I am a person who is interested in all things "green". I think it stems more from my coming from Africa and the wildlife conservation efforts I supported there, than from my time in the UK where I have been turned into a major sceptic.
In Zimbabwe, being Green was simple and it was ingrained. First off, its a poor country and what we throw away in Europe, is not necessarily rubbish there. I have personally seen a rather restrained argument between children out in Zimbabwe's Sticks as to who would get the plastic milk bottle left behind by the bunch of rich white mountain bikers (a long story for another day). You see, when people are properly poor, a plastic bottle is not rubbish. I wish I could say the same about plastic bags - although I have seen garments crocheted from them.
In Zimbabwe we had our Cokes in bottles - and could reclaim about a third of the drink's cost by returning the empty bottle. Each bottle was used on average, five times. The same for wine bottles - queues at the supermarket as empty bottles were converted back into cash. I still believe Zimbabwe led the way on being careful with its resources. Sanctions can be a good thing. We made a plan.
Now let me put the spotlight on the UK (well, the "first world"). Here, anxious people have seen the very real need for proper conservation measures to be put in place. I agree. We need to tidy up our act and stop generating so much pollution in all its guises. And we need to consume less.
Most importantly we need to become even more sensitised to "green" issues. They DO need to dominate our lives. We DO need to make sure our planet survives and we DO, God willing, have the power in our hands to make this happen. But we have to learn to see the sustainable forest for the trees. We must learn to separate real Green policies from the dross that clever money-grubbing people - politicians - try to impose on us.
I have a real suspicion about carbon trading. Now, I will confess I don't understand the whole ins-and-outs of carbon trading/offsetting and I'm not really driven to understand it. Its too complicated and I'm too thick. My suspicion arises from the word, "trading". To me, "trading" is another word for shifting. It isn't, as far as I can tell, reducing carbon output, indeed, I'm sure that a clever Chinese person (for they make the most carbon dioxide/pollution) will figure out a way of generating huge profits from creating even more carbon dioxide and "trading" it.
I think the west could learn an awful lot from good old Zimbabwe. We'd all recycle dilligently if we could get money back on our rubbish. If each can of beans cost 10p more in the supermarket and we could get that 10p back...all cans would be recycled. Ditto for bags. Ditto bottles.
If cars under say, 1600cc were sold fuel at 10% less than other cars, people would buy less polluting cars. (Okay a lot of this is happening, but the reward measures are rather more subtle).
So I have exposed my ignorance about clever green measures, but now I want to have a proper rant. Because what I really hate is the Green Bandwagon and how just about every Tom, Dick and Harry is clambering aboard.
Saying your company is "Green" is not good enough. It does not make you Green. Nor does the "Are you sure you need to print this email". It helps, but come on! The boss still pitches up in his V8 Range Rover. They still book flights to Paris when the Eurostar would do. And they still leave every light in the building blazing all bloody night, every monitor on screensave and the air conditioning plant running.
But what turns me into a rancid, dripping, oozing well of scorn and contempt is my own industry. It will, without a second thought and without even the vaguest connection the the real issues at hand, attempt to inject greeness into just about everything. Advertising has a duty to communicate and support matters green. It does not have a right however, to inject faux green into everything. Especially when it doesn't even work as an ad.
I am talking about an ad that I hear on Heart 106.2 (woo-hoo I live wild! - their 4 song playlist is deserving of its own, special rant) almost every morning. Some earnest person (I cannot even remember the gender, let alone the product or brand they are advertising) rattles on for a bit and then tells us right at the end, "This ad is made from recycled sound clips". DIE!
Tell me how on earth recycled soundclips are going to save even one picojoulle of energy. I have little doubt that several agency bods - lets see, copywriter, radio commercials producer, account director, account executive and client - all scurried across London in taxis, tubes, buses etc to the studio where it was recorded, spent hours of electricity digging up samples, editing and fiddling and yet STILL used a specially recorded voiceover to tell us that the commercial was made from recycled soundclips!
Breathe, Paul, breathe!
I am totally confident that the agency that created that ad will have entered it in just about every awards show. I am almost sure that they probably held a wrap party for the client and a dozen or so hangers-on when the ad was completed, congratulating each other in a circle-jerk of green euphoria. "Aren't we so cutting edge, Tarquin!" Idiots. I am also certain that they charged an enormous amount of money so that the Account Director can afford to put petrol in his Range Rover and pay the agency's leccy bill.
We have made a mess of our planet and yes, its up to us, the individuals that make the mess to clean it up. What we need are real measures, not the flaky, difficult-to-grasp 'scams' err schemes. Lets start by recycling some of the bandwagonning filth that people the advertising industry. Wannna buy some bonemeal?
