The first thing that struck me was that I had to stop comparing what I was seeing to Glastonbury as the maximum capacity at Big Chill is 40,000, less than a third of the size of Glasto.  Once the initial thoughts of “Christ, this is TINY” had passed, I could slow down to the pace of the event and enjoy the more intimate feel.

Having been sent to the festival with the main aim of covering Sunday’s shoot by American artist Spencer Tunick, I had the pleasure of having no pressure to charge around shooting all of the bands.  Having said that, when I’m at a festival, I can’t just sit back and drink so I still found myself trudging around with a 300mm over my shoulder, a belt pack round my waist and a backpack weighing me down.

One thing that stands out to the first timer here is the amount of kids and teens wandering about.  While thirty-somethings with no desire to hang up their festival boots push prams around, gangs of teenage boys huddle excitedly around a baggy single-skin that one of them has managed to put together.  Having said that, don’t think it makes it a bad thing as once Max is old enough, I’m sure we’ll be throwing ear defenders on him and pushing him around one of these more “family-friendly” festivals.

While the site is indeed smaller than Glasto (ok, I’ll shut up about the “G word” now), it still manages to have an explorable feel to it with one stage hidden behind an area of bracken, a mass of glowing inflatable balls surrounding a tree on the hill, a giant rubber duck in the lake and a traditional fairground.  While walking through the fair, I bumped into a couple that had just got married earlier that day then rushed to the site to enjoy the weekend.  With the bride still in her gown, myself and fellow photographer Nick Pickles took them onto a nearby merry-go-round for an impromptu wedding shoot.  Their plan was to set up a Facebook page so that everyone who had taken pictures over the weekend could mail in their shots to help them make a wedding day album.  A great idea from a good fun couple.  Good luck!

One of the musical highlights was Thom Yorke‘s solo set on the main stage.  As usual, we only had access for the first three tracks but what I heard sounded great.  Martina Topley-Bird was a pleasant surprise as I’d never heard her before and the style was different to the usual solo female singer sound.  My award for most unusual set of the weekend however has to go to “Mike Patton’s Mondo Cane & The Heritage Orchestra”.  Having grown up listening to Faith No More in the 1990s, I was intrigued to hear what he’d be up to and it’s safe to say that he’s still prepared to take some musical risks.  Using an orchestra and full band, the band play cover versions of Italian pop music from the 1950s and 60s with Patton providing his usual vocal flair over the top.  The few tracks we got to hear ranged from out and out crooning to full-on anger music, all in Italian.  Hats off, says I.

Massive Attack managed to prove themselves to be a massive pain in the arse twice in one day by both arranging then cancelling a photo-call after the photographers had been waiting at the venue for twenty minutes and then blocking agency access to the photo pit during their set.  Thankfully, a monochrome backlit stage didn’t make many good frames anyway so I can’t say I was weeping too much.

After Saturday’s stage invasion which got out of hand after MIA invited the audience to come over the barriers, her performance was cut short with some cynics backstage suggesting that it could have been a rather elaborate way to cover up a lack of material.  Not knowing her back catalogue, I can’t comment but it did seem an odd thing to do half way through your set.

Sunday morning saw the main reason for my attendance with Spencer Tunick’s photo-call on the hill, overlooking the lake.  With a press area arranged that included rules such as a ban on leaving the pen for two hours during the shoot, I decided that I’d rather do my own thing so broke out the trusty 400mm and headed to a different position. Heading up to an area next to a row of snack food and drinks stalls, the long wait was filled with much amusement at the guy who owned the milkshake stand who was listening to a full-on American business motivation CD before opening the shutters.  “Be your own goal.  Envisage your dreams and action your inventions”.  I’d never realised that there was so much effort in making a Snickers milkshake.

In the end, my alternate choice of position was definitely the right call as Tunick shot a whole selection of pictures with the body-painted volunteers in the other corner of the field from the pen and never actually did the shoot that the organisers had been telling us about.  Take note, people; the PR company arranging an event shouldn’t always be listened to.

