The Photographer - Issue One 2021

Peru 1982

Tony Hutchings’ remarkable time-capsule document of a Peruvian adventure

Jim Tampin The Magazine of the BIPP / 2021 / Issue One

Life at the end of the British Empire

Take back time Paul Reiffer at the cutting edge of digital capture

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I SSUE ONE, 202 1

Peru 1982

Tony Hutchings’ remarkable time-capsule document of a Peruvian adventure

Jim Tampin The Magazine of the BIPP / 2021 / Issue One

Life at the end of the British Empire

Take back time

Image © Paul Reiffer

Paul Reiffer at the cutting edge of digital capture

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CEO’s column 2 Martin Baynes rounds up developments from Artistry House BIPP President | Jon Cohen 4 Jon focuses on the positive and members’ willingness to share Paul Reiffer 6 The travel and landscape photo­ grapher explains how the ‘straight­ forward’ job of photography has to take us outside normal perceptions Overseas Director | Karen Massey 16 Karen talks to Jim Lowe about the benefits of Federation of European Photographers membership 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

Social media column 19 What the BIPP wants from you Six months in Peru Tony Hutchings 20 In hindsight, 1982 wasn’t the best time to travel throughout Peru on a photographic sabbatical. But the book of the adventure is out now

Lucy Newson 40 A tale of developing a business in unlikely circumstances and living the dream career Defence School of Photography 48 Continuing our series of articles on DSOP, we look at recruits in the early weeks of their training

Questioning ‘big’ f numbers 28 Are we tending to over-state the need for a small hole?

Jim Tampin | Retrospective 52 A career and life defined by a military posting to Kenya

Dynamic range and exposure 32 A back-to-basics discussion of the relationship between dynamic range and exposure in resulting image quality

The judge’s eye 60 What judges actually look for in an award-winning image – get prepared for this year’s regional and national print competition

Directors: Emily Hancock FBIPP (Chair) Tony Freeman Hon FBIPP Karen Massey ABIPP Monir Ali LBIPP Barrie Spence ABIPP Ian Southerin LBIPP Regional Chairs: Barrie Spence ABIPP (Scotland) David Stanbury FBIPP (North West)

David Taylor FBIPP (Midlands) Andrew Younger LBIPP (South West) Irene Cooper ABIPP (Yorkshire) Monir Ali LBIPP (South East) 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 2021 1

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M ARTI N BAYNES

Dear Member, Welcome to the spring edition of the Photographer. Once again it’s packed with exciting articles and amazing photographs. On the 28th March 2021 the British Institute of Photography has its 120th anniversary. After surviving two world wars and many depressions, this year has seen us go through one of the most difficult times known in photographic history for our members and the wider industry!

I have nothing but respect for our members who have struggled through, and my heart goes out to the members who were unable to sustain their membership but I know we will be able to welcome them back very soon.

As with the rest of our lives within the past 12 months, the organisation’s birthday plans have been put on hold – I feel and know the disappointment as this year saw me turn 50 and I wasn’t able to celebrate as I had hoped.

The light though, is indeed at the end of the tunnel and grows brighter – we now have the roadmap dates set for us to come out of lockdown. Although this year will never quite recover, the feedback we are receiving is that towards the end of this year and in 2022 there will be lots of pent-up demand.

The Institute has never been more active as we continue to provide online content, with three or four events online for you to enjoy each week, ranging from interviews to training. You can still find all this content on our Facebook community page and also on our YouTube channel as we continue to build our content library.

We have a number of things to look forward to in the very near future. At the end of March we will be opening up our regional print competition and I am looking forward to once again seeing your beautiful work.

Regional Print Competition You will be competing with other photographers in your region with eyes on the star prize of being named photographer of the year in four categories and then an overall regional photographer of the year. This year we have added two new categories: Drone / Ariel photography; and also Ecommerce photography, to reflect the changing face of our industry. In the nationals held later in the year, for the first time we will also be adding a video / moving picture category.

Normally with the regional com­petition we have the first round digitally, with a score of 75 required to proceed to the second round. The second round would then be based on 20x16 prints. Due to the pandemic, this year both rounds will be online, allowing photographers to enter without the cost of prints being made if they progress to the second round. The entry per image will be £5 with all proceeds from each region going back to the regional funds allowing a regional awards get together when possible. Please get involved – every entry that gets through the first round has a chance, as it is first past the post, meaning the highest scoring image in each category wins with no minimum score to be achieved. The top three images from each category in each region will be automatically entered (free of charge) into the nationals in the autumn.

Make sure you check out Paul Wilkinson’s guidance ‘A Judge’s Eye’ in this edition of the magazine – it will also be available for you on our new website.

120th Birthday, INFOT and AGM Along with the AGM in November, we are also planning a mini INFOT and awards evening. We will be celebrating the 120th anniversary of the Institute and I am excited to keep you updated as plans progress.

The larger INFOT we had planned for 2020 has now been moved to 2022.

Art for the Artistry House To coincide with our 120th Anniversary and to celebrate the wide-ranging skill, talent and extraordinary breadth of genres our rich Institute has, in May we will be holding an online image competition. Every aspect of photography will be recognised – you will be able to enter free of charge any image from the last 120 years and the highest scoring images will be printed and adorn the walls of the Artistry House office, as part of a living, breathing gallery in home of the British Institute of Professional Photography.

Qualifications We are still planning to go ahead with qualifications on 11-12 May – this is subject to COVID restrictions and I will be emailing details over in the coming weeks.

New for the magazine We are continually improving the magazine – you will see in this issue and moving forward, regular columns on

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CEO’S COLUM N

a variety of subjects, from training to social media, SEO and keywording.

You will also see from Joel’s round up on social media that we are getting very close to completing the upgrade on the BIPP website. We will be recording training videos on how to complete your profile and upload to the gallery.

new members and at the same time reward members who have been able to continue with us. A good solution seems to be, if you – our members – recruit both past and new members. We will be running a promotion that will see both you and recommended members rewarded. My plan is to give both parties one month’s free membership.

Regions Ian Southerin has been working hard with the regions and it’s great to see most are now putting on Zoom meetings with all members invited. We are making some changes to the geography of the regions as well as the infrastructure, with the intention of breathing life back into them when we can once again meet up in person.

New board member I would like to welcome Dr Mark Hall on to the board who has been co-opted to help look at our offering to education. Since I have taken on this role, it is one area I have not been able to give any time to and it has sadly been neglected for a number of years. Mark is conducting a review and will work with me to see how we can put together a better programme with our links to education.

New members As you can imagine through this very difficult period we have lost a number of members. For many reasons we need to have a membership drive as we come out of the pandemic. We have looked at seeing how we can attract

As always please feel free to contact me regarding any subject: martin@bipp.com Martin

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BI PP PRESI DENT

I mage © Tamara Peel

J ON COHEN

I

was saddened to hear of the recent death of Roger ‘Mac’ McDonald ABIPP. Roger was a key part of the highly influential photography course at Blackpool and the Fylde College, training many of today’s great photographers and educators.

An extremely popular lecturer, he became a good friend to many – this was clearly demonstrated by his phenomenally large retirement party which (along with a phenomenally large barrel of Theakston’s XB) attracted ex-students, many by then prominent photographers, from all over the country.

Roger moved to Ledbury where he continued with his great passions: photography, vintage cars and family – he’s pictured here with his Alvis and his Linhof. Many people in photography today will have very fond memories of Roger. He was always happy to talk, a very good listener and full of good, practical advice. Looking ahead to this year as I’m sure Roger would have urged me on to do, it’s difficult not to feel optimistic… longer and warmer days, such positive news on the vaccine roll out and a roadmap to moving out of lockdown. This can’t give us certainty but at least there’s an outline we can start to plan from.

According to Andy Haldane, the Bank of England’s chief economist, we all need to gear up for some business bounce back. He suggests that consumer confidence will surge thanks to the vaccine programme – I know I’m being highly selective here but he’s certainly not the only economist to forecast a sharp increase in growth as restrictions ease.

It’s a no brainer that confident consumers make purchases and as restrictions ease we move to the tricky (but much happier than lockdown) situation of competing for people’s available spend. If there’s going to be any business bounce back this year we can make sure we’re poised to take advantage.

As for me, well it’s been really interesting joining the directors in their work on issues affecting members, a broad range of views and plenty of experience gives us a very strong board in my opinion, and just as

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importantly they have no issues with all coming together to form a consensus. Outside of formal meetings communication is pretty much on a daily basis – I’ve been totally awed by the time and thought they devote to Institute matters… they’re all quite modest so hopefully won’t read this little accolade.

I’ve also been getting up to speed by attending some of the great range of events on offer to members, and if you’re working on your business profile I can’t recommend them highly enough. It’s one of the things I love about this industry, the willingness of people to share really valuable information. To name just a few: Natalie Martin’s talk on selling was a masterclass on presenting both yourself and your work in an absolutely positive way; Jamie Morgan had so many practical business ideas he should be heading up the UK business forum; and Scott Johnson along with our CEO Martin Baynes were inspirational on qualifications – they are absolutely the way to go to set yourself apart and show industry qualified skills.

One thing this shift to Zoom has brought us is an opportunity for people from all regions and even countries to interact together. I could go on but Michael Weeks summed it up perfectly in a recent post: ‘It’s strange how Covid-19, something that keeps us apart, has shown how we can actually come together. So far this week I have been amused by Christine’s tales, educated by Jamie Morgan and then time for a quick coffee break with Steve Gregson. I have met people from all across the country and every region, met photographers covering everything from jewellery to dance, from architecture to cycling and to top it all I know the history of the hot cross bun thanks to Monir Ali. Don’t feel isolated, we are all welcome at all meetings – make the effort and meet someone new at the next meeting. Thanks to all those making the efforts to provide this for us.’

I couldn’t agree more or end on a more positive note.

