M A Andrew Black and White Photography Blog

Happy Valley race course in Hong Kong is a bizarre stadium under any measure. Surrounded on all sides by towering apartment blocks and buildings, seeing is believing. It was first built in 1845 to provide horse racing for the British people in Hong Kong. Before it was built, the area was a swampland, but also the only flat ground suitable for horse racing on Hong Kong Island. To make way for the racecourse, Hong Kong Government prohibited rice growing by villages in the surrounding area.

This image shows the race course when first built.

Today, the place couldn’t look more different.

Night races are every Wednesday in the season.

I took a couple of images when I was there and was most happiest with this one.

Hong Kong Hotels

You have probably looked around the web and seen images with fantastic clarity and colour fidelity and thought why don’t my images have the same vibrancy and colour rendition? Well chances are you need to follow a couple of basic steps. I use the word basic because I am deliberately avoiding recommending spending (too much) money on costly colour calibration tools. Anyone can get their colours in the right general area.

1) Calibrate your monitor with the tools you probably didn’t know you had installed.

Windows: If you own Photoshop 3 or later, you will probably don’t realise that it comes with a little utility called Adobe Gamma. Find this by doing a quick search and follow the on screen prompts. This should get your monitor displaying colours in the right ballpark.

Mac Users: Use the System Preferences–>Display—>Colours—> and Calibrate to fine tune Mac Colours.

2) Invest in a cheap ebay white balance lens cap.
These are available on ebay for about £1 GBP typically from Hong Kong. Some professionals will pour scorn over the quality of these but again they will get you in the right area colour wise. They are dead simple to use. Before shooting a scene, place over your lens, find your cameras white balance settings and choose custom white balance. Shoot the image with the lens cap on. (You might need to leave your lens in Manual focus mode to shoot). Once the white balance is captured successfully, you are good to carry on shooting.

3) Shoot Raw.
If your camera has a raw/jpg option, choose raw. Raw is like a digitial negative and allows you to make far more adjustments than a compressed JPG image. Professional photographers are shooting raw and with the cheap price of memory today (Raw files are larger), coupled with the speed of most modern computers (for editing raw files), you really have no excuse.

4) Make final adjustments in Photoshop/ Lightroom/ Image Editing
Sometimes, the white balance in a scene might need a little adjusting. Sometimes to true a white balance is not as aesthetically pleasing as you might want. Use a photo editor to adjust contrast and saturation. Hopefully, your shots should be free from colour casts!

A lot of people ask me to shoot weddings but up until recently I have been quite reluctant to accept for a number of reasons.

1) I shoot mostly landscapes, still life, abstracts etc
2) I shoot mainly black and white images.
3) All my photographic gear reflects 1) and 2)
4) You are talking about a very special day for the bride and groom which will (hopefully!) not come around again.

Having said all that, I have always fancied dabbling particularly after looking at some so-called Wedding Photographer’s images of friends’ weddings etc. I know i am not alone in thinking “I could have done better!” So with trepidation and excitement in equal measure, I began to accept bookings.
I write this entry as a guide to those people who want to follow in my footstepts!

1) Ensure you have the right gear. If you don’t - don’t accept (or buy some!)

By this, I don’t mean the latest canon/nikon £2500 10FPS monster but there are certain things you need in order to do a good job IMHO. For me, the very basics are two DSLRs, a couple of reasonably fast lenses and two flash units. This isn’t as expensive as it might sound. A Canon 20D/ Nikon D100/ Sigma SD10 can be picked up on ebay for a ridiculously low price at the moment and would do the job. Equally flash units can be picked up in the same way.

Lenses should be fast enough to cope in lower lighting conditions that a wedding throws up. i.e. A kit lens that has a F3.5 -5.6 minumum aperture will probably just not be quick enough to cut it as the light fades/ indoors. Once again, second hand ebay F2.8 or lower lenses are the way to go. I would use a telephoto and a zoom as a minimum. i.e 70 - 200 and 24 - 70

2) Preparation is key.

I know this sounds like the most obvious piece of advice ever but it certainly is true. This is why you need backup cards, cameras, lighting units and lenses. Things will break when you least expect it, so be prepared. Make sure you know and have visited the venue and the location. Speak to the couple and go through the shots and the timings. Think about when you will change lenses before the wedding itself, where you will get the shots (i.e. where you are stood) how much time you have etc. Know your camera inside out. This last statement again is a given. Chances are, people wouldn’t be asking you if you didn’t but just in case, ensure you have shot with that particular model and know how it meters, how it behaves in different situations.

What mode will you shoot and when? You should have a rough idea in your mind as to when you might need to switch. For example, when you move indoors into the church, how much light can you expect. Can you set the camera to M mode here? When might Aperture priority be more appropriate?

Have you charged all your batteries in advance? Do you have spares? What happens if you car breaks down? For every eventuality, you need to have thought of a contingency plan. Hopefully you might not need it but what if you do?

3) Be Assertive

People expect you to take charge. Think about it. You are the photographer. If you want people to behave a certain way, tell them - politely of course. If the B&G want formal shots, organise people how you want them. Talk to them, get them to do what you want before you shoot. If not, chances are you will end up with second rate shots and missed opportunities.

4) Be discreet

Some of the best shots can be taken when people are unaware of the lens. This type of shooting is asked for more and more today and candid shots often more accurately capture the mood of the day. Be careful not to overdo this type of shooting as it can become monotonous and boring. A good telephoto lens is needed here but be sure to ensure shutter speed doesn’t fall too far as camera blur will ruin a good photo.

5) Do the job from start to finish.

Sometimes it is tempting to get caught up in the festivites, particularly if friends or family are involved. By this I mean that if you are a guest at the wedding, make sure you have all the shots in the bag before you indulge in any drinking etc. If the B&G have asked you to take the responsibilty on of shooting their day, do it properly. If you think this may present a problem, don’t agree to accept the wedding.

Good Luck

My sister found this little bird in her garage. It must have fallen from its nest and then been abandoned by its parents. Apparently, it is a baby blackbird. She is feeding it worms and fresh water but it will be interesting to see whether this amount of human contact will tame it or will it be able to cope in the wild?

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