And now for something nice: Help fund a scholarship
Leading photographer and film maker Vincent Laforet is asking fellow photogs/bloggers to help him fund a photography student scholarship by placing this CLEVER Photoshelter Falsh gallery on your page:
Check here for details.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Help stop this terrible waste of a brilliant talent
I come from Zimbabwe. It is a country that I love, populated by a people that I love and ruled by a monster who I hate. Properly, fundamentally and all-consumingly hate. I cannot summon up enough obscenity to describe my hatred for Robert Mugabe. But I don't want to talk about him. I want to talk about my very good friend, L.
L is a very senior advertising copywriter, editor and wordsmith at large - arguably Zimbabwe's top talent in that field. Twenty-two years of experience. She still lives there, unlike me, who got out eight years ago. Despite everything - the horrific political situation and the utter destruction of the economy, L like the majority of Zimbabweans, has managed to survive because Zimbabweans do one thing very well: they "make a plan". "Making a plan" should actually read, "finding a way to get round yet another hugely difficult obstacle".
But things have rapidly ground to a complete halt in Zimbabwe. Inflation which ran into the stratosphere has finally completely killed the local currency. This means that it is pretty much worthless. If you want to buy something now, pay in US dollars. And for many Zimbabweans, that is a problem because Zimbabwe ain't earning much of any currency right now - it has almost nothing to export and a wasteland of a productive sector. Thanks, Mugabe.
L, now desperate to earn foreign currency so she and her dependents (dependents = children, domestic workers, domestic workers' children, her retired mother, extended family, pets and others to whom she happily gives) can buy food and other basic staples, is coming over to the UK to train as a carer. Yes, to learn how to wipe old peoples' arses. It seems Zimbabweans are good carers - and I know L would be brilliant. She's a very kind, gentle woman. But this is bullshit!
I do not want to devalue the work of carers at all, but L is a WRITER. A bloody good writer who, to be frank, could outclass some of the very top copywriters over here in the UK. Her skill is very hard-won. Like all other Zimbabweans, copywriters have had to invent and innovate their way around problems one does not encounter in any other country. Her skills have been honed under the most difficult marketing conditions and she's been successful. Her clients have benefited. She has held several Creative Directorships and she has won awards. Lots of them.
She is conscientious. She used to work with me and I have seen her burning midnight oil, often. I have seen her battling to improve a piece of writing that is more than good enough. Her career matters so much to her. I write copy because I have to. She writes copy because it fulfills her. Every comma, every full stop she places is agonised over. Her delete button is probably worn through because I remember how before she had a computer, she used to cross-out and re-write the same sentence sometimes dozens of times.
She has written to overseas agencies asking for work but with the storm of job applications that lands daily on the desks of creative Directors across the world, she has not managed to get much work. Those who do read her application and her CV are doubtless impressed but hell, "Zimbabwe's a long way away. It just wouldn't work." Rubbish!
Advertising is a horrible, cut-throat industry. Very few people like L survive - she's too nice. Too gentle. I fear for her. I fear that the industry that she has loved, immersed herself in, helped to drive, helped to improve, won't give her anything back. She'll get swept aside in the wake of the race to win more D&AD awards, more Cleos.
I also know that there are people in the advertising industry who understand the value of people like L. People who when they read this will bother to contact me. People who want, like a Zimbabwean, to make a plan.
Please contact me. Please pass this on. I have her CV and her portfolio here.
L is a very senior advertising copywriter, editor and wordsmith at large - arguably Zimbabwe's top talent in that field. Twenty-two years of experience. She still lives there, unlike me, who got out eight years ago. Despite everything - the horrific political situation and the utter destruction of the economy, L like the majority of Zimbabweans, has managed to survive because Zimbabweans do one thing very well: they "make a plan". "Making a plan" should actually read, "finding a way to get round yet another hugely difficult obstacle".
But things have rapidly ground to a complete halt in Zimbabwe. Inflation which ran into the stratosphere has finally completely killed the local currency. This means that it is pretty much worthless. If you want to buy something now, pay in US dollars. And for many Zimbabweans, that is a problem because Zimbabwe ain't earning much of any currency right now - it has almost nothing to export and a wasteland of a productive sector. Thanks, Mugabe.
L, now desperate to earn foreign currency so she and her dependents (dependents = children, domestic workers, domestic workers' children, her retired mother, extended family, pets and others to whom she happily gives) can buy food and other basic staples, is coming over to the UK to train as a carer. Yes, to learn how to wipe old peoples' arses. It seems Zimbabweans are good carers - and I know L would be brilliant. She's a very kind, gentle woman. But this is bullshit!