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travel

The light fantastic A long-time advocate for authenticity and honesty in photography, Paul Reiffer lives the mantra through his adoption of ultra high-resolution medium-format capture that seems to take us beyond normal human experience Spot check > Phase One IQ3 | Schneider Kreuznach 35mm | 25 sec | f/16 | iso 35

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e’ve all spent a great deal of time working towards the point where our captured images express the scene as it felt when beheld by our own eyes. Stripped of that sense of amazement, photography wouldn’t be the Grail that continues to be chased by so many – and the yearning has certainly tempted some down the dark path that leaves

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I mage © Paul Reiffer

PAU L RE I FFE R

photography behind, too. But what of Paul’s image of Las Vegas by night?

It certainly takes us into the realm of ‘more than you could imagine’.

Indeed, Paul explains how he sees his job: ‘It’s a straight­forward one,’ he says. ‘Through a single image I have to express to someone what it felt like

to be there at that time, whatever it was that drew me to that place has to be in there. Then there has to be the secondary point of interest beyond the shapes and forms, the thing that people find when they want to see more.’ It’s also often to do with offering a perspective that is out of day-to-day experience. Paul explains: ‘I’m often quoted as saying “get up high or get down low” and that’s very true – photography should be taking us beyond normal perceptions.’

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travel

However, right now – today – Paul Reiffer is a bit of a caged animal… it’s been a growing feeling, a travel photo­ grapher stuck in a pandemic – a strange world. In 2019, Paul was travelling the majority of the time – that was his normal, and by the letter of the law he shouldn’t have counted as tax resident in the UK, despite ‘living’ in Dorset. He comments: ‘I remember parking at Heathrow on one insane mission.

In the boot were three identical suitcases with different

labels – I flew in and out for each job and literally swapped the cases from the car. I don’t advocate that way of life at all, but it won’t happen again for a long time because the logistics just will not work. I now know for sure that my home office is way too small… and I don’t want to go back to

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PAU L RE I FFE R

Spot check > Phase One IQ280 | 28mm | 30 sec | f/22 | iso 35 the level of activity I had a couple of years ago, but obviously somewhere in-between would be a good thing.’

Paul is particularly known for his relationship with Phase One and for good reason – he’s adept at bringing to life the technical advances in medium-format digital technology

and has done so from the start point of a working photo­ grapher needing to achieve more: ‘I was out in Shanghai struggling with dynamic range on 35mm and I knew that what I needed was simply beyond the scope of my equipment.’ The story as it goes, however, is anything but technical perfection.

He continues: ‘I’m one of life’s stupid people with purchasing decisions. Every car I have ever bought has been brand new online without even sitting in it. With my move to Phase One

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travel Spot check > Phase One IQ280 | 28mm | 40 sec | f/14 | iso 35

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I was getting requests for big prints, as in measured in metres, and had a feeling at the time that I had enough requirement for the investment and planned on buying a Hasselblad system. But one day the Google algorithm decided to tell me that Phase One had just hit 80mp. I looked at it but found it very hard to get pricing – that so annoyed me, though it was the same with every manufacturer. With an attack of the Chinese mindset “you must be able to do this” I flew to Hong Kong, picked up the Phase One and then flew straight to a job in San Francisco, intending to use it out of the box, as you do.’

Of course, Paul immediately realised it wasn’t that simple: ‘I found out on day one that I needed to go back to basics and re-learn how to take a picture with this thing – how it behaves with shadows and how you could pull around raw data and, er, I had to learn Capture One. I was actually looking at this object thinking “oh shit”. Naively I kind of thought buying better kit = better photographs. Short term it was one step forwards and three steps back. But long term it was the game changer I required.’

Paul accepts that if he hadn’t switched to medium format he wouldn’t have the clients he now has or be doing the kinds of work he has done. But all the same, he now knows there’s a reason why Phase One uses dealers as they can provide set-up sessions and kick-start your journey with the equipment. He says: ‘Oh yes, I should have done that.’

I mage © Paul Reiffer

PAU L RE I FFE R

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Paul compares his decision to go with Phase One to that of buying a Mac instead of a PC: ‘I felt that Phase One was aiming its system at me, at the landscape and cityscape photographer – never under-estimate the power of a brochure – looking at the 60mp Hasselblad material at the time it didn’t have my kind of work in there. I found comfort in one path but was being dragged along by the other route.’

But back to the process of MF adoption… Heading back home following that first job in California with his new gear to hand and an email turns up: ‘An airline wanted to wrap an image of San Francisco around their head office. Without that system I wouldn’t have been able to reply saying it could be done.’ But despite this moment, Paul feels it’s a mistake to make a camera a differ­ entiator: ‘It’s a selling point, part of your product… but it’s not you.

Would you go to a certain craftsman to carve a table because they have the sharpest chisel? You invest in the person, not the tool they happen to use. The gear becomes a feature of me and a benefit of coming to me, but it’s me who is creating the picture.’

Even when the MF learning curve has been conquered, Paul concedes that it’s by no means all plain sailing: ‘You have to get good at it – the photography. With MF your mistakes are going to be bigger… it’s not forgiving.

In many ways, you have to go back to basics and re-master focus and depth of field to a level I never even knew I needed. A 35mm camera tends to guess that you actually meant something else altogether, but here there’s not the assistance – as a result people see these systems as scary.

And everyone knows that MF slows everything down. The simple fact of

Spot check > Phase One IQ4 150mp | Schneider Kreuznach LS 40-80mm | 0.5 sec exposure, frame-averaged long exposure, total 7 seconds | f/16 | iso 35

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file size could make editing painful without computing power to match your inputs. And if there’s something to fix, there’s just more of it to work on.’

And in the past few years the technical advances on the Phase One platform have moved far beyond making more and more megapixels work along with the ever-more intelligent Capture One editing software.

A truly groundbreaking advance in digital photography is Frame Averaging, which (very much in short) allows the

photographer to separate out shutter speed and the time of an exposure.

So, for example, a two-minute Frame-Averaged Long Exposure will be compiled from 40x 3-second exposures. Once the camera hits the end of that sequence, it averages all those values for each pixel and produces one raw file with the

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PAU L RE I FFE R

combination of what it saw across the entire series. In return for churning through maybe a terabyte of data, you get the benefits of flexible ‘exposure’ time, vastly reduced noise, improved dynamic range and the ability to create shots that would have previously required an array of filters with all the issues that

surround their use. Paul says: ‘By using frame averaging you can select a shutter speed of 1/30 sec for that single exposure, but capture the scene for nearly a minute. It’s really exciting to be working in new ways that go beyond what could be achieved in camera before. I’m hoping that I’ll be back out on the road soon doing my job. For everyone in the commercial world the “new normal” is largely an unknown, but let’s hope my work has a continued place in it.’ www.paulreiffer.com

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OVERSEAS DI RECTOR KAREN M ASSEY ABI PP

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am delighted to be writing this new column as Overseas Director for the Institute and also as a Director of the Federation of European Photographers (FEP). Now it has come to my attention that many of you haven’t heard of the FEP or what this means to you and your membership. So, in this issue, I talk to Jim Lowe FBIPP who is also the FEP Chair of Qualifications, who outlines for us the benefits of membership:

“

The benefits of belonging to a professional organisation far outweigh any disadvantages. The FEP, based in Brussels, was created to raise the standard of professional photography throughout Europe and to promote and support photographers. Its members know the FEP as ‘a warm, friendly association for all individuals committed to the craft and art of photography’.

Its raison d’être is to provide a range of benefits to assist professional and aspiring photographers to achieve their objectives, through educational activity such as seminars and workshops – providing the opportunity to gain distinctions based upon a member’s level of proficiency. These activities are open to all European photographers who are members of a national association affiliated to the FEP. One of the big advantages for most European photographers is the knowledge gained through the expansion of ideas, techniques and seminars for all photographers and students. Meeting and networking with other photo­graphers who may be at different stages in the learning process can be intimidating but invaluable. Some organisations open their competitions to FEP-qualified photographers at members’ rates.

With FEP qualifications, a professional photographer can operate in European countries. However, as with any photographic qualifications those applying for the FEP’s EP (European Photographer), QEP (Qualified European Photographer) and MQEP (Master Qualified European Photographer) qualifications show a commitment to advancing yourself and the field of photography in general.

Being able to advertise as an internationally accredited or certified professional European photographer

will also help you command a higher fee in your home country. It may even help you realise you deserve it, as not many of your competitors would have the same European qualification.

When you go to the trouble and expense of gaining certified or accredited status by joining your national Professional Photographers’ Association, like the BIPP, you are showing yourself and others that you are committed to upholding the highest of standards, constantly seeking to improve your craft. It also shows that you value the profession of photography and wish to be recognised as an exponent of high-quality photography worldwide.

Networking Other photographers are not likely to become our clients, so why do we need to network? Because we all have different specialties – building relationships within the professional photography family will always pay off in the long run.

If you do not have local FEP friends, who are you going to call when you drop your precious 70-200 f2.8 lens or your portable lighting unit blows up during an important assignment in Europe? If you are lucky enough to have an assignment in Europe, through networking you may be able to borrow gear from an FEP photographer. It could save a lot of hassle carting photographic gear through customs at airports and ferry crossings, especially now that ‘Brexit’ has happened. I have completed two architectural shoots in Berlin and each time I borrowed equipment from my European friends, which certainly made it easier and more cost-effective when flying.

The photography community within the FEP is extremely friendly, warm, supportive and welcoming – much more so than you might have expected, especially in such a competitive field as professional photography. Through networking, the FEP offers the opportunity to have photographs critiqued by experts in the same discipline as you and is one of the quickest and most effective ways to improve your work. You will begin to look at your own photographs differently and see them more critically.

