Watching photographers: Sang Tan

When I first started taking pictures regularly of events in London, one of the first photographers I got to know was the late Mike Cohen (1935-2002), whose pictures were regularly used in socialist publications, particularly the Morning Star. Photographers often spend considerable time waiting for things to happen, and we often found ourselves together discussing politics and photography.

You can learn a lot about other photographers by watching how they work – where they chose to stand, how they move around a situation, how they interact with the people they are photographing… Of course most of the time at events I’m busy watching the way the event is developing and thinking where I should be, and how I might get a different picture… But you can’t help seeing what other photographers are doing, and getting some idea of how they work.

And of course, they are watching you. Certainly most of us know the feeling of finding a situation and working with it, only to realise ten seconds later that there are photographers on both sides as well as one shooting over our shoulder and another crouching in front or shooting between our legs. Its best to take it as a compliment rather than worry about it, and of course it’s one we are likely to claim repayment for before too long when we see another photographer who appears to have found something interesting.

Mike was a guy who knew who everyone was – he’d photographed working class struggles for over 30 years – and was always a great source of information. He once paid me what I think was a compliment, describing my way of working as ‘fly fishing’ whearas he was a coarse angler, getting in there and working away. His approach was certainly a reliable method of landing some big fish. Unfortunately little if any of his great record of events over the years is available on-line.

Another photographer I meet occasionally at events is Sang Tan, and watching him work it is clear that he is thinks carefully and differently about his pictures, often finding a unique way to approach a subject. He seems to be keeping very busy lately – and looking at the editorial portfolio on his new web site, the reason is clear.

The pictures there include work from several events I also covered (see My London Diary) and while I may have taken some pretty decent snaps, his usually have an unusual clarity and vision. He also covers many of the kind of high-profile events I like to avoid (or can’t get into – and usually both apply) which make his work much more commercially publishable.

Also on the web site is another side of his work, black and white street photography. We’ve seen a lot of nonsense in the past couple of years about a new street photography in London, as if there were not many photographers around who have been – and still are – working in the genre. And, as this site clearly demonstrates, producing considerably more interesting work than has been in those recent ‘new‘ shows.

Of course one of the many problems that photography still suffers in the UK is extremely partially sighted curators. Speaking about John Benton-Harris‘s move from the USA to London in the late 1960s in Poland recently, I talked about him “moving from a New York where he knew everyone who was everyone in photography, to a country where there was nobody to know.” Forty years on I’m not sure things have really changed that much.

Peter Marshall

What do you wish you’d known?

EPUK (Editorial Photographers UK) had the great idea of asking a selection of their members what they wished they had known when they started in the business. As might be expected, they got some rather varied answers, including one from the guy who regrets keeping “the can of compressed air, the can of WD-40 and the can of spray mount on the same shelf“.

 

Had he read my advice, he would have known he should in any case have been using a Hurricane or Rocket Blower on his sensor and not wasting the planet on doubtful products, which are tricky to remove. And almost certainly non-archival, though that was probably the least of his worries.

 

You might like to guess some of the other things before you go to the article. But while there, don’t miss the link to Sqweegee’s Blog on the site. The latest posting is about the Plodshop Creative Suite, “developed by Warren Terror Software, is designed to address major security issues in industry standard photo manipulation software such as Adobe Photoshop and Tesco PhotoRestyle.”

Lens Care

So often I come across something on the web and think who are these people write such nonsense. So I wasn’t surprised to find a piece on lens cleaning, written by a person described as a “successful author” which didn’t really offer a great deal of sensible advice for the practical photographer. But it did make me want to write more about the subject. Below you’ll find sections on Lens Handling, Lens Changing and Cleaning Lenses, all vital parts of the photographic process for the practical photographer.

When shooting with digital, I’ve had – or at least noticed – more problems with dirty lenses. Perhaps it is the shorter focal lengths of DX format cameras that make the defects more visible, or just the fact that now I view every image at around 15×10 inches on a high quality computer monitor makes minor defects jump out.

Digital has in some respects led to us demanding more, although I think this is only part of a changing attitude. Looking at an original Edward Weston image in a show a while ago, I was shocked by the number blemishes in this otherwise superb contact print. Even when printing from film, I would have taken a spotting-brush and dye to the more prominent of the largely white dust spots. Photoshop and other software of course makes this require considerably less skill – and in particular allows us to correct any mistakes we make.

