The Secret Project, Adventures by the A38 and a Huddle of Penguins

A brief blog entry this time! Last Sunday before the Phoenix v Bees game, I did a shoot in the Phoenix locker room for a secret project, the fruits of which will be revealed tomorrow when the match programme is published. I'm not giving away anything at this point, but I will say that I'm immensely looking forward to not only seeing the results in print but also seeing how it's received by the programme buyers at the rink. All will be revealed soon!

This weekend, Yol and I were supposed to be back in the Homeland, celebrating my little sister's birthday (I say little, she just turned 36) but instead we find ourselves still here in Stoke. We set off to drive to Grimsby yesterday evening, but a spot of electrical trouble with the car (dashboard lights illuminating, dashboard going dark, no indicators, ABS and Airbag warnings on, that sort of stuff) meant that we had to pull into a parking bay at the side of the A38 and try to keep warm whilst waiting for the cavalry (ok, the RAC chap).



The lovely RAC chap turned up after about half an hour, and following several checks of the car, he couldn't ascertain what was up with it. He'd gotten it running again, and decided to follow along behind us for ten miles as we headed for home to see if the fault would re-appear. Which it did. So we ended up being escorted to the car park of a McDonalds in Derby, at the junction between the A38 and the A52, not far from the University of Derby campus. There we sat, awaiting recovery by low-loader. For two and a half hours.

That's not to say that it was a boring two and a half hours, mind you. It turns out that the University of Derby was holding some kind of Halloween fancy dress ball last night, and that McDonalds is the venue of choice for students with the munchies. Trust me, you've not seen anything in life until you've seen a huddle of penguins, The Incredibles, Wolverine, several nurses, a Cat Lady, and a gladiator noshing on burgers. Or a frog taking a piddle by a cashpoint...

It's all Swedish to me, and getting a friend to strip....

It's only been a couple of days since my last blog entry, but it's been a busy couple of days!

Firstly, a visiting hockey writer from Sweden has been blogging whilst in this country, and with my blessing he's been using my shots (amongst others) to accompany his articles. The writer is Henrik Persson, and his blog (in Swedish) can be seen here:

Henrik Persson's blog on Hockeysverige.se

The blog features shots of mine, of Tony Hand and of Marcus Kristoffersson, including these:







Needless to say, I'm quite chuffed that Henrik asked to use the shots. Best of luck with your future articles Henrik, and I hope you enjoy your stay in the UK!

For a little while now, I've been mulling over a few ideas for shoots, and this evening I did a test shoot based on one of the ideas that I'm developing. The idea is founded in a concept thought up by my former Phoenix lens buddy Lauren Freeman, but I can't say more than that at this moment!

Suffice to say that this evening I did a test involving a colleague of mine, Liz Knight, and it involved her getting some of her attire off and showing a little more flesh than usual. Liz has been a gracious, willing subject of mine on several occasions in the past when I've wanted to test something out, and for that I am eternally grateful. The shots were done using a 3x300w lighting kit with diffusers and blue gels, and a dimmer. Basically, they were done with a portable lighting set-up, the rationale being that if the shoot I'm planning comes off, that's all I'll have to utilise.



As a short shoot goes, personally I'm pretty pleased with the results. Liz is never comfortable in front of the camera but she always gives it 100%, which makes her a pleasure to work with, and on this occasion she delivered exactly what I was looking for:




Before long I hope to be able to reveal the rationale behind the test shoot, but for the time being I'll content myself with being pretty happy how the test shoot came out!

Cheers all!

Richard

Arachnids, Better Organising, and Press Coverage

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 Goal
CBSport: Phoenix 3 Wildcats 2

A 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 openers

From tiny acorns....

'Tis The Season...

It's now well into September, and I've been remiss in my postings - I've not posted in over a fortnight, and there are only two reasons for that: it's the start of the new academic year, and it's the start of the hockey season. In terms of photography, it's the latter which has had me indulging in more shutterbuggery than usual (it's a word, trust me)...

Things have changed considerably in the Phoenix Photography department. Firstly, we have said "fare thee well" to my bench buddy Lauren Freeman, who has taken up a position with the Sheffield Steeldogs (photographing, not playing!). Shooting alongside Lauren last season was a tremedously fun experience, she's a very talented snapper and I wish her well in her new job.



Secondly, the policy on photo distribution has been tightened, and as a result my photos of the Phoenix are now published on the team website and also via the newly created Official Phoenix Flickr Page. But I still get to post some of them on here, which can't be all bad!

The weekend of the 17th and 18th September saw myself, Yol and Vicki clocking up some serious mileage as the Phoenix took on the Steeldogs in the annual home-and-away War Of The Roses pre-season 'friendly' tournament. The away leg in Sheffield was first, so I had the joy of shooting through the netting again.