If at all possible, the FEP tries to organise at least one of their two judging sessions each year to coincide with the host country’s photographic association’s annual congress. In Europe these are usually four-day events, with judging of national awards, workshops

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OVERSEAS DI RECTOR KAREN M ASSEY ABI PP

Image © Truls Løtvedt. A group of FEP members gathered for dinner at the restaurant on top of Mount Ulriken 643m above Bergen, Norway in June 2019. and seminars at their members’ rates, followed by a gala dinner. All photographers whose associations are members of the FEP are automatically invited to attend and this includes any BIPP members as the BIPP is the only UK national association which is a member of the FEP. The FEP hosts these seminars or speaker events – for the photographer social interaction can be another membership benefit. You can make friends with professionals who share common interests or share engaging conversations with colleagues about your field, not just in the UK but throughout Europe.

A few years ago, I took five photography students from Falmouth University to the French GNPP congress in Lyon. They had a great time networking with photographers from all over Europe including one female student who wanted to be a fashion photographer once she graduated – she was able to organise herself a job as an assistant to an Italian photographer in Milan. She now has her own studio in New York…

She said she learnt so much about professional photography in the four days in Lyon, which helped her fulfil her career ambitions.

Career opportunities Professional associations such as the FEP can, through networking, provide additional career opportunities.

You may have access, through the FEP’s website, to a database of events, functions or competitions in a professional genre related to your discipline of photography – either the BIPP or the FEP in Europe will help you get to know international colleagues better, interact with competitors and build relationships with potential mentors. At events or online, you will be able

to chat about current trends, innovations and upcoming training workshops.

Critique Your national association (the BIPP) offers opportunities for having your work critiqued by colleagues in Europe, so you should leap at the chance. The converse is also true – there are European photographers practising in the same disciplines of photography as you, who would love to have the opportunity to network with their British counterparts, as they value the quality and style of UK photography.

Listing in a directory What’s the point of going through all of this, if your clients can’t find you? The BIPP is working hard to promote professional photographers who have achieved their Licentiate, Associate and Fellowship qualifications and by default the FEP has a directory on its website of all those photographers who have succeeded in achieving their EP, QEP or MQEP qualifications. Being included in such a directory may be more important for some genres than others.

Whatever your discipline, being listed in the FEP’s directory as well as in your professional association’s directory is never going to hurt you.

”

If you have any enquires about the FEP, please get in touch and we can have a chat. I would also like to further add that you can also get in touch with Ian Cartwight FBIPP who has a plethora of knowledge, having gained his Master QEP and has worked with the FEP for many years.

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KEYW ORDI NG CLEM ENCY W RI GHT

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’m delighted to be invited by the BIPP to share some insights into keywording.

I run a UK-based business specialising in providing keywording services to photographers and photo agencies, as well strategic consultation. Starting in May 2021, I’ll be delivering a series of interviews and workshops on the topic, designed to highlight the value of keywording for creative businesses, and demonstrate the importance of having your content ‘found’ online. I’ll also provide strategies that you can implement to increase visibility of your work in your target market.

So how did I get into keywording?

I studied American Studies (BA) and Arts Administration (MA) where I researched the way visual arts respond to changes in politics and society, and the impact of digital media on audience participation.

My first job was with Getty Images (2004) in the Search Data team, where I keyworded Getty’s

own-brand and third-party stock photos and videos.

Within a year I moved into the Search Vocabulary team, managing and maintaining the database of searchable keywords used on Getty’s website.

I became fascinated by the role keywords play in marketing communications, and the way concepts and trends impact on users’ search language.

Keen to apply my knowledge within the non-profit sector, I joined the V&A image library as an Account Executive, researching and licensing content to clients in the design and advertising sector. In 2008 I started freelancing, primarily for stock agencies including Image Source, Robert Harding, iStock and Adobe.

In 2013, I set up Clemency Wright Consulting in response to demands from a broader spectrum of search-based clients including publishing, retail and non-profit organisations. I now train and manage a team of keyworders working both on general stock and specialist archival content. I also help clients develop keywording strategies through the provision of training materials and practical workshops.

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SOCI AL M EDI A J OEL HANSEN

Connecting digitally After my last social media column highlighting my interest in promoting a visual record of the BIPP’s photographic heritage via social media, I’m pleased to have received responses to my call out

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ne f these respondents was Dr Michael Hallet FBIPP who, to my delight, informed me there is a collection of images archived from a previous project himself, Dr Ron Callender FBIPP and Pete James from Birmingham Central Library worked on. Together, they helped collate a history of ‘professional’ photographers using images from Institute members. This archive was further added to years later when John Rose FBIPP and Dr Ron Callender FBIPP helped rescue more BIPP archives that were nearly thrown to the curb when the Institute moved from its head office in Ware.

For now, that’s all the insight I’ll share into what I imagine to be a photographic treasure trove. I’m hoping my conversations will lead to further projects to announce in the Photographer’s next edition alongside a more detailed story from the aforementioned members and how they secured the heritage of this 120-year-old organisation.

Although this history gives me a foundation to explore the past, I still want to encourage active photographers to share their work with me. The Institute seeks to continually promote its entire membership and generate traffic to photographers’ online platforms. Also, the BIPP is currently revamping its website, and depending on when you’re reading this, it might already be live. We plan to publish online tutorials in the coming months to breakdown the features available on the site for members to learn how to utilise the platform for the benefit of their business.

I’m hoping this new site can elevate BIPP’s online presence and bring more value to YOU, the member. I’ll speak more on this once the improvements are complete.

Another development is The Artistry House Newsletter. It’s a feature that is still evolving and will continue to be refined over the coming months. The general aim is to engage and inform everyone of industry news, share inspiring content and promote photography opportunities. As this is still new, I would like to hear feedback and encourage members to send in content to include, whether it be an exciting news story, a piece of advice or a photography documentary – please get involved!

What the British Institute of Professional Photography wants from you: • Use #BIPP on social media posts • Follow us on our social media pages. If you tag us in posts, we’ll engage and share your content.

• Send in your images to feature on the BIPP’s social media pages • Share content to feature in the newsletter • Send to: Joel@bipp.com

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TONY HU TC H I N GS

Six months in Peru Back in ’82, studio portraiture and still life photographer Tony Hutchings left his Shoreditch, London base to take a cultural sabbatical to Peru, seeking to experience its people and landscapes first hand. Subsequent publication of the work was interrupted by the Sendero Luminoso – until now

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eru was, at the time, emerging from 12 years of military dictatorship, which left a legacy of underlying problems that would make travel to some places in 1982 difficult and hazardous. Tony was travelling pretty light, taking with him all the camping equipment he was likely to need, a copy of the South American Handbook, a couple of Hasselblads and a bunch of Kodak Ektachrome film.

The intention from the outset was to move around by coach but on arrival in Lima it quickly became clear that the plan was impractical, so Tony bought a VW Beetle and gathered department maps, local advice and fuel and set out on his own.

< Canyon del Pato ‘Many of the Andean valleys drop steeply down to the coast and are aligned east-west so as the sun sets, light travels up the valleys from a low angle. I was setting up to shoot this scene when a Toyota Landcruiser appeared –the only vehicle I saw for about 150km.’

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I mage © Tony Hutchings

Up in the mountains there were very few vehicles and very rough roads. According to the South American Handbook, Carmen Alto near Chuquibambwa (above) had some Inca ruins so Tony braved the rocky track to find them, finally arriving at dusk. He recalls, as if it were yesterday: ‘The car was immediately surrounded by about 30 inquisitive villagers, one of whom asked “what are you doing here, where do you intend to sleep?” When I mentioned camping, heads shook all around: the ground, it seemed, was full of rocks. A villager invited me to his house for dinner. There was no electricity and water came from the river – the meal served by his ageing mother consisted of three Andean potatoes and some sauce – people with very little were happy to share.’ Afterwards, Tony headed off to sleep in the

Carmen Alto ‘Down to the river to get water for breakfast tea.’

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I mage © Tony Hutchings

Beetle and they told him to come back in the morning and join them for breakfast. But at around 10pm the young lad (above) knocked on the car window: ‘He said I should come to his mother’s house, as it was too dangerous to sleep in the car. I gladly accepted and slept on a bench in the house. The house was made of Inca stones – which is why there are often no ruins to be found. The marvellous thing about photography is that I can look at these pictures and perfectly remember the day accompanying them, almost 40 years on.’

Tony’s travel plans were largely based around the geography and weather conditions found in different parts of the country. Winter on the coast is the rainy season in the mountains – a traveller has to be in the right place at the right time (you can’t be in the Amazon

Carmen Alto

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when it’s raining non-stop). It’s a long country, too – the Carretera Panamericana (the Peru portion of the Pan-American Highway) runs for over 2,500 miles so there’s a great deal of ground to cover.

However, before Tony could even leave for the first of two long coastal trips, Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands.

As Peru was Argentina’s main ally, anti-British sentiment ran high, although people were generally very friendly and he made his journeys without issue. But it could well have been a problem considering his choice of format: ‘A limiting factor for me certainly was working with two Hasselblad 500Cs – one with a 50mm lens and the other a 120mm,’ says Tony. ‘Other than that, I had a Polaroid back and some film. The implications were interesting

Pisac Sunday market ‘People come from surrounding villages, identifiable by their different hat designs.

In 1982 they arrived on the back of pick-up trucks and it was very much a market for the indigenous community.

Hopefully, mountain travel has become easier now. Fresh flowers on a young woman’s hat signals she is available for marriage.’

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assuming I wanted to take pictures of people – I would have to approach them and ask permission in my poor Spanish. The people were very shy, but the Polaroids did everything for me, apart from the fact that the whole village would want one. That being said, I didn’t want the portraits to be particularly posed – which wasn’t such a challenge because they were not at all used to being photographed. I wanted the pace of the photography to feel authentic as a traveller passing through, almost unnoticed.

Certainly I wanted to capture normal life, undirected.’

