the Photographer - Issue Two 2020

John Henshall A strange imagination for the future

The Magazine of the BIPP / 2020 / Issue Two-Three

Reaching up Barrie Spence’s dancers panel is among ten members gaining new qualifications

Diving down

Will Miller takes shows us Indonesia’s underwater wonders

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Eye Jogia

The essence of a professional wedding photographer

Lockdown shots

Pictures in the time of COVID-19 from the world of 22 BIPP members

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USEFUL AND INFORMATIVE RESOURCES

FIND THE BIPP ON INSTAGRAM, TWITTER AND FACEBOOK

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www.talkingshot.co.uk

www.facebook.com/ groups/2216824425216109/

masteringportraitphotography.com

https://www.facebook.com/ groups/212014723451456/

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I SSUE TW O- THREE, 2 0 2 0

CEO’s column 2 Martin Baynes discusses a raft of recent developments from head office Board of directors | nominees 4 BIPP Inclusion Council 7 Introducing the BIPP’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy

Eye Jogia Photography 40 A truly professional attitude to their work has always been at the heart of what’s become a much talked about weddings business. What makes them different?

BIPP President | Jon Cohen 8 Say hello to the incoming President of the BIPP

John Henshall | Digital Oracle 48 In the early 1990s John Henshall came to almost single­ handedly represent the emerging technologies in photography – and it wasn’t to everyone’s liking

New qualifications 9 Presenting new Fellowships, Associateships and Licentiates – introduced by Chair of Judges Scott Johnson FBIPP

Reasons to be printing 56 Some thoughts on the role of the physical print and a look at the Fotospeed Cyanotype Process Kit from their Heritage Range

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: Kevin Weatherly LBIPP, Tony Freeman HonFBIPP, Chris Wright ABIPP, Emily Hancock FBIPP, Ian Southern LBIPP, Karen Massey ABIPP

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 David Taylor FBIPP - Midlands

Social media column 61 The reality of getting noticed Will Miller | beneath the waves 62 Dive photography at one of the most impressive sites in the world is not without its difficulties – but the results can make everything worth the (significant) effort Lockdown shots 70 22 BIPP members share their pictures and tell their tales since COVID-19 took hold Obituary 95 Neville Kuypers FBIPP

Kevin Weatherly LBIPP - North East Irene Cooper 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 2020 1

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M ARTI N BAYNES

Welcome to this bumper edition of the Photographer magazine. As we continue to navigate through these difficult months, I have been encouraged by the resilience of our members and the support within our community. Whilst restrictions are continuing to hamper our wedding photo­ graphers, incredibly some of our commercial and portraiture photographers are having one of their busiest times. Our situation is not ideal, but as members of our amazing organisation we will be able to keep each other going as we look forward to things improving and to what will surely be our most productive year in 2021. As you will see from this edition, we have had so much going on, including a round of qualifications hosted at the Artistry House, the home of the British Institute of Professional Photography.

I am very pleased and proud to announce ten new honours were awarded, including four LBIPP, three ABIPP, two of which were upgrades, and three FBIPP. Well done to everyone who entered and congratulations to those who were successful. For our Chair of Judges, Scott Johnson and his team it was a difficult and exhausting few days, but you stood on the shoulders of past judges and the results speak for themselves. Scott gives us his perspective as an introduction to excerpts from the successful panels

and over the next few weeks we will interview the members who qualified and a couple who didn’t this time but learned so much from the process.

We shall be recording these and posting them on Facebook and YouTube in October.

In other news, the Directors and I had a very successful board meeting within the amazing Fujifilm House of Photography building – if you’re in London this is very much worth a visit.

A few highlights from the meeting: – we passed the new inclusion policy and council, which is discussed in more detail elsewhere in this edition.

As far as I am aware we are the first asso­ ciation to put forward such a proposal.

It is the right thing to do and hopefully will attract more members to our amaz­ ing organisation. The process was led by Sharron, our office manager and you can read more about it here in the magazine.

– we are working on getting our qualifications recognised via Ofqual.

We are at the start with a long way to go, but at the end, with some changes in the administration and the way the judges are trained this will lead to the qualifications being recognised by the government. This is something no other

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CEO’S COLUM N

organisation has been able to do, and I feel it is worth the time and effort to see if it is possible. I will give you more feedback as we move through the process.

– we are talking to Endpoint Assessment about working with them on a new course, Photographic Assistant Appren­ ticeship, this is a course that is done both in the workplace and also with a training provider. We will look at providing a new qualification for photographic assistants, to go hand-inhand with the Aim Assessment qualification. I believe this course will provide a much greater yield of members. We will continue to support the universities we are involved with.

I am so pleased and very excited to announce that taking the reins from the wonderful Saraya Cortaville in November is our new President, Jon Cohen. Jon is a living legend in our industry with over 30 years’ experience heading up a division of Fuji and recently retiring. As one of the most rec­ ognised people in the industry, we will be honoured to call him our President. You can read more about Jon in this issue.

As you are also aware we have completed nominations for the role of Director at the institute – the voting will start in a few days time and you can read about the nominees over the page. Please get involved and vote, an e-mail will be arriving with you directing you to the voting site.

Due to the on-going pandemic, we have been forced to cancel the plans we had for an in-person AGM – and a celebration – but we do plan to go ahead with qualifications if possible. The AGM will now be on-line and carried out remotely. We will send out more information as soon as we can. At the board meeting, we have decided to add five new regions to the south-east and west of the UK. At the moment, the geographical split makes no sense. By adding the new regions, we will make the regional meetings more accessible, hopefully giving more value to both existing and future members.

I hope you enjoy this edition of the Photographer. Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any feedback, ideas or just want a chat.

Kind regards, Martin 3

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B IP P BOARD OF DI RECTORS NOM I NEES

Monir Ali I am excited about the changes taking place across the BIPP and want to be a big part of the new directions being planned.

I have ideas waiting to burst out of my head and I know these ideas are shared amongst other members. I am a proud member of BIPP for what it does and represents and I would like to be a more active member of that and be able to motivate others to engage too.

Not too good at blowing my own trumpet but I am passionate about photography and would like to put that to more good use.

mean a lot, and I see us as being role models in the profession. We have a wealth of knowledge to be the ultimate leaders in the industry. Self taught or university educated I’d like to encourage supporting each other, sharing ideas and knowledge, especially with developing programmes that continue to push all of us regardless of our current status.

What I’d hope to achieve is for a fully supportive institute for all of its members, where everyone feels completely valued. I am happy to be held accountable in making this happen if I were to be voted in.

I want to help move forwards to create an exceptional photography establishment.

Aneesa Dawoojee I am applying for the Director role as I want to ensure that we all enjoy our memberships.

I believe that enabling everyone to succeed in their art drives up the body of our work and the value of our organisation. I can help the institute develop relationships with education establishments, to show the newer generation that there is a future in photography, that there is power and worth in what we do.

As a long-standing school board member, I know how to implement successful change in an institution.

To take it to outstanding status.

Language, transparency and clarity is so important when we invest in an institute. I can certainly bring openness, positive thinking and direction. We are passionate about photography. Our memberships

Alicia Hall I’m the Creative Director for Venture Studios, a group of franchise led studios in the UK, Hong Kong and the USA. I’ve been in the role for three years, in that time I’ve been led the creativity, technical skills and abilities across the 50-plus photographers in the brand.

Being a photographer myself with BA hons, I have worked my way up from a trainee in 2005, to heading the photography, whilst also working in all roles of the business, including lead generation, social media and marketing, before taking the leap to Art Director. As Art Director I’ve created and ran workshops across the UK, to embed new techniques and photographic direction and have mentored many photographers to gain their LBIPP and ABIPP qualification. With COVID hitting

the business hard, I have used the lockdown period to focus on creative customer acquisition, filming and sharing videos of photographic tips, to keep Venture in the eye of our customer demographic, leading to lots of new voucher sales and families through the door.

I’m applying for this role as I feel my experience in social photography gives me a wealth of knowledge and experience that will be of benefit to the board, when steering the BIPP ship forward to success. As COVID has hit the social photography sector hard, we as a collective of hardworking people need to adapt and adapt fast. My skills and experience can offer a wealth of ideas of tried and tested and creative approaches to move the industry forward, to once again be strong.

Mark Hall I have been lucky enough over the years to have been involved in professional photography at every level since qualifying as a Licentiate following my HND and PQE at Blackpool in the mid-1980s, my Masters Degree in the late 90s and my PhD in 2018.

Many I qualified with are still in photography and are associated in some way with the British Institute of Professional Photography which is a tribute to both the course we studied and the people who taught us what they knew; and to the Institute which had the foresight to invest time in advocating the profession to those who were on the same journey.

Times though have changed and there are fewer people studying

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B IPP BOARD OF DI RECTORS NOM I NEES

photography as a profession and making a living solely from it, though the numbers of people engaging with photography is increasing exponentially. The demographic of those who are working in the profession has also changed though less quickly than one might have hoped. There are still large numbers of photographers that are underrepresented within the professional bodies lobbying on their behalf and the challenge is to provide a wider range of support to encourage their participation.

Becoming a trustee of the oldest commercial photography business in the world, WW Winter in Derby (established in 1852 ) made me aware of the need to identify with our heritage and to learn from the ways of dealing with past challenges can inform the ones we now face.

The formation of the Institute in 1901 makes it best placed to address the very things that threaten the success of businesses now, over supply and under regulation and the opportunities presented by technology was evolving business practices. As a board member I would like to play an active part of the future of the Institute.

Johanna Elizabeth Littler I’ve been a photographer with my own successful high street studio since 2010. I specialise in boudoir photography. In the last year, I have enjoyed getting to know the organisation and am excited by the direction it’s headed in. I feel it’s vital to engage and retain photographers like myself, in an inclusive organisation where excellence and development is encouraged. I believe there should be a benchmark organisation in the UK that photographers and the public recognise as a reassurance of excellence and hold in high regard.

Recently, I have stepped up into speaking and mentoring through my ‘Mindful Mastery of Boudoir Photography’ project and have discovered a passion for sharing and educating others, giving something back.

I’ve been encouraged by my peers to enter print competitions and gain qualifications. Interestingly, until this year I felt ‘too busy’ and assumed my clients didn’t care. I now realise I do and I should. I want to look at my own self development in a business world that can be a very lonely. I’d dearly like to be instrumental in engaging with and encouraging other photographers (some like me) to view this path differently and see the value in it. I’m told that I’m kind, with a good sense of humour and very dedicated to all I do. I’m not afraid to speak up when I feel passionately about something. I think being a Director of the British Institute of Professional Photography would be an honour and a very interesting role.

Karen Massey I’ve been a Director now for the British Institute of Professional Photography for the last six months and have thoroughly enjoyed my involvement. I feel I am now starting to make a difference within the organisation, to the board, head office and that of its members. I have so many ideas and initiatives on how to move the organisation forward and help modernise it, making it the most relevant organisation in the photographic industry. I want to be part of a team that makes this organisation different from any other, for the Institute to be the voice of professional photography and video in the industry. I see the organisation becoming the organisation of choice for professional image makers.

I’ve started to make significant progress with my recent appointment as Director to the board of the Federation of European Professional Photographers and going on to being elected as their Vice-President.

This is an important step and an integral role alongside my Institute commitments, further promoting our members being involved among the best in Europe.

