The day I used a camera - Photographer James Nader

“Water has always been of particular interest for me ever since I was pulled up from the bottom of a pool, my stomach pumped and with all the fight of life in me gone in fact life almost gone, I had given up! Water now is like a magnet for me and when ever I am near to it I get a sense of connection. Location therefore plays a great place in my work often being featured in many of my location pieces and campaigns for clients.”

Having been a visitor to Wales for many years especially to the beach at Cricieth near Porthmadog and recently spent a day there for a location recce, however this time I really wanted to approach the walk around or recce from a completely different perspective for me. Normally when working for a client and delivering a location recce, pictures generated are mostly thrown away after the clients use or archived on my various drives. I also tend to capture them these days on my smart device and like most other people locations have been captured on my iPhone. Once used then discarded to the trash bin or the clients file.

Recently I finally woke up to the fact that this was a really bad technique and had developed out of commercially and really not approaching this from a creative perspective. I realised that most of my shots taken over the last 5 years have been filed on numerous drives dotted around the office never to be seen again!

It seemed that now is a good time to focus down on shooting all location recce images with passion and purpose with a camera, a dslr and instead of using an iPhone I thought that using a new camera for this purpose was appropriate. With that in mind I set out to find the correct camera for me personally and purchased a Fuji XT-3 just for me and purely for me to capture anything I generally see but at better quality. Whilst trying to grow my online community through YouTube, I thought it would make sense to show my recce and also enjoy this process sharing this experience and utilising all of the tech that I now use for this purpose which has changed since film days. I now have my Fuji Camera XT-3, Mavic 2 Drone, Sony 6500 and a steady cam and various lav mics.

I have created a video which documents the day capturing images, video and drone footage which you may find interesting and this will be posted on YouTube in the coming weeks.

I was given the Fuji GFX50S and all the trimmings for my location shoot in Iceland last year and have to add I was thoroughly astounded at it’s perfomance in such challenging coonditions. After my street photoshoot day out before Chistmas wher I shot on my Nikon D850. It occurred to me that I dont have my own personal hand camera used only for my everyday shots. I have been using my iPhone but upsate at myself for using this for so long. I suppose being lazy! I therefore decided to go for a camera. My decision was made when Paul from Loop images said get a Fuji there great. I went to the Camera Show and picked up a few cameras including the Fuji XT-3 and really liked it. Late last year I purchased my own Fuji XT-3 with 24-70mm F2.8 and the 12-24mm and one other 7Artisans lens at 50mm.

Criccieth Beach on a stormy day but even in this weather its a fabulous day for shooting fashion.

This concrete pier has a great texture to place a model in, add a battery light and the shots shine.

Jack captures me with our little Sony 6500 for the in camera slow motion functionality.

I have always been attracted to the stairs to the beach.

A long grey outlook creating some really lovely cool tones in a monotone pallette.

A graphical point of view towards the castle.

A tricky area but a sense of drama can be created her by adding a simple light source or increasing ISO.