The [AP] Blog

Photograph Analysis: Edinburgh

charliestyr — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:45:15 +0000

I thought I would try and start a new kind of regular post to the blog, in which I analyse a photo that I have taken recently, and that I like, and try and work out what’s great about them, in my mind, and then hopefully hear back from you if you agree, and if you like them too.

This photo were taken in Edinburgh, with my Canon AE-1 Film SLR, and the standard 50mm f/1.8 lens. Let’s have a look!

This photograph was taken in the ‘honesty bar’ or lounge of the Glass House hotel in central Edinburgh.

It is a photograph I really like, and am glad I took some time to take a photograph of it. Of course, in this case, the subject really is fantastic, and therefore the image is bound to be quite nice, but I think there are a few interesting aspects to how I took the photo that are worth noting:

Firstly, the focal point; You can see that I focused on the papers that were in the rack, I did this, because of what I think many people will do in this lounge, you will look at the papers, and, so the photograph does too.

This coupled with the shallow depth of field has made it seem like the rest of the room is simply the background, but yet, you can still make out much of the detail. I particularly like little points of out of focus, (OOF), light, such as the candle, and the fireplace, they are very aesthetic.

The textures in the image I think also play a key aspect, there are so many crammed into the frame: shiny metal, plush carpet, hanging fabric (background), paper etc. All of this coupled with the really warm atmosphere created in the room, makes what I really think, is a nice photo.

So what key points can we pick up from this photo?

Focus on what people would focus on in a certain scene

Pick a suitable aperture for the DoF you want

Maybe try and capture some OOF highlights

Combine textures within your image

It may all seem incredibly basic how we are looking through photographs in this way, and picking out points that you may think are incredibly simple, but I really think it is worthwhile to think of all these things for every photograph you take, and it’s definitely something that using a film camera has reminded me of, to read more on that, have a look HERE.

Thanks a lot for reading, and please, let me know what you think of this idea, whether it’s worth continuing!?

Charlie -

Mobile blogging?

charliestyr — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 21:23:44 +0000

I feel rude for neglecting this blog so much, furthermore, GoDaddy is so confusing, I don’t know how much longer I will have the domain, must get it moved over to dreamhost!!

So yeah, I got an iPhone 3G back when it came out, but I’m only just giving the wordpress app a go. Thought I would do this as test, also a reminder that I’m still alive, and to let you know something exciting!!

Some of you may remember hen I mentioned a book project I was working on with what is now randomhouse publishing. This book is a guide to photography aimed at ‘generation now’ or, anyone really who wants a fresh start with photography!! I’ll write an article at a later date on it more thoroughly, which will make it clearer!

Hope you’re well,

Charlie -

There will be a lack of posts for a while.

charliestyr — Sun, 04 May 2008 21:33:43 +0000

I’m sorry to inform you that due to my status as an A-level student, I have a lot of exams coming up, and hopefully you will be able to appreciate that I won’t be able to be writing any/much new material for the blog, which is a shame as I just revamped it so, but, bad timing I guess. I’ll leave it at that for now, and my last exam is on June 4th, so I’ll see you around then :-)

Charlie -

Pixish.com linking creatives and publishers

charliestyr — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 19:54:17 +0000

I thought it’d be worth a moment of your time to look at this site I came across. It is definitely worth a look if you’d be interested in submitting your photographs to be used ‘commercially’ and for financial or otherwise rewards. Here’s a little about how it works:

Publishers come to the website, join, and create an ‘assignment’ for example, a musician may want a photograph to go on the front of his new album cover, and he’ll give some description of what he wants, for example, something based on lomography.

Then, (after you’ve joined!), you can submit images for that assignment, (the creator of the assignment chooses how many you are allowed to submit). And that’s it!

The end result for the publisher is he/she has a collection of images that people think are appropriate for his assignment, and also, he’ll see votes on each image. (You are allowed to vote for pictures that have been submitted, to give the creator an idea of what some people like), and then he picks a winner, (or more than one winner if he wants), and that photo gets used!

This isn’t some dodgy referral thing or anything, I’m just sharing this idea with you, so visit Pixish.com now and sign up! (It needs the support, it’s just starting out!)

why don’t my photos look cool?

charliestyr — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:13:18 +0000

Here’s a great little read I found on ZachisHere, another photography based blog, and I thought I should share it with you:

Why Don’t my Photos look cool?