I do not want to devalue the work of carers at all, but L is a WRITER. A bloody good writer who, to be frank, could outclass some of the very top copywriters over here in the UK. Her skill is very hard-won. Like all other Zimbabweans, copywriters have had to invent and innovate their way around problems one does not encounter in any other country. Her skills have been honed under the most difficult marketing conditions and she's been successful. Her clients have benefited. She has held several Creative Directorships and she has won awards. Lots of them.
She is conscientious. She used to work with me and I have seen her burning midnight oil, often. I have seen her battling to improve a piece of writing that is more than good enough. Her career matters so much to her. I write copy because I have to. She writes copy because it fulfills her. Every comma, every full stop she places is agonised over. Her delete button is probably worn through because I remember how before she had a computer, she used to cross-out and re-write the same sentence sometimes dozens of times.
She has written to overseas agencies asking for work but with the storm of job applications that lands daily on the desks of creative Directors across the world, she has not managed to get much work. Those who do read her application and her CV are doubtless impressed but hell, "Zimbabwe's a long way away. It just wouldn't work." Rubbish!
- Zimbabwe, give or take an hour or two, is in the same timezone as the UK.
- From my own experience I can tell you that I have some clients in London, the same city as me, who I have never met, communicating only through emails and phone calls.
- Sophistication is not an issue. The one thing I discovered once joining the creative industry in the UK is that it is actually not much more sophisticated or clever than that of Zimbabwe's. Just look at the fecking Halifax ads!
- L would cost a fraction of the hourly rate of a UK writer and deliver huge bang for the buck
- She has UK right of abode
Advertising is a horrible, cut-throat industry. Very few people like L survive - she's too nice. Too gentle. I fear for her. I fear that the industry that she has loved, immersed herself in, helped to drive, helped to improve, won't give her anything back. She'll get swept aside in the wake of the race to win more D&AD awards, more Cleos.
I also know that there are people in the advertising industry who understand the value of people like L. People who when they read this will bother to contact me. People who want, like a Zimbabwean, to make a plan.
Please contact me. Please pass this on. I have her CV and her portfolio here.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Making me angry...
A few months ago, I was on my bicycle cycling alongside the Thames on Cheyenne Walk in Chelsea, when an attractive young lady walking with her boyfriend, loudly pointed out to me that I should not have been cycling on the pavement. I chose to ignore her, but she maybe had a point: I had indeed narrowly missed ramming my bicycle into her and her beloved by the narrowest of skimpy margins (about 5 or 6 metres -that's thrity feet to the imperialists) and considering the lightning-fast pace I was cycling at (a neck-breaking 12 kilometres an hour - I was ogling Dutch Barges) she surely had escaped a bloody and violent death by a gnat's whisker.
A few hundred yards further on I stopped to more comprehensively ogle the Dutch barge and she and her gentleman friend caught up. She then proceded to remonstrate with me about cycling on the pavement. I listened. She lectured me most thoroughly and seemed sure that she had savaged me enough with her verbal thrashing but I had a reply. It was as follows: "Lady. It is a nice sunny day and you are having a lovely walk. Enjoy it! There is no need to be officious. If you care to look at that sign, it most clearly states that I am on one of London's many cycle routes. Now get off my bloody cycle track!"
And therein lies the nub of what I want to bitch about today: Officiousness. I am a public minded person. Indeed, I'd be a "have-a-go-hero" if the chance arose. I don't like seeing the law deliberately broken and I hate yobbishness. People who know me, know that it was I who put the Serial Spitter of Ascot Station in his place (a yob with a spitting habit). But I cannot abide people who feel it is their duty to correct me or others when we are going about our perfectly legal business.
What makes me even more angry, is when those who should know better get in on the act. People like policemen. I saw an item on this blog which made my blood boil. Properly. It had a YouTube clip of policemen harassing a photographer for the crime of taking photographs. Its well worth a look.
Now lets get this in perspective: Yes, there is a terror threat. Yes, it is likely that terror plotters will want to take pictures of their targets, and yes, it is possible to look suspicious when taking photographs. I get that and understand that the policeman's use of discretion is flexible and that he has a right to ask what is going on...
BUT: If a policeman were to ask me whether I had a licence or a permit to take photographs, I would then make it my sworn duty to get the half-witted, ignorant hobbledehoy dismissed from his job. Because surely a policeman should at least have a basic grasp of the law? Of what is and isn't illegal? Do these cretins (and I do not mean the majority of police, who I love and wish to buy presents and sing to, I mean the minority of officious uniformed no-hopers amongst their numbers) not have the capacity to compute that there are camera shops? They are legal? There are camera buyers who are also legal? And there are camera users who are in the main, legal too? Clearly not.
It is as stupid, yes STUPID, as the Zimbabwean soldiers and policemen who several years ago caught a "spy" taking photographs of the Mazowe Satellite Station from the side of a main road. It was only when it was pointed out by the "spy's" lawyers that a photograph from the same angle of the satellite station was on the cover of every telephone directory that the case was dropped. Idiots. But clearly not confined only to Zimbabwe, where they have taken idiocy to new and impressive heights.
(This also reminds me of when those UK plane spotters were arrested in Greece for taking pics of Greek Air Force jets. It was a serious situation and people were genuinely worried for the annoraks. The Greeks were outraged that their aeroplanes were being photographed. They were classified aircraft! Top secret! Bollox. Jeremey Clarkson was so outraged that he published a full list of the Greek Air force's Fleet which he'd obtained from the internet.)
Now, if I were a terrorist and I wanted to take sneaky shots, I'd use a small discrete camera. Ditto, if I was a pervert and wanted to take pics up skirts (it happens). In fact, you know what? I'd use my camera phone! Damn I'm sneaky! Hell, I might even take photos of my friends right there in my targeted building, capturing at the same time, whatever it is that terrorists want to see in photos (70 naked virgins apparently). And if a policeman were to question me, I'd tell him to stop infringing my legal rights. But humour aside, you'd have to be a very unlucky little terrorist to be arrested for using your camera phone. If you were using a big DSLR however, you're almost as good as busted. No more 70 virgins for you!
Here in the UK its almost becoming socially unacceptable to carry a camera. Parents see a someone carrying a DSLR and recoil in horror at the "pervert" sharing the same tube carriage as them and their snotty little children. What they don't notice as they keep an eye on the dirty, dirty bastard photographer is the nice dude in the sunglasses sitting opposite their daughter, looking up her skirt, happily snapping picture after picture as he 'texts' his buddy.
So what to do? I sympathise with the police and understand the need for the public to be vigilant. But I also sympathise with myself and my fellow photographers. I'd say its pretty much 100% certain that if you can see the camera, the photographer poses no threat. So look for people without cameras and arrest them all.
A few hundred yards further on I stopped to more comprehensively ogle the Dutch barge and she and her gentleman friend caught up. She then proceded to remonstrate with me about cycling on the pavement. I listened. She lectured me most thoroughly and seemed sure that she had savaged me enough with her verbal thrashing but I had a reply. It was as follows: "Lady. It is a nice sunny day and you are having a lovely walk. Enjoy it! There is no need to be officious. If you care to look at that sign, it most clearly states that I am on one of London's many cycle routes. Now get off my bloody cycle track!"
And therein lies the nub of what I want to bitch about today: Officiousness. I am a public minded person. Indeed, I'd be a "have-a-go-hero" if the chance arose. I don't like seeing the law deliberately broken and I hate yobbishness. People who know me, know that it was I who put the Serial Spitter of Ascot Station in his place (a yob with a spitting habit). But I cannot abide people who feel it is their duty to correct me or others when we are going about our perfectly legal business.
What makes me even more angry, is when those who should know better get in on the act. People like policemen. I saw an item on this blog which made my blood boil. Properly. It had a YouTube clip of policemen harassing a photographer for the crime of taking photographs. Its well worth a look.
Now lets get this in perspective: Yes, there is a terror threat. Yes, it is likely that terror plotters will want to take pictures of their targets, and yes, it is possible to look suspicious when taking photographs. I get that and understand that the policeman's use of discretion is flexible and that he has a right to ask what is going on...
BUT: If a policeman were to ask me whether I had a licence or a permit to take photographs, I would then make it my sworn duty to get the half-witted, ignorant hobbledehoy dismissed from his job. Because surely a policeman should at least have a basic grasp of the law? Of what is and isn't illegal? Do these cretins (and I do not mean the majority of police, who I love and wish to buy presents and sing to, I mean the minority of officious uniformed no-hopers amongst their numbers) not have the capacity to compute that there are camera shops? They are legal? There are camera buyers who are also legal? And there are camera users who are in the main, legal too? Clearly not.
It is as stupid, yes STUPID, as the Zimbabwean soldiers and policemen who several years ago caught a "spy" taking photographs of the Mazowe Satellite Station from the side of a main road. It was only when it was pointed out by the "spy's" lawyers that a photograph from the same angle of the satellite station was on the cover of every telephone directory that the case was dropped. Idiots. But clearly not confined only to Zimbabwe, where they have taken idiocy to new and impressive heights.
