try out?

I spend a great deal of time planning and researching my projects, which I believe is imperative to the success of the final result. Having a mentor has proved invaluable in terms of talking through my various ideas and understanding my strengths and weaknesses.

When and how did you first become aware of the BIPP? What is the main value to you as a professional photographer of the Institute?

I first became aware of the BIPP when Kevin Wilson became my mentor in February 2018. Kevin encouraged me to join the BIPP to gain my qualifications. For me, the main reason for joining the BIPP was that it is a well-respected organisation, and I wanted to start my qualification journey. I have now achieved my Licentiateship and Associateship, and plan to achieve my Fellowship before the year is over. The BIPP gave me a focus and a goal and I was able to network and make contacts with other photographers.

What would you say you have learned from the last few years of working?

I have learned being a professional photographer is not easy, but if you are prepared to put in the hard work, it will pay off in the end. The biggest challenge as a portrait photographer is that with the arrival of phone cameras, it is so important to provide work that it is not possible to replicate on a phone.

Are you aware of competition around you, or do you focus more on developing your own route?

I am aware of competition within my area, but I always remain true to my own vision and strive to provide work that stands out as unique. It is so easy to lose your way if you’re constantly observing others’ work.

Stylistically, how do you go about creating your own USP? What is it about how you work a client that might be different from other photographers?

I push myself to deliver over and above what the client needs are. I use natural light and offer sessions on location or home sessions which I think clients appreciate.

Where do you get inspiration from?

I am inspired by what each new day brings!

Can you provide any ‘early days’ tips for those right at the very start of their photographic journey?

Work hard. Don’t let others discourage you on your path. Get a mentor whose work you admire – I wish I had done that right from the start. Keep shooting and practising. www.catherine-beltraminiphotography.com

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C ATHERI NE BELTRAM I NI

All images © Catherine Beltramini

B EST LI CENTI ATE 2018

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All images © Catherine Beltramini

WA R VETRANS | ABI PP PANEL

Jack Harris OBE DFC (98) holds his RAF cigarette case. He flew many different aircraft during his career as an RAF pilot including the Lancaster and Canberra bombers. Jack was awarded the Dintinguished Flying Cross as well as the Order of the British Empire. He said: ‘Our crew never returned early, always bombed the primary target and brought back a good percentage of target photographs showing the aiming point.’

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Clive Wilson (72) went to Royal Military College, Sandhurst and was commissioned to the Queens Regiment.

On being posted to Northern Ireland he said: ‘As the boat sailed into Belfast I could see the flames and smoke from innumerable fires in the harbour.’

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C ATHERI NE BELTRAM I NI

All images © Catherine Beltramini

WA R VETRANS | ABI PP PANEL

Denis Wainwright (97) was posted to East Africa in 1942 and learned Swahili. He still has his red identity tag with his name, army number and religion on it. He wore it around his neck at all times as the means of identification had he been killed. Of his time in the army during World War II he says: ‘It was an adventure, but also a time of great anxiety for men who were separated from dependent families.’

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David Wakefield (86) served in the Royal Sussex Regiment in the Suez Canal Zone, Egypt. He says: ‘I was only once under fire, but I was so busy that I didn’t have time to think about anything so mundane as being afraid.

Perhaps all those of my comrades – both those who made it [back] and those who did not, were under the same protective amnesia.’

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F UJ I FI LM GFX OPEN DAY

F U J I F I L M G F X D AY WED 7TH AUGUST Get hands-on with the Fujifilm GFX mirrorless digital camera system Drop in anytime between 10am and 5.30pm BIPP Preston Office The Artistry House 16 Winckley Square Preston PR1 3JJ Hosted by Fujifilm’s Nathan Wake, who will have the complete range with him including all three bodies

The GFX100 mirrorless digital camera features a newly

plus lenses and accessories –

developed 102mp approx 55mm diagonal length large-format

as well as the benefit of his

sensor and is the new flagship model of the GFX system of

21 years’ experience at

mirrorless digital cameras, which have received strong praise

Fujifilm. He says: ‘The GFX

from professional photographers for their use of a 43.8mm

changes the game because it’s

x 32.9mm large-format sensor, which is approximately 1.7

an affordable, portable mirrorless system with an

times larger than a 35mm ‘full frame’ sensor. The GFX100

amazing choice of lenses designed specifically for

features a back illuminated sensor with phase detection pixels

the bodies in the range.’

– the first of its kind for image sensors larger than the 35mm full-frame format. Another world’s first for larger than 35mm full-frame format cameras is in-body image stabilisation (IBIS), delivering five-axis image stabilisation of up to 5.5 stops. As a result, ultra high-resolution photography can even be achieved when shooting handheld. The GFX100 is also the world’s first mirrorless digital camera with an image sensor of this size or greater to offer 4K30P video recording capability. With these world’s first features, the GFX100 is a camera of unparalleled innovation and versatility, fulfilling its purpose of ‘capturing and recording precious moments that will never be repeated again’ at the highest image quality possible in a mirrorless camera.

