Getting paid

Any professional photographer will have his or her own horror stories about the business of being a photographer. Unless you're a major name in advertising photography, or whatever, getting the work can be difficult. But there's another aspect which may be less obvious to the outsider: getting paid a reasonable fee for your work.

I get many approaches from magazines for editorial shoots. The exchange usually goes something like this:

Hi, I'm from XYZ Magazine. We're planning a feature on [insert subject]. We need a photographer for a whole day.

I duly confirm that I can do the job and that I'm available, then I ask how much they are paying. This elicits one of two possible responses.

Either: Well, our budget is really limited, so we're hoping that you'll do it for free. The exposure will be really good for you.

Or: Well, our budget is really limited. We can pay X. [where X is an absurdly low number that wouldn't even cover my gasoline for the day]

Two things about this nonsense irritate me. Firstly, the fact that these magazines set unrealistically low budgets for photography (and presumably for every other professional service they'll need). Secondly, the fact that this happens repeatedly indicates that there are (so-called) professional photographers out there who are accepting these offensively low rates, or working for free.

If you're one of those photographers: shame on you!

If you're one of those magazines: shame on you!

Parking madness

What is it about parking in Portugal? Portuguese drivers seem to think they can double-park wherever they want, blocking other people in.

My apartment is in a backstreet of Loulé. On the ground floor is a popular café and several solicitors' offices. On my side of the street cars park along the kerb. On the far side, there is a parking bay for cars to park perpendicular to the street. All day long cars arrive to visit the café or one of the offices and, if no parking place immediately outside their intended destination is available, they simply double-park, blocking in two or three legitimately parked cars. Naturally, when the owner of one of the blocked cars wants to leave, they lean on their horn to attract the attention of the offending driver. This means that, sitting here in my office, I have to listen to the insistent blasting of car horns all day long. And frequently, when I want to go out, I find myself blocked in by one of these arrogant idiots.

Furthermore, often when I arrive home in the middle of the day and wish to park, I find an empty parking slot blocked by a double-parked car - yes! they are even too lazy to turn into a vacant spot, preferring to block it and two other cars! I've even seen an offending driver come out from the café to let someone out, then reverse back into his original position, thereby blocking the now-empty spot from being used by anyone else!

When the offenders do eventually emerge to move their car they rarely, if ever, show any sign of remorse or guilt, or even haste. On the occassions when I have challenged them for their arrogance and rudeness, they bristle with offence at my anger, claiming variously that they "were only five minutes" or "this is how it's done in Portugal".

Well, enough is enough! I'm going to start a one-man campaign against these rude, arrogant morons. If the police won't help (which I strongly doubt they will), I'm going to print up some multi-lingual notices and spend a day or two gluing them to the windshields of offending parkers.

Does any other country suffer from this kind of pig-headed, self-centred rudeness by drivers?

Cinema Disgrace

Teresa and I are avid film fans. At home we have a ginormous plasma screen and regularly rent DVDs. We'd given up going to the cinema because our local establishment (an 8-screen complex in Algarve Shopping Centre, Guia - operated by a company called Castello Lopes) consistently disappointed us on every visit - poor focus, poor sound, pour ventilation, exhorbitant popcorn prices and so on.

But the new film about Queen Elizabeth I - The Golden Age tempted us back. What a mistake! Castello was once again spectacularly successful in spoiling our evening out. First, the men's toilets stank of stale urine. A neatly printed label above each urinal declared that the flushing mechanism had been disabled "to save water" and that instead there was a special chemical block with a "microbiological action" to ensure that everything would smell fresh and hygenic with just one flush per day. Well, Lusmundo management, it doesn't work - the toilets in a Moroccan bus station smell better. And when I pointed the problem out an employee in the foyer, he simply said "Yes, I know." So if he knew, presumably "the management" knew, and yet it still stank.

The next jab at one's sensibilities was the price of the popcorn and drinks - the Ritz in Paris wouldn't dare ask that much.

Once in our seats, it was quickly obvious that the auditorium ventilation was not operating - it was unpleasantly hot and stuffy. Since the outside temperature was mild, I guess they thought they could save money by not running the ventilation.

Then the film started and, guess what? It wasn't properly focussed. After an eye-straining ten minutes I got up and went to find a functionary to fix the problem. A few minutes later it was apparent that someone in the projection booth was attempting to set the focus correctly. The picture snapped into focus, then quickly blurred again. This was repeated three or four times over a five minute period. Then all activity stopped - with the picture still out of focus.

What's more, the projector appeared to be having a problem with it's power supply - the screen image was constantly flickering and oscillating in brightness.

At the interval, Teresa and I got up and walked out in disgust. We'll wait for the movie to come out on DVD. And we are never going back to any establishment owned by Castello Lopes - ever.

Did somebody actually listen to me?

As a follow-up to my earlier post on Languages and Locations, maybe it just a coincidence, or maybe somebody in Google actually read my post and acted on it.

Fact is, all of a sudden, the Blogger toolbar at the top of my blog (which was previously in Portuguese) is now in English!

Well done, Google!

War

Some of the most memorable photographs ever taken have been war images from the likes of Robert Capa, Don McCullin and W. Eugene Smith (to name some of my own heroes). The current conflict in the Middle East is also producing some outstanding photography, in spite of the obvious preference of the US media for images that glorify the combat and the combatants.

The capacity of an image to move a viewer greatly exceeds that of words, written or spoken. Yet today I found a quotation that seems to me to express perfectly the futility of war, a quotation that deserves to be displayed alongside the most telling images.

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.

- Jeannette Rankin

Languages and Locations

This one has been annoying me for some time now.

