As many of you know, Matt Brandon and I have been scouting for potential workshop locations In Egypt this past week or so and at times we both wanted to take the same image from the same location at the same time. Indeed at a quick glance at some of the images that we have both posted on our respective blogs they might look identical. Look closely though at those images and the differences start to appear.

We had a laugh about it but we also discussed which images each of us would put up on our blog or Facebook so that we didn’t “steal each others thunder” – as they say in England. But it made me think back to some discussions and experiences I had had on a workshop recently with David duChemin and Jeffrey Chapman, where it felt at times that I was following David around letting him create the compelling image and then I would pole up, ask him what he was doing and think “ooh, I like that” and then set about creating a similar version.

Now I should say at this point that I was not DELIBERATELY following David around, nor was intent on copycatting, but in these tiny seaside towns (population:4 old ladies, 3 vespas and a black cat) it was difficult not to bump into each other. My approach was to try and learn from David what he had seen, what aesthetic he was considering, what setting he was thinking about etc as he composed his image.

Those of you that know David will realize that he is incredibly generous about sharing ideas and helping others to learn. He would show me his image on the back of his camera, discuss with me what lens he had selected, what f-stop he had chosen or what to look out for and then allow me to have a go. And Matt, Jeffrey, Gavin and many others that run these sorts of workshops all share this ethos.

And the result? Well once or twice I got close to a duChemin or Brandon “original”, but mostly they became my images that I had sweated over, albeit inspired by someone else. But mostly – and this recent trip with Matt Brandon was no exception – I just learned a whole lot.

I learned how to really look within the Frame: what was the background doing? What tonal range was I looking at and what options did I have? Was there any hot spot or distraction that would change the viewers [perception of the image? Was I telling a story? Was I using the right focal length to draw the eye or did I have enough visual mass or negative space to balance the image?

Now I wouldn’t have got all of that insight If I had just copied the image carte blanche and if I hadn’t asked – and those of you going on a workshop this year, never be afraid to ask. What you think is a dumb question is only dumb if you don’t ask it. I could have got some of that knowledge or inspiration by reading, but the impact was so much greater when it was a practical example, on the ground, camera in hand. And that was when I started to learn. To me each of these images became sketches that I want to adapt and to make my own, probably at a different time and in a different country.

So although Matt and I might have very similar images from our few days together, we interpreted the scenes we saw differently. Our angles were different, our light was different, our choice of lens was different (I always seem to be coveting Matt’s 85mm f1.2 lens. I am sure there is a commandment about that: “thou shalt not covet another man’s lens”!) and our post-processing is different.

So the morale of the post is what? Well if your intent is to learn, to be inspired by a great image and to use that as a vehicle to further your own vision, then go ahead, emulate, practice, ask copy whatever. If the person is there then for heaven sakes ask them to explain things to you. In my experience photographers are happy to help fellow enthusiasts.

If your intent is to copy without your own subjective vision, or to deliberately mislead, then good luck to you. I suspect you will still be doing that in a few years time – if you have not been caught and had the copyright law thrown at you – whilst the rest of us have moved on and developed our own individual style or vision.

So to Matt – thanks for sharing, for taking the time to explain and for continuing to inspire. I love the image of the camels walking down the hill with Cairo in the background – but I still prefer his! Check out his recent blog to see his (better) version and get inspired.

Then go out and take some fun pictures.

I felt a little indulgent standing for 20-30 minutes trying pan after pan when there was so much going on around me, but allocating at least this type of time, Gavin explained, is how you master the technique, and how you capture that compelling image.

So I thought I would share a few images as I progressed through the tips that follow. Clearly the early images are not ones that I would normally publish and I have not made any adjustments – they are exactly as shot, but some of you might find it helpful in understanding the tip or learning not what to do! There is a slideshow further down too of more images.

Panning too quickly meant my framing was just off

Gavin taught me a couple of extra things that were really helpful, and I want to share with you. I won’t repeat my earlier post about the settings – 10 tips for mastering panning – the distance, the stance etc – but do read this as it is an integral part of how to master panning – but Gavin did share me with 4 additional tips, the first of which was how to set-up my custom functions correctly, to allow me to rapidly move to panning mode.