Immediately after the event, I decided to focus on shooting portraits of some of the people as they came back onto the main site and thankfully found a solid black sheet on the end of “Mr Scruff’s tea stall” to act as a temporary backdrop.  The body-paint and recent nakedness seemed to have relaxed everyone’s reservations and I got some great expressions as each person tried to out-perform the previous model.

With Spencer all wrapped up, all that was left to shoot on the bill were Paloma Faith and Lily Allen with a quick stop off to grab a protrait of Spinal Tap legend and the voice of Princial Skinner, Harry Shearer.  A top chap who was more than happy to pose up for a quick shoot before going on-stage in the “Words and Motion” tent to discuss the world of cinema.

With the weekend out of the way and finding myself home and showered, I’ve been mailed links to an article by whole heap of people.  It turns out that one of my shots was used to illustrate the soon-to-be-infamous Wanky Balls story.  For those of you not in the know, a national newspaper in England decided to run a little piece on the festival and the journalist took the information for the extended caption directly from Wikipedia without checking the facts.

This happens an awful lot in the media as it’s seen to be a quick and helpful source for basic knowledge but in this case, the writer believed the recently-altered information posted that the festival used to be known as the “Wanky Balls Festival” so proceeded to include it in the article, right above my byline.  Class.  With a handful of sites “crediting” me as the Independent journo that was behind the mistake, I’ve had a barrage of mails, tweets and facebook messages asking if I was responsible.  Not so class.  While David Beckham is known as Golden Balls, I can only hope that I remain the Tabascokid…

Last week, I had the chance to visit the BFI film archive in Berkhamsted to see how the renovation and restoration of Alfred Hitchcock’s first acknowledged film, “The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog” was coming along.

The tour started in the acetate archive, a vast warehouse built to house some of the thousands of reels of film that the BFI owns.  Chilled to low temperatures to preserve the film’s quality, the racks and racks of tins are all simply named with long anonymous digits to ensure that if someone was to break in, they wouldn’t be able to find the more valuable items.

As I mentioned above, the reason for the visit was to witness the amount of time and effort that’s being put into the project to restore Hitchcock’s 1926 silent movie, “The Lodger” to it’s former glory.  The work on this film is part of a wider plan to preserve the earliest works by the director for future generations, and having seen the quality of some of the source material such as the original projection reel above, it’s clear to see how much work is needed.

Following a global call for access to privately-owned copies of the film by the BFI, the challenge now is to search each and every reel that is offered for different scenes, extended footage or better quality versions.  In effect, the plan is to create an ultimate version of the film that includes some scenes that were thought to have either been lost forever or were previously unseen.  With film collectors and archives providing clips and footage on every available format, including cinematic projection reels and home cinema 9mm, not only is it a challenge to correlate the material but also to make sure the finished product retains a single “feel”.

Seeing how some of the technicians work in the editing suites/operating theatres, it becomes obvious just how much these people love their work.  Around all of the desks and workstations are cuttings, posters, articles and photographs from films since the beginning of cinema.

As the work is only currently in the early stages, we are shown what kind of processes the project will involve, including the painstaking restoration of each of the “intertitle” frames.  To those who aren’t in the know (including me), this is the correct name for the flash cards that appear in silent movies to give the audience the information that couldn’t be easily illustrated through mime alone.  In the earlier silent films they were very common, but as directors began to get their heads around how to pass information across to the audience visually, there was less need for them.

Knowing that some of the intertitles could be lost or damaged, the restoration team have had to recreate the fonts used and go through the long process of adding the text back into their places, while making sure that the vintage feel isn’t lost in the process.  While digital software claims to be able to recreate the wobbly retro feel, the team here have found that it’s still not right, so the only way has been to do it all by hand, putting the new titles back onto film and re-recording footage of that.

Celebrating 75 years of the British Film Institute’s archive, the Long Live Film season will include special events, screenings and releases over July and August 2010.  See their site for details here.

For those of you wanting to get into the industry, consider the fact that careercast.com listed photojournalist as being below “sheet metal worker” in a list of 200 careers in 2009 in relation to salary, working conditions, serious risk of injury or death, and poor employment prospects in the future.  Nice.

