Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012

(This is an illustrated copy of a Note published to my Facebook page earlier, it's equally applicable to you all, my photography buddies! Happy New Year!)

The end of any year sees a time of reflection and hope, of looking back at the year passing, and looking forward to the year beginning. Some of the memories are happy, some are sad, some are monumental, some are trivial, but they all add up to the experiences of a year.

2011 saw many things happen in my life, and in the lives of those around me. Yolanda and I getting engaged was a pretty big moment, I was so elated that she said yes and also so relieved that she managed to not set the place on fire (the candle lived to see another day, the napkin alas didn't.) We've been together another whole year, through the highs and lows, and she's stayed by my side through it all, for which I will always be more grateful than she knows.



We've seen friends marry, we've seen new arrivals and expanding families. We've shared brief moments with dear friends that we rarely have chance to see, we've shared in their happinesses, and we have been blessed to do so.





I've seen another graduating class go out into the world, my heart bursting with pride for each and every one of them whether they knew it or not. I've welcomed in a new class of freshers who will no doubt burst my heart again in a few years time, and I've seen current students continue to flourish and grow, their talents getting stronger with every shot they take.



I've progressed my photography further, taking a snapper's position at the Phoenix for a second season. This year I've contributed to my first calendar with a 'studio' shoot in the locker room, which went incredibly well thanks to the spirit of the guys that I was shooting. Yol's taken her first steps into documentary photography with some absolutely cracking results, and I'm very happy for her!






I've said goodbye to my time as an ice hockey coach. A wise coach once said to me, "when it's not fun any more, stop doing it." He was right. When a coach doesn't have the belief of his whole team, then something's gotta give. The silver lining is that maybe one day I can return as a player. My skates miss the ice! Time will tell...



I count myself a lucky man, when I look back at everything. Sure, there were times in 2011 when life seemed to take great pleasure in hoofing me in the yambag, but every cloud has a silver lining. "That which doesn't kill us, only makes us stronger" - medically it's not exactly sound, but as a philosophy it's a good one!

So as we say goodbye to 2011 and hello to 2012, I will raise a glass. To my family, to my friends both present and absent, to those we love and to those we have lost along the way, as midnight strikes I will bid you all a Happy New Year.

Here's to 2012, may it bring you all the happiness you can handle, and may your luck-making be fruitful! Cheers!

Snow and Feline Guilt, Festive Hockey, Festive Other Stuff and Shooting My Shutter Buddy

Last year when the snows came, our resident moggies were still too new to the house to venture outside, so they watched the flurries through the window. This year, the catflap was left open, and their love of experimentation and exploration was encouraged. Which it was for all of about 40 seconds, before Lola decided that enough was enough and she wanted to come back in again...



Lola has a knack of making me feel guilty. She can get this look on her face that makes me feel like the worst cat-owner in the world, and she does it with expert timing. As Yol and I were spending a few days back in the Homeland over Christmas, we'd got Lucy and Lola booked into a lovely cattery for the festive break. Getting them there is always fun, by which I mean it's a knock-down drag-out brawl to get them into their carry boxes before Lola chirrups her disapproval and Lucy does a protest piddle (if we're lucky that's all she does.) Once they're in their 'hotel', Lola will always fix me with that look. That withering look. The look that says "I know you're abandoning me and going off to have fun without me." Honestly, she can be one of the sulkiest creatures I've ever met. At least with Lucy you know she's upset with you because she's left you physical evidence of it.

But this time, Lola's plans to guilt-trip me came a little unstuck. The cats were being housed in the new block at the cattery, and the pens there are even more luxurious - they even had a little enclosed balcony! So, whilst Lola was sitting in there, trying her best to look as sad as she could at me, I decided to document 'the look'. But just before I took the picture, she spotted the free-range chickens, and that was it, her interest in guilt-tripping me vanished in an instant!:


As usual, I've been shooting away at the Phoenix again, doing my best to capture the spirit of the game. No two games are ever the same, but when it comes to photography, you're reliant on something extra special happening. When I started out with the Phoenix, I shot everything, and uploaded everything! This season, we're limited in our Flickr aalbums to a maximum of 12 shots, and they have to be a mixture of action shots and 'personality' shots, so I'm finding myself being more choosy as to which shots make it into the albums and which ones remain on the harddrive, ne'er to be seen!





