Seb Rogers: mountain bike photography

Service? What's that?

I picked up my trusty old 17-35mm f/2.8 from the camera repair shop the other week. Although it had languished unused in a bag under my desk for the best part of three years (it used to be my mainstay lens in the days of film, but it's a rather odd focal length range on a DX dSLR), when I picked it up around Christmas time last year the AF motor had inexplicably died.

Normally I make use of Nikon's NPS scheme for working pros, which promises a normal repair turnaround of a week or less. But I'd heard good things about a local repair shop, I didn't really need the lens in a hurry, and I thought I'd give them a try. So, around mid February, I left the lens with them.

They took the lens apart, established that it was a job they couldn't do themselves and sent it to Nikon. Nikon didn't have the right spares in stock (turned out it needed a new PCB as well as a motor), so put in an order with Japan.

Meanwhile, I was left waiting with no updates and no idea of what was going on. After a couple of months I rang the shop, who rang Nikon and then called me back to tell me that they were still waiting for the spares. A month later I was on the phone again... no change. Finally, in May, I got the call I'd been waiting for from the shop - my lens was back, and working.

Except it wasn't. The AF was fine, but the lens had been reassembled with a nasty stiff feel and ominous-sounding squeak in the zoom ring. I took it back to the shop. They took it apart, ordered a spare part from Nikon, fitted it and discovered it didn't solve the problem... but didn't think to call me to tell me. When I next rang for an update they told me what had happened and asked if I wanted them to send it back to Nikon. Well, duh...

I phoned Nikon and explained the situation. The NPS manager was sympathetic, but explained that there was nothing he could do to speed things along because NPS service can only be applied to individuals, not shop repairs. I had no option but to wait. Again.

Finally, more than a month after taking the lens back to the shop, I have it back in my hands. It works. The zoom's smooth. And I'm feeling - not for the first time - as though I've been hung out to dry.

I mean... nearly 6 months to repair a lens? I can understand waiting for spares, but two aspects of the experience stick in my throat. First, the shop's almost total lack of communication with me - at every stage I had to chase them. And second, the fact that Nikon returned the lens in such a poor state. It's not the first time that's happened to me - a fact that makes me wary of sending gear in for a regular check, lube and clean in case it comes back in a worse state than the one which it left me.

Nikon has had trouble with their professional service in the UK over the past few years. To be fair, I know that they've put a lot of effort into making it better. But over a decade of service experience has left me with very mixed feelings about the quality of work they're turning out. Half the time it's excellent. The other half it's just downright shoddy. And that just isn't good enough for a brand that's out to steal the pro crown from under its competitor's nose.

Matters arising

If you've been dropping by here regularly you'll already have read my rants about photographer harassment and the orphan works legislation currently doing the rounds over in Washington DC. Here are a couple of useful follow-up links:

- there's an online petition against the US orphan works legislation here. Whilst it's not the most elegantly drafted petition I've seen, the sentiment is sound and it's a rare opportunity for non-US photographers - and those who don't belong to a professional organisation campaigning against the new law - to register their protest.

- photographers concerned about their right to wield their camera (almost) anywhere they please will find some useful information here (thanks to Dave Wilson and Chris Ratcliffe for bringing it to my attention). Particularly salient are the following sections:

- "There is no law against taking photographs on private property: however, “no photography” may be a condition of entry to many private buildings, which effectively changes the ground rules. Photography itself would still not be illegal: but the owner of the property would have the right to eject you if you started taking photographs."

- "When it comes to individuals, there is no specific law on privacy. At least not in a public place or where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy."

(my emphasis)

Finally, if you're approached by a hi-vis-toting rent-a-cop and told to move on / hand over your camera / delete your images, you could try this tongue-in-cheek advice from a TV cameraman who's written about constant harassment:

"when the hi-vis jacket approaches you and tells you you need permission to film this public place, hand its owner a card with the following words on it: "No one may speak to this camera crew without permission. Please apply to ___________________ giving three working days' notice of your intention to address this crew, stating who told you to do it and why."

What price freedom?

Our - by which I mean Western - politicians' current on-message line about Iraq, Afghanistan and, increasingly, Iran is that we - by which I mean Western armed forces - are fighting a war against terror and for freedom. It's hard to argue against the general point (freedom being generally regarded as a Good Thing and terrorism being on the whole, er, not), even if the specifics (the botched justification for the invasion of Iraq, to cite just one obvious example among many) are well worth debating.

Except that, in any number of individually small but collectively more and more significant ways, many everyday 'freedoms' are being eroded in the name of that war. Including - but by no means limited to - photography in public places.

This gradual erosion of long-standing rights and freedoms in the name of 'security' is insidious. Worse, it seems to me that it does little or nothing to reduce the likelihood - or not - of some deluded individuals taking it upon themselves to inflict death and destruction upon random groups of citizens. And I'm not the only one who thinks the current state of affairs is ridiculous.

There used to be a great t-shirt slogan (was it Howies? I can't remember): 'skateboarding is not a crime'. I was thinking of printing some new ones with the line 'photography is not a crime', but I see I've been beaten to it...

Joking aside, if you want to know more about your rights as a photographer (in the UK), there's some useful info here.

The paucity of the written word

I've just emerged from a couple of days hunched over my keyboard, captioning and keywording a big batch of images ready to go off to the two stock agencies that represent me. It's slow, tedious and mind-numbing work however you approach it, but it's essential to do a good job if you actually want to sell anything.

That's because, in order to make any sense of the millions - billions? - of images available out there, they need to be tagged in such a way that search engines can locate them. And search engines work with words, not images.

Everyone knows the cliche about an image being worth a thousand words, but when it comes to keywording less is often more. Relevance is the key; soliloquies aren't going to help get your image to the top of the search list. So an image of a mountain biker riding a section of singletrack with mountains in the background (for example) could have the following keywords:

- mountain
- bike
- bicycle
- cycle
- cycling
- biking
- trail
- path
- singletrack

To which you could conceivably add:

- active
- activity
- sport
- health
- healthy
- lifestyle

And, depending on the image in question, perhaps:

- effort
- determination
- speed
- fun

(though not necessarily all at once).