(This also reminds me of when those UK plane spotters were arrested in Greece for taking pics of Greek Air Force jets. It was a serious situation and people were genuinely worried for the annoraks. The Greeks were outraged that their aeroplanes were being photographed. They were classified aircraft! Top secret! Bollox. Jeremey Clarkson was so outraged that he published a full list of the Greek Air force's Fleet which he'd obtained from the internet.)
Now, if I were a terrorist and I wanted to take sneaky shots, I'd use a small discrete camera. Ditto, if I was a pervert and wanted to take pics up skirts (it happens). In fact, you know what? I'd use my camera phone! Damn I'm sneaky! Hell, I might even take photos of my friends right there in my targeted building, capturing at the same time, whatever it is that terrorists want to see in photos (70 naked virgins apparently). And if a policeman were to question me, I'd tell him to stop infringing my legal rights. But humour aside, you'd have to be a very unlucky little terrorist to be arrested for using your camera phone. If you were using a big DSLR however, you're almost as good as busted. No more 70 virgins for you!
Here in the UK its almost becoming socially unacceptable to carry a camera. Parents see a someone carrying a DSLR and recoil in horror at the "pervert" sharing the same tube carriage as them and their snotty little children. What they don't notice as they keep an eye on the dirty, dirty bastard photographer is the nice dude in the sunglasses sitting opposite their daughter, looking up her skirt, happily snapping picture after picture as he 'texts' his buddy.
So what to do? I sympathise with the police and understand the need for the public to be vigilant. But I also sympathise with myself and my fellow photographers. I'd say its pretty much 100% certain that if you can see the camera, the photographer poses no threat. So look for people without cameras and arrest them all.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Sunday's Walk
As I promised myself, I went for a walk with my camera in one of the grunkier parts of the East End. I had to take my other half to work in The City so I parked the car outside her office and proceded to zig-zag my way through The City, passing through The Barbican's towering edifices,
Barbican. Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
nipping down alleys and eventually made my way onto Cable Street, heading for Canary Wharf.
Never Mind the Bollards, Here's the Barbican. Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
Cable Street has a fine resonance with me as The Ghosts of Cable Street by The Men They Couldn't Hang is one of the few songs I can play on my guitar. I found a fantastic old building with a superb mural on its side, depicting the riot that kicked off when Mosley's Fascists were confronted by just about everyone. A good thing too!
Cable Street Mural. Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
Cable Street Mural detail. Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
I picked up the DLR at Shadwell and got off at Canning Town where I began phase 2 of the afternoon: The Ghetto Walk! Sort of.
Millennium Cafe.
Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
Millennium Cafe II.
Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
It didn't take me long to find the sort of pictures I was after - and the edginess is, as hoped, there in the pictures. I think its amazing how some unintended 'symbols' really do affect one's feeling of security, broken window panes being one such symbol.
Not knowing the area that well did mean that couldn't navigate my way to exactly where I wanted to go. After daring to enter the meanest, darkest, smelliest and most scary-stuff-strewn staircase,
The Meanest, Darkest, Smelliest and Most Scary-Stuff-Strewn Staircase. It looks quite tame, but all two-hundred-and-something pounds of me was spooked and almost gagging with the stink. I didn't hang around to do a clever set-up; shoot and run!
Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative.
I ended up walking along the North Woolwich Road cursing my bad judgement - it was all a bit sterile. The light was fantastic and there were some lovely clouds - I got a few keepers but wished I was nearer the Thames, on some properly mean streets.
Millennium Web.
Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
Barbican. Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creativenipping down alleys and eventually made my way onto Cable Street, heading for Canary Wharf.
Never Mind the Bollards, Here's the Barbican. Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative Cable Street has a fine resonance with me as The Ghosts of Cable Street by The Men They Couldn't Hang is one of the few songs I can play on my guitar. I found a fantastic old building with a superb mural on its side, depicting the riot that kicked off when Mosley's Fascists were confronted by just about everyone. A good thing too!
Cable Street Mural. Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
Cable Street Mural detail. Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative I picked up the DLR at Shadwell and got off at Canning Town where I began phase 2 of the afternoon: The Ghetto Walk! Sort of.
Millennium Cafe.Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
Millennium Cafe II.Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
Not knowing the area that well did mean that couldn't navigate my way to exactly where I wanted to go. After daring to enter the meanest, darkest, smelliest and most scary-stuff-strewn staircase,
The Meanest, Darkest, Smelliest and Most Scary-Stuff-Strewn Staircase. It looks quite tame, but all two-hundred-and-something pounds of me was spooked and almost gagging with the stink. I didn't hang around to do a clever set-up; shoot and run!Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative.
