Latest RSJ photos

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.