Martyn Rayner

Martyn has been a wedding photographer since the early 1980′s and has done more weddings than he would like to recall.  Martyn has a degree in photography from the prestigious Cambridge School of Art and is qualified as an Associate of both the Royal Photographic Society and the Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers.  He works from his own studio in St Ives, Cambridgeshire.

Martyn is a full time photographer doing mainly fashion photography during the week and weddings on Fridays and at the weekend. as a full time photographer Martyn feels he has an advantage over many part-time photographers and says “All I do is photograph people, seven days a week,  I think with any sort of people photography, the work is much more about interacting with people than the technical side of photography, when I actually go to a wedding as a guest nothing annoys me more than a grumpy photographer who seems to be more interested in his camera than the people he is photographing.  When the couple book a photographer they want their special day captured with all the good memories, and not the photographer to turn in to a bad memory!”

As a fashion photographer Martyn has a good eye for detail, and everyone who works with him remarks on his relaxed nature.  It is very obvious Martyn spends all his time photographing people, he has a natural ability of being on the same wave length. He says  “The photographer is normally one of the first people the bride will see on the day of the wedding apart from friends and family,  and if they manage to make the bride feel uneasy, that is going to set the tone for the rest of the day,  I always say to the bride she must relax and enjoy the day, all she has to worry about is look looking good and getting lines right in the ceremony, she really does not need to worry about all the little details and being on time, there is a whole army of people to do that for her. and no one is going to start without her”

I really liked this images of Amber Tutton taken last week in our studio, It was  just a bit of fun taken after we had finished a long days shoot.

I thought I would post this image as it was originally on Facebook and someone reported it for being pornographic, I thought this a bit strange as the painting I based my photograph on “The Three Graces by Raphael painted around 1500 (below)
So the original has been on show for a little over 500 years and not considered (recently at least) pornography.

Martyn has been a wedding photographer since the early 1980′s and has done more weddings than he would like to recall.  Martyn has a degree in photography from the prestigious Cambridge School of Art and is qualified as an Associate of both the Royal Photographic Society and the Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers.  He works from his own studio in St Ives, Cambridgeshire.

Martyn is a full time photographer doing mainly fashion photography during the week and weddings on Fridays and at the weekend. as a full time photographer Martyn feels he has an advantage over many part-time photographers and says “All I do is photograph people, seven days a week,  I think with any sort of people photography, the work is much more about interacting with people than the technical side of photography, when I actually go to a wedding as a guest nothing annoys me more than a grumpy photographer who seems to be more interested in his camera than the people he is photographing.  When the couple book a photographer they want their special day captured with all the good memories, and not the photographer to turn in to a bad memory!”

As a fashion photographer Martyn has a good eye for detail, and everyone who works with him remarks on his relaxed nature.  It is very obvious Martyn spends all his time photographing people, he has a natural ability of being on the same wave length. He says  “The photographer is normally one of the first people the bride will see on the day of the wedding apart from friends and family,  and if they manage to make the bride feel uneasy, that is going to set the tone for the rest of the day,  I always say to the bride she must relax and enjoy the day, all she has to worry about is look looking good and getting lines right in the ceremony, she really does not need to worry about all the little details and being on time, there is a whole army of people to do that for her. and no one is going to start without her”

Over the last few months I have been working quite a lot with Amber Tutton so here are a few of the images.

I have been thinking about this question for a while. Sometimes I work with an assistant and sometimes I don’t,  I have mixed feelings about if I really need to have an assistant or not, I have come to the conclusion for most of my shoots yes I do need one.
But what is the role of an assistant? Is it a unpaid apprentice who makes the tea and does all the jobs I don’t want to do?  The answer to that is clearly NO!  Many assistants are really talented photographers in their own right.  In any shoot, indeed pretty much any job you must have someone who is in control and will lead the team.  Team! is the important concept here, when creating images we all must work as a team, the principal photographer is there as a project leader and pulls the team together, everyone else plays just as big a part in the creative process.  When I do a shoot I quite ofter don’t actually take the pictures, I leave that to the assistant, of course you need to have trust in the skills of your assistant and know they are going to get the images in focus and correctly framed.  Often it’s much better for the photographer to stand back and direct the shoot, rather than getting involved with all the technical stuff.  Many stills photographers seem to think the person who presses the shutter button is the photographer.  That is certainly not the case in the film industry where there are several camera operators but only one Director of Photography, and it’s the Director who always get the glory for making the film, more often than not, never touching a camera.

Not all photographers who use assistants work in the same way I do,  some like to operate the camera and press the button,  getting the assistant to do all the lighting,  indeed many assistants are very skilled at lighting and often more skilled that the principal photographer, who may issue requests such as I need a little less light on the back ground, leaving the assistant to do all the technical stuff moving lights around and holding the reflectors. As I said previously my preference is to stand back and move the lights round and generally take the over view and not get too involved with actually pressing the button, this means I’m a really good assistant myself for the sort of photographer who likes the hands on camera way of working. I do pride myself on my technical ability with lighting, which is quite fortunate as I own the studio and all the lighting.  You may wonder why I’m writing all this? as a studio owner I see so many photographers who are fairly new to studio work who seem to think they should be expert in lighting and are too embarised to ask for help.  The bottom line is there are a number of top professional photographer who don’t have a great knowledge of the nuts and bolts of lighting, they rely on their assistant to do the lighting. there is no discrace in using an assistant, in the same way as a Hollywood director would not feel inadequate if they did not know how to use the lights on a film set Indeed in the film industry there is a whole team of lighting people with names we know from film credits such as Gaffer, Key Grip and Best boy, who’s sole job is the run the lighting and camera equipment.

All my non photographer friends keep saying to me you must love this sunny weather!   Whilst it’s great for sitting in the sun and having a few beers round the barbie, it’s not actually that great for fashion, wedding and people photography, and even indeed sometimes landscape photography, the big problem is: the range between the bright parts of the images and the shadow are too much for most camera chips or film to handle, unless you shoot HDR of course, which is virtually impossible with people photography.  So what would be my ideal conditions?  I much prefer a nice covering of light high clouds, so the scene is still bright but all the harsh shadow have gone, bit like a sky-size soft-box I guess.
When we are in the studio we try and create lighting that closely replicates what the eye would expect to see in real life, the big problem is the camera is very different from the eye. The brain has the ability to process the pretty poor images the eye is sending it in to a fantastic images, this has been the problem since the start of photography: how does the photographer reproduce on film or nowadays on sensor an image like the brain ‘thinks’ the eye  sees? The simple answer is it’s virtually impossible outside on a bright sunny day.  A typical bright sunny day can have a dynamic range of as much as 14 stops, the problem is a digital camera will struggle to manage 8 stops in jpeg mode and only a little more in raw. This does not present a problem in the studio as we have control over the lighting, so we can arrange the lights to have the same brightness ratio between light and dark as the sensor of film can capture.

Does this  mean “real” photographers only shoot in a studio? No obviously not! but what it does mean is that shooting outside is considerably more difficult than shooting in a studio, If you want to get great fashion shots at mid-day on an open beach, you can’t just plonk your model in front of the camera and take a snap, indeed you will virtually have to build a daylight studio on location, with large diffuser screens and reflectors, you will probably also need a number of assistants to hold all the equipment.  So how do the likes of the Vogue photographers do it then? The answer is quite simple, they have huge budgets to work with, they plan the shot in meticulous detail, they will have a location scout check out the area before the shoot and take notes of where the sun is and at what time of day,  they also probably won’t shoot in the UK because of the unreliable weather.
On the day of the shoot they will take a whole van load of gear along with a small army of people, stylists, make-up artists, and several assistants.  Quite often a photographer will hire an assistant with all the lighting equipment for shooting on location. In the world of professional fashion photography an assistant is not simply a junior or apprentice photographer, many professional assistants only do assisting work, and hire themselves out with all the lighting equipment.  So how do we do it as a semi-pro or an amateur photographer on a tight budget?  The answer is you can’t attempt the same type of shots,  just don’t try and shoot in bright sunlight, be a bit creative, the best time of day to shoot is often early in the morning or late in the afternoon,  crew and especially the model should understand they might have to be on location at five in the morning ready for make-up, to start shooting as soon as the sun is right, the photographer or scout would have already been to the location before hand at the same time to check out angles and shots. what you can’t do is rock-up to a location with a model and your camera round you neck and expect to get good photographs.

Okay first of all that’s the last time I’m going to mention that wedding, I wish the couple a great day and hope everyone who is watching it has a wonderful day, but having been a wedding photographer for over 30 years watching it on TV is going to feel too much like a busman’s holiday. We will be celebrating in our own way at the studio, Friday will see us having a studio open day and barbecue, probably a very silly idea to have a barbecue on such a day as it will ensure it’s going to be cold and rain, but at least we will have the studio to fall back on to keep us warm and dry. Obviously i’ll take my camera and hope to post some images on the studio blog.

Our next fashion and portrait lighting workshop is on the 7th May 

Martyn Rayner is instruction on this workshop with Amber Tutton as our model for the day.

Portrait and Fashion Lighting Workshop

Location : The Works Studio, St Ives, Cambridgeshire. PE27 5PB
Time: 10am – 5pm Price: £95 inc buffet lunch.

A thorough understanding of light and its application is key to creating the best images in the studio. Our workshop will demonstrate how studio lighting and space can be used to give you total control of your image. Much of what you will learn will also be of great benefit use on location or non-studio shoots.

Aimed at both professional and keen amateur photographers, We will teach you many of the techniques of studio lighting, including hard light, soft light, key light, fill light, kickers and backlights; giving you the knowledge to be able to create images of all styles. You will learn how to control contrast, and how to illuminate the foreground and background separately, we will show you how to use reflectors and flats.

We limit our workshops to a maximum of six people so every photographer will get ample opportunity to practice the techniques on the day. Whilst you don’t need the latest digital SLR to attend the course we recommend participants have a DSLR the absolute minimum you will need is a high end compact with a hot shoe that will take one of our radio flash triggers.

The format for the day is: Arrive at 9:30 so everyone can meet and have a cup of tea or coffee, ready to start at 10:00

The first session is devoted to the technical stuff, f-stops, focal lengths, depth of field, shutter speeds in the context of studio flash, the inverse square law and how if effects studio lighting, lighting ratios and white balance. At the end of this session we will move in to the studio and look at the more practical aspects of the equipment; seeing how different lights produce different types of light, and when coupled with modifiers, different effects. We will also look at the how to use reflectors and polystyrene flats as reflectors and baffles to stop light and create shadow. We will have a model on hand to allow us to visualise the effects during this session photographers will have ample opportunity to try out different setups. After this session we will break for lunch in our bar, allowing people to chat and discuss the mornings work. Lunch is follow by an afternoon of practical work in the studio with a model.

If you are interested in attending our lighting course please email Martyn

I’m a bit of a scavenge and when I saw the toilet I thought it would make a great prop – So here it is, we had Amber Tutton in the studio last week to do a fashion shoot with one of our customers, and I could not resist doing this handbag shot.