Looking Back at 20 Years as a Commercial Photographer in Glasgow

As a commercial photographer in Glasgow I’ve seen a lot of changes over the past 20 years.

The obvious one is the change from film to digital. When I started I was using 5×4 large format and 6×4.5 medium format as well as 35mm film for all my advertising, architecture, commercial, corporate and press and PR photography. As digital started to creep in I started using it just for press and PR where the quality was sufficient for print up to about A4. I kept my large and medium format cameras for advertising, architecture and commercial product photography where higher quality was demanded.

The digital camera which really changed everything for me was the Nikon D2x. It produced files which were good enough for most applications. I held onto my Cambo 5×4 camera for a bit longer but by the time the Nikon D3 came along followed by Hi resolution cameras such as the Nikon D800 my old film cameras were quickly gathering dust.

I eventually sold them a few years ago and was surprised to actually get some decent money for them. I can’t say I was particularly nostalgic about seeing them go. I remember when I first started out in photography I was so proud of my Minolta X-700’s and all their prime lenses that I’d saved up to buy second hand. Many years later when I’d established myself as a commercial photographer in Glasgow I’d come to regard my cameras more as working tools than objects to revere.

In terms of equipment, one of the other big changes affecting commercial photographers in Glasgow has been lighting equipment. Gone are the days when you had to transport a car or van load of lighting and cables to light an advertising, architecture for commercial product photography shoot. So much can now be achieved with portable battery operated lighting. For a start, modern professional digital cameras such as the Nikon D4 which I use can produce noise free images at much higher ISO’s than before. In the days of film it was pretty much standard to use film rated at 50 or 100 ISO. Anything much higher and you would have started to see grain. Now 400 ISO on a digital camera is barely noticeable from 100 ISO. With care you can go even higher. The consequence of this is that you don’t need as much or as powerful lighting as you once did.

Of course you can’t write about changes affecting commercial photographers in Glasgow without mentioning the obvious which is Photoshop and other software such as Lightroom. You can’t make a bad image good by retouching in Photoshop but you can enhance an image or re-interpret it. In that sense, even though you still need professional quality equipment and all the skills of composition and lighting that you previously did, you now have a bigger pallet to play with. This offers a lot to clients looking for advertising, architecture or commercial photography who are want that extra dimension to their images.

In terms of workflow, for corporate headshots, events and press and PR photography, Lightroom has been revolutionary. Other pieces of software such as Photo Mechanic were quite useful for editing and selecting images but Lightroom takes things to a new level, where you can select, edit and output images all from the original RAW without loosing the original. It also fulfils the roll of becoming your own image library.

The role of a commercial photographer in Glasgow itself has also been changing. Now that Digital cameras incorporate video as well as stills we find that we are getting asked more and more to provide this along with other digital commercial photography services such as aerial photography and 360 virtual tours.

The changes affecting commercial photographers in Glasgow could be daunting but if you embrace them they are quite exciting. I’m certainly not looking back.

If you are looking for experienced commercial photographers in Glasgow then we are always happy to listen to your requirements and advise you so please drop us an email or call us on 0141 363 0013.