Archive for March, 2007
Alness vs Bunillidh
Sat Mar 10th - 11:38pm
Not a great haul from today's match which Alness won 5-0 at home against Bunillidh. For part of the second half I was experimenting with a new idea so my mind wasn't on the action, but the rest of the time I was giving it 100% and simply not getting the shots. I really need to do better than this if I'm going to do the bigger sports jobs. Best 'story' pic in my opinion is the top-right one as it sums up the match, which was dominated by Alness.
dg28.com relaunched
Sat Mar 10th - 12:06pm
I think it's fair to say that David Hobby's Strobist is the current #1 site for creative editorial lighting, but for a long time that title was held by Neil Turner's dg28.com which has just been relaunched after lying dormant for a while. Neil is a staff photographer with the Times Educational Supplement.
Unfortunately the archive pages are gone. According to Neil: "Too many people whose pictures were on the site have asked for their images to be withdrawn to make it worth keeping the archive alive." (Boo! Hiss!) But he's now updating the site with new tutorials. (Hurrah!)
Football grant: Measuring up!
Fri Mar 9th - 4:32am
Time for the next instalment of the football grant photo story.
A dark, cold and rainy Tuesday night saw four of us make our way up to the pitch to take measurements of the changing rooms and showers. (I was only taking photos, the other three did all the work.)
For this part of the story I wanted two photos:
Firstly, a basic shot of the showers as an illustration of why the facilities need upgrading, ie: There are only seven showers for two football teams. I did find a few angles that allowed me to get all seven showers in frame, but I've settled on this shot that shows most of the showers plus the door into one of the changing rooms.
Secondly I wanted a shot of Gordy, Ross and Jean all hard at work. I've got a few to choose from but each photo has strengths and weaknesses so I'm not going to make a final decision just yet. Here are the ones I'm considering.
These shots of Ross measuring the showers and a changing room are my favourites due to strong compositions and good light, but obviously they only show one person so I think that will rule them out.
These shots of Gordy and Ross would be the best candidates if it wasn't for the fact that the next part of the project is to have a professional architect do a scale drawing, and I'm intending to get a shot of her doing that. If I used one of these photos then the final set would have two photos with a similar theme.
So I'll probably have to go with one of these last two. The first one clearly illustrates people taking measurements, and the second one shows all three people. Technically and artistically these are my least favourite shots but they are the best illustrations of what I was trying to show.
Wildcat leaves Invergordon (updated)
Wed Mar 7th - 4:41pm
Had a lucky break today…
I had an hour to kill in Invergordon so I took a walk down to the refabrication yard and noticed that there was still a drilling platform there. I knew from the BBC's coverage that the last one, Wildcat, was meant to have left a few days ago so I asked a security guard what was going on and he told me that it was leaving today after being delayed by bad weather. And right that very second, off it went!
So realising that my best chance of a good photo was from the pier, I legged it round there (quite a distance) and made it just as the rig was going past. I only had a wide lens with me so I looked for shots with something in the foreground, and I couldn't have asked for a better prop than a lifebelt with Invergordon written on it!
An hour later I got home, fired off an e-mail to the Highlands reporter at the BBC to let him know the pics were on the way, picked out the four best ones, quickly processed them and sent them in. Not sure when the story's going to be up on the site but I assume this is the pic he'll use.
Update: The story's up here but with one of the other pics. I'll leave this one here though because it's my own favourite.
7 March 2007: The Essar Wildcat drilling platform leaves Invergordon for India, a journey that will take around three months. The departure had been delayed by several days due to bad weather. Wildcat is the last platform to leave the Cromarty Firth in the Scottish Highlands where drilling rigs are stored while not in use. The lack of rigs in the Firth is a good indication that the oil and gas industries are currently strong.
Link of the day
Tue Mar 6th - 3:23pm
Trivia: In a drag race between the McLaren F1 and the Bugatti Veyron sports cars, even if the McLaren reached 120mph before the Bugatti left the starting line, the Bugatti would still be first to hit 200mph.
