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.

Future Take - The Next Generation On Photography

I had an idea a few weeks ago to conduct a little piece of research. The notion came about through a nagging feeling that, for all the pundits’ views on photography, we’re not quite grasping the scale of the revolution in image making and the repercussions for manufacturers and professionals alike. I wanted to find out what does the future hold? And who better to ask than the very people set to shape it?

It turns out I had been beaten to it by Nikon - I came across a paper commissioned by the company to coincide with the Photokina photography show in Cologne last September. Titled The Future Of Imaging Report, its stated objective is to “describe the future of imaging…in a social, cultural and technological landscape that is rapidly transforming how people capture, share and use imagery.” How true, and hats off to any manufacturer which acknowledges that the camera needs to become a whole lot smarter if it is indeed to remain a relevant tool, even if it remains to be seen whether they follow through.

However, The Future Of Imaging Report is based on a series of interviews with “executives, academics, authors, scientists, editors and thinkers”. I wanted to ask the direct opinions of people who are going to be the likely consumers and producers of imagery ten years down the line. What are they doing now? What are their aspirations and needs? What’s their view on photography and its challenges and what trends do they anticipate? Will they even consider owning a camera? So I presented these questions to a group of 15 - 22 year-olds, most with a keen interest in technology or the visual arts and the responses speak for themselves.

A big thank you to those who participated and offered their time and thoughts. Photography is here to stay… even if the way we go about it changes.

You can read The Future Of Imaging Report here

Beth

“Photography is more about making memories than making art.”

Beth is doing A-Levels, including Film Studies, at sixth form college and photography plays a big role in her social life, “For many girls, taking photos of getting ready is the main part of going out!” She has access to professional cameras in connection with her course work but admits to feeling a little out of her depth with these. “I’d love a proper camera but given the choice I’d rather spend money on having an amazing experience than the equipment to photograph it.” She is a prolific social photographer with her phone, or even friends’ phones if they’re to hand, recording friendships and memories over the last two years in an ambitious and ongoing photo-a-day project. She uploads these to Facebook as an annual album which she additionally prints on a home printer to turn into a giant collage for her bedroom. What of the future? “Social media will become a camera in itself, it’s a front - we can’t go back to how photography was when it was invented - it’s now about manipulation.”

Alice

“It would be amazing to take photos with a blink of the eye - with a kind of eye implant.”

Alice’s portfolio for her Art GCSE is full of studies of goldfish and carp, confidently portrayed in great washed strokes, water colours of the family’s whippet Perdy and a series of thoughtful portraits set against backgrounds of calligraphy and pages torn from novels. Among these are the course’s required photographic studies, laid out as contact sheets and all shot on her digital SLR camera, which she uses almost exclusively in connection with her art projects. “I think you have to work quite hard at photography - I like artistic photos with clever angles or composition.” The camera was left at home, however, during a school trip to Italy; “It’s a bit too valuable but in fact I was relieved not to have to carry it and worry about it all the time. I use my phone for general photography and friends anyway.” Her artfully crafted selfie portraits play a central role in this output and shape her vision of the future: “My ideal camera? Something like an eye floating above you, capturing not just the scene, but you in it as well.”

Matt

“There will be no difference in quality between phones and cameras and anyway, it’s about how fast you can share.”

The DSLR camera used for Matt’s movie-making has been temporarily shelved pending imminent GCSE exams. Aged 16, he is already on his way to becoming an accomplished film producer / director, winning the accolade of Best Director Under 21 two years in a row in the Winchester Short Film Festival and having his last short film selected for show in London. Matt uses his camera mostly to shoot video in connection with testing and setting up shots for his productions but when he turns his attention to stills he says he likes to do street photography. “Photography is incredibly important in this day and age - it has become a universal language for story-telling and conveying ideas. I’m wary of taking boring, clichéd photos but to do photography well is really tricky.” His fantasy equipment of choice would be an analogue movie film camera: “Film is a living memory; it’s more organic, looks better, is more tangible. Digital is so much more complicated.”

Georgie

“Anybody can pick up a camera now and take photos. I think it’s no longer seen as an art form.”

