About Helen

Photography combines my love of people, precision and creativity.

I’ve built my reputation as a photographer on my images of people: at weddings and events, on theatre stages or in every–day situations. Although I love interacting with people, I believe my skill as a photographer comes partly from my ability to quietly and unobtrusively observe – to let people be or perform without being aware that they are being photographed. A good photographer, through a friendly and unfussy approach, allows great, natural photographs to emerge, even in formal situations.

Great photographs also require good technical skills. Since my earliest days behind the lens I’ve been driven and inspired to keep learning and perfecting new techniques, and to take up the opportunities presented by the fast–paced developments in digital technology.

Working primarily in central London I have photographed, amongst others, David Cameron, both David and Ed Miliband, Johnny Vegas, Sir Ian McKellan, Lindsey Lohan and Amanda Holden.

My press and promotional photographs have appeared in national newspapers and on leading news websites, including the Independent, the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Financial Times, the Mirror, the Daily Mail and the BBC.

When not taking photographs I enjoy yoga, volleyball, cooking and following current affairs.

via About Helen Maybanks Photography Ltd – Corporate, Theatre, Dance, Wedding and Civil Partnership photographer in London.

Guinevere van Seenus – Photo Paolo Roversi 1996

via Guinevere van Seenus – Photo Paolo Roversi 1996 |.

About

Hi my names àsìkò (well it’s not my real name, it’s more my arty alter-ego). àsìkò means ‘the moment’ in my native language.

About 7 years ago I picked up my first camera and started taking photographs, I couldn’t stop. Photography became the thing I was most passionate about and couldn’t live without.

My photography is a reflection of who I am and what I feel, it’s my personal account on how light falls on emotion. My images are inspired by the mysteries, the romance, fantasy and my African heritage. I am constantly experimenting with ideas and concepts in Fashion and Portrait photography. Photography is my calling, my passion and my profession.

I currently live between London, Belgium and Nigeria with my beautiful wife and inspiration.

When I am not hanging out with my wife or taking photos, you can find me in a café reading a good graphic novel or a science fiction piece or even more image related stuff (it’s a bit of an obsession). I also enjoy cooking and cake eating. Movies nights are a most.

via asiko | London based African Fashion and Portrait Photographer – About.

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The Photographers Gallery

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via René Burri speaks about the Kremlin, Picasso and the importance of teaching children to see.

Ciril Jazbec is the winner of the Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award 2013 for his portfolio “Waiting to Move.” He will be presented with the prestigious award on July 3, 2013 during the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie festival held in Arles, France.

Ciril was born in Slovenia in 1987. He studied at the University of the Arts London where he received a Master of Arts degree in photojournalism and documentary photography. His personal and assigned projects have taken him to Kiribati, Alaska, Uganda and recently Greenland. In 2012, he traveled to Shishmaref, Alaska, on assignment from GEO Germany to document the Inupiat people, who face losing their island due to the effects of climate change. His work has been published in print and online publications including GEO Germany, GEO France, La Repubblica Velvet, Wired UK, FOTO8 and Reader’s Digest.

Q: How did you first become interested in photography and pursuing it as your life’s work?

A: In primary school we had a photo club and there was a teacher who encouraged us to renovate the school’s darkroom and start working with photography. My first attempts garnered some awards at youth photography competitions, giving me motivation to keep developing my skills and discovering the magic of photography. Since I was very young I knew I would be my own boss when I grow up. So photography developed from a hobby to a profession and a lifestyle, which I enjoy immensely and for which I am eternally grateful.

Q: How do you see the role of a photographic artist in society? What is your relationship with the people who view your pictures? Is there anything else you’re trying to communicate to them other than your personal vision of the world?

A: I believe in the power of photography; otherwise I would not be able to pursue what I do with such enthusiasm. I find myself increasingly attracted to using photography to send a message. The stories that interest me nowadays are different than they used to be – I want to show positive examples of how to solve various problems of our society and the world in general. Furthermore, the West is gradually becoming terribly ignorant of the values I encounter in remote parts of the world, i.e. respect for nature and animals, connectedness and mutual respect of people. The projects I choose are those that do not merely document, but rather also inspire and remind us of the many things we tend to forget in the fast-paced world of the West.

