A couple of weeks back, Yol and I returned to our homeland of Grimsby to celebrate my father's birthday (he turned 69) with a now-traditional chinese nosh and a night of dominoes, and whilst we were there I took the chance to head out into the garden and get some shots of spiders in their webs.
The weather wasn't exactly cooperating for this shoot; it was sunny enough, but the wind was something that completely worked against me. Actually, not just against me, but against the poor spiders too - they were hanging on for dear life! For these shots I used my 18-55 lens with a macro adaptor on the end, and had to wait for the spiders to be blown back into focus; they were perched in their webs only a couple of centimetres away from the lens.
I'm sure that the spiders would agree that the shots were worth the effort! If they were able to grasp the concept, that is. For which I'm glad that they can't, because getting them all to sign Model Release Forms would have been a nightmare. Which leg would they hold the pen with?...
At the Phoenix, things are getting more and more organised. The photography team now consists of myself and Head Photographer Nick Ogden, with my lens buddy Lauren Freeman having stretched her wings and taken over the top spot on the photo crew at rival team Sheffield Steeldogs (where she's producing great work, as always!) Over the summer, Nick and I worked on a set of new procedures for the new season, and so far it seems to be working well. We reorganised the whole set-up, I drew up a new proposal and Nick went through it carefully, a new Club photo policy was drawn up and implemented, a new Press Box system has been launched, the bugs are being ironed out, and the net result is that as an organisation we're better, more efficient, and more controlled than in previous seasons. That can only be a good thing!
One of the big changes that we've brought in for the photographers is an upload link at the rink, which means that we can send our shots out to the website and the press right after the game has finished. What it means in terms of workload is that we're now editing our shots in the intervals and at the end of the game, but on the plus side it means that when we leave the rink at the end of the night, our work is done! The
Official Phoenix Flickr page doesn't have as tight a deadline, so the work on that can wait until I'm home (or even wait until the following evening) but the photos for the press are out there before we unlock our cars.
We're now sorting our photos out into outlets, to diversify our output and to limit some of the duplication that we experienced last season. One of the nuggets of feedback that we had last year was that the press were reluctant to use photos that had already been used elsewhere, for example on the Club website or on a Flickr page - they wanted to have exclusive photos and content. So this season we've split our output - Nick's primary responsibility is to provide shots for the Match Programme and the Press Box, and mine is to provide shots for the Club website and the Official Flickr page, as well as chipping in with Press Box shots if I've captured something that Nick didn't. Nick will also chip in with website shots if he's captured something that I didn't, so we theoretically have all bases covered (at least for shoots that we're made aware of, but that's a different story!)
As a result, most of my shots have been either uploaded to the Flickr page, or are featured as accompaniments to the match report on the website:
The shots that we're outputting are all watermarked, as with last season, but this year we're doing something a little different with the Club website shots - the watermark is now through the middle of the shots rather than at the edges, but it's at a lower opacity so that it doesn't detract from the shots as much. I've never been a fan of watermarking shots, but I appreciate that it's a necessary evil. We live in a world where some less-than-scrupulous people will try to make a quick buck out of anything, with little regard for copyright or intellectual property, and so we have to watermark everything to protect the Club's rights. The shots that I take are now not only my copyright but are also copyrighted to the Club. The Club gives me permission to use some of those shots on this blog, and for my own portfolio, but the need to lock down the likeness rights on our shots is an unfortunate necessity.
Since the last blog entry we've had two games at the Ice Dome, versus Swindon Wildcats on the 2nd of October and then versus Peterborough Phantoms yesterday, the 8th of October (a rare Saturday home game). As I've been focussing a little more on 'behind the scenes' shots as well as action photos, I've been looking more for the kind of shots that previously I couldn't really use in an official capacity, but now I can!
My stance on photos has always been that candid shots, spontaneous portraits, captured moments are more interesting than posed, staged shots. Certainly the latter have their place, and I'm more than happy to shoot them, but when it comes to capturing events and the people that are taking part in them, spontaneous is the way; the emphasis on these shots on the Official Phoenix Flickr page means that I can concentrate on these shots more, and I'm loving it! But I'm also loving getting the action shots too:
I guess in that respect, I'm getting the best of both worlds!
As I mentioned earlier, the newly organised Press Box system means that our shots are being offered to the media in a more efficient way, and although it's chiefly Nick's shots that are going out to the press, a few of mine have been offered too, and one or two have been picked up. A shot of mine has been used a couple of times by CBSport.org for articles on new Phoenix player Martin Cingel:
CBSport: Cingel's Phoenix GoalCBSport: Phoenix 3 Wildcats 2A shot of mine that was used on the Club website with a match report also surfaced on a press article:
CBSport: Ciaran Long out for Phoenix openersFrom tiny acorns....
