Photographer Profile: Jason Friend

Northern exposure

In a tranquil corner of the north-east of England lies the coastal town of Whitley Bay. Probably best known as a popular nightlife destination thanks to its numerous clubs and bars, the surrounding countryside is, by contrast, some of the most spectacular and unspoilt in the whole of England. Against the backdrop of the rolling hills and mountains of northern England, Jason Friend has built a successful stock photo business that captures the essence of this wild and dramatic landscape.

Awarded the Outdoor Writers' Guild Award for Excellence in Photography in 2005, Jason has obviously made an impression with his work. Several photos from the winning collection (taken from his second book - The Cumbria Way) are reproduced here and clearly illustrate why Jason has been taking his business from strength to strength since becoming a professonal landscape and travel photographer in 2000.

Asked about his favourite subjects for a shoot, Jason told me, "I specialise in travel and landscape photography and have a special penchant for wilderness landscapes. When I'm not on the road capturing images for the many picture libraries I supply, I often find myself hiking in Northumberland and Cumbria."

Going digital

"I used to be 100% film dedicated when it came to choosing a medium to capture my images," Jason explains. "This usually involved carrying a hefty medium-format camera and a 35mm film camera in my camera backpack. With the advent of digital, all of this has changed and I can now supply images to my clients quickly and in a more convenient format for their purposes."

"At the moment I use a Canon EOS 20D SLR with a 17-85mm EFS image stabilising lens and a 135 - 400 zoom, which I use occasionally. I always carry a tripod although the advent of image stabilising technology means that I don't always have to use it! Great news for when capturing images in inner city locations. I shoot my images as RAW files and then process them using Capture One Pro. Then they are finally optimised in Photoshop CS2, captioned and keyworded and then distributed to my agents. At this point I also upload my images via FTP to my Pixaria site."

Finding the market

As a photographer who primarily works on commissions for books, Jason used to spend a large amount of his time selecting shots and compiling CD-ROMs of images to be sent out to both potential and current clients. With a huge volume of images to be sorted, this obviously left little time for actually taking photos. "Using PopPhoto Studio (the predecessor to Pixaria), I established my own online image library," says Jason. "The site quickly started to receive hits and resulted in my work being used for a calendar in New Zealand and greeting cards in the UK. With the arrival of Pixaria, the image library was fully integrated into my website and has become an important part of my marketing plans."

Jason is clear about the impact that using Pixaria has had for him. "My line of photography used to mean a lot of speculative submissions to various markets, including magazine, calendar and card publishers. Thanks to my site, this scenario has now virtually disappeared and my clients come to me. Ultimately, using Pixaria has helped me to be able to spend more time in the field actually taking photographs, which is what it is really all about!"