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OऺIMAGE TAKEN WITH GFX 100 BY MICHAEL CLARK

SEEING IS BELIEVING 102-MEGAPIXEL RESOLUTION | FUJIFILM G MOUNT | 43.8X32.9MM BAYER SENSOR 4K VIDEO RECORDING | IN-BODY IMAGE STABILISATION | HYBRID PHASE DETECTION AF SYSTEM WITH 425 SELECTABLE POINTS | X-PROCESSOR 4 IMAGING ENGINE ISO SENSITIVITY RANGE 50-102,400 | WEATHER-RESISTANT DESIGN

FUJIFILM-X.COM/GFX100

TP-2019-1 39$' Y LQGG %5))8. %5))8. *); $' Y LQGG 02-64.indd *) );

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11:43

COLOUR BASI CS DATACOLOR

F

rom planning a photoshoot, to adding final touches to your shot through editing, it takes a lot to perfect your vision. Seeing an accurate representation of the shot that you took on your monitor allows you to control every aspect of your image. From editing to printing, how accurately is your creative vision reflected and how positive are you that what you see on your screen will be the same as what is printed?

Monitor calibration devices allow the colours that you see on your monitor to be consistent with what you print. Here we take a look at three reasons why calibrating your monitor will improve your fine art prints and give you an optimum colour output.

Eliminate the guesswork Colour calibration devices remove the challenge of matching your digital image with a physical print. You can eliminate the guess work of trying to figure out whether your prints will turn out darker than you expected due to your monitor being too bright, your printer inks needing to be changed or the light shining on your device.

A colour calibration device such as Datacolor’s SpyderX will measure the colour, contrast and brightness output of your monitor and match it to international standards. This means that you won’t have to guess which colour will be printed, as it will always be an exact match to what you see on your monitor.

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COLOUR BASI CS DATACOLOR

No such thing as consistent lighting The light shining on your monitor is hardly ever consistent, from changes in natural light to shadows. Therefore, you are constantly tempted to marginally alter colours when touching up your final image. A calibrated monitor eliminates the need for constant changes to be made, as it provides your monitor with consistent colour, no matter what lighting conditions you are under.

A calibration device is able to monitor your room lighting, allowing you to ensure you are working on a monitor with the correct display settings. The software measures the light in the room throughout the day, and reminds you to adjust your brightness and contrast setting to ideal levels, keeping them consistent.

Each screen is different When you are finally ready to send your image to be printed, you can be confident that what you see on your monitor will be accurately replicated.

When photographers are providing images to third parties to be printed, such as publishing houses, it is important to remember that each screen shows images slightly differently. Therefore, nobody will ever see the exact same image as you, unless you are viewing it on the same monitor.

However, if your monitor has been calibrated, you can rest assured that when you send images to others to print your creative vision will remain intact.

To keep your creative vision consistent from shooting to printing, monitor calibration is the central key and with calibration taking under two minutes with devices such as the SpyderX, there is no reason to not ensure your colour is as accurate as possible.

For more information about Datacolor’s SpyderX monitor calibration tool visit: https://spyderx.datacolor.com/

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C O MPA N Y PA RT N E R S

D

atacolor – a global leader in colour management solutions, providing software, instruments and services to assure accurate colour of materials, products and images – is offering BIPP members a 20% discount on

B

arrett & Coe are the largest Portrait studio franchise in the UK. They also provide marketing support services to over 100 independent studios, making over 5,000 family portrait appointments and a similar number of baby portrait bookings annually. Barrett & Coe are passionate about helping studios increase their

F

ujifilm is a global leader in imaging technology, products and services including digital cameras, photofinishing, digital storage and recording media, consumer and professional film, motion picture film, professional video, printing systems, medical imaging, office technology, flat panel displays and graphic arts. The company employs more than 73,000 people worldwide, with 178 subsidiaries stretching across four continents.

Uniquely placed to be a market leader in digital imaging, Fujifilm develops and manufactures its own sensors, lenses and processing technology. In addition to its production plants and R&D operations in Japan, the

solutions purchased on-line. Also benefit from the store selling in Euros and, if you’re VAT registered, you can get the VAT removed as the store is in Switzerland! www.datacolor.com

profitability through training, national contracts, and their Baby of the Month and Family of the Month Facebook competitions.

www.barrettandcoe.co.uk

company has key manufacturing facilities in Europe and the USA for core products such as colour film, colour paper, single-use cameras and CTP printing plates and has further factories in Brazil and China. It has a global turnover in excess of £13 billion.

In the UK, Fujifilm has been supplying the imaging, printing and graphics industries, as well as consumers, professional and enthusiast photographers, with high quality, innovative products and services for over 25 years. Fujifilm UK currently employs more than 400 people and has become one of the country’s most popular photographic and imaging brands. www.fujifilm.co.uk

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M EM BER BENEFI TS

Ioan Said, LBIPP writes:

H

aving been a professional photographer for 13 years, I have used several different CRM systems, but Studio Ninja is the only one I have found that does everything I need to be able to run my business efficiently, as well as being extremely user-friendly.

Trying to keep track of everything from enquiries, appointments to projects, leads, invoices, income and contacts through my e-mails, google calendar and e-signature systems, was very complicated. But now, everything from the contract to the invoices is collected into one system, and I can see all the communication I’ve had with each different client in one place. Studio Ninja automates a large part of my tasks and responsibilities, simplifies my workflow and saves me a lot of stress and a lot of time – time that I can now be spending on the creative work.

One of the best things about Studio Ninja is how easy it is to navigate and how organised the system is. It sends me reminders and also keeps in touch with my clients for me. I can add my branding to my invoices, take all of my payments through it, and the clients love it too as they can see all their items in one window – it’s effortless.

Features and benefits • It converts leads into sales even when you’re off-line. Studio Ninja allows you to convert enquiries into sales, manage and track them through a streamlined workflow system and for all website enquires, you can automatically send a series of trigger emails.

• You can stay on top of your jobs and to-do lists. With everything on one screen you can track all your jobs. The visibility of tasks, jobs and where each job is up to means you can stay up to date with time frames, deadlines and invoices.

