Jon Silver - photographer, Brighton, Sussex - wedding, boudoir, portrait & portfolio photography » Sussex photographer

Sports & fitness photography

Jon Silver — Sun, 15 May 2011 06:51:24 +0000

I regard the subject of portraiture as one of the broadest areas of photography – and none more so than business portraits. So when Aslan Steel came to me wanting new photographs for his personal trainer web site, it was just another shoot. We took our time and as usual I tried to get my subject feeling comfortable and confident in front of the camera, whilst working out the best lighting, angles, poses and settings to use in order to get the very best results. Some of the poses were strenuous, but Aslan was delighted with the results & ended up recommending me to his friend Jermayne who is also a personal trainer. Jermayne loves his shots too. I’ve shown a few photos from each shoot here. If you’re interested in some sports & fitness photos for yourself, get in touch.

Please Support ileavemymark

Jon Silver — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 13:26:16 +0000

I’ve been involved with many charities over the years but when Debbie Brown of Brighton’s I Leave My Mark came to tell me about her project, her mission had a special resonance for me. Aiming to help bereaved & traumatised children, ILMM is especially poignant for anyone with children, and anyone in the middle of their life pondering their legacy and wondering how they can help make a real difference. And I’m willing to bet it’s the first charity based at a beach hut in Brighton & Hove!

I’ve done the initial photography with Debbie at Beach Hut 44 down on Hove seafront, and shall be there on promenade on Boxing day with my children (and camera) for the first I Leave My Mark event.

Please support I Leave My Mark – visit www.ileavemymark.co.uk

See the I Leave My Mark official photo gallery.

Food Photography for the Real World

Jon Silver — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:57:24 +0000

Food photographers sweat for hours under hot studio lights as they create the perfect food image. Unfortunately so does the food. They often have specialist food makeup artists to paint food with dyes & glycerine to keep it looking fresh and bright looking. But not this food photographer.

Food photography doesn’t have to be done in a studio. If you’re a real foodie, don’t you get an instant rush of excitement when you see really good food presented to you freshly prepared and looking its best, the delicious aromas and bright colours adding an anticipation of the flavours & textures to come? So use a photographer who’s a foodie too, who’ll use all that emotion to produce the very best food photos without all the faff.

My way of doing food photography is ideally suited to any restaurant, hotel, pub or catering company wanting to represent their great food as it should be – live, natural, and not interfered with in any way. Freed from the studio, suddenly location backdrops become a possibility – food in its natural surroundings, such as your exquisitely decorated premises, or even outdoors. I learned to photograph food this way as a Sussex wedding photographer and have since applied my craft to food from all sorts of catering.

Give me a try – it’s likely to cost a lot a lot less than the studio way.

Just Look Up

Jon Silver — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 10:12:04 +0000

It’s astounding just how much goes unseen. As Derren Brown has demonstrated in highly entertaining ways on television, people don’t really look at what’s in front of them. This is especially true of things above us. This photo (click on it to view it larger), for example, was taken while I was out photographing Shoreham Harbour one morning late last year when the sunrise light was beautiful, the sky was perfect, and the air quality gave everything a crispness that was breathtaking. At the end of my shoot, I decided to visit the Shoreham Lighthouse that I’d seen over and over again as a child. When I looked up at it, I saw things I’d never seen before, despite the fact that my eyes had undoubtedly received light reflected from their surfaces at numerous past times. The little “Brighton dolphins” (which always look more like gurnards) and the scallop shells came as a huge surprise. So, wanting to show everyone, I zoomed in and snapped this one. I hope you enjoy seeing architectural detail that’s been seen by few people, and that you also feel inspired to look upwards when your eyes might otherwise miss what’s above your head.