See how it works? It's not rocket science, but every image is different. Even though the majority of my images contain bikes in some way or other, each set of keywords differs very slightly from the next.

And it has to, because with only a few keywords with which to identify each image, any search engine is going to struggle to differentiate between the mountain of matching results. For example, typing 'mountain bike' into Alamy's search engine brings up nearly 13,000 licensed images. Clearly, no picture researcher is going to plough through all those, so the search needs to be narrowed a bit. 'Mountain bike speed' narrows the results to a mere 2,500 images or so, whilst a location-specific search like 'mountain bike Lake District' fares best, with fewer than 300 matches.

That's still a large quantity of images through which to sift. Words are wholly inadequate as a means of describing images - and particularly when used in this way, as individual tags. The search engine performs its part of the task remarkably quickly, but that's because it's a dumb algorithm looking for sequences of letters. At either end of the keywording process, the human input that's essential to its functioning properly is labour-intensive, imprecise and subjective. Whether or not one of my images ends up on, say, a book cover depends at least as much on the keywords I choose - and the words the picture editor chooses to search with - as its suitability for the purpose.

Lottery? You bet. There has to be a better way, frankly. But until computers are able to search images in a way that's closer to the way our brains perceive them, we're probably stuck with a cludgy, low-tech compromise solution that consumes far too much time for my liking.

Bah, is all I can say...

Free country?

It seems to depend on whether you're wielding a camera, or not. There's been a fair bit of media interest recently in cases where photographers - often amateurs - have been unlawfully moved on, detained or had their equipment confiscated.

If you ever take photos (or video) in public places in the UK, this short film is essential viewing:

A photographer's work...

...is never done. If you drop by here regularly, you may have noticed the frequency of my posts dropping off lately. There's a good reason for that - I'm pretty busy (this, in case you were wondering, is a Good Thing).

One thing no-one tells you when you set out into the uncharted waters off Freelance World is that, when things pick up, the most useful skill is one that has nothing to do with photography. Overpaid consultants used to call it time management, but I'm sure it's got a new (and far more expensive) name now. Either way, the ability to keep several balls in the air is as important as being able to deliver a well composed, well exposed and attention-grabbing image on time.

On the road again
Nikon D100, 17-35mm f/2.8, 1 sec f/10 @ ISO200, single on-camera flash

Here's what my Friday looks like:

- burn a set of over 200 processed jpegs to disc to send to a client for delivery on Monday morning. As I write I need to re-do this, because the first CD turned out to be a coaster...
- capture 10 minutes of video footage from the same shoot to disc in preparation for editing into a 30 second short;
- shoot a disc brake in situ outside, process the RAW file and email it straight to the mag art editor. This is a late arrival for a product group test that I shot a couple of weeks back; the mag goes to print today so it's important that I don't hold things up;
- check and sign a batch of half a dozen prints before taking them down the road to the local framing company;
- check that I've got everything ready for a four-day shoot in the Lake District next week...

...and, with my bike journalist's hat on, write up some bike test copy and source a new batch of test bikes for next month. As well as juggle the usual phone calls and emails requesting information, prices or stock images.

I'll post some more pictures when things have quietened down a little...

Pot meet kettle?

In case you missed it, my recent post about a well-known airline's attempt to blag free images for use in an in-flight magazine has generated a fair bit of debate. And it shows little sign of abating.

Comments, as always, welcome. Go on, take a swing. I've got broad shoulders...

Season's wotsits

Thanks for reading my ramblings over the past year - there'll be more in the same vein in 2008. Happy Christmas (/holidays), and here's to another year of trying to snare that elusive perfect riding image!

Nikon D2X, 12-24mm f/4, 1/125 sec f/5.6 @ ISO100, two radio slaves

So you wanna be a pro, huh?

One of the downsides of earning a living from photography is the steady trickle of begging emails and phone calls. The detail varies but the gist is the same - these people (the vast majority of whom, incidentally, are salaried) claim to have little or no budget, but offer the prospect of publicity beyond the photographer's wildest dreams. To paraphrase Harlan Ellison, go tell that to someone who's just fallen off the turnip wagon...

Anyhoo, I had to chuckle when fellow photographer Dan Barham posted one such email from one of the world's biggest airlines on his blog recently. The cheek, eh?

And then the same email, from the same airline, turned up in my inbox this morning. Here's an exerpt (with names removed to protect the innocent / prevent a lawsuit - delete whichever suits your mood):

'Dear Seb Rogers,

The staff of XXX XXX, the luxury magazine of XXX XXX, is in the process of planning our Spring 2008 “Sporting Life” issue, focusing on many high-end products and articles related to health, sports, fitness, and wellness.

One of the articles we are working on is a photographic feature story -- a visual compilation -- of some of the best places on earth to experience a particular sport shot by some of the best photographers in the world. Examples include spectacular settings for sports such as fly-fishing, hiking, kayaking, rock climbing, scuba diving, golf, biking, and surfing.

We are interested in showcasing ONE of your favorite images of biking, preferably at a location within a couple hours of a destination XXX XXX serves. Several well-known photographers will be participating in this effort.'

And so on, in a similar vein. Only this time, presumably because of the number of photographers refusing to prostrate themselves at the prospect of (gasp!) a byline in an in-flight magazine, the airline in question has spelt out their non-payment policy in very clear terms:

'To clarify, we are interested in publicizing ONE of your favorite images and featuring information on you, including your website, books, and other projects you're working on. This is an expose of top sports photographers. And because of the size and scope of this feature, and because it exposes your work, website and book project to potentially more than three million readers of XXX XXX first and business class, we are unable to pay for or in any way purchase an image from you. This effort would be for publicity purposes only, and we will understand (but will be disappointed) if it is not something you are interested in.'

They are, of course, going to be disappointed. But, since they'd been pretty cheeky to me, I couldn't resist the opportunity to be a bit cheeky back. Here's my reply:

'Dear XXX,

Thank you for your email and your interest in my work.

