Newspapers
Tips on filling the frame
Fri Dec 18th - 10:25pm
Getting back to the original purpose of this site, which was to offer my humble advice and tips on ways to improve your news photography, I wanted to share an experience from today's shoot featuring two people from local businesses who pay for all the presents at a community Christmas party for around 50 kids.
Obviously I want to produce good results at every job, but it was especially important to come up with the goods from this shoot because I had personally asked the Press & Journal to cover the story. In all honestly it's probably a bit of a small story for the P&J but I thought it was important that these businesses get some acknowledgement for their support of this party, which they fund every year without making any effort to get publicity out of it.
I arranged to do the shoot at the village hall where the party will be held, because there's a Christmas tree there, which could make a good background. And the party organiser agreed to come along with all the wrapped presents. But even though I knew about the shoot a couple of days in advance, and I had a 2-hour drive to get there, it wasn't until I was pulling in to the car park that I finally had a set-up idea that I thought might work. This was the result:
There are three lights doing the work in that shot: Canon 580EX behind the people as a rim light, and two Bowens 1000DX studio lights at the front, one on each side.
Pretty good shot, I'd say, but I wanted to produce at least two different set-ups. After a bit of experimentation I came up with another composition that I thought might work. Here's a test shot:
Not very good, eh?
So here's the tip for today. It's an obvious one, but it's easy to forget when you're in the middle of a shoot and you've got half a dozen other things to concentrate on, so I think it's worth mentioning.
By shooting from above and wide angle, which I didn't want to change, I had left a huge gap in the bottom-right of the frame. Now as soon as you see a gap like that on your camera's review screen, the inclination is to re-think the set-up. And that's what my instinct told me to do on this occasion. But I was starting to feel a bit embarrassed about how much I was struggling to produce a good shot, and thankfully the idea popped in to my head that if I gave the lady one of the presents to hold, that would (1) fill that empty corner of the frame, and (2) help to emphasise the number of presents paid for by the donations.
With presents hastily pushed in to the hands of both people, and a few more presents stacked on the pile at the back to build it up a bit, I immediately liked the way the composition was looking. I kept fine-tuning a bit, adjusting the way the lady was holding the presents, and soon produced a shot that looked well-structured but not too posed or over-worked.
The point? Like I said, it's obvious, but it's important to remember. You'll often find compositions that are 75% good, but have one corner of the frame looking a bit empty. When that happens, before you re-think the whole composition, see if there's anything you can use to fill that quarter frame. You might even find that you improve the picture's relevance by having it tell the story better.
Here are a few more examples…
Using a combination of off-angle shooting, perspective compression and frame-filling to make an awards photo more eye-catching than usual:
Using a human to fill an empty corner! If you're photographing one person, but there's a relative or friend nearby who is connected to the story, then grab some frames with them too, like this shot of a young cart racer with his father:
It's easy to fill three corners of the frame with the people you're photographing, which conveniently leaves one corner to be filled with any books, certificates, trophies, sports equipment, drawings, etc, that are relevant to the story. These two girls had their poetry published in a compilation book:
You can also make the 'prop' corner of the frame more prominent to create a more dramatic and eye-catching image, that will naturallly make the viewer stop flicking through the paper and start reading the story. (I see that as the job of an editorial photographer — not just to illustrate the story, but to help sell the reporter's words by making the story look as interesting as possible.) These children had reached the semi-finals of a spelling competition, so we used a dictionary, opened at the word 'surveillance', which one of the boys had said was the hardest word he had been asked to spell in the competition:
Bill Mitchell, ex-professional golfer, with new Kia
Thu Dec 17th - 11:57am
On Tuesday I did some photos for a nice quirky story in the Motors North supplement that goes out with a lot of the Scottish Provincial papers.
Bill Mitchell from Grantown-on-Spey was a professional golfer and appeared in the advertising campaign for VW Golf cars. Bill is retired now, and he has just got a brand new Kia Cee'd based on advice from Motors North editor David Morgan.
We did the photos at Grantown-on-Spey golf course. I did try to get permission to put the car on the first green, but the ground was so wet that they weren't even allowing golfers on the course that day!
View this week's Motors North here and the article is on page three.
The weather was perfect for this. After heavy rain all morning, literally 5 minutes before the shoot the rain stopped and the sun came out. This allowed me to use the sun for side/back-lighting and a wireless-triggered flash on a light stand for main lighting. As soon as we'd finished, the rain came back.
Photo that was used:
Couple of alternative frames:
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)
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.
