Due to a postponed wedding I am now available for Saturday 15th September 2012. If you’re getting married on that date, have yet to engage a photographer and like my work, I look forward to hearing from you. Get in touch.

The core of my wedding work is built around observation. Like most photographers I’m a total gear nut who constantly hankers after the latest and greatest cameras, but despite this my most valued piece of equipment is a keen set of eyes. Seeing a scene clearly - as a distinction from simply ‘looking’ at a scene - and constantly being on alert to the situation around you is more important than any camera, lens or accessory. Weddings are incredibly event-rich occasions. From the big obvious moments to the smallest gestures, glances and interactions, there are literally thousands of opportunities an hour. The key is in identifying the interesting ones and building an image around them.

I’ve always been a fan of the ‘sideshows’ at weddings. That is to say the small, often unnoticed events that tell their own stories. They’re simultaneously self-contained but also add detail and colour to the story of the wedding day as a whole.

The image below is from back in 2009 and was shot at a wedding party in London. The bride and groom had been married overseas and were having an evening reception to celebrate with those who couldn’t make it out to the ceremony in the Caribbean. The room was jam packed and although there weren’t many kids in attendance there were a few, and understandably they looked universally bored. Except these two. As the hubbub continued 6ft above, down below knee height this Games Master and her would-be suitor were engrossed in a spot of Nintendo.

I love moments like this. The complete ignorance of the party above and their absorption in the game is wonderful. I love the light cast from the screen onto the girl’s face, the incongruous mixture of casual and formal and the total lack of camera awareness. I got lucky frankly. In another world on another day a photographer crouching to ground level to capture the world from their point of view may well have proved distracting, making the picture less about the moment and more about their reaction to me. Thankfully the game was a good one and the concentration absolute!

This was shot with the Canon 5DII and the EF 50 f/1.4. Exposure was 1/30th, f/2.2, ISO 4000.

Tis the season for camera releases. The Nikon D800/E’s have been announced, the Olympus OM-D has been unveiled and the Fuji X-Pro1 is just around the corner. As for Canon, the rumour mill is in overdrive. The 5DII is a three year old camera and despite still being a great body, it’s beginning to look a little long in the tooth as technology marches on. Things got kicked up a gear in late January when photographer Stephen Oachs posted some images, and accompanying story, of an unreleased Canon camera body in the wild. Based on the lack of an integrated grip this camera was clearly not a 1-Series so the next possibility was either a 7D or 5DII successor. Regardless of whatever camera it was that Stephen saw, it seems likely, given the weight of rumour, that a Canon 5D successor is around the corner in one guise or another.

Today, Canon Rumors posted a CR3 rumour with the below specs:

• 22 Megapixel
• 61pt Auto Focus
• 100% Viewfinder
• 3.2” LCD
• Dual CF/SD Card Slots
• $3500 Approx
• Announcement on 27th or 28th February

• An option to allow for permanently illuminated AF points. While shooting a pitch black dance floor in AF Servo mode, sometimes it can be hard to figure out exactly what your AF point is resting on. Frankly, when it’s that dark it’s improbable that the AF is going to lock on anyway, but it’d be great to be able to turn the red illumination on full-time to make it easier to spot the live AF point.

• Proper Auto-ISO. An Auto ISO system that allowed for the setting of maximum/minimum shutter speed and aperture would be hugely welcome.

• An integrated AF illuminator would be a blessing also. Often I want to shoot a dance floor by ambient light or using off camera strobes. The camera can handle the light conditions but the AF tracking is poor as the contrast available is limited/moving. I could pop a 580EXII on the hotshot but I’d rather have a radio trigger on there. Some sort of full-time tracking support for AF Servo as well as One Shot would seriously rock.

• A more ergonomic grip. I shoot my 5DII’s with grips all the time, mostly because I prefer the balance and I can’t shoot straight verticals without them! As I said above, I really like the ergonomics of the 5DII - it’s one of the things that’s kept me with Canon over Nikon as it happens - but the grip/body integration could use improvement. At present, it’s a bit of a block, some sculpting here wouldn’t go amiss.

