Why You Should be Making an Annual Photo Book

In my recent monthly newsletter I spoke about the importance of making a photo book of your own work each year. Shortly after that I received several messages with questions regarding where I get mine made? And what constitutes a ‘good’ photo book in terms of printing and binding etc?

So as a result, I thought I’d put this quick blog post together on why I think it’s important to make an annual book of your best work each year, and my recommendations on where to get yours made.

Printing an annual photo book each year can seem costly and time consuming, but in time, you’ll be thankful that you did it.

What is this ‘photo book’ exactly?

I appreciate that this might not be as immediately obvious as it sounds, especially in todays digital world where some of you may have never experienced a ‘physical’ manifestation of your work. For us older folks, that might sound very odd, but I’m sure there are plenty of photographers out there who have never, ever seen a physical representation of their work. They may have never had the need to print out a single photo or curate a physical portfolio, so the concept of a photo book may indeed seem odd to them.

A photo book is essentially exactly that; a book of your best photos. Think of it like a mini portfolio. Remember your parents photo albums? Well this is like that but of your own images.

Does anybody even print out photos anymore?

I briefly mentioned that there may be many of you out there who’ve never seen or held a physical photograph that you’ve personally taken. If you’re one of those people, then I think this article is all the more important for you. Photo books, or as they were called years ago; photo albums, are becoming rarer and rarer, and in reality, the only time we see personal books of photos is to immortalise an important period or moment in our lives. Wedding photo albums are still very popular, as are family photo shoots or holidays. We like a physical reminder of those moments and we like to take those moments and share them with other people in our lives.

There’s certainly something very permanent about having a physical copy of our wedding photos over simply having them on Facebook. If you don’t believe me, then take a look at the cost of a wedding photographer that provides photo albums over one that simply provides a disk of shots. There is certainly a perceived value in the physical sentiment of holding our treasured memories over simply uploading them to the internet.

Photo books aren’t just for your best photographs, they are for memorable periods in our lives as well. People make albums of their babies, their weddings or even their holidays.

But I’m not a wedding photographer

So even if you aren’t a wedding photographer or going on fancy holidays that need photo albums, do you still need to be printing out photo books? In my opinion yes, and here’s why I think it’s an important part of our ongoing photographic process.

As creatives, we can and need to be hard on ourselves about the work we produce. I don’t know a single creative who is 100% happy with every project they produce. Sure we may be pleased with the outcome, but there is nearly always something we’re not happy with or something that we’d do differently next time. Unfortunately this seemingly harsh or pessimistic approach to our work is a necessary evil as we simply cannot improve as artists unless we aspire to change something about our work. Imagine finishing a shoot and not wanting to change anything about it. The next time you’re shooting, you’d simply do exactly the same thing as before.

This process of repetition without iteration is the very antithesis of creatively. Trying something new will often lead to mistakes, but ultimately mistakes are the seeds of creativity.

Looking back at your past work may not seem important now, but in years to come it will become clear how you’ve improved.

Celebrate everything that went well

Now don’t worry, I’m not going to start getting philosophical and quoting Descartes or anything, but I just want get across how all of us are hard on ourselves about the work we produce. This is a perfectly normal and healthy part of the creative process but as a result, we can sometimes get a little despondent about our work as we all have a tendency to only remember the things that didn’t go as well as we’d hoped. A photo book is a great excuse to look back over an annual period and celebrate everything that went well with your shoots.

Like I said, we all focus on what could’ve gone better, myself included. Because of this I’m always surprised when I look back at the previous years work to see that I did in fact take some great shots, and a photo book is the perfect way to catalogue that.

Doing this once a year is a good way to keep things in perspective as you should then start to see some form of progression from year to year over simply picking a random time period.

Select your most bestest shots!

Okay so now that I’ve convinced you to make an annual photo book of your work, all you need to do now is make it. First off you’ll need to collect together all your shots from the previous year, then all you have to do is choose your favourites for the book.

It’s actually this selection process that will make you feel better about your work as I guarantee you’ll find it hard to choose your favourites. This surely proves that you have a bunch of great shots if you’re struggling to just pick your best ones.

It’s up to you how many shots you want to include in this annual hall of fame of yours and that will largely be determined by how many shoots you had in that year. It’s also up to you as to what size you want your photo book and how many pages you want it to have.

Lay-flat bindings are almost a necessity for photo books in my opinion. They’ll allow for the images to be viewed without that annoying curved centre spine that will obscure some of the image on both pages.

Choosing Our Photo Book Format

Photo book sizing

For the purpose of this article, I’ll be recommending an A4 size book to maximise the visual impact and quality of your shots. I’ll also be using a page count of 50 pages to compare prices but your photo book may well have more or less pages than that.

Photo book quality

The other thing we’ll be paying close attention to is print quality. As digital photographers we all now own incredibly powerful cameras that are all capable of capturing incredibly detailed shots, we want our photo books to showcase that quality to its fullest. Whilst we’re on the subject of quality, it’s probably a good time to talk about paper surfaces and the differences between gloss and matte. I personally always get my photo books printed on a matte finish and I’d recommend you do the same. The matte finish simply reduces reflections and glare on the surface of the pages. As a result you’re more likely to see the actual printed image rather than a reflection of yourself looking at it.

