That was the week that was....

A quiet week, though I have to add, quite thankful for it. Lots of catching up to do, press passes to get hold. Stendhal Festival seems to be gathering pace, hopefully ticket sales are going well.

Still no response regarding CountryFest so I'm considering that one gone.

This months Professional Photographer is the best I've seen in ages. I was starting to get a little despondant with the publications. A round table discussion about Bob Carlos Clarke was well worth the wait. I was a little dissappointed that they didn't use some new images though, it seems to be the same set of pictures that gets featured in every magazine. Regardless, it was still excellent.

Wedding Photography by Jason Bell

It has to be the single most popular question that I am asked, "do you do weddings?".

Well the simple answer is yes.

Red Sails Festival - Portstewart

The final day of the Red Sails Festival in Portstewart was busy, really busy. I didn't actually arrive there until 7pm.

George Jones and Clubsound were onstage when I arrived. Crowd shots were easy to do as the auditorium curves round in front of the stage, so it's quite easy to get a live stage shot with a good selection of audience in the image as well. I wanted a shot of the band post gig, had a quick chat with George to arrange it, we walked over to the town hall and within thirty seconds had my shot.


I walked up and down Portstewart with just a 50mm 1.8 lens on the camera. I tend to have a selection on me but decided to leave the bag and work with one lens. The promonade is split on two levels, the road and the sea. So it's quite easy to get good candids.



After a chicken burger, numerous coffee's and the piercing screams of a child or two the fireworks kicked off at 10.30pm. I have to admit I wasn't too bothered about photographing fireworks as I've done stacks of times before, this display was good but finding a way to capture anything to possibly sell afterwards is a fun one to sort out. I'm there though and happy.

From 10.50pm to 11.30pm was just solid traffic out of Portstewart

Foyle Fashion Week Launch Party (Part II)

Sugar in Derry has the most varied set of light sources known to man. All very well in a disco setting but nigh on useless when it's fashion.

So every shooter resorts to the last resort, on camera flash. No matter where you point it, it's harsh white light. I got all the shots I needed from the social point of view but to get flatting catwalky type shots... hmm a little harder to do.

A good nights work, and the photoshop mods I made to the web layouts are working a treat.

Foyle Fashion Week Launch Night

A frantic day of marketing and running around today. Looking forward to tonights launch do, not that I'm the party type.

All the same I trust the event will go well. Proof galleries are going up tonight for publications to see.

It's all happening this week.

A light weekend, I tend not to do too much on the 12th of July. There are others who are far more interested in getting into the thick of flutes and lambegs. Sadly, I am not one of them.

This week coming brings up a whole bag of problems. The fashionistas will piling down to the Foyle Fashion Week launch, then the Shackleton Charity Festival runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday. In the middle of those things there are two charity gigs on at the same time. Add to that that there's a strike which will bring Derry City Airport to a standstill. It could actually be quite a good news week.

Purchasing newspaper prints.

I get a lot requests about obtaining prints from pictures that appeared in the newspaper. You can purchase these online. Each week I will put up the available pictures on my website.

This week's Constitution pictures are available now.

Stendhal gets its licence.

The organisers of the Stendhal Festival got their entertainment licence tonight.

For the eagle eyed among you, this appeared front page of the Coleraine Chronicle this week. I actually covered both bases and got the "not so happy" image with Ross tearing up the poster.

So I wasted a poster....

Outside the meeting tonight, no plackards! Though I did get one, "no photos please", from one resident. This time I actually took a step back and granted her request. Normally on a public highway the request would usually get ignored.

A nice ending to the story but I don't feel it's the complete ending.

Shackleton Charity Festival sneaky peak.

This evening was spent down at Shackleton photographing the press launch and demos. It was noisy, then it started to pour it down. Ah but it was fun.

More pics will be up on the Shackleton Charity Festival website tomorrow.

Linedancers, ladies golf, a minibus ride, three rock bands and an iron.

Just a normal week then. I don't have a natural dislike to line dancing, it's just not my bag but the linedancers I had to photograph were just a joy.

One golf tournament award presentation later on. A quick sleep and the next day I was tootled around Limavady in a minibus for elderly shoppers. By Friday night it was a couple of July 4th celebrations (more line dancers) and a table quiz.

Come deadline day and the phone call arrives from PJ, "I need a photograph of an iron."

Who am I to let this man down? I was later told it was all in context. I haven't seen the copy yet but I will in the morning. The actual shot was very quick and easy, one of those cheapy light tents off ebay and a couple of homebase work lights (the 150w Tungsten jobs, very hot and will melt most items within a two foot radius). The iron was sitting in a cupboard (we are a two iron household) and the black tile kicked the iron back a bit so it wasn't floating on air.

Now I've told you all this there's now a good chance PJ will now take photographs of his own iron for publication use :)

The busy weekend....

Driving around in a ping-pong sort of way on Friday night. All the job times didn't work in my favour so it was a seven mile drive, followed by a fifteen mile drive, followed by another fifteen mile drive back and then finally back home.

Sunday night rocked at there were three Steve Martin films on TV. Time to kick back and leave it at that.

Monday I spent the morning on a minibus with the elderly, the Mayor of Limavady and a couple of project coordinators. Then a new addition to the Eyes/Window/Soul thing.

The doctor, the solicitor and the photographer (Part 2)

Okay, so Peter Jack's opinion piece went to press today, due to space they cropped the main picture so the final cut didn't really show what was going on. I suppose you had to be there.....

So here's the pic in it's whole glory.

Northern Constitution finally makes it online.

Perhaps all my wittering finally paid off, or it was something they've been planning for years and just not let on. The Northern Newspaper Group have put their titles online at http://www.ulsternet.co.uk/

Well done, I've just not see any of my pics on there yet :)

And to celebrate the face even more, two of my pics made front page of the Coleraine Chronicle. Happy days.

The doctor, the solicitor and the photographer....

Just a normal Monday then. So this solicitor phones up the paper, "I need a picture of a doctor, in a white coat, holding a stethescope". The request then comes to me, the easy route out would to declare defeat and just nab a pic of flickr, but I'm not like that. I already know that the solicitor in question is not sane, I just need to find a GP who's just as loopy.

First call is to my GP. He's up for the idea but busy. So the next call is to the health centre to see if any doctors have a sense of humour. One does. The bail out plan was to hire the white coat and scope and get the solicitor to examine himself on his office desk.

Three men in a room and the GP is so up for this gig that he starts getting out all sorts of heck knows what. The next thing I know is the defibrillator is out and switched on, the electronic voice starts commanding people who are not listening... "check airways.....". Well no one was listening apart from the solicitor who was now starting to look a little freaked. He was still happy that all this sillyness was happening around him.

"Give me a blank look...., no more blank than that.... blanker! Put the stethescope on his forehead doctor...". Shot is in the bag, then another close up shot with the GP making insanity gestures with his hands.

Who said press editorial work isn't fun?