While finalising my entries for this year’s photography competitions, I realised that I never look back on the year’s output other than during the hunt for prizes.  In light of this, I decided to put together a somewhat belated collection of my personal favourite images from 2010.  These aren’t necessarily the ones that I’ve entered into competitions but more a selection of pictures that I’m pleased with when I look at 2010. While some aren’t the most technically incredible or most breathtaking, I’ve tried to describe why they stand out to me as proud achievements.  Some regular readers of this blog (bless your every pore) will have seen quite a few of these before in previous posts, but I guess you’ll have to suffer through the emotional turmoil of seeing them one more time before they’re locked away into the digital vault that is my 2010 archive.

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(Okay, I know it’s a bit late for a round-up of 2010 but I’ve been busy, okay?)

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My first picture comes from the Winter Olympics in Whistler, Canada.  Following the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili the previous day, I managed to spot some movement around the site of the accident as I was passing over a footbridge.  After a few minutes, Kumaritashvili’s team-mate Levan Gureshidze appeared and spent a few minutes on the spot of his friend’s death.  Alone, he didn’t say anything but touched and held the pillar that killed his team mate before simply standing, deep in his loss.

While covering the General Election in the UK, I was one of the first photographers to travel with the Conservative Party as David Cameron began his campaign to become Prime Minister.  A combination of good luck, internal politics and my trademarked smile managed to get me the opportunity to spend a few seconds with Mr. Cameron after a speech to supporters at a college in Plymouth.  At the time, I thought it would end up being something that was offered to each of the photographers but it turned out to be a one-off.  Either I treated him so badly in the seconds that I had that I put him off for good or I managed to be rather lucky.  Either way, it made a frame that’s made my selection.

With the election dominating the news, I was sent to follow Bridget Fox as she canvassed for support and votes in the borough of Islington South and Finsbury in North London.  In the short time that I was with her, it was incredible to see just how little encouragement or hospitality she received from the people whose houses she approached.  With some refusing to open their doors, others ignoring her knocking and a handful being either openly dismissive or offensive, I think this shot manages to sum up the strange situation that these people put themselves in, knowing that the person about to answer the door is very probably not a supporter, yet still being prepared to try.

With the power of hindsight, the next picture has become even more significant to me.  At the time, a playful gesture by a child during a Liberal Democrat campaign event made me chuckle. However, with accusations of Nick Clegg selling out the party values in the current coalition, the lack of respect coming from the young boy seems to mirror the feelings of many young people who previously supported the party but now feel let down over tuition fee rises.

After weeks of touring the country and a few days of meetings and deals behind closed doors, being there at the conclusion was a good way to wrap up the story.  As is the norm with stories of this size in Downing Street, a massive grandstand had been erected opposite the door of number 10 with news crews, journalists and photographers camping out for the big moment.  When you’re shooting with such a large number of photographers, it’s hard to get excited about your pictures as you know that everyone is shooting from a similar angle.  It just becomes a case of looking for that particular fraction of a second that captures the event. After doing the usual posturing that anyone would do when they’d just become the new Prime Minister, this little hug stood out as an unusually intimate move to share with the world’s media.  Combined with eye-line from Samantha Cameron, it becomes one of my favourites of 2010.

On a slightly different tack, the World Naked Bike Ride Day presented me with plenty of pictures but not that many that most of the British papers would want to print due to the presence of naked middle-aged men.  Nearing the end of the route, I’d reached Parliament Square and was just checking I’d not missed anything special when this paramedic cycled past.  When it comes down to it, a naked official on a bike will always make the grade.

Not being a massive sports fan, it may seem odd that the one picture that I’ve chosen from Glastonbury festival is from the live screening of the England vs Germany match.  The reason that this one still appeals to me is due to the fact that in a field of tens of thousands of England fans, there was a single Germany supporter who was quite happy to show off her pleasure at the disaster unfolding on the screens.  In the groups all around her, some seriously big (and drunk) England fans were starting to get angry with the result with one guy tearing his team shirt off in disgust.  Despite this somewhat threatening environment, whenever England let another goal in and the whole field groaned, this girl jumped into the air, cheering.  Like the Cameron shot above, catching natural eye-line during the right moment got it a spot in my top sixteen.

