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Tokyo Drifter: Editorial and commercial photographer Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan
Tokyo Drifter: Editorial and commercial photographer Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Azusa by Alfie Goodrich

First published in 1991 at the age of 23, portrait photographer Alfie Goodrich has been shooting primarily in Japan since 2007. His eye as a photographer as well as a fluency in both English and Japanese has brought him a diverse portfolio of commercial and editorial clients, including Ferrari, Lamborghini, United Airlines, Condé Nast, Air Asia and so many more.

Goodrich counts on more than just his bilingualism to bring him clients, however. He’s a master of SEO, as well, with a daily blog that pulls in between 40,000 to 80,000 unique visitors a month, a self-produced online magazine and a Google+ page that sports more than a million followers. When he’s not shooting, he also leads workshops and tours for photographers looking to work in Japan, and has even published his own Google guide to photogenic locations throughout urban Tokyo and Japan.

Find out more about Goodrich by clicking through the slideshow and accompanying Q+A. For more imagery, visit his website, www.alfiegoodrich.com and subscribe to his magazine ‘Stekki’. You can also follow him on his blog, Google+, Facebook, Instagram, 500px, and Flickr.

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Kamakura by Alfie Goodrich

You began your career as a music portraitist and photojournalist in the UK. What was behind the transition to travel reportage and editorial work?

Actually, pretty much all of my professional photography work in the UK was done within the realm of the music business – which I was involved in from 1992 to 2002. Whilst I was PR Director for Nimbus Records, I shot a lot of stuff for CD covers, at recording sessions and events I was organising. Later, whilst general manager for Black Box Music in London, I did more of the same. Once I left music and started my own business, I started to mix up the subject matter a little more, providing a one-stop shop for people needing PR, websites, hosting and photography to promote and market their own companies. As my career changed, so did the subject of my photography.

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Akari by Alfie Goodrich

When did you decide to make the move from England to Japan, and why did you decide to stay there?

My wife is Japanese. We met in the UK and lived together there for seven years, having two of our three children during that time. We’d been thinking of moving to Japan for some time. I lost both my parents within six months of each other, in 2005 and 2006. After that, we needed a change of scene. My parents had been very active in the local community, as had I. They were good times but, yes, a change was required.

I had some friends in business, some of whom were doing very well from diverse, international businesses built up over decades. People like that generally have a good sense for what’s in the wind. One of them, who had some experience of business in Asia, warned me that he felt Europe had some hard times ahead and that my thinking about a move to Japan was a good idea.

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Fuji by Alfie Goodrich

(cont.) We left the UK in October 2007 when the yen was 210 to the Pound. Under a year later, Lehman happened and the Yen-Pound rate dropped to 105 at one point. My friend was right. Asia and Japan have weathered the financial crisis a little easier than friends of mine have back in the UK. For me to work in the way I do in Japan but do that back in the UK, we’d be looking at living and raising a family in London. Tokyo is very different. It’s safe, safe for the kids and safe for me to do my job – often dripping in camera equipment – without ever needing to look over my shoulder.

That’s one reason we’ve stayed here. Anther is that here I am different. I’m not a local. I have a different eye for Japan than a local photographer does; different working methods. I’ve made that work in my favour.

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Johan – Akiko by Alfie Goodrich

Have you found any significant differences working in Japan as compared to working in the UK – not just culturally, but on the business side of things?

There are many differences between the UK and Japan and whilst nowhere is perfect, Japan and Tokyo tick a lot more boxes for us right now than London or the UK did. Little amusing things happen all the time, like asking if I could move a chair out of the background of a shot and having the company’s PR team all look at each other as though that was something that needed a board-level decision. My response at those times is just to make light of the situation, move the chair myself and then say ‘well, perfect… now you can blame the foreigner’.

There is a very hierarchical decision making process at work in Japan. Responsibility is a collective thing, not really down to individuals. That’s good in some ways but it can prolong decision making and during a shoot, things are often fluid and decisions need making quickly. Once you’ve built people’s trust with you then it’s different; they’ll give you more of a free reign over things.

One of the good things I would say here is that once you make business relationships, they tend to last. In the UK I would often come across the situation of having clients disappear to someone else based on cost: if Photographer X down the road was delivering Product A for £1 less an hour, then they’d move. That doesn’t happen in Japan. Trust and relationships take longer to build, which can be frustrating at first, but once you’ve made that relationship it isn’t really ever going to go south over trifling amounts of money.

