Latest / The Photography & Video Show Podcast / 35: New season! New cameras! Sony RX10 V and FX5 with James Artaius; from the mosh pit: documenting UK hardcore punk scene with Nat Wood

Transcript

35: New season! New cameras! Sony RX10 V and FX5 with James Artaius; from the mosh pit: documenting UK hardcore punk scene with Nat Wood · The Photography & Video Show Podcast

• 0:09
  David McClelland: Hello and welcome back to the Photography and Video Show podcast.
• 0:12
  David McClelland: It's me, David McClelland.
• 0:14
  David McClelland: It's August 2026 and it's the beginning of season four of the podcast.
• 0:18
  David McClelland: It's great to be back.
• 0:19
  David McClelland: Now, if you're new here, then well, whether you're watching us on YouTube or listening on the podcast Thieves, welcome.
• 0:27
  David McClelland: What can you expect?
• 0:28
  David McClelland: Well, essentially, we are a monthly magazine show for photographers, filmmakers, and content creators, featuring interviews with leading professionals.
• 0:40
  David McClelland: We have industry news, hands-on reviews, even some opinionated chat on the latest camera equipment and launches with our trusted journalists.
• 0:50
  David McClelland: And we have news of competitions and events and frankly whatever else we find interesting too.
• 0:57
  David McClelland: We're here on the first Thursday of every month and on social media at the photography show on Instagram.
• 1:05
  David McClelland: And we'd love for you to join us.
• 1:06
  David McClelland: So bang that subscribe button, flick that follow switch, and if you like what we do, then hey, please forward us to a friend.
• 1:14
  David McClelland: Of course, we'll also be looking ahead to the in-person photography and video show 2027.
• 1:20
  David McClelland: That's taking place in London.
• 1:22
  David McClelland: That's right at the Excel Centre in London between Saturday the 13th and Tuesday the 16th of March 2027.
• 1:31
  David McClelland: Tens of thousands of enthusiasts and professional photographers, filmmakers, content creators all coming together and trying and buying the latest camera kit and accessories, getting tips and inspiration from some big names and educators, and generally having a good old get together while we do it.
• 1:48
  David McClelland: Hope to see you there in March.
• 1:51
  David McClelland: Back to today's show though, and well, with it being music festival season, at least here in the UK, our pro guest this month is a music photographer who's found her niche documenting the British hardcore punk scene.
• 2:09
  Nat Wood: You have to have eyes in the back of your head, and you have to be so aware of your surroundings.
• 2:18
  Nat Wood: It's there's been times where I have not been so lucky and I have not been paying full attention, and stage divers have dove on me, and he got his foot stuck between my lens and my flash, and just took my whole flash with him.
• 2:38
  Nat Wood: But that's just part of it.
• 2:40
  Nat Wood: There's been times where there's been a stage invasion actually, and I have been shoved off the stage and fallen off the side of it.
• 2:49
  Nat Wood: Um, but it's it's her.
• 2:52
  Nat Wood: It's been part of it.
• 2:54
  Nat Wood: You gotta get involved or get out of the way.
• 2:59
  David McClelland: We also welcome back friend of the show, the week junior science and nature editor Dan Green to talk about the scavenger hunt photo contest, which is open right now to young photographers with some truly money can't buy prizes.
• 3:12
  David McClelland: And given that Dan is the current chair of the British Society of Magazine Editors, we also ask him about the role that eye-catching photography continues to play in print today.
• 3:25
  Dan Green: We want to pick photographs that uh attract readers to the text that make them say, ooh, what's that?
• 3:35
  Dan Green: Make them interested, make them want to find out more.
• 3:37
  Dan Green: So the the initial encounter is always with the image, and then that leads into the exploration of the text and the reading kind of um experience.
• 3:51
  David McClelland: First though, as always, it's the news, and here to help dissect this month's news headlines is our very own scalpel wielding news surgeon.
• 4:00
  David McClelland: It's digital camera worlds, James Arteus.
• 4:03
  David McClelland: Hey James.
• 4:04
  James Artaius: Good to see you, David.
• 4:05
  James Artaius: How the devil are you doing, sir?
• 4:07
  David McClelland: I'm really well.
• 4:07
  David McClelland: Just back from well, a week away with work at the Farnborough International Air Show, seeing lots of big planes and almost even bigger lenses following them flying through the sky in the in the Hampshire countryside.
• 4:20
  David McClelland: Fantastic time there, and uh yeah, props to all of the photographers baking away uh in the sun, trying to capture some of those uh big planes jetting through the sky.
• 4:29
  David McClelland: And then a week away in Norfolk.
• 4:32
  David McClelland: Oh, sorry, no.
• 4:33
  James Artaius: Hell I was gonna say, in in the case of the smaller planes, um genuinely props, because they are propeller aircraft, so they indeed there there was a spit fly a spit fire flying through the sky.
• 4:45
  David McClelland: There were some uh some helicopters, some chinooks and and other things, and including sorry, this isn't an aviation podcast, but they had one of those e V Tolls, so the battery-powered vertical takeoff and landing machines that are the I I mean I I don't know what the economics of running them are, basically, but they're really, really impressive.
• 5:05
  David McClelland: It was one of the first launches of those in the UK.
• 5:08
  David McClelland: So so that was very cool.
• 5:09
  David McClelland: Um that was my last couple of weeks.
• 5:12
  David McClelland: Uh, how has your summer been, James?
• 5:15
  James Artaius: Ooh, uh different than last summer.
• 5:18
  James Artaius: Um, I am looking after a beautiful uh new baby girl.
• 5:22
  James Artaius: Well, she's she's not quite new, she's a few months old at this stage.
• 5:25
  James Artaius: So congratulations.
• 5:26
  James Artaius: Thank you very much.
• 5:28
  James Artaius: She's keeping me on my toes.
• 5:29
  James Artaius: I've I've put her in her box for the duration of this podcast, but you know, she does she does make herself known occasionally.
• 5:35
  James Artaius: But yeah, it's been really good.
• 5:36
  James Artaius: I mean, obviously, you know yourself as as a as a parent that it's uh it's full of joy and uh minimal sleep, but somewhere between those two positions it's it's a lovely place to be.
• 5:45
  James Artaius: So you're having a having a great, if slightly groggy, time.
• 5:48
  David McClelland: And uh so when my children are a good chunk older than yours, including one who is 16 and a half now, but that tallies with a point in my life when I was actually first getting started in photography.
• 6:00
  David McClelland: I just got my first canon DSLR around the time when she was born.
• 6:05
  David McClelland: So actually, my journey in photography has kind of gone with and it was no coincidence because I wanted to get some proper pictures of baby.
• 6:15
  David McClelland: I I wonder, as a far more established photographer like yourself, um, what role photography has has played?
• 6:23
  David McClelland: Because I can see this going both ways.
• 6:25
  David McClelland: You want to capture, document all of the beautiful things, but then also you want to be present and not not experiencing your baby or have her experience you with a bit of plastic and glass in front of you.
• 6:37
  David McClelland: How's your experience of that been so far?
• 6:39
  James Artaius: It's been interesting.
• 6:40
  James Artaius: So she has cottoned on to the fact that there is a black box with a piece of glass at the front, and she's cottoned on that she she is to look at it when father is waving it around.
• 6:49
  James Artaius: So she's a good little model already, which is brilliant.
• 6:52
  James Artaius: Um, yeah, it's difficult.
• 6:53
  James Artaius: So even um when we went to hospital when she was born, you know, I had my my my portable kit with me because I wanted to document the whole process.
• 7:01
  James Artaius: And yeah, it's a fine line between sort of putting it down.
• 7:05
  James Artaius: I was very grateful that at the point, you know, when she when she was born, um, one of the helpful he I can only describe him as like a sort of production manager in theatre was like, Oh, would you let me take some photos for you?
• 7:14
  James Artaius: And I'm like, uh yeah, sure, absolutely.
• 7:16
  James Artaius: So he took my phone and was taking photos while I just got to be present for the miracle of the birth itself, which is really, really wonderful.
• 7:22
  James Artaius: And now, yeah, I'm gonna have actually bought a very expensive lens for the purpose of sort of everyday photography with her when she's on a playmat or running around in bed.
• 7:31
  James Artaius: So yeah, I'm taking more photographs than ever before.
• 7:34
  James Artaius: Cloud storage is sort of taking over my life, external drives are taking over my life.
• 7:39
  James Artaius: Um, but yeah, these as as you know, these times only come once um in the in the lifetime.
• 7:45
  James Artaius: So it's good to have maybe a few too many, but better too many pictures than too few, I think.
• 7:49
  David McClelland: Do you know?
• 7:50
  David McClelland: I was reflecting on this last night.
• 7:51
  David McClelland: We had some um some of my daughter's friends over last night, and therefore some of the parents over last night.
• 7:58
  David McClelland: And I think that our experience of growing up without all of the photos an infinite number of photos from the moments before, during, after we were born, and all the way through and videos as well, our experience and therefore our memory reinforcement as adults now will be very, very different to that of our children's experience because our children will have all elements of their life documented.
• 8:23
  David McClelland: They will have that visual, that that memory reinforcement.
• 8:26
  David McClelland: Whereas with us, that's not the case.
• 8:28
  David McClelland: Some of the memories that I think I have that haven't been reinforced by a photo or video on my p on my mum or dad's smartphone, I'm pretty sure are synthetic.
• 8:36
  David McClelland: So I'm missing out on a good chunk of my memory capital, I suppose, that my kids will it it will just be there, and it will be second nature for them how they sounded, what they looked like, how they acted when they were three years old.
• 8:51
  James Artaius: Yeah.
• 8:52
  James Artaius: Yeah, it's a it's a it's a it's a really strange generational thing to think of, isn't it?
• 8:56
  James Artaius: Because you're like yourself, I have very static occasional memories of me at various stages of growth.
• 9:01
  James Artaius: I have no idea what my my baby noises were, I've no idea what my voice was like when I was little, but um my daughter will know all those things, which she she she may or may not castigate me for.
• 9:11
  James Artaius: We will we will see in the years to come.
• 9:14
  David McClelland: Oh yes, oh yes.
• 9:15
  David McClelland: Anyway, James, don't go anywhere because it's time for us to hear this month's news headlines.
• 9:22
  David McClelland: It's August 2026.
• 9:27
  David McClelland: Here are the news headlines.
• 9:29
  David McClelland: And yes, school may be out, but somebody clearly forgot to tell Sony, who have had quite the prolific summer season so far.
• 9:36
  David McClelland: First up, the Sony RX 10 Mark V, the long-awaited return of Sony's Do-It-All bridge camera, packing a 24-600m Zeiss zoom into a single body.
