Kenya - Scenery

I have never thought of myself as a landscape photographer. I appreciate a good landscape photograph as much as the next person and can admire the patience and commitment of the dedicated landscape shooter, but I never really got into it that much - if I happen to be some place and a good landscape photo opportunity presents itself then I will take a picture, of course I will I'm a photographer, it's just that I can't seem to find the patience, at least not when it comes to landscapes.

However, you cannot fail to be impressed by the landscapes that are presented to you in Kenya. Especially in the area that we were, near Nanyuki, where Mount Kenya (around three times higher than Ben Nevis) was visible on the distance horizon.The morning and evening light is amazing and well worth trying to capture if you can, so with my apologies to the hard core landscape shooters out there I have posted a couple of my efforts below...

Kenya - People

I've recently returned from a brief, five day trip to Kenya on assignment with a journalist from the Independent, his piece should be running soon and I'll put something up on here when it does. But in the mean time I wanted to share a few of the other photos that I took whilst I was there.

Kenya is an amazing place, I have been there once before a few years back and you cannot fail to be impressed by a country that has had a difficult time recently. The first hurdle we had to cross was navigating through the early morning rush hour traffic as we drove out of Nairobi following the eight hour flight from London. Chaotic hardly begins to describe it as cars move randomly along the streets without any obvious right of way or traffic rules. Cars crawl along bumper to bumper, if your horn isn't working then your in trouble.

As the traffic stops and starts as it grinds along, the street sellers approach the waiting cars with all manner of products hoping for a sale, everything from daily newspapers, DVD's, steering wheel covers, flags, ceremonial machetes, plastic windmills and other assorted collections of trivia. It would be interesting to discover how many of these steering wheel covers they actually sell?

Nairobi seems, at least in the relatively small part of it we were passing through, to be a city of huge contrasts. On the one hand you have very impressive buildings with amazing architecture and mixed in around it there are signs of great poverty but it all seems to blend into one massive, sprawling sea of people, noise and traffic.

After breaking free of the rush hour traffic and getting further into the countryside the roads become less congested but are less well maintained and some of the potholes are pretty serious and can catch out the unaware. Its also worth keeping an eye out for sheep and cattle that are frequently moved down the sides of the road.

One thing that immediately strikes you is the rich, red colour of the soil as you drive through the open plains, contrast this with the lush greens that seem to come to life as the rainy season starts between March and May and you have heady mix of dark colours that grab your attention.

Maybe as a way of giving themselves more colour, to break up the dark rich earthy colours that colour the landscape many of the buildings, signs and window shutters are painted in bright colours - as you pass by you cannot fail to notice the bright yellows, greens, reds and blues that jump out and grab your attention.

Equipment and advice...

I took 2 camera bodies with me on the trip, both Nikon D2x, a large amount of memory cards, probably aroung 20Gb in total, you can never have too many memory cards! As for lenses I was using a 17-35 mm f2.8 and a 85 mm F1.4 on the bodies and carried a 50 mm f1.8, as it turned out I never used the 50 mm but it was there as a reserve in case one of my others went down.
One SB 800 speedlight fitted with a 1/4 CTO gel, an off camera flash cable, spare camera batteries, notebook, pens, memory card wallet, blower brush, paint brush for the dust and a chamois leather and lens cloth. Basic kit but essential.

For editing I had my laptop, portable hardrive for backing up and the usual leads and cables carried in a small canvas bag.
I carried my kit in one of two set ups depending on what I was doing, either a small canvas bag on my shoulder or three Domke pouches on a belt, both of which allowed me to move freely without too much weight.
Power supply is the same as UK so the plugs we use are fine although I did have a converter just in case and as it happened one of the extension sockets I used was originally from Germany so it came in useful. If you are going to have time to shoot wildlife (photographically that is!) then take some longer glass.

Take the minimum of kit that allows you to pack and move quickly and one thing I found handy was a small canvas bag from Domke that I used to keep all my cables, leads, mouse and phone charger in which made it easier to pack up into my daysack. It's worth considering weather protection from the dust and the occasional heavy downpour, this time, fortunately we never had any rain but the dust did get pretty bad, especially when driving. I found that when we were driving along I used to rest the camera on my lap and cover it with my shemagh, this helped keep the dust off when it got particularly bad but meant I could bring it to my eye and use it quickly if there was a good pitcure opportunity as we drove along. I also had a couple of gortex bags that I had made a while ago by a local seamstress which are ideal for keeping all the other bits and bobs in and keep them clean.
One thing to definitely take is some lens cleaning solution, there were a couple of occasions when I tried to clean some crap off my lens and it left a horrible smear all over the lens and no amount of rubbing would remove it but a quick spray from the lens solution and it cleaned right up. Don't forget to fit UV filters over your glass to protect them, better to damage or scratch a 20 quid filter than your more expensive lenses and it's worth carrying a couple of spares in case of damage.
One final thing to consider is the battery life of your laptop, I was quite lucky and had access to electricity most nights so was able to charge my stuff up but there were a couple of occasions when the laptop ran out of juice so a spare battery might be an option if you can get hold of one. I have been looking at the solar charger equipment available to see if there is something that will pack enough punch to charge bigger equipment than just mobile phones but without bringing too much extra weight.

