David Spero – Urban Churches

Taking one of my regular looks at the ‘Conscientious‘ blog I was interested to see a familiar building from Finsbury Park, London, the former cinema which became the ‘United Church of the Kingdom of God.’

This is one of a series of 15 churches in various odd buildings mainly around London photographed by David Spero, a photographer born in 1963 who studied at the Royal College of Art. Most of the locations in the series were familiar to me, although in one or two cases I’d photographed the same buildings before they were in use as churches.

Spero goes for the clear overall view, and does it well, and like
Jörg Colberg I find this the most impressive of his projects. Part of the reason for this is I think in the very variety of the buildings concerned as in some of his other projects (both when I’ve seen them on gallery walls and on his web site) I find the images too similar. Of course to Spero this was perhaps the point, but I find it a little tedious and long for a little more surprise in the next image in some of his work.

Some of projects in the ‘archive’ section of the site are represented by a very small number of images. ‘Interiors‘, ‘Boardrooms‘, ‘Control Towers‘ look like promising areas, but what he shows us is enough to tantalise but not to satisfy. It seems hardly worth putting only 4 or 5 images from each on the site – it isn’t as if the web was an expensive medium to use.

The churches project is a good example of how concentrating on a small subject and presenting it can work well. Although I’ve shown images of such urban buildings pressed into new use, and particularly images of black-led churches, I’ve never approached it as a discrete subject in this way.

Finsbury Park

One of my best-hidden web sites does however take a look at Finsbury Park and the surrounding area (although I’ve also photographed it on quite a few other occasions.) The pictures I put on those pages were made when I had just started to work seriously with a Hasselblad Xpan, and don’t actually include the church/cinema though I’ve photographed it on several occasions and probably while making these images.

Finsbury Park
Finsbury Park, London, 2002

A rather prettier picture of the New River in Finsbury Park from the series actually won a photo competition concerned with the regeneration of the area.

At the time I posted the images and wrote on-line that I had walked around the area carrying the Hasselblad I got several messages from people telling me I must be mad to go on the streets there with an expensive camera. One at least came from someone who had lived in a flat there for some years. But if you are sensible – and at least slightly street-wise, London remains a very safe city.

Getting Your Images Right with Lightroom

Although I’ve heard some unfavourable comments about its RAW conversion, particularly with some recent cameras such as the Nikon D300, I have to say that Adobe Lightroom is now the program I use for virtually all of my image handling. With the Nikon D200 I’ve generally found I’ve preferred the jpegs and tiffs I’ve produced using it over those from Capture One, the alternative software I have on my main computer, although both programs have their strengths.

Before Lightroom, I relied on Pixmantec’s software – and although I was very disappointed when Adobe bought out what was manifestly a superior product, it did get me a free cross-grade to LR, and I think some of the superior Pixmantec technology has been incorporated into LR.

LR’s big advantage is workflow and the way that it integrates the various stages in handling images, copying them from the card to appropriate locations (once you learn how to set these up,) making backups, adding copyright information, keywords and other metadata and the output of standard image sizes and quality for different purposes.

There are still things I’m sure I’m missing in some of these areas, and the software is perhaps still evolving. I’ve been particularly disappointed when I’ve actually paid money for tutorial material on LR to find it gives me no more clues about these aspects than the free and also fairly unhelpful material from Adobe and elsewhere.

Much of it is still dealing with earlier versions of the software and there are some very important differences. Although I don’t rush to install the very latest version immediately it appears (it makes sense to wait at least a few days while others suffer the bugs – as with the recent 1.4 release that Adobe had to recall within a few days), there is really no reason to be using anything other than version 1.3 at the moment.

Certainly there is no excuse for still selling books and downloads that still deal with earlier versions than 1.3, and even where information is free of charge it would be appropriate to update.

Many people find the development stage of LR confusing, and it took me quite a while to work out some of the important aspects. I hope you will find my approach of some use, though I’m sure others will have their own tweaks on the process. There are whole aspects of it I’ll omit, which I think are of rather specialised interest.

