WeX Manchester, Portraits and a Long Overdue Catch Up

Last week took me up to Manchester for the next leg of the Wex Summer Roadshow, and what a great couple of days it turned out to be.

I travelled up the day before so I could arrive fresh rather than rolling in as the shutters were going up, which is always the better way to do it when the store is a few hours away.

Good company for the journey too, but more on that shortly.

Manchester is a great store as well. There's a lot going on in there, plenty of space, and a real buzz about the place from the moment the doors opened.

The team at Wex Manchester

I have to give a mention to Guy, the store manager, who was just so incredibly welcoming from the off. The whole team were brilliant, friendly and dynamic and genuinely engaging with everybody who came through the door.

Photo by Ben Kapur

It's one of those things you notice when you visit a lot of different places. You can always see how the person leading a team influences the team itself, and Manchester is a really good example of that. Great atmosphere, great people.

Portraits on the shopfloor

As with the other roadshow dates, I spent the day on the shopfloor doing what I always do, which is classic portraits with minimal kit. Nothing that needs a studio or half a van to transport.

Here's what I took along this time:

• the Westcott X-Drop Pro background system

• my vintage grey backdrop

• the Westcott FJ400 II

• the Westcott X-T1M multi-brand remote trigger

• my Fuji

That vintage grey backdrop gets a lot of attention wherever I take it, and Manchester was no different. Loads of people came over to ask about it, which is always great to see, because it's such a big part of the look and yet it's the least technical thing in the bag.

What struck me at Manchester was how many people came over specifically to ask how I do the portraits. Not just what I use, but how it all fits together and why it looks the way it does. So we shot quite a few portraits across the day, and I'm really grateful to everyone who was kind enough to stand or sit in front of my camera for me.

I even edited a handful of them and emailed them across afterwards, which is always a nice way to round things off. There's something about handing somebody a finished portrait rather than just a snap on the back of a screen.

TTL to manual, and why I keep banging on about it

The thing that got the biggest reaction, as it has done at every stop, is the TTL to manual function on the X-T1M trigger.

It works like this. You take one shot in TTL and let the camera and flash sort the exposure out between them. With the Fuji, if you've got face detection and eye focus switched on, that's largely where it's metering from, so it's exposing for the skin, which is exactly what you want for a portrait. Have a quick look, make any small adjustment you fancy, then hold down the group A button on the trigger. It flips over into manual and remembers the power it was using in TTL.

That's it. One shot to get you there, and from that point on every frame is the same consistent exposure, shot after shot. No light meter, no guessing and chimping your way towards it.

For anyone who's been put off by the idea of manual flash, it's a lovely way in; you get the consistency of manual without having to do the maths first. It was great fun showing people how it worked and watching the penny drop.

Filming it all

I travelled up with Ben Kapur, who lives locally to me and is filming the majority of the roadshow dates and producing the content.

Ben's an incredible videographer. He shoots for some seriously high end clients, and the speed he turns work around at is something else. He's also a photographer, but it's the video work that really makes you sit up.

One evening he sat me down and showed me how he works in DaVinci Resolve, and I think that's now going to be my video editor of choice. The speed of it and the functionality on offer were enough to convince me on the spot.

An overdue catch up

The other highlight was getting to meet up with my great friend Dave Jagger, who I've known for a good number of years now through photography.

We got to spend some proper quality time together during the day and then headed out in the evening as well. It was very much overdue, and it was lovely to just sit and catch up properly rather than the usual quick hello at a trade show. Those days are worth the drive on their own.

Then it was the drive back home the following day, tired but with that good kind of tired you get after a day where everything just worked.

Where I'll be next

The roadshow rolls on, and here's where I'll be for the remaining dates:

• Milton Keynes, 14th August

• Nottingham, 15th August

• Norwich, 21st August

• Belfast, 3rd September

• Glasgow, 11th and 12th September

Photo by Ben Kapur

If you're anywhere near one of those, do come along and say hello. Entry is free, and you'll find me on the shopfloor throughout the day with the backdrop up and the light on, so there's no need to book anything or wait for a set time slot. Just wander over.

And if you fancy being in front of the camera, bring it on!

Here’s the ( LINK )

Hopefully see you there,
Glyn

TTL Flash: What It Is, How It Works, and How I Use It

TTL has a bit of a reputation. People find it unpredictable, they get one shot that looks perfect and the next one that looks nothing like it, and they quietly go back to manual and never touch it again.