Working in news, it’s actually quite rare that I get to work in a one-on-one environment anymore so when I was sent to shoot a feature on the BFI’s restoration of a Hitchcock classic, it was somewhat disconcerting to find myself in a room with a bunch of guys that were prepared to do whatever I wanted.  After months of doorstep shots and long-range photography, it was decidedly disconcerting to have control over a subject!  After playing around for a while, I managed to combine all of the elements of the story into one frame that captures everything that I wanted to say.

I may receive death-threats from a million bloggers across the world for this but 96%of live music photography is like shooting fish in a barrel.  Controversial, I know, but when you have someone on a big stage, lit professionally as they perform for you, you’d have to be quite an eejit to not get something.  Once you’ve got the basic rules under your belt, it becomes somewhat formulaic.  With this in mind, my hat is truly doffed to those music photographers out there that manage to get something special.  The longer that I work as a photographer, the more I want totally clean and neutral backgrounds in my images so this shot stands out for me.  Unlike the majority of live music photography, it looks more like a portrait, even though it was shot on a 400mm f2.8 lens from about 25m away during  Thom Yorke’s set at the Big Chill festival.

From the same festival, installation artist Spencer Tunick gathered festival-goers into a field, stripped them naked, painted them up and took their picture.  Now whenever I suggest that to passing women, I just get blanked.  Anyway, the PRs at the event were distinctly unhelpful and told the photographers that we would only be able to shoot the installation from a fixed position.  Realising that this would be useless, I took a long lens and sat on the opposite hillside.  With the shoot complete, the naked subjects dispersed from the field and just as I was about to move on, I noticed a final participant being helped from the area.

Wanting to take advantage of the make-up, I grabbed a handful of participants and found a black cloth backdrop on the side of Mr. Scruff’s Tea Shop to shoot them against.  Again, my love of neutral backgrounds really allowed the subjects to be the only focus so with a little encouragement to out-perform the previous model, the expressions became more and more exaggerated.  Myfi Baron was my particular favourite with her perfect example of the classic Goth/Smurf/Riotgrrrl look that never seems to be out of fashion.

Despite getting a reasonable selection of shots of the man himself, my favourite shot of the Papal visit came from his Mass in Glasgow where a cluster (flock? herd?) of bishops moved out into the park to allow the congregation to take Mass.  Each bishop was assigned a teenager to hold a bright umbrella over their head as they walked.  As they moved from the stage, the shot from above was quite strong but I realised that I should be taking advantage of the low afternoon sun so rushed down to ground level from the photo position and managed to get this frame.

One of the biggest stories of the year was Wikileaks with the website’s founder Julian Assange taking centre stage.  On my second opportunity to photograph him, a press conference was held in the basement of a London hotel and, as expected, the world’s media was very evidently in attendance.  During the event, I set up a remote flash gun off to the right of the stage and using a 400mm, waited for a decent expression or moment that would be relevant.  Thankfully, while another of the guests was speaking, Assange went to touch his mouth and for a moment was covering it, which I think the US Government wishes he’d done from the start.

During a trip to Afghanistan with British Prime Minister David Cameron, I visited an Afghan patrol training college where I got the chance to see the latest graduates.  The combination of them looking like an Afghan version of Dad’s Army in ill-fitting uniforms, along with the fact that at least one of them (2R) could kill me from a mile away, made it a favourite.  Unlike others in this selection, when I came to choose which frame of this shoot to file, I went for the one where I wasn’t making eye contact with any of them, as I like the feeling of vigilance in these new patrolmen.

While the day of the student protests was owned by Matt Dunham’s shot of Camilla getting a good poke in public (with a stick), it was left to the rest of us to see what else we could find.  My favourite image came towards the end of the day after a security hut was set on fire.  With acrid smoke from the burning plastic filling the air, a guy came wandering through the plumes with a full gas mask on.  “Be prepared”, as anarchist scouts will tell you.

One of the last jobs of 2010 for me was the appearance of Mr. Assange at the High Court in central London.  Having only been able to see him in shots taken through the thick and darkened windows of a prison van, the nation’s media was out in force to catch sight of him.  Thanks to some prime position marking by freelance AFP photographer Warren Allott, I managed to get a spot on the front row of the gathered photographers.  Just as we were all ready for a nice easy picture, the security staff set up a partition wall so that we wouldn’t be able to see him.  Now from this distance, there was only the thinnest gap when he would be visible.  Thankfully, I decided to push my D3s to DX crop mode, giving me the faster burst rate of 11 frames per second and this was the only shot that I got of him.  While I’m all for the “decisive moment”, sometimes a kick-ass motor-drive helps out.

