Neil Danton

So, 3rd in the series and this one features a business. What’s more, much to my delight it involves beer!

There’s music if you’re maybe at work and not really supposed to be reading this just at the moment, and it’s in monochrome. Yes, really it is. Don’t be fooled by the start, or.. er, the end. Worth waiting for the end though, makes me laugh every time, and I know what’s coming.

Permalink to the Day In The Life Of: Dungarvan Brewing Company on my website.

I’ve always enjoyed telling stories. Years ago Decades ago Eons ago, when I was at school, they were often called lies though. “Please Miss, I did my homework but the cat ate it”. Didn’t have a dog, but the creative lying didn’t extend to inventing one. There were also non-lie stories, essays and such like which I really enjoyed, but telling a story with a camera is a different kettle of fish all together.

As I said when I started the idea of Day In The Life Of back at the beginning of the year, sometimes there’s a story to tell that has to be summarised in a single image as best as possible because if it’s an editorial assignment, one image is probably all that will be used. If it’s a magazine spread it might develop to 6 – 10 images which allows more flexibility, but even that can’t always show the whole story.

With Day In The Life Of there is pretty much an unlimited amount of images I can create to tell a story. The two DITLOs I have posted so far are a story, but also a collection of single images. This one though (I hope) is a complete process, that walks the viewer through from raw material to a very interesting form of re-cycling!

The Dungarvan Brewing Company is Ireland’s latest micro-brewery located in lovely Dungarvan in Co Waterford, which I think is a fabulous place (I think Cork should annex it). They make a range of bottle-conditioned craft beers, primarily Black Rock Irish Stout, Copper Coast Red Ale and Helvick Gold Blonde Ale (all the bases covered there then), but they also make “specials” for different seasonal or festival times.

When I first approached Jen their Marketing Director about telling their story she was very helpful and everyone was a joy to be around on the shoot. Unlike an Editorial or Commercial shoot, there are no set-up or staged images in this story. Everything was shot as it happened (OK, I think that twice I actually said, “hold that a second” or something similar), but for the most part I just tried to not get in the way too much! Having spent so many previous years shooting sport, if I can’t catch a bit of action by now I ought to give up.

On the techie side: the only time I used some lighting was the modelling light from a Ranger Quadra, which isn’t very powerful, but just helped enough with the images in the fermentation room. For everything else, no big lights, no flash, so some images were shot at 1600 or even 3200 ISO, which shows as a bit of “noise” in a few frames. I can live with that for a documentary.

Many thanks to the Dungarvan Brew crew of Jen & Claire, Tom & Cormac for letting me tell their story.

I sense they are going to get bigger as word, and their product, gets around.

TTFN

Here we go then with the first of what will become a series, Day In The Life Of: Midleton Tattoo Show.

A note of caution: There is a soundtrack, just in case you are messing around wasting time doing “valuable research” on the internet at work.

Here’s a permalink to the Day In The Life Of: Tattoo Show Gallery on my website. Fewer images but much larger, and depending on your screen resolution, higher quality. Even when viewing the video in HD there is a bit of quality loss.

If you like photography slideshows you can subscribe to my YouTube channel. I say channel, there’s a grand total of er, one video there at the moment (plus one hidden one!), but if you subscribe you’ll be notified when any new content is published. Apart from DITLO there might be some other things in the pipeline…

Of course, to stay up-to-date with the latest Demented Ramblings here on the blog, you can subscribe to the RSS feed or if you prefer Facebook to get your new notifications, “Like” my page where all the blog updates appear as well.

Oh, and don’t forget to say something from time-to-time. It gets kinda lonely locked up here inside your computer, so the occasional comment either here or on FB would be appreciated. If you could slacken-off the chains on this ridiculous white jacket as well… Makes it difficult to type with my arms behind my back.

TTFN

Ladies, save money on those expensive mud-pack beauty treatments and just come out with me for a photo-shoot.

This was the launch of the Munster Mud Run which takes place in the Ballyhoura Mountains near Doneraile in North County Cork.

TTFN

and they’re off..

Launch of a Mascot Race at the greyhound stadium, in aid of the Irish Wheelchair Association.

TTFN

One light, one lens, one camera, 6 images, 15 minutes (includes handshake and setting up light). It wasn’t me that was under time pressure!

Paul Kerrigan, Corner Forward (usually) on the Cork team. Shot for one of the Sundays a few days before the National Football League final against Mayo:

Single flash (strobe), with no modifier or softening. He’s male, he’s young, it was outdoors. He can take hard light.

TTFN

…metaphorically and literally.

When on a commission I normally try and get the “safe” shots first, and then go for something more interesting. In this instance though, because of the timing being rapidly approaching dusk, I went the other way around.

This commission was to create some images for the launch of the Ashbourne & Purcell cup-finals week-end. These are competitions for 3rd level institutions (University age) in the sport of Camogie. Camogie is the ladies form of the men’s game of hurling with a few subtle rule changes. It looks a bit vicious with lumps of wood being flailed around, but has less injuries caused than Gaelic Football.

As always I was trying to think up something that would be a little bit different and when they sky started turning nice I knew I had the shot in mind.

So in reverse order of timing, the standard shot:

Two-light, no modifiers.

The slightly more interesting shot:

One light, white shoot through.

The nice sky (and the “oops missed shot”):

and the, well you decide:

Two-light, no modifiers.

TTFN

…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