A histogram is a graph that displays how light is distributed in your picture. The left side of the graph represents the shadows, while the highlights are on the right. This means that if the histogram has a high peak on the left, you can tell that a lot of pixels in the picture are dark, or in shadow. A peak on the right of the graph means that a lot of pixels are bright, or in highlights. Peaks in the middle of the graph represent pixels in the midtones of your exposure. Often it’s difficult to tell if your photograph is correctly exposed by looking at the image on the back of the camera particularly in bright light. I set my camera display so that I can see an image thumbnail as well as the histogram.
 

The Histogram of a Good Photo.
Let’s look at some examples of histograms. Refer to the picture below. On both the left side and the right side of the graph, you can see that there are no high peaks. This kind of histogram tells you that no part of the scene is over or underexposed. Ideally the graph information should fit within the left and the right hand side. 

The Histogram of an Underexposed Photo.
Below is a the histogram of an underexposed photo. You can see a spike in the shadows that starts with a peak on the left of the graph. That means that the picture has lost data in the shadows. There’s also just a few pixels trailing off the right side of the graph, so a tiny bit of data might have been lost there as well. Skin tones suffer particularly when an image is underexposed. To move the histogram over to the right and get a better exposure use the camera’s exposure compensation, and overexpose the photo until the graph fits within the left and right sides.
 

The Histogram of an Overexposed Photo.
Here you can see a pronounced spike on the right side of the graph. You’ll note that the height of the peaks is somewhat low in this picture; that’s not an indication of under or overexposure, it’s a measure of the spead of tones from absolute black on the left to absolute white on the right. All you need to worry about is whether they breach the left or right edges of the histogram.
 

 When composing your photo always try to avoid the histogram from spiking at either extreme end of the graph, where you’ll lose data and have under or overexposed parts of your picture. It’s important to make sure your image is correctly exposed at the time you take the photo as although you can fix minor over and underexposure problems by shooting in RAW, it’s often impossible to correct overexposed highlights.

On Friday night we photographed the Novotel Christmas party which historically has always been held in January. Because the hotel is so busy during Christmas and the yearly figures are published in January it means that they can combine an awards and bonuses party with a Christmas party.

‘Wild West’ was the theme and the hotel supplied the fancy dress costumes. The cast of Toy story, various wild west villains and damsels in distress attended, and the manager of the hotel was dressed as a sheriff. We set up our ‘real time slideshow and our photo booth to take studio photographs of the guests in a wild west saloon studio set.

Supplying prints on the night is an excellent way of giving guests something to take away from the evening. We can add a corporate logo to the photograph and present it in a sleeve or mount and the guests can choose which photographs they’d like us to print.

Our ‘real time slideshows’ are also really popular at corporate parties and events. We bring a huge screen along to the event and project the photographs as they happen. We also include this service in our wedding photography packages along with the photo booth and green screen photo booth, you can find out more about this service here.

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There are lots of other fun photography related things that we can do at your event.

Mobile Photo Booth: During the evening at your event we can set up our small mobile photographers studio with background and studio lighting. We’ll provide some silly props, hats, and some crazy stuff to wear. Your guests can come in and we’ll take some creative fun shots, it’s just a bit of fun and your guests will love it.

Real time slideshows: At your reception we can set up our big screen and run a selection of the photographs we’ve taken so far at your event, we update it regularly so guests can see the most recent photographs we’ve taken. Of course we only show the best photos and we make sure everyone included in the slideshow looks their best!

Our Green Screen Mobile Studio: This is the same as our mobile studio above but we use a green background which means we can superimpose your portrait onto an exotic background. The most popular backgrounds are a beach with Palm trees, the surface of the moon, Venice complete with gondolas, New York skyline, fireworks, and the most popular is the dinosaur scene. This is something we have just started doing and it is becoming a big hit.

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Last Wednesday I photographed Ingrid Betancourt’s book launch and conversation with John McCarthy. Formerly a Columbian presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt spent six years held hostage by the Revolutionary Armed forces of Columbia also known as FARC.

Ingrid spoke candidly to John McCarthy who himself was taken hostage. She talked about her time in captivity and how life had changed for her as a result of her experiences in the jungle in Columbia. The theatre at Congress centre was full and at times Ingrid had the audience hanging on her every word. The ‘in conversation’ format worked very well and John McCarthy did an excellent job steering the interview gently along and it was obvious that Ingrid was comfortable recounting her experience with John sitting next to her on the stage.

Outside in the hall after the interview a book signing took place, and I’m sure the book will fly off the shelves.

