Photographing Defenders

On Friday, Andy at Land Rovers UK, gave me the chance to drive a custom build 25 year old Defender.

Our task, with wing man Zach (whose DJ-ing skills were exemplary - the introduction to Goyte was most welcome), was to take the Defender out for the day and photograph it just before it is despatched to another happy customer in the USA.

I have worked closely with Land Rovers UK for over six years, but I had never had the opportunity to drive one of their very special Defenders before. I was given a quick lesson and drove it around the car park so that I could get used to its quirks (it has a manual choke!) before we were let out on the open road. It was surprisingly easy to drive and to manoeuvre. Stu, their head of the workshop, told me it is in fact shorter than a Mondeo Estate and no wider than your average car.

I had great fun driving this classic, well loved vehicle. It reminds me of Leica cameras - full manual control and lovingly crafted.

Here are a selection of photos from the day.

My photo challenge for 2014 - a film each week

A couple of years ago, I challenged myself to take a photo a day. I kept up with it most of the time.... However, some days just weren't conducive for taking photos and so I'd maybe steal one from another day.

The challenge did help improve my photography as it forced me to take my camera places where I had previously not bothered. 

So I have decided to try another challenge this year which is to take a different roll of film each week. 

As you can see from the photo, I have a pile of unused film some of which is going out of date. 

The majority is Kodak Elite Chrome Slide Film. I bought up rolls of the stuff when it was announced that they were discontinuing it. In the right conditions it produces beautifully saturated photos. 

So I intend to choose a film at the beginning of each week and a complimentary camera. They will be selected by a mixture of the weather forecast, what I'm doing that week and, most importantly, what I feel like. 

Given that it takes time to develop the film, I won't be able to show you the results straight away. However, I will try a keep this blog up to date with what I'm up to. 

I will be developing the black and white film myself, the Impossible Project film will do itself, while the colour film will take two to three weeks by Boots. 

Why do this? Using film is fun. It goes back to the basics of photography. There is the anticipation of waiting for the film to be developed. The tonal range of film is far superior to anything digital can offer. I also want to do my little bit at keeping analogue film alive.

So the challenge is set. I look forward to seeing how things develop and I hope you will be inspired to do something similar or at least follow my progress. 

Thank you for reading and Happy New Year!

This challenge will unfold on my photography blog which you can find here.

Favourite Albums of 2013

Forgive me for this anorak type behaviour, but I see it as my solemn duty to compile a list of my favourite albums from the last twelve months to assist those who may have missed out.

So, in no particular order....

1) Immunity by Jon Hopkins

2) Tell Where I Lie by Fossil Collective

3) Light Up Gold by Parquet Courts

4) Inform - Educate - Entertain by Public Service Broadcasting

5) Holy Fire by Foals

6) The Shadow of Heaven by MONEY

7) Arc by Everything Everything

8) Amok by Atoms for Peace

9) AM by Arctic Monkeys

10) Overgrown by James Blake


... also, Glass Animals have no album out yet, but their three EP's are jolly good.

If you want, you can see what I liked this time last year...

Humble Bee Films

This week has seen the launch of the redesigned Humble Bee Films website. They may be in Argentina filming parrots this week, but that hasn't stopped us doing the final tweaks and launching.

Their website has had a facelift, but the main objective was to showcase some video clips from their programmes. Included are four clips of David Attenborough's Natural Curiosities series, plus individual clips from BBC's Natural World.

Younger users prefer Twitter.... and some tweaks to the Facebook news feed

An interesting bit of market data on age groups using various social media platforms in the US has been published by Mashable and Statista. This is based on desktop usage in October 2013 (and so it does not include mobile usage).

In summary - younger users prefer Twitter, but once you get to 44, more use Facebook.

You can see the chart produced by Statista here.

Mashable also published an article about changes Facebook are making to the algorithms that generate content in news feeds. It seems that news and story links will be given more prominence, especially if friends comment on them; so encouraging further conversation.

Mashable reports that Facebook's strategy is to challenge Twitter as the place to go for news consumption.

Saul Leiter

Saul Leiter, photographer, passed away last week.

Recognition of his talent and influence came late in his life. However, he was someone who seemed not to care either way. He said in the recent documentary film about him, 'No Great Hurry': "What makes anyone think that I'm any good?"

I cannot remember how I discovered Saul Leiter, but find him I did. I was immediately struck by his atmospheric, painterly images. I discovered that he had a book called Early Colour but that it was out of print. Fortunately, the publishers, Steidl, released a second edition. The book is now on its third edition and has sold out.

Early Colour is possibly my favourite photo book. I can return to his photographs time and time again. Photos contain a story or a question about the subjects. The compositions may be framed by canopies; contain misted or reflected views through windows; or evocative blocks of colour. They may show just a hand, a foot, a shoe, or an umbrella while the rest of the subject is out of the frame. Many are abstract, but are of course grounded in reality. It's fun to work out how he achieves such a composition. 

I have no doubt that he will be recognised as one of the great photographers of the twentieth century. I am pleased that I knew of his work while he was still alive and that I had the opportunity to help back (in a small way), a film about him. It is called 'In No Great Hurry, 13 Lessons in Life With Saul Leiter' and it is being shown at the Bath Film Festival tomorrow evening.

Here is a link to some of his photos and here is his obituary in The Guardian. 

I hope you get as much out of these photographs as I do.

Working with video

Short videos can be a particularly effective way to promote your business online. It can be entertaining, visually appealing and engaging. It is also a very good way of showing your individual personality. 

I have had the good fortune of working with Land Rovers UK for some years and the man who started and runs the business, Andy Hayes, is so passionate about Land Rover Defenders it is impossible not to be swept along by his enthusiasm.

Given that many of their US customers order and pay for their custom Defenders by phone and email, trust and authenticity is key. 

We felt the best way to show their potential US customers the amount of care and attention that is spent on transforming a 25 year old Defender into something very special and very unique was by filming Mr Hayes in full, enthusiastic flow. Here is the result of week one (each week we will be filming Joe's progress):

... and do you want to know one key fact about Defenders that always amazes me? Well, 70% of all Defenders ever built are still on the road.