I would be delighted to license one of my images for use in XXX XXX; however I note that you are unwilling to pay and so, on this occasion, I will have to decline. The vast majority of my clients don't fly First or Business, so I can see no value in the publicity and, unfortunately, a warm fuzzy glow doesn't help pay the mortgage.

I am, I have to say, disappointed (but not surprised) that XXX XXX feels the need to poach 'free' use from photographers in this way. Perhaps you could shave costs even further by persuading the magazine's printers that their credit on the masthead is sufficient payment?

Just a thought.

Kind regards

Seb'

I take some comfort from the fact that they're clearly struggling to find enough photographers to fill the pages (I'm not kidding myself that I was anywhere near the top of their list). But the depressing thought is that they probably will, one way or another, manage to fill enough pages to make their feature a viable prospect. And not one of the contributing photographers will get any benefit from it.

It's the quiet ones you've got to watch out for

One of the joys of being an amateur photographer, it seems to me, is that you have no-one to answer to. You can take pictures when you want, of whatever you want, for no other reason than because you, er, want to. And there's never been a better time to be so recklessly self-indulgent, what with all the opportunities to share your creative endeavours with the web community and such.

Trouble is, certain elements of grubby greediness just can't help themselves. The underhand practice of burying a rights-grabbing clause in the small print of a competition aimed squarely at amateurs (who, quite understandably, don't usually bother too much with reading the small print) is alive and well. And this time it's that upstanding defender of liberal values and fair working practices, the Grauniad, with its hands in your wallet. Tsk.

Competitions are great. They're a good way to apply a bit of constructive self-criticism to your photos, provide an incentive to go out and shoot new and different subjects, and see how your work stands up to those of your peers. And there's always the possibility of winning some loot, too (think you've got no chance? Just remember all the people who don't enter because they're thinking exactly the same thing - you've got to be in it to win it!)

But you don't have to prostrate yourself on the altar of commercial self-interest to enter. Rights grabs have become so commonplace, it's worth reading the small print before you decide whether or not to enter. Any competition that stipulates 'free use' rights beyond competition-related publicity is worth steering very clear of. And, if you can be bothered, a brief email to the organisers explaining why they won't be getting the benefit of your creative endeavours on this occasion...

Diminishing returns, anyone?

It's never been easier to reach potential image buyers online and, unsurprisingly, people are signing up in their hundreds of thousands to do so. Alamy put up their 10 millionth image a few months back and there are any number of wannabe online image libraries offering to display your images to the world, with the promise of a cash reward.

But that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is shrinking in size faster than an iceberg in the Sahara. Think there's money to be made? Well, there might be... but you'll likely be at the back of a very long queue sweeping up a few stray pennies.

There are a lot of reasons for this state of affairs, some of which I've touched on before - so I won't bore you again (I can hear a muted cheer already). But think carefully before you sign up with any of the microstock agencies. I'd be very surprised if any of them are making any money; the best that the best can hope for is probably to boost their market value in the hope of an eventual takeover from the likes of Getty or Corbis. And if the agencies aren't making any money, you can be absolutely certain their photographers aren't...

Just show me the money

I've previously alluded on this blog (and fairly grumpily, even by my standards) to the problems that can be caused by the tendency for many people to give away pictures for free. The explosion of cheap dSLRs and photo sharing sites has generated an unprecedented boom in the quantity (sadly not always matched in quality - but that's a whole different subject) of images available for viewing. And it's a fact that hasn't gone unnoticed by image buyers, who have become ruthlessly adept* at exploiting the average amateur's vanity and blissful ignorance of intellectual property rights in order to take what they want, usually for commercial gain in some form or other, and to give in return... absolutely nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

'So what?' you may be thinking. 'If amateur photographers want to give away their work for free, where's the harm?'

Well... as I've hinted in the past, this behaviour contributes to the devaluing of all photography. So, whilst arguably no harm is done to the legions of genuine amateurs who demand nothing more than the fuzzy glow of satisfaction of seeing their work in print, every freebie is another nail in the coffin of photography as a viable profession. And the ultimate irony is that the dream of a full-time career is often dangled as a carrot in front of the wavering would-be photographer: 'if you give us this picture we'll make sure you're credited, and the publicity will be really good for you...'.

It's nothing more than a confidence trick. Don't fall for it.

And it's not just photographers who are affected in this way. Here's a fantastically entertaining Hollywood rant (warning: contains some strong language):

I've lost count of the number of times I've politely declined to supply images in exchange for a byline or a link to my website. I frequently have to bite my tongue and resist the temptation to descend into the kind of sarcastic rant that Harlan Ellison does so well... but it's getting harder.

So, please - whether you earn your living from photography or not - don't give stuff away for free. If you do, you'll be contributing in a small way to the destruction of photography (and, in a roundabout way, other creative arts) as a viable living. And a world that doesn't reward creative individuals for the sculpture, poetry, music, painting, plays and photography that they provide is one that will, I think, be greatly impoverished.

* It's not always blatant. One of the most common current tactics is to run a photo 'competition' in which the conditions of entry will stipulate that entrants will give up some or all of their intellectual property rights. Result? A free photo library for the cost of a bit of publicity and a couple of prizes. Big household names are amongst the worst offenders, and the rights grab is always buried in the small print. You have been warned!

Bah humbug

If, like me, the prospect of Christmas shopping makes clearing out the garage seem like a far more tempting proposition in comparison, here's something to add to your wish-list. Aaron Johnson's What the Duck character appeals to the camera geek in me. But more importantly, it makes me laugh. And that tongue-in-cheek, nerdy humour is available in T-shirt, mouse mat or wall-mounted form... and just a click of a mouse away. Who needs to go shopping?

She'll no' take it, cap'n

If you've emailed me in the past few days and haven't received a reply... apologies. I can receive email while I'm in the US but, an error message helpfully informs me, I can't access my SMTP server from here. Which means I can't send mail.

If you're emailing about the 2008 photo course reserve list, consider yourself added. If you're emailing about anything else, I'll be in touch next week.

