Archive for November, 2007

Time for another quick run through my latest newspaper pics, as usual showing just the ones that have been published. Loads of pics waiting in the wings but these are the ones that made it in to print this week, starting with these from the Tain Explorer Unit adventure weekend. (I'm sure they'd hate me describing it as an adventure weekend but that's the quickest way to summarise it.) Done for the Ross-shire Journal and it was the abseiling one that was used.

This shot of the Mermaid of the North in Balintore illustrated a story in the Ross-shire Journal about damage caused by children throwing stones at her.

Time and again I make the same point: Always supply a good range of photos because the person at the paper choosing one for the story may have very different tastes from you. This is a good example, as this portrait which I don't like was the one used on the front page of this week's Ross-shire Journal to illustrate a story about domestic abuse.

Here are some of the alternative photos that I supplied. Both the subject and myself preferred the two on the bottom row.

Here's a bigger version of that last pic, my own favourite:

This fund-raising welly walk at Craighill Primary School was rained off the previous week. The job was for the North Star and like all SPP papers their policy is that if you turn up to a job and find that it has been cancelled then you still get paid for the photo and travel expenses. On that day I did some quick shots of some kids jumping up and down with their wellies on, partly to give the paper something to use in an emergency and partly to prove that I had actually turned up. To my horror, one of those (awful) photos somehow ended up in the paper with my name under it, but I'm not posting it here. The welly walk finally went ahead the next week and this was the big group shot used in this week's North Star.

We did this other group shot too. In some ways I prefer it, in some ways I don't, but I'd have put money on the paper using this one. Shows how much I know. 

Playing safe as usual, just in case the group shots didn't work out, I went on the walk and took some action shots on the way. (These school things are so much more fun as an adult, I never miss an opportunity to tag along!)

Now some pics from a ploughing competition. These first two show a father and son who won the Overall Local Champion trophies in the senior and junior categories. These were done on spec for the Press & Journal and the first one was used.

All of the Ross-shire winners, done for the Ross-shire Journal: 

And all of the Caithness winners done for the John O'Groat Journal. I assume this has been used but I haven't actually seen the paper yet. 

I ended up in an awkward situation with my pics of Remembrance Day in Tain, as both the North Star and the Ross-shire Journal had requested pics but I only had chance to do one set-up. At first what I did was send some parade pics to the NS and I was going to send the set-up pic to the RSJ because they've been giving me a lot more work recently, but doing that felt sleazy because the NS had booked me much earlier so I felt they should have the best photo. So I also sent the set-up pic to the NS and apologised to the RSJ for not getting them anything, which was the first time that has ever happened. After all that, you can imagine how frustrating it was when the NS came out and I saw that they'd used one of the parade pics, so the RSJ could have had the set-up pic after all.

The two parade pics. It was the first one that the NS used although they mistakenly credited me for a pic from somewhere else. 

My favourite photo from this week, and the most fun job too. Tricia Dingwall is a dental nurse who recorded an album of pop and rock cover versions and raised £1000 for charity. It's always frustrating when someone gives you 5 minutes of their time, doesn't co-operate and ends up not liking the photo — and Tricia was the complete opposite. I had about half an hour with her and we tried a variety of ideas, all properly posed and all properly lit. And surprise surprise, the result was a lovely portrait that we both liked. This ran HUGE in the Press & Journal.

Once in a blue moon I do remember to take set-up shots to show how a photo was lit. Nearly every newspaper photo I use lighting for is done with these two little flashes, just the positioning changes to produce different effects.

This event at Carbisdale Castle in Sutherland gave young people an opportunity to discuss equality with people from all walks of life. I cut my teeth on candid shots of workshops, concerts and parties but still this event proved very difficult to photograph as the room was packed to bursting and everyone was sitting shoulder to shoulder around small tables. This was the shot used in the Press & Journal. The left side of the frame was a mess so it was cropped like this in the paper, which was exactly what I was hoping they'd do:

Some alternative frames. I really like the vertical one. I was 99.9% sure it wouldn't be used but I like it all the same, it's a vaguely original composition.

