Don't forget to print your images!

In this digital age, one of the things that us photographers tend to forget to do a lot of the time is to actually print our work. Its far too easy to edit the photos, stick them on a website or on facebook and never pay much attention to them again, this is fine, and is a sign of the times but its a really nice feeling to see our work in print, hanging on the wall

Last year we had an exhibition in Soho from our images we shot in Cambodia and it was the first time in a long time that I had made big prints.  This made me realise how much I appreciated seeing my prints hanging on a wall, they looked so different to on the screen, and since then, I have been more disciplined about printing some of my work and now have my home and office partly plastered with prints.

They don't need to be large like these exhibition prints were and here in Hong Kong you can have frames built at very reasonable prices, typically a 24"x16" print can be framed with non-reflective glass for around HK$400 (USD50) or less if you know where to go.

Quite a few of my friends and clients ask me where I have my prints done, so here is that information:

For our printing we tend to use one main printer in Wanchai, called Sigmax (www.sigmax.com.hk), (their website has map and contact details), they are an excellent printer, with friendly staff - ask for Alice, she is a charming and very helpful young lady who works there.

We usually get our work framed at the frame shop on Johnston Road, directly opposite the Pawn Pub (just aroung the corner from Sigmax), they also have a very good service and price range for any type of frame build.

Here are some other images so you can see the size of prints that they print with ease at Sigmax, I have seen billboard posters being printed there, so size is no issue for them.

So don't just stash all your images away on hard drives never to be seen again...print a few, hang them up and show off your work, be proud!  Something to note is the new version of Adobe Lightroom 4 is coming out shortly, they already have a FREE BETA version you can download here (just remember its not final version yet and only for testing).  One of the great new features within Lightroom is a 'book' module which is linked to Blurb where you can easily create photo books from your images, so I think we will all be seeing more printing of our images in the coming months!

Here is the link to our exhbition video from Soho earlier in 2011 should you wish to take a look at some of the other prints from that trip and see them hanging at the exhibition.

Thanks for taking the time to visit our blog, if you like our blog and website, please ‘like’ us on our public Facebook page and share this story with your friends with the Facebook and twitter links below.  You can also subscribe to our blog via the RSS link below.

F8 Photography provides commercial photography and training across Asia, with workshops on Street Photography and other photography and video training courses, more details can be found via the ‘courses and workshops’ link and upcoming events via the front page of our website.

F8 studio lighting workshop - review and feedback

A few weekends ago we held a studio lighting workshop for 2 of our previous clients; Craig and Bernhard, who last year completed the foundation course with F8. They have both been practicing hard and continuing to develop their passion for photography, adding a vast array of images to their portfolios of the last year or so, ranging from travel photography to family lifestyle portraits.

They had both arrived at a point in their photography where they felt it was the right time to broaden their horizons with artificial lighting, so we headed into the studio with 3 beautiful models early one Sunday morning and started playing with light meters, octaboxes and all the other great toys in the studio to see what we could achieve in a few hours of intensive training.

Bearing in mind that neither of the guys had ever set foot in a photography studio as the photographer before, we started with the basics; how to use light meters correctly, 1 light setup, using reflectors, flags and other light modifiers, then moving on to slightly more elaborate lighting setups, using gels, grids, snoots, barndoors, ringflashes and even wind machines amongst other tools.

After 5 hours of loud music, high energy photography and lots of laughter the whole crew was exhausted, even our models mentioned they didn't realise it can be quite tiring and hard work posing for a demanding photographer...haha.

Everyone involved said they had a positive experience and achieved a valuable piece of training to carry them forward with their photography, so I was happy, I had achieved my aim to teach them some new tricks and see everyone leaving the studio with big happy grins on their faces :-)

Using 3 cameras throughout the day, they had taken hundreds of images, I asked them afterwards to send me just a very small selection each, to show that they could also selectively choose and edit images as we would do so in a professional environment, being able to filter work down and produce only the top quality images, a task that is not as easy as it may sound.

I asked them both for a bit of feedback a week or so later and they said the following:

Craig Menzies:  "The studio shoot was a great experience and really focused on the full studio experience, from setting up the backdrops, all the various types of light modifiers, umbrellas and soft boxes, and where each light is placed to create dynamic lighting for the models we were photographing. It was fast paced and we learned a great deal from Gary’s instruction, while shooting amazing photos.  It was also a new experience to deal with models and directing them to create the shots we wanted.  Highly recommended and I will do more studio shoots in the future".