• 9:48
  David McClelland: The RX10 IV launched back in 2017, so fans of the line have been waiting in line for almost a decade for an update.
• 9:56
  David McClelland: Worth the wait?
• 9:57
  David McClelland: Worth the £700 price premium.
• 10:01
  David McClelland: Over the previous model for the same sensor and lens?
• 10:05
  David McClelland: Well, most people are saying yes.
• 10:07
  David McClelland: Hot on its heels, Sony announced the FX5, a new cinema line camera featuring, finally, open gate recording at 5k60p at launch, plus three-base ISO and internal 16-bit RAW recording.
• 10:24
  David McClelland: Sony says the camera sits below the FX6, and while the likeness to the FX3 is striking, Sony says this is definitely not the FX3 Mark II that many filmmakers have been pining for.
• 10:38
  David McClelland: And if two major launches this month weren't enough, Sony's also made a non-binding bid to acquire Tamron, the beloved third-party lensmaker behind some of the most popular affordable glass on the market.
• 10:49
  David McClelland: While Sony's been tight-lipped on the matter, Tamron has publicly confirmed the proposal and has set up a special committee to review its options.
• 10:58
  David McClelland: Meanwhile, as DJI and Insta360 duke it out in court, GoPro.
• 11:04
  David McClelland: Remember them, the company that invented the action camera category?
• 11:08
  David McClelland: Well, GoPro is fighting for survival, taking a $20 million emergency loan from its own founder as a potential sale of the company is sought.
• 11:18
  David McClelland: And finally, last month we mentioned the latest Y2K themed Kodak Charmera keychain cameras.
• 11:25
  David McClelland: Well, it turns out the Charmera is part of something bigger because cheap Kodak branded Digicams now make up nearly half of Amazon's top 10 best-selling cameras in both Japan and the United States.
• 11:39
  David McClelland: In a month where Sony is spending over a billion dollars trying to buy a lens company, it's somewhat sobering to see that some of the best-selling cameras in the world cost about 35 quid.
• 11:50
  David McClelland: Those are this month's news headlines.
• 11:52
  David McClelland: You are up to date.
• 11:53
  David McClelland: Right, those are the news headlines.
• 11:59
  David McClelland: James, I think the only place we can start is with our friends at Sony in in what can only be described as a fairly quiet period for news, as you will know well, have almost single-handedly been keeping the headline writers busy, it's fair to say.
• 12:15
  James Artaius: Yes, I mean, um there used to be the phrase, you know, it's it's gonna be silly season when everyone starts releasing cameras and things.
• 12:20
  James Artaius: Um we're not quite at silly season, but Sony didn't get the memo because Sony clearly has decided actually we're gonna do a whole bunch of stuff right now.
• 12:27
  James Artaius: Um including mad things like, you know, as we'll come on to, trying to buy, you know, one of the biggest third-party lens manufacturers and releasing a couple of I was a couple of new.
• 12:35
  James Artaius: One new, one maybe not quite so new camera.
• 12:38
  David McClelland: Yeah, well, uh how about we come on to the RX10 Mark V first of all, which is this bridge super zoom 24 to 600mm full frame equivalent uh camera, which uh it it's the the Mark IV has been kicking around for nine years, I guess now, was a very well-regarded camera.
• 13:02
  David McClelland: And because I think we haven't really had any successor to that, almost kind of fallen off a few people's radars.
• 13:09
  David McClelland: What have you made of this?
• 13:11
  James Artaius: It's really interesting because we had it it's similar to the conversation we occasionally have about compact cameras.
• 13:17
  James Artaius: So going back before smartphones decimated much of the camera industry, um, there were distinct categories.
• 13:22
  James Artaius: So we had compact cameras, which we know have come back in various forms from cheap and cheerful Kodak cameras to the Fuji X100 line.
• 13:29
  James Artaius: Um and we also had these bridge cameras.
• 13:32
  James Artaius: So forgive anybody if I'm teaching you how to suck eggs, bridge cameras kind of bridge the gap between a traditional DSLR or mirrorless system and a compact camera, so it's kind of an all-in-one device, a fixed lens camera, typically with a ridiculous zoom range, as we have the KCA 24 to 600mm.
• 13:47
  James Artaius: And because these are quite boxy designs, when people got into having a tiny phone in their back pocket, the concept of having a standalone camera kind of went out the window for a lot of folks.
• 13:58
  James Artaius: And then certainly the idea of having a a big boxy thing with a giant lens on the front definitely went out the window because why would most people have one?
• 14:06
  James Artaius: And we've gone through this weird ebb and flow of you know, um Gen Z wanting to uh separate themselves from their phones, wanting to have a more analogue, switched-off, disconnect experience.
• 14:17
  James Artaius: We're also having just people like myself, I guess, sort of parents who did who work out that oh, I want to photograph the kids playing soccer at the weekend.
• 14:26
  James Artaius: My phone can't do that, but I don't want to go and spend thousands and thousands on a mirrorless or a DSLR camera.
• 14:31
  James Artaius: What is what are my options?
• 14:33
  James Artaius: And this is where bridge cameras have always kind of literally filled that gap.
• 14:36
  James Artaius: And they went away, as you say, you know, the the RX10-4, that was some time ago, and Canon hasn't released a new bridge camera in some time.
• 14:44
  James Artaius: Um Panasonic released a new bridge, I think the year before last.
• 14:47
  James Artaius: Um Nikon with the P1100, which is their ridiculous 24 to 3,000 millimeter zoom bridge camera.
• 14:55
  James Artaius: Um, so it's definitely there's this this feeling that compacts have come back and bridge cameras are kind of on their way back.
• 15:04
  James Artaius: So it feels like, you know, and and God bless the brands for listening to what the market is asking for.
• 15:09
  James Artaius: Because, you know, if there are people who are like, wow, those old bridge cameras, they were really good, but and we think about the RX 104, that was still going on eBay and second-hand sites, still for a couple of grand.
• 15:20
  James Artaius: You know, it was it was costing maybe more than its original retail price.
• 15:24
  James Artaius: So for the fact we've got a very similar proposition with a slightly inflated price tag, you know, it's good and bad in some respects, but at least it's back on the market.
• 15:32
  James Artaius: It is a great camera, and I'm pleased to see it back, but I know that it is uh it is certainly a bit more pricey than it was before.
• 15:38
  James Artaius: But we as we know, macroeconomics, the global climates, you know, things are more expensive than they were nine years ago.
• 15:44
  David McClelland: Yeah, so let let's let's come to that in that case.
• 15:47
  David McClelland: So it's got the same lens and the same sensor as the camera actually.
• 15:52
  James Artaius: I want to I'm gonna I'm gonna point out something here.
• 15:54
  James Artaius: Please because I I don't have I usually got a prop with me, David, to wiggle around.
• 15:58
  James Artaius: I don't have it with me.
• 15:59
  James Artaius: Um so I've got the RX104, and it the lens, Sony has told us the lens and the sensor are the same, so I'm not gonna argue.
• 16:07
  James Artaius: But I will tell you that the numbers on my lens for the RX104 are different than the numbers on the RX105, they may amount to the same thing.
• 16:16
  James Artaius: So we know it's got a one-inch sensor, which is about a 1.73 times crop factor.
• 16:20
  James Artaius: Yeah.
• 16:20
  James Artaius: But I've got to look at my notes for this so I don't get this wrong.
• 16:22
  James Artaius: So on the RX105, if you look at the numbers, the focal length on the lens itself, it's a 9.1 to 210 millimeter lens.
• 16:32
  James Artaius: On the four, on the on the Mark IV, you look at the numbers, it's an 8.8 to 220 millimeter lens.
• 16:39
  James Artaius: So when you put the crop factor into there, it's a matter of millimeters at either end.
• 16:44
  James Artaius: But I just wanted to point that out because I don't think anyone else has mentioned it.
• 16:47
  James Artaius: And I looked at the numbers on my old one, and actually, if it is the same lens, maybe they got the numbers wrong somewhere, because mine are definitely different than the one on the new lens.
• 16:56
  David McClelland: Yeah, you you wonder about flange or all of those things, whether the construction of the body is ever so slightly different that that's necessitated those.
• 17:05
  David McClelland: I mean, what I would say about the lens, we mentioned 24 to 600, uh, that's a fantastic range for all kinds of uses, and that's really one of the points of this camera.
• 17:14
  David McClelland: You don't need to carry a bag full of lenses, it's all built in there.
• 17:18
  David McClelland: But also worth mentioning, I think, is the aperture.
• 17:21
  David McClelland: I think it's 2.4 to 4 uh all the way through, which is which is great.
• 17:27
  David McClelland: You're not, I mean, that's a that's great, it's not closing down the further out you get there.
• 17:33
  David McClelland: You know, if it's four F4 uh at the far end, that's still plenty fast.
• 17:39
  James Artaius: Definitely.
• 17:39
  James Artaius: And you know, I mentioned the the Nikon P1100, and if you were looking strictly in terms of range, you go, wow, that one can reach 3,000 millimeters.
• 17:47
  James Artaius: Why wouldn't I choose that?
• 17:49
  James Artaius: Well, that in order to achieve that range, that has an even smaller sensor, that has a 1 over 2.3 inch sensor, whereas this has a one-inch sensor.
• 17:57
  James Artaius: It's also worth bearing in mind when you hear one inch and one over 2.3 inch, those are not physical measurements.
• 18:02
  James Artaius: The sensor is not an inch big, it's related to an old standard.
• 18:06
  James Artaius: There's the easiest way I can say it without getting too long and boring.
• 18:08
  James Artaius: So the sensor isn't an inch big, but this is a bigger sensor than the in the Nikon.
• 18:13
  James Artaius: So it has a slightly um shorter focal length, but because it's a larger sensor, has better low light performance, better image quality, um, you can crop into the image slightly.
• 18:23
  James Artaius: This this guy also has, in addition to having the nice generous aperture, it has Sony's latest AF technology.
• 18:29
  James Artaius: So you do get the nice subject detection, which is ideal for a lens like this.
• 18:34
  David McClelland: And this is what I want to come on to because the lens is more or less the same.
• 18:38
  David McClelland: Let's say it's essentially the same.
• 18:39
  David McClelland: The sensory is more or less, let's say, essentially the same.
• 18:42
  David McClelland: So what is new?
• 18:43
  David McClelland: What do you get now for your extra 700 or so pounds?
• 18:47
  David McClelland: And why has Sony felt it the right time then to release this camera with these capabilities?
• 18:53
  James Artaius: Yeah, I mean the the big thing, which is not necessarily essential.
• 18:57
  James Artaius: So if you're somebody who doesn't photograph wildlife or action, if you just, you know, if you use this as just a basic travel vacation lens, everyday photography, you're not trying to track an eagle as it flies across the sky, you may not benefit from this.