News photographers keep the British stepladder industry alive through a combination of forgetfulness and desperation.

Jolyan Turrall‘s law of  “Subject Gravity”  means that all photographers will end up 6 inches from the subject matter, even if the shoot started with everyone 20 feet away.

***

The three previous instalments of the knowledge can be found at;

http://www.leonneal.com/blog/2009/06/11/the-alternative-london-knowledge-v10/

http://www.leonneal.com/blog/2009/06/15/the-alternative-london-knowledge-v20/

http://www.leonneal.com/blog/2009/07/10/the-alternative-london-knowledge-v30/

As I may have touched on before, I volunteered for multimedia training at AFP some time ago, with the opinion that not only is there no point in trying to hold back the technological advance but also if my employer is wanting to train me up and allow me to learn on company time, I’d be foolish not to accept the offer.  Unlike some other agencies, AFP only expects “webclips” from their photographers as they have a full dedicated multimedia team already.  A webclip is simply a ‘flavour’ of what actually occurred, without interviews, captions or extended footage.  In a continuation of the role of the photographer as a “silent witness”, the video allows the viewer to experience the sounds and vibe of an event with (hopefully) very little bias or comment through composition etc.  Aiming to send files of around 60 seconds to the edit suite, the MM team will then chop, crop and edit the footage in whichever way that they need so that it can be embedded into the AFP online news service.  With this in mind, I was asked to provide whatever footage I could while shooting the weekend’s events.

After an initial five or six clips that had to be deleted due to me forgetting to turn the mic on (I told you this was all new to me..) I started to try to think in both still and moving images over the weekend.  While my first attempts at video on Wednesday were pretty awful, by the end of the weekend, I had become a bit more used to switching between the two different ‘disciplines’ without too much fuss.  While it proved a hindrance if I was trying to cover something that was happening quickly, such as goal reactions as fans watched the televised England World Cup matches, this was cancelled out by the chance to record aspects of the festival that have never really lent themselves to the still image, such as the silent disco.  With the inclusion of audio, you can now understand how the disco works and that there really is no music audible to those passing by other than the sing-along chorus of the crowd.

The biggest problem that I’ve faced so far is overcoming what seems to be the most important single “danger” in video; camera shake.  While dedicated TV and multimedia crews can carry around tripods for rock-solid stability, video is secondary to me so it must remain a light part of my kit.  As I travel on public transport during the working day, I’m already overloaded with the tools I need to capture still images, never mind lugging a tripod around too.  While the obvious answer may seem to be image stabilisation in lenses, the manufacturers have been slow in developing the much needed multi-use lens.  For news, I want and need fast glass so really don’t like to buy anything below f2.8.  However, the wide and midrange glass currently offered by both Nikon and Canon in this aperture range doesn’t include image stabilisation.  If I want VR (vibration reduction) or IS (image stabilisation), I have to go to an f4 or above lens.  Again, I’ll stress that if I had the use of a tripod, these issues wouldn’t be a problem, but trying to capture news on the fly in a fast moving situation already provides enough challenges before I factor in the use of legs on my camera.

While the Zacuto z-finder helps by allowing me to ‘anchor’ the camera to my eye for an added point of stability, it still doesn’t deal with the problem fully.  I’m aware that there are a variety of brackets and shoulder stocks available for this reason but again, it’s another thing for me to carry.  As far as I can tell, the only answer is either move to f4 lenses with VR built in or hope that Nikon and Canon are aware of the customer base that are patiently waiting for something that addresses the issue.  Rumours were buzzing around the camera forums last year that there would be a new series of 24-70mm f2.8 lenses with VR but, as yet, these have come to nothing.

As I finish writing these three Glastonbury blogs and look at this video again, I’ve considered not publishing this video as I can see so clearly where I need to improve but I’m a believer in marking my development and as this is a starting point, it should give me something to look back on and laugh at hysterically (before sobbing as I realise that I shared it online).  So here, in all it’s frequently wobbly glory, is my first proper attempt at video with the D3s.  Knowing that there are countless photographers out there who are miles further down the line than me when it comes to video, all comments, tips, advice, criticism and cash donations (for no real reason) are appreciated.