• Integrated flash commander, preferably via some sort of radio. This is rumoured to be in a new 590EX speedlite, so hopefully we’ll see it in the 5D replacement as well.

• Wi-Fi connectivity. This’ll never happen. Canon are far too entrenched in the business model of making shed loads of money selling overpriced WFT grips. Nonetheless it’d be nice!

• Shorter mirror black out. Many people say that the 5DII can’t be used for sport photography. They’re wrong. I’ve used it very successfully, but the mirror blackout does make it tricky at times.

• Faster fps. See above!

• Locking Mode selector switch. This was added as a retrofitted upgrade for the 5DII, I hope it’ll be standard issue on the new model. Nothing worse than bringing the camera up to the eye only to find it’s entered green square mode.

• Get rid of the stupid two-stage ‘on’ switch. I always want to use the thumbwheel. ALWAYS. Stop offering me the option to turn it off by mistake. This is probably my number one reason for poorly exposed shots.

• Please don’t depart too heavily from the 5DII in terms of interface and usage. I don’t have to think when I pick up my 5DII, please don’t change that!

The last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic with consultations and wedding fairs, hence the delay in posting an IotW. I’ll try and post a second IotW later this week to get us back on track.

It’s sometimes hard, and often counterproductive, to condense the tenets of good photography. Nonetheless, over the past five years I’ve been trying to do just that. Perhaps a better way to describe it is an effort to roughly rank the varied, and sometimes competing, elements that are present in great images. What’s more important, timing or posing, DOF or composition? On one level, these are complete unanswerables, often moot and hugely dependent on mood, intent and subject. Nevertheless, I find the ability to offer some loose ‘sovereignty’ to one area of photography over another can be helpful in knowing where to begin. It helps bring order to the thought process. It’s a bit like getting into a suit. It doesn’t really matter whether shirt or trousers go on first, but if you do up the trousers before you put on the shirt, you’re going to have to undo the trousers to tuck in the shirt. Yet somethings remain pretty fixed. For example, Pants after trousers doesn’t work unless your name is Clark Kent.

It’s taken a long time to hone in on any sort of maxim that holds together, but in the last two years I think I’ve got there. Photography is such an opinion driven subject that an all-encompassing edict is impossible, so unsurprisingly what I’ve settled on is narrow in its scope. Nonetheless, I think it’s useful.

Outstanding photography begins with two simple elements: great light and great composition. If you combine these two elements and forget the rest, I’d argue that you won’t go far wrong. Light is the magic element in photography but its texture, colour and consistency varies immensely. Great light brings great drama. Composition on the other hand is the photographer’s primary art and what separates us from someone who simply points a camera.

For an Image of the Week post it may seem like I’ve spent a long time talking about something other than the picture at hand but, to be honest, everything I said above is condensed in this week’s photograph. Great light and composition are the making of this picture. It was shot at Hampton Court House during Emma & Justin’s wedding last August. It was shot at about 7pm, just as the ‘golden hour’ was starting. The golden hour is a term that refers to the hour or so prior to sunset when natural light’s colour temperature warms and, when the sun is out, goes golden. It’s a fantastic time to shoot as the light is less stark than when the sun is high in the sky and the colour brings life to an image.

These two little flower girls were absolutely adorable however all the being good had rather taken it’s toll! The Guests were finishing their meal and so when the opportunity to play outside presented itself it was far too good to resist. Hampton Court House is a bit like the book Watership Down - bunnies are EVERYWHERE. The gardens are literally awash with them and they hang about until you get very close indeed. This shot was after a couple of informal group photos with the girl’s parents and with the light so lovely and the bunnies in the background it was simply a matter of arranging the elements in a workable composition. I placed a bunny between the girls to give the sense that they were looking right at it and made sure not to disturb them. I wanted to bring an undisturbed quality to the picture.

