So Spicer Hallfield have gone into administration - now why does that not surprise me?

And it’s no good blaming the recession. I could see it coming twelve months ago last Focus when they went all arty-farty.  They seemed to have lost touch with both reality and in what the rank and file of photographers need and want.

Products that we all knew and loved became delisted overnight, to be replaced by a huge range of oddly sized/shaped/coloured folders albums and accessories.

Worse still was their so called customer service.  No longer could you pick up the phone and place an order.  You had to order on-line via their “state of the fart” wed site – sorry: “portal”.  This was almost impossible to navigate.  The search facility was useless.  And there was no obvious link to related products.  And when you eventually got to the checkout, it was more often than not broken.

I actually spoke to their web guy about this and warned they would lose customers but he was more concerned in chastising me for criticizing his company publicly on this blog.

It is a shame to see any company go to the wall.  Let’s hope someone with a bit of foresight will be found to take it over.  Someone who understands the market place who could take the company back to its once successful grass roots.

Fujifilm has just announced the winner of their 2008 Student Awards.

We heartily congratulate mature student David Wala, from Newcastle College, on his win and certainly wish him well with his future career.

Let’s hope he makes the most of the publicity surrounding this competition, because his prize was quite frankly, crap.

The organizers seemed to think that the honour of winning was prize enough. The following is a quote from Fujifilm’s press release:

“This year’s Awards were run in conjunction with Penguin Books and the brief was to provide a cover for the re-issued version of Ralph Ellison’s 1952 masterpiece, Invisible Man. David’s winning image will now grace the cover when the book is released as part of Penguin’s Modern Classics series. In addition to this amazing prize, David has been named as Fujifilm Student Photographer of the Year 2008. He also collects £200 of Fujifilm Professional film, a library of 100 Penguin Classics titles and a copy of the book, ‘Seven Hundred Penguins’.”

Now, let’s put this into perspective. A professional photographer would expect to receive up to £ 1410 in Royalties for having a photograph featured on the cover of a book such as this. This is the figure generated by picture agency Alamy’s cost calculator for 10 year world wide rights on hardback and paperback sales of up to 500,000 copies. The amount would potentially be more if the image was commissioned and shot to a brief, as is effectively the case here.

What did David receive? £200 worth of film. That’s retail value. The ex factory cost to Fujifilm would be less than half that amount. Plus 101 books he may or may not have the inclination to read!

Not a bad deal for Penguin who would also have had to pay thousands in advertising costs for the same amount of publicity.

Not a bad deal for Fujifilm either. Nearly 1,000 entries were submitted to the competition each taken on Fujifilm Professional film. So that’s at least a thousand rolls of film sold to the students compared to the 300 they gave away to the runners-up.

But it gets worse…

And this is were the exploitation of student’s creativity is really going on. Part of the competition’s terms and conditions state:

“Copyright remains the property of the photographer at all times but each entrant grants Fujifilm UK Ltd a non-exclusive, sub-licensable perpetual, royalty-free, world-wide licence to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, translate, publish, distribute and display any entry submitted as part of this competition in any format now known or later developed. Each entrant acknowledges that the Promoter may sub-license the rights in an entry to Penguin Books Ltd for use as part of a book cover and in any related advertising or publicity materials. If you do not want to grant these rights, please do not enter this competition.“

The sections in red, by the way, were marked by me to highlight the implications of accepting these terms. I’ll bet the majority of these students entered this competition without even reading the fine print.

What this means in real terms is that Penguin now have a library of 1,000 original creative images that they can plunder free of charge for the covers of any future titles they might publish. And believe me, there is some good work in there, as can be seen from the very small selection below:

Fujifilm have announced the continuation of their tie-in with Penguin Books, who have selected ‘Silent Spring’ by Rachel Carson for next year’s competition and will invite students to provide them with yet another royalty-free pot of golden images.

The 2009 Fujifilm Student Awards is due to be launched in September. I would strongly urge students not to take part unless this clause is dropped from the rules.

If you feel strongly enough about this blatant exploitation of our young talent, let the promoters know via their website.

My mate Mike is sixty today! ~~ “HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE”!

As another poor photographer, he’ll understand that I couldn’t afford to buy him a card. In any case, they simply don’t do one that says: “Congratulations – you can now get an extra 10% at B&Q” !!

