Fourteen days at the coalface – Day Ten
After my epic double-haul of vox popping with a reporter on Monday, I found myself out at Gartnavel with the same work experience minion again today (don't think I use the term minion negatively, I just think it fits very well with the role, and I'd happily describe myself as one). Following a taxi ride out along Great Western Road, we set to business - reporting on a recent decision that will see sales of alcohol in petrol stations banned. To go off on a bit of a tangent here - who the f**k comes up with this nonsense? Do the Government honestly think that people think "Damn, I was all up for drink driving, but I'm fresh out of hooch - tell you what, I'll nip down the garage, top up the tank, and while I'm at it, bang up the old blood-alcohol level a few notches", or are people now regarded to have the same level of self control as children in the pick 'n' mix section at the supermarket, whereby thirsty drivers are opting for a bottle of Merlot instead of a can of Red Bull? It is utterly, utterly pointless. The SNP's ideas on alcohol abuse go under the heading 'robust and radical' - I think 'ridiculous and redundant' would be a better description... much like the feckless idiots in the party itself.
Aside from this - the reporter spent time chatting away to the prey she'd captured in her steely talons of vox pop politeness, before I swooped in and chased them out off BP property to take their photograph on the pavement. Poetry in motion would be going a bit far, but we were pretty quick at getting what we needed. Before long, we'd got everything - including the obligatory GVs, which I'm beginning to see life as a series of - and headed off back to Herald Towers to file, and make base camp for the daily sandwich hunt.
Beyond my Boots Meal Deal - the bastards haven't got any drinks on 2-for-1 at the moment, so it wasn't the bargain I'd hoped for - and a half hearted attempt at a crossword, I was seconds away from being driven out to meet up with a photographer in the West End for a shop feature. Then, from nowhere, one of the bods from the picture desk appeared in the car park, and asked me to do something else: shooting the restaurant at The Arches. On arriving, I was confronted with the emptiest restaurant on the planet, and to be fair, you'd expect that, seeing as it was mid afternoon on a weekday, in the centre of town - not prime-time for dining. A quick call to the picture desk confirmed they still wanted shots, so I did some standard interior images of the place, a few movement-based photos with a very tolerant waiter, and then high-tailed it out of there.
So again, it was a day of learning from myself really. I have now specifically asked to be put out with the photographers more, as I'm getting a bit cheesed off at being left to my own devices on jobs, as I'm on this placement to learn, as I said, from people who know what they're doing. Two days left, and it's time for a final push at getting some good images, and some advice about how they could be better...
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.
Fourteen days at the coalface – Day Eight
What happened to days six and seven, I hear you cry? Well, frankly, The Herald and Times aren't paying me enough (i.e. anything) to come in at the weekend, so my camera lay abandoned in my flat, whilst I spent Saturday at a spectacular barbeque, and Sunday recovering, watching the F1.
Onto working week two, and the phrase straight to business is certainly not what I'd use to describe this Monday morning. Two and a bit hours after rocking up to the office (I wish I could do cryptic crosswords, the quick ones don't last long enough), I did get out onto the mean streets of Glasgow for more vox pop fun with a fellow work placement minion, to knock together two days worth of style soundbites and accompanying photographs for the Evening Times. I've found myself becoming incredibly harsh - these were my third and fourth days' worth of vox pops respectively, and it was slim pickings under the summer skies. Last time, I was done in 20 minutes, so was hoping to double up to a swift 40 today for all 12 photos, but in the end, we were prowling the streets for fashionista prey for about 2 hours... if anything, it's taught me you really need to root around in the barrel when it comes to this type of thing.
Back to the office, photos filed again, and it was hometime, but not before one more job on the way there - anyone who knows me will appreciate the convenience of being able to shoot Uisge Beatha, and then file the images without going back to the paper... All in, a total dog of a day. I learnt absolutely nothing, other than the fact that if anyone says vox pop again to me I'll probably self harm my way out of it, but you take the rough with the smooth, tomorrow's a new day, and if I can think of another cliche, I'll be sure to tell you.
Fourteen days at the coalface – Day Five
So, to the final day of my first week in the trenches of Glaswegian editorial photography, and straight back out of the office as soon as I walked in the door.
