Neil Danton

…that’s played by men with odd-shaped balls?

Rugby of course!

OK OK, look don’t start getting picky-picky. I know women play rugby as well but then the pun doesn’t work does it? Jeez, some people!

This was a promo for an upcoming U/19 rugby international between Ireland and Australia and I was working alongside my friend Dan who was shooting on behalf of the IRFU. We were each doing our own set-ups and alternating our shots and time with the subjects, which worked well.

Once we’d both finished all the images we needed where we kept the lads in their nice white shirts clean, we had them leaping on a ball, and boy, did they get dirty. They must have been frozen as well, it was cold, windy and the pitch was very, very muddy.

They were just wearing shirts on top. I was wearing a ski-top, a fleece and a waterproof windproof jacket!

The lads all play for the Forwards on the U/19 team and also for schools and colleges in Cork.

TTFN

…appreciate the things you take for granted, when suddenly you have to do without one of them.

Few people even think about the “normal” things that are always “just there” like electricity, running-water, cable or satellite TV and nowadays of course internet access. I recently had to struggle along for a week without broadband, as the average life expectancy for a Netopia modem that Eircom supply seems to be about six months (I’m now on my third).

The latest “doing without” is running water, as a result of the pumping station that supplies half of Cork City being under several metres of water. Why it was located in a place that to my certain knowledge floods on average once a year I don’t know. OK, so it’s never flooded that much before, but in a country where it rains so much, it comes as a surprise to me that it comes as a surprise to others that sometimes … it rains a lot.

The waffling excuses valid explanations being uttered so far, such as “unprecedented” and “once in a lifetime occurrence” aren’t bringing much comfort to the 100,000 people that are struggling along at the moment. Of course there are lots of politicians, public authorities and utilities helping to put things right by scoring points off each other in the media as to whose fault it all is, but right now they’d be appreciated a lot more if they offered someone the use of their showers.

The fact that the government has now got involved and set-up a “task-force” fills me with lots of confidence of course, and so I now expect things should be resolved by 2025 (and I don’t mean almost half-past eight).

So anyway, last week I needed to get an image of a chef with an “alternative Christmas lunch” and the dish was salmon, which I thought was appropriate. Salmon – fish – water – get it? Oh c’mon, I know it’s a pretty tenuous link but I’m doing my best under difficult circumstances. I’ve had to reduce my coffee intake by 50% due to lack of water.

This was going to be a real quick image. Chefs are always busy, so I only had a few minutes with Paul, the head-chef at Actons Hotel in Kinsale. Easiest thing was to kill-off the ambient light and distracting background by under-exposing the scene by around 4EV, and lighting him solely with lighting I have control over.

I always keep one flash in my bag that is set to slave mode and manual power which works nicely with an ST-E2 transmitter. It’s a struggle sometimes if used outdoors, as the infra-red transmitter doesn’t always fire the flash, but indoors I’ve never had a problem. Used a mini-softbox on the flash, 3 test shots to get the exposure correct, half a dozen shots of different angles and poses and job done:

I then took a different dish with a different subject (thanks Tania), and then one of the two of them together and all done. 15 minutes, start to finish.

If only the engineers could get the water supply back on that quickly.

TTFN

…tough in the Editorial world, and publications are trying to keep an eye on expenses, but reducing travel fees by assigning me to shoot an editorial portrait of someone that lives in the SAME STREET as me is surely as far as it can go!

So anyway, that was the 2nd portrait I was assigned to shoot that day, and maybe a story for another time, but first up I had an assignment for one of the “Sundays”.

My subject was a doctor, and we were to meet at the University. The story related to medicines, or pills, or drugs or something (must pay more attention to what picture editors say) and we had a handily located display cabinet of old medicine paraphernalia nearby, so went with that as a prop for one image.

There was also a plain white wall, well it was the underside of a staircase actually, and I felt I wanted to get an image of some kind there as well. Problem was, when I say plain white, I mean it was very plain, and very boring, but something was drawing me there to make an image.

So I went to the local hardware store and bought some paint, and painted some shapes onto the white wall for effect:

OK then, I didn’t paint the wall at all in truth. Put a strobe on the floor and fired through the handily located foliage to create the shadow pattern.

TTFN