My Photography

Myself as a Photographer

If you have an event in London, or occasionally else where, and would like me to photograph the event - please feel free to contact me.
I'm not a professional photographer - and have a very busy full time job which allows me to indulge my joint passions for live music and photography.
If I'm available I'll let you know and make every effort to assist. For music event I'm happy to share the pictures royalty free in exchange for free admission. For other events I may ask for my expenses to be covered and a small amount of compensation for my time - one hour of shooting can result in two or more hours of post-processing of the resulting images to make the best of them.

My Pictures

They can be found both on Google+ and Flickr - I use Flickr to upload two pictures from each set or of each subject - the most representative of the pictures. Google+ has a much more comprehensive selection of all the images I consider help tell the storey of the event. Typically 10+ of each artist or subject in the set.

I also post to Instagram as @66james99, and will normally post a link to Facebook using my photography page 66photography. I'll share that link back to any associated Facebook event page and attempt to reference all artists and the venue and promoter involved in the event in the posting.

RIP PicasaWeb - a great service Google have chosen to discontinue and replace with Goolge Photos - an inferior service for photographers in my view.

I retain the copyright of all my pictures - please ask if you what to use them before you do. I'm happy, if asked, for them to be used royalty free to promote the musicians in them. Please try not to crop out the watermark - especially if you are posting at full resolution. Please properly credit me as the photographer and owner of the copyright. If the image is to be used for editorial or other uses - please contact me first.

Musicians out there - while I'm grateful that you let me take pictures of you - most of the time I've paid to be at the gig if it wasn't free, and even if it was, I put a lot of time and effort into post processing the images. I'm sure you wouldn't like me putting your music on my web site without your permission and crediting you fully...
If there are any images I put on-line which you'd prefer not to be on-line - just let me know and I'll remove them.

My Cameras

I now usually shot with two cameras - a Canon 5D Mark III and a Canon 7D Mark I - both are getting a little long in the tooth - but still take great pictures.

When I can't use an SLR my current "point & click" cameras are a pair of Sony cameras - the RX100 Mark IV and a HX90. The sensor in the RX100 is wonderful - but the compromise is it has little zoom reach - which is where the HX90 comes in - that has a great zoom - but the sensor doesn't match the RX100.

My Lenses

My favourite lens is my Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 L IS USM Mark I - it is showing that it is well loved and used - but I've used it so much the worn off markings aren't an issue.
My travelling “light” bag currently consists of:

Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L USM
Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L Mark II USM
Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8 L Mark I
Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 L IS USM Mark I

Not exactly light – but significantly less than I manage to cram into my rolling camera/lens case when I’m travelling “heavy”!

Post Processing

I use DxO OpticsPro to convert my raw files to JPEG - normally four times - normal and black & white, with and without DxO's single shot HDR treatment. I then select the best shots from the batch.

I'm still using Google's, now unsupported, Picasa desktop tool to manage my photos - it does a great job and allows non-destructive further tweaking of the images before I upload them.