The new issue of FourFourTwo football magazine is now on the newstands featuring an article I shot for them recently about the Royal Marines Amateur Football Club. This was an interesting feature to work on; the RM AFC team’s home pitch is based across the road from the Royal Marines Commando Training Centre at Lympstone, close to Exeter in Devon although the team draws players from the camps at Taunton, Plymouth and Chivenor also, with a high player turnover as training exercises and deployments dictates a different line-up each week and a player pool of around 50 individuals in total. The assignment brief called for me to attend one of the team’s weekly matches, with a fairly long shot-list including a full team portrait and documentary images and while I’d ticked all the boxes, it wasn’t really working for me and I knew there had to be a better way to photograph this subject and so I arranged to meet up with Colour Sergeant Richard Hope a few days after the original photo-shoot to try a different tack. I set up some lights at the edge of the pitch and then we ran through a few different ideas; some keepy-uppy, some kicking the ball, and the static shot which made the final double-page-spread opener above. Big thanks to FourFourTwo designer David Robinson for assigning me plus Art Editor Anth Moore for doing such a nice job with layout and reproduction.
After years of using a backpack to carry my core equipment I finally relented recently and bought myself a rolling camera bag, at which point my back gave a little sigh of relief. Even with what I consider to be a very lightweight kit I’m travelling with at least four bags these days, plus my backpack was starting to look a little overpacked and so with a week-long foreign assignment ahead of me involving trains, planes, and automobiles as well as a different hotel every night I figured it was high time I did myself a favour and ordered one up. I’ve always used Lowepro bags and although not generally a brand loyalist I will stick with what I know works and as I’ve had no complaints with the Vertex 200 AW I’ve had for the past three years or so Lowepro were the first company I looked at when shopping around, and I eventually went with the Pro Roller X200 as it’s the largest roller bag that Lowepro produce that still meets the airline carry-on luggage size allowance. I always carry-on my main bag as it’s the most valuable (practically and financially) and thus ensures that regardless of what the baggage throwers do with the rest of my luggage I’ll always have the most important items when I arrive at the destination, and true to Lowepro’s claims I’ve had no problems at check-in and the bag fits perfectly in the overhead compartment.
Lowepro Pro Roller X200 fully loaded
One of the first things I noticed was only three memory card pouches; not a big problem as there’s plenty of space in the larger pouches but with four in the Vertex 200 I was surprised to see less rather than more in the Pro Roller. Otherwise the extra space and sturdy casing are all good and I was pleased to see that the Nikon SB-800 speedlights fit in perfectly with the head in the vertical position so less space is wasted (update: I have since replaced my aging SB-800 strobes with SB-900 models and I’m sad to say that they’re far too big to fit in the bag in this way). There are also two pockets on the front of the bag; one large one for a laptop which happily swallows my 13in MacBook Pro and a smaller pocket which comes in useful for holding paperwork/tickets etc, and each pocket is separated into two compartments.
Pro Roller X200 Handle Tripod Mount
I appreciate the little details and the Pro Roller has a few nice touches such as the tripod mount built into the handle (pictured above); not something I’ve had the need to use but it’s good to know that in a pinch I’ll have something to hand that would serve as a tripod, or as a lightstand for that matter. Another feature I haven’t used but appreciate having is that the interior of the bag actually unzips from the main case to become a simple backpack so if you’re flying on a smaller plane with tighter carry-on limits (such as some domestic flights) the case can be checked in and the smaller and lighter interior carried on as normal.
Pro Roller X200 TSA Lock
The three-digit TSA combination lock (above) works well and is yet another handy integrated feature; once the combination has been set the self-retracting cable can be pulled out and through the hoops built into the zips and then locked back into the unit. It’s ocurred to me that this could be used to also secure the bag to an immovable object although I’m still to think of a situation where this could be used that would not result in the bomb-squad getting called out. The wheels have a wide spacing which makes for a pretty stable roller bag and the large rubber-tread wheels roll and grip well even when taken off road. They’re also fastened with a standard 4mm Allen key which should make for simple replacement when the time comes.
Lowepro Pro Roller X200 Wheel
So I’ve had the Lowepro Pro Roller X200 for long enough to have given it a bit of a beating and so far it’s done very well. I really like the fact that my lighting bag – a Lowepro Magnum AW – sits perfectly atop the X200 and clips on to the handle so it doesn’t fall off. Probably not something the manufacturer recommends but it does mean a total of two bags that I don’t need to carry through airports on my shoulders anymore.
Tear-sheet from the new edition of Arts+Culture magazine featuring one my portraits of Devon based Anglo-Chinese artist Clem So. I blogged about experimenting with a Holga toy camera on this shoot at the time which can be viewed HERE plus here’s some more unpublished out-takes from the shoot below.
I love any assignment that involves travel, but the truth is that I don’t normally get much time to take in the local culture when working on assignment. It’s sort of like a ‘taster’… And I do have a mental list of places I’d like to go back to with more time to explore and enjoy. Last week I was in Switzerland for a few days working on a magazine assignment and I did actually feel like I got to see quite a bit of the country; mainly thanks to the 300km drive from location one to location two through the Swiss mountains which made for a pretty interesting day.