Located in Leamington Spa, a photographer for 15 years, specialising in wedding and portrait photography. I’ve gained my Associate and pushing forward with my fellowship. I have a huge amount of business experience, having previously owned a business employing ten staff. I founded the Leamington Business Awards, set up to recognise businesses within

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B IP P BOARD OF DI RECTORS NOM I NEES

the town; now in its 7th year.

Last year saw me launch RISE, an organisation for professional female photographers, with ambitions to underpin equality by strengthening the female voice within our creative industry. When RISE members start to look for a qualification path, I am in a unique position to explain and show the benefits of membership with the Institute.

Rasa Razaniene As an individual with a solid background in management and professional photography, I am convinced my experience aligns perfectly with the needs and requirements of the organisation, and I feel confident of the value I could bring to this role.

I graduated in 2002 with a degree in Business Management from the University of Applied Sciences, Vilnius. I started working in the field since before graduation, acquiring valuable customer service skills, attention to detail and business awareness. Through hard work and determination I managed to climb the ladder, in roles ranging from execution to management.

Although I was building a successful career, my craving for freedom, joy and self-expression determined me to embrace photography. I started learning the basics on my own, and this marked the beginning of an inspiring journey about commitment, hard work and self-discovery. I chose to dedicate myself wholeheartedly to the full of opportunities the world photography represents.

Now a professional photographer with over 10 years’ experience, I am more passionate than when I

first started. I am committed to delivering high-quality work, for which my achievements stand as proof. Moreover, I am proud of being awarded the 2017 Peter Grugeon Award for the Best Fellowship, which I believe reflects not only my talents and skills, but also my passion and enthusiasm. I would love to take on more responsibility, challenge myself to think out of the box and work with others in developing creative strategies to take BIPP to even greater heights.

of Professional Photography community. Photographers are stronger when we work together.

Barrie Spence I care. I ask awkward questions.

I cause trouble… I make commitments and do things. I’m good at making things change. I’ll do my best to move the organisation forward.

Ian Southerin At last we now have a head office that truly wants to help and support members. My role as Director would be to support the regions. I have already started talking to the current regional ‘chairs’. The regional leaders need to feel ‘part of the team’. Currently they are left to fend for themselves. We would pool resources, talk on a regular basis through a WhatsApp Group, share best practice and focus on building a community. I have led the very successful North West region for many years; I am aware of the gigantic task of ‘running a region’.

The Magazine is (at last) starting to reflect the high-quality of work that is produced by our members.

I would like to see it becoming a ‘Photography Art Magazine’ being published 6 times a year. The Magazine is the only regular ‘contact point’ between head office and our members and customers – it needs to reflect the quality of our organisation.

I have no allegiance to other professional photography organisations – my focus will be on building the British Institute

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BI PP POLI CY I NCLUSI ON COUNCI L

“Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.”

Martin Luther King

W

e believe passionately that the key to remain­ ing at the forefront of our industry is to listen to our members. We want to become the driver in fostering organisational change, and we need you – our members – to share your views and ideas for strategies on how to promote inclusivity.

With this in mind we are forming an Inclusion Council – its aim to promote respect for all our members and be a flagship for the whole of the profession in moving forward. We need to cel­ ebrate our diversity and showcase our talent so that globally what­ ever sex, cultural background or race a photographer is, they iden­ tify with us. We already have the resources within our wonderful community to make this happen.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy is just the start, the first stage of what I hope to be an amazing journey of discovery and enlightenment of who we are now and what we can become.

We will soon be looking for vol­ unteers to be part of the Council, and hope you will consider it. I’m proud to be part of it and hope you will be too.

Sharron Caunce

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Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy extract

7

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BI PP PRESI DENT

I mage © Tamara Peel

J ON COHEN

T

aking over the reins as BIPP President from Saraya Cortaville in November is Jon Cohen, formerly long-serving business group manager at FujiFilm. We thought it’d be a good opportunity to delve into Jon’s background and talk a bit about how he sees today’s Institute taking an active and essential role in the professional industry.

Jon retired from FujiFilm UK Ltd in March this year, just a couple of months ahead of his 34th anniversary at the company. But how did it all begin?

Jon tells us: ‘My father was a research scientist at ICI working with Ilford on colour emulsions – that meant there were often test batches for me to try, some better than others! I quickly realised I loved photography but also that I’m a really bad photographer! But the encouragement was there to find a job in that world. I stopped studying biochemistry after a couple of years and started packing boxes for Foxall and Chapman, a professional photo dealer in Manchester, becoming their manager before being invited by Graham Rutherford to join Fujimex, FujiFilm’s film distributor.

In the 1990s FujiFilm absorbed Fujimex into the main business – at first I managed the northern area and then dealt with the UK social photography market.

‘The Industry was populated by so many iconic names: Bernard Wilson-Jones and Ruhy Shakibai running the big E6 powehouses servicing Manchester’s mail order industry and in London Joe’s Basement,

a great trailblazer in the industry and the first to offer 24/7 processing. At the camera end of the business brilliant press photographers like The Guardian’s Denis Thorpe and Don McPhee were pushing top-quality photography to the front pages and getting to know some of the social photography greats like George Dawber was just a real pleasure. That’s not, of course, to say this was a thing of the past – one of the appeals of this industry is that it is still populated by amazing photographers and imaging labs.’

He continues: ‘Within FujiFilm of course pho­ tography and imaging are individual parts of a much wider business. If I told colleagues from other sectors that big names in the photography world would train entrants to the industry and share expertise and knowledge they just couldn’t believe it. To me, this is a great and vital part of our unique industry – and made it somewhere I really wanted to be. And I do think it remains true today – though the challenges have become more clearly focused.’

So can the BIPP still bring people together, even in the Zoom age? Jon believes it can: ‘Photography is full of individuals and so everyone has their differing views. But pooled and shared knowledge, experience and expertise is ultimately inclusive – leading by example, setting the professional baseline – that’s really a very powerful role to take. But it remains for us to find ways to reach out and increase our influ­ ence. We have to start with being open and welcom­ ing to all professionals, crossing all sectors and being inclusive and responsive to our members. There are people out in the photographic world whose opinions of the value of photographic associations we’ll have to change – and that must be done through actions and input into the industry we work in. Whether it is skills, understanding or the power of professionals simply coming together under an umbrella, the BIPP can make a significant difference in what is not a collective business. Professional photography can have a bigger voice, and we can engage with people who have been beyond our reach before.’ Jon concludes: ‘I’m always interested in talking to photographers – that’s what I spent over 30 years doing – what they use, who they use and how they are involved with people. It’s a fascinating time to be able to help push the Institute forward.’

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NEW QUALI FI CATI ON S | BI P P

In the following pages we present the work of ten photographers who gained new BIPP qualifications in September across all levels from Fellowship to Licenciate. We discover a little about the context of their panels and their professional lives, but first talk to Chair of Judges Scott Johnson FBIPP about upholding professional standards and how they went about their work This was your first qualifications session as chair of judges. How did you feel?

Nervous! I put a lot of pressure on myself to get it right. In the past there was so much mystery about how the process worked, and little or no transparency – this is something myself and Martin are passionate about correcting, so wanted to get that put in place first and foremost.

Did you consciously think about your role in upholding standards?

Very much so. I said in my judges’ briefing on the first day that it is not only the members that are being judged – us as judges and an Institute are being judged. Whatever we did and subsequently passed would be there for the world to see as ‘this is the standard for this level of qualification’, so we had to get it right. I believe that the judges per­ formed brilliantly in upholding and maintaining the stand­ ards of not only the Institute, but the industry as a whole.

How did all the judges get along? How do you resolve conflicting impressions?

I had a great team of judges – I’ve never worked with a set of judges whether chairing or on the panel where there has been conflict. The best judges put their points across, but also listen to other comments and are prepared to change their mind should they feel the need too. In my opinion, if anybody judges with an ego, an ‘I’m always right’ attitude, they have no place in judging. The team were passionate, fought when they felt the need to fight for a decision, but also were respectful. Once we all left the room to reset, all decisions and discussions were left in the room. It was a pleasure to Chair each and every one of them.

Some panels get upgraded – how does that process work?

They do, and that’s brilliant to see. I’m one for respecting the progression of qualification, so we ask every­ one entering, to first enter at Licentiate level – nobody goes straight in for Associate having never qualified with us before. If the decision at Licentiate is unanimous, then we have a further discussion on whether we are actually looking at an Associate panel. I ask the judges to reset, and approach the panel again in silence and re-look at the

images with an Associate in mind. We then vote and, in some cases, the team felt the need to upgrade. And it’s a great feeling to tell the delegate that!

Are there instances where work might be under-appreciated?

I don’t think so – I can speak as a judge having judged everything from weddings to newborns, landscapes to wildlife… so we are all trained where we judge by criteria and, if the images meet the criteria, then the right result will always happen – both for and against a success­ ful panel. We also try to get a judge within the field we are judging in the room, to give the rest of us a better insight in to what we are scoring.

Was there a stand-out panel for personally this time?

There were two – David Taylor’s wildlife panel and Erika Valkovicova’s landscape panel. Both were beautifully printed, but I think Erika’s made me more than ever want to get out and see more of the world.

What was the biggest surprise?

I think it would be the overall desire for the industry to succeed, communicated over the two days by everyone involved – just how much we wanted everyone to be successful and do well. The compassion and feedback the team gave to all delegates, and well that was received – both when successful and unsuccessful – is testament to all of us wanting the industry to get better on the whole.

Things are a changing with the Institute – what part does qualifications have to play?

They are, and changing for the better. As I’ve said before, qualifications aren’t for everyone, but if you choose to walk the path, I promise you won’t regret it. Your standard of work will improve, the client experience will improve as you’ve increased confidence in yourself after gaining the desired level – you can turn that into whatever you want!

For those unsure if it is for them or not, reach out to myself or Martin and we can help to push any fears or doubt away and start to celebrate you! scott@theedgephotography.co.uk 9

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DAV I D TAY L O R F B IP P | N E W QUALI FI CATI ONS

10 the PHOTOGRAPHER / 2020 / Issue Two-Three

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wildlif e

O

ne of David Taylor’s passions since childhood has been wildlife and nature, particularly British birds.

When his career in industrial photogra­ phy began at Lubrizol he was able to spend time, after work, around the site which is set in rolling countryside and a sanctuary for birds and wildlife. He says: ‘I was able to build hides in the wooded areas around the site to either observe or take photographs. Lubrizol colleagues used to joke with me, saying I should have a bedroom there as I spent so much of my time on site. Wildlife photogra­ phy can be very time consuming, which meant when I was busy traveling for work I had no time to dedicate to my wildlife projects, but over the last five years I have been able to reignite my passion and interest.’

Wildlife trips take a lot of planning – choosing the right time of year to provide the best opportunities to take

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< Spot check Japanese Macacque (Macaca fuscata) Nikon D4, 70-200mm f 2.8, 1/400sec at f5, ISO 800 The Japanese Macacque is better known as the snow monkey, and some of them live where snow covers the ground for months each year. When planning a wildlife trip in Japan in winter, the Macacque has to be on the list to spend some time with. It is a very sad story for some of them as there is very much a hierarchy between groups, and they can be very aggressive towards each other – it has been known for them to take out their frustrations on photo­graphers too, and you have to have your wits about you, particularly near the hot springs, which is reserved for the elite of the groups. The family huddled together in this shot are definitely outcasts, as you can see from their expressions.