Every browser (i.e. Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.) has a setting allowing the user to specify their preferred language. Indeed, you can also specify additional languages so that a site can display itself in the first available language in your list. A simple mechanism, understood by all browsers and all web-servers.

More recently, a number of clever geeks have started selling software which locates you, the internet surfer, geographically, according to your current IP number - that being the "coded address" used by the internet to make all the magic happen. Being able to tell that a website visitor it located in Portugal is useful to some sites, in a variety of obvious ways.

Unfortunately, as with every technology, this new capability is already being abused and misused. Microsoft themselves are guilty of misusing it: if I go to look for some technical information on their site, chances are I'll be shown the required document in Portuguese (since I am physically located in Portugal), even though my browse setting clearly states that my preferred language is English and the document is obviously available in English.

Google are also guilty, both on their search site, which regularly tries to make me use their facility in Portuguese, and also on their blogging site, where this blog is hosted. The little tool bar at the top of my blog insists on remaining in Portuguese, in spite of my browser setting AND my stated preference in the blog settings.

This is a clear case of geeks being thrilled with a new toy but failing to think the problem through properly. Come on Microsoft and Google (and countless others) - use the established mechanism for choosing the language and confine your use of that ever-so-clever new geo-location toy to choosing which of your many servers should send me the requested page IN THE LANGUAGE I HAVE SPECIFIED!

Scary stuff!

Are you an adrenalin junkie? Do you like to jump out of airplanes or scuba-dive with sharks, just to get your blood pumping? Perhaps you're the more passive type: do you watch scary movies to get a buzz?

Well, I just came across an alternative. Right here. No white water rafting or crocodile wrestling required: just spend a few minutes to watch this video. I guarantee you'll be frightened.

A Wedding - Una and Alan

Una and Alan, a lovely couple from Dublin, got married last week and I was privileged to photograph their great day.

The ceremony took place in the adorable chapel of São Lourenço, the patron Saint of barbeques (he was roasted over an open fire for his faith). Then it was on to an open air reception at the Vila Sol Hotel followed by a banquet at the Restaurante Caso do Campo in Almancil.

Off the air

Sorry - been off the air for some time thanks to a particularly nasty throat virus for which my doctor says we must thank Eastern Europe.

New toys!

Dammit! Gonna have to save up some pocket money, 'cos Nikon just announced two new toys that I just gotta have! The Nikon D3 has a full-frame sensor - a first for Nikon. The D300 is an update on the D200, still with a DX-sized sensor.

The D3 is particularly interesting for me, along with the new 14-24mm f/2.8 zoom they also announced. With my current DX-sized sensors and Nikon's 12-24 f/4 zoom, I get the "35mm equivalent" of an 18mm lens at the widest setting. The D3's full-frame sensor means that with the 14-24 zoom I'll get the full field of view (FOV) of the 14mm setting. That apparently small gain of 4mm translates to a considerably wider view, invaluable for my real estate and architecture photography. For that reason alone, I'm putting in my order in now!

See the full story at the ever-excellent dpreview.com site.

Ana's eyes

Ana is my muse. She has the most delicious eyes, so I thought I'd show everybody just how delicious they are with this image...

I'm a Flickr clickr!

It had to happen, I guess. I joined Flickr. So now I can inflict my pictures on an even wider audience.

Go straight there: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremyesland/

No Entry to Heaven?

Spotted this just around the corner from my office. "Portas do Céu" means "Gates of Heaven" in Portuguese.

Microsoft is dumb!

I'm English. I live in Portugal. I speak some Portuguese, but for technical documents I definitely prefer to read them in English. I have indicated this in my IE7 browser settings (under Tools/Internet Options/General/Languages) where "en-GB" is listed as my preferred language for viewing web pages.

So how come Microsoft doesn't use this setting itself? It's visible to any web server. Yet, when I went today to download some updates from Microsoft and then clicked to read the associated documentation, it was presented to me in Portuguese? Yes, my IP address will be listed as being in Portugal, but that should not override my stated language preference.

This is a clear case of incompetent techie-ness. The IP address location should not be used to make assumptions about my language, only my physical location.

What hope do we have for updates and fixes if Microsoft can't/won't use their own technology intelligently?

More iMania

Just saw this story on Reuters about a new "bionic" hand for amputees. Great piece of engineering, etc. - but couldn't they have come up with a less corny name: i-Limb? How long before every word in the English language succumbs to the parasitic "i" prefix?

My assistant - first warning

Good employees are just so hard to find these days! My new assistant has just received her first verbal warning for falling asleep on the job. I left her to do some simple typing and filing whilst I went to do a client shoot. When I got back, she was fast asleep next to the keyboard. Needless to say, none of the tasks I'd set her had been completed. To add insult to injury, when I roused her she actually miaowed at me!

Wacom Bamboo Quick Review

One piece of essential equipment for the digital darkroom is a pen tablet. Wacom are far and away the leaders in this field. Years ago, when I was a graphics designer, I had an A4 tablet. For photo retouching there is no real need for such a huge (and expensive) piece of kit,. Until recently I was using a Wacom Graphire 4 tablet. When the pen finally stopped working I decided, rather than order a replacement pen, to update to a new tablet: the clear plastic surface of the Graphire was looking distinctly scratched and ugly.

Looking on the Wacom website, I was intrigued to see a new model, priced below the Graphire, called the Bamboo. The blurb aimed it squarely at "office" users for the exploitation of the pen features now built in to Vista. The text carefully avoided mentioning its use for photo editing, but a quick study of the specs showed that it is functionally (almost) identical to the Graphire and more or less the same size. At half the price of the Graphire, I thought it was worth a try so I ordered one.

Wacom must be trying to win an award for sexy packaging - the Bamboo comes in a matte-black box that wouldn't shame a diamond necklace. The tablet itself is also very handsome, with a "piano black" strip across the top of the matte-black pen surface.

As I suspected, it works just like the Graphire. The only "missing" feature I can identify is that the eraser on the top of the pen is not pressure-sensitive: I never used the one on the Graphire anyway. In fact, the Bamboo has features that the Graphire doesn't: four large buttons and a circular touch-pad. These are all programmable so you can make them do pretty much anything. I've altered the default assignments on mine to give myself some handy Photoshop aids.

All in all, I like the Bamboo much better than I did the Graphire. It looks better, has those programmable buttons, is cheaper, has a better stand for the pen than the Graphire and is half the price of the Graphire.

The only "silly" in the design is the USB cable. The Graphire had a permanently attached wire: the Bamboo has a miniature USB socket on the top edge at the left. Why would you ever need to unplug it? I don't understand why they added to the manufacturing cost in this way: it just doesn't make any sense. And worst of all, the plug on the USB cable sticks out just enough to make it vulnerable to being broken, as well as making it impossible to butt the tablet neatly up against the bottom edge of my keyboard.

The driver appears to co-exist amicably with my Logitech MX Revolution mouse (another GREAT piece of kit). I have a dual-monitor setup, so I've mapped the tablet's surface to the main monitor only. When I'm Photoshoping, I have all my palettes on the secondary monitor and use the mouse to click on that screen and the pen on the main screen. You quickly develop the knack of "parking" the pen by swivelling it in your fingers so you can use the mouse without needing to put the pen down. The technique is impossible to describe but completely intuitive in practice.

If you're serious about editing photos on a computer then you NEED a tablet. Even the simplest of retouching is made easier and more pleasurable. And the pressure-sensitivity of the pen is a boon when retouching, ensuring much better and more controllable results than the on/off nature of a mouse button.

Unless you're into painting or heavy-duty graphic design on your computer, save big-time on the cost of any of the "professional" models in Wacom's line-up and buy the humble little Bamboo!

The Megapixel Wars

When I'm with clients, I'm often asked about my cameras. The usual first question is "How many megapixels is that?" In fact, that's often the ONLY question they ask. If I tell them it's 10 megapixels (a Nikon D200), I risk getting the response "Oh, my wife has a 10 megapixel [insert any Japanese brand here] in her handbag!"

Maybe it's my insecurity, but clients seem to want to hear a bigger number - much bigger than anything their wife/son/brother has. The perception (to those that don't know) is that "more megapixels equals more quality" and that the more megapixels a camera has, the "better" a picture it's going to take. Which is, of course, nonsense - from both technical and creative standpoints.

I'm not going to go into the technicalities here, but I will sum it up with this statement: not all pixels are created equal! There are numerous factors involved - the sensor size, the pixel receptor size, the internal processing electronics, the lens resolution, the lens distortion, and so on. Then there's the post-processing - what you actually DO with the pixels the camera gives you. I shoot RAW exclusively: meaning I bypass all the internal jiggery-pokery in the camera and feed the "raw" pixel data from the sensor into a big, powerful computer and some fabulous software which actually improves on what the camera gave me. The resulting picture is NOTHING LIKE what you'd get from even the best 10 megapixel pocket camera.

Of course, for some jobs you really do need as many pixels as you can get - like when you're going to print a full-length portrait double life size. When I need to do that, I'll go out and buy a Hasselblad H3 with a 39 megapixel digital back. Until then, I'll struggle along with 10.

But the consumer world is obsessed with numbers - how many cylinders your car's engine has, how many watts your hi-fi has, how many inches your TV has - and, now, how many megapixels your camera has! Bigger is better, more is better! Give us more! More! More!

Of course, you, my rational reader, are not swayed by such marketing hype, are you? You understand that quantity is not the same as quality, right?

Sneaky camera marketing

As much as I admire Nikon's products, their marketing is beginning to get a little irritating. I use a Nikon D200 most of the time and it's certainly a great camera. One of the great features I use frequently is the ability to fire off 9 bracketed shots (up to 1 stop apart). When I'm photographing houses this gives me plenty of material to work the HDR magic. In fact I even use it when there's no intention to use HDR techniques - it's a lazy way of ensuring that I have the perfect exposure: one of them will be right ;-)

When I'm firing off 9 shots, it's necessary to keep my finger on the shutter release. A few times this has resulted in some camera shake, or at least movement in between shots. In the old days, cameras had a universal screw-in fitting in the top of the shutter button for a remote release - cheap and easy. But these new-fangled D200 digital cameras don't: they have an electrical socket elsewhere on the body. The gadget that Nikon sells to plug in there is an "MC-36 remote cord" - an overly fancy gizmo that has an LCD screen, lots of buttons and (apparently - I haven't worked it out yet) allows me to set a delay timer, an interval timer and the number of shots I want. Great stuff, but I just wanted to trip the shutter remotely. So I have to have all this other stuff that I didn't need. And I have to pay 222.49 Euros (about US$306) for it!

To my mind that's just plain silly! Sure there are cheap knock-offs available on eBay. I could even have searched for a second-hand MC-30 (the older version that IS just a shutter release). Come on, Nikon! That's just taking the piss!

My new assistant

There's never enough hours in the day or days in the week. Yet many of the tasks that burn up my time could be done by someone else. Hence I've been on the lookout recently for a good assistant. Anyway, to cut a long story short, last weekend a half-starved kitten stopped me and my wife by the roadside to ask for some food. We offered her some boiled chicken at a nearby restaurant. During the meal she expressed an interest in photography so I immediately offered her a job: general office duties and some occasional modelling.

Her name is Tiger Lilly Jasmine Esland Ferrão, Viscondessa de Sesmarias (apparently there's more, but it wouldn't fit on the application form), but around the office we generally just call her "Puss-cat". I'm suspicious that she lied about her dictation and typing speeds but on the modelling front it's looking promising, although I've told her she must put on a little weight before we can really go for it.

I'll be publishing some shots from her first studio shoot very soon.

Murphy's Law in photography

One of the differences between "pro" and "amateur" photography is the absolute requirement to produce a result. You can't tell a client "sorry, my camera battery is flat" or "I forgot to bring the right lens". So taking backup equipment with you on an assignment is crucial: a spare camera body, spare batteries and so on. But sometimes the gods are just not on your side...

Last week I agreed to photograph a friend's party. He's in the entertainment business and I knew there would be a lot of "celebrities" there. I treated it as a professional assignment, even though I wasn't being paid. But, in a moment of mental weakness, I figured I didn't need to take all the usual level of backup kit - after all, it's just a party, right? I packed a small shoulder bag with just one camera, one flash gun and a few bits and pieces. When I got to the party I stuck the flash gun on top of the camera and fired a test shot: nothing! No flash! The flash fired okay on the test button, so I figured it was the hot-shoe connection. Rummaging through my bag, I was greatly relieved to find a PC sync cord, which I duly attached and presto!... it worked. So I started firing away.

About two hours later, the cabaret act was about to start and I forced my way to the front of the crowd to get some shots. I clicked off three or four shots before I realised the flash wasn't firing. I'd taped the PC cord in place so it couldn't fall out: sure enough, it was still properly connected. But I was definitely getting no flash. It seems that the PC cord had broken internally as I was pushing my way through the throng. So that was it - no more shooting that evening!

If I'd taken with me the full array of backup gear that I would normally take to a professional assignment then I'd still be shooting. But I'd broken my own rules. The first failure (of the gun's hot-shoe) was solved, but then the backup PC sync cord (which was only in that bag by chance) also failed.

Bad luck? No! Bad planning! I should have taken my normal (huge) backpack, which always has three flashguns in it. It was a sobering lesson to me - let it be a lesson to you too!

Top 10 ways to improve your photography

1. Read the light! Be aware at all times of how much light is falling on your subject, from what direction, how hard or soft it is, what colour it is and whether it's brighter or dimmer than the light falling on the rest of the scene. Learn to "squint" - scrunch up your eyes so you're almost looking through your eyelashes - it will give you a better idea of the contrast in the scene, i.e. the difference between the brightest and darkest areas.
2. Control the light! Once you understand the available lighting, take steps to control it to your advantage. Move your subject. Move yourself. Close a door. Open a door. Hang a white sheet over a window. Wait until that shadow gets longer. Come back the next morning. Do whatever you can to improve the lighting of a subject. Cameras don't make pictures: light does!
3. Move! Closer, further away, left, right, up, down, whatever! Without thinking about it, we all tend to take pictures from the standing position. Move around, crouch, lie down, stand on a chair, climb a step ladder - 9 times out of 10 you'll find a better shot than the one you were going to take.
4. Turn the camera! Whilst you're moving around to find the best shot, try turning the camera. Try upright (portrait). Try level (landscape). Try swivelling it to any crazy angle! Not every shot has to be "straight on, dead level"! Angling the camera can contribute to the composition and heighten the impact of many shots.
5. Fill the frame! Many people seem to be scared of filling the frame. Zoom in or move in! This is particularly effective when photographing people and is often what makes the difference between "a picture of Aunt Agnes" and "a portrait of Aunt Agnes".
6. Know your camera! Today's digital cameras, even the little pocket ones, are packed with interesting and useful features. Learn how to use all of them. Go out and deliberately take some pictures using features you have not used before. Knowing how they work will help you realise when to employ them to improve your pictures.
7. Take more shots! Digital pictures don't cost anything until you print them. So blast away! Click until your finger hurts! The more shots you take, the better you'll get. Don't take one picture of Aunt Agnes - take a hundred! This is one of the dark secrets of many professional photographers - it's not that they always take better pictures than you - just that you don't get to see their 99 rejects!
8. Develop a specialism! Few people can excel at everything they do, so don't dissipate your efforts over every branch and style of photography. This is like trying to learn 63 languages at the same time! Concentrate on one area. Obsess on it! Take thousands of pictures of that type/style/subject or whatever. You'll improve quickly, quicker than you could imagine! And, as if by magic, you'll find you've improved your skills in all the areas you're interested in, just by focusing on one of them!
9. Become a computer whizz! With digital photography, clicking the shutter is only half the job. The real fun starts on the computer: there's an infinite number of improvements, adjustments, corrections and variations available at the click of a mouse. You need to do more than just download and print your pictures. Learn how to tap the full potential of digital photography!
10. Copy other people's work! Yes, really! The best way to get to being able to take pictures like David Bailey is to choose some David Bailey pictures and try to copy them! Once you can do that, you can apply the skills you will have learned to your own, original work.

How to become a model

I'm not going to beat around the bush on this one - I'll come straight to the point.

Most people who think they'd "like" to become a professional model stand no realistic chance of becoming one. Why not? I hear you ask.

There is a huge difference between "I would like to" and "I am determined to". It's a very tough, very competitive field, so unless you have a driving ambition to "make it", you'll most likely waste a few people's time, including your own, and then give up.

Whilst not every model needs to be a perfect physical specimen and breathtakingly beautiful, there are certain parameters within which you (male or female) must fit:

• You should be tall - short people don't photograph so easily.
• You should be "trim" - not necessarily stick-thin, but without any unsightly bulges.
• You should be cleanly presented, i.e. no weirdo hairstyles, tattoos, body piercings or scars.
• You should have good teeth and nails.
• Your face should be interesting in some way, with one or more outstanding features such as captivating eyes or a full, well-bowed mouth.

