Photography Workshops France

I have been passionate about photography for as long as I can remember. My father was a landscape painter and seeing him working quietly away creating something of beauty was a vivid memory of my childhood and something that has profoundly influenced my photography. When it came to choosing careers however, thinking photography a perilous profession, I went for the safe option and became an actor! In the late 90’s I threw care to the wind, followed my first love and began to make the transition from amateur to professional photographic work.

Although my passion has always been landscape photography, put me in a field with a camera and I’m happy, I enjoy anything to do with photography. While getting out and shooting landscapes whenever possible, I became busier shooting portraits and weddings.

In 2003, my wife Lila and I bought an 18^th century farmhouse with twenty acres of land in the heart of the Dordogne southern France. As the trips to France became more frequent, I was able to devote more time to landscape photography. I found the French landscape truly inspiring, with its seemingly endless supply of great locations. Unsurprisingly, it was not long before we sold up in the UK and moved to France, along with our young son Liam and Charlie the dog.

Landscape photography is now the mainstay of my professional work and I have quickly established myself as the landscape photographer of the area. I teach photography at the Downe House School for girls, Veyrines de Domme, France. As well as photo libraries and internet sales, commissions and local projects, my photographs are also displayed on various French artist markets. During the spring and summer months I hold exhibitions of my work.

To see examples of my work on-line, please visit my Internet gallery at www.GarethKirklandPhotography.com

I also run photography workshops in the Dordogne, France. Lila cooks superb French food while I will ramble on about depth of field and composition at some unearthly hour of the morning. They have been a great success, though I am never quite sure whether it’s Lila’s cooking or my coaching that keeps everyone so happy.

Equipment

I now shoot exclusively in digital. The flexibility and quality of digital photography now makes it difficult to argue against. I know some people yearn for the good old days of film, as though it was somehow more real. I can understand people who love the process of developing in the dark room and I think there will always be a place for this. For me however loading, a correctly profiled and well edited image into my Epson 7880 and seeing a magnificent A1 print come out exactly as you saw it on your screen, has blown away any feelings of nostalgia that I may have had.

As with my old film cameras I shoot using Canon equipment. I find the quality and reliability of Canon’s professional range second to none. The Canon 1 series cameras are things of beauty, which combined with the quality of the L series lenses, consistently deliver images of the highest quality. Of course, the importance of equipment can be overstated. The best equipment in the world wont rescue a poorly conceived or executed shot.

My main camera is the Canon 1Ds Mk II and my back up is the 5D, two lovely cameras that work well together. I will often be shooting handheld with the 5D, while the 1Ds is locked on the tripod. If I hadn’t have had this arrangement, there are many lucrative shots that I just never would have got.

My lenses are all L series Canon and all with a 77mm thread, which makes life easier. The only exception is my Canon macro lens.

For tripods, I use the ever-faithful Manfrotto along with an excellent hydrostatic ball head. It’s very flexible with a small additional tensioning knob, which can be adjusted to the weight of the camera, while the main tightening knob has a vice like grip. You could attach an elephant to this thing and it wouldn’t move.

I have always used Lee filters. They’re not cheap but excellent quality. It wouldn’t make a great deal of sense to spend £1,500 on a lens and then put a budget filter in front of it. I don’t use any of the colored, or effects filters, just neutral density and graduated neutral density filters. The graduated filters are used to balance exposure levels within in the image, normally between sky and foreground, whilst the non graduated are used to slow down shutter speeds to enhance movement in skies, or water for example. I also use various polarizing filters. In conjunction with the Lee filters I will often use the very nice 105mm Heliopan polarizer. It’s great quality and thinner than the Lee version, thereby greatly reducing the risk of the rim of filter becoming visible when using wide-angle lenses.

Bag wise it’s pretty much all Lowepro. I did experiment with other makes but always came back to Lowepro. My current bag is the excellent Vertex 300 AW. It takes tons of stuff and is really comfortable. I really like the way it folds out to give easy access to all of my equipment. I tend to go out with most of my kit, as I always find the one bit you leave behind, you’re guaranteed to need. That means two bodies with four lenses, spare batteries, portable storage, filters etc. It all mounts up and then there’s the tripod. With all that weight it’s important to have a good bag. For my tourist, lazy days I chuck a couple of lenses and one body into my Lowepro Mini Trekker.

For storage I use the Epson P2000 with 40 gig capacity. It’s useful, but with hindsight, I would have got the larger 80 gig P4000. The later versions also support raw images fully and the adobe color space. Also the screen, though large for that type of device, is still to small to really see whether you have got the shot. On top of that I have numerous Extreme IV 4 gig memory cards and 500 gig external storage devices.

I use a 24” Mac OS X for my photo editing. It’s a lovely computer and the screen quality is good. I switched from a pc after the second hard drive meltdown on my laptop and the pc grinding to a halt with the weight of viruses and Viagra adverts. Does that happen to everyone or is it just me? No such problems with the Mac, virus and junk mail free and it never crashes.

The Wacom A4 graphics tablet is invaluable for photo editing. Get one and you’ll wonder how you ever survived with a mouse.

For software I use Lightroom in conjunction with Photoshop. Ninety percent is done in Lightroom, which was a godsend. Computers are not my strong point and Lightroom simplified everything in terms of workflow and editing and pretty much became a one-stop shop for me.

It all ends with my precious Epson 7880 wide format printer. The print quality is exceptional and prints up to A1. I love this machine so much, some nights I’m tempted to take it to bed with me. I probably would, but it’s huge and they’d be no room for Lila. She’s very supportive but would draw the line at that!

To Summarise

• Canon 1Ds Mark II
• Canon 5D
• Canon EF 17-40 1:4 L USM
• Canon EF 28-70 1:2.8 L USM
• Canon EF 70-200 1:2.8 L IS USM
• Canon EF 100 1:2.8 USM MACRO
• Lee Filters, various neutral density and graduated neutral filters, hard and soft
• Various polarizing filters
• Manfrotto 055 PRO B Tripod
• Manfrotto 468MGRC4 Hydrostatic Ball Head
• Epson P200 multi media storage device
• Sandisk Extereme IV Compact Flash storage cards
• Flight Logistics Sunset/ Sunrise Compass
• Lowepro Vertex 300AW
• Lowepro Mini Trekker
• 24” Mac OS X 10.5.8 computer
• Wacom A4 Graphics Tablet
• Software Lightroom 2, Photoshop CS3, Chronosync, Noise Ninja
• Epson 7880 Wide Format Printer