LPSA 2012

I've been searching through all my hard drives (I have 12 in total and range from 320GB to 2TB in memory,) looking for this set of pictures, I've wanted to share with you all since I've started this blog.

These are the pictures from my very first Paid Event, I'd been photographing events for free to gain experience since 2009, but as this was the first time I was getting paid it was like a test, to see how well I could perform with people I didn't know, in a location I was unfamiliar with.

I remember I was a little bit nervous as I arrived, but at the reception I was kindly greeted by Gurgeet, one of the pharmacy students at De Montfort University on the Pharmacy Ball Committee, she was very helpful and accommodating, she directed me to the main hall to set up.      

As soon as I set up my camera, lens and flash gun I started approaching people, I was feeling better since Gurgeet had greeted me and now I was ready. 

The group of people in the picture are the first group of people I approached for pictures, I snapped off a couple of frames and reviewed to check my focus and lighting (especially for shadows) and was horrified to see they pitch black, I checked my settings and they were all correct, I then looked up and my jaw dropped. The ceiling I was bouncing my flash off was atleast 20 ft high! no wonder the pictures  were coming out so dark, I asked them for a few more images and changed the direction of my flash and clicked!

This is the image I produced, I'm really happy with it, that was my first test. 

I'm glad that was the first problem I met that night as it made me aware of my ceilings.

I noticed as people started arriving they were stopping on the staircase just before the Ballroom, so I waited there and captured some more pictures,. This time my ceiling was very low making it very easy to light the ladies. 

In the main Ballroom, the ceiling was about 10 ft tall, I tried fiddling around with my flash gun to bounce as much light into my subjects, I'm really pleased that it worked and that the images came out bright and colourful.

Here are some more of the memories I captured on that night.

Overall, I had a great night, it was so much fun, 

I met so many new people and it was an amazing experience.  

The Pharmacy Committee loved the pictures so much they invited me back to photograph their 2013 Ball!

You can see the pictures from the 2013 Ball here.

The Blind Photographer

I'm sure everyone has a device that captures images whether its a DSLR or Compact camera or even an iPhone, so here's a fun little experiment for you all to try!

Back in my first year at university, our lecturers set us a task, to go out for a walk with your camera and to tape up the back of the camera/viewfinder,
it is important you can not see what the camera is seeing
then to look around and take pictures of whatever catches your eye, make a few notes of what you were trying to capture with your camera and how you think they will turn out.

Then upload the pictures to your computer and make a comparison with the notes and the pictures.

Here are the pictures I captured all those years ago!

Note: I was trying to capture the leading lines with the trees in the background, I'm relatively please with this image however I would have liked to have moved the camera slightly to the right to get both lines in the picture.

   

I saw the wind was blowing the leaves next to the stairs so I tried to capture it, but I was too close and only captured the top 2 stairs.

I would have stepped back to get the whole of the steps in the picture.

I was trying to capture the gate, with the gate in sharp focus and the background blurred, I'm relatively happy with the picture as I did capture the gate in sharp focus and the background is blurred, but I would have preferred to have zoomed out more to get the whole of the gate in the shot.

In this image I was trying to capture the sign "Castle View" with the sky in the background, I was trying to capture the sign diagonally with the sky in the background. 

I was trying to capture a similar picture to the top image, with the leading lines in the foreground and the trees in the background, I would have taken this from a lower angle and included the tops of the trees.

I'm really pleased with this image, I wanted to capture the lock in sharp focus and the left hand side out of focus. I'm really pleased with this picture.

That's my results from the experiment,

I'd love to see what you guys capture!

Share your pictures in the comment section below!

How I capture long exposures

The difference between taking a picture during the day and taking a picture in the evening or at night is the amount of light that reaches the camera sensor, in the day time you can shoot at 1/250 at f9 because of the quantity of light. But as the quantity of fades due to the Sun setting, you need to keep your shutter open for longer to get an even exposure for your image.

How do we do this?

For long exposures you will need a sturdy tripod, (the weight of your camera and lens will define which tripod you should use), the tripod is there to remove any camera shake, hand holding an image can induce camera shake even if you have very sturdy hands, at 1-2 second exposures you will start to see camera shake in your images. Putting the camera on a tripod will remove this shake.

Secondly you will want to use a remote control (preferably wireless), the remote control is there so you do not have to touch the camera when taking the pictures, its best to set up the camera, and then open the shutter with the remote.

Lastly you will need a torch, this is mainly a personal choice for me as I want to make sure the image I am creating is in focus, so I hold the torch on the point where I want to focus and use the autofocus system in the camera.