I ended up walking along the North Woolwich Road cursing my bad judgement - it was all a bit sterile. The light was fantastic and there were some lovely clouds - I got a few keepers but wished I was nearer the Thames, on some properly mean streets.
Millennium Web.Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
As the sun was setting I managed to get a few more quite acceptable shots although my camera battery did die. Thanks to a trick I taught myself, I managed to eke out a few more shots.
Fisherman's tale.
Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
Fisherman's tale.Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
Monday, November 3, 2008
A Good Workman Blames His Tools
Today (now yesterday) has been a long day. Up at 05.30 to prepare for a trip to Warwick to do a shoot of trainees being trained by trainers. Got there no problem but was already tired - the M40 was fast-running but very busy, so big eyes!
I shot pictures. Indeed, I shot about 200 frames from which probably only 4 or 5 will ever be used. I had to shoot the trainees being trained by the trainers whilst the trainers were actually training the trainees which presents its own unique problems. Two of the trainees who were being trained...etc didn't want their pictures to be taken - fair enough, but please ladies, bugger off to the side so you don't appear in every bloody shot.
Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
So yes, it was difficult - Me trying to be unobtrusive. Me trying to shoot shots in the same style as I've always shot for this particular client - i.e. crawling around, getting cramp, pushing my wide angle lens up against people's hands etc. Me trying to be unobtrusive as I bang off shot after shot with my flashgun flashing, my tripod clattering and huffing and puffing like the fat middle-aged man that I am, crouched in peculiar pants-splitting positions. Net result? I failed to be unobtrusive and probably ruined the morning session of the course. Sorry.
Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
But I got my shots. Well, sort of. I had my usual white balance issues as I shot under a mixture of daylight, florescent and fecking low voltage bastard eco lights that turn everything greeny-yellow. Nothing that Adobe Lightroom cannot put right though. (I LOVE lightroom). I have also learned the hard way to radically underexpose on my very elderly Canon 10 D so that I will get at least some detail in the highlights. Which is great, except that I then have to put up with noisy shadow tones (yes, even at ISO 200 its noisy). Add to that my very old, slow, noisy lenses (no image stabilisation here!) and you'll understand why I have to do a fair amount of rescue work in Lightroom and photoshop.
Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
Its beginning to really grind me down. Make no mistake, my ancient Canon 10D is still a very, very good camera. But its very hard to be happy with something when you know its way, way behind what is available.
I have long grown jaded with the whole "Great Megapixel Race". Yes, more pixels are theoretically better, but 6 million good pixels will trounce 10 million bad pixels. Many of the world's most respected camera reviewers will pick out Nikon's 12Mpx D700 as having the best in class image quality - yet its up against Canon's superb 21Mpx 1D MkIII. But yes, I want some more megapixels because I need them. Need as opposed to want. I want to be able to crop images and still have some resolution left. But: There's no point in putting old lenses in front of a clever, big, sexy 21 Mpx sensor. They cannot resolve detail as minutely as the sensors can these days. So I need to get new glass too. Lots of it. The expensive kind!
My work is now suffering. Work, mind you, not the results. I am still very pleased with what I can get out of my workflow. But It takes so long.
Back to today: Where was I? Oh yes. I was shooting the trainees being trained by the trainers. Well, I finished that and packed up my gear, set the GPS for "Home" and began the most convoluted journey in the history of modern motoring. Now, I'm not stupid. I know that Warwick is near the M40. How do I know this? Simple: I got there via the M40. But Mr TomTom Had other ideas - I only wanted the GPS to help me navigate the Warwick one-way system, but I got sent off to Mogadishu. I'm sure I saw the turn-off for Vladivostock just after I'd traversed much of Siberia. I tell you, I saw a bunch of pole and dagga mud huts as I bypassed Johannesburg. I know what an Afrian elephant looks like and I swear I saw one! A whole herd, actually. Breathe, Paul, Breathe! Pure, undiluted idiocy from the makers of my satnav.
I eventually got home.
And then, much to my horror I discovered that the CF card with all of today's work on it had decided to have a post-halloween tantrum. Miss Lightroom (who I love and trust) told me there was nothing to import. And I believed her. I am quite sure that my beloved mummy reads this blog, so I will not write the words that I uttered. Suffice to say, they were "workshop" words.
After a little bit of a calming down session I fired up Photorecovery and to my enormous relief, all files were recovered in absolutely perfect condition. But it took a long time...
Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
So where does that leave us? In the space of just 2 weeks I have had two moans about my gear. Here is the previous one. So why don't I stop whingeing and get some new gear? Cost. Yes, I have underinvested in equipment and now I'm really feeling the bite. But on the upside, I can get significantly more bang for my buck when I do re-equip. There is no way I can afford a new rig but that hasn't been too much of an obstacle in the past. I will make a way of affording it. Oh, and a new Mac.
