The Colours Of Summer

The island of Burano lies in the northern part of the Venetian lagoon, about 45 minutes by boat from Venice itself. Along with neighbouring Torcello, it is less busy than the more commercial Murano - its intimate fishing village atmosphere certainly feels miles apart from the palatial grandeur of Venice.

You could almost be in Greece; certainly, the art of lacemaking found its way here from Cyprus. While the labour-intensive nature of this craft has made it a more rarified spectacle, no visitor strolling the little streets of this island can miss the colourful houses. Lore has it that they were brightly painted as a guide to returning fishermen, or possibly simply as a means of marking out property boundaries. Either way, it’s a paradise for photographers who wish to take a break from the crowds and some of the overly-familiar vistas of Venice.

My own photography on the island was constrained by another brief, so I had only a short time to capture some images for myself during the middle of the day when the sun was high, which was less than ideal. I found myself drawn to an abstract approach, ditching the camera in favour of an i-Phone and concentrating on where these colours met or had to accommodate street names and numbers or pipes. The resulting compositions show uncompromising hues redolent of summer - hot pinks, sultry oranges and reds, lapis blues - the raw ingredients of the northern Italian Renaissance paintings hanging in ornate palazzi a few kilometres away and here peeling in the sunshine on the walls of modest fishermen’s homes.

Looking carefully as well at textures and details brings its rewards; I think my favourite shot is of the painted ants seemingly appearing out of a crack in the wall, but they have been painted over on the right side - did the owner of the orange house not like the idea of them running over his side of the property? Something to idly contemplate as the boat later pulled out into that blue coloured lagoon.

New Horizons

When I embarked on this blog earlier in the year I always worried there would be a moment when pressure of work might run a little too hard against the limitations of time and something would have to give. So it proved the case these last couple of months - just what happened to November and December? The good news is that a couple of the projects I was working on in the latter part of the year grew in scope and may well result in further exciting outcomes in the coming year. These came on top of a typically busy autumn, so while I have some ideas and pictures which I am looking forward to sharing in the weeks ahead, the not so great part is that it all resulted in a couple of months of neglect here on this page. And now, suddenly, I find myself at the eve of a new year, that classic temporal viewpoint from where we contemplate our journey so far and scan the horizon for directional clues to future opportunity and fulfilment.

I don’t think 2014 has been a particularly kind year to the photographic profession. It's difficult to get figures but the talk that I am picking up is that social photography in particular is in decline as a profession. Photography as an art form came under attack and the digital camera market has shrunk further, to levels similar to 2004. At the same time, conversely, nothing appears to abate the growth of photographic output and consumption, which has never been greater. But is it in a good way? In the words of Turner Prize winning artist Grayson Perry, “We live in an age when photography rains on us like sewage from above.” If 2015 means setting one resolution, it is to adapt and think laterally about where the opportunities lie.

It wasn’t all gloom and doom, however. When I look back on 2014, I realise that I was lucky to make new friends, visit new places, work in a couple of fabulously exotic locations and establish relations with new and interesting clients in diverse fields. I have compiled a pictorial diary of the year, just one or two pictures from each month - this is not a best of - it’s more of a behind the scenes glimpse at my photography moments of 2014, at home and at work.

January brought wide-scale flooding to many parts of the UK - this reflection of a tree in flood water in the New Forest was caught on an uncharacteristically clear day. Meanwhile, back at home in Winchester, the River Itchen burst its banks.

There were many Swiss chocolate box moments to be had in February, during a three day lifestyle shoot in St Moritz and the beautiful Engadine Valley. Everywhere you looked in fact, including this view out of the train carriage window.

March brought the annual Save The Children musical fund-raiser to the Roundhouse again. Following previous years' smash evenings of Soul & Funk and Blues, 2014 was the year of Reggae. Here, Jimmy Cliff wows guests with the hit "The Harder They Come".

April, and it has been an eye-opening experience to become more involved with the remarkable Blue Apple Theatre over the last 18 months. This company of adults with learning difficulties stages ambitious productions, including this "Tales From The Arabian Nights" at the Theatre Royal in Winchester.

