photojournalism

Vic Reeves portrait – the “contact sheet”

No sooner had I posted the folio photo of comedian Vic Reeves than I received an email asking to see more of the set. I have all of my work from that period backed up and catalogued and so it was really easy to lay my cursor on them. How to display them was less obvious. WordPress has plenty of gallery and slide show options but I wanted something a bit more “old school”  something like a contact sheet.

©Neil Turner/TSL | May 2006

The final edit of 18 images that were submitted. This job was slightly unusual for me because there are no upright images – everything was landscape because the magazine double page had already been laid out with the copy written, headline in place and the designer was just waiting for my pictures to be slotted in and sent to the plate makers. I have always had a soft spot for frame 004 but the page went with a slight crop of 015. I actually shot about 80 frames on the job but I’m afraid that even I don’t keep everything.

If this page gets some “likes” and positive comments I will see if I can find the time to do a few more things in a similar vein.

Techie stuff: Canon EOS1D MkII cameras with 16-35 f2.8L, 24-70 f2.8L and 70-200 f2.8L lenses. Lumedyne Signature series flash and a 23″x24″ Chimera soft box.

Compose the picture and then wait

I have a folder full of images on my hard drive that I use for teaching. They aren’t always my best work but they help to illustrate a point better than others from my portfolio. This is a perfect example of that idea.

Sometimes you can see the potential for a picture but the picture isn’t happening. This is a common issue for news photographers who have to shoot pictures to go with stories about something quite specific but aren’t allowed to set a lot of shots up. This picture was to go with a very small story about an art exhibition that had been put on by some young female artists on a very tight budget. The venue was a shopping centre (mall if you are from the USA) and I could see that some human interaction with the work was the best way to cover it. I grabbed a tripod from the car and stuck my camera on it. Composing the frame was pretty easy and all I had to do was wait for the right people to walk past and look at the work. People came along and I tried various shutter speeds to get some blur in order to keep the ‘focus’ of the story on the art. Soon I was happy with my plan (1/10th of a second at f4.5 on 200 ISO) and I waited, shooting frames as people came past in ones, twos and threes.

©Neil Turner/TSL | London | October 1999

I could see these two women with very similar pink in their outfits coming. I could see that they were in perfect step and so the plan went from the occasional frame to a full burst (about 3 frames a second in those days) and got this shot. Of course I did a few more but the deep joy of those early digital SLRs was that you had great confidence in what you saw on the rear LCD.

The idea remains one that I use over and over again. I see pictures and I compose them around what’s there and then I just have to be patient and wait for someone or something to come along and complete the photograph. You can see the same idea here in an old post about walking with speed lights which has pictures taken a lot more recently!

For those who love detail, this was shot with a Kodak DCS520 camera (1.9 megapixels of class) and a Canon 17-35 f2.8L lens at the 35mm end of the range perched on a Manfrotto 055 tripod (which I still use).

Folio photo #12: Vic Reeves, Kent, May 2006

©Neil Turner/TSL, May 2006

Comedian and writer Vic Reeves (aka Jim Moir) photographed in the back garden of his home in Kent on the day that he and his wife were moving out. We had to shoot in the garden because the house was full of removal men, boxes and the controlled chaos and stress that goes with moving house. He was the complete and consummate professional and I greatly enjoyed photographing him for a feature that was about his time at school. His biography of his early life was just being published as the feature came out.

Fun photo: Muscliff or Mogadishu

Out on a walk in semi-rural Dorset… Not the suburbs of Mogadishu.

20120114-114028.jpg

Muscliff, Bournemouth | ©Neil Turner | 14th January 2012

Two portraits, one poet and a fifteen year gap…

Working as a photographer you often shoot pictures of people before they become famous and then get to shoot them again once they have “made it”. I don’t know if you can really categorise a poet as ‘famous’ but the British Poet Laureate is about as famous as you can get for poetry. In 2008 and towards the end of his term as Laureate, I photographed Andrew Motion at his London home but this wasn’t my first “one-to-one” with him. Back in 1992 when he was already established as a poet, and just ahead of the publication of his biography of Phillip Larkin, I had taken pictures of him at a different London home.

©Neil Turner/Insight | London | 14th September 1992

A lot of people are a lot more accommodating and easier to photograph before they become famous. They are often friendlier, more likely to offer you a cup of tea and are generally easier to work with. That wasn’t the case with Mr Motion. Back in 1992 I had caught him on a bad day – or at least a day when he had far more pressing matters to attend to than getting his picture taken whereas fifteen and a half years later he was well used to being photographed and had developed an easy manner when dealing with people like me. It could be that I was also fifteen and a half years older and more able to handle myself but whatever the reasons, shooting him in 2008 was a lot easier.

©Neil Turner/TSL | London | 28th March 2008

Of course the technology had moved on: in 1992 I was shooting with Nikon F4S cameras and some lumpy f2.8 Nikkor zoom lenses (35-70 f2.8 and 80-200 f2.8) on black and white film. By 2008 I was onto Canon EOS1D MkII and 20D cameras with some lovely L series Canon lenses and shooting digitally. The quality difference is also very noticeable and I wouldn’t want to shoot film on a job like this again.

Archive photo: Special needs school, March 1990

Following on from the March 1990 Conductive Education picture that I posted earlier in the week I remembered another special needs picture that I shot a short while later. As it turns out, exactly four weeks later. This shot isn’t as technically sound or as well composed as the previous picture but it does mean a lot to me – because there is a real story to go with it.

© Neil Turner | 30 March 1990 | Southampton

This boy had a target of learning to do up his own zip and was determined to succeed for the camera. I was touched by him and his determination and so I stayed with him whilst he kept trying. After nearly ten minutes he succeeded and I was very nearly in tears. One of the staff had been watching and she was in tears. I have never forgotten that moment.

For the geeks out there, the camera was a Nikon F3P, the lens was a 24mm f2 Nikkor and it was shot on Kodak Tri-X film.

Folio photo #11: Sir Paul Stephenson, February 2009

Sir Paul Stephenson at New Scotland Yard. ©Neil Turner, February 2009

This portrait was made when Sir Paul Stephenson had been in post as the Commissioner of The Metropolitan Police for less than two hours. He had been acting Commissioner but this was taken when he was actually given the job. This frame was right at the end of the session where I had already shot quite a wide variety of pictures in the time allotted. Having packed 90% of my gear away I was told that I still had a couple of minutes and so I did this picture with a press officer holding a Canon Speedlite off to my left with the head zoomed in to create this pool of light effect. Sir Paul has now left the post but this picture is staying in my folio. Shot using a Canon EOS5D MkII with a Canon 24-70 f2.8L lens and a single 580exII flash triggered by a Canon ST-E2 transmitter.

Folio photo #10: Eton College Choir, March 2004
©Neil Turner/TSL, March 2004

©Neil Turner/TSL, March 2004

Choristers leaving the College Chapel after early morning prayers at Eton College, Berkshire. The famous public school is offering junior music scholarships in an attempt to attract bright and musically gifted boys to the school. The blur was used in this case to anonymise the pupils. The camera was sat on the ground, propped up with a the lens hood because I didn’t have a tripod and wanted the motion blur. The lens was a Canon 16-35 f2.8L and the camera was an EOS1D.