Local Press Life

quick portrait.....

Went for a job this evening, to photograph a football team in the sauna......  Thankfully it didnt happen!
a: because its so damn steamy, its nigh on impossible, and
b: there was the possibility of slipping towels......

Anyway, as is the norm, I got asked to shoot some different pictures "seeing as i was there already"  It was a shot of  Steven Carson, Coleraine FC player, who just been  crowned player of the year, amongst other awards.

I found an empty red wall, and cleared away a bit of clutter, lined up the trophies and sat him down. this was the 2nd shot. 1st one was to chimp the lights with my hand.  550ex on a shelf behind, and a 580ex through a shoot through brolly camera right.  Backlight flash, as always is set to manual, in this case 1/16 power and the Brolly light just on ettl. 125/f8. handy.

Cozy pub...

I do loads of advertising feature photographs. Makes up a large proportion of my day to day work at the paper.  Have to say that i probably enjoy that area of the job most of all.  Its a good excuse to get away from the usual grip and grin cheque presentations, and groups of schoolkids.

Its also a great excuse to play with lighting.

This was a tricky one, as the conservatory at the back was in full sunshine and the interior section was lit only by a small stained dusty window, and the fireplace...  I decided that as long as i could clearly see the furniture in the sun room, the windows could blow out. this let me get a large enough aperture to record the flames in the scene. final exposure was 1/80 @f5.6. This left the room totally dark, with just the flames visible, but the sun room as i wanted it.

the room was then lit with two flashguns, one through a shoot through brolly at the fireplace, and one 580ex sitting on the stairs, set to bounce of the ceiling beside the light fitting.  The bounced light gave me some nice highlights on the leather seats. Was pleased with this one, and so was the Pub!   

load of rubbish...

Theres times I get called about a 'story' and just groan. The same old stuff seems to come up again and again, and it can be hard to get motivated.  You just have to remember that the 'story' is actually very important to the people involved. 

Had to go get a shot of some rubbish, that the council is refusuing to clean up, and blaming everyone else. (as usual)  ....As is the norm, in things like this, its never as bad as the people in the story make it out to be, so in order to make them feel like it was worthwhile, I have to make it look impressive........

....or at least i try. :)

Were off to Windsor Park..

We did it. Coleraine are through to the Irish Cup Final. Was at the game tonight, at Ballymena's showgrounds, and we managed to beat Donegal Celtic 2-1, after 1/2 hour of extra time. Class. What a game!  roll on May 3rd, for a grand day out at Windsor park....

:o)