So, enjoy and leave him a comment :-)

flickr does video

charliestyr — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:21:07 +0000

Well, there’s a surprise, the world leader in photo sharing has jumped on the video bandwagon. To be honest, it’s not all that surprising, we’ll have a think about why not. In the mean time, this is an embedded Flickr video, the quality is really not bad at all. (YouTube esque, except they now have higher quality).

What’s interesting about this move on Flickr’s behalf is that they obviously want to get people staying with them for every bit of media they want to share. I recently joined the site ‘Vimeo‘, which has a lovely interface, and does HD video, et al.

I think that Flickr wants to make sure that they keep people that could potentially leave, even though this wouldn’t happen since their photography based anyway, but it gives people that may have the odd video to upload, the option to just upload them to Flickr now.

However, the videos are limited to 90s which is a little short, and 150mb, which I think is less of an issue. So, I think these really are meant to be just little snap shots, or ‘elongated photographs’ if you will!

Check it out: Flickr

Charlie -

Buy a film camera to re-inspire your inner photographer.

charliestyr — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:14:33 +0000

So, welcome to the completely revamped AP Blog. Hosted on it’s own, running on WordPress, hopefully this will be an exciting rebirth for the blog.

This first post is going to be on a thought I had the other day, about how since I bought my AE-1 I have rediscovered photography, (the AE-1 being a film camera, as aposed to Digital). So, here it is. It’s a story/article that I hope you will find interesting.

Nowadays, photography is becoming numbed, by it’s own evolution. The digital age, and your cheap digital cameras are flooding this art form with so many new ‘artists’ that it’s touch is being lost. People are firing off their cameras thousands of times and maybe leaving themselves with one or two likeable shots. I see this as a problem, purely because it’s in essence destroying photography, whilst aiding it too. So, I think there is also hope in this problem.

Film photography is becoming scarce, because, for the most part people just use a camera to record their lives, their family and friends, but to photographers, digital has managed to force newcomers to the art form to lose all basic training, instead of working out what composition would be best for a single frame, they take a hundred photos and see which one turns out best. You and I both know this can’t be a good thing.

A shot I took with the AE-1 (click for flickr page)

So, I’ve decided to follow my own story, and share it with you with a method that I think will change your whole view on photography. I feel it has helped me, and that it is something all new photographers should do.

I decided that a 35mm film SLR would be the next thing I would like to purchase. I looked around on Flickr and asked various people, and came up with a short list of SLRs that I thought could work:

Canon AE-1, AV-1, A-1.
Olympus OM10, OM20, OM30, OM40.
Various Nikon film SLRs

This is by no means the complete list, and there will be plenty of other options by many brands, Pentax for example. You may have a brand preference, but I went by what was a reliable camera, and a popular camera, (thus meaning there would be lots available to buy, that were reliable).

I ended up buying a Canon AE-1, an SLR from the late ’70s which had a semi-automatic, Tv/S shutter speed mode, or fully manual, (manual focus of course). It works perfectly, I’ve run black and white, and colour film through it, and it set me back £21.

Photo of the AE-1 (click for flickr page)

If I can just put that price into perspective, I have got a Camera, with a lens, (battery too), that was £21, when I got my Canon EOS 400D, it was retailing at £500, and already from the rolls of film I’ve done, I am loving the work I’m doing with it. So, the investment for this fun really is minimal.

So, what am I really rambling on about here, well, it’s about photography, and your skills in that area. I feel that having a film camera will really connect you with photography, it all becomes much more real when you know there are slides of celluloid in your camera with images waiting to be seen on them.

A photo of my dog, from the AE-1 (click for flickr page)

The inability to look at your picture straight away and maybe delete it will put you in a completely different mindset. You will want to make sure that that picture you are about to take will be right, you don’t want to waste a frame of that film, you contemplate composition, lighting, you think about the exposure, everything. And I have noticed this in my own photography, with the AE-1, I find that my pictures are so much more ‘classically’ correct in terms of photographic technique, with my digital camera I often end up going for strange orientation, odd composition, excessive contrast, ‘incorrect’ exposure, with the AE-1 I get pure results, that are ‘right’, and they work on a much more simple basis.

Furthermore, in this time when it seems everyone and their dog has a digital SLR or at least a compact, how can one differentiate oneself in the photographic ‘market’. If you try and sell your photographs, there would be nothing more interesting to people than seeing a section in your portfolio of purely film photography, it separates you from the crowd in a big way.

Black and White film is also Lovely (click for flickr page)

Once you have used your film camera for a while, there is another big advantage: you will inherit your technique straight into your digital camera too. Of course, over time you may slip back to taking five shots of a single idea, but, the likelihood is that you would put more thought into those photographs.