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wi l d l i f e

photographs can be quite complex and takes a lot of research. David explains: ‘Although I have a Fellowship in the industrial commercial sector, I thought it would be a challenge to work towards gaining a Fellowship in my second love, wildlife. My plan was to try and work on a high key colour theme, with journeys to shoot in the extremes of cold win­ tery locations. The appearance of grain or noise within some of the images is caused by driving snow.’

Conditions can be tough, with extremes of temperature, even in one day: ‘Wildlife photography is all about patiently waiting, watching, and cap­ turing images,’ David explains. ‘It often takes hours of searching to find animals and birds, then more time to get to the right position for light and background without disturbing them, then sitting quietly for just that right moment.’

Spot check > North American Bison (Baisin) Nikon D850, 14-24mm f2.8, 14mm, 1/640sec, f4, ISO 400 To see Bison in the wild, as the Americans say, is awesome, and to see a herd on the move is spectacular, as they can be very dangerous, with constant reminders to keep your distance. I tucked well into the side of the track with snow built around the equipment to conceal it as much as possible, then moved away to safety to fire the camera from inside of our caterpillar vehicle, and waited for the moment.

Having tried a couple of times a few days before, unsuccessfully, I finally got the shot I had visualised.

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NEW QUALI FI CATI ONS | DAVI D TAYLOR FBI P P

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L I N D S AY D O B S O N F B IP P | NEW QUALI FI CATI ONS

L

indsay Dobson describes her Sussex Coast project as an ‘accidental’ panel – the result of many personal excursions to her local stretch of coastline from the Hampshire border into East Sussex. She says: ‘I have learned that our coasts are rich in stories.

We have reasons for find­ ing ourselves on beaches and promenades – we are rarely there by accident. A wide expanse of sand and water represents clarity, es­ capism, mindfulness, recre­ ation, as well as emotional and physical repair.’

Sussex Coast is an illus­ tration of how we use our

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s ocial do c um e nt a r y

beaches and also the struc­ tures which help to mark the ever-changing history of our seaside. Lind­ say continues: ‘In most respects, it simply depicts everyday life. The majority of the photographs have been taken during the middle hours of the day when the light is bright and free from shadow. This is the time when beach inhabitants and visitors show themselves.’

She sees the coast as a friendly place with no shortage of people willing to pause and share their thoughts and feelings. The human subjects in this col­ lection are varied in their

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s o c i a l d o cumentary

purpose but all have found peace, restoration or solace on the shore: ‘The pro­ cess has been an uplifting journey and I have sought to preserve that by electing a bright key and use of primary colour.’

Lindsay continues: ‘There is no denying the importance of luck, and as luck would have it a very vibrant rugby shirt added value to an otherwise tonally bland scene (left).

I liked the presence of the small clump of grass on the shingle – it added another dash of colour which is a common theme in this collection. I’m yet to see

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NEW QUALI FI CATI ONS | LI NDSAY DOBS ON FBI P P

anybody tempted to pro­ ceed beyond the warning sign at the hovercraft terminal at Southsea. The spray and shingle thrown into the air by the landing of a hovercraft is a good deterrant to the more curious amongst us, and any birds which may be in the vicinity. I learned the hard way that this can be a painful experience, and the slightly quizzical faces of some of the passengers made it clear that my pres­ ence was hard to fathom.

Every cross­ing is busy, either with sightseers or those who work on the island.’

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s t r e e t p hotograp h y

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NEW QUALI FI CATI ONS | GERRY C OE FBI P P

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s t r e e t p hotograp h y

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NEW QUALI FI CATI ONS | GERRY C OE FBI P P

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p o r t r a i t u r e | dan ce

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NEW QUALI FI CATI ONS | BARRI E SPENC E A BI P P

M

ost of Barrie Spence’s headshot and portfolio clients are dancers.

Their appearance and the images he posts to social media leads many observers to think he spends all his time photographing models when the reality is they are paying clients. He says: ‘For dancers, their headshot is vitally impor­ tant – it’s on the front of any applica­ tion. A good headshot alone isn’t going to get them hired for a role, but a weak headshot will see them discarded at first glance.’ Student dancers will typically also need some dance images to com­ plete their portfolios. Barrie comments: ‘Of course, I have no idea of a prospec­ tive client’s ability as a dancer. My aim is simply to work with them and to make them look their best (and hopefully enjoy the experience). Dance images creatively are often a matter of repeti­ tion, timing, getting the best angles, some good lighting… and perhaps a little luck to catch something special. I usually shoot tethered to a laptop in the studio, allowing a good review of images as we shoot – that’s especially important for dance images. For those sessions I want the clients to leave knowing they’ve achieved the shots they need.’

Barrie runs three separate photogra­ phy operations: Spence Photography is the social side of the business (family, boudoir, dogs and equestrian); Barrie Spence Photography is the commercial face, shooting lots of performer portfo­ lios and a variety of commercial product work; and Pavilion Photographic Studio provides services to other photographers such as studio hire and tuition.

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p o r t r a i t u r e | dan ce

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NEW QUALI FI CATI ONS | BARRI E SPENC E A BI P P

Back in 2011, Barrie was fed up working in IT. He took an opportunity of studio premises and made a career change that summer. He explains: ‘I’m essentially self-taught – not that I haven’t learned immensely from others – but I don’t have any formal education in photography or the arts. I developed an interest in photography as a teenager and did my own black and white pro­ cessing while at university. Film process­ ing wasn’t practical for me at home, and after graduation my interest waned for many years. Some early digital com­ pact cameras caught my attention, but nothing serious until an early consumer D-SLR fully re-kindled my interest, initially in landscapes and equestrian im­ ages. Having shot a few portraits, some friends encouraged me to shoot more, and I started off working with some models. That grew to a serious interest in portraits, including boudoir and nudes.’

Barrie’s often been told his images are recognisable as such, implying a con­ scious style, but he’s not so sure: ‘I’m not always convinced about style, as I feel how and what I shoot varies and evolves, being influenced by my subject, my mood, and the intended audience.

I incorporate many influences in what I do (and I wouldn’t deny that), but in the end what I do is just me being me.’

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RA C H E L T H O R N H IL L A B IP P | NEW QUALI FI CATI ONS

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por t r ait ur e | do c um e nt a r y

‘A

s a portrait photographer who adores her job, lockdown left me lost. The wedding I was meant to be shooting that day had for obvious reasons been postponed, potentially for a year. My camera had been in my bag for five weeks, since my last day of shoots on the Saturday before lockdown – and then what was meant to be a full day of family shoots in conjunc­ tion with the National Trust at Box Hill had reduced to just a few sessions, shot under the newly implemented socially distant guidelines. We followed them to the letter, but I was feeling anxious, and quite likely the family I was shooting were feeling the same (albeit not some­ thing we spoke about).

Once the Stay at Home order had been given, my focus moved from my business to our two boys. Oscar was 7 about to turn 8, and Benjamin was 6 1/4.

Although it felt like the Easter holi­ days had started early, it was clear that the school wanted to help support the children at home and encourage them to continue their learning. As home­ work had been minimal until that point for both of them, doing school work at home was quite an adjustment.

It was on 23 April that I had a chat with my mentor, Kevin Wilson. He could tell I was feeling somewhat down, and asked what I’d shot recently. Apart from a few snaps on my iPhone for my personal instagram, I hadn’t shot anything, not even touched my camera, because I felt I had no reason to. I cap­ ture memories for my clients, moments in time that they can hang on their wall as beautifully framed heirlooms, to be enjoyed for many years to come. I always like to have a reason to shoot, having learnt over the many years I’ve had a digital camera that without that I just

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p o r t r a i t u r e | docu mentary

end up with hundreds of images sitting on hard drives not touched. It was then that Kevin asked about the boys, and what they had been up to. I told him about the Zoom Judo classes, the Zoom birthday party that Ben was invited to and the fun on our walks over Colley Hill. He suggested that I took my cam­ era out and capture a couple of portraits of them, for them.

So from that conversation came an idea… create a record of Lockdown through Oscar and Benjamin’s eyes.

Photographs for them to look back on, to keep, and to show to their children in years to come, exactly as I say to my clients that their children will do with the photographs I create for them.

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N EW QUALI FI CATI ONS | RACHEL THORNH I LL A BI P P

The project lasted almost six weeks, and finished at the start of June, on the day Benjamin (as a Year 1 student) returned to school. I captured around 50 portraits in the end, and chose the 20 images that documented the full story of life in lockdown for Oscar and Ben. We have limited space at home, and I really had to find ways of making the most of that space to help keep the captures as true as possible, using availa­ ble light. I needed to use my 24-70mm f2.8 lens much more, shooting wider than my typical work. And by choosing low view points, this emphasises the scenes from the point of view of the boys, making them more true to their experience.’

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landscape

E

rika Valkovicova specialises in landscape photography and is particularly drawn to the Arctic as well as tropical islands. Her passion is to photograph seascapes, natural phenomena and unusual geological formations, sacrificing sleep and travelling many miles without hesitation for a unique shot. She says: ‘Thanks to photography, I became an outdoor person, a real nature addict.’

One of Erika’s projects is visiting World Heritage Sites, and in 2017 she became a contributor for Our Place, the official media partner of UNESCO. ‘Having my images published on the UNESCO World Heritage website and in its publications is an honour,’ she says. ‘I hope the work can raise awareness

for the need to protect and preserve our natural and cultural heritage for future generations.’

Erika is a contributor to Adobe Stock’s highly curated and invitation only Premium Collection and also offers her prints direct on-line through epicbyerika.com together with Fine Art America (Pixels). For more local clients in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Erika offers a personal delivery service via two professional labs in Prague, where she can ensure the final quality of wall art purchased.

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N EW QUALI FI CATI ONS | ERI KA VALKOVI C OVA A BI P P

(Above) Pele’s Revenge, Hawaii, USA (Above, right) Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon, Iceland (Right) Hveravellir, Iceland

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landscape

In 2017, Erika entered her first formal competition and won Gold in the Moscow International Photo Awards. It was effectively the first feedback from contemporaries about her work: ‘It was a significant boost to my self-confidence,’ she says. The same year her photograph of a Seal pup ‘Joy’ was selected as a top finalist in the natural world category in Smithsonian Magazine’s photo contest. It was published worldwide on various websites including the Atlantic, Lonely Planet, Newsweek and in many printed magazines.

However, for Erika it’s all about being outdoors and the fragility of nature: ‘I educate myself about

the weather, terrain, culture and poten­ tial hazards before visiting a new place.

I often shoot in National Parks and protected natural areas and I am a proud member of Nature First Alliance for Responsible Nature Photography, pro­ moting respect for our natural heritage and prioritising the well-being of nature over photography. I avoid stopping to photograph if it is likely to trigger a chain reaction resulting in other visitors crowding the area. I follow the principle of Leave No Trace.’

