Edinburgh

Just back from Edinburgh and even though it was out of the main holiday season and there was bad weather pretty much every day, there was still plenty to shoot  - at least when you're not in the pub!

As mentioned before in other posts, when visiting places like this or just shooting generally, I think travelling light is the order of the day leaving you free to wander round unhindered. I was using my primes as usual - I had a 20mm 2.8, a 50mm 1.8 and an 85mm 1.4, a couple of D3's and that was pretty much it. 

 Edinburgh Castle

Despite recent problems about shooting photographs in public places and how panic stricken the police, public officials and members of the public become as soon as you raise a camera to your eye it was refreshing to find that I didn't encounter any of this in Edinburgh. Probably because it is such a popular tourist location and as such photography is very common, so one more person with a camera didn't raise any concerns.

National Scottish Gallery

If I had been there in the height of the season or if the 'Fringe Festival' was running then pictures would be everywhere but you have to go with what you have and it's part of the challenge to keep your eyes open to the pictures that you pass, it develops your eye and that can't be a bad thing. From busts in the Scottish Museum to homeless guys on the street.

 

Homeless man on Edinburgh street

There were a lot of homeless people on the streets and some people find photographing them to be intimidating but I find if you go about it in the right way then you have fewer problems. I don't mind at all giving them a couple of quid but I always offer it so they can buy a brew or something rather than a payment for pictures. As long as you don't patronise them and you ask if they mind having their photo taken then your generally going to be alright and after I have done shooting I don't mind staying around to have a chat for a few minutes.

International newsagents

This International Newsagents caught my eye simply because of the huge variety of newspapers from all over the world and in many different languages that were on display outside the shop but I had to wait with this picture framed until someone walked out of the shop with a paper in hand to bring it together.

Scottish War Memorial

The Scottish War Memorial inside Edinburgh Castle was a quiet and austere room in which all the usual trimmings telling of military sacrifice were visible. The above picture of one of the carved walls was taken at 2000 ISO in a very dark corner of the room, amazing results from the D3 and something I could never have done with my D2x!

Busker on the street in early evening

This street entertainer was one of only a very few this time although I can imagine that in the height of the summer every corner will be occupied, another shot taken in low light and once again these guys are more than happy to have their pictures taken - he was actually really good aswell.

 

Phone boxes

 

Plasma ball in the Camera Obscura Museum

Man on his mobile

 

Statue of Adam Smith

Adam Smith was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economics. He was one of the key figures of the 'Scottish Enlightenment' and the author of a number of books on economics namely 'The Wealth of Nations'. He is widely regarded as the father of modern economics. Now in case your astounded with my knowledge of Scottish economics thinking I am a font of knowledge on the subject I have to confess that I knicked this info from Wikipidia, but a bit of background info never hurts. It's good for the captions.

View over Edinburgh streets

Repent!

This guy was walking along with his placard and a picture just had to be taken, he wouldn't let me get away without asking me..."Where are you from....?", I replied with, roughly, where I live, but then, fixing me with a stern gaze he asked me in a very serious tone... "BUT, where are you going?" and pointed to his placard!

Ah well, at least I know.

Redcar

Copyright - The Digital Economy Bill

Seriously though, who thinks up this stuff???!!

As if the 'industry' isn't struggling enough!
Rather than me listing everything here, follow the link below to read about this, not long left before it comes about.
http://copyrightaction.com/forum/uk-gov-nationalises-orphans-and-bans-non-consensual-photography-in-public

What can be done about it?
Realistically - probably nothing!
We all know how it works...unfortunately.

However, you could send a letter to your MP to get him/her to vote against the bill....you never know?

Example of letter to send to your MP...cut n' paste and change as required.
http://copyrightaction.com/digital-economy-bill-mp-letter-template

How to find your MP...
http://www.parliament.uk/mpslordsandoffices/mps_and_lords/alcm.cfm

Hopefully they may see common sense (maybe even apply some?)
Worth a try.

Photo Therapy

There is something very liberating with photography when there is no brief, no deadline, no editor, no customer, no 'message' to try and push out, no other bullshit relating to work, no office politics and all that crap and you can just turn up somewhere and wander around and shoot pictures as and when you want and of what you want.



I seem to have spent the last few weeks photographing nothing but dead soldiers at RAF Lyneham ( http://ianforsyth.blogspot.com/2010/01/white-tent.html ) and I was getting fed up with that so this weekend I wanted to get away and Weymouth in Dorset on the South coast was where I found myself today after driving for an hour or so from Salisbury for a bit of a photo trip. I had no plan and no photo ideas I just wanted to get out, see what turned up and shoot some pictures - you could call it photo therapy!