Photo book cover & binding

All books have covers and bindings and we will have to decide what we feel will look best for our photos. It’s my opinion that a ‘lay-flat’ binding is the best way to display your photos. If you’re unfamiliar with what this is then imagine a normal book, open it up and where the two pages meet in the middle is called a gutter. This gutter is often very curved and photos will not look great when they’re heavily curved like this so the ‘lay-flat’ gutter means that when the book is open, there are no curved pages to distort your shots. So because I believe this ‘lay-flat’ gutter option is so important, it does make our cover decision far easier. The ‘lay-flat’ is normally only an option if you have a hardback cover, so for the purposes of this article we’ll be looking at all hardcover books with lay-flat bindings.

I’ve been making an annual photo book for many years now, but before I settled on what I believe to be the best one, I tried out several different photo book companies along the way.

Photo Book Publisher Comparison

There are of course many, many photo book publishers out there but I’ve chosen three here that I believe offer different options for different needs. But remember, I’m looking for the optimum photo book publisher for us photographers in particular where image quality will likely taken president over everything else.

myphotobook

Founded in 2004

Let’s start with this very versatile and affordable photo book printer. If you’re after anything to be printed on literals anything else, then this is a good choice. Myphotobook don’t just do photo books and they offer all manner of printing options including the calendars, mugs, mousepads etc

Printing a myphotobook A4, hardback, lay-flat photo quality book with 50 pages looks something like this.

Format: A4 portrait, 21.5 x 27.6 cm (8.4 x 10.8") approx.
Cover: Hardcover
Binding: lay-flat binding
Paper: premium photographic paper (380 gsm)
Production: photo developing on silver halide photographic sheets
Price: £59.49 (price for 52 page book)
Shipping: 3 days +£5.95

https://www.myphotobook.co.uk

Blurb

Founded in 2005

Blurb is a printing company that is fairly well know globally now and although they don’t print miscellaneous items like mugs and mousemats, they do print magazines and trade books that may require a larger run of books over simple one-offs.

Printing a Blurb A4, hardback, lay-flat photo quality book with 50 pages looks something like this.

Format: 20x25cm (this is their closest size to A4 which is actually 21x29.7cm)
Cover: Hardcover
Binding: lay-flat binding
Paper: Double-thick, 148 gsm
Production: 4 colour CMYK printing
Price: £72.49 for 50 pages
Shipping: 10 days +£7.99

http://www.blurb.co.uk

Bob Books

Founded in 2006

Bob Books is a far smaller company than the other two and based out of the U.K. so shipping times will be longer for international orders. Bob Books does offer a small selection of other printing options including calendars and wall art but their main focus is still photo books and their printing options available support this.

Printing a Bob Books A4, hardback, lay-flat photo quality book with 50 pages looks something like this.

Format: A4 Portrait, 21x28cm
Cover: Hardcover
Binding: lay-flat binding
Paper: Matte Photographic Paper - 300 gsm Fuji matte photographic paper
Production: Traditional chemical photographic processes
Price: £79.99 for 50 pages
Shipping: 10-12 days +£4.99 (delivery time for international orders may double, but the shipping fee remains the same).

https://www.bobbooks.co.uk

Image quality is obviously very important to us photographers and especially when we’re printing a photo book or own work. For me personally though, I found Bob Books to have the best quality image reproduction overall.

Conclusions

All three of these companies offer something different, so bottom line it really depends on what you’re after.

myphotobook

If you want to print a quick photo album of a family holiday then myphotobook will definitely do the job perfectly if cost is more important than quality. Myphotobooks is clearly a huge production company that prints anything onto anything and will get it to you in next to no time too. Their print process is actually surprisingly good for the price as they use silver halide printing over ink on their photo books. Their paper is also incredibly thick (potentially too thick) at 380gsm. So with books that have a lot of pages, this can get very big and heavy very quickly. Their turnaround is also very quick and they'll get it out the door in next to no time. Unfortunately I feel this volume of production and turnaround time means a drop in quality, as although everything looks good on paper (no pun intended) the resulting book quality reflects a more rushed approach. These guys are great if you’re in a mad rush, or if you’re after printing a few copies for friends and family where cost is going to mount up quickly.

Blurb

If you’re after a magazine run or large amount of photo books printing, I’d recommend Blurb for that. Blurb are pretty well known, but they openly target themselves to those who wish to self publish and that comes with the ability to produce large volumes of decent quality books that is affordable to the individual. If you want a half decent photo book then Blurb can do it, but due to their printing methods, I personally don’t believe this is the best choice. Blurb ask for the photo book files to be converted to RGB before uploading, but they state that they print in 4 colour CMYK so the files then get converted back to CMYK. This will often result in disappointing colours and more importantly in terms of quality, the CMYK printing method pales in comparison to a more traditional silver halide print process. This printing method is all the more apparent with the paper thickness too. Their books are printed on 148 gsm paper which gives the feel of a high quality magazine rather than a high quality photo book.