• 19:10
  James Artaius: But sooner or later, when you have a camera like this, I promise you, sooner or later you will go, Oh, I can see that bird on that hill.
• 19:18
  James Artaius: I'm gonna try to follow it.
• 19:19
  James Artaius: Then you'll be very grateful that you spent the extra money and you've got essentially the AF system from Sony's alpha cameras, the mirrorless cameras.
• 19:26
  James Artaius: It's a really ferocious system which is great at recognizing and then locking on and tracking many kinds of subjects, birds in flight being a great case in point.
• 19:35
  James Artaius: What I will say about the um the RX105, it has this technology, but I would highly, highly, highly recommend you take it out of auto mode.
• 19:44
  James Artaius: So, in theory, auto mode, this is the limits of AI, right?
• 19:47
  James Artaius: AI should be so clever that you point the camera at a door and it goes, that's a door.
• 19:52
  James Artaius: I'm not gonna try and pretend it's a bird and focus on it.
• 19:54
  James Artaius: It should be able to detect.
• 19:56
  James Artaius: But it's not that clever yet.
• 19:58
  James Artaius: So if you put it on auto and try to photograph your door, it might think it's a bird or a cat or a human.
• 20:02
  James Artaius: It won't know.
• 20:03
  James Artaius: It takes a couple of seconds to work it out, and in those couple of seconds, you might miss the moment.
• 20:07
  James Artaius: Similarly, you're trying to photograph a bird, it goes, Oh, that's a door.
• 20:10
  James Artaius: I'm gonna try and photograph that, and you know, so you need to tell it what subject you're looking for to get the best performance.
• 20:15
  James Artaius: But when you do that, it's quite uncanny, the the ability you get out of this.
• 20:20
  James Artaius: And to put the price into perspective, if you were to buy, you know, even a mid-range Sony mirrorless camera and the equivalent number of lenses to get you from all the way to 24 to 600, I mean, you're talking about many more thousands of pounds than you would just to buy the all-in-one mirrorless, uh, the all-in-one bridge camera.
• 20:37
  James Artaius: So, yes, it is quite an outlay, but when you look at it in terms of what you actually get for your cash, I wouldn't say it's a good value proposition because these things are expensive, but it's not as bad a proposition as the price tag immediately might suggest.
• 20:52
  David McClelland: And I think it comes down to a decision, doesn't it?
• 20:54
  David McClelland: And reading the review on Digital Camera World that Gareth Devin wrote, um he he named that up front about for that much money, which I think is about um is it £2,200 odd pounds, something like that, isn't it?
• 21:08
  David McClelland: Yeah.
• 21:09
  David McClelland: Uh for that money for Gareth, who is a professional, of course, you know, and is used to working with interchangeable um uh lens cameras, he would prefer to go with a system that lets him change his lenses.
• 21:24
  David McClelland: But it's a choice you need to make ultimately, I think.
• 21:27
  David McClelland: So who would you say this camera would be best suited for?
• 21:32
  David McClelland: Or maybe in what contexts would you suggest this is the right camera for the right person?
• 21:37
  James Artaius: I always come back to the person I call the soccer mom.
• 21:40
  James Artaius: So that person who um would like to go out on the weekend to be able to photograph their kids playing sport, or be able to take this to a family picnic, uh maybe to go on vacation, travel photography.
• 21:50
  James Artaius: Basically, if you want to take one thing, if having lots of lenses, uh paying for them and transporting them and changing them, we've also got to think of situations like Oh, I'm on a dream holiday to New York.
• 22:02
  James Artaius: Ah, now I've got to stop in the middle of Times Square and get all my camera stuff out.
• 22:06
  James Artaius: May not be everyone's idea of a great time.
• 22:09
  James Artaius: So if you're somebody who wants a simple all-in-one solution for vacations, family, travel, all that sort of stuff, this is really would complement your smartphone in a fantastic way.
• 22:19
  James Artaius: If you're somebody who is has an existing interest in photography, you could downsize a lot of your kit for a vacation.
• 22:27
  James Artaius: Say, well, rather than taking my big DSLR and stuff, I can take this one body and replace everything else.
• 22:32
  James Artaius: But what I would say, yes, if you're somebody who does want the luxury of being able to say, oh, this camera's got me into macro photography now.
• 22:40
  James Artaius: I want to take macro photographs, you're going to run into limits.
• 22:43
  James Artaius: Or, oh, I want to do stargazing or I want to photograph, whatever it might be.
• 22:48
  James Artaius: If you want the versatility, you might have to change your expectations.
• 22:52
  James Artaius: But otherwise, I think for somebody who has who has a phone, would like to do more than their phone can do, this is a great place to start.
• 22:58
  David McClelland: I guess you could call this fitting in the fat middle.
• 23:01
  David McClelland: There's an awful lot that this can do that is going to cover, you know, the 80% at either side uh in between either side.
• 23:10
  David McClelland: But if you're wanting to go extreme close-up and do some really specific stuff, you're wanting to go far, far, far out and look at galaxies and so on, it isn't good.
• 23:16
  David McClelland: But that 80% in the middle, actually, this feels like it could be a good camera for you.
• 23:22
  David McClelland: Excellent stuff.
• 23:23
  David McClelland: Right, let's move on to moving pictures now.
• 23:26
  David McClelland: And James, you and I have been chatting for some time now about whether Sony is going to release an FX3 Mark II.
• 23:35
  David McClelland: So it's cinema line cameras.
• 23:37
  David McClelland: FX3 has been such a success for them.
• 23:40
  David McClelland: Other brands have tried to emulate, create their own versions of it.
• 23:44
  David McClelland: FX3 getting a little bit long in the tooth, perhaps now, certainly capability-wise.
• 23:49
  David McClelland: So lots of rumors, and there was some expectation, maybe leading up to the beginning of uh a few weeks ago, as to what this new Sony FX Cinema line camera might be.
• 24:01
  David McClelland: It's safe to say that despite appearances, Sony is adamant that its new camera is not the FX3 Mark II.
• 24:10
  David McClelland: So what is the FX V, James?
• 24:14
  James Artaius: Well, yes, it's definitely not the FX3 Mark II, even though lots of people say, oh, it's just that, you know, with a different name on it.
• 24:20
  James Artaius: I think it's always important to remember, and that as a parallel conversation, you know, Panasonic recently released a compact camera called the Lumix L10, and everyone complained that it was bigger than the Lumix LX100.
• 24:32
  James Artaius: And my point to that was, well, yes, it is, but they are different product lines.
• 24:36
  James Artaius: If the manufacturer is segmenting them, there's a reason that they have differences, right?
• 24:41
  James Artaius: So even though it might be tempting to say, well, this is just that, no, because there may at a certain point be an FX3 Mark II that will do things the FX5 doesn't.
• 24:52
  James Artaius: So while it's tempting to for us to all pile on and go, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, it is a different proposition, as will become clear.
• 24:58
  James Artaius: So I think the headline feature for this really is the 5K Open Gate.
• 25:02
  James Artaius: We can talk about the merits or as we as we occasionally do with these things, the merits or not of OpenGate.
• 25:07
  James Artaius: Um, and also the three-base ISO, which is distinct from triple base ISO.
• 25:12
  James Artaius: Sony was very keen to discuss that point.
• 25:14
  James Artaius: Um, so three-base ISO, 5k open gate, it also inherits um some of the menu architecture, the functionality and the modularity of the Burano and the Venice systems, which again immediately signposts you.
• 25:27
  James Artaius: I mean, the FX3 couldn't even do internal RAW, whereas this now can do XOCN, you know, Sony's proprietary kind of high-end fancy uh internal RAW recording.
• 25:36
  James Artaius: So if you're some people ask me, do I need to upgrade to the FX5?
• 25:40
  James Artaius: My answer to that is have you ever felt the need to are you bumping into something and you need a Burano or you need a Venice?
• 25:47
  James Artaius: If the answer is no, you probably don't need an FX5, which is not to diminish your ability, it's just the category of you know what this camera is.
• 25:55
  James Artaius: If you've ever thought, ah, the Venice, that has some features that I would benefit from, then you might be looking in this conversation.
• 26:02
  James Artaius: Otherwise, I think as tempting as things like Open Gate are, you really do have to look at what you're getting with the FX3 and go, actually, internal RAW aside, it pretty much does everything most people need.
• 26:13
  James Artaius: So yeah, that's that's my standpoint.
• 26:15
  James Artaius: I know you you yourself are big into this sector of the camera industry.
• 26:19
  James Artaius: What was your response when they first of all showed this and then said it's not an FX3 Mark II?
• 26:24
  David McClelland: Yeah, so very quickly taking a bit of a step back for those who are maybe uh more firmly in the stills uh or and not in the cinema line, the FX3.
• 26:33
  David McClelland: It looks like a a fairly robust industrial handheld mirrorless camera for it from Sony in a very fetching grey.
• 26:41
  David McClelland: I've got the the baby brother of the FX3, the FX30, that I'm filming this podcast on today.
• 26:48
  David McClelland: Um and going up the FX6 is a much larger bodied, potentially shoulder mounted, and you got the FX9, which is the big bad boy.
• 26:57
  David McClelland: That's your Netflix documentary.
• 26:59
  David McClelland: FX6 gets used for a lot of commercial, a lot of TV stuff as well.
• 27:03
  David McClelland: FX3 on a gimbal works very, very nicely.
• 27:06
  David McClelland: So where this fits, James, is I think it it isn't an FX3 Mark II because of some of the reasons that you've mentioned there.
• 27:16
  David McClelland: It is very much a kind of cinema line.
• 27:18
  David McClelland: If anything, it overreaches the FX6, the bigger camera, which is also six years old this year.
• 27:24
  David McClelland: And I want to come on that for uh in a moment.
• 27:27
  David McClelland: So this really feels like it's a really solid B cam for uh an FX9, which in a way makes a bit of a mockery of Sony's um naming conventions.
• 27:40
  David McClelland: There isn't an FX4 yet, I don't think there's any reason to suspect there will be one soon.
• 27:45
  David McClelland: Uh, and in terms of it looking a bit like an FX3, it's a bit deeper, so that some of those ports are on the outside.
• 27:52
  David McClelland: If you want a uh headphones or microphone or whatever, they're kind of on the outside.
• 27:56
  David McClelland: You don't need to open some flaps in order to get at them.
• 27:59
  David McClelland: I'm presuming there's some additional fanning and exhausting there because the camera's working a lot harder uh to drive that um uh open gate.
• 28:08
  David McClelland: So uh, yes, I think that it's not the camera for me.
• 28:13
  David McClelland: Uh whereas the FX3 is very much a content creator's camera and a kind of daytime TV camera or whatever else.