Spots on digital images come from dirt on the sensor rather than the lens, but muck there can lead to unsharp areas, diffuse darker regions and excessive diffusion from highlights – more serious problems that can be hard or impossible to correct, as well as lower overall contrast.

We need to get into good habits of lens handling – particularly when using interchangeable lenses – to avoid getting lenses dirty, as well as learning good methods and practices to clean them once they are dirty.

Lens Handling

  • always keep rear lens caps on lenses when not on camera;
  • always use a UV or similar filter on the front of lenses where this is possible;
  • for lenses with protruding front elements, use a suitable lens cap when not in use;
  • inspect front and rear elements of all lenses for dirt before every photographic session;
  • practice lens-changing and adopt a simple, effective procedure (see below);
  • always check and clean immediately if necessary when you think you may have put a finger on a glass surface.
  • if possible, use a lens hood – its most important job is keeping fingers etc away from the glass;

Lens Changing

A sensible and consistent lens-changing procedure can save time and reduce the amount of dust reaching the sensor as well as making dirt and fingermarks on lens surfaces less likely. It helps if all lenses, cameras and rear lens caps have clear markings for lining them up – and if necessary it can be worth adding these – or making them clearer – with a paintbrush and a small dab of paint (or nail varnish or correcting fluid etc.)

Exactly how you do this will depend on your camera and working conditions. I use cameras that allow easy one-handed removal and insertion of lenses when the camera is on a strap around my neck (Nikon and Leica.) Here is how I do it on the Nikon:

  1. Put front lens cap on camera lens (most lenses I don’t use one.)
  2. Switch camera off (Nikon says so, but to be honest I don’t usually bother)
  3. Take new lens from bag with left hand, align its marker correctly to fit the camera, remove rear lens cap with right hand and hold it in right palm with little third and little finger.
  4. Grab the lens on camera with my right hand. The second finger can press the lens release button while you hold the lens to remove it. With practice you don’t drop the rear lens cap!
  5. Move the new lens in your left had into position, insert and twist to lock.
  6. Use your left hand to put the rear cap on the lens you’ve just removed; if you use a front cap, replace that, and put the lens away.
  7. Remove any lens cap from the lens on camera, store suitably (those I have live in the compartment in the bag for the lens when not on them.)
  8. Inspect front lens (or filter) surface for dirt, clean if needed. If you switched the camera off, you now need to switch it on.

It seems complex when you write it down, but is really fast and simple to do with a little practice. If you are not using your camera on a neck-strap, you really need to find a suitable clean surface on which to rest camera and lenses during changes – if I’m carrying my bag, the open bag will do.

Of course the fastest and cleanest way to change lenses is not to change lenses, but to have each on a separate body. I often worked this way with film and a couple of SLR or rangefinder bodies. But the digital SLR bodies I’ve used are a bit larger and I find it too encumbering to have a pair in use.

Lens Cleaning

Rule 1 is don’t – unless you have to. But be paranoid about checking they are clean.

Lens cleaning should always be a two-stage process:

Stage 1: remove any loose dirt or grit;
Suitable tools include a rubber bulb blower and brushes.
If you use brushes you must ensure they are kept clean and particularly they are free from grease – some retract into a plastic cover, others can be kept in a resealable plastic bag or box. Brush lightly holding the lens so dust will fall down away from it.

If you have nothing else with you, a good strong blow is better than nothing; you will get some spit on the lens, but this will (and must) be removed in the next stage.

This stage is vital, as any grit left in place can damage the lens surface in the next step.

Stage 2: remove grease and other adhering dirt;
Camera stores sell microfibre lens cleaning cloths, together with various liquid lens cleaners.
You can also use a ‘Lens Pen‘ which incorporates a brush for stage 1 cleaning and a chamois pad with graphite for stage 2.

Keep cleaning cloths in a resealable plastic bag or box. Normally you should put one or two drops of cleaner on to a part of the cloth, then wipe the lens gently. Then remove cleaner and dirt with a dry part of the cloth. Never put more than a single drop of cleaner on a lens – they can run down and get inside lenses, possibly dissolving glues and greases, damaging the lenses and also putting dirty on interior surfaces.