Bob Books

So although I’ve used both myphotobook and Blurb in the past, I found Bob Books a few years ago and never looked back. I personally believe that if your priority is a one off, excellent quality photo book that showcases your images in their best possible light, Bob Books is the best option. Yes they offer a few side products like calendars and wall art but their main focus is very high quality photo books and that alone. The Bob Books print quality is very high and although their colours struggle in the reds (like all digital printing does), if you provide them with 300dpi files, you will be unable to see any pixelation or printing degradation that is present with other ink jet printing methods. Their paper is also very thick at 300 gsm (borderline too thick) but this thick paper does keep you images incredibly flat as you thumb through the book, plus this weighted paper will also ensure the book lays totally flat when open. The downsides of Bob Books are obviously the high cost and long turnaround times, especially if you live outside of the U.K. where you may have to wait up to 3 weeks to receive your book. But if a quality annual photo book is your goal, then this is well worth the cost and wait in my opinion.

Closing Comments

Annual photo books are not only a way for us stay motivated about our progression as artists, but a record of our work over an annual period to reflect on in years to come. Our day to day work is often remembered for only fleeting moments and measured by ambiguously pointless ‘likes’.

A high quality photo book will be around for generations, and the absolute best of the best of your images in there will be measured by the memory of you crafting them, not ‘likes’.

So although photo books seem expensive now, their value will only grow. Be sure to start making yours as soon as you can.

Thanks as always for checking out my articles. I know your time is precious and there’s almost an infinite amount of other things you could have done with the last 15 minutes of your life, so I really do appreciate you checking this out :)

If you’re after more tips and tricks on studio lighting then don’t forget to check out my monthly newsletter and my free 10 page pdf on studio lighting techniques. If you’re interested then follow the link below and download it immediately.

Did you receive my FREE 10 page PDF on Studio Lighting Tips yet?

Once a month I’ll send you a newsletter of at least four photo related tips and tricks (one for each week I post them on here if you miss them) plus I’ll also keep you apprised of my new workshop dates as well.

**Sign up now and you’ll get yourself a FREE 10 PAGE PDF of my all time ‘Top 10 Photography Tips and Techniques’!**

NEWSLETTER SIGN UP & FREE 10 PAGE TECHNIQUES PDF

banner offer text 2000px long exp ports tut.jpg

banner offer text 2000px gel portraits tut.jpg

Using a Single DIY Globe Modifier for Simple, Stunning Portraits

Technique Tuesday Facebook Thumbnail sigle globe light.jpg

It’s not often I get to shoot very simple, clean white light shots, but in a recent shoot the model asked if she could get some updated ‘Polaroids’. For those of you not familiar with the term when used in reference to a model shoot, it’s actually not the now obsolete and ludicrously expensive single-shot film, but a request for very basic portraits of the model for their agency. This ‘Polaroid’ term is a relic from the analogue film days and it essentially now means shots that are un-retouched and with the model wearing very little makeup.

I was happy to shoot a few of these ‘Polaroids’ as it literally takes two minutes. You throw up some simple light, the model stands in for a couple of headshots, some three quarter lengths and full body etc. You then send the shots with almost zero retouching over to the model and she then passes them on to her modelling agency so that they can be used as a reference point for those who are interested in working with the model in the future.

JakeHicksPhotography model polaroids.jpg — Always ask for model ‘Polaroids’

Just really quickly whilst we’re on this subject. If you’re a photographer selecting models from an agency, you really must insist on seeing the models ‘Polaroids’. In a world of amazing makeup and ridiculous post-production, you need to be looking at what the subject looks like without all of that. Failure to do so will result in you being caught out with a model with bad skin or worse.

So back to the setup. I knew that for these raw looking shots that the light had to be very clean and flattering and without many shadows. This way, the light and its shadows isn’t hiding anything and a soft light at least makes the model look her best under those raw conditions. Like I said at the start, I rarely shoot simple white light but I did have an idea that I’d wanted to try for some time and I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to do so.

JakeHicksPhotography (21 of 21)square red x.jpg

Why You Never See a Globe Modifier Being Used

For this setup I only used one light and the modifier I used was actually a DIY one. The modifier is essentially a very diffused globe that sits on top of my strobe. The resulting light from this throws light absolutely everywhere around the room, especially when pointing straight up. It throws light onto the model, onto me and all over the room that you’re in. You can see why this type of modifier is not often used, because as photographers we crave absolute control of the light and this diffused globe is not giving us any control whatsoever.

But we can use this one very fundamental flaw of globe modifiers to our advantage if we’re smart.

What Do I Need?

Firstly let’s see the DIY diffusion globe I was using. The globe itself is a simple desk lamp that I bought from IKEA and its about 25cm in diameter. I then just removed all the wiring and bulb from the inside and it was ready to use in my photoshoot.

Link to IKEA store: FADO Lamp from IKEA

Click to enlarge: FADO lamp from IIKEA — *Click to enlarge:* FADO lamp from IIKEA

Once that was done, I simply mounted it to an old speedring with gaffer tape. A speedring, if you’re not sure, is the part of a softbox that attaches it to your light. Imagine if you removed all of the struts from a softbox, you’d be left with the speedring. You can either temporarily dismantle your softbox for the speedring for this setup, or just use a spare one so that you don’t have to keep re-taping the globe on each time. Speedrings are also really cheap depending on the strobe brand you use so it might be worth picking up an extra one anyway.

Click to enlarge: Surprise, surprise, gaffer tape for the win!