Some of her fellow A-Level Photography students use their i-Phones for course work but Georgie perseveres with her DSLR, which she additionally uses to photograph nature and landscapes. “These cameras are a bit big and expensive - I’m not so interested in the gadgets and I don’t need all the features, which is why I use my phone a lot for day-to-day stuff, photographing friends.” Studying for the A-Level has made her thoughtful on the artistic merits of photography: “For photography to be considered art you need to have a concept, you have to know what you’re looking for in advance and then set about creating it. But most photos are taken to capture a moment rather than to create something.” Looking ahead, she sees technology helping to make photography even easier, “The equipment will become smaller, more smart-phone orientated. It won’t challenge the user, the camera will recognise the scene and do everything.”

Laura

“Photography is becoming all about creating and sharing stories.”

Another GCSE Art student, Laura is prolific in her photographic output, taking “lots” on her phone of “anything - friends, moments, memories - stuff that inspires, whether walking around the city or just in the garden.” She is keenly aware of a growing trend in visual story-telling through channels such as Instagram and Pinterest and where selfie portraits place the photographer at the centre of the action. “Photography is subjective - I might like a photo but actually the challenge is persuading others that it’s great. I think my enjoyment of it makes it easier; I’m more willing to experiment and persevere to get the right shot.” Laura foresees a merging of technology where cameras incorporate editing and sharing capability and where long-lasting batteries and miniaturisation will allow wearable, always-on capture. “If you’re serious about photography you’ll have a camera but smart phones will be used primarily by most people. Photography will be based around social media.”

Henry

“Professional photographers will continue to use SLR’s. For everyone else, phones will do it all.”

Henry, 22, is a Computer Science student at UCL taking a year out of his studies to spend time in the industry making apps and websites for small and medium businesses. His background in both the arts and technology has led to an equal appreciation of design and engineering alongside software development. “With technology, it’s important not to forget the human factors behind it.” He is a steady rather than prolific taker of photographs, using either a compact camera or phone to record one or two shots at a time of landmarks, places or social gatherings and nights out. “The value of photography in a social sense is reflected in the increasing amounts of photos that people take themselves and of themselves. People love photos.” Henry is also an enthusiastic user of Instagram. “As an art form, photography is easy to join in, hard to master. But with technology, the mastering part is getting easier.”

Emma

“Photography is a linear, accumulative process and loads of photos of sunsets are part and parcel of that.”

Emma has just started her degree in Human, Social and Political Sciences at Cambridge and reads deeply into my questions. She relies on a four-year old compact camera for her photography (uniquely among my interviewees, her phone is a Blackberry) although she is developing her interest with her mother’s recently bought DSLR. She is wary of the negative aspects of photography on social media and its potential to intrude. “For me photography is a personal recording, it’s a kind of memory hook.” Despite finding photography “paradoxically, really difficult” she enjoys looking out for street scenes, little details, or “something striking”. She has a particular fascination with the process that goes into making a photograph and the co-operation of her subjects to achieve an outcome: “I like to experiment with capture - I enjoy the novelty in the capture process itself.”

The Dolphin, The Gazelle, The Cheetah And The Lion

When I arrived at Mike and Clare’s house, Mike was wielding a pen-knife in boy scout fashion and excitedly removing an old sepia photograph from a crumbling frame. The image depicted a formal group at a wedding, a family gathering posed in a static arrangement to allow for the long exposure time to capture the moment for posterity. Mike had recovered it along with some others from an outhouse he was clearing out; it was in all likelihood just over a hundred years old. It was an emotive moment - I was now there to take photographs of his own family.

Mike is a leadership consultant at Aberkyn and author on the subject and Clare is a television and radio presenter - they are parents to four children. They are nothing if not passionate. Passionate about everything: family, faith, work, football, friends, life. I had known the family for a little while, in particular as neighbours in Winchester and I was always certain a photo shoot with them would be exceptional. When the opportunity did eventually arrive, I was taken aback by the generosity of access to the inner heart of family that they granted me. The experience is equally generously conveyed in Clare’s own words:

“Mike was the one who saw it first - ‘It’ being ‘The Golden Years’ of family life - when Lily (13) is her own person but yet so happy to be with us still, Maisie (10) is stepping into her true self, Hal (8) is so full of fun and without guile and Gabriel (6) is still young enough to be doted on by all the other siblings, and for him life is all about play… 

This is the story of the Dolphin (watch her dive);

The Gazelle (watch her dance);

The Cheetah (watch him run)

And the Lion cub (watch him roll and bask in the sun!)

All themselves

And all bound as one. 

“As a family we are consciously trying to ‘make memories’ - family adventures or times of one on one: Sunday tea by the fire or Dad’s Saturday brunch… but how do we ‘capture’ those memories? My hope was to have someone photograph ‘the vernacular’, the everyday, to create a virtual and visual scrap book that goes beyond the scrubbed faces and the smiles.  

“When Lily was born we had a fire in the house and it was pretty devastating. It certainly made us realise what was important in our lives - and the only thing we wanted to rescue was… the photographs… The memories, the stories, our history and that of the generations before us. Fortunately, we had never put them in albums - instead they were left in boxes stacked at the back of cupboards and so escaped the seeping tentacles of smoke damage and were mainly ok!  Ever since then, photographs have been a critical part of our lives; when Mike’s Dad died we bought a good camera (for the first time) - so that we could record precious memories of our growing family.  

“Though now we are awash with photographs - the children snap away at everything on our phones: a funny face made out of baked beans at the tea table, a hundred shots of conkers, handstands, beetles, goofy grins and the obligatory surfeit of selfies! Devaluing the currency - and yet documenting living history and making their own memories…

“So it was time to embrace the Golden Age and capture it by raising the photography bar - with James quietly watching and documenting our family chronicles… catching the laugh and the light, looking through a window into our world… family heritage recorded with split second accuracy that will make each moment last many lifetimes. Perhaps kept on a screen, perhaps in a frame, perhaps carried in the heart.”

When we got back from the second part of the shoot, we sat around the kitchen table with a cup of tea and contemplated the hundred year old print. What were we going to produce with the material that we had just captured? I am working on some ideas - there will be something beautiful that celebrates the now of childhood, for sure - but what I’d really like - what we'd really like - is if, in a hundred years’ time, like us around this table, someone would still be able to hold a photograph from this shoot and say, “That’s The Dolphin, The Gazelle, The Cheetah and The Lion. That’s our family”.

A New Year, A New Vintage

This blog is all about where photography meets family and the things or places that are personal or meaningful to us. So what happens when photography meets family, meets the land, meets wine and the location is a sun filled corner of France’s Languedoc region? 

Heading east out of the walled city of Carcassonne and a few kilometres from the Canal du Midi, there is a turn off the D235, down an avenue of old pines. At the end, nestling behind an olive grove and set among extensive vineyards is Château Canet, a small family-owned estate and home to the Lemstra-Bakes. More than home in fact - it’s a way of life for they have set themselves the task of not only creating a range of exceptional wines but turning the property into a hub for wine-tasting, local tourism, art and culinary events and functions. They are helped in this ambition by a dedicated team, an extended family almost, some of whom have been established in the region for generations.

Last year I had the happy task of photographing the property. It was a commercial brief - pictures were required for the website, for marketing material and for use in presentations to wine buyers. The images needed to show off the wonderful wines, the facilities and the gites (yes, you can stay there too). The great thing about working on this kind of project are all the strands that need to be pulled together; nature’s form in the land, the vines and the wine; technology with the machinery, the stainless steel, the process; and above all, the people that make it happen: Floris and Victoria with their children Oliver and Charlotte; Jane at front of house; Denis and Cyril in the vineyards and Philippe and David blending and bottling; Nathalie the oenologist; Emilie in the office and Emilio keeping everything in order throughout the extensive grounds. (And not forgetting the dogs, Dudley, Elliot and Salut!) 

Anything for us...?

There is an energy and purpose to the state-of-the-art winery that is quietly balanced by the serene setting of the house, vines and countryside. However, as impressive as the technology may be and as beautiful as the situation of the house is, the most important story lies with the people behind it all and their passion in a shared vision. 

And what better way of showing the human side of such a personal business than photography? Carefully put together, a collection of photographs has a narrative quality that brings out a story, in this case a story of a remarkable enterprise - and one that will be fascinating to revisit in years to come.  Such a documentary becomes more valuable over time, much like a good wine, in fact.