I am a Canon user – but I know Nikon will have something similar – so I have 3 custom settings I can record on my Canon 5d Mark II, so I set up C3 for panning. The first thing to do was to set up the camera for a “generic” panning shot – a starting point, if you like.

I switched to TV mode, selected a shutter speed of 1/30, and changed the AF-Drive settings to AI servo and multi-shot. I put the ISO on Automatic, and evaluative metering. Then I went into the Main Menu options and selected from the Yellow settings menu, Custom User Setting>Register, and stored under Mode Dial:C3.

This meant that when I was shooting something in say AV mode on a fixed ISO, with single shot and spot metering and I saw an amazing panning opportunity, I had just 1 turn of the main mode switch, to C3, to be set up for panning. It all means there is just less to worry about – let the camera do the work!

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Mistakenly focusing on the elbow not the face has reduced the impact

The second tip was obvious once Gavin had said it. Keep your focus point welded to the bit you want to stay sharp, throughout the pan. Easier said than done mind you, but this is what will make the face or the hands or the flower that you are focusing on jump out of the picture.

The third tip was to also consider panning in low-light situations, using a flash. The only additional setting here is to select second—curtain shutter for your flash, so that any light trails are behind the subject being panned, not in front! You need to turn the flash down probably 1 or 2 stops – enough to create the effect, but not enough to startle the poor man on his moped with some blinding X-Files like light!

The fourth tip was to pre-select the focal length to the aesthetic you want in the final picture and stick with it. Lets say you have a 24-70mm lens, and you want to take the final shot with the subject large enough in the frame to be interesting, but sill with some negative space or composition elements to make a compelling shot. When you track to the right or left to start your pan, the subject will seem tiny at that focal length. Don’t be tempted to re-adjust the focal length. Leave it on that pre-determined setting, focus on the subject – keeping that focal point on the key area of sharpness that you want – and pan at the same speed as the subject. As the subject reaches your pre-determined point, press the shutter. This sounds obvious, right? I can’t tell you how many times I found myself adjusting the focal length as I was panning!!

Playing around with the flash - not quite there yet!

After that it really is trial and error, making tiny adjustments to the flash or the shutter, depending on the light or the speed of the subject. As you can see from the images in my slideshow, it is harder than it sounds, or maybe I should say I found it harder than it seems!

Practice really does make perfect in the case of panning, and boy, do I need to practice! If you want to see some great examples then head over to Gavin’s blog an check them out.

Pulling it all together, for a decent Panning shot

If you haven’t read the others, please do check out: Slowing down with Ami Vitale, Being there with Ami Vitale and The science and art of photography with Ami Vitale. I have tried to keep the feedback pertinent to anyone interested in photography, rather than a personal soapbox for my meager talents!

This last post is the advice I received about how to make my images – predominately travel reportage – more compelling, by recognizing my strengths and using them to differentiate my work. I am going to jump right in and share two final images that Ami and I discussed during the review and use them to illustrate the advice she gave me.

The first is the Man in the Barbershop. If you have read the 3 previous posts then this image was one of the rare occasions where I had managed to combine these 3 concepts – albeit unknowingly! But the result is pleasing. Of all the images, this was the one that Ami got really excited about, because she immediately saw a story being told. As a picture it was well composed, well lit, but the subject matter is unusual and also lighthearted so grabs your attention. It is a compelling image because it has highlighted the unusual in the usual. It has presented a different side to Cairo than seen by most tourists. It has also played to my strengths (Ami’s perspective, not mine!) of looking for light and strong composition, getting in close, forming a relationship with the subject all of which allows a more personal dimension to be shown in the final image.

It is not unique a situation – you will find other barber shops in other parts of the world where a similar story can be told. But it works because it has the marriage of the science and art of photography. It works because there is a mixture of observation and communication and lastly it  is an image that stands alone, but also could be part of a wider story and encourages you to find out about more of that story.

