insights into photography
Our school gets at least one message a week from cheapskates who want us to recommend students to undertake photography work for free because it will be good experience for them, get them exposure and improve their portfolio. Yeah right and paying the bills?
A change in the law will allow photographers to pay rent on their homes & studios with ‘exposure’ instead of money. They will also be able to buy coffee, shampoo and other essentials, by mentioning to the checkout assistant that they did a big job last week for nothing, and are hoping it will bring them some paying clients.
Landlords and supermarkets are protesting this move, on the grounds that “Well what the hell am I supposed to do with ‘exposure’? I can’t pay my bills with fresh bloody air! Why can’t you just give me money like every bugger else?”
The controversial new change will allow photographers to pay for their homes and studios by doing freebies for people want pictures of their spoiled daughter at her expensive Sweet Sixteen party, pictures of their hair-brained new business idea, or a range of merchandise they plan to sell on EBay.
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We featured Huang Qingjun a little while ago with his series of earlier photographs of people with all their possessions showed the social changes that have taken place in China. “People’s lives have changed enormously,” he told the Magazine in 2012. “Maybe their incomes haven’t been affected as much as in the cities, but their thinking has.”
Now he has moved up a gear and as we learn from the BBC photographs the things people have bought on line
Liu Jun and his family have lived as nomadic herders for generations – he settled in a town but still lives in his yurt every spring and autumn. When he’s on the grasslands he shops online, waiting five days for orders to arrive at a nearby outpost.
Photographer Huang Qingjun is famous in China for his photo series, Family Stuff. Since 2003 he has been asking subjects to pose with everything they own, neatly displayed in front of their homes.
Huang has eyes that crinkle at the sides when he smiles. It’s a friendly face, and a huge asset when he asks people to do things that you might expect would result in a flat refusal.
“I look for people from all corners of China to showcase what they have. It’s a transparent and interesting way to look into people’s lives,” Huang explains.
“People usually only invite good friends to their homes, because it’s a private space, but my pictures show what people possess. They satisfy our natural curiosity.
Huang’s new project is based on a similar idea – this time, he asked people to display everything they’ve ever bought online. The results are a testament to the overwhelming popularity of online shopping, particularly China’s most popular internet shopping platform, Taobao.
“Taobao saw my Family Stuff project, and asked if I wanted to do a special series looking at online shopping,” Huang says. “I agreed to do the project, but I had a few of my own ideas in mind. I wanted to find people from all directions: east, west, south and north.”
This 28 year old woman in Beijing received some of her Taobao items as wedding gifts last year, including her favourite item, the mirror adorned with a decorative bird.
More than half of China’s 1.4bn population can access the internet via a broadband connection. Many also have access to mobile internet and can shop online using their smartphones.
Internet sales rose 49.7% last year, according to Chinese government statistics, in comparison to a 12% rise in all retail sales across the country.
For people living in remote areas, internet shopping is a lifeline to the outside world – a way to access a host of products that would never be seen where they live. In some of China’s more inaccessible places, delivery crews must sometimes abandon their vans to drop off packages on foot.
Wang Jafeng runs a youth hostel near China’s border with Mongolia and has spent more than $35,000 (£22,800) online. He says internet shopping is a “big joy” in his life.
When he was four, Gyatsoling Rinpoche was deemed a reincarnation of a Living Buddha. Now 25, he graduated from the Tibet Medical College and works at the Buddhist Research Institute in Chandu, Tibet. He finds religious items, including yak butter lamps and candles, are cheaper online than in local stores.
A recent film school graduate in Beijing, 26-year-old Li Nian has been a model plane enthusiast since he was a small boy and now runs an aerial photography studio. He designs some of the equipment he needs and finds people online to build it.
Here is a link to the BBC article
And here is the link to Huang Qingjun’s website
I would say an L Series lens from Canon is a pro lens and hardly mid-range and given that all of these are getting close to a grand these would be a serious purchase. Last year I bought the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM and have been extremely pleased with it. I decided the additional size and weight of the f2.8 was something I could do without, after all one stop of ISO is hardly a deal breaker although if we were still shooting film I would have gone for the f2.8. In a similar vein I have just bought a Canon 6D. This is a full frame camera and a couple of megapixels smaller than the 5DMk3. I chose it because it is smaller and lighter but with really excellent low light focussing and ISO results. Since having it I prefer it to my 5DMk2, the shutter is so quiet and it fits the hand beautifully. If you are looking for a full frame Canon don’t be seduced by the rather spurious advantages of the Mk3 and have a good look at the 6D
If you’re looking for an upgrade to your ‘budget’ telephoto but can’t stretch to a fully professional lens, there are some smart mid-range options to be had. We test 8 top optics to find out which is the best telephoto lens for your money. On test are:
Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM, £965
Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/4G ED VR, £950
Panasonic G X 35-100mm f/2.8 Power OIS, £895
Pentax DA* 200mm f/2.8 ED IF SDM, £745
Sigma APO 70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG OS HSM, £800
Sigma APO Macro 180mm f/2.8 EX DG OS HSM, £1,300
Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS, £1,250
Tamron SP 70-200mm f/2.8 Di VC USD, £1,100
With prices ranging from abut £100 to £400, budget 70-300mm lenses can be a movable feast, especially in terms of physical length and aperture.
Indeed, as you move through the zoom range, these lenses stretch considerably in length, while the widest available aperture tends to shrink from f/4 to a fairly narrow f/5.6.
To keep shutter speeds fairly fast for minimizing camera-shake and motion blur, you can often find yourself having to combine the longest zoom setting with the widest aperture, which can really degrade image sharpness.
At the other end of the scale, fully professional telephoto zooms like the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS II USM, Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II and Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 G SSM II are much more refined.
The relatively wide f/2.8 aperture remains available throughout the zoom range, and the physical dimensions of the lenses remain fixed at all zoom and focus settings.
However, they can be heavyweights in two undesirable ways. Hefty price tags of nearly £2,000 for the Canon and £2,500 for the Sony put them beyond the reach of many photographers who aren’t taking pictures for a living.
Secondly, with their large front elements to enable an f/2.8 aperture, they have a big, heavy build, typically weighing in at around 1.5kg.
A popular compromise is to opt for a 70-200mm f/4 telephoto zoom, usually costing less than £1,000. These lenses are more compact, lighter in weight, yet still tend to have robust build quality and premium quality glass.
They also boast a constant-aperture design, albeit at one f/stop narrower than their f/2.8 counterparts. That’s less of a problem than it used to be.
The latest SLRs usually deliver excellent image quality at raised ISO settings, putting less of a priority on ‘fast glass’. You can also get a tight depth of field when shooting at 200mm at f/4. READ THE FULL REPORT HERE
Oxford School of Photography 