I understand why, but it's worth persevering, because TTL is not actually unpredictable. It's very consistent at doing the one thing it was built to do. The trick is understanding what that one thing is, and knowing when it's the wrong thing so you can step in. Once you have that, TTL stops being a mystery and becomes a genuinely useful tool.

So here is the whole thing in plain language.

What TTL is

TTL stands for Through The Lens; it's an automatic mode for your flash.

Instead of you deciding how much power the flash puts out, the camera and flash work it out for you, aiming to give your subject a sensible exposure.

The single most important thing to understand from the start is this … TTL is a flash mode, not a camera mode. It decides flash power; it does not decide your shutter speed, your aperture or your ISO. Those are still yours. Hold onto that, because it answers most of the questions people have about what overrides what.

How it works on a digital camera

On a digital camera, TTL works using a pre-flash.

When you press the shutter, the flash fires a quick, low burst of light a fraction of a second before the picture is actually taken. That burst bounces off your subject, comes back through the lens, and lands on the camera's metering sensor. The camera reads how much light came back, works out how much the real flash needs to put out, then fires the main flash at that power as the shutter opens. All of it happens in a few thousandths of a second, so in normal use you never see the pre-flash as a separate pop.

It works this way for a reason. On film, the camera could read the light reflecting off the film surface during the actual exposure and cut the flash the moment it had enough. A digital sensor is not reflective enough to be read like that, so the pre-flash method replaced it. Every current system does this, whether it's Canon, Nikon, Sony or Fujifilm. They all fire a pre-flash to measure before the shot rather than during it.

What the metering actually is

This is the part that explains nearly every frustration people have with TTL.

TTL metering is reflective metering. It measures light bouncing back off your subject, and it has no idea what it's looking at. It cannot tell a white wedding dress from a black dinner jacket. All it knows is how much light came back, and its goal is always the same. It wants to render whatever it measured as a mid-tone, a medium grey.

That works beautifully when your subject is roughly average in tone; it falls apart when it's not. Point it at something white and bright and it assumes plenty of light is coming back, so it holds the power down and the white comes out grey and underexposed. Point it at something dark and it assumes too little is coming back, so it pushes the power up and the dark comes out washed and overexposed.

So TTL is not unreliable; it's reliably aiming for grey. The skill is knowing when grey is the wrong target and telling it so, which you do with Flash Exposure Compensation. FEC adjusts only the flash output and leaves your ambient exposure alone. White subject looking muddy, dial in some positive FEC; dark subject blowing out, dial in some negative. In real use it tends to live somewhere between minus two and plus two stops depending on the subject and the scene. There is no single setting that works every time, because there are too many variables. It's an educated adjustment, and the back of the screen tells you when you have it right.

Do your other camera settings override TTL?

They do not override it, but they absolutely shape what it does, and this is the mental model worth having.

Your aperture and ISO set the box TTL has to work inside. Open the aperture or raise the ISO and TTL simply needs less power to get there. Stop down or drop the ISO and it needs more. TTL adapts to your settings, it does not fight them. You can back it into a corner though. Shoot at a very narrow aperture and very low ISO and the flash may need more power than it physically has, so you get underexposure even at full output. When that happens the answer is not more compensation, it's changing your aperture or ISO to bring the flash back into range.

Shutter speed is the odd one out, because within your sync speed it does not change the flash exposure at all. It changes how much of the existing room light or daylight you let in around the flash. That is why I think of shutter speed as the ambient dial and flash power as the subject dial. They are largely independent, and that independence is what makes flash so controllable once it clicks.

If your camera is in manual, does that override TTL?

No, and this catches a lot of people out.

Your camera's exposure mode, whether that is Manual, Aperture Priority or Program, and your flash's metering mode, TTL or manual, are two separate systems. You can have the camera in full manual and the flash still in TTL, and the flash will happily keep metering with its pre-flash and adjusting its own power shot to shot.

That combination is actually one of the most useful ways to work. Camera in manual gives you a fixed, deliberate ambient exposure that will not drift between frames. Flash in TTL then tops up the subject automatically as you move around. Change your shutter speed and the background gets brighter or darker while the subject stays put. Change your aperture and TTL quietly compensates to keep the subject exposed. You get consistency in the ambient and convenience in the flash at the same time.

The trap is the opposite setup, camera in Program or Aperture Priority with TTL as your main light. There the camera keeps shifting your shutter speed between frames, your ambient drifts, and nothing feels consistent. If you want predictability, put the camera in manual and let TTL handle only the flash.