Lens Pens are effective and very convenient when on the move, but need replacing perhaps every six months or more frequently if you use them much. Normally you need to breath on the lens before using the pen. (Be warned, there are imitations of the original Lens Pen some of which may be ineffectual or even harmful.)

If you have nothing else with you, any clean soft cloth is better than nothing. Many of my shirts usually fall into this category!

Other Cleaning Methods

Rain Drops are not something I recommend for cleaning lenses, but another hazard on your lenses when taking pictures. I carry a large microfibre cloth, sold cheaply for general cleaning in a ‘pound store’, about 12″ square, for gently mopping the lens. Again it has a plastic bag to keep it clean when not in use.

Or you can be like Martin Parr in ‘Dirty Weather‘ and just enjoy the distorting effect of the drops. Unfortunately it’s less likely that any clients will love it. Unless you are Martin Parr.

Spring Clean: Although not really suitable for routine cleaning, products such as Opti-Clean are remarkable for restoring lenses to an ‘as-new’ state. This is a liquid that you paint onto the lens, letting it run down and cover the surface. It rapidly dries to form a polymer coat that can then be peeled off, taking the dirt with it.

Opti-clean must never be used on plastic lenses, and you also should avoid it coming into contact with the plastic parts of some lens bodies.

Nikon D3 – Three month trial report

I can’t really justify getting a Nikon D3 – I’m just not making enough out of photography for my accountant (if I could afford one) to think it a good idea. But I am sorely tempted, in particular by its apparently superb performance at high ISO.

I’m not really an equipment freak – despite the fact that I have around 20 cameras of different shapes, types and sizes. Each of them was bought because it enabled me to do something a little differently – and many of them were bought cheaply second-hand. Quite a few have been used close to extinction – and would fetch nothing were I to bother to sell.

But I actually don’t like to get rid of things. Even though its several years since I used my Minolta CLE or Mamiya 7, I still feel that one day I might put a roll of film into one of them and go out on the streets again. Though it’s perhaps not really likely.

One guy who has had a D3 for 3 months is Dave Black, a great sports photographer from the USA who Nikon lent one, asking him to use it to “photograph sports under difficult low light situations in gymnasiums, ice halls and outdoor venues.” You can see some of the results and read his opinions on the camera for sports photography in this month’s ‘Workshop at the Ranch‘ feature on his web site.

Black gets really excited about the possibilities offered by this camera. He says the performance at ISO 6400 is better than the D2X at ISO 400 – more or less the same in the shadow areas, but higher quality in the lighter tones. Even at Hi1 (ISO 12,800) the quality is good enough for newspapers and magazines, although of course at lower ISOs it is better – simply stunning. He discusses some of the ways it can change the way that he works, including making it possible for him to use fast shutter speeds and a full range of apertures in shutter priority mode for events where parts of the playing area are in deep shadow, as well as being able to use slower lenses and tele-converters.

In another area of his site, this month’s ‘On the Road‘ looks at the D3 and some fashion and landscape work, including some lengthy night exposures made possible by the lack of noise.

Black sees the D3 as a quantum leap in photographic quality, a “a land mark development in photographic history” as important as “the motor drive, auto focus and even the digital revolution we enjoy today.” It’s easy to feel that he is letting himself get a little carried away, but difficult given his results not to go at least a part of the road with him.

At the moment, I’m generally happy with the results from the D200, certainly at moderate ISO, but although ISO800 is generally usable, and even ISO1250 will do with good noise reduction software, it is certainly best to stick to lowish sensitivity. Combined with a general lack of fast wide-angles, this is sometimes limiting (the 20mm f2.8 isn’t bad, even at full aperture, but isn’t particularly fast – or very wide on a DX format camera.)

What really puts me off the D3 – and why my name isn’t down on the waiting list yet – is not the cost, but the weight and bulk compared to the D200 (or D300.) I also have a feeling that a significant part of the improved image quality of the D3 isn’t actually down to the larger sensor, but to better sensor design and better processing. If I can hang on a couple of years, the D400 may be almost as good, two thirds or less of the weight and one third of the price. But of course the one confident prediction about any digital camera is that however ground-breaking it may seem now, in a few years time it will appear old-hat.