First Setup: Direct-Light

Now that we have our light ready to go, let’s take a shot of the model with the globe pointed directly towards her and see what the results look like. Here’s a diagram of the setup I used below.

Click to enlarge: Pretty straight forward setup. Point globe at the subject and take a shot. — *Click to enlarge:* Pretty straight forward setup. Point globe at the subject and take a shot.

Now let’s take a look at the resulting images from this direct light setup.

So you guys can see for yourself that although there nothing wrong with these shots, there is still a lot of shadowing going on, not only on the model but also the background as well.

You may actually like this look as it provides very clean and directional lighting that is still flattering due to its diffused softness. So if you’re happy with this, you’re done and you can X-out of here now…. but if you’d like to see a far more beautifying look without the need for any additional lights, read on.

Second Setup: Diffused-Light

Like I said earlier, the real beauty of this setup is to use its greatest flaw as its greatest strength. I mentioned that this diffused globe throws light absolutely everywhere, including onto the model, you the photographer as well as all over the room that you’re in. So here is the trick. By throwing up a couple of big white polyboards behind you, (or a big white sheet like I did), you’re effectively creating two lights. One light is the small globe that is a single point of light in front of the model, and the second light is now that big white sheet behind you.

Take a look at the lighting setup below and then I’ll go on to explain why and how this works so well.

Click to enlarge: In the above Diffused-Light setup we can now see the white boards behind the camera as well as the globe pointing straight up. — *Click to enlarge:* In the above Diffused-Light setup we can now see the white boards behind the camera as well as the globe pointing straight up.

Now take a look below at some of the resulting images from this diffused-light setup.

Remember; the images below are from a SINGLE light setup!

I recommend you click on the shots above to enlarge them and take a proper look at the lighting involved. Look at the strong edge of the shadows yet filled with plenty of soft light. Look at how this setup still creates highlights, as can be seen on the legs, and look at how there are highlights and shadows on the arms in the three quarter length shot. All of this results in a very flattering light because it cast shadows to create shape but those shadows are also incredibly soft.

As those of you who’ve followed my work for a while will know, I rarely shoot this type of bright white imagery, but even I have to admit that the light from this setup is absolutely beautiful! Plus this is just ONE light in a small room! This setup could really be used anywhere. Also, this setup only gets better the smaller the room you’re in and that includes home studios as long as the walls are white or at least close to white.

White Polyboard Substitute

I mentioned in the description of this setup that you could use white polyboards to bounce the light if you’re in a studio. These are just large sheets of 2x1 metre polystyrene that can be positioned around the studio to either block or bounce light. Most of us don’t have access to them all the time so a large white reflector or even a big white sheet is just as good.

If you don’t have polyboards and you want to use a white sheet instead for your setup, then take a look at the info below.

Two Lights in One

So what on earth is going on here? How can we have defined shadows from a key light, as well as a fill light, but only be using a single light?

Here’s what’s actually happing in the setup. Light from the globe facing the model goes straight to her like any key light to create a strong directional shadow. The resulting look of this is just like the original shots at the top of this article where the globe was pointed directly towards the model without any white bounce behind. The defined shadow of this key light is due to the small size of the globe in relation to the subject.

But with the globe now pointing up, the globes light is also hitting the white boards/sheet behind you and bouncing back onto the model. This bounced light now fills in those shadows giving the illusion of an additional fill light.

This ‘two-lights-in-one’ effect of the bounced light has a double bonus too as that bounced light is now incredibly diffused after bouncing off of the sheet, plus it has lost some of its power due to bouncing and having to travel further. Both of these things make for the perfect fill light.

Closing Comments

The simple DIY globe modifier can produce some beautiful light in almost any space.

I love that I finally got the chance to try out this setup as it really does produce some utterly stunning light and in such a simple way too. I know there are a thousand and one ‘phenomenal’ single light setups out there, but ultimately most of them either involve an expensive modifier or simply require you to move the light to a different position around the subject.

This single light setup doesn’t require an expensive modifier as you can pick up one of these diffused globes very cheaply indeed, and with two minutes of tinkering you can have it on your light and ready to go. Of course you can play with moving the light around the scene if you like, but I personally preferred the globe above the camera so as to throw any shadows directly behind the model. This worked particularly well as the subject was always engaged with the camera, but if you were shooting with the model looking away from the lens, moving the globe around could create some cool looks too.

P.S.

Now you didn’t hear this from me…. but I’ve been told that this setup can also produce some very beautiful black and white portraits… if you’re still into that sort of thing ;)

Featured Model: Marleen Mathews with DMM - Dawn Model Management

Did you receive my FREE 10 page PDF on Studio Lighting Tips yet?

**Sign up now and you’ll get yourself a FREE 10 PAGE PDF of my all time ‘Top 10 Photography Tips and Techniques’!**

NEWSLETTER SIGN UP & FREE 10 PAGE TECHNIQUES PDF

Social Media Analytics for JHP 2018

Another year is behind us, and ‘like’ it or not (pun intended), if you’re a professional photographer in the modern day who sells to a global audience, we need to look back and see what social medias were working and how they performed in relation to the past.

In short; let’s compare my main social media platform, my Facebook Page, to previous years.

