Wednesday 3 February 2010

The Times

As briefly mentioned in my previous post I was lucky enough to get some work experience on The Times in London over the course of last week. Walking into The Times office and meeting their staff photographers is something i've always looked forward to and to do so was a great experience. I had the pleasure of working with and meeting some of the photographers whose work I really admire: David Bebber, Paul Rodgers, Richard Pohle, Matthew Lloyd (all of The Times) and Leon Neal (AFP), as well as meeting alot of the top photographers in the business from AFP, PA, AP, Reuters and Getty. Somewhat surreal but they were all great guys and I look forward to the day when I can hopefully go down there and work with them. The ability to watch them work and the portfolio critique I was able to receive whilst in London was invaluable. During the week I achieved my aim of getting published in The Times, the fact it was on a major news story was even more satisfying! Next up is some work experience at SWNS so I hope to make an impression there and get just as much out of that as I did last week.

I was lucky to be in London on a major news week (aren't they all down there?!), the ongoing Chilcot enquiry was the main focus with several top figures giving evidence, including Tony Blair on the Friday.

Tuesday saw ex Cabinet member Margarett Beckett admit that 'we may have been wrong to go to war.'



Afterwards it was on to the Costa Book Awards where poet Christopher Reid won the 2009 Costa Book of the Year for his collection, A Scattering.





On Wednesday London was host to the Yemen Meeting, with key international players in attendance to discuss political, economical and security problems concerning the Yemeni people. Around a hundred or so Yemeni's gathered to protest along Whitehall, with pro and anti government protestor's holding rival demonstrations.







Thursday saw the Afghanistan Conference take place at Lancaster House with high profile leaders, foreign ministers and ambassador's from around the world in attendance. Amongst them were Hilary Clinton, Gordon Brown, President Karzai and Ban Ki-Moon. A selected pool of photographers were invited in to take photographs so I spent the day looking for security / protest shots. Instead of finding a protest I did come across members of the Afghan delegation sight-seeing in London during a break in proceedings; taking photographs of each other next to the Trafalgar Square lions and with the Horse Guards on Whitehall.





Straight after taking the above photographs I rushed off across to the General Medical Council where the GMC delivered "damning" verdicts against Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues over their research linking the MMR jab to autism. My image of Josh Edwards, an autism sufferer, hugging Andrew Wakefield and his wife was used by The Times in the next days newspaper. (For more info. on the story see here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article7007202.ece ). I'm hoping that's the first of many national publications!



The major story of the week was always going to be Blair attending the Chilcot enquiry on Friday. Arriving at 7:15am on Friday there was already a large press contingent in place, with protestor's slowly growing in number outside. The Times had several photographers in different places (including me) to try and catch a shot of Blair entering the building. At around 7:30am word spread that he had snuck in via a back entrance. It was to be a repeat situation in the evening when Blair waited for the media and protestor's to disperse (thinking Blair had left) before exiting out of the back. Inevitably he was met by several photograph's at his home - and so he didn't quite escape the media. I'm not one to get into politics but by sneaking in and out I don't think it did much to change people's perceptions about Blair's apparent guilty conscience.

Covering such a major news event was fascinating, especially being able to watch other photographer's operate and the various spots and methods they utilise to get their images. Looking at the other photograph's from that day and linking that to the above has definitely given me a greater understanding in how great news pictures are created, something I will most definitely bear in mind on my next big assignment. With Blair's absence I spent the day getting images of the protest outside and the people queuing to enter.



















2 comments:

  1. good skills adam, congrats on getting a photo published as well!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Woooo well done, some fab images there :)

    ReplyDelete