Having tried to put a blog together on this year’s Glastonbury festival, I was struggling to decide on which frames to drop until our lass suggested that I split it into on-piste and off-piste, as it were.  You should have already seen the light.  Now for the dark..

For me, the best time to shoot at Glastonbury is when the sun has gone down, so once the day’s musical acts are out of the way, I head off the beaten track and into the performance fields to see what I can find.  Too often I spend hours on end, waiting outside a door in London, for someone who doesn’t want me to be there to walk out and get into a car before driving away.  When I come to somewhere with so much camera fodder on tap, I find it very difficult to switch off at the end of the day.  This results in “night patrols” where I just wander and wander through as many areas as I can cover before dawn breaks.  Then it’s a rush back to camp for three or four hours sleep before the next day begins.  Only being five days long, I can just about manage this before I start falling to pieces!

On Saturday night, the press centre kindly pointed out the the full moon was set to be the “fullest in over twenty years” so after a quick attempt at shooting it, I headed up to the Shangri-La and Block 9 areas to meet up with my AFP colleague James Pheby in the backstage area.  Thankfully, the majority of the festival crowds were still at the two main stages so it was easy enough to move around and see some of the wonders of the areas that used to be called Trash City.  It’s incredible the amount of effort and time that is put into each section with many sights leaving my jaw thoroughly dropped.

Personal highlights have to be the Wall of Death riders, the full-sized London underground train buried Godzilla-style in the side of a full-sized tower block, the tear-inducing bad taste of lounge crooner Frank Sanazi (a cabaret Hitler tribute) and the hilarity of the tiny karaoke (complete with miniature bodies for the participants).

Another favourite was the “Slumbarave”.  This was a club area where shoes were left at the door, bowling alley-style, and an item of clothing was swapped for an item of nightwear.  Once suitably dressed, you could enter the club itself where you were encouraged to dance on the beds while having a massive pillow fight.  Anyone tiring of this could move to the next room for a foot soak, head massage and back rub.  Genius.

With the Stevie Wonder shoot finished on the Sunday night, I headed back up to Shangri-La for a quick glug of cocktail before beginning my final patrol.

Having visited many of the areas already, I decided to focus on video with a lot of the footage from the Sunday evening ending up in an extended webclip that I’ll be posting in a multimedia blog shortly.

With the night sky starting to grow lighter as dawn approached, it was all over again for another year.  While certain aspects of the site always stay the same, it’s such a pleasure to be constantly surprised by the incredible creations and innovations that the area designers build for the festival.  Glastonbury is a truly unique event and until you’ve visited it at least once, I don’t think you can say that you’ve truly “done” a festival.  Happy Birthday, Glastonbury.  Here’s to the next forty years.

Heading down as early as I could on Wednesday, I arrived in time to meet up with Getty colleague Ian Gavan, quickly throw my tent up and get ready to shoot the final England qualification match of the World Cup on the Pyramid stage screens.  Those of you who follow this blog will know by now that when it comes to football, I can confidently say that I’m not your man.  In this situation, it proved to be a help though, as while everyone else was having difficulty tearing their eyes from the screen to shoot the audience reactions, I could happily get on with working, blissfully disinterested in proceedings on the televised pitch.

As is the tradition, the first day and evening was taken up with shooting the obligatory arrival shots, tent-building pictures and “before” pictures of the site.  With the addition of the football match, this usually quiet day was quite manic, with only a brief respite over a pint of Pimms in Lulu’s cafe before heading out on night patrol with Ian and AP photographer Joel Ryan.

Thursday also proved to be far more active than usual with a visit by Prince Charles.  Knowing that he was coming but not really knowing what he’d be doing or where, it just became a war of attrition as we all waited and waited at various sites around the festival for him to turn up.  In the end, it proved to be a long wait for not much as he visited a few stalls and charity areas before heading off.

With Friday came the first official performer of the weekend, Australian artist and musician Rolf Harris.  As is the way with Glastonbury, the most eclectic selection of artists can perform for the crowds and as long as they enjoy themselves, the audience will too, no matter how bizarre the culture clash is.  With Rolf having just turned 80 and Glasto turning 40, it was a great start to the weekend.