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:
Singer Ruairidh McDonald:
Patsy Burr on the clarsach and Stewart Burr on the recorder:
Ruairidh McDonald again, this time leading the audience in a rendition of Once in Royal David's City:
Members of the Grantown Brass Group:
Vocal quartet Octave:
Flautist Derek Topping:
Internationally renowned singer and recording artist Christopher Josey:
Free e-book on PJ ethics
Fri Nov 14th - 1:05pm
I've only had time to skim parts of it but this looks like it could be a valuable refresher, a free e-book about ethics in photojournalism:
Photojournalism, technology and ethics.
What's right and wrong today?
Kevin MacKenzie Quartet review
Tue Nov 4th - 2:45pm
I did my second arts review for the Press & Journal at the weekend, again at the Old Brewery in Cromarty. This time it was the Kevin MacKenzie jazz quartet.
There are a couple of things to mention about this review…
Firstly, note that the picture is of the bass player and the saxophonist, not of Kevin MacKenzie himself. This illustrates (again) why it's important to always provide a good range of pictures. Naturally I started by doing pictures of the whole quartet, and some of just Kevin. But as the evening went on I realised that I'd be mentioning the individual musicians a lot in the review, so I made sure I got some tighter shots of each of them in case the picture editor wanted to use them as insets.
Secondly, the review is a great example of how journalism is a team effort.
I've written for quite a few magazines and web sites over the years and I'm fairly proud to say that most of what I write makes it in to print with zero changes. But there have been the odd bits here and there that a kindly editor has tidied up, and it's nice to know that someone is reading my words with a fresh pair of eyes and making improvements when necessary.
But this review was a mess. I wrote it when I got home at about 3am on Sunday morning and sent it in to the paper before I went to bed. On Sunday night I re-read it and I was shocked by how loose and repetitive it was. But the version that appeared in print was super-tight and said everything I wanted to say much more efficiently. It's still my review, written in my style, but by cutting out all the waffle the editor made it a hundred times better.
Finally, I must give myself a slap on the back for this effort. I spotted that one of the lights was catching on the head of Kevin's guitar, and after many attempts I caught this golden glow. Not a great picture in the end, but worth trying for, I think.
Monday morning front page
Mon Oct 27th - 11:08am
Always nice to start the week with a photo on the front of the Press & Journal. This one shows some utterly pointless vandalism at a cathedral. There's another photo inside too but I haven't seen the paper yet so I don't know which one.
Two proud front pages
Fri Oct 24th - 11:08am
I've got a couple of front pages today — nothing new there, ha! — but these ones are extra sweet because of the effort involved in producing the pictures.
This picture for the Ross-shire Journal had the potential to be very boring, with a couple of guys from ScotRail coming to look at some war murals at Invergordon train station. So I decided to take a gamble and not feature the war murals at all, instead going for this quirky shot of them queueing at a painted-on ticket office. Now of course I then did some safe shots featuring the war murals, but I thought this was the best picture and thankfully the editor agreed so it's now beaming out at people from hundreds of newsstands around Ross-shire.
Some of the alternative frames:
And this one on the front of today's P&J was done in challenging circumstances, to put it politely. The lady in the picture didn't want to do anything unusual or interesting, and I was very limited in how much I could move the stone around, so backgrounds were a serious problem. I tried a few weird angles and then just kept plugging away until she got bored and relaxed a bit, at which point I got this frame. Not perfect, but better than I was expecting.
Alternative frames, shot from above to use the floor as a background. The over-the-shoulder shot was a good idea that I'll recycle at some point in future.
First concert review for the Press & Journal
Mon Oct 20th - 10:17pm
I did my first concert review for the Press & Journal on Saturday night, published today in the Inverness edition. It was a review of the Calum Stewart, Lauren MacColl and Andy May concert at the Old Brewery in Cromarty. Naturally I did the photographs too and here's how it all came together in the paper:
Click here to read the review online. And a spooky bit of trivia: While queueing to buy the paper, I looked around and guess who was behind me… Calum!
As well as the (very difficult) live photos I did some set-up ones too. For the group shot I had the location set and the lights in place an hour before the musicians even arrived, but I was never 100% convinced that the idea was going to work. A few minutes before we were going to do the picture, I asked three girls to help me test the idea and it looked awful, really bland and formulaic, so I pulled the whole lot down and quickly re-set a couple of yards along the corridor where I could shoot straight down from a high balcony. This was the result:
After the concert I also did some individual portraits of Calum, as he was the star of the show. Here are a couple of favourites:
Both of those portraits were done backstage in a cluttered room with pictures on the walls, using this simple technique to produce the professional studio look.
Update: Just in case anyone's interested, here's what the first idea for the group shot would have looked like. Doesn't really grab your attention, does it?