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N EW QUALI FI CATI ONS | ERI KA VALKOVI C OVA A BI P P

(Above) Ilulissat Icefjord, Greenland (Above, right) Myrland, Lofoten, Norway (Right) Iguazu Falls, Argentina

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A N D R E A TH O R N T O N LB IP P | NEW QUALI FI CATI ONS

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p ortraitu re

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p o r t r a i t u r e | bou d oir

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N EW QUALI FI CATI ONS | J OHANNA ELI ZABE TH LBI P P

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L U C Y N EWS O N LB IP P NEW QUALIFICATIONS

por t r ait ur e | equine and c a nine

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w e d d i ngs

M ATT CURTI S LBI P P NEW QUALIFICATIONS

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The consummate professional Eye Jogia Photography is currently one of the most talked about wedding specialists in the industry. But what’s behind their profile and success?

I mage © Eye Jogia Photography

W

ould it be because of their very consciously formed brand identity, or a well-developed social media voice? The answer of course is yes – to both of those – but the key difference perhaps is how Sanjay Jogia as a photographer in particular has developed to sit at the forefront of his genre – there’s no accidents in this world and certainly not in business.

One element of Eye Jogia that is unmistakable is the language used in how they represent themselves to the wider world. There’s a significant amount of information on the Eye Jogia website – really everything you’d want to know about them in order to entrust your investment in photography. Noticeably, the photography is carefully described. Sanjay explains: ‘We realised that couples see their wedding as separated into different parts… the idea of it in their minds, like a dream that they share; and then the actual events of the ceremony, the process and the whole event. We found ourselves talking about this a great deal and also discussing what was actually the same concept with different people. Brides and grooms often found it hard to describe and we were talking about it often in varying ways and so it became clear that we should tie everything together and give it specific identity. That is how our ideas of the ‘fantasy’ and the ‘reality’ came about and we found that it was so useful as it meant we were actually helping our clients understand their own day better, and then were able to communicate it themselves, long before a single frame had been shot.’

And so Eye Jogia found a way of describing the stylised set-piece portraits that make up perhaps only a small number of frames in terms of volume and also the reportage style work that documents actual events – the reality. Sanjay says: ‘The fantasy might be a small number of images but makes up far more in terms of impact, it acts on the heart and is the personal dream of the couple crafted carefully into an image. People love the storytelling but sometimes find it hard to see themselves in these kinds of pictures – it’s our job to direct them and create a space for them to have such fantasy images that are truly personal.’

Eye Jogia is truly a husband-and-wife outfit. Roshni runs the business opera­ tion and manages each event photographically – assistants and the process of the day. The same is true of when the business was conceived: ‘My wife and I set this up together, both working in other industries when I was shooting architec­ ture and cars. I had grown up with photography and I was doing it quite actively and when we were asked to shoot our first wedding – they’d seen my work and said they wanted to hire me. That was when we caught the bug ourselves. At the end of it we were exhausted but completely buzzing on the experience and were just so excited about it.’

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Hence Sanjay left his career in architecture to become a photographer full-time, specialising in Indian weddings, as well as what is known as ‘destination’ weddings all over the world. In many ways, both form part of the luxury wedding market bringing its own set of definite challenges. Sanjay says: ‘Indian weddings are much more intense and run for a longer period: a typical day can be 12 to 16 hours, and there are many separate rituals on the day of the main ceremony. It means there’s a good chance that our time to do the work can get compressed and altered.’ So the fantasy work needs to marry up creativity and be completely flexible – it’s very unusual

for much pre-planning – Sanjay is very much responding to the immediate op­ portunities of the place and moment. As a result, the Eye Jogia kit list is huge. He comments: ‘I take everything, all of the time. There could be nothing worse than having an idea and not being able to work it because I lacked the right equip­ ment. I just don’t do travelling light. We are creating images that are dramatic,

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All i mages © Eye Jogia Photography

cinematic, and editorial in feel, under great time pressure and with people who are not used to posing. I self-critique the lighting, posing, composition, story and impact there and then in the viewfinder and do not rely on post-production to “fix” things. The right equipment to make that possible is a crucial part of life. The fantasy shots have lots of lighting to work up but even when it’s

natural light I will still shape it. The same is true with continuous or strobe – it’s shaped though barn doors, gels, beauty dishes. I must have the equipment to carry out any idea I might have on the spot.

I would much rather have it and not use it. We’re passengers on the day. If I’m lucky I’ll get to shoot the bride and groom separately in the morning but any number of things can happen to cause us to lose that time, so yes we stretch the time required knowing it will get compressed. We have to assess the opportunities we have and what areas are appropriate and available to us; we have to be very adaptable and very flexible. Concepts are generated by observing

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All i mages © Eye Jogia Photography

the bride and groom together and how they are acting together.

Or I might see a particular background – we need to maximise each set up. It might take a bit longer to set up the initial shot but then you might get a dozen images using it in varying ways – it’s very unusual to have thought about it in advance.’

Working like this, it’s quite clear that Eye Jogia is not a volume business – they don’t take on many weddings in the course of a year.

Sanjay says: ‘We need the time in-between – we’re working seven days a week… a business to run, meeting the clients after working hours and creating the reviews. We get couples in and make a real event of it. There’s the events to shoot and post work to do – all in-house. It takes a lot of time to commit to being wedding photographers and from the very outset we were prepared to do that. I’m very clear that we do everything in-house – the album design, retouching and post production. It’s essential to maintain quality and consistency in what we do.’

It is this unwavering focus on quality and consistency that’s at the heart of Eye Jogia’s success. He says: ‘Everything really comes down to being as consistent as possible; the root of everything… your approach as a person, your voice on-line, it has to emanate through your work.

Your personality has to be seen in your work and that helps bring you trust. It is the most valuable thing here: consistency in tone, style and your intent – to do the best job you possibly can for the client every single time, in every single frame.

It’s an attitude, it’s a general ethos, making everyone feel they are the most important – all of that is governed by consistency.’

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Spot check > Canon RF 24-105mm F4 L IS USM • 9-bladed aperture capable of f/4 throughout the zoom range • 5-stop optical Image Stabilizer • 77mm front element that doesn’t rotate • Nano USM autofocus motor allows super-fast, smooth, and near-silent autofocus Canon EOS R, 1/400 sec, f4, ISO 320

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Sanjay sees this as a natural extension of his previous professional life: ‘I come from a pro­ fessional background and we decided that our approach would be approachable and friendly but professional. The essence of being a profes­ sional is that you will protect the industry and the consumer – it’s what we have adopted. We should be setting an example, to be seen as a leader and in those terms become some kind of authority. I like to think that becoming an am­ bassador for a major brand such as Canon and being asked to talk and share my way of think­ ing at events all around the world is because we have done the right things in the right way.’

Sanjay is unashamedly a tech geek and en­ joys technology with reason: ‘I’m often an early adopter, being quick to see the benefits of new technology despite the fact that I grew up with film. I have old-school values… Technology is about problem solving and providing a new solution that allows me more creativity. Canon is a brand I have grown up with. Recently, the advent of the R mirrorless system offered some major advances in how I work and I fell in love with RF lenses. I like thinking about what’s happening in the industry and what the next trends will be and how I might benefit. In this case, yes there are some headlines that attracted me – 20 frames per second silent shutter stills photography… you can understand that this is a major advance photographically and opens up many possibilities. There is also live head tracking – we experimented outside in the dark from quite a large distance and it operates intuitively – it means that focus can be set with absolute confidence every time. Then I like to customise camera functions – I like to make the device mine and do the things I want it to do. So with the R system and RF lenses I enjoy the smaller size and lightness with professional performance and customisation. With eight stops of in-built image stabilisation there is the capacity to shoot 8K raw video handheld and then extract a 35 megapixel still frame from that footage. For me, that’s like something from the future.’

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Eye Jogia has meshed a creative zeal with well-founded business acumen, where they’ve made firm decisions on their brand, their chosen market and their position within that.

Those are decisions Sanjay is adamant they will stick to: ‘If you try to target too broadly you will fail with that. And then where we do really active marketing we never do it half-heartedly.

If you want a presence, have a presence.’ And of social media channels he comments: ‘There is a new generation of people searching for photographers through social media rather than Google because it’s instant gratification.

Instagram is a quick way for people to look at our body of work, as well as what people are saying about it. This might draw them to our website. The website then is a secondary tool – the reinforcement of a decision or aspiration that is already nearly complete. That’s why we put a lot of detail there, so that you can really know us and what we’re about.’ However, word of mouth remains the key driver: ‘It comes back around to consistency and doing a really good job time after time. And that is what stands a professional apart – it’s not luck, it’s not a shot in the dark. Then people are confident to recommend you and they actively want to. We will keep our word and go the extra mile for the current client, the next and the one after that.’ www.eyejogia.com

I mage © Eye Jogia Photography

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J OHN HENSHALL

Below: Kodak’s first selection of digital cameras to hit the open market – they used internal Kodak technology and embedded it in a Nikon camera body to make the new devices more familiar to doubting photographers. Left to right: the 1991 Kodak DCS100; 1994’s DCS420 and the 1992 DCS200

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The digital Oracle: An Interview with John Henshall

By Joel Hansen

T

he photography industry has seen significant changes throughout the 20th century – in government legislation, rates of pay and even public perception and regard towards the photographic trade.

However, by far the most notable change for photographers came with the emergence of digital cameras and computer editing software, that transformed the industry into the instantaneous and fleeting market we see today. And a world without the convenience of digital cameras now seems unimaginable – not just for photogra­ phers but for most of society, whose reliance on camera phones has become a huge part of everyday life.

Yet, the switch to a fully electronic industry didn’t come easy, as convincing photographers to part with their entire analogue discipline was hit with significant scepticism and suspicion for the new, unfamiliar computerised gadgets.

An early outlier to this mindset was John Henshall, whose career occupying key roles in the emerging field of ‘digital imaging’, provided him with a unique insight into the growing change within his profession. Joining the BIPP in 1985, within a year John was elected to the BIPP council, and another six years later became BIPP President.

In September 1991, he wrote a five-page article in The Photographer magazine titled ‘Welcome to Pixel Paradise’ which documented John’s experience visiting The Kodak Center for Creative Imaging in Maine, USA. Unheard of at the time and sacrilege to the ears of many photographers, it was Kodak’s first photographic centre without the use of film. Instead, it focused on the emergence of new technologies in photography. The article initiated the beginnings of reviewing digital cameras in The Photographer, with the 001 prototype camera produced by Kodak revealed in John’s visit to the USA – the camera would soon hit the USA market with a staggering $20,000 price tag (nearly $40,000 in today’s money).

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J OHN HENSHALL

The reoccurring image used for John Henshall’s ‘Chip Shop’ articles. Take a closer look and you can see John pulling a Logitech FotoMan out of a bag of chips. It was a grayscale point-and-shoot digital camera with a resolution of 376x240 pixels and images stored on 1mb flash memory. The camera was probably the first to feature a docking station and worked off 2x rechargeable batteries – if they died, so did your pictures…

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THE DI GI TAL ORACLE

The article showed ground-breaking features that today’s photo­graphers take for granted – such as changing ISO independently in each frame captured – whilst also pointing out digital’s early limitations: for example viewing images could only be performed separately on a large device called a digital storage unit. The piece also described the functions of a piece of software called Photoshop in one of its very early iterations, together with the potential future ethical and legal complications photo manipulations could have on society.

It even predicted a shift in attitude towards capturing the perfect photograph ‘in the moment’ of shooting, due to the editing processes now offering the ‘creative and technical’ tools to achieve desired outcomes in post-production.