As I was leaving with 146 shots on my memory card I wasn't convinced that I'd have even one useable shot, so I had to set something up. Well it's a good job that some of the candid shots were okay because I made a mess of the set-up! I've never used the flash/zoom technique before but I nailed it for this shot of the three organisers… and got the composition wrong! The girl at the front needed to be central to the frame, but because the girl on frame right had her hand stuck out so far it's impossible to crop the image nicely.

Here's a round-up of the latest photos I've done for the Ross-shire Journal. These are just the ones that have been published in the last couple of weeks. Some of the best pics I've ever done (in my opinion) were done last week for the RSJ but they haven't appeared in the paper yet so I'll hold off from posting those until they've been in the paper, presumably next week.

Caberfeidh vs Aberdeen shinty match:

Official opening of the new facilities at Balintore Football Club: 

The unveiling of a new mural at the train station in Invergordon:

Alternative frames: 

This photo was done to illustrate a story about the possible closure of the Dingwall gala due to lack of funds. I didn't do this job very well because I didn't pay attention to the story, and I produced happy smiley photos for a downbeat story. The paper compensated for my mistake by captioning the photo "still hoping…" to make the smiles make sense. From now on I'll get my head around the story before doing the photos to make sure I produce an appropriate image.

Alternative frames:

Graduates at the Highland Theological College. At the time I thought the composition of this image was really strong, but when I started going through the pics to choose one for the paper I realised that the nice church background would be lost in the crop and we'd be left with that boring plain wall behind them! So this is not nearly as good as I thought it was at the time. Could have done without the sideways shadows too.

Halloween party at the Jubilee Hall in Evanton. One thing I've learned about doing pics like this is that it's best to choose the kids yourself, otherwise you can end up with the organisers picking their favourites and there's no guarantee that they'll be any good at taking directions. So for this photo I introduced myself to the organisers, then hung around at the kitchen door for a few minutes, watching some of the kids playing musical statues. I picked out three girls who I thought would be good for the photo, but by the time I approached their parents I'd lost track of one so I had to quickly choose another. The boy in the pirate/skeleton outfit caught my eye and I think he did okay, but the girls did take direction better.

The new minister at the United Free Church in Balintore, pictured with his wife and daughter. The depth of field is way too shallow so the girls are out of focus. Normally I'd have shot this at f/11 or f/16 but I was using a shoot-through umbrella for the light so I was limited to f/5.6 and it wasn't enough.

Members of "tePOOKa" after their Secrets of the Forest performance in Morangie Forest, Tain. I love working with performers. These guys had the same professional attitude to the photo as they had to the show itself, and they allowed me plenty of time to set-up front and rear lighting, and to make adjustments to the composition. I must admit that I didn't do a great job with the lighting but we still got a strong, eye-catching image. Usually with large groups there will be one person who ruins it by looking away, not smiling, etc, but on this occasion I was the weak link and I didn't notice that some of the people at the back weren't lit properly.

This photo was to illustrate a story about a fund-raising art fair organised by Ferintosh primary school. I wondered if this photo might be rejected because it looks like a snapshot, but it was in fact carefully set-up with lights front and back and this is exactly the image that I wanted to produce. It ran on the front page.

Alternative frames: 

Re-opening of the Neil Gunn monument. The composition was dictated by the wind and rain which limited my angles because I didn't want the front element of the lens to get wet, knowing that I wouldn't be able to wipe it dry. 

Alternative frames. After the shoot up at the monument I hung around for a couple of hours at the celebration in a church hall so I could do the photo of the woman in front of the Neil Gunn poster. I didn't know if I'd have anything useable from up at the monument due to the bad weather, so I wanted to make sure the paper had at least one image to illustrate the story.