I knew I had a shot of him taken at my daughter’s wedding last year – so it was into Photoshop’s Extract filter to remove all evidence of the camera and tripod he was operating and of course, the background.

My own B&Q discount card (yes yes, I’m ancient too!) was scanned and added to the picture. Luckily, only a little bit of pixel pushing was required to make it look like he was actually gripping the card, and little drop-shadow under the hand for added realism.

Rather than drive to our nearest B&Q, a Google Image Search turned up a suitable new background.  Originally used to promote a new B&Q store, the shot was too sharp.   So I duplicated the layer and applied a decent amount of  Gaussian blur.  Then a layer mask was added and filled with a black to white gradient to blend the sharp image with the blurred version to realistically impart the shallow depth of focus you would expect in this type of scene.  Little touches like this all help to avoid the “cardboard cut-out” effect when replacing a background.

The “eye candy” picture is a publicity shot of American actress Molly Simm sitting in a rusty old wheelbarrow. Someone had made this into a mock B&Q advert, which has been kicking around the Internet for the past year or so.

A little added wording and “voila” – the card was complete. All in less than an hour.

Hmmm…. Come to think of it: That was an hour of “work” time, so all in all, it turned out to be quite an expensive Birthday card!

I hope the old fart appreciates it!

As a former press photographer I am quite used to seeing pictures designed to shock, to invoke thought, to stir up the emotions. Heck! I used to take them!

As a portrait photographer, however, I find myself judging pictures on their artistic merit, on their technical competence, and on whether or not they have “worked” as a portrait.  I ask myself: if I were the parent of a child in the portrait – would I be proud to hang it on the wall?

These two portraits were on the website of an American family portrait photographer. Now I should point out that prior to seeing these two images, I was pretty impressed with the standard of this person’s portrait photography. These, however, left me feeling very uncomfortable indeed. Maybe it’s a Feng Shui thing? I don’t know. I just know I don’t like them. Ironic really, when you consider that as a press photographer ANY picture that made you look twice, or that made you think about the subject, would have been adjudged a roaring success.

These shots give me the same feeling one gets when standing close to the edge of a very steep drop. Furthermore, do they give out the message to any other kids who might view them – especially if they were on the wall of a family friend – that it is okay to go and play down on the railway tracks?

So what do you reckon? Am I getting carried away? What do YOU think? Use the Comments link at the bottom of the page – That’s what it’s there for!

Backgrounds must now be 5%-10% grey – not white!

This “new rule” has actually been in place since the guidelines were laid down by the Identity and Passport Service three years ago. 

This year, however, they are applying the ‘new’ standards for passport photos more rigorously. The regulations have always stated that the background for passport photos should be off-white, or 5% – 10% grey.  During 2008 they will begin rejecting photos taken against a white background.

Employing a professional to produce your passport photographs may cost a few pounds more (we charge £10) but it can actually work out cheaper than having two or three attempts at getting it right in a photo booth. Not to mention the inconvenience of having to go through all the rigmarole again should the passport office reject them.

Details about our passport and I.D. photograph service

Now, I’m pretty good at navigating websites and second-guessing the nuances of wizz kid designers.  So whilst I won’t go as far as to say the new Spicer Hallfield website actually got me beat, time is money, and after fifteen minutes of trying to locate the products I wanted, I caved in and picked up the phone.

Me: Hello, I’d like to place an order please.
SH: I’m sorry we can’t take your order over the phone.

After explaining I couldn’t locate the items on their new web site, she put me through to someone called Mark who kindly talked me through the intricacies of the new portal.  Apparently it is easier to enter a keyword, such as “Classic” to narrow down the number of items you have to scroll through!  Once you’ve found the album you require, however, there is no link to buy spare pages for that album.  You have to start a completely new search, again guessing what the best keyword might be this time!

OK, so we’re getting there.  Wait…!  It states on the website that read the rest of this article…

Whilst in the thick of decorating and floor-laying last week, we reopened the studio briefly (pun intended) to do a quick fashion shoot in the name of charity.

Roger (Mr July) of Autoproducts, has been testing out his company’s new printing press by putting all the Cheeky Chappies calendar pictures onto tee shirts to be sold for charity.

The calendar itself raised over £2,700 for North Wales Cancer Services.  It is hoped the sale of the printed tee-shirts will push the total to over £3,000.

Law student Charli, of Bodfari, took time out from her studies to model the garments.  It was hard to believe she had never modelled before.  She was an absolute pleasure to work with.