Luckily, most of the games recently have given me the opportunity to shoot interesting occurrences, otherwise I'd be pushed to find twelve shots per game!

The Festive Season usually presents the photographer with several opportunities to indulge in some shutter-buggery with friends, and this year was no exception! First up was the Christmas Party for the Uni course that I do most of my teaching on, Media Production. The theme was nice and general, 'fancy dress', and with me being off the drink on that particular night, I'd decided to serve as photographer:





I'm not a fan of using flash when it comes to spontaneous portraits, so the Christmas bash being in a nightspot gave me a chance to experiment with shooting in existing low-light. It's not as easy as it looks, especially when you have to shoot at an ISO of around 3200 and get your subjects to stay still! The above shots were done with a Nikon D90 borrowed from the Uni, so that I could utilise the low ISO. But sometimes, you just have to resort to using the flash, and swallow the pride!




Back at the Phoenix, and the post-Christmas game gave me a chance to get a big hug from my Shutter Buddy Lauren Freeman, as her team the Sheffield Steeldogs were the opposition. Getting a hug from Lauren is always something to look forward to with Steeldogs games, even more so than the potential for bone-crushing hits and explosive violence!




The game itself didn't disappoint (even though nobody left in an ambulance) as it was a real end-to-end physical battle, and with my lovely assistant Yol sidelined with flu, I was shooting from the stairs rather than from my seat for this game:





Shooting from the stairs has its advantages, the main one being an unobstructed view of most of the ice. The only real downside is that when the action is literally right in front of you, if you're using a zoom lens you can't always zoom out enough to get the shot! That and the increased risk of being beaned in the head by a puck or a stick...

Cheers all, and Happy New Year to you!

Half-Mast Bison, Shoot What You See, Stay Tight & Pray, and a Chance Capture

It's now well into my second season shooting the Phoenix match nights, and one of the things I learned early is to take every opportunity you can to get a shot. The majority of shots taken will never see the light of day, but if you don't shoot it then you'll never have it. So when I'm faced with an opportunity that I've spotted out of the corner of my eye, you can bet that I'm going to shoot it. Even if it's not the most picturesque of opportunities...



After all, how often will you see a Bison sorting out his undercrackers in front of a thousand spectators?...

...Probably as often as a linesman getting lightly creamed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time!



Shooting what you see, and taking your chances where you see them, are fundamentals when it comes to photography. Sometimes you can see something photogenic in an unusual place, and the urge to grab a camera and take a shot will surge up!



The shot above is a close up of a burned out filament in an 800W bulb that blew in our main studio. I took it down from the lighting rig, spotted the potential for a shot, set the light on a shelf and fetched a camera! Some may see it as a pointless photo, but hopefully some may see the beauty in the image. Sometimes I'll see something and feel the urge to shoot it, and it doesn't have to have a purpose or even a meaning!

In the last Blog entry, I included a shot from a Phoenix game where I'd shot Luke Boothroyd as he waited to go onto the ice. This past Saturday, Nick Ogden and I ventured out to try and get some shots of the players as they stepped onto the ice. Nick knelt down, and I shot over his shoulder. The players had been briefed that we would be there, but that didn't stop either of us from being a little nervous. We were kneeling down very close to the route that the players take when they charge onto the ice, and when they come out through the smoke it's not always easy to see where you're going. The lights are down and the spotlights are up, so our high-vis jackets wouldn't have been of much use, but luckily all of the players managed to avoid us! I've not seen Nick's results, but I know I managed to get a few usable shots from the unique vantage point:




That same game, the Phoenix 2012 Calendar went on sale too, and on a personal note I'd like to thank all of you who picked up a copy and gave me some feedback, it's much appreciated!