Q: What was your reaction when you found out you won the Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award?

A: I was having lunch with a friend in Ilulissat, Greenland, where I had been on the assignment for a month, when I got a call from Paris. My friend and I just had a conversation about what it takes to get more work in photography these days. I was quite shocked at first but then extremely happy and we had a few drinks to celebrate that day. It was also fantastic motivation to work very hard on my Greenland project.

Q: It seems you’ve done some commercial advertising work and documentary work as well. Is it important for you that your work is diverse? If so, why?

A: It is important for me to find balance. Personal projects are an inner journey and an inspiration, while the commercial ones are an exceptional blend of interesting people and dynamics from which exciting results are born. Lately, contracts I get for commercial projects are mostly based on my documentary style. My clients are looking to capture the moment, but also give them an aesthetic value that catches one’s attention. I enjoy such short-term projects; however, I mostly do them so I can afford documentary work. At the same time, I would never be able to focus solely on documentary projects. I undertake them very seriously and deliberately, usually taking at least a month and trying to get close to the people I am documenting, to live with them and listen to them. That’s not easy to do – it takes dedication and a lot of energy. So I am happy to accept commercial projects in-between these documentary stories, thus trying to preserve the balance and a clear, realistic view of the world.

Q: What was your primary motivation in creating “Waiting To Move,” which documents the threatened way of life of the Inupiat Eskimo barrier island community of Shishmaref in remote Northwest Alaska?

A: The story of Shishmaref is the continuation of my long-term project on climate change, which began with a story on Kiribati in the South Pacific. There was a seminar in London where I met some people who liked the Kiribati project and suggested I follow it up with Alaska, as sort of a counterweight or contrast to compare the different climate change problems.

Q: The general impression of these images is one of human beings simply living their lives – kids horsing around, ordinary people loving their kids, playing with their dogs, etc. There does not seem to be a feeling of impending doom, and maybe that’s part of the tragedy. What was the general mood of the Inupiat and how did you feel personally as you were shooting these pictures?

A: This was the most difficult photo story I had done, as the people were initially quite suspicious of my intentions and those of my journalist colleague. Because of their bad experience with the media, some of them did not even want to talk, much less be photographed. A few years ago, Shishmaref became the focal point of global media attention with the publication of photos of storms, erosion and houses sinking into the sea. It has made a public impression as a concrete example of the dramatic effects of climate change. Al Gore referred to the people of Shishmaref as the first climate refugees and asked how the community of 650 would survive the following years.

I had been in Shishmaref for almost a month, working on an assignment for GEO Germany magazine together with journalist Michael Stührenberg. Our goal was to see what has become of the media attention and hordes of journalists 10 years ago. The photo series documents the daily life in the community as it is today and the disappearing traditional ways in a village facing an uncertain future.

The island’s inhabitants voted in a referendum in 2002 to relocate the village to the nearby continent. However, nothing much has happened since then. People are waiting and waiting. The government has yet to provide the funds necessary to move the village.

Q: An image of a beefy, bearded dad sitting on an old sofa with an iPhone connected to his laptop and his boys next to him evidently playing a game on a tablet is kind of a universal image of the early 21st century that could have been shot anywhere. Its sheer ordinariness seems to convey a message and it certainly helps us identify with a fairly obscure people in an exotic location. Do you agree, and can you comment on this?

A: I have just returned from Greenland where I worked for a month in April and came back with some very similar photos of young people playing video games. Globalization is a powerful thing and you can sometimes be really impressed when you see Inuits carrying huge TV screens on their dogsled. On the one hand, I understand them perfectly, as information and images obtainable through such devices are extremely seductive. On the other hand, it pains me to see the terrifying divide between the old and young generations, and how old values and ways are disappearing. You can literally see the young generation’s indifference for anything traditional and their enthusiasm for technology, which often bears questionable content. Young people see what happens elsewhere and move to cities, leaving behind their old settlements. Personally, I find it very interesting to photograph the process, as I get the feeling I am documenting a great transition leading to an uncertain future. At the same time, this is a document and a report on what is actually happening and how the whole world is changing into a consumer society, even such remote parts of the world.