In fact we talked about this image quite a lot in the review, and ended up agreeing that I should look at the whole subject of how traditional barber shops play a role in Egyptian community life as a photo essay project. Oddly for a culture so masculine and traditional, there is an interesting bridge to the more “metro-sexual” western world where this sort of male grooming is seen as a modern phenomenon, yet here we have proof that it is part of a traditional culture.

This success in creating this compelling image is in contrast to the second image – Shepherd in Sakara. This was – is – one of my favorite images because it represents Egyptian daily life to me and the combination of light, subject matter and composition give it an almost biblical quality. I had deliberately shot these shepherds heading home at the end of the day, knowing that the sun would be low, the dust cloud prominent and by shooting the subjects going away from me, I though this re-enforced the story of the end of the day.

Ami’s perspective was different, and surprised me a little. Whilst she acknowledged the great light, and understood the composition, she felt the image could have been better. As a travel image it was not iconic because it was not complete – it didn’t provide the viewer with a complete story. You are left with questions, rather than insight. Travel photography she reminded me is not about the location, but in seeing whichever location you are in with fresh eyes. It is about being intimate with the culture, the people and the environment. It is about seeing beyond the surface to the real story underneath. Travel photography is as much about humanity as it is about location.

Of course she was viewing this image with objective and fresh eyes, and not perhaps the blind conviction and attachment that I had formed around it. As she talked my perception of the “quality” of the image began to unravel! Perhaps  if I had included less of the green bush, or waited for the concrete slab in the bottom centre to be out of shot, then this would have made that particular composition more compelling. But Ami suggested also that to really tell this story, to really capture the location, the humanity and the environment,  that perhaps I should be taking an entirely different image.

If the story was about the unchanged tradition of the shepherd in Egypt, or the return home after a long day out with the sheep, or the “biblical” aspect of daily life, then this image only told part of the story. Perhaps, she offered, a shot of them coming towards me might suggest more of a welcome home after a long day or even to take a shot in the morning when they are going out. Whilst the image is good, there is an opportunity to tell a more complete story and create a more compelling image. Ami’s ability to immerse herself in her subject’s environment, to find the unusual in the usual, to tell the story with compassion and insight is what marks her out as one of the truly great modern photographers. Her suggestion then to return to the same place, perhaps with a translator, and getting introduced to the shepherds, spending a day with them, has to be taken seriously. As soon as she said it my mind raced with ideas and concepts, of opportunities and potential stories. So simple an idea, but potentially so profound and impact.

What this review process has done for me is open my eyes to how I approach photography and what I look for. Ami has helped me see past the perceived barriers of technique or experience; she has motivated me to get out there, experiment, have fun and to relax. Bu she has also really inspired me to think about what the story is I want to tell and to go and create photo essays that really tell those stories.

Everyone that I have talked to about Ami has the same opinion. She is the real deal. A compassionate big-hearted individual, with a capacity to relate to people and their lives. As a photojournalist and now multimedia journalist she is the master of her craft. The very high regard that photo editors, fellow professional humanitarian,freelance photographers, as well as her clients and students, hold her in is a reflection of who she is and how she goes about creating compelling and memorable images. Without trying to be overly sycophantic, It has been a true and rare privilege to have such dedicated feedback from someone whom I hold in very high regard and who has truly inspired me.

If you want to undergo a similar experience to me, then Ami still has some vacancies for personal one on one reviews available through The Compelling Image Website. I suspect though that the vacancies won’t be there for long!

Put simply, the advice was: Have a reason to be there. Tell their story.

Although Ami’s advice  was simple it still needs a little further explanation, so let me expand a little. The first thing that we need to do is to pick a subject and then tell the story of that subject. It doesn’t matter what the subject is, but in the act of creating a subject we create a focus for our images and the expectation that there is a story to be told. Maybe you don’t know the whole story yet, maybe the images are part of the journey. Maybe you have an idea, maybe a feeling or maybe an emotion that you are trying to share. But one thing is for sure is that the image that will really tell the story – the image that really connects with people – will come because you were acutely aware of the context. The story could be a single image or it could be a photo-essay – if it is the latter each image needs to stand on its own. But either way you can’t tell a story without a context. You can’t have the context without knowing what you are there to capture.

