When was the last time you looked at your personal branding? Have you ever looked at it? Your clients do, every time they hit up your website or your social feeds.
As a photographer you're (hopefully) visually literate. You can read, deconstruct and explain why an image works. However don't assume your skills extend to graphic design. Working with a great graphic designer will open your eyes to things you've probably never considered.
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ON E-COMMERCE
A brief look at e-commerce photography in 2021
Everything’s E-commerce now. Ecomm. Ecommerce. E Commerce. However you spell it, it’s all ecomm.
A true child of the internet, demand for e-commerce photography has grown exponentially over the last 20 years. Everybody sells online so everything is technically e-commerce. Front. Back. Side. Detail. Change. Makeup selfie. Next. Within that simple framework a whole genre was born. But whilst the internet buckles under general critique of fashion photography, e-commerce imagery is like the dirty family secret that’s rarely discussed in public.
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Swimwear Photography
The Rotherham - California Scale
The Rotherham - California Scale
Within the last year we’ve had the good fortune to visit both the Caribbean and the Maldives. I shot a small test swimwear fashion editorial in each location. I mean - you would wouldn’t you. Given the choice between filling your swimwear portfolio with a blue tinged model on a misty Formby beach or some Insta-pretty island nearer the equator it’s not a difficult decision to make. Nobody is going to panic about half a dozen extra swimsuits in the 23Kg allowance. The only advantage Formby offers is being able to take more kit and a crew to share the misery with you. When push comes to shove I’ll take my chances with golden sand and turquoise waters over somebody to hold my reflector.
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TrekPak
On Being a Photographer
I was at a party last night. A 70th birthday celebration for somebody I’ve known since before I can remember. The birthday girl’s four grandchildren were there and she wanted a photograph of them all together. Of course, I’d not taken my camera - the same way the guy who worked in IT hadn’t taken his network server and the girl who made ceramics hadn’t taken her kiln. Naturally, I was asked where my camera was and I pointed out that every person there had a camera in their pocket the same way that I did and any one of them was capable of taking a family photograph. Looking back through our own family album there’s no more sentimental attachment to photos taken on my Grandad’s Voigtlander than there is to those taken on my Mum’s Kodak. In fact, I find family photos taken at an informal gathering by a ‘photographer’ less authentic - people are aware you’re a photographer and react differently. Nobody stands around at family get togethers where there isn’t a photographer in attendance wondering how the fuck they’re going to get any images of Uncle Bob. In the end the lady’s husband took the shot on his iPhone. Nobody will look back on that shot in another 70 years and lament that it wasn’t taken by a professional photographer on a professional camera.
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FILTER BUBBLE
Photographs of No Importance
I guess I’ve been doing this long enough now to recognise trends and cycles. I consume enough media to distill & filter images into basic categories. If it’s a widely accepted truth that all stories are based on seven basic plots, then all the editorials I currently see are based on just one fucking story recorded on an endlessly looped 8-track. The one where a girl arrives at a photographer’s apartment, stands somewhere near a window and undresses. If the photographer is really good, they’ll have managed to live near an outdoor pool or in LA.
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Iceland Trip
Part 2
There are two places that I’ve visited this year that crept up on me slowly, hit me hard and now have a strangle hold on my heart and my mind. Cape Town was the first, Iceland the second. Neither place grabbed my imagination immediately. My first Iceland post below bears that out…had it been a two day trip I would have enjoyed it, logged it and left it behind. The remainder of the trip was when it became clear you just can’t leave Iceland behind. It’s been six weeks now and I still think about it daily. Nostalgia isn’t healthy. It’s about time I finished this to lay it to rest, if only so I can post about South Africa.
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Iceland Trip
Part 1
Very soon there will be a new class of tourism. You’ll be picked up by the self-driving Uber and driven to the airport where the self-piloting airplane will fly you somewhere that allows you to hire a car from 2016 and have the pleasure of actually driving yourself. That ‘somewhere’ will be Iceland. A ring of smooth black asphalt runs around the entire coastline feeding a network of gravel arteries that run deep into the varied wilderness. Driverless cars are a solution to the hours lost to endless gridlock in badly planned city centres. In Iceland you can drive for half an hour without passing another car. It doesn’t need Googlecars. You might be headed towards somewhere in particular, but when you get there you just want to keep on going. The journey itself is the the destination. At least in summer. In winter I’d imagine even the shortest journey is terrifying. Especially if the car is driving itself.
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On Travel
Dragging your camera around Europe
I can’t speak with absolute certainty, but I’m fairly sure that when your dentist takes her annual vacation she doesn’t pack her drill. That your favourite barista leaves their Gaggia behind. The Uber driver parks his Avensis at the airport. I can’t think of many other professions where leisure travel involves you choosing to take along your entire arsenal of work tools.
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