I bought the book “How to Photograph Absolutely Everything”, by Tom Ang for my Dad (off his Amazon wish list – I claim no credit for the choice!) for his birthday back in November. It arrived just in time for Christmas. And since I visited for Christmas I had a chance to have a flick through it.

The book assumes a very basic level of photography knowledge and is perfect for beginners (which my Dad is by no means). There is no assumption that you have a top end DSLR or the like, and for the large part discusses which program mode of a point and shoot would be most suitable for a situation. The book begins with an introduction to various elements of photography, and discussing aspects such as choice of lens (or zoom level for the low-end camera), lighting, and ISO setting. That introduction is done in a very easy to read format, with hints and tips throughout. It is also sufficiently non-technical that nobody should be put off by it. The remain 80% of the book consists of double page spreads talking about photography in a particular situation, broken into broad chapters such as people, landscapes etc.

For example, there is a page on how to photograph the “Colours of the seashore”. This starts of with an introduction saying you don’t need to be in the Caribbean and that you should pay attention to the light and the water. That is followed by 3 tips (try different views, set the scene, give the scene a sense of scale) with a brief paragraph on each. There is an additional box on avoiding distracting elements which could be considered an extra tip. On the facing page there is a example shot with a few details about what makes in good, and as for all situations there is a “settings” box which details the sort of setting that would be appropriate, i.e. use “program” or “landscape” mode, and a wide angle lens.

All in all, I would say this is an excellent book for those wanting to take photography a little bit beyond the basic, encouraging you to think that little bit more about making a photograph rather than just taking a snapshot.

I’m investigating new print suppliers for my ball photography now. Any suggestions in the comments are welcome. For a long time I have used the same lab for printing such photos, but this year their customer service has let them down.

First let me tell you about my process; a customer (you hopefully) places an order for prints on my website. For ball photos, which I upload to the website unedited, I then have to edit the photos before ordering prints. That may take a couple of days, depending on how busy I am. I then order the prints online with my favourite photo lab. Normally printing and dispatch happen within 24hrs, but lets call it 48hrs to be on the safe side. They send them first class to me (+24hrs), and check the prints and send them first class to you (+ 24 to 36hrs depending on my diary).

So at the worst I hope to have prints with the customer within 7 or 8 days.

At this point I have to mention Royal Mail, and I’ll try not to go off on one. Why does “Special Delivery” exist? Is it for really urgent post? Isn’t that what should distinguish first and second class? OK, so there might be really really urgent post, but first class should be 24hr turn around. Perhaps it is for that added peace of mind that it will be delivered? Surely all post should be delivered! Enough said. I look forward to Royal Mail being sold off to a private company and the postal service being properly opened up to competition. Hopefully then, post should work as it should.

So back to my print supply problems. Winter balls are tricky because they are near Christmas. Customers want their photos for their Gran for Christmas, and want quick turnarounds. Royal Mail don’t seem to care. First order gets “lost in the post”. Subsequent print orders arrive, so I contact the lab who say words to the effect of “You’ll have to re-order them then”. I really expect better service, and even their website suggests I will get better service than that. Because I am a business, the distance selling regulations do not apply in this case. But this lab also deals with consumers for which they would. They have now lost a long term customer, once I find another decent lab.

A few weeks back, another photo lab phoned me up one a new marketing campaign, with enticing offers asking me to give them a try. Given that I was now looking, I thought why not, and reordered with them. I paid extra for “Special Delivery”, since I’m now behind on my own turn around schedule. Half the prints didn’t show, a few days late. Not sent special delivery. I phone them up. The sent two packages. Neither special delivery. How can RM lose the post twice. Perhaps it was the snow hiding the post van from the postie?  Top customer service this time, they will reprint and send immediately. A few days later the prints show up. Still not special delivery!

I can now finally dispatch my order to my customer 17 days after they first placed the order. I guess with the snow and Royal Mail’s efficiency, there is no chance the customer will get their prints before Christmas

So I am now looking for a new print lab. One that sends prints by the postage method I specify. One that prints reliably. One that fixes issues if they arrive in a gracious and efficient manner. Suggestions are welcome in the comments.

I’m not going to name the two labs who have let me down. I figured you’d guess the postal service so no point hiding that one. But I will give a big shout out to a couple of other companies. Loxley Colour have always given me top prints and excellent customer service. They are a bit too pricey to be economic for ball photography, but are a really top lab. Photobox are a top consumer print lab. They too have given me top customer service, but unfortunately I found their quality too variable to use for professional work – hence my checking of all prints I send out.

This experience has also made me think about my own customer service. I hope I live up to your expectations. If I don’t, please tell me politely and we can work something out.

I’ve got a picture up in an exhibition in Oxford, starting in a few days time. The “press release” details are:

Made In Oxford

Photographic Exhibition by the Oxford Flickr Group
3rd – 31st October 2009 – free entry
(Opening night for press/exhibitors only 2nd October)
The Jam Factory, Holly Bush Row, Oxford, OX1 1HU (near main railway station)

The exhibition is the brainchild of a group of 30 local photographers who live, work and study in the Oxford area, most of whom had only met online before we decided to arrange this exhibition.

We’re here before term starts and we’re here when the tourists have jetted back to their own cities. And whilst it’s an outstandingly beautiful city to live in, it can get awfully boring photographing the Dreaming Spires again and again. So what we’ve set out to do is try and show you our Oxford instead. Every exhibitor has attached a little explanation to their photograph – what it is, why they took it. All the photos are geo-tagged and marked on the exhibition map so you can find out where we took them if you feel like exploring the city yourself.