Paris Photo

Next week I’ll be at Paris Photo, a vast trade fair for galleries and publishers held in the rather claustrophobic underground Carrousel du Louvre in the centre of Paris and open to the public 15-18 November. I’m looking forward to it, but with some trepidation – last year I suffered a panic attack at one point and had to run for the fresh air.

It is big. 104 exhibitors from 17 countries – 83 galleries and 21 publishers. Some of the stands are pretty large, with hundreds of pictures on display – others smaller or having very large pictures. 40 of the best-known photographic magazines from around the world are there too, along with a special exhibition of Italian photography, and two major photographic prizes, the Prix BMW – Paris Photo and the Prix SFR Jeunes Talents (you can click on the names to see their work.) The Prix BMW, this year on the theme of ‘water’, has an illustrious list of photographers entered by the exhibitors at Paris Photo, including Alessandra Sanguinetti, Wout Berger, Trent Parke and Boris Mikhailov, and the winner will be announced at the show.

It is also an opportunity to meet many photographers, including over 30 who will be signing their books at the show. I’ll also be hoping to see a number of friends among the artists, dealers and others at the show – and perhaps even at a party or two or in one of the bars in the area around.

I’m there for 3 days – or at least parts of 3 days, as it’s best seen in a number of visits, with some time out to stroll around the city and do other things.

You can get a little idea of the range of work on show there – even if you can’t make it to Paris – by looking at the show preview on the Lens Culture site, which includes 120 images from the show, which you can see either by using the ‘next’ button or going into gallery view to see the thumbnails.

Attend a Masterclass

Sit down in front of your computer at 17:00 CET on 8 November (today, and I think that’s 16.00 GMT) and you can enjoy one of the renowned World Press Photo Joop Swart master-classes. It’s a great privilege to be one of the 12 promising young photojournalists invited to attend these classes which are given by some of the best press photographers from around the world, and this is the first occasion on which the lecture given there has been made available live to a wider audience. The address is: http://worldpressphoto.kanaal11.tv

Don’t worry if you miss it live – you will also be able to see the 1.5hr session at the site at any time from Nov 9 – Nov 15. To view the programme you will need a broadband connection and Windows Media Player, version 6.4 or later.

Giving the lecture is David Burnett. He graduated from Colorado College in political science in 1968, starting in photography the previous year as an intern at Time Magazine. He became a freelance for Time, and then for Life, at first in the USA, and then covering the Vietnam war. When Life folded , he joined the French agency Gamma. In 1976 founded the New York based Contact Press Images with Robert Pledge. He has worked in over 75 countries and as well as having his photojournalism published in all the major US and European general feature magazines and has also worked on advertising campaigns for some major clients, including Kodak and the US Army.

In 1973, Burnett, together with Raymond Depardon and Charles Gerretsen, covered the coup in Chile for Gamma, winning the ‘Robert Capa Award’ of the Overseas Press Club of America, which is given for the “best published photographic reporting from abroad requiring exceptional courage and enterprise. In 1979 he won the World Press Photo of the Year. He’s also been Magazine Photographer of the Year in the Pictures of the Year competition, and gained many other awards.

Some of his more interesting pictures in recent years – including a splendid image of Al Gore campaigning in 2001 – were taken with a cheap plastic Holga camera (though he did also shoot more conventionally in colour – and Newsweek apparently didn’t want to look at his black and white work.) You can see a very wide range of his work on this own web site.

Cafe Ideal, Cool Blondes and Paradise

And now for something completely different, and yes, its also something I prepared earlier.

The first version of this work was I think was shown as colour prints in 1992, and I also made a book dummy at around that date. This particular selection of images dates from 1996 and first went on line in 2000. It comes from a very extensive project, certainly thousands of images, still in the files behind me. It was made as a work with 3 sections – Cafe Ideal, Cool Blondes and Paradise – each getting its title from one of the images in the section.

I was proud of the original web design, but it proved too difficult for many visitors in 2000. I wanted simplicity, with just the title graphic at top left, the image with its caption. The title is an image map and allows you to jump to the different sections, while clicking on the image takes you to the next picture (and will eventually take you through the whole work.)

When I got perhaps the twentieth message from an AoL user telling me they could only see a single page with one picture, I added text links at the left of the page to go to the different sections.

