Its been a busy period recently with alot of work on my books and alot of time spent in front of the MAC.   First off in the news is this months Triathletes World mag where I have the front cover and a good spread inside as well, this was from the shoot with Scott Neyedli last year just getting published, came out well I think.

The Diageo function went well and the images are now with the client who was delighted with them.  I was invited back to do the Wooden Spoon charity evening at  the Hilton hotel in Glasgow again, a big rugby charity who do alot of work for kids charities. A few of the Scotland players were their along with Andy Robinson who did a one to one with John Beattie, fair play to him he answered the difficult questions regarding the recent results.  Good night and a good bit of money raised as well.  Peter Martin from Clyde FM was doing the auction, for a footie guy he was brilliant at a rugby doo, what a laugh he was, I was in tears.

Another commission from 220 mag for another ‘Me and My Bike’ article, this time the triathlete was already lined up by the mag.  Was a cold afternoon and we shot around 4pm so the poor guy was standing there in his skin suit shivering!  Set up the light and tried a few different poses to give the mag a choice.  While I was there I tried out a new ringflash attachment just to see the difference, its just the RayFlash but I’ll need to play around with that a bit further to get the best from it though.  Shots are now with the mag, i’ll post when they get printed.

Shot the Scottish Triathlon performance squad, 23 folk on location in Stirling Uni grounds.  Not a particularly nice afternoon weather wise, very cold really so not much warmth about.  This time I had a helper with me due to all the kit I had to take along and we were moving about.  Portraits head shots, some running shots then some action bike shots and we were done.

British Triathlon Federation shoot came off eventually, Cat Morrison stayed out in Spain to pack in more training so 3 age groupers stood in instead.  Very specific brief to this one, ie GB tri suits and must have Edinburgh in the background of each shot.   We used Holyrood Park and we had a window from 1-4pm as they close some of the roads in the park and I needed to get the car as close to the locations as possible with all the kit, no helper this time.   Started with some bike shots on a lower hill, sun was really strong and ended up using on camera SB800 running up and down the road beside the athletes.

Then we moved up to the top of the hill over looking the capital.  As you can see here the fit ones in front are the athletes! it was a good trek carrying a rucksack of kit, 2 lightstands and a pair of ladders!   Why the ladders ?  I find them a invaluable tool , let you get over your subject to get more of the background in which is what was required for this.

Eventually got up there, pretty exposed as you can imagine.  Setup the lights at full power as the sun was really strong and then balanced out the exposure getting the athletes and the city in the background exposed right, no mean feat with that strong sunlight.  Tried different poses and ideas and finally finished up and treked back down again.   Feedback from the client, BTF and Event Scotland was good so job done.

Got a call from Stewart from Conquest Bike Wear just to let me know the new website is live with my images from last year and to let me know that further work will be coming my way soon.  The site looks great I think.

My local rugby club Greenock Wanderers picked up the National 2 trophy at the weekend so I thought I’d pop along to get some pics for their website…

My plane ticket for ITU European Triathlon champs this year has been booked, going to be a long week in Athlone, Ireland  really looking forward to this, its always a great occasion …..heres the list of events…

Thursday 1st July(PM): Euro 2010 – Team Relay, Junior and Elite
Saturday 3rd July(AM): Euro 2010 – Age Group Sprint
Saturday 3rd July(AM): Euro 2010 – Paratriathlon
Saturday 3rd July(AM): triAthlone – Open Sprint Event (open)
Saturday 3rd July(AM): triAthlone – Open Try event (open)
Saturday 3rd July(PM): Euro 2010 – Junior Women
Saturday 3rd July(PM): Euro 2010 – Elite Women
Sunday 4th July(AM): Euro 2010 – Age Group Olympic
Sunday 4th July(AM): triAthlone – Open Olympic Event (open)
Sunday 4th July(PM): Euro 2010 – Junior Men
Sunday 4th July(PM): Euro 2010 – Elite Men

Also this year is a round of the ITU European cup in Strathclyde park in May which I am currently getting acreditation arranged and theres also the World Duathlon champs in Edinburgh in Sept, the BTF shoot I just done btw is for the PR for the race.  So its a good year for multisports in the UK.

This afternoon I got a call from the BBC looking for an image for their BBC sports website, of course they did’nt want to pay for using it.  I should prop up the BBC with freebies !  and pay my license fee as well….mmm….er I don’t think so….

Chance to try out my new PocketWizards the other day,  carrying kit over fileds, barb wire and side stepping piles of sheep crap we pitched up.   Rem the tent I mentioned before, well it got its first airing.  My mate Ian was giving me a hand and doing the modeling , what laugh we had trying to put the bloody thing up!   Got pretty cold after a while but got some good shots and the one I wanted so was worth it all.  The trigger, they worked without a hitch….I should have got these years ago, not cheap at £520 for just 3 but as I now do this type of work more and more they are worth every penny.