However, underlying the review was a more profound message – film was dying out – and the new age of photogra­ phy had arrived. A shock to members across the Institute, the article only marked the very start of what was to come in digital innovation and also in John Henshall as a voice heading the movement. In January 1993, he published ‘John Henshall’s Chip Shop’ in The Photographer, which over time grew into a long-running column that spanned all the way to December 2006. The articles became an iconic feature and a must-read for photographers worldwide wanting to know about the latest advances in digital imaging.

Looking back at the start of Chip Shop, it reviewed the first commercially available digital camera released by Logitech called the FotoMan. The camera produced only 32 monochrome shots at 100 kilobytes each, had an ISO range of 25-200 and took a 11 whole seconds to save each image – not the hottest item by today’s standards of course but it showed vision. Instead of using additional pricey hardware to digitise the image, the FotoMan had a direct camera to computer upload feature via a cable, and came with its own computer editing software… a game-changer in John’s eyes.

He states in the article: ‘This is the way of the future and the FotoMan camera is so revolutionary, so futuristic, that it is undoubtedly the product of the imagination of some visionary of the future of photographs.’

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J OHN HENSHALL

The cover of The Photographer, June 1991, featuring John accepting his recent BIPP presidency from the Spitting Image puppets of Ronald Reagan and George H W Bush. John comments: ‘The BIPP considered itself rather grand back then so my hidden jokey message was “Which one is the puppet president?”’

I speak to John today about his career and how his self-assured stance towards the shift from analogue to digital came to be. John recalls: ‘At 13 years’ old, I was a student in Wakefield, Yorkshire, and remember the school secretary coming in requesting, “John Henshall, the projectionist at the local cinema has gone off sick, and the manager at the cinema wants you to project the films.” So at 13 years’ old I was running the shows at the cinema and, from that, I got booked for a job at a bigger cinema.

‘In the 1950s, I could see the audiences declining because of this new box in the corner called a television. I watched the Queen’s coronation in 1953 – we were in Stockport, Cheshire. We were watching it on my aunty’s 12-inch television – a family of 14 all watching it live! I just thought “wow” – this is the cinema live in your home. I thought if this is happening to film with the moving image, how long before it happens to the still images? So from then on, I thought photography was going to go electronic.’

Continuing in his field, John started as a cameraman for the BBC in 1961, which positioned him at the epicentre of mainstream broadcast media. Throughout his career at the BBC, John covered a variety of television shows, perhaps the most well-known being Top of the Pops and Spitting Image.

Working for decades as a cameraman, the likes of David Bowie, Paul McCartney and Kate Bush performed in front of his lens, leading to the National Film Theatre recently honouring his life’s work with an evening celebrating his achievements.

In 2011, thought to be lost footage of Bowie singing Jean Genie on Top of the Tops in January 1973 made its way onto BBC News, after John unveiled the iconic performance he filmed on a custom made fish-eye lens from his extensive personal archive.

Soon becoming an expert in the rapidly evolving world of digital technology, John began lecturing around the globe about the arrival of digital imaging, which earned him an invitation to the renowned Seybold Seminars based in San Francisco. The conferences were internationally regarded as the core of digital innovation at the time, with John’s talks on digital photography sharing the stage with tech pioneers Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Once, he even had former

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THE DI GI TAL ORACLE

John’s official BIPP presidency photograph taken with all his BBC video equipment – it was taken by then up and coming BIPP member Brian Spranklen FBIPP Apple CEO, Gil Amelio, the inventor/co-patentee of CCD, a device used in all digital camera sensors, talk at his own seminar. After building an esteemed reputation for his knowledge in the sector, top camera manufactures would send their latest prototypes (some that never even made it to market) to be trialled, tested and reviewed by John.

Appearances on the likes of This Morning with Richard and Judy provided a platform for John to start introducing

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J OHN HENSHALL

Top left: a signed photograph of John Henshall with Paul McCartney.

Bottom left: a picturedisc including the live recoding of David Bowie’s, Jean Genie, from his Top of the Pops performance that was designed using a still from John’s fisheye video footage.

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THE DI GI TAL ORACLE

digital photo editing to the masses, with his session on the programme displaying the ease of image manipulation.

While at the BIPP, his forward-thinking approach antici­ pated the acceleration of the internet, which prompted him to register and build the first BIPP website, although his outspoken views on the future of the industry did attract a few concerned letters printed in the magazine from members regarding his upcoming talk at the Annual BIPP conference.

John remembers one stating: ‘Don’t bother speaking about it at the annual conference because no one will go, as everyone knows it’s never going to be as good as a film!’

He recalls his response: ‘I said “I wouldn’t be offended if no one attends the conference – you can go for a bracing walk on the promenade. In fact, it might succeed in blowing some of the cobwebs out of your head. Henry Fox Talbot had the same problem when he invented photography, when every­ one said “what is this going to do to our high street portrait painters?”’

The reluctance towards moving to digital John believes came from a Luddite mentality, to which he is still curious to ask the critics ‘what film camera are they using today? Back then it was the future, and my point was that it pointed in the direction photography was going in. What I do get now occasionally are nice comments from BIPP members who say you changed my whole business for the better. They listened, and they went digital. Ron Taylor and then The Photographer editor David Kilpatrick amongst some other people on the editorial board were very positive about me writing about the future of photography. At the time, the BIPP CEO said, ‘you should write a regular monthly column’, and he suggest­ ed because there were silicon chips involved in the cameras, it should be called John Henshall’s Chip Shop.’

Leaps of faith became commonplace in John’s career, go­ ing against the grain, but none much bigger than publishing digital images for the first time in his Welcome to Pixel Para­ dise article in 1991. John recalls: ‘David Kilpatrick said “We will be in real trouble if it doesn’t work out.” And I replied “I’m the president of the BIPP, I’ll cover it, ok?” So he went digitally straight to press, and it turned out absolutely fine.’

Pioneering in his craft, John’s foresight towards the evolu­ tion of digital, not only informed and elevated BIPP and its members but also photographers and camera manufacturers across the world. Even with the limited capabilities and high cost of the first electronic cameras, for John, the new medium inspired a broader vision of what was to come: ‘I always had a strange imagination for the future and what it might hold.’

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WHY PRI NT? | FOTOSPEED

Reasons to be printing The last six months has seen many given elements of life re-assessed, and one such area must be the part that a physical print plays in the working life of a photographer. We asked Fotospeed to explore the opportunities

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goes without saying that this year has been like no other, and whilst experiencing more time at home than usual we’ve had the time to take note of the things that matter and re-evaluate how we spend our precious time. Additionally, the current situation has enabled some of us to concentrate on developing new hobbies or to fall back in love with old ones.

All the while preparing us to get back to the business of producing unique imagery. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that print photography has seen a significant resurgence over the past months.

Toby Herlinger, Sales and Marketing Director at Fotospeed, commented: ‘It’s been fantastic seeing how many people have been reconnecting with their craft during this unique period – especially those whose joy is printing. Business, like for many, has been a bit of a roller-coaster and we are very grateful to all our cus­ tomers, new and old, who have supported us during this time. Printing has been one of the success stories for Fotospeed and for that we are very grateful.’

There is little doubt that the impact of the pandemic on the art industry has helped to drive the move away from digital media, with many arguing that the digital alternatives to galleries, museums and other arts events lack context and gravitas – proving that there is still room for print in the age of web and social media.

Still, many ask why it is important to go to the trouble of printing your imagery when digital files are easily stored, uploaded and shared. However, there is plenty to be said for getting to grips with the art of printing the images you have worked so hard to capture. In this article, we’ll briefly explore why print is gaining momentum once again and why it is a medium worth exploring.

Print photography is easier on the eye It’s thought that the average person encounters between 4,000 and 10,000 adverts per day thanks to our close relationship with the internet and social

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media channels. When someone is encountering this vast amount of imagery through such fast-moving mediums it can be difficult to engage an audience for long, if at all.

Printing sets your image apart and offers better visibility, minus the backdrop of on-line clutter we have come to expect. This allows photographers to explore images deeply and build a longer-lasting, more meaningful attachment to the work they produce.

Ultimately, print hands the photographer control and slows everything down. The worry of how the work will appear on a poorly calibrated machine, in

a smaller size, or in an undesired context is no longer there as you, the artist, can create your ideal vision.

Your prints are likely to last longer We know that files stored on a computer are generally safe but we are seeing an increased threat of cyber­ crime as our reliance on tech continues to grow. This means that if you haven’t backed up sufficiently, or even if you simply delete files by mistake, you can lose your most significant work in just a matter of seconds, never to be retrieved.

Print images can last for years upon years with good care and the use of quality papers. Brands such as Fotospeed are constantly improving their offerings in order to ensure the highest calibre of paper available.

Photography in print is much more emotive We may be feeling more sentimental of late due to the impact of lockdown and the continued requirement to socially distance ourselves from those closest to us. We may also be missing the excitement of going to view our favourite art exhibitions and showcas­ es. Printed photography allows us to reminisce and

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WHY PRI NT? | FOTOSPEED

sparks feelings of nostalgia that help to comfort us during tough times.

One of the beauties of viewing an image in print is its ability to stand still in time. Social media platforms are designed to keep us constantly scrolling, which means we could be missing strong emotive imagery.

When we have the time to live with and study our im­ ages it becomes easier to develop a meaningful attach­ ment. Plus, there is nothing like an evening of flicking through family photos, and with print providing a clearer view of things in contrast to digital versions, you are more likely to see the small, intricate details that can take you back to a special moment in time.

Printing means personalisation When you print for the purposes of display you have complete control over the outcome and the context in which you wish your imagery to be viewed. You can proudly display work and add intentional character to any space.

Once you have practised and perfected your printing, selling your prints directly is a potentially

lucrative and effective way of getting your photogra­ phy seen and allows you to ensure your prints are produced exactly how you want them to be. Experi­ mentation with different media types can be a great process to follow to discover how your photographic and printing style might blend – Fotospeed test packs are a cost-effective way of doing this.

There is no better time than now to experiment with printing. Investing in new skills could be a great gateway to offering new services in the future and pro­ viding an important competitive edge. Not only does this offer sales opportunities, but it is also a superb way to enhance your photography expertise, retain control over your work, its presentation, and acts as a useful method of storage.

While digital media has its place and has opened up a world of opportunity for photographers, there is still something rather special about admiring your art in material form. So why not give printing a go and experiment with Fotospeed’s finest papers to achieve your signature style?

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O U T OF THE BOX | CYANOTYPE

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yanotype photography is perhaps one of the oldest ways of creating a print. The traditional form of photography was invented in 1842 as a low-cost way for engineers to produce copies of drawings. It later grew into a popular form of photography in Victorian times before photography technology advanced.

However, even today it’s a brilliant and creative way to add an edge to your imagery, and a solid, cost-effective way to try out contact-printing.

There’s more than one way to create a cyanotype image, from using a photo you’ve already taken on your camera, to not using a camera at all, creating per­ fect silhouettes onto coated paper to leave a breath­ taking effect. Anna Atkins, known to many as the first female professional photographer, gained popularity by creating cyanotype prints, using objects such as plants on the paper to allow the light to portray the outline on the final image.

