SHOOT LIKE A PRO
We join VERITY MILLIGAN on a walking tour of Birmingham in search of abstract urban frames and inspiration from her favourite locations
In the city of Birmingham, UK, we go on a walking workshop with pro shooter Verity Milligan. Join us for behind-the-scenes tips
To say it is hot when I meet Verity for our shoot in the city of Birmingham, UK is an understatement. You’ll often hear pro photographers say that the middle of a sunny day is a difficult time in which to shoot – it can lead to unwanted contrast, blown-out highlights and saturation – but on the flip side of that, real creativity can come out of a lighting challenge.
As a regular contributor to
DP, Verity’s pro columns are often focused on subverting the usual ‘rules’ of photography and capturing something that’s enjoyable and creative, rather than necessarily classic. I’m confident then, that we can capture an array of images despite the heat and the direct sunlight that we find ourselves in, as we recreate a walking route that Verity uses for some of her popular workshops.
On the way to our first location, I start the conversation by asking – although perhaps I no longer should – how the last year or so has been for Verity, and how she dealt with lockdown as a pro landscape photographer confined to home. Thankfully, her shoots have picked up now that lockdown is over, with
Verity having spent the previous morning capturing a series of black and white architecture shots for a client.
Commercial shoots make up a large part of Verity’s work, but she’s more well known
(on Instagram at least) for her landscape scenes. “I’m not a natural city dweller, but Birmingham has been really good to me,” she says. “That’s the pull. The people have been good at giving me work. It has mostly come through social media; I built up a nice audience around 2014-15, and that has stuck with me. I am quite lucky in the sense that I haven’t had to pitch yet, but I know that it’s coming. I’m terrified of that.”
Some photographers are purely creatives, while others achieve success thanks to a strong head for business. Pros have to be good at the technical side of taking pictures, but they also have to be adept at marketing themselves and their work too. This isn’t something that comes naturally to Verity. She describes herself as ‘unbusinesslike’, which comes from feeling uncomfortable at pushing her work on anyone.
“I’m not a good salesman. I can’t even get my head around selling calendars. I used to do one, but I didn’t want to push it on people.”
Early on, I’m surprised to find out that the pandemic of 2020 was destined to be Verity’s first full year as a freelancer – not least because of the unfortunate timing, but it’s also surprising because Verity has been sharing her work for many years and creating images for the best part of a decade.
“It was just the first year that I was fully freelance without having anything else alongside,” she says. “I used to lecture in fiction narratives and filmmaking. That was where I started, basically.”
Verity has also been teaching photography since the mid-2010s, and currently leads workshops for Light and Land (www. lightandland.co.uk), the UK’s premier tour company set up by the renowned Charlie Waite and Sue Bishop. “They have a nice clientele, so sessions get booked up really quickly,” she explains.
Our first shooting location features on Verity’s city workshops. Gas Street Basin canal is one of her favourites, thanks to the juxtaposition of old and new buildings in the frame.
She tries several setups here. The first involves her Gitzo tripod, a 21mm lens, and a 0.9 graduated neutral density filter to balance the exposure between the sky and the canal. Verity also works handheld with the Canon 70200mm telephoto lens, looking for abstract patterns in the water or honed in compositions at a compressed perspective.
Although Verity has shot at Gas Street Basin hundreds of times before, she’s a firm believer in returning to locations at different times of the year or the day. A change in weather conditions, such as fog, can create a whole new atmosphere, as can a change in lens. This approach is particularly helpful if you can’t fit travel into your everyday life. Look for locations closer to home, visit often, and look for a new element to shoot every time you visit.
After exhausting image possibilities at stop one, next, we head to Centenary Square, a public area that features the Library of Birmingham, tram lines and a pool of fountains – plenty of visual treats and lines for the eye.
Wide angles are so hard for viewers to look at if there’s nothing to lead them into the image
“Here, in terms of compositional elements, there are loads of things to hone in on”, says Verity, as we stand in front of the water pool. “The biggest thing for me is the reflections, but the number of poles can be frustrating. The challenge for people is always ‘how are you going to compose, taking into account that you can’t get rid of the poles?’ A lot of city photography – wherever you are shooting – is about looking how the architecture fits into the surrounding landscape.”
This particular urban square features a War Memorial, plus attractions such as the ICC, Birmingham Rep and the Symphony Hall. But it’s the library (and reflections of the library) that Verity focuses on today.
“There’s a lot of life happening. Here, again, you can capture abstracts in the water as well. There are always lots of kids running through it, where you get some ripples appearing. Obviously, cities aren’t just about the buildings.”
With a 145mm focal length, Verity points her camera towards the water, isolating the circles on the library’s outer shell in the water below (see top of p16) while a Canon EF24-70mm f/2.8L USM takes a profile shot of the library from a side-on view.
“I do a lot of lens switching, which can be helped by having two camera bodies. I have the
Canon 5DSR but don’t always want to carry them both about. If I’m on a commercial shoot,
I’ll take both, though,” she says. Verity uses Canon kit but has tried out Nikon, Fujifilm and Olympus systems in the past. “I love the Fuji glass, but I’m so small, I can’t exactly carry every system around with me.”
On a workshop, she doesn’t dictate what people should shoot but lets her attendees roam. “A lot of the time, I keep my camera in my bag, as I’m conscious that it can take the focus away from them,” she explains.
Just as she is keen to experiment in her own work, Verity is keen to encourage thinking in portrait mode when people have their heads stuck in landscape. “A lot of people come on landscape workshops with a wide-angle and think they’re going to shoot like that the whole time. In terms of composition advice, I start with ‘it’s what you leave out that’s more important’. Which sounds like a gimmick, but it works. Pare down the frame and think about what to leave in or out. That’s why I like the 21mm focal length – it’s not ultra-wide, and it gives me the option of tightening the frame up.”
To get around the tendency to shoot everything wide, Verity also suggests bringing along an alternative lens. “A lot of the time, I’m shooting my own images