Neil Danton

Darina.

I did a launch shoot recently with top celebrity chef/TV personality/author/cookery teacher/business woman Ms D Allen who is easy to work with as she knows “the drill”. She’s a very busy lady and is nearly always under pressure to be somewhere else, right about now.

The shoot happened to be in the railway station and I was early as is my wont, so I was all set up and ready to rock and roll when she arrived. Co-incidentally, as we were in a railway station, there was a sound like the roar of an approaching train, and there she was, charging through the entrance at what seemed to be 90mph, small children being sucked into the vortex behind her, and small boats in the harbour nearby capsizing from the wake she left behind.

“Sorry I’m a bit late. I’m in a bit of a rush”. Situation normal then.

“No problem Darina. I’ve got a couple of ideas…”

Another 2 images later, and there she was – gone.

TTFN

Sometimes as a commercial photographer I’m asked to photograph something that’s so big, it’s not possible to get it all into one image.

In this instance it was an athletics facility with a newly constructed stand and ideally the images were to be shot when the facility was in use, rather than just showing an empty stand.

The only way to get the whole facility in one shot would be an aerial view (wouldn’t mind that one), or up in a pretty large crane (I’ll pass on that one thanks). Even with an aerial view though, because the area is so large, any signs of activity by people would look like little ants scurrying around.

All you can do then, is split up the whole area and cover as much as possible from different angles:

A second view from a different angle:

Not forgetting other areas:

Lastly, sometimes it’s not just documenting what’s actually there in bricks & mortar, it’s about conveying a sense of the place:

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One of the nicest shoots I get to do on a fairly regular basis is to document the new arrivals at Fota Wildlife Park. Here is the latest, a baby Lar Gibbon:

There’s usually two things you need for photographing animals, a big lens and patience.

I had to wait a while for mother & baby to emerge from their den, but had the close-up shot of baby fairly quickly. It then took quite some time to get a shot of mother & baby together. Due to the way baby is carried, I ended up with lots of shots where baby’s face was visible, or mother’s face was visible, but not both together that was clear enough that I was happy with the shot.

After a while though, when mother went to investigate some new leaves for breakfast, they moved into a good position and I had the shot I wanted. As soon as it happens, I just get a 6th sense that I’ve nailed it:

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Another in the “not a man with folded arms corporate announcement image” series (which isn’t really a series, but an occasional musing).

Could also be filed under the WTF am I going to do in this instance category, where nobody (including me) has any real ideas initially on how to portray someone when there is no physical “thing” for them to hold, stand next to / in front of etc.

My subject has been appointed to a 3rd-level (college) institution as an Entrepreneur in Residence. He’s more than qualified to do so with a very impressive CV (resumé) in founding some extremely successful companies.

Anyway, for my part, it’s once again trying to figure out how to create an image that isn’t man-with-folded-arms (please, no), or man-with-laptop (please please, no) or man-at-desk (please, shoot me now).

The location, which I’m very familiar with, didn’t used to have a real focal point that identifies it to a viewer (unlike the other 3rd-level institution in the city) but not too long ago a new area was constructed and it is a definite identifier, but unfortunately, it’s too big. There’s still no way of using the whole area as a backdrop, so I just chose to use part of it as the weather was good (OK, it wasn’t raining, that’s counts as good here).

No, I wasn’t laying on the ground to get the image, he’s on an elevated area, which brought into play a rather unique piece of equipment (this is the techie bit) a WTL.

As you may or may not have realised by now, shooting with on-camera flash is a no no for me 99% of the time. In this case I was using a Ranger Quadra rather than a Canon flash, which fits nicely onto a lightweight stand, but the stand was never going to be high enough to get above my subject. That’s where I sometimes have to use a WTL, which come in all shapes and sizes. A WTL is a Walking Talking Lightstand, sometimes referred to as a human being. “Would you mind lifting this thing up and pointing it towards that gentleman? A little higher. Perfect, thanks a mill.”

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Shot the launch pics for a charity cycle a while back. It’s always a bit of brain-strain trying to think up something different for those. We’ve all seen the “people looking through the wheel shot”, I’ve done it myself, so I thought up something different this time:

Expect to see a rake of copies of that idea appearing in local media over the next few months.

Big-ups to Cork Hurling & Gaelic Football dual-player Eoin Cadogan for generously giving up his time to help out (and go along with a few mad ideas); and to Audrey & Katharine for helping out.

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Shot the launch pics for the Midleton Food Festival recently at the local Farmer’s Market.

Always trying to think up something different. Just sayin’.

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Recently shot the launch images for the Carrigtwohill Medieval Festival & Country Fair which takes place next week-end, the 3rd & 4th July.

The event takes place in the surroundings of the historic 15th century Barryscourt Castle just off the main Cork to Midleton road with Medieval jousting, falconry, WW2 battle re-enactments, archers, dancers, FOOD (lots of food) including pig on a spit, and lots of other things going on.

This is falcon handler & trainer Vincent Cashman who will be giving falconry demonstrations, photographed with a Lanner Falcon.

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Not the Pelican Brief which was a movie, and it’s not called the Pelican Run, it’s called the Cheetah Run. (This post follows on from a recent one about last year’s run entitled Runners in the Park).

It’s a road-race through Fota Wildlife Park, but I wasn’t going into the Cheetah area to create an image, so I chose Pelicans instead, as they don’t have claws. Like the title of the movie though, I’ll be brief, so here it is:

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Had great fun last week at the launching of a couple of Currachs. A curragh is a traditionally built wooden framed Irish boat, usually covered in canvas nowadays although animal skins or hide were used in the past.

When I say launch, I mean literally:

That was the smaller of the two, a Boyne Curragh, sometimes referred to as a Coracle. They are paddled from the front with an action I can only describe as similar to stirring a giant pot of paint:

The larger Owey Island Curragh was a bit heavier so had a slightly more sedate launch. The moment of truth as it entered the water:

The boats were built by students at the Crawford College of Art & Design under the guidance of the good folks at Meitheal Mara and in particular Pádraig Ó Duinnín. Meitheal Mara (ma-hal ma-ra) translates roughly as Workers of the Sea, and is an organisation that build boats in the traditional way and also trains people to do the same.

Will it might have made an interesting image if one or the other had sunk on it’s maiden voyage, I’m glad to report neither did:

The only danger in sinking would have been from filling up with the incessant rain that we had that day.

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Fota Wildlife Park to be exact.

I’ve a busy day with four shoots and the last one will be to cover the Cheetah Run, a 4 mile road-race through the park, so here’s a couple of images from last year’s event.

Now any dope can photograph a mass-start, or a race finish, but it takes a special kind of dope to think up something different. Fortunate then that I was available:

Or as one of the newspapers that used this image titled it:

Caution: zebra crossing

TTFN