Raiders of the Lost Archive
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 [...]
The alternative London “Knowledge” v4.0
There is no real need to take a camera, especially your Leica, to Focus. When cleaning your lens with a cloth, it will invariably be the final wipe when the cloth slips and you smear a dorito-grease covered finger across the front element. The World Press Awards must be something to do with the Corby [...]
Sensi and Instability (with apologies to Jane Austen)
Glastonbury 2010 was a new experience for me as, this year, I was going all multimedia on this festival’s ass. After pleading with the techno honchos in Gay Paris for some new toys, they managed to get a Zacuto Z-Finder and an Audio-Technica PRO24-CM couriered to me on the day before the festival. The downside [...]
Workflow-a-go-go
I recently discovered that there are quite a few photographers that do not have any real system of filing their images for easier archiving. With this in mind, I thought I’d share my thoughts on how to make life easier when it comes to organising your digital diamonds. When I first arrived in London, a [...]
“I was right about that saddle..”
AKA Flash ‘n’ the pannier.. 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 [...]
It’s a Tory’s morning glory
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 [...]
Never mind the ballots
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. [...]
UPstrapped for cash
One of the biggest annoyances among photographers who have to carry cameras over both shoulders during their working day is the need to constantly do the Les Dawson-esque bra-adjusting manoeuvre as they recover the camera straps back onto their shoulder. As a news photographer, trying to run while laden with cameras involves a unique position with the [...]
Kill Bill
Following a strong grassroots campaign to raise awareness among photographers of the potential threat to their livelihood, I’ve just followed the advice given at stop43.org.uk and written to my MP on the subject. For those of you either unaware of the Digital Economy Bill or unsure of what it’s about, head over to the stop43 [...]
Slip sliding away..
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 [...]
Variety is the spice of life
The last time I was in Blackpool, I spent the day dashing between the “Haunted Swing” and the “Steeplechase” at Blackpool Pleasure Beach and building up the guts to go on the creaky looking “Grand National”. Nineteen years later, I’m onstage at the Opera House in front of a few thousand people taking pictures of [...]
Bring on the Wall!
In full JFK-style, I became “ein Berliner” when I flew over to Germany last week to work with the Berlin bureau in the coverage of the celebrations and events surrounding the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Never having visited Berlin before, I had the usual mixture of anticipation and nerves with [...]
..and one rule for another.
Yesterday, I was put on “Climate Camp” watch along with fellow AFP photographer and good friend Shaun Curry. Following a few days of media hype with demonstrators refusing to give any information on their planned camp site location and the police offering “community-style” policing if the demonstrators were prepared to cooperate, we both went to [...]
Metal as anything
After the love and peace of Glastonbury 2009 comes the angst, anger and aggression of the Sonisphere rock festival at Knebworth. Featuring rock and metal bands ranging from veteran British groups “Saxon” and “Heaven and Hell” through to the latest young bands from around the world such as “Airbourne” and “The Defiled”, it saw the [...]
The knowledge continues to grow..
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/ Following on from my three-part guide to the press photography “knowledge” listed above, it’s good to see that others have offered hints and tips from their own fields of expertise. New additions include a helpful guide from the PA picture desk on the view from the other side.. http://paphotocall.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/the-pr-picture-editors-knowledge/ and music photographer [...]
Nature’s flashgun
After seeing some of the great shots that came out of the storms at Glastonbury, I realised that I had yet another hole in my photography knowledge that needed filling and last week, I had the perfect opportunity to experiment. After reaching fatigue point recently, Kirsten and I got the chance to stay at a [...]
The alternative London “Knowledge” v3.0
If you actually prepare for the bad weather for once and get fully waterproofed up, by the time you arrive at the tube station in central London, you’ll emerge to blistering sunshine. The same also applies in reverse. You will see the politician that you waited 10 hours outside the House of Commons for on [...]
File under “Good week”
Wow. Do you know how sometimes everything just goes wrong and other times it all just clicks? I guess I’m on the peak of the rollercoaster ride at the moment (See #12) as I’ve just won the the “Portrait of the Year” category in the Press Photographer’s Year awards, here in the UK. I’m staggered [...]
The alternative London “Knowledge” v2.0
It’s good practise to get on with all the photographers you come across as it’s guaranteed that you’ll end up stuck on a doorstep for three days with the one you told to piss off. Stand next to the loudest shouter at film premieres. (See also “Ian West“) Even if the object that we’ve been [...]
The alternative London “Knowledge” v1.0
Not much can compare to feeling the first hot rays from the sun as you leave Downing Street on a Summer’s day after an 8 hour stakeout. No matter how sure you are of the job, the longer you wait for it to happen, the more likely you are to feel the need to frantically [...]
Influence/Influenza
Working within the shining golden towers that is “the media”, it’s quite easy to forget how much influence (or rather ironically “influenza” in Italian) it has over how people feel on a day to day basis. I see my self as quite toughened to the scaremongering of certain news outlets and can usually laugh it [...]
In the words of Mr. Punch..
..”That’s the way to do it”. Having extensively covered the G20 protests last week, I can honestly say it was a real pleasure to photograph the Tamil demonstration in Westminster. By arranging the “flash-mob“-style protest through text messages and avoiding social websites that can be monitored, the group managed to appear from nowhere and catch [...]
What was that noise?
Ah, nothing to worry about. It was just the final dying gasp of decency in tabloid journalism.. In what is apparently a world first, a British D-list celebrity magazine has just hit the shops with it’s special memorial issue celebrating the life and death of former “Big Brother” contestant Jade Goody. The cover talks of [...]
Going through the change
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 [...]