First off, let’s get the fun stuff done and look at the top 10 images as voted by you the audience.

Top 10 JHP Images of 2018 according to my Facebook Business Page

So everything looks pretty normal here, nothing out of the ordinary really and the numbers for all ten images look fairly consistent with no crazy high or low figures.

Well what if I now told you that 8 of these top 10 images are ALL from January 2018!?

Facebook didn’t die. It was murdered!

There’s no denying Facebook has had yet another very tough year and what with ‘fake news’, the Russians supposedly controlling the western governments with paid FB ads and ol’ Zuckerberg pulling a T1000 in the senate earlier in the year, 2018 was rougher than ever on the worlds largest social media platform.

So how bad was 2018 compared to 2017 for me? Let’s take a closer look at the JHP Facebook page year on year and compare some figures from 2018 to the previous year.

In the image above we can clearly see a significant slowing of growth on the page year on year. In 2017 the page saw a total of 4086 new subscribers compared to 1921 new ‘Page Likes’ in 2018. That’s a drop of over half!

But size isn’t everything right?

But how does all this translate to actual ‘engagement’? After all, it doesn’t matter what business you have, it’s the number of people engaged and interacting with your brand that matters, not simply how many followers you have.

I appreciate there’s a lot of data up there, and some of it can be deceiving at first because although some of the graphs look similar, the values on the sides are vastly different.

The main area to draw your attention to is the circled figures above. These circles highlight the average number of people my posts reach.

Why is that number so important? Well, like I mentioned before, it dosnt’t matter how many people are in the room, it’s the number of people listening that’s important. So although my page has been ‘growing’ in size, the number of people actually seeing my content is dropping dramatically. In fact my average post reach has dropped to almost a quarter of what it was at the start of last year!

Looking back…

Just for your own reference then, let me now show you the previous Top 10 JHP images on Facebook for the past few years.

Click to enlarge: Top 10 Images for 2015 — *Click to enlarge:* Top 10 Images for 2015

Click to enlarge: Top 10 Images for 2017 — *Click to enlarge:* Top 10 Images for 2017

Click to enlarge: Top 10 Images for 2016 — *Click to enlarge:* Top 10 Images for 2016

Click to enlarge: Top 10 Images for 2018 — *Click to enlarge:* Top 10 Images for 2018

Total number of combined likes for all Top 10 images in 2015 = 2978

Total number of combined likes for all Top 10 images in 2016 = 2567

Total number of combined likes for all Top 10 images in 2017 = 4297

Total number of combined likes for all Top 10 images in 2018 = 2597

So based on the above figures alone, we can make a couple of conclusions. Either 2017 was a phenomenal year for my photography and now we’re simply back to ‘normal’. Or FB is taking a beating, and even though I’ve gained many thousands of extra followers since 2016, we’re back to those total numbers once again.

Is this decline really all Facebook’s fault?

This is of course the million dollar question. Is Facebook really dead? Does anybody even still use Facebook? Is Facebook even relevant anymore?

Here’s the ‘official’ report on the situation courtesy of Statista:

As of the third quarter of 2018, Facebook had 2.27 billion monthly active users. In the third quarter of 2012, the number of active Facebook users had surpassed one billion, making it the first social network ever to do so. Active users are those which have logged in to Facebook during the last 30 days.

So yeah, there’s no denying that’s a whole big bunch of people checking out baby pic and watching cat-fail videos right there! Granted, logging in to stalk your ex once a month would qualify you as an ‘active user’, but either way, there’s a LOT of people still using Facebook.

In Conclusion

As a freelancer myself, I’m my own boss. But let’s just say that I did have a superior, and let’s just say that on Monday morning I had to deliver a report on why I think my social media stats are way down on the previous year.

I’m guessing me walking in to the 2019 marketing meeting and saying ‘Nobody uses Facebook anymore, Facebook is dead, it’s not my fault 2.27 billion people aren’t interested’ wouldn’t get me very far.

Bottom line; as a business owner I need to know when to push harder and when to cut my losses. Based on what we know, sure Facebook is struggling to engage it’s large following and although I personally feel the ‘reach’ algorithm is heavily stacked against me, I still feel that I simply need to try harder to provide relevant, fresh and interesting content.

Any idiot with a Fuji camera can take at least one good photo, and any idiot with any camera can take one good photo of a pretty girl. I simply can’t just keep putting out ‘good’ photos and expect people to blindly continue to follow me. I need to be creating engaging content, new ideas, competitions, discussions……as well as the odd picture of a pretty girl in coloured lighting.

In short; I think I let you guys down in 2018 with regards to the content I provided and this look back at previous years has highlighted that to me.

I promise to you here and now to make 2019 far better in terms of desirable content and I certainly look forward to the challenge of trying to provide it. Here’s to an ‘engaging’ year ahead ;) See what I did there?

Oh, and one last thing…

If you follow my Jake Hicks Photography Page, make sure you get notified when I post something. You wouldn’t want to miss a shot of a pretty girl in coloured lighting now would you? :D

How do I get notifications when a Facebook page posts?

To adjust notifications for a Page:

Go to the Page.
Click Following.
Click next to Notifications.
Adjust your notification settings, then click Done.