But I didn’t want to lose the simplicity of the navigation through the images. So I added some text to a front page on the site that told people what I had thought would be obvious. This front page also has a short introductory text to the work.

Perhaps some touches in it are too obvious – each section starts, for example with a door or gate – but I still like it. One day I’ll do another edit, going back to those files, and bring it out as a book, perhaps with some text.

Peter Marshall

The Golden Notebook

Notebooks have played important parts in my photography over the years, but the on that I’m thinking about now is perhaps Doris Lessing‘s finest book. I thought about it again a few weeks back when she was announced as the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize for literature, and more particularly when the author of one of the photo blogs I occasionally read celebrated the award by bemoaning the fact it had yet again not gone to his favourite American author.

As it happens Mr Colberg, I’m quite a fan of Philip Roth too, but had I been on that committee, my choice would still have gone to Ms Lessing, who after all did publish one of the more significant novels of the twentieth century 45 years ago in 1962. Her award can hardly be said to be premature.

I’m not sure what her novel itself has to tell us about photography directly, although I think it gives some interesting insights into the theme of subjectivity and the place of the artist in society which are germane, as well as more importantly, being an interesting read. With the paperback edition at almost 600 pages you do however need a fairly large pocket to carry it with you on your travels – which is where I have the time to do most of my reading.

But the author’s preface, some 16 or so pages added in 1971, is more directly relevant, because it deals – as well as with this particular book – with the role of critics and criticism, and with the stultifying effect of our worldwide systems of education on both the enjoyment and production of literature. Unless you are Rip Van Winkle and have just awoken after rather more than his 20 years, you will know that photography too has undergone a revolution, or perhaps rather a takeover by the academics, curators and critics in a not dissimilar fashion.

As Lessing describes, children from an early age are taught to think of everything in terms of success, of failure and comparison, as if literature (or photography) was a horse-race. They are also taught to mistrust their own judgement, and rather to find and rely on the opinions of authorities. What is educated out of us is the ability to be imaginative, to enjoy and to trust our own experiences and to make our own judgements.

It is a preface worth reading (although I never like to read prefaces, or at least not until after I’ve read the book. when I am in a position where I can decide what I think of the preface.) It’s also a book worth reading, but for different reasons, starting most importantly with enjoyment.

As someone who tries to write about photographs and photography, I often ask myself what I am doing and why. But certainly it has to start with the pictures and with my experience and then my analysis of that experience rather than from some kind of theoretical higher ground.
And when I read much critical writing by others, I often wonder whether the writer has ever stopped and really looked at the photographs they think they are writing about, and certainly am often sure they have never let themselves really experience them.

In my  talk in Bielsko-Biala last month, one of the many things in my performance that wasn’t in my script was reading a quotation from Lessing’s preface; partly because of its relevance to the developments in photography since the 1970s and to being a photographer, but also because what I was trying to do was to speak in a very personal manner, to share some of my own experiences and judgements about the work of other photographers as well as my own work. As I said there, unless your work is personal it isn’t worth doing, but if it is only personal it isn’t worth doing either.

Photographers’ Rights

When I was in Poland recently, I attended a meeting about the setting up of the Association of Polish Art Photographers, and my ears pricked up when there support for ‘Photographers’ Rights‘ was mentioned. I was a little disappointed to find out that they were largely concerned about copyright.

Copyright it a battle that photographers won many years ago, and our rights are generally clear and enshrined in international conventions, and even recognised in similar laws in most of those countries that have little truck with international conventions – such as the United States. Of course these are rights that need continual defence against rights grabs both direct by the big corporations and indirectly by them through the promotion of ‘orphan rights‘ and other similar proposals I’ve written about in the past.

Of course photographers often have skirmishes with individual organisations that use our work and somehow neglect to pay for the right to do so, and there are well-publicised cases of photographers who have made many thousands of pounds, often from just a few days of chasing up such abuse. Last year I made several hundred pounds myself, although mostly my work is used without permission by people with no funds to chase.

So copyright is essentially sorted, though vigilance is vital to keep it so. What interests me more are moral rights. Since I keep on coming across photographers who have no idea what moral rights are, I’ll explain them below, but unfortunately I have to start by saying that the UK 1988 Copyright Act, while introducing them, did so more or less to say that most publications – newspapers, magazines, yearbooks etc – could ignore them. News photographs were also specifically excluded from protection under the Act, and they do not exist for work which you did for which you were on a company payroll (but as with copyright will be yours if work was commissioned from you.)