One more thing for the Design Police: USB wireless dongles. Why, oh why are they not on a short length of cable So that they flop and don't SNAP OFF WHEN SOMEONE IS USING THEIR LAPTOP AS A LAPTOP???????
I shot pictures. Indeed, I shot about 200 frames from which probably only 4 or 5 will ever be used. I had to shoot the trainees being trained by the trainers whilst the trainers were actually training the trainees which presents its own unique problems. Two of the trainees who were being trained...etc didn't want their pictures to be taken - fair enough, but please ladies, bugger off to the side so you don't appear in every bloody shot.
Copyright 2008 Paul Davey CreativeSo yes, it was difficult - Me trying to be unobtrusive. Me trying to shoot shots in the same style as I've always shot for this particular client - i.e. crawling around, getting cramp, pushing my wide angle lens up against people's hands etc. Me trying to be unobtrusive as I bang off shot after shot with my flashgun flashing, my tripod clattering and huffing and puffing like the fat middle-aged man that I am, crouched in peculiar pants-splitting positions. Net result? I failed to be unobtrusive and probably ruined the morning session of the course. Sorry.
Copyright 2008 Paul Davey CreativeBut I got my shots. Well, sort of. I had my usual white balance issues as I shot under a mixture of daylight, florescent and fecking low voltage bastard eco lights that turn everything greeny-yellow. Nothing that Adobe Lightroom cannot put right though. (I LOVE lightroom). I have also learned the hard way to radically underexpose on my very elderly Canon 10 D so that I will get at least some detail in the highlights. Which is great, except that I then have to put up with noisy shadow tones (yes, even at ISO 200 its noisy). Add to that my very old, slow, noisy lenses (no image stabilisation here!) and you'll understand why I have to do a fair amount of rescue work in Lightroom and photoshop.
Copyright 2008 Paul Davey CreativeIts beginning to really grind me down. Make no mistake, my ancient Canon 10D is still a very, very good camera. But its very hard to be happy with something when you know its way, way behind what is available.
I have long grown jaded with the whole "Great Megapixel Race". Yes, more pixels are theoretically better, but 6 million good pixels will trounce 10 million bad pixels. Many of the world's most respected camera reviewers will pick out Nikon's 12Mpx D700 as having the best in class image quality - yet its up against Canon's superb 21Mpx 1D MkIII. But yes, I want some more megapixels because I need them. Need as opposed to want. I want to be able to crop images and still have some resolution left. But: There's no point in putting old lenses in front of a clever, big, sexy 21 Mpx sensor. They cannot resolve detail as minutely as the sensors can these days. So I need to get new glass too. Lots of it. The expensive kind!
My work is now suffering. Work, mind you, not the results. I am still very pleased with what I can get out of my workflow. But It takes so long.
Back to today: Where was I? Oh yes. I was shooting the trainees being trained by the trainers. Well, I finished that and packed up my gear, set the GPS for "Home" and began the most convoluted journey in the history of modern motoring. Now, I'm not stupid. I know that Warwick is near the M40. How do I know this? Simple: I got there via the M40. But Mr TomTom Had other ideas - I only wanted the GPS to help me navigate the Warwick one-way system, but I got sent off to Mogadishu. I'm sure I saw the turn-off for Vladivostock just after I'd traversed much of Siberia. I tell you, I saw a bunch of pole and dagga mud huts as I bypassed Johannesburg. I know what an Afrian elephant looks like and I swear I saw one! A whole herd, actually. Breathe, Paul, Breathe! Pure, undiluted idiocy from the makers of my satnav.
I eventually got home.
And then, much to my horror I discovered that the CF card with all of today's work on it had decided to have a post-halloween tantrum. Miss Lightroom (who I love and trust) told me there was nothing to import. And I believed her. I am quite sure that my beloved mummy reads this blog, so I will not write the words that I uttered. Suffice to say, they were "workshop" words.
After a little bit of a calming down session I fired up Photorecovery and to my enormous relief, all files were recovered in absolutely perfect condition. But it took a long time...
Copyright 2008 Paul Davey CreativeSo where does that leave us? In the space of just 2 weeks I have had two moans about my gear. Here is the previous one. So why don't I stop whingeing and get some new gear? Cost. Yes, I have underinvested in equipment and now I'm really feeling the bite. But on the upside, I can get significantly more bang for my buck when I do re-equip. There is no way I can afford a new rig but that hasn't been too much of an obstacle in the past. I will make a way of affording it. Oh, and a new Mac.