Separated by a few hours, Snoop Dogg took to the main stage with what I can only describe as prolapse-inspiring bass on his third track.  Having set up the audience’s expectations of how the set would sound in the first two tracks, the low-end of “Gangsta Luv” caused every photographer in the pit to vibrate themselves into a pool of photojuice.  When shooting Rolf earlier on, I’d rolled my eyes when told that Health and Safety rules would mean that I had to wear ear protection for every performer.  Thank you, H&S.  I would have been carrying my inner ear home in a bag if I hadn’t been plugged up for that set.

While the Daily Star had already splashed with news that Kylie was set to perform with Scissor Sisters on the Pyramid Stage on Saturday, Radiohead‘s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood made a very hush-hush appearance on one of the smaller stages.  Having headlined the Pyramid stage a few years ago, it was great to hear their music in a far more stripped-down form in front of a few hundred ecstatic fans.

Friday night’s headline act was Gorillaz and early rumours suggested that every song would feature a special guest and due to this, photographers would be able to shoot the whole show. As is often the way, the hype couldn’t live up to cold reality and we found ourselves shooting a very uninspiring set of three songs with no guests before being escorted back out of the pit.  Seeing how things were going, I dashed to the Other Stage before the third song was over to catch the ever-colourful Flaming Lips.  It could not have been more of a change.  From a dark, moody stage of stylised performers to arriving into the photo pit to see The Flaming Lips front-man Wayne Coyne personally helping out with the sound-check.  With a nod to the other band members, the show began with the usual subtlety…

Saturday saw Shakira take to the main stage and caused palpitations among the men (and probably a considerable amount of women) with her stage routine.  That girl can move.  The problem was that we all knew that the next act on the Pyramid Stage was to be Scissor Sisters with the rumoured appearance by Kylie.  As it would be her first ever appearance at Glastonbury having had to cancel her previous appearance due to her recent illness, it was sure to be big news.

Knowing that the band would only allow the photographers in the pit for the first three tracks of the set, it was clear that she wouldn’t be on-stage during this time so we all headed into the crowd with our long lenses and stepladders.  The key here is to make sure you stand in front of a pleasant looking bunch with your steps as you can then get them onside by offering them the chance to stand on your stepladder for the duration of the show until the moment arrives that you need them.  That way everyone wins!  Sure enough, Kylie appeared during the penultimate song and all across the crowd, photographers popped into view with long lenses like an invasion of journalistic meercats.

The day was rounded off by a wonderful piece of arrogance by the Pyramid headliners, Muse.  With minutes to go before the show, we were informed that only certain photographers would be allowed in.  This is usually a bad sign as only the entertainment agencies get a look-in.  However, it was refreshing to see my name on the list.  However, we were then told that we had to sign a contract.  A quick read revealed that if we signed, we’d be graciously allowed to use the images we took for our own portfolios and exhibitions BUT all copyright and ownership of every image that we took during the performance would be transferred to Muse and their management forever.  They then claimed that any violation of this would cause irreparable damage to the band.  Who’d have thought such a ‘powerful’ band could be so easily broken?  Add to this a final clause stating that our “snapshots” could not be used for any front covers, their contract managed to convince me that they clearly have some issues with inflated self-importance so I took great pleasure in crossing my own name from their list and was joined by AP and a couple of national newspapers.  What a waste of time.

Sunday was a return to the football features as England took on Germany with the target rapidly changing from jubilant supporters to sobbing fans in football shirts.  With a happy looking solitary German fan and an England fan throwing his shirt to the ground in disgust, my World Cup features were out of the way for another four years.

After a tip-off from fellow photographer Nick Pickles, I headed up to see Nigerian drummer Tony Allen‘s set in the Park area.  Having previously played with Damon Albarn’s project “The Good, The Bad and The Queen”, there was a chance that some surprise guests may turn up but in the end, I just got to hear some fantastic Afro-beat music as the sun began to set.