Indeed, Tony was embedding himself into the landscape through which he travelled – sometimes going a little bit too far: ‘I was camping most of the time and it was very cold in the mountains,

San Jerónimo de Tunán Altitude: 3,274m

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down to -15oC at night. Sometimes the Beetle wouldn’t start at high altitude. Once it broke down in the late afternoon on a dirt road and I had to sleep in the car. I ate lots of honey and lit the calor stove. I was awoken in the morning with the car simply full of frost by an indigenous man who certainly thought I was dead.’

Tony was sending film back to London throughout his trip – or trying to – that meant approaching people in the check-in queues at Lima airport to ask them to carry film back to his studio, with processing in Lima very much hit and miss – the emphasis being on miss. Despite getting as far as a book dummy on his return in 1982, Tony had to put the project to one side and get on with the rest of his life thanks to the Shining Path Sendero Luminoso launching a vicious civil war in the country which would continue for two decades, drastically limiting the appeal of the country as subject matter. However now, nearly four decades on and thanks in no small part to lockdown 2020, the work has been reborn in the form of the 220-page hardback book Peru 1982, priced £39 and available from peru1982.com. And – simply put – it’s a gem.

Pan-Amercian Highway > ‘There were plenty of these shrines to be found, usually on bends, in this case by a precipice.’

I mage © Tony Hutchings

I mage © Tony Hutchings

Iglesia Santisima: ‘Mountain Indians prepare for a long return journey to their village after having the head of their cross ‘re-charged’ in church for another year.’

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TONY HU TC H I N GS

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BA C K T O B A S IC S Spot check > Canon EOS 5DS | L 24-105 mm | 35mm | 1/25 sec | f/11 | iso 100

Searching for the sweet spot This is an unashamedly back-to-basics short discussion of one corner of the ‘exposure triangle’, being aperture – or how big the hole is – and questions whether in our day-to-day photography we tend to assume a smaller aperture (bigger f number) is required to achieve a shot than is actually the case

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his image takes us back to the snows of early February this year and is particularly appealing because of how it communicates the transformative capacity of the seasons.

It’s been years since there’s been lying snow and frozen ground for nearly a week and, coming after a wet spell, the river had recently flooded so causing this somewhat forgotten football pitch to freeze over. But thinking about the technical aspects of the shot, of primary concern is front-to-back depth of field.

In this case, from the sledge tracks entering the bottom of the frame all the way to the far trees on the skyline. Of particular importance are the goalposts, naturally enough, which make the picture what it is.

With all of that in mind, and with light fading fast on a winter’s afternoon, you can see from the spot check above that the chosen aperture was f/11. The question posed here is whether that choice was the right one – or whether a sharper image could have been attained with a bigger aperture whilst still achieving the depth of field demands of the composition.

So what is the relationship between image sharpness and aperture? In short, any given lens will have a point of

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A pe r t ur e

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BA C K T O B A S IC S

optimum sharpness in its aperture range and it’s often considered to be around f/11, or a ‘sweet spot’. What that means is entirely separate to the focusing of an image, using smaller apertures (bigger f numbers) beyond that sweet point will inevitably produce a softer overall image.

Clearly there is good reason for using smaller apertures – generally being to increase depth of field. But are we often under-estimating particularly the far limit of focus at any given f-stop?

It’s time for some calculations, the results of which may surprise you. The focal length of our given image here was 35mm, which in rough terms means that the frame begins about 4-5m in front of the camera position. Let’s look at the reference table (right) which is a depth of field calculator aligned to this exact camera set-up.

I mage © JBDS

Terms of reference Hyperfocal distance is the closest point at which a lens can be focused while keeping objects at infinity sharp. The hyperfocal near limit refers to the distance between the camera and the first element that is sharp when focusing at the hyperfocal distance. Depth of field (of course) is the distance between the farthest and nearest points which are in focus whilst the depth of field near limit is the distance between the camera and the first element that is sharp and depth of field far limit being the distance between the camera and the furthest element that is sharp. Depth of field in front is the distance between the near limit and the focus plane. Depth of field behind is the distance between the focus plane and the far limit.

Questioning the shot The first element to think about is that as the aperture gets smaller (bigger f number since it’s expressed as a fraction) the depth of field near limit will get shorter

Camera Focal length Aperture Subject distance

Canon EOS 5DS 35mm f/11 5m

Hyperfocal distance Hyperfocal near limit

3.64m 1.82m

Depth of field near limit Depth of field far limit Depth of field Depth of field in front Depth of field behind

DOF near limit 2.1m

DOF in front 2.9m

2.1m infinity infinity 2.9m infinity

DOF behind = infinity

Subject distance 5m

Depth of field

(or closer to the camera) and the depth of field in front (between subject and camera) will get longer. This is why many will tend towards a smaller aperture. But these distances have to be applied to the picture you are producing and your chosen focal length. In our instance, the depth of field in front is more than we need and arguably the same is true for depth of field behind – the scene does not extend to a far horizon, the trees probably being no more than a couple of hundred metres away or indeed less.

Let’s now have a look at what happens to these figures if we open up a few stops. At f/10 the depth of field far limit remains at infinity and the near limit only 2.25m. At f/9 the depth of field far limit still remains at infinity with the near limit still under 2.5m. It is only when we open up to f/8 that the depth of field far limit drops to 181m, but as

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A pe r t ur e

we’ve discussed that could well be absolutely fine.

Interesting, then, that technically speaking this shot was potentially set up all wrong – and there’s likely many of us out there who would not naturally in our heads have immediately gone for f/8 when putting this shot together.

Now it’s time to have a look in detail at this composition and find out if opening up to f/8 would have had any benefits in terms of image sharpness. Keep in mind that it’s very hard to show comparisons such as this in print, but the above sections show a definite increase in sharpness between f/13 and f/8 – it’s particularly noticeable in the flaking paint of the upright – and that gain is costing little or nothing in the background trees.

This, it should be said, is looking at the files at 200 per cent in Adobe Photoshop but think of it like this: if we

can be producing a better image with an improved understanding of our equipment and the principles of photography, then we probably should. With this exercise we’ve learned that the sweet spot of this particular lens is quite distinct at f/8 and so to get the best out of it a depth of field table popped in the collective back pocket can assist in making the decision to use a smaller aperture only when actually required, rather than as a default – test it for yourself. The tale of the photographer who shot everything at f/22 no matter what remains for another day…

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BA C K T O B A S IC S

Expose to the right-hand side Under-exposure can have devastating consequences for image quality that transcend the ability to ‘fix’ in post-production

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n our photography, the term dynamic range describes the luminance range of a scene being captured, from the black point all the way to the white. Simultaneously it can

describe the limits of luminance range that a digital camera can capture. There are, of course, methods of ‘expanding’ dynamic range: traditionally through the use of graduated neutral density filters resulting in increased detail in the shadows (this does not increase the fixed dynamic range available on the camera, but expands the usable dynamic range in practice) and on the digital side by combining multiple exposures of the same scene in order to retain detail in light and dark areas. So dealing with dynamic range is important, but what about a couple of questions: how much have we got and where is it?

If you think of dynamic range as the mosaic blocks of an image, that can help form an approach. In other words, if you have more smaller blocks then your resulting image will be finer with better representation of subtle details than if your image is made up of bigger blocks – with the latter situation corners will be harsher and colour transitions more sudden. That much is quite simple, then, and cameras in their iterations have generally improved dynamic range capabilities. For example, Canon’s 5D Mark II offered 11.9 Evs, whilst the Mark IV provided 13.6 Evs – a 15% improvement.

Now we know what we’re discussing and why it matters, we can turn to the big moment. If we assume there’s 12 stops available to us, you could be forgiven for assuming that this value was spread evenly across all tones from black to white. The thing is, it’s not. Dynamic range is heavily biased towards the highlight end of the histogram – hence there’s many more building blocks available to create the right-hand-side of the histogram than there is the left.

The two zoomed in images, right, are radically different captures. On the far-right the image has been under-exposed significantly and then ‘corrected’ or normalised in post-production. The left-hand image was exposed to the right-hand side and then also normalised in post. Now we know where the majority of dynamic range lives we know that the right-hand image at capture has missed out on most of the camera’s available dynamic range to build the image, whilst the left-hand image has maximised its use of available dynamic range by exposing so that the majority of the image lives where the majority of dynamic range also resides. The result is a far finer construction of the image with smooth tonal graduations.

Are you lazily under-exposing your images, perhaps because they look better on the back of the camera? Time to change your ways and let the camera produce the image quality you paid all that money for!

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E x po s ur e

I mage © JBDS

Above: capture histograms with overlays giving an impression of how dynamic range is distributed across the histogram

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RO B I N W IL L IA MS F B IP P T H E BE A U TY O F P LA N TS

International Garden Photographer of the Year 2020 Robin Williams was announced in February as the overall winner of the prestigious International Garden Photographer competition that attracts up to 20,000 entries annually.

He was thrilled, naturally

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obin’s winning entry used macro photography to immortalise the culturally iconic and ancient lotus species.

His image was shot at the Blue Lotus Water Garden in Victoria, Australia. Commenting on the image that sits almost as if in the window of the world’s finest patisserie, head judge Tyrone McGlinchey enthused: ‘The composition, intention and novelty invite us in with a delicious allure and promise of sensory satisfaction – like the countless tiny creatures that are drawn onto its warm golden façade, we cannot help but stop, stare and absorb the sense of potential delight.’

Robin said: ‘I am always inspired by the beautiful work submitted by photographers all over the world [to this competition] and am humbled to think that my work can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with theirs. We all celebrate the beauty of the natural world and, in doing so, hope to protect it.’

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Robin has had a distinguished career as a photographic practitioner, researcher and teacher.

He worked briefly as a scientific photographer at GEC Marconi then as a medical photographer at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, and Westminster Medical School London, becoming head of the largest medical illustration department in Europe – Charing Cross & Westminster Medical School.

He moved to Australia in 1992 to take up the inaugural Professorial Chair in Photography and Head of Department at RMIT University, Melbourne – a position he held for more than 20 years.

