The View From My Window

well; balcony actually, but one doesn't like to brag... ;)

It's a bit of a grab shot, this, but it was such a stunning spring sunset I simply had to shoot it. Leith is glorious; I love the contradictions, the Water, and most of all the light. 

I have a feeling this may be a running theme - every day I look out from the balcony is completely different; but I promise I will post evidence of a bit more mileage in my photography!

Loving those blues

I promised you some inspiring January Blues pictures, so here's the first - a chilly January river in the borders wuth a hint of the morning's blue sky..

Enjoy Those Winter Blues!

Has anyone else noticed the proliferation of reports in the media about how January is supposed to be depressing? Back to work blues, winter blues, shortest day blues - I can't decide if all these journalists are describing our supposed depression or creating it.

Well; I intend to buck the trend.

That's right, I like January. And before you all start thinking I am a crazed freak who likes the dark, wet and cold let me explain a few reasons why -

1. As any photographer (whether budding and keen or embittered and experienced) knows; the light is at it's best at Dawn and Dusk. So let's all admit it, 8 or 9am is a much more civilised time of day to be taking those glorious dawn shots than 4am (also known as the middle of the night...) For all you part-time snappers out there, this is the time of year to grab a stunning picture whilst on your way to work. Plus, of course, weekend sunset shoots finish sometime before the pub shuts...
2. January is a relatively slow news month (hence all these reports about our state of mind - they've got nothing else to talk about). So there is hardly a better time to get that killer shot you're so proud of into the local paper - or how about on the TV? The pre-weather report pretty picture is always a good option if you fancy seeing your photography onscreen.
3. New Year's resolutions. I know it's corny, but here's the trick - pick a couple of easy ones and then you get to feel really good about yourself when you stick to them!
4. Blues. No, not the blues, just blues. It's a range of colours that can be so much more than just cold. Blue can be dramatic, stimulating, invigorating and inspiring and January is the time to get some stunning landscapes and city scenes dominated by blue tones.

So to prove it; my New Year's resolution is to go out and take some January Blues pictures and post them up and see what you think.

Watch this space!!

Location Spotting

One of my many photographic branch-lines is selling my prints and canvases at local craft fairs. I really enjoy chatting to people about my work but I'm beginning to think I could add an element of competition to my stall...

I'm talking about a location spotting contest. This image in particular has been getting lots of different suggestions of cities all around the world. Most people are surprised when they discover the true location. What do you think? Answer will be posted here in a few days. (Or you could check out www.mickieimriephotography.com if you are really curious..)

Better Pictures of Your Precious Pet

How to Improve Your Pet Photography.

Everybody is fond of their pets - whether it's a dog, cat or something more exotic. There is a thriving market out there for pictures of your loved one - especially now that Christmas is approaching. What better present for someone than a nice picture of Fido or Felix, right?

While many photographers and portrait painters offer pet sittings, there are many things you can do to get a better snap yourself. In fact, your presence is probably vital to get that expression. Pets respond far better to their owners than a stranger.

If you do decide to try a few pictures yourself, here are a few tips to help get a perfect shot.

1 - Be patient. Sit quietly for a while and wait til he gets used to you and the camera. In these days of digital you can fire off a few shots to get him used to the sound.

2 - Get the hang of your camera. Find the fully auto mode, or get to know it so well that you don't have to think about it.

3 - Have an assistant, and make sure they're armed!! If it squeaks, beeps or rings, your assistant should be using it, for that perfect "quizzical" face.

4 - Take a lot of pictures. Animals and children are not the most reliable of models, so be prepared to get a lot of shots.

5 - The technical bit: for perfect lighting many pet photographers swear by ringflash; the circular flash tubes give even, natural light and an appealing round catch light in the eye.

- Lastly, don't forget a treat or two to say well done!!

Facebook forcing ME to be the nasty one...

I like it when people like me.

Sorry if that makes me weak and pathetic, but there it is. I like being liked. Frankly, especially with my wedding photographer hat on, being liked is good for business. Thus, I feel the need to rant about the fact that Facebook are forcing me to be nasty and pedantic in every contract I give my clients!

Allow me to elaborate...

Facebook have a clause in their Terms and Conditions see which basically allows them to sell on any images posted to Facebook to anyone, as many times as they like. The bit that forces me to be nasty to my clients is that if they post any images I have taken (eg images from their wedding that they have bought license to reproduce for personal use from me) then THEY are in breach of copyright, not Facebook.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but most people don't read all the small print on sites like Facebook ( I mean, life's too short, right?). Plus, who would assume that posting to your facebook site doesn't count as "Personal Use" as in the terms of their wedding photo license?