Did you receive my FREE 10 page PDF on Studio Lighting Tips yet?

**Sign up now and you’ll get yourself a FREE 10 PAGE PDF of my all time ‘Top 10 Photography Tips and Techniques’!**

NEWSLETTER SIGN UP & FREE 10 PAGE TECHNIQUES PDF

Stop Using Tape to Attach Your Gels - Use Magnets Instead

If you’re like me and you’ve tried to attach gels to your lights in the past, you’ve likely resorted to using one of the many types of sticky tapes available. When I used to manage a studio, I would see all manner of tapes being used to attach gels to hot modifiers. From masking tape, duct tape, parcel tape and when they ran out, even regular old sticky tape was used. But ultimately, all of these tapes fell short in achieving their simple task of holding a coloured gel in front of a light.

Using any form of tape on your gels will ultimately result in sticky residue being left behind which can seriously reduce the lifespan of your gels.

The Problem With Using Tape to Attach Gels

Put simply, most tapes are not designed to withstand heat. In fact when most sticky tapes are subjected to sudden rises in temperature, their stickiness dries up and the gel inevitably falls off the lamp. There are tapes that can withstand this heat but they combat this by simply getting extremely gooey, which in turn leaves your gels in a right sticky mess that is certainly not conducive to long term use.

An Alternative to Tape

By far and away the best solution I’ve found to this problem, is to actually not use tape at all, but instead use magnets to attach your gels.

Magnets have a multitude of benefits; first and foremost being that they wont ruin your gels in any way, plus they wont stop working when they get hot either.

So What’s the Downside?

Well the biggest problem with using magnets in this way is that they only attach to magnet-friendly metal like steel. But alas most photographic modifiers are made of other metals like aluminium which have zero attraction to magnets whatsoever.

What’s the Solution?

So if our lighting modifiers are rejecting our magnets, we need to find an intermediary and that’s where the humble bulldog or more specifically, ‘foldback’ clip comes in. These little clips are nearly always made of thin steel and as such are more than happy to attract magnets. Simply clip them onto your modifiers and then attach the magnets to them whilst sandwiching the gel between the two. Job done.

It really is as simple as that, plus it takes a matter of seconds to do. I also personally tend to leave the clips on all of my modifiers permanently, that way I don’t even need to add the clips each time I use them. The clips are super cheap, so buying a bunch of them and then applying 3 clips to each modifier is not a problem and they don’t get in the way of anything else either. That way all I need to do is add the magnets along with the gels each time.

Works on any Dish Modifier

Like I mentioned earlier, this is a very simple process and the clips will attach to nearly any dish-type modifier like we can see below.

JakeHicksPhotography (1 of 24) broly.jpg

JakeHicksPhotography (3 of 24) grid dish.jpg

In fact if you use the right size clips, they’ll even go over ‘lipped’ modifiers too. Plus the same clip and magnet combo will even work with the grids attached as well.

With the right size clips, you can even use the same method to attach gels with the grids in place too.

In fact this method of attaching gels is so strong, you can use it to stack multiple gels on the same modifier. Using this clip and magnet trick you can hold an ND gel, a regular gel and a diffusion gel all on the same dish with ease. Attaching mult… — In fact this method of attaching gels is so strong, you can use it to stack multiple gels on the same modifier. Using this clip and magnet trick you can hold an ND gel, a regular gel and a diffusion gel all on the same dish with ease. Attaching multiple gels in this way with tape was a real pain in the past.

What You Will Need

Like I said, this is super easy and most metal clip and magnet combo will work, but here’s what I personally use. I’ve tried a variety of different sized clips and magnets but this particular setup seems to work best for me as the clips work on all of my modifiers and the magnets are big enough and strong enough to hold stacks of multiple gels if need be.

Foldback Clips

These are some of the smallest ‘foldback’ clips available and they measure about 2.5cm at the base. Bigger ones will work but the smaller and lower profile clips work best in my opinion.

Simply search ‘Foldback 25mm clips’ on Amazon or Ebay. You should be able to get a 12 pack of these for less than £2.

Magnets

Again, any magnet will work but strong small ones are really what you’re looking for. The ones I use are typically referred to as ‘Rare Earth Neodymium Magnets’. These are remarkably strong magnets for their tiny size, so strong in fact, that getting fingers caught between stacks of them can be painful so they should be kept away from kids.

The ones I’m using are about 3cm long and about 1cm wide.

These little attraction powerhouses are a bit more expensive than regular magnets, so if you can get away with using less powerful ones, go for it.

Simply search ‘Rare Earth 30mm Magnets’ on Amazon or Ebay. A 20 pack of these should be around £15-£20.

P.S. I’m sorry I’m not including links, but you’d be amazed at the amount of messages I get from some ‘sensitive’ people insisting I’m getting affiliate kick-backs on products, when I can assure you I’m not. I normally provide links for your convenience, but if it gives people the impression I’m falsely promoting something for monetary gains then I’d rather not. Like I said though, these are super easy to find via a quick search and I’ve provided the best search terms as an alternative to links in the hope that it enables you to find them quickly.

