When I first started into photography, I searched high and low for photographers who were willing to share. I found quite a few – photographers who pour out their hearts about their craft and their ideas about business. In my business’ infancy, they really helped teach me how to take those first few steps. They’re still teaching and inspiring me even today. I love this. However, I also found quite a few photographers who weren’t willing to share. Who’s doors were closed and who’s “secrets” were held tightly to their chests. Photographers who didn’t value collaboration and saw everyone else as competition. I decided quite early on that that was probably quite a lonely life to lead.

I started this feature – “behind my lens” – in the spirit of being open. Of sharing my journey to becoming a better photographer. Of giving what little advice I have in the hopes that it might help someone out there, perhaps someone who is (like I once was) just getting interested in the art of photography. Please, if you have any questions, fire me an email. I am by no means an expert but I am willing to share. Welcome to life behind my lens.

BEHIND MY LENS | in new york city:

LOCATION: 6:54pm on August 12, 2009 at the edge of Broadway in Manhattan.

EQUIPMENT: Nikon D300 with 18-105mm VR lens (set to 18mm); shot at ISO 200, aperture at f/3.5, shutter speed at 1/13 of a second. No additional lighting – just the natural New York light at dusk.

SETTING THE SCENE: It was the one shot I had in my mind – the shot that I just had to get on my first trip down to NYC. An iconic yellow taxi cab. As usual, I was trailing behind the group, snapping photos along the way. This shot was taken in Times Square, where yellow taxi cabs are a dime a dozen, and I positioned my camera just over the edge of the sidewalk out into the road as they sped past. I needed a slower shutter speed to capture the blur of the cab going by, so I tried out a few shots with different shutter speeds to get the right effect and exposure I wanted. It was a hand-held shot, so I didn’t want the shutter open for too long or everything would have been blurry, not just the taxi!

POST-PRODUCTION: I shoot all my files in RAW, so when I upload images to my computer, I take them through my RAW conversion program and do a bit of tweaking in Photoshop and come out with a final JPEG image. As a general rule though, I try to use very limited Photoshop whenever I can. This is mainly to save time when processing images from a wedding – there’s a lot to go through, and if I can get it as close to perfect straight out of camera as I can, all the better for me. Usually I don’t spend a whole lot of time on post-production with personal images – except when the images are cool and I want to play around a bit! All I did with this image was slap on a Fuji Reala Film filter over the top – this film is known for its punchy colours – played a bit with brightness and saturation of the colours, and then, I sharpened the image just using Photoshop’s unsharp mask, which is the last thing I do to most of my images. Done.