So, in order to prevent this (after all, suing my clients because Facebook sold an image would be really bad for business) I now have to put a special clause in my contracts/license stating that only images embedded with my watermark can be put on Facebook. This, in my opinion, makes me appear paranoid and grumpy, when it's all down to Facebook's blatant rights grab!

I feel the need to let as many people as possible know about this clause. Never mind the fact hat I object to Facebook and it's like because I don't need a website to tell me how many friends I have; more people need to be aware that their holiday snaps could well be sold on and they will see none of the profits.

Does anyone know of any petitions against this kind of small-print rights grab?



Text of terms and conditions..... all copright Facebook and available at

When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content. Facebook does not assert any ownership over your User Content; rather, as between us and you, subject to the rights granted to us in these Terms, you retain full ownership of all of your User Content and any intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights associated with your User Content.

The greatest travel writer of our time

This is a bit of a quickie post, but just to recommend to anyone a blog post I found at http://www.gadling.com/2008/09/23/talking-travel-with-paul-theroux/
It's an interview with legendary travel writer Paul Theroux. I'm a massive fan - Africa captured my heart years ago and his Dark Star Safari fixes that love forever in my brain. He is also the author of many other famous works of travel literature - Ghost Train to the Eastern Star is one of his latest. All highly recommended, good interview with him by Jeffrey White on Gadling.com too.

'til next time...



Mickie


mickie imrie photography
Travel, Commercial, Exhibitions, Weddings

0131 516 6550
www.mickieimriephotography.com
www.prphotographyscotland.co.uk

So what do you do?

Has anyone else ever noticed those occasions when it is very difficult to tell a stranger or acquaintance exactly what one does for a living? I mean don't get me wrong, I'm a photographer and I love it and I'm more than happy to tell anybody about it. (Although the idea of those networking meetings where you all meet up and chat and "sell yourself" horrifies me...)

However, when I first became self employed and people asked me what I did I would mutter and evade and humm and haw about photos, office, bar work and the poor unfortunate soul I was taking to would gain the impression that I was utterly incompetent at anything!

I met a woman the other day who had been earning an extremely good living from selling her paintings for at least ten years. She told me that on average in small talk conversations it would take her a good ten or twenty minutes to use the phrase "I'm an artist"

I expect I can't be the only one out there who has this problem - and I'm lucky enough to have a relatively straightforward job title. Anyone out there with a complicated, deep or lengthy job description who can (and does) put it across in less than ten words is a hero, in my opinion.

Giving the right impression over the web.

Has anybody else ever noticed how difficult it is to give the right impression over the internet? I must admit it didn't occur to me before I started up as a freelance (quite frankly I couldn't have cared less), but now it has landed on my radar and I've realised it can be extremely dangerous.

Of course you have the problem of conveying tone when no-one can hear you speak, or see your face (I've heard some men say that they don't understand this concept, but let's face it girls, we USE body language...) which is a tricky one, especially when writing blogs and websites. (Oh, and text messages...) but mostly I'm talking about your Google impression. The problem with this is that it is much less controllable; in fact it is largely totally out of our control. For instance, as you may have gathered I am a freelance photographer and I get a lot of my work from my website (forgive the plug but people tell me I have to do this... www.mickieimriephotography.com ) but for the first few months of launching it 2 years ago, if people typed my name into Google the first result was a paper I'd written at uni about feeding pigeons!! (seriously..!). The guy I'd written it with seemed to think that the internet-ing world was desperately interested in his third year ecology project and thus lead any potential customers to think that I was not so much a photographer as some kind of peculiar pigeon expert! Fortunately by now there are enough photo-related mentions to relegate the pigeons to the depths of Google but at the time it was  problem. My other problem is that  I think there must be a lingerie model (or maybe no lingerie, if you see what I mean..) who shares my first name - I get a lot of website hits from searches like "Free mickie pictures" or "pics of mickie" and I can't think of a single other possible reason for it.

I'm sure I'm not the only one - I have a friend (who shall remain nameless since I don't want to compound the problem) whose Google list consists of her website, her blog and then some obscure quote she gave to a newspaper many years ago about her tastes in alcoholic drinks! Marvellous. So is anyone else out there worried about how Google can affect your life? Maybe randomness has helped you out, maybe Google is full of info on someone who shares your name; leaving you wallowing on page 16? Maybe I should be grateful that it's just me, the p*rn star and the pigeons...