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Kawasaki Daishi by Alfie Goodrich

You mention in an interview that budgets have shrunk so companies are looking for local photographers to carry out campaigns rather than flying out a production. What measures have you taken to ensure that you’re the ‘go-to’ photographer that they will think of in Tokyo and these other cities?

In terms of how I compare, from a client’s perspective to, say, a Japanese photographer then I think the main difference is my eyes. I see things from a foreigner’s perspective. Japan is still new and fascinating for me, after almost a decade of living here. I work differently to the locals. That can sometimes be a curse but usually it’s a benefit; where it might take a Japanese photographer a team of seven people to do even a small fashion shoot, it takes me three. Working quicker, more efficiently is something I would say that is an advantage.

I spent a lot of time getting my web presence sorted out and integrating it with SNS sites. So I have a good footprint on the web and on the search-engines. The photography teaching I do also helps a lot, making my network of contacts here and abroad more diverse and giving me a something different to blog about and publish online, which isn’t just about my own work but about encouraging and championing others.

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Asakusa by Alfie Goodrich

Besides speaking English and Japanese, what is it about your expatriate status that has given you a leg up over other photographers in Japan?

I am of course well-mannered and have respect for the local customs and culture, but being a foreigner means that it’s possible to skirt many of the conventions that hold local people back from being true to themselves 100%. I think for me it’s also about having come here at the right age. An old boss of mine once said that ‘when you get to 30, people take you more seriously. By the time you reach 40, you don’t give a shit whether they do or not!’.

I was 38 when I came here, with a wife and two children and on the back of just losing both my parents. Since then, we’ve had another child, I hit 40 and, to be very honest, I just have no time for bullshit anymore. Or for games. I’m also pretty happy with who I am. Still not perfect, obviously, but happy with the imperfections. There really is only ONE me.

Japanese people, because of the nature of their society, really don’t tend to get much chance to be totally themselves except when they are by themselves. They have one face for themselves, one for inside the house and one for outside the house… for work. Being myself and being happy with that person has been a large part of doing well here. You obviously have to have the skills to do the job, that goes without saying.

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Baja by Alfie Goodrich

Since the beginning of the year, you’ve been an Ambassador for Hasselblad in Japan. How did that come about and what does that entail?

The boss of Hasselblad Japan is a Brit. Once we met, that certainly helped: shared heritage, same daft sense of humour, same propensity to swear every other word. I think he’d heard my name crop up quite a few times around the time that Hasselblad opened their shop and gallery here in Tokyo. The same had happened to me with his name. The foreign photographer community here is fairly compact and we were bound to meet each other eventually.

We had a meeting, talked about some of the things I was doing with photo education and which I was keen to explore with a camera company, especially one as legendary as Hasselblad. The boss and I got on well, we spent a bit more time hanging around with each other, I knew they had an ambassador programme and eventually we ended up talking about it and I was offered a post. It’s been a lot of fun.

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Alfie Goodrich and his travel pack

What do you shoot with?
- Hasselblad H5D-50c
- Hasselblad H4D-40 as backup
- Nikon D800E
- Fujifilm X100 [borrowed from a friend]
- Countless lenses
Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Iambo-ishii by Alfie Goodrich

What is it about the Hasselblad system that first appealed to you as a commercial portraitist?

First of all, the people at Hasselblad are human, friendly, passionate and down to earth. Yes, it’s business and of course it has to make money and be viable. But it’s about more than that. It’s about giving people an experience, sharing that feeling of joy and excitement that comes from having a truly awesome piece of machinery in your hands to take photos with… but at the same time, making sure it’s not all about gear. It’s about the image, the photo, the moment. The gear is crucial but it’s not everything.

As a perfectionist, I love being around people that are the same and Hasselbad are truly perfectionists. People often ask why the cameras are so expensive… well, part of the reason is that they are perfectionists. Craftsmen, perfectionists. And really, nowadays, buying a digital Hasselblad well of course they are not cheap but having one is the closest you will get to a ‘camera for life’. In the digital, throwaway, planned obsolescence society we live in now that’s a hard thing to say. But it’s true. So now imagine that camera for life and having unlimited free film, forever… and it doesn’t seem quite so expensive anymore.

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Meijimura by Alfie Goodrich

(cont.) For me, why does Hasselblad appeal to me? The colour rendition is amazing, very film-like. Skin tones are perfect straight out of the camera. The True Focus system [which uses a gyro in the camera to re-focus after you have re-framed] helps me shoot at the large apertures I like and still nail the focus every single time.