He continues his commitment to photographic education as a member of the Governing Council of the Photography Studies College in Australia and Chairs its Academic Board.

Robin tells us about his image: ‘I captured this macro shot of the golden reproductive parts of a Nelumbo nucifera (white lotus) flower head – which was ready for pollination. This plant can use thermoregulation to self-heat the flowers to aid in fertilisation.

The sacred lotus is a rhizomatous aquatic perennial and is a “living fossil” dating to pre-history, having been domesticated in Asia about 7,000 years ago. It is believed that its main pollinators are mostly bees, flies and beetles.’

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Spot check > Nikon D850 | 28-300mm | 1/500 sec | f/16 | iso 800 35

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ANDREA POZZI TREES, WOODS & FORESTS

Spot check > Highly Commended The Gate: Atchafalaya Basin, Louisiana, United States ‘One of the last remaining untouched natural places, and home to a multitude of bird species, turtles, alligators, poisonous snakes and spiders, Atchafalaya Basin is the largest river swamp in the United States. Every morning, the place turned into pure magic, as if I had suddenly entered a primordial and unexplored world.

At this spot, cascading Spanish moss created a curtain, and the incredible roots from swamp cypress trees blocked the way, like a barrier.’

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV | 100-400mm | 1/200 sec | f/8 | iso 400

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Y E V H E N S A MU C H E N K O A B S T R A CT V IE WS

Spot check > Highly Commended Magic Tree: Uman, Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine ‘I captured this bird’s-eye view of this small, tree-packed island, which uncannily resembled a tree itself when photographed from above.’

DJI Mavic Air | 4.5mm | 1/230 sec | f/2.8 | iso 100

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Ru r a l l i f e style

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LUCY N E W S ON

A defining year: 2020 Lucy Newson gives her personal perspective on the last year as a young up-and-coming photographer

I mage © Lucy Newson

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t was a year of uncertainty, chaos and change; for each of us. We needed to adapt and overcome.

To remain positive and hopeful during unprecedented times. Now, I have a potentially unpopular opinion: Covid brought me clarity. It pushed the boundaries of my creativity, reminded me of why I am a photo­ grapher and encouraged me to create something new. I better explain.

To give some context, I would like to take you back to the Spring of 2018, when I was 19 years of age.

After two years working full time at a local studio – capturing dance, headshots, events and so on – I decided to head out on my own.

I knew that I wanted to find my own place in the photographic industry and wanted to develop my own style as an artist. I dreamed of standing out. Lucy Newson Photography (LNP) was launched.

Combining my love and knowledge of our four-legged friends, I specialised in equine and canine portraiture – capturing the close relationships between owners and animals. I absolutely adored this and settled into my new career. However, as time moved on I started to realise that I would leave each photoshoot feeling as if I’d only just scratched the surface of this relationship.

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LUCY N E W S ON

What about their home, their lifestyle, their family? Their full story? How was I to capture this within a two-hour photoshoot? I was stuck.

As the winter months of 2019 set in, and workload decreased due to the season, I had time to think. I remember sitting at the dining room table scribbling away. I was writing down what I loved most about the photoshoots I offered, and what I didn’t.

My realisation was that I wanted more time with my clients: but not four hours, not even ten hours… I wanted days – time to understand them and become their friend; time to build trust; time to slow down; capturing true life at its everyday pace. I wanted to capture everything.

It was at this point, that I decided to reinvest in mentorship.

Having previously sourced mentorship at the start of building my business with Emily Hancock FBIPP and Hannah Freeland ABIPP, I knew that I once again needed their advice and a business friend to push me on. I also wished to develop my photographic style and looked to my mentors for critique. I personally cannot recommend mentorship enough – as a now 21 year old, learning from experienced professionals, being able to ask a million questions, bounce ideas around and to have help to get out of your own head is, in my opinion, invaluable.

Then, in the middle of March 2020, the first Covid lockdown was announced. Life changed, and reality hit. But, as the first few weeks of lockdown progressed, it was as if all of my inspiration, ideas and thoughts fell into place. I realised that I wanted to capture families who live in the countryside with their animals. I wanted to capture breakfast time, as the children speed through their cereal with the dog at their heels waiting for a titbit, and then as they rushed outside to let out the chickens.

I wanted to capture the day’s work on the farm followed by a glorious evening sunset and toasted marshmallows around the bonfire. And so the concept of The Rural Lifestyle Photographer was born.

As lockdown continued, families and friends missed each other – longing for a sense of normality and to relive the past, reminiscing on the good times. I was reminded why photography is my passion: photography gifts the ability to press the pause button, with peace of mind that the precious moment being captured is protected forever. I translated this into knowing that I wanted to create ‘family heirlooms in-waiting’ for my clients – large family albums, and gorgeous framed pieces ready to be passed down through generations.

My photoshoot experience was now complete. Between lockdowns, and complying with all restrictions, I drove across the UK to meet and capture my clients with the typical photoshoot stretching across three days. Of course, I did not shoot the entire time – instead we slowed everything down. Ready for the

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Ru r a l L i f estyle

everyday magic, nothing was forced. I’m building a relationship with my clients that will last many years.

Of course, I cannot gloss over the realities of Covid. Commissions were put on hold, money lost, the inability to have viewing sessions in person, instead relying on Zoom, not to mention the constant confusion and panic about what the future holds.

However, Covid did help me to truly understand what matters to my clients, thus shaping my business and style to look for the authentic moments. I also inevitably had more time to dedicate to personal investment and growth, so decided to apply for my Licentiateship, as I wished to develop my eye as a photographer, my knowledge and to learn how to critique my work objectively.

With the support of Emily Hancock and Hannah Freeland, this was achieved in September, with my panel of images focusing on equine and canine commissions.

I have big hopes for 2021. Yes, being in lockdown once again may not have been the strongest start, but with the promise of easing restrictions in the near future my hopes are high. I am ready to get back out there once more, driving across the UK in my little car, living my dream career.’ www.lucynewsonphotography.co.uk

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Qu i c k q u estions w ith L u cy N ews on

Would you say you are a detail-oriented person?

Most definitely. Throughout my entire process and workflow as a photographer I seek detail. I have creative calls with each of my clients, before their photoshoots, where I strive to learn as much about them as possible – if they have a necklace that they treasure for example, I want it to be in their images. When editing, I then look to enhance these special details. I believe that the magic is hidden in the detail.

What are your personal goals? Where do you see yourself in five years?

In the near future I am looking to work towards gaining my Associateship. I would also love to start some personal photographic projects, focusing on traditional trades and farming life – pushing my boundaries and experimenting with what I can create.

In five years time I see my business continuously moving forward in the direction of Rural Lifestyle. Travelling across the UK, capturing families and returning year after year to document how their lives have changed. In my home life, I am looking to start building up my own small holding – longing for the good life, and being able to keep and breed Rare British Breeds of first poultry, and then sheep, pigs. I have big plans for the future!

What does photography mean to you? Has it always been your professional objective?

Photography has always been a huge joy in my life. Learning from my Dad on family holidays and day trips in the countryside when I was little – photography has always seemed just right. I associate photography with family, creativity, and capturing stories. Photography has always been my professional objective – I had already had my interview and trial days with the studio before taking my exams at school. I knew that this is where I wanted to be, and rarely consider it my ‘job’.

What has been the most difficult aspect of the last year professionally?

I personally found the ‘unknown’ most challenging, unable to plan ahead and being flexible when guidelines changed or inevitably the weather decided to turn. This left a very tight window for shooting last year, and meant that every available minute had to be used with purpose.

How have you maintained inspiration and been able to look ahead?

I believe inspiration can come in many forms. Fortunately, as I have been busy developing my business and self investing, this naturally sparks inspiration. My mentors have also been a huge help when looking ahead. It is very easy to get caught up in the media spiral with news of Covid, but being able to talk through the situation logically allowed me to look ahead. When inspiration did fail, which of course at times it did, Pinterest was my friend. I challenge anybody to spend ten minutes on Pinterest and not leave feeling inspired and ready for a new challenge.

Do you think your photography has changed or developed in style in the last year?

My photography has massively developed in style this last year. When taking photographs, I look for the natural moments rather than constantly posing my client. My editing style has muted as I’ve begun to find consistency in my editing and I have also honed in on black and white imagery, as I adore how it removes distractions. With each photograph I look to tell a story, rather than to just capture what is there.

What do you like most about being a photographer?

I am in awe of the significance and impact that just one photograph can make – and I love being able to curate this. As I mentioned earlier, the ability to pause time by capturing a special memory for eternity, and then to preserve it in the form of artwork, is an incredible feeling.

What do you like the least about being a photographer?

I’ve thought about this question all day, and the only answer I can come up with is probably carrying kit. When I worked at the studio, a lot of photoshoots were on location meaning that we were constantly setting up and dismantling studio lighting. At just under 5’ 2 this wasn’t always easy!

Can you identify a particular character trait that means you are cut out for the job?

I am very enthusiastic about life, and have a positive energy. If anyone who is reading has taken a personality test and knows the Enneagram Types, I’m mainly a 7, meaning that I’m ‘The Enthusiast’. I believe that this helps me, as a photographer of people, as I look to project my enthusiasm and energy onto my clients.

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Foundations of a military photographer Each year, the Defence School of Photography runs 19 different courses including operations and surveillance courses through to the 5300 Defence Professional Photographer course, seeing more than 650 students from across all three services and government organisations pass though its doors. Here we catch up with a handful of recruits in the first weeks of their training

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Aircraftman Amber Mayall © UK Ministry of Defence CROWN COPYRIGHT, 2021

he 5300 course is 28 weeks long and is the first step to becoming a professional military photographer.

Photographers learn the basics of photography before moving on to the second module where they use their base knowledge gained to then learn how to apply it in a military setting. Talking with Tim Robinson, Head of Professional Training he said: ‘The modules are set out so that the underpinning fundamentals are taught in module one and module two is set up to make them into a military photographer.’