How I actually use TTL, and why I don't carry a light meter

Here is the bit that ties all of this together into something practical, because it's exactly how I work.

I shoot the Westcott FJ system, and my trigger is a universal, multi-brand unit, so the same trigger sits on top of whatever camera I am using rather than being locked to one brand. That is handy in itself, but the feature I lean on most is the TTL to Manual carry-over.

In TTL the flash recalculates its power for every single frame. Convenient, but it means the power can wobble slightly from shot to shot as the metering reacts to tiny changes in the scene. For portraits I am going to retouch as a series, I do not want that; I want every frame identical.

So my routine is simple. I set the flash to TTL and take a shot to get a good base exposure in seconds. Then I hit the TTL to manual function, which carries that exact TTL power output straight over into manual. From there the power is locked. If I want it a touch brighter or darker I nudge it from that known starting point, and once I am happy every single frame fires at precisely the same output. Nothing drifts.

That is the reason I do not carry a handheld light meter. TTL gets me to the right ballpark faster than metering ever would, the carry-over locks it in, and my own eyes on the back of the screen do the fine tuning. For the way I shoot, a meter would just be an extra thing to hold.

Worth knowing if you are not on Westcott, this is not a Westcott-only idea. Some other brands have their own equivalent technology, so whatever system you are on, it's worth checking whether you already have this feature sitting there unused. It's one of those things that quietly changes how you work once you start using it.

A word on Fuji face and eye detection

I shoot Fuji, and a question I get asked a lot is whether having face and eye detection switched on matters when you are using flash. It does, and in a good way.

Start with the obvious. Face and eye detection's main job is autofocus, and that alone is reason to leave it on. Eye detection is really just face detection refined to lock onto the eye, which is exactly where you want critical focus on a portrait.

Here is the part people miss. On Fuji, TTL meters the flash essentially the same way the camera meters ambient light. And when face detection is active, the camera biases that metering towards the detected face, to the point where it takes over from whatever metering mode you had selected. Put those two facts together and you get something genuinely useful. With a face detected, your TTL flash exposure is weighted towards exposing that face correctly, rather than being thrown off by a very bright or very dark background behind it.

In practice that means better, more consistent skin exposure straight out of camera when you are working quickly in TTL. It's not a pure spot reading off the face, it's more of a blend under the bonnet, and Fuji do not spell out the exact recipe, but the result is reliable and it works in your favour for portraits.

Two things to keep in mind. First, because face detection takes over your metering, do not rely on the Fuji spot meter for an ambient reading while it's active, because a detected face will quietly override it. If you want a spot reading off a specific tone, take it with detection off, then switch detection back on for the shoot. Second, none of this applies once your flash is in manual power. If you have locked your power in manual, including straight after the TTL to manual carry-over above, the flash fires at the set power regardless, and detection is back to doing nothing but focus. Which, for a controlled portrait, is exactly what you want anyway.

wrapping up

TTL is an automatic flash mode that sets flash power and nothing else. On digital it uses a pre-flash to measure light bounced back through the lens, then fires the main flash to match. It always aims to make what it measured a mid grey, so it gets fooled by very light or very dark subjects, and FEC is how you correct that. Your aperture and ISO define the box it works inside, shutter speed handles your ambient, and TTL adapts rather than getting overridden. Putting your camera in manual does not switch TTL off, and camera manual paired with flash TTL is a strong, consistent way to work. And if your kit has a TTL to manual carry-over, use it, because it gives you the speed of TTL and the consistency of manual in one move.

Get those few ideas straight and TTL stops being the thing you avoid and becomes another tool you can reach for when it suits the shot.

Minimal Kit, Timeless Portraits with WeX in Bristol and Birmingham

The last few days have been brilliant.

Last Thursday, the 23rd July, I was over in Bristol for the next leg of the Wex Summer Road Show, and then on the Friday and Saturday, the 24th and 25th July, I was up at the Wex store in Birmingham.

The idea behind these days is simple. I'm there on the shop floor, all day, showing people how I take classic, timeless portraits using minimal kit in a limited space, and when I say limited space, I really do mean it. Being on the shop floor, that's genuinely all the room I've got, which is exactly what makes it so authentic. There's no hiding behind a studio setup. It's just me, a small bit of kit, and whatever space I can carve out.

