Sunday 23 June 2013

Soho at Dusk

On Wednesday, I was fortunate enough to snag a ticket to one of the series of photography workshops that Foyles have been organising for their WeLovePhoto! mini-festival.

The weather was against us - no golden hour through all the grey cloud - and I was thoroughly outclassed by the other workshop attendees, but still had a great time, and came away feeling like I'd learned a lot. The scheduled workshop leader was unwell, so Anthony Epes stepped in (which was quite exciting, as I recognise some of his projects) and did a grand job of balancing the technical, the practical, and the inspirational.

It's always a good thing to have a framework for roaming with a camera, to be encouraged to look differently at familiar places, and I came away with shots I wouldn't have taken without his encouragement and inspiration. Good, also, to stretch at the edge of comfort zones - this being a street photography workshop, and photographing people being something I'm not totally comfortable with. Interesting overlaps and resonances between AE's comments and advice and Paul Clarke's presentation at OpenTech a couple of weeks ago.

Things I came away thinking about
  • - leading lines *to* something rather than through them
  • - fresh eyes, actively seeking the non-obvious photo (it's behind you!)
  • - that being quick of the mark can be crucial to capturing something
  • - that it's ok to look, and frame something up, and then conclude that it's not working and walk away
  • - that I need better technical mastery to get some (many) of the effects that I'm seeing in my minds eye. (eg this, which is closer to what I wanted than this - which also has its flaws, but is less a case of my intent not being clear because of the technicalities.)
  • - better kit might actually result in better photos - being surrounded by folks with very shiny rigs indeed I was very aware of the shots they were seeing and shooting for that were well outside my *cameras* range, never mind mine.
  • - that my style, such as it is, is all about the details!  
My photo set, with notes, is over here, if you'd like to see more.