If you’re new to cyanotype and contact-printing, it’s worth purchasing a cyanotype kit to get you started, such as the Fotospeed Cyanotype Process

Kit, which has all you need to actually produce the cyanotype print. You will also need a printed negative of your image (digital contact film provided) and a watertight tray. We’re going to take you through step-by-step instructions on how to create a cyanotype print from an image you’ve already taken, using the Fotospeed Cyanotype Process Kit. It’s important to remember that you’ll need to do this in a room that is free of UV light, and that you’re wearing protective clothing. (gloves, goggles).

Editing your image Before you print the image you’re using, it’s important to ensure the image is correctly edited for the cyano­ type kit to work to the best of its ability. You want to convert your image into a negative so that when it comes to developing it, the image will show clearly.

You might want to make certain areas of your image darker using the Burn tool which is fine, but it’s good to remember that darker areas will appear lighter when the image is exposed. Once you’re happy with the image, print the negative on an inkjet printer.

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O U T OF THE BOX | CYANOTYPE

Kit contains: 5 sheets 8x10” Fabriano5 HP paper 5 sheets 8x10” digital contact film 2ml syringe 50ml bottle of Cyanotype sensitiser 2 coating rods – one 4”, one 7” 100gms of citric acid protective gloves detailed instructions for use The best paper to print on is digital contact film, which is specifically designed for printing contact negatives through an inkjet printer. The film can be used for any darkroom process, from alternative processes (Cyanotype and Argyrotype printing) to contact printing onto silver gelatine papers. Digital contact film is instant dry and water resistant.

Prepare the paper This is where you’ll need to be in a darkroom. Take a little sensitiser and the coating rods from your kit and lather the solution across the whole of the Fabriano paper. Once done, place this inside the Process Kit box to dry. Once dry, repeat this process again with a second coat.

Light it up When the solution is dry, you can place your negative on top of the coated Fabriano paper and allow this to sit in the sun for 8-10 minutes. You can do this out­ side if you wish, but allowing direct sunlight through a window will work just fine as well. For the best results use a contact frame to hold everything in place.

If you don’t have one simply laying a piece of glass on top will work too.

Creating the acid solution Whilst your print is being exposed, now is a good time to fix up the citric acid solution provided in the cyanotype kit. Place 40g of citric acid crystals in a deep tray and cover them with a litre of water. Once done, carefully mix the liquid until all the crystals have fully dissolved.

Developing the image When all the crystals have dissolved and your image has been in direct sunlight for the desired length of time, gently place your print in the solution for around two minutes. We’d strongly advise using a small tweezer-like instrument to place and remove the image within the solution to avoid damaging the print

or yourself. You should also gently agitate the tray to keep the liquid moving back and forward.

Drying and enjoying The final step… At this point, you should be able to see the image a lot more clearly. Once the image has sat in the solution for two minutes, the next step is letting it dry. You should look to hang the image up over a bath or sink for 24 hours to let the image really set. Once this is done, you might find that the image has crinkled during the drying process. If this occurs, you can straighten it out with a few heavy books from around the house.

Your final print should have a wondrous amount of intense light and dark blues creating a fantastic image in its place. If the image isn’t as you’d hoped, you might want to look at using another image that has more substance when produced from a negative.

The good thing about Cyanotype photography is that most genres of photography will work well, so long as you’ve taken into consideration the dynamic range in your photograph. If your image has decent range from blacks to highlights, your cyanotype should work well.

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SOCI AL M EDI A J OEL HANSEN

The reality of getting noticed It can be a discouraging, disheartening world, that of social media. But its potential value in spreading your net wider means taking a practical approach – and ignoring the hype and the haters –can yield actual results

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he advancement of social media is transforming traditional methods of communication and marketing across all professions, and lessening the need for taking out classified space in newspapers, pinning ads on a job board or leaving a stack of busi­ ness cards behind on the local high street.

The effectiveness of on-line social platforms has positioned them at the forefront of self-promotion and networking for business and created a new era for photographers to thrive. For many of us, especially those of an older generation, the prospect of using social media can be daunting. Still, it is not just older demographics rejecting social media – many younger generations have decided to opt-out of the digital world as well.

It’s no surprise, as being rated on everything you post via a liking system can be challenging, with the open judging system giving admission to what is good or bad, which for photographers can be quite an unnerving experience when posting images. Although having your work valued by on-line interactions does not necessarily equate to the quality of the content, other factors such as on-line persona, rate of on-line activity, networking abilities and even algorithms play a huge part in engagement levels.

The point is, don’t be discouraged if your best images get a poor response, as there are more factors at play. There are many on-line accounts with large followings and high engagement levels with no authenticity or quality content – they’re just promoted better.

So what can you do to get noticed?

Use real-life networks Invite your family and friends to your social media business page, as the support from the people closest to you can give you the little boost in engagement you need to get going.

Peer-to-peer engagement Start to regularly engage with your peers in the industry and show support by engaging with their social media posts through commenting, liking, and sharing their con­ tent. Life moves full circle, people who offer support get support back. Also, give genuine compliments to people whose work you believe deserve it and build valuable on-line relationships merited on each other’s skill set as photographers.

Network with clients Social media has changed networking meet-up sessions to tout for business into an unlimited on-line pool of potential customers. Depending on what platform you use and also the sector of photography you work in, you can start engaging directly with potential clients. A music and events photographer?

Start interacting with local venues, bands and events companies, if you raise your profile by engaging in their posts and social feeds, you’ll soon be on their radar when they need to hire a photographer. The same applies to independent retailers and organisa­ tions – as a freelancer, take advantage of the open channels social media creates.

Spend money to make money Who would have thought it? A shed load of money helps you get noticed on social media – well it can anyway, and it does not actually have to be a shed load. Similar to paying to take out an advertisement in a publication or printing business cards, the same applies when investing funds into your on-line profile.

Generally, it might be worth selecting a collection of your strongest shots when creating a paid advert in the aim to build an on-line following, tout for business or deliver a bespoke message about a specific service you’re offering.

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Misool, Raja Ampat ‘The home of the famously large and rich soft coral reefs, with the 3 meter wide fan corals. I went there intent on shooting entirely close-up/macro, as my project revolved around the idea of shooting and identifying as many coral species as I could find, and using a fish eye lens wouldn’t help me. However, I hadn’t planned for the strength of the currents on some of the dives, so often my guide would instruct me to take down a wide angle instead. When the currents were strong it was more of a conveyor belt round the reef, with not much time to get up close and personal with anything in particular.

This image has definitely been a hit among most people I show it to as it acts as a contextual/establishing shot – it helps to place the pattern and colour focussed macro work in the rest of the project.’

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Image © Will Miller

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A world below

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ill Miller is a 23-year-old freelance photo­ grapher and visual story teller, with a particular focus on marine and specifically coral conservation. He’s a recent graduate of the Marine & Natural History Photography BA at Fal­ mouth University, and was very much attracted there by this unique course. He says: ‘The course is focused on communicating marine science and conservation through photography, with a team led by Dr Daro Montag including dive photographer Jane Morgan

and photojournalist Neil Aldridge. There’s nothing else like it – with lots of work out in the field – we went out to international locations with access to spe­ cialist underwater equipment. Being able to dive great places as part of the course was a big draw of course.’

Born in California, then raised in London where he currently resides, he’s always been interested in marine biology and initially looked towards a scien­ tific path before finding the opportunity at Falmouth that offered a well-funded and connected degree. Will explains: ‘I was one of only a few people to do the un­ derwater programme and dive tuition - the course also laid the basic foundations of photography and film making and hammered down professional practice.

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U N D ERWATER PHOTOGRAPHY W I LL M I LLER

It took me a while to find my groove – the three years was definitely a period of development on all fronts.’

Dive photography can often be mistaken for being a life of sun-kissed boat decks in tropical locations with marine life just waiting to be captured.

Of course the reality of 14 days on a boat in Indonesia isn’t quite like that: ‘The place can be out of this world, that’s for sure,’ says Will of the Raja Ampat archipelago that straddles the Equator and forms part of Coral Triangle con­ taining the richest marine biodiversity on earth. Located off of the northwest tip of the Bird’s Head Peninsula on the island of New Guinea, it’s certainly on the dive bucket list of many. However it’s not quite plain sailing: ‘I’ve been diving since I was nine years old but I’ve never been in such difficult diving scenarios. With a Spring full moon the currents resemble a washing machine and everything can change at the drop of a hat – all of which is not really the idea for a perfect photographic dive.

I was pulled down 20m on a diagonal trajectory in only a few seconds, which is one thing for a diver simply looking after themselves to deal with but I’m down there with heavy strobes and very cumbersome equipment so a huge amount of effort goes into just getting to a place and time when you can work on the photography.

The full moon also meant the corals were spawning so visibility varied a great deal. That would have been a bigger issue Misool, Raja Ampat ‘I love this photo because it’s so misleading. I remember swimming up to it and trying to wobble it gently by agitating the water around it. It stayed completely still, like a crystallised Ghostbuster-esque slime droplet.’

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All images © Will Miller

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Misool, Raja Ampat ‘This was close to the surface and so I took my strobes off to use the natural light. Even at that shallow depth, this red gorgonian had only some greens and blues to work with. I enjoy the fact that the sharpest part of the image is a small section in the dead centre, making me want to go through the coral reeds.’

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U N D ERWATER PHOTOGRAPHY W I LL M I LLER (Below) Fam Islands, Waigeo, Northen Raja Ampat ‘This was a treat to photograph as it’s mostly on one plain and relatively flat, which makes life a little easier when working with a macro lens – more of the pattern and texture gets to be in focus. Any opportunity to capture some nice recurring patterns in nature makes me very happy.’

for me if I had primarily been there for wide scenes, but my primary concern was to do macro work – hence longer range visibility doesn’t keep you awake at night on the boat quite so much.’

So with underwater work there’s a big element of going with the flow: ‘You have to work with the con­ ditions as time is never infinite. A faster shutter speed will sometimes just be enough to get over the buffet­ ing of a stronger current and you may have to accept a slightly higher ISO than you would prefer in a perfect world. At Raja Ampat I was actually with a group of recreational divers flitting around with GoPros but for me it was professional and that’s a different world. It can be hard not to simply get lost underwater or crash into the reef under all the weight I’m lugging around with me. You can feel like a boat that’s hard to control.

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(Right) Misool, Raja Ampat ‘I really enjoyed photographing these dendronephyta, the slithers of calcite in their translucent flesh makes them resemble some Swarovski centrepiece rather than some jelly-bodied colonial organism from the ocean.’

Raja Ampat is a Mecca for diving – you get shoals of fish which sounds amaz­ ing but they can make the sea literally go dark just by their sheer density. In comparison, place like the Red Sea don’t come close.’

All images © Will Miller

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Fam Islands, Waigeo, Northen Raja Ampat ‘Taken on one of the calmer dives, where I was able to get nice and close. This coral always reminds me of crushed velvet, but with colours you’d find in outer space…’

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In the red veins image (right), the level of magnification required means depth of field is lost very quickly. As a result it all comes down to getting the lighting exactly right. Will explains: ‘You’re look­ ing to get your strobing spot on. Two strobes need to be hitting the sides of the subject so that nothing behind it gets lit. That way the background becomes black and makes for a really nice studio-style image – producing something that appears almost fake, like an impossible image.’

Will explains why he does what he does: ‘I love it so much and I want to make certain that other people can see it in the way that I see it. I have a responsibil­ ity to take a beautiful image, not only because I’ve had the privilege to dive and witness such amazing patterns and colours – but to communicate another world to the wider world.’

