Archive for January, 2007
Weather photos
Thu Jan 18th - 7:22pm
There have been a few galleries on the BBC web site today showing pictures of the snow and winds affecting some parts of the country, so I headed out to see what I could find to represent Tain. The really bad weather hasn't hit this area yet but I did find a few nice scenes that illustrate how cold it is, and as a bonus I think they work well as landscape photos in their own right.
This flooded field near Tain didn't have time to drain before freezing over:
Anyone for a picnic on Tain Hill?
Sunset over Tain Hill:
Gray sunrise
Thu Jan 18th - 11:52am
Don't you just love the Internet? I noticed this atmospheric view an hour ago and went out to take a picture. Now the whole world can see it…
Dolly + cat
Wed Jan 17th - 8:30pm
I've spent most of the last two days trying to set-up my next little photo story for BBC Online, heading down to Glasgow to photograph a performance by various youth orchestras from around Scotland.
But in a classic example of "policy over common sense" it turns out that the Royal Concert Hall has a policy of only allowing photography for the first half hour of any performance. This is normal for single-act shows, and it makes sense, but how are you supposed to cover performances by five separate orchestras when you're only allowed to take pictures of the first one?!
I've asked them twice to make an exception but they just keep throwing "policy" at me, so it looks like I won't be doing it at all. And personally I think that's a huge shame as this would have been great national exposure for what these young musicians are doing, and for Celtic Connections in general. Aren't we always hearing that there isn't enough coverage of the arts in Scotland?
So anyway by mid-afternoon today I needed to get away from the computer/phone for a little while so I went round to a neighbour's house to do a picture of her with her new rescue cat for the village newsletter.
They say you should never work with children or animals. Well children are fine but even with this very co-operative cat it was a major challenge to get the sort of photo I wanted, which was something with a connection between Dolly and the cat. It took about half an hour before we finally got this shot which is something close to what I had in mind:
Here are a few other shots we did along the way. I used a hair light for all the shots of Dolly, positioned behind her to right of frame, but it doesn't appear to have made much of a difference.
Highland 2007 launch (part 2)
Sat Jan 13th - 3:30pm
Back home! Okay so as I mentioned I just did my first photo story for BBC News Online, covering the Highland 2007 launch. I used to send in loads of pics for their weekly gallery but this was the first paying job. I've been wanting to do a proper photo story for ages, so this was a great opportunity.
The first part of the day went very well. I got loads of pictures showing everything being set-up, Transe Express rehearsing, and the re-opening of the museum and art gallery. That was 50% of the story covered.
Then it was showtime, and that's where it went downhill a bit. I'd pre-arranged several vantage points and confirmed that my media pass would allow me access to them, but a few security guys decided to "get on the radio" and discuss the matter at great length. I didn't have time to argue with them so I left it at that and headed for the viewing area on the bridge where all the other photographers were.
Immediately I could see where this was heading: Twenty photographers getting more or less the same shots of the choir, the band, the pipers, the fireworks and the monster march. So I hopped the barrier and made my way through the crowd, right around to the Palace Hotel where there was a viewing room set aside. That allowed me to get those oh-so-important original shots that nobody else was doing… trouble was they weren't very good. So no shots of the choir or the pipers.
Back round to the bridge, a few lousy shots of the band, a shot that I really like of Jack McConnell giving the opening speech, and then the fireworks started. Well for goodness sake, I've never shot fireworks before! I've read about how to do it but of course I didn't want just the fireworks, I also wanted the castle and the crowd in the foreground. That's a tricky exposure: The crowd was very dark, the castle was well lit, the fireworks were bright, but I needed to keep a longish shutter speed to allow the fireworks to 'streak'. Out of maybe a hundred shots, I had to go through them all three times before I found one that was even technically correct.
Not getting the choir/pipers shots was forgiveable as it happened in the name of creativity, it was just a gamble that didn't pay off. Not getting a good fireworks shot was sheer lack of ability!