Oh forgot to say…….happy birthday to me…..big 45……sheeesh where does the time go!  Spent the day with my better half, walking my dog Cody , a nice lunch then out on a hill with the camera watching the sun set…..good times…..

Iain

Trying to stay on top of the blog this year , I used to think that no one ever read this but I am getting alot of comments on it so folk must be!   So what been happening recently….been planning a number of shoots this week for the coming months, specifically fitness lifestyle orientated….oh and I bought a tent……all will be revealed later.  Tracking down props and suitable models, not as easy as you would think!

Contacting a number of Elite triathletes to try arrange some shoots around their busy training and racing schedules.   Working on another sponsored Triathlete website as well, so far my first , Scott Neyedli site is getting alot of hits and getting good reviews, so much so that I desperately need to get more shots of Scott as soon as he comes back from Aus in May.

So I finally took the plunge and went and purchased 3 pocket wizards,  finally had enough of the Skyports, during the Pamela Thorburn shoot I had so many misfires it really cheesed me off.  Should be getting them in the post tomorrow so fingers crossed to no more misfire’s and I can play around with a remote camera now.

Had talks with 3 companies last week regards stock image use, two nutrition companies which we agreed terms and some good contacts made and another which I can’t say much about at the moment as its not been launched but sounds interesting.   What else’s been happening, a commission from Diageo for a function , in talks with British Triathlon for a commission begining of March,   just waiting on the brief to come through to see the full details of whats involved so more on that if it pans out and a commission for Triathlon Scotland to shoot their performance squad in Stirling.  Another commission for the Wooden Spoon Charity dinner at the Hilton Glasgow, did last years which was good with Thom Evans and Kelly Brown doing a turn on stage.

March should hopefully see a mag cover , should have been this month but we got bumped by a certain F1 driver!   On the wedding side I have had a few meetings recently and have a few more this month,  meeting couples who I am commissioned to shoot their wedding this year.

That’s your lot

cheers
Iain

Theres nothing more that yanks my chain in this buisness than being contacted by a commercial comnpany or magazine looking to use my images.  The killer line as always ” unfortunatley we don’t have a photography budget for this article/campaign but we will give you full credit for the image”  I get these requests in all the time,  the ones that really do it for me are the ones asking straight off for the hi res file to be sent …

I actually find it very rude, obnoxious that anyone would even consider asking!   Do they personally place little value on their own work ?  Are they so used to working with amateurs that they now expect to be given images for nothing on request.  I beleive my work is of a high standard and if these people believe its good enough to be published then its good enough to be paid for.

Alot of these companies are raking in large amounts of either sponsorship or advertising etc and lets face it ,  the company is’nt doing it for nothing.  The folk asking for the images are obvioulsy not getting up in the morning and going to work for nothing either.  Yet they expect me to hand over my work that I have spent hours on location then the hours processing to them for nothing.

I think I have posted this link before but if not here it is again.  Just substitute the word writers for photographer and put in the last company that you dealt with that asked for freebies…..

The Video…….Harlan Ellison

What a difference a week makes, from the freezing wet cold of Edinburgh to the positively summer-esk sunshine on Sat……I know which one I prefer, is it not time we brought up the summer rugby debate again!  Sat Hawks game canceled due to frozen pitch…

Sat at Greenock Wanderers who are on a seasons roll of wins…..full gallery

Glasgow Hawks v Boroughmuir…..Hawks do the double over Boro

Was in WH Smith on Friday and was pleased to see my snow shoot published on a two page spread at the begining.  Always nice to see your work published

Got a note from Scott Neyedli that the website I designed, hosted and sponsored him had a nice plug on Tri247 website as website of the week!

New year and something new I am offering, photography and web packages combined.   I am now in a position to be able to sponsor various Elite athletes with their own web presence.  This is something I have been planning for a while now to support Elite athletes and to put something back into the community.  Currently I have a few athletes in the pipleine but will be looking to take on a few more.   The sponorship is only open to Elite athletes with a proven National , International record.  What you get is a fully functioning website, hosting and the photography included as well which will be designed into the site.

For an example please see my first sponsorship client Scott Neyedli new website, click on the image above and it will take you live.  All the photography was included in the service and as you can see gives the website a great impact.  Interested, then contact me and we can discuss.

You can view the full Scott Neyedli triathlete shoot here….these are getting alot of attension at the moment as Scott just put in an amazing performance to get 2nd at Ironman Austrialia.

Theres so many updates I need to do here but I’ll give a quick mention to a few, the 220 “Me and my Bike” was published in January’s edition of 220, thanks to Richard Morton for doing the model bit for me.  More of my stock photography has been picked up for another multisports  magazine for a cover and a double page spread, more on that later when it goes to print.