Another great thing about doing this is that I can get the primes out, leave the bulky zooms behind, and travel nice and light. For this jaunt I was with two D3's, a 20mm 2.8 on one and an 85mm 1.4 on the other and my 50mm 1.8, which is always with me in my small bag, and that's about it. I'm a firm believer in shooting primes when possible, not completely from a 'quality of the image' point of view, because most good, fast zooms are great quality, but for your own progression as a photographer.



If you shoot primes your composition will improve, guaranteed, you develop your 'eye' better and it forces you to think about your photography more and you do see pictures in a different way, occasionally you might miss a picture you see or you may really have to work to get into position - but what you gonna do - if it was easy everyone would be doing it!

There is always plenty of 'stuff' to shoot in a coastal town and usually, as it was here, when out of season, you can get a whole different perspective especially when the crowds of holiday makers and tourists have yet to descend on the place.



So if you get the chance, get out and about for some photo therapy, leave all the heavy gear at home and travel light, forget about 'new camera' this and 'new software' that and all the rest of the crap that seems to occupy the thoughts of people every day and concentrate on taking some pictures, learn and develop your skills and think about the photography.

World Press Photo Awards

The results came out today...Ah well, there's always next year or the year after that....

http://www.worldpressphoto.org/index.php?option=com_photogallery&task=blogsection&id=20&Itemid=257&bandwidth=high

The Town That Honours

Wootton Bassett, a small town in north Wiltshire, is known throughout the country and the world as a town that honours the servicemen and women killed on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We frequently see the images from the town in the wider media following the repatriation ceremony that takes place when the bodies are returned to RAF Lyneham.

What follows is a multimedia piece that I have produced following the repatriations that have taken place in the town and some of the voices of the people from Wootton Bassett and their thoughts...

Also on You Tune http://www.youtube.com/britisharmy#p/u/0/r-c8VsDn-J4

Images used by permission crown copyright 2010.

The White Tent

One can only imagine what the family members of soldiers who are killed on operations in places like Afghanistan are going through as they wait inside the large white tent erected next to the terminal building at RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire. As the massive C17 aircraft slowly comes to a halt in front of them, the turbines wind down and as the hydraulic ramp at the rear of the aircraft is lowered, silence descends.

The bearer party make their way down the ramp onto the wet tarmac, the flag draped coffin is saluted, and away to one side the Last Post is played by a lone bugler as they begin the slow, dignified procession to the hearse.

Carried towards the open rear door of the hearse the bearer party remain steady. Unwavering in their task. Regardless of the weather or the conditions they carry their comrade to the waiting vehicle. As the rear door closes, they wait silently, standing to attention as the hearse pulls off and is slowly driven away. This is the process each time a soldier is repatriated. A dignified and faultless process that happens each and every time, regardless of rank or regiment.

As a photographer for the Army one of the tasks we undertake is to photograph each of these repatriation services. We capture the whole service from start to finish from a position on the roof of the terminal building. For each repatriation that we photograph we have three main outlets for the images we make. We file images to the civilian press, we subsequently create a CD of the images that is passed to the family and all of the photographs are eventually sent to the Imperial War Museum in London to form part of a permanent photographic archive.

It should go without saying that you have to get it right, each time, every time, regardless of weather or the conditions you have to try and make the best pictures that you can - for all the reasons mentioned above and because as a professional you want it to be right. Even though each repatriation follows the same process it would be foolish to become blase about it, each time requires total concentration to get the pictures and the awareness to see a picture that might be a little different.

You can almost feel the grief in the air sometimes, rising up from the white tent, but you have to put any feelings you have to one side, you can deal with them later in your own way but hopefully, eventually, the pictures will provide some comfort to the family and will go towards providing a lasting memorial to the soldiers killed on deployment.


NOTE:
Images used by permission Crown Copyright 2010.

I'm not a Slave to Technology!

I'm not a geeky tech head, I'm not constantly looking out for the latest piece of technology that looks sleek and sexy to try and impress with, to buy even if I don't need it. When the iPhone came out I didn't raise an eyebrow and wasn't particularly tempted to buy, as long as the phone I had could allow to make calls and send the odd text I was pretty much sorted.

I received an iPod for a christmas gift and despite my 'grumpy old man' murmurings about 'why do I need one of these...??' I was secretly impressed, the more I get used to it the more I like it and enjoy things I can do with it.