Aircraftman (AC) Amber Mayall (24), below, on her first month on the 5300 defence photographer course tells us about her experience so far. She said: ‘I have always had a creative eye, however before joining DSOP did not have a background in

photography. They really take it back to basics and teach you everything.’

Initial training on the 5300 Defence Professional Photographer course consists of basic exposure and camera techniques which is taught slowly to allow everyone to be on the same level. These new techniques have been aided by the use of top-of-theline equipment. Expanding on her experiences so far, Amber said: ‘The equipment given to us at the start of our course is amazing. It allows us to train with the best equipment available to us meaning we have the greatest training possible.’

The Defence School of Photo­ graphy at RAF Cosford teaches a number of students from different backgrounds from all three services.

With numerous different courses running simultaneously around the school, the 5300 course is the main 28-week long course which trains personnel who become professional photographers when they graduate.

Amber joined the Royal Air Force after working a Graphic design job in

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Aircraftman Emily Muir © UK Ministry of Defence CROWN COPYRIGHT, 2021

DEFENCE SCHOOL OF PHOTOGRA P H Y

Emily she said: ‘Photography is something that I’ve always wanted to do – I went to college in Manchester taking photography which is very different to the course here at DSOP. At college it was more about the artist’s work and the emotion behind imagery whilst at DSOP we learn the in-depth camera techniques needed to produce that same photography.’

Corporal Kristian Dawson, below, is an Army Photo­ grapher in training, also enrolled on the 5300 course at DSOP. The 5300 course is a tri-service course which means members of the Army, RAF and Royal Navy are integrated on their photographic journey to meet the operational requirements of all three services. The course is run by a mixture of civilian and military instructors with unfettered photographic knowledge and experience taking their students from camera basics to fully operational professional photographers at the culmination of the course.

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Corporal Kristian Dawson © UK Ministry of Defence CROWN COPYRIGHT, 2021

London for two years. Originally from Bournemouth, she said that although she enjoyed her job she wished to be able to be more creative with her work and leave her office-style job. Aspiring to go to RAF Lossiemouth when she graduates, Amber wishes to take all her new-found skills and push herself to be more outgoing and experience all the RAF has to offer.

Speaking to those wishing to join the RAF as a photographer Amber says: ‘If you want to do something creative with exciting experiences then don’t hesitate, just go for it.’

Aircraftman Emily Muir (26), above, is originally from Glossop near Manchester and is currently in the fourth week of training at DSOP where the aspiring military photographers attend the intensive nine-month course where they learn the basics of camera handling, how to capture and document crime scenes and through to creative lighting for portraiture, group images and how to handle them. Talking with

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Royal Navy Able Seaman Gareth Smith © UK Ministry of Defence CROWN COPYRIGHT, 2021

Kristian who hails from Yorkshire, now resides in Woolwich, London and has an eight-year-old son. He joined the Army in 2007 with the 2nd Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers which has seen him serve in Cyprus, Hounslow, Uxbridge and Germany. In 2009 he was deployed on Herrick 10 in Afghanistan. On return he transferred to Kings Troop Royal Horse Artillery where he learned how to ride. With a keen interest for the arts and nature, photography felt like a natural path for Kristian: ‘I just love the seemingly unlimited creative freedom a camera gives me.’ Upon first picking up a camera in 2018, he developed an instant passion. He applied to the Army Photographic branch a year later, sailing through his selection to be rewarded with a place at DSOP. Kristian believes the course and its team of instructors has given him the tools and inspiration to see the world differently and capture it in an array of unique ways through his camera. He thoroughly enjoys engaging with people from all walks of life so DSOP and photography gives him that platform to be a people person. Ergo, he’s eagerly anticipating Covid-19 restrictions being lifted so he can test his photography skills with a wider source of subjects. Kristian is finding the theory side of the course rather challenging stating he didn’t initially realise how much theory went into photography but finds it absolutely fascinating none the less. He adores the practical side of the course, feeling most comfortable when behind his camera. DSOP’s 5300 course is proving to be the catalyst for him to turn his passion into a profession. Kristian is currently four weeks into the course covering practical lessons on aperture, shutter speed and ISO control with theory modules on white balance, composition and the rules of reciprocity amongst other things. In the coming weeks Kristian and his peers will be introduced to modules such as metadata, Adobe Photoshop, colour management and flash photography with each module carefully introducing the foundations required to understand the next level.

Also four weeks into their training is 28-year-old Royal Navy Able Seaman Gareth Smith, above. He said: ‘The course is well structured, organised and very informative. I’m enjoying every moment so far and can’t wait to get stuck into the bigger tasks.’ The 5300 course is split into two core modules.

Module one teaches the fundamentals of photography and tests students understanding of the theories surrounding it.

Module 2 then expands on this and assists the students in transferring these skills into a military setting. The current 5300 course has already covered composition, metering methods and software skills amongst other elements. They have plenty to look forward to including portraits, studio technical and group shots before moving to module 2. To remain in line

with Government guidelines and to ensure students remain Covid secure at all times the on-site training facilities, RAF Cosford has established a lateral flow test facility. This processes around 350 tests per day and photography students are tested twice per week with results delivered in under 30 minutes – enabling their training to continue safe in the knowledge all those involved are free of Covid-19.

Corporal Sam Terry (35), right, of Colchester, Essex and serving with the Royal Logistics Corps at the school, recognises the value of the excellent training provided by the staff at DSOP. Sam, who served in the Royal Signals on Operation Herrick 15/16 in Afghanistan, before transferring over to the RLC, which enabled him to train to become a military photographer at the school has learnt quickly that there are many aspects of the 28-week course to take on board and prepare for. When questioned on how the course was taking shape he said: ‘I’m really looking forward to the rest of the course, as it’s providing me with the tools and knowledge I need to progress further on into my career as a professional photographer

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Corporal Sam Terry © UK Ministry of Defence CROWN COPYRIGHT, 2021

in the military.’ There is a requirement by the MOD to provide the Armed Forces with highly trained photographers for such elements as homeland security and the operational aspects of the armed forces. This is all catered for at DSOP. Sam will no doubt graduate from DSOP with flying colours at the end of the course and went on to add: ‘I’ve been extremely lucky to be given the opportunity to study here under excellent instruction, and the wealth of knowledge I’ll have gathered by the end of it all will be invaluable in moving forwards with my career as a military photographer in the Army.’

It’s fair to say that the training given to aspiring photographers in the armed forces from the staff at DSOP is second to none, and long may it continue into the future.

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The decisive frame From documenting military operations and international civil uprisings to infamous political figures and royal family members, press photographer Jim Tampin captured it all with an astute eye and considered timing, as Joel Hansen discovers

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irst receiving a Kodak 127 Box Brownie at age 12, the desire to become a photographer clicked: ‘I started taking hundreds and hundreds of pictures. I left school at 15 and I remember going home, calling the local newspaper to speak with the Editor and asking him if he would be interested in taking on an apprentice photographer – that’s how it started.’

Jim still remembers the first day at his local paper, the Wiltshire Gazette, and the chief photographer throwing an old plate camera at him to figure out how it worked. ‘It took me ages, but I eventually found out how to work it, and he then said to me “we don’t use those we use these,” and gave me a VN 9x12cm camera, a capacitor and a flashgun. That was my formal training.’

The stint at the local paper came to an end when Jim enlisted in the army: ‘I was called in by an officer and asked about my prior experience as a photographer and whether I would want a job working as a photographer in the army – I bit his hand off.’ Deployed to cover Kenya’s independence from the UK, the post opened a door to a country where Jim would meet and marry his life partner Stella, who worked in Kenya as a nurse. However, before long, the desert plains were replaced with Lossiemouth in Scotland, where Jim was sent to complete a military photography training course. Jim comments: ‘It didn’t please me one little bit because I wasn’t interested in the theory or anything else. The only thing I was interested in

Right: ‘I’ve got it, first-class.’

‘Rhodesia acquired a new passenger airliner jet, and when we went out to the airport to do the pictures they produced two cheetahs. This picture was taken by chance when the cheetah jumped up on the desk. I asked the girls there working for Rhodesia airline, have you got a ticket? And she held up this ticket, and the cheetah was looking at it.’

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was taking pictures and what lenses to use.’ And this outlook remained throughout his career. For Jim, capturing a decisive photographic moment is the priority: He explains: ‘I see things and take a picture and worry about the exposure afterwards.’

Stationed back to East Africa, he filmed and photographed the Colonial British Army’s participation in the nations celebrating independence from British rule and its military regiment, the King’s African Rifles. ‘At the time, they had a staff sergeant by the name of Idi Amin,’ notes Jim. Idi Amin served as the President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979 and was popularly known as the ‘Butcher of Uganda’ and considered one of the most brutal despots in world history. Jim continues: ‘On one occasion, I was in Kenya because there was an inter-service boxing tournament, and Idi Amin was the undisputed amateur boxing heavyweight champion of East Africa.

He was up against an RAF chap who had been flown in from Bahrain. A huge guy he was, the bell went for the start of the first round, and this RAF Sergeant hit Idi Amin once, and he was down on the canvas and counted out. I swear that punch was the cause of all of Uganda’s problems after that.’

Leaving Africa to be stationed in the Middle East with the Navy along the Gulf coast, Jim found plenty of adventure… Such as when Jim and several other troops were cut loose from a military landing craft and left floating out at sea, eventually washing up on a beach in Persia. He says: ‘We were out there for four days before being rescued!’

On another assignment, he filmed the Navy chasing gunrunners: ‘Intelligence told us a dhow [a traditional sailing vessel used in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean region] was carrying weapons and that it would be worth investigating. Well, when we tried to get alongside, down came their sails and these high-powered motors kicked in. It shot off down the Gulf at a pace we couldn’t keep up with.’

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J I M TA M P I N

Right: ‘Washday in one of Rhodesia’s protected villages’ ‘It was a photo opportunity, but it was perfectly natural. The thing that probably made the picture was the fact she was using Surf. It just caught my imagination.’