• You can streamline your business. You can either use customisable or pre-made workflows and use them as a checklist or, let them automatically send emails, contracts and questionnaires to clients on your behalf.

• You can send quotes and contracts quickly.

You can setup your own branded Client Portal and have your clients accept quotes, sign contracts, and pay invoices all online. It even automatically remind your clients when payments are due.

• Easily track payments and income. Studio Ninja is integrated with PayPal and Stripe so you can setup your payment terms and accept online payments straight away. You can also easily view your annual revenue and compare your year-on-year results.

• Integrate with your favourite work tools.

As well as Paypal and Stripe, Studio Ninja is integrated with Gmail, Google Calendar, Xero and Quickbooks, as well as ShootProof and Fundy. They work seamlessly as a team, so you can sync invoices, payments, emails, events and galleries as you’ve always done.

• Run your business from anywhere, anytime.

There’s also a mobile app so you can log in from anywhere and access all the features meaning you can run your business from anywhere, anytime.

• There is also 24-hour global customer support.

For a 50% discount on your first year with Studio Ninja, use code BIPPNINJA!

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RE G IO N S & E VE N T S

Regional contacts Cotswolds Stefanie Calleja-Gera ABIPP stef@scg-photography.com Midlands David Taylor FBIPP david@chapelstudio photography.co.uk North East Kevin Weatherly LBIPP kevinweatherly@mac.com North West Jonathan Beer FBIPP info@jonathanbeer.co.uk Northern Ireland David Campbell ABIPP cabocampbell@me.com Scotland Jon Lee ABIPP jon@bippscotland.com South East Fiona Ingvarsson ABIPP fiona@ fionaelizabethphotography.com South West Bella West FBIPP bellawest@me.com Yorkshire Irene Cooper irene@irenecooper.com

COTSWOLDS

MIDLANDS

Tuesday 25th June Portrait photography with Bella West FBIPP, 1-5pm Regional Awards Ceremony, 7-9pm A fantastic opportunity to engage in a highly sought after Portrait Photography Workshop with Bella West, PLUS the BIPP Regional Awards Ceremony. Olivers Manor House, Painswick GL6 6TP. Visit the BIPP website to find out more and how to book onto this limited space event. Bella West has been at the forefront of children’s portrait photography for over 25 years. Over that time she has transitioned and adapted to the call of the industry and been clear about the market that she appealed to. Her commissions are diverse, ranging from fine art children’s portraiture, to children’s couture campaigns and editorial commissions.

Bella was invited to be a part of the prestigious 209women collection as one of the selected photo­graphers of female MPs recently exhibited in Parliament and at the Open Eye Gallery. Bella will explain how she markets and balances her two different areas of work, and provide a practical workshop – inviting delegates to utilise ideas they may have – on location.

Wednesday 26th June Regional Awards Ceremony plus David Taylor FBIPP / Bryn Griffiths FBIPP Practical commercial demonstration A fantastic opportunity to see who has been Awarded what in the all-new Midland Regional Awards. Lee Marston Hotel, Haunch Lane, Lea Marston, Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands B76 0BY.Members £10 on the evening, 7:30pm start.

Wednesday 21st August V&A exhibition visit The Midland Region will be joining up with the Cotswolds region to visit the ‘Collecting Photography: From Daguerreotype to Digital’ exhibition at the V&A Museum in London. See highlights from the V&A’s extraordinarily broad photography collection, including a range of processes, from early daguerreotypes to contemporary digital images. Explore the history of photography through the lens of collecting, showing photographs collected by individuals and institutions, and learn more about how photographers collect and categorise their surroundings.

Wednesday 21st August V&A exhibition visit The Midland Region will be joining up with the Cotswolds region to visit the ‘Collecting Photography: From Daguerreotype to Digital’ exhibition at the V&A Museum in London. See Cotswolds.

NORTH WEST Thursday 20th June North West Awards Dinner Dukes 92, Castlefield, Manchester M3 4LZ. The big night. Meet up with friends and colleagues, socialise, network, and celebrate the best photo­graphy from the best region!

SOUTH WEST Monday 29th July Hannah Freeland, Equine Photography Hannah’s beautiful equine portraits awarded her an Associateship in 2018.

An established equine photographer for over ten years, she is going to be sharing her tips and tricks of creating beautiful fine art portraits of horses. She is a great example of someone finding their niche market and defining a strong client base.

This workshop is worth attending not only if you are working with animals,

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REGI ONS & EVEN TS

Awards update

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but looking to find your own niche. This will be a practical demo and tutorial with horses on location. Higher Houghton Farm, Blandford Dorset DT11 0PG 1-5pm £35 per delegate.

or the first time in The British Institute of Professional Photography history, all nine regions came together under one umbrella to create a more unified and inclusive awards structure. We are delighted to report that members from all regions got behind the awards and showed us some superb work to judge.

Whilst each region will have their own dedicated awards, the timeline, categories and judging criteria were standardised across every region, ensuring all members, no matter where they were located, had the same awards opportunities.

This allowed us to harmonise the regional and national awards so that we can automatically push the best work from our regional awards straight into the 2020 national awards later in the year; minimising your hassle and maximising your investment in time and printing. We created a brand new system to enable us to accommodate this new format and despite a few early teething problems, we have had great feedback from members about the digital entry for the first round.

Round one is now complete and all regions have been judged by the same set of judges. We sincerely thank our esteemed judges for their tremendous effort and hard work in making the difficult decision as to which images to put through to round two.