So there you have it.  Now let’s get this decade started…

Having been working in London for seven years, it’s been odd to think that this is the first general election that I’ve actually covered.  Back in 2005, I was working for The Times and as far as my archive shows, I appear to have been assigned the all important mopping-up duties by the picture desk.  This results in a fine collection of images from under-attended Christie’s photo-calls as the senior photographers jet around the country with the action.  Those of you hoping to break into this industry, take note.  Thankfully the gap between elections has allowed me to sneak up the ladder and actually be in a position to cover the political story this time.

With the starting gun fired on the 6th of April, I had the extra bonus of being the first of the pooled agency photographers to travel with Conservative Party Leader David Cameron for three days as he began his official campaigning.

As is the way with elections of recent decades, if a newspaper or agency wishes to travel on the branded battle-bus of any of the three main parties, they have to pay for the privilege.  This fee is designed to cover the travel costs and any expenses that crop up during your time aboard the good ship Politic. This is pretty understandable but puts a real limit on who can actually afford to pay the fees set by the parties.  With both Labour and Conservative seats priced at over £13000 for the month with the Liberal Democrats charging £7000, it’s certainly not the kind of amount that most freelance photographers could afford to find.

The second problem comes from the fact that once you are on the bus, you are totally at the mercy of the press officers.  If they say no pictures, you don’t shoot.  If they say it’s time to go, you run for the bus.  Most of the time this is fine as when a party leader is travelling on the same train, coach or plane as the media, he certainly doesn’t want to have to be posing for pictures and answering questions as he prepares for the next event.  However, the downside comes at moments such as when British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was recorded calling a supporter a “bigoted woman” on an overlooked radio microphone.  I wasn’t with Labour at this point but, as the story broke, those on the bus were being driven away from the area and when asked if Brown would be returning to see the woman, were told that it was unlikely.  In the meantime, the media who were following the appearances individually, gathered at her home to see the shame-faced PM return to the house to apologise.  The only photographers from the battle-bus who caught the moment were those who got off the bus and jumped in taxis for the long and costly journey back to where they’d come from.

Life on-board did have it’s advantages though as on my final day with Cameron, I was offered 2 minutes (read 13 seconds) for a portrait session following a speech in Plymouth. I spent the last few minutes of his address rushing around the college venue, desperately looking for any form of clean background. Thankfully, after an initial suggestions of a science lab (“Yeah, that’s it Mr. Cameron. Just peek around the bunsen burner”) I managed to find a long corridor so threw on the trusty 50mm (See #16) and grabbed my only one-on-one portrait of the whole campaign.

One clear difference that I experienced over the month was the way in which each of the party’s press officers handled the media that they were working with.  From talking to other photographers, there has been some dispute which has been the worst and which the best but I have to say that the Conservative PRs proved themselves most helpful through a combination of openness to suggestions from photographers and willingness to adapt at speed when faced with problems during events.  This was clearly demonstrated at the launch of the Labour and Conservative manifestos.  Held in the as-yet unopened wing of a hospital in Edgbaston, Birmingham, the Labour event saw all of the photographers held in a room out of the way until minutes before the event started when we were suddenly released to dash into the stage area.  By this time, the seats were all full of supporters and the broadcast crews had taken position at the back resulting in a ridiculous situation whereby we were told to stand up in front of the audience but not to get in anyone’s way.  Within milliseconds, middle-aged women in bright red coats were crying foul calling for stewards to come and remove the photographer from their view.  On realising how impossible it was to work in this area, anyone attempting to get to other positions was told that the event had now begun and we weren’t allowed to move.

In contrast to this, at the start of the Conservative launch at Battersea power station the following day, the head PR led all of the photographers into the room first, told us that we were allowed to go anywhere at all apart from one pool position and then, on the slightest suggestion from a photographer, removed the whole front row of seats so that we’d have more room to work in.

Now the cynic in me screams that anyone who wants to get into power will do whatever they can to get onto your good side while those in power will be filled with the paranoia of fearing having rogue meeja-types roaming all over the place.  I know, I know.  I should trust more.  Unfortunately, in the back of my mind, I have the memory of the fact that when Labour were trying to get into power in 97, they apparently promised that conditions for working media in Downing Street would be improved massively if they got in with a roof being installed over the press pen and power points and toilets installed.  13 years got us a plug.  I rest my case.

On the night of the first televised leaders debate, AFP sent photographers to various places to try to capture the public interest in the novelty factor.  Being unassigned, I followed the digital/online side of things with a few pictures of the twitter community battling it out over who was best, who was worst and who could come out with the funniest random comment on the evening’s events.  As it turned out, the winner of most outrageous online comment of the evening went to the Sky News homepage where, immediately after the debate had finished, led with the headline “Public opinion in: Cameron wins debate!” while a scrolling ticker of the public opinion results scrolled at the top of the page showing “Clegg 50% Cameron 28% Brown 22%”.  Way to go, pre-prepared impartiality.

On the day of the third leader’s debate, I was sent up to Birmingham to capture the events surrounding the show.  With no access requested for inside the venue, I spent the morning shooting rather uninspiring little protests and features around the university campus before deciding to try to get inside.  Using all of my Northern charm, I convinced the security that the lack of my name on the list was clearly some kind of small but embarrassing (for them) oversight.  Once inside and full of buffet food, the show began.  The lights dimmed and the PA boomed into life as the glow of the laptops lit the faces of the  journalists sat at the rows of tables across the room.  With a giant screen at the front and smaller plasmas dotted all around, the faces of the three main men stared into the room from all sides.  News anchors tweeted away as others marked the highs and lows of each leader’s comments on digital charts.

With the debate coming to a close, Mandy stalked into the room and the spin began in earnest.  Within minutes, representatives of each of the parties were talking to anyone with a camera or a microphone, insisting that whatever we thought we’d just seen, they knew better.  Somehow each leader had managed to display their statesman-like skills at the expense of their rivals.  Whenever a new politician or spin doctor appeared, a huddle immediately formed around them as they launched into a speech of glowing praise of their boss’s performance.

The morning after the third debate, Gordon Brown headed to a district on the other side of Birmingham for the launch of his latest poster campaign.  Breaking out the members of his cabinet, the handful of people that make-up the faces of the Government stood in unison as the took turns to explain why Gordon was the man that the country needed.  As Mandy was wrapping up his statement of support and just before the PM gave the speech that would hopefully put the whole “BigotGate” (I feel like scrubbing my fingertips after typing that) disaster behind him, lady luck yet again managed to get lost on the Birmingham ring-road and fail to reach him in time.  The crew of a passing bin lorry began shouting insults out of the window of their cab as they passed, lost control and swerved across the road, causing a passing car to pull out of the way and plough straight into a bus shelter.  Just imagine that for a second.  This guy is already in third place and  gets recorded calling a lifelong supporter a  bigot and then as the nation’s media presses record and he draws breath, what sounds like track 6 from volume 3 of the BBC sound effects album, “car crash inc. skid sounds and comedy tinkling glass” fills the air.  Within seconds, the press pen is empty as TV crews, journalists and photographers rush out of the car park to see what’s happened.  After shooting the wreck and seeing that the driver was OK, I turned to look down to the car park to see Brown making his speech to a virtually empty press area.  Ouch.

Following all of the hoo-ha of the televised debates, I was sent to what was being hyped as the “unofficial fourth debate” at Westminster Methodist Hall in central London.  Unlike a true debate however, the leaders would not be on stage at the same time but follow one another in having the chance to address members of the Citizen UK group on why they should be the best Government for a civil society.  With ten minutes to speak, the leaders would then be asked a number of questions by community leaders with the audience actually allowed to show their support or disapproval, unlike the tv debates.  All went as expected with Cameron giving the same speech that I’d heard so many times on my three days on the bus, Clegg slightly failing for the first time with a few stumbled words and the odd apparent loss of direction to his words but then Brown took to the stage.  With Labour WAY down in the polls and a lot of people already writing him off, he pulled out a truly incredible speech.  Pounding the lectern, gesturing with huge expansive movements, pointing at the audience and bellowing his message of support for the Citizen UK’s policies, he’d got the room in his hands within minutes.  Photographers around me at the front were gunning their cards as he produced picture after picture with his sweeping gestures and dynamic stances.  The audience whooped and applauded as he showed his support for the community’s achievements.