Q: One image shows a broad expanse of grass in the foreground and a little town with many white crosses in a cemetery in the background. It seems to suggest something that is firmly established and real, but also fragile and vulnerable. What does this image say to you, and what were you thinking when you took the picture?

A: The image shows the center of Shishmaref with the Lutheran church and cemetery, which had captured my attention on the very first day I spent on the island. It took me a long time to find the correct perspective for the photo. I finally found the perfect viewpoint in one of the larger houses in the neighborhood. Many inhabitants of Shishmaref, particularly older ones, worry about what is going to happen to their ancestors and their graves, should there be a great storm or should the warnings regarding climate change come true. I wanted to capture the uncertainty by taking the photo early in the morning and then at night, after a late sunset of the summer polar day.

Q: There is a compelling image of an elderly man in a flannel shirt sitting on a bed clutching the barrel of a rifle. There are banners hanging on the left and right and his expression seems to be one of grim determination. Who is this guy, what’s going on here, and what does this image mean to you in the context of your coverage?

A: This is Clifford Weyiouanna. He is 70-years-old. He is sitting in his bedroom with one of his 16 hunting rifles. After some days of knowing him, I had asked him if I could take his photo. The bedroom is full of his wife Shirley’s stuff. She died of cancer a few years ago and Clifford still misses her a lot. He is a former pilot and now an avid hunter. Every now and then he takes off for one of his cabins and stays there for days. Clifford is one of the community’s most popular members, known for his outstanding hospitality. He invites almost every visitor to the island in for sourdough hotcakes and coffee and fries them a dozen eggs. Personally, the portrait means a lot to me, as Clifford had opened numerous doors for me. He was a source of constant good cheer, which is hard to come by in the frequent inclement weather of the island.

Q: Do you plan to explore any other photographic genres or to document any other cultures going forward? What effect do you think “Waiting To Move” will have on the people you documented or on the general response to people whose way of life is threatened by climate change or rising sea levels?

A: Some of the people of Shishmaref had already seen my photos during my stay there. I usually show some photos in advance, which I consider a good way to establish a healthy relationship and trust with the people, showing them what you are interested in and what you are looking for. Some even follow my work on Facebook. In the future, I would like to continue working with documentary photography; however, I want to make it more personal and specific, expanding the documentary, illustrative aspect with my own interpretation and reflection. I would like to return to Greenland where I have begun to work on a story that has taken over my heart and mind.

Congratulations, Ciril!

- Leica Internet Team

To see more of Ciril’s work, visit his website. Also, if you’d like to learn more about the Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer award visit: www.leica-oskar-barnack-award.com. To order your copy of LFI special edition 2013 Oskar Barnack Award, click here.

via Ciril Jazbec: Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award 2013 « The Leica Camera.

Magnum Foundation (Photography as Entry Point We are eager to keep…).

10 Useful Websites to Learn Lighting

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If you want to separate yourself from the pack of photographers, mastering artificial light has always been one of the best ways to get ahead. When I started twenty years ago, the photojournalists who knew how to light portraits and complicated subject material were always the ones who won colleagues’ respect. It also gave them the edge in the job market. How these photographers learned their craft was a bit of a mystery since there weren’t many resources to teach equipment and the fundamentals of the process.

Years later, lighting still makes the difference in the marketplace – but now there’s a proliferation of sites to explain all. This hunger for lighting information is one of the reasons the Strobist blog exploded and still remains a popular destination for photographic lighting aficionados.

As a testament to its influence, I’m starting out with Strobist as a foundational site to consider. For this post, I’ve gathered 10 other useful lighting websites that have caught my eye.

(Please feel free to use the comments below to point readers to any sites I’ve missed.)

Strobox.com

If you’re looking for ideas, inspiration, or solutions, Strobox offers an impressive collection of photographs and lighting diagrams uploaded by its community of photographers. You can sort pictures by the modifiers used to light them, see all pictures uploaded by the same photographer, or choose among the “You Might Also Like” pictures. They’ve even published a book of the “most amazing” photographs and diagrams from the site, although it’s pricey given the presumably free content from which it was gathered.