DEVELOPMENT USING LIGHTROOM 1.3

Development Presets and Panel Set-up

I set the following defaults in the ‘Detail’ section:
Noise Reduction: Luminance 2, Color 25
Sharpening: Amount 2, Radius 1.0, Detail 25, Masking 0

(One of the libraries I send pictures to states ‘no sharpening‘ and this is my ‘no sharpening’ setting. You may find different values for this and noise reduction better suit your needs. Serious noise reduction on high ISO images and also sharpening for particular output purposes are best performed by Photoshop plugins.)

Lightroom Develop panelThese and other default settings, including Autotone, Medium contrast curve and Presence settings can be saved in a development preset and automatically applied during image input. I find applying a suitable preset including autotone essential in allowing me to rate images from a shoot immediately after input, deleting any that are unusable, and deciding which are worth keeping and which of those I need to bother to process straight away.

LR makes this easy. The Delete key, then D gets rid of the unwanted, and number keys rate 1 for keep, 2 for process. When I’ve gone through the set I can then choose to display only those images with ratings of 2 or more and get down to development.

You can then keep most of the panels in the development panel closed. Those essential to have open are the Histogram, Basic and Lens Correction. You can Right Click on the panel and uncheck the others to save having to scroll on the Development panel, I also like to keep the Tone Curve in the panel but closed as I occasionally find I need to use it. So the right hand edge of my screen now looks like the image at right.

Development

If you haven’t got a good screen set up using a monitor calibration device such as the Pantone i1, rush out and buy one before you try to process another image. Without doing this, you are wasting your time trying to get images right as you have no way of knowing if they are correct or not.

1. Color Balance

Check visually for colour balance, and, if necessary adjust either using the two sliders or by using the eye-dropper on a neutral in the image. A lot of photographers bitch about colour balance (and this week’s BJP even suggests the problems they have are an important reason why it’s now trendy to have black and white weddings) but I think we’ve never had it so good. The D200 certainly gets it spot on using auto white balance about 98 pictures out of a 100 for me. Perhaps you other guys are using the wrong camera!

2. Remove Chromatic Aberration

Zoom to 3:1 (T toggles the Tool bar.) Look for a high contrast edge as close to the edge of the frame as you can find, and click to zoom in on it. Examine for any chromatic aberration – and most zoom lenses have plenty. Start by moving the slider which controls the most apparent colour – for example if you see red and green fringes use the red/cyan slider, shifting it until the fringing looks blue/yellow – then adjust the other. Generally you will see a distinct change in colour as you go through the correct point, but you may find that some compromise is needed, as vertical and horizontal edges may require different settings.

If you have significant colour fringing you can try the Defringe setting. This sometimes seems to work, but other times appears to have absolutely no effect.

3. Vignette
Click to go back to full image view and decide whether altering the vignetting will improve your picture. Use the J key to turn clipping on and off. (If your import preset didn’t include Auto Tone, use it now.)

Most lenses vignette to some extent naturally, but as in black and white printing, many colour images are improved by a little vignetting which helps to stop the eye wandering. But for most purposes it should not be obvious.

Reduce the Recovery level set by the auto tone to zero so you can see how vignetting can help with highlight clipping. It usually provides the best way to deal with over-bright skies (assuming you exposed so they didn’t entirely burn out.) Don’t worry too much if this makes the lower edge areas of the picture too dark, with some blue clipping. Usually its best to use relatively moderate negative amounts of vignetting and move the midpoint slider more to the left to avoid an obvious vignette. If any highlight clipping remains, click the auto tone button again.

4. Examine the histogram
Generally you want no gaps at either end of the histogram but the curve should slope down to zero exactly at each end. The example shown above is just about OK at the highlight (right end) but shows a little clipping at the shadow end. In practice a small empty gap at the highlight end isn’t a problem and is necessary with some images, but any gap at the shadow end will usually make images look ‘weak’.

5. Adjust Highlight end of Histogram

If there is any highlight clipping, reduce the exposure setting to remove it. Aim to get the curve just going down to zero at the extreme right. In general it seems best to use the lowest Recovery setting you can to get this, almost always less than the ‘auto’ result. Don’t worry if the image looks too dark, get the histogram right.

Don’t worry about small specular highlights – such as reflections of the sun or your flash on metal or glass surfaces. They may be vital to give your picture some ‘sparkle’ but otherwise if they need to be removed this is a matter for retouching rather than development.