I love May, when the thought of summer starts to take a hold and family photography comes into its own. This shot of Olivia running freely through a tulip filled garden in Sussex sums it up.

Old cars and cycling featured one way or another through 2014, but perhaps none better combined than in this chance shot taken during a Citroen 2CV rally in France in June.

Let's not forget our own family holiday - we managed to escape to Crete for a week in July. Son No.2 enjoyed attempting handstands in an unusually vigorous surf on Phalasarna Beach.

It's not possible to get through the year without mention of the ubiquitous i-Phone. The shot for August is suitably sunny, courtesy of a Hipstamatic filter.

September brought a remarkable trip to Venice and enough photographic potential to fill a blog for a year and inspiration for October's post. One of the city's hidden gems that I was lucky enough to visit was tucked away behind the obvious view - the Bevilacqua weaving mill, an extraordinary throwback in time, continues to produce fabrics in a centuries old tradition.

In October, it was back to France to put the finishing touches to a project there and another chance to visit the dramatic Cathar castles at Chateaux des Lastours.

There are a couple of fantastic family projects that remain a work in progress. One of them produced my favourite Hampshire portrait of the year in November.

Lily, 2014

Finally, I can't help but say that December speaks for itself...

It has been a fun and instructional exercise to recollect the better moments of the last year and I look forward to the chance to share more in the coming months. In the meantime, whatever profession you are in, I wish you happy and prosperous endeavours in 2015.

Reasons To Use A Camera On Holiday (And Not Just Your Phone)

Now, there’s no doubt some phones have pretty good cameras and I’m a big fan of the one on my iPhone. I like to use it as a kind of photographic sketchbook or to get a slightly different take on a scene using a creative app like Hipstamatic (you can see a few below). However, I still can’t imagine going on holiday without a "proper" camera, even though I’m wondering if this is now becoming a minority viewpoint. The thing is, of course, the phone is always to hand and such a great multi-tasker on the internet. From a photographic standpoint, this is a notion we have certainly taken to heart - and camera sales prove the point.

Earlier this year the Camera and Imaging Products Association of Japan (CIPA) reported global shipments of fixed lens cameras not just flatlining but in precipitous free fall, down 41 percent in a year, a wipeout largely attributable to our take-up of the phone for our day to day photography. The forecast for camera sales for this year was pretty pessimistic and latest actual figures bear this out; sales of cameras of all types (yes, for the first time, even those fancy mirrorless ones) in all markets except Japan are in decline. Grim reading for camera buffs. So, as we enter the height of the holiday season, I thought I’d issue a plea on behalf of the good old-fashioned camera; if we abandon it completely this can only be to the detriment of our holiday photographs. 

In my last post I touched on the merits of being more proactive in order to get better pictures on holiday, of adopting the role of director and guiding the action, if only for twenty minutes or so each day. If that was about approach, then this is about the tools for the job and I do remain a firm believer that if you want to get the best from your holiday photos, you shouldn’t just be relying on your phone for that. So, here are half a dozen reasons why I have been making room in my holiday packing for a camera:

Set up action!

The first, much touted and obvious point is quality, in terms of both capture and resolution but let's move this issue aside for a moment. I think there are equally important but more subtle factors to consider. Let’s start with frame of mind, for instance. We’re so used to carrying our phones all the time, the ubiquity of them clouds our judgement of what actually makes a good time for photography. Picking up a camera, on the other hand, forces us to think photographically about a scene, perhaps even to think about setting something up (there’s the director again) or to look and wait for a moment. I think having a camera at the ready puts me just a bit more on the lookout than merely having my phone in my pocket.

Waiting for the moment

Then there's artistic expression; I mean this in the sense of recording a scene as you really wish it to be remembered. A camera has a degree more control over this. I’m not talking about the need to be an expert here - a camera just has far more processing power dedicated to addressing the basics of focus and exposure, even in Auto mode. The one thing I find most frustrating with my phone camera is trying to fine tune exposure and that can mean the difference between a glorious sunset and a muddy silhouette.