  

      mickie imrie photography

Travel, Exhibitions, Commercial, Weddings.

    www.mickieimriephotography.com
enquiries@mickieimriephotography.com

Cravings

Now; don't get me wrong, I am not a deeply materialistic person. I drive a daewoo, am definitely not a designer clothes person and whenever anybody asks me what I want for christmas/birthday I am utterly clueless. However I am currently under the spell of the most enormous gadget craving you can imagine. I want, in a deep and intense way, a Nikon D3. Not because it's the latest, or everyone else has one but just because it's so dam* good. I just want it.

Does anyone else get like that, or am I losing my marbles? 

It really is the most impressive bit of kit. Forgive me for the camera bore bit but it has a 12.1 MP full-frame sensor and astounding noise control at high ISO's. No more tripod for me on a cloudy day in Paris, or as the light fades at a winter wedding. In the words of well-known internet reviewer Ken Rockwell "It Just Works". Better colour reproduction, dynamic range that really is as good as film, correcting lateral fringes, 9 frames per second. I could go on, but I'd bore you. The fact is that I want one; and wanting a physical object with such passion is an entirely new experience for me. I never even pestered my parents for the latest toy when I was a kid, I've never felt that my life would be incomplete without a new car or computer or (as a friend of mine mentioned in a rather disturbing conversation a few weeks ago) vacuum cleaner.

I'm slightly disturbed. I may have to buy a D3 just to settle this strange craving....

      mickie imrie photography

Travel, Exhibitions, Commercial, Weddings.

    www.mickieimriephotography.com
enquiries@mickieimriephotography.com

Travel Photography - the pitfalls

I realise I'm going to get no sympathy from anybody when I say I've just come back from a trip to the Caribbean and New York; but stick with me, I promise there are dowsides. For a start even in some of the safest cities in the world, walking around with an enormous camera feels a bit like having one of those sandwich boards saying "Hey, over here! Mug me!!" For seconds walking around in the baking heat for hours carrying 20 pounds of your livelihood on your back is a combination of stresses that's hard to match.

Mostly though, it's the little things that make every city photo trip unique - like discovering that the perfect angle for that shot across the Seine to Eiffel Tower comes from a spot under a bridge that smells so powerfully of urine it stands out even in Paris. (There's a reason poets like Paris in the spring - regular rainfall...) Or maybe the change in light that you're certain is coming, as you stand on a Prague street corner in the pouring rain for two hours to get the perfect shot. Or queuing for 40 minutes to buy a ticket for the top of Rockefeller Plaza so that you can queue for another hour to get to the elevator to go up 70 floors in th blink of an eye only to discover that to really get the shot you want, you should've brought a tripod! C'est la vie!

The easiest way to better pictures.

I don't know why this works, but it does. One of the basic rules of composition, whether it's a painting or a photograph is called the Rule of Thirds. Basically this means that any important focal points in your picture will sit best if they are one third of the way up, or across, the frame. Practically this means that a horizon, for instance, should be one third of the way up (if the sky is the more attractive part of the image) or two thirds up (if the important part of the picture is the foreground) rather than slap bang in the middle.

Often this rule can be applied both horizontally and vertically. For instance compare the two photos - different crops of the same image, which can be found on my travel photography website



where the motorbike is central to the frame. Now have a look at the full picture:-


where the bike is one third in, and one third up, the frame.

It works much better.
Try it with your holiday snaps and see if you don't think it is more restful on the eye, and also more dynamic. Or do you disagree? Comments always welcome.

Top five tips for travel photography.

Travel Photography is my main passion - and it's an attitude that can be applied to taking pictures wherever you are. My favourite trips are just two days - keep the costs down and put yourself under some pressure to get the shot!!

However you can still take stunning photos on your family holiday, or the town where you live. Here are my top five tips to get the best from your snaps

• Get up early! Sorry but this will reap benefits in more ways than one - the family is still in bed so you don't bore them witless while you stop every two minutes for a picture, plus there are fewer tourists - for example my shot of Venice's Campanile and pigeon's in St Mark's Sq. was taken pretty early to make sure the pigeons outnumbered the tourists!! More importantly though, the light is much better at this time - especially in hot countries where the sun rises high and fast in the middle of the day - this is the time to put the camera away and head for the beach!! Have a look at my travel photography site for more examples of early morning shots.
• Straight horizons - it's a simple thing, but nothing ruins a picture of your favourite holiday beach quicker than a wonky horizon. Stand square, or at least fix it later on the computer, if you're shooting digital. Top Tip - If using Adobe's Photoshop, you'll find a Measure tool under the colour picker - select this, draw along your horizon, then go to Edit>Rotate>Arbitrary and you'll find the right amount filled in for you for a perfectly straight horizon.
• Think outside the box - everyone has seen the standard "This is me in front of..." shot. Find the unusual angle or viewpoint and your pictures will really stand out.
• Turn around! You know the shot - a lovely sunset in whatever beautiful part of the world you are in. Well, you'll get as good, or better, pictures if you turn around and use the evening light in a creative way, rather than just snapping away at the sunset. If you are shooting sunsets look for foreground interest - trees, rocks, people, buildings, anything to lead your eye into the picture.
• And finally - research. If you want your travel pictures to stand out, do a few Google searches on where you are going, check out a few guide books and have a rough idea of anything you may want to photograph before you go, as well as, if possible, the best time of day to be there. Which way does it face? North or East facing is great for early morning mist, South or West is often best seen later in the day.