Nipping back through the crowds to the Pyramid stage, I was greeted with the news that not only were photographers only allowed 60 seconds to shoot Stevie Wonder‘s headline performance but AFP were not on the pre-approved list of agencies anyway.  Thankfully, a bit of whining and diplomacy from myself and Reuters photographer Luke MacGregor saw the deal changed and we were allowed in.  Despite the strict 60 second rule, we were allowed to shoot his arrival on stage then stay to enjoy his first track before we could shoot again during his second track.  It’s one of the few occasions where I’ve had the chance to just relax and listen to the performance of a headline act without working.  Definitely a festival highlight.

As Monday arrived, there was just time for a last scout of the site for clean-up shots, before playing a quick round of Velcro darts on a kid’s board left nearby, packing down the tents and heading for the queues.  This year, the three hour journey home flew by in only seven and a half.  That may sound insane but I’ve suffered FAR worse before.  A lesson to those who have yet to visit the festival.

Now as I sit here writing at home and browsing my archive for the right pictures to use, I think I might well take a break from shooting it next year.  As I love the festival so much, I’d hate to become bored with covering it, so may have to force myself to miss a year or two.  That obviously doesn’t stop me covering Latitude or Bestival though.. 

Now head over here to my next blog on the delights of the night when you venture into the world away from the main stage..

When I first arrived in London, a photographer at The Times showed me his technique of data management and it has stuck with me ever since.  It’s simple, easy and once you’ve started working like this, you’ll find it becomes second nature to always do it.

After shooting a job, I always download from the card to the laptop.  This may seem obvious but I know a number of photographers that only work off their cards and, worst of all, then go on to format the CF card, deleting every image except the ones that they have edited.  That’s such a bad way to work as you really do never know what will become important in the future.  The guy that’s in the background means nothing today but in six months when a story appears connecting him with someone else that you managed to capture in the same frame, your photograph suddenly goes from being a bog standard picture to an important document.

The downloaded folder is renamed from the standard automatically-created digits and letters to something that can be easily traced and located.  With this in mind, I name the folder with my initials, today’s date in reverse order and a couple of keywords relating to the job.  An example from a recent job would be “LSN2010-06-18 Sarkozy Carlton Gardens”.  In this way, if I only know a single element of the job such as the date, the year, the person involved or the location, I can still locate the folder using the search function.

When I download the images, they are copied to a folder called “Today’s Pix” on my hard drive.  Here they stay until the job is edited, sent and I have finished shooting for the day.  At this point, they move into another folder called “Pix”.  This way, I can quickly find the latest jobs that I’ve worked on if I need to.

Once I have edited and sent my selection of images, I copy these into a folder that is titled similarly to the unedited folder except I drop my initials from the start ie “2010-06-18 Sarkozy Carlton Gardens”.  In this way, I can tell at a glance what the date of the job was, where it was shot, who the job involved and finally whether the images in the folder are the unedited versions or the finalised, filed versions.

This may seem to be quite convoluted if you are used to just dragging the images to a random, bloated folder on your drive but the difference that it makes when you are trying to locate an image quickly and efficiently is vast.

If you’ve bothered to spend time shooting an image, you really should spend the time naming and archiving your folders correctly too.  You never know, someday there may be gold in them there digital hills..

On the 12th of June, I covered the World Nude Bike Ride event in central London.  Now, as you can imagine, aside from saying “what the hell are they doing?”, there’s not much more to be said so this is more of a photo-blog.  Hurray say those who never bother reading my text-tripe anyway..

Gathering in London’s Hyde Park, the naturists, protestors ,exhibitionists and general odd-bods headed into the park to undress before heading off into the centre of London, taking in Piccadilly, Trafalgar Square, Westminster, South Bank and Tower Bridge.

Starting off in 2004 with 130 riders, the 2010 event saw 1,100 cyclists in various states of undress take to the streets for a whole range of causes.  With many protesting about the environmental impact of motor vehicles, some focused more on specific companies with BP coming in for a large amount of criticism.

