An Interview with David DuChemin
Back in 2014, I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing the one and only David DuChemin for the now discontinued Ready Steady Pro Photography Podcast.
Now, before you go ahead and listen or watch the interview, I just want to say that David DuChemin is an absolute hero of mine. Not only is he a fantastic photographer, but his words are also incredibly thought provoking too. Whenever an email from David DuChemin lands in my inbox, I'm almost always guaranteed to spend the next couple of hours mulling over his points, comments and opinions.
He is a fantastic artist in every sense of the word and has helped me to form many of my opinions on the world of photography and the process of making a photograph too. Through books from his company Craft & Vision, he has been hugely influential in my photography education so far.
Because of all of this, and because of the high esteem in which I hold him, this could possibly be the reason I was so incredibly nervous when hosting this conversation! So, please do forgive my nerves in the early stages of this episode!
This conversation was hosted live on YouTube as a Google+ Hangout, way back when in March 2014, but that makes this conversation absolutely no less relevant today. In this episode, David and I discuss
- Your vision matters more than gear
- You should invest more in your creativity than you should in gear
- The 'best' camera is the one that fits you most comfortably, rather than the camera that is fastest / biggest / etc
- Be financially sensible. Think; "Will this purchase make my work noticeably better".
- David's own experience with Bankruptcy.
The belief that we all need to just get on with shooting doesn't just end there though. To hear the wise words of David DuChemin, you can watch the full interview below or over on YouTube or tune into the podcast: Here's how:
- Stream or download iTunes or over at Stitcher Radio (you can also use the audio player below)
- Hit play on the YouTube video below or head on over to my YouTube channel to watch the interview
All I ask is that whichever your preferred method of enjoying this episode, that you leave some love for by commenting, sharing and leaving a review.
David duChemin is a world & humanitarian assignment photographer, best-selling author, digital publisher, and international workshop leader whose nomadic and adventurous life fuels his fire to create and share. Based in Victoria, Canada, when he’s home, David leads a nomadic life chasing compelling images on all 7 continents.
For all of David's work and to follow his blog, check out his website: http://davidduchemin.com/
If you're interested in the great books on offer from Craft & Vision, some of which are totally free, whilst many others are just $5, checkout the Craft & Vision website: https://craftandvision.com/
Making Mono Macro Tulips (Video)
This week I started working on a new video series that I will be launching later in the year. In my upcoming series, I'll be sharing my entire post-processing method, from the moment I insert the memory card and import the images, through to the settings I like to apply, the way I crop, make use of brushes and my tips for exporting images too.
It will be a massively comprehensive series of videos with hours of footage broken down into bite-size chapters. If you're new to Adobe LightRoom this will serve as your one-stop shop to learn the program! Be sure to subscribe if you haven't already and you'll be notified when that is live and available.
If truth be told, though, it's been much harder than I had thought it would be! Creating high-quality videos takes far longer than you may think!
So, today I decided to take a break from producing that series and very quickly threw together this video: totally unscripted, quick & simple and hopefully it goes to show the sort of results you're able to achieve with a very simple setup and very little effort. I filmed behind the scenes and my post processing to show you how you can go from this to this:
All I used for this shoot was my Olympus OM-D E-M1, the Olympus M.Zuiko 60mm f/2.8 Macro, a large window, a purple tulip and Adobe Lightroom. Check it out:
It is a bit of a long video, so perhaps enjoy this on your commute or during your lunch break with a cuppa! :)
Download Wallpapers
Just in case you were wandering what I did with the other images that were left un-processed in the video, they're right here for you to take a look at. You can also download them (18Mb) to use as desktop wallpapers, but, please do note that they are copyright (details at the bottom of the post):
Copyright Notice
Please enjoy these photographs. But be kind: Do not edit these photographs and claim them as your own. Don't sell them without my permission. Do not use commercially without contacting me @ michael@rammellphotography.com.
All works are Creative Commons Licensed:
Mono Macro Tulips by Michael Rammell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at www.michaelrammell.com.
Video & Free Downloads - Lightroom Smart Collection Settings
[To listen to the audio hit play and then give it a second to buffer. The audio is high quality]
I'm just in the midst of preparing my annual 'Looking Back' post, where I review the images I made during the past year. Its the annual retrospective exercise that we should all be doing as photographers. It helps one to gain some perspective as to where it was we were back in January compared to just how far we've come in those 12 months to December.