So if one of the Cheeky Chappies is close to your… erm.. heart, you will soon be able to buy one of these limited edition sets via the Cheeky Chappies web site or at selected outlets in Ruthin.

More pictures on the Cheeky Chappies web site soon.

Dring Dring, Dring Dring, Dring Dring…   “Hello.  Border Frames.  John speaking how may I help you.”

Me: “Hello.  Chris Birchall here from Sunny North Wales.  Just chasing up an order I placed a few days ago.”

Border Frames: “Let me see…  Aye, it was dispatched yesterday on the 2-3 day service.  If it doesn-ah turrn up tomorrow, it’ll most likely be after the Easter weekend.  Hang on, I’ll just go on the City Link Tracking Site and see were it is.”

Me:  “Isn’t technology wonderful.  I suppose you’re going to tell me it’s in a white van on the middle carriageway of the M6 heading south, as we speak!?”

Border Frames:  “Och No.  The technology’s good – but it’s not that good.  It just says it left the local depot this morning.   But och aye – mebee one day we’ll be able to say it’s in a white van just pulling up outside your shop!”

Me: (laughing)   “That’ll be the day.  Hey thanks anyway.  Got to go.  Sound’s like I’ve got a customer.”

Hanging up, I go through to the shop…    Parked outside is a white van…    My bottom jaw remained at floor level as I signed for the parcel – and the hairs on the back of my neck are still standing on end!!

Now, this is not sour grapes – I promise you -  and if you think I’m out of order, please, don’t be afraid to tell me. read the rest of this article…

Nice little job in the studio this afternoon, shooting half a dozen leather jackets for the Blue Moon Leathers website.

I’ve worked with Holly and Christian on a fashion shoot before.  Both amateur models, they are incredably easy to work with – better than many professional models!  Maybe it helps too, the fact that our main work is shooting portraits, so Jayne and I are quite used to working with non professionals.

Black leather - in fact any dark material – can be really difficult to light.  Leather, of course,  has to look like.. well, leather. 

After carefully balancing the Exposure and shadow sliders in Lightroom, you can bring just the right amount of detail into the darker folds of the garment using the “Fill” slider. 

Adobe Lightroom makes post-production an absolute breeze.  read the rest of this article…

I had occasion this week to reflect upon how we used to produce photographs back in the days T-Rex were banging out their hits. In 1977 it was all about groping around in the dark, breathing in noxious fumes, checking timings to the second and temperatures to the degree fahrenheit.

Never mind T-Rex – since the advent of digital photography, read the rest of this article…

Tens of thousands of passport photos have been rejected for failing to meet strict new rules which were introduced to combat fraud.

UK Passport Service figures showed that out of 597,863 applications in the first eight weeks of the new rules some 81,927 photos – 13.7% – were rejected.   Source BBC Jan 2006

In particular, the “Photo Booth” and DIY photos are most likely to fall foul of the strict regulations.  The face has to be the correct size in the picture, not too light or too dark, no teeth showing, no shadow on the face…  The list goes on.

Jayne and Chris Birchall’s advice is to have these photographs professionally produced at a studio which adheres to the new guidelines and to do so well in advance of your deadline.

Details of the ID/Passport Photo service at BeautyPhoto.co.uk’s Ruthin studio.

Stop Press!

We can now produce photographs for American, Canadian, Australian, French passports and others.

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Twelve of North Wales’ finest working men have bared their souls – and a whole lot more – to raise money for charity.

Motor Mechanic, Electrician, Personal Trainer, Chef, Hairdresser – in all, twelve Cheeky Chappies from all walks of life agreed to pose for this saucy calendar to raise money for the North Wales Cancer Service based at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd.

The calendar was shot by Jayne and Chris at their Ruthin studio, and because the printers, Modern Press of Maidstone, agreed to print it for nothing, every penny raised will go to the charity.

View this month’s Cheeky Chappie

Click here for more

This touching portrait of a father and baby won a Merit Award for Jayne and Chris Birchall in the 2005 UK FUJI DISTINCTIONS AWARDS, announced at the annual “Focus on Imaging” trade event held in the NEC Birmingham.

Jayne and Chris Birchall have twice featured as finalists in the prestigious event.

Having also won several quarterly heats in the Kodak Wedding and Portrait Awards, in 2002 they won the title Kodak Open UK Portrait Photographer of the Year.