Of course, where you are able to set a contract for the use of your work, such rights can be included in the terms of the contract, and certainly Magnum was set up in part to make sure that this was done.

Most Moral Rights, unlike copyright, also have to be asserted, by means of a suitable statement associated with the work – either on the work itself or in a contract or agreement for the use of the work (see below.) They also attach uniquely to the creator of the work during his/her life. Unlike copyright you cannot assign moral rights – although you can waive them by a written signed statement (read the small print on any contracts carefully, and cross out any such clauses if you can.) But while you are alive, no one else can claim them, whatever you sign. You can assign them in your will – and if you fail to do so, those you have asserted will automatically pass to whoever holds the copyright in your work.

So what are the moral rights that apply to photographers?

  • Attribution: the right to be identified as the maker of the work – to have your name clearly shown wherever and whenever the work is used.
  • Integrity / No Derogatory Treatment: the right not to have your work treated in a derogatory fashion – for example by cropping, distortion, additions or deletion.
  • No False Attribution: this right exists without the need to claim it, and covers the use of your name with work you did not create.

A further moral right which also concerns photographers is that of privacy. This restricts your use of pictures you have been commissioned by persons to produce which are of a personal or domestic nature. If you wish to show or use such commissioned work you should ensure you have written permission to cover your usage – a suitable model release.

IANAL – I’m not a lawyer – and if you want to use law you should take legal advice. But if you simply want to assert your moral rights, a statement such as ‘Peter Marshall asserts his moral rights as the creator of this work according to the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act, 1988′ is probably sufficient.

Any newspaper will of course provide copious examples of photographs were the moral rights of photographers are ignored (and of course even though the law does not make them enforceable, moral rights still exist.) I’d like to see a concerted effort by photographers to get all publications to recognise at least some of the moral rights of the people whose pictures they use.

We should start by demanding attribution. When dealing directly with publications I always do so; some photographers I know have a policy of asking for a payment of twice there normal rate if work is not attributed.

I’d also like to see a campaign to attack a different mode of false attribution, where images taken by photographers are credited simply to agencies. Getty, Corbis, Reuters, Alamy etc never took a photograph, and, except with older work where the name of the photographer was not recorded, I’d like to see the photographer’s name always given along with the agency.

Sutton Show

I don’t much relish hangings, even though fortunately those which I’ve experienced have been of an artistic nature. Today’s at Sutton Library in south London (or for those who still believe the Post Office, Surrey) was a rather lengthy slog, and the show with the hardly inspiring title ‘Eight Photographers‘ remains on show only until Nov 15th, and on the 16th gets taken down to make way for a barn dance.

So those of you inclined to venture south of the river (or who even live there) will need to get your skates on if you wish to see it (and don’t go on Monday as the library is closed.) My contribution is eight images from ‘My London Diary‘ chosen a little at random from the 24 that appeared earlier this year in ‘Another London‘ at Kingston Museum (or rather the 20 that were still in their frames, unsold.)


‘Kiss-It’ protest against violence in Mental Health treatment, London Feb 2005.

Among the other seven egos laid bare on the white walls are a number of photographers I’ve known for a long time, including Sam Tanner, whose images of his own mother’s last years are a sensitive, loving, poignant and very human document. David Malarkey has caught and enlarged the diffraction of light in a way that can be very striking, especially when glimpsed out of the corner of an eye, although they also have an unusual quality seen close to. Carol Hudson‘s four panoramic images come from her local street, and one which includes a startling pink pedestrian blur along with a static figure, other people and a bus particularly caught my attention. Tony Mayne was the only among us to have worked to give the show some particular local interest, his three blocks of nine images each showing people on the high street a few yards away. Also exhibiting are Nick Hale, Darren McCloy and Len Salem.

Sutton Library looks a superb library, in a new civic centre for the London Borough of Sutton, just off the High Street, a short walk from Sutton Station (it felt further when I was carrying 8 framed pictures.) It has a nice exhibition space, although unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a coherent arts programme there (and I certainly can’t find any details of this show on the London Borough of Sutton web site), and it is also used for other types of event – such as the barn dance. Ask Sutton not me if you want details of that.