If you can tick all of those then let's move on.

A model is essentially a blank canvas. It's not really YOU that's being photographed, it's the makeup and the hair and the clothes and the shoes that are ON you. This requires a certain flexibility on the model's part: you must become what the art director or photographer wants, both externally and internally. In fact, modelling is pretty close to acting - you need to be able to do quiet, happy, sultry, etc on demand. If the clothes they put on you are those of an 18th Century lady at court, then you must be an 18th Century lady. If you're modelling expensive evening wear in a chic restaurant, you've got to look like you belong there!

Also in common with acting, you have to be patient and durable. You'll spend a lot of time waiting around. Shoots can vary from a few hours to all day and long into the night. Nobody's going to be impressed if you're "bored" or "tired". Some jobs will require physical strength and endurance, too: like running towards the camera - a hundred and fifty times!

The way you move is important too. Once again, it's like acting: you need to be able to stay in character whilst moving and control your movement in every tiny detail - your head, your neck, shoulders, arms, fingers, feet... everything. And you need to be able to strike a pose - in fact, a whole repertoire of poses. You may have seen this on Fashion TV or wherever: a model strikes a pose, the camera clicks, then the model moves smoothly to the next pose. The change maybe be dramatic or extremely subtle, but a good model will need little or no direction from the photographer.

To be a really good model, you should also know loads about clothes, hair, make-up, shoes and so on. If you're passionate about looking good, on or off the set, this will show through in your work and you should go far. Particularly when you are just starting out, don't assume that there's going to be dozens of people buzzing around you to do your hair, make-up and so on. Often you may need to do that yourself.

You need to be very thick-skinned too. Bursting into tears when a photographer yells at you is not good for your career! Art directors, especially, can be remarkably cruel, openly (and often viciously) criticising some aspect of your body. Be ready for it!

You can see, by now, modelling is not an easy way to earn money! Even if you've got the looks, you still need dedication, patience, endurance, flexibility, posing skills and so on... which is why modelling really is job just like any other, with a set of skills that must be learned, practised and perfected. It's so much more than being pretty.

So, assuming I still have not managed to put you off this idea, what should actually do to get started? There are two schools of thought here: assemble a portfolio and send it to agencies, or just go see the agencies straight off.

If you're the next Gisele Bündchen, then you can probably walk straight into an agency, be recognised for the goldmine that you are, and never look back. But, realistically, most aspiring models are going to need to assemble some kind of portfolio of shots before marching in to Elite Models. The purpose of the portfolio (usually called your "Book" in the industry) is to demonstrate to the agency that you photograph well, that you're versatile and that you have some experience in front of the camera. They'll be looking for range, i.e. that you don't look identical in every shot, with the same expression, same basic pose, etc. They also want to see some kind of marketable appeal, i.e. something that makes you stand out, something that makes you different from all the thousands of tall, thin, "pretty" girls and boys they've seen that week.

Still determined? Good for you!

There are two ways to build your book - pay one or more photographers to take the shots, or work with one or more photographers who are willing to do it for free. There are several reasons a photographer may be willing to do this: they may be building or expanding their own portfolio, they may be wanting to try out some new equipment or new techniques before risking it in front of a client, or they may simply be trying to curry favour with a modelling agency.

I'd advise against paying for your portfolio. It will cost a load of money and there's no guarantee that the photographer(s) will come up with the goods - many untalented photographers seem to make a living just from scamming hopeful models this way. The much smarter option is to find photographers willing to work with you on a TFP (Time For Photographs) basis. Take all the normal safety precautions: check them out, ask to see their current portfolio, ask for references from models they've worked with, etc. Expect to do your own hair, make-up, etc. - and even to bring your own outfits.

Once you've got your portfolio together, get on the next train up to the big city and go knocking on agency doors, starting at the top! Even if you get rejected by Elite Models, you'll learn a whole lot from the attempt and should be better prepared as you work your way down the list.

Good luck!

If you happen to be in the Algarve, Portugal, then maybe I can help you. Go to my business website (Jeremy Esland - Professional Photographer Algarve) for details.

P.S. One last thing - if a modelling agency ever asks you to pay for your portfolio to be made, then walk out! Immediately. No reputable agency would ever do that, so it's a 100% clear indicator that you're in the wrong place!

Building a digital photography workstation Part 1

So you've bought a digital camera. What else are you going to need?

I'll skip the obvious list of things like lenses, filters, tripod, etc. Let's take a look at the most important piece of equipment after the camera itself - a kick-ass computer!

If you're serious about digital photography, you should be spending serious money on a first-class digital workstation before even thinking about new lenses, flash guns and all the other paraphernalia that goes with the game. Without some heavy-duty pixel crunching and storage capabilities, you're going to get bogged down pretty quickly.

Today's multi-megapixel cameras spit out staggering quantities of disk-filling, speed-sapping bits. To get the best out of a digital camera, you really do need a muscular computer with a gargantuan storage capacity.

Rather than generalise about the specs of a digital photography workstation, I'll tell you about mine. It's the single most expensive and, to my mind, most important piece of photographic equipment I own and use. It cost me about 3000 Euros (approx. US$4000) to build. It took a month to research, build and configure. It is the king-pin of my business. I can buy or rent new cameras, lenses and lighting equipment and be earning money with them the very next day. But if this workstation was stolen or exploded tomorrow, it would take me at least a month to acquire and configure a new one. And I would have lost all my previous work, an unimaginable scenario.

Mac or PC?