It must be said that I was really pleased to see that the Police were totally fine with the ride, not that I plan on joining in.  One girl that I tried to shoot told me I had to take my kit off first if I wanted to take a frame.  I think not.  Having said that, I did shoot a nudist holiday resort for The Times a few years ago and, upon arrival, was told to leave all of my clothes except for my boots by the door.  I was glad for my 70-200mm that day, I can tell you.

The tricky thing with this kind of story is that it screams publications but everything for the British press has to be shot in such a way that shows nudity without being too full-on.  Thankfully, shooting for AFP, I can think beyond this and shoot whatever I want and leave it up to the editors of the papers to decide how graphic they want to get.

I’m guessing the the day’s injuries could have included extreme saddles sores, road rash or acute embarrassment so it was good to see the medical teams entering into the spirit of the day..

The Guardian have reported that at least one passer-by spontaneously stripped off and joined the ride and it’s become quite a tradition for this to happen at least once a year.  Again, thankfully I didn’t have my bike or I might have been in there.

So the campaigning was over and the votes were in.  Overnight, early predictions had swayed between a thinnest of victories for the Conservatives and a Hung Parliament.  As day broke over Westminster, it was looking like we were about to enter an a very rare era in British politics.  The question now remained; how the hell was this going to run itself out?

While it became clear that Nick Clegg‘s Liberal Democrat party had failed to take advantage of any of the unexpected support that they had gathered during the campaign, it was also obvious that his next decisions would be vital as to deciding who formed the next Government.  As expected, the media descended on Cowley Street to await the arrival of the “Kingmaker”.

When he finally arrived back into London from his constituency in Sheffield, he called an impromptu press conference on the doorstep of the party headquarters.  With general expectation being that he would be either non-committal or make overtures towards the centre-left Labour Party, he managed to throw a perfect curve ball, stating that it was now up to David Cameron to prove he could form a strong Government.  To those that don’t follow politics or are in far off lands, he’d managed to create a situation where the Lib Dem’s natural allies (Labour) had to be a second choice after stating that he would respect the voting figures.  With Labour coming second, it was up to Cameron’s centre-right Conservative party to see if they could make a decent offer first.  I hope you were paying attention there as there may be a test.

With the Liberal Democrat, Conservative and Labour headquarters all being within quarter of a mile of each other in Westminster, it didn’t take long before you had the unusual sight of young Conservatives gathering outside the left wing Lib Dem offices for news.  On a side note, I have to state that when I saw some of the guys loitering around, I actually thought that they were Lib Dems in fancy dress as stereotypical Tory Boys but no, it seems that some do wear blazers, jeans and deck shoes at all times..

With no outright winner, Downing Street remained eerily quiet as no-one knew what was going to happen and where.  After each leader returned from their constituencies, word soon passed around that they’d all headed to bed in preparation for the coming days.

The next day arrived and the pro-Cameron newspapers and channels began to pile the pressure on Brown to resign.  Westminster became a web of photographers and camera crews criss-crossing each other as they rushed to Government departments, offices and meeting rooms where talks were rumoured to be taking place.

While shooting Clegg’s arrival for a meeting with his senior party members, I caught wind of a memorial service to mark the 65th anniversary of VE day that was to be held at the Cenotaph on Whitehall that all three leaders may attend.  Too good an opportunity to pass up, I rushed over and managed to talk myself onto the media stand.  Thankfully, as I was driving, I’d thrown a 400mm into the boot of my car so was able to follow all of the eye movements and body language displayed during the service.  It must have been such an unusual situation behind the scenes as neither Labour or Conservative had announced formal talks with the Lib Dems but what on earth else could they have talked about?  Diplomacy skills set to full power, I guess.

With that rather nasty surprise out of the way, it was time for the talks to begin.  First up, senior members of both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems met for a day of talks at the Cabinet Office on Whitehall.  On the way in, I managed to get a reasonable position as both teams walked up the steps so on their departure, I figured the best place to shoot would be from head-on to the door, in the middle of the street, between two parked satellite trucks.  The problem with this stroke of genius was that, due to nobody knowing when the talks would end, we all had to stay pretty much on guard at all times.  This would have been fine if it wasn’t for the fact that the trucks need to keep their engines running to power the broadcast gear, resulting in me consuming more lead than a church window factory.