6. Adjust Shadow end of Histogram

This step, which gets the blacks right, is generally simple. Change the black setting until the histogram appears to come down to zero at the left edge. There should still be some small areas of blue clipping shown on the image, and you can remove all except those for the deepest black shadows by increasing the fill (usually if not always left at 0 by Auto tone.) In my example this meant reducing Blacks to 4 and adding a Fill Light of 7.

7. Adjust the brightness and contrast

Aim simply to to get the image looking right – and this is a matter involving judgement and taste. If you have used large values of Fill or Recovery you are likely to need to increase contrast, but otherwise I find the values set automatically are often just a little high.

8. Fine Tuning
If you make large changes to Brightness in particular you may find you need to go back and change some of the other settings, basically another iteration of the process that started in step 4. Altering most of the ‘Basic’ settings can lead to changes that mean you need to do a little fine tuning on others, but the order I’ve listed them here seems to have a cetain logic that makes things easier to understand.

9. Dust and Red-Eye
Unless you have dust spots that need (N) removing or red-eye that needs correction, that’s it – your image is ready for output.

=====================

All that took quite a lot of writing, but it takes less than a minute to carry it out on a typical image. If you have a series of similar images, you can of course use the ‘Previous’ button to apply the same settings when you look at the next image, which is a good time-saver, even if the result is not exactly correct it is often simply a matter of altering the exposure.

Peter Marshall

Golden Full Moon in Soho

From Golders Green I travelled on to Soho and started to look and listen for the Hare Krishna procession to mark the Gaura Purnima festival. Around 500 years ago in West Bengal, Krishna put in an appearance as the Lord Caitanya, and encouraged everyone to chant and sing the name of Krishna. The practice came to London and other western cities in the 1960s with the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) and became a part of hippie culture (if not usually lifestyle.)

I finally heard the sounds as I walked up Regent Street close to Oxford Circus, and turned the corner to see the procession with dancers, musicians and a large chariot pulled by people on ropes coming along Oxford Street.

Regent St

Although you can’t normally photograph sounds, the noisiest parts of processions – and demonstrations – are often visually the more interesting too. People simply walking are less interesting than people dancing or playing musical instruments.

Musicians

I photographed the procession as it went down Regent Street and past Piccadilly Circus, where a clash of culture appeared between religion and the Mammon of the billboards , and on to Leicester Square.

The procession stopped here for a little ceremony and a short sermon. I watched as incense was burned, and flowers passed reverently around and their fragrance savoured.

I left them still chanting in the square and went to the pub, despite an invitation to join them in the meal at which they would break their fast. I’d had my sandwiches on the underground on the way to the event, and didn’t feel too attracted to a lifestyle that means giving up on alcohol, caffeine, meat, fish, eggs, onions and garlic, mushrooms and sex (apparently allowed only for the purpose of procreation within marriage.)

More pictures 

Purim

As well as being Good Friday, last Friday was also the Jewish festival of Purim, which celebrates the saving of the Jewish people while in exile in Persia by Esther. Orphaned as a child she was brought up by her older cousin Mordecai. When King Ahasuerus fell out with his Queen and organised a beauty contest to find a replacement, Mordecai encouraged Esther to enter, advising her to hide the fact that she was Jewish. She won and became Queen Esther, and Mordecai gained a minor position in court, where he did well.

Golders Green

Haman, the villain of the story, became chief minister, and fell out with Mordecai who refused to bow down before him as he expected. Haman decided to kill all the Jews, persuading the king that they were a people who obeyed different laws and should not be tolerated in his kingdom, and he made plans for them all to be killed.

Mordecai persuaded Esther she must see the king and plead for mercy – as she too would have been killed. It was tricky as anyone who went to see the king without his invitation – even a queen – was likely to be executed on the spot. She fasted three days before risking a visit, but fortunately he was pleased to see her. Later she told him about Haman’s plans and that she would be one of those killed; he was appalled and granted mercy. But he had already allowed Haman to make the orders in his name, and they could not be annulled. Instead he made a new decree, allowing the Jews to defend themselves against the killers – which they did with great effect, killing 70,00 and hanging Haman on the gallows that he had built for Mordechai.

Golders Green 2

The Purim celebrations include wearing fancy dress, and I photographed the people at at Camp Simcha Purim fun bus in Golders Green for half and hour or so, and you can see more of the pictures on My London Diary.