I'm a photographer, and I've seen the Macbook pro's and the iMac's doing their thing as they are used in anger by fellow togs. I know this and would love to have one, alas my mortgage, my car payments, my insurance and all the other boring stuff won't allow it just yet, but for image editing and ease of, well, ease of pretty much everything, I'm sold!

Now, as if that's not enough, old Stevey boy and his merry crew launch this iPad thingymajig and after watching the demo, linked here from the Apple site... http://www.apple.com/ipad/ipad-video/#small I'd be lying if I wasn't a bit impressed.

Even if it turns out not to work in the real world it still looks really cool!!

Thinking of all the photography related uses it could operate and support, on first sight it looks pretty cheeky - How it would hold up though, especially the screen, to some battering and abuse through day to day work is interesting, would you have to carry a laptop and this as well? - Probably. It is after all another piece of kit that needs to be charged and the extra weight is not a good thing, so when out and about I don't think it would replace the trusty old lappie as far as photographers are concerned.

But if your going for a meeting to show some portfolio work, or giving a briefing or sat around and want to surf the tinternet etc etc (or want to look cool in front of your mates) than it looks pretty sweet and if I had the cash to burn I'd probably have one - because that's what you do!

But for now, I think I will have to sit this one out and wait for the Mark II version which will be made of plastic and can be rolled up like a newspaper and I will look on with envy as other tech heads, geeky or otherwise, sit with a feint look of 'technology smugness' on their faces and work out which way is up.

Now back to my PC.....what does this blue screen mean?????

New Tablet...

Everyone is talking about it...

Interesting listening...

Have a listen to this if you half an hour to kill...Can photography change the world?
Or not? What price is paid by the photographer?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00q3cm3

and...

'Disaster Porn', are graphic images, such as those released from Haiti necessary to tell the story, does it make the viewer feel anything more when they view them - does 'compassion fatigue' eventually set in and how does it represent the people suffering in the disaster...??

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8478000/8478314.stm


Picked these broadcasts up via links from Duck Rabbit..Top multimedia producers check their blog at...

http://duckrabbit.info/blog/

and their website at...

http://duckrabbit.info/

London skyline at night

Army Photographic Competition 2009

I've just got back from attending the Army Photographic Competition awards at the Imperial War Museum in London. (http://www.iwm.org.uk/)

This year I was fortunate to come away with the title of 'Professional Army photographer of the Year' for an eight picture portfolio that I submitted to the competition. The pictures came from a number of photographic jobs over the year ranging from Kenya, Normandy and the UK.

Call of the Wild

A friend of mine and fellow photographer Shane Wilkinson (http://www.chillpics.co.uk/) owns a Siberian Husky dog team and after the latest snow fall he was chomping at the bit to get them out in the snow on Salisbury Plain for a bit of a run.

These dogs are amazing - relentless, strong and determined animals that never seem to get tired of running through the snow! He trains them for working sled dog rallies, this basically consists of a team of dogs, a sled, usually with wheels (we don't get that much snow that often) and a route mapped out over various distances. Against the clock they set off on the route and race each other.

This jaunt out onto the Plain was a bit of training for them and a couple of Alaskan Malamutes' that joined the team and also offered some good photo ops for myself and Steve Woods another fellow tog (http://throughwoodyslens.blogspot.com/) . The light was fading fast and the first light set up I used was a single flash camera left at half power with a Pocket Wizard triggering. The camera was a Nikon D3 with a 70-200mm f2.8 VR lens. I had my ISO at 1000 and was working at a 200th at around f8, although this had to be tweaked as the ambient level dropped. I kept my white balance at 'Daylight' allowing the background to retain some 'blueness' because I liked the coldness it showed whilst the flash lit up the dogs in a pool of light (see above).

The shot above was on similar settings but this time Steve held a second flash at camera right, triggered by the main light. On the earlier shots Shane's face was too dark, we even tried shining a torch into his face as he passed to bring in some light but after getting some cross light going with the other flash it made a nice light, lifting Shane and his dogs nicely whilst keeping a sense of place as he drove the team through the cold woods (see above).

On the whole it was a good photo opportunity and from it, hopefully, some half decent shots. Some photo considerations that came out of it were that when you think you have enough plastic bags to cover your flash and pocket wizards - you don't - always have more, take some elastic bands to secure them to the light stand. Pre-focus on your light pool if your continuous focus is confused by the snowfall. Finally, ensure that the stands are weighted down - but at least I know now that snow softens the fall when the stand, SB 900 and pocket wizard all blow over in a gust of wind (twice!!)

Snow pictures

With the heavy snow coming to this part of North Yorkshire and Teesside it's always worth keeping an eye out for some seasonal photos - even if you are just on your way to the pub!