While the snow was abundant here I managed to get some stock running images together and they turned out pretty dam good if I say so myself. Full shoot here…

And just this afternoon I got the news of one of the stock images from this shoot is going into a running magazine for a double page spread probably due out in March, more again on that when its published.

Just finished shooting Pamela Thorburn who is in the British Alpine Ski squad.  Met up with Pamela and her brother Scott on the hills and thankfully theres was plenty of snow about , god knows what we would have done without all this  snow!  Nearly a 5 hour shoot spanning shooting in the hills where we eventually had to give up as the snow fall became to heavy,  to sportrait work in the nearby forrest and to finish off some urban portraits in Glasgow city center.

The other reason we packed up early on the hills was when the snow really stated to come down the Skyport triggers packed up and just refused to trigger at all.  As I spend most of my shooting time on location and in all sort of weathers I am slowly finding out these Skyports just are’nt up to the job.  Pocket Wizards I think is the next purchase on the cards…..

I wanted to try and get a good mix of action and portrait work from the day as really where we were was never going to give us any fast sking action as Pamela could’nt build up enough speed so we improvised a bit to get the look I was after.  Portrait images I am really happy with as we worked around the strong midday sun that was out but I used that to our advantage in some of the images.  The graphiti location was somewhere I was wanting to use for ages and I thought the colour of the skis and jacket would work well together.

Was a good laugh and overall a very good shoot but boy was it cold!  Pamela’s new website will be released soon where these images will be on display but you can see the full shoot here….

Something new for me is Ice Hockey, I recived an invitation to do some images for the Strathclyde Flames at Breahead which was different.  Having never shot the sport before it was a pretty cool shoot.  Started with some portraits on the ice and then some staged action around the net.  Finished off with some game images and got very wet in the process from lying about on the ice!

This one was a bit closer than I wanted but Fraser the goalie told me afterwards he had it covered!  Full shoot here..

No Photoshopping the puck in btw

Movemeber Ball, this one was for charity after being contacted by one of the Glasgow Warriors players to do a red carpet thing for the guests, met a few freinds there as well and was actually a good night although being the only sober person in a hall of over 400 had its moments!  Full gallery here…

2009 Stirling Sports Club Awards, what a great night and what a location.  This years event was in Stirling castle in the great halls and I was looking forward to this commision for a while.  Dame Kelly Holms was the guest and I was asked to get some PR shots of her in the afternoon when she visited the Peak Sports Center.  I followed Kelly around the Peak to get something but was told I would get some time later on for some staged shots. Turned out I actually got literally 5 mins of her time due to BBC Scotland but more so a news paper reporter and tog from a broadsheet hogging all her time, thanks guys for kicking the arse right out of it.   So I quickly setup my shot to tie in the Peak, the manager and Kelly in one shot….job done.

That infamous image with Kelly looking on…..

Apart from the torrential rain outside, the evening went off without a hitch and Kelly’s speech was really motivational.  Also a triathlete friend picked up the overall award, Fraser Cartmell , so was pretty good end to an evening.  Full galleries here…..

Managed to get in 4 Glasgow Hawks games in before the weather went downhill.  It looks like the pitches will not be playable for the next two weeks due to snow and flooding.  Bit of a back log of games till the end of the season now. A good win over local rivals West of Scotland to finish the year was a good revenge for the home defeat earlier in the year   Also Glasgow Warriors doing the double over Edinburgh over the festive period was the iceing on the cake so to speak.

Game galleries as …..Boroughmuir , Dundee ,  Melrose and West of Scotland

A couple of stock images being published in a new book about the old stands around Glasgow from the Played in Britain seriese, images of new Anniesland and old Anniesland stands I had are being published.  Also one of my stock shots from Athlone last year of winner Bryan Keane picked up by a nutrition company for their brochures.

Not listed everything buts thats some of the highlights over the last month or so, i’d be here all day!  The diary is getting full with commisioned shoots and theres my wedding photography which is going from strength to strength so heres to a great 2010!

Iain

Just a quickie from a shoot on wednesday….I’ll post all about it soon as I finish them……long day it was, 15 hour stint that one and alot of processing to do….

So finally the Abereldy middle distance triathlon images have been published in Triathletes World magazine.  I have to say what it shows you that everyone sees things differently.  To be honest after looking at the mag and what images they used, its not the images I thought they would have used, I don’t think it really shows what the race is really like.  I mean the race covers some of the most scenic parts of Scotland and is truly awesome and inspiring landscape the race takes you through, although if you racing am sure you’ll have maybe missed some of it LOL   Most of the shots are cropped in , so I thought I’d post here some of the wide shots that take in the landscape and show you a better idea.  I will def be going back next year.  The full galleries can be found here