Mitchell, MP for Grimsby, has already tabled an Early Day Motion at the Commons which has been signed by 131 MPs, giving it wide cross-party support.
Mitchell said he tabled the motion because of the increasing number of occasions in which police and others had tried to stop people taking pictures in public places.

“People have complained about photographers being stopped from taking pictures by police, PCSOs, wardens and by various officious people,” he said.

source: Press Gazette via boingboing

To conclude this post, I am going to leave you with a few links I have found while writing this.

• Make your own grey card
• NY institute of photography: Grey Card
• What is a grey card?

Where have I been? Who have I seen? Where am I going? you might be asking…Well I will write about these things in greater details soon but I went on vacation with Claire to the Island of St Lucia in the Caribbean. This was a fantastic trip and I got to see more wonders then I have ever seen before. More about this of course in another post….

So where am I going? Well let me tell you, my next few months are looking pretty exciting. First, in april I will be attending the ASMP Strictly business conference in Chicago. I am pretty excited to be attending as I will be meeting several photographers i’ve known for a while now online and my way is paid due to a supporting bid by Chase Jarvis. once again, more on this in another post.

In May I will be going to to Toronto to work a internship at Boa Studios with Mir Landa. I am pretty excited to see the inner workings of a rental studio of a much larger city. I am really looking forward to the opportunity. and then on top of all this a few of us are planning a trip to New York in August.

Things are definitely crazy around here…lets just hope I can keep up with the blogging this time.

Many Photographer approach their photography purely as a calling, and their goal is to change the world by making pictures that reveal poverty, despair, suffering, and the human condition. These photographers believe that making money for these types of assignments is contrary to that effort, but nothing could be farther from the truth. If this is truly your philosophy and you beleive that your pictures can and are making a difference, then making business decisions that make it impossible for you to remain in business to make this difference in the long term does the world changing movement a disservice.

- John Harrington

“And out of nowhere came this guy who we didn’t know.” Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, chief of South Vietnam’s national police, walked up and shot the prisoner in the head. His reason: The prisoner, a Viet Cong lieutenant, had just murdered a South Vietnamese colonel, his wife and their six children.

The peace movement adopted the photo as a symbol of war’s brutality. But Adams, who stayed in touch with Loan, said the photo wrongly stereotyped the man: “If you’re this general and you just caught this guy after he killed some of your people… how do you know you wouldn’t have pulled that trigger yourself? You have to put yourself in that situation … It’s a war.” Adams died in 2004.

Interview with Eddie Adams

Sorry I have been slacking in the post department, I’ve been fairly sick this week. I will be back to my normal schedule this coming Monday I hope.

Brian Larter: Dan, I know you have a knack for music and it seems to be a large part of your life. So what is it about photography that has attracted you to it? What makes you want to pursue it professionally?

Daniel Mattison: Music plays such a huge role in my life and always has. I’ve been playing all kinds of different instruments since I was a small child. The worrying thing for me is burning out on the one thing that keeps you going. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t enjoy music anymore, but my life wouldn’t be half of what it is today. Photography was a natural progression for me from music. It can be social as well as creative. Most art is very creative but doesn’t allow you to be social while you create. Photography can be just the opposite in the sense that you get to work with other people and you all do your part to create something. I guess my motivation for doing photography professionally is that It’s something I love to do, not something which is gonna make me rich. I’d prefer to be living a modest life while doing something I love than be making big money while throwing my life away with some job my heart’s not in.

BL: Why do you do what you do? What inspires you? When do you get most excited?

DM: I do what I do because after I bought my first camera I couldn’t stop. I’m sure you could ask many professional photographers and they would say “if you can do anything else and be happy, do it”. There is some truth to that. Photography is a hard business and in some ways very cut throat. The flip side to this is the fact that if you can’t see yourself doing anything else, you have to keep going despite knowing that the industry is tough.

I don’t have a single point of inspiration. I find my inspiration changes from day to day. The news and other media often play a role as does everything thing I see as I walk to school. I wish I could give you a more “to the point” answer but It’s really hard to explain.

The most exciting thing for me is that click of the shutter once you know you’ve got the frame set up the way you want it. Your light is perfect and your composition is just right. It’s a great feeling knowing that you’ve controlled your frame and not let any of the elements within it control you. There is nothing worse than finishing a shoot and feeling like you never got the lighting quite right.

BL: What one thing made the biggest difference when getting started?

DM: There are a bunch of factors that really helped me get started. Firstly, working with models is a great way to gain confidence with your photography. I remember it took me ages before I would shoot other people because I was so worried that they would say my work was terrible. I eventually realized that my work comes from my creativity and that even if others didn’t like it, it still made me happy. That was a big turn for me and now I love working with models and other people.

I would also say that starting a photography course made a huge difference. You could know all your stuff but the great thing about a course is that you meet other people who are just as into photography as you are. Sometimes it takes people like that to inspire you to keep pushing forward with your work.

BL: Do you feel you have a personal style? If so, who do you feel that style is catered towards?

DM: I know that there are techniques I like to use, and I think we all have a personal style to some degree. I don’t feel that mine is very developed yet but I can’t really tell because it’s my own work.

BL: What do you do when you’re not in the studio or out doing photos?

DM: My number one time consumer is editing photos. After all photography is out of the picture, I watch tons of movies, and when summer is back i’ll be biking and working out at the gym. I also spend a lot of time writing rap beats and dropping mad verse (probably the worst rhymes you’ve ever heard). I also bake and cook in my downtime.

BL: Do you feel you have a specific specialty, like portraits versus product photography, or do you try to do a little bit of everything? Is there something you prefer personally over the others?

DM: Right now, I’m trying to get a feel for everything. I love portraiture but there’s a lot of stuff I haven’t had the privilege of trying. I guess right now the answer would be no, I don’t have a speciality.

BL: What do you see being on the horizon for you professionally? where do you see your self in five years?

DM: I’m always asking myself this question. I’ll tell you when I know. There is so much out there to explore and I just haven’t been able to point myself in one direction

BL: Is there a photographer out that past or present that inspires you to create?

DM: Every single photographer I meet inspires me. I would say that to me, famous or not famous, all photographers are equally inspiring. Even point and shooters who aren’t photographers can create some incredible photographs which drive you to create better art.

BL: Chase Jarvis vs Ansel Adams, would would win in a shutter duel?

I don’t even know what a shutter duel is haha

BL: Would you like to impore any words of wisdom for other photographers in your field?

DM: Dj Shadow is an underground trip hop artist who said something along the lines of “when you walk into a record store and see all the albums sitting there, it’s like a pile of broken dreams”, and that most of these once famous artists are now washed up. My point is, no matter how far you get, even if you make it big, you can’t let yourself forget who you once were.

The most basic of all lighting setups, but at the same time one of the most powerful, the Rambrandt. Back to the true masters of the portrait, the Rembrandt lighting technique has the key light creating a triangle or diamond shape of light underneath the opposite eye from the key. One side of the face is well lit from the main light source while the other side of the face uses the shadows and light mixed, to create this geometric form on the face. A fill can be used to lighten the dark side of the face, but too much and remove the desired look.

The triangle on the face should be no longer than the nose and no wider than the eye of the subject. Rembrandt lighting is a combination of short and butterfly lighting, and it is the eye closest to the camera on the broad side of the face that should have the triangle of light underneath it. The short side of the face is lit by the key.