The range of lenses is great and as ambassador I get to use what I like, as long as they have one available at the time. So, after really only using the 80mm and the 28mm a lot from the HC range before this year, I’ve been playing a lot with the amazing 300mm F4.5, the 210mm and the 120mm macro. I’ve also had a lot of fun with the CFV-50c digital back for the old film Hasselblads which is, for me, the fantasy come true of having all the wonderful usability of the older cameras but the convenience of the digital back.

The Hassie flash syncs up to 1/800th sec. That and the range of lenses they have, which often stop down to F32 and F45, give you a lot of flexibility to kill the sun when you are shooting with flash outdoors. The Nikon only syncs to 1/250th.

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Ruri by Alfie Goodrich

As a Hasselblad Ambassador, you have ‘kid in a candy store’ access to their lenses. What have been a few of your favorite lenses so far?

Like I said before, the 300mm is astonishing: super sharp wide open at F4.5 and still super sharp when you stop it down to F45. It’s not light but it’s perfectly balanced. A joy to use and I use it hand-held a lot.

The 120mm macro is so sharp you could cut yourself on it. Lovely handling too. The first one I spent time with was the 100mm F2.2. I used to have the old Zeiss manual-focus 110mm F2 which was a beautiful lens. But it was seductive at F2, drawing you in what the lovely bokeh, only to leave you on the rocks of despair when you realised half the shots were out of focus.

With Hasselblad’s True Focus, you can shoot the 100mm all the way open at 2.2 and be sure to nail the focus every time. The 24mm is something also try to get my hands on when I can. Pretty much the widest lens for digital medium format and stunning on the right circumstances of subject matter. The TS1.5 tilt-shift converter has been fun too. I could go on… I mean, it’s a nice candy store.

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Shinyong Kimono by Alfie Goodrich

You also shoot with the Nikon D800, D700 and D3X. When do you find yourself employing that system instead of Hasselblad? How do the two systems compare?

When I need lighter more compact cameras I use the Nikons. I don’t mind weight but if I need to hand-hold a shot at 1/4 sec then that’s more likely to be doable with the Nikon. I also have a lot of old Nikon glass which I like using a lot on the new cameras. So, sometimes it’s just because I have a lot of lenses at my fingertips that I use the Nikons. For shooting at a higher frame-rate, the Nikons win every time. Hasselblad is not built for that.

You have to play a camera, any tool, at its strengths. That goes for weatherproofing too. My D700 now has about 650,000 pushes on the shutter and has been through five typhoon seasons with me… and it’s been in the sea. The camera is practically bullet-proof. Best thing Nikon made since the F4, IMHO.

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Keihincanal by Alfie Goodrich

(cont.) The Hassie I shoot the most is a CCD sensor camera, the H4D-40. It’s not a high ISO camera and I rarely shoot it above 400 ISO, although it’s still doing OK at 1600. The colour on the CCD chip vs the CMOS in the Nikons is huge. The dynamic range too. If I need large dynamic range, if the colour is super important and required to be nailed in the camera then I use the Hassie. I hardly do any post- production on the Hasselblad shots. If I am in the studio, it’s Hassie all the way.

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Shinyong by Alfie Goodrich

With more than a million followers of Google+, do you have any tips for managing a presence on the site? Why has it become your social media site of choice?

I’m sort of getting back to Flickr too lately after a long break. Yeah, Google+… well I had a friend invite me to it very early, almost from day one of the site being open. The big thing for me was to investigate how well it integrated with other Google products, particularly whether it had any bearing on SEO and how far up Google you came. There are lots of articles out there on the net about G+ having no discernible effect on SEO. I’m not a techie but I can tell you that it has helped me get found.

One of the first reasons I was also attracted to G+ was that, via a plugin I have called Google+ Blog which was developed by photographer and coder Daniel Treadwell. It’s allowed me to post on Google Plus via by iPhone and have the posts pulled out and cross-published on my WordPress sites by the plugin. That solved two issues for me: first was that there was really no decent app on the iPhone for blogging on a WordPress site.

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Rebel Rebel by Alfie Goodrich

(cont.) Secondly, the cross-posting gave me three bites of the SEO cherry with a post that shared the exact same title as the one on G+. And Daniel’s plugin preserves a link back to GPlus in the footer of each post. All these things have conspired to create a situation where, if I get clever about what I call my posts on G+, searches on Google’s main search engine containing the same words can mean me getting listed on page one of Google within 40 minutes of making the post. That’s powerful marketing for a small business or freelancer.