Good Friday

Last year I photographed four rather different events of Christian witness on Good Friday in different parts of London – including council estates, a main railway terminus, a shopping centre and a traditional ceremony at one of the oldest Anglican churches in London.

Butterworth Charity
Good Friday: Distribution of the Butterworth Charity, St Bartholemew the Great, Smithfield, London. April 6, 2007

This year I managed only one, the other half of the North Lambeth and District Good Friday Walk of Witness, which made its way around the area by Waterloo Road and The Cut to meet up with those coming from the Imperial War Museum to the service in Waterloo station.

St John's Waterloo
St John’s, Waterloo
We started at St John’s Church on the Waterloo Road, a fine Greek Revival building, leaving by the gate at the back of the churchyard and walking to the modern St Andrew’s in Short Street and on to the square opposite the Old Vic theatre. After a short service there the procession led on to Waterloo Station and a longer service with the other group in the middle of the forecourt.

Druid Spring

Tower Hill

Easter weekend has been long and busy for me and I’m only now beginning to catch up. Thursday was the start of Spring, marked this year with biting northerly winds, threats of snow and some bouts of cold driving rain.

The Order of Druids were lucky that the rain held off until the end of their Spring Equinox celebration at Tower Hill, but their long file back to their starting place was through the rain.

Through the subway

As always when photographing in rain, it was hard to avoid the odd drop on the front of the lens, giving some diffusion – as you can see in a couple of areas of this picture. With a wide-angle lens, you can’t use a lens hood that will effectively protect against rain, and when the wind is sweeping the rain fairly close to horizontal umbrellas are tricky to hold and rather ineffectual. Working without an assistant they get rather in the way in any case.

Like most photojournalists in similar conditions I work with a microfibre cloth or chamois leather, wiping the front of the lens at frequent intervals and keeping the cloth balled in front of the lens with my hand in front of it when not taking pictures. But there is still the second or so when you actually frame the image for the rain to descend.

At such times I always think of the Martin Parr book, Bad Weather, in which he sought out the effects of water drops on the lens, flash bounce from rain and snow and more, often working with an underwater camera for the purpose. Interesting though the pictures are, I think few editors would have the vision to see it in his way. But perhaps the main thing that makes the pictures I took of the Spring Equinox this year differ from those I made last year is the weather. There is after all something timeless about the Druids, whose origins stretch back into the deepest ancient history even if the particular order I was photographing was only inaugurated for the Autumn Equinox at Primrose Hill in 1717!

Phillip Jones Griffiths 1936-2008

Phillip Jones Griffiths died yesterday at his home in London, aged 72. 

You can read more about him on the Magnum Blog, in a short tribute by Stuart Franklin, which links to a number of his Magnum features, as well as to an obituary in the New York Times by Randy Kennedy. Franklyn quotes his former Magnum colleague of many years, Henri Cartier-Bresson, who was also one of his great photographic inspirations, as writing what is perhaps the best epitaph for him some years ago:

“not since Goya has anyone portrayed war like Philip Jones Griffiths”

Jones Griffiths had been suffering from cancer for some time, but had continued to organise his work and to lecture until very recently – including a talk in London a couple of months ago.

I posted only this morning about the new Magnum WARS set of four features inspired by his work and including him with four of Magnum’s best war photographers of the current generation, and a couple of weeks ago about an interview with him, and I’d previously written several times about his work, including a fairly lengthy section in a short online history of war photography.

He was a man whose photography – and life – always asked questions, didn’t accept the accepted wisdom, the status quo, but as Kennedy’s obit ends, always wanted his photography “to say to say ‘Why?’”

More Camera Porn

One of the problems I seem to be getting more and more is a failure of autofocus on my Nikon D200. In the old days of course we all focussed manually, but this is actually a lot harder with modern cameras and lenses. We used to shoot mainly with fast (or fast-ish) primes – my standard SLR kit included a 28mm f2.8, 50mm f1.8, 105mm f2.8 and 200mm f4, but nowadays that whole set is usually replaced by a 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 which goes a bit further as well as filling all the gaps (and weighs about the same.) Larger apertures means brighter focussing screen images – and a more decisive ‘snap’ in and out of focus. And of course the smaller sensor – and thus smaller focussing screen also dims the image.