This year I plan on doing more than just sharing 10 my favourite images from 2016 though. I'm going to revisit the 5 most popular blog posts as visited by you guys and I'm also going to give a complete break down of the gear I used for the year, including how much use each lens actually got.
In order to achieve this, I'm using Adobe Lightroom's Smart Collection feature to sort my images into folders (effectively) based on an the attributes of an image.
For example, I can set a smart collection to look through all of my images and pick out those that were shot with the 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO. I can repeat this for each lens and camera I own. This tells me just how I used each lens by simply showing me the number of images for each smart collection.
Whilst this isn't a hard thing to configure, it can be time consuming. So, I've saved all of my settings into files for you to download and import into your own instance of Lightroom.
This Smart Collection in Adobe Lightroom shows me how many images I shot with the 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO lens from Olympus during 2016
Given that the smart collections I have used look at images made between specific dates, I've gone ahead and made Smart Collections for both 2016 and 2017. Feel free to download them using the links below.
Various Adobe LIghtroom Smart Collection Settings Files available for download
For details on how to import the smart collections into lightroom, just watch the video below. In this I also go into a little detail as to how it is I made these smart collections (if you so wish to make your own for lenses I have not included). Alternatively, skip down past the video for the bulleted version of the instructions if you can't watch video where you are right now.
> Download Olympus 2016 Smart Collection Files here
> Download Olympus 2017 Smart Collection Files here
Importing Smart Collection Settings into Adobe Lightroom (Video)
Importing Smart Collection Settings Into Adobe Lightroom
- Download the Smart Collection Settings Files from this post
- Save somewhere on your computer
- Open Adobe Lightroom
- In the Library Module Expand 'Collections' in the left pane
- Create a new Collection Set
- Name the collection set '2016'
- Right Click on the 2016 Collection Set
- Choose 'Import Smart Collection Settings
- Browse to the files I have made available for you that you saved back in step 2.
- Choose the Smart Collection Settings you wish to use
- Ta Dah!
- (repeat for the Smart Collection Sets applicable to you)
I hope you find these Smart Collection settings useful. I would love to know what your most used lens and camera was for 2016! Please do share a link to your own 2016 Look Back post if you have made one, I'll be sure to stop by and leave a comment on your post!
If you found these Smart Collection Settings useful be sure to share this post and subscribe to the blog today. My own review of 2016 will be out in just a couple of days. Subscribing is the best way to be sure you see that post first!
Happy New Year & The Best of 2015
I wanted to leave my 'Happy New Year' post until a week or so after New Year. I don't know about you but my inbox was full of offers, promotions, discounts and all sorts of other things that just added to the noise immediately after New Years. Everyone wants you to visit their site and buy their product. I felt that If I were to release this post just after Christmas, or on the 1st of January that I too would be adding your inboxes that are likely (like mine was) busting with things I just wasn't interested in.
Now that most of us are returning to some sort of normality and a sense of routine I thought it would be a good time to share with you, what I think, was some of my best work from 2015 and take a look back on those 12 months.
So, firstly I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and that you spoiled yourself with some lovely new photography-related goodies. Personally I think photography books are the best Christmas present. As great as new gear is photography books give you so much and can help you grow. If you get a new book at the beginning of a year it can really inspire and inform you for the year ahead. Whether it's business or technical, or even just a photo book filled with amazing photographs to inspire, photography books are fantastic. If you've received Amazon or book vouchers, one book I would recommend is Gregory Heisler: 50 Portraits. Wow!
