About the photographer, Lois Wakeman
On this page, I tell you a little about myself, then go on to explain what equipment and software I use, what informal photographic education I have had.
As you will know if you have read my article a sense of place, I live and work in Uplyme, which is a small rural village just over the Devon / Dorset border from the seaside resort of Lyme Regis, in southwest England.
You may appreciate that it's not easy making a living in this largely agricultural and tourist-based economy. I am extremely fortunate in having a job that allows me to live here, and work for clients in other parts of the world. Most of my work is technical writing, but I also do web design and consultancy. In my precious free time, I take photographs, and also make ceramics with a group of friends. These two activities allow me to exercise my creative urges in a more immediate way than my written work, which provides the intellectual stimulation that I also like.
My photographic toolkit
I have had cameras for many years: my battered Nikon FE that took many landscapes in my early married life; a point-and-shoot compact camera that served well when the children were small to capture domestic disasters and delights, and in early 2000, I 'went digital'.
I started with a Nikon CoolPix 950, which did very well for two years while I learned the possibilities and constraints of digital film, and in late 2002, I treated myself to a CoolPix 5700, which I am still using happily as an everyday camera alongside a recently-acquired Nikon D70. I know people are often sniffy about digital cameras (as I discuss in this article), but I have found owning one to be immensely liberating. Instead of saving films for special occasions, I can take the camera with me whenever I am out, just in case. And sometimes it's the chance view that makes a photo, rather than the planned expedition.
I have a Canon s900 photo printer, which gives excellent results in low volumes for colour prints, but I am investigating online print fulfilment services too.
As for software, I am not a great fan of heavy manipulation (more of which elsewhere), but my essential tools are Paintshop Pro and Qimage. The former is used for minor adjustments to images from the camera, and occasionally cropping - although I like to present my images full-frame whenever possible. The latter is what I use for sizing and printing my images. I also have a couple of programs that will stitch two or more photos together seamlessly to give a very wide angle view, which I use very occasionally.
Wot, no PhotoShop? I bought a second-hand copy of version 6 of this industry-standard program, with every intention of using the extra features not available in Paintshop. As of now, I haven't actually needed any of them, and it is languishing almost unused. One day...
Photographic education
I am entirely self-taught. I was thinking of studying for a City & Guilds certificate, but having spoken to someone who was put off the craft by the tutor's extremely prescriptive view of 'the good photograph', I have decided to leave well alone. That way, I get to keep my own eye without being bullied into adopting someone else's, and any mistakes I make are my own fault.
Where did I learn what I do know? Mostly by taking photos and thinking about what worked and what didn't. I first learnt the basics of camera controls and their effect on the results: aperture, shutter speed, focus, depth of field, focal length, filters and so on. (In fact, my husband Pete taught me most of this when we first got together.) Armed with that, I could concentrate on form and composition (practising myself, and studying the works of others).
I have taken time to find out about the principles of composition (you know, the Golden Mean, triangles and curves, balance and tension etc.), but I don't consciously apply them when I frame a photo. And anyway, part of the trick is in sensing when breaking the rules makes a better image.
It may sound philistine, but my abiding interest is in the end result rather than the process, so though I do know a bit about darkroom techniques, I have not chosen to study them in any detail.