This weekend sees Glasgow's River Festival take place on the Clyde, with a large number of craft moored for the public to see, as well as more exciting things, such as jet skis, motorboat racing, and of course, pirates. That's right, fucking pirates. For the first job of the day, myself and a photographer nipped down to meet the scurvy sea dogs at their vessel, which was moored outside the BBC building on the South Side, and started looking at my old friend, the setup shot. I must admit, if I'm comparing jobs to the others I've been out on that necessitated a set-up photo, this was something of a target-rich environment.
When you've got several guys who are dressed in pirate garb, and with enough enthusiasm that they're not afraid to have a bit of a laugh and show off, the images that are available are really only limited by time, and your ability as a photographer. I felt quite confident about shooting different things on this job, and the photographers I was with (there was another gent their from an agency, who was extremely accomodating in helping me get the images I wanted, even though I was just work placement bod) were as interested in shooting lots of different stuff as I was. All in, I think it helped I had a positive frame of mind about the whole shoot - I didn't want to get in the way of the two guys who were doing the job, but I was happy that I was at least thinking about setting up some of the same shots that they were using.
Highlight of the whole shoot was getting to climb up the mast, and sit on the high deck for a shot that the staffer accompanying me had already had a go at. I did it a little differently (shot it with two pirates instead of one, and from a higher vantage point), but the photo worked really well. Of course, I still took some utter crap (one idea in particular really didn't work as well as I hoped), but I now at least feel I'm making a bit of progress with all this set-up malarkey.
After we'd finished up there, I headed back in to the office, before being sent out for another GV! I'm not a fan of these things anymore. Buildings are boring. They don't move, they don't dance, they don't play a guitar, and they don't make for interesting photos in my opinion. Still, you get on with it, and I shot a good few different angles. Picture desk seemed pleased enough with what I got, but realistically, Stow College is a blight on the landscape of Glasgow, and taking photographs of it just encourages its existence. Which is bad.
Final task of the day was a still-life bit, again, for some part of the paper that I don't really know - it had something to do with football. Anyway, I was given a pile of A3 paper to act as a backdrop (seriously), and shot an arrangement of props that were designed to help represent the story. I got fed up trying to use the paper to conceal the background, and luckily remembered that there was a huge roll of studio backdrop paper kicking around (the stuff I used for the fashion shoot the day before). Once that was found, it was a lot easier (infinite curve!), and with my little bodged-together lighting studio, featuring two chairs to hold the paper roll, a window as my light source, and a slighty grubby backdrop, I was good to go. Unfortunately, I don't really want to put up the image here, as I have no idea when and if it'll go in the paper. Don't want to piss people off now, do I? Oh, also, I got more vox pops in the Evening Times, and this time, I got credited.
So, week one done and dusted. So far I've got a good grounding in the bread and butter parts of being an editorial photographer, shooting images that spell out what the story is, either by using people or places, as well as other simple stuff, such as fashion cut-out content. I've done my best to get a handle on setting up shots, and feel I'm in a better position than I would have been previously, although I'm still very aware that this is going to be something that will come with practice. I think I just need to mellow out and have more confidence in the situations I find myself in, rather than crapping it when I realise I'm out shooting for a newspaper. I am only on work placement, after all.
Fourteen days at the coalface – Day Four
Thursday saw me given my first job (other than a GV or vox pop) on my own.
I was tasked with shooting a young lad who's up for Best Junior at the British Hairdressing Business Awards, at a salon in Glasgow. Now, as I've mentioned through my time with the paper, I've been a bit nervy at this sort of thing, but I gave it a bash. In all honesty, I wasn't happy with what I shot - I got maybe two or three images that I was content with, but the concept of knocking together an image on the spot is still frustratingly out of my grasp. I like shooting things that are happening of their own accord, I'm also happy to set up a shot if it's something I know about, and understand. The staff photographers know how to make their images tell a story in these strange, fabricated situations. I don't, and not being able to do this is really, really fucking me off. But I guess that's a good thing, as I'm determined to get a grasp of it, by the balls preferably.