A great image is often a simple image and frankly, the light and composition are all that this image required. It’s one of my favourites from the day because when I look at it, I literally feel the warmth of the sun on my skin and find the sense of peace and tranquility is palpable. I hope you enjoy it also.

This is the second instalment in the on-going image of the week series. Zoë & Ben’s wedding was back in June 2011 and was one of my favourites from last year. After getting married in St James’ Church in Elstead, the plan was for Ben and Zoë to lead a convoy of cars the short distance back to Zoë’s parent’s gorgeous home for the wedding reception. The distance was pretty short, so a convoy seemed totally plausible, and they had just the car for the job. Ben’s Mum owns a gorgeous vintage Morris - my research suggests it’s a Model 8 Series II - and thanks to a family friend it had been lovingly restored for their wedding day. Trust me when I say, this car oozed style.

When Zoë first explained the plan for this part of the day, along with thinking how fun it’d be, I really wanted to try and capture it in an evocative, motion filled shot. A convoy is all about movement and Elstead is a lovely picturesque spot. I know it relatively well as we go for the occasional chinese there and I drive through it quite often on the way to my girlfriend’s sister-in-law. There’s a great narrow bridge where the road out of the village crosses the river and it’s surrounded by all manner of rich vegetation and leafy trees. The shot I had in mind included the speeding Morris, an excited couple, a road stretching out behind and a sense of motion.

One of the parts of a wedding day that I worry about most are the logistics. I’m constantly anxious about uncontrollable elements such as traffic jams, parking spots and breakdowns. Thankfully, in Elstead, I didn’t have to worry too much about traffic and I drive a new reliable car. Nonetheless it’s a small village and finding convenient places to leave your car can be tricky. When considering this shot my main concern was getting from the church to the end of the bridge - where I wanted to shoot the picture from - in time. The post ceremony period of a wedding is normally a pretty excited, fast flowing affair and I didn’t want to miss it to get in position for the convoy shot. That said, getting into and out of a car, while carrying two cameras and a bunch of lenses takes a small, but not insignificant period of time. To this end, I figured it’d be quicker to walk from the church to the photo spot rather than get in the car, drive the short distance, park, get out and then walk to the exact spot.

This plan would have been ideal save for one mistake. I seriously underestimated how far it was on foot! What I thought would be a 3 minute walk was more like a 10 minute jog! As I walked and realised that the bridge was further than I’d imagine, I decided that missing this shot was simply not something I was going to let happen. As such I broke into a camera laden jog. Fine over 10 or even 50m but over the 700 odd, that Google Earth informs me it was, distinctly less so. The entire time I feared the sight of a Morris racing past or the sound of a vital piece of camera equipment detaching itself and bouncing loose. Luckily the gods were good and neither occurred. I arrived with no sign of Morris in sight.

I found my spot, which I’d scouted in a previous recce (though not the route march to it!) and selected my 17-40L. I wanted a wide angle to show the road stretching away behind Ben & Zoë and intended to wait till the car was as close to me as possible before pulling the trigger. As my breathing and heart-rate normalised, I stood and waited. And waited. And waited. I begun to worry that in my focussed, head down run I’d missed my targets as they’d gone sailing by. Considering this I came to the conclusion that it was highly improbable and that they were probably behind me. After a few more minutes and following a few false alarms, the distinctive maroon nose of the Morris appeared, horns tooting, bouquets waving.

I love Canon’s 5DII dearly, it is my favourite camera and arguably the best camera body I’ve ever used. I’ve used the layout for such a long time that I find it extremely instinctive. Nonetheless, it has it’s weaknesses and frame rate is one of them. Even at a relatively slow 30mph, through a wide angle lens like the 17-40L the car starts very large and then becomes very big very quick. I didn’t want the Morris too deep in the frame but neither did I want to catch only half of it. With only 3fps or so, I couldn’t afford to machine gun the shutter and so it came down to timing the composition. Thankfully I got lucky and as promised Zoë was whisked past waving like her life depended on it. The delay, it turned out, had been due to the
difficulties assembling a multi-car convoy in the confines of a small village green. Understandable really!