Round two takes place in Preston on 13 June, and qualifiers have been asked to provide printed work for this session. At the time of writing many of these top class entries are already arriving at Head Office. We are eagerly anticipating the final results, again judged by the same set of judges (below). We look forward to sharing the results with you in the next issue of this magazine.

YORKSHIRE Wednesday 24th July Steve Howdle & Stephanie Thornton, Fashion & Portrait Workshop Bishop’s Manor, Howden, East Riding, Yorkshire. The day will be held at Bishop’s Manor, Howden, East Riding of Yorkshire. It will be fun, lively and full of lighting techniques and creativity.

Booking is essential: please email katrinabipp@gmail.com to secure your place.

Sunday 25th August Landscape Photography with Anna Bridson ABIPP Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 11am. Bring your camera and picnic basket and join us in a Photo Walk with award winning architectural photographer Anna Bridson, ABIPP who has experience of working with Cultural Heritage Museums. Booking is essential: please email katrinabipp@gmail.com to secure your place.

Jim Lowe has been a professional photographer for 45 years, and is a specialist in architecture. His hand printed black & white landscapes have been acquired by collectors around the world

Gerry Coe a professional photographer for a very long time…

Now a committed iPhone / mobile photographer

David Taylor began working in industrial photography in the 1960s and enjoyed a long career as a corporate industrial commercial photographer for an American oil additive company

Stewart Jackson has enjoyed an extensive career in commercial and advertising photography and has been commissioned by a broad range of design, editorial and corporate clients

Ian Southerin is a leading commercial photographer in the NW of England and knows his success is due to relentless attention to detail, print quality and passion for photography

Fiona Ingvarsson is a wedding and portrait photographer based in Surrey whose timeless and classical art is something her clients will cherish for generations.

Pavel Tamm is a commercial photographer specialising in corporate, advertising and fashion – he employs diverse technical knowledge and artistic ability with graphic design know-how

Kym Cox Expertise in photographing soap bubbles and films. Collaborates with scientists to portray, promote & exhibit the ‘ArtScience’ ethos by combining bubble research and conclusion within an Art context

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PHOTOGRAPHER FOCUS I AN TAYLOR

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Image © Ian Taylor

The way the wind blows

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an Taylor didn’t have much of a plan looking back more than 20 years when he quit his engineering career. After graduating with a degree in Engineering with Industrial Management, he travelled throughout America and Australia before returning to England in 1992 and worked as a consultant engineer. But five years on he was walking around his home town thinking that this, that or the other would make a great picture. So he tried and, generally speaking, it didn’t work. What came next says a great deal about the present-day photographer. He explains: ‘I set out to find out why it didn’t work and did lots of experimentation, trial and error. I quickly realised that paying to get black and white film processed and printed was really quite expensive and the results weren’t what I wanted so I learned how to do all that myself in the darkrooms at The Photographers Workshop in Oxford, with teachers like Barry Roberts and Keith Barnes, and became very much a self-supporting photographer.’

Adding some seriousness to his armour, Ian set out and got himself a Diploma, and then joined the BIPP in 1999. The view has always been to be a professional doing a professional job. Therefore, you’ll be unsurprised to learn that Ian’s provided us with an in-depth guide to one of his own particular specialisms – photographing stained glass in situ – following this focus piece. It’s about what goes into an image to make it not just ready, but client ready.

But first we can get to know Ian a little better. He tells us about his image, left: ‘A team of professional wakeboarders did a 24-hour tour of UK cable wake parks. I went with them to three venues in the day that were local-ish to me. This was shot at Thorpe Park Lake at sunset and features professional wakeboarder Nick Davies doing a trick called a Hoochie Glide off a kicker.

As I wakeboard myself, I know what the tricks are and the best place to be in to photograph them.

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Image © Ian Taylor

I also know which point of the trick is the most important in terms of seeing the rotation and / or grab so can time the shot. It’s also brilliant to work with professional athletes as they can perform tricks flawlessly and with accuracy so I can get close to the action if needs be without risking getting hit! I was in a wetsuit in the water for this shot with my Canon 1D Mk2 and Canon 17-40L lens in a waterproof ewa-marine housing. It was shot wide angle to show the kicker he hit, the sunset for ambiance and the rider at the top of the trick with a full grab on the board. A fast shutter speed was used to freeze the motion and a low viewpoint to emphasise the height of the trick and eliminate as many distracting things from the background as I could that would have been more obvious if shooting higher up from a boat.’

Ah, right, then does this mean that Ian’s a sports photographer or an underwater specialist? We love labels, don’t we? No… Ian’s not a man for labels: ‘I have specialisms but I’m a generalist because I work at a professional level across the genres. For example, over the years I’ve done a lot of environmental portraits of staff at Oxford University. The picture above is of an experimental set up, by a professor and his post-grad assistant, to build a quantum computer… or at least to try to figure out how to build one. I wanted to get a shot that was like a scientist looming over his creation so got them to lean in, shot it wide angle and with flash to elongate the perspetive a bit and let the background go dark with all the science ‘stuff ’ (I believe that’s the technical term) illuminated. My work with

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Image © Ian Taylor

Oxford University has taken me in lots of different directions.’ Ian explains: ‘I think that this is just a reality of working outside of the major cities, and is indicative of how commercial work progresses regionally. If someone wants you to do a job then you ask yourself how can you adapt a little and produce results in a slightly different way that might have a chance of developing the relationship long term. Conversations come about… a portrait leads to an event… in turn that leads to a location… it’s all about the little links that come about by talking to the people I’m working with. So you might say my business today is the product of a couple of decades of talking to people.’

