Keeping it Local

    A few weeks ago I was asked by a friend if I would take some pictures of their amateur dramatics production of Annie. It would be during their final dress rehearsal. I said OK I can do that. Then two days before the shoot My friend asks if I could shoot some portraits of the cast as well. OK a bit more work and I need to set up some lights but that will be fine. Two pocket flash a 24" softbox, light stand and two gray bed sheets for a backdrop. No problem. Three hours later and four hundred photos later I'm not so sure.
    Everything was shot in manual mode and in RAW. all the portraits were shot with the same settings. So most of the editing was 'copy from previous image'. The photos of the production required a little more work. Tweaking the shutter speed depending on the stage lighting and shooting at 3200 iso. Low light and low noise are important areas of camera development and the companies do an excellent job. So most of the work involved colour and exposure correction.
    Once I was happy with my selection of photos I up loaded them to private online galleries, each one with it's own private link. My Hotmail account has online storage so I just use that but you could use your website and set up a private gallery there.
    The payoff to all this is twofold. I got some really good portraits and a week after delivering them I was asked how much I would charge to be the official photographer at the dramatic societies Christmas dinner. All the people who received photos were suitably impressed that a few hours work could potentially turn into several paid jobs :)
    It may not the style of photography that I market myself as doing but if it leads to paid work and it is fun then why not go for it ?



        More t.k.

Seeing Things in a New Light

     Or to be specific a new Bowens Gemini 200w studio flash. I've just ordered one and it should arrive in a day or two. LINK.

   Also I have taken possession of a 91cm umbrella softbox. Why 91 cm ? Because a 180cm one would be too big for home shoots :)

    The control and shape of the umbrella with an added layer of diffusion is very good at creating the soft even light that you see in a lot of beauty and fashion shots at the moment. Of course the size of the umbrella will influence the result so some testing will be required, with a suitable subject.

                                                                                                                        More soon...

So What Will 2014 Bring ?

  Things have been a little quiet around here over the Christmas period. Real life taking priority over the creative side of things. Of course in an ideal world it's the creative side that should be the center of things.

  So what's the plan for this year ?
Increase exposure and networking -
 Which means more personal projects, so I can build my personal network and give me something to share with my audience (and hopefully build up my following).
 Of course the hope is that this leads to more paid work / print sales and therefor increased exposure.

   Now that sounds fairly straight forward. You start a cycle and with each repetition the momentum builds and you keep going. OK so how do you keep it going, how do you maintain the momentum to build things up to the point that (in this case) photography becomes your full time job ? The short answer is hard work and dedication. Every day you have to do something to keep the cycle going. Plan ahead, set goals. Give yourself a time scale.
How many personal projects are you going to complete in the next six months ?
How many freelance jobs are you going to apply for ?
How many Blog posts are you going to publish, remembering that quality is better than quantity ?
How hard are going to work to achieve you dream ?

   You have to put yourself out there and take chances, risk failure and keep working.

        So watch this space and more.t.k...

REMEMBER REMEMBER...

The 5th of November is bonfire night here in the UK and that means fireworks ! Which means long exposures and a tripod.

SEEING THE LIGHT - VIA CALIBRATION

    Every year monitors get more pixels, their displays get brighter and the images get further away from the print output. The monitor you are reading this on displays images with colour and brightness levels that are different to my monitor, my laptop, your tablet/smartphone. This massive inconsistency is something we tend not to register until it comes to printing our beloved photographs.

NEW SITE NEW START

    Welcome to the new home of Simon Randall @ SWR Digital. Having just launched my new site on SmugMug I've decided to start a new blog as well. It's all about moving forwards.
    Anyone who knows my work, thanks for sticking with me. If you have just found me, hello and please stick around. I'm sure there will be something in my little world that you will find interesting.


              More.t.k....