I was pretty pleased with the way the image turned out, it included all the elements I’d hoped for, had been considered but not staged and the fun and excitement of the moment shines through. I shot the image on a 5DII using a 17-40L wide open at f/4 with a shutter speed of 1/320th, ISO 200. I wanted a touch of motion blur, hence the choice of shutter speed and I panned with the Morris as it sped past. The 5DII gets a bad rep as far as AF goes and I’d love to see it improved in a forthcoming replacement (please Canon) but it does a decent job and hung on during this fairly difficult scenario of closing speeds, panning, busy scene and shifting light.

I’ll be back next week with another Image of the Week, if you’d like to see more of my work, then please take a moment to view my portfolio.

P.S. Slightly confused by the time stamps here. I definitely wrote this email yesterday mid morning rather than at 4am! Time to look at my system clock!

This was one of my favourite images from 2011 and is from Lucy & Ollie’s wedding at Gorey Castle in Jersey. Mont Orgueil, to give the castle its formal title, is a vast coastal fortress and the walk from bottom to top is considerable. Wedding day or not, the only way up is via the steps. I’d flown out to Jersey the day before the wedding to recce the locations and I’d really liked the look of the winding steps that linked the higher Grand Battery to the lower areas of the castle. On the day itself the majority of the guests made their way up to the Grand Battery for the drinks reception fairly promptly while Lucy & Ollie remained at the bottom for a few minutes.

This not only allowed me to race to the top but also allowed the stairway to clear of people. I positioned myself towards the landward edge of the Battery, which looks down onto the steps, and while keeping one eye on the stairway photographed the guests mingling and the band entertaining. When I spotted the Bride and Groom approaching I turned round and made sure they weren’t looking. The shot I had in mind was observational rather than interactional and what I envisaged was a birds-eye view without direct eye contact. The edge of the Grand Battery overlooking the steps has a low wall. I’m quite tall, but it was certainly beneath waist height for me. I’d pre-framed the image and found that I wanted as wide an angle as possible to include as much of the sweeping, curving steps as possible. However, to get the angle just so and to include as little of the wall closest to me as possible at the bottom of the frame I found I had to lean out a fair bit! With the low wall and the issues with framing, I found myself adopting a rather unusual, somewhat hilarious, semi squatting, semi spread-eagle position as I effectively gripped (read ‘humped’) the curved wall in front of me with my legs and knees. Thankfully guests were too absorbed in having a good time to notice…

The frame was shot on the Canon 5DII with a 17-40L at 17mm. I wanted to include a reasonable amount of detail in the rising walls so I shot the image at f/5.6. Although they didn’t spot me, Lucy & Ollie had the good form to walk hand in hand, in a perfectly centred spot midway between the two walls. As I saw the Bridesmaids following on behind I chose to wait until they entered the frame. The distance between the two pairs was simply good fortune but made for a nice balance to the frame. The final timing of the shot came down to two things, firstly gait - timing the shot such that the Bride & Groom were in a nice spot in their step pattern - and the unknown quality that may or may not appear. As luck had it, just as I pressed the shutter, Lucy held her bouquet out the side as she linked arms with Ollie. It’d have been a nice shot without this, but the action adds a certain quality, both in isolating the bouquet and emphasising the couple.

I’m predominantly a fan of this shot for its composition. I love the snaking line of the steps, the separation of Bride & Groom and the bridesmaids, their central placement on the walkway and the texture of the stone. It’s always satisfying to see an image ahead of time and then for it to come together in the camera. Planning played a part, but luck was a massive factor too, both in terms of the timing and in the placement of the subjects. I could have staged it, but that’d have run counter to both my nature and detrimental to the ‘truth’ of the image.