The time difference in Kenya is 3 hours ahead of the UK, currency is the Kenyan Schilling but US dollars are taken in many places. Make sure you get your jabs before going especially your yellow fever and get your malaria tablets, if your visit is last minute and you don't have much time then consider Malarone, you can take these 2 days before you go and a week after you return and they should be ok but make sure you seek medical advice from a doctor before you go to see what is best suited to your needs.
The main airport in Kenya is Nairobi Kenyatta and flights from Heathrow (Terminal 4) go there usually once a day and the flight time is around eight hours on either BA or Kenyan Airways - So take a good book! A visa is required and can be obtained either before going or on arrival at a relatively small charge. Internet terminals are available in the airport at a charge.

Africa is an amazing place and photographically it offers many opportunities for all types of photography. There is something pretty spectacular about being out in the African bush as the light fades, quickly, as your close to the equator, and soon the sky is filled with the millions of stars making up the constellations of the Milky Way, so clear it doesn't seem real. Despite the torment of this great continent it isn't surprising that people who visit quickly fall under the African spell.

Kenya - Wildlife

No visit to Kenya would be complete without mention of the wildlife. As my visit wasn't primarily to photograph the wildlife I didn't take any long glass, but even with the longest lens with me at 85 mm f1.4 I was able to pull in a herd of elephant as they slowly trooped by seemingly oblivious to our presence. I counted 22 in total ranging from the female matriarch at the head of the herd closely followed by what I can only assume was the latest addition to their group.It was an impressive sight seeing them make their way through the bush and nothing you see on television comes close to seeing them in the wild, in their natural habitat. I've seen them before on a previous visit to Kenya a few years ago but never this close. Just one more amazing thing about Africa.I also saw zebra, giraffe, buffalo, gazelles, weaver birds, and hippos during the various drives through areas of the remote bush. All of which is a hell of a sight in that environment.

Travel light and work fast...

I recently agreed to shoot some portraits of my nephew who was visiting with my brother and his wife. We had decided to go out onto the beach a take a few pictures, I prefer the less formal portrait situations rather than studio portraits that can look too staged and make it harder to keep a two year old entertained.

So the beach would provide interesting photos as well as give Ted plenty to do. Another advantage of shooting in this kind of environment is that it would divert his attention from the bloke with the camera and I would get more natural images.

By it's very nature shooting portraits like this make you think on your feet. You can't control what happens so you just have to be ready to take advantage of a picture opportunity when it arises, but there are some things you can do before the shoot to prepare and give yourself the best chance of getting some nice stuff.

To start with I had changed into some older clothes, clothes and boots that I was happy to get wet and covered in sand as I knew I would be spending a lot of time at the waters edge, probably on my knees to get down to the same height as Ted.

I was keeping my kit to a minimum - 2 Nikon D2x cameras, one with a 70-200 f2.8 and the other with a 12-24mm f4, each with a 4Gb card, my trusty chamois leather that I've had for years to wipe away any water or sand splashes and a SB800 speedlight, I took this down just in case I wanted to add a bit of fill in to the pictures but I never used it.

That was it, no bag, no other lenses, simple kit that allowed me to move and shoot quickly. That's very important because you have to be ready for pictures and to work fast when you see a picture coming together and you don't want to be loaded down with lots of kit that you won't use.

None of the shots were posed, they are all taken as Ted was enjoying himself by the water. I had a couple of ideas for shots that would probably work but I didn't interfere with what was happening and in situations like this I much prefer to allow things to just happen. I find you get far more natural shots and ones that show the subject, Ted in this case, acting as he would normally act.

You have to concentrate hard at these times, always looking for poses or pictures that will be strong. I always shot in manual, so you have to be aware of the light changing in order to adjust your exposure. Keep the camera to your eye and follow the action, you can guarantee that the second you take your eye away from the viewfinder something interesting will happen and you'll miss it.

Concentrate on focusing, I was using continuous auto-focus in the main because of the random movements but I kept my finger over the focus lock button ready to press it when I wanted to hold my focus but change my composition. This takes practice and is tricky, but the more you do it the more comfortable and quicker you will become. Expect the failures though, you will get a fair few out of focus shots when either the focus point has come off your subject or there is movement that you haven't adjusted for, but don't worry about it there will be further opportunities during the shoot.