Factor in too my age and dimming eyesight, along with rather poor manual focus rings on modern autofocus lenses and manual focus for me now tends to be for emergencies only when I’m working with a DSLR. Generally I rely on autofocus, but one of my problems is perhaps that the D200 seems to have so many options. I have to admit that I’ve only intentionally used a few of them – perhaps some of the others would be more suitable.

There is a nice switch on the front left of the camera, at the bottom of the lens box, which has 3 nice, straightforward settings, labelled C, S, and M for continuous, single and manual. The only problem I have with this is that it’s too easy for us compulsive button-fiddlers to move it to the wrong setting – particularly manual, and its then possible, especially in poor light, to take lots of out-of-focus pictures before you notice.

Then on the back is another less scrutable 4 position lever, with icons that could mean anything. The only one I really understand is square braces inside square braces, which stands for ‘Single Area AF’ and means the camera focusses using the focus area you tell it to (and is indicated in the viewfinder.) It was perhaps not the best choice for the chaos outside the Chinese embassy, as the manual indicates it best suits static compositions where the subject stays in the selected focus area.

Perhaps I would have been better off with ‘Dynamic Area AF’ which can use focus information from other focus areas, but doesn’t indicate it is doing so, or with ‘Group Dynamic AF’ or even ‘Dynamic Area AF with closest subject priority’, but unfortunately I didn’t have the manual with me to weigh up the options (page 54) though it would certainly have let me identify the icons (I’d find say S, D, G, C much easier to remember.)

Of course, once you’ve assimilated all that there are a number of custom functions related to all this – a1 to a10 – and given a few hours I might sort out the best combination taking everything into account. It would actually have been a lot easier just to get out the Leica and get on with the job, perhaps with that nice fast 35mm f1.4!

Actually I’m beginning to think that perhaps the D200 (or lens) may be in need of some kind of service, as well as casting my eyes more and more over the reviews of the D300. There’s a good one fairly recently appeared by Thom Hogan , one of the few reviewers on the web whose opinions I take seriously (one of the best-known others is really just a clown and believes that there isn’t a lot of point in shooting RAW – well perhaps there isn’t for the sort of pictures he likes to post.) Of course Digital Photography Review is pretty hot for the technical kind of stuff (so far as they go) and they’ve also recently reviewed the D300, but Hogan is a photographer who takes reviewing very seriously – even to the extent of taking cameras to bits. (One other guy worth reading is Sean Reid, but his site is a subscription site, and costs $32.95 per year – and well worth it if you have an interest in the gear he reviews.)

Hogan also writes extensive e-books on cameras, though I can’t tell you what they are like – when I was writing for what was then one of the most popular photography sites on the web I did write asking for a review copy of one, but never even got a reply! So I reviewed a couple of those from another author instead. But I suspect Hogan’s might be better.

One of the other things I didn’t write about when I was the guide to ‘About Photography‘ was so-called ‘glamour photography‘, although the reasons there were different, and one thing I don’t miss are the regular and frequent e-mails I used to get from several people in that sordid business telling me they were God’s greatest gift to photography and that I should be featuring them on my site. Frankly, it’s boring formulaic crap, and the slicker it is, the more boring.

Today I was reminded just how sordid it can be by a mention on ‘Conscientious‘ of a blog with a posting entitled How To Photograph Nude Women, For Free. I won’t give the link given there on this site, as I can’t think of any reason to recommend this to any photographer, but if you know any young women who might be thinking of becoming a model, I’d suggest they read it and beware. It really is the kind of thing that gives photography a bad name, and even makes the actual porno industry look respectable.

St Patrick comes to London

St Patrick outside Shell HQ

St Patrick came to London, bringing with him a rather large pipeline, which his friends from environmental and social justice movement Gluaiseacht tried to take into the Shell HQ near Waterloo.

Pipeline at Shell HQ

Shell have the major share in the Corrib Gas Project in Mayo, Ireland, given away at a bargain price by the Irish government, and the associated high pressure pipeline and refinery will pollute the local countryside. Around half the Irish protesters were from Mayo, and they brought the pipeline to Shell’s HQ to remind them, in the words of one of the many songs sung during the protest, ‘Shell Sells Suicide’, that “they forgot about the will of the people, and the people of Mayo say “No, no, no, no, no, no, no… ” There was music and dancing too, and despite a chill wind around those drearily Soviet-style blocks of the Waterloo steppes it felt good, as you can I think see from the pictures.

