Let the red-eyes have it
James Leith discovers how to take the perfect pic
Our house is full of photographs covering 35 years of family life. Out-of-focus babies and blurred party guests subject to inebriated camera-shake. We cannot bring ourselves to discard the fuzzy picture of a newborn infant even if we can’t agree which of our offspring it is, and the most professionally framed shot in the whole collection is of the inside of a lens cap.
Some years ago, in the hope of better things, or at least better photographs, my wife spent a small fortune on a compact digital camera. Delighted, I turned the little dial at the top to Auto and clicked away, amazed at how the flash automatically flashed and how everything was almost, but not quite, in focus. What the other settings on the little dial did I had not the faintest idea. I turned it to Auto and ‘Look! You can zoom in and out, too!’ Read the manual? Do I look like a sissy to you? In any case, what’s to learn? Turn it to Auto and it does everything for you. It’s wonderful! The pictures were still crap, though.
Now you can buy a Canon 400D SLR 10.1 megapixel digital camera (you know, a proper job that makes you look like a pap) for less than the digital compact cost my wife. But still people turn the little dial to Auto and blast away, although the zooming in and out is even better, and this time quite a lot is in focus. What they (and I) need is EYE.
EYE workshops are being set up by professional artist and photographer Michael Potter to arrange interesting trips both in the UK and abroad during which he will, almost without your noticing it, teach you to take a decent photograph. Still life, portraits, game photography, architecture and even ‘glam our’ shots are meat and drink to him. Speaking of which, the meat and drink and accommodation accompanying any given workshop are reasons enough for going on their own. I went to Hovington House, an extremely upmarket Wolsey Lodge B&B in Wiltshire, for three days, and was inspired to include among my portfolio some great shots of breakfast.
Potter and his assistant not only teach you never to use a flash again, but pro vide you with everything you need, both cameras and Apple laptops, to allow you to turn from Auto to Av and learn to love the f-stop! Within two hours of being shown what an aperture value was (Av, geddit?), three of us were out in a Wiltshire garden taking photographs in which the foreground was still out of focus, as was the background, but quivering in the middle of the frame was a pin-sharp raindrop, perfectly caught on the bud of a magnolia. If Kew Gardens are looking for promo shots, I’m now their man!
In the afternoon we were allocated photographic tasks in the town of Malmesbury. One of us got ‘people’, preceded by an excellent briefing on how to get people to have their picture taken by a complete stranger, and how not to. The second part was brilliantly demonstrated by Mr Potter’s assistant, who approached a young woman standing in a doorway and asked if she’d mind having her picture taken. She burst into tears, wailed ‘Yes, I would!’ and ran away.
That evening we uploaded our pictures, deleted nine out of ten and played about with iPhoto. This clever software allows you to take a mediocre shot, adjust the contrast, the warmth, the saturation, and then crop it — or make it sepia, or black and white — and call it art. Potter will find you out, though.
The next morning was portraiture, with those who hated having their pictures taken (everyone) being persuaded to sit for everyone else. An 85mm lens allowed us to take close-ups from across the room, and soon we’d all got over the in-your-face camera rictus and wanted the reflector thingy to make our eyes shine. The late Lord Lichfield once remarked that the secret of taking really great photographs was to shoot another dozen rolls of film; with digital you can shoot hundreds of frames at no extra cost.
At Westonbirt Arboretum we shot landscapes, trees (my favourite — shooting straight up the trunk to the canopy) and anything that moved, from visiting dog-walkers to staff in the tea shop. By day three we had each compiled an archive of pictures we liked and thought showed promise, and then our guru pointed out that 60 per cent of them didn’t, and why. ‘Enough with the tree-trunks already! One is great, two are OK and the rest are boring.’ By the end of three days we all had a slideshow on CD, complete with music of our choice.
EYE workshops are being held in Kenya (‘I can’t believe you didn’t wait until the charging elephant was centre-frame!’), Colorado, Wiltshire, London and Mallorca. Costs vary but client to photo-guru ratio will not exceed three to one; one to one by arrangement. For those with unlimited budgets and enthusiasm, Potter is arranging a trip to the Macau Grand Prix in November, with pit access, helicopter charter and all the high-tech equipment you could need.
The danger is you will get excited and find you just have to have every camera and lens upgrade the industry can produce. But even if you never take another picture, an EYE workshop will have taught you not just to look, but to see.
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