My workstation is a Windows PC. I don't like Macs - just a personal preference thing. Recent Apple models are much better value than they used to be, but there are three important points to bear in mind when making the choice between PC and Mac:

• Macs established an early lead in the pixel-processing field and are adored by "creatives" - but modern PCs with the latest Windows software are more than a match for Apple's products. Don't believe for one minute that Macs are "better" for this kind of work. They're not. They're just different.
• Like-for-like, Mac products, from Apple themselves and most third-parties, are more expensive than the PC/Windows equivalents. If you're happy to pay the premium, then fine. If you'd rather reserve more of your budget for other photographic equipment, go with PC/Windows.
• If you are already familiar with one platform or the other then it makes sense to stick with it. Your learning curve is going to be steep enough as it is without adding the extra burden of un-learning one platform and learning the other.

If you decide to go Mac, then only some of what follows will be relevant - you'll just have to pick through for the pearls of generalised wisdom that follow ;-)

Off-the-shelf or custom-built?

The next decision, then, is whether to buy your PC "off the shelf" or "build your own". I can't recommend strongly enough that you should build your own. If you don't feel competent to wield the screwdriver yourself, you can still research and spec the machine yourself and enlist a friend, relative or custom PC supplier to put it together for you. Many off-the-shelf manufacturers offer what they describe as "media workstations" but during my own research I never found any that came close to offering what I wanted. So for absolute control over the choice of individual components, how they're put together and how durable and flexible that PC will be in use, you need to spec it yourself, right down to the last little fan and cable.

Quiet

In my own case, in addition to wanting a workstation that was fast and capacious, I also wanted it to be WHISPER QUIET. This was very important to me. My previous machine was noisy as hell. When you're not in an office environment (where overall noise levels will tend to exceed the noise from your own computer) and you're engaged in an intensely creative pursuit, the last thing you need is constant background "white noise". It tires you more than you might realise, distracts your concentration and generally diminishes the fun of doing what you're doing. So quietness was high on my list of priorities.

Cool

Outside of some obscure scientific and engineering fields, the three common uses of computers that will soak up all the processing power you can throw at them are video processing, still image processing and gaming. Sure, a fast computer is a great advantage for spreadsheet work and surfing the net is more fun with a snappy workstation. But I'm talking here about running a computer's processor at 100% of its capacity for extended periods of time. Doing so generates heat, lots of it. And heat is what kills computers. So another important criteria is EFFICIENT COOLING.

Something to bear in mind with respect to keeping everything cool is the ambient temperature of your working environment. Where I live, a small city in the Algarve region of Portugal, summertime temperatures can easily reach 40°C. Most reviews of cooling equipment are conducted at more normal room temperatures of 20°C or so. Allowing for the worst case, that means I have to add 20°C on top of whatever temperatures a reviewed item might achieve. I'm sure the thermal mathematics is not that straightforward, but I need to play safe, so that's what I do.

Another point is that you cannot assume that your shiny new Apple Mac or Dell Professional Workstation is going to remain adequately cool when stressed in a high-ambient environment. It just ain't so. Such machines are built down to a price and very much for an "average" usage pattern. Setting a batch RAW-processing program going to munch through 800 images will send the internal temperatures through the roof, whatever the pretty brochure says. Remember - H.K.C. - Heat Kills Computers.

Power

You need processing power - lots of it. But that doesn't mean you should spec the biggest fastest processor that Intel makes. The top-end quad-core processors are ridiculuously expensive (and of questionable value for this application). As you'll see later in this series, you can save a bundle by choosing wisely and spend the saving elsewhere to good effect.

Along with raw processing speed, you'll need a big chunk of RAM - I've gone for 4GB and I'll explain why later in the series.

Storage

Once again, you're going to need lots of this. Disk space is like cupboard space - your use of it will expand to fit the amount available (a modern variation on Parkinson's Law). Most certainly you're going to want multiple hard disks in order to keep things efficient and to keep up with the demand. My own machine contains no less than 8 hard drives, totalling around 2800 Gigabytes (although the use of RAID brings the total storage available down - more on that later).

Reliability and long life

As noted above, this workstation is the single most expensive piece of photographic equipment I use, and the most time-consuming and painful to replace. It also contains every image I've ever taken with a digital camera. If it breaks down my income stops until I fix it or replace it. So it's vitally important that it works and stays working for many years to come. Many component choices and configuration options are determined by this criteria alone.

Watch out for Part 2...

Learn from The Strobist

Some time ago I came across a photography blog called "The Strobist" (Strobist: Welcome to Strobist.). This guy is heavily into using portable strobes and offers excellent tutorials on equipment and techniques. I devoured his whole site over a couple of days and learned a lot. If you are at all interested in using flash lighting, this place is a MUST SEE.

From time to time I'll write some articles about my own use of portable strobe units and tell you about some of the gidgets and gadgets I've acquired or built myself.

In the meantime, go visit the master!

One place, two photographers

I was playing with Google Earth t'other day, looking down on Silves, a town here in the Algarve. One of the great new features is that you can click on the satellite image to see photos that people have taken at/of that actual spot. I found this one, taken by a photographer called netwiller.

Looks familiar, I thought. So I dug through my archives for this one, taken by me:

Spooky! Same spot exactly, just a slightly different viewpoint.

See Up a bit! Down a bit!

Up a bit! Down a bit!

A short tip for improving your photography:

Most people with a camera in their hands will instinctively take pictures from the standing position. Well, sometimes, that can be the best position. But often you'd improve even a simple snapshot by crouching to get a low viewpoint or standing on a chair (or whatever) to get a bird's eye view.

Simple, but effective.

See One place, two photographers

Police protection?

Here's a driving tip for non-Portuguese residents and visitors using any kind of motorised vehicle in the Algarve: don't get stopped by the police!

The traffic cops here are the BT/GNR (Brigada de Trânsito of the Guarda Nacional Republicana). And guess what? They don't like "rich foreigners". As usual with public services, they are overworked and underpaid, so I cannot blame them at all being pissed off most of the time. But it stills hurts when you get on the wrong end of them.