Take plenty of shots, it doesn't cost anything with digital, but as a cautionary note, don't just stick the camera on 'continuous high' and hose your subject down all the time, by all means use this feature at certain times, it is after all another tool to use and you can get some nice sequences but use it sparingly and when appropriate.

Remember to use the lenses you have with you and don't just stick to the same one, it's amazing the effects that can be achieved by switching your focal length, from the tight head shots to a wider perspective showing the subject in the environment, so experiment and see what you can get.

With practice it becomes second nature to switch very quickly between two cameras, my favoured way of working in these situations using two cameras is to have the one with the smaller lens, the 12-24 around my neck and the other with the longer lens over my right shoulder, but have it the 'wrong way around' so the lens hangs across your backside, this gives a couple of advantages, firstly it allows you to reach down and your hand goes straight onto the grip allowing you to bring it up to the eye and start shooting, if the camera strap is adjusted correctly you can leave it over your shoulder so if you need to switch to the wider lens you can drop it back down into this position quickly without worrying about making sure the strap is secure, secondly, because the lens is not sticking out from your side it is protected from banging into anything and getting damaged, this is especially useful if your moving through crowds or space is limited.

After returning to my house I put up my SB800 speedlight on my light stand and took a few portraits whilst Ted was playing with some toys, shame to miss a photo opportunity! Shooting through an umbrella and getting the light in close you can get a nice soft light which has a flattering effect on whoever you photograph. The flash was triggered with Pocket Wizards.

Hopefully though, at the end of it all you will get some nice stuff that your happy with and that catches the natural expressions and mannerisms of your subject.

One final word, continue to keep your eyes open even when the 'official' shoot has ended and your walking back to the car, you never know when a shot will present itself.

Recent pictures...

Just a couple of recent pictures from last weekend...

Birds flying over the North Sea

Teeside Steel works through sea fret.

Dog on Saltburn pier.

Nature Reserve

Tucked away in the middle of a busy military training area in North Yorkshire is a small oasis of natural calm. The Foxglove Covert Local Nature Reserve is a small nature reserve covering several acres and consists of woodlands, ponds and fields that allow many different species of wildlife, some of which are very rare, to thrive.

The Woodland Centre.

Walkers follow the Moor Trail.

Funded through donations from visitors and local businesses the centre is the only local nature reserve that is on MOD land and has developed into a popular centre for lovers of the countryside and wildlife with many trails criss-crossing the area, bird feeders and hides from which to view the wildlife.

One of the two reserve managers, Marion Hannaford and her dog Willow.

Reserve Manager Sophie Benaiges.

Despite the busy and often noisy military training that takes place around the reserve the 'wall' of trees surrounding the site keeps the disruption to a minimum and many rare species are well adapted to living in the reserve.

The ponds are home to many rare amphibians.

A trail amongst newly planted saplings.

Looked after by the two reserve managers and a handful of volunteers the site is well maintained and has a modern visitors centre with displays and information boards to educate visitors on what can be seen.

Highland cattle in the nature reserve.

Horses on the beach

Horses on the beach at Saltburn

Lifeboat Training

RNLI crew train in the beach break at Saltburn beach.

Back in the Day...

Check this handy application out, takes seconds to download and is free, the shortcuts take a while to get used to but it offers a simple way of writing those press releases or articles without any other on screen distractions.

And... it makes the key sounds of an old typewriter!

All you then have to do is stick a pencil behind your ear, stick a fag in your mouth and you can imagine yourself working to the deadline with the editor on your case!!

Here's the link.....
http://www.baara.com/q10/

Clemenceau - PART 3

As the ship was towed past where I was on the shore I decided that it was time to get the pictures out.

I returned to my Landrover and powered up the laptop and got everything ready to download my pictures. Because I had plenty of time to prepare for this job, which doesn't always happen of course, everything was ready to go, folder structure was already created to bring my RAW images into, my file info was good to go in Photo Mechanic and I had already written a news release with some general details on what was planned including a brief history on the ship.

After ingesting the pictures with Photo Mechanic, including renaming them and applying general file info, I quickly viewed through and 'tagged' up any I liked, Photo Mechanic is a brilliant piece of software for this, very quick and easy to use, after tagging my 'take' I brought them up in a separate screen and began to bring them into Photoshop CS2 for editing.

Editing is kept to a minimum, with basic adjustments made such as a quick levels tweak if required, a quick crop, again if needed, although I try to compose as close as I can in camera to what I want at the end to save on the editing time. Then they are saved into what I call my 'HI RES' folder, this contains all my edited pictures at their full size. At this stage I add any picture specific file info that is extra to what I originally attached, this could include for example, an individuals name or something about a picture relevant to the story that isn't included in the general file info.