You can see more of Château Canet here.

Candid Lessons In Trafalgar Square

I arrived home both exhausted and buzzing on Sunday night. I had just attended a weekend long photography workshop at the National Portrait Gallery, under the guidance of Graeme Robertson, a multi award winning photojournalist who works for The Guardian newspaper and whose recent personal project on blind children in Africa and India has earned him a place in the current Taylor Wessing portrait exhibition at the gallery. Graeme doesn’t pull his punches and our small group, comprising both enthusiasts and professionals, found ourselves constantly drilled in the importance of mastering good camera technique.

With photography, as with anything, we build up habits and develop routines. I have been taking photographs for years and I fall back on techniques that on the whole work for me in most situations. But are they the best for every given situation? Rather like having your golf swing or tennis serve picked apart and then reconstructed, it’s a bit disconcerting to have your comfortable old ways torn up - the tendency is to resist but persevere and your game ultimately improves. 

Someone who deals with the caprice of celebrities and politicians and who has covered conflict in the Middle East wasn’t going to let us sit around in our mental comfort zones either. We were duly pitched out into neighbouring Trafalgar Square for an hour of street photography. I learned a couple of lessons from this experience. Firstly, dealing with complete strangers is a great leveller - I have to admit to feeling a little awkward behind the camera. There was no hiding, all the pictures shown here have no crop and were taken with a 50mm lens, which meant that a close portrait shot needed to be taken from about three or four feet. Secondly, I realise I probably wouldn’t make the best news photographer yet; call it force of habit again, from years of photographing children maybe, but I found my tendency was to intervene rather than letting events unfold.

However, one observation that struck me was the general acceptance of photography. It was a beautiful winter day, for sure, and Trafalgar Square, with its street performers and perched Yodas, can engender a carnival like atmosphere on occasion. Nevertheless, regardless of age, background, ethnicity, everyone seemed reasonably relaxed at the prospect of being photographed. Indeed most people were photographing themselves anyway. Such is the prevalence of the medium now.

So, have I come away a better photographer? It will take a more serious project to find out but I feel a little bit sharper on the technicalities and a little bit more sympathetic to the person on the other side of the lens. However, the great thing I get out of photography is that there is no end to the learning and no end to the experiences you can build.

And as a post script, thank you to my subjects, wherever you are and whether you knew you were being photographed or not ;-)

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.

About Being Brave And Hiring A Professional Photographer

If I asked, “Would you hire a professional to photograph your wedding?” I think for most people the answer would still be a given. But would you hire a professional to photograph your family? As someone with a vested interest, I hope the answer would be “Yes”, although I detect an increasingly confident self-sufficiency creeping into this area now. And why not? It’s not only cameras that are more sophisticated, there is a wealth of inexpensive printing and publishing options that have grown too, not to mention the various new trends in taking and sharing photographs. So how does bringing in a photographer stack up in the face of this change? I am not talking here about a cheap fix, one of those “session and all the photos supplied on disc for £90” deals where, like an all-you-can-eat buffet, the only memory at the end will likely be indigestion. No, a proper portrait commission requires an emotional and financial commitment and, unlike wedding photography, is a much more discretionary investment. Is it worthwhile and what should you be looking for?

Taking the leap

Taking the second part of that question, look beyond the camera for a start; the number one thing to consider is the finished work. It’s important to look to someone who understands the aesthetics and the production values required to turn the captured image into a physical product, be that a print, an album or a gallery-style wall mounting. Unless the chosen images are produced in some printed form I think it’s a fair bet your grandchildren won’t get to enjoy them, at least not in that spontaneous, tactile way that comes from handling an object. So a knowledge of production and an insistence on printing should very much be part of the package. Also editing, in the sense of choosing only the best and cutting the rest, is an unseen skill that is increasingly overlooked or even ignored. It is absolutely part of the photographic process. Dumping 500 unfiltered pictures on a disc is not a service to the client - it betrays a lack of rigour, at worst it may disguise a lack of skill. It’s vital to establish the quality of the outcome as well as making your choice on the basis of just style or price.

Lasting qualities

Having decided this is something you want to do, a major consideration is whether to go for a studio or location based session. I think this is a matter of personal preference - some people like the formality and neutral space of a studio setting, which often also brings a sense of structure to group shots. I am a location photographer as I believe that home is part of what makes family and so for me it is the natural backdrop where everyone can feel at ease.

