Health and Safety (Photography)

Out in the field so to speak any self employed photographer must comply with the "Health and Safety at work act 1974" (HASWA) as described in my last blog. This is because as a self employed person they have a duty of care to themselves, any assistant / staff they employ and also members of the public that will be effected by the work they carry out.

What a photographer must do before completing any task (that can be anything from working on the PC to edit pictures, working in a studio for a photo shoot, taking photos at a wedding and even developing film using chemicals) they must complete a series of risk assessment for the tasks they are going to carry out. These are a way of capturing any risks that are involved, assessing the likelihood and severity of the risk and then taking the appropriate action to remove or at worst reduce the risk.

Potential risks for a photographer are as follows.

• Cables for equipment (are they causing a trip hazard)
• Chemicals for developing film (are they stored correctly, do you need protective clothing to handle them, clearly labelled is COSHH being followed)
• Electrical equipment (has it been tested, is there enough sockets to plug it all in)
• Flash equipment (is anyone with epilepsy going to have a problem with prolonged flash photography)
• Computers (if using for editing a VDU assessment needs to be carried out to ensure the equipment is in the correct position to ensure the correct posture for the user.)

This by no means is an exhaustive list but does show a few of the potential hazards a photographer will come across. So it is the photographer to careful plan his photo shoot correctly and then carry out the risk assessments relevent to the task involved.

Also the photographer should have obtained public liability insurance.

I will from now on whenever taking photographs will make a note in my blog about what I have done to reduce the risk to myself and others when I am taking the photographs. This maybe as simple as wearing stout walking shoes, of if stalking wildlife ensure I am wearing warm clothing.

Health and Safety

The Health and Safety at work act 1974 (HASWA). Is statute law and is there to protect everyone in the workplace and members of the public. It is designed to ensure employers and employees work in a safe manner, have the correct equipment to do their work and do not carry out any works that can cause harm to themselves and/or members of the public. The main statements for HASWA are.

• It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees.

• It shall be the duty of every employee while at work—
• (a) to take reasonable care for the health and safety of himself and of other persons who may be affected by his acts or omissions at work and.
• (b) as regards any duty or requirement imposed on his employer or any other person by or under any of the relevant statutory provisions, to co-operate with him so far as is necessary to enable that duty or requirement to be performed or complied with.

These statements basically mean that it is for an employer to make every provision for anyone working for the company is given the correct tools to complete their job. That every task has been "Risk Assessed" and a "method statement" is in place for each employee to follow so that the task is completed in a safe manner.

The second part is for the employee to make sure whilst they are at work that they conduct themselves in a safe manner so as not to put themselves or others at risk. Also that they are to follow the safe working procedures given by the employer.

HASWA also relates to self employed people as well (such as Photographers) for this part the statements above are still true if the self employed person has employed someone such as an assistant as this means you now have an employer and employee.

The next main part of HASWA which will really apply to a self employed person is.

• It shall be the duty of every self-employed person to conduct his undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that he and other persons (not being his employees) who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety.

This means that any actions or tasks undertaken by the Self employed person must not cause a health and safety risk to anyone else (ie members of public).

To see the full Health and Safety at work act 1974 click here.

Twycross Zoo

Today I went to Twycross zoo with my Fiancee and as she had to spend all day there on a training day I spent all day taking photographs. I tried to look at composing my pictures better and making a good point of focus for the picture. As usual with the Zoo a lot of the animals are hard to focus in on as they are behind cages of glass. I tried to get round this by using a large aperture and my 75 -300 lens which would take the bars/glass out of the picture as I had a very narrow depth of field. I will speak to Steve to see if there is anything else I can do to help this. Another hard part of the day was the changing light conditions which meant a lot of changes to ISO and shutter speeds. I am relatively happy with the results as this was all done using manual settings. Although not all images were great first time and when viewed were under/over exposed I was happy that I knew what to change on the camera to take a better picture.

To see more pictures click here.

Spot the Birdie

I went to Branston water park today to get some more pictures and wanted to focus on natural history. I took some wild bird seed with me as suggested by Steve and set myself up at the "Hide" after putting some of the seeds on a few tree stumps. My main aim for the day was to get some flying shots of birds so took a few test shots first by setting a fast shutter speed then adjusting the aperture and ISO to compensate. I did capture some shots of flight however still think the shutter speed could have been taken higher.
I am also a little disappointed with the clarity of the images when you zoom in so will speak to Steve to see what is causing this as I was using my 75-300 lens at full zoom so it maybe right at the limit of the lenses capability. I used a remote shutter release and the hide to steady the camera and also used fast shutter speed down to 1/1000 sec so camera shake should not be the problem. Overall I am happy with the results however need to focus on a few areas to improve the shots next time.

To see more images click here

Ideas for photography

Had a discussion with Steve today on my chosen subject of natural history, we spoke about the photographs I could take at Twycross Zoo and I have told Steve I sent an email to the head of PR at the zoo to volenteer my services for taking photos at events.

This will hopefully get me access to other area of the zoo to take photos which means the cages etc will not interfere with shots.

Another Idea Steve has given me today for taking bird photographs is to think about how to get the subjects close enough to photograph. The idea is to take some bird food with me and spread out to help attract the birds to me and get them nearer.

I will try this the next time I go out as Branston Water Park has some Hides set up with bird tables so if I take some food with me I can set this up with food.

Photograph Ideas

http://www.mikeatkinson.net/index.htm

Sunrise at Branston Water Park

One good thing about having Branston Water park 15 minutes walk from my front door is it is convenient to go to for taking photographs. One of the bad things about sunrise is they happen early so had to get out of bed at 6.30 to get some pictures. I wanted to take some shots of a sunrise and try to use rule of thirds and play about with shutter speeds. What really surprised me was when taking the shutter speed to 1/4000 it gave really dramatic results.

Also whilst taking photographs of the sunrise and not wanting to look straight at the sun I used my cameras "Live View" function which allowed me to see the images in the rear LCD screen and allowed me to frame the shots without being blinded by the sun.

Whilst at the water park I also took pictures of the birds and tried to catch some in flight, although I did capture some Canada Geese in flight was not entirely happy with the results. The issue is I was happy with the exposure of the final shot however wanted to catch the wings without blur. I did not manage the last part, however I know the setting was 1/100 so need to increase this but then change the aperture and ISO to compensate. Hopefully next time I will get the shot I want.

To see a selection of the pictures taken click here.