Best Street Photographs of 2015
I found this to be harder than I thought this year. Usually I would just pick out 10 images and post them right here, but this year I thought instead I'd select a few more and put them in to a slide show. Some of these images are seeing the light-of-day for the first time, which surprises even me. As I looked back through my library in Adobe Lightroom there were a few images that jumped out at me - images that I had previously overlooked as good enough to share with the world. So, here are my favourite Street Photographs from 2015:
[If you're reading this email in your inbox you may need to open this in a browser to watch the video]
Best Of the Rest
As much as I consider myself primarily a street photographer, the truth is that I photograph everything. 2015 saw me travel to Dubai, Venice, France (for the Le Mans 24hr) and Turkey. I moved to a new area here in the UK and of course I'm actually a wedding photographer 'by day' and so this year has seen me make some photographs that I just haven't made in previous years that I'm particularly proud of. I would add though that one massive change to my photography has been the move to the Olympus system. I'm not suggesting that without the Olympus I wouldn't have made any of these photographs however, there were times when I was undecided as to whether I'd take a camera with me because of the extra thing to carry. More often than not I took the camera but I do feel that If I were still shooting Canon and had to lug a DSLR body and a selection of not-so-small lenses, it would have been the other way round and I'd have been consigned to using my iPhone for moments that really called for a quality camera. Ben Nevis is a perfect example of this.
This was perhaps my favourite photograph from my trip to Scotland. This is not from Ben Nevis at all but was actually a photograph I took as I pulled over the car on the way home to jump out an make a final few photographs before leaving these beautiful landscape behind me. I was most pleased with the colours, the stream in the foreground, the rolling clouds - everything seem to come together to give me exactly what I was looking for!
Ben Nevis & Glencoe
Here are a few more from that same trip:
Macro Dandelions
Another surprise in my library of favourites were these images of Dandelions that I made using the superb Olympus 60mm f/2.8 Macro lens. Before this lens I had only used a Canon Macro lens on hire on a few occasions for weddings. My need and desire for a Macro lens never warranted me owning one, however when making my switch to Olympus and making a sizable investment in new kit I decided that a Macro will be part of that. Before my first wedding of 2015 I took it to the lake near my house to see what i could find to photograph with it - and this was the result:
From that very same trip here are a few more Macro's of Dandelions. I find the close-up detail fascinating!
Motor Sports
If you've been following me for some time you may be aware that each June I make my way to Le Mans in France to watch / photograph the legendary 24 hour race. Although this photograph isn't from the Le Mans 24 Hour Race (it's from the 6 hours of Silverstone here in the UK (another date on the same race calendar) this was the first time I had put the Olympus OM-D E-M1 through it's paces and shot motorsport with it. It was on this day, with photographs like this, that the E-M1 proved to me that it was able to do what my Canon DSLR could and that my switch to Olympus was a justified move. I wouldn't have been overly upset had the E-M1 not been able to produce the goods, but knowing that my new favourite camera was a match for the system I had just moved from, it made me very happy indeed. The post I wrote about the E-M1 and motorsports was also one of my most popular posts in 2015 as well. This was also the first time I really got to put the astounding Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO through it's paces.
For more E-M1 motorsport photographs have a look at my post 'A Day At the Races with the Olympus OM-D E-M1'
Richmond Park
This was a memorable day for me, as much for what I saw with my eyes as for what I managed to capture with the camera. This was perhaps the most golden of golden hours I have ever experienced. The light really was the colour you can see here in the photograph:
I've been to Richmond on numerous occasions to capture the stags rutting and the images I usually make are close ups of the stags with as much detail as possible. I tend to end up coming home with technically sound images; well cropped, good Depth of Field and sharpness etc. Being a park the images almost always have a dark or green feel to them as well. But this particular day I wanted to try something different than what I had before and the Golden Stag above reflects that. I was really pleased that what I had when I got home was something a little different and that, for me, was very reflective of 2015 as a whole. In part thanks to the EVF in the Olympus, more in part to my own personal development and growth as a photographer. Here are a few more from that morning in Richmond:
Summary
So my top picks for 2015 certainly differ dramatically from my look back in 2014 (which you can find here: 2014 Top 10). You'll see that back in that review I was still between systems; shooting both DSLR and Olympus (mirrorless). Whilst for many it doesn't have to be a question of one system or another, for me, I simply found that the Olympus was a very intuitive system to use and the EVF allowed me to (literally) see what it is I was about to capture. This made 2015 a year where I learnt even more about photography; with a solid technical background I found I was now able to more easily break rules and try out new things with a higher chance of success.
Throughout 2015 the only camera I have used has ben either the Olympus OM-D E-M5 or the OM-D E-M1. And I couldn't be happier.
Show me your top 10 from 2015
I'd love to see your top 10 or even just some of your favourite images from 2015. Drop a comment in the comments section below on the blog and be sure to include a link.