The kit I've been using is the same as I've had for a while now:

• X-Drop Pro Background

• My signature vintage grey backdrop

• One light … either the FJ250 or the FJ400 from Westcott

• White / Silver Reflector

• My Fuji X-T5

• Medium RapidBox Switch Octa from Westcott (36”)

That's it.

That's the whole point.

Showing people that you don't need a room full of gear to take a portrait you'll be proud of.

It's been a fantastic few days. I took some great portraits of friends along the way, and on the Thursday over at Bristol I grabbed Andre from Lumix for a slightly different kind of portrait, again using just that one light.

The Friday at Birmingham was really busy, and it turned into a day of constant repeat mini workshops, which I absolutely loved. Taking people through the process from scratch is my favourite part. So many of the attendees had never used flash, so being able to simplify it right down so it just clicks for them is such a good feeling. You can actually see the light bulb go on in their eyes when they get it.

One moment that stuck with me was chatting to a couple of gentlemen and walking them through it all. One of them handed me his camera, a Canon 200D with a kit lens on it.

Because the Westcott X-T1 M is a multi-brand trigger, I could switch it over from Fuji to Canon, pop it straight onto his camera, and take a portrait of his friend using that same single light. I edited the shots afterwards and sent them over, and they were over the moon with them. That's the bit that makes these days worth it.

The team at Wex

I also have to give a special mention to the staff, and in particular the team at Wex in Birmingham. They were so welcoming, so friendly and genuinely caring, and it made the whole couple of days an absolute pleasure.

Adele, the store manager is a sweetheart. She was incredibly attentive, constantly making sure everything was running smoothly. She even went so far as to sort out a salad for me on the second day, having picked up that I'm quite particular about the food I eat. That kind of thoughtfulness is just brilliant, and it doesn't go unnoticed.

Rees too, who I believe looks after sales for Wex across the south of the UK, was super friendly and attentive throughout … a lovely guy! Honestly, I couldn't have wished for more.

The TTL question

One thing that's come up again and again on this road show is how surprised people are that I'm using TTL with the flash.

Here's how it works. My camera stays in manual, so I can set the scene and get rid of any unnecessary ambient light, which really matters in the stores with all the mixed lighting going on, but the flash itself is on TTL.

TTL does all the hard work of calculating how much flash power you need. I take a shot, the TTL tells me what it thinks it needs, and I make an adjustment from there.

Then comes the really clever part.

Using the Westcott trigger, I use the TTL to Manual function and the trigger shows me exactly what the power output is. Once that's locked in, I can carry on shooting and get the exact same flash power shot after shot after shot. It's such a great way to work and removes any need for a flashmeter.

This coming week I'm in Manchester, and I might even dive a little deeper into that TTL to manual setting, because it's genuinely useful.

I'm loving this road show.

Loving meeting the people, and loving seeing folks get excited about something creative in their lives.

Bring it on.

Here’s a ( LINK ) to the remaining road show dates and locations … it would be awesome to see you there!

World War 2 Veteran Philip Truelove receives his Portrait

Just had to share this …

The reaction from World War 2 Veteran Philip Truelove, along with his son and daughter, when I returned and delivered his portrait, captured for the 39-45 Portraits Project.

THIS is why I do what I do! ❤️

Philip Truelove

215 Platoon
No. 10 Bomb Disposal Company
Royal Engineers

I Am Lyme: Nicola of Kathrens Rare Knitwear, Lyme Regis

Last week I was out shooting another portrait for my I Am Lyme project, this time with the wonderful Nicola Kathren, who owns Kathrens Rare Knitwear on Coombe Street in Lyme Regis.

I'd known of Nicola for ages but we'd never actually met, until Sarah from the Town Mill Bakery introduced us a week or so ago while I was there grabbing some breakfast. We hit it off straight away, got a shoot organised, and on the day my mate Anthony Crothers drove over from South Wales to lend a hand.

The idea

Nicola has this big desk where she sits with her sewing machine and all her day-to-day bits around her, so it made sense to photograph her right there seeing as I Am Lyme is about the people who make this town what it is; an environmental portrait of her in her own space, doing what she does, felt exactly right.

The setup

Nicola’s desk sits right by the shop's big front window, which looks straight out onto the narrow road outside. When the light comes through that window it's fantastic, but at the time we were shooting there just wasn't enough of it. It's a narrow street with tall buildings opposite, so they block a fair bit of the natural light, and at midday the position of the sun meant the shop front was sitting in shadow for much of the time.

