Hi, I'm Doug McKinlay and you're watching
AdoramaTV so this is our third and final
episode in our series about what it's
like for a working professional
photographer, to cobble together a story
for a glossy London magazine.
Now not long ago, I was commissioned by a London
Magazine to do a photo spread on
Valletta, the capital city of Malta, the
island nation in the middle of the
Mediterranean Sea. Along with another
European city Valletta, it has been
designated as this year's European
Capital Of Culture, and that's the hook, the
reason for the story. Now the job was
done and dusted, but I find it really
educational to go back and see what I
did to get that job done. The pros and
the cons, the successes and the failures.
Because I think it's really educational
that you go back, and look at your
mistakes, because that's the only way
you're going to improve as a
photographer! Now a major change in this
job occurred once I got back from Malta.
I got an email from the editor asking if
I could write the copy, as well as submit
the pictures. On the surface it looks
like a big spanner in the works, but it's
not really, and some more work for me for
sure, but I also get more money. So that's
the way things been going in the last
few years. Now me as a person who's able
to write, as well as take the pictures,
keeps the whole package together, and it
makes a commissioning editors job a
little easier, and improves the scope of
work for me.
At about this point in my personal
debrief of the story, I make a little
checklist of things that went right, and
things that didn't go so right. Now at
the top of that checklist is always
attitude.. was I present in the moment
when I was doing the job. Now you might
ask well.. you know you get to go to some
really cool places around the world, why
wouldn't you be present?
It's not that simple though, because
sometimes I do back-to-back jobs
and I get tired like everybody else,
and that's when I can
take my eye off the ball
that's when the pictures really suffer, and I could tell
as soon as I get home, when I download
those cards onto my computer.
I can look at the pictures, and they
might look flat, boring, uninteresting, and I know then
that my attitude was wrong, but
fortunately for, for Malta, I was pretty
much there. So the pictures are actually
quite nice. I quite like them, now the
biggest drag on that job was the weather.
Now I might have gone on about the
weather before, a little bit, but in those
situations you've got to dig deep into
your energy reserves, and try to
find those moments, when you can go out
and get those images. So you, so you
have to be on the ball all the time,
and that too can be really tiring.
Planning is a really important part of the
job. In matter of fact it can be the making
or breaking of a job. Having said that
though, after all these years of doing
this, and planning, I don't think I've
ever had a plan that's come together
100%. I don't think it's actually
possible. Like for instance, this recent
job in Malta. The ghost in the machine
there was the weather, especially the
wind, it had such a negative impact on
the ferry service between Malta the Big
Island and Gozo or the smaller islands,
that I didn't think I was gonna get
there. So I had to change my plan, I had
to think on my feet, and that's the whole
nature of the plan. You have to be, you
have to be flexible in your plan. So it
can't be so constrained that you're
stuck in it. You can't get out of it, and
that's the goal, that for me is the goal.
Flexibility, but knowing where I'm going,
as well now a lot of things you can do
from home. Things like opening times for
venues. Transportation links and costs,
routes, all that kind of thing, can I use
a tripod. All that stuff can be done on
the computer at home, but you have to
think though that once you get on the
ground, that, that whole thing can be
become a bit of a crapshoot because
what's on a computer, doesn't necessarily
relate to what's on the ground.
It's really important on jobs, to take
proper notes. Now I carry these little
elasticated booklets, and two or three
usually, and you know depending on the
job I might fill up one, two or three, and
they're quite cheap, and they're nice and
small. Now what they do for you... is when
you're taking good notes, is to give you
all that caption information right at
your fingertips, so you can write down
all the names of places, and get them
spelled correctly, people spelt correctly,
names of local dishes, food dishes
spelled correctly. It's one of those
things they teach you when you first go
to journalism school. They teach you how
to take notes, and then they teach you
how to take shorthand, which some get
better than others. I get about half of
it but it still comes in handy.
So you have to really, really, really be
disciplined when it comes to taking your
notes. Even when you don't feel like doing
it. You got to break out a notebook, and
you got to start writing. Now this last
job in Malta, because the weather was so
inclement there, and unpredictable, and I
wasn't sure if I was gonna get enough
images. I took a lot of notes with the
idea that maybe I'd use them somewhere
later. I didn't really know, and as it
turned out when I got back to London,
I got a an email from the editor asking
me to write the copy, and because I had, I
think two and a bit books of notes, I was
completely covered. I'd like to mention
something here that is so crucial to
good photojournalism, and that's
interaction. I think non-photography
people think that we just slap a long
lens on a camera body, and just snipe
people from a distance, it's not true!
