A wild life at the BBC...

Over the last 12 months I've done a few commissioned shoots for the BBC; BBC Wildlife and BBC CountryFile. I've worked off and on with CountryFile for a number of years but usually with stock images or writing short walking routes for the out and about section. But it's the proper commissioned photo-shoots that you really want and it took a while to earn that trust.

Let's dance!

Finally, I get round to posting something after two months. Anyone would think I've been busy. In the last eight weeks I've photographed kayaking, car mechanics, engineers, nursery kids, chefs, a theatre, a CEO, food and the Queen!
So I thought it was about time I shot some action again, but in this case it would not be sports action. No, in this case it would be something completely new to me; contemporary dance.

Food for thought

Mmmmm...This looks a bit different! I mean different from my usual fare of outdoor sports subjects. I accept that it's pretty normal fare for food photography.
Anyway, this month's post is about tackling a subject that is a bit outside of your comfort zone and the main theme here is that photographers are generally well served by having a broad range of skills and experience even (especially?) when they are pretty niche like me.

Don't push me, 'cos I'm close to the edge...

...Striding Edge to be exact. You maybe spotted that already.

Yesterday I took fate by the short and curlies and headed up Helvellyn with my good pal and long-suffering, yet curiously ever-willing "model" Paddy Cave, in spite of an iffy forecast that could go either way.

Run out of time

This weekend, the weekend of January 26th/27th 2013, has been remarkable for weather. On Friday evening it started snowing, so much so that people were stranded in their cars, unable to get home, with roads closed and all the rest of it. This should be a great opportunity to grab some winter sports images but there's a problem.

Bothered at the bothy.

It's another TGO assignment this week and the question is, can I be bothered to haul all my flash kit up the side of a mountain, in the snow, at this time of the morning? Of course I can.

Back against the wall

Friend of mine is writing a book. I've turned out a couple of my own - nothing very impressive, just a couple of picture books - but I know what's it like. It's always a stressful process, what with deadlines looming and work avoidance tactics kicking in to try and distract away from the reality of actually having to produce the thing - just before Christmas too!

Tough at the TOB

The Tour of Britain came through my local town of Kendal, up here on the edge of the Lake District, just a few weeks ago. I knew it was coming of course. Cycling has been "flavour of the month" in the wake of the Olympics.
I don't get much opportunity to shoot road racing, which is a pity because I love watching it on telly. Shooting it live is challenging and quite a buzz. These guys don't hang about and you have to be right on your game to catch the moments and create something worthwhile.

Light the bike

In this months post I'm going to look at a shot I created as part of a workshop day on mountain bike photography.
What I tried to do here was build a lighting set-up that would be easy to re-create in any forest/woodland situation.
By testing out a basic set-up and taking note of the settings I hoped to give my students a reasonable starting point to work with.
Ok, so let's deconstruct it.

A new hang out

Note to self; Don't start this post with the word "So"...

You won't believe this but the climber in this photo, hanging from from the roof by ice axes is called Paddy Cave! Honestly.

Anyway, Paddy was  telling me about this whole new thing in climbing -  "sport mixed" or "dry tooling". The idea came about as a progression from climbing hard mixed winter routes which rely on climbing sections of steep rock between bands of ice - using the ice tools - and climbers training off-season for winter routes on artificial climbing walls with ice tools. Supposing you used disused quarries instead of climbing walls, and manufactured some really hard routes by drilling or chipping some axe placements, bolting the wall for the placement of protection ( what climbers call running belays or just "runners") and seeing just how extreme you can get with dry tooling? Et Voila! This is the result.

Making light work of night rides

So, here's a second installment on shooting LED torches at night with some live action - in this case mountain biking. These photos were created to illustrate the power and useability of the clients new outdoor LED lighting products so we wanted to produce some photos that showed them in realistic, real-life situations, that would be eye-catching and have some impact.

Studio on the mountain

Well, it's been a while since I added a new RLA post but I've been a bit busy this month - honest! Some pretty unusual and interesting assignments have kept me out on location and I will reveal all in the near future. Meanwhile, let's start with this one, from early in May.

Talking Walling

Eric Shorrocks is 83. He's not as quick on his feet as he used to be and he had to give up doing what he's locally known for just a few years earlier through illness. But Eric is recognized as a local hero in these parts, with over 30 years as a volunteer National Trust dry stone waller. Indeed, he took me to this particular wall on Arnside Knott, just around the corner from his home at Arnside, overlooking Morecambe Bay, because he and his team had built it many years before and to prove it he pointed out a small, carved stone embedded in the base of the wall with a set of initials engraved on its' limestone surface - ES - now green and mossy with age.

Spring Sail Now On! Part 2

We left our TGO mag two day photo-shoot on the knife-edged arete of Striding Edge, (part 1) trying to avoid causing a major incident to our fellow scramblers, tripping over my light stand or impaling themselves on my 'brolly.

The weather gods had been caught napping so we enjoyed an unseasonably warm and sunny day for March but obviously we would not get lucky twice. Day two turned out grey and of course windless, since we would be sailing.

Spring Sail Now On! Part 1.

Sailing is one of my interests. So is walking. I like mountains and I like water. That's why I live in the Lake District. I grew up next to the sea and one of my earliest memories is riding out a storm in my father's home-built dinghy at age 5 or so.

What's in the bag?

Everyone want’s to know about gear. It’s human nature. We all pretend we’re not really interested and we all say things like “camera’s don’t take photos, photographers do” but really we all want a peek into our fellow photographers kit bag, just to see if they got a secret weapon. Well, OK, let’s take a look at what I use…

It's all Tan Hill from here

The Tan Hill Inn is the highest pub in the land at 1500ft and has a certain reputation for eccentricity. Well, when you're that far off the beaten track I guess anything goes! Anyway, the Tan Hill was my rendezvous spot for a recent assignment with TGO magazine for a winter walking feature - which is on the shelves now (March 2012). Weather-wise things were looking up. Early morning sun, reasonable forecast, good snow cover on the tops, it was all good.

Trail mix

Nova Events is Brendan Foster's event management company that organises the Great North Run, the World's biggest half marathon, and the Great North Swim. Now they've taken on the Karrimor Great Trail Challenge. Will this morph into the World's biggest something too? No idea, but I'm happy to say they asked me to shoot some trail running photos around the course for the pre-event PR and the website.

Take cover!

In my last post I made the point that photographers have to be ready to make the most of whatever opportunities present themselves and this cover shot is a case in point. It's the current TGO front cover for March 2012 edition and was shot in December, just days before Christmas. I awoke to a bright, shiny sun filtering through my bedroom skylight which was covered in fluffy white stuff; Snow, and plenty of it. This was not a day for hanging around in the office but I had to do the school run first! On the way back I rang round to see who was at home and willing to come out for a couple of hours to play - but got no answers. It seemed everyone was already out, or working, or away, or asleep??!! I left some messages and resigned myself to getting out anyway and maybe trying a few time-release self portraits or something.

The long walk home

It seems like just yesterday we had full snow cover and great ice here in the Lakes but how quickly it disappears. A couple of days of warm southerlies and it's back to wet and windy, grey and drab and not a white patch to be seen on the hill. Which means that when conditions are here you got to get out there and shoot, right now.