The first challenge was actually the window display; we had to carefully reposition the mannequins so as not to disturb it, while still leaving enough of a gap for the light to come through.

Keeping things simple, I went with one light, but this time I put it outside, pressed against the window, essentially to create my own window light. The direction of that natural window light and what it did was absolutely stunning; I just needed more of it.

So I set up the Westcott Rapid Box 4x3 softbox and the Westcott FJ800 on the pavement, firing in, to enhance the direction that was already there rather than fight it, so it still read as natural, even though it was being lit.

Nicola's camera-right side needed a little lift, so Anthony stood just out of frame holding up a white reflector to bounce a touch more of that softbox light back onto her. I tried the silver side first, but it was too much … it flattened everything out and almost removed the shadows completely. The white gave just the gentle lift I was after.

The shoot

It only took a few minutes to get everything up and running, so Nicola sat at her sewing machine and we just chatted. It felt like a conversation with the odd frame grabbed along the way, rather than a "shoot."

Then, in a lull, she rested her head against her hand and looked completely relaxed. That was the moment, and it came about naturally rather than being posed.

I was aiming the camera at Nicola through a gap in the big overhanging fern because I really wanted to add some layers to the image and show exactly the creative environment she works in.

Shot on the 33mm on my Fuji X-T5 (50mm equivalent), on a tripod, tethered into Capture One Mobile so I could see everything coming through as we went. Start to finish, about 45 minutes.

A brilliant shoot with a wonderful person.

What's next?

Keep ‘em peeld because very soon the I Am Lyme website will GO LIVE with the dates organised for the exhibiton in Summer 2027, to be held in the Town Mill Gallery.

Onwards and upwards 😃

🚨 Check out Kathrens Rare Knitwear, Lyme Regis ( LINK )

No Studio, No Problem: Teaching Portraiture at the Wex Summer Roadshow

Over the last few days, I've had the absolute pleasure of being out on the road with Wex for their summer roadshow, and what a brilliant experience its been. Thursday saw me arrive in Leeds, and Friday was the day it all came together at the Wex store, and I have to say, it was a fantastic from start to finish.

The team at the Leeds store, led by manager Levy, made me feel incredibly welcome, as did every member of staff, and what struck me most was the constant flow of people coming through - getting hands on with new kit, attending free seminars, and crucially, wanting to see how I work in practice. That's where the "no studio, no problem" practical demonstrations came in.

The concept is simple but powerful: I wanted to show people how I create portraits using minimal kit in tight, compact spaces. Rather than being locked away in a studio, I was demonstrating this right there on the shop floor, so people could watch the process unfold, step in front of the camera themselves, and see the results happen in real time.

The Setup

I kept my kit intentionally lean. I brought my X-drop pro background support and Vintage Gray backdrop, and for lighting, I was using the Westcott FJ250.

My camera was the Fuji X-T5 paired with the Westcott XT-1M remote trigger, and I was shooting in manual mode to set my scene, then letting the flash work in TTL - and honestly, it's a dream combination for portraiture like this.

The Moments That Mattered

One thing that really stood out was a fella who couldn't quite believe how quickly the whole thing came together. I showed him how I position the lighting to achieve the kind of Rembrandt lighting I'm after, and from start to finish, we were ready to shoot in about sixty seconds. He was genuinely shocked at how simple and efficient it could be.

People were really impressed too seeing my Fuji X-T5 tethered to my iPad Pro via Capture One Mobile. Nearly everyone who watched the workflow commented on how instantaneously the Raw files appeared on screen after I'd taken the shot. That instant feedback - being able to review a Raw file moments after capture, really drove home how modern tools can streamline the entire process.

I also had the privilege of getting Joe Cornish, a renowned landscape photographer here in the UK and one of the other speakers at the event, in front of the camera for a portrait. He's got such a distinctive face for portraiture … I couldn’t resist convincing him 😃

What the Community Showed Me

What genuinely touched me was how many people came along specifically to meet me. That means more than I can express. The local photography community turned out in force too, and there was this palpable sense of genuine excitement about photography and a real hunger to learn. Questions kept coming back to TTL and how to use flash effectively, and I was delighted to show people just how powerful and reliable that technique can be when you understand it.

In Closing

It’s so good seeing people's faces light up when they understood something new, watching them realise that you don't need a fancy studio to create beautiful portraits, and knowing that I'd been able to share something that genuinely mattered to them.

That, for me, is what it's all about.

