What can you photograph when you spend your life in lockdown?
With the Covid pandemic forcing people around the world to stay at home for the past year I have personally found it incredibly difficult to pick up a camera.
I’ve got to say that at first things were not too bad, I could go for a walk around my (very small) city and see what I could get in frame. It probably helped that at the start of the pandemic it was spring, moving into summer and I could go for a walk either early in the morning or late in the evening, staying away from other people and enjoying…
It’s changed how I shoot in a big way!
Ok, calm down! I’m going to tell you what it is now!
It’s the Ricoh GRIII
I have spoken before about why I decided to sell all of my Nikon gear and switch to a Fuji X system, namely for the weight and size reduction. I found that having a smaller camera meant I was much more likely to take a camera with me wherever I go. The Fuji system is indeed small but after a few months I came across rumblings of an even smaller offering, the Ricoh GRIII.
After painstaking research I decided to pick one up and was instantly impressed…
An adventure in mono.
Back when I was a wedding photographer, I would sit editing images for hours and hours. Eventually, I would entice my girlfriend into my office with a cup of tea so she could cast her eye over my edits as a final check before they were uploaded to a gallery and fired across to the happy couple. Without fail the most common feedback I received (apart from horizons not being quite straight!) was that there were just too many black and white images. Next came the inevitable debate where I fought for the black and white pictures, and she explained…
Shortly after getting my first job at 18, I left home. I was only making £495 a month on a modern apprenticeship scheme, £226 of which paid the rent on a room in a shared house which just about fit a single bed, a chest of drawers, and a wardrobe.
Two of the guys living downstairs were drug dealers, one recently out of prison and there were multiple incidents between the girl who lived upstairs and her father who would come to the house screaming in the street.
Yeah, it was a strange time in my life.
A year later…
And three questions to help them fight back
One of the most common issues I see from first-time writers (though this issue doesn’t seem limited to beginners) is that of a passive protagonist. A passive protagonist is a character who just seems like they’re along for the ride, they don’t do enough to really warrant them being the protagonist.
One of the worst cases I ever saw of this was in a sci-fi script last year. Throughout the whole story, the protagonist didn’t make one single decision.
And I’m not over exaggerating.
Not one decision was made by the main character.
But what’s the problem with having a…
And share it with your family.
1 — Go outside
Leave your house and go pretty much wherever you want. Sure the government, every doctor, scientist and Susan from Facebook tell you to stay home but what do they know?
Bonus round — It’s nice to be nice. Shake hands with everyone you see!
2 — Don’t wash your hands
For days if possible. For extra infection points be sure to hold your hands away from the spray of the shower head each morning.
Bonus round — Better yet, don’t shower.
3 — Throw a party
When you’re not frolicking about outside you’re going to want to cram as many people in your house as possible. …
Even if it took me a while to realise it.
Up until 2017, the last time I heard the word ‘Algorithm’ was A-Level Maths in 2007. It had been ten years since those classes, and yet the word struck fear into my very soul much in the same way it had all those years before.
The Instagram Algorithm became the talk of the E-town almost overnight. YouTube influencers promising viewers that their way was the only way to gain more followers. Posts on Facebook claiming that using the platform a certain way was the only way to guarantee success. If you didn’t follow these tips, then you may as well…
Follow this handy guide for absolute inactivity.
Over the past six months, I have been incredibly successful in getting absolutely no writing done whatsoever. Take a look at my profile if you don’t believe me, my last Medium story was published on June 25th 2019 and let me assure you, I’ve written nothing else either! I can tell you’re impressed.
With absolutely no hard work, you too can waste six months and find yourself at a complete loss of exactly how to kick yourself up the backside. …
Writing sure is a scary thing. Sharing your work is even scarier.
During my very first seminar at university, we were asked to come up with an idea for a single scene based upon a particular photo. After ten minutes or so, we went around the room of around 30 students and shared our thoughts. The amazing thing was that not one single idea was even remotely similar to another. We had all looked at the photograph and connected with some part of it, and our imaginations had run with the idea in entirely different directions. …
Gross, but incredible.
If you’re reading this before you eat, I do apologise!
We’ve all, at some point in our writing careers, been hit by writer’s block. At its best, you might eke out a couple of sentences, at it’s very worst you can’t even look at your paper/screen. There are a plethora of different methods of how to get past writer’s block, all of which probably work to some degree! If you’re anything like me, then I’m sure you’ve tried most of them at some point!
But why is writer’s block a thing and is it possible to avoid it altogether?
While…
Bradley Allen
Script reader/editor, freelance writer, photographer and pizza enthusiast. No pineapple. Instagram @bradley_allen_photography
