Mark Newton:
Close Control with Aperture
In the envious eyes of aesthetes the world over, Mark Newton is one fortunate individual. He has visited more beaches and swimming pools than anyone else he knows. He’s a sports and fashion photographer, taking high-end images of sportsmen and women, as well as top models, wearing clothing manufactured by international sports and fashion brands. Speedo is one of his biggest clients — hence the pools and beaches.
Newton shoots with a Canon EOS1-DS Mark II and a Hasselblad H1, and uses the former with Apple’s pro photography software, Aperture. He says: “At this end of the market, the images obviously have to be very high quality but you also need something extra. People are looking for something very creative — for the ‘stand out’ factor — and I feel Aperture gives that to me”.
He adds: “There are some things in Aperture you can’t do with a physical print. For example, the tint wheels let you change the highlights, mid-tones and shadow areas individually, giving you much more control. You can achieve tweaks and subtleties that you can’t in other digital software or in a print. When you start to explore these areas, Aperture can give you a look or an edge that is very individual”.
Newton has played professional cricket, football and golf, and worked as creative director for a company that owns sport and fashion brands. But he trained as a designer, so he’s been using Apple technology for as long as he can remember.
Newton turned to Aperture when Apple introduced the MacBook Pro laptop with its Intel Core Duo processor. Newton says: “I work in the field a lot with just a laptop. Now with the MacBook Pro, I have the speed and the power to use software like Aperture”.
“I was instantly impressed by how fast it was — how fast you could edit or run the magnifier over high-res images to look at detail. Plus there’s ease of use — I spent a day playing with it and by the end of the day, I’d found my way of working”.
Aperture’s editing capabilities impressed Newton in other ways, too. He says: “When we sit down with a client on location, we are able to go through the pictures there and then, and the client can compare and short-list images immediately... there’s real time-saving in that respect”. Previously, clients would have been required to wait until the films were processed and then view contact sheets or transparencies on a light box. Newton says: “You could never be sure you’d got the shot you wanted and if you hadn’t, it was too late, you couldn’t go back and do it again. Aperture gives you peace of mind on location — you can keep shooting until you know you’ve got the image you want.”
Newton stores images on 2GB memory cards then downloads them onto his MacBook Pro after the shoot. Occasionally, he shoots ‘tethered’, whereby images are downloaded to the computer and into Aperture as he takes them. “Shooting tethered is great because if you’re short on time and in a fixed location, the client can see things straight away and you can move on”, he says.
In addition to the program’s speed, editing and colour balancing features, Newton swears by the filing and archiving facility. He says: “I like it because it’s so simple — it makes archiving easy. You don’t have to worry about not having transferred things from your hard drive because it does it automatically for you”.
“Aperture gives you peace of mind on location — you can keep shooting until you know you’ve got the image you want.”
He adds: “Processing is really quick and its great working with the contact sheets. The amount of information you can attach to a file is extremely helpful — tagging images with keywords so that finding them in the archive is simple. I’ve been rating the images and using the smart folders which makes things very straightforward”.
But the most beneficial aspect of Aperture for Newton is undoubtedly the level of control: “Aperture puts you in charge of the image. You have complete control there and then, and there are no surprises. I’m sold on digital now”.
He concludes: “You can really tell that Aperture has been designed by photographers for photographers — it has everything you need for field photography but with the added advantages of digital”.