Photographing World War 2 Veteran Philip Truelove - Bomb Disposal

Last week I drove to Bath, Somerset to meet and photograph Philip Truelove, a Second World War veteran who served in 215 Platoon, No. 10 Bomb Disposal Company, Royal Engineers.

I'd been contacted by his son Jez, a keen photographer himself, after he received the Fotospeed newsletter announcing my new partnership as one of their Ambassadors. He clicked through to my website, saw mention of the 39-45 Portraits Project, and got in touch. We exchanged a few emails and agreed a date for me to visit Philip at his home and take his portrait.

I'd been looking forward to this for weeks. I'm no longer actively touring the UK photographing WW2 veterans, but if I'm contacted about doing so, I'll always make the effort to get it done. Meeting Philip today was such a treat.

A warm welcome

As planned, I arrived at midday and left my kit in the car for now. Jez met me at the door.

"My dad is very excited about this," he said, and then led me into the living room, where I was greeted with a beaming smile and Philip making the effort to get up from his chair to greet me.

"Well, hello Sir" was all that was needed, and away we went. The conversation flowed easily as Philip recounted stories of joining up and memories of friends, and at times he became a little teary.

I asked him what made him want to join Bomb Disposal.

"I didn't want to have to kill anyone," he told me.

At one point he spoke about a time he was guiding a group of German soldiers who had surrendered, moving them to a new location. Philip was clearing the way ahead, making sure it was safe, when one of the soldiers stepped over the white safety line he'd put in place to go to the toilet in a bush. Moments later there was an explosion. The soldier had stepped on a mine.

"That was my saddest day of the whole war," Philip said.

Taking the portrait

We chatted over a cup of tea, and then, with Jez's help, I brought my kit in from the car and set up. Philip was a natural in front of the camera and clearly enjoyed the experience.

Space in the room was very tight, so tight that I couldn't use a tripod as I normally would. Instead I had to lean back against the patio doors and hold the camera about six inches from my chin, just to maintain eye contact with him through the lens.

By 1.02pm I was packed up and heading out the door. It wasn't a long visit, but it was more than enough quality time together. It was also a very hot day, and I was mindful that Philip was wearing his suit jacket and medals for the occasion. Despite my concerns, he was determined we should do this today, and I'm so glad we did.

KIT USED

• Fuji X-T5

• Fuji 33mm f/1.4 WR

• Westcott FJ400 Strobe

• Westcott 4’ x 3’ Rapid Box Switch Softbox

• Westcott X-Drop Pro Background Support

• Westcott Vintage Grey by Glyn Dewis (Background Material)

• Westcott Silver / White Collapsible Reflector

🚨 Check out my full Kit List ( CLICK HERE )

What comes next

I'll be heading back in just under two weeks to hand deliver Philip's portrait, mounted and presented thanks to my friend Trevor at West Street Picture Framing in Axminster. First, though, I'll be editing the portrait later today.

Philip turns 100 years old on the 21st December this year, and in a couple of weeks the street he lives on will be holding a party to celebrate his birthday early. That alone tells you the kind of man he is, when an entire street wants to celebrate his birthday.

I can't wait to head back and see him again. In the meantime, I'll be reading his self-published book, The Chronicles of a Sapper, which recounts his memories from when he joined up in January 1945.

The Secret to Better Portraits (It’s Not Your Camera)

I've spent a fair bit of money over the years on lighting, cameras, and lenses. They're nice to have, don't get me wrong, but none of it means anything if the person in front of your camera isn't comfortable.

I learned this properly a few years ago, and it changed the way I work.

If someone isn't comfortable with you, it shows in the pictures straight away. They go stiff, they look posed, and no amount of expensive lighting or technical wizardry fixes that. Comfort comes first. The camera comes second. Always.

Here are seven things I've picked up through trial and error that genuinely improve your portraits. No complicated techniques, no expensive gear, just things that make a real difference.

1. Give yourself time before picking up the camera

I never go straight in with the camera. Before I even think about lighting or where someone's going to sit or stand, I spend time with them first, just talking. Sometimes that's ten or fifteen minutes, sometimes longer. Sometimes I'll meet someone for a coffee beforehand purely to get to know them.

This really clicked for me during my 39-45 Portraits Project. I was photographing people who'd lived through the most extraordinary times, and honestly, I just wanted to hear their stories. I'd talk with them for a good while before picking up the camera. There was no grand plan behind it, I was just genuinely interested. But when I looked back at the pictures afterwards, I noticed something: the more time I'd spent talking with someone, the better their portrait turned out. They actually looked like themselves, not a posed version. A great portrait starts with a real conversation, not with the camera.