Click to enlarge: Cut-out-and-keep! — *Click to enlarge:* ***Cut-out-and-keep!***

Closing Comments

I’ll be honest, I’ve been using this gel attachment method for a while now and I was looking at manufacturing something to sell that was branded by me that did the same job. The problem was, it’s almost impossible to refine this incredibly simple idea into a product that didn’t overcomplicate the process. This folding clip solution is just so perfect as their grips fold back out of the way and into the modifier itself. This then leaves that flat, even surface when closed that are perfectly suited to allow the magnets to sit flush on top of them. Also the super-strong rare earth magnets are already perfectly made to almost the exact same size as the clip itself. Plus this whole system works exactly the same way on any diameter dish from small umbrella holder dishes, to larger background dishes.

Designing a purpose-built product that actually did all of this better than these cheap little DIY alternatives, proved to be impossible! So in the end, I just decided to share it with you guys and maybe somebody else will figure out a better way…..but I doubt it ;)

So instead of selling you an overpriced product, I’ll simply use your precious eyeball-time to get you to sign up to my newsletter please :D

**And if that wasn’t enough; sign up now and you’ll get yourself a FREE 10 PAGE PDF of my all time ‘Top 10 Photography Tips and Techniques’!**

Newsletter Sign up & FREE 10 Page Techniques PDF

banner offer text 2000px gels feb 16.jpg

Stay Inspired - Inspirational work from 10 Photographers and Artists 003

"Stay Inspired" is a weekly post on my Facebook Page where I share the work of an inspirational photographer or artist every Thursday. I've been doing this every week since 2013, so there is now a vast number of outstanding creatives from all genres and disciplines that we've looked at over the years. In fact I’ve been doing it so long now that even I’ve forgotten some of these great artists so why not try and collate them all into one place for not only myself but for you as well.

This is the third compilation, so if you missed the previous ones and are interested in an inspiration overload, here’s the link to them

Stay Inspired - Inspirational work from 10 Photographers and Artists 001

Stay Inspired - Inspirational work from 10 Photographers and Artists 002

These new posts will look at a collection of 10 artists each and they should prove to be an excellent resource for not only inspiration but motivation as well. With each artist shared, I will include a short overview of their work including things to consider and look at whilst on their portfolio.

Please bear in mind that these opinions are mine and as such are clearly very subjective. I could just share a link but I believe a more personal point of view of another artists work may be of more value to you over simply stating their name and age for example. But this does mean you may not always agree with me and I would encourage that. Art is subjective and like music, the best art does not appeal to everybody.

Inspirational Work from 10 Photographers and Artists 003

There's little more to say about Amber Gray's work that would better describe it than her own bio; 'Amber’s sense of humour and penchant for glam-rock peek through the controlled chaos revealing unique, memorable, and bewitching personalities'.

Best go check it out for yourself

Amber Gray

Belgian fashion photographer Serge Leblon describes his style as 'evanescent and colourful'. His style certainly is both those things, but more than that I feel his fashion photography is very playful and romantic as his work steers well clear of harsh unforgiving lighting and raw sexiness that populates the current mainstream. As well as this intriguing style one of the main things that attracted me to his work was his consistent ability to produce cohesive series of images. Looking at the fashion-editorial section of his site you will notice the unmistakable sets of images that leave you in no doubt that they belong together. Whether it be a dramatic vignette, overarching colour schemes or simply consistent camera techniques, his images tie together at a glance and without the simplistic cliche of relying on trying to tell a story with images. Head on over to see a refreshing take on some mainstream fashion.

Serge Leblon

Israeli born Yossi Michaeli is renowned for his bold, innovative, strong and graphic style of photography. This is prominent throughout his portfolio and he seems equally happy shooting fashion spreads for the likes of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar in the studio as he does on location. The thing that strikes me the most is his bold use of colour. This could easily be seen as overpowering to the viewer, especially with head shots, but his beauty shots are far from the norm and this section of his website is definitely worth checking out as well to see how he leads the viewer through a potentially eclectic image.

Yossi Michaeli

Stay Inspired Facebook Thumbnail David Standish.jpg

Brace thyselves for another small cry in the corner, because this guy has set the bar so damn high, it’s embarrassing. Australian born and London based photographer David Standish is seriously good and he lists his greatest influences as beauty, mystery, magic, dreams, chance, co-incidence and change. His work certainly has a dreamlike quality and although his earlier work had a more subtle colour palette, his recent images are bold and incredibly visually arresting. This style is no more apparent than his recent album cover for Paloma Faiths, 'Fall to Grace' which is nothing short of phenomenal in my opinion. As well as his fantastic photography, pay close attention to his post production too as this is some the most refined colour work Ive seen in a long time.