You are not just some accidental tourist, hoping to be in the right place at the right time to shoot the next iteration of Steve McCurry’s Afghan girl. This I suggest is missing the point. I am sure we have all done it. Day 1 of a workshop or holiday in a new country, over-run by potentially iconic shots and furiously snapping away as we tick off National Geographic’s next cover image in our mind. The reality though is that this scatter gun approach seldom yields result – it is akin to “being jack of all trades and master of none”.

And when we are out of synch with our environment then we are not really able to see where the real stories are. We haven’t tuned into the people around us and our part in their story.  As a result the images don’t quite hit the mark. They might be technically good, you might be a master of your craft but they still look like Marco Ryan images, not Ami Vitale images right?

For example let’s look at my picture of the “Egyptian man in the coffee shop” (left). A nice portrait, well executed and there is clearly a connection between us. Ami’s critique about the picture itself (good connection, great light, simple clean background, nice composition) were all positive and helpful, but, she suggested, had I shown him drinking coffee, or puffing on a sheesha pipe or a cigarette, the image would have had more impact. As submitted, you would never know where this man was sitting or what his story was – at least not from the picture. In fact, as Ami gently reminded me, the title tells you more than the picture – lovely though the light and tonal range might be! You’d never guess from this that he was a retired guide for the Pyramids would you? If I had slowed down, chosen my composition better, I could have given you a hint of  that story –  the tip of the great Pyramid was just visible through the window (out of shot) to the right. Why didn’t I include it? For once it was not because I was in a rush (see my last post about slowing down) – quite the opposite. I was probably just fixated on getting a good catchlight or the right tones or demonstrating my perceived mastery of the rule of thirds. The truth is I can’t remember. And that says it all doesn’t it? In effect I was in super-tourist mode (albeit a slightly over-camera’d tourist in this case!) and because I lacked a reason to be there – because I lacked a framework or context for the story – the picture became anonymous.

One of the ingredients that differentiates Ami’s images from, say, mine is that everything she shoots is contextual. Her images are compelling because they are a result of observation, communication, understanding and seeing the subject in the context of the story. She ALWAYS has a reason for being there. She always knows her story, her angle. And my images? Well if  I am brutally honest, they are probably still opportunistic. I kid myself that I am there for a reason – for example maybe I wanted to create a “Blurb” book as a Christmas present on “The Artisans of Old Cairo” –  but the reality is I am doing tick-box photo-journalism. In fact not even that.Tick box photo-tourism. It is not that the images are bad, it’s just that they are not great and they fail to really connect because I am not clear about what story I am trying to tell.

Because the real story is theirs, not mine. The real reason to be there is to capture some aspect of humanity, to tell their story. Travel photography is, Ami suggested, not about the location, but about being intimate with a place or a subject; seeing beyond the simple, and seeing things that create complexity in your images. You can only do that by knowing why you are there and what it is that you are trying to convey with your images.

Ami used my image of the father and son working on their lathe in their workshop (left) as dusk approaches, to amplify her point. As it stands it is a nice image. Good use of light, not bad composition, with some context provided by the use of contrast (both figurative contrast with the people’s difference in age and literal contrast with the use of light and shade) and with a a couple of things you might change (the red and blue bag behind the boy’s head for example). Overall then a pretty decent image. Yet it could be so much more. It is, Ami suggested, an image with potential. And here is is why.

It has the potential to tell an amazing story, but it loses impact because  it is unclear what  that story is. Is it about struggle? Is it about working conditions? Child labour? What does this image tell you? It loses impact because I haven’t provided the context and as a result it is unclear what story it is that I am trying to tell.