• 28:21
  David McClelland: The FX5, particularly given how much it costs to rig it out, particularly if you're getting the uh the the top handle for the audio, it's northbound of uh uh £5,000.
• 28:33
  David McClelland: And I don't I don't need most of the capabilities that the FX5 gives me.
• 28:40
  David McClelland: I still want an FX3 Mark II, I still want the open gate capability, and that while the FX5 does have that, all the rest of what the FX5 is adding certainly is not for me.
• 28:53
  David McClelland: And the the other thing that I want to mention there is that you tell me how common this is becoming in industry, but some of the features that Sony is promising with the FX5 aren't available for another year.
• 29:09
  David McClelland: They've got firmware updates there promising things like 120 frames per second open gate recording that don't land until 2027, August 2027.
• 29:20
  David McClelland: What's that about?
• 29:21
  James Artaius: Yeah, there are there are some caveats, there are some Biabywares with this.
• 29:24
  James Artaius: I think the price, as you alluded, is one of them.
• 29:26
  James Artaius: So with the FX3, the price was all in.
• 29:29
  James Artaius: You'd get the body and you'd get the XLR handle.
• 29:31
  James Artaius: With the FX5, the price is not all in.
• 29:33
  James Artaius: You get the body, if you want the handle with the XLR capability, that's an extra outlay.
• 29:38
  James Artaius: Um the FX3 didn't have an EVF.
• 29:40
  James Artaius: The FX2 does, and I know not everybody needs an EVF, but if you want an EVF, Sony does make a first-party option, but that's extra as well.
• 29:48
  James Artaius: Uh there's also a quirk where you can't have, maybe you wouldn't want to ergonomically, but you can't have the XLR handle and the EVF mounted simultaneously because there's a conflict of space and ports.
• 29:59
  James Artaius: Um, and they've suggested that there may be a third-party solution to that coming along the line.
• 30:02
  James Artaius: So, yes, that's the first caveat is that the price you see isn't necessarily the price you pay if you want all the bits.
• 30:07
  James Artaius: In terms of the firmware stuff, yes, that has become a bit of an annoyance.
• 30:14
  James Artaius: The first company I can think that was really kind of egregious with this was Nikon with the Z9 going back a couple of years.
• 30:20
  James Artaius: And again, headline feature was 8k60p.
• 30:23
  James Artaius: And you look at that and you think, wow, I can buy that camera and get 8k60p.
• 30:27
  James Artaius: Well, you couldn't on day one.
• 30:29
  James Artaius: You had to wait six months, I believe, four or six months, for them to patch that in.
• 30:33
  James Artaius: And with this case, this feels a lot more egregious if we're being really honest.
• 30:36
  James Artaius: So the camera is officially released in August, and it's going to be another calendar year.
• 30:41
  James Artaius: They might finish it sooner, and you know, fingers crossed they do, but a calendar year to get the headline specs that you're paying for.
• 30:48
  James Artaius: Maybe you could pay less now and pay more, pay the rest of it when they release the firmware.
• 30:53
  James Artaius: Maybe that's a solution.
• 30:54
  James Artaius: But yeah, so 5k 120p, 4k 240p, and some of the XOCN RAW recording, um, those are within the camera's capabilities, but will not be available to use until 12 months' time.
• 31:09
  James Artaius: Um, yeah, it's it's becoming more common.
• 31:12
  James Artaius: I don't like it.
• 31:13
  James Artaius: I think it's I don't want to say it's disingenuous, I think it's bad form.
• 31:17
  James Artaius: Um, it reeks of if if you wanted to be uncharitable, you could say the camera's not finished.
• 31:22
  James Artaius: Actually, I think that's probably a fair criticism.
• 31:24
  David McClelland: I've um I think some people have been commenting on that online, particularly with the software and needing to reboot between many of the many of the changes of mode.
• 31:32
  David McClelland: It's like, okay, give me 10 or 15 seconds, my camera needs to reboot.
• 31:36
  David McClelland: It's like, oh come on, it's not 1995 anymore.
• 31:39
  James Artaius: No, well, I mean, to that point, I mean, we were recording something else, you know, uh the week before last, and two of the video operators were saying actually about the FX3 was like, you know, it's it's great, but it is a computer and it does crash occasionally.
• 31:49
  David McClelland: Yeah.
• 31:49
  James Artaius: And just in terms of usability and robustness, you would think, wow, that's a camera that's been on the market for some time.
• 31:54
  James Artaius: Everyone's got one.
• 31:56
  James Artaius: Why does it still have these issues?
• 31:57
  James Artaius: So, you know, again, not to that that's a different camera.
• 32:00
  James Artaius: We shouldn't criticize this camera for that issue, but yeah, it is it is certainly a pattern.
• 32:04
  James Artaius: It's not a welcome one.
• 32:05
  James Artaius: I wish it wasn't the case.
• 32:06
  James Artaius: Uh, we'll all be very grateful when the stuff here is, you know, the the the sample imit the sample camera we've got to test does have those features in it.
• 32:13
  James Artaius: Obviously, it's in very early prototype stage, so we we can play with them if we want to.
• 32:17
  James Artaius: But yeah, as far as the general public is concerned, some of those things not available to next year, and that's a real shame.
• 32:23
  James Artaius: That's all I can say that.
• 32:24
  James Artaius: It's a real shame.
• 32:26
  David McClelland: Very quickly, uh, on this, um, just in terms of context, there, it's up against cameras like the Canon C50, which offers 7k open gate for less than 3,000 pounds.
• 32:40
  David McClelland: Of course, you mentioned Nikon there, the Nikon ZR, which you can pick up for £2,000, just less than £2,000 right now.
• 32:48
  David McClelland: The FX5 is, if you want to get the top handle with it, that's £5,200, which if you shop around, makes it the same price as the FX6, the bigger camera, which is interestingly out of stock in a few places that I looked earlier on this morning.
• 33:05
  David McClelland: Yeah, I've seen no rumours.
• 33:06
  David McClelland: IBC in Amsterdam is just around the corner.
• 33:09
  David McClelland: I've seen no real rumours of an FX6 Mark II there.
• 33:14
  David McClelland: So, in terms of positioning, in terms of whether Sony is looking at not making an FX6 Mark II and instead going with an FX7 or something, I don't know.
• 33:23
  David McClelland: I think that this camera is really interesting, but it leaves a few questions unasked yet as to what's going to be next in the range for Sony to come up with.
• 33:35
  James Artaius: Yeah, I mean I would say that Open Gate as a feature has been really disruptive.
• 33:39
  James Artaius: And we know that, you know, Lumix, Fujifilm, even, you know, uh Open Gate has been in cameras for some time.
• 33:45
  James Artaius: Can and only just jumped aboard the bandwagon with the C50, Sony has just jumped aboard the bandwagon now with the FX5.
• 33:51
  James Artaius: Uh, and it feels kind of like this is a product, this is a feature that the brands have felt uh inclined.
• 33:57
  James Artaius: They have to bring it to market as soon as possible.
• 33:59
  James Artaius: Whether or not it fits the current the next one that's on the production line is a different question.
• 34:04
  James Artaius: But it feels like enough people have been asking for it and they need to put it into the next model available.
• 34:09
  James Artaius: So yeah, I feel that may maybe that wouldn't the FX5 might have been a different proposition, maybe it would have been the FX6 next, who knows, if not for this feature.
• 34:18
  James Artaius: But um, as you say, you know, Canon's offering a 7k Open Gate.
• 34:22
  James Artaius: Uh, and I still think OpenGate is fantastic in theory, it's wonderful in theory.
• 34:28
  James Artaius: Why wouldn't you want that functionality?
• 34:30
  James Artaius: But if your workflow does not specifically accommodate having file sizes that are at least a third bigger, um processing power on your computer, cloud storage, we know there's a memory crisis right now.
• 34:43
  James Artaius: You know, can you even afford the number of CF Express cards and external hard drives you might need?
• 34:47
  James Artaius: You know, it's it's a big upgrade, and there is a big consequence to that.
• 34:52
  James Artaius: So I think rather than just being wowed, like, wow, 5k open gate, 7k open gate, of course I need this.
• 34:57
  James Artaius: Really think about, really look at your workflow.
• 34:59
  James Artaius: Does it demand it?
• 35:01
  James Artaius: Can you afford it?
• 35:02
  James Artaius: Not just in terms of the camera, but in terms of all the knock-on effects as well.
• 35:06
  David McClelland: And very quickly before we wrap up, uh Sony, the the the final bit of Sony news this month from the headlines.
• 35:12
  David McClelland: Sony and Tamron, I didn't see that one coming.
• 35:16
  David McClelland: Although I do understand that Sony and Tamron did that there was already a sense of, if not ownership.
• 35:22
  David McClelland: Certainly, Sony had a stake in Tamron up until this point.
• 35:26
  James Artaius: Yeah, so a lot of people didn't know that Sony has owned a chunk of Tamron for quite some time.
• 35:30
  James Artaius: Sony has long had uh 15.something percent stake in Tamron, even though Tamron makes OEM lenses for companies like Nikon, which is a really interesting, you know, um situation.
• 35:40
  James Artaius: So um, yeah, so Sony has had the share in Tamron for some time.
• 35:43
  James Artaius: Um a company whose name escapes me is a private equity firm in Japan, had the next highest share.
• 35:49
  James Artaius: And I want to say in April, the past financial results that came out, um, they had actually uh increased their stake to the point where they had a greater stake than Sony did.
• 35:59
  James Artaius: And there was some talk on the Japanese stock market that actually this could um sort of um indicate a hostile takeover.
• 36:06
  James Artaius: And Sony was described by the Japanese press as potentially a white knight that could come to the rescue.
• 36:12
  James Artaius: Um, and whether or not Sony was specifically doing this to combat this hostile takeover, whether Sony has other ambitions, either bringing um Tamron's proprietary technology in-house, or whether Sony just wants a piece of the pie.
• 36:24
  James Artaius: We know in terms of like Microsoft and Xbox, you know, the Xbox brand now makes games for PlayStation and other brands.
• 36:30
  James Artaius: So this whole idea of brand uh agnosticism, if you like, is is really it's it's taking over the world.
• 36:36
  James Artaius: So, yes, Sony it has made a proposal, which I don't see any reason why it wouldn't come through, but it looks like Sony may soon be the majority owner, if not the outright purchaser, of Tamron.
• 36:47
  James Artaius: And that could have many repercussions, or it could have none at all.
• 36:51
  James Artaius: Could be business as usual, or it could be actually no third-party lenses, they're all for us now, but I'm not sure that's gonna that's gonna come to pass.
• 36:58
  David McClelland: One of the first lenses that I bought going all the way back to when I first got my first Canon DSLR and was experimenting with it was a Tamron lens.
