Instawalks

I've been running occasional classes for Instagram/Facebook over the past year. These are informal sessions where I teach their clients everything I know about photography (!) before letting them loose in Camden, King's Cross or Southbank. They have then 30-40 minutes' shooting before we regroup, critique, and decide on the winner(s).

The lesson itself lasts an hour. We cover some theory, a few practical tips and techniques, and then look at using the app to edit images. Nothing technical. Among others, clients have included Heineken and Starbucks, and there's one in the pipeline for Apple.

They're given a variety of themes to work towards - it's important to have limitations - but they're not obliged to keep to them. These are usually Reflections, Shapes & lines, Signs and symbols, Colour, and Close-ups.

Judging the winner is always difficult as many are equally good, but for different reasons.  

While I could have shown plenty of descriptive images, lovely detail shots and neat observations, this selection I've made of their work either reflects some of the points we cover, or tends towards fresh and quirky (often abstract and arty shots) which are right up my street. That is, I'd be very happy to have any of these in my own feed (@alexrumford)! Although I should point out that the best pictures on the day are just that - they have nothing do with my own taste or preferences.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did:

Photivation

Photivation

/fəʊtɪveɪʃ(ə)n/

noun

adj: photivated, verb: photivate

(1) Feeling of enthusiasm for photography, usually after being reminded why one took it up in the first place. Leads to a period of energetic and enjoyable productivity.

I've been teaching a bit lately ("Photography and Instagram"). I had wanted the focus to be on the photography part, especially as I don't - didn't - use Instagram. That's not because I didn't take photos on my phone, it's just that I took them for myself and didn't share them. And, to a degree with Instagram, as a photographer, something felt uncomfortable in the way a fairly average shot could look pretty awesome by playing with a few filters, without any need to understand them.

Anyway, I started using Instagram (@alexrumford) - I needed to understand it better for these classes. Happily, it took no time at all to get to grips with.

And I've been surprised with the change in me. While I'm still extremely reluctant to upload most of my photos, while out and about I find myself looking more, noticing more, taking more in. It's just as when I was younger, when I used to have my camera with me all the time, and would go off single-mindedly for hours doing photos. I couldn't get enough of it. I haven't done this in years. To be honest, it's not the sort of thing I would want to do now (I prefer to set up portrait shoots if I have spare time). But I have missed the feeling of photography for its own sake. There's still an audience, but no brief, no expectation, no pressure. I can shoot what I want, when and how much I want.

Taking my own photos without sharing them - though I still do this - is just not the same. Taking photos with a view to putting them on Instagram - yes, to be noticed and enjoyed, but also to be judged by an imagined audience - it's a different, stronger motivation and feeling. This 'photivation' is, I hope, feeding into my regular work.

Normally, enthusiasm sparks from viewing others' portfolios, meeting with photographers or seeing exhibitions. There are lulls between these opportunities - I'd like to think that I'll be able to keep a higher level of enthusiasm going. 

I have no doubt in less productive times I'll dig out and upload some older photos (I have no problem with this). I have lots of images which live and get old only on my hard drives in dusty cupboards, shots which aren't good enough for my website, nor with enough 'behind' them to justify including in a blog post. Instagram is the perfect tool, place and reason for sharing these, and even though these aren't strictly new images I'm uploading, it's the same buzz I'll get when I share them.

Creating a portfolio

Squarespace has kindly added a 'cover page' feature to their offering - something I've always wanted. Therefore, I've spent far too long this week sorting through my galleries, choosing what would work best for an opening slideshow. 

My rules were:

- have no more than about 15 images. To be honest, few would ever watch through more than about six.

- only to have wide images (to fit the space). And for those to be cropped, only those which work as 3:2. 

- no travel, and less performance. I mainly do other kinds of photography at the moment, so it's not really representative.

It's not quite a portfolio (a complete body of work), more a taster of examples. And it's seriously weakened where images are chosen by the predetermined wide layout. But nevertheless, it's as close as you'll get to an old-school portfolio from me.

I can't remember the last time I put a portfolio together*. These days, for general use on a website, you can have lots (and lots and lots) of thumbnails with little need for careful and tight editing down, and that's ok. More like a tumblr blog, where people can scroll down and view what they like. Where every job is a casual throwaway, nothing of more prominence than anything else. "Oh, this? This instagrammed picture of my coffee was from this morning. Next to it is yesterday's ad campaign for Nike. It's all the same. Whatever." it seems to say, nonchalant. 

Of course, I've tailored examples of certain kinds of work to show clients, but I feel the last time I *really* had to work on it was for my final NCE photojournalism exam, where different categories had to be crossed-off: Use of flash; Character study; Sport; Night; Studio etc. I never think like that now, in terms of areas of technical competence and understanding of a genre. That is, there are some areas I don't do - and wouldn't be very good at compared to the professionals in those fields - weddings, babies, sport, news, landscapes, to name a few. But I think I could do each of them them to a passable degree - well, some better than others at least. All the skills practised during the NCE, and those learned from the various shoots I've done over the past decade, they all feed into one another and overlap. For instance, I've never done jewellery (let's just say it's extremely specialised), yet I know roughly how it's done.

What I'm getting at is that each shoot requires a different combination of skills, knowledge, tricks and abilities. And many photographs, to the trained eye, reveal some of the challenges behind them. I have a few images which I really want to like, and to put in a portfolio, displaying as they do my creative, organisational, problem-solving or lighting skills which I'd be proud to put forward. But they never make it because that still doesn't necessarily make them a good image. It doesn't matter how easy a shoot was, how difficult to achieve or how complicated the setup. The only things that matter are: Is it any good? And could it be done better?

With this in mind, I hope my cover page sideshow ('portfolio') is representative of me, of the work I do, the work I could do, and the kind I'd like to do. To get there, you have to go back out to www.alexrumford.com.

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*For anyone interested, a portfolio needs to have certain things, including:

- variety (you can't be a one-trick pony).

- flow (there needs to be a progression, something tying the shots together as a group, and from one to the next). In some ways, it means not having too much variety. The viewer needs to get a sense of who you are. If you're a bit this, and a bit that, you can do portraits and motorsport, travel and street photography, and interiors and landscapes, then, just, no.

- only your best work. If there's a flicker of doubt, then get rid of it.