Then, as we all should have expected, it happened yet again for poor old Gordon; a man that is well recognised among photographers as that annoying guy that refuses to move out the back of your pictures outside the High Court appeared from nowhere, walked onstage and started shouting about ending nuclear power in the UK.  Security were caught napping, Gordon’s train of thought was clearly derailed and the photographers filled their cards with the moment.  In one short moment,  the news had changed from a possible comeback for Brown to yet another story of misfortune for the tabloids to savour.

With the voting only two days away, I went out into the streets of Islington with the local Liberal Democrat candidate Bridget Fox.  How people of any party can do this type of cold-calling for days on end is completely beyond me.  I was with Fox and her two assistants from around 20 minutes and by the time I left, I was feeling like Marvin the Paranoid Android and yet they just keep on going like masochistic Duracell bunnies.  Working through a list of undecided and Lib Dem voters, they knocked on door after door to be greeted by either silence, a thin crack in the door with an eye peering around it or, at best, nervous looking people wondering who the hell was disturbing them.  Bravo to all candidates and and party faithful of every type who are prepared to give up their time to do this kind of thing, particularly in seats that you have little chance of winning.  My hat is well and truly off to you.

Election day Eve was mark-up day in Downing Street.  Now you may think that this would be a reasonably simple affair but what started at 10am ended at noon and all that it entails really is members of each organisation marking the spot on the stands where they will be working from on the following day.  With the teams divided into newspaper or agency, the names were put into hats and picked alternately, allowing a representative from the group to scurry off and grab a spot of their choice.  So much thought has to be put into this that it really becomes quite a stressful challenge.  Will I have a clear view to the door? How close to dead-on to the door can I get?  Where should I put my second position?  Will I have enough room?  Do I need ladders?  Where should I mark the third position?  Am I missing anything regarding positions that no-one has noticed yet?  Is there an option to use a remote camera?  All this to take a photo of a man stood in front of a door.

What really topped it all off is that this time it had the real possibility of being a hung Parliament, meaning that there was no real winner and all of this may not happen for days to come.  Ah, the joys of the job.

Polling day saw me on bomb-watch in town, shooting random polling booths, quirky features and just generally being on hand in case anyone decided to do anything dumb to mark the day.  Starting on the King’s Road, I decided to go for a bit of traditional London tourism with a voting Chelsea Pensioner.  After a huge bust-up with the security on the gate who threatened to call the police just for being on the pavement near the hospital, all was resolved with a marvellous chap in full scarlets.  Every time I’ve shot there, the men and women that live in the hospital have been absolute gems.  Bravo, old dudes.

From here, I headed out to the Anglesea Arms for another burst of prime feature; a traditional English pub with hanging baskets and tables in the sun that was, for one day, acting as a polling booth.  As is the way when covering voting, any requests regarding shooting inside the station are directed to the Returning Officer who, unfortunately, wasn’t that up for allowing many options so I had to settle with an external view.  Boo..

With everything now quietening down, it was time for an early night in time for tomorrow’s big day..

When you cover a job for a month, you very quickly lose track of what happened where and when so sitting down to write anything from the Winter Games in Whistler is going to be hard.  Long days and nights of covering training sessions on the icy slopes soon merge into one and only certain moments tend to stand out in the day.  As such, this blog is more of a collection of events and thoughts on my first Olympics.

After months of e-mails and planning, the day arrived for the UK photography team of two to head out to Canada.  As fellow London AFP staffer Adrian Dennis and I were waiting for our plane at Heathrow, a flurry of activity attracted my attention and Bryan Adams appeared.  Oddly enough, he wasn’t directed to cattle class at the back of the plane and that was the last we saw of him until the opening ceremony.  Also on the plane, Robert Carlyle sat unnoticed in Business Class.  As Adrian pointed out, when combined with the various Olympic teams on-board, if the plane had gone down, all of the media onboard wouldn’t have even made the foot notes.

Arriving in Vancouver, we made our way to the main media centre on the waterfront for our briefing.  Following a long day of travel with four cases full to capacity with clothing and equipment, we found ourselves in the AFP hub.  With events such as this, the main agencies and some publications set up a whole virtual bureau with AFP being no exception.  Walking into our area of the complex saw me being passed through the system with one person after another assigned to issue me with various bits of equipment, upgrade our software or brief us on our assignment.  Very soon, the adrenaline of finally arriving began to wear off and by the time I got to the meeting with the photo chief, it was proving difficult to take in the talk of remote editing, wireless transmission packs and field rules & etiquette.  Heading to the buses, I was rewarded with the news that the 90 minute journey to Whistler could be up to 3 hours.  Huzzah.