The next part of the evening was the monster march and frankly I don't even know where it was happening. I saw precisely three monsters the whole time, two in a dark corner near the castle and one in the middle of a huge crowd of people on Church Street. I dashed around to get in front of that one but time was running short and I needed to get into position for Transe Express so I decided to skip the monster shot, not a great loss as there will be loads of people getting those shots on their camera phones. I'm more interested in getting the shots that other people won't get.
Round to the back of the Eastgate Centre then, where it had been arranged in advance that a security guard would let me in and escort me up to the roof. Two roofs and three security guards later, I eventually had a good vantage point over Falcon Square. Not the view I wanted but it was pretty good. Had a nice chat with Keith the security guard for half an hour then the show finally started, I grabbed the shots I needed, and headed back down to to see what I could find from ground level.
And that was that. Back to the hotel, processed and captioned 18 pics, sent them of at about 1am, and then listened to the barman explain why "served until 4am" on the bar meals menu actually meant midnight. Couldn't be bothered going to the take-away so went to bed.
Great fun. Did a good job for 75% of the day, failed the rest but with good intentions. Not good enough! Hopefully I'll get the chance to do more event coverage and I'm sure I'll do better next time, especially if the security arrangements are a little clearer. And it's in daylight. With no crowds.
Here's the gallery on the BBC Scotland web site. Note that only pictures 1-11 are mine, the others were added later.
Highland 2007 launch
Sat Jan 13th - 11:31am
I'm down in Inverness covering the Highland 2007 launch. This was my first outing for BBC News Online and results have been mixed to say the least. Here's a selection of pics from yesterday, processed quickly on my laptop so colours / brightness might be a bit off. If you can get along to the second performance of the aerial ballet tonight then I recommend you do, it's quite spectacular. Not sure how a French dance troupe relates to the theme of Highland culture but they certainly put on a good show. I got to watch part of it from the roof of the Eastgate Centre!
Lighting the Hilton Stone
Wed Jan 10th - 7:56pm
I had a go at lighting the Hilton Stone today with questionable success. The lighting itself worked well, but part of the reason for lighting the subject is being able to darken the background and the Stone has a lot of background. It's difficult to avoid having a large part of the image with no detail. I've got a few ideas for how to approach this subject with different lighting conditions, but here's what I came up with today. Those LED strips at the bottom of the Stone really ruin pictures!
Lighting Landscapes
Mon Jan 8th - 3:59pm
Following on from what I said about covering football the other day, I'm also going to look for new ways of photographing landscapes. My first thought was to treat landscapes like portraits, with a subject and a background, and to light the subject.
Note that I'm not talking about simply sticking a flash on the camera, I'm talking about setting up strobe(s) around the subject to control light and shadow in exactly the same way as you would light a person. You can then use aperture to control exposure of the subject, and shutter speed to control exposure of the background, producing some dramatic images.
This morning's first attempt was, in my opinion, a great success, and I'll certainly be exploring this idea further. I think there is enormous potential for creativity and originality, which is what I'm looking for. The gallery link below includes larger versions of these pictures and some other examples.
Click here for Lighting Landscapes Gallery
All shots were taken with a Canon 1Ds and 70-200 f/2.8L IS lens, some hand-held and some on a tripod (hate using that lens on a tripod!) with apertures between f/2.8 and f/5.6. All lit by a 550EX on a light stand, fired by Pocket Wizards. In each shot the strobe was positioned 45-90 degrees off camera axis, quite high up, and angled to feather the light in such a way that only part of the subject would be brightly lit. In the first two shots a CTO (orange) gel was used, for the others it was bare flash. White balance set to 5600K for all shots.
Balintore team talk shots
Sun Jan 7th - 4:37am
Here are the Balintore team talk shots from yesterday's match. What do you think, is it worth doing these shots in future? I think I'm already sold on the idea, in fact I'll probably try to do both teams from now on if they'll let me.
Click here to view larger versions