If you’d like to see a larger version of the image it’s currently featured in the initial slideshow that visitors can find on my website homepage.

Heads of Security

*Warning. This post probably won’t appeal to anyone who isn’t a professional photographer or serious amateur!*

As chance had it, Adobe released Lightroom 1.0 right around the time I was getting serious about photography. I remember spending a long time switching backwards and forwards between demo versions of Lightroom and Apple's Aperture trying to come to a definitive conclusion about which was the one for me moving forward. It seemed like an important decision at the time. I didn't know that photography would become my profession but it felt like I was making a choice about something that I was going to be spending a considerable amount of time with over the coming years. I wasn't wrong.

I wanted Aperture to win through. I am a passionate Apple fan, my father owned an Apple II back in the day and I grew up surrounded by Mac IIvx's, Colour Classics, Performa's and the original iMac. I remember banging on about why the Mac was a superior platform as a school kid in the mid-nineties when Apple was FAR from the tech power house it is now. Given the option of Apple or else, I’d nearly always chosen Apple.

Over the years I've bought into the Apple ecosystem and infrastructure. One of the strengths of the Mac platform is its vertical integration and I've largely committed to this cause. Apple Mac's, Apple Routers, iPad's, iPhone's, MobileMe, iTunes Music Store you name it. However, when it came down to it, I had to concede that Lightroom proved a superior tool for me than Aperture. This isn't the case for everyone, but from my point of view Lightroom integrated more cleanly with my early workflow than Aperture did. First and foremost I saw Lightroom as an editor and it performed this job better than Aperture. It was a heck of a lot faster and never asked me to overlay palettes on top of the image itself. I know there are ways to avoid this gripe with Aperture, but the fact that I had to look for them really bothered me. The image is king and I don't want to have to move tools/palettes etc out of the way to see it. Also, the loupe, though very cool from an eye-candy perspective, was inferior to a simple full screen zoom.

Aperture is apparently a superior tool than Lightroom from a file management point of view, and as I'm less familiar with Aperture 3's file management I am in no position to present a complete argument on this point. That said, I get the Lightroom file system and know it very well and, with 160k odd images in my library, I've never found it wanting. I also like the modular system that Lightroom suggests. I work in a fairly ordered way and think in a standardised flow of import/develop/export. Finally, and above all, I know how to get the best out of Lightroom from an editing point of view. I'm very experienced with it and can quickly take an unedited image through to it's finished result. Aperture by comparison, while producing good images, takes me more time. I have to think a lot more when I use it. These days, after years of use, Lightroom feels extremely intuitive while Aperture is (unsurprisingly) less like common ground.

Lightroom 2 followed the original release by roughly 18 months with a 6 month odd beta phase. Lightroom 3 had an extended pre-release run of two distinct beta versions. By the v2 beta (released in March 2010) LR 3 was largely feature complete. It seems an awfully long time ago!

Lightroom 4 Wish List

Lightroom is a pretty mature programme and one with few flaws that seriously irk me. Nevertheless, I use it nearly every day and I can think of a few additions and refinements that would improve it. I thought I'd jot down a little wish-list of some of the things I'd like to see in Lightroom 4. These are in no particular order and simply represent my own personal views:

- Adjustment Brush. Soup up the adjustment brush to bring more global adjustments to local editing. Specifically I'd love to target HSL adjustments to help solve things like localised skin discolouration. It can be done already, of a fashion, using the colour additive adjustment and saturation but it's a poor alternative to true localised HSL adjustments.

- Match Total Exposure. This hugely useful tool is hidden in the 'Settings' menu of Lightroom's Develop module. It basically attempts to match the exposure values of two images which were shot differently. It's a great starting point for similar images with different exposures that for one reason or another you desire to be relatively uniform in the final edit. I use it relatively frequently and I'd like to see it implemented in a better manner rather than hidden away like it currently is.