2. Ask people about themselves

If you're meeting someone for the first time and you're not quite sure what to say, here's something that works well: ask them about their world. Their work, their family, their hobbies, what they get up to at weekends. People generally love talking about themselves, and when you're genuinely curious, the conversation just flows.

I've got a bit of a fascination with TV programmes about surgery. In a recent episode of Surgeons at the Edge of Life, I noticed something interesting. Just before a patient goes under anaesthetic, the anaesthetist doesn't start talking about the operation. They ask about the patient's family, their holidays, their life, and the patient drifts off completely calm. People feel far more at ease talking about themselves than almost anything else.

There's a little phrase I keep coming back to: MMFI, "Make Me Feel Important." It's not manipulative. It's just a reminder that people relax when someone shows a genuine interest in them.

3. Keep talking while you're actually shooting

This might sound a bit odd at first, but I never have a moment where everything goes quiet and still just before I take the portrait. There's no "ready" moment. That approach has never worked for me. The conversation just keeps going right through the shoot, even once the lighting's sorted and I'm ready to take the shot.

I did a shoot recently with Harry Anderson, a potter here in Lyme Regis. Instead of posing him for the camera, I simply asked him to carry on with what he was already doing, smoothing down a piece of pottery. I let him keep going, and every now and again I asked him to turn his gaze towards the camera, but we were chatting the whole time. That's when the best pictures happen. Not when everything's gone still and formal, but when someone's genuinely being themselves.

4. Try not to overdirect

Something I've noticed time and time again: the more you tell someone exactly what to do, the more uncomfortable they become. The moment you say "stand like this," "put your hands here," or the funniest of all, "look relaxed," someone who isn't used to being photographed will tense up almost immediately. You can watch it happen.

You might spend twenty minutes building up real comfort and ease, and one single instruction like that can undo the whole lot. Keep your directions to an absolute minimum and keep the conversation running instead. Let people find their own natural position and expression in their own time.

5. Be willing to adapt

I remember photographing a veteran who, day to day, always wore a shirt and a dicky bow. That was just how he dressed, that was him. When I turned up, sure enough, that's exactly what he had on. He mentioned to me almost in passing, "Do you want me to put my jacket and medals on?" But I could hear it in the way he said it, he didn't really want to. That wasn't him day to day. So I said, "No, we'll just photograph you as you are." And the pictures were so much better for it.

If I'd asked him to change into something that wasn't really him, he wouldn't have looked anywhere near as comfortable. Learn to properly listen and photograph people as they actually present themselves, not how you think a portrait of them is supposed to look. Read what the person in front of you actually needs, not what you'd planned on the way there.

6. Your own calm matters more than you think

Years ago I used to teach conflict management, and there's a model from that world called Betari's Box that's stuck with me ever since, because it applies just as much to a portrait shoot as it does to any difficult situation. It goes like this: my attitude affects my behaviour, my behaviour affects your attitude, which affects your behaviour, and round it goes again. It's a loop constantly feeding itself.

If you turn up stressed, that stress comes out in your behaviour whether you mean it to or not. The person you're photographing picks up on it, and it affects how they behave in front of you. Once that loop starts running in the wrong direction, you're on a loser from the start, and no amount of good lighting fixes it.

But it works the other way round too. If you show up calm, even if you're not feeling entirely calm inside, that calm comes out in your behaviour and feeds into their attitude. The way I get to that calm is by keeping things simple. Don't try to be clever with your lighting or overcomplicate your setup, especially not the first time you're photographing someone. Save the clever stuff for the second or third time, once you've got to know each other. A simple setup keeps you calm, and your calm is what the whole loop depends on.

7. Under-promise and over-deliver

When someone asks how long a shoot's going to take, I'll usually say around an hour and a half as an example, but I'll aim to be done and dusted after about an hour. Go before you're expected to go, rather than overstaying your welcome.

I heard some nightmare stories during the veterans project around this. Photographers would turn up at someone's house and stay for several hours without really reading the room. When I spoke to one of the veterans afterwards, he told me it had all gone on far too long and he'd been exhausted by the end of it. It clearly hadn't been a good experience, and the photographer concerned hadn't picked up on any of that. It all comes right back to people skills, reading the room, reading the person, and knowing when enough is enough. Under-promise on the time, over-deliver on the experience. Leave while they still want a bit more, rather than after they've had quite enough.

