Jemima’s Blog | London

I was out yesterday taking loads of photos for a mini project that I’m doing. Have you ever seen those fake miniature tilt and shift photos? There’s a big craze for them at the moment, and I don’t want to feel left out. The only problems is that it’s going to take me a little while to get it right, but I hope that by the end of today I’ll have managed to create one successfully, and so I’ll post it up when I do.

In the meantime, here’s a pretty skyline (reminds me to get the dust off my sensor):

I was out with my camera yesterday trying to catch some of the daylight, and was cheered (on such a miserable day) to see whole beds full to the brim with all sorts of coloured flowers. I take my hat off to the groundsman of Princes Street Gardens. It’s a shame that the gates were locked so that I couldn’t get inside.

I liked the colour of this guys coat:

I think that would make a good title for a children’s book. I’ll add that to my to do list, but for now I just took some pics. All with my new 80-200mm lens. They were taken out of my bedroom window without a tripod.

I’m amazed at how much detail can be seen on the moon even without a special lens. I should have used a tripod though – next time!

This week I took on work experience in press photography for the Edinburgh Evening News. A great little paper that has two editions a day, and do nice local news with some national stuff splashed in for good measure.

Having never taken photos for a news publication before, its been a steep but thoroughly enjoyable learning curve. I’ve been refreshed to be out doing new things every day, and meeting so many great photographers in the process. The joy of the work is that you’re always on the move, adapting to developing situations, or simply chatting nicely away to whoever’s portrait you’ve been sent out to capture. I’ve learnt a little new lingo: ‘GV’ is a general view, usually of a street, shop, statue etc that is being discussed in a report. ‘Spot news’ I think is photos you’re capturing of news the moment it happens – i.e being sent out with the Police for a Saturday night in town. ‘Vox Pops’ are when you go out onto the street with a reporter to canvas a response to a simple question like, ‘do you think Scottish folk are friendlier than English folk’ (example thanks to Dan), and you get a little head shot of everyone that answers – I’ve seen these so many times.

Below are some of the photos that I’ve taken out on the job with staff photographers. So many thanks to all of them, a great relaxed, talented, and cheerful team to work with!

A demonstration against the closure of several community crèche facilities’

The announcement of Ann Street in Stockbridge as being one of Scotland’s ‘Golden Postodes’

This is just a photo of a cat:

A dance teacher frustrated that the venue for her next show has been cancelled at the last minute for no good reason

The head of ‘Visit Scotland’ being interviewed for a feature on the new targets to increase tourism in Scotland (That’s Fife in the background)

The winner of the latest Big Brother with some members of ‘Young Edinburgh’ to present the results of a large research project into the opinions of young people.

A man who is going to be bringing his ‘Emotional Freedom Therapy’ to troubled children from local schools. (It involves lots of tapping on particular spots in your body whilst reciting a phrase about a physical or mental niggle that you can’t let go of – he tried it out on me rather unexpectedly)

Edmund John Edwardes Jones, a superb photographer from the Evening News, see www.ejej.co.uk

…and the man we were waiting to see, Larry Kingston a footballer for Hearts’

The barmaid from the Caledonian Ale Pub which is being knocked down on Saturday to make way for the new tramline

A statue of a sailor that has lain vandalised for years and has just been granted funding for renovation

There shall be just a few more to add tomorrow after my last day with the paper.
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I took so many shots this year during August’s HMS that it’s taken me this long just to get through them. I’ve decided only to post up landscape shots as I want to integrate the other ones into a video podcast for Amplifico – if and when I get round to it.

If I learnt one thing from taking these photographs, its that great landscape photography is a lot harder than it looks. It’s not the sort of thing that can be accomplished in the half an hour between putting the tent up and heading up to the pub for a drink. Great landscape photographers might spend days going back to the same place to wait for the right light, and even then might not walk away with the perfect shot that they’d imagined. I think that a lot of it relies upon luck too, being in the right place at the right time.

Out of this bunch, I’m most pleased with the photos I took in Skye of and around the decaying castle atop the hill overlooking the town with the bridge in the distance. The weather wasn’t fabulous, but the view with the low lying cloud was pretty dramatic, whether or not I caught the atmosphere right or not is different question.