• 37:09
  David McClelland: I think it was like a 70 to 200 maybe.
• 37:12
  David McClelland: Uh, and it was brilliant and affordable.
• 37:15
  David McClelland: And particularly when you're just starting out, you want to make sure that you know, before you start spending the big money on what a 70 to 200 mil lens might be from Canon, actually just getting used to it, that Tamron, that Tamron lens was great.
• 37:29
  David McClelland: And I know that no matter what system you're in, Tamron provides such a great um great quality, uh good affordability.
• 37:37
  David McClelland: Um, so it would be a shame, wouldn't it?
• 37:40
  David McClelland: I think, if all of a sudden, as a result of this acquisition, and I don't think that's going to be the case, but the let's see, if all of a sudden it were limiting to the e-mount system for Sony, and all of a sudden your your other mounts are are left out and Tamron isn't making those anymore.
• 37:56
  James Artaius: Yeah, I think it's very unlikely that'll be the case.
• 37:58
  James Artaius: I mean, as we as as we mentioned, Sony has had a stake for them in some time.
• 38:01
  James Artaius: They make other lenses for other companies, that's absolutely fine.
• 38:03
  James Artaius: I think it's as much as anything, you know, Tamron has a lot of clever tech.
• 38:07
  James Artaius: Just recently it released firmware for a lens that actually made the close focusing distance even closer and increased the macro magnification via firmware, which which is black magic to me.
• 38:18
  James Artaius: How does that even work?
• 38:19
  James Artaius: How does it make the optical elements move differently?
• 38:22
  James Artaius: But it does.
• 38:22
  James Artaius: So Tamron, in addition to making sort of, you know, very affordable lenses, very good lenses, it makes lenses in quirky focal ranges as well.
• 38:29
  James Artaius: So you might have a traditional 24 to 70 lens, and Tamron will make something mad, like a 17 to 50 lens or something crazy like that.
• 38:35
  James Artaius: Um, but yes, Tamron has a lot of clever technology that actually, if you're if you're Sony, you go, actually, oh, we could do with some of that.
• 38:40
  James Artaius: As we've mentioned before, Sony and firmware are not necessarily the best of bedfellows.
• 38:45
  James Artaius: So having somebody who actually is good at firmware um might not be the worst thing in the world.
• 38:49
  James Artaius: So there are many reasons why Sony could be interested in purchasing Tamron.
• 38:52
  James Artaius: Um, and I think ultimately this will be a good thing for consumers of all brands.
• 38:56
  James Artaius: But certainly if you're a Sony user, you're definitely quids in.
• 38:59
  David McClelland: James, we'll have to leave it there for this month.
• 39:01
  David McClelland: Really good to catch up.
• 39:03
  David McClelland: Thank you for sharing your Sony news.
• 39:05
  David McClelland: Other news is available, but this month most of it belongs to Sony.
• 39:08
  David McClelland: And thank you for bringing it to us, James.
• 39:10
  David McClelland: Speak to you soon.
• 39:12
  James Artaius: Thank you, David.
• 39:15
  David McClelland: Nat Wood is a music photographer based in Leeds, England, whose work has appeared in titles including Kerrang and Metal Hammer, as well as publications and record labels on both sides of the Atlantic.
• 39:26
  David McClelland: For more than a decade, she's captured the raw, physical, energetic, and sometimes misunderstood hardcore punk music scene in the UK and beyond.
• 39:36
  David McClelland: And she has the dented lenses and explosive portfolio to prove it.
• 39:44
  Nat Wood: I would describe my work as energetic and very documentary style, I would say.
• 39:57
  Nat Wood: Um I like capturing feelings and moments.
• 40:03
  Nat Wood: That's what I always aim.
• 40:05
  Nat Wood: That's what I always aim in my work.
• 40:07
  Nat Wood: I would like people to see the photo and be able to feel some kind some kind of something.
• 40:15
  David McClelland: Some kind of something.
• 40:16
  David McClelland: That sounds like an album title, if you ask me.
• 40:18
  David McClelland: Uh okay, so capture feelings, capture emotions.
• 40:23
  David McClelland: You mentioned energy there.
• 40:24
  David McClelland: So I I think probably what we should do is to try and describe the scene in which you work.
• 40:30
  David McClelland: And is is scene the the right thing to call it?
• 40:33
  David McClelland: I I don't know.
• 40:34
  David McClelland: Um, but for those of us who aren't part of that scene, it's UK hardcore, hardcore punk.
• 40:42
  David McClelland: I I guess uh are two of the phrases that that I've picked up from the bands and the kind of festivals that you work at.
• 40:48
  David McClelland: Educate me, educate our our listeners and viewers a little bit more about the kind of music scene where you are most active.
• 40:57
  Nat Wood: Um, so I've come up through hardcore punk.
• 41:00
  Nat Wood: It is a group of us misfits, where we have all found each other and come together.
• 41:09
  Nat Wood: How car means a lot to me and has brought me a lot of friends and memories, and it has accidentally created me a career.
• 41:24
  Nat Wood: Um, it's such a tough one I don't.
• 41:29
  David McClelland: Yeah.
• 41:30
  David McClelland: It's often those things that you're closest to, isn't it, that are the most difficult to describe.
• 41:35
  David McClelland: I I know exactly what you mean.
• 41:37
  David McClelland: Um, I mean, so obviously I've I've done my best to to listen to some uh music from the scene.
• 41:45
  David McClelland: I I've got uh turn style, glow on by turnstile, the the album here that I've been listening to.
• 41:51
  David McClelland: It's probably about four or five years old now, that one.
• 41:54
  David McClelland: But there's a lot of that there's an origin in the US, Boston, New York, and so on.
• 41:59
  David McClelland: But then something happened that brought that over to the UK.
• 42:03
  David McClelland: You're based in Leeds right now, and I know that there was a real scene that's that's grown in Leeds over the last 10, 15 or so years that has has really, I guess, catapulted certain acts uh into uh broader acclaim.
• 42:20
  David McClelland: And it's their work that you have been not only photographing, but to use a phrase from right at the beginning, your your first uh your first response in this interview, you've been documenting the growth of this as well.
• 42:34
  David McClelland: So, what has that like?
• 42:35
  David McClelland: Who are the acts?
• 42:36
  David McClelland: What does this scene look like and feel like?
• 42:38
  David McClelland: What's the energy that uh that that you capture in this scene?
• 42:43
  Nat Wood: Um so yeah, there's a lot of bands that have been very important to the scene.
• 42:49
  Nat Wood: Like you said, you were listening to Turnstyle, they're a How Car band that have broken all rules, broken all boundaries, um, and they have come from this tiny little underground scene in Baltimore to now be one of the biggest bands playing to thousands, hundreds of thousands of people.
• 43:12
  Nat Wood: It is insane, but not all hardcore is like that, um and not all hardcore will go on to do that, and not all hardcore wants to go on to do that.
• 43:26
  Nat Wood: Um the underground scene is so special to me, and it's almost I want to protect it at the same time as documenting it.
• 43:42
  Nat Wood: Um, but there's a lot of bands that have done such good things for UK hardcore.
• 43:48
  Nat Wood: We've had bands like Arms Race and The Flex, who did so much um so much for getting UK hardcore known overseas, especially in America.
• 43:58
  Nat Wood: The Flex were one of the first UK.
• 43:59
  Nat Wood: Bands, UK hire car bands from Leeds to go over and tour America, um, which then opened the path for other bands such as like Higher Power and Dynamite and just there's so many bands that I can't even name.
• 44:19
  David McClelland: But but but it's been a reciprocal thing.
• 44:21
  David McClelland: So, you know, a a big US presence 20, 30 years ago, whatever, but then obviously a presence then in the UK, but now the UK acts are having a presence over in the US as well.
• 44:33
  David McClelland: Yeah.
• 44:34
  David McClelland: Which is which is which is great, of course.
• 44:37
  Nat Wood: Yeah, it it used to be that um over here all shows would just be like a couple of local bands, and then like uh the headliner would always be like an American hardcore band.
• 44:48
  Nat Wood: But we've got to the point where we the UK scene is so big and so full of life and so good that like Outbreak, there was a year where that was supposed to be headlined by some American bands, but for some reason, most of the American bands and Europe bands, if I'm not mistaken, had to cancel.
• 45:11
  Nat Wood: Um, and that ended up just being a whole festival of UK hardcore, which at the time was one of the first to ever do that, and it went so well that they are now huge festival.
• 45:25
  Nat Wood: It's crazy.
• 45:27
  David McClelland: So capturing this scene, kind of documenting its journey, documenting its growth.
• 45:32
  David McClelland: You you mentioned outbreak.
• 45:33
  David McClelland: We'll come back to that in a moment, but I want to go back to what was what was your entry point then?
• 45:39
  David McClelland: How how did you start off as a photographer, as a photographer in this scene?
• 45:44
  David McClelland: Did the two happen together?
• 45:46
  David McClelland: What what what was that?
• 45:47
  David McClelland: What's your origin story there?
• 45:49
  Nat Wood: Yeah, so I mean, I've been taking photos since I was literally a kid.
• 45:55
  Nat Wood: Um, and I have always wanted to be, I'd always wanted to be a music photographer.
• 46:00
  Nat Wood: Um, I got a job at a photo studio for work experience in school.
• 46:05
  Nat Wood: Um, but that was more like studio like family portraiture.
• 46:11
  Nat Wood: Um but that just meant that I could have a camera in my hand every day and I stayed working there, but alongside that, I just started taking my camera to shows that my friends were playing, and because I'm not musically talented, I didn't want to be in a band.
• 46:34
  Nat Wood: The I I started documenting my friends playing these shows as just like something that I could give back to the community of being like, Well, I'm not in any of the bands, I can't do any of the fun stuff.
• 46:46
  Nat Wood: Not the fun stuff, but I can't do any of the like super talented stuff.
• 46:50
  Nat Wood: So I just started documenting it, sending the pictures to bands, they would post the pictures.
• 46:56
  Nat Wood: Thought that was pretty cool.
• 46:58
  Nat Wood: Um, and literally I just yeah, just started photographing all my friends playing shows, and then my friends' bands would just get bigger and bigger, which meant that I would be photographing bigger and bigger shows, and then one day Kerrang just reached out to me and said, We want to do a feature on you and your high car photos, and at that point I was like, What is happening?
• 47:23
  Nat Wood: I'm just taking pictures of my friends, like, what is this?
• 47:27
  Nat Wood: And then before I knew it, I had labels asking me to go on tour with bands, I had bands asking me to go on tour with bands, and then somehow here we are.
• 47:39
  David McClelland: Was it your ambition when you started working as an assistant in the family portrait studio?