I’ve made some good friends there and you always have to give something to get anything back in life. So, putting out rich posts that have a backstory about how I shot the pic and why; these posts have always got good attention and allowed me to cultivate a nice audience.

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Yokohama Rain by Alfie Goodrich

You’re also quite active on several other social media fronts. Which do you recommend photographers invest their time in the most?

Facebook is, for me, really just about keeping in touch with friends, making some new friends and having a personal place to chat informally. I don’t really use it for work. It’s my garden fence over which to gossip. The main thing I hate about FB for photography is that the JPEG compression is awful. It makes photos you post there look bad, so why would I use it so much for that? Google+ is all about photography. Flickr started in 2006 for me and now they have sorted out the look and the usability of the site, I am getting back to using it more. Tumblr I use as a scrapbook, moodboard and ideas archive. Twitter I am starting to use more but really just getting my head around it even now.

I think the biggest thing for photographers to get sorted is their own website. Get a decent platform for it which for me is WordPress. Then make it look nice but don’t over spec it. It’s all about your work, not fancy animations, complicated navigation or anything too clever. People want to see images and to get to see a decent cross-section of your work as quickly as possible, in a mobile and web-friendly way.

SNS should then relate back to your website. I post links on FB and link to my work on my sites. That generates traffic and sows links out there on the web and the amount of links a search engine sees to your site helps it bump you up the table for page ranking. As for what to post on SNS, give people something. It should not all be ‘me, me me’ and really not, on FB for instance, be about ‘come and like my page’. You have to find a unique voice for yourself.

Today is different. We have to be photographers and agent, promoter and marketer. That’s hard to do for long without occasionally disappearing up your own backside. Find a way to promote yourself that also educates or enriches the people seeing your posts. That’s really where the photography teaching has helped me; I like passing things on, helping people enjoy their photography more. A lot of what I post on SNS is slanted that way.

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Yumi by Alfie Goodrich

How does your Japanorama website tie into the rest of your endeavors?

Japanorama was the first domain I had outside of one in my own name. I bought it way back, at first just because I liked the name and it was a domain I used to point to my pics of Japan. When we moved here, I changed the site to be something the reflected more of everything I do: the teaching, the work, stuff not shot by me but done by people I teach etc. It’s also the umbrella name under which I do business in Japan.

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Mari by Alfie Goodrich

Would you speak a bit about your self-published magazine Stekki and what the process of putting together a magazine is like?

Stekki came about purely as a way to help students and workshop attendees get the experience of seeing their work in a magazine form. On workshops we’d shoot to a brief of making features to fill pages. People would need to think about a cover, double-page spreads, remembering to shoot vertical and horizontal. I get to see my work in magazines. That’s nice for me. I wanted to share that experience and make a magazine for people.

Plus, the discipline of shooting for the page, pre-visualising for the page, seeing someone edit your shots down and then fit them on to a page… this is good for people who are learning about photography. I’m shortly about to start designing and producing all the content for a real magazine here in Tokyo. That will help me move Stekki one step closer to being in print, which I think we can realistically see happening in 2016.

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Momo Shoko Yoyogi by Alfie Goodrich

As well as shooting, you teach photography in Tokyo. What are a few of the things that photographers can expect to learn in your workshops and photowalks? Are there any less known locations that you can recommend for photographers who are making a visit to Japan?

I help people see. I help them pre-visualise, become visual literate as much as anything we do technically or physically with the camera. We’ll always work to some kind of brief or project and since the Stekki magazine idea came along, very often we’ll work together on shooting pages for that. I do one-to-one lessons, courses and workshops and at any one time there’ll be something going on across a few genres of photography, from fashion to landscape, travel to documentary or street. I tend to get off the beaten track a lot and actually earlier this year made a Google Map with more than 100 places and walks on it, each with a photo. You can find that here: http://japanorama.co.uk/2015/04/30/a-photographers-map-of-tokyo-japan/

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Mone Ohashi Tripych by Alfie Goodrich

You do a lot of location portraiture, what’s your chosen lighting system for working in these urban areas?

I’ve used lots of things and still do have a real mix of stuff. Recently I tried out the Profoto B2 kit for a few months and may well end up getting one. I like their B1 lights a lot as well. No cables. Huge benefit when working outdoors. I have an Einstein or two and the Paul Buff ring flash, which is fun. I still use a lot of small speed lights and radio triggers as well. I like the flexibility of clamping them onto a fence, railing or somewhere it would be hard to use stands or large lights.