- EXIF Editor. 95% of my images are shot on digital and the only original metadata that EVER needs to be edited is the capture time when a camera clock occasionally gets out of sync. The other 5% of images are film scans of one sort or another and it'd be great to be able to properly update this blank metadata from within Lightroom to allow the addition of camera and lens type and whatever other information you may find pertinent. At the moment I use IPTC fields for this but I'm much prefer to add this as EXIF data, perhaps with a tag to specify non-digital origin. From time to time I may want to view all images shot, say, at f/4. At present, film files have to be left out as this information isn’t present. I’d like to manual add it.

- Import/Culling Speed. I have moved my initial import and culling from Lightroom to Photo Mechanic. This is largely due to speed. Photo Mechanic imports snappily, but also allows for very quick culling as it displays embedded JPEGs in a pretty much instantaneous fashion without waiting for the RAW file to render. Lightroom is first and foremost a RAW editor, but surely an option to display just the embedded JPEG to allow for instantaneous review and culling of images would be a possibility? Perhaps a specialised culling mode?

- File Renaming. Sequential file renaming is essentially broken in any instance where virtual copies exist. In my editing workflow I tend to rely more upon snapshots than I do virtual copies. This is partly due to issues with file naming. Let me explain. When I edit a wedding, I go through the picked images one by one and apply the neccessary processing. Once this is done I 'sequence' the images into the order that I think helps best tell the story of the day. I rarely use virtual copies, but from time to time I do, most often when I need two versions of the same image, such as when I've cropped one frame into two distinct pictures. This causes all sorts of problems in the next step when I rename the images so that their filename matches the sequence I've decided upon.

As standard I use a filename followed by a three digit number such as "examplewedding-001.cr2". When implementing this renaming scheme with virtual copies present, Lightroom will proceed sequentially until it comes across a virtual copy, which it will skip renaming (as the image only exists as an instruction rather than a file in it’s own right). This is only part of the problem. The next issue is that when LR encounters a virtual copy it will skip a digit entirely. For example, a sequence such as the following (where VC indicates a virtual copy):

jackjill3789.cr2, jackjill3790.cr2, jackjill3791.cr2, jackjill3791.cr2 (VC), jackjill3792.cr2

will be renamed to this:

jj_edited-001.cr2, jj_edited-002.cr2, jj_edited-004.cr2, jj_edited-004.cr2 (VC), jj_edited-005.cr2

Effectively "jj_edited-003.cr2" has ceased to exist. It's downright stupid and a poor implementation. It makes it super easy to get confused when looking at cells in grid view when you expect the file numbering and cell number to correlate. A much better solution would be to firstly recognise VC's as special cases when undertaking renaming and offer the option of appending an additional VC title during the rename to keep things ordered sequentially. On exporting under the current system the absence of a "jj_edited-003.cr2" becomes all the more confusing. Perhaps this inspiring screenshot of RAM for an eBay auction can clarify an issue that is hard to explain in words alone. Note how the file naming, which is meant to be sequential makes very little sense.



- Panoramic tools. I don't do a huge number of pano shots but having to go elsewhere to work on these sorts of images is annoying. Photoshop does a superb job with most panorama's but keeping the function within Lightroom makes total sense. Panorama's are a classic photographic technique and therefore should be part of LR's bread and butter and by keeping the workflow contained within Lightroom it offers a number of possibilities for cross-referential metadata that keeps track of which images are used in which panoramas.

- HDR tools. HDR is no longer a new technology. It's been around for a while and although I don't use it all that often, it does have it's place. Sadly, Photoshop pales in comparison compared to dedicated solutions such as Photomatix. Adobe has been the image processing leader for decades and should be able to come up with something that'd push this area forward in LR.

