Porteous Photography The photo blog of James Porteous

Fourteen days at the coalface – Day Nine

During last week, I talked about the concept of a 'Death Knock' - when you go out to a recently bereaved family, and pick up collect photos of their loved one, and maybe get a picture of the rest of the family. It might come across as cold, callous, or whatever you like, but it's an important part of news photography. Every time you see an image of someone who has died, in a paper, magazine, or on TV that looks like it's an old school photo, off Facebook, or from someone's holidays, it's probably been a collect shot. Today, I ended up following a photographer to a family who hadn't suffered a bereavement, but did have a family member who had been seriously injured - as such, we picked up a couple of collect photographs, and the photographer took a shot of the family. It was all very cordial, but I can only imagine it's a hell of a lot harder when you're talking to people who are grief-stricken due to a relative dying ... not what you'd call a great part of the job. I didn't have my camera with me, and for once, I didn't really want to either.

Moving on from that, and in the miserable rainy weather that enveloped Glasgow, we swung by the big yellow crane that's across the Clyde, helping finish a motorway that was started years ago, but never followed through. Glasgow seems to have a weird fixation about this crane - don't get me wrong, it is bloody huge, but it's still just a crane. I was a bit pissed off by the rain, and the fact my camera was still in the office, so maybe that's what was bugging me, but I'm in no rush to go back and catch up with what I missed.

The final task of the day was a little more interesting. I was tasked to go out and shoot a breakdancer on Buchanan Street, and it was something that you could very easily spend a long time doing - people who are so good at showing off are great fun to take photos of. I did some candid stuff, and a couple of setups (which I was happy with), and plonked them back into the office before calling it a day.

I don't mind going out on these little jobs on my own, but I keep feeling like I want someone with experience to be there to show me how they would do it - I don't doubt that I can take good photos of these things with practice, but in my experience, the best way to practice is to do whatever you're trying to improve with people who are better than you. Getting a sound photographic arse-kicking from an experienced press photographer is what I want (sounds a bit sadist, reading that back), as it's what'll make me take better pictures in the long run.