A few months back I was riding in medium traffic on the EN125 (a main east-west road here in the Algarve). A few cars ahead of me were two traffic cops on bikes. One of them was riding in a way that can only be described as "like a jerk". He was weaving his bike from side to side, standing up on the foot pegs, slowing down to a crawling pace then speeding up again. The driver of the car immediately behind him was obviously in distress, not knowing what to do with this lunatic clowning around in front of him. I watched in amazement as this guy committed a string of motoring offences, any one of which would have rightfully got ME in trouble if I'd done it front of HIM.

Finally, I lost my cool: I pulled alongside him and made a hand gesture that suggested he was not setting a good example to other road-users. In three seconds they had their flashing lights on, sirens going, and had pulled me over. I was then subjected to a very aggressive inspection of my documents (together with an absolute refusal to speak Portuguese slowly enough for me to understand them). Unfortunately, the insurance certificate I had with me had expired and the new one was still on my desk in my office. They (gleefully) escorted me to the police station and then took two hours to issue a simple fine. During this time I was warned, in no uncertain terms, against making any official complaint. After finally being released, I decided to let it slide: life's too short and all that.

Two weeks later, I was pulled over by a roadside random check team. I'd forgotten to switch on the headlight of my bike: an offence, even for a bike bigger than some Japanese hatchbacks and at midday on a clear sunny day. They fined me 60 Euros on the spot. If I hadn't happened to have 60 Euros in my wallet, they would have confiscated the bike.

Enough! The next day I went to the police station and asked to see the boss. How come, I asked him, I can witness 6000 traffic violations per hour when I'm out on the road and yet rarely see anyone being pulled over for the most heinous infractions? How come I can see beaten up old Zundapps on the road with no brake lights, no front or rear lights and completely bald tyres? How come I have to close the front windows of my apartment at night to block out the revving engines and screeching tyres of the nocturnal "tuning" morons, without ever seeing one being chased by a police car? How come all of this and then it's ME, a responsible motorist with 25 years bike and car experience, that can pick up 200 Euros of fines in two weeks for... what? For nothing important!

He was a polite, well-educated man and he listened in quiet amazement to my complaint that the greatest part of my offences was to have been "a rich foreigner". He asked me to identify the officers involved in the first incident. He explained to me that he was shorted-staffed, under-budgeted, etc. Would he refund my fines? No. Could he assure me that such injustices would not occur again? No.

Was it a satisfactory ending for me? Not really, but I'm glad I complained. Somebody should.

"Room with a View" - HDR magic

Ain't technology wonderful? The things you can do with pixels these days!

The challenge: you want to photograph a room with a view, i.e. the room AND the view. You don't want to spend three hours setting up lights (or you don't have any lights with you). It's bright sunshine outside and dim inside. If you expose for the view, the room is way too dark. If you expose for the room, the view burns out to paper white.

Answer? The magic of High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging. Photoshop CS3 includes a greatly improved version of this priceless toy, but it's also available elsewhere - just Google for "HDR".

Here's how it works: you stick the camera on a tripod and lock it down. You meter for the average in the scene and bracket 2 stops up and 2 stops down (5 shots in all - might need some experimentation). Back home you twiddle a few knobs and push a few buttons in Photoshop and... presto!

Here's five shots, none of which is "right" for the room AND the view:


And here's the result:


Magic, innit?

How to save on lenses

Here's a few tips on how to save significant amounts of money on lenses:

1. Use your feet - it's the cheapest zoom available. Move closer. Move back.
2. Crop - if you're as close as you can get and it's still not close enough, take the picture anyway and "zoom" in by losing some pixels - it will have less effect on the quality than you might think.
3. Use a tripod - if you can't handhold the shot at f/5.6 on your "kit" lens and you think you need that big-ass f/2.8 VR/IS "pro" zoom, stick it on a tripod, silly!
4. Buy DxO Optics Pro and get the Sigma lens instead of the Canon/Nikon - DxO will make up the difference for you (if there is any), at much lower cost!
5. Stitch - your widest wide-angle lens is not wide enough? Then take two or three pictures and stitch them together using one of the many panorama programs available.

There - I just saved you a fortune!

Naturally there are times when you really do need the pin-sharp, f/2.8 VR/IS wallet-basher, particularly when paying clients are involved. But I bet it won't make you take better pictures.

Nikon vs Canon

Digital SLR cameras are "very cool kit". But as with any tech-related subject, there is too much focus on the "which is best?" argument.

So, in case you're wondering yourself whether to buy a Nikon or a Canon - here's my view:

I prefer Nikon gear. Never was happy with EOS1 and EOS3 film cameras I had in the past - threw them all away (right!) when I got into Nikon with the F5. Something about the overall feel, something about the controls.

Now that I'm all-digital, it's still Nikon. Not that I don't envy those guys with full-frame Canons (sometimes). And not that I wouldn't buy a Hasselblad H3 tomorrow (if I thought I could make it pay).

But it's all about the lenses, you see. Once you've handed over huge quantities of cash for those big-ass "pro" lenses then the debate is over. I have lots of Nikon glass, so I can't even think about buying a Canon body. Ever.

Nevertheless, if you want to know what to buy me for Christmas, I'd like:

• a pair of Hasselblad H3D-39 bodies (you need a pair in case one flakes out on a shoot) with a selection of lenses - about Euros 120,000 should cover it,
• a Horseman SW-D II Pro with a couple of digital backs and a few lenses - about Euros 100,000 give or take a bit.

If Father Christmas comes through on that little list, then try asking me again which camera system is the best. Nik-what? Can-who?

