The Kippford Mermaid

Zoe as a mermaid

When I met Heather Molloy from PAMIS (Promoting a More Inclusive Society) for a cuppa, she told me she was looking for a promotional photo for a multi-sensory story book called, The Kippford Mermaid.

Front cover of the book

Based on a local legend, the book had been created by "The Arts End of Somewhere", which creates inclusive and accessible arts workshops and events working with the community to support individuals with PMLD (Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties)

Heather already had ideas where the 7 members of the group would be dressed up as mermaids and sailors so we set about exploring options from shooting on the beach to using a swimming pool, but given mobility restriction with some, not to mention the practicalities, we soon started paring it back a bit.

However, we didn't just want a quick press-photo with everyone in costume, in a row, smiling for the camera and holding a copy of the book above their heads. Now in full flow, bouncing ideas back and forth, we decided something that looked like it could be the scene from a theatre production held real possibilities.

The final image with added moon, stars, beach, and mermaid symbol on the sail.

We created a Pinterest Board to post ideas for the visuals and over the few weeks had a couple more meetings, one of which I invited Izzy Leach along to, who I'd been mentoring as part of the Upland Emerge programme.

Officially my time mentoring her had finished, but because most of it had taken place under the blanket of Covid, Izzy had never had the chance to accompany me on a larger photo shoot – something she'd been keen to do from the very beginning. And on the day of the shoot, she was a superb assistant, helping to create the set and take behind-the-scenes photos among other things.

Setting up the photo - image courtesy of Izzy Leach

It turned out my daughter, Meg, knew at least half the people involved, so she came along as an assistant too.

Heather managed to get hold of the Baptist Church in Dumfries. A large modern building, it gave us plenty of space for the shoot, as well as for hair, make-up, costumes and socialising, without feeling cramped. And Simon Lidwell of Wordsmith Crafts managed to supply us with a pile of boat related props for the set.

By this time though, pretty much everyone involved had received at least one vaccination, and most had both. And with a team of around 18 people, including carers and volunteers, involved on the day, everyone was doing flow tests on the run up to the shoot to ensure it wouldn't become a Covid hot spot, particularly as several people taking part were in high-risk categories.

The full team. Can you spot Meg?

While all the effort up to this point was to get the main group photo for promoting the book, we also wanted to create individual portraits of each of the members in their outfits.

Few of them had ever been involved in a photo shoot before, let alone one where hair, makeup and costumes were included, so it was an opportunity for them to feel a bit special.

The 3 sailors were easier to do as I we were able to use the set we'd already created for the group shot.

Courtney

Faye

Katie

The mermaids, on the other hand required an entirely different treatment.

In my mind it all seemed pretty straightforward – I would photograph them against a green screen, and create an underwater scene for them in Photoshop once I got back to the computer.

Zoe against a green screen - photo courtesy of Izzy Leach

Sometimes it feels like one of the continual themes of my life, is throwing myself into something I thought would be quite simple, only for it to turn out to be way more complicated than I could ever have imagined.

I went down so many dead-ends trying to find a way of creating at least semi-convincing underwater photos, that it took me several days before I finally cracked it. Even then each photo took a lot of time to assemble, but at least I now knew what was required.

Skye

India

Sarah

Here's a behind-the-scenes video of the shoot

If you would like to see me talking through the editing process, then watch from 22 minutes and 32 seconds in to the Episode 78 of my Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres video podcast:
https://youtu.be/tvAscXoYxj8?t=1352

And if you would like to get a copy of the book, then head over to the Curly Tale Books website, here:
https://curlytalebooks.co.uk/product/preorder-the-kippford-mermaid/

All proceeds go to PAMIS

And as a final treat for everyone involved, the main photo ended up in a double-page spread in Dumfries and Galloway Life magazine, while Zoe adorned the Contents page!

Portrait or Product? - and Episode 78 of Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres

My plan this morning was to write a blog post about "The Kippford Mermaid" photo shoot I talked about in last night's podcast, however, I've decided I'll do that in a separate post.

Partly this is because it really falls into the "Tales From the Shutter" category, but it's also to do with the response I gave to Russ about baby photography, which has been going round in my head ever since.

One of the wonderful things about teaching, is you learn so much by doing it.

Basically you think you already know something, and you kind of do, but if you have to explain it to an audience that doesn't have your level of background knowledge and experience, you have to structure your information in a different way. And by doing this it's not uncommon to suddenly gain an entirely new insight into something you'd previously taken for granted.