Another example… Ian was commissioned by a company that rents out private jets to photograph their staff and some of their aircraft (above). The jet in the foreground was a new addition to the fleet. Ian tells us: ‘It’s quite weird to be asking the handlers to move a jet back and forth to get the right position for a shot but this worked nicely. While setting this up we had to ask another jet behind us to turn off his engines so that we could simply hear what everyone was saying.

Weirdly that jet was being warmed up by a pilot who I recognised as he went to my school. He’s working for Eddie Jordan (of Formula 1 fame) now and it was his jet. I guess connections are everywhere. Anyway, we set up the shot and for a fleeting instant the sun came out. I set up the shot, the sun came out, I took the shot, sun went in and it started raining. Perfect timing.’ g

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Image © Ian Taylor

This image won Ian a merit in the Regional BIPP awards 2016. It’s a shot of the Gothic Temple eyecatcher at Shotover House, Wheatley, near Oxford. Ian was commissioned by the architect who oversaw the renovation to make some record images for him. He wanted a shot of the temple with the lake frozen over as he wanted a reflection in the ice… Ian picks up the story: ‘I had to explain that very rarely did ice on a freshwater lake allow that and he’d be better off waiting for the ice to thaw so there would be a reflection in the still water of the lake. However, he wanted winter shots, there was snow forecast a few days after he contacted me and it was below zero for the few nights preceding so I knew the lake would be properly frozen. I arrived on site before dawn and took several shots of the temple from both sides as the sun came up.

Unfortunately there wasn’t much snow at all but I did get some lovely gloomy, atmospheric shots like this one before the sun broke through giving me very different images from this one here. Not much reflection, but the client was happy.’

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Image © Ian Taylor

Ian considers photography itself to be a highly transferable skillset: ‘If I look back and think that I was working for a while part-time in a gym and I’d take pictures in that I’d made and chat and someone would ask “can you do you this?” and “can you do that?”. My relationship with Balliol College Oxford came around in just that kind of fashion. Now I’ve been working for them for 20 years – covering events, producing portraits of staff and pupils and the archival side for record purposes. The College possesses so many uninsurable, unique items and that work is always a challenge, featuring shiny objects and almost inaccessible places but it’s always fascinating and fun to do. Once you have a sound skillset in photography, I’m a great believer in transfering around the genres assuming you have the correct application.’

One particular area of practice that Ian’s developed into his own specialism is childrens’ portraiture. Whilst doing a Diploma at the Oxford School of photography, one project was to photograph children. He did it all in black and white and seemed to find himself in a good groove. He says: ‘I subsequently approached a couple of

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Above: ‘This is a typical shot I get from family portrait sessions. When photographing children I try really hard not to pose them but I do try to get them to do something without actually asking them to do it… There’s a lot of psychology involved but I’ve found that to get natural shots you need to get them engaged in the process.

For example I might say “who’s taller, you or your sister?” and they invariably stand next to each other and interact so I shoot that interaction while they’re close together. I try really hard to keep my sessions as fun, un-complicated and un-structured as possible. It’s also vital that I’m as enthusiastic as possible. It might be the thousandth time I’ve done a family portrait session but it’s the first time for my clients so I need to be as upbeat and engaged as if it was my first time too.’

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Image © Ian Taylor

MV Earnslaw cruising on Lake Wakatipu at Queenstown beach in New Zealand. Image © Ian Taylor other nursery schools and was offering something slightly different – no big backgrounds and static sets – it was all candid shots, photographing children playing. I found very early in my career that the under 5s were so intimidated by a stranger coming into the nursery and setting up lights and backgrounds that they wouldn’t even go into the room… let alone sit on the chair… let alone smile. My way is to just shoot with no change to the normal nursery routine. It’s just me and my camera, hand held, at their level and playing games.

This quickly became my bread and butter work, and my default is still black and white.’ It’s not just about the pictures though. Candid photography in such a set up traditionally makes it hard to later work out who’s who – the admin can become a headache. But somehow Ian’s got a real head for it. He explains: ‘I can just remember who I have taken pictures of. There’s no list to tick off, I just happen to get everyone – I guess it’s just a nice knack to have. Seriously, though, this cornerstone of my work is what allows me do all the other interesting bits and pieces and offers a great variety and that’s a big part of what I love about my photographic career.’

Despite delving into photography in the analogue world, the engineer that will always remain in Ian’s head fully embraces the modern trade: ‘It’s great how occasionally you hear someone 54 the PHOTOGRAPHER / 2019 / Issue One

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Image © Ian Taylor

Eights week on the Thames by the Oxford University College boathouses, commissioned by Balliol College. Image © Ian Taylor mention a technique you haven’t come across before or a piece of software you might not know about and in that moment your world takes a step forward. The engineer in me will not let it lie until what I’m doing is at the highest possible level. In the darkroom I was learning about highlights, shadows and midtones and it’s all there to apply in digital post-production. You have to use the tools of the modern trade but also learn the art of subtlety. It’s a gentle art, getting an image just right for supply.’

Ian believes that as well as creating unique images for his clients he should also help them explode the myths surrounding photography internally in their organisations and show them what can be done. He expands: ‘There are a lot of misconceptions about digital effects and adjustments, so I try to show clients how sympathetic manipulation can enhance an image. I believe in working with my clients to help and guide them when necessary and to follow their guidelines to produce images to any specification.’