• 47:45
  David McClelland: It's very, very different to where you are right now.
• 47:48
  David McClelland: But was it always the ambition that you would take a camera, go to these gigs?
• 47:53
  David McClelland: You you kind of saw an opportunity.
• 47:54
  David McClelland: People are making a living out of this.
• 47:57
  David McClelland: This is great fun.
• 47:58
  David McClelland: I also feel that I feel it very strongly in you kind of supporting the community, supporting your friends, supporting the community that that are your friends.
• 48:08
  David McClelland: But at what point did you think I can actually make a career out of this?
• 48:14
  Nat Wood: At the time of me coming up, I would say music photography, especially within like the touring world, that I was aware of was very like male-dominated.
• 48:25
  Nat Wood: So I never even had the thought process that I could make this a full-time career.
• 48:31
  Nat Wood: I thought I would be just working in like the portrait studio and shooting shows on the weekends and weeknights.
• 48:40
  Nat Wood: Um, but it wasn't until I got that first email from Roadrunner being like, we want you to go on this tour with one of our bands that I was like, oh.
• 48:50
  Nat Wood: Oh, mainly okay.
• 48:55
  Nat Wood: Does this mean that this is my job now?
• 48:58
  Nat Wood: Like, and then it just kind of snowballed from there, and now beyond thankful that this is my career, and I hope to keep it that way for as long as possible.
• 49:13
  David McClelland: So, what does what does work like look like for you at the moment, uh, in terms of how much are you travelling?
• 49:20
  David McClelland: Are you able because of what's happening in and around Leeds, Yorkshire, where you are?
• 49:25
  David McClelland: Is there plenty of work there?
• 49:26
  David McClelland: What does the typical, I don't know, month or year look like for Natwood?
• 49:32
  Nat Wood: So I'm full-time photographer and videographer for a band called Neck Deep, which um they're a pop punk band, they're very fun.
• 49:41
  Nat Wood: Um, so they're not exactly from the hardcore punk scene, um but so usually I'm their full-time touring content person.
• 49:52
  Nat Wood: Um, but this year they're having a quieter year because of recording.
• 49:58
  Nat Wood: So at the minute it just looks like me shooting.
• 50:02
  Nat Wood: I do a lot of festivals, I do a lot of standalone shows, I tour with other bands in my downtime.
• 50:09
  Nat Wood: Um, I do a lot of magazine work.
• 50:12
  Nat Wood: I just I get around.
• 50:14
  Nat Wood: And it's like on Wednesday I'm going to Jakarta for a week.
• 50:17
  Nat Wood: Well, we're there for two days, it's one show, but it takes a week because of how long it takes us to get there and get back.
• 50:26
  David McClelland: Um amazing.
• 50:28
  Nat Wood: Yeah, I travel, I travel a lot.
• 50:30
  Nat Wood: I'll go wherever anyone will have me.
• 50:33
  David McClelland: Well, let's let's talk about one of the festivals that you've got a long history with, and that is Outbreak Fest.
• 50:41
  David McClelland: Um, what role has Outbreak played in the development of the scene that that you've described, and what role have you played in kind of capturing that alongside Outbreak?
• 50:55
  Nat Wood: Outbreak Fest has done a fair amount for um the scene, for UK Hardcore, especially when it started, it was like a highly hardcore um dedicated festival.
• 51:10
  Nat Wood: And as it's grown, it's grown much, much bigger, and now it has got to the point where it includes a lot of other um genres.
• 51:22
  Nat Wood: So they've had a lot of like hip-hop, like rappers play, and they've reached like grown into like the pop punk world and the emo world and the metal world, they cover like a lot of bases.
• 51:35
  Nat Wood: Um, I think Outbreak has brought a whole new set of eyes onto the hardcore bands that play the festival that generally kids wouldn't have heard of.
• 51:47
  Nat Wood: Um, so it does give them bands a cool platform.
• 51:51
  Nat Wood: And I've been shooting Outbreak since basically the first one.
• 51:56
  Nat Wood: Um, because again, it was just a festival that my friends were playing, so I would just go along and photograph it, and then it got to the point where Outbreak had grown, and they finally had a budget for a media team, and they were like, Okay, Nat, do you care to join?
• 52:13
  Nat Wood: Yes, and then yeah, so I've just been on um on the official team for since they had a budget, which I think was like 2020, maybe.
• 52:23
  David McClelland: I see that there's a book with your work in it that uh is is hand in hand with Outbreak that's um now sold out.
• 52:33
  David McClelland: I mean, normally I like to use our interviews as as an opportunity for photographers and filmmakers and content creators who have a book or or have a film to be able to talk about it and you know, maybe to generate some sales, who knows?
• 52:46
  David McClelland: But uh it's too late because your book's already sold out.
• 52:49
  David McClelland: But how did that book cut come around?
• 52:51
  David McClelland: What what story is it telling, would you say?
• 52:54
  Nat Wood: Um, so I've I'd wanted to do a book about Outbreak for a long time because it is just my biggest collection of work throughout my entire career.
• 53:05
  Nat Wood: Because, like I said, I've been photographing it for over 10 years.
• 53:09
  Nat Wood: I just approached Outbreak, said that I would love to put the book together.
• 53:14
  Nat Wood: I've got all these pictures of all the history of it.
• 53:18
  Nat Wood: Um, and I teamed up with one of my good friends, Sam Lacock.
• 53:21
  Nat Wood: He's the vocalist of a band called The Flex, and that's a really important UK hardcore band to Leeds and to UK hardcore in general.
• 53:30
  Nat Wood: Um, and he is very he's much better at words than I am.
• 53:36
  Nat Wood: So it's my pictures with Sam's words that gives a full like a full history of a full hardcore history of Outbreak from the very first one to the 10th year anniversary, um, the first 10 years of it.
• 53:53
  Nat Wood: And um, it's crazy.
• 53:55
  Nat Wood: It's crazy that I have a book and it's crazy that it's sold out.
• 53:59
  Nat Wood: It feels very surreal.
• 54:01
  David McClelland: Well, congratulations.
• 54:02
  David McClelland: I know it's no being feat.
• 54:03
  David McClelland: I mean having an idea is one thing, but actually going through it and executing it and then it being uh a success, whatever you term to be a success, I don't know.
• 54:14
  David McClelland: Um, but uh given that you sound very proud of it and it's sold out, that seems to take a l a couple of success boxes.
• 54:21
  David McClelland: Um practically speaking, that as a photographer, I and I'm thinking about our audience who are listening, maybe watching, who aren't music photographers, but might be might be curious, might have ambitions to work, whether it's in hardcore or whether it's in other other genres.
• 54:41
  David McClelland: I'm just curious about your experience, the the practical experiences of working and what the challenges are that you face in capturing these.
• 54:49
  David McClelland: I'm gonna use the word moments that you mentioned right at the beginning of the interview, because it strikes me from the images that you've made, uh, you're right in the thick of some very energetic scenes.
• 55:05
  David McClelland: So just talk to me about what the practicalities are like of you being in the thick of the action there and capturing those moments uh as best as you can.
• 55:17
  Nat Wood: Um you have to have eyes in the back of your head, and you have to be so aware of your surroundings.
• 55:27
  Nat Wood: It's there's been times where I have not been so lucky and I have not been paying full attention, and stage divers have dove on me, and he got his foot stuck between my lens and my flash, and just took my whole flash with him.
• 55:47
  Nat Wood: But that's just part of it.
• 55:49
  Nat Wood: There's been times where there's been a stage invasion at a show, and I have been shoved off the stage and fallen off the side of it.
• 55:58
  Nat Wood: Um, but it's it's hardcore, it's being part of it.
• 56:03
  Nat Wood: You gotta get involved or get out of the way.
• 56:06
  David McClelland: So for for you, and again, uh I urge anybody watching and listening to uh to take a look at at your website uh and uh and take a look at your Instagram as well, and just see how in the thick of the action you are.
• 56:20
  David McClelland: Um, because there's there's no shying away, there's no kind of sniping from from the side of the stage with a long lens, uh at least not not so much of that.
• 56:30
  David McClelland: The energy, again, coming back, capturing these moments, capturing the energy there, you kind of got to be in the thick of the action to make that to make that happen.
• 56:38
  David McClelland: F from a technical point of view, uh, and I know it's not always cool to talk to photographers about their cameras and about the technical stuff, and you know, what aperture are you shooting at, all that sort of stuff.
• 56:47
  David McClelland: But what have you what has been your your your learning, your journey in giving yourself the best chance when the things are happening around you very, very quickly of being able to take those images that are going to be as usable as as you would want them to be?
• 57:04
  David McClelland: As many that are as usable as you would want them to be.
• 57:09
  Nat Wood: Um in terms of like gear, when I first started out, I feel like fish eye was my best friend.
• 57:19
  Nat Wood: A fisheye lens, bang it on.
• 57:22
  Nat Wood: You don't have to be so cautious about um the depth, you can literally just rang it about.
• 57:30
  Nat Wood: Um, but I am a sucker for a wide shot.
• 57:33
  Nat Wood: I do like to be in the action, and my most my most used lens is my 20mm lens.
• 57:42
  Nat Wood: That is my absolute favourite, yeah.
• 57:44
  Nat Wood: Um I rock a Canon setup, I've always rocked Canon setup, um Canon girl through and through.
• 57:51
  Nat Wood: Yeah, the wide angle I just think really helps capture the whole energy.
• 57:58
  Nat Wood: I just want to be able to capture what I can actually see with my eyes.
• 58:02
  Nat Wood: And I know 20 mil is not that, but I just love it.
• 58:07
  Nat Wood: I love the way that it looks.
• 58:10
  David McClelland: And are you shooting with a flash?
• 58:12
  David McClelland: Have you got the ISO ramped up?
• 58:15
  David McClelland: Are you shooting kind of white wide open?
• 58:18
  David McClelland: Because I'm conscious that there's a lot of stuff that happens very quickly and there's a lot of, I guess, unpredictable or or low light where you're working as well.
• 58:28
  David McClelland: I mean, yeah, I can absolutely imagine to capture the energy.
• 58:31
  David McClelland: Actually, having a bit of motion blur is cool too.
• 58:34
  David McClelland: But also when you want to do capture, when you want to capture something that's sharp, to see the emotion on someone's face, having it as sharp as it can be as well could be could be difficult if you don't have the right kit or at least you're not using it in the right way.
• 58:47
  Nat Wood: Yeah, for sure.
• 58:48
  Nat Wood: I do not use flash that often.
• 58:52
  Nat Wood: Um there's certain smaller venues that I will use flash in because you just have no choice.
• 59:01
  Nat Wood: But I do like to test myself and I don't use flash all that often at all.