When the meeting eventually ended, the media scrambled to get clear shots of the politicians as they walked from the building and down towards the Houses of Parliament.  As we crossed the road, a cameraman fell back over the bonnet of a queueing car, dropping his camera onto the paintwork causing a lovely dent and big scratch on the shiny new car.  As he scrambled to get up, his producer yelled at him to continue as she stayed behind to calm the rather concerned motorist.  Being in these moments is often such a surreal thing as you rush and push your way through passing tourists who all stop and stare at this circus working it’s way along the pavement towards them.  Great fun!

By the next morning, the mood in Westminster was getting impatient.  24 hour news channels began to run out of content as meetings continued between the parties behind closed doors.  The revelation that the Lib Dems were now also talking to Labour caused some interest for a while but the general feeling still lay with the formation of a Con:Dem Nation.

By now, any picture of the leaders had become a necessary shot to get in the bag each day, just in case some big announcement was made and a new photo was needed in a hurry.  This involved camping outside Cameron’s West London home, Clegg’s South London home and number 10 Downing Street.  Not a glamourous job by any means but thankfully I got to spend the day talking drums with Reuters photographer Kieran Doherty.  Anyone straying over to join in the chat soon walked away again after hearing enthusiastic descriptions of the decay rates of Paiste Signature crash cymbals and the qualities of Evans hydraulics.

While waiting outside David Cameron’s office in Westminster with Getty photographer Peter Macdiarmid, he decided to check the windows for signs of life and not long after joining him, Conservative Policy Chief Oliver Letwin appeared.  Long range pictures like this aren’t really my kind of thing but when it gives an insight into the pressure that the negotiators were under to broker a deal with Nick Clegg, it added an extra ingredient to the picture story.

By the following day, Cameron was losing patience and issued an ultimatum to Clegg to declare his intentions and news channels started to suggest that something was about to happen.  I rushed to Downing Street and dug in for a long wait.  As the news helicopters gathered overhead , a podium was carried out into the street and after a few heated shouting matches as to where to place it for the best angle, Gordon Brown appeared with his wife Sarah at his side.

A short but emotional speech later and the Brown family walked to a waiting car, before heading to Buckingham Palace where Gordon would formally tender his resignation.  Smiling and waving to the cameras as he walked, I dashed down to the car and managed to catch a more candid moment before he left the street for the final time as Prime Minister.

While attempting to keep my impartiality in this blog, I have to say that I don’t think he did that bad a job during his time in office.  In the three years he held the reins, the UK suffered severe floods, terrorist attacks and a global economic collapse.  This all came without the customary honeymoon period that a new leader can usually enjoy after taking office, due to the handover happening between elections. That’s hardly an easy term.

Anyway, out with the old and all that so after having a total nightmare as I tried to file my “BrownExit” (ooerr) shots, it was time for the Cameron show to begin.  As we all scrambled to get back into position with a few sparks over which photographer was where as Brown left, we watched a small TV crew’s screen displaying a live feed of the new Prime Minister’s limo driving back from Buckingham Palace to his new home in Downing Street.

At this point, I’d like to write about some quirky fun thing that occurred here, but when something is happening that the news industry has been waiting months to witness, the only thought is to get a shot that you’re happy with so I can’t say I remember much about his speech or his entrance through the famous door.

Once the new PM was in place, the carefully-balanced pyramid of photographers collapsed into a frantic pile of editing photographers as we all rushed to get the shots out and on to the wire.  Yet again, the sheer quantity of photographers trying to send their pictures in one location caused a complete failure of the system and I found myself running up Whitehall, desperately looking for a power point and a strong phone signal.  In the end, I found myself half a mile up the road in a Charing Cross pub, surrounded by drinkers watching me edit.  Even though the screens in the pub were showing a live feed of the day’s events, it became my job to tell the onlookers what had happened and who their new Prime Minister was.  Now that’s what I call a personalised news service..

Having just written this update, I’m now not only aware that I’ve never written the word “parlour” so many times in my life but it also screams to be spell-checked whenever you read it back.