In the US and A*

It's impossible to mistake the United States for any other country. For one thing, everyone addresses you as 'sir' (or 'ma'am', if you happen to be of the apposite gender). And for another, the flag is everywhere. This is the view from my hotel bedroom window. Well, OK, a small part of the view from my hotel bedroom window:

Nikon D200, 200mm f/2, 1/15sec f/22 @ ISO100

For an interminable 10 minutes at San Francisco airport it seemed as though the immigration officer wasn't going to let me into the country. She seemed distinctly unimpressed with my shiny new 'I' (it stands for 'information gathering media', doncha know) visa, which replaces the slightly less shiny (and, more to the point, expired) 'I' visa in my old passport. And even less impressed that I didn't have any kind of press card or 'official accreditation'. In the end I managed to magic a letter on headed paper from the deeper recesses of my bag, smiled a lot and tried very hard not to say, 'I don't have this problem in any other country'. I've learnt from bitter experience that US border officials don't like that. 'You're in the United States now. Sir.'

And so I am. Er, so there might even be the odd sporadic update, if I get time. Off to Specialized tomorrow...

*with apologies to Borat

We're all full up...

Thanks to everyone who contacted me about the 2008 photo courses... they're now both fully booked up (pending arrival of the last few deposits). I'm looking forward to it already!

If you'd like me to add you to my reserve list (there are still a couple of places), please let me know. People on the list will be offered spare places - if they become available - on a first come, first served basis.

If you've recently booked and sent me a deposit, I'll be in touch in the next two weeks to confirm...

Leaf peeping

Seems like I've complained an awful lot this year about the weather. So, by way of redressing the balance, let's hear it for crisp autumn (/fall) days with gert big domes of blue sky, low sun and the crunch of freshly-fallen golden leaves under-tyre...

Nikon D200, 12-24mm f/4, 1/200sec f/5.6 @ ISO100

Proof of age

I have no way of knowing who the readers of this blog are, let alone how old, so I don't know for sure if what I'm about to share is going to have the same impact on you as it did on me. But if you're at the sort of age where you have to start buying bigger jeans to accommodate a bit of sag, mortgage interest rates are dull-but-actually-rather-essential info, the '80s seem relatively recent... and you don't want to be thoroughly depressed, close this browser window now and go and do something else.

Still here? Don't say I didn't warn you.

Joey Lawrence is a Canadian-born photographer with an impressive portfolio and an expanding list of clients. And he's only 17. Yep, you read that last bit right (and you really have to click on the portfolio link to understand why I'm hyping the age thing up). Hugely talented, a deft touch with remote flash and - if the interview on Strobist is anything to go by - wise beyond his years.

The vast majority of us will never be that good, at any age. Depressing or inspirational? I'm still trying to decide. But anyway... way to go, Joey!

Filthy lucre

One of the questions that turns up most frequently in my inbox is 'I want to earn a living from photography - do you have any advice?'. To which the succinct (and unwanted) answer is 'don't give up the day job'.

In roughly the same way that not everyone grows up to be an astronaut, most aspiring pro photographers never make the grade. Well, alright, perhaps that's not an entirely fair parallel. There are, after all, considerably more photographers than astronauts in this world (at least, there were last time I looked). But still, photography isn't a safe, easy or lucrative career choice to nearly the extent that most people imagine it is (for more de-motivational truisms, I can do no better than refer the over-eager wannabe astronaut / photographer here).

Of course I would say that, wouldn't I? After all, it's hardly in my interests to encourage competitors to tread on my riding shoes. But if you're still not convinced, consider this:

- It's a buyer's world
Pre-flickr, pre-broadband, pre-budget dSLRs, pro photography was already in trouble. Buffeted by falling circulations, the fallout from the dotcom bubble and general post 9/11 market jitters, media organisations and commercial buyers of photography were all going through an extended period of belt-tightening anyway. Prices froze or dropped, extended rights were demanded and contracts locked down. And then the prosumer explosion came along, and photography was well and truly commoditised. Suddenly the market was over-saturated, almost overnight, with millions of images. Many of them were (are) available for free or a pittance, their creators only too happy to allow usage in exchange for the short-lived golden glow that comes with seeing their work in print. With the market chasing ever-cheaper imagery, it's tougher than ever for an individual to earn a living from the images they produce.

- The herding instinct
You've bought a dSLR, you're enjoying the whole thing, everyone says your pictures are good. Think you're the only person to have considered making money from them? Given that dSLR sales have been growing at double-digit rates for a while now, chances are there are thousands - if not millions - of people just like you. The market's already over-saturated (see above). How are you going to rise above the rest?

- Quality matters
In the days of film, most people simply didn't take the time to learn how to consistently produce the sharp, well-exposed transparencies that most editorial and commercial users demanded. The long and relatively costly learning curve acted like a natural filter, ensuring only the most determined individuals endured the disappointment of roll after roll of sub-par results. Digital's instant feedback loop both speeds the process and gives the illusion that a higher proportion of shots have 'come out'. But wait - are your pics really up to scratch? Are they really sharp? (lack of sharpness is the most common shortcoming that I see in amateur pics, whether of mountain bikes or any other subject). Whilst some clients are happy to accept 'good enough' standards of photography, there's no future in being a bottom-feeder. If you can't consistently produce technically and aesthetically top-notch images, to order, in a range of conditions and circumstances, you're in trouble before you start.

- Do the math
... because most photographers don't. As a group, photographers are notoriously bad at running businesses. The ones that succeed tend to be either vastly talented, extremely well connected or, more often, simply ok at basic arithmetic. It's simple, really - you need to earn more than you spend. Hardly rocket science, but it's amazing how many people get blinded by the lure of shiny toys, then go on to market their work poorly / hardly at all and under-charge when they do find a buyer. Know the value of your work, understand your market, spend time on a business plan and then stick to it.

- It's not (just) about the pictures
Plenty of extremely gifted amateurs are capable of turning out consistently great images, but that's not enough to earn a decent living. No-one is likely to beat a path to your door, even if you do have a great flickr gallery (and if that's the extent of your marketing, it's likely that anyone that does go down that route will be looking for free or cheap usage). To succeed you need to spend more time running a business than being a photographer. Selling your work is key, and you can't necessarily rely on the quality of your images to do all the talking (though if they're great, that helps).

