5 Creative Ways To Stay In Contact

It can be a bit lonely sometimes can’t it being self employed? Or just being in this situation we find ourselves in. Having a good creative network around you certainly helps. Having those people to cheerlead you, to chat to about your latest ideas, to help you see the right path when you’re feeling confused, and sometimes a shoulder to cry on when times are a bit too much.

So in these strange times, that feeling of isolation can really hit you, I know it has done for us. It’s been hard to think straight some days, but I know that doing something creative each day does really help me, whether that’s picking my camera up and taking photos or making a mini film, making lunch, or planting some seeds in a window box.

If you follow our stuff, you know I love a project. That might be one over a day in collaboration with a friend, it might be over a few weeks with a couple of friends, or it may take shape over a year or more, building a portfolio of work around a theme. I was chatting to Suzi today about ideas for collaborations, and how you can keep in touch with your photography inclined friends to create photos together. Maybe you want to do it it a pair, but these would work in larger groups too. So after a cup of tea and biscuits, we’ve come up with a few ideas 5 Creative Ways to Stay In Contact.

1. THE CHAIN

Choose who will take the very first photo. This could be of anything, but we guess it’s either going to be around the house or on your daily walk at the moment! That person then sends the photo to the next one in the chain, who reacts to that photo to take the next one. Maybe it will have a similar theme, or the light will be the same. Maybe it’s a silhoutte, or the view from your window. Find a similarity, get creative with it, take the photo and pass it on. We’re thinking that this will be a chain letter that you actually do like opening!

THE CHAIN II

I love a good sequel. If you wanted to set some limitations around the chain, you could think about setting a theme to it. Maybe only taking the chain photos in one room of the house, or maybe concentrating on the colours of the rainbow, we’re surrounded by their vibrancy at the moment. If you’ve been meaning to put your camera into video mode, but haven’t quite plucked up the courage yet, this could be your moment! Film a clip of your everyday, maybe 5 seconds, and then send this clip over to your project buddy who will react to it, and film the next 5 seconds of your collaboration! If you each did 6 clips of about 5 seconds each, all of a sudden you have a minute film. I REALLY want to see these!!!

2. TEA FOR TWO

Pick a time of day to share a cup of tea together. Maybe it’s taking a flask of tea on your daily walk. Maybe it’s sitting at the kitchen table for five minutes with your favourite biscuits. Maybe it’s your first cup of tea of the day you’re sipping, propped up in bed. If there are 2 of you, or more, try and co-ordinate a similar time. Take photos of those steaming cups of tea, and the location you’re in, noticing the details, the light, the chaos or the calm. All these prompts will hopefully lead to a body of work you can show on your blogs or Instagram feeds. As the Phlock Live photography conference was cancelled a few weeks ago, and as I was going to be running filmmaking workshops, I wondered how we could still create something together. So I asked people to film their first cup of tea on a Saturday morning, and I put it together in this film below. Tea solves so many things.

3. SING IT OUT

I have to say having a good sing does help me relieve a lot of tension. But for this one, it’s more about the words, unless you really want to have a sing, and by all means set up a FaceTime duet! Choose a couple of song titles, more if you feel yourself really getting into it, and create an image around that tile or lyric. I’ve been listening to a bit of Joni Mitchell today, I love Blue, so I’m sharing this montage me and a couple of photography friends did a few years ago. We limited ourselves to just taking photos on our phones for 3 weeks with a daily theme.

4. SAME TIME, DIFFERENT DAY

Pick a time of day between you, one that is convenient. Remembering when the GOOD light is though as this will really enhance your photos. When you’ve chosen the time of day, take a photo each day for a week at that time. And then share them in a blog post or on Instagram. Look at the similarities or differences. It’s so good working together like this as you soon build up a good body of work.

5. SELF PORTRAIT

I know I know, this is supposed to be a collaboration. So this is a selfie with a difference. You know that Bob Dylan video where he holds up the lyrics on cards? So, how’s about you set up your camera to take a self portrait. And on a card, write a message to the person you’re collaborating with. A few words about the project you’re doing together, or how that person has inspired you in some way. Or just tell them how you’re feeling that day.

Maybe you’d like to work on the project ideas consecutively, or take your time with them, or come up with your own ideas, we’d love to hear about them.

And when you come to the end of the project, and if you have access to a printer, how’s about printing a photo out from your collaboration together and writing a note on it and popping it in the post?

Even thought we may be feeling isolated, we can still work on things together. Have fun, we’d love to hear how you get on. Please do tag us in to anything you do and we’ll share it #5CreativeWays

And just a quick note about our mentoring programmes. If you’re just on the edge of setting up your photography business, or would like to nurture the one you have, if you’d like guidance on how to take better photos for your creative business to connect with your ideal clients, we have been mentoring people for over 5 years. We are currently offering a free 30 minute Skype call to see if we’d be a good fit to work together, the perfect amount of time to have a cup of tea and chat about where you’d like to take your photography. Just email us here and we will set up a chat with you.

Happy Creating! Don’t forget to hashtag #5CreativeWays so we can share your collaborations!

LIFE IN MOTION - LONDON

At this time of year, many folk are making intentions for the year, both in business and in life. I was just looking over our quarterly plans for 2019 as I always think we haven’t quite achieved what we set out to do. We’d taped it to the back of the kitchen door, and as we were packing away the Christmas decorations, it was time for it to come down too to be replaced by a new 2020 one. One of our intentions for last year, was to start running filmmaking workshops. And we did it, after all the planning and seeing it come to fruition, we just took a moment to remember that it was a seed this time last year, and we gave it space to grow. We don’t find it particularly easy, the marketing side of the business, but that feeling is outweighed by how important it feels to us to be sharing what we’ve learnt over the last few years about making these narratives. 2019 saw us holding filmmaking retreats, and 1-2-1 days. So for 2020, we want to take our filming further, both in what we create for brands and families, but also in how we are teaching it too. It’s good to say it out loud! And I want to thank the group of portrait photographers in the images below. They wrote to me and asked if it would be possible for me to put on a workshop for them down in London. We hadn’t thought about this at all, but I’m really grateful to them, as this year we are taking the workshop out on tour too to groups of photographers who have come together for a day of learning. Next stop, Oxford in March!

These are just a few photos from the workshop I held down in Kensington. One of the attendees Amanda, opened up her house for us, and made us the most delicious food! And there was a bowl of Tunnock’s teacakes, which are just a constant weakness for my sweet tooth! In the afternoon, we held a practical session in a flat just around the corner with a Mum and baby. I think everyone was surprised at how much they took away with them at the end of the day, and it gives me a big Ready Brek glow to see their films popping up on social media. Here are some from the day…

Some words from one of our workshoppers, Hester Barnes (Hester B Photography):

‘Having stalked Sarah’s work online I knew I was going to fall in love with filmmaking during this workshop. It was such an excellent introduction to the world of filming and I am amazed how much we achieved during the few hours we spent together. Working with a small group was great. It meant we could ask questions and receive feedback as we progressed. Sarah is a fantastic teacher - relaxed, fun and incredibly knowledgeable. Providing excellent tips and tricks that help you achieve great films.  The chance to practice on a real little family was the icing on the cake. I don’t want to shout about this workshop too much as I feel like am now part of an exclusive club! But really… it was absolutely brilliant! ‘

Ways to Learn Filmmaking With Us

1-2-1 Mentoring, either in person or over a series of Skype calls

Phlock Live - 20th-22nd March 2020. A number of workshops over the weekend

Life In Motion Day Retreat - West Yorkshire 20th May 2020. Filmmaking for Families & Brands

5 TIPS TO START FILMMAKING

If you’ve been thinking about dipping your toes into making your own films, this festive time might be when you take the plunge. We thought we’d gently lead you into turning that switch from stills into video, and we have 5 tips for you. We asked what you’d like to learn about, so we’ve tried to include as much of this too in this post. Most of all, we hope you have fun experimenting!

1. START. I know that might sound a bit daft, but the first stage is just doing it, making those dial and setting switches. Reticence can largely be based around those niggling voices of self doubt. We can feel we’re going back to square one, that we don’t have the room to learn something else, that we have to be creating perfect shorts. If you have been shooting stills in manual, let me reassure you that you actually know so much already! It does take time to get used to, but if you can make that commitment to yourself about picking the camera up regularly in video mode, it will come.

2. STABILISE. When I first started, I didn’t have any extra kit. I stabilised shots using my camera strap tight around my neck, and making myself like a tripod. There were points of contact to keep the camera as steady as possible. My feet firmly planted on the ground, and I created movement by slowly switching weight between my legs. My elbows tight into my sides which reduces the camera being moved around. For me, this was always the first one that went out of the window if I started getting really excited about the action that was happening in front of me! Just keep checking your stance. And breathing becomes important too. You may find yourself holding your breath. I usually take a big deep breath in before I hit record, and then breathe smoothly throughout the clip I’m filming. You may eventually want to purchase a piece of equipment that will help you a little further with movement and stability. We’ve gone for a gimbal by Gudsen - the Moza Air.

3. SETTINGS. We use Live View on the back of the camera. A good ‘rule of thumb’ place to start with your Exposure settings, is to have your shutter speed at double your frame rate. If you are filming at a faster frame rate (say 60fps or 120fps), this can be slowed down in edit, so you get that lovely slo mo to your films. Also, if you are filming at this faster frame rate, when you slow it down, it can be more forgiving if there is any camera shake/movement. Focussing often comes up in conversations we have, and what do we prefer. When I was filming on my Nikon D750, I was solely using manual focus. If I had the luxury of practicing a shot, I’d work out where I wanted my focus to start and to end. You can practice this on inanimate objects, one on the foreground and one in the background. It’s called pulling or racking focus when you change the focal point between the 2 objects. On our Sony, we find the auto focus system to be quick and really efficient, so I use a mixture of this and manual focus.

4. MOVEMENT. Although you are capturing movement in front of you, I always think it’s good to capture this action whilst you’re moving through the shot too. One example of this is moving the weight from one of your legs to the other. You can have quite a wide stance, and don’t worry if you look a bit silly, you’re capturing magic! You move through the shot rather than the camera.

5. EDIT. When you’ve got all those lovely shots, it’s then time to put it all together in a story. For me, editing is about planning. Before I go into a shoot, I always have an idea of the story I’m wanting to tell, and will have made a note of my beginning and end shots. Of course, you need to be spontaneous too on a shoot, just like a photo session, but I have learnt to have more of a structure in my approach. I carry a list with me in case I need to refer to it at all. As you may have picked up from our Insta posts or from the Phlock Live takeovers, I use Premiere Pro. It’s what I taught myself on, and I’ve stuck with it. I find it really intuitive. If you’re not quite ready to make that commitment to an editing programme, there are other alternatives. Now then, I haven’t personally tried any of these programmes, but I have read good reviews. First up is Filmora, which on first glance looks to have quite similar features and functions to Premiere, you can trial it for free. Or there’s Magisto where you pay a monthly fee. It has templates, which looks good for making films for social media, and you can make them up to 5 minutes in length. And there’s Movavi which I believe is free to download for the basic package, you can trim clips, add basic colour grades and text too. If you work with Adobe products already, you could try Premiere Elements.

6. Talking about colour grading, we do ours in Premiere Pro, but someone asked last week if you can utilise presets that you may already use for photos on your footage. Short answer, yes you can! You can colour your clips in Lightroom in Library Mode. Under Quick Develop there’s Saved Preset. Choose your preset from under that arrow, it’s probably in the User Presets section. We do all our colour grading in Premiere now in the Colour window. You can also get presets for Premiere, they’re called LUTS (Look Up Table). In fact Premiere already comes with a limited selection which you can find in the Creative section of the colour panel.

We hope you find these tips helpful, and because we’re excited to get you started, we obviously couldn’t stick to the 5 tips!! We know it’s not exhaustive, but we hope it’s enough to give you that boost of confidence to get you switching your camera into Video Mode. And just to let you know about our Filmmaking courses and retreats for 2020. If you’d like to spend time with us and learn more about making short films for you, or for family and brand clients:

PHLOCK LIVE A number of workshops over the weekend, MARCH 20th-22nd

LIFE IN MOTION - Filmmaking Retreat, Hebden Bridge West Yorks, MAY 20th

FILMMAKING 1-2-1 - Day or Half Day, Hebden Bridge West Yorks (4 spaces per month)

FILMMAKING MENTORING - via Skype, learn with us wherever you are in the world (3 or 6 months)

LIFE IN MOTION - Filmmaking Retreat, Hebden Bridge West Yorks OCT DATE TBC

We can also run group workshops for you and a group of friends wherever you are in the UK (minimum groups of 5)

We’d love to see how you get on, please tag us into your posts on Insta, we’re excited to see your first films! Save the pin to Pinterest if you’d like to read later …