Will uses a Nikon D500 and 105 macro lens inside a pressurised housing together with a Super Macro

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Converter (SMC or ‘wet’ lens) attached to the outside of the housing, together with two underwater strobes.

The SMC’s plane of focus is so slight and as a clip-on to the housing being manual focus, that it’s not the most flexible of kit. Will says: ‘Strong currents – again – can limit the use of an SMC’s magnification. The whole rig might weigh 18kg and is long, wide and tricky to hold. Certainly you learn to make good use of flat surfaces! Working in this way also radically reduces your air time too and the option then is to use a larger air tank with nitrox 40, consisting of 40% oxygen and 60% nitrogen (approximately double the oxygen concentration of normal air). The reduced nitrogen content compared with air increases the time a diver can stay on the bottom without getting decompression illness on surfacing. The trade off is that there is a risk of convulsion from acute oxygen toxicity if the diver descends deeper than 30m. That will give me about an hour in which to work.’ www.willmillermedia.com

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t the time of writing in early September, a re-tightening of restrictions on social groups has just been announced by the government… but it only applies to England. That’s just one of the very many oddities that have arisen out of the COVID-19 pandemic – perhaps the United Kingdom isn’t so united? Not at all, you see people have been sitting outside of their houses in the street and commonly going out of their way to be helpful citizens… in the main. Here we glimpse a little of lockdown through the lenses

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LOCKDOW N SHOTS | J A C KI E KI N G

of some BIPP members who responded to our call for participation on the BIPP Facebook Group. It wasn’t expected to become such a big thing, but that in itself characterises 2020 just perfectly.

First up, Jackie King illustrates just how multi-faceted the situation has become, with unexpected issues seem­ ingly appearing out of nowhere. She says: ‘I created the project to keep my creativity alive while both of my busi­ nesses were shut. The project records this moment in time – local Hampshire spirit and kindness.’ With all the labs All images this spread © Jackie King

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being closed, Jackie had to process the films herself: ‘I did the processing over my kitchen sink and hung the rolls in my bathroom.’ But without a 120 scanner to hand, more challenges lay ahead: ‘I taped the negatives to my windows and used the Film Scanner Pro app on my phone – “processing” the pictures in this unusual way actually seemed to fit well with our lockdown scenario. There is nothing about this time that’s been normal or perfect so this unusual display fits perfectly into our weird, but still wonderful, world.’ g 71

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CHARLENE MCNABB | LOCKDOWN SHOTS

A family holiday in a pandemic

All images this spread © Love Gets Sweeter

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e’ve had a holiday cancelled in the past due to a terrorist attack, so I couldn’t think of another life-threatening reason why a family holiday would be cancelled. Then COVID-19 came.

Like many other UK tourists, we followed travel advice (and even Martin Lewis) and waited it out, expecting our summer holiday to Turkey to be cancelled. The date of first allowed flights kept on nudging back and more holidays were cancelled. Then, suddenly, we found ourselves on the very first flight out as the air corridors opened after lockdown.

Manchester airport was very quiet as we arrived with a focus on self-serve check-ins and lots of hand sanitising sta­ tions. Masks were compulsory. Thermal cameras were dotted about and all the eateries were closed. We usually loved our pre-flight breakfast too… On the flight the safety messages had been tweaked to cover new COVID-19 restrictions and we had to wear a mask for the duration which, surprisingly, isn’t as uncomfortable as you’d think and everyone stuck to the rules.

On arriving at Fantasia Deluxe in Kusadasi we were asked to wait and each group was temperature checked and details noted. Our luggage was even sanitised. It’s safe to say we had no problem social distancing around the pool or beach… and no 6am wake up in order to fight for a sunbed.

After plenty of reassurances that Turkey was ‘on it’ when it came to trying to keep everyone safe, we felt brave enough to do our usual exploring by hiring a car. It’s something we have always enjoyed doing and were pleased we could do it safely in Turkey too – even during a pandemic and after a lockdown. We were told that the sites we visited, like Ephesus and the Temple of Artemis, would’ve been shoulder-to-shoulder with tourists at that time of year.

Due to COVID-19, no cruise ships were docking at Kusadasi and so not travelling in to the historical sites – the crowds were a fraction of what they would have been. When visiting the Basilica of St John, we were actually the only peo­ ple there until just when we were leaving. It was a strange pleas­ ure getting to enjoy the stunning ruins without waiting for people to pass by to get a good photo and we we’re so grateful to be able to experience the 7th wonder of the world and some incredible Turkish and Greek history in these circumstances.

I went into the holiday wanting to practice my street photography and documentary approach. I found it the most rewarding holiday I have been on as I had the time and space to really observe and anticipate moments as well as being braver with creative shots and getting in close! So not only did we get the most relaxing holiday we’ve ever been on but I got to spend some of it doing what I love and documenting a little bit of family history amidst a pandemic.

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PA U L W EN H A M-C L A R K E | LOCKDOW N SHOTS

‘DIY PPE’ is a studio portrait shoot re-enacting various DIY PPE created by people around the world when they could not get hold of any actual equipment. These vary from fruit to water coolers. The people in the images are myself and my wife and kids.

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All images this spread © Paul Wenham-Clarke

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Ian Taylor writes:

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All images this spread © Ian Taylor

I

’ve often thought about the fleeting interac­ tions we have with other people. It could be a quick comment about something you’re both doing or maybe a delivery driver dropping off a parcel or maybe just a conversation with a stranger as you’re waiting for a bus. I wonder if they remember it? Maybe, maybe not. Will it impact their lives? Maybe, maybe not. Will they even register that it’s a noteworthy event?

Maybe, maybe not. But perhaps they will.

Maybe that interaction will have more impact than you might think. Perhaps it’ll change a stranger’s point of view, brighten their day or maybe you’re the only person they’ll talk to that day.

I wanted to do a project where I would just show the people in a place and show that, if you just take the time to ask, you can find out a little bit about them. So I simply walk around, say ‘excuse me’ to people I meet, explain what I’m doing and ask if I can take their picture.

Sometimes they say ‘yes’ and sometimes they say ‘no’. If they say ‘yes’ I take their picture.

No real posing or direction just a pure, honest, simple portrait. These people weren’t expecting to be photographed today. There’s an honesty in the way they look. No special preparation for a photo, just a normal day, just a normal person, just a slightly unusual request – can I take your photograph?

Accompanying each picture is their name, where they live and how long they’ve lived there, what they do for a living and something interesting about them or something they’re proud of. This offers a small insight into the people that make the place and adds an addi­ tional level of, often unexpected, interest to the portrait. A community can find out more about each other and feel closer as a result.

Hopefully the brief interaction I had with the people who posed for me will be remem­ bered too. A funny story to tell their friends?

An eye opener to an artistic project? Who knows… but it’ll certainly make a unique record of the people in my village during a unique period of time. @theexcusemeproject

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LOCKDOW N SHOTS | I A N TAYLOR

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M I C H A E L WH A R LE Y | LO C K DOW N SHOTS

These four walls: going to the football with Larry and Will

A

s the UK went into Corona lockdown in March 2020, all shoots evaporated overnight, and the borders of life shrank to a few rooms and a daily walk. Although Michael didn’t have the focus to shoot, gradually, he did something out-of-the-ordinary for him, and made home his subject. Working in medium format and shooting in black and white, Michael aimed to take one photo each day to capture something characteristic of the detail, tone and emotion, the absurdity, gravity and oddity of this new normality, and document these strange times as they passed by in one flat in Brixton.

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Fortunately, the extremes many experienced didn’t hit Michael, but few parts of life were untouched: from toilet paper shortages to Zooming Great Grandma, from washing soup cans to celebrating a birth – much of human life seemed to be there, just confined to the house… He says: ‘It was just such a strange time at the start of lockdown – it’s already quite hard to remember exactly the feeling. On the one hand it All images this spread © Michael Wharley

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These four walls: after exercise

These four walls: family get together

These four walls: lunchbreak

These four walls: toilet roll shortage

was sunny and we were “on holiday”, on the other, there was a background of intensity, uncertainty and worry. A very odd mix: extraordinary and mundane. Like most of us, all my work evaporated, but I didn’t have the energy or focus to shoot, even though lots of photographers seemed to be doing amazing lockdown work.

‘The second week, I picked up the camera and shot idly with a vague idea of a journal, but it was only after about five days I put them on the computer and thought there might be some shape to it. The square format then became a deliberate choice to echo the title that popped into my head, and the

heavy, almost solarized black and white was to try and capture something of that draining underpinning to routine life.

After that, I left the camera lying around and just tried to be open to seeing moments and visuals that spoke of the time, or the mood. So it was a solace and a creative outlet. I’m aware it is local, domestic and small scale – it doesn’t touch on the extremes lots of people experienced.’

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GA BR I E LLA TO T H | L O C K D O WN SHOTS ‘Home’ – taken in April, in Queens, NYC. Canned beans were one of the items flying off the shelves as we collectively hunkered down.

At the time, NY had the most deaths in the world. Acknowledging their value, and the way they portrayed our new reality, I displayed them in my home, in recognition seemingly of a new world order.

‘Okay’ – taken in September, in Queens, NY. Although the lockdown is apparently over, life is far from getting back to normal yet – more than 170,000 deaths, protests, a severely divided nation with an election looming. Crime in NYC according to the NYP is up 150%. Yet there is hope. Always.

‘Park’ – taken in Central Park NYC in March during lockdown.

The man and the dog perfectly expressed my vision of isolation from society, the quiet weariness and melancholia surrounding us.

‘Time’ – taken in March in Time Square NYC during lockdown; an iconic place entirely abandoned. I captured the man, sitting isolated and somewhat misplaced, deep in thought, work seemingly on hold, suspended in time. The US has experienced millions of job losses – numbers only comparable with the Great Depression.

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LOCKDOW N SHOTS | DAVE DODGE

D

uring the lockdown Dave utilised his press card to enable him to be out to document the pandemic in Southampton and the New Forest. ‘Clap for Carers’ became a big part of the lockdown and he visited various locations on Thursday evenings, one of which being a pre-arranged visit to St Mary’s Fire Station as the crew took part in the clapping.

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A D Y K E RRY | L O C K D O WN S HOTS

‘W

ater is the silent service. It’s only when it isn’t there that we realise how much we need it – and how we can­ not fight coronavirus without it. From washing our hands to keeping our homes, hospitals, schools, super­ markets and care homes running, we must have water. So when a pipe bursts it must be fixed, day or night, even in the most brutal conditions. The average person thinks about their water supply for less than ten minutes a year – but the value of the people working so hard to provide this most precious resource is loud and clear. A worker measures the required length of pipe to replace a section of a burst main on Dovers Green Road, Reigate, Surrey, 6 June 2020.’

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LOCKDOW N SHOTS | AN DY BU RN S

Above: The heritage Wensleydale Railway runs between Leeming Bar and Redmire Stations In North Yorkshire. It closed during lockdown and is yet to resume services. The track lies unused and overgrown.

This rail carriage is part of the rolling stock left abandoned in sidings.

Left: The metal deer sculptures are displayed in the village of Bedale in North Yorkshire. Shortly after the lockdown came into force I noticed that they had acquired face masks!