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Free makeovers were provided by the store and we photographed and produced glamourous studio prints for the shoppers who had taken part in the opening celebrations. The store opened at midday on Thursday and the photography sessions started at 4 o’clock. We finished at 8pm having photographed and produced prints for over 180 people.

Our mobile studio has been very popular this year, the photographs we can produce are studio quality and we can print and supply photographs at the event.

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It was a masked ball and all of the guests arrived wearing masks, some as unconventional as Darth Vader’s headress and a world war II gasmask. It was a clear warm evening and the guests were able to have drinks outside until they went in to the marquee for dinner. A promise auction took place later in the evening raising further funds for both charities.

For more information on Event and Party photography go to: http://www.eventphotographylondon.uk.com/events/home/
The photographs will be up on my site by Monday afternoon.

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What’s your photographic background?
Like many photographers who eventually turn professional I was a very keen amateur. From about the age of about 11 or 12 when my Dad gave me my first camera, a rangefinder zeiss, I took rolls and rolls of black and white film. I made notes after each exposure in order to try to understand how on earth the camera worked.
I grew up up in New Zealand in the early 60’s and I had to wait for a week for my developed prints to come back to the local shop. Colour film was too expensive to mess around with then and my Dad only loaded colour film into his camera at Christmas!
At secondary school I joined the camera club and it was then I really began to understand how a camera worked, and how to make prints.
I set myself up as a stock photographer and left New Zealand for the UK in 1985 and travelled for four years around the world largely funded by stock photography sales. I took with me a Practica MTL3 35mm and a Bronica ETRsi. I still have the Bronica today and I traded in the Practica for a Canon AE1programe in 1988. I’ve used Canon gear ever since.

Can you provide us with some general info on your business please:
Tell me about your niche: events and parties (this is what we’d like to concentrate on).
I work with an assistant, two freelances, and a great local lab. It all hangs together at the seams most of the time but it’s exiting and I suppose I wouldn’t have it any other way.
At my studio in Battersea we also do lots of informal portraits of families, corporate headshots, and product photography. We also use this studio as the office where all the photography post production is done.
Most of our week is spent on photographing Events and Parties. We travel all over the world and work with mostly corporate customers photographing their events parties, launches, PR, and conferences.
I also have a large gallery of images from around the word built up over many years as a stock photographer. Framed prints are sold to businesses and private individuals in the UK and around the world. I also sell the London photographs from a new mobile exhibition unit in the Northcote Road Market in Battersea, South West London on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

How did you come to shoot events?
Many years ago I supplied a set of framed photographs to a large international bank in the city. It was December and the photographer they had booked for the Christmas party wasn’t able come for whatever reason so I lied ‘no problem I can do this in my sleep” and got the job. I promised them I would do everything the other guy had undertaken to do; walk in photographers studio, real time slideshow, prints on the night for guests to take away, the whole works. All I owned was my trusty Canon and the Bronica, I needed to somehow lay my hands on lights and backgrounds, some means of printing, a projector, two digital cameras, a laptop, another photographer (preferably no less experienced than me). There was also no money up front and it was beginning to look like I would have to make the same call the other photographer had made a few days earlier. I was able to lend a Canon 10D and a D60, these came with their owner Richard who still works with me occasionally today. His girlfriend ‘borrowed” a mac clamshell laptop and printer from her work and goodness knows where the projector and screen came from. I rented the lights with money borrowed from my aunt.
Luckily everyone who attended the function had plenty to drink and didn’t notice our inexperience but it was a success. Since then I have photographed most of their events in the UK and around the world.

There’s a real lack of decent events photographers – why do you think that is?
There isn’t lack of good photographers, in fact quite the reverse. I think there is more talent around than ever before. The current economic situation has squeezed many photographers in business and those starting out to an extent that many will do anything to get work. In high end event photography reputation counts for everything, and many clients are not willing to take a chance on someone new despite the fact that they are probably quite able to handle the job.

How long have you been doing this for?
How did you get started?
I didn’t ever plan to make my living as a photographer.
I was happy as a keen amateur making a little money here and there doing the odd wedding, and taking stock photographs.
I don’t really know that there was a day that I woke up and pronounced to the world that ‘today is the day’ but I guess when I worked briefly as a paparazzi photographer, that Friday evening in August 1988, after being chased across Leicester Square by one of Peter Stringfellow’s bouncers might have been that ‘seminal moment’.