After my morning of vague frustration, I was punted out onto another GV - this time to shoot an old Tesco store on Argyle Street that's about to become Scotland's biggest TK Maxx. Difference with this one from my GV on my first day was that the shop itself was totally empty, gutted, and didn't even have the sign outside anymore. So, I shot the arse off the place, did what I'd been advised after my previous job and put a lot more emphasis on where the shop is in relation to the area around. It wasn't the most glamorous job, but I think I might be pretty handy on the old GV front now. Weirdly, at the uni paper, we strived never to use images of buildings where possible, but in the real world of the newspaper industry, it seems to be very common. Who knew...
Final job of the day was slightly different, as I had to help out on some product cut-out shots for the fashion pages of one of the papers (frequently, I don't really know who I'm taking these photos for, as the whole Herald/Sunday Herald/Evening Times thing is so joined up these days). This was fairly straight forward, and the natural light in the building was enough that all I needed to do was shoot various bits and bobs on a flat white background, so the magic lasso tool can be broken out to get the job done afterwards. This bottle was a little bit of a bastard, but it was alright in the end after I propped it up and used the paper to make a wee infiniti curve.
I am enjoying this week. I didn't know whether I would or not, but I'm finding it very useful to be able to follow around the pros, and see how they get the job done on such a varying range of subject matter. Hopefully my enthusiasm will continue until next Friday...
Fourteen days at the coalface – Day Three
After my sheer joy at not having to go to Paisley on Day 2, the inevitable happened as soon as I arrived on Day 3... we had to go and shoot GV images around Paisley - Paris of the North, it aint. As I left the office, I spotted the photographer who I'd been with the previous day, when we rejoiced at not having to go out along the M8 in the pissing rain. He looked happy that he wasn't the one going out with me, and I didn't really blame him.
The gist of the piece was that all is not well in the town of Paisley, and our task was to illustrate that it's becoming a bit run down and past it. This meant that the order of the day was the abundance of "To Let" signs that were strapped to various shopfronts along the main street in the town. I can't say I particularly enjoyed the job - it was quite depressing to be actively trying to show a place going down the shitter, and the fact that the people in one shop were packing up the remaining clutter from their failed business made it a bit unpleasant. You do tend to have some detatchment when you read about another town's financial outlook drooping, but when you see the people that are actually being affected by it, there is much more of a sense of sorrow.
Away from the mean streets of Paisley, and it was time for yet more of the inevitable vox pops. After having my by-line snatched from me in the first series of images, I was determined to make good with my series of six shots. Vox pops are not what you'd call challenging, and you especially realise this when you're paired with another work placement student, and told to just do it on your own. We nailed down our city street style-fodder in around twenty minutes, and booted it back to the confines of the offices to ditch the images onto the picture desk. I could do vox pop images using nothing but my wit to control the camera now. Maybe.
The final task of the day was to shadow one of the staff photographers out to a shoot in the city centre. Handy really, as the shoot was based for the most part on getting the Bull image for the article (basically, the one kick-ass shot that the picture desk will go for), and with a bit of work on lighting and setup, the staffer got it bang on. If nothing else, it was a lesson in the fact that you can create a good photograph out of very little, but I didn't get a chance to shoot much more than the exterior shots of the business. I think this job really showed that I still have a lot to learn about setups... I wouldn't have had a clue how to make an interesting photograph in this place.
Apologies for the strange delay that's kicked in, but it's been a hectic couple of days and I'm just not up to speed on my blogging. I'll do my best to make sure that next week's efforts are much more up to scratch, but at least my tardiness will mean you have something to read over the weekend. Every cloud, and all that...
Fourteen days at the coalface – Day Two
So, back in the ring for another day at The Herald / Evening Times offices. Today was a somewhat quieter day... I arrived at ten again, but didn't do anything until about 1pm, which wasn't fantastic. I think it's just the luck of the draw really, and will be like that for the upcoming week and a bit. The only job in the morning was a death knock (where a writer and photographer rock up to the family home of a recently deceased person, and ask if their relatives fancy a chat, and to have a photo taken of them), but that's obviously quite sensitive, and not something a work experience tag-along fits well with.
After a spectacular Boots meal deal (£2.99 for a big sandwich, crisps, and two bottles of lucozade - bargain!), I tagged along with one of the staffers who was going to shoot photos for a story at an animal shelter. Essentially, the Cardonald SSPCA shelter has got loads of cats in at the moment - a situation that reminds me of that Match.com advert that's on telly right now - and he needed to get some images of the aforementioned felines. On arrival, we weren't allowed in the cattery, which is certainly a barrier when you need photos of cats, but after a bit of chatter, that was reversed, and we were in business.