- Self-employment blues
The relative isolation, need for self-motivation and complete lack of job security mean it really doesn't suit everyone. Oh, and did I mention no sick or holiday pay and irregular cash flow?

Tough love? Maybe, but the reality of professional photography - rather like running a restaurant or writing a best-selling book - seems to be far removed from the popular perception of it. And if that hasn't been enough to put you off, you just might stand a chance. Good luck!

Update: here's another view on How To Succeed as a Photographer.

What, no posts?

Regular visitors (there appear to be at least a couple of you) can't fail to have noticed the lack of posts over the past few weeks. There's a simple reason: I've been enjoying a well-earned break from bikes, computers and yes - even cameras. After two weeks of sun, sailing, trail running and beer (waddya mean, that's an odd combination?), I'm back in the saddle. Which means that the usual mish-mash of ill-informed comment and half-baked opinions will continue until further notice...

The butterfly effect

Despite the continuing onslaught of rain in biblical quantities here in the UK it is, according to the met office, still officially a 'warmer than average' summer. The lack of settled, sunny conditions may, say the weather experts, be partly due to 'the expected development of moderate or strong La Niňa conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean'.

So there you go. Soggy trails and completely haywire weather, thanks to a specific set of meteorological circumstances on the other side of the planet. There are still picture opportunities, of course - just not the ones I had in mind for the summer...

Yes, it's still (still) raining. Again
Nikon D2X, 200mm f/2, 1/2000 sec f/2.8 @ ISO400

RIP film III

Thanks to the wonders of Freecycle (kinda like ebay only without the grubby business of money changing hands, and you never have to go to the post office), my film shooting days are now officially over. I had a box of assorted film - Velvia (50 and 100), Provia (100 and 400) and even a few rolls of Agfa Scala - sitting in the fridge. Sitting being the operative word - I hadn't touched them for over 18 months. Time for someone else to give them a good home and actually put them to use.

I can't bear to part with my film cameras, though. And it wouldn't make financial sense to do so, because they're currently going for tuppence ha'penny on ebay. Just for example, the wonderful F5, the most reliable and confidence-inspiring camera I've ever owned, can be had for £300 or thereabouts. It was an eye-watering £2300 when it was launched in 1996. I paid between £1500 and £1800 for each of the three F5s that I've owned over the years (I only have one left). They were worth every penny.

Remember rewind cranks? And 'cards' that only held 36 exposures...?

Ah, well. The march of progress, eh? And, just to rub salt into the wound, I'm going to spend the next couple of days sorting, filing, scanning and cataloguing a pile of slides from around three years ago. Cue really bad joke: old film doesn't die, it just ends up in bits (on a hard drive).

'When I were a lad, all those bytes were silver halide crystals' etc....

Inclemency

Compared to the loss of life, crop devastation and millions of pounds worth of material damage suffered as a result of the flooding in the UK over the past few weeks, the fact that the trails are a bit muddy for the shoots I need to do is, well, trivial. And it's not as if wet weather doesn't bring its own opportunities for pictures:

You can disappear in Mendip puddles never to be seen again if you're not careful
Nikon D2X, 80-200mm f/2.8, 1/400 sec f/2.8 @ ISO400

But c'mon. Is this as good as the summer's going to get?

I'm working my way through a list of jobs that need doing but that I've been putting off. Things like filing, cataloguing pictures and, er, my tax return. I'll leave you to guess which one of those is still at the bottom of the list....

Caveat Flickror

Warning: bad-tempered rant content ahead...

I've previously drawn attention to the way in which some Flickr users' generosity of spirit / lack of intellectual property nous (delete whichever is not applicable) is being exploited. Not surprisingly, it's still happening (here and here).

Nor is this an isolated case. Publishers of worldwide travel guides Schmap appear to have neatly sidestepped the potentially costly process of illustrating their guides by finding a (apparently legal) way around the 'creative commons' license used by many Flickrers to enable their pics to be shared non-commercially.

Of course, Schmap is anything but a non-commercial company. But according to Luke Ritchie, managing editor of Schmap Guides, it's okay to use Flickr images because they've been taken 'in the most part [by] hobbyists/amateurs who have never had any commercial objective for their work'. And, for those photographers who do have this 'commercial objective', there's a 'reciprocal marketing benefit' to be had by their work appearing in the guides (which seems to consist of a credit and a link back to Flickr).

So that's alright then. Er, except it isn't, really.

Do I need to point out that all photographers, everywhere, are shooting themselves in the foot by allowing this to happen? Doesn't matter if you're a full-time pro or a weekend snapper: giving commercial organsiations images for free is unhelpful at best and dumb at worst. Rule of thumb: if you wouldn't give someone who's expressed an interest in your photos cash in the form of a donation, don't give them free images.

Why does this matter? Well it matters to me because, somewhere on this slippery slope, it's my livelihood at stake. But it should also matter to you, because commercial organisations should be putting cash in your pocket if you have an image they want to use. They don't give their stuff away for free. At least, not without good reason. Why should you? (In case you hadn't guessed, I don't think the warm glow of satisfaction from seeing one's work in print / on screen counts as a 'good reason'...)

Rant ends. And relax...

First century

According to the stats page, the post below was my 100th. Woo, and indeed, hoo!

Just think of all the other things I could've been doing instead of blathering about cameras and bikes over the past 8 months or so. Er, no, on second thoughts, don't. But thanks for reading anyway. I'm enjoying indulging my latent anorak tendencies...

An end to slavery?

It's often the simple things that make photographic life easier. For all the marketing brouhaha and hype surrounding its launch, for example, I chose my Nikon F801 back in 1989 because of its large, bright and glasses-friendly viewfinder and the fact that its manual mode didn't feel like an afterthought. They're the kind of details that save time, minimise fiddling and make it more likely that you won't miss the shot. Handy for any photographer; pretty important for anyone earning a living from their pics.

Eighteen years later, nothing has changed all that much. My Nikons still have glasses-friendly viewfinders and handle well when switched to manual. I can use my cameras with my eyes shut. Well, almost.