Work location one: 32 degrees
Swiss motorway; beats the hell out of the M4
Hire car at 2478 metres above sea level at the Nufenen Pass and temperature now at four degrees
Quite a lot of snow still considering it’s June
View from the front of hotel two; back to hot with humidity thrown in for good measure
Room without a view
Big thanks to writer Andy McGrath (my travel companion for this trip) for shouting at me every time I drove on the wrong side of the road (hard to break that habit…).
If you happen to find yourself on board a BMI Baby flight anytime soon you’ll see a feature in their Yeah Baby in-flight magazine’s current Summer issue that I shot for them on location at Watergate Bay near Newquay on the north coast of Cornwall a few weeks ago. The shoot happened to coincide with a short break already long planned at the Headland Hotel (location for the 1990 film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Witches) in Newquay on that weekend so when I got the email from the magazine’s Picture Editor I jumped at the chance to mix a little business with pleasure.
Despite visiting Newquay a few times over the years I’d never previously been to Watergate Bay just down the coast. It’s a pretty unique beach; very wide and completely flat; the sort of beach which which lends itself very well to kite buggying although there were none on the beach while we were there. As with most outdoor shoots the weather was a worry and we anticipated a disaster first thing as we woke to black skies and intermittent rain and of course the client wants blue skies. This time we got lucky though and the sky soon brightened with some beautiful diffused light coming through the early haze and the sky got bluer as the day went on. The assignment was to include portrait and documentary photography of the people either work or leisure on and around the beach including the team of RNLI life guards, Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant which overlooks the bay, and the surfers competing in the 2010 English National Surfing Championship. Big thanks to Yeah Baby’s Picture Editor Julia Holmes for assigning me, to Art Director Julia Murray for doing such a great job with the layout and image selection, and finally to Editor Ginny Cummins for being such good company on location and making the whole shoot seem easy.
A tearsheet from the current issue of Runner’s World featuring a photo I shot for the magazine’s double page ‘Rave Run’ section. The location is on the north Cornwall coastal path near Bude (the GCHQ satellite base can be seen on the horizon on the right hand of the frame). We shot at a few different locations across the section of coastline until finding this spot which was about a half-hour hike from the nearest car park. I’m not normally a big fan of tripods but I had decided to experiment with shooting some panoramas to try and give a sense of the space and terrain. The final full pano featured below is a total of 14 vertical frames (shot with a 24mm lens); obviously the image had to be cropped to fit the full bleed double page spread format but it still provides a unique super-wide angle perspective plus lee-way for positioning within the page.
My first experiment with video; I bought a Nikon D90 a while ago for shooting video and as a (relatively) compact back-up body and this is my first attempt. The few things I’ve learnt while making this video so far include; editing video is really (really) tedious, syncing the vocal track is a complete pain, and I really don’t like being on that side of the camera. Clearly I have a lot to learn but I really like the cinematographic quality that you can get with the new HD-SLR bodies and although I don’t plan to make anything too involved I am thinking about the potential to produce some short vignettes if and when time allows.
I get a lot of questions about the kind of equipment I use on location, and although I’m not much of a gear-nerd I do find it interesting to see what other Photographers are using to get the job done so here’s a few details on the standard gear I use for most editorial and commercial work; additional equipment can always be hired as and when required but it’s rare that I have the need.
First up; good bags are essential. The LowePro Vertex 200AW has been my main bag for the past couple of years and I chose it because it was big enough to carry the essentials but small enough to meet the airplane carry-on requirements, while being relatively comfortable when walking or hiking despite the fully loaded weight of 20lbs. There’s also plenty of pockets for memory cards, gels, filters etc, as well as a pouch for a laptop which easily swallows the 13in MacBook I have for working on location. In here is a Nikon D3, a bunch of Nikon lenses and SB800 speedlights, Pocket Wizard and Skyport radio transceivers for triggering the lights, a Nikon D90 for video and production stills plus emergency backup, and loads of spare cards, cables, batteries etc.
My second bag is a LowePro Magnum AW shoulder bag which holds my Elinchrom Ranger Quadra kit: two heads, one pack/control panel and two batteries, plus cables etc. The Quadra kit came in a lovely purpose made hard case which looks pretty slick but I didn’t find terribly practical so it all went into the Magnum which works great although I’ll probably need to re-think it when I eventually get around to picking up a second pack.
Lastly I have a Kata lightstand bag which I bought after way too many times struggling with carrying stands (I’ve noticed that the new Manfrotto stands neatly clip together but sadly I only have one of those at present…) and houses a whole load of various Manfrotto lightstands, boom arms, and Elinchrom, Photek, and Lastolite light modifiers as required. Also on stand-by are rolls of seamless, various reflective panels and a Manfrotto tripod (important to have a good tripod although I’m not a fan of using them generally).
Any questions please hit me up in the comments and I’ll respond as soon as I can.
