Latest newspaper photos

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.