So let me shine some light on the first two images, the first image (at the top) was taken in my first year of university, I had just bought my Sigma 10-20mm f3.5 lens and I was out in the evening just experimenting with it. The settings were 10mm at f20 at 30seconds at 100 ISO, I make it a point that whenever I can shoot at ISO 100 I do so, and as I had my tripod I had no excuse not to.

I really love the colour of the sky and the low angle of the image and the star bursts.

The second image was taken in a car, I set up my tripod in the back of a car and got my friends to drive me around for a bit, I used my friends and the windscreen to compose my shot, and underexposed slightly so they would be silhouetted against the street lights. I shot this at f22 at 30seconds at 10mm.

For this shot I set up my camera with my 10-20mm lens again, and then used a torch to "paint" the bench. I used a 30second exposure at f11. I love the separation between the sky and the trees and then the main focus of the bench. 

I shot this image a little differently than the rest, I shot this with my 24-70mm f2.8, I used f4.5 at 1/30 at ISO 200 (this was handheld) I was experimenting with some long exposure techniques. I pointed my camera up at the trees, and zoomed out when I took the picture. I am very happy with how this picture turned out, it feels like the sky is falling down.

Lastly this is a picture I captured in the Summer of 2012, this was taken just before Sunset, and I was getting shutter speeds of 1.60 and 1/50 but for the picture I wanted to create I needed a longer shutter speed. I ended up capturing this image at 1/4 of a second at f22 ISO 100, to achieve this I used a Neutral Density filter. ND filters reduce the amount of light entering your camera, they are mainly used for achieving longer exposures.

Bonus Tip!!

Set your camera to Mirror Lock Up, this will reduce any 

shakiness inside your camera.

Check Out more of my work at www.facebook.com/JamilTeja

and if there's anything you want to to write/talk about you can tweet me @JamilTeja

Stay Tuned for more updates!!

Skateboarding with Phil

I met Phil in my second year of university, he had transferred to Photography and Video after previously studying graphics; I remember we were all astonished to see his work (it's amazing.) Nearing the end of term I was getting a bit bored of all the book work we had to do, Phil had said he would be out skating for the day, so I decided to join him. 

I wouldn't say I'm an expert at sports photography, I'm far from it, but I will try anything and Hd been inspired by his passion for skateboarding to try out some new things! I also wanted to try some off camera flash, I used a 1-2 flash set up for these pictures, 2 Canon 430ExII (off camera) and my Canon 70-200mm lens.

See More at My Facebook Page

Perhaps the most useful thing I've learned

Before University I had no idea what RAW was, I shot everything in Jpeg, now I'm going through all my old pictures I shot during college and I'm wishing I had known about the advantages of RAW.

So for all of you beginners who are just getting into photography here's some advice,

SHOOT RAW!!

If that hasn't pushed you into shooting RAW then here are some of the advantages,

1. The main reason most photographers shoot RAW is the files written to your memory card are uncompressed, which basically means using the right software, either Photoshop or Lightroom, you can access that uncompressed data and utilise the data and improve the tonal range of your images.
2. You should try to get it right in camera but if it happens and you over expose your images, you can adjust your exposure in post production, if you over exposure by 1 or 2 stops you can bring details back in photoshop or lightroom, this comes in very handy when shooting weddings which are both indoors and outdoors
3. Editing RAW in photoshop is a non destructive form of editing, when you edit a jpeg any editing you do to the jpeg file will induce digital noise, when editing a RAW file, you are not editing the original file, this way you can edit the original RAW file a million times and still produce a high quality image.

These are some of the pros to shooting RAW. here are some of the cons:

1. The file has to be edited, you can't just print a RAW file, it has to be edited to get the best results
2. As RAW is an uncompressed file format, the files written to the memory card are bigger than Jpeg, sometimes even 3 times bigger.
3. When shooting in a burst mode you will have a slower frame rate when shooting RAW, this is becausee of the bigger file sizes.

I hope this has shed some light on the Subject of RAW for you and will help you move into shooting RAW more (If you haven't already started!)

JPEG vs RAW

As you can see from the pictures the JPEG straight out of the camera is quite dull,  however with RAW file because the data is uncompressed you can make it more appealing to the eye.

If there are any subjects you'd like to hear about tweet me @JamilTeja

Stay Tuned for more Photography tips!

Free Range: 1 Year On

A Year Since Free Range

I can't believe it's been A YEAR since I displayed my work at the Free Range exhibition in London, ONE WHOLE YEAR!! Where has the time gone? It feels like it was just last week I was in the basement in Portland Building deciding what size to print my final images. (I decided to go for A1 Prints.)

The 12 of us with Neil and Nick on the Opening Night of Free Range 2013.

I bet some of you are wondering, what is Free Range? 

Basically Free Range is an annual Exhibition held in London where Third Year University Students studying The Arts, they exhibit their third year work to the general public in the hope their work will catch the eye of prospective clients/companies interested in hiring them. 

I remember we had to raise around £6000 to rent the space, (the smallest space, the bigger spaces were more expensive,) and an additional £2000 for producing our advertising material. 

In Hindsight I would say if I were asked to do it again, I would not due to the energy that goes into fundraising the £6000 - (We held many bake sales, an auction, a couple of movie nights and a 10K Run, to raise they money,) although these were all fun to partake in they distracted me from my work. Instead, I would have focused on my work and taken that £500 I had to raise and invest it in a new lens or camera.

Me with My Work

However I am grateful for having experienced the trials and struggles that we faced when Fundraising and also the satisfaction of seeing my work being exhibited in a big exhibition. 

Portrait Session with Balquis

Portrait Session with Balquis

In my final year of university I started offering portrait sessions for my friends as a way of building up my portfolio; my girlfriend's friend had said she was interested in getting some pictures of her done professionally and when she heard I was offering portrait sessions she jumped at the opportunity. 

When we were putting the shoot together we decided to go for two juxtaposed looks, as you can see from the pictures Balquis in Muslim and she was at a stage in her life where she wanted to strengthen her Faith by wearing the headscarf; she also wanted to a few pictures which showed off her good fashion sense. 

It was Christmas time so I was wearing my Christmas Jumper!

BTS PIcture by Sonia Patel

Lighting: I gave Balquis the choice of shooting outside or in the studio, of course she said studio so I set up the studio with a 4 light set up. 2 softboxes from the front and 2 flash heads with grids attached to them in order to give a nice highlight and separation against the background.

Overall I'm very happy with how these pictures came out, and Balquis was extremely happy with them!

For More check out My Website

My First Ever Make Up Session with Tanveer and Jakia

I think I've told you before, I met Tanveer through my friend and we collaborated on a portrait session and Tanveer asked Jakia to model for us.

Tanveer wanted to try a few different make up looks, we decided from the beginning of the session that we were just going to use a clean white background as she was interested in using the pictures in promotional material for future Make Up Artist jobs. 

Portrait Session with Jakia

Portrait Session with Jakia

I met Jakia at the same time as I met Tanveer, she was the model we used for Tanveer's make up session. I found Jakia very easy to work with and we decided after out first session that we should follow up with a second. We experimented with different ideas and just had fun with the session.

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Portrait Session with Tanveer

I met Tanveer through my friend Amnah, Tanveer who just graduated the previous Summer and was interested in producing a Make Up portfolio. We collaborated on a few portait sessions together including the sessions with Jakia, Siobhan, Armina and Kiran. After a few portrait shoots with different subjects, she wanted a portrait session for herself.

Tanveer wanted the session to be outside, given it was Autumn she wanted to try some Autumn-y colours with her make up, so to compliment this I chose a nice location with lots of greenery and trees.

Camera Settings and Lighting: I utilised off camera flash and used a speedlite with a shoot through umbrella on a lighting stand to add some light to the subject to bring out her feature and used my 24-70mm f2.8 and f2.8 to get some nice separation between the model and the background, another technique I used was to shoot from above, asking my subject to sit for parts of the shoot to experiment with perspective to create some visually pleasing images.

Portrait Session with Ahmad and Shahid

When I moved to Leicester for University Ahmad and Shahid became part of my regular uni group, as Ahmad had graduated the Summer before I started at DMU and Shahid was still in college. As soon as they found out I was a photographer they begged me for a photoshoot, I said yeah definitely, but my first 2 years of flew by and we never got round to it; but as my third year was coming to a close I thought I had to get these guys into the studio as a way of thanking them for everything they'd done for me over the past years.

Fashion Photo Session with Kiran

This is a diptych from a fashion photo session I worked on last year during my studies at university, 

I was collaborating with a make up artist to produce a body of work that would be used in marketing their products and services and could 

I asked my friend, Kiran to be the model  the make up artist and I decided we wanted more of a commercial feel to the pictures we were producing and decided to use the photography studio 

and use a variety of lights and lighting set ups. 

Hair and Make Up by Tanveer Khatri

I will be posting more pictures from previous Fashion Sessions soon!