The other morning, the moon was pretty much directly opposite our front door, so whilst defrosting the car, I indulged my passions for lunar shooting, and set up the tripod. I fired off a few shots at a variety of f-stops and shutter speeds to try to capture the detail as well as I could, and when I looked back at one of the shots I spotted something that I'd not seen when the exposure was taken:



I'd inadvertantly managed to combine two of my 'guilty pleasures' of photography in one shot, and captured an aircraft trailing away from the moon! Result!

Cheers all, thanks for reading!

The Big Shoot With A Sharp-Eyed Assistant, D90 Game Shooting, and Trying A New Angle

The last Blog entry that I posted was written with a large bundle of nerves eating away at my mind, and here we are a week and a bit later, the bundle of nerves is still there but it's a different bundle of nerves than last week's!

Last week I was preparing for the big shoot, which I can now confirm (since the cat's out of the bag) was the Manchester Phoenix 2012 Calendar shoot. I'd borrowed a 35mm f2.0 prime lens for the job, done some tests, acquired a Nikon D90 and planned as much as possible, but was still at the mercy of the players! The players had been given the project brief, and it was down to them to interpret it and turn up for the shoot accordingly. The brief was to "bring something personal that symbolises their life outside of hockey" and be ready to pose with it. The shoot that we did with Ryan Johnson a few weeks back was the spark for this, as it was Ryan's tattoos that showed a side of him that the hockey world hadn't seen before, it was something personal to him. So that theme was expanded for the whole team.

The shoot was set to take place in the Phoenix locker room on a game day, last Sunday, before the team took on the Slough Jets. This was the easiest thing logistically for the team, as it meant that they were all going to be in the same place at the same time anyway, but from a photo shoot perspective it was a daunting task. We had a window of around an hour to complete the shoot! So, armed with a three-head 300w lighting kit, a few sheets of diffuser, a D90 camera and a heart beating fifteen to the dozen, I set up and went for it.



I ran some tests with the f2.0 prime lens, and whilst it's a great lens it quickly became apparent that it wasn't suited to the environment that I was shooting in. It was great for getting the back cover shot of Tony Hand that I wanted to get, but when it came to the main shoot it didn't give me the depth that I found that I needed, so I returned to the 18-55mm kit lens and got the job done!

As I'd borrowed a D90 to do the main shoot, my D40 was free for use as a Documentary camera, and my lovely assistant Yolanda was co-opted into getting some behind-the-scenes shots. She's not a trained photographer at any level, and with little experience on a DSLR she was more than a touch nervous about being entrusted with documenting the event.



Surrounded by hockey players who were in turn a little nervous about the shoot, and tasked with shooting an event and getting a feel for the whole experience, it was a role that in all honesty I had high hopes but little expectation from. But once I'd finished editing the calendar shots and went on to look through Yolanda's behind-the-scenes shots, I was simply amazed at some of the moments she had managed to capture. Her sharp eye picked up on so many moments to capture, and shooting from within a group of people, she has managed to capture photos that I am genuinely envious of:



The shoot took place in two locations: the locker room area is made up of two main rooms, and we utilised both. For shooting a close-up of Tony Hand we used his space in the main locker room, and for the other shots we used the front half of the area which also serves as the physio room. Cramped and hot from the lights, hardly ideal shooting conditions at all, but the approach and attitude of the players made it a hugely memorable shoot. To say that the guys went above and beyond what I'd expected is an understatement!

Every person who took part in the shoot gave it their all, I honestly couldn't have asked for more from the experience. I was hoping that some of the guys would turn up with 'props' to pose with, but I didn't expect the array of props and outfits that the guys brought with them. Everyone took a turn in front of the camera, watched eagerly by the rest of the team, in a locker room that was echoing with laughter from the posing, the ribbing and the out-and-out piss-taking that was going on!