Garrett Coakley, one of the organizers, said “It’s been an exciting challenge setting up an exhibition when most of the exhibitors have only ever communicated online – it just goes to show that when you have a internet-based community of like-minded individuals you can translate that into a real-world event. We’re looking forward to organising more events like this in the future.”

If you’re visiting Oxford and fancy taking away a slightly more interesting souvenir than the usual set of cheesy postcards and an Oxford University T-shirt then take a card, visit the website link , and purchase yourself a gorgeous shiny new book with all the exhibition photographs in. You can also purchase prints and books at the venue.

Pretty fun stuff. Do go and take a look if you get a chance (like if you happen to be in Oxford for a dedication service…)

I’m generally making the prints I sell at exhibitions as limited editions, but at the moment, that’s pretty much the only way I will sell them. So in the next few weeks (ok, that will probably mean months) I’ll add a new section to my website to make them more widely available – while still being very exclusive.

I briefly thought about adding “storing your memories” as a tag line to the header until I realise quite how cheesy it was.  And it might, or might not, give you a clue to my on going competition to win a free portrait shoot by guessing “why aCoolDryPlace?” This article isn’t going to help in the slightest on that front.

If you book me as your wedding photographer, you will want to know that when you get home from honeymoon I will still have all your wedding photos. Keeping your photos safe is important. In this post I thought I would share what I do to keep both my professional and my personal photos safe, and offer you some advice of fairly inexpensive back up solutions for use at home. I am going to assume digital photos are the order of the day, since most photography, both amateur and professional/wedding has gone that way. Film is an altogether different monster.

Warning: This article is very geeky. Please don’t take apart your computer unless you know what you are doing! Contact me if you are desperate for a little help. Contact a professional support service if you are in need of a LOT of help!

Harddrives fail!

I know from personal experience that harddrives fail. Assuming anything else is to take a risk. Copying to CD/DVD is often thought of as a straightforward approach, but you’ll quickly end up with a lot of Cd/DVDs and be unable to find anything. CD/DVDs also fail given time, not that I’ve experienced that yet. The simplest back up solution is to get a second harddrive, whether internal to the computer, or an external USB harddrive.The problem with this approach is remembering to copy everything onto the second harddrive, and keeping it consistent with the main harddrive. Backup software can help with that, but a hardware solution should be more reliable. RAID (Redundant array of inexpensive disks), more specifically RAID 1, enables you to set up two physical drives as if they are a single harddrive in the computer. The hardware (hardware raid is a better bet than software raid) automatically copies everything to both disks. If one disk fails, it can be replaced and all the data on the surviving on copied across to restore the redundacy. Some computers’ motherboard‘s have that feature built in, or you can get a PCI RAID card to do the job. I used an internal RAID solution for quite some time until I needed to upgrade harddrives and ran out of space in my machine. I’m now using a network RAID box so that multiple computers can access the photos in my home network.

Houses burn down!

Having a backup readily available at home is great, but what if my house burns down or some not so friendly individual steals my computer when I’m away? It is important to also have a backup offsite. For some people paying a service like Flickr to store their important photos should be sufficient. Personally I don’t have the broadband bandwidth to upload so much data, and I have opted to have a removeable harddrive rack in my computer. From time to time I can bring the harddrive from its secret storage location, backup everything, and return it to that location (your parents house is always a good place to store stuff!). Backups aren’t as frequent, but most of my data will be safe in the event of a disaster at home. There are network solutions available which enable you to host a box offsite to upload data too, but you’d need a very good internet link.

Having the original and two backups is a fairly standard approach to managing this risk. More backups would be safer, but less manageable, and it is very unlikely that both my home and offsite backups will fail at the same time.

On the job backup

For added peace of mind, I also have a photo drive to allow me to back up my memory cards while out on the job. This means that I have at least one backup of any really important photos (like wedding photos) prior to getting home.

Recommendations for the non-professional

For the non-professional photographer I would still recommend the double backup solution for keeping your memories safe. And the backups should be stored at different locations. The links above are to example products and not ones I have tried or necessarily recommend. I’m not going to make a precise recommendation because the best solution for you will very much depend on your technical skill, number of photos, and financial situation. As an initial solution you probably can’t go too far wrong with keeping a backup on Flickr. They don’t guarantee your data’s safety (other online services will), but I don’t think they’ll loose it in a hurry, and you can share your photos with the world (if you want to they can also be kept private). And when you sign up you might get 3 months free which you can give as a gift, to a friend, or to me perhaps!

My friend, Kate, has just put details of her wedding video on her blog. Whilst I’ve never worked with the chap, Kate would highly recommend him and I trust her judgement. I’ve also seen the video, which was made using Super 8, and it is very cool. So if you are getting married in Oxford, you may wish to take a look at her wedding video and contact her for more details if you are interest.

If you are reading this site with a view to considering using my wedding photography services, I have a recommendation for you: My friend Kate of PaperLeaf Studio produces some lovely screen-printed wedding invitations and reply cards. These are screen-printed on 100% recycled paper. Samples can be ordered from her online shops at Folksy (GB Pounds), DaWanda (Euros) and Etsy (US Dollars). Larger orders are then arranged via email and payment can be made via PayPal. Typically, depending on the design, a custom package starts at around £230 for 100 invites and reply postcards.

She also produces other stationery items such as Christmas cards.

Images in this post are copyright Kate Hibbs 2008