It made for an interesting and topical image – a man passing by noticed me taking the photo said, ‘fallowing Government guidelines’. What a fitting title!

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C A L L U M O L L A S O N | L O C K D OW N SHOTS Part of a series entitled ‘Insular Cellular Inter Stellar’: Callum Ollason graduated this year with a BA in Professional Photo­graphy from Edinburgh College.

Lockdown hit when he was creating the final images towards his degree. Like students up and down the country, he had to alter his plans and abandon proposed shoots. He says: ‘I had to revert to projects that could be completed at home in my flat. Some of my previous work had been concerned with the Instability Effect – a physical reaction that occurs when two substances of different densities meet. It can be observed across the Universe, on the surface of a soap bubble, in the formation of clouds, the storms of Jupiter, and even in the dust and gas of nebula.

‘Although the resulting works are abstract, for me they conjured ideas of the origins of life and our place in the universe. However, as I worked on these projects during lockdown they began to represent something else. Now the works conjured ideas of cell mitosis, and the notion of transmission, unseen, at a cellular level. Unwittingly at first, or perhaps subconsciously, the virus had pervaded the work, much as it has all aspects of society.’

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LOCKDOW N SHOTS | M ALCO LM S A LE S Malcolm Sales was part of a small group of local photographers who decided to record the lockdown. He says: ‘These are some of my pictures from the first weeks. Our group have produced a photo-book with our images and are hoping to mount an exhibition in the local Library - when it re-opens…

Top left: Post Office Queue, Bingham – the Post Office is located in a small shop in a tiny street. One had to queue to go in, to post a parcel (back to Amazon?), collect a pension or just simply to buy some stationary.

Bottom left: Eaton Place, Bingham – this shopping precinct is normally the heart of our town with shops ranging from a Newsagent, a Bank through to Boots. During lockdown walking through the precinct felt like walking through a mid-west coast town.

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L E W I S A LL A N G IB S O N -G R A INGER | LOCKDOW N SHOTS ‘At the start of the lockdown I think like most I decided to take the opportunity to relax and take a bit of a break from studio work. Cue a couple of months passing and instead I’m fast becoming a jittery mess of nerves and lack of creative outlets. This project was meant to give me an evening of displaying how I felt as well as how I looked at the time with the stress of the lockdown starting to frazzle me.’

‘The main struggle during the lockdown didn’t really come from the lack of work or enforced absence of social interaction. Instead it came when my partner needed an emergency visit to the hospital. The whole process was a nightmare, being unable to stay with my partner in A&E and the subsequent night spent worrying about her wellbeing is something that will haunt me for a long time. The only thing that helped me through the whole experience was the outpouring of love and support from family and friends. Then, just a few days later she was back. The flowers came from a family friend who was a wonderful pillar of support during the whole experience. We decided to work together to get an image of the bouquet that we were both happy with to present as a gift once the lockdown was (eventually) over.

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LOCKDOW N SHOTS | LESLEY SM A LLM A N

‘Fagility’ Budding Agapanthus, 10 July 2020

LOCKDOW N SHOTS | DAVID P ORTE R

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S O F I A C O N TI | LO C K D O WN SHOTS

Above: ‘Isolated’ – Castle Douglas, Scotland – for BA Photography Degree focusing on visual and hearing impairment. Sheila is 89 years young and was instructed like many individuals during lockdown to self-isolate if they suffered with underlying health conditions or were in a certain age bracket. She has Retinitis Pigmentosa, a rare eye condition she has suffered since childhood that limits peripheral vision. Over the years her eye sight has continued to deteriorate and now her son has moved back home to support her. Sheila is housebound and takes pleasure in admiring as much of her garden as she can see from afar to help alleviate the stress and uncertainty brought by COVID-19.

Left: ‘The Survivor’ – Edinburgh, Scotland – part of a BA Photography Degree Professional Set Project that examined either People, Place or Things. The work looks at a war veteran who is now adjusting to civilian life. Donald was part of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. He witnessed the deaths of friends, colleagues and civilians. This image was taken at Donald’s home to highlight how he is a regular person, except that he carries the burden of past events – simply demonstrating that anyone can be affected by past trauma and during this pandemic so many have suffered in silence.

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LOCKDOW N SHOTS | PA U L W H I TE Ledston Hall, North Yorshire – photographic survey prior to restoration for Purcell Architects

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M A R K GR E Y | L O C K D O WN S HOTS

Mark Grey has had his central London professional headshot studio in Covent Garden for the past five years. He says: ‘It was growing steadily until Covent Garden emptied on Friday 20th March. But we’re still surviving. Since then I have had to check on the Studio and get it prepared for post-lockdown and beyond – so I took some images on the days I worked.’

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LOCKDOW N SHOTS | M ARK W I LLI A M S ON ‘Like most of us, I kept myself busy during lockdown. It started with a few photos of the kids, but then a client asked me to grab a few city centre images of Manchester as lockdown was eased and I went in for one evening and an early morning. It was a wonderful and unique experience that may never be repeated. The streets were full of cyclists, couples walking around car free and the sound of music coming from flats all over the city. Loved it.’

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M A R E K CZ A R N E C K I | L O C K DOW N SHOTS

M A R K L E IS H MA N | L O C K D O WN SHOTS A Metropolitan police helicopter hovers above the London Eye during the Extinction Rebellion protest

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Torun is a historical city on the Vistula River in north-central Poland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Marek explains this shot: ‘Lockdown was very painful for us – during March and April everything was closed. Torun is a small city with about 200,000 inhabitants. But because of the beautiful downtown more than 2.5m tourists usually visit each year. So we decided to document what became our abandoned city.’

City of London Police unit at await day one of the Extinction Rebellion protest

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S U D E RS HA N G A JR E E | L O C KDOW N SHOTS

C A RO L TAYL O R | L O C K D O WN SHOTS

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This is a ‘leather jacket’ grub – the larvae of the European crane fly or ‘daddy long legs’.

During lockdown we spent a long time digging our vegetable garden ready for planting and we came across several of these larvae.

They are quite small, about an inch long, so I used a macro lens to get in close, and throw the background out of focus. I had dug several of these up and put them in a pot in soil as they are usually buried, but whilst I was photographing this one, a plucky blackbird came and pinched it for his lunch…

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ANDREAS NEVILLE KUYPERS FBIPP 1934- 2020

Teacher, mentor and colleague On 11 April 2020, the world of photography lost one of our finest. Very many people – myself included –lost a dear friend, teacher, mentor and colleague

N

eville Kuypers (Nev) had been a con­stant source of inspiration, knowledge and sage advice throughout my career. He was talented, methodical, creative, humble, patient and always happy to share his skills with others, Neville Kuypers, 1975 presenting many talks, demonstrations and seminars during his long career.

Neville was a pioneer of the nascent advertising pho­ tography industry and was renowned for his specialist skills, especially his passion for food photography.

Of course, Neville was so much more than a pho­ tographer. A loving husband and father, he was deeply committed to his family, friends, beliefs and Church.

Born in Birkenhead in 1934, the family moved across the River Mersey to Liverpool when Neville was just two years old. Nev would joke that the family had to move because, even at that early age, he’d told everyone he was going to be a lifelong supporter of Liverpool FC and, true to his word, he was.

Neville attended Sudley Road Primary School and later, Quarry Bank Grammar School. Leaving with his ‘School Certificate’ in 1949, Neville joined Liver­ pool’s Elsam, Mann & Cooper Ltd as a ‘junior junior’, brushing the studio floor and making deliveries around Liverpool. Artwork collected from Liverpool advertising agencies provided regular ‘rush’ jobs, when a huge, reprographics camera sitting on rails was used to copy the items at 1:1 scale with the size of the film used chosen to match the size of the artwork supplied.

In 1954, Neville was called to do his National Service and with his School Certificate and Certif­ icate of Competence from the Institute of British

By Stephen Dodd FBIPP

Photographers (IBP), he was able to train as an aerial photographer. The RAF was developing techniques for extracting information from aerial photographs and the ‘Cold War’ provided special duties for Neville who spent three, long winter months in Canada – a cold war in every sense.

Once demobilised, Neville returned to Elsam, Mann & Cooper. Photo equipment was difficult to obtain, but RAF surplus cameras were often available.

They were very heavy, especially the 10” x 12” which Neville had to carry to local jobs. There was work associated with architecture, civil engineering and ship building. Ships about to embark on their maiden voyage had to be comprehensively photographed, often over three or four days without a break – each day’s results going by overnight train for processing.

A good negative could mean that 500 or more prints would be required, often with dodging and shading all done by hand during printing. The prints were washed in a series of running water baths, an alum solution and a soak in a glazing solution. Finally, the wet prints were then laid out on glass plates to dry.

In the 1960s, Neville was keen to develop the use of colour and a small studio was set up using Ektachrome processing. His first food picture was a Cornish Pasty ‘floating’ in mid-air so that artwork could be added later. Without computers, it was quite a challenge!

Commercial photography and especially food pho­ tography, was in its infancy. Even the tools of the trade, enormous 8” x 10” plate cameras, giant ‘hot’ lights and slow film speeds all presented problems and the food would often melt or wilt on set before your very eyes.

Neville relished the challenges of photographing food.

The precision, the attention to detail, the critical tim­ ing, the tricks, the alchemy and ultimately, the mastery of light. Like a magician, he’d often joke about ‘adding some dark light’ when he wanted a bit more shadow in a shot. Nev quickly gained recognition for the quality of his work and his innovative techniques.

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ANDREAS NEVILLE KUYPERS FBIPP 1934- 2020

Liverpool Anglican Cathedral in snow © Neville Kuypers FBIPP

In 1961 Neville married Isobel and they set up home in Huyton, where they brought up their four children. They were members of Oakvale United Reformed Church where Neville was a non-stipendi­ ary minister and often used his creative skills in services and in producing the newsletters and illustrations.

Always keen to help others within the industry, Neville was a keen supporter of the IBP (now the BIPP) and was President of The West Lancs & Chesh­ ire Centre in 1966.

In 1973 Neville went into partnership at CJ Studios, offering commercial, portraiture and wedding photography. During this time, Nev was awarded Fellowship of the BIPP in General Practice Photography.

When Neville Kuypers Photography was established in 1986, he was joined by photographer Bernard Rose and food stylist, Kate Parr. This allowed the studio to greatly expand its scope and for Nev to fully concentrate on his food photography. In 1998, Neville decided he was ready to take a small step back from full-time work. NK Photography shut its doors and Nev joined the team at bigcheese. Neville’s

© Neville Kuypers FBIPP

insights into photography and his tales of transition from mono to colour photography made it obvious that progression to digital imaging was inevitable.

Together, we made the leap with our first, ‘high-end’ Sinar Digital set-up at the start of 2002.

While Nev recognised its merits, he didn’t want to embark on such large-scale commercial investments at that stage in his career, but his love of photography and appetite for experimentation meant he did own several digital cameras, simply for his own pleasure and he continued to produce beautiful and interesting pictures until his death.

Neville wrote in 2001: ‘When I started in photography, we were using 10” x 12” glass plates and flash powder. Now, as my career draws to a close, there is all the excitement of digital photography which, I’m sure the next generation of photographers will accept as normal. I have never been able to accept that any other occupation could have given me such pleasure and satisfaction as photography. Who else has light as the main tool of their trade?’

Neville will be sorely missed by everyone he ever met.

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