After the shoot, after the game, after the editing of the photos, the nail-biting began again. I'd spent hours and hours working on the shots before sending them on to Nick Ogden for him to take over the process with his design work. I'd done the shots, Nick's job was to come up with an eye-catching design for the calendar and to put my shots into their places. When the first proofs were e-mailed through, Nick had certainly done his job - the designs were in my opinion simply outstanding! After a few tinkerings and adjustments here and there, the final proofs were prepared and sent to Phoenix owner Neil Morris for his approval. Neil enthusiastically gave the nod, and the proofs were sent off to the printers!

Now, as expected, I can't release any of the shots that were used in the calendar on here, but all will be revealed when the calendars go on sale on Saturday Dec 10th, at the home game against Guildford!

Yolanda's sharp-eye on the documentary camera did give us an unexpected bonus though, in the shape of a behind-the-scenes Flickr album which will also be released next week:



I know that there's nothing more I can do for the calendar, but I'll still be biting my nails until the launch itself!

Already having the D90 with us at the rink for the shoot, it made sense to give it a go with the shooting of the game itself. Manchester Phoenix v Slough Jets is always a skill versus skill game, but it's also a game where both teams seem to increase the intimidation factor, so I knew I'd have a few opportunities to test the camera.

The D90's ISO range goes beyond that of the D40, and the in-build noise reduction is certainly a step up too. The big advantage meant that I could shoot at a faster shutter speed, giving me more clarity on the shots. When I'm shooting with the D40, I'm working mostly with a 70-300mm lens, shooting at f4 to f5.6, ISO 1600, at 1/250th of a second and then pushing the levels in Photoshop. With the D90 I was able to shoot with the same lens and the same aperture but at ISO2500 and a shutter speed of 1/400th at times:





Before the game, I'd been asked to get some shots of one of the Slough fans with the Slough players as they stepped onto the ice, which meant that I was down by the player entrance gate for the start of the game. Sensing an opportunity, I squatted down next to the gate, waited for the smoke to be pumped out, and started shooting:



All in all, quite a productive day!

The Phoenix v Jets photo set can be seen on Flickr here.

Thanks for reading!

Programme Profiles, Resting Felines, and Pre-Shoot Nerves

This season with the Phoenix I've been more involved in the match night programme than in previous years. In the past I've written the occasional article and provided the odd photo, but this season I've been asked to take a more active role and come up with a broader range of content. One of the outcomes of this was the publication of shots from the photoshoot with Ryan Johnson, as mentioned in the last blog entry, but something that I've been working on more regularly has been a series of profile articles about the people who make the whole Phoenix operation run as smoothly as possible - the staff and the volunteers. Writing these articles has given me a chance to exercise my typing fingers in the form of online interviews with the articles' subjects, but the experience has also given me a reason to get more photos of people fulfilling their roles in their working environment on a match night:





The shots are often taken quickly, with very little set-up time, but personally I think that shooting like that adds to the photos, it shows these people in their 'natural environment' and hopefully they add an extra dimension to the articles!


This time of year is a time of general lethargy for most people. We wake up in the morning and it's dark, we go home in the evening and it's dark. Our beds have never been more comfortable, our duvets inescapable! The central heating goes on, the fire goes on, and the fleeces and snuggies come out of their summer retirement. Finding topics and subjects to photograph becomes harder, as you don't venture far from home. So you turn to familiar subjects who are feeling the same sense of lethargy and love of the warm that you are!:





This coming weekend, I have a shoot set up. It's a big one too, and there's a lot riding on it. I was as nervous as anything before the Ryan Johnson shoot a few weeks back, and that shoot paved the way for the one I'm about to undertake. To say that I'm nervous is an understatement. I won't lie, I'm very much on edge for this one. I've borrowed a nice lens, I've borrowed some lights, and I've tested and planned as much as I can. But there are some elements of the shoot that are totally beyond my control, and that's what's making me so nervous. Time will tell on this one!