To see more of Ian’s work visit his website at www.itphoto.co.uk and follow him on Instagram at ian_taylor_photography Turn over for Ian’s guide to photographing stained glass windows

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Beyond the light

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hotographing stained glass can easily become one of the hardest things to do. It may be fairly straightforward to get a half-decent shot of the glass alone, but here Ian Taylor looks at techniques to achieve an excellent shot of the glass, window frame and all the post-processing approaches to make client-pleasing images.

You will have three main challenges: the technical side of how to set up your camera and exposures to use, how to illuminate the frame of the window and the physical side of how to position the camera to take the photo. Let’s attack these one at a time.

Camera settings The simplest way to photograph stained glass is to set the exposure for the light that is transmitted through the glass.

This is not as simple as letting the camera work it out as you compose your shot – there will inevitably be some of the stonework of the window frame in shot and this dark area will fool the camera’s sensor into thinking it needs to brighten up the picture. Therefore the automatic exposure it will set will overexpose the glass, causing the colours to bleach out and any highlights will be entirely blown.

So it’s necessary to use the spot metering function to measure the exposure for a small piece of the glass without any of the frame in the spot metering zone. Be aware that you can get different readings when spot metering depending upon the colour of the glass at the metering point, so try to use a colour that close to a mid grey tone and use the exposure shown as a guide and fine tune as necessary for the overall shot. Make a note of the exposure, set it in to the camera in Manual mode, compose your shot and take the picture.

Using this method, you should get a picture that shows the glass and colours therein but has no or very little detail in the window frame – kind of a silhouette. We’ll look at how to light the window frame later. However, as mentioned above, the exposure from spot metering may be a little off – depending upon the colour of the glass in the spot meter zone.

With digital cameras, there’s lots of information available to help fine tune exposure. On the back of the camera, make sure the ‘highlight alert’ setting is enabled in your camera’s settings and this will make any overexposed pixels in the image flash.

(These overexposed pixels will not have any colour information in them so will show as pure white in the picture; in other words these highlights have ‘blown’.)

As the human eye has evolved to detect details in moving things much better than details in still subjects (especially in poor light), your eye will be drawn to any areas – even very small ones – that flash on screen. If you have anything flashing, dial back the exposure a little and shoot again.

I can set 1/3 of a stop adjustments on the Canon 5D Mk4 so I change by that increment until the flashing areas have just stopped. This is a great trick that wasn’t available to us back in the days of film-based photography so use the technology, it makes life so much easier.

If you’re not quite sure about how to spot meter, try this. Compose your picture, take a photo and check it on the screen. It will almost certainly be overexposed, that highlight alert will be flashing furiously as the camera’s meter has been fooled by the darkness of the room. Then use the exposure adjustment wheel to dial back the exposure so you’re underexposing what the camera says you need to take the picture. Shoot again – see if you have any blown highlights flashing on screen and if so dial the exposure back more and shoot again. My Canon will allow me to underexpose in this way by up to three stops – so by shooting, checking for blown highlights and adjusting the exposure

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Above: correct exposure for transmitted light through glass | © Ian Taylor if necessary I can get a pretty good shot very quickly rather than using spot metering as described above… useful if you don’t have much time.

However, this is just a quick and easy method. It doesn’t take into account the finer points of stained glass photography which would take your image to the next level.

Once you have an exposure that ensures you have no overexposed pixels, you could use that as your base exposure. However, I often find that anything outside the window like bushes, trees or even buildings that are close to the window can cast a shadow over the window – even on a dull day – and, more often than not and very annoyingly, over just a part of the window. The effect is that the light transmitted through the glass

can vary over the entirety of the window which means that you need a different exposure for different parts of the window. In order to balance this exposure, there’s two standard approaches I use to make a more even finished photograph.

First, assuming the camera is on a tripod, I could take several pictures across a range of exposures, starting with the setting described earlier where there are no overexposed pixels and moving to an exposure that means a lot of the image is overexposed but the darkest parts are correctly exposed. These images can then be combined in Photoshop using the ‘merge to HDR (High Dynamic Range)’ function to use the correct exposure for each part of the image to give an overall file that is balanced in terms of brightness.

Some cameras allow you to shoot HDR images in-camera so you could try using that too if it’s available to you. There are quite a lot of adjustments you can make in Photoshop to the HDR image, so play around and see what works best for you. If you do not have a tripod, Photoshop can also automatically align your pictures but it can leave ghost images and isn’t an ideal result. g Issue One / 2019 / the PHOTOGRAPHER 57

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A second option, that may be easier especially if you’re hand holding your camera, is to take one image from the exposure range that you’ve just shot and work on that in post-production. This is akin to how we used to manipulate an image when printing it in a darkroom by dodging (shading part of the image during a portion of the time the image is exposed to the print paper) and burning (selectively giving more light to controlled areas of the image once a base exposure has been made to the print).

These techniques have been used to manipulate images since the beginning of photography. I tend to use an image that has just – but only just – blown some of the highlights, as I know that’s given me the best chance and dynamic range of information in the picture to enable me to manipulate it in Photoshop without the image looking

too noisy or under/overexposed.

When doing your manipulations in Photoshop make sure that you don’t move the highlight or shadow ends of the levels slider so you can retain shadow and highlight detail.