Sylights.com

A wonderful and free teaching tool to design and share your lighting set-ups on your blog or wherever you wish. I love its ability to scale the size of elements to put in a grid. You’ll probably see some Sylights grids on this blog going forward. It also has some cool mobile apps that I’ve written about in my post about top iPad apps.

GuesstheLighting.com

Guess the Lighting is a fun way to appreciate and think about lighting. Blogger Ted Sabarese picks photos that have caught his eye and uses his expertise to guess the lighting used for the image. It’s all conjecture of course, as are the witty remarks he makes about what happened on the set involving such possibilities as boogie boards, Vikings and bird poop.

PixSylated.com

In case you missed it, Syl Arena’s “Speedliting” website merged into his PixSylated blog to become one site where he writes about his Speedlite experiences in the greater context of imagemaking.  I enjoy the “Lessons I Didn’t Learn in Photo School” series of posts.

FStoppers.com

FStoppers gathers a wide range of impressive and inspiring BTS videos on its blog that show you how to photograph muzzle blasts and Lamborghinis, because you know how often you are called upon to do that. You’ll have to dig a little to find all the videos involving artificial light, but if you’ve got some time to kill, this is one place to have bookmarked.

KelbyTraining.com

Paying for classes in the area of “Free!” seems counterintuitive, but you can’t argue with the assembled talent of Scott Kelby’s teaching roster. The training videos offered through membership isn’t limited to lighting, adding more value to the membership. I’d suggest that many photo students wanting to reduce the cost of higher education might get better return on their teaching investment with this site, at a fraction of the price. Kelby Media Group has also put out an iPad magazine called “Light it” which publishes 8x/year.

DIYPhotography.net

Speaking of price, if you throw around money like manhole covers, DIYPhotography.net is for you. Some of the more recent posts are titled “Build a Huge (Softbox) Grid From Duct Tape” and “Build a DIY Macro Studio with Pop-Up Laundry Bag”. Seriously, you can’t beat this site for frugality. Whether you should show up to a paying shoot to have a client see your cardboard contraption is a decision about your personal brand that only you can make.

Lighting-Essentials.com

Despite its URL, Don Giannatti brings you more than just lighting with this site, although its core is still about lighting tips and thoughts. Clicking on the “Going Pro” menu item will bring you to various subcategories, including “Model Behavior” which describes the nuances of working with models in your lighting set-ups. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen that subcategory on any blog before.

PopPhoto.com

Popular Photography has a great selection of articles about lighting under its “How-To” section of its site. The articles range from aesthetic insights to gear reviews. If you check out this “Tips from a Pro” article, you’ll find the coolest alley in Chicago that I recognized instantly.

Joe McNally YouTube Channel

Since most of us are not called to photograph circus elephants, I’m not dying to know Joe McNally’s secret to lighting big animals from top to bottom, which he doesn’t offer. So the usefulness of his videos is the inspiration that comes from seeing a professional at the top of his game perform acts of photographic wizardry for the camera. What softbox at what setting? Who cares? I just want to enjoy his pizzazz and showmanship while keeping my jealousy in check.

via 10 Useful Websites to Learn Lighting – Assignment Chicago.

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February 27, 2012

We’ve changed a few things

Returning readers will immediately see that we’ve changed a few things around here. It starts with the background color, just to get your attention. But it goes much deeper than that. Over the last two years, we’ve heard a lot of feedback. The loudest request has been to add content about motion imaging to the site.

New Video Content

In response to that, we’ve added Richard Harrington to the team. He brings a deep knowledge of video technology best practice and workflow to the table. He also brings an easy-to-understand style to both his writing and video tutorials. You can see most of his contributions with the menu tag “Video”, as shown in the figure below.

via Welcome | Digital Photography Best Practices and Workflow | dpBestflow.

How to Create an Effective Photo Essay

As photographers, our camera provides entry into other people’s lives, emotions, traumas. It is an honor that people let us into their lives, and a privilege to see and capture the world through our lens.

Photography literally means writing (graph) with light (photo), and the photo dssay is storytelling with photography. The PhotoPhilanthropy Activist Awards recognize photographers who can tell the story of a nonprofit organization with inspiring photographs and few words.