After being drafted in to cover the opening ceremony in Vancouver, I headed back down to the city on the media coach and on arrival was greeted with mass activity in the AFP media room.  AFP colleague Peter Parks had just been the only photographer to witness the horrific crash of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili.  With the networks showing TV footage of the crash on loop behind us, the editors worked on the pictures and searched for more news on his condition.  By the time that his death was announced a few minutes later, everyone knew that the most important event of the whole Games had just happened before the opening ceremony had even taken place.

Peter had been shooting on the final corner purely due to the strips of light that were crossing the track due to the low morning sun.  Our cameras take nine frames a second.  The whole accident is over within six frames.  Out of this tragedy, the only positive things to consider are that he died doing what he loved doing and his death was so fast, he would barely have even realised that it was happening.  Over the following days, the track would be scrutinised with extra safety walls put in place, padding wrapped around the steel pillars and competitors starting from lower positions on the track to slow them down.  The next morning, as I returned to the press room after a training session, I glanced down to the area where the crash had taken place and saw that Levan Gureshidze was standing in the spot where his team-mate had died.  As the last of the lugers completed their runs on the other side of the hastily-erected wall, he simply stood, looking at the pillar that had killed his friend.

After a couple of days of being the centre of attention and just as things were beginning to get back on track, Pete decided to reassign himself to editing duties by slipping on black ice and breaking his ankle, the second break he’s suffered in as many visits to Whistler.  With crutches now firmly welded to his side, the photo director in Vancouver decided to keep “TeamSledge” together as best as possible by allowing him to stay in Whistler to become our MacBitch.. sorry, “Editor”.  As it happens, it was actually a great result as now we knew that we had someone dedicated to editing our images who knew the course, knew how we were approaching our images and was on the same wavelength for new crops and ideas.

With so many spectators on the track attempting to capture the competitors as they hurtled past at astonishing speeds, it became a common event to be approached for information on how best to capture the action.  Unfortunately, there’s not a lot that you can say when the person asking you is trying to get the shot on a four-year old digital pocket camera with a three-second lag on the shutter.  As I was told before setting out to Whistler, after you’ve been shooting it for a while, you become attuned to the sounds rather than the actual arrival of the athlete and my burst rate soon dropped from 10+ frames to capture each pass down to a much more efficient (and professionally satisfying) two.

Being a keen follower of camera technology, I often read the gossip and rumors at NikonRumors and the build-up to the Winter Games had caused much activity on the site with requests posted on the site for all camera fans to be on the lookout for new equipment including prototype Nikon D4 bodies.  Being the nerd that I am, I’d already decided that I’d be looking out for one anyway but hadn’t then realised that the attention would be turned on me.  I normally tape my camera up anyway but had taped over all of the logos and model numbers on both my D3 and D3s.  Within a couple of days, a spectator sidled over to me, looking at my camera.  “So what model is that camera?” “This one?  Why do you ask?”  “Is it a D4?” “I’m sorry, bud. I really can’t talk about it..”  Despite my best efforts, I never made it to rumour site glory.. 

Canadians truly are a unique people.  After living in London for nearly seven years, I’ve become quite accustomed to the grunts, frowns and general unpleasantness that makes up daily life.  That made coming to Canada and experiencing the outright threateningly pleasant nature of everyone a severe shock.  Everyone is so nice that it feels like they’re actually joking at first.  If you sit down in a coffee shop, the person next to you just starts talking to you as though you’ve just met an old friend.  It’s such a pleasure but it has to be pointed out that after weeks of hard work and little rest, when you sit for your quiet morning coffee before rushing off to another long day, you begin to yearn for the solitude that London life can bring.  The annoying thing is that I know that when I am settled back in England again, I’ll be pining for some decency and manners from the general public.  Things get a bit odd when you meet resistance during work.  In London, there’s something satisfying about having a bit of a grumble with jobsworth-style security guards and PRs but there it made you feel as though you were punching a kitten if you snapped in any way.