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Meijijingu by Alfie Goodrich

Does Japan have similar permitting issues as the US or the UK when it comes to commercial photography?

Japan is pretty good for photography. The main thing is about tripod and stand usage. There are plenty of areas in the cities where you can get away with light on a stand though. But the speed lights come in useful a lot for ‘gun and run’ type shoots.

The police never really bother me. It’s more the private security guards or guards that work for a building. If they think you are on their land, which at times can be hard to figure out, then they can be very persistent and annoying. Temples and shrines anywhere in Japan are pretty much either, ‘yes we are cool with you but it’s on a permission only basis’ or, ‘no, you can’t shoot commercially here’. They are usually pretty approachable and the ones that will let you shoot will usually turn around a request for permission in two weeks or less. Some even use email now! But be prepared in Japan for the surprise of how popular the fax machine still is.

Playing the ‘stupid foreigner’ card obviously is something I will do occasionally. I’m well mannered and polite but if I want a shot than I will try, within reason, plenty of things to try and get it. If pretending not to understand the rules is one, I’ll do it.

Tokyo Drifter: Alfie Goodrich on working in Japan

Mari by Alfie Goodrich

What was the experience of shooting Prince William, Duke of Cambridge like?

The experience of a lifetime. I mean, whatever you think about the royal family, being on an assignment with any super-VVIP level people is amazingly interesting: the organisation, the pace, the things you get to see and experience.? I spent four days with the Duke, as the British Embassy in Tokyo’s official photographer of his visit. I travelled in the convoy, went to all of the engagements in Tokyo and up in Tohoku. In four days I photographed the Duke, the Prime Minister, the Emperor and Empress, a Crown Prince and assorted other dignitaries. Not just from the press-pack perspective but as an embedded photographer. That opportunity doesn’t come around very often.

The Tohoku and Fukushima parts of the trip were especially poignant for me. My wife is from Fukushima and the majority of her family still live there. So when I got a chance, at the end of the trip, to speak with the Duke, I thanked him for taking the time to visit Fukushima. Lots of people had come out to see him. It meant a lot to them that someone like him would visit there home. Oh, and my two sons still hate me for the fact that – with the Duke – I managed to get inside the driver’s compartment of the bullet-train. You can only really do that if you have a Prince to get you in the door.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
February 7, 2016
Slalom House: The World’s First Residential Rooftop Ski Slope

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

Designed for Astana, the cold capital city of Kazakhstan, this ‘white roof’ 1,000-foot ski run wraps around an apartment tower, bringing winter sports right to residents’ doorsteps.

Despite the length of winters, this urban setting offers little by way of local options, forcing citizens to drive for hours to the closest ski destinations, at least until now.

The slope is designed to wrap around the roof of the building, taking advantage of curves and grade changes all the way down and potentially usable with Snoflex (artificial snow) all year round.

Incorporating 421 domestic units, this 21-floor design by Shokhan Mataibekov Architects was recognized as a finalist in the 2015 World Architecture Festival and is now seeking funding. Additional shops and restaurants on the ground floor would serve both skiers and apartment dwellers. Upon completion, it would be the first such mixed-use skiing center of its kind in the world.

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[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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WebUrbanist

February 7, 2016
4 Steps to Creating Images With More Meaningful Composition
If you wonder what composition really means, it is basically what elements you choose to put in a photograph, and where you decide to place them in the frame.

When composing a photograph you need to consider several things:
1. What is the story you are trying to tell? In other words, what do you want the viewer to see or feel when they look at your photograph?
2. What’s your center of interest or focal point?
3. What elements will most support that story?
4. How can you maximize those elements?
Let’s consider each of those points individually.

1- What is the story you are trying to tell?

In other words, what do you want your viewer to know or experience when they see the photograph?

Some ideas if you are photographing your children:
- You might want the viewers to see how cute they are.
- You might want the viewers to see how smart they are.
- You might want the viewers to see how much they love their sibling or new puppy.
Each of those ideas will impact how you choose to compose the picture. In the first example, you might choose to dress your daughter with a pink bow and sit her on her princess bed. If you want to show how smart your child is, you may decide to photograph them winning a spelling bee, or playing with test tubes. Of course, if the story is the new relationship with their puppy, you want to capture that moment of them hugging the puppy, or the puppy licking their face.

Here’s another example shooting landscapes. Let’s say you want to take a photograph of a beautiful lake in a park, in the middle of a city. What’s the story you want to tell? What’s the experience you want your reader to have when they see your photo?