Photographic Tuition & Photography Courses, Brighton/Sussex

Jon Silver — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 10:05:03 +0000

If you want to brush up your knowledge or skills, I may be able to help. People always reckoned I’d make a good teacher all the time I was growing up, so I started to teach people things quite early on. Nothing I ever do is complete without me doing a lot of thinking about why I do what I do, and what it all means to people. As a result, the underlying philosophy and psychology is always a big part of what I teach, along with my passion for the subject, as well as the technical skills.

Photography is no exception. I’ve been teaching photography to people from the Brighton area for a few years now. They come along with whatever level of knowledge, explain to me where they feel they fall short of their idea, and I’ll help them get to where they want to be. It might be a professional photographer who’s great at architectural and landscape photography, but who wants to move into studio portraiture or fashion and has no idea about studio flash lighting. Or it might be a complete amateur who got a digital SLR camera for Christmas and wants to learn all about this aperture and depth of field thing in order to take better wildlife photos.

One of the most interesting aspects of photography is composition. It’s the artistic side of photography. It’s important because the composition we use at the moment we take a photo dictates the shape and form of the image for ever. But is it important in commercial photography..? Or wedding photography..?

Since we make photographs first in our heads by evaluating a scene, before we ever press the shutter release button, how we see the world is of the utmost importance. You may think you know how to spot something beautiful and take a photograph of it… but what if you’ve been asked to photograph something of whose aesthetic qualities you’re distinctly unsure? In the commercial world, can you afford to refuse a commission? Should you not be able to see beauty wherever you look? It’s even worse if you’re a wedding photographer and the bride of the day happens to fall outside your particular criteria of beauty!

Fortunately I can help to improve your composition. It’s not a magic formula, of course. I can’t just wave a magic wand and make you better at composition. The improvement comes from within you, but it’s magic to see the results, and they come quite quickly.

So… whatever bit of photography you want to learn, perhaps a few hours spent with me can help. I teach in the studio, at home, or out and about in the great outdoors. So wherever you live in Sussex (or indeed Kent, Surrey or Hampshire), look me up and give me a call.

All the details here: Photographic tuition and Photography Courses in Brighton & Sussex

Jon Silver is an art, portrait & wedding photographer based in Brighton, Sussex

Digital Camera Sensor Cleaning

Jon Silver — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 13:19:31 +0000

Everyone who uses a DSLR (Digital SLR) camera has sensor cleaning issues; some more than others, depending on the camera you use. OK so this is a much-covered topic on the internet, but it needs to be covered locally as well given the third-party solutions available.

For the majority of my work as a photographer in Brighton & Sussex I use a Canon EOS 5D DSLR camera which suffers awfully from dust. At weddings it is carried around on a massive Canon L series 28-300mm zoom lens with a slide/push-pull zoom which sucks huge volumes of unfiltered air through my precious camera body. You can imagine what effect this has on the sensor. I therefore have sensor dust issues much of the time.

Swabs – I tried those swabs several times. I didn’t find them terribly effective, and it’s easy to make the problem worse, even leaving bits of stray lint snagged on sharp edges. Also easy to get the cleaning fluid into nooks and crannies where it shouldn’t go, possibly even behind the sensor filter (bad).
Rocket blowers – effective if the problem hasn’t got too bad. Pump the blower a few times away from the camera first to get rid of any dust that might have got sucked in last time.
Camera sensor cleaning companies/service centres: I’ve tried two of them – Camserve in Herstmonceux, East Sussex (fairly local to me); and Fixation in Kennington, London. Camserve took three of my camera bodies, two 20D and one 5D. They carried out the cleaning same day (total cost £105 plus my transport), but when I got the cameras back there was very little difference and I had to call them to say they hadn’t done a very good job and asked for a refund, which they promptly gave. Next I sent a single 5D (the worst of the lot) to Fixation, and they returned it to me within 5 days almost spotlessly clean. Total cost £80 including return postage. So, although Fixation is definitely more expensive, it’s the only company that’ll be getting my business in future.

Hopefully this will be useful for someone. Let me know how you tackle the problems of dust.