Once again through Photo Mechanic I resave all these pictures into a 'LOW RES' folder, this contains the pictures I intend to wire out at the appropriate size for the papers.

In preparation for this, the day before, I had called everyone I was going to send pictures to and given them a heads up so they knew to expect some pictures. This avoids, hopefully, my email going unseen in an inbox somewhere, especially on a Sunday as this was and it also 'sows the seed' for the story. Then the images were attached to an email with the news release and sent out apart from one which was sent by ftp.

Almost straight away I called the desks to let them know that I had sent some pictures in and that it would be with them soon. At this point I packed my gear away and headed home, for me, about a 15 minute drive from where I had taken the pictures. After getting home and getting a brew on I began to call the desks once again to see if the email had arrived. This proved useful because a couple of the desks said they hadn't received it, so after resending it I decided that I had done all I could to get the pictures out.

It had taken approximately 15 to 20 minutes from returning to my car to attaching the photos ready to send out.

As a freelance you have a number of difficulties doing this work off your own back and not working to a commission, most of which are financially based problems. The papers have a number of options open to them to get there pictures from an event like this...

1. They use their own staff photographers' work whose wages they already pay.
2. They use work off the 'wire' supplied by agency phots - Reuters, Getty, PA, AP etc, agencies that they pay a 'subscription' to each year in order to use their images.
3. They can take on a regional agency to cover the job having already established a contract with them.
4. They can decide to use a freelance photographers work based on a commission for that particular job.

As you can tell from this list, for a newspaper to use a photo from another source - an on spec submission from a freelance for example, that they have to pay for is unlikely when they have all the above options open to them. Exceptions to this would be a huge story which was exclusive to the freelance tog.

So what results for my efforts. Unfortunately, nothing this time, a quick scan of the papers I had submitted to revealed that of those who ran the story they had all used pictures by their own staffers or from an agency.

This is the game though, you win some and you lose some, does it piss me off? Of course it does, it's a lot of work for nothing to show, financially, but in the freelance game if you give yourself a hard time each time you get a poor result your going to get very disappointed after a while. The best thing I find to do after each job is to carry out a quick analysis on the story and see what I could have done differently on my side to make sure I can do it as quickly and as professionally as possible and at the best quality and make any adjustments as necessary and then move on and forget about it. Unless you can secure a commission then this is going to be the difficulty faced each time.

Although I do have two more papers to check yet so you never know...now, what's next?

Clemenceau - PART 2

Clemenceau

So this was the idea - photograph the arrival on Teeside of the ship and then get it sent out to the newspapers. Simple idea, but some research and planning was needed. To start with, this story had potential to reach the nationals. It had some good ingredients...A massive French naval vessel, jobs generated in a time of economic troubles, a huge environmental risk due to the asbestos, previous ships from the US Naval reserve have come to the same firm in the past. All good parts to a story.

So research was first, I went online and started googling the Clemenceau to find out what it was and get some background. After that it was onto the Able UK website to get some contact details. I managed to get the number of a press officer for the company and ended up calling him over the last couple of days before the ship arrived for any last minute updates.

I also had the opportunity to get onto a boat with a 'press pool' and shoot from the water but I didn't want to do this for a couple of reasons, firstly, it might take too long to get back and file my pictures, secondly, if a lot of the other photographers were doing this I wanted to try and get something different.

Another way of checking on the progress of the ship and keeping track of regular updates was by checking the posts on their website, a screen shot of which is below...

So this all helped me to determine when it was going to come in, at least to within a couple of hours, I knew where it was going to come in and I know the area so I had a couple of possible shot ideas in my mind that might work. Of course any number of things could spoil it so it's best not to firmly adhere to your preconceived shot ideas and remain flexible.


It pays to be early when possible so I went down there about an hour before the given time of the ships' arrival, I knew that it was going to be on because I had seen the ship far out at sea earlier that day moving slowly along on the horizon, when I had walked to the papershop to get a morning paper. It was held out to sea until the tide was high enough to allow it to be towed in.


By the time it came in I was there and ready to shoot. My plan was to cover it all the way in, I had some shot ideas and depending on who turned up to watch there would be some shots showing members of the public or even possible protests from environmental groups but I knew this to be unlikely as these groups had accepted that Teeside was a better option than dumping her on some beach in India.

Waiting for the ship to get closer provided good opportunity to get some generic crowd shots...






Then as it was close enough it was a case of following it as it moved slowly into the mouth of the Tees...

The shot above is one that I had planned to take from the start as I think the graffiti lends itself to making a comment on the environmental risks that come with the ship including the estimated 700 tonnes of asbestos thought to be on board.

So after 2 weeks of research and planning the ship had arrived, all that remained now was to get the pictures out...details on this in Part 3.