• 59:11
  Nat Wood: I just I my 20 mil is a 1.4, 1.2, 1.4.
• 59:16
  Nat Wood: Um, and I just shoot wide open.
• 59:20
  Nat Wood: My I my ISO is can I can get it up to like 6400, but it's usually sat around like two, four.
• 59:34
  Nat Wood: I just yeah, yeah, I just hunt for the moment and wait for the moment.
• 59:38
  Nat Wood: And I just feel like even if the venue's got real cr rubbish lighting, um, it's just learning and watching that lighting and just waiting for the perfect time for it all to match up and capture it then.
• 59:58
  David McClelland: So you're kind of in the in the photographer's pen, you're on the stage, do I guess depending upon whether it's like a big festival setup there or or a more intimate gig.
• 1:00:07
  David McClelland: Uh, do you do backstage stuff as well?
• 1:00:10
  David McClelland: Are you capturing moments with the acts themselves before they go on stage after they've just come off stage and kind of capturing those more intimate moments rather than in front of hundreds or or thousands of people?
• 1:00:22
  David McClelland: How do you how do you find those?
• 1:00:24
  Nat Wood: Yeah, um that's something that I normally do for when I'm out when I'm on tour, or if I'm working for one band particularly at a show, then yeah, I'll capture all the behind the scenes.
• 1:00:36
  Nat Wood: But for festivals, there's just there's just usually never enough time to be able to get everything.
• 1:00:42
  Nat Wood: But yeah, I love the behind-the-scenes stuff.
• 1:00:45
  Nat Wood: Sometimes I feel like I love the behind-the-scenes stuff more than the live stuff, especially when you're on tour, because you're touring with the same stage setup, the same routine of the live set, I suppose, that I really love doing the behind the scenes because I just feel like it's a whole it's just a different way of showing the fans who the band are without their big bravado on the stage.
• 1:01:15
  Nat Wood: Um and I really like it.
• 1:01:17
  Nat Wood: I feel very lucky and very honoured that I uh get to be in these personal spaces, um, and that I do get to capture the downtime.
• 1:01:27
  Nat Wood: I really like showing the I guess the balance of them like being crazy on stage, but then also just a quiet little moment backstage reading something.
• 1:01:43
  Nat Wood: Just the two completely different ends of the spectrum.
• 1:01:47
  David McClelland: And is that um is that how you feel your work has developed?
• 1:01:53
  David McClelland: Um given that you've been capturing a scene that's evolved acts who have grown, you know, gr grown their audience, grown awareness of them as well.
• 1:02:03
  David McClelland: How do you feel as though your work has changed?
• 1:02:07
  David McClelland: You know, you spoke about when you first entered uh this part of the industry, that you were there supporting your friends essentially, you know, being part of it, capturing images of them while they were acting.
• 1:02:18
  David McClelland: And then how you've described where you're at now is actually capturing those intimate moments.
• 1:02:23
  David McClelland: Is is there a way that you think about how your work has changed, how your work has evolved and maybe where you see it going next?
• 1:02:32
  Nat Wood: I think, well, I would like to think that my work has got personal, I suppose.
• 1:02:40
  Nat Wood: Even in the lifers, I feel like when I first started, it was very much like this is the show, this is what it looks like.
• 1:02:51
  Nat Wood: Whereas I feel like I've worked really hard on being like this is the show, but this is the feeling rather than like this is the show.
• 1:03:04
  Nat Wood: I would like to think that my work has become a bit more not emotional in like a in a sad way, but I would like to think that it captures more feelings now than it did before.
• 1:03:20
  David McClelland: Finally, Nat, for anyone, like I say, people who listen to who watch this show are uh often exploring different avenues that they might like to experience themselves.
• 1:03:32
  David McClelland: Do you have a top piece of advice that that you would share with someone who is maybe where Nat Wood was about 10, 15 or so years ago, thinking, oh could this be could this be a career for me?
• 1:03:46
  David McClelland: Um what what's been the step that you would recommend to someone else that maybe's been an important leap of faith or something else that you've made?
• 1:03:56
  Nat Wood: Um I think just practice, practice, practice, practice.
• 1:04:01
  Nat Wood: And if it's music that you're interested in, just start going to local shows.
• 1:04:08
  Nat Wood: Find the genre that you're into, go to local shows, build up connections and practice, practice, practice.
• 1:04:16
  Nat Wood: Because I don't know how I would have got here if it wasn't for my friends literally like picking me up and putting like physically picking me up and putting me on the stage and being like no no no, you you can be here.
• 1:04:34
  Nat Wood: This is your space too.
• 1:04:36
  Nat Wood: Just shoot as much as possible, shoot as much as you can, and um yeah, just girlfriend, practice, practice, practice.
• 1:04:50
  Nat Wood: That is my advice.
• 1:04:52
  Nat Wood: Practice and network.
• 1:04:54
  David McClelland: It sounds like the simplest advice.
• 1:04:56
  David McClelland: Uh sometimes it's a thing we need to hear time and time again.
• 1:05:00
  David McClelland: Just go out and do it.
• 1:05:02
  Nat Wood: Yes, just put yourself in the rooms where it's a possibility to do it.
• 1:05:07
  Nat Wood: Um yeah, don't be scared.
• 1:05:13
  David McClelland: Well, Nat, thank you very much for taking time out of what it sounds like a busy summer festival schedule and uh imminent travel to uh exotic parts of the world as well.
• 1:05:24
  David McClelland: Thank you for taking time to shout to us, and I wish you uh all the best for the rest of the festivals and beyond this year.
• 1:05:30
  David McClelland: Thanks again.
• 1:05:31
  Nat Wood: Thank you, thank you.
• 1:05:36
  David McClelland: Big thanks to Nat Wood for joining us.
• 1:05:38
  David McClelland: Nat is @ WonderGirl Photo on Instagram, wondergirlphoto.co.uk for her portfolio on the web.
• 1:05:46
  David McClelland: And do go and take a look at her extraordinary gig photos and magazine photo stories there.
• 1:05:52
  David McClelland: Now, with news of the competition for young photographers, I spoke with the editor of the week junior science and nature magazine, Dan.
• 1:05:59
  David McClelland: Green.
• 1:06:03
  Dan Green: The Scavenger Hunt Photo Contest is our annual summer campaign.
• 1:06:08
  Dan Green: It's the thing we go all out for every summer.
• 1:06:10
  Dan Green: And it's basically an opportunity, an invitation for our readers to put down their devices, go outside and explore the wonders of the natural world.
• 1:06:21
  David McClelland: Sounds wonderful.
• 1:06:22
  David McClelland: And I know we've spoken about this before, Dan.
• 1:06:24
  David McClelland: I think a couple of years ago, around about this time of year, we were on the podcast talking about uh talking about the competition.
• 1:06:32
  David McClelland: Um, and what is it that you're looking for this year?
• 1:06:36
  David McClelland: Because I know it's not just a very broad send us your best images.
• 1:06:40
  David McClelland: Uh there's a kind of scavenger hunt, of course, element to it.
• 1:06:43
  David McClelland: The clue's in the name.
• 1:06:44
  Dan Green: Indeed, yeah, it's actually two big summer adventures rolled into one.
• 1:06:49
  Dan Green: So there's the scavenger hunt element, uh, and this is the challenge.
• 1:06:53
  Dan Green: We've got ten natural treasures for our readers to find.
• 1:06:58
  Dan Green: So it doesn't matter where they are in the UK, they could be at the seaside, they could be, you know, up a mountain in the woodlands, or even just in their garden or park, uh, or even abroad, you know, take this on holiday as well.
• 1:07:10
  Dan Green: Um, there's a range of different natural treasures to search out.
• 1:07:14
  Dan Green: You won't be able to do them all in one sitting, so this is something you can come back to again and again across the summer holidays.
• 1:07:21
  Dan Green: Uh, the challenge is obviously can you collect them all?
• 1:07:24
  Dan Green: And then there's this second part of the challenge, which is to get creative with the camera, to go wild because you'll be having all these close encounters with nature, uh, and that's the opportunity for for you to explore nature with a camera and take pictures uh of the things you see.
• 1:07:45
  Dan Green: You can take as many pictures as you like, but we're asking our readers to um upload just one picture, their best one, to the competition website, and the best photo wins.
• 1:07:58
  Dan Green: So we're after like the uh the the pictures that that show the beauty in nature essentially.
• 1:08:05
  David McClelland: What do you enjoy about this, Dan?
• 1:08:06
  David McClelland: I mean, as I say, we've we've spoken before, and there seems to be such passion there with uh I guess setting the challenge, seeing the results uh as they come through.
• 1:08:17
  David McClelland: But but what do you enjoy about it?
• 1:08:18
  David McClelland: And why is it important as well?
• 1:08:20
  David McClelland: Why is the weak science and nature doing this in the first place?
• 1:08:23
  Dan Green: Well, they're great, great questions.
• 1:08:25
  Dan Green: So, well, I mean, like you say, I mean, like setting the challenge, uh, getting excited about what our readers uh will find and how and what they'll come back with is is really fulfilling.
• 1:08:36
  Dan Green: But for me, I think what I really love is watching the the photos come in.
• 1:08:44
  Dan Green: They start as a trickle.
• 1:08:45
  Dan Green: We've started just before the summer holidays.
• 1:08:48
  Dan Green: Um and then as we go into the summer holidays, we'll have more and more and more, and then once we put out our you know last chance to enter, then we get a flood on the last weekend.
• 1:08:58
  Dan Green: Um, and what you find is that these are kids' pictures, so each one is a very particular uh interaction that they've had with nature.
• 1:09:09
  Dan Green: It's really quite personal.
• 1:09:10
  Dan Green: So you get some amazing pictures like the winner last year, which is like a professional photographer uh photographer's image of uh a puffin with sand eels in its mouth in the uh golden hour just before dawn, so it's suffused with this beautiful golden light.
• 1:09:28
  Dan Green: It's it's a wonderful image, but then you also get little finds.
• 1:09:33
  Dan Green: Um, I think one year we had um a little frog that an eight-year-old spotted crawling out of a um a drain on the side of the road.
• 1:09:43
  Dan Green: He borrowed his dad's uh mobile phone, took a picture of it, and it's just such a characterful little moment captured.
• 1:09:51
  David McClelland: Yeah, I'm I'm looking at that winning entry from last year's competition.
• 1:09:56
  David McClelland: Uh 16-year-old, uh, well, as they were then, Anwin from Aberistwith.
• 1:10:01
  David McClelland: And you're right, it this puffin, it it looks like a professional image there.
• 1:10:06
  David McClelland: The the depth of field is is pin-sharp, so shallow there.
• 1:10:11
  David McClelland: There's a puffin with a wonderful expression on its face with some fish in its mouth.