Here are some ideas:
- You can isolate the lake and shoot it in such a way that it looks as though it is in the middle of nowhere.
- You could shoot the lake with the cityscape in the background to show it as a haven in the middle of a grimy city.
- You could show the restful, or quiet feeling, of the lake by just focusing on an empty park bench, or the reflection of a tree in the water.
In every situation, there are many different stories and compositions. Knowing what the story is, and what you want to say, is the first step in composing a photograph. You can start to see how your intention with the photograph becomes important in composing a photograph.

2 – Choosing a focal point

With that in mind, the next step you want to think about is what is your center of interest or focal point? In other words, what is the one element you want your viewer to see first? What ONE element do you want to stand out?

If you are photographing your children, that’s pretty simple, you want your child to stand out. We’ll talk about some strategies to do that in a minute, but first let’s look at our other examples.

If you see a lake that you are drawn to, first ask yourself the story, then ask yourself what one element can be the subject? Is it a tree or rock in the lake? Is it a house on the lake? Is it the moon rising above the lake? Is it the grass growing on the edge of the lake?

3 – What elements support the story?

As you view the scene, ask yourself, “What elements support the story I’m telling?” As you look through the viewfinder, move your eye around the outside frame of the photo, then look inside that frame and ask yourself if there is anything in the photo that doesn’t belong there.

For example when you are taking a photograph of your child, you ask yourself if you need the dining room table in the background? Do you need your car in the background? What’s important? What elements add to the subject and which distract?

4 – How can you maximize those elements?

In the next section, we’ll look at examples and talk about ways you can clean up your photographs in two simple ways.

Above is a photo of a lighthouse. It’s a very pretty scene, but it’s filled with elements that don’t really help the composition. There are elements, including a wire overhead and an information stand in the front, that don’t add anything to the feel of the place.

This is better. The first shot was taken with a wider angle lens. In this shot, I took a few steps to the right, and zoomed in a little bit. Zooming in not only eliminates some of the foreground, it changes the perspective. Can you see how the image feels more compressed? Also, the wires were not magically Photoshopped out of the picture, I chose to eliminate the top of the tree from the frame.

Here’s yet another different perspective. For the shot above, I used an even longer lens, and moved more to the right. The most important element to me, the story, is the lighthouse. The dark tree nicely frames it, and adds perspective. This photo, compared to the first, is much cleaner.

Now, I could have chosen to get closer with the wide angle lens, but the light house would start to lean, and it would have emphasized the power lines.

Different angles can also help clean up backgrounds, so you ask yourself:
- Would taking a step or two in a different direction get rid of some distractions?
- Would getting a little bit higher or lower help the composition?
- Would changing the focal length help with the composition?
Here’s a great scene of a foggy shack on a lake. It’s next to a very busy highway, so I chose an angle from which you can’t see any cars. In the first example, the emphasis is on the grass. I used a wider lens and looked for a patch of grass for the foreground that made a nice pattern. The grass leads the viewer into the photograph. The shack seems further away.

In the second image, I chose to focus just on the reflection and the quietness of the scene. I found an angle from which I could shoot with no grass. My focus changed, the feeling also changed. Which one do you like better?

Here’s a beautiful scene with lots of potential. But your eye really has no place to go. There isn’t a strong sense of interest. The story is one of serenity and a great place to go fishing.

To improve the composition, I waited until some fishermen popped into the right place. In the second photo, can you see how your eye has a place to go? It’s immediately drawn to the fishermen in the red boat.

You can greatly dramatically improve the composition in your photographs by framing a photo and waiting for the right elements to come together.

So now, moving forward with your photography, you have some great ideas to work with:
- Consider what story you are telling with your photographs.
- Make sure you have a center of interest.
- Decide what elements support the story.
- Maximize the elements by changing position and focal length.
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The post 4 Steps to Creating Images With More Meaningful Composition by Vickie Lewis appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School
February 6, 2016
Framing fashion with Dixie Dixon

At the age of 20, most people are just beginning to figure out what careers they want to pursue. Dixie Dixon got an early start in photography, so by 20 she had years of experience under her belt and a clear direction in mind – fashion photography. As New York prepares to host Fashion Week 2016 in a few days, we’re re-visiting Dixon’s PIX 2015 talk. An engaging speaker, she discusses getting her start in fashion photography and an unlikely first ‘break’ in the business photographing swimsuit models for a reality TV show.