How hard have you had to work to make your business a success?
I’ve had to work very hard to make my business a success. However it took me a long time early on to realise that it doesn’t matter what industry you are in the same principles of building a profitable enterprise applies to mostly all sorts of businesses. As photographers we all get a bit precious about our style and our creativity, and although that is what sets us apart from our competitors we still need to find new customers, keep existing customers hiring us, and above all we need them to pay their invoices on time.
I look at my business in the same way as somebody who sells widgets does. If you give the customer exactly what they want, and exceed their expectations then they’ll book you again. If you don’t give them what they want they won’t book you again and they’ll also tell their friends and colleagues not to book you either.
It’s very expensive to attract new customers but if you can keep your current customers happy repeat bookings will keep flowing in.

Has being so niche helped you set up a successful business?
There are a number of parts to my business but each part of the business is treated as niche. The various things that we do are divided up and promoted in such a way that most of my clients think that what we do for them is all we do. For example Event and Party photography has it’s own website and separate domain name. Portraits, products, Interiors and Art for Offices are also treated separately.

How much competition do you face?
Competition is fierce. If you type in ‘Event photographer London’ into Google there are over 5 million listings. Most prospective clients don’t look beyond the first page and the choice is bewildering. Just about all of our work comes by way of recommendation or is work from an existing client. I do rely on new customers finding my details from an internet search and I spend a lot time on SEO.

What services do you offer?
I offer all the usual services you’d expect a small studio like mine to have available, ie portraits, product photography, architectural and interiors work, and these all link in nicely with the events and party work. The workload can be spread relatively evenly across the week. Many events and mostly all parties run into the evening so we are able to fit the post production in amongst the other work that’s done during the day.

How do you make your money (selling prints etc). Please cover all aspects, we want to know all about your photography business.
Having almost lost everything in the last economic downturn I’ve tried to protect myself in this recession by spreading the risk across all of the things that I do. For example from the end of 2008 we noticed a significant drop in sales of framed prints and photography services to private individuals, luckily the corporate work we were doing then was still strong. And in the first half of 2009 the corporate event work almost stopped completely, but luckily a large hotel group had placed an order for framed photographs which kept us busy. The corporate work and the event and party bookings came back as quickly as they went away and things seem to be on the mend.
The Event and party photography we do accounts for about half of the turnover, particularly during the summer months and in the run up to Christmas. The sale of framed prints to offices and to private individuals accounts for about a quarter of the turnover, and portrait, architectural and product photography accounts for about a quarter. Christmas is a really busy time for us and a third of the year’s turnover is achieved between the beginning of November and Christmas eve from events and the sale of gallery prints.

Who are your clients?
We have a good mix of regular clients, mostly blue chip corporates and PR companies. We do lots of celebrity parties and events too, and often we don’t get told who they are until we turn up at the event.

How do you supply work to your clients?
Do you sell prints? And, if so, how and where do you get prints done?
Most clients these days want their finished images in the form of digital files and often start the process again if they want prints.
We also supply prints at events that may be either paid for by the client or bought on the night by the guest. Sometimes supplying prints on the night can be hugely popular with the guests but we have also photographed events where the sale of prints has been quite low. I’ve always steered clear of actively selling prints to guests on the night unless the client specifically asks for it, most clients don’t like their guests hassled into parting with their cash having already paid a fee to attend.
We use a great local lab in South West London. Often we produce sets of prints in stages throughout an event, we’ll send a DVD by courier to the lab and they’ll send the finished prints back by courier a couple of hours later.

What other services / genres to you shoot commercially?
We shoot Interiors and Properties for a large Property developer based in North London. They recently redeveloped a derelict church and turned the building into seven luxury flats, stained glass windows in the loo, that sort of thing. Photographing Interiors and Architecture is a much slower process unlike people photography where you work handheld and have to act quickly. Most of this sort of work is medium format using a tripod which involves thinking carefully about the image and taking your time. It’s also great to see your work published in a high end brochure.

How do you see your business developing?
It’s only on the rare occasion that I go on holiday that I think about how my business should be developing. The photography industry is moving at such a pace these days that keeping ahead of the curve is often difficult.
Photography is no longer the mystery that it used to be, clients know exactly what is and isn’t possible as they all own digital cameras. Many photographers are giving away copyright free these days and supplying high res DVDs free of charge. I’ve never quite got to grips with giving images away for free as the potential to upsell images again after an event is lucrative. But you’ve got to give the client flexibility, it’s common them want to take control and produce media themselves, and so we build that into the package.
In the next year or two I would like to explore the possibility of selling our services from a gallery. I already do this to an extent from my mobile exhibition trailer I use in the Northcote Road market in South London.
But we live in uncertain times and paying for photography is often a discretionary purchase. It’s a sobering thought signing up to years of rent and business rates when one can do it all online a minimal cost.