And so it was when Russ put up his very well taken, standard-issue baby photo, for Critique. Although Russ knows his way around a camera as well as any professional, he is far more experienced with shooting cars and motorbikes hurtling around rally tracks than he is photographing cute babies, so was looking for advice in case he'd missed a trick.

Shot on a pale quilt with a white background and soft, bright light, the smiling baby was the kind of shot any doting parent would be happy with. Was there anything that could be technically improved? Not really.

Perhaps he could have gone down another popular baby-photo route, where the infant is wrapped in a crocheted blanket and placed in a willow nest, or is wearing some kind of cute outfit, as an alternative approach.

And yet, the more I thought about it the more I realised there was a deeper, more conceptual problem.

It wasn't Russ's fault – he had admirably responded to the requests and expectations of the commissioning parents – rather it was a fault of the whole baby-photo industry.

In essence, it was a product shot.

In the same approach to photographing a mug, torch, washing machine or any other item you might want to sell, the baby-photo industry is all about presenting the object in the a good light and polished up, so you have the best looking version of it.

It's not really about the baby, beyond creating a recognisable likeness.

But if we stop and think about it for a moment, the most important thing to any parent about their baby is not what s/he looks like, but about their relationship the new child.

This incredible, beautiful, amazing, bundle of life that somehow has magically appeared after months of growing inside the mother's belly.

It doesn't matter how much we know the facts about cell division and growth patterns, every parent stares at their new-born, emotionally wondering how the hell did that happen? Where did this magical creature come from?

And every parent is torn between feeling utterly committed to ensuring the child's survival while simultaneously feeling hopelessly inadequate and unprepared for the task.

It is this incredible closeness, this relationship with the baby that is the all-important, all-consuming narrative that really needs to be captured.

Rather than having a baby placed on a plinth to be admired, we need to see the bond between parent and child. We need to see the infant in the arms, nose to nose, cheek to cheek, skin to skin, flesh to flesh.

The next generation is something we have been creating since the first collections of cells found ways to reproduce, hundreds of millions of years ago.

If we can reveal this bond in our photos, it will provoke the primal emotional responses in the deepest parts of the viewer's brain.

But this common practice of seeing people as products, I realised could be taken a step further when, following on from my comments in the podcast, Russ posted some other photos from his shoot, where Mum, Dad and baby Louie were all smiling into the camera.

Dad's got a clean t-shirt on and Mum has done her hair and make-up, but look carefully and we can see a tension in her smile I've noticed a thousand times over the years of doing portraits.

As soon as we have to look into the camera, on some level we are aware we are being seen as a product. And just as we rifle through the cauliflowers in the grocers, judging and comparing, so we know that viewers could be doing the same thing with our image.

The fear and desperation to present the best possible version of ourselves creates intolerable levels of stress, which are almost impossible to hide.

Getting people to genuinely relax in front of the camera takes a lot of time, skill, and building of trust. Most of my photo shoots take several hours, precisely because I'm taking this into consideration.

If I want them to be more natural in front of the camera, then I have to take the time to build that relationship with them.

In the case of the new-family-member shoot, the quick, easy, and powerful solution is quite simply to get them to focus on the baby, rather than on the camera. The moment they look at their child, the connection becomes apparent, and this is what we need to capture.

The right lighting, composition and camera settings will help us enhance the intensity and beauty of the photos, but unless we capture that parental relationship with the baby, then no amount of technical correctness is going to give us a good image.

Because in the end, the photo is about people, not products.

Meanwhile, enjoy Episode 78 where I talk about The Kippford Mermaid photo shoot and the amazing team of people that helped make it happen.

And if you decide to click through and view it directly on YouTube (rather than here on the blog), then you can watch the Live Chat Replay and see the comments people are writing in real time as the podcast progresses.

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2:00 - Welcome, what's coming up, greetings and comments
08:10 - Introduction to The Kippford Mermaid book
11:30 - Creating a promotional photo shoot for the book launch.
22:32 - Stages of the editing process for the main photo
33:43 - Stages of the editing process for the individual mermaid photo
49:20 - Introduction to the Critique Section
52:40 - Ben has now written a blog post to explain his coloured shadows photo
54:44 - Jim - Correcting exposure, and being aware red objects grab the attention
1:00:39 - Robert - adjusting colour and light levels
1:08:16 - Roy - the problem of gaps becoming exaggerated
1:14:18 - Garry - selectively lightening
1:19:02 - Michele - if you don't like the background but can't change it
1:24:55 - Russ - baby portraits - moving away from a product photography approach
1:37:38 - Coming up next week
1:39:42 - End

If you found this interesting/useful/entertaining, then please consider supporting these podcasts and blog posts via buymeacoffee.com/kimayres

Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/kimayres – to be notified of new podcasts and behind-the-scenes videos.