Below: original image, left. After post production, right, including perspective adjustment, exposure correction, selective dodging and burning especially on left-side of window due to trees and bushes outside reducing the light transmitted through the glass © Ian Taylor

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Below: correct exposure for glass and image, right has artificial light (flash) in room to show window surround © Ian Taylor

Try to work on the midtones and then dodge/burn as necessary to work with the image. You can set the dodging and burning brushes to work on highlight, midtone and shadow tones independently, as well as brush size of course, so you can be really fine-tuned in terms of this manipulation. There are endless tutorials on that sort of thing on the web so I won’t go into detail here. I’m trying to talk about actually capturing the best image in-camera to minimise the post production which invariably will degrade the image even if only slightly.

Of course another very important thing is to make sure your camera is set up as optimally as possible to capture the original image. Shoot RAW if possible, set the picture style as neutral as possible and dial the contrast settings down if you can.

Doing these things will allow you to capture as much information as possible in the digital file and you can then work on it in post-production to put contrast back in, check the exposures and so on, as desired.

Another camera setting that I find particularly useful is the built-in level function. I have this visible in the viewfinder if hand holding when up a ladder for example, so I can get my camera as level as possible, again to minimise post production manipulations.

As with all photography, there’s no hard and fast rule regarding exposure settings that will work for every situation. Try to use f8, f11 or f16 for the optimal performance of the lens, avoid cropping too close in to avoid the ‘pin cushion’ effect of vertical lines bending on the edge of the frame and make sure your shutter speed is fast enough to avoid camera shake (if hand holding) or use a tripod.

Churches and older buildings are notoriously dark so dial up the ISO to give you a usable aperture/shutter speed but beware of noise at faster ISOs. It will always be a juggling game so choose your optimum given the situation you find yourself in.

Illuminating the window frame Churches are usually dark. Any building can be dark inside. It may not look dark – our eyes can adjust quickly and see pretty well in shady rooms making us think it’ll be easy to take pictures – but when you actually measure the light, photographically speaking it’s pretty dark, especially when compared to the transmitted light through the window you’re trying to photograph. If you set an exposure for the ambient light in the room to photograph the window frame it will inevitably overexpose the glass massively – you’ll lose a lot of detail and any colour that

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remains will probably look very washed out. We therefore need to figure out a way to illuminate the room so that we can match the exposure we got to get the best tonality for the glass as well as detail in the window frame and anything else that we want in the picture.

The easiest way to do this is to use flash. However, and it’s a big however so pay attention, you cannot fire the flash directly at the window. If you do this you will get hot spots from anything shiny, even wooden panels around or under the window and, depending upon whether or not you can zoom the flash, it will not evenly illuminate the entire window. You need as big a light source as possible to illuminate the window indirectly. To do this we bounce the flash. In a small room this can be as simple as turning the on-camera flash head around a bouncing it off the wall behind you. You might need to increase the power of the flash and maybe angle the flash head so it doesn’t give you hot spots but it’s a useful option. A better idea is to use off-camera flash so you can position it wherever you want to illuminate evenly but indirectly. I have a travel flash kit consisting of two 750W studio flash heads and a couple of brolleys. I often won’t use the brolleys as the illumination source is still too focused and it’s easy to get hot spots or uneven illumination – I prefer to fire the flash at full power away from the window I’m photographing and bounce it off as much wall space as I can. I basically try to light the entire room without pointing the flash at whatever I’m photographing. I recently shot a 30m high window at the end of a chapel which tested my flash to the maximum. I had them as high as I could get (maybe 4m up on Left: what NOT stands) at full power and bouncing to do (2) – flash off the wall behind me. Unfortunatefired straight at ly, that wall was quite dark so I really window. Note struggled to get enough light to the uneven coverage of other end of the chapel. In the end, flash and desatuthe exposure I got from the flash was ration and ‘wash- two stops less than that for the glass ing out’ of colours but I knew I could lift the interior in © Ian Taylor post production so I had to go with Above: what NOT to do (1) – direct flash on window / wall.

Note uneven flash coverage, shadows from chandelier ropes at top of image and hot spots in wood panelling from direct flash © Ian Taylor

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that. In the end, I’m pretty happy with the result as it’s important to keep the ambient light a little lower than the glass anyway so that your eye is drawn to all the detail in the glass. I also had to contend with shiny wood panelling so had to angle the lights away from bouncing directly on to my subject wall which took a bit of juggling but is par for the course.

How to physically take the photograph The next major problem that I often encounter is that stained glass windows are often quite high up, in churches in particular. If you’re at ground level and have to tilt the camera backwards to get the whole window

in shot the vertical edges of it will converge at the top and look distorted. What we need to do is get our camera position as close to the middle of the window as possible. Of course, perspective is fairly easy to correct in Lightroom and Photoshop but, as mentioned before, it’s best to get the picture as good as possible in camera to minimise this sort of post production work.

To get the camera position as central to the window as possible use

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Below: entire window in context before and after post-production adjustments. Perfect exposure for glass and ambient light lifted by bounced flash so no hot spots. Post-production work includes perspective correction and exposure lifting of room, subtle dodging and burning selectively of glass © Ian Taylor

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a step ladder, if available, a viewing balcony opposite the window, a chair or anything you can find to gain some height. To photograph the massive window shown in the pictures accompanying this article I was 3m up a massive step ladder and then I’m nearly 2m tall so the camera position was approximately 5m above the floor. This still wasn’t enough so I knew I would have to correct the perspective in post. However, I had done all I could to gain height so that’s just something that would have to be done for this set of images.

Once the camera position is as close to the centre of the window as possible, watch out for things hanging across the window like curtains (easily moved) or chandeliers (not so easy to move). If you have an assistant with you and full access to the church you could try hooking a rope around the end of the chandelier and carefully pulling it to one side. Take a picture, swing the chandelier to the other side and take another and combine them in post so the chandelier isn’t visible – always ask permission before attempting an action like this. Chandeliers and other things that may hang or sit in front of the window may be fragile, old, delicate, and should never be moved without asking permission first.

