Neil Danton

At the start of the year I made a commitment to myself that I was going to start a series of personal projects with the concept being A Day In The Life Of.

Much of the work I do on paid commissions and assignments is fairly formulaic, media publications have their own styles that have to be adhered to, images for PR press release need to be shot a certain way, etc. In particular with Editorial assignments, the publication is often going to use just one image, so I usually stop after 4 or 5. Never mind that with the massive fee they pay they actually deserve less than 1. Sometimes it’s a shame, because there is a lot more of a story to tell.

I also get more than a bit frustrated at seeing the same types of images used in publications over and over. A lot of which are, sorry to say it, complete and utter crap. You know the type of thing, the first sign of a bit of summer weather and we’re inundated with images of a kid eating an ice-cream, or people sitting in the park, or “social” images of er, people on the beach. Some publications use so many “social” images from events that they completely miss the real images that could be got. I fear that one day we’ll be seeing “social” images from the scene of a car crash.

It’s either the above, or a constant deluge of supposed “celebrities”, most of whom I couldn’t name, who never mind A-list would only just about be Z-list celebs at best, and are only “famous” for er, being famous.

So here’s the challenge I set myself at the start of the year. Once a month shoot a picture-story, photo-essay, documentary, call it what you will, of a REAL person, or event, or even a business.

Unlike my normal day-to-day shooting which is set-up and usually involves direction, lighting and instruction, these will be shot where at all possible with available light only. If that means high ISO’s, noise, grain or blur, then so be it. The intention is not to direct, but to record. Where appropriate they might be black & white, but some images just scream out to be used in colour so it will vary. There’s no rule that documentary images HAVE to be monochrome.

A selection will be posted on the main website, and a slideshow created from a larger selection which will be posted here on the blog and on that TubbyYou thingy.

So, from the start of the year until today, every month you’ve seen precisely, um, none of these. That’s been due to a fairly hectic schedule, and the fact they’ve taken a lot longer to organise than I thought they would.

However, a couple are complete, a couple more are half done, and a couple more arranged.

If I start catching up by posting one a week for the next few weeks I will I should I might be right back on schedule within a few weeks.

You have been warned. Look away now. Change channel. Un-subscribe. Emigrate.

They start tomorrow.

TTFN

Well that’s not strictly true, but I will be back tomorrow.

That was a nice little break from blogging that I needed and I’ll be posting again on a regular basis, so you may be well advised to find the remote-control and change channel now.

I’m having to abandon the idea of APAD. I just can’t find time to blog every day so I’m reverting to a couple a week, maybe every other day depending on workload.

One small change that I’ll be making: The images that are displayed used to be a direct embed from my archive, which makes for very easy posting, but even a single image is actually a slideshow, so it’s Flash. With the increasing popularity of iPhones & iPads and other devices that can’t display Flash, in the future I’ll be embedding images that don’t suffer that problem.

See, you can’t even save your eyes by reading the blog on an iPhone anymore.

Even though I’d probably be classed as one of the Maceratti, in this instance thanks a bunch Mr Jobs for the extra work this entails.

See y’all tomorrow.

TTFN

You may have noticed I’ve been quiet for a week or so.

I hate seeing other blogs that look like they’ve been abandoned, so just saying that it’s intentional abandonment.

I’m taking a social-media break for the rest of June at the very least. I’m hoping that a break will renew some enthusiasm for it.

See you in July.

Maybe.

TTFN

Or what’s left of a blue boat…

I was having a little drive around part of the Ring of Kerry last Sunday, scouting a location for an up-coming shoot, when I saw a sign for a pier and on a whim turned down a boreen (Ir – Bóithrín – tiny rural road or lane) and found this delightful location:

Absolutely no use as a location for the shoot unfortunately!

TTFN

Seeing as you have been so good lately, I brought you a couple of presents:

Graffiti on Maylor Street, Cork City.

TTFN

I’m a bit confused about this one.

New taxi sign on Patrick’s Street, Cork City:

Is it a sign of the recession, or are they trying to tell us they didn’t go the economical route before?

TTFN

Video, HAH! Remember that?

Technology moves on. Such is the way of technology.

Derelict video rental shop in Ballinlough, Cork City.

TTFN

OK, so I’ve finished tweaking and prodding and generally messing about with the new theme. This is about as good as it will get (sorry!).

I’ve re-enabled comments, having disabled them a while back as I got sick of deleting spam (why these bots bother when this blog only allows moderated comments anyway…). This time I have included a simple captcha to hopefully reduce the comment-spam that some people seem to think is a good idea (get a life).

If you are a real person and would like to leave a comment on any new posts, you can do so again now.

Please do, I would welcome your feedback…

TTFN

Just in case you didn’t notice (or maybe it’s your first time here), I’ve changed the blog theme to one with a slightly cleaner look.

It also allows me to display images almost 50% larger, so hide your eyes.

Still a bit of queaking to do but I’ll work through that in the next few days.

TTFN

A bit of Friday fun – this image is several years old now, but I was driving down the same stretch of road yesterday and was reminded of this road-sign.

It’s genuine, no image manipulation whatsoever. I was assigned to shoot it by a newspaper that had received a report about it. It took me a few moments to figure out what the interest in it was.

It had me laughing all the way back home to think of someone going to all the secretive effort it must have taken, just to amuse themselves and others.

If you still can’t see-for-looking, check the available recreational facilities carefully…

TTFN