I've grown up around cats, as my dad's a vet, and as I had a pet mog as a child, so I was quite happy to shoot away with some of the wee beasts on my own, while the photographer with me went off to do some setups with a staff member, which I helped with a little (jangling keys to get a cat to pay attention, for instance). My cat stuff was much more candid (how pretentious does that sound...), as I was just snapping away by myself, but I got a few I was quite happy with. Following on from yesterday, it was interesting to see how the staff photographer was shooting his set-up shots, which did a good job of illustrating the story - although in this case, I felt that the animals in their cages were also pretty engaging subject matter.
Shoot over, we headed back to the office, after abandoning a vox pop shoot on the way to Paisley (rain stopped play, thank god. I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be less in the pissing rain). On opening my laptop, I was greeted with the sight of just how fucked my laptop is, as the crack in the display has crept right into the middle of the screen, rendering it about 1/3 useless in the bottom right. Time for a replacement, or perhaps a new screen, if I can find one at a decent price. We'll see if any of my National Champs DH pics make the cut before that decision is made...
So, tomorrow might be a manic day, or another mellow session of crossword based lucozade consumption in the office. Who knows. Oh, one more thing - my six vox pops from yesterday made the Evening Times, but they managed to credit the wrong photographer. I think that's a semi-result at least...
Fourteen days at the coalface – Day One
As I've alluded to on my Flickr pages, a month and a bit ago, I won Best Photographer at the Herald Student Press Awards, netting me a week's work experience as a photographer, and a shiny new Renault Modus (one of those prizes may not actually be true). That one week has since grown into two, and I started today.
For the last few weeks, I've been dossing around, doing photo jobs here and there, but this weekend has been a full-blown photographic arse kicking... just what you need, when you have to start trying to convince your body that 1pm is not an acceptable time to be getting out of bed, and that 9am is going to be the new deal. Negotiations were tough, especially after a couple of days that were particularly miserly on the pillow-time quotient, but I was on time. Hell, I was five minutes early!
No sooner had I swiped "Guest Pass Number 2" over the automated entry to the building, than I was back outside, and in a taxi, bound for a bar in the West End of Glasgow, to get a GV for the Evening Times. At this point, I should comment that if I learn any lingo over the next 14 days, it will go in this blog - GV means General View, and is just a bog standard term for photos of places, as far as I can tell... 3 minutes with a taxi waiting on me, and I was off back to the office to file my images.
Back in the photographers' room, and after a quick edit, it was time to hit the mean streets of Glasgow with a work experience reporter, and a seasoned photographer to make sure I didn't make a hash job of what was to follow. Hunting down the most stylish individuals that Buchanan Street had to offer - slim pickings on a bank holiday morning - I was tasked with shooting the suave individuals in their ensembles, ready for their place in an article where they all had to name their style icons. Simple, full-length body shots, although I wasn't exceptionally happy with images of the first girl I shot... the others were much better.
After that, the job sheet took myself and the experienced photographer across the Clyde, into Govan, where we needed to pick up some Collects (images that papers use that are provided by subjects of stories etc. An example would be when someone dies, and the same photo is used by all of the press. Although obviously they didn't give the papers that image. Because they're dead), and do some shots of the girl in the article. All very quick, all very simple. Other than arriving half an hour to early - allowing some time to wander around the Science Centre and take some photos of Clydeside - everything was fine.
Last job of the day was spent with another photographer, visiting the Southside, and doing some setup shots for use in an article about businesses in the area. This was a little trickier, and is an area of photography that I've never been too confident in - I've never really had to do much in the way of setup shots for news stories, and much prefer to shoot natural images. Anyway, I watched, learned, and acted as a light stand for the photographer I was with, and tried out some images myself. I think my experience of using external flash through mountain bike photography may come in useful, but in a totally different manner (portraiture etc.), as the photographer I was shadowing was using it to great effect.