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Above: ‘Rhodesian Riot, 1 June 1975 ’ ‘The panicking crowd flees for safety as police attack them with batons and dogs on what has become known as Salisbury’s “Bloody Sunday” – 13 were shot dead and 28 injured in Salisbury’s Highfield Township.’

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Above: ‘Time runs out for Ian Smith, Prime Minister of Rhodesia, 1975 ’ ‘Ian Smith leaves Cecil Square Salisbury after talking to well-wishers on his way to talks with the South African Government.’

Upon leaving the military, Jim returned to the UK to work as a press photographer in Bishops Stortford, located near to BIPP’s Head Office in Ware. It was here he joined the Institute and completed his Licentiate in 1969. But soon enough, Jim was back in Southern Africa working as the Chief Photographer at the Rhodesia Herald.

At the time, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) was highly politically charged following its independence from the UK. The country was experiencing a political shift from majority white European rule with a small number of seats reserved for black representatives, to a more racially inclusive system. Jim comments: ‘We had an awful lot of problems with the government of the day, which is why the newspaper sometimes came out with blank spaces, particularly on the front page, because the sensors had stopped us publishing a particular story. It was an interesting role; it was hairy sometimes. We were always unarmed when we went out in the bush. The biggest worry was landmines. It didn’t happen

to us, but it did happen to others – their vehicles being blown up, but thankfully they survived.’

Yet, even though tensions arose with the government, the notion of racial segregation amongst the Rhodesian people wasn’t something Jim experienced: ‘They tell you there was apartheid in Rhodesia, but there wasn’t. Where we worked the African reporters worked too, in the same newsroom and they were members of the same press club.’

Upon returning to the UK, Jim touted his portfolio on London’s Fleet Street, bringing him face to face with the acclaimed Times newspaper editor Harold Evans, who gave Jim a

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job working for The Times and The Sunday Times, covering mainly sport.

After this, Jim worked for various newspapers in the UK, and finished up his career as Chief Photographer at the Dorset Evening Echo.

Alongside his active profession, Jim sat on BIPP Council, served on the Photographer editorial board and became BIPP President between 1988-89. During this time, his team were instrumental in re-establishing the Institute’s faded connection with the British Press Photographer of the Year Award and even managed to get Princess Michael of Kent to host the awards one year. ‘The highlight of my presidential year was going to visit the Professional Photographers of Canada in Toronto.

I had a lot of fun. I made some speeches and started off their education side of things.’

After an illustrious photographic career, Jim took to retirement but then sensed a longing for the country where he was posted as a young army recruit and where he met his wife. Trips back to Kenya for Jim and Stella became frequent in the couple’s golden years: ‘I wish now that I’d never left Kenya, with the benefit of hindsight. I love the country, and I love the people.’ In these later years, Jim’s black and white style evolved into colour, with a new-found passion for wildlife photography and that became the final stage of this career of an adventurous documentary photographer.

Above: ‘A young patient at Rhodesia’s Jairos Jiri Rehibiltion Centre’ ‘I met a lorry driver, whose name was Jairos Jiri. Traditionally, if a child in the bush in the tribal area was born with a mental or physical defect, they were put out on the riverbanks, and the crocodiles took them. Now this lorry driver Jairos Jiri started to rescue some of these children as he drove around in his lorry and from that grew the Jirous Jiri Centre.’

Right: Basketball Final, De Monfort Hall, Leicester’

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PAUL W I LKI NSON

The judge’s eye Judges are forever being asked why: ‘Why did that image do so well?’ ‘Why is the technical aspect of an image so important to judges?’ ‘Why is sharp focussing deemed sooooo critical?’ ‘Why is the choice of paper, even a thing?’… And the inevitable and unanswerable question: ‘Why didn’t my image do better when my clients told me they loved it so much?!’ In this article, Paul Wilkinson talks us through – in detail – what judges look for in an award-winning image, ensuring you are best prepared for this year’s regional and national print competition

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irstly it is worth considering that an image competition, whether based on prints or digital files, is partly an exercise in ranking the images from the best – gold, silver and bronze-awarded entries – to those deemed to need more work. No matter the glorious images you enter into a competition, you are always competing with other photographers… other photographers who, just like you, have created images that stand an equal chance of winning.

And so it’s down to the judges to work methodically through every image, figuring out the scores and being careful to give each image the time and attention that it deserves. Diligence is the name of the game.

Awards criteria Every competition will publish the judging criteria they are looking for somewhere, usually on the awards website, along with any specific rules. It is an excellent idea to study them and make sure that what you enter follows the rules and has the characteristics that the judges will score well. I had a quick look at the criteria that three of the influential associations publish for their competitions (see table below).

As you can see, they are more or less describing the same thing with varying flavours of wording and emphasis. Most awards sites provide guidance for what the judges will be assessing. So, rather than doubling up on things you can read elsewhere, what follows are notes on what I’ve seen and heard whilst working as a judge.

FEP Impact Vision Technical Excellence Composition Creativity Personal Style Colour Balance Lighting Subject Matter Mastery Of The Photographic Technique

BIPP Content of Image Creativity Subject Matter Interpretation Composition Centre of Interest Perspective Direction Use of / Control of Light Style

Impact Irrespective of which competition you’re entering, impact almost always appears near the top of the list. A great image has impact and invokes an immediate and visceral reaction from a viewer: what do you want that impact to be? Do you want to evoke sadness, excitement, joy, energy, peace, awe, laughter or maybe tears? What is it about your image that will grab (and then hold) a judge’s attention? Look for that wow-factor, whatever you choose it to be. If you can get the judges talking about your image for its impact, then the scores will almost certainly go up.

Bear in mind that the moment of most significant impact for an image is when a judge first sees it. Many judges and mentors will encourage you to keep your image entries to yourself until after the judging, as this gives you the best possible chance of ‘wowing’ the judges with that initial, impactful view. Avoid posting it first on Instagram! If you ever have a chance to eavesdrop on the judges chatting at the bar after scoring has finished, you will probably find them excitedly reminiscing about one of the images for its impact – even if it ultimately didn’t score so well for other technical reasons.

Creativity and style Hand in hand with the image’s impact, does the image have something about it (beyond that initial ‘bang’) that holds the judges’ attention? Is it something we’ve seen before, or is it something unique?

Expression / Narrative Print Quality Tonal Range Graphic Stability Design Texture Workmanship Technique Freshness / Unique Appeal

SWPP Impact Creativity And Style Composition Image Or Print Presentation Lighting Colour Balance Technical Excellence Photographic Technique Story Telling And Subject Matte

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Layout I hear the word ‘composition’ everywhere in the industry, but I prefer the term ‘layout’ because it makes you think like a designer rather than a photographer. We’re looking at the same thing, of course, but through different eyes.

As an artist, you don’t just take a photograph – you design it. The placement of every element and the relationships between those elements is down to you, the photographer. You design the image to make it pleasing and lead the viewer to the areas you want them to notice – something true of all styles, whether it’s photojournalism, fine-art or still life. In my experience, photographers often don’t pay enough attention to the layout – even a simple portrait can be visually engaging by the considered placement of individual elements, a tight crop or an original viewpoint.

Presentation The presentation of an image is more applicable to print competitions than digital-only awards. Where you place your image on the printed page is a design consideration in its own right. The placement of the image, the colour and finish of the paper, the inclusion (or exclusion) of a border will affect the judge’s impression when they first see the image. Oh, and of course, your paper choice and print quality are critical too. Too many images are let down by sub-standard prints on floppy, cheap paper when the image may have done much better if, for instance, you printed on rigid fine-art board. For example, if you print on flimsy paper, it will be hard to judge on the viewing lightbox!

Matt papers tend to reduce the contrast of an image with much softer blacks and subdued highlights than gloss papers, so if you’re using fine-art matt papers, make sure it’s appropriate for your picture. Some papers scratch easily – test them! You do not want a panel of judges spending valuable time debating whether to ignore marks on the paper rather than enjoying your image.

Choosing, testing and printing with high-quality papers and boards is costly, but the investment is nearly always rewarded when it comes to awards!

Lighting When you think about it, a photograph is nothing more than the representation of light – an X by Y grid of tiny points of luminescence. We take three-dimensional reality and represent it in two dimensions, using nothing more than pixels. Does the lighting in the image provide shape, dimensionality, atmosphere and substance to the

photograph? Does it feel like I am looking at something with form and presence?

Is the hardness or softness of the light appropriate for the subject matter? Most importantly, can we see the photographer’s input and control of the lighting, whether it’s in a studio or out on the street? There is a misconception that ‘photojournalism’ imagery – portraits, news, weddings – give the photographer no control over the lighting. Well, that may or may not be accurate. Still, if you look at the best photojournalists’ work, the lighting is always incredible, they understand how to capture it and they have that indefinable timing and eye for lighting.

Colour and tonal balance Do the colours and tones of the image do their job (whatever that job should be)? A misty landscape may only have the most subtle, subdued colour, eerily picking out shapes from the gloom. Simultaneously, a fashion image may be adventurous in its use of intense colour, drawing the viewer to the clothing or the lifestyle. The judges are looking for control and the deliberate manipulation of the tonal palette to support the image.

Monochrome or multichrome?

When you’re trying to decide if the image should be monochrome or colour, ask this question first: is the colour an integral part of the image? Is the colour adding or distracting the viewer from the story you’re trying to tell? For instance, fashion images are almost always colour because the image’s job is to sell clothes. At the same time, portraits are much more suited to monochrome as the picture is primarily the person’s character.

Have you ever considered the cover art used to sell musical albums? I know they’re primarily on iTunes or Spotify now, though I long for the days of vinyl! Still, the marketing team’s selection of colour or monochrome tells you a little about the music before you’ve even hit ‘download’! The music business is well-versed in the creative use of imagery and how to set the tone before you’ve listened to a single note!