Here are some tips that may help you to tell an inspired story:

1. Identify a topic: Photo essays are most dynamic when you as the photographer care about the subject. Whether you choose to document the agency that runs the soup kitchen down the street, or the NGO that works to protect tree frogs in the Amazon Rain Forest, make your topic something that interests you.

2. Do your research: If you decide to work with the soup kitchen agency, get online and find out how they are funded, who are their clients, what are the statistics about hunger in your community, who else feeds the hungry, how many meals the organization makes in a day, etc. Consider talking to people who support the agency, or volunteer to serve. Read their mission statement. When you talk to the agency, make a list of their activities and important employees that they want documented. All of these factors will help you in planning out the type of shots you set up for your story.

3. Find your story: After your research, you should decide on the type of photo essay you want to present – narrative or thematic. Narrative photo essays tell a story conveying a person or activity over time – for example, the International Red Cross’s response to the Chinese earthquake, or the work of an agency responding to hunger in a community. Thematic photo essays focus on a theme and show photos relative to that theme – for example, child poverty, or drought in the Midwest. It will help you to organize your shooting if you understand the type of story that you want to tell.

4. Convey emotion: A successful photo essay conveys emotion – anger, joy, fear, passion, excitement. To connect your photo essay with its audience, you must draw out the emotions within the story and convey them in your shots. Consider the impact that the activities of your nonprofit organization has on you, and the emotions that you see portrayed by those involved. Then consider how you will articulate this emotion through your photographs.

5. Plan your shots: It is often helpful to start out by creating a “shot list” for the story. You will want photos depicting the various activities of your nonprofit organization in order to tell their story. Before shooting, walk around the agency, meet the people involved, pay attention to the light (look for natural light as much as possible; watch out for fluorescent bulbs which tend to give off a yellow light). Look for small details that will convey a story or a mood. Look for an interesting face, as well as environmental (scene setting) images that will help the viewer locate the story. Each shot will work like a sentence in a one-paragraph story.

You will want to open your essay with a powerful lead photo that draws the viewer in. Next often comes a scene setting image, one that describes the theme or narrative, followed by portraits and detail shots. Finally, use a strong summing-up photo to pull your story together, and finish with a powerful image that becomes the “clincher,” the image that you want the viewer to leave with.

An effective photo essay is made up of a variety of shots. You will want to include at least one of each of the following:

• Scene setting or landscape photo
• Portrait (a portrait showing your subject in his/her environment)
• Detail shot
• Action photo (showing the activity of the organization)

Above all, remember to let your photos do the talking.

via PhotoPhilanthropy.

Photo finish: judging the Taylor Wessing portrait prize

Last year, I was critical of the Taylor Wessing photographic portrait prize. This year I helped judge it – and now realise how tough it is to pick a winner

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Sean O’Hagan

guardian.co.uk, Friday 7 September 2012 18.25 BST

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Taylor Wessing portrait prize 2012: The Ventriloquists by Alma Haser View larger picture

The Ventriloquists by Alma Haser Photograph: Alma Haser

Last November, I wrote a not altogether positive review of the 2011 Taylor Wessing photographic portrait prize headlined Another animal, another girl with red hair. It described my bafflement at the judging process and the general “dullness of the selection”. It was a surprise, then, to be asked to be one of this year’s judges. I jumped at the chance.

Now it’s done, I have to say I will think twice about knocking the judges in future. The two days I spent looking at 5,340 photographs submitted by 2,352 photographers (a maximum of six prints per entrant is allowed) was a crash course in the discipline and the sheer doggedness involved in judging an open competition which, as the National Portrait Gallery brief put it, showcases “the work of some of the most talented emerging young photographers, alongside that of established professionals, photography students and gifted amateurs.”

Taylor Wessing prize: Lynne Brighton, shot by Jennifer Pattison Lynne Brighton, shot by Jennifer Pattison in the bedroom of a derelict house Photograph: Lynne Brighton

For the record, the other judges were: Emma Hardy, photographer; Lauren Heinz, director of Foto8; Glyn Morgan, a partner at Taylor Wessing LLP; ; Sandy Nairne, director of the National Portrait Gallery and Terence Pepper, curator of photographs at the National Portrait Gallery. There were opinions. There were agendas. There were disagreements. It was tough. It was exasperating. It was emotionally and physically draining but, despite many moments of disappointment as favourite images were rejected, it was utterly rewarding. And, of course, I anticipate much scorn/derision/dismissal by the online photographic community and the general public alike. It goes with the turf and I am thickening my skin as we speak.