If I can just slip back to what it means to use film, and people will inevitably bring up the fact that it is costly, and awkward to get your pictures etc. I mean, if we think about this for a second, if you live anywhere near a town, you can get your films processed, and printed in an hour, and nowadays you could just get them thrown on a CD as well. To start with, this quality will be fine, but after a while if you are yearning for higher quality, as you do, you could still get the film processed, but then have a film scanner, and get some high quality scans by yourself.

Furthermore, if you live away from a place to get your rolls developed, there are plenty of post based options, all over the world, you needn’t worry, you can send it away and get it back all done, simple!

The whole idea of this is to reinspire yourself for your photography, and I hope you will be able to do so. For a modest investment on eBay, you can really pick up some lovely cameras, the feel of the hefty metal AE-1 against the comparatively light 400D is also strange.

Hopefully this little article has been of interest to you, let me know if you liked it :-)

Charlie -

Moving to Wordpress :-)

charliestyr — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:52:00 +0000

Hello Everyone.

Well, I know this blog kind of just up and died on you, but, I’m going to attempt a full revitalisation. I’ve got a hosting plan sorted, and I’m moving to a full on wordpress situation. The blog may be a bit of a shambles for a while, but hopefully this will mean that I myself take the blog more seriously and keep it more up to date.

I don’t really know the length of time that this process will take, but it should be exciting enough for me and you, the readers, and that means more tips, reviews, comments et al. We shall see :-)

Hope you’re well,

Charlie -

a new member to the team

charliestyr — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 19:55:00 +0000

Hello Readers,

Well, I’m sure the inactivity pages that make up ‘The AP Blog’ have been noticed, and trust me, I’ve noticed too. I have just been overwhelmed by so much activity, in School, real life, and everything in between. But, I think we can hopefully think that this blog is going to get a much-needed kick start in the very near future.

A great friend that I met on Flickr, some time ago, John March, is going to be joining the AP blog. His work is some of my favourite work on Flickr, particularly his interesting techniques whilst taking photos, and also in Photoshop for post-processing. He will be able to provide some stark enthusiasm and incredible talent and teaching to this blog. And I think it is going to be a great success.

I’m sure you will hear from him near enough. Enjoy when you do. Check out his photos on Flickr, HERE.

Hope you’re all doing good. Charlie -

pairing images for effect

charliestyr — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 20:59:00 +0000

You may often see photographs, or rather pairs of photographs which just click together. The decision making is often a tough one for photographers, and I will go over the ways in which to go into making what is often referred to as a ‘diptych’, ie. two photos in one image, or two in one frame if that’s how you work!

Let me start with an example of one of my photographs. This one was taken in a field near my house, and I really like it:

This example of photograph pairing is very simple, and in my opinion one of the most effective forms of this, and that is, ‘looking at the same subject, from a different perspective or distance’.

I’d say that this is the most common type of pairing that you will see, and when you are out shooting some photos, I urge you to have a look at the same subject again, and see if you could shoot it again from another angle, that would complement the previous. I feel that there are often potential pictures that appeal, or even scream to be shot twice and then paired up.

Another example of this double shot of the same subject, could be this fabulous photograph from ‘notraces‘, a lovely shot:

This is a simple shot, of the front, and back of the same car, which is of amazing depth and simplicity, but yet, something unachievable in a regular photograph.

—

The next area of this subject is what I can only describe as, ‘pairing subjects’. This often means things of the same colours, such as a shiny dark blue car, and a beautifully dark blue sky with fluffy clouds, or a brown and reddish plant, and dead leaves on the ground. Furthermore, the photographs could be of a linking subject, such as winter, or flowers.

This is quite difficult to describe, and so I feel this photograph from ‘rebeccamissing‘ will do the job just fine. It is entitled, ‘the language of winter’ and is a beautiful pairing of photos:

The complementing colours, and the matching subjects make for a simple superb photograph here, the subject in hand is clearly winter, and the photo is a wonderful pairing of two common subjects of wintertime.

The reason that this photo is particularly notable, is that although the photos look great individually, pairing the two brings out detail that you may not have noticed previously, and makes us link the two together.

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This post has come to a somewhat sudden end, however I feel that I have enlightened you into the prospects of pairing images together. You can pair them together in software such as Photoshop and Gimp, and if you even want, Paint, they’ll all do.

So I urge you to think about next time, what photos would look nice together, not just how they look on their own, it is a less walked path, but it is one that I find, much more rewarding.

Hope you’re well,

Charlie -