However, the elements that I can control, that I can test, I've been controlling and testing. The lens that I've borrowed for this shoot is a rather nice 35mm f2.0 prime lens, and today I did some tests with the lens on a Nikon D90 which I will be shooting with this weekend, and I'm fairly happy with the results:





I think the shots are pretty good, but I'm always open to feedback! The small album of test shots can be seen here on Flickr.

Wish me luck for the shoot this weekend!

Secret Project unveiled, Remember Remember, and catching up with a Shooting Buddy

The secret project that I have been working on is a secret no more, with the publication of the match programme at the game on the 30th of October! Inspired by a concept from Lauren Freeman, the project was to do a profile shoot with Phoenix player Ryan Johnson that was based around his impressive array of tattoos. The shoot took place on the 23rd October in the Phoenix dressing room, within a half hour window, and involved setting up three 300w lights and snapping away like a madman. Ryan himself was an absolute star, willing to try every one of the poses that I suggested, and very welcoming of both myself and my assistant for the day, Yolanda! Yol took this one of the shoot in progress:



The shoot was a nervous experience for me, but it was worth every moment. The results were (in my humble opinion) better than expected, and after a trip through the wonders of Photoshop, I was able to produce a series of six images, four of which were used in the match programme and the other two are being saved for potential future usage. The programme article's headline shot was this one, and it's one that I'm pretty proud of:



The plans for the next themed photo shoot are already underway!....

November the 5th is the night when all across the country, millions of pounds go up in smoke, or go off with a bang. Call it Bonfire Night, Fireworks Night or Guy Fawkes Night, it's the night when the skies are lit up with all manner of exploding rockets, bangers, Chinese Lanterns and other such gunpowder-based entertainment. Yol and I spent our Bonfire Night in the company of Yol's folks over in Hull, and it gave me an opportunity to have a crack at shooting some fireworks.





Shooting a fireworks night is a steep learning curve! I know that if I were shooting an organised display, I'd be shooting with a tripod and shooting from much further away, to get the colour bursts of the rockets in the skies. From the close proximity that I was shooting, none of the rocket shots worked, but it was still a great experience. Spending time with family and friends is always time well spent, especially when it comes with a bowl of lovely veggie chilli!

As per usual, I've been shooting at the Altrincham Ice Dome with the Phoenix, getting a fair few shots uploaded to match reports on the team website and elsewhere, and generally enjoying the challenge of shooting in a place with comparatively low, uneven light. Don't get me wrong, the lighting in there is great compared to some of the rinks I've shot in, but it's still a problem trying to capture fast paced action when you're having to rely on shooting at ISO 1600 and shutter speeds of 1/250th with an F4.5 lens - you have to post-produce the living daylights out of your shots before they are usable. But I've been fairly pleased with the results I've been getting lately:





Shooting the hockey is a vice for me, it's an unashamed pleasure to do, even when the results don't go our way, or when something gets dropped on us at a moment's notice. Personally speaking, I think it's essential to have something in your life that you enjoy, that's a little different, and that you can lose yourself in, even if it's only for a few hours.

Shooting the hockey has also given me a chance to meet and work with some lovely people, and this past week I had the chance to catch up with one of those people whose path has gone a different way to mine. Last season I spent a lot of time on the bench shooting alongside my 'Shooting Buddy' Lauren Freeman, and this season she's signed with the Sheffield Steeldogs to shoot for them instead of the Phoenix (a bit like a player trade, only we didn't get any stick tape in exchange for her!). This past Thursday the Steeldogs were playing the Phoenix in Altrincham, and it gave me a chance to get a hug from Lauren, and spend a warm-up session on the bench shooting beside her again:



She may well be shooting for the 'enemy', but she's still my Shooting Buddy!

My albums can be seen on Flickr here: R.G.Allan Photography

My Phoenix shots can be seen on Flickr here: Official Manchester Phoenix Photography

Thanks for reading!