Sure of course we use long lenses
occasionally, but what we want really to
to bring across is that interaction
between the photographer, and their
subjects, to be part of it, to be human. So
it's really important for me to, to work
in close, close environments. Those are
the kind of pictures I like the most.
They're the ones I like to look at. The
ones I like to take. So I use the shorter
lenses, and get right in there, and you
can really, for me good photography is
when I can look at an image, and I can
tell the photographer is actually part
of that scene. You may not see the
photographer, but they are part of the
scene. There's a real connection there,
and that's what I want to see
Turning to mistakes and fixes, well this job
was pretty good. I didn't really make
that many mistakes. Now if I'm guilty of
one thing. It's I occasionally forget to
pay attention to my shutter speeds. I get
caught up in the moment, and all the
stuffs happening around me, and the light
changes quickly. I might not notice the
shift in the speed especially if the light
comes down. Now I normally shoot in
manual, so you have to be moving your
fingers pretty quickly, but for some
reason I have this little mental block
occasionally. Where I tend not to look at
my shutter speeds, so I can get soft
images when I really don't want them. Now
it's a pretty simple fix really, so you
know pay attention to your surroundings,
keep notice of what's happening in terms
of the light, and I'll switch to shutter
priority. If there's, if there's things in
the picture, I want to freeze the action.
Then I'll switch to shutter priority, and
then I will adjust the ISO up, if I have
to, and in that way I should, and I will
get the speed I need to freeze the
action. It's a pretty simple fix, you just
got to pay attention.
So this is the magazine that the Malta
piece is published in, but before I get
to that I just got a small piece of
advice for for people who are pursuing
the writer photographer, or photographer
writer angle. Now that advice is pretty
simple, when you're writing copy you've
got to write copy to your pictures. You
want them to work together in-sync. So
when you send that package into an
editor, that they can look at that copy,
and they can see that you've got all the
pictures that match that copy, and then
they don't have to go outside the
commission to find images that they feel
you've missed. So it's really important
that you try to think of them, and in
tandem, that one can't survive without
the other now. I've had this happen
before, where I've sent in a bunch of
photographs to an magazine or a
newspaper and generally when it happens,
I'm not the one writing the copy. I'm
taking the photographs for somebody else
and they might look at that copy and go..
Oh you know you, you missed something we
want to try and find that picture
somewhere else now! Generally the reason
why that happens is, because me and the
writer weren't talking enough! We weren't
communicating enough to try and match
up our copy with the photographs, and that's
really important that you do this.
So keep that in mind.
So overall it went really well, even if I
was fighting the weather the whole time
I was there.
Now I'd been before, so I had a really
great set of backup pictures, you know
just in case. Fortunately though I didn't
have to delve into those, also I was
working with an editor here in London,
who's really laid-back, and she allowed
me to pursue the story as I saw fit.
Now that doesn't happen all the time, you
can trust me on that. As for the
layout, well it was six pages, and six
pages it's a pretty good show in most
magazines. The only concern I had though
was there wasn't enough people in the
pictures, now I'm a photojournalist, I
want to see people in my pictures, but
then again I'm not the layout guy, but
still though it was a good gig
and I was glad to do it.
So that's it, I'm Doug McKinlay for
AdoramaTV, and don't forget you can join
Adorama TV, you can tell us what you
think. You can like, comment, share this
video and please stop by the Adorama
Learning Center for more
great tips and tricks.
For more infomation >> Монтаж отводов XOTPIPE L Outside с защитным покрытием - Duration: 3:12. 
For more infomation >> NTN - Bình Luận Black Squad Bố Cũng Phải Gọi Bằng Cụ - Duration: 14:48. 
For more infomation >> Aprender euskera: curso express para baristas - Duration: 2:48. 
For more infomation >> Tutorial Cara Pengisian Diamond Pada Codashop - Duration: 3:01. 
For more infomation >> Quỳnh Búp Bê Ngoại Truyện Tập 2 - Cảnh Xuất Hiện Đi Tìm Quỳnh Để Trả Thù My Sói - Duration: 15:25. 
For more infomation >> Pessoas com HIV estão CANSADAS DE OUVIR sobre vírus, aids e saúde ft. Gabriel Estrela 😑 - Duration: 3:26. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét