Tom Bourdon - Documentary Travel Photographer

Visual Peacemakers

Tom Bourdon — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:21:34 +0000

Last week I was the proud recipient of an email from the guys at IGVP asking me to be one of the beta testers before their site goes live Over the last year or so I´d heard rumours about this new organisation and wanted to learn more so I jumped at the chance.

So what exactly is the International Guild of Peacemakers (man that´s such a mouthful, I think I´ll stick to calling it IGVP for the time being) stand for, well I think it´s best summed up by their vision statement on their site:

“We are visual communicators devoted to peacemaking and breaking down stereotypes by displaying the beauty and dignity of various cultures around the world”

Here´s another quote from the site that explains more about what visual peacemaking is:

“Visual Peacemakers meet the need caused by today’s pandemic of “shock” images and stories that kindle fear. Without glossing over tragedy and conflict, they seek to show more than human hardships. They display all that is beautiful about us, and all that connects us. Visual Peacemakers treat humanity’s similarities as sacred and our diversities things to be honoured”

This speaks strongly to me and I´m passionate about shooting more than human suffering, I´ve said it before but it saddens me when people visit developing countries and can´t see further than the suffering, there is so much more to these places. In fact in my experience the less developed the nation the happier the people.

Intrigued and want to learn more about IGVP? well the first thing you should do is sign up on their site VisualPeaceMakers.org to receive notification of when the thing goes live (from what I´ve seen so far I don´t think it will be long). When the site does launch I´m confident you´ll be impressed by what you find – there´s even a give-away for everyone who signs up in the first 76 hours.

The new site is incredible and promises to be so much more as the community builds, come join me and others at VisualPeaceMakers.org

Hard work, grit and determination

Tom Bourdon — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 13:31:45 +0000

There are times in this life, for all of us, when we have to do something hard, something we don´t really want to do, something we just have to knuckle down to and get through for a greater good. I´m going through something like that at the moment, part photography related part not. The short term result is that my blog is suffering, with just not enough hours in the day. The trouble I don´t know what the solution is at the moment,. I´m currently planning my next trip when I should be able to update more frequently.

All I ask is that you bear with me, I´ll try to update the blog once a week, but the days of 3 post a week are gone at least for a few months.

July 2010 wallpaper

Tom Bourdon — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:50:14 +0000

Ok so its an image thats been kicking around for a while but I really like it and for me that´s enough to make it the wallpaper for July. It´s a meditating sadhu in a small temple on the banks of the river ganges shot earlier this year.

For anyone interested settings were 1/200th @ f/4. ISO 250 on a 1DsMKII with off camera flash diffused by a small umbrella.

You should know how to install these by now if not check last months wallpaper

As always if you want a different resolution then just let me know

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19+1 Ideas On How To Be Inspired As A Photographer

Tom Bourdon — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 22:46:18 +0000

Recently I was asked to write a blog post for Tiffinbox.org – a blog dedicated to views, reviews and Interviews in photography. The post went live yesterday but I thought I´d take the opportunity to share it here with you guys too. Feel free to leave comments either on this site or over at Tiffinbox.org

So without further ado.

I have to admit I procrastinated a little over writing this blog post, I was totally stumped as to what my subject should be, searching for inspiration I headed over to Google. Then it dawned on me – inspiration, that’s it, perfect, and I was off.

1. Read a book.

Any book. It doesn´t have to have anything to do with photography, just pick one from your bookshelf or even a library (yes, they do still exist) and just read, its an exercise that will get the brain cells thinking outside of your normal life.

2. Watch a film

Books are great to get your imagination working, but films have the huge advantage of being visual, even if you never plan to shoot a second of video you can still learn plenty about composition from the cinema greats.

3. Visit a flea market or boot fair

You never know what you´re going to find at places like this, but for certain they´ll be some interesting shapes to shoot.

4. Become a tourist for the day

Do touristy things in your own town, take a trip on the open top bus, wander around your town with fresh eyes, look up, wander down strange narrow streets, even get lost if you can. This is why I love travel photography so much particularly the festivals as there is always something unique to shoot.

5. Visit an exhibition

No matter where you live there´s bound to be a photography exhibition of some sort nearby, if not create one. In fact I´m off to see one later today.

6. Search Google images or photo libraries

Similar to visiting an exhibition except you can do it from the comfort of your own home. Find out what others are shooting and how. My current favourite is Reportage by Getty

7. Wake up early

Where you live probably looks very different at 6 in the morning, so wake up and explore this new place. Also by making the effort to get up early you´ll feel more eager to shoot as getting up at ridiculous o´clock was the hard part, well it is for me.

8. Read a Blog

Don´t know which one, here´s another quick list:

Digtal Photography School

Strobist

Photopreneur

Catchy Colors Photoblog

Photodoto

Daily dose of imagery

Photo Business News & Forum

… and there´s plenty more.

9. Buy a Photography Book

Makes sense, no?

10. Set yourself a challenging assignment

For example, shoot only red things for the day or only shoot from very low down to include your subjects feet. Its a great way to starting thinking about composition, by limiting yourself like this you´ll be looking for new ways to shoot familiar subjects.

11. Make Friends in the Photography World

With the tidal wave of social media that´s now upon us, its never been easier to meet like minded folk. These friendships can easily progress from the Internet to actually meeting up and who knows where it will go from there. Talking with other photographers is bound to shape your own photography. There´s also Scott Kelby´s Worldwide photo walk which is a great way to meet others and is well worth checking out.

12. Shoot some self portraits

It could be as simple as a hand holding your camera and shooting your reflection in a mirror or it could be as complex as a full studio shot with big umbrellas either way its probably something you dont shoot very often and something you can play with for weeks until you get an image that you can be really proud of.

13. Check out the Big Winners

The winners of big photo contests, such as the Pictures of the Year, Travel photographer of the year, World press photo, Photo district news. There´s bound to be plenty to inspire. Which ever area of photography interests you there´s bound to be a competition for it and the winning images should be somewhere online.

14. Play with Settings

Use slow shutter speeds and slow sync flash, set your aperture to f22 and shoot into the sun, use your highest ISO, just have a play and see what happens – perhaps you think you know, if so prove it. You may well be surprised.

15. Take a Photography Class

This doesn´t have to be as time consuming as you might think. Creative live run free online photography courses with an incredible line up of teachers, you can even ask questions during the class and yes it really is free.

16. Ignore the Silly Criticism

Constructive criticism can really benefit the serious photographer, but it´s not always great for your inspiration, particularly the silly criticism. At the end of the day if you´re shooting for yourself and your happy with what you´re producing then that´s great. However if you´re shooting for a client and your client isn´t happy with your work – well that´s something very different.

17. Shoot something random

The inside of your freezer, a radiator, your attic, the inside of your car, the dust on the top of your wardrobe, something you´d never normally think about taking a photo of. Spend some time on it playing with composition and light. Shoot 5 different, but thought out, compositions – This is harder than it sounds.

18. Doodle

I bet you haven´t done this in a while, but just sit down with a pen and a blank piece of paper just scribble away absent-minded, move the pen around, make shapes, but don´t think about it too much. This technique is often used by other visual artists, but I don´t see why it can´t aid the photographer.

18. Print your Pictures

Not many people do this nowadays, myself included, which is a real shame. But being able to touch an image gives it a new dimension, I´m sure but there´s probably some complex science behind all this, but all I know is to see my best work professionally printed on lustre paper I want to go out and shoot some more.

20 [fill in the blank with your own]

Now number 20 is up to you guys, leave your own ideas for what inspires you in the comments section below, there´s no prizes (unless Seshu wants to jump in here with something ) it´s just sharing ideas, which is what the Internet is so great for.

so, you think you dont need camera insurance ?

Tom Bourdon — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 13:23:34 +0000

Well you´re wrong

This is what happened to my beautiful 28-70mm L series lens just a couple of weeks ago when my strap slipped off my 1Ds MKII.

I heard from Cannon on Friday that they can no longer get hold of the parts required to fix the lens, so it´s going to be a new lens

Cost of replacement lens: over £1000.

cost of insurance: £330 a year.

So even if I don´t make another claim in the next 3 years I´m still better off. I also have complete peace of mind if my camera bag is stolen, all I´d have to worry about is any missing images knowing that I can get all my gear replaced just by filling in a few forms.

If you don´t have insurance for your gear (and I didn´t have it for several years – gosh how young and foolish I was) get searching online now for the best deal for you, don´t skimp on the cover get exactly what you need and get it now. If I didn´t have my insurance I´d have to find £1000 for a new lens or not shoot any images between 28mm and 70mm and that´s about 80% of my work.

If you never claim then your one of the lucky ones.

Ohh this also goes for keeping sufficient backups of your images, in my mind if your drive fails and you loose your images because they weren´t backed up it´s your own fault. Hard disks fail its a fact of life, its our jobs to make sure we´re covered when this happens.

So lessons learnt.

1) Insure your gear

2) Backup your photographs.

I know I´ve neglected my blog recently but I´m going to try to be a little more frequent with the updates. stick around.

GALLERY: THE STREETS OF INDIA

Tom Bourdon — Mon, 31 May 2010 17:10:10 +0000

Several of these photos have appeared on my blog before in various posts, I´ve now put a collection of them into a gallery where they can all be viewed together. All the images were shot on a recent trip to Northern India. Enjoy.

June 2010 wallpaper

Tom Bourdon — Sat, 29 May 2010 08:10:49 +0000

Well summer has officially arrived, at least in this part of the world, which means 2 things, firstly long hot sunny days and secondly the summer fiestas which occur every almost every day in some part of Spain.

So Wallpaper time, yep its another shot of those magic fountains.

How do you put this image on your desktop ??

Click the link below that matches your screen resolution then right click the image and click ‘Set as desktop background’ or ‘Use Image as Desktop Picture” on the Mac. If you want different sizes just let me know and I´ll be happy to sort it out.

800×600 | 1024×768 | 1440×900 | 1280×853 | 1280×1024 | 1440×900 | 1600×1200 | 2560×1600