One more thing for the Design Police: USB wireless dongles. Why, oh why are they not on a short length of cable So that they flop and don't SNAP OFF WHEN SOMEONE IS USING THEIR LAPTOP AS A LAPTOP???????
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Its been a busy week
This week has been one of those nose-to-the-grindstone weeks. I am blessed with a rather full workload and am really beginning to feel like I could use a second pair of hands/eyes/talent to help me keep up - and to help me to continue delivering better and better creative to my clients.
Blue Spikes
What work have I got on? Well, lets see: A website, brochures and photography for a security and facilities management firm. Poster, packaging and other bits and pieces for my fine Chinese Food delivery client. Case study photography in Warwick for my very loyal client, CPIO. Ongoing brand identity work for a retail start-up in Cobham - everything from the logo through to the packaging, signage, shop colour scheme and vouchers. I also have an ongoing saga job tweaking a logo that requires, in my client's view, ever more tweaking, even when it looked its best at draft 1 stage. As usual.
Again, I have been greedily hoovering up photographs when I do my compulsory daily walk. Many are of the same things I have shot before, but with different light or another lens, the fast-changing seasonal vegetation etc all offer up quite an interesting diversity of images despite the 'sameness'.
Jah Man!
I'm hoping tomorrow to get some more pics (weather permitting) down near London City Airport. There are some fine derelict buildings and wastegrounds. I feel a real need to shoot the ugly stuff - there's more character in it. I want to go and take pictures where the possibility of being mugged is very real. Or being stuck thigh deep in the mud as the tide floods back in (umm on second thoughts...) I need to feel that there is some degree of risk involved - it will work its way into the images.
The Pigeon Gang's hangout. Same shot as this, just wider and on another day with different weather and lighting conditions. I used my 15 - 30 lens and pumped the blue saturation in Lightroom. I love the simplicity of this image.
For me, its obvious: the best photographs are the ones I've worked hardest for. I've gotten up at 3am on countless mornings and traveled miles to get the early dawn light. I've stood chest deep in the Thames at 7am on a cold, late September morning in Henley, photographing rowers - watched from the shore by a mystified pair of policemen wondering whether to arrest me, to call the men in white coats or to leave me be. They left me be in the end.
Mitre Bridge, The Underbelly. I so dig rivets. They give such an 'engineered' look to steel structures. Welding has sapped the character away from engineering. Next I'll be bitching about how digital has sapped the character from photography (it hasn't). Progress.
So yes, tomorrow I'm going to be a bit edgy. A bit out there. Whoa!
Wanna see more photographs? Visit my website.
Blue SpikesWhat work have I got on? Well, lets see: A website, brochures and photography for a security and facilities management firm. Poster, packaging and other bits and pieces for my fine Chinese Food delivery client. Case study photography in Warwick for my very loyal client, CPIO. Ongoing brand identity work for a retail start-up in Cobham - everything from the logo through to the packaging, signage, shop colour scheme and vouchers. I also have an ongoing saga job tweaking a logo that requires, in my client's view, ever more tweaking, even when it looked its best at draft 1 stage. As usual.
Again, I have been greedily hoovering up photographs when I do my compulsory daily walk. Many are of the same things I have shot before, but with different light or another lens, the fast-changing seasonal vegetation etc all offer up quite an interesting diversity of images despite the 'sameness'.
Jah Man!I'm hoping tomorrow to get some more pics (weather permitting) down near London City Airport. There are some fine derelict buildings and wastegrounds. I feel a real need to shoot the ugly stuff - there's more character in it. I want to go and take pictures where the possibility of being mugged is very real. Or being stuck thigh deep in the mud as the tide floods back in (umm on second thoughts...) I need to feel that there is some degree of risk involved - it will work its way into the images.
The Pigeon Gang's hangout. Same shot as this, just wider and on another day with different weather and lighting conditions. I used my 15 - 30 lens and pumped the blue saturation in Lightroom. I love the simplicity of this image.For me, its obvious: the best photographs are the ones I've worked hardest for. I've gotten up at 3am on countless mornings and traveled miles to get the early dawn light. I've stood chest deep in the Thames at 7am on a cold, late September morning in Henley, photographing rowers - watched from the shore by a mystified pair of policemen wondering whether to arrest me, to call the men in white coats or to leave me be. They left me be in the end.
Mitre Bridge, The Underbelly. I so dig rivets. They give such an 'engineered' look to steel structures. Welding has sapped the character away from engineering. Next I'll be bitching about how digital has sapped the character from photography (it hasn't). Progress.So yes, tomorrow I'm going to be a bit edgy. A bit out there. Whoa!
Wanna see more photographs? Visit my website.
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