Lens choice In the end, I’ve listed lens choice, but it’s not precisely the lens selection that is under scrutiny. Instead, we are examining the impact your choice has had on the image.

Every focal length (and, simultaneously, your distance from the subject) will distort the image’s perspective. Is this distortion adding or distracting from the result?

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For example, does using too long a lens flatten any sense of proportion in a product image? Conversely, does using a wide lens and a close distance distort a face’s features, enlarging the nose? Lens choice is important!

Hot-spots The brightest part of an image (or the darkest part of the image is predominantly high-key) will naturally draw viewers’ attention. Make sure the area that is standing out is the element you want it to be. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard a judge’s comment along the lines of ‘I wish the subject’s hands weren’t brighter than the face!’

Control of tones Make sure there is tonal detail throughout the image – do not let blown highlights or blocked up shadows sneak in.

If you have pure white or pure black, make sure it’s for a reason and a deliberate choice on your part and be aware that if you do have blown highlights, they will always be spotted and rarely forgiven.

If it’s a print competition, make sure you lay ink down on every inch of the paper – and try to avoid having any jet-black areas. Paper-white and pure-black areas of an ink-jet print show a phenomenon called ‘gloss differential’ – different areas of the print reflect light differently.

This effect can be distracting and will always entice the judges into investigating your image’s technical aspects.

Pin-sharp focussing If your image is soft – especially if the subject’s eyes are not pin-sharp – it is unlikely to do well. The judges will penalise out-of-focus entries immediately. I am drawing a distinction here between an image that is accidentally out-of-focus and the use of creative defocussing for artistic impact. If you have any doubt that your entry is sharp, don’t enter it.

Dust spots I love the transition to digital photography. Almost every aspect of it is an improvement over film days (though I miss the darkroom!). These days, every measure you can think of surpasses the capability – both technically and artistically – of celluloid but one area that is a constant misery? The dust spot. Your sensor would be immaculate in an ideal world, and there would never be a need for spot-removal tools in post-production. It would save a lot of time! However, the reality being what it is, make sure you have gone over your image in tiny detail, looking for

Paul Wilkisnon FBIPP, FMPA, FSWPP Paul Wilkinson knows a thing or two when it comes to creating award-winning images. Not only does he have the accolade of ‘Photographer of the Year’, since 2008 he is a renowned and well-respected international judge.

His skills don’t stop there, his photography training is very much sought after from photographers worldwide. Many of you will have heard his light-hearted but straight-talking podcast where he chats about life, the universe and all things portrait photography and if that wasn’t enough, Paul co-authored an acclaimed best-selling book Mastering Portrait Photography which adorns many photographers book shelves. dust spots – trust me, you do not want a judge to be the person who spots those spots for you!

Details at the image edge Scan around the edges of your image. Anything protruding into the sides will be a distraction as it sits tight against the perfectly straight border. Usual culprits are chair backs, lampposts, safety signs, bits of door frames and the occasional hand of an unseen being!

Motion blur / camera shake Well, it better be for a reason. Don’t include images with anything other than creative use of camera or subject movement.

Image repetition Do not be tempted to enter five variations of the same image. Remember what I said about ‘impact’. Once the judges have seen three, four, five or even a dozen entries clearly from the same author and of a similar subject, it is hard to avoid comparing them, diluting the impact.

Pick just one image. I know that isn’t easy, but it is necessary. Do not enter related images, as it can only bring your scores down.

Different isn’t everything Sometimes when we’re judging, we see images trying too hard to be different; it can feel like the author is trying to win a competition rather than creating an image to be enjoyed as much as appreciated for its technical excellence.

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Don’t lose sight that being different to stand out has to balance with everything else.

Newborns health and safety A judge will look at the baby’s welfare in your image and consider this when judging this genre. Ensure you don’t wrap your babies too tightly and that the pose isn’t restricting the airway or blood flow (we do not want to see tiny fingers and toes turning blue!).

Be aware of manipulating babies into poses that are not comfortable (for the baby, of course – we don’t care if you have to stand on your head!) – you should not be doing it. Just because their little limbs are flexible doesn’t mean it is OK to bend them into unnatural positions.

Judges rarely look at these images favourably: the baby’s welfare is paramount.

The (big) devil is in the (tiny) details!

Every little detail counts. Awards are won and lost on one or two points out of a hundred. Trust me; the tiny details can be the difference between a gold or a silver award.

Here are just a few things that I’ve spotted in the last few judging sessions I’ve been part of: • A ring rotated on a finger, so the jewel was in a weird position (this matters if you have someone resting their head on their hands!)

• A skewed necklace with the catch sitting out in front • A tuft of hair poking out behind a neck like Frankenstein’s bolt • A fire exit sign like a green halo behind a bride’s head • Edges of chairs or the hands of unseen people creeping into the frame • Hands that look like they have no ‘owner’ – when a hand creeps around someone’s waist or over a shoulder look carefully to make sure it doesn’t look like a medical specimen!

Backgrounds If you add textured backgrounds to your images, that’s no problem at all. However, you must do it carefully.

Firstly, if you have a shallow depth of field on a face and your replacement background is pin-sharp, we can spot the addition. You need to soften the background (and maybe add a touch of grain) so that it’s technically correct. And don’t miss any areas! Every single competition I’ve judged, we have encountered images where parts of the original background show through somewhere –

often in the gap between an elbow and a body or between the strands of someone’s hair.

Photographers often think judges penalise backgrounds added in post-production, but that isn’t the case; we deduct marks for unconvincing backgrounds that distract from the image.

Moire patterns and banding These are two different things but equally distracting. The first occurs when capturing small repeating patterns such as those in the fabric of a suit, while the latter occurs in smooth gradients – blue skies often fall foul of this, as do plain studio images with vignettes.

There are plenty of videos out there showing how to fix these issues, but rest assured, the judges will spot it if it’s in the image.

Intangible quality I hear this over and over and over again: ‘There is something about the winning image that is simply stunning – it has a quality to it.’ Well, what is that quality, that secret sauce? Of course, I chose the word ‘intangible’ deliberately – if we could define it, judges would always win any competition they entered! And that doesn’t happen.

Clone covertly Flawless post-production is a dark art all of its own – and cloning is possibly the darkest of the dark. If you have to clone something out (or in), duplicate some background, or even if it’s an integral part of your creative flair, be careful to leave no trace of what you have done. Think of it as a covert operation where you can do whatever is necessary, but no-one (and by no-one, I mean the judges) must ever spot it.

Too sharp for your own good One major misconception in preparing your files is that sharpening is what it says it pretends to be: sharpening. It isn’t. There is no such thing. Sharpening in post-production is simply the process of exaggerating the difference between light and dark tones where they sit beside each other, creating an impression of sharpness. There are many and varied tools for sharpening: local contrast, high pass filtering, structure, detail sharpen, smart sharpen, unsharp mask, the list goes on and on.

But be warned: in every competition I have judged, someone will mutter about an image that has been ‘over sharpened’. ‘Over-sharpening’ can mean many things, but

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in this context, it usually means we can see tiny ‘halos’ around objects where the sharpening has been over-applied. Conversely, I have never heard a judge say an image required more sharpening. Ever. Nope, not ever.

Do what you will with that observation.

Hang your work No. Seriously. Print it and hang it. Somewhere you can see it every day. Over your desk, in the downstairs loo, on the studio wall. It doesn’t matter. Print it. Hang it. Enjoy it. It’s amazing what you’ll spot after a period of time.

Everything I’ve mentioned above, all of these things and more, will become apparent.

Don’t leave it to the last minute OK, we’re all guilty of this. If you give yourself lots of time to select, finish and print your entries, you will spot any defects before the judges have a chance to find them.

Time gives you the best possible chance to correct any minor blemishes or save yourself the entry fees for images you ultimately decide aren’t going to work.

And, yes, I do know every photographer is busy and will run right up to a deadline. But the photographers with a consistent track record in competitions will make the time throughout the year.

Taste your food before you serve it I don’t know how to say this without upsetting people, but here goes. When it comes to print competitions (or qualification submissions for that matter), do not ever – and I mean ever – submit prints that you haven’t personally seen and reviewed yourself. That’s akin to a chef serving food they haven’t checked and tasted.

Well, be warned, any good chef will tell you: they always test their food.

Over recent years, I have heard more and more judges’ comments about sub-standard printing and photographers responding that they trusted their suppliers. I am so sorry, and I hope this doesn’t upset anyone, but there is rarely any excuse for this. If you haven’t seen, checked and personally signed off your prints before the judges get to see them, you only have yourself to blame.

Please don’t plagiarise Do I need to expand on this? Don’t do it. Copying any other author’s work or, worse, including imagery that you didn’t create and don’t own the copyright for is against the rules of pretty much every competition on the planet.

And this extends to images created during workshops or seminars unless you happen to be the photographer running the session. If in doubt, double-check with the organisation managing the competition. Sadly, I have been involved in investigating a handful of cases, ultimately leading to disqualification. It’s no fun for the judges or the entrant.

Do your homework Study the winning images of competitions, and appreciate them. I mean, really, appreciate and enjoy them. Soak them up, draw in how the entries make you feel. Look at the details, look at the layout of the elements, the atmosphere, the colours, the post-production. Figure out why it makes you feel that way.

That magical quality will remain elusive and indefinable, of course, but it will always be there. Somewhere.

Every winning image has it.

And finally…

Don’t worry if you don’t do as well as you would like.

Chalk it up to experience and appreciate the work of the others that did well. Don’t beat yourself up, and don’t let it fuel your insecurities – the same insecurities we all have as creatives. On a different day, with different judges, it could have been you picking up that gold award.

Tomorrow? Well, tomorrow, that might just be the case! And whatever else, don’t shout at the judges and be kind to yourself !

Many thanks to Paul for sharing his vast knowledge and experience with us all. Check our Paul’s website: www. masteringportraitphotography.com

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