That's assuming you don't slam your £800,000 Bugatti into a tree.
Alternative meeting photo
Tue Mar 6th - 2:55pm
I knew I'd end up changing my mind.
The reason I rejected this photo at first is that it was taken after one of the committee members had left, but after consideration I do think it's a stronger picture than the original choice. It looks more like something is being thrashed out and everyone means business, rather than just a group of people having a chat.
Football club grant project
Tue Mar 6th - 1:19am
Last night I began a personal project that is likely to continue for the next year or so. When I say personal project I mean that I'm just doing it because I want to do it, not for a publication, although if it goes well then I will pitch it somewhere. I doubt it will go further than the village newsletter though.
The idea is to document a grant-funded project from beginning to end. I'm on my local football club committee and we're applying for money to improve the facilities at our ground. Last night we met with the person who is advising us and helping to put the wheels in motion. I'm planning to document every step of the process, from the meetings to the drawing-up of plans, from the first bit of work done at the ground to the improvements being finalised.
For most people the first they'll know of this project will be when they arrive at the ground sometime next year and see the new facilities. My photo project, which should produce a finished story of 12-15 images, will document all the time and effort that goes into actually getting the work done.
The point isn't to produce stunning photos. Nothing arty. This is meant to be purely documentary, illustrated with fly-on-the-wall style images.
Here's the photo I've chosen to represent tonight's meeting:
Here are some that I considered as alternatives. (Is it just me or do these unprocessed jpegs look better than the processed raw conversion above?! Can't make up my mind.)
All taken with the 1D and 17-40 f/4L at 1/40s, f/4, ISO 3200.
Thurso netcam goal
Sun Mar 4th - 3:13pm
Another netcam shot from yesterday's Balintore vs Thurso match, this time showing one of Thurso's goals. I skipped over this shot yesterday because I'm not sure who scored (Mark Nicol?) so I wasn't going to send it to the paper, but I think it's a strong enough image to go in with a generic caption.
Lunar eclipse
Sun Mar 4th - 12:18am
Here's a photo of the lunar eclipse taken on Saturday at 11:50pm.
For this shot I used a Canon 1D and 300mm lens with stacked 2x and 1.4x teleconverters to produce an effective focal length of 1092mm. It was a 1-second exposure, aperture f/8 at ISO 1600.
This next one was taken shortly after the eclipse began at 9:47pm.
It was also taken with the 300mm lens with the stacked teleconverters, but as the moon was very bright I was able to stop the lens down to f/22 (bringing back a lot of the quality that the TCs strip away) and use the 1Ds at ISO 100.
Finally a good netcam shot?
Sat Mar 3rd - 8:13pm
A recent Sports Shooter article introduced me to the low-angle American football shots being produced by Sports Illustrated staff photographer Peter Read Miller.
I was blown away by Peter's work so I committed the first half of today's Balintore vs Thurso game to shooting from a low angle with a 70-200 lens, mostly kneeling behind a goal and poking the lens through the net. (They let you do nearly anything at these games! Just wait until I get my radio controlled helicopter…)
The low angle does succeed in making pictures more dramatic but overall I don't think it works very well for football action. I definitely want to try it for rugby sometime though.
That said, the experiment did produce one good shot…
Towards the end of the first half Balintore was awarded a penalty so I raced back around to behind the Thurso goal, knelt down and motored off a few shots as captain John Skinner netted his team's only goal of the game. I'd had so little time to focus that I was sure all of the shots would be soft but somehow the focus had locked and the shots were nice and sharp.
I've had one vaguely good behind-the-goal shot before (done with a remote) but nothing I wanted to put in the paper. I'll be sending this one in though.
Any football fans reading? Post a comment to let me know what you think of this shot compared to the standard midfield action we usually see in the papers.
Click the picture to see a larger version on my Sports Shooter page.
3 March 2007: Balintore captain John Skinner converts from the penalty spot to score his team's only goal in a home league game against Thurso.