- Slideshow improvements. I own Aperture 3 and use it primarily for slideshows. Lightroom has it's own slideshow features but they are far less potent than Aperture's. First off, there is no ability to 'construct a slideshow' and tailor music and blank/text slides within a design. In theory graphics can be imported into LR to accomplish this feat, but it's a bodge rather than a process intended by the software engineers. One of the earlier LR versions allowed for iTunes integration for accompanying music. This was removed in favour of a simple file browser. A better solution would have been to enhance the iTunes integration while adding the option of browsing for specific music files.

- Web Enhancements. One of the areas that I really like in Lightroom is the web module. I've used Lightroom's web options since the beginning along with additional galleries from the likes of The Turning Gate and Lightroom Galleries. To this day I still use the LRG One PayPal gallery for my print orders. It's straightforward and does a good job. That said, these days a more modern, more powerful solution is called for. Adobe would win the hearts of many by integrating more advanced web options and adding some level of e-commerce support.

- Album integration. From the start Lightroom set itself up as a one stop shop for the serious/professional photographer. It's modular system suggests a place for everything. Initially this was far from the truth, but as time has gone by it's become less and less necessary to leave Lightroom for supporting software. However one area that this tenet breaks down completely is album design. Wedding photographers spend countless hours working in album design software created by companies with a tenth of the scale and capability that Adobe might bring to the table. Add to this the fact that we have to export to get it all done and that Aperture offers this service as standard and you have one of Lightroom's most significant weaknesses.

- Expand Publish services to integrate with Apple products. I know. I'm a self-stated Apple fanboy and of late Adobe and Apple are far from bosom buddies. Nonetheless, Apple is a MAJOR player in the personal tech market and although they've never made it easy for others to integrate with their gadgets it's been proven time and time again that it is possible. On some level it'd be great if Adobe could simplify the process of transferring images to iPad's and iPhones and streaming them to an Apple TV.

- Folder Moves. Improve how Lightroom manages folder movement within the Lightroom file browser. Let me explain a situation I often encounter. I have the following local storage hierarchy:

- Internal 256GB SSD: Used for edits in progress
- Internal 2TB HDD: Once complete an edit lives here until it's no longer in regular use
- External 4TB Drobo: Once an edit, such as a wedding is complete, it is archived here.*

*These archived edits live here for local access but are also backed up via another, separate process.

These discs all appear within Lightroom and I simply drag and drop folders (a folder per shoot) from one storage disc to the next as they move down through the hierarchy from current to archive. What bugs me is that Lightroom prevents me from selecting more than one folder at once and dragging it to a different disk. I can overcome this because Lightroom allows you to move nested folders, so I place multiple folders into one container folder and move this. Still, it seems unnecessarily arbitrary and could use a fix.

- Clone/Heal Tool Bug. I use the clone/heal tool a heck of a lot. I am a big fan of its simplicity and power and use it for all but the most complex removal/edit jobs. It usually works fine, but for as long as I can remember it's been afflicted by a bug which causes its cursor to sporadically disappear. It happens rarely, but during day long wedding editing sessions it inevitably rears its ugly head at least once and forces a relaunch of the app. With every new LR point release I pray for it to be squashed but I have yet to get lucky!

- Faces and Places. Aperture has these tools and they help add genuinely useful metadata without the arduous job of exhaustive key-wording. Faces can be a bit hit and miss (though it's improving all the time) while places seems like an obvious and easy implementation. Many cameras have built in GPS functionality these days and for those cameras without such features a setting to import GPS data from an iPhone or other device could serve well.

- Nested Preset Folders. Pretty self explanatory. At present you can only place presets within one folder. I have a few folders dedicated to my personal presets. TH Sport, TH Wedding, TH General etc. I'd like to sub-nest these within TH Presets. It's a little thing but it'd help make the workspace tidier and allow for more screen real estate to be allocated to other things.


There are probably other things I’ll think of as time goes by, but these are some of the main issues I’d like to see addressed in any future Lightroom 4 release. Would love to hear your views, so feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think LR 4 is in need of!