If rumours are to be believed, Nikon's launch of its much-anticipated D3 series is just around the corner (cynics will rightly point out that web-based rumours have a life of their own... which is true. But the D3 will be along sooner or later regardless). Doubtless it'll have a great viewfinder and an easy-to-use manual mode, too. But there's something else that I'd really, really like it to offer. And it doesn't have anything to do with more pixels, lower high ISO noise, more sophisticated autofocus, greater bit depth or any of the other headline features which the new camera is bound to have.

Three words: real, wireless flash.

Two hard-to-get-at remote flashes and pitch black conditions: here's where I could really use in-camera remote flash control
Nikon D200, 12-24mm f/4, 1/60 sec f/5.6 @ ISO400, two radio slaves

That's as opposed to the ersatz wireless flash that we have at the moment. Don't get me wrong - Nikon's flash system is mostly great, and very flexible. But the wireless component of it, which actually uses the near-infrared portion of visible pre-exposure flashes to control remote flash units, is far too limiting for my purposes - and I can't believe I'm the only one. It only works when the remote units are within a specified distance and angle of view - and, crucially, within sight - of the master unit on the camera.

I like having the ability to control every remote unit from the camera. I don't like the range and positioning constraints. There's the added disadvantage that the pre-flashes add a noticeable shutter lag, but that's the least of my worries.

It's enough to make the system all but unworkable for me. A flash behind the camera, behind a tree or more than a few feet away simply won't fire. So I fall back on my trusty - and battered - Quantum radio slave system. It works and it has useable range, but I have to run backwards and forwards making alternate test shots and adjustments to each flash unit before I have a shot set up. That takes time - time that I'd rather spend shooting. And it's two more bits of gear - transmitter and receiver - that I have to pack and spend time setting up.

So here's the idea: built-in wireless flash, based on the existing iTTL system but making use of radio rather than near-infrared for communication. Perhaps the antenna could double up for wireless file transfer duties, and maybe an optional hotshoe-mount antenna could increase range? I don't know. I'm not a camera designer or engineer. There may be some perfectly sound technical reason why it isn't possible.

Remote flash has become an essential component of the way I work, but the setup is clunky and long overdue for a radical re-think. I spend so much of my working time running between flash units on tripods that, if Nikon could make such a built-in system a reality, I'd be first in the queue. It'd mean not just a new body, but new flashguns as well - and that'd be a big hole in my bank balance. But it'd be worth it just for the time it'd save me.

Hey, I can dream.

Unsung trail heroes

Anyone who's ever rolled a tyre down a man-made trail owes a debt to the small army of trailbuilders who made it possible. Heck, who made it, full stop.

I was in Fort William last weekend to preview the World Champ courses with some of the UK's top riders. While we were there I bumped into the two men who are responsible for much of the hard work that's gone into the nipped, tucked and generally improved downhill, 4X and XC courses.

You couldn't hope to meet two more enthusiastic, committed and cheerful ambassadors for the sport. While everyone else was busy putting in practice runs or fettling bikes, they were out on the courses working up a sweat with chainsaws, shovels, hammers and saws, putting the final touches to what must have been countless hours of hard work. It is, in many ways, a thankless job.

So hats off to Bob MacFarlane and Donald Morrison, and to trailbuilders everywhere. You put a smile on the faces of countless thousands of people every weekend - and that's no mean feat.

Trail sculptors Bob MacFarlane and Donald Morrison with the tools of their trade. Something tells me they enjoy their work...
Nikon D2X, 12-24mm f/4, 1/250sec f/9 @ ISO100, single on-camera flash set to TTL plus single off-camera flash set to M full power

Another bite at the big apple

The flipside of wet and windy weather is that it's a good excuse to sort out all those pictures that have been piling up. I've got a stack - actually, several stacks - of sleeved slides that need sorting, scanning and filing. It's a job that I've been putting off for months and - guess what? - it's accidentally slipped to the bottom of my list again. Oops.

But the rain hammering on the windows has given me a chance to re-visit the pictures I took on my trip to New York earlier in the year. These are the kind of shots that, if I'm not careful, tend to languish in a forgotten folder on my hard drive - pictures that I took for fun, without a particular purpose in mind. But I rather like them - perhaps, ironically, because they weren't shot for anything or anyone - and I'm trying to think of something constructive to do with them.

There's more - and considerably better - NYC-inspired photography here.

Olympus C8080, 1/160sec f/6.3 @ ISO50

Olympus C8080, 1/200sec f/8 @ ISO50

Olympus C8080, 1/320sec f/3.5 @ ISO50

Olympus C8080, 1/40sec f/2.8 @ ISO50

Olympus C8080, 1/1250sec f/2.8 @ ISO50

Weather to go

I still think, over 10 years after the event, that a well-known US mountain bike mag's description of the UK as 'a windswept, low-altitude island in the North Sea' is both brilliantly incisive and slightly insulting. But it seems particularly apt at the moment, as we lurch - meteorologically speaking - from a period of cloudless skies and barmy temperatures to, well, business as usual for this little island of ours.

Nikon D200, 85mm f/1.4, 1/250 sec f/4.5 @ ISO400, single radio slave

Strong winds, heavy showers and random glimpses of sunshine look set to dominate the next few days, and that makes me nervier than usual (waddya mean, that's not possible?). I've got three days of rather weather-dependent shooting to fit in, and not a lot of time to do it in. Poring over the met office website for periodic updates makes me at least feel that I know roughly what to expect, even if it's not the weather that I wanted.

But I'm going to miss those dusty trails...

Death of the photographer?

There was a thought-provoking article in the Guardian yesterday about the ways in which professional photographers are finding their livelihoods increasingly under attack. None of this is news, of course, but the spectacular growth of online photo-sharing sites like Flickr is both fascinating and terrifying to watch for anyone who earns a living from selling images.

I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Update: Opinions about Flickr seem to vary, depending on who you ask. Here's an example of how big corporations try to use the excuse of low budgets and the supposed naivety of Flickr contributors to pull a fast one. And here's a far more upbeat appraisal... although it points out that Flickr owners Yahoo! are far more interested in generating revenue from advertising on the site than from image sales. At the moment, that is.