And, or course, if you would like to submit a photo for feedback, or just ask a photography related question, then either email me or join my Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres Facebook group and I will put it into the following podcast:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/240842990388815/

Pick One - and Episode 77 of Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres

It's not uncommon, when participants enter a photo for one of the Challenges in the Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres podcast, for them to put forward a selection of two or three and ask me to pick my favourite, saying they couldn't decide.

My answer now is always to reply that they have to be the one to decide which one they are going to submit.

It's not about me being insensitive to their struggle, rather I'm trying to get across the point that making difficult decisions about our own work is extremely important in the development of our photographic style.

I completely understand the difficulty in trying to choose.

Especially in this digital age, we almost never only take one photo – we take several and then pick the best. But what if more than one is good? What if they each have a different quality that appeals? How do we know which one is the best?

The answer is usually to be found in thinking about how the photo is going to be used, who is going to be looking at it, and what kind of reaction we are hoping to evoke in the viewer. Given these variables, each of the images might work better in a different situation.

But sometimes there is only going to be the option to use one, and our fear that we will pick the weaker causes our decision making process to freeze.

Getting it wrong feels like the worst of all possible outcomes.

And yet, very often making a bad decision is still better than making no decision.

Or as someone once told me, not making a decision is still a decision. We are making the decision to hand over responsibility to someone else in the hope that if it goes wrong, we won't get the blame.

But all that means is we have relinquished control and then have to live by the consequences of someone else's agenda.

However, the key thing when it comes to developing our photography is that we learn far more from our mistakes than we do from our successes.

Our successes bring us praise, and that's lovely, but we rarely learn anything from them. But when things go wrong – the image is blurred, it's too dark, or the composition isn't right – then we have to find a way to correct it. And the multiple decisions we make each time this happens helps us to grow and improve our understandings of the processes.

And then when it comes to our aesthetic choices, not everyone is going to make the same ones. One might prefer a slight blue shift in an image where another might prefer an orange one; or maybe they prefer a more textured, gritty edit where someone else would go for a softer, more ethereal look.

So it goes on – ever single step – from the settings of the camera, to the angle it's held at, to the crop, and the 10,000 possible micro-edits, means that even if 2 people stood in exactly the same place with the same camera and took a photo of the same thing, they would end up with different images.

And that's OK!

Our style develops over many, many photo shoots, through a million small decisions, influenced by a million different thoughts and experiences, which accumulate over the years.

The more comfortable we become with making decisions – especially the hard ones – the more our own "authentic voice" is heard.

And so the more our photos become uniquely ours.

So pick one.

Any one.

Flip a coin if you have to, but select just one of the images, polish it up in the editing, and submit it.

And if 10 minutes later you see something that makes you think you should have chosen a different one after all, then you have learned something and will make a different decision next time.

And that's OK.

Meanwhile, enjoy Episode 77 where we review the images submitted to the Shadow Casting Photo Challenge I set last week.

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2:00 - Welcome, what's coming up, greetings and comments
06:40 - Wedding Anniversary photos at the Shed Café
10:30 - The Shadow Casting Photo Challenge
11:23 - Roy - inverted image to emphasise the distorted shadow of the dog
14:30 - Erich - when the shadow looks more 3D than the object
15:50 - Understanding the notion of "off topic"
22:48 - Inga - sun shining through a crystal vase with shadows and light refractions
25:02 - Jacqui - bridge and pedestrian - shadows from above
31:25 - Jim - shadow of a figurine
33:55 - How gaps become exaggerated in photos
36:06 - Ben - coloured shadows - understanding light
47:33 - Viji - using a sketch to interact with a shadow and refracted light
52:22 - Why it can be a good thing to copy someone else's idea
55:15 - Nicola - shadows of branches cast on the trunk of a tree
55:08 - Robert - shadows with a missing subject
1:05:55 - Rose-Marie - Candlesticks - creating a mismatch between object and shadow
1:10:01 - The importance of selecting your photo - curating your own work
1:13:30 - Sophie - bird on the concrete floor
1:16:26 - Vandana - eggheads
1:19:02 - Garry - Polo mint shadow crown
1:26:05 - Nurije - shadow of a bicycle
1:29:52 - Chris - the shadow of a chair, without the chair
1:39:15 - Coming up next week
1:41:07 - End

If you found this interesting/useful/entertaining, then please consider supporting these podcasts and blog posts via buymeacoffee.com/kimayres

Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/kimayres – to be notified of new podcasts and behind-the-scenes videos.