Japan vs Germany

I love bikes. Big bikes. For many years I have enjoyed the Teutonically-efficient two-wheeled products of BMW. But last year, whilst searching for a good used BMW, I was offered a Honda ST1100 Pan European. It's a great bike, although I'm not totally converted - next time round I'm pretty sure I'll get me a nice K1200GT.

Mods I've made to the Honda:

• Two Brothers exhaust system - the original made the bike sound like an asmatic sewing machine - now it sounds like a Ducati's big brother,


• Stebel Nautilus air horn - 115dB (@ 2m) guarantees breaking into the car-driving idiot's phone conversation,


• Tall screen from BikeQuip - the stock screen is fine as long as you're less than 5ft tall.

The best thing about this bike is the way it hides it's speed: 80 feels like 50. You're always going faster than than you think till you glance down at the instruments. Even after a year it still catches me out sometimes. It has an amazingly low centre of gravity since the fuel tank is actually under the seat. The "fuel tank" between my knees is actually just a cover for the air box.

The worst thing about this bike is the airflow. The original screen had my helmet in dirty, turbulent air - horrible. The new tall screen only improves the situation marginally. This is the main reason I'll switch back to BMW next time - their tourers handle the airflow much better.

Close, but no cigar, Mr Honda.

iMania

I'm a PC man myself. Can't stand Macs - hate 'em. And I especially dislike the mania for adding an "i" prefix onto everything. So I'm glad to see there's a healthy amount of Apple-bashing going on...

To go with your new iToilet you can now build your own iWipe toilet roll dispenser, although personally I prefer this more compact design.

Oi! Clarkson!

I used to admire Jeremy Clarkson. I enjoyed him on Top Gear, although I'd rather go for a drink with either of "the other two". I used to enjoy his columns in The Sunday Times. But success seems to have gone to his head - he's turned into his own joke.

A week or two back, he wrote about British tourists. Seems there was a survey amongst European hoteliers and British tourists came last. Since I live in an area that is infested with chip-guzzling, lager-swilling British tourists, this did not surprise me in the least.

His riposte may have been tongue-in-cheek, but to my mind it was a low, whorish pander to the "market segment" for which he writes. Clarkson: you can't cover shame with a cheap jibe.

The sad fact is that, here in the Algarve, British tourists are generally a very un-funny joke. Rude, arrogant, ignorant, uncultured, miserly, unadventurous, narrow-minded, unintelligent, badly dressed, poorly behaved... you get the idea. We (the collective business owners and residents of the Algarve) would rather have the Irish, the Dutch, the Germans, the French and even the Spanish (old national rivalry thing there), all of whom make better tourists - they spend more money (on a wider variety of goods and activities), they behave better, they are more cultured, etc. etc. etc.

And it's not just the "chips and lager" that irritate us. The other night I was in a favourite restaurant. At the next table an English couple attempted to engage the waitress in conversation. She's from Hungary and after only six months here she already speaks very good Portuguese. The English couple started with the peculiarly-British "slow and loud" way of speaking to "foreigners". When the girl didn't understand, they tried "even slower and even louder" and finally turned to the occupants of my table for assistance. "She's got to learn!" they declared, in the most condescending tone I've heard in a long time. Why? Why has a Hungarian girl working in a Portuguese restaurant in the Algarve "got to learn" English? So that a pair of ignorant, stupid British tourists can ask her inane questions while they share one pizza (with chips) between the two of them? I don't think so!

No doubt Clarkson would have categorised the waitress as "a Latvian girl who arrived in [Portugal] that morning on the underside of a Eurostar train" (to quote from another one of his writings) and fully supported Mr and Mrs Pigignorant's treatment of her.

Shame on you, Clarkson! You're part of the problem yourself.

Pro vs Amateur

There has always been a natural tendency for "creatives" to be distrusted, even maltreated, by the people they serve. Painters, sculptors, composers, musicians, poets, actors: throughout history all regarded as "lowly" professions. Oftentimes they were seen as existing only to give pleasure to their patrons, who enjoyed their output but resented having to pay them. Only in the last hundred years or so has society truly made a place at the top table for such people, celebrating and adoring the artist equally with the art.

Photography, being a relatively recent invention, sits rather uncomfortably amongst the older, more established, creative professions. This is partly because anyone can buy a camera and therefore term themselves "a photographer". Then there's the inescapable fact that not all branches of photography are, of themselves, "creative": medical or forensic photography, for example. After that we have to deal with the horrible and often unkindly-applied distinction between "amateur photographer" and "professional photographer". In fact, the photography world is obsessed with this distinction. Cameras are "pro" or "amateur", as are films. Amateur magazines promise to teach you "pro techniques", whilst pro magazines deride with the description "strictly amateur".

To my mind there is only one important difference. Many amateurs can and will produce outstanding images. The big difference is that the pro must produce outstanding images. To order. With a deadline. Within a budget. Every time.

The end result may or not be the same, but the approach is most certainly different.

Hello, good evening and welcome!

On the off chance that someone will one day stumble across this, I'd better introduce myself. I'm a photographer, but in the past I've also been a graphic designer, a computer whiz and a brain surgeon (part-time, Sundays only).

I'm English but I live in Portugal. I like the weather here.

I'm forty-squiggle years old. When I'm not taking photographs I watch TV, cook, ride my motorcycle and sleep.

If you venture back here from time to time, you'll see:

• thoughts and opinions on Portugal and the Algarve
• musings and mutterings on life as a professional photographer (including shameless self-promotion)
• occasional altruistic distribution of pearls of photographic wisdom
• rants about things that bug me
• heart-warming tales of human kindness and generosity (subject to availability - currently on back-order)

It will be cathartic for me. I hope it may occasionally be interesting for you.