Hope you find this useful, and feel free to let me know how you think my pictures could be improved!

All the best,

Mickie

http://www.mickieimriephotography.com/
PR, Commercial, Travel and Wedding Photography

Choosing your wedding photographer

The spur for this post is the amount of requests I get that are purely price driven. Now I fully understand that everyone has a budget, and weddings are expensive, but I hope all you prospective brides out there (and, of course, grooms!) put as much effort into getting the right photographer as they do into getting the right price. So what are the most important things to bear in mind when you're looking for a wedding photographer?

• First of all, can you get a recommendation? All the nicest websites in the world can't compete with someone recommended by a trusted friend
• If that isn't possible, the web is the next best thing - Google and all the directories are really useful - personally I like http://www.findaweddingphotographer.co.uk/.
• Once you are visiting the sites concentrate on the images first - there's no point even approaching a photographer whose style you don't like.
• Think about your budget in advance - set something that works for you in relation to your day - perhaps a percentage of your total budget. Bear in mind, your photographs are the permanent record of your day and there will always be a payoff between quality and cost - do you really want "cheap" photographs?
• If you've found a photographer whose image you love but their quote is too high don't be afraid to come back to them with your budget - you might be surprised what they can offer you.
• Now you get to the tricky bit. Ask yourself if you are likely to get on with this person? Frankly they are going to be there or thereabouts all day, however discreet they are. Do you really want someone whom you feel awkward around?
• Can you see a complete example of a wedding they have shot recently?
• Do they ask lots of questions about your day? The whole process will be so much more enjoyable, not to mention you'll get better pictures, if it's all unique to you, your style and your plans.
• If you suggest showing them examples of pictures and styles you like, how do they respond? Any good photographer will not be precious about suggestions from the client.
• Can you meet them beforehand? Difficult if your wedding is far away, I know, but this is vital to have a proper chat and plan how you would like your wedding photography to go. Maybe draw up a list of pictures you definitely want - bridal party, parents, any details you are particularly proud of, the list could be endless but the more preparation you and your photographer can do the better the results!

Overall, just try to remember that there is a lot more to choosing your wedding photographer than simply how much they will charge.

Best of luck!!

Mickie

mickie imrie photography

Travel, Commercial, Exhibitions, Weddings.

http://www.mickieimriephotography.com/

enquiries@mickieimriephotography.com

PR, Commercial and Wedding Photography

Photographer or Terrorist?

Something came to my attention again today - the increasing panic surrounding people innocently taking pictures of in public places. It could be our spectacular public buildings, urban landscapes or just the kind of pictures that you see on postcards, but apparently we are now seen as dangerous. There is even a government advert suggesting that anyone with a camera could be a terrorist. Is it me or is this the nanny state gone mad?

Speaking from personal experience I was recently photographing an empty children's playground. It was a beautiful evening, low sunlight through the climbing frame and not a child in sight. In all honesty I planned to crop the photo to the shape of a Playstation controller - some kind of comment on childhood today; I was having an arty moment! Anyway, an irate woman approached me to let me know that she thought it was "disgusting" and "creepy" that I was photographing the playground. Just to confirm, the playground was EMPTY. Apparently taking this picture labeled me some kind of creep. I was flabbergasted. What is the world coming to where our nation is whipped up in a frenzy of fear about everything?

Personally I will be signing up to the petition for clarification on photography laws - at the moment it is legal to photograph in public places, but that hasn't stopped over-zealous police and security guards stopping legitimate press photographers from working. I know it happens in China and Zimbabwe but London? If anyone else out there agrees the petition is at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/photographylaw/

Comments always welcome.

Mickie

PR, Commercial and Wedding Photography.

New blog launched - photography and more

Hello;

This is a new one for me - posting ones opinions on the net. This blog is going to be about whatever occurs to me - photos, ideas for locations, equipment, anything in the news that strikes me. Plus of course I am happy to give advice if anyone is interested!

http://www.mickieimriephotography.com