Among the finest questions that I was asked by a passing spectator during the Games was, “Where do the bobsleighs start from? The top or the bottom?”  Admittedly, if they had started from the bottom, there would have been less crashes but I’m guessing viewing figures may have thinned out after a few days.  On the subject of crashes, I was reminded again how little the general public know about how the industry works after I caught the moment that a bobsleigh flipped over and passed over the Olympic ring logo.  Seeing the shot on the back of my camera, a spectator behind let out a gasp and patted me on the back with congratulations before asking me how many thousand dollars I’ll be getting for the shot.  Oh my, life would be good if it worked like that..

Thanks to colleague John D McHugh, before I left sunny London, I’d invested in a full set of Icebreaker Merino thermal clothing and I have to say that this stuff is a woolly miracle.  Now, I know this is really not a good thing to admit but one of the things that crossed my mind before heading out there was that I would very probably not have the time to do much laundry so it would be great to find clothing that looked after itself.  Cue the merino gear.  Seriously, I’m loathe to admit how long I wore that stuff for before it needed washing.  It’s incredible!  It keeps you warm, has no odour to it whatsoever and stays dry. Bravo, you intelligent New Zealand-based sheeps!

One of the unique aspects of working on major sporting events such as the Olympics is the use of remote-editing systems.  To those photographers out there who plan on working in the industry some day, this kind of technology comes as a bit of a shock after years of doing your own thing.  To cut a very long and complicated story down to size, at every key location at every venue, AFP came on-site before we arrived and laid ethernet cables from a main hub through to our photo positions.  Once we arrived and started shooting an important race or stage, we would connect our cameras to these cables via a Nikon WT-4 transmitter.  This means that as I work, whenever I shoot a frame that I like, I press two buttons on the back of the camera to mark the image and it is instantly transmitted to the editor a few miles away in the Whistler Media Centre where he can edit, caption and file the image straight away.  As you can imagine, this has both pros and cons.

On the plus side, the images are immediately out of your hands, leaving you free to concentrate on shooting the event.  Also, the editor will be in charge of captioning the pictures so aside from recording an audio-tag on any important images using the microphone on your camera, the hassle is taken totally out of your hands.  This leads to the negative side.  Unless you know your editor is capable of “seeing” the images within your pictures and trust he/she is capable of working on your images as you would yourself, it’s a hell of a worrying feeling to send your hard-won pictures off into the digital ether and just hope that they’ll go onto the news wire as you would like them to be seen.

With both Nikon and Canon in full attendance with workshops available throughout the Games to repair and service equipment for free, it was also a perfect opportunity to try out their new gear.  For me, the only real thing of interest was the new Nikon 70-200mm f2.8G ED VR II lens.  Having already fired a few frames on this lens courtesy of Ian Gavan, I was absolutely over-joyed to get the chance to use one for the duration of my stay.  When AFP moved to Nikon, the 70-200mm was the only lens that really let the side down with a generally slow feel to it plus less-than staggering results.  The new incarnation is a totally different animal.  With pin-sharp follow focus, even when shooting lugers flying towards you from blind corners at 90mph+, the hit rate was near-perfect.  Time after time, the lens just nailed the images even during the late night sessions when the low light was forcing me to push the D3s up to 4000ISO.  A superb lens in every way.  It’s a cliche I know but the only thing that I didn’t like about the lens was that it wasn’t mine to keep.

After finding that I’d often have to shoot at speeds of up to 4000th of a second to truly freeze the action, I decided to go the other way and with an impromptu panning masterclass from Getty photographer Richard Heathcote, I was soon capturing the action with a greater sense of movement thanks to shutter speeds as low as a tenth of a second.  With these kind of low shutter speeds, it soon becomes clear which of the athletes are any good.  To complete the run in the fastest time, the best of the best will take a direct line through each corner with no wasted swerves to take away precious momentum.  These are the ones that make the best pans as you can predict their course through a known turn.  When it’s right, the only static item in the image should be the only thing that’s actually moving.  However, break out some of the lower-ranked teams and the pan becomes an experimental image of painted light and waves, all intentional of course.. 

On the final day, I had a day off but knew that wouldn’t last for very long as I had to go into the media centre to grab a Photoshop upgrade and as predicted, I was assigned to cover the fan reaction to the evening’s hockey match between Canada and the US.  With many people seeing the Olympics as just an opportunity for these two countries to get to play a grudge match, it was fitting that it came as the final event of the Games.  With thousands of people filling the streets of Vancouver, a space in the many bars and restaurants was impossible to find.  Large outdoor screens were erected on Robson Street in the Downtown area with crowds gathering outside shops to watch the game on monitors in the windows.

