Archive for December, 2009

Round-up of favourites

Tue Dec 15th - 10:00am

Here are some of my favourite photos from the last few months.

Steam Fair at Boat of Garten train station. Pictured is engineer and railway enthusiast Martin Johnson (left) from Boat of Garten with his miniature steam traction engine Charles III which took him 17 years to build. Also pictured is railway re-enactor John Lewis who, wearing period 1920s clothes, was on hand during the steam fair to answer visitors' questions. (Press & Journal)

World Porridge Making Competition 2009 held at Carrbridge. Pictured at the village's famous brdge is this year's winner, Matthew Cox from Milwaukie, Oregon, USA, with the Golden Spurtle trophy. (Press & Journal)

Newtonmore rooks invasion! John Harrison of Newtonmore is pictured on the village's high street. Behind him are some of the many hundreds of rooks which flock around the village every night before settling in the trees. (Press & Journal)

Charlie Mackay retirement. One of the great characters of the motor industry, Charlie Mackay is pictured with wife Janet at his retirement party in Tulloch Castle, Dingwall. Charlie was presemted with a commemorative glass plaque and the couple were treated to a luxury cruise as a surprise retirement gift, courtesy of Mackays Of Dingwall and Autovision, Inverness. (Motors North)

Sellers family in TV documentary. Pictured is the Sellers family from Portmahomack, seen here on the village's beach. The family was filmed in the summer for a Channel Five documentary, "Family!", which begins airing on Monday 30 November in Five's pre-school strand "Milkshake!". (Press & Journal)

Mercedes sees her first Highland snow. Mercedes the polar bear at the Highland Wildlife Park in Kincraig experiences snow for the first time since arriving in the Highlands. (Strathy)

Jean Mackenzie Sports Council award. Pictured is Balintore Football Club chairwoman Jean Mackenzie who has been awarded a Ross & Cromarty Sports Council award "to acknowledge that she has made the greatest contribution to a club as a volunteer". Jean was nominated for the award by David Cowie, chairman of the North Caledonian Football League, with the nomination supported by League secretary Ian Whitehead and Highland Foootball Academy manager Rod Houston. (Press & Journal)

Kingussie Christmas lights switch-on. This year the honour of switching on the Kingussie Christmas lights went to Isobel Bennett whose late husband Sandy Bennett had been a member of the community council for 30 years and had formed the Christmas Lights Committee around 15 years ago. Sandy died earlier this year. (First pic was a surprise front page of the Press & Journal, second pic is going in the Strathy at some point over Christmas.)

Emma Matheson from Balblair with her 8-year-old horse Printz, full name Weatheroak Manor White Knight. (Ross-shire Journal)

Equal Adventure Festival. Jamie Andrew, who lost both hands and both feet to frostbite while climbing in the Alps in 1999, is pictured doing a slackline walk during the Equal Adventure Festival at Glenmore Lodge near Aviemore. He is aided by volunteer marshalls Eve McCurrich and Ian Harris who gave support to disabled and able-bodied people alike. (Press & Journal)

Concluding day of the Tain Gala. Going over a ramp at terrific speed, Amanda Saville from the Chariots of Fire horse and carriage display team is lifted out of her seat. (Press & Journal)

Freestyle motorcross rider Dan Whitby from the Bolddog display team performs during the concluding day of the Tain Gala. (This didn't go in the paper, I just like the pic!)

Bryan Stevens from Aviemore. Bryan has been selected for the Scottish wheelchair racing team. He currently trains in a racing wheelchair that was fitted for someone else, and is trying to raise money or sponsorship to get a chair fitted for himself. (Press & Journal)

Sheila McConachie and Graham Harvey, owners of the Craggan Mill restaurant in Grantown-on-Spey, have won the "Best Book in the World on Cooking with Wine, Beer and Spirits" award at the Gourmand Awards, held in Paris, for their book "The Whisky Kitchen". (Daily Record)

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Fatal collision on A95 near Aviemore

Mon Dec 14th - 1:47pm

Certainly one of the saddest pieces of news I've ever covered was the fatal collision on the A95 near Aviemore on 5 December in which a mother and her two children lost their lives while delivering Christmas presents.

Some people do find it distasteful to photograph incidents such as this, but my view is: If you're going to work in news then you should cover everything that has legitimate public interest, you don't pick and choose based on emotion. Yes you feel and share the grief of the people who have been affected by the incident, but you need to just get on with your job in the most respectful and unobtrusive way possible. Is it wrong that you are making money from someone else's misfortune? That's something that everyone has to decide for themselves.

Two of my photos of the crash scene were published. This ons was used for BBC Scotland's online coverage of the incident:

This one was front page of the Strathy:

It can be uncomfortable photographing a scene like this, even though you're there with permission from the police and there are half a dozen other photographers and journalists there with you. But even more uncomfortable is going back the next day to photograph the flowers and tributes left at the scene. You're there on your own, in a location that can naturally feel quite ghostly, and personally I always feel like a bit of a vulture, swooping down to get more money from someone's misery. But again, it's news, so you do it.

When I arrived at the scene there were no flowers. But while I was there I noticed something: At the bend in the road close to the crash site, several cars strayed in to the wrong lane. I'd estimate that one in every ten cars had its wheels clearly over the white line. It occurred to me that there may be something inherently wrong with that section of road that was causing cars to stray over the line, so I made sure I got a good photo of one car doing it:

I've since sent that photo to a local councillor who has said he will bring it to the attention of the police.

As I was leaving, two people appeared in the distance and came to place flowers at the scene. I stayed well back and got some photos of them. This one was published in both The Sun and the Daily Record:

And naturally I then went and got photos of the flowers, and this close-up of the card which was also published in The Sun and the Daily Record, as well as in the Press & Journal, which was the paper that had originally asked me to go along and see if there were any flowers there:

Horrible event. Wish it hadn't happened. But I covered it tactfully and professionally and, who knows, maybe my photos will help to raise awareness of a potentially dangerous stretch of road.

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Ruthven Barracks and Kingussie panorama

Sun Dec 13th - 11:53am

Yesterday I produced a 60-megapixel panorama showing Ruthven Barracks, Kingussie and the surrounding landscape. Click this small version to see a 2,000-pixel wide version, although that's nothing compared to the full-size version which is over 17,000 pixels wide and prints 60 inches long at 300-dpi.

Tip: When shooting a landscape that has lots of sunshine and lots of shade, set your white balance to shade. That way the shaded areas will appear natural and the sunshine areas will take on a nice warm glow. If you set your white balance to sunshine then the sunshine areas will look okay but the shaded areas will appear blue and the picture will look too cold and unnatural.

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Kingussie Christmas concert

Sat Dec 12th - 4:26pm

I've been living in Kingussie in the Cairngorms for nearly a year now so I think it's long-overdue that I get back to updating my blog. It has been a little bizarre moving away from Ross-shire where everybody recognised me and knew my work, but that's okay as I still do a fair few jobs up there and then return to the Cairngorms and my new-found anonymity!

I'll try to update the blog fairly regularly from now on, catching up on some of my favourite photos from recent months and posting a lot of my new ones. To start with, here are some photos from last night's Chrstmas concert in Kingussie, which I covered for the Strathy.

Members of the Coire Choristers: