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Disjointed jottings from Terry Hansen - part 3 of 1 2 3

by Terry Hansen Published

Photographers can be very negative (no pun intended). The Society has launched two portrait promotions and have also supported Nexus Marketing with their Little Angels scheme (we shared a stand at Focus) but time and again I heard comments on the lines of "I don't do portraiture because I work from home and I don't have a studio". So what? Think about it. Where can you get a nice large room in which to take photographs in a nice situation, without it costing a fortune? Hotels, that's where. Many hotels and restaurants cater for the corporate market where firms can hold seminars etc.

These rooms are not usually used at weekends and can be hired quite reasonably, especially if you are going to make a regular booking. You should be able to negotiate a good rate, especially if you point out that your clients are likely to purchase coffee, drinks at the bar or even lunches whilst coming to you for a portrait session.

For backgrounds use a muslin. Take a few props along or even borrow some items from the hotel and bingo you are in business. I am assuming that you have some studio lights. If you do your own promotions as well as those through the Society you will soon be able to book sufficient sittings for this to be worthwhile. Viewing sessions can also be done at the hotel, either with transproofs or Fuji VF10 and for this purpose you can hire a smaller room. So, think positive. There is a lot of portrait work out there and it pays better than wedding photography. If you feel you need help on producing marketable portraits come along to the seminars mentioned earlier.

I recently had a chance to try the Fuji GA645 Zl camera. An all singing, all dancing 6 x 4.5 autofocus, auto exposure, zoom lens, rangefinder type camera. Very light and portable and one would think, ideal for the wedding photographer to use for candids. Fast, reasonably sharp, 32 shots on 220 film. Ideal for nipping in and out and capturing those magic, informal moments. What a disappointment. Having convinced myself that this was an ideal camera with many uses, what do I find? An autofocus system that is so slow, you could write your memoirs whilst it is focussing and by that time, the moment has gone. What a shame. With easy manual focus it would be superb.

Also have you noticed how difficult it is to get a top level non-autofocus 35mm camera these days and more professional roll film cameras are going autofocus, the new Mamiya 645AF for example. Now I suppose there are uses for autofocus cameras but I have never been comfortable with them. Most of my work is portraiture, so the camera is on a tripod and the picture composed and focussed then after working with the subject to gain the right expression the button is pressed. It's no use to me to then have the camera auto focussing because by the time its whirred away to itself and focussed, the moment is gone. When I press the button I want the camera to trigger, not when some silicone chip decides to let me take a photograph. Bear with me if I am starting to sound like Victor Meldrew, it's my age you know!

Well that's it for now, I am off to pack my toothbrush to fly to Las Vegas tomorrow to attend the Wedding and Portrait Photgraphers International Convention where your chief executive Phil Jones and I will be checking out the local talent (photographers that is ) to see who would make suitable seminar speakers for the Society. No doubt we will come back with all sorts of new photographic ideas so watch this space.

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last update 09/12/2022 14:53:28

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Disjointed jottings from Terry Hansen - part 3 of 1 2 3