London Night Photography Article

Coming off-topic a little here to mention a 10-page tutorial type article in January's PhotoPlus magazine (issue 04). Each month PhotoPlus carries a feature titled 'The Apprentice'. For this feature a reader spends a day - evening in this case - with a professional photographer and gets to learn something of their speciality. Well, in this issue I'm the pro and the subject was London architecture at night. PhotoPlus reader, Caroline, was a pleasure to 'coach' for the evening - enthusiastic and quick to pick up what we were doing. It was a fun thing to be involved with.

The virtual sun dial

This entry's title links to a nifty little piece of programming by an anonymous photographer. For any pinpoint location on any date it calculates sunrise & sunset times. More impressively it also calculates the axis of the rise and set. Use with the Firefox browser and you get graphic red lines indicating the directions. Switch to satellite view and you get some idea about contours too.

Not a complete replacement for a pre-prod' visit of course, but nonetheless a great little resource for architectural photographers and dedicated landscapers. My hat's off to the creator.

James Nachtwey talks

This entry's title links to one of the most compelling pieces of footage on photography I've seen. Shut yourself away for 22 minutes. Every word and image is time well spent.

A reality check ... one last time

Reality & Media Collide: In my 6th April entry there is a vid' for Skins, a new UK TV drama for teens. This show hit the news in the UK today...

"A TEENAGER was hiding last night after 200 yobs at a Skins party wrecked her family’s posh home. Rachael Bell, 17, wanted to copy the cult Channel 4 sex and drug drama while her parents were away. She posted an invite on networking website MySpace to "trash the average family-sized house". Tearaways from across Britain flocked to the £250,000 home..."

The full story can be read here.

A welcome note...

Welcome to the 'Commercial Photography Commentary' blog. I'm Simon Stanmore, a UK based freelance commercial photographer. In the months ahead I'll be commenting on topics related to the commercial photography scene, both in the UK and Worldwide. Some posts will be of interest to many in the industry. Others will be particularly art buyer or photographer orientated.

Anyway, enough of the preamble. I'll be back soon with something for the tog's.