And, or course, if you would like to submit a photo for feedback, or just ask a photography related question, then either email me or join my Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres Facebook group and I will put it into the following podcast:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/240842990388815/

Shadow Casting - Episode 76 of Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres

Given this blog is called "Painting with Shadows" it was surely only ever a matter of time before I would decide to introduce a Shadows Challenge into the Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres podcast.

However, shadows are such a HUGE subject, that I've decided for now to look at just one aspect – where the shadow is cast on another surface, rather than the subject being immersed in, or emerging from, the shadows.

How light and shadow fall on an egg, for example, gives you a sense of the 3 dimensional shape of it. However, the shadow an egg will cast if you shine a light on it, will be 2 dimensional. And it is this latter kind of shadow I'm interested in for this photography challenge.

From sundials, to shadow puppet theatres, to creating animals shapes with our hands, shadows have been fascinating and entertaining us from earliest childhood.

A few months ago I set a Silhouette Challenge, and in that I talked about the fact we cannot help but try and mentally fill in the gaps – to attempt to make sense of what we are seeing even though it is only an outline.

Cast shadows, however, are a step even further removed. We are not seeing the outline of the subject itself, instead that outline is cast onto another surface. And now that other surface can change and distort the shape of the shadow, making it even more difficult to interpret.

But herein also lies the potential for creativity – to deliberately manipulate the shadow to give the impression of it being something other than it is – whether to create a puzzle, to entertain, or to misdirect.

This can be done by choosing, or warping, the surface on which the shadow falls, or by adding extra elements and creating overlaps to fundamentally change its natural shape.

Another key aspect to understand before you embark on your photographic Shadow Challenge, is the size of the light source can dramatically effect the hardness or softness of the shadow.

Generally speaking, the larger the light source, the softer the edges of the shadow will be.

It is worth taking the time to experiment and notice the differences between, for example, window light on a dull day, and a small handheld torch. Also notice what happens if you move the subject closer to, or further from, your light source.

You can include in your photo the subject which is casting the shadow, or decide not to, but in this challenge, the cast shadow is the theme, and so needs to play a prominent part in the narrative.

And when you submit your image, please tell us a little bit about it – either what it is, or why you decided to take it, whether it has any particular significance for you, or any challenges you had to overcome.

See how you get on – I'm really looking forward to seeing what people are going to produce! But if you find you're struggling, then you can still submit a photo you're having difficulty with - just explain the problem and I can include suggestions and ideas in the podcast too.

Either place your submission (just the one please) into the Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres Facebook Group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/240842990388815/

or email it to me if you don't do Facebook

Try and get it in before the end of the weekend, or by Monday (20th September) at the latest. Anything that arrives on Tuesday runs the risk of not being included in the podcast.

You can use a phone, tablet, point-and-shoot or DSLR (or mirrorless).

And then, make sure you tune in to YouTube here -
https://youtu.be/ibN1dsiqRA8

on Tuesday 21st September at 7.30pm (UK time) where I'll go through the photos, and give comments and feedback, and hopefully we will all become inspired by some of the submissions to go and try out new things with our photography.

Meanwhile enjoy Episode 76, where I explore these ideas of casting shadows, and give feedback and critique to submitted images.

And if you decide to click through and watch it directly on YouTube (rather than here on the blog), then you can watch the Live Chat Replay and see the comments people are writing in real time as the podcast progresses.

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2:00 - Welcome, what's coming up, greetings and comments
08:55 - Introduction to shadows in photography
14:00 - Examples of photographing shadows
36:10 - The Photo Challenge for next week - the cast shadow
36:39 - How the size of the light source effects the hardness of the shadow
42:28 - Introduction to the idea of "Critique" in the podcasts
43:50 - Critique of images submitted to the Facebook Group, "Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres"
43:55 - Jim - replacing the sky
50:20 - Viji - beach shoes
54:40 - Rose-Marie - Correcting the white balance on owls in the trees
1:03:50 - Anne - Arizona Rocks - a sense of scale
1:10:35 - Jack - Cropping
1:15:48 - Nurije - Life is like a camera... colour or black and white?
1:20:39 - Vandana - sunrise - cropping
1:28:38 - Robert - shopping cart in the river
1:37:17 - No matter how good your excuse as to why the photograph failed, nobody cares
1:38:55 - Garry - silhouettes, and desaturating a distracting jacket
1:45:55 - Coming up next week - Shadow Casting Photo Challenge
1:49:48 - End

If you found this interesting/useful/entertaining, then please consider supporting these podcasts and blog posts via buymeacoffee.com/kimayres

Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/kimayres – to be notified of new podcasts and behind-the-scenes videos.

And, or course, if you would like to submit a photo for feedback, or just ask a photography related question, then either email me or join my Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres Facebook group and I will put it into the following podcast:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/240842990388815/

Photographing the Faerie Child... and Episode 75 of Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres

When she was small, we often called her a faerie child - it felt like Meg always had one foot in another realm.

The fact she has Down's Syndrome of course gives a slight sense of "other" to her appearance, although once she started wearing glasses it "normalised" her eyes a little bit, by slightly obscuring them.

But more importantly, as soon as anyone gets to know her, Meg charms them with her smile, humour and ability to see the best in everyone. The Down's soon becomes irrelevant and is no longer seen as her dominant trait.

And of course, we have been her parents for 23 years so most of the time Meg is just Meg.

But every now and again, if I see her without her glasses, lost in a little world of her own, I am reminded of the wee, otherworldly fairy child, and I wanted to see if I could re-capture something of that.

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I began by photographing her at the kitchen table with her favourite flamingo mug. Instructions were to look into the camera without her glasses and without smiling (something that took a few shots to achieve).

This is a set up I've often seen in winning entries in prestigious portrait competitions – encapsulated in a notion of "melancholic stillness".

We then moved outside into the garden. 50mm lens, wide aperture, an overcast day with a soft, dull light – none of the strong shadows I usually like to work with.

Because I was chatting and laughing with Meg in between shots, I wasn't sure what I was really capturing until I sat down and the computer and was able to take a proper look through the images.

And it was here that the otherworldly faerie began to reveal herself again.

I was now seeing Meg in a ways I hadn't for many years, although it was different again.

It could not be the same the same as those early years.

The faerie child had grown up

Enjoy Episode 75 below, where I talk about the editing process of these photos, and give Critique and feedback to images sent in to the Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres Facebook Group

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2:00 - Welcome, what's coming up, greetings and comments
07:22 - Creating a set of black and white photos of my daughter, and the reasons for taking them
15:57 - Converting to black and white using different "channels" in Photoshop
28:52 - Introduction to the idea of "Critique" in the podcasts
30:20 - Critique of images submitted to the Facebook Group, "Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres"
30:50 - Becca - Framlington Castle - comparing Colour with Black and White edits
41:05 - Nurije - Silhouettes on the water
48:27 - Whether to submit jpgs or RAW files for Critique Submissions
51:13 - Roy - black and white conversions
1:01:10 - Vandana - woman in the lift - to vignette or not to vignette
1:10:12 - Coming up next week
1:10:55 - End

If you found this interesting/useful/entertaining, then please consider supporting these podcasts and blog posts via buymeacoffee.com/kimayres

Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/kimayres – to be notified of new podcasts and behind-the-scenes videos.

And, or course, if you would like to submit a photo for feedback, or just ask a photography related question, then either email me or join my Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres Facebook group and I will put it into the following podcast:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/240842990388815/

The results are in... and Episode 74 of Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres

Last week I set up a poll in the Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres Facebook group. The idea was to try and get a sense of which aspect of the podcasts were most enjoyed or, perhaps more importantly, which aspects viewers might not be enjoying at all.

I'm very aware of the importance of critique in growing our photography skills. Without decent feedback, how are we ever going to get past our blind spots? It's too easy to put our images up on social media and enjoy the praise, but growth is only possible if we can discover where our limitations are, and how to improve.

The same thing of course applies to my live streaming video podcast – except I have no idea how to get decent critique for it. Even though a huge industry seems to be building up around audio podcasts, I struggle to find useful information about my video one, and it's impossible to get knowledgeable feedback.

So it's constant guess work, and second guessing guess work, and trying to find my blind spots which, unsurprisingly I can't see because I'm blind to them...

There are 4 key areas to the podcasts:

1. the critique section
2. the challenges
3. the introduction to the challenges, which includes tips tricks, insights and possibilities to explore before submitting photos
4. the stories and decisions behind some of the more interesting or challenging photo shoots I've been involved in

Different weeks contain different combinations of these things, but what I wasn't sure about was whether there might be one or two which everyone skips past to get to the actual bit they're interested in.

If I was to judge purely on response rates, then it's been noticeable for a long time that the weeks I do the Challenges I generally get more submissions, more viewers, more chat and interaction, and more coffees bought for me at my online tip jar, buymeacoffee.com/kimayres

On the weeks I talk about the photo shoots, it's usually quieter with fewer people turning up and a lot less chat.

And for the Critique section it's not uncommon for only 2 or 3 people to submit anything. I've had occasions where I've reached the limit I can include in a single podcast – about 6 or 7 – but it's quite rare.

The conclusion based on these response rates then would indication I should just do Challenges each week and scrap the rest.

But that doesn't feel right. The fact is I'm doing this to help people improve their photography, and Challenges alone are not enough to do that. It also doesn't take into consideration those who cannot join in live but avidly watch the recorded versions.

So last week I put up a poll asking people to let me know which of the 4 key areas they enjoyed (they could vote for more than one) and of the 29 people who responded the results were as follows:

• Critique got 24 votes
• Ideas and techniques for challenges got 21 votes
• The Challenges themselves got 20 votes, and
• The photo shoots got 18 votes

This paints a different picture, that in some ways seems quite contradictory. 

The Challenges, which get the highest response rate, ranked 3rd in the poll, whereas the Critique section which can sometimes be a real struggle to get anyone to submit for, was ranked highest.

However, the stories and insights behind the photo shoots got the least, as I kind of suspected.

And yet, it's not quite as straightforward as that, because when I drilled down into the votes, they were not evenly spread. There were some who voted for the photo shoots only and nothing else.

Additionally, I had a few people message me directly, which gave me a deeper sense of how they felt rather than just as a number in a statistic. One, for example, said "Hearing your professional thought process in setting up a shoot gives us something to aspire to. Please keep this up, even if you can't do it weekly"

So it appears that the different aspects are appealing to different people on different levels.

I think while the Critique section is something most people find really useful, it can feel quite vulnerable to put your image in to be reviewed in front of other people, so they would rather watch someone else's. Of course if everyone thinks that then no one sends anything in and the Critique section ceases to exist.

And there have been weeks where that has almost happened and I've had to nudge one or two regulars to ask if they are going to submit something so the podcast isn't going to be over 10 minutes after I start due to lack of content.

For some, the Challenges are something they don't mind submitting to as it's more about smug points than Critique. However, there are a few viewers who will still never feel confident enough in their work to submit, and I know at least one who doesn't even take photos but enjoys the stories and interaction.

For others the insights into the photo shoots are the most valuable part of all. I know myself that there comes a point where nobody's really going to be able to tell you much about lighting, composition and camera settings that you don't already know.

Certainly I know for me, the thoughts and decision making processes of other photographers is something I find absolutely fascinating and can't get enough of.

And in the end, there was only 6 points difference between the highest and the lowest, which isn't that much.

I get the feeling that if I scrapped any one of them, even though some wouldn't miss it, others would.

So my conclusion?

I think it has to be that unless or until I get a new bit of feedback to change my mind, I'll just carry on the way that I have been, but feel less worried about whether I'm getting it all wrong.

Meanwhile enjoy Episode 74 below, where I review all the images submitted to the Cup Photo Challenge, and dish out smug points for my favourites...

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2:00 - Welcome, what's coming up, greetings and comments
6:17 - Introduction to the Cups Challenge
08:35 - Reviewing images on the theme "Cups" submitted to the podcast, "Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres"
1:30:35 - Reflections on the podcast poll
1:34:25 - Coming up next week
1:39:25 - End

If you found this interesting/useful/entertaining, then please consider supporting these podcasts and blog posts via buymeacoffee.com/kimayres

Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/kimayres – to be notified of new podcasts and behind-the-scenes videos.

And, or course, if you would like to submit a photo for feedback, or just ask a photography related question, then either email me or join my Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres Facebook group and I will put it into the following podcast:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/240842990388815/