One advantage of working on location

And the benefits? Perhaps, as a parent, you always seem to have the responsibility for all the photography and you yourself never appear in any of the pictures (I am all too familiar with this). Perhaps you’re aware that you are not taking enough photos and theres’a real gap in your record of family life. Sometimes, it’s a great excuse to get the whole family together, particularly larger families with teenage children who never seem to be around at the same time or where parents do a lot of travelling. A photo shoot addresses all of these.

But here is the main point, it’s a brave thing to do to put yourselves under the scrutiny of an outsider. It’s this objective view that is one of the factors which makes the exercise so worthwhile. Children in particular respond well to the non-judgemental attention and often, their personalities really shine during a shoot. A good photographer will set out to portray you in the best possible light for sure, and seek to play to your strengths but he or she can present a refreshingly honest view as well; there are no preconceived ideas of family dynamics to get in the way. A good photo shoot creates a buzz at the time and you’ll have some amazing, eye-opening photos to enjoy. But when you put together an album or frame a beautiful portrait, those items become part of the glue that sticks family together in the years to come - that’s an investment that can only grow in value and makes the argument for doing it compelling. At whatever stage in your lives and even if only once, at least consider handing over photography to a professional.

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.

Lost and Found

As the opening week of the 45th Rencontres de la Photographie gets under way in Arles, I am sitting here slightly frustrated at not being able to go and instead reflecting on my visit last year, with a consolatory glass of vin rosé. This southern French city which lies at the edge of the Camargue, a rugged region known for its cowboys, or guardiens, wild horses and bulls plays host each summer to one of Europe’s most vibrant photography festivals. 

Arles has a gutsy feel - in the high summer heat the air is frequently heavy with the scent of paella or the spice market and every so often the strains of a native Gypsy Kings song carry down the backstreets, where equally you could find yourself caught up in a bull chase. The tough side of Arles is accentuated by the uncompromising dominance of the Roman amphitheatre at its centre but a few minutes’ walk away the sublime Romanesque facade of the church of Sainte Trophime and its cloisters act as an architectural foil and a sense of calm and culture is restored. It’s against this historical backdrop that the city, briefly home to the painter Van Gogh, accommodates a wide-ranging collection of the world’s best photography each year. Churches and railway sheds alike get turned over to exhibition spaces and the bars of the Place du Forum buzz with gossip and debate about the arts.

A theme which struck me last year was the popularity of “found” or anonymous photographs, photographies trouvées, little family snapshots plucked from back in time, presumably from abandoned albums, attics, flea markets. You could rummage through boxes full of other people’s lost memories, little windows on to past lives available to purchase for a few euros. Often, it was children who were most captivated by the images - was it the tactile quality of the prints or the stories they held? One enterprising dealer had filled one of the fountains with photographs, which floated around waiting to be picked out by curious onlookers - a kind of metaphor for lives adrift on the currents of the world.

These photographs feel displaced outside of the context of family home - is the fact they were lost a result of the people in them being displaced themselves, either through migration or conflict? Or were they just abandoned by subsequent generations, unable or unwilling to carry on being custodians of these little archives? Earlier in the year I had had the privilege of a brief meeting with Tom Stoddart, whose black and white documentary photography is among the most compellingly powerful I know. His coverage of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo in 1999 contains images of found or abandoned photographs, the fate of whose owners one can only contemplate with a sense of dread. The images are gentle, domestic, mundane and so totally at odds with the calamitous circumstances in which they’re found and recorded by Stoddart.

We cast little glimpses of ourselves on to online media all the time now and no doubt these images will be carried around the currents and backwaters of the internet for years to come. Over time, how likely is it that they will become detached from identity, like the prints floating around the fountain in Arles?