Lets pretend for a second that I had delivered an iconic image about manual labour. That starts to suggest a story. Manual labour, Ami suggested running with the example, is a powerful symbol of man’s toil for survival. It gives us a glimpse into the past, and a single portrait like this is like a single quotation: Interesting in its own right, perhaps even memorable, but when seen in context as part of a story, it can be so much more. In the (non existent) iconic version of the  image we are expressing the humanity of man’s struggle for survival. We have context. We have a reason to be there. Yet in my  actual version (left), because I lacked that reason, that context, so the story is unclear and the impact of the image is diluted.

Ami’s questions challenged my assumptions, yet inspired me to think differently. “What is the story then?”, she asked. It is simply not clear. Is it their suffering that they had no other work option or is this a joyous image of a father and son free to run their own family business? Is it the sheer daily graft that leaves them exhausted at the end of the day covered in oil? What were they making? What detail could we have shown that would have made this image more compelling? If I had spent all day there, would I have different images to show for it? What story would I be able to tell? Does my image express the humanity of the situation?

For example, Cairo is the second most densely populated city in the world, after Mexico City, with a population of about 26 million people. Yet this image doesn’t begin to convey that or to provide that context. Perhaps it was not meant to, but if you now view this image in that context, suddenly things change. It now becomes perhaps about their own private space, their room to breath amongst the suffocating urban sprawl. Perhaps the  toil and the light are symbolic of other small tradesmen struggling to eek an existence against the poverty that Cairo’s scale has made such an unhappy bedfellow? The message then is that the context and story are inextricably linked.

Of course I had seen this so differently before talking with Ami. Ami made me realise that having a reason to be there – having clarity about the story that you are telling – makes it relevant not just for me, but for them. Perhaps if I had gone there with a translator or learnt a phrase that explained why I was there, they might have posed or allowed me to spend the afternoon with them observing their life. Having the reason to be there then – that understanding of what story it is that you are there to tell – allows us to find the common ground, to be able to create the environment in which their story can emerge, rather than just being an observer with a lens.We become facilitators of them expressing their story not authors of how they fit into our story. Go back, she said. Go back to the same place time and time again with a story in mind. Spend time understanding the context, and then use that insight to create a compelling image, because in the case of the father and son above, the potential is there.

In my last post, I shared Ami’s advice on the need to slow down and immerse yourself in the environment. Each of the themes she raised with me  are strong enough to stand alone. Each one when applied independently will raise your game and improve your images. The real impact though happens when these themes get combined. Then we begin to see where the potential to improve really lies.

The next post will cover how to step-change our technical ability and craft, as well as overcoming technical issues and frustrations – again using a couple of images form the review set to illustrate Ami’s insight and advice. I count myself blessed to have been given such great mentoring. I would love it if, having read and enjoyed this, you felt motivated to share this with others. Please tweet, post on facebook, digg or whatever your social network preference is.

According to Gavin’s own post . they’ve arranged the trip to “coincide with the most auspicious bathing day, on April 14th, when the river Ganges will be the centre of attention for tens of thousands of eager devotees. Indeed, on the last such day, in 2001, five million Hindu pilgrims participated. It is difficult to comprehend the numbers involved, imagine the entire population of both Paris and Rome converging on the banks of the Seine on the same day. It promises to be a memorable event and it will be a privilege to witness it. The next Kumbh Mela won’t take place until 2013 so you will appreciate that opportunities like this don’t come along very often.”

Not only this this be an amazing spectacle, but it is almost like a 2 for 1 deal. Both Gavin and Matt are two of the world’s leading and most respected travel and humanitarian photographers. Their blogs are followed by thousands, their teaching and courses a have an awesome reputation and their workshops are always over-subscribed. But what will make this trip for any of you lucky enough to get this place will be the fun relaxed atmosphere these two will have. They are close friends, very relaxed and humble, with extensive knowledge of living and working in India, so you know that this is going to be the most amazing trip with some amazing people. You might even get the odd good snap too!

I’d be signing up like a shot if I wasn’t already booked to go on a workshop with David duChemin, a week or so later! But don’t tarry. If you are interested get your name in today! Places will go faster tan you can press send!

You can get all the details over on either Matt or Gavin’s blogs