News stories and photo assignments...
07-03-08 HM Queen visits Swansea
16-02-08 Katie Price book signing - Swansea
30-01-08 RIP Shaun Bowen
12-01-08 - Peter Hain speech
07-03-08 HM Queen visits Swansea
HM the Queen visited Swansea on 07-03-08 to open the new Swansea Leisure Centre (now called LC) 31 years after she last visited Swansea in 1977 to open the the original version, after arriving at Swansea via the Royal train and visiting the Centre she visited the Brangwyn hall at guildhall Swansea for a Royal Lunch..
Guildhall Swansea
Security was tight with police in uniform and in plain clothes everywhere in Swansea with police camera vans recording the number plates of all the cars that enter and leave Swansea via the main access routes, for the preceding week
The Queen had a heavy police escort, via a convoy of high powered motorbikes
The crowds would have been far larger -
but the Queen was early, she was due at 11:55 but arrived at 11:26 - 3 minutes
after I arrived – (no pressure then!!)
When leaving I met a bus full of people who had taken the time to welcome the
Queen to Swansea only to find that they had missed her – they were not too
happy…
The Queen arriving...
Meeting the Mayor of Swansea (Mair Gibbs)
The Queen takes time out of her busy schedule to meet and greet a young
......... Goat
Who was a big crowd pleaser with the a member of the Royal Welsh, who was immaculately turned out and took the time and trouble to speak to and and pose for photos with anyone who asked, and even shared a Joke with some of the crowd, whilst maintaining a strict military posture. A fantastic ambassador of the Welsh armed forces...
Councillor Chris Holley, The current leader of the council (on the left) and Chef executive of Swansea county council (Paul Smith - on the right) - were in attendance at the lunch with the Queen at the Guildhall Swansea
The children of Swansea were keen to see the Queen, but were disappointed that the Queen did have the time to meet and greet them before she had lunch,
They even brought her flowers....
At 82 the queen looks very good for her age, I must say
16-02-08 Katie Price book signing - Swansea
Katie Price, formally known as the model Jordan visited WHSmiths in Swansea at the weekend to sign copies of her latest book "Pushed to the Limit"
Miss Gibbs was first in the long line to meet Katie and had been queuing since 7:30 and was still waiting at 11:25 when this photo was taken
She was happy to pass the time reading a copy of the book with her three friends
Whilst outside the two queues got longer
and longer...
Katie arrived at 12:08 - not at 11:30 as planned (Swansea traffic??)
everyone was happy to see her, after their long wait
The place was packed
And on with the signing
Well she must be happy...
I took these on the way to work today (quickly); I was taken back by just how
many flowers there were and how quickly they had all appeared, and how pointless
this death was….
"A Swansea dad leaped from his car and dived into the freezing waters of the River Tawe in a heroic bid to save the life of a drowning man. Nathan Oakshaw plunged into the dark waters in a desperate bid to rescue 20-year-old Shaun Bowen." - text taken from www.thisissouthwales.co.uk
I had a new photography experience at the weekend that I would like to share
with you all
I was on my way to visit Margam park to take some photos of wildlife, as it was
a nice sunny day and on my way I passed Peter Hain’s house (at about 12:15 – 10
minutes from my house) and I saw that there were some people there from the
press and also TV (BBC/ITN and a sky live broadcast team).
I decided to stop and to take a few photos, (with the 300mm I was planning to
use on the wildlife) but I started to have a chat with one of the togs there –
who I think was working for the Daily mirror.
I found out a contact number of an agent from him who would try to sell any photos I took to some of the other newspapers – the other tog there assumed that I was just working for another newspaper as I seemed to have the right gear (canon series 1 and L glass), so nobody questioned whether I should be there or not – I doubt this would have worked if I had a 350d + kit lens. I quickly realised I was in with a good opportunity to get some good shots that I could sell to the national newspapers as the togs that were there at that time were doing exclusives for the papers they represented.
Peter Hain’s wife (I believe) was organising the media coverage and she invited us all into the grounds of the house and explained that Peter would come out at 1pm and not before as he was still drafting the speech he was going to read to us but she said he would not take any questions after the speech.
We all positioned ourselves, with the (very professional IMHO) sky anchor
woman doing regular live updates for sky news. Meanwhile in addition to light
changing and getting a lot darker – more photographers were arriving
We were then told that the speech would not be till 2:30 – so I popped home
and got some more gear to ensure that I would not miss a shot, and returned with
two camera bodies 2 flashes and two zooms together with lots of spare batteries.
Well 2:30pm became 3pm and this then became 3:29pm, at which time he came out
and made a short speech, by 3:32pm he had gone – I had taken just over 80 shots
of his speech in the bag – I left – went home and by 4:05pm I had
selected/captioned and edited and emailed my first ever press photo for the
national papers. Did they use any of the 9 photos I sent them in that adrenalin
filled hour of speed editing/compressing/captioning? – at the time of writing it
seems that the Sunday papers did not use my shots – but I guess some for the
daily’s could still use them on Monday – well maybe nextime…
