Redwood Cup

Here are images shot for press. Its Redwood Cup action - Kinnoull v Steelend and Jeanfield v Thornton Hibs both played yesterday.

My 2007 (Part 1)

(Part 1 of 3)- The other parts will be published over the next week or so.

This is a diary of how my year went in photographic terms. This will either hopefully be an interesting read for those who pass through and/or a personal account to look back on.

A little background first of all. I began shooting sports back in October 2005 so in professional terms I am still serving my apprenticeship. This has meant learning from mistakes, reading lots of experiences of other photographers, looking at photos for inspiration and more importantly not being scared to try something new. I always believe experience (good or bad) will always equip me next time I try something new.

The other thing is I work part-time as a photographer (1 or 2 days a week). The rest of the time is taken up with my 'day' job which is teaching.

Equipment wise, the end of last year was a big turning point. Up until November my main kit was a old Canon D60 combined with a 75-300 (f4-f5.6) - the phrase 'pissing in the wind' comes to mind when thinking back to trying to produce decent images either indoors or in the winter months. In November I purchased a Canon 20D and 70-200(f2.8) both second hand but I suddenly felt much better equiped to tackle anything.

The new year arrived and I was determined to put this equipment and experience to good use!

January

I had two objectives for January. One was to try out this new equipment I had bought indoors, so I covered a Junior Basketball game (Perth Phoenix v Boroughmuir) and the other was to return to shooting at McDiarmid Park home of St Johnstone who play in the First Division to see how my images compared to other pros shooting football. I shot two games in January which were against Airdrie and Gretna and was pleased with what I produced. I had always felt a little ackward shooting pro football with my old equipment so hadn't bothered before. The rest of January was taken up with Junior football and a youth Judo competition. Here are some images from the first month.

February

February started with news I had been accepted to Sportsshooter. This was a big deal for me as it was a realisation that I had started to produce decent sports images. This was the second time I had applied and looking back I knew I was not ready the first time. For those who are still scratching their head, Sportsshooter is a website where professional sports photographers and photojournalists from around the world meet to show and talk. I may be toward the bottom of the ladder but at least I had made it to the first rung and the membership would prove to be one of the best things I had done in terms of improving my images and professional outlook.

Also in February I shot rugby, Perthshire v Aberdeen GSFP in a National cup game and Scotland 'A' v Italy 'A' at McDiarmid, with the regular Junior football for the local papers.

March

March was again was a significant month as I began to get more work from the local paper (Evening Telegraph) This meant covering several different matches on a Saturday combined with team photos, presentations and other Amateur and Junior football events. This was again a boost to the confidence with the realisation the paper was putting trust in me to come up with the goods on a regular basis - a real boost to the confidence as well as the bank account!

Some images from March

April

April was about two things really - it was the start of all the finals in rugby and football and also I had decided I wanted to tackle a larger project so I had approached Perth Racecourse with the view to cover the races throughout the season. In rugby the Caledonian cup finals took place in Perth, this is a national youth knockout tournament held through the season and ending with a finals day. Also holding finals were the youth football so plenty memory was used covering these events over the three Sundays they were held.

Perth Races were held over three days 24th-27th and I was determined to make the most of this opportunity covering everything from the horseracing to behind the scenes. This project simply made me a more adaptable photographer throughout the season (more later)

Some images from April including some Ice Hockey I had found the time to shoot.

Winter 1 Football 0

The frost we had all week meant that there was no Junior football played at the weekend.

Referee Jeff Band calls off the Central League fixture between Jeanfield Swifts and Crossgates Primrose after a pitch inspection.

Tree at the Inn

Christmas tree project - Lesson learnt

As a mentioned on a previous post I shot my first multimedia project. Unfortunetly I fell short of being able to complete it due to the poor sound recorded and lack of planning. One thing I have learnt is to put much more emphasis on producing good sound and having a clear idea where you are planning to take the story in terms of what sound you need. As a photographer its easy to pick up the camera and create good images, producing good sound is much more of a challenge. So as the title says, its lesson learnt and I will be better prepared next time.

Here are some images from the shoot with some of the background to the story.

A Family Affair
The Band family have been seling Christmas trees to the local community for over 30 years and making wreaths for the last 20 years. Headed up by Jean Band, who despite being in her 70's still does a tremendous amount of the manual work, three generations of the Band family work daily in the period up to Christmas to satisfy demand for their festive fare. The tree are grown locally and cut daily before being brought to the house for sale. The wreaths are all made from scratch on site.
On the day I shot a large 20 foot tree was being cut for the local pub. (A picture of the decorated tree will appear soon).

Junior Scottish Cup

I had the pleasure of shooting a whole match yesterday when I covered he Junior Scottish Cup 3rd round replay between Blairgowrie and Banchory. It was a typical cup tie with all the usual bad tackles and sending offs providing some good photo opportunities. Here are some images with more currently on my Sportsshooter page.

http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=6385

Perth Railway Amateur Boxing Club

Members of Perth Railway Amateur Boxing Club pictured during their training session on Tuesday evening at their North Methven Street Gym

This image was just shot while I was waiting for the group photo to happen. Just liked the feel of it.

Age no barrier

On Saturday morning i shot my first multimedia project on a local family business that supplies christmas trees to the local community. Hopefully I will have this completed by the end of the week and will post the results.

What was impressive was the woman in charge was Jean Band who despite being in her 70s still takes an active part in the business. By active I mean she is out there cutting down the christmas trees ready for the visiting customers. Hopefully her doctor doesn't read this as she was told to take it easy and only do light duties.

You were an inspiration Jean!

Look out for the story in this week's Evening Telegraph.

Lazy Saturday afternoon

I didn't shoot too much on Saturday. Just enough hence the title. Why? Well if you live in Perth you will realise it just kept raining and raining. So yeah I wimped out and went home early.

Anyway here is some of what I managed to get for 45 minutes shooting Junior football and rugby for press use.

Team photos

When I take team photos it tends to be 5 minutes or less before the game/match starts. Yesterdays basketball game was no different but I decided to plan something in advance to make the photos a little bit more creative than the usual team photos (Back row standing up with front row crouching in front) Although these are not technically brilliant at least I think they are a move in the right direction. Although I still think football team photos work best in the traditional way.

Perth Phoenix Cadet basketball team pictured before their game against Glasgow City played at Perth Academy on Saturday 1st December 2007.

Perth Phoenix Junior basketball team pictured before their game against Glasgow City played at Perth Academy on Saturday 1st December 2007.

The wonderful world of the high school gym

Today I decided to cover some basketball. Perth Phoenix were playing at home against Glasgow City. The matches were played at Perth Academy where they have great facilities for basketball. It is unfortunate that this doesn't extend to good lights. To achieve an usuable picture you have to push all the camera setting to the limit. So these images were shot at ISO 3200, the camera was set to manual f2.8 and 1/400 which was around 1/2 a stop under exposed to achieve a half decent shutterspeed. All images were shot with a 18-50 lens.
The other problem with this gym is lack of space to work in due to the court being a couple of feet from the walls which again leads to bad backgrounds.
Anyway believe it or not I actually enjoyed shooting the basketball despite the aforementioned restrictions. The solution will be to get a flash set up where I can light the court which is a method alot of photographers use in these circumstances. And to think I complained because it was overcast outside whilst shooting football today.