It's not about the kit

If you're a portrait photographer looking to improve, maybe the next thing worth reading isn't about photography at all. Maybe it's about people.

People skills are the most underrated, most forgotten skill in this whole craft. Over the years it's become all about the kit, but the kit really is secondary. People skills come first, and the portraits follow on naturally from there.

Check out the full video above for a deeper dive into these tips, and let me know in the comments which of these makes the biggest difference in your own work.

Cheers,
Glyn

📷 Photographing Lesser Known Lyme Regis with my Drone 🚁

Headed out early this morning (Sunday 12th) to catch up with me ole mate Steve Healy, but this time to photograph a lesser-known and photographed area of Lyme Regis ... Cannington Viaduct.

Being in the middle of a heat-wave here in the UK, with bright sunshine and few clouds from early morning, I knew tihs was going to be a contrasty black and white and headed out armed with both my camera ... and a last minute decision to take my drone.

Because of the landscape, I ended up only using the drone, which with 3 fully charged batteries gave me lots of time to manoeuvre around and find a composition I was happy with.

"Cannington Viaduct was built from mass concrete for the Axminster to Lyme Regis railway, opening in 1903 after construction problems caused part of the structure to sink and require reinforcement. Trains crossed its ten arches until the branch line closed in 1965, and the pioneering structure is now Grade II listed."

Kit

• DJI Mini 3 Pro

• Camera to to Jpeg + Raw

Software

• Raw Conversion using DxO Pure Raw

• Edited in Lightroom and Nik 9 Silver Efex Pro + Photoshop

I Am Lyme: Beach Yoga at Sunrise

There's something about photographing people doing what they love, in the place they love doing it, that never gets old.

That's exactly what happened a coyuple of weeks back, early morning when I met up with Pip, a local yoga teacher in Lyme Regis, for the latest instalment of my I Am Lyme project.

An Early Start on the Beach

Pip teaches beach yoga here in Lyme Regis, and there's no better way to capture that than actually being on the beach while the light is do`ing something special. So we met early, before the town had properly woken up, while the tide and the light were both in our favour.

The plan was simple. Get set up before Pip's students arrived, grab the shots, and get out of the way so she could get on with teaching her class. In reality, that gave us a matter of minutes. Her students were already turning up on the beach as we were shooting, which meant no second chances and no faffing about. Everything had to be right first time.

This is one of the things I love about the I Am Lyme project. It's not about staged studio perfection, it's about real people, in real moments, in and around the town. Pip fitting me in around her actual class, rather than a separate posed session, is exactly the kind of authenticity the project is built on.

The Lighting Setup

Shooting on a beach at sunrise sounds romantic, and it is, but it's also a technical puzzle. You've got a huge, ever-changing light source (the sky) and you need your flash to work with it, not fight it.

Here's what I used:

Camera right: A Westcott FJ800 fired into a Rapid Box Switch 4' x 3' softbox.

This was doing the heavy lifting as my main light on Pip.

Camera left, rear of Pip: A Westcott FJ400 II into a 1' x 4' Rapid Box Switch softbox.

This one was there purely to fake a bit of rim and separation, mimicking natural sunlight catching Pip from behind.

To get the aperture I wanted (f/2.8) at native sync speed, I dropped in a 4 stop NiSi ND filter.

Without it, shooting that wide open at sunrise would have blown out completely, even with the softer early morning light.

Both flashes were run in TTL, with the rear FJ400 dialled up to +1 stop compensation. That extra push made sure the rim light actually read as light, rather than getting lost against the brightness of the beach and sky.

Why It Worked

With only a few minutes to play with, having the lighting pre-set and tested before Pip even arrived (5.30am) made all the difference. There was no time to chase settings once she was in position, ready to switch straight into teaching mode. Everything from stands to softboxes to flash power was locked in beforehand, so once Pip stepped onto her mark, it was simply a case of composing, shooting, and trusting the setup.

It's a good reminder that a "quick" shoot still needs proper preparation behind it. The speed on the day only works because of the planning that happens before anyone presses a shutter button.

Part of Something Bigger

This shoot with Pip adds another face and another story to I Am Lyme, my ongoing project documenting the people connected to this town. Different job, different backdrop, same idea: real Lyme Regis people, captured as they are.

More shoots to come soon.