As you may have guessed from the pictures, Canada ended up beating their arch-rivals after taking the game to sudden-death.  Vancouver erupted.  The great side to the friendly and polite nature that I wrote about above is that, on winning, the celebrations were simply a massive burst of cheering and happiness.  Being British, I was prompted to high-five about 3 or 4 people and failed on every single one before giving up entirely and just shooting.  I can’t help but think that if England were to win the World Cup, their would be a threatening aggression to a lot of the celebrations that weren’t a factor over there.

After 22 days and with 11873 new frames to add to my archive, the assignment was over.  With one last get-together for those of us who’d been around Vancouver for the final night, we said our goodbyes and headed off in our different directions to all corners of the world.  It was a hell of a job with moments of fatigue, frustration, mental brick walls and photographic breakthroughs but I got to do what I love doing with a great team of people.  Bring on the next one!

After months of speculation among the head bods, AFP London moved to the dark side, or more particularly, the black and gold side.  Now armed with Nikon D3 bodies and various lenses, I’ve wandered the streets of London zooming left rather than right and pushing the exposure the wrong way. I mean, who in their right mind thinks that when the meter goes to the right, it’s underexposing?

After trying to get my head around the games console that is the SB900 flash and all the other little bits and pieces that make up the Nikon system, I went to cover a day of protest by the Free Tibet group on the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan Uprising.

Star of the day was Palden Gysatso, one of the longest surviving political prisoners having been held in a Chinese torture camp for 33 years.  A film about his life “Fire under the Snow” is available and after meeting him, I think the book of the same name is on my “must read” list.

Anyhow, more from me as I try to get my head around the new toys over the coming days..

My last day has arrived and it’s time to head back to sunny London town.  Ahh, I can just imagine it now; friendly faces in the street, bidding good morning to each other as they head to the park to bask in the glow from the mid-morning sun..

My time here’s been a fantastic experience, thanks to the top bunch of people based out here both within the AFP bureau and out on the streets of Israel and the West Bank.  It’s been great fun getting to meet them all and to see how this part of the world works.  I have a feeling that I’ll be sat back in England, following Israeli politics with no-one to share my enthusiasm!

..and at the end of the trip when your expenses get handed over, it’s nice to see that you’ve made a real impression on everyone with the bureau, even the accounts department.  How did she know my alter-ego?

One of the very regular parts of shooting for an agency is the “pool photographer” job.  Unfortunately, this has nothing much to do with shooting a swimwear competition and more to do with men in suits shaking hands in front of a fireplace or members of the Royal family meeting random bods (such as the Welsh Rugby team below…)

When an event is going to happen but space is limited, a pool system kicks into place that results in one photographer being allowed into the room to shoot it but then his or her work is given to all publications and agencies to do with as they please.  A regular location is the aforementioned fireplace in Number 10 for grip’n'grins featuring various British politicians and the leader of the Principality of Randomistan.

Like most things in life, the first time you shoot one of these, “the fear” ™ fills your every pore as you consider the fact that EVERY picture desk and editor will be able to see every image you file and worst of all, they’re sometimes waiting specifically for your images to drop onto their desktops for a publication deadline.  Thankfully, again like most things in life, over time the fear soon becomes your friend, then just an acquaintance and finally somebody you never really got on with in Junior School that you can safely forget about and you realise that it’s a job like any other.

Today’s pool was to cover the State Opening of Parliament for the second consecutive year.  Unlike last year (above), I managed to screw up on my choice of position (wrong place, right time) so found myself in a room that didn’t get a whiff of regal action.  Booo.. Not that I’m a staunch Royalist but if the choice is between Queen Elizabeth II in all her glad-rags and ceremonial gear, wearing the Crown Jewels as she makes her way through a hall filled with Lords and Ladies OR standing in a lobby as an odium of politicians file past, I don’t take too long weighing up my options before I can reach a conclusion.

In the end, due to this year’s ceremony being covered with the fallout of a scandal involving the arrest of a Conservative MP, I could at least get the leaders in the bag, cover a bit of political news and grab some stock images for future stories on our gloriously stream-lined and slick political system (or maybe just some Lord collecting his pension before Brenda arrives..)