Battle of the ‘bands
Within hours of returning from the heaven on earth that is Villa Cenami, I was up in Manchester for the annual Labour Party Conference, preceded this year by a knife fight to the death between rival candidates hoping to become the new party leader. With a brief speech by the previous Guvnor, Gordon Brown, it [...]
Licensed to Chill
Having spent the last few years with Glastonbury as my only festival event of the year, last weekend I got the chance to broaden my horizons and try out some of the competition, ie “The Big Chill” in Herefordshire. Running from the 5th to the 8th of August, the line-up consisted of a similar range [...]
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 [...]
Olympic Parlour Games
Just a quick post to both shamelessly promote myself and to push a great photographers resource called the Photography Parlour. Aimed at sharing hints, tips, information and galleries among photographers from all areas of the industry, they’ve linked to my Olympic blog here with an interview coming as soon as I get time to answer [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The “s” stands for “sodding hell, it’s even better!”
The other day, the lovely people at AFP Paris sent me through my new toy, the Nikon D3s. To those who aren’t as obsessed with keeping up to date with all things new, the D3s is essentially a D3 with the small amount of concerns that photographers had ironed out plus a few very attractive [...]
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 [...]
Recession hits the money shot
Another year, another Erotica exhibition at London’s Olympia centre. Having covered this event four times, it’s actually become quite a challenge to get something that’s both different from previous years and is acceptable for publication on the news wire. While horrible nastiness and the carnage from Middle Eastern suicide blasts often makes it’s way straight to [...]
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 [...]
Don’t tell my D3, but I’m having an affair…
As anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis may know, I generally tend to avoid doing reviews of cameras and equipment partly due to lack of time but mainly due to the abundance of websites available such as dpreview that offer incredibly in-depth, fast and dependable advice on which route to take when [...]
“Beached” now available in TK-Vision
As I’m trying to put together a selection of audio slideshows for presentation I might end up doing, I thought I’d post one on here to see how (and more importantly if) it works. Please feel free to give me any feedback on how you think it looks as it’s all a bit new to [...]
..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 [...]
A full 360°
With their trademarked sense of understatement, U2 set up camp in Wembley Stadium for a two-night residency and I managed to get into the first night to see what subtle delights they had to offer on their 360° tour. Running over 2009-10, the tour is expected to include up to 100 shows all over the [...]
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 [...]