Tricky lighting for a phone camera

Let’s not forget the practical side of things, the ergonomics. I love the elegant design of the iPhone, but the qualities that ensure I have it with me all the time are not the qualities that necessarily make it easy to take pictures in certain conditions. Like at 20 knots in a speed boat.

Not taken with my iPhone...

And doesn’t it make you feel a little queasy holding your £600 phone over twelve feet of water, knowing you need it for a conference call later in the afternoon? I know, you would never call the office while on holiday and there are waterproof cases and all sorts of action accessories on the market. Well, in the same way I have never seen anyone not check their phone for emails on holiday, I don’t think I have seen anyone carrying a phone on anything so much as a lanyard either. The fact is the camera on the phone is a periphery on a device designed to handle all our other communications needs so in many circumstances we don’t want to risk using (or losing) it. That definitely compromises the kind of photos we can capture.

An all-purpose waterproof and shockproof compact camera remains a good holiday bet

What of the photographs themselves? A well set up phone is presumably synching the photos with other devices and backing them up to a cloud service. I worry that’s where they stay, eventually buried with all the other stuff. The act of inserting a card into a camera and retrieving the photos later bears just a little semblance to loading a camera with film. Downloading the images as a discreet project allows for concentrated sorting and then editing the pick of the bunch for sharing and printing. I am not saying this can’t be done with a phone but I do think the process of doing this via a camera is a more photographically complete one, with more controls.

Son No.2 demonstrates another tricky lighting situation

Ah, did I mention quality? There’s no escaping the fact that the tiny little sensor in your phone doesn’t collect as much light and doesn’t output as many pixels as a mid-range camera. While the results may look fine online, what works on Facebook could well fall down when it comes to printing that calendar at the end of the year. If our holiday photos represent our most appealing and enduring memories, then aren't we looking to print some of them?

Holiday companion for a little while yet...

Don't get me wrong, I love my phone for photography - I'm sure the quality gap will continue to narrow, maybe we're already at a point where it's "good enough". But for the time being, I’m backing mine up with a proper camera, even just a compact one. Happy holidays!

For Great Holiday Photos, Take On The Role Of Director

As we pack our bags and contemplate the early start to the airport, let’s consider this scenario; under an azure sky a crystal sea gently laps the hot sand; neatly aligned parasols flutter in a breeze; bougainvillaea tumbles over the white walls of a nearby villa; children are happily playing on the shoreline. Suddenly there are excited cries and waving in the direction of the sun loungers - the children appear to have netted a shrimp or maybe they've built a sand tower that hasn’t fallen over for the first time, perhaps devised a new game with a piece of driftwood. Twenty feet away, their father lowers his newspaper in acknowledgement, reaches for his phone on the neighbouring lounger and, without moving further, takes a photograph with it before waving back and returning to his paper. I have made up this scene but I do witness similar all the time and can’t help wondering what happens to the photos in question.

The holiday abroad brings together family and friends in exciting and possibly unfamiliar settings. It also provides a little of that precious commodity, time - time to relax with a book or laze on a beach, for sure; but also time to explore, time to spend with the children, time to take photographs. My approach to the big holiday production is to cast myself in the role of director. The production team (in our case, my wife) has organised the flights, the transport, the villa or hotel and a cast of not quite thousands - just the two boys, maybe some friends. The director's job is to tell the story and if you are the one who has been charged with the task of taking the family holiday photos, I have to say that it does mean putting the book or newspaper down for a while. However, you also get to be that much more involved with your subjects and surroundings - and isn't that a part of what being on holiday is about?

Acting as director is something I have learned from years of photographing children; it involves recognising or setting up situations that are favourable to the camera in terms of light or setting but which allow the subjects freedom and space to express themselves naturally. The great thing about the holiday setting is this is happening all the time around you - it’s just a question of making a little effort and stepping in (and sometimes, stepping back).

I haven’t researched the numbers but I’m prepared to make an educated guess that the summer holidays are when we take most of our photographs - let's get off the lounger and make them meaningful.