• 1:10:16
  David McClelland: The colours, the kind of golden hour hues to it are absolutely incredible.
• 1:10:22
  David McClelland: But what also struck me about what you just said there, Dan, is that you've got other images.
• 1:10:27
  David McClelland: Someone's borrowed their dad's smartphone, or maybe using their own.
• 1:10:31
  David McClelland: I know I know what kids are like these days.
• 1:10:33
  David McClelland: So it's while obviously one aspires to what one might think of as a professional image, actually, it can just be about the candid nature, it can be about the discoveries, and and really it's the camera you have with you or you have access to is the best camera in which to capture those.
• 1:10:49
  David McClelland: So you don't need to have the full professional get up to get really good results and really good images to enter into this competition.
• 1:10:56
  David McClelland: I think that's an important thing to say.
• 1:10:58
  Dan Green: That's totally right, totally right.
• 1:11:00
  Dan Green: And and you can see that from the range of images we've got uh somebody who's spotted uh a water lily in their local park, and they've really seen been able to get the symmetry of it and produce this beautiful mandala-like image, which is just done on a very ordinary camera, but it's a really striking image, and then um just a chance encounter with a uh urban fox again looking so characterful, wandering through a graveyard in London.
• 1:11:29
  Dan Green: It's fantastic.
• 1:11:30
  David McClelland: Yeah, they're beautiful, beautiful images, and the the great thing about the competition is that visitors to the photography and video show have an opportunity to see the winning images or or the finalists' images in a gallery in next March.
• 1:11:45
  David McClelland: Is that right?
• 1:11:46
  Dan Green: Yeah, I mean this is one of the favourite bits of the whole competition.
• 1:11:50
  Dan Green: We started it a couple of years back, we've got a great partnership with the photography and video show.
• 1:11:56
  Dan Green: Uh, they uh print the winners the ten best images that we pick and we show in the magazine.
• 1:12:03
  Dan Green: They print them at large scale and exhibit them, and it's such a thrill for the children to see their images exhibited on public display next to those of professional uh photographers.
• 1:12:16
  Dan Green: They bring all of their families, their mums, dads, sisters, cousins, granddads down, and um it's just a really, really special part um of the competition.
• 1:12:28
  David McClelland: What's the judging process then?
• 1:12:30
  David McClelland: I know in past years uh Ellie Rothney uh has been uh a really integral part of this process.
• 1:12:35
  David McClelland: What does the judging process look like this year?
• 1:12:37
  Dan Green: Yes, you're right, Ellie.
• 1:12:38
  Dan Green: Ellie is fantastic, and she's back again this year to help us.
• 1:12:42
  Dan Green: She's really keen about um promoting a love of nature, which is what the uh the competition is really all about.
• 1:12:49
  Dan Green: It's uh making those connections early on, um uh uh and and fostering a love of nature.
• 1:12:56
  Dan Green: So she's back this year.
• 1:12:58
  Dan Green: We've also got uh a very young uh wildlife TV presenter called Anishwa Kunchala, who will join us, and then uh editorial staff from uh the week junior science and nature magazine.
• 1:13:11
  Dan Green: So the picture editor, the designer, and myself, and we spend the summer whittling down uh roughly a thousand images, I think we get to a very long, long list, and then we all meet up and we judge blind.
• 1:13:30
  Dan Green: Um so we're just looking at the quality of image um and we come to the table with about our ten favourites, and then uh we have a nice robust conversation.
• 1:13:43
  Dan Green: But the important thing is, as you can imagine, it's quite hard to choose.
• 1:13:48
  Dan Green: Um, the important thing is about this competition is the main prize, the winner, will get their picture on the front cover of the magazine, which is a really great thing, again, for any young photographer.
• 1:14:01
  Dan Green: So that is really the main criteria, just thinking about what kind of picture will make people think wow when they see the cover.
• 1:14:11
  Dan Green: So unusual eye-catching subjects, obviously, we like bright colours, colourful, bold contrasts, interesting natural patterns, that kind of thing.
• 1:14:21
  David McClelland: Uh good tips for prospective entrance there.
• 1:14:25
  David McClelland: So uh what what are the timelines and how do you enter them?
• 1:14:29
  Dan Green: Yes, indeed.
• 1:14:30
  Dan Green: Right, so we s we launched in uh on the 17th of July with our uh most recent issue of Science and Nature.
• 1:14:40
  Dan Green: So the competition is already open and it runs until uh midnight on the 23rd of August.
• 1:14:47
  Dan Green: So you've got to get your pictures uploaded before then.
• 1:14:51
  Dan Green: You can do that by going to our competition portal, um, which is at science nature.theweek junior dot co.uk scavenger hunt.
• 1:15:04
  David McClelland: We'll make sure we put that on the screen for those people watching and we'll include it in the show notes for those of you on podcast apps as well to click through to.
• 1:15:13
  David McClelland: Dan, again, really, really exciting.
• 1:15:16
  David McClelland: I can't wait to see uh what the finalists' images look like and to see another incredible picture on the front of the week junior science and nature.
• 1:15:25
  David McClelland: Before I let you go though, finally, one thing that has changed since you and I last spoke, of course, is that you've taken up uh a what we you're sitting in a very important chair as the chair of the British Society of Magazine Editors, the the BSME this year.
• 1:15:41
  David McClelland: Uh first of all, congratulations.
• 1:15:43
  David McClelland: What does that mean?
• 1:15:43
  David McClelland: Obviously, having a role that is speaking to, representing in a way, magazine editors uh f from all across the country.
• 1:15:51
  David McClelland: But also coming back to the week junior science and nature, I wonder what what role great photography plays in your in your magazine, how important it is for you as an editor to make sure that you've got the best quality images, good variety of images, what where you're getting your images from.
• 1:16:09
  Dan Green: Yeah, well, thank you, thank you for that.
• 1:16:10
  Dan Green: Um the the BSME, it's uh British Society of Magazine Editors, but I think you know it's a broad church, so even though it sort of said editors on the label, it is really the society that um represents the creative side of the publishing industry.
• 1:16:28
  Dan Green: So that's not just editors, it's uh designers and picture editors, and of course, photographers as well.
• 1:16:34
  Dan Green: So there's that whole creative element, and all of these people, all these jobs, we all work together to create magazines that we're really passionate about.
• 1:16:43
  Dan Green: And for science and nature, photography is just integral.
• 1:16:50
  Dan Green: I mean, I always say that the images come first because when you're flipping, when you open a magazine, well, even even before you open a magazine, when you first encounter a magazine, maybe it's uh you know online if you're looking for a subscription, maybe it's in a shop in the old-fashioned way, but like it's the picture on the cover, isn't it?
• 1:17:12
  Dan Green: It's the thing which makes you want to pick up and pick it up and see what's inside.
• 1:17:17
  Dan Green: And then once you get inside, obviously, and especially for younger readers, um we want to pick photographs that uh attract readers to the text that make them say, Ooh, what's that?
• 1:17:34
  Dan Green: Make them interested, make them want to find out more.
• 1:17:37
  Dan Green: So the the initial encounter is always with the image, and then that leads into the exploration of the text and the reading kind of um experience.
• 1:17:47
  Dan Green: So yeah, I mean it couldn't be more integral, really.
• 1:17:50
  David McClelland: And in my my background as well, working in in print journalism, you know, uh in less image-heavy titles, it's like it's the headline.
• 1:17:58
  David McClelland: Create a catchy headline and uh and a nice seller underneath that, it draws people in to the and that's not to make the copy, make make the story that you're telling or make the story that the words are telling a kind of uh in second place, but it's you're creating that attraction, you're creating that funnel so that people can experience the whole of the story that that you're telling, images and words too.
• 1:18:22
  David McClelland: It's heartening, it's heartening to hear the passion that you have for the picture there in the magazine, and I can't wait to see the winning entry for the Scavenger Hunt Photo Contest appearing in the front cover of your magazine in the next few months.
• 1:18:38
  David McClelland: Dan Green, great to chat to you.
• 1:18:41
  David McClelland: Thanks again, and uh good luck with all the judging.
• 1:18:44
  Dan Green: Thank you very much.
• 1:18:45
  Dan Green: Lovely to chat.
• 1:18:46
  Dan Green: Cheers.
• 1:18:49
  David McClelland: As a reminder, entries for the Scavenger Hunt Photo Contest must be in by Sunday, the 23rd of August 2026.
• 1:18:57
  David McClelland: Full details, terms and conditions on the link in the show notes.
• 1:19:01
  David McClelland: Good luck.
• 1:19:02
  David McClelland: Now, each month on the podcast and on social media, we'll be sharing three bits of news, information, and updates about the in-person photography and video show 2027 in what we're calling What Three Things?
• 1:19:18
  David McClelland: What three things do you need to know this month about the in-person photography and video show 2027?
• 1:19:28
  David McClelland: What is it?
• 1:19:30
  David McClelland: The Photography and Video Show is the event for anyone passionate about photography, video or content creation.
• 1:19:37
  David McClelland: It is the biggest show of its kind in Europe, with thousands of visual storytellers visiting across four days to try and to buy the latest camera kit and accessories to get tips and inspiration from big names and educators to connect with the community and just enjoy a great day out.
• 1:19:55
  David McClelland: Where is it?
• 1:19:56
  David McClelland: In 2027, the photography and video show takes place at the XL Exhibition Centre in London.
• 1:20:02
  David McClelland: Easy to reach by London's extensive public transport network on the Elizabeth Line, the Jubilee Line, Docklands Light Railway, there's loads of accommodation nearby, and there's even an actual airport next door.
• 1:20:15
  David McClelland: When is it?
• 1:20:17
  David McClelland: The Photography and Video Show 2027 takes place across four days from 10am to 5 pm on Saturday the 13th of March to Tuesday the 16th of March.
• 1:20:28
  David McClelland: We get it, the weekends aren't convenient for everybody, particularly working photographers and filmmakers, which is why Monday and Tuesday are great days for professionals and for students.
• 1:20:40
  David McClelland: More on those days in a future What Three Things.
• 1:20:44
  David McClelland: We'll be back with more What Three Things next month, sharing details of speakers, features, exhibitors, as well as tickets, offers, and competitions.
• 1:20:57
  David McClelland: But that is all for this month.
• 1:20:59
  David McClelland: We'll be back, though, on the first Thursday of next month.
• 1:21:02
  David McClelland: Drop us a line on social media, Instagram, probably the best bet.
• 1:21:06
  David McClelland: The show is at the Photography Show.
• 1:21:08
  David McClelland: I'm at David McClelland.
• 1:21:10
  David McClelland: We would love to hear from you.
• 1:21:12
  David McClelland: But for now, from all of us here, until next time, bye bye.