Photoshop: a question of ethics

Unless you subscribe to a pro photography mailing list, chances are you'll have missed the fuss surrounding the resignation of Pullitzer Prize finalist and pro photojournalist Allan Detrich from the Toledo Blade newspaper in Ohio (there's a summary here).

The newspaper spotted that one of Detrich's published images had been altered in Photoshop. Although Detrich claimed to have made the alteration - the removal of a stray pair of legs that appeared under a banner - for his personal files, he resigned the following day. A noble gesture on the face of it, but subsequent investigations revealed that he'd doctored dozens of published images in the previous 12 months alone.

The fallout to this story is intriguing. In an exchange published on sportsshooter.com, Detrich reveals that he never intended to deceive, but hated distracting backgrounds. Using the clone tool in Photoshop just became part of his normal workflow.

It's a view I can relate to. When I first wrote about the tendency for magazines to clean up cover shots and, sometimes, to insert completely new skies, I was caught out by the reaction. Many people were surprised that cover images were altered at all; some were shocked; a few were just short of outraged. These reactions, in turn, surprised me. After all, image manipulation is as old as photography - Photoshop hasn't changed that fact, it's just made it easier to do.

Whether it's ethical or not depends, I think, on the context. If Allan Detrich wants to clone out a distracting pair of legs for his own files, that's entirely his business. If the cloned image is published as a news image, it's arguably deceiving (although not harmful per se). News images should be as truthful as the limitations of photography as a medium allow; I don't think that's a view that many people would disagree with.

But I can't get too upset about a mountain bike image whose sky has been toned, or from which distracting trees (or whatever) have been cloned out. It may not be truthful, but few images of mountain biking are. Unlike news pictures, most editorial mountain bike pictures have been set up - staged from start to finish. The location, the riders, the bikes, the kit and even the time of day may well have been painstakingly chosen to look as good as possible. It's not reality, it's an idealised representation of it. And I'm not sure there's anything wrong with that.

Here's a picture I took in Chamonix last year (regular blog readers may recognise it as having been posted here before):

Nikon D200, 12-24mm f/4, 1/400sec f/7.1 @ ISO100

Except that this isn't the image I submitted to the magazine. It's a slightly edited version that I made to print for myself, with the lift cables and the distracting figure on the left removed:

Who wants to look at these? Not me...

And the guy on the left is just in the way (and demonstrating my lens's tendency to chromatic aberration at the edges)

Would I ever submit a picture like this for publication? Well, probably not. But less for ethical reasons, and more for the very practical one that I can't spare 10 minutes on a single image using the healing brush and clone stamp; it's just not cost-effective.

But I can entirely understand Allan Detrich's dislike of clutter. The difference is that his job dealt with a supposedly impartial depiction of the real world; mine for the most part is an idealised representation of a small part of it. It's a subtle distinction, but an important one.

Footnote: just to muddy the waters further, it's worth remembering that the image above - like all my images - is the result of careful manipulation in a raw file editor. The raw data from the camera's sensor is tweaked by me to produce the contrast, brightness, colour and sharpness of the scene as I remember it, which in cases like this one means the end result can end up looking very different from the original, unprocessed image:

You might think that this (untweaked) image just looks too dark, and you'd be right. But I shot it that way to retain as much detail as possible in the clouds and sunlit snow, knowing that I'd have to use software to lighten the midtones and shadows. As it is, it's just unusable, with hue shifts visible in the highlight areas, clogged shadows and murky midtones. And if I'd shot it as a jpeg, there's no way I could have recovered all the shadow and highlight detail that the finished file shows.

This kind of processing is arguably different from adding or removing elements from a scene, but it's not quite as black and white (no pun intended) as it looks. Where do you draw the line? When does a saturation boost to the sky become 'deceiving'? How about changing the colour of a rider's shirt? Removing sensor dust marks? And so on.

Discuss...

My how you've changed

Nikon F801, 24mm f/2.8, exposure unrecorded on Fuji Sensia 100, single on-camera flash

I was going through some old pics recently and discovered this shot of resident MBUK cartoonist Jo Burt riding some Cretan rocks in 1994. The images from this two week trip were my first published feature (in the now-defunct MTB Pro), although I don't think this one made it into print.

Funny how things change almost imperceptibly over time, isn't it? You don't have to be a mountain bike fashionista to immediately clock the zebra-patterned tights, the cow hide-pattern Nike shoes and the narrow flat bars. But at the time (this was the era of pyschedelic Bula hats and oversized Oakley Mumbos, after all) this setup was quite, um, fashionable. No, really (stop laughing at the back)...

Kathmandu calling

Annapurna: over 10,000 vertical feet of descent. Some of the toughest trails I've ever taken a bike down. Epic scenery. Friendly people. Great food. The worst diarrhoea I've ever had. 12 hour days in the saddle. And now a brief stopover in Kathmandu to recharge batteries (literally and figuratively) and wash shorts that are so sweat-stained they stand up by themselves before we all board a big old Russian helicopter and fly up to Langtang to do it all again.

More next week when I get home, with pictures...

The price of staving off climate change

(Yes, I know I'm supposed to be on a plane to Nepal... )

So I'm just finishing off some work late last night, and it's time to power down the computer and unwind in front of the TV for a while. I've been working late quite a bit lately, to fit in everything that needs to be done before I go away.

Putting the office to bed has become more complicated over the past year or two because of the rapid growth of my, erm, 'system'. Nine external hard drives, two Macs, monitor, powered speakers, scanner... you get the idea. Many of these bits and pieces have external power sources which stay warm to the touch even when the device they're powering is switched off... so I decided a while back to always switch off at the wall socket when I'd finished for the day. Cuts the electricity bill, conserves energy a bit and saves a few more kilos of CO2 from being pumped into the atmosphere. Simple.

Trouble is, last night I went onto autopilot. Must be because I'm tired from too many late nights. Normally I wait until the power light on my Mac has gone out before switching off at the wall. Last night I didn't. And I didn't give it another thought until two minutes later, when I realised I'd forgotten something and tried to boot it back up.

Nothing.