This link will take you to his website but I seriously recommend have a further search online as I don't think he updates it all to often. Enjoy-Cry-Shoot-Repeat

David Standish

I don't know why you guys do it to yourselves but here's 'just another industry shaping legend' for you. Born in Vietnam and raised in Iran, Paris and Southern California, Sebastian Kim has seen more success than most. He started out assisting the likes of photographic giants Richard Avedon and Steven Meisel but it wasn't until he was 32 that he struck out on his own. Last year 'The Ground' magazine interviewed him and asked what he felt the secret to his success was. Kim's answer was simply “It takes a lot of hard work, dedication, and perseverance. There is no shortcut, no secret path to success; you just need to focus on what you like and keep moving forward,” he advised. “Do not let discouragement eat up your dream.” Ground magazine continually reference Sebastian's laid back attitude and I felt that his parting words summed it up, "Don’t worry or be too anxious about your career. You just have to enjoy the process." So there you have it guys, just chill out and take it easy and your photographic career will take care of itself. You heard it here first

Sebastian Kim

Robert John Kley photography appears to be one of the rare and fortunate togs, that seems to be pretty darn good at most genres. I love his expressive fashion work, along with some great post pro toning, awesome B/W portraits and also seems pretty adept at making cool vids. Check his 'flickering' section on his site for those, some of the latter ones showcase some some sweet music vids too. Enjoy

Robert John Kley

Tonight I wanted to share some work from the ex French model Laurence Laborie. Her work has been around for a while now and although she started out in France shooting location and natural light shots, she's probably more renowned for her recent and quite outstanding beauty work which is incredibly vibrant and meticulously lit. I mentioned ex-model as I always find it interesting to view model-turned-photographers work. I like to see how they draw out their subject, seeing as they were previously on the other side of the camera, it would make sense that they would naturally be good at guiding another model. Head on over and see for yourself.

Laurence Laborie

Stay Inspired Facebook Thumbnail Miles Aldridge.jpg

You are bound to of seen at least one of Miles Aldridge shots by now, his style is certainly memorable. His is a post-modern world where his subjects are draped in vibrant couture and photographed in playgrounds, supermarkets, showers or fast cars and his models expressions always leaving questions to the images he takes. As Aldridge himself puts it "I am the very best person to take my pictures".

Head on over to his website, a site that gives an experience and best viewed on a desktop. If you'd like to know more about him though, check out his pretty cool biography page too.

Miles Aldridge

I love this young ladies style, and although its not my personal overall penchant, Amanda Diaz's dreamy and romantic images cannot help but impress. It’s clear that she only surrounds herself with the best team, but her post production, toning and polish, really makes her images shine. But although Amanda herself confesses to not pride herself on her technical ability, her creativity is second to none. Enjoy

Amanda Diaz

Stay Inspired Facebook Thumbnail Dan Hecho.jpg

It’s been a very long time indeed since I've seen any really good 'nude' photography as I personally find the genre to be saturated with photographers that rely solely on the beauty of the model and the resulting images show little input from the photographer who is simply there to record the moment.

This all changed however when I saw Russian Photographer Dan Hecho's work, and although he is a great wedding and portrait shooter, his nude work blows the genre wide open in my opinion. Granted, the models are nothing short of stunning, but his mastery of natural light and composition is something to behold. Add to this a very strong sense of style throughout his entire post production process and you have an incredibly good nude photographer.

I am sharing the link to his site out of respect for the artist but if you like what you see here then definitely check out his other links on his websites 'info' section.

Oh, and whatever lens this guy is using, I NEED it ;)

Dan Hecho’

Closing Comments

As with all of my posts, I welcome your comments and thoughts on the artists I've shared here today. But although all of the photographers and creatives I've mentioned above come from my own personal tastes and appreciations, I still feel they are all incredibly varied, which ultimately means there will be at least one persons work here that you'll love.

Granted we've really only looked at 'people' photographers here including, portraits, fashion and editorial shooters with none of the other photographic genres being covered, but it's still incredible to me as to how varied this single discipline can be.

I think one of the core things I want you to take away from this series is how another person interprets their subject into a photograph. Sure you can simply reverse engineer the lighting or copy a pose of an image, but I hope you take away a lot more than simply the mechanics of a photograph.

Look at their style and see how that is impacting their work for the better. Look for similarities in pose, expression, subject, lighting, theme and colour. All of these things play a role in any image and by appreciating that in others work we can be better equipped to express it into our own images.

If you liked this article and would want to be shown more posts like this in the future, please feel free to sign up to my monthly newsletter. I publish one of these articles every week and every month I collect them all up and send them directly to your inbox in case you've missed one. Signing up now also get's you a free 10 page pdf of studio lighting tips and techniques. Jake Hicks Photography - Newsletter

:WARNING: Free advertising space being liberally used by myself below!

If you liked this article and would be interested in more posts like this in the future, please feel free to sign up to my monthly newsletter. I publish one of these articles every week and each month I collect them all up and send them directly to your inbox just in case you missed one. Signing up now also get's you my free 10 page pdf on Studio Lighting Tips and Techniques. Jake Hicks Photography - Newsletter

If you're interested in any of my work and would like to know more about how I created some of my shots then why not check out my workshops. Here you can find out everything there is to know about Gelled Lighting, Long Exposure Flash Photography and my entire Post-Pro Workflow. Jake Hicks Photography - Workshops

I've also just released a brand new 22 hour complete Gelled Lighting Tutorial video. I go over everything from studio lighting setups with gels to being on location with gels plus I also go through my complete retouching and post pro workflow. For more details and complete breakdown of everything that's include check out my Coloured Gel Portraits Tutorial

I also offer comprehensive coloured gel packs. These collections of gels are what I use day to day to create some of the most highly saturated colours around. If you're looking at getting into gelled lighting or need to get stronger and richer colours in your coloured gel work why not check out my Jake Hicks Photography Gel Packs