The game itself was a corker! For a friendly, it was one of the least friendly games I've seen in years. If the Phoenix play the whole season with the passion and fire that they showed in that game, we're in for a treat! From a photographer's perspective, the Sheffield home rink presents plenty of challenges, not just the netting but also the different colour tints to the lighting - one end of the rink has a green tint, the other end a red tint! It makes colour balancing the shots a challenge and a half!




Sunday night was the home leg, back on familiar territory, back on the Phoenix bench for the warm-up and back in the stands for the game!




I'm not just saying this because it's our home rink, but the lighting is so much better at the Altrincham Ice Dome than at any other rink I've shot at. It has its faults, it's not evenly illuminated throughout the ice surface, but it's bright enough to help me get the shots I need to get. In the Ice Dome I can shoot at 1/250th of a second, ISO 1600, f5.6 with my 300mm lens, and still get results that are good enough to be used once processed. Shooting RAW means that I can utilise the tools in Photoshop in get the best out of the exposures, and when shooting with my 18-55mm lens I can get some lovely shots!




Monday the 19th saw me shooting Phoenix related material for the third night on the trot, this time at the Phoenix Press Conference and the Meet The Players event. From shooting in great indoor light at the rink, we moved to shooting in low indoor light at the Cresta Court hotel, which necessitated a slower shutter speed than was usually comfortable. I shot a lot, and to be honest I didn't get many usable shots, but the ones I did get I'm fairly chuffed with.





Since then, the regular season has started, with a home game against the Basingstoke Bison, and it's back to business as usual.




Hand on heart, it feels like I've never been away!

Happy new season, everyone!

Ten Years Ago

This is a little departure from my usual blog entry, but I'm sure that readers will understand.

Ground Zero, April 2008.


September 11th, 2001:
When the news started to break, I was sitting in what was the Media Lab, on the first floor of Flaxman Building. I worked in that department, back in the days of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, before the Faculty of Arts Media & Design was formed, and as the news broke I was finishing a packed lunch, sitting in front of a TV monitor, watching the lunchtime news as usual.

The details at first were very sketchy, the newsreaders were saying that a plane had struck the World Trade Centre. There was a visual of a skyscraper with a hole in the side of it, but even the newsreaders didn't seem to have much of an idea of scale because the impression being given was that of a small craft, like a Cessna. But then the second plane hit, live on tv, and the scale suddenly became clear.

The sense of panic was palpable, not just on the streets of Manhattan but on the airwaves too. An international tragedy was unfurling in real time on tv screens around the world, and we were transfixed in horror, unable to look away. Lives were being lost right before our eyes, the world was changing, never to be the same again.

Throughout the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, word was spreading fast, and before long the Media Lab was filling with academics, admin staff, technicians, management. We had five or six TV screens on, each one showing a different network. At that time, the Media Lab's freeview system could take feeds from Fox News and CNN as well as the BBC, so we were able to watch the news from both sides of the Atlantic, the afternoon news here and the breakfast news from over there. VHS tapes were loaded into machines, and the news feeds recorded, recording that went on for several weeks from that point.

The news then broke of the plane hitting the Pentagon, and then of the plane coming down in Pennsylvania. We were watching as facts were reported alongside wild speculation, the realisation of it being a terror attack giving rise to a wave of paranoia and misinformation. Reports of planes being missing all over the world, of potential targets in global capitals, of fighter jets scrambled to shoot down unidentified jets. Planes being grounded all over, take-offs aborted on the runway, transport systems grinding to a halt. We watched as the Twin Towers collapsed, more lives extinguished in moments before the watching lenses of the world. We watched as the workers of Manhatten emerged from the dust, covered head to toe in grey ash, tearful, shellshocked, uncomprehending. We watched the emergency services doing their best to deal with everything at once, the chains of command stretched to breaking point, the Emergency Plans going out of the window. Everything unfurling in real time.

Home time came around, and very few people left the Media Lab. I don't remember what time we eventually closed it down for the night, but I do remember the amount of quiet in there. The room was full of people sitting, standing, watching, yet voices were largely absent. Nobody really felt like saying anything. For all of the voices that were silenced that day, the absence of ours seemed fitting.

Ten years on and we reach the anniversary. The rebuilding work is progressing slowly, the site is now a place of pilgrimage. I went over to New York in April of 2008, and I went to Ground Zero to pay my respects and have a moment of silence. I remember the sense of loss that I felt, and I remember very well the simmering anger I felt towards those standing nearby who were selling souvenirs of the tragedy. The site is surrounded by businesses, tower blocks, shops and roads, and yet there's a quietness about the place, as if those lost voices are muting out the sounds of the world around them.

