Fourteen days at the coalface – Day Eleven
I feel like a bit of a fraud posting this at the moment, as my day at The Herald isn't actually over - I won't have to go back into the office, but I will have to go and take more photos for them later this evening. I've picked up a wee gig with them doing their feature on clubbing in Glasgow, which involves me heading out into the wilds of Thursday night's best dancing dens, and snapping whatever lies within. Not sure what to expect, but you never know until you go...
That was an aside really - today was mental busy compared to what's been going on. I arrived in at the office, and was turfed back out the door with a fellow work placement minion, and dispatched to Ibrox for a photocall. The best bit of this situation was that there was a staffer going out too, which meant I had someone to follow. Although not the most challenging job for the guy I was out with, it was interesting to see how you work with politicians - the event was a photocall with a Scottish Parliament Minister, who was asked to perform various tasks for the benefit of the waiting press - and what you need to do when presented with a horde of small children that are part of the story.
I was especially happy I wasn't taking photographs (other than for myself), as there was only time to do the setup shots, and nothing more interesting. I watched how the pros were dealing with the crowd, the Minister, and what they were trying to say with their photos, and then just did my own thing really, shooting candids of the set-up images. The most amusing bit was the mental little kids, who were running around like nutters in the pissing rain, so I took some candid stuff of their hopeful attempts to keep dry, before it really started horsing it down, and we legged it away to the car.
Back to the fort, and it wasn't long before I bounced out again with the same staffer, as we headed down to meet a couple of actors - a brother and sister pairing who both have a relation to the part of Hamlet. Due to the time restraints on this job, there was little chance for me to shoot anything, but it was probably one of the most useful shoots of the fortnight, with the photographer giving me a good idea of the different types of photo needed at one job, especially when a tabloid and a broadsheet share the same picture desk and often the same stories, even if they are told differently.
The broadsheet-style material was shot with a simple off-camera lighting setup, and posing the two actors in an interesting way, while the tabloid images were tighter, more straight-forward conventional images, taken outside in natural light - the differences produced two very distinct styles of photograph.
My final job of the day was one that I'd been told about the day before, which I was pretty interested in - shooting one of the work experience minions throwing down some famous air-guitar moves at the Classic Grand. We met up with the organiser of an upcoming competition that was being held at the venue, who then guided the reporter through the moves she had to learn, which I filmed for the paper's website. Once we'd captured the footage needed, I spent a while snapping what she'd learned, which I decided to light like a gig (thanks to a very co-operative lighting engineer). My favourite shot of the day came after that, when I decided we needed some shots of the tutor, upstairs in the main performance space - decided to try out a little off-camera flash, fired from the side to avoid lighting up the background, with the two big floodlights behind helping draw him out. It's an image I've had in my head for a band interview for a while, but have never had the chance to set it up.
So, a pretty good day - so far! I'll be heading out to the clubs soon, and then tomorrow I'm in early to assist a photographer who's shooting something that sounds interesting. Oh, and today, I had fourteen images used across The Herald and Evening Times, as well as a video on the Evening Times website. Not bad for a work experience minion - time to bring it on home!