Summer break is over :(

Summer break is over L

For those that read my blog will know I'm doing a foundation degree in professional photography.

It’s kind of funny in that when you’re doing the school run with the kids and then they have their summer holidays; it seems to go on for ever! But when it’s you, time seems to have whizzed pass and you’re into a new year and you have to get your head into that mode once again.

It’s been a nice break, but at first I felt I should be doing something like research or my head buried in a book somewhere. But I’ve kept myself busy and done a few paid shoots and then there was my own little project on photographing myself and taking part in Bristol’s 2hrs in Bristol Competition which was a marathon. I did a fair bit of studio work as I know the beginning of the new year there will be a lot of that, and what with a new camera I had to get some new equipment to be able to get the camera to work with studio lights. I also invested in a beauty dish and some reflectors and tried them out in the studio; the beauty dish does give some really good lighting on a person. I read somewhere that to use a grid for a man and white diffuser for a woman; to me they both had their advantages depending on the image.

Buying gear is really down to how deep your pockets are and whether you look around for a good deal. I've looked at some video and images taken with well-known brands and the cheaper end seems to do just as good a job as them. Of course a lot of the work is done in the post editing and that’s something else that I've been working on what with composites and skin texture.

I think the summer break has given me the chance to digest what I've learnt and to put that into practice, when looking through the viewfinder I don’t just concentrate on the main part of the image but look at the sides and try different angles on what I'm seeing. Getting critical with your work has got to be a good thing, right?

One of the last things that I've invested in was the X-rite Colorchecker passport. I've read a lot on the subject and many professional photographers look at it like a bible, it does help get the right white balance and colouring, it also now works as a plug-in with Lightroom and saves a heap of time getting those batch of images right. I've had my monitor calibration software for some time now so everything works in sync.

The very last thing to mention is tethering my Sony A99 through Lightroom. I did download the Sony software but you really have to go round the houses in getting the dam thing to recognise the folder you want it to use, it can take me 15 minutes before I have it right, which is not good with a client sitting and waiting. So I was looking round the web and came across DSLRSoftware.com who boasts about their piece of software that works direct with Lightroom as a plug-in which is called DNA capture support. It’s about £18 but they do allow you to do is download a free version to try out, this has their watermark come up all over your images. But it’s brilliant, you start the tethering after connecting the camera to the laptop or PC and you just name the file and away you go your connected and taking images. Displaying images on a larger monitor than what’s on the back of your camera or through the view finder, gives you the full view of what you’re doing and gives you the chance to make changes on the fly that maybe you wouldn’t of done if you just went with the small view on the LCD screen or trying to enlarge the image on there. Sometimes it’s the small things that make that job just a bit easier to do and can be a real time saver.

So am I ready for the new semester, well I think so. I'm for ever creating ideas in my head for an image with a certain look to it, and maybe I will be able to put those together now with what we’ll be asked to do in the workshops. So into my second year of a great course that I totally recommend to anyone thinking of doing something similar and to catching up with friends I've made at college and to new ones that are just starting out in their first year.

Thanks for reading, AndyD