Then and Now

Well, it’s turning into a year of flashbacks. We just celebrated my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday and were blessed not just with good weather for her outdoor party but also the presence of her entire family of children and grandchildren, a rare occasion. I had my camera to record some candid moments and when I saw my wife and her siblings standing in a doorway one particular shot sprang to mind immediately; sitting in a drawer back at home was a favourite print of the four of them as children. We produce it periodically to have a laugh at dinner parties. But actually what a record - a piece of micro-history documenting not only family hierarchy, but the fashion and photographic style of the time it was taken. I rather wish I had taken the print to the party as we would have been more likely to stage a copy of the poses, which might have been hilarious (Jim had had to stand on a box in the original) but that is beside the point. The fact is the original print is as accessible as an image now as it was forty years ago and my most important task to hand is to make a print of the new photo to file with it - the digital version may not survive as long.

Earlier this year I was asked to do a portrait session for a family who I had photographed ten years ago. I love this kind of work as you get a real feel for the value of photography, a sense of documenting the passage of time, a process here of growing up. I suppose, technically, all photography is documentary but the camera is never more powerful or evocative as when recording a sense of time, place, renewal or change and that is the essence of family photography. The photograph of Poppy aged 4 was taken on Fuji Neopan 400 and a selenium toned print was made for framing. The negatives show images of her bouncing around and laughing but I liked this shot of her contemplative look, a pose that she naturally adopted ten years later.

I am lucky to be able to forge relationships with families and help a few document their growth and evolving lifestyles over a period of years. Incremental changes add up and the record that emerges over time never fails to surprise me. I wonder if they’ll be able to look back in forty years on these photographs like we do with that print and maybe laugh or wonder at their family relationships, their clothes or the photographic style!

I had earmarked some images for this article a while back so it came as a complete surprise when just a week ago I was covering an event in France and bumped into a client whose family I had photographed in 2006. One of the two daughters I had originally photographed was present and I asked to do an up to date shot, below.  It's a reminder to keep that camera handy - family photography is documentary photography whose value really comes to light over time.

When Less Is More

I bought a GPS sports watch recently as a gift for my wife, a keen runner and cyclist, and inside the slightly over-sized box were no less than twelve separately bound instruction manuals, each nicely printed in various languages from English to - I’m hazarding a guess here - Finnish and Polish. This got me thinking, particularly when I also happened on a box full of unused plugs, all of which had originally been supplied with a single piece of electronic equipment. There seemingly isn’t a continent on Earth with electricity where you couldn’t use this gear, notwithstanding the fact that it’s too heavy to contemplate taking outside the UK. But what have a bunch of manuals and plugs got to do with photography? Well, it's a case of oversupply gone mad.

We’ve become all too familiar with the scenario now; it’s such common practice, whether we buy a camera, a computer or flat-pack furniture, in the box there will inevitably be an extra cable, extra screws or plugs and most definitely extra instruction manuals. 

The reason is obvious of course - modern economies of scale make it far, far easier and cheaper for a manufacturer to throw in all the peripheral bits and pieces than to be selective for individual products or markets. Better to lump everything in the box and then ship it anywhere. We consumers are okay with this because on the whole it’s easy to identify the items we need and discard the rest. It’s wasteful of resources, maybe, but efficient in practice.

However, what if it was really hard to identify the thing of value to us and difficult to discard what wasn’t wanted? Worse, what if the twelve instruction manuals were one mashed up volume with every other line in Polish, Italian, Danish? Because it seems to me this is what’s happening to photography. As it is with those manufacturers supplying manuals in umpteen languages, we often find it far more compelling to deal in bulk with our photographs, to upload or share without being particularly selective. Memory is cheap, dealing in quantity is easy. Being critical, discarding weaker content, creating a strong narrative with our pictures, these are all processes that require a bit of time, effort and possibly expense and the temptation is not to go through with them.

Would it be possible to sum up a summer holiday in just one picture, I wonder?

The removal of film and processing costs from the photographic equation has opened the doors to a tidal wave of imagery and the danger with being inundated is that everything becomes forgettable. If we can’t tell what’s worth keeping, how can we begin to create something lasting? So, let’s not ship everything in the box regardless - we need to do our photographs the justice of at least a little thought. In a world where we’re all potential publishers, we need to remember to adopt the role of picture editor too. It may be harder but our families and Facebook friends will thank us for a more considered approach, not to mention that we’ll be more likely to end up with something identifiably worth keeping for the future.

Photograph taken of an installation by Erik Kessels - 24HRS of Photos - at the Rencontres d'Arles, 2013