Well, not quite nothing. The sound of the drive unparking itself and a glowing power light... but no startup 'bong', no video, no drive contentedly chugging away...

Long story short*: it's going back to my friendly Mac repairer today so it'll be fixed when I come back from Nepal. And I'm kicking myself for a forgetful couple of seconds that'll likely land me with a hefty repair bill. At least all my important data is stored - and duplicated - on external drives. And I have a backup Mac that I can use in the meantime. But it's a right, royal pain.

Will I still switch everything off at the wall? Probably. But I'll be sure to wait until that light's gone off from now on...

* in case any Mac experts are reading, I tried most of the known 'fixes'. The trouble is it won't boot in any mode, so I can't even use it as a target drive and back up to another machine before a reinstall. And I do, in fact, have a recent clone of the entire drive that I could use to restore it... if I could only get the //expletive deleted// thing to start up. //Sigh//.

Nowt so queer

The stats for my blog show, amongst other things, where visitors have come from. Some of them, inevitably, stumble on my little corner of the web via a search engine. But I can't help feeling that they're not always getting what they bargained for.

Some of the best search strings that have brought browsers here include 'how to dismantle a Nikon D2X' (the mind boggles), 'lame pony' and 'pot of gold' (both of which are victims of my not entirely descriptive post headings), and 'the best mountain bike photographer in the world' (no, really... though I don't actually get top ranking if you put that into Google).

Many others fall into the category of 'best lens / shutter speed / miscellaneous widget for mountain bike photography'. If only it were that simple. Er, actually, if it were that simple I'd be out of a job...

RIP film II

I discovered the lyrics to this 1973 Paul Simon song over the weekend:

'Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away'

(Paul Simon, Kodachrome, 1973)*

On the same day I'd been reading about the 161 exabytes (that's 161 billion iPod Shuffles' worth, apparently) of 'total digital content' generated in the world last year. And I couldn't help but get a little nostalgic - again - for the days of film. I know, I know... but I shot film professionally for a decade (and for a quarter century in total). It's in my blood.

I've heard many post-digital converts to photography talk dismissively of film. Sometimes they're remembering the frustration of print colours not being quite right, or of not knowing on the spot whether or not the picture would 'come out'. But mostly the complaints boil down to the fact that there was a wait of hours, days, weeks or months before they could see their pictures. Delayed gratification, but not in a good way.

No-one wants that any more. Why wait to view your slides on a lightbox when you can see the picture on a tiny little screen fractions of a second after it was taken?

20-year-old Kodachrome shot on a Nikon D2X and processed with Bibble Pro. Irony not pictured.

But I think the focus on speed misses the point. What Paul Simon's song captures is the way that an entire generation viewed their memories - of family, places, holidays, special occasions - through the prism of Kodachrome's unique tones and colours. The millions of inch-by-inch-and-a-half rectangles of film languishing in little yellow boxes in the back of cupboards and in forgotten attic corners throughout the world have one thing in common - that Kodachrome 'look'.

Despite its fabled accuracy, Kodachrome - like any film - was never capable of faithful reproduction of a scene. High mid-tone contrast gave it its fabled 'punch', but also meant that small exposure errors could result in washed-out midtones or blocked-in shadows. But with a little care - and an acceptance that every roll of film would have its duds - it was capable of producing stunning results. Like all good films, it just needed a bit of patience to learn its idiosyncracies.

And therein lies the downfall of the silver halide process. Used successfully and extensively to document more than a century and a half of political turmoil, family holidays, war, weddings, space exploration and barmitzvahs, it's been dumped unceremoniously in the space of a few years because it's too slow. Patience? Who's got patience any more?

One of the things we've lost in this scramble to instant gratification is that unique 'look'. In the past, tonal and colour responses were defined largely by which film you loaded into your camera. Now it's all built into the camera's chip (if you shoot jpeg), or defined by the software you use (if you shoot raw). You can tweak it, but you can't fundamentally change the way your camera 'sees' the world.

Funnily enough, I'm very protective of the 'look' of my digital pictures. I shoot raw and process every single file individually (yes, I spend a lot of time in front of a monitor!). After a couple of years of refining the process I've got a pretty clear idea of what I'm looking for as I press the button, much like I did after years of shooting the same brand of film. No-one else is likely to process my raw files exactly the same way as me, and I rather like that thought. It's one of the main reasons I shoot raw.

But I also miss using the pre-defined response of a particular film - the colours, the dip into solid black in the shadows, the gradual roll-off into highlights... the subtleties and intricacies of the entire process. There was an art to doing it well, but it's an art that's been sacrificed on the altar of speed and convenience.

A song about the 'nice bright colours' of a digital EOS just wouldn't have the same ring.

* One of the reasons it escaped unnoticed all these years is probably that it was never released in the UK, thanks to the BBC's rigid policy of not allowing any commercial content - the same policy that forced the Kinks to change the line 'we drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca-Cola' to 'cherry cola'.

The shirt off my back

Photography forums are currently buzzing with rumours of impending upgrades to Canon's top-end dSLRs (and some muttering about the fact that Nikon won't be too far behind). More pixels, more clever technology... more expense.

Make it stop, please.

Don't get me wrong, I have the same mild gear fetish as many photographers. But from a self-employed pro's perspective, the pace (and cost) of updates is threatening to spiral out of control. Film cameras used to have a major update every five to eight years (and cost £1000-£2000 each). Their digi equivalents are now on a two to three year update cycle (and cost £2500-£6000 each).

Throw in the dire state of the commercial photography market (downward price pressure, hugely increased competition), and it's hard for many pros to make the sums add up.

Do I want more pixels, better high ISO performance, better wireless flash, better AF, a live histogram, built-in wifi? Yes. Do I NEED any of that stuff right now? No. Could I afford it, even if it were available? No.

Three years ago I took a look at my bulging camera bag containing a brace of F5s, a collection of fast lenses, several flash guns and a bunch of other bits and pieces, breathed a sigh of relief and gave myself a congratulatory pat on the back. After seven years, I told myself, I had everything I needed. And it was all paid for.

Three years later I've spent the same amount again... and it's already pretty much obsolete. It's progress, Jim, but not as we know it.