See more PIX 2015 videos

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

February 6, 2016
GoPro to discontinue three cameras and exit entry-level market

This week, GoPro announced it will discontinue three of its six available action cameras and abandon the entry-level market. This follows the company’s preliminary fourth quarter results revealed last month. GoPro had stated at the time that poor holiday sales would likely result in low quarterly revenue, and that it would layoff 7% of its workforce as a result.

In a conference call this week, GoPro’s founder and CEO Nick Woodman said the company’s recent misfortunes aren’t due to increased competition. ‘Growth slowed in the second half of the year,’ said Woodman, ‘and we recognize the need to develop software solutions that make it easier for our customers to offload, access and edit their GoPro content.’

GoPro is banking on the improved software reversing its sales numbers, but it isn’t clear what other plans may be in place. Woodman said the company will be ‘delivering this new experience in 2016, period.’ In the meantime, though, GoPro anticipates its first quarter sales will be below analysts’ $ 300 million expectation, falling between $ 160 and $ 180 million.

GoPro will stop selling its HERO+ LCD, HERO+ and HERO entry-level cameras in April, making the $ 200 HERO4 Session its least expensive model.

Via: Financial Times

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

February 6, 2016
Samyang adds 14mm and 35mm lenses to Xeen cinema system

The 14mm T3.1 Samyang Xeen lens

Korean lens manufacturer Samyang has added two new wide angle lenses to its Xeen series of full-frame video lenses. The new focal lengths are 14mm and 35mm, and while the 35mm conforms to the family-standard maximum aperture of T1.5 the 14mm opens only to T3.1. The Xeen system now contains a total of five lenses as these two join the existing 24mm, 50mm and 85mm.

All the lenses are manual focus only, and feature focus and aperture gear rings in identical positions so that they can be switched quickly in and out of the same rig. Filter rings also match, and users have a choice of metric or imperial focus scales. The lenses come with interchangeable mounts, and adapters are available for Canon EF, Nikon F, Sony E, PL and Micro Four Thirds bodies.

The 35mm T1.5 Samyang Xeen lens

Samyang is proud of the way its lenses render out-of-focus highlights, and the new 35mm complements the existing lenses with its 11-blade diaphragm. The wider lens uses a 9-bladed iris.

The lenses should be on sale by March at a cost of £1599.

For more information visit the Samyang Xeen website.

Press Release:

Two more XEEN Lenses announced by Samyang to complete a Perfect Five-Lens-Set

SEOUL, February 5th, 2016 –Global optics brand, Samyang Optics, has announced the release of 2 new lenses: XEEN 14mm T3.1 and 35mm T1.5. These two lenses, along with the existing 24mm T1.5, 50mm T1.5 and 85mm T1.5 lenses, create a perfect balanced five-lens-set for filming video and cinema with the outstanding image quality from resolving power for 4K+ production.

XEEN is a specialized brand in professional video-cine lens launched by Samyang Optics in 2015. The XEEN lenses are designed with Samyang Optics’ know-how and have outstanding optical performance for 4K+ with the X-Coating Technology, ensuring maximum image quality to create a cinematic look.

The 24mm x 36mm negative size allows XEEN to not only work with full frame cameras, but also with Super 35, APS-C and APS-H cameras. The lenses are available in five different mounts – PL, EF, F, E, and MFT and two different focus scales – metric and imperial units. Also, the aluminum metal housing is known for its reliability in various shooting conditions.

Most of the XEEN lenses come in a bright T1.5 aperture. The lenses deliver high quality footage with clear contrast and impressive colours, even under less-than-optimal lighting conditions. The large aperture also creates a pleasing bokeh effect for a cinematic look.

“Thanks to the rise of multi-channel networks, the demands for video creation is internationally surging and the expectation of video quality is also increasing,” stated a XEEN official. He continued, “to satisfy the international needs, we have completed the first five lenses which deliver a high-quality cinematic image.” As an answer to the future product plan, he carefully disclosed that two more XEEN lenses will be announced in the second half of the year.

Created to deliver infinite possibilities, XEEN14mm and 35mm lenses will be globally available in early March. The recommended retail price of each lens is £1599.00 inc VAT.

More detailed product information is available on the official website (http://www.xeenglobal.com) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/xeenglobal) or Samyang Lens Global Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/samyanglensglobal).

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

February 6, 2016
Heavy hitter: Sony FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM first shots

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Sony has made some strong claims about its new G Master lens series. Unveiled earlier this week, the FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM is one of three in the lineup to make its debut, giving Sony’s full-frame mirrorless customers a fast, constant standard zoom for the first time. We had a few moments to shoot with the lens at Sony’s press event in New York, and while we only provide a small sampling of shots at this time, we will be updating this gallery as soon as we can.

