Innehållsförteckning för No. 348 från Photography Week

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Living in the age of the ‘selfie’ and our image-obsessed society, it might seem as if self-portraits were a modern phenomenon. After all, the first iPhone to feature a front-facing camera, the iPhone 4, was only launched in 2010. Although the idea of portraiture was pioneered as far back as the Egyptians and Greeks, it was in the 16th century that painters started experimenting with putting themselves in the frame – or on the canvas. Rembrandt is thought to have created nearly 100 self-portraits during his lifetime. But why do we want to capture ourselves? And what are the most effective self-portrait techniques with a camera, rather than a smartphone or paintbrush? Here, with advice from the pros, we’ll be discovering the reasons and uses for self-portraiture, as well as…

Just because you’re taking photos of yourself, that doesn’t mean your self-portraits have to always revolve around you. We mentioned that they’re also a great way to explore new techniques without wasting a model’s time, and if this is your motivation there are plenty of ways to experiment. Getting arty with your shots might mean deliberately blurring scenes with slow shutter speeds, using double exposures, adding filters or even mounting unusual optics such as a Lensbaby. Most pros generate their main portrait effects in-camera, rather than relying on Photoshop wizardry later on. “I love creating foregrounds,” says Taya Ivanova. “This involves covering part of my lens with flowers, hair, or even my hand. This technique makes even the simplest portraits look dreamy. I also love creating double exposures and reflections,…

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DJI has announced a new rugged 4K action camera, the Osmo Action. As you’d expect for such a camera, the Osmo Action is waterproof – you can take it 11m under the waves without an additional housing – shockproof and dust-proof, but its standout feature is that it has colour LCD screens on both the front and back. Font-facing LCD screens on action cameras are nothing new, but it’s the fact that the one here is a full-colour display that makes it special. As DJI points out, that eliminates the guesswork normally needed when composing videos or images when you can’t see the rear display. The rear 2.2-inch screen is touch-sensitive and has been primed with a water-and fingerprint-repellant coating, while the front display measures 1.4 inches. Both displays are…

There are two main reasons why you might want to shoot portraits of yourself. The first is to express yourself, your personality or conceptual ideas. The second is to practise technical camera skills when you don’t have someone else on hand to photograph. When you want to test a new lens you’ve acquired, for example, there’s no reason why you can’t become the subject. Julia Wimmerlin (www.juliawimmerlin.com) is a pro photographer who sometimes appears in front of her camera. “I shoot self-portraits when I travel and I can’t find a model to take a slightly different travel shot, and when I create a personal series based on a personal story,” she says. Becoming your own model is a surefire way to test out poses and expressions before collaborating with others.…

THE LIGHT DIDN’T LET ME DOWN DONNA ROBINSON “A great subject for this light. A friend has just moved into a new house, and it comes with a resident barn owl – how lucky!” http://tiny.cc/0f1g5y 3 ON THE BEACH FREDDY QUAGHEBEUR “I took this in Oostende, Belgium in February. This couple is looking out at the North Sea, while the dog is more interested in the photographer behind them.” http://tiny.cc/va1g5y SNAKE’S HEAD FRITILLARY TIM TAPLEY “This was taken at Upper Waterhay, a Wiltshire Wildlife Trust reserve famous for its spring displays of these stunning flowers.” http://tiny.cc/uu5svy PULP-STILETTOS PASCAL REY “I shot these stilettos from the inside of a punk rock pub where they’re on display in the window. I added some textures to get a cheap and dirty film noir…

1 HOUR In this Crash Course we’re going to show you how to move out of the comfort zone of your camera’s auto shooting mode and experiment with the semi-automatic aperture priority mode. In order to do that we’re shooting static subjects, like these natural rock formations, but if there are none to hand then look for anything stationary, such as trees, some urban architecture, or perhaps a statue. We chosen to shoot rock formations because they give you the opportunity to capture some wonderfully abstract shapes and colours, so they’re a great place to start your photographic journey while you learn more about your camera. Aperture priority mode allows you to take control, and get creative, while still having a safety net. In this mode you get to decide…

Panasonic has announced the GX880 mirrorless camera for the European market. The model appears to be the same as the GF10 that was announced in Asia earlier in the year. It’s aimed at fashion-conscious bloggers and vloggers and, as such, has usability and style in mind, rather than the very latest tech. So, we get a smart body that combines metal parts with faux-leather accents, with a 3-inch LCD screen that can be flipped up 180 degrees to face the front, along with beautifying functions such as Night Mode Selfie and Beauty Retouch. 4K video to a maximum 30p and 4K PHOTO options are on hand, with the latter using the former to capture 30 frames in a second at an 8MP resolution. Additional sweeteners include wireless connectivity and focus…

When shooting self-portraits with a DSLR or mirrorless camera, it’s best to use a tripod so that you don’t have to handhold a bulky camera pointed at an awkward angle towards you, and attempt to press the shutter button while also trying to focus. “Technically all you need for a self-portrait is a tripod and any type of remote control/delayed shutter release through the timer,” says Julia Wimmerlin. “Focus can be a challenge, and you need a reference to focus on. In the studio I have a dummy adjusted to my height. I pre-focus from the tripod, and if the photo is static I will just switch off the auto-focus once pre-focused.” Once Wimmerlin’s camera is set on a tripod and the focus is sorted, it’s all about the right…

This captivating image looks like a work of Renaissance art by Raphael or Michelangelo, but it’s actually a photograph – and even more remarkably, it’s an underwater photograph. American photographer Christy Lee Rogers creates images by submerging subjects dressed in colourful and flowing clothing in a swimming pool in the dark, then illuminating and shooting the scene, and the image above, Harmony, from her series Muses, has earned her the title of Open Photographer of the Year at the recently announced Sony World Photography Awards. Click the link to see all the winning and shortlisted images at the competition website. You can see more images from the Muses series, and more of Rogers’ amazing work, at her website (http://tiny.cc/6fmr6y), and you can watch a behind the scenes video showing how…

As cutouts go, it doesn’t get much more daunting than this. The Eiffel Tower is about as complex a shape as you can imagine; its iconic outline is simple, but it’s all the little gaps and spaces in between that pose a challenge for anyone wishing to make a selection – and the bare tree branches on the right make things even harder. So how can you cut out an object like this? Forget using the freehand or simple selection tools – it would probably take a week, and even the Quick Selection Tool or the Magic Wand are likely to struggle. The solution is to make use of the image’s brightness information. The dark shapes of the building and tree are clearly defined against the sky, and this is…