Creativity Crunch - Fighting Photographer's Block

Writer’s Block. It’s a terrible thing. Anyone who has ever had to sit down and put thoughts onto paper and sound interesting at the same time knows the stomach churning terror that is writer’s block. One of the reasons I shifted Photo Writing to a wholly blog format was the stress and sleepless nights that began to mark the end of each month as the self-imposed deadlines of the pdf mini-magazine rapidly neared. Often I found myself gripped in the icy embrace of a creative slump. Writers block at its worst is a paralysing condition where the deep-seated concerns of non-creativity start to feed on themselves and the writer’s block itself turns into a black hole that simply sucks up any ounce of creativity only to leave the gnawing fear of the writer’s block itself. All this for a series of email-based ramblings that didn’t even earn me any actual income. No thanks.

Studio Lighting Workshop

 

Teaming up with Myllo Menorah, we'll be running a studio lighting workshop on the 26th of November at Ambassador House in Durban. Spaces are limited to only 4 photographers so that there is maximum studio time and learning with the model who we will be using for the day. 

The day's workshop will cover aspects of lighting such as the inverse-square rule, types of modifier to use, as well as shaping light. We will go through a host modifiers from the classic shoot through umbrellas to Parabolics and into the world of softboxes, beauty dishes and snoots.  

To book please contact me on the attached email link. Cost for day, which includes lunch is R1900.

Trending Continued - Photokina 2016 and beyond.

The dust has finally settled after this year’s Photokina tradeshow in Germany. This is the biannual consumer photography tradeshow where companies like to present major product announcements and the general photographic public starts to get an idea around what the future holds in terms of imaging equipment (or at least still imaging as the National Association of Broadcasters show - NAB - still tends to be the major announcement platform for the video industry). It’s not necessarily that companies are likely to sell more product if they present at Photokina, but what the show does is strengthen or potentially weaken consumers’ perception of a brand. Thus Photokina 2016 was a ‘win’ for Fujifilm and Hasselblad and to a lesser extent Sony. It was a middling affair for Canon, and arguably Olympus and Panasonic (the micro 4/3rds cameras had a better showing that Canon, but were overshadowed by Fujifilm and Hasselblad’s announcements). It was a complete washout for Nikon and Ricoh/Pentax.

Sirui T-2204x Tripod Review - A Traveler’s Friend?

I like tripods. In particular I like big tripods. Big and heavy tripods. The reality though is that the vast majority of photographers don’t like tripods. They really don’t like big tripods and they positively hate big and heavy tripods. So when photographers eventually do get round to investing in a tripod they invariably buy the lightest, cheapest, smallest tripod around. Basically the worst thing you could possibly do as a photographer. Yet, I have to admit that as much as I like big and heavy tripods there are times when I wish they didn't physically hurt you on anything more than a 100m foray from your vehicle.