If you don’t have an assistant, you need to find a camera position as optimal as possible and work with that. I recently had a situation where I had to shoot a pair of

windows at quite an angle. However, I knew that the ‘Full’ setting of the ‘Transform’ menu in the Develop module in Lightroom would shift the perspective of the windows so it would appear that they had been shot from directly in front. This is where knowledge of post-production techniques can be vital when photographing difficult subjects.

Getting a finished image that you’re happy with requires technical photographic knowledge, tricks and ideas to cope with the physical situation with which you’re presented and a good knowledge of post-production techniques like perspective correction and dodging/burning to really make the image complete. There’s loads of guides around for all of the technical items I’ve discussed but I wanted to give an overview of the whole process and I hope this has helped give a perspective of how it’s possible to shoot a very technically and practically challenging subject.

Below: extreme example of post-production perspective control. Camera position was optimal for ensuring chandelier ropes did not cover window but significant post-production was required to shift windows round and even out exposure across each window © Ian Taylor

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s your new President, I am hugely honoured and exited to take on this role, if not a little nervous – especially when you consider my predecessor Kevin Wilson who has been a wonderful figurehead for the BIPP: inspiring, innovative, encouraging, nurturing, funny…

I could go on! He was present as a judge when I put forward a panel for my second Fellowship in social documentary a few years ago. I nearly didn’t do it I was so nervous but his calm, reassuring words were just what I needed at the time. Seriously, it was significantly more nerve wracking than the first – I had stupidly decided that with my second Fellowship I didn’t need a mentor to guide me through.

My thought process was if I was mentoring others I should be able to mentor myself. But it doesn’t work like that, trust me – a mentor at any level is always a good sounding board. Kevin’s kind words on that day and understanding of what I was trying to achieve in my project is a real testament to how he embraced the BIPP’s ethos of enabling all genres of photographic talent to be recognised and celebrated and I will continue this work to the best of my ability.

I am lucky enough to own one of Kevin’s images from his Centenials series – one of his seven Fellowships. There is such tenderness and empathy in the way he shoots – it is truly heartfelt and I have always admired this in any imagery as I feel emotion and ‘realness’ have been lost in photography recently, with filters and post-production taking over from real stories and sound techniques, too much style and not enough substance if you like.

Going forward, I see the BIPP as a well-respected and diverse institution – the fact that I am one of just a handful of female presidents (I am sure this is similar in many other fields) needs to send a message out to others that our industry is open and inclusive. Many more female photographers are now thankfully being recognised for their incredible work and achievements. I look back to when I first started in the industry some 18 years ago when it was dominated by egos, talking about gear like trophies and settings like a foreign language. For me, the magic of photography is not in the settings or the gear that we have but the perfect communication and connection between the client or subject and the photographer.

In my experience, good communicators always rise – sharing ideas, collaborating, making connections and relationships will always make for a positive outcome. In recent years huge technological advances in our cameras have made ‘photography’ more accessible to the masses and

as such we collectively need to separate ourselves to command the prices that professionals deserve. I would love for our industry to be respected again as it was before, people understanding and revering our craft as it once was.

I’m sure many of you can relate to receiving comments like: “Never work with animals or children!”

“I have a friend doing my wedding – they’re a really great photographer.”

“You’ve got a big camera, I bet it takes amazing photos!”

And then there’s word ‘snaps’ – it winds me up no end. Personally, I love to work with children and animals and prove people wrong but to combat the devaluing of photography brought about by the developments in and falling cost of camera technology we need to work together, continually developing our skills and communicating the value of professional photography.

With our new CEO Martin Baynes, we have instantly acquired years of insight into our industry with marketing and business acumen that is unrivaled.

I am positive that the BIPP will now go

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Image © Kevin Wilson

“I don’t think my gasps of aesthetic astonishment will transmit through the keyboard, but if they could, they would provide a far better assessment of how powerfully your imagery has proved, once again, that your photographs are joyous reminders of a special time in a child’s life.”

“Saraya, it is hard for me to come up with words worthy of the brilliance of your vision of childhood and your creative expression of it. These images delight me and I don’t even know the children. What treasures these will be for the family down the generations.”

from strength to strength with Martin at the helm and look forward to the new ideas that he will bring to the Institute as a whole. I believe we now have the right mix of creativity, inspiration and business experience to take the BIPP forward.

During my 18 years as a photographer, I’ve been lucky to enough to receive some lovely comments about my work, but nothing quite as special as comments from Carolyn Fham (my super fan):

If I am having a low day – and we all do – I read her comments and realise just how lucky I am to work in such a fabulous profession and get the opportunity to touch people with the images I create. A super fan, an advocate for what we do – isn’t that we all need? I believe it is. It is what I hope the BIPP can be for you. Encouraging you when you are at a low, supporting you when you have a creative stumble and inspiring you to be the best photographer you can possibly be.

Therefore I encourage you to all get involved. Network with your regional groups, find a mentor, attend training courses and share your knowledge with other photographers for the benefit of us all. As an individual you will grow and as a community of support we can only get stronger.

With a bright new future ahead of us, I look forward to meeting you all.

Onwards and upwards! Saraya

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Image courtesy of Mark Mc Neill

Firecrest N i g h t s ca p e Nightscape is a Neodymium filter designed to give your images the true colours of the night sky. £155 inc Vat

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