Brent St Patrick’s Day Parade

Another St Patrick, slightly older, was at Willesden Green for the Brent St Patrick’s Day Parade later in the day, and you can see his picture on My London Diary along with others from the event. I have to admit I enjoyed photographing the women at the event more than the saint, and here are a few of them – more of course on MLD.

Brent St Pat's Day Parade
Sorting out the Irish county flags
Brent St Pat's Parade
Waiting for the start of the parade
Brent - Celebrating difference

I think this last image says something about one of London’s most culturally diverse Boroughs, which celebrates Diwali, Eid and other festivals as well as St Patrick’s Day.

Tibetans protest in London

Looking at the work by some of the great Magnum war photographers makes me realise more strongly than ever that I’m not cut out to be a war photographer. Cowardice is one reason, though anyone who doesn’t have a healthy dose of this in their make-up is perhaps unlikely to survive long. But I think that perhaps I’m rather to timid a guy for the job, and, as I got a reminder on Monday, too ready to panic under pressure.

I was photographing the Tibetan protest opposite the Chinese Embassy, timed to coincide with the Chinese government ultimatum to Lhasa protesters to give themselves up or face serious reprisals (whereas one suspects that anyone who did give themselves up would simply be beaten up, tortured, imprisoned and quite likely shot.)

I’d arrived rather late, having been taking pictures at Willesden Green and suffering a slight delay on the underground, so had missed the silence at 4pm but it probably wouldn’t have made a good photograph. It was certainly a very noisy even by the time I arrived, and I spent quite a while mingling with the demonstrators shouting at the embassy across the road, photographing with both a semi-fisheye and the ultra-wide end of the 12-24mm.

Where I wanted to be – and along with other photographers really needed to be was in the empty area just in front of the line of barriers in front of the protest. But that nice empty traffic-free area was being guarded by 3 policemen with orders not to let the press in, though I did sneak a couple of images from close to both ends.

Police like to keep things simple. Nice neat lines, two sides – cops and robbers , or in this case, cops and protesters. Despite those nice “agreed guidelines”, photographers are just a nuisance. I was just wondering whether to make a complaint to the officer in charge or just go home (it was around 5pm, the light was beginning to fail, and I’d had a long day, so the latter seemed preferable as although I think we should complain on principle, in practice it never gets you anywhere) when a Tibetan guy with a flag rushed across the road in front of me and made across the road for the door of the Chinese Embassy.

Tibetan Flag at Chinese Embassy

So of course I rushed after him, and got a shot – if from a little too far away – of him waving the flag as he was stopped by the four officers on duty. ISO 800, 1/125 at f4.8 – wide open – at 60mm (90mm equiv) on the 18-200. Almost sharp too.

Behind me I were other Tibetan youths who had knocked down the barriers and followed him, and I was able to get into better position as police and stewards tried to stop them.

Tibetans rush towards the Embassy

This is wide open at 18mm (27mm equiv), and 1/125 again, and sharp enough to read both officers’ shoulder numbers, and the little motion blur probably improves it.

There were a few decent frames in the chaos that followed, but looking back though the whole shoot I seem to have made too many exposures at the wrong time, got far too much camera shake (though of course some caused by being pushed in the crowd) and taken far too little thought. In a word, panic.

Fortunately there was enough left to make a decent story, or at least I think so – you can see it in My London Diary.

Of course other photographers also panic and get things wrong, though they may have considerably better reason to do so. Robert Capa on that D-Day beach had an incredible hail of unfriendly kinetic activity inches above his head, and its hardly surprising he didn’t raise it too much. I often wonder quite how much of the distress that lifts those images out of the norms of photojournalistic syntax into their powerful expressionism was the result of a quaking photographer rather than of the melting admiration of the unfortunate darkroom technician. When ‘LIFE‘ ran them in 1944 with a caption about the ‘immense excitement‘ of the moment making ‘photographer Capa move his camera and blur‘ it quite likely told a little of the story, although ‘excitement’ was probably not the most appropriate word. Capa after all was human, and like most of the rest of us would have been shit scared.