Bernhard Wamelink:  "The one day lighting workshop with Gary Tyson from F8 Photography was a great experience.  In a studio environment all the different aspects of studio lighting were discussed, set up and used in a shoot with models. Gary showed his professionalism in a relaxed way and he was very supportive and a good coach".

We provide a variety of training ranging from foundation training, street photography, DSLR video training and studio lighting.  Details can be found via the links on our home page here. or you can contact us directly from the contact page here.

Here are a selection of images from both Bernhard and Craig's first ever studio shoot:

Here are some additional links to their existing portfolios if you wish to see more of their photography:

Link to Bernhards 500px portfolio

Link to Craig's 500px portfolio

Matt & Katie - Down under at Shek O

Friday the 23rd of September, a nice sunny Friday afternoon in Hong Kong...but for Matt & Katie it was perhaps the most important day of their lives so far.   A big wedding was the order of the day, with friends and family coming from Australia and the rest of the world to celebrate this amazing occasion. And amazing it certainly was, a really great, beautiful bunch of people who helped us get some really nice images throughout the day and very late into the night!

The wedding planner Sonya and her team from Bliss Creations did an outstanding job setting up and organising the various venues, and the setup at Shek O Golf Club was easily one of the best wedding setups I have ever seen anywhere.

It all started at the Four Seasons Hotel in Central to capture some images of Katie's preparations in her suite.  We were graced with good weather most of the day, so that gave us the opportunity to shoot natural light and the family were so relaxed it made it easy to shoot our reportage style of wedding photography.

After spending a few minutes with the bridal party it was time to dash across town to the oldest church in Hong Kong - St John's Cathedral in time to introduce ourselves to the reverend as a matter of courtesy as we would photographing inside the church and then to get some images of the bride arriving and get into position for the ceremony.  Trying to get across town on a Friday afternoon at short notice can be quite stressful in itself....but luck was on our side and we made it in good time well ahead of the bride.

This church is a great venue in Hong Kong, we've photographed several weddings here and has to be the best church from a photography perspective with lots of natural light flowing in through the large windows and open doors, all helping us to get natural looking images with great light....and of course flash photography is not allowed inside the church anyway, nor would we ever choose to use flash for daytime photography for weddings, we prefer to use natural light and fast prime lenses (we also use these fast lenses for most of the evening photography also, using natural light wherever possible).

After the ceremony it was time for another move, this time to Shek O Golf Club right round the other side of the island....again, we had luck on our side and managed to find a taxi quickly so we could arrive ahead of the rest of the party to prepare everything in advance.  We had to setup a wireless transmission rig with projectors, laptops and a network so that we could transmit our images from earlier in the day direct to the walls in the venue and then spend the rest of the day and evening shooting 'live' direct to the wireless slide show which appeared full wall size within the venue.  We do this at most of our events now and it always has a lot of positive impact and is a great way for us to showcase our work at an event (Of course it puts more pressure on us to get strong images also to show live, but that's the way we like to work).

Then it was time to grab a few group shots and images of the bride and groom outside on the lawn of the golf club, with magnificent views behind of mountains, the South China Sea and waves crashing against cliffs, really a great setting and we couldn't have asked for better weather, it was now slightly overcast, with great soft natural light through the clouds.

Thereafter it was time for the dinner, the speeches and then the party started to get crazy (the groom had warned me earlier that these people like to party hard...)  I was looking forward to the evenings photography as I knew this was going to give us a different and dynamic contrast of images to the earlier part of the day, when people party hard and let their hair down, it always works well for the photographer (as long as no alcohol lands on the laptop or camera gear :-), which thankfully somehow it didn't...lol).  We had already captured some nice traditional reportage style images, a lot of black and white work, and now we were going to be able to use some off camera flash and slow shutter speeds to get some dynamic colourful dancing shots.....

The party went on late, with lots of dancing (there was even a break-dancing act going on with back flips and head spins at one point!) and a great night was had by all.  At midnight buses arrived and took everybody off to Central for the after-party...I'm sure there were some sore heads the next day....For us it was time to leave, and spend the next few days buried in Lightroom 3 with masses of images to sort out, select and develop.

All that remains to be said from us is Thanks to Sonya the wedding planner and congratulations to Matt & Katie on their special day, it was a pleasure to be your photographer and we hope the images can help memorise this amazing occasion for you, your family and friends.