Our initial impressions are extremely positive: sharpness appears to rival prime levels wide open, and there’s very little axial chromatic aberration to speak of. Sony’s claims may not be exaggerated at all.

We need to make a note about lens corrections: it seems that the camera we were handed had vignetting and chromatic aberration corrections turned on. The way this feature works is that these corrections are applied even in Raw mode (technically, vignetting correction is applied prior to writing the Raw file, while chromatic aberration correction information is embedded in the Raw and irreversibly applied by ACR).

The good news is that we’ve looked at Raw conversions from third-party converters that ignore the CA correction profile, and CA from this lens appears to be very minimal. Watch this space for more sample images, hopefully very soon.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

February 6, 2016
Weekly Photography Challenge – Warm Fuzzies
Earlier today I shared a collection of images that represent cuddly.

A good hug, a snuggly puppy or kitten, a father with his newborn son – all things that give us warm fuzzies inside.

By Wei-Hang Chua

Weekly photography challenge – warm fuzzies

So your challenge this week is, you guessed it, photograph something that either is warm and fuzzy, or gives you that feeling. So that could be many different things:
- Your bedroom slippers
- A favorite sweater
- A pet
- Parent and baby
- Kids hugging
- Someone doing a good deed
You get the idea.

By Etolane

By Gloson Teh

By Richard Walker

By Thomas Hawk

By Bunches and Bits {Karina}

By Phil Dolby

By Kate

By Flickpicpete (Thanks for 1 million+ views)

Share your images below:

Simply upload your shot into the comment field (look for the little camera icon in the Disqus comments section) and they’ll get embedded for us all to see or if you’d prefer upload them to your favourite photo sharing site and leave the link to them. Show me your best images in this week’s challenge. Sometimes it takes a while for an image to appear so be patient and try not to post the same image twice.

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The post Weekly Photography Challenge – Warm Fuzzies by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School
February 6, 2016
Parasite Houses of Paris: Rooftop Prefabs Cling to Buildings

[ By Steph in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

Prefab structures jut out from the roofs of Paris’ charming architecture, adding affordable real estate to the densely-packed, land-scarce city in the only way possible: building up. While other cities across the world are knocking down one older structure after another to build shiny new condos that stretch up into the sky, the new units are often too expensive for the average urban resident, and significantly alter the historic character of each individual place.

Whether historically significant or not, the older buildings in most cities help give each location its own particular flavor. Razing them to throw up generic condominiums for people with upper-middle-class incomes not only displaces existing residents, it erases much of each city’s personality. A new project called 3BOX aims to compromise.

Stéphane Malka Architecture has designed a series of rooftop prefabs that work within the context of Paris’ new property law, the Loi ALUR, which aims to construct 70,000 new dwellings per year while also stabilizing rent. The law comes with a relaxation in planning and zoning, enabling new rooftop construction.

While many of the new dwellings built under Loi ALUR will go on brownfield sites, like those currently owned by French rail company SNCF, others will have to be woven into the fabric of the city in more creative ways. ‘Les Toits Du Monde,’ or the Roofs of the World, offers three different prefab structures bolted onto existing buildings with steel supports.

Not everyone will be crazy about altering 19th century buildings with these prefab boxes, no matter how science-fiction it may start to look, but the rooftop terraces help make them more attractive, and they could be a good option for structures with less aesthetic value.

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[ By Steph in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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WebUrbanist

February 6, 2016
24 Cuddly Images That Make You Say Awww

Who doesn’t love a good warm and fuzzy image? All things fuzzy and cuddly that make the heart thump and make us feel good.

These photographers captured the essence of cuddly with their images:

By Marji Beach

By Scott Wills

By Jürgen Schiller García

By Julien REBOULET

By Jonathan Kriz

By wsilver

By Jan Truter

By Tambako The Jaguar

By Snugg LePup

By Mark Philpott

By Chris Fifield-Smith

By Barry Rayburn

By fivehanks

By Tambako The Jaguar

By Ray Dumas

By Sandor Weisz

By Franziska Geiser

By Lou Bueno

By Kathleen & Ryan Rush

By Björn Láczay

By Rachel

By Luke Jones

By FancyLady

By Nathan Rupert

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The post 24 Cuddly Images That Make You Say Awww by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

February 5, 2016