What equipment do you use?
At my studio we use 3 canon 1dsMk11 and we are hoping to secure an order for 2 of the new Canon 1ds mk 1V. 580ex flash, 550ex flash, 380ex flash, 2 24-105mm L lenses, 17-40mm L lens, 14mm L lens, 70-200mm L lens, 28-135mm 3.5-5.6 lens, Bronica Etrsi, Quantum battery packs, 2 Elinchrom lights with brollys and soft box. A selection of backgrounds and stands, a bag of leads and bits, a stack of memory cards: mostly 2.0 GB, 2 x manfrotto tripods and heads, canon G9 compact camera, On site printing equipment, 1 projector, 1 powermac quad, 2 macbook pro 17” and an old powerbook G4. We don’t use windows pcs anymore, only mac computers.

Anything else you think we might find interesting?
There are two things that I’m working on at the moment that I’m finding really interesting.
The first is I’m working on a book. It’s a coffee table style book, and it’s set of fine art photography prints of London and life in the capital. It’s taken two years longer than I expected and although I said this last year I’m hoping to have if finished for Christmas.
The other thing I’ve found very interesting is learning about website optimisation. I’ve found it very frustrating paying for seo work and not being able to understand what it is I’m paying for. I now do all of the web promotion and seo work myself and I would recommend anyone reading this give it a try and it’s not as complicated as we are all led to believe.

Websites/links:
http//:www.eventphotographylondon.uk.com
http//:www.photoarte.co.uk

One metaphor often used is to imagine your camera is like a window with shutters that open and close. Aperture is the size of the window. If it’s bigger more light gets through and the room is brighter. Shutter Speed is the amount of time that the shutters of the window are open. The longer you leave them open the more that comes in.
Now imagine that you’re inside the room and are wearing sunglasses, your eyes become desensitized to the light that comes in (it’s like a low ISO).There are a number of ways of increasing the amount of light in the room, or at least how much it seems that there is. You could increase the time that the shutters are open (decrease shutter speed), you could increase the size of the window (increase aperture) or you could take off your sunglasses (make the ISO larger).

How does your camera know what the perfect exposure is? Your camera is pre programmed by the manufacturer to let an exact amount of light in for the perfect exposure, which is 18% of the light reflected form a grey surface.

Shutter Speed:
Shutter speed is measured in seconds – or in most cases fractions of seconds. The bigger the denominator the faster the speed (ie1/1000 is much faster than 1/30).
In most cases you’ll probably be using shutter speeds of 1/60th of a second or faster. This is because anything slower than this is very difficult to use without getting camera shake. Camera shake is when your camera is moving while the shutter is open and results in blur in your photos.
If you’re using a slow shutter speed (anything slower than 1/60) you will need to either use a tripod or some some type of image stabilization (more and more cameras are coming with this built in).

Shutter speeds available to you on your camera will usually double (approximately) with each setting. As a result you’ll usually have the options for the following shutter speeds – 1/500, 1/250, 1/125, 1/60, 1/30, 1/15, 1/8 etc. This ‘doubling’ is handy to keep in mind as aperture settings also double the amount of light that is let in – as a result increasing shutter speed by one stop and decreasing aperture by one stop should give you similar exposure levels.

Some cameras also give you the option for very slow shutter speeds that are not fractions of seconds but are measured in seconds (for example 1 second, 10 seconds, 30 seconds etc). These are used in very low light situations, when you’re going after special effects and/or when you’re trying to capture a lot of movement in a shot). Some cameras also give you the option to shoot in ‘B’ (or ‘Bulb’) mode. Bulb mode lets you keep the shutter open for as long as you hold it down.

When considering what shutter speed to use in an image you should always ask yourself whether anything in your scene is moving and how you’d like to capture that movement. If there is movement in your scene you have the choice of either freezing the movement (so it looks still) or letting the moving object intentionally blur (giving it a sense of movement).

To freeze movement in an image you’ll want to choose a fast shutter speed and to let the movement blur you’ll want to choose a slower shutter speed. The actual speeds you should choose will vary depending upon the speed of the subject in your shot and how much you want it to be blurred.