Here are a few observations on the prize and the process. On day one, a team of helpers paraded the prints before us, photographer by photographer. As the first 1,000 whizzed by, we seemed to be consigning an awful lot to the rejected pile: baby portraits, family portraits, pet portraits, portraits that looked like holiday snapshots, portraits that were bad imitations of famous portraits, even portraits with no people – or animals – in them. (Memo to all entrants: show your photographs to someone else first, and preferably not a family member. It may save you a lot of money and disappointment.)

Much sooner than I expected, we were down to 600 photographs. But, as Sandy Nairne pointed out, that still meant 540 had to go. That’s when it started getting interesting. And slightly tense. By lunchtime on the second day, we had filleted the 600 down to just over 100. Then it went from tense to intense.

I don’t think I was the only one of the judges to find this part of the task emotionally draining. Put it this way: I firmly believe that most of that final 100 could have been in the show alongside the final selection. Really great portraits had to be rejected and, as Nairne kept reminding us, it was down not just to consensus but individual enthusiasm. A few portraits I was really enthusiastic about, though, still went into the back room not to be seen again. The same applied to nearly all the judges.

In the end, we were left with, I think around 18 or 19 great images that then had to be voted on in order of individual preference. It was as close as could be when it came to deciding the winner. My lips are of course sealed, though I can tell you that my choice was pipped at the post. I was devastated, but democracy ruled.

As the weeks have gone by since the judging, I’ve been haunted by three images that are in the show, but not the shortlist. One is James Russell Cant‘s group portrait, Heather and Her Friends, which had a real intimacy to it. The others are Tomasz Gudzowaty’s strong black and white image, Katy With Sons (part of this series) , and (NSFW) Nadia Lee Cohen‘s very strange American Nightmare, both of which had an edginess that I think is missing elsewhere in the show – and was missing too in the submissions – for whatever reason. It makes me wonder if the prize is viewed by many photographers as a traditional, even conservative, one. How else to explain the lack of snatched street portraits or any kind of reflection of the recent political ferment – from the Arab spring to the Occupy Movement to the London riots? Whatever, there was a definite lack of edge that I found disappointing.

Mark Rylance, by Spencer Murphy Photograph: Spencer Murphy

In the end, too, it comes down to taste. I was not so hung up on technical perfection or the sublimely beautiful as some of my fellow judges, perhaps because I now see so many strong photographs that no longer adhere to those definitions. Celebrity portraits tend to leave me cold, too, unless they are truly surprising or somehow honest in a way we seldom see. (Matthew Lloyd’s thoughtful portrait of Michael Stipe and Eamon McCabe’s portrait of Sarah Lucas are both in the show, and deservedly so.)

We live in digital world where photography has become a more democratised vision and I think that should somehow be reflected, even in a portrait show. It isn’t in this instance. And yet I can see why The National Portrait Gallery upholds the traditional art and craft of photographic portraiture. That’s what the place is all about. In conclusion, I think the shortlist is a strong one, though there is inevitably one portrait in there I would have passed over for something harder, edgier, more intimate or more confrontational … that’s all I’m saying.

Now see this

Ahead of the big William Klein-Daido Moriyama show at Tate Modern next month, Micahel Hoppen, London is showing Moriyama’s erotic series, Tights and Lips, which comprises close ups of legs in fishnet stockings and glossy lipsticked mouths. As always with Moriyama, the energy is raw and the images altogether more formal than first impressions suggest. A provocative taster for the big event.

Also in London, The Little Black Gallery is showing Vee Speers’ controversial series, The Birthday Party in which children are pictured wearing party outfits befitting their imagined alter egos. Strange and dreamily disturbing.

via Photo finish: judging the Taylor Wessing portrait prize | Art and design | guardian.co.uk.