All in, it was a busy day to start my fortnight with, so it bodes well for what's coming up in the next couple of weeks. I'm aiming to get much more comfortable with this setting-up malarkey, as I it's a big chink in my armour at the moment... nothing that several days of watching the pros doing it won't fix though. One other thing: unless I say otherwise, the images on these pages will be entirely un-edited, aside from cropping/rotating, as I'm trying to see how much I can achieve in-camera, rather than using Capture NX as a crutch.
Red Bulls and Scotsmen…
Hot on the heels of yesterday's pessimistic post about the same old same old, I spent the day in the company of four young mentalists on motorbikes in the centre of Glasgow. Red Bull are currently touring a demo team around the UK in promotion of their main X-Fighters event in London, which will be held later this summer, and today it turned up in Glasgow.
Now, for any photographer who has to apply for their own passes, there is one universal truth - if you've realised that you need a pass for an event the next day, it will almost certainly not happen. If you're asking on a Friday, Frosty the Snowman has got a better chance of traversing Hades than you do of getting into the gig/show you want to. But not with Red Bull! After sending off an email that I had abandoned as a failure as soon as I hit 'send' on Friday at 5pm, I missed a call from a helpful guy at Red Bull, telling me that there was no problem, and to call him on his mobile on Saturday (today) morningto sort it out. I nearly fell off my stool at this staggering display of efficiency and helpfulness, so well done to Jamie at Red Bull for being so spot on about it all.
The display itself was actually two shows - one at 2pm, one at 4pm. I've never shot MX before, and given the space constraints, it was bloody hard to shoot - ideally, you'd be high enough up that you could get an idea of where the ground is, without resorting to a wide angle, which makes the riders look absolutely TINY. This wasn't possible. One of the photographers sat up on the ramp for a bit, but the riders weren't mad keen on anyone being there later on due to the wind picking up, so that was a no-go. To be honest, I was just there for the benefit of putting together a nice photo feature for the uni paper, and I got what I was after in that respect, and I as ever, it was good to try out something new.
All the images here are black and white, as I thought I'd have a play around - the colour images are being used in the article I'm putting together, which will be linked to on here when it's done. Please don't consider them in the sense of editorial sports coverage, as I think anyone can see that's not what I was intending when I shot and edited them!
I would say that although I've seen a lot of freestyle MX on TV, it's much, much more entertaining in real life, and if you're able to get to the London X-Fighters event (Google it for more info), then I'd definitely recommend heading along - I get the impression that the four lads there today were just scraping the surface in terms of what's achieved at the big tour events themselves.
Driven to distraction…
My first ever experience of a mountain bike race was in 2000 - the National Championships at Innerleithen, in the Scottish Borders. To this day, I would put it amongst the best experiences of downhill I've ever had, which isn't bad for something that took place 9 years ago, and happened when I didn't even own a downhill bike, let alone a camera of any note.
It was all about the spectacle of the weekend - the paddock was packed with trade teams, the sign-on sheets read as a who's-who of downhill racing at the time, and for someone who treated MBUK as a bible, it was a chance to walk amongst your heroes. Of course, the racing itself was great too, with the downhill and the duel races, it was awesome to see the event in the flesh for the first time.
It was also the first time I ever took a photo of downhill; using my dad's Samsung compact 35mm camera (totally unsuitable for taking photos of things that moved), I got a seriously impressive number of blurry shots. I also broke the camera, which didn't go down too well - but it was worth it; I got my cap signed by the riders, and my photo taken with every rider who I'd seen sandwiched in the pages of my favourite magazine. There's still a clip frame of my photos kicking around somewhere in my house.
I just don't see this enthusiasm at NPS races anymore. The biggest UK names, even when the calendar is otherwise empty of events, are simply not there - this isn't a slight on the riders who do turn up, but it's rubbish to see the National Points title being fought for by such a tiny field of elite riders. I just don't see why the riders that aren't there would change their mind, and come racing... the racing felt perfunctory, the crowd was small and quiet, and it really didn't look like anything special in the paddock either. The spectacle that I loved at the first race I went to was utterly gone.
It will be interesting to see what the turnout at the National Championships is like. It's coming back to Innerleithen next weekend, and it'll either renew my faith in British downhill, or piss on the fire entire. In the meantime, the photos here are from the Fort William race, and clicking on them for a bigger look is what I'd recommend...