Use motion to your advantage. For example when you’re taking a photo of a waterfall and want to show how fast the water is flowing, or when you’re taking a shot of a racing car and want to give it a feeling of speed, or when you’re taking a shot of a star scape and want to show how the stars move over a longer period of time etc. In all of these instances choose a longer shutter speed. However in all of these cases you need to use a tripod or you’ll run the risk of ruining the shots by adding camera movement.
Focal Length and Shutter Speed – another thing to consider when choosing shutter speed is the focal length of the lens you’re using. Longer focal lengths will accentuate the amount of camera shake you have and so you’ll need to choose a faster shutter speed (unless you have image stabilization in your lens or camera). The ‘rule’ of thumb to use with focal length in non image stabilized situations is to choose a shutter speed with a denominator that is larger than the focal length of the lens. For example if you have a lens that is 50mm 1/60th is probably ok but if you have a 200mm lens you’ll probably want to shoot at around 1/250.

What is Aperture?
Put most simply – Aperture is ‘the size of the opening in the lens when a picture is taken.’
When you hit the shutter release button of your camera a hole opens up that allows your cameras image sensor to catch a glimpse of the scene you’re wanting to capture. The aperture that you set impacts the size of that hole. The larger the hole the more light that gets in – the smaller the hole the less light.

Aperture is measured in ‘f-stops’ for example f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6,f/8,f/22 etc. Moving from one f-stop to the next doubles or halves the size of the amount of opening in your lens (and the amount of light getting through). Keep in mind that a change in shutter speed from one stop to the next doubles or halves the amount of light that gets in also – this means if you increase one and decrease the other you let the same amount of light in – very handy to keep in mind).
One thing that causes a lot of new photographers confusion is that large apertures (where lots of light gets through) are given f/stop smaller numbers and smaller apertures (where less light gets through) have larger f-stop numbers. So f/2.8 is in fact a much larger aperture than f/22. It seems the wrong way around but you’ll get the hang of it.

Depth of Field and Aperture
Depth of Field (DOF) is that amount of your shot that will be in focus. Large depth of field means that most of your image will be in focus whether it’s close to your camera or far away.
Small (or shallow) depth of field means that only part of the image will be in focus and the rest will be fuzzy. Aperture has a big impact upon depth of field. Large aperture (remember it’s a smaller number) will decrease depth of field while small aperture (larger numbers) will give you larger depth of field.
It can be a little confusing at first but the way I remember it is that small numbers mean small DOF and large numbers mean large DOF.

The best way to get your head around aperture is to take lots of photos and experiment. Set up a shot outside and place some items near the camera as well as far away and take a series of shots with different aperture settings from the smallest setting to the largest. You’ll quickly see the impact that it can have and the usefulness of being able to control aperture.

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The corporate events were good fun. Novotel, the hotel group, hosted a fancy dress party for its staff. It was actually their Christmas party. They are so busy during December that there isn’t time to throw a party for the staff so they all dress up and have their end of year blow out in January.
My assistant, Jimmy and I set up a portrait studio in the ballroom where the party was held to photograph the guests in their fancy dress. While Jimmy photographed the guests I produced 7″x5″ prints for them which they were able to pick up shortly after the photographs were taken. This was a huge hit and is always very popular. So much so that they asked us to stay for another hour.

Producing prints on the night and staging ‘real time’ slideshows is great for the guests as they don’t have to wait to see the results. Also from the host’s point of view, particularly if is is a staff or corporate event it is a great opportuninty to give something fun away. There is also an opportunity to associate your brand or corporate image with the fun event by printing your logo discretely somewhere on the photo, all good stuff for you, your staff, and your clients.

We also photographed Stacy Solomon, the X factor contestant at an event this weekend. I have to admit I didn’t know who she was as I’ve only watched X factor a few times but my eight year old daughter thinks she’s the greatest and I managed to get an autograph for her.

We can generally produce finished photographs from an event between 24 and 48hrs which means that you can use the images to your advantage while the event is still fresh in everyone’s minds. We generally produce two sets of images supplied on DVD; a high res set for prints, and a low res set for web and email use. Go to our events and party photography page for more details.

Event Photographer London

We are back at work this week and the stall on Northcote Road will be open on Saturday and Sunday this weekend. We’ll then be open every Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
This year every couple of weeks I will be writing a piece in my blog that I think may be of interest to you, stuff like how to take seasonal photographs, tips and tricks using your camera and flash, and some photoshop tutorials using shortcuts and tricks the pros use.

But there are also a number of other things we do which you may find interesting too. They are:

T Shirt and garment printing: http://www.excellentprint.co.uk

Photography Courses: http://www.photoarte.co.uk/phototours/index.html

Art and Photography for Offices: http://www.artforoffices.uk.com/index.html

I hope this year is good for you, and I look forward to hearing from you again or seeing you again on Northcote Road.

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