Rest in peace, you will never be forgotten.

Shooting the Metros and testing the f-stops

Regular readers will know that I shoot for Manchester Phoenix Ice Hockey Club, and with the new season coming up, I'm looking forward to getting back to the rink and getting some shots done whilst freezing my zoom lens off. So when I got a call from the Phoenix team owner asking if I wouldn't mind going to cover the first Trafford Metros home game of the season to "help them out with some shots", I jumped at the chance. I figured it would be a good chance to test out a prime lens too, so I borrowed a 50mm f1.4 and set off to cover the match. The prime lens was for shooting player profile shots, something which on the day didn't happen, but it did come in handy for shooting closer-up shots from on the team bench during the warm up.




The f1.4 lens was great at shooting in the relatively low light of the rink, allowing me to shoot at ISO200 and not worry about noise on the image. However, I found that shooting at f1.4 gave me too shallow a depth of field when dealing with the close-up shots. It was great for the full body stuff a little further away from the bench, but in terms of the closer shots it was a little too good! So, lesson learned there!

I shot the action of the game using my usual 70-300mm f4.5 lens at ISO1600 (and post-produced the noise down with Noise Ninja). The game itself was a cracker, with Trafford Metros taking on Nottingham Lions and giving Manchester debuts to two of the new Phoenix British signings, Josh Ward and Ciaran Long, both of whom made an impact on the scoreboard and the opposition.




For the shooting of the action, I placed myself on my sometimes-position on the stairs in front of the block where I normally sit. It offers a great vantage point of most of the ice, the exception being the bottom right corner from where I'm standing. Which is, of course, where it all kicked off late in the third period...



The photos have been uploaded to the Official Phoenix Flickr page (rather than my own page), and my shots from the upcoming Phoenix season will also be posted there.

This weekend, I'm pleased to have been able to borrow another lens, this time a 17-55mm f2.8. I'll be hopefully using it this coming week for doing headshots of the Phoenix team (plans are still being sorted) along with one of the other Phoenix photographers, but in the meantime I've been testing the lens out on the nearest willing subject:




Actually, it's not so much a case of Lola being a willing subject, more a case of her being too lazy to wander off away from the camera!

The updated Lola and Lucy gallery can be seen on Flickr.

Thanks for reading!

The New Mr and Mrs Goodge

Towards the end of last week, Yol and I hit the dusty trail (i.e. M6) and headed up to Scotland for a few days to attend the wedding of two of our good friends, Jon Goodge and Sam Bloor. I've known Sam and Jon through ice hockey for a number of years now, and Sam and Jon were our 'travel buddies' when we all went over to Maine last year. They're a lovely couple, great fun, and well liked - the latter demonstrated by the number of people who travelled from a wide range of global destinations to attend their nuptials.

The happy couple had hired an official photographer, who did a cracking job of capturing their big day, but Sam had also asked several photographer friends (including myself) if we'd bring our cameras along and get some shots of the celebrations as well, so I was more than happy to oblige! As a specific task, Sam had asked me to shoot the groom's party getting ready, and so armed with my trusty D40 and the light from the hotel room window, I set to work. I'm more of a candid photo shooter than a posed photo shooter, which is why I was able to capture some of the more off-the-cuff moments. Moments such as the groom utilising modern technology to aid his attire: watching a YouTube video entitled "How to tie a cravat" being one of them...



But sometimes a posed photo, or even semi-posed, can work wonders, especially when it comes to weddings. There are some wedding photos that are a tradition, all photographers are supposed to shoot them, and so with this in mind, Jon was happy to pause and pose at various points to assist in my shooting:



The wedding itself was beautiful. Taking place at the Anvil Hall in Gretna, Scotland, the setting completely belied its position. The venue is on the edge of a housing estate, residential properties overlook the building and its grounds, but once you're at the venue it takes on a world of its own. A beautiful hall, lovely grounds, and a cracking setting for the marriage of two lovely people!





One of the other traditions that we held dearly to during the course of the celebrations is that of having some 'jokey tat' making an appearance at an ice hockey related wedding. When I was first married, rubber chickens were the order of the day; last year in Maine at the wedding of Jean Whitney and Joe Royle it was rubber lobsters, and this year for Sam and Jon it was rubber ducks. So throughout the wedding photographs, these little fellows put in quite a few appearances!






A full set of photos from the wedding day itself can be seen on Flickr here.

Many thanks for reading, and I'm sure you will join me in wishing the happy couple all the best for the future! Here's to Sam and Jon, cheers!