My 2011 in Pictures

Another year is up! And what a year it has been. I have graduated from Uni, started work at SWNS and face planted outside Crown Court on more than one occasion.

The pictures below are just a little snapshot of the work I have done this year. Cant wait to be doing even more next year! Happy new year everyone!

Memorial Unveiling in Plymouth

Two young boys remove the Union Jack from a memorial in Plymouth. Their father’s name is one of the many on the memorial.

Bristol Balloon Fiesta

Hundreds of balloons take to the skies of Bristol as part of the famous International Balloon Fiesta.

Worlds Largest Blood Transplant Centre

This was one of my favorite stories to cover this year. Mostly because it was all organised by myself. I made the contacts, arranged the shoot, got the facts and (luckily after all the work!) it made in a few papers. The centre handles 11,500 blood donations every week (850,000 donations a year), making it the largest processing centre on earth.

Bog Snorkelling

Only in Wales… The fantastic sport of Bog Snorkelling! Aside from the rain, it was a great event to cover, some real characters there and many photo ops! Think it may be time to have a go myself next year.

Royal Wootton Bassett

When I saw the story that Wootton Bassett was officially becoming Royal Wootton Bassett, and that we had too many other commissions on to cover it I thought I would pop along myself (was my weekend off, but hey, thought I would get some different shots to if I had been working). Top tip, dont let anyone know you are going to a job on your day off! I ended up being put on commission for a couple of papers - suddenly having to get all the shots that the other photographers were getting as well! But it was worth it. The picture below of a girl with a flag and hat ended up making front of the Telegraph – not too shabby for a day off!

Glastonbury 

Although I was not covering the festival from the ground, i had the great opportunity of doing aerials of the site. Its only from the air that you really appreciate the size of the festival. Thousands and thousands of tents, all packed within centimeters of each other.

Save the Children 

This was another of my favorite jobs of the year. No flash, no complicated set ups. Just one body and a couple of prime lenses. The job was to photograph a family in Wales that were living in fuel poverty. They had to choose between putting the heating on or eating. The little boy below suffers badly from asthma, and the cold rooms can trigger a fatal attack. The pictures needed to be quite gritty and natural, portraying the hardship of the family. The images will be used as part of the Save the Children campaign.

Summer Solstice

Summer solstice was a great event. Hundreds of people surrounding the mythical stones as the sun started to rise. Of course, this being England, the cloud completely blocked the sun, meaning there was a bit of confusion as to when the sun had actually risen. Ironically my favorite picture of it below was not the one that made. The most successful picture was one of two drunken men throwing punches at each other!

Merry Christmas 

One of the only families in the UK to have a white Christmas…as they have a snow machine.

Graduation

Okay, so not in any way a news picture…but the end of full time education! Happy new year everyone – heres to a picture filled 2012.

Ken Scott – Wootton Bassett

Happy Friday everyone! Thought I would celebrate this momentous weekly occasion with a blog post.

This week, the small town of Wootton Bassett had a final ceremony to thank the people for their services over the past four years and bless the flag before it was moved to the new location near Brize Norton. It signalled the end of an era for the small Wiltshire market town, which has seen the coffins of 345 service personnel pass through the town and thousands of people line its main street to pay their respects.

Below: People line the streets for the repatriation of Lieutenant Daniel Clack, 24.

One man who has played, in my opinion, a vital part over the four years is 95 year old Ken Scott. Ken has been to all but a few repatriations that have passed through the town. With the only reason he missed some being that he caught pneumonia whilst attending one in the cold and rain.

Messages left by families and friends at the memorial would usually fall victim to the elements. Blown and washed away, never to be seen again. But this is not the case here. After a few days, Ken comes to collect the messages and stores them all in a album, to make sure they are never destroyed or forgotten. It was a pleasure spending some time with Ken – a really inspiring man. Here are a few pics:

Above: Ken as a young soldier.

Below: Ken tends to the flowers at the memorial every morning.

Images © David Hedges/SWNS

Bog Snorkelling

Last weekend I got to experience a very British sport. Just outside the very rural town of Llanwrtyd Wells, the smallest town in Britain, are two man made trenches, each about 55m long. Contestants from all over the UK and even from outside the UK flock to Wales to swim the trenches, wearing a snorkel, flippers and either a wetsuit or, for the more brave amongst them, fancy dress. Those in fancy dress are spared the two lengths, only having to complete one – but all come out exhausted and smelling…boggy. Anyway, here are a few images from the day. P.S. Fantastic drive over there! Amazing views. Although, on the way back i somehow managed to drive on to an active rally stage – only realising when I had a Subaru Impreza come speeding up behind me…whoops!

A brave man on his stag weekend decided against a wetsuit, and went for the obvious choice (although im not sure how much choice was involved) of a mankini.

Above: Everyone who competes gets a medal…well deserved in my opinion!

Below: The winner, Andrew, who is from Halifax, managed to get through the murky depths in just over 1 min, 24 seconds.

Images © David Hedges/SWNS

The not-so-wise Owl

Every now and again you get given quite a random feature to shoot. An owl that had eaten a sock was one of them. The owl, called Lydon, had somehow managed to swallow the entire sock and had to undergo surgery in order for it to be removed.

The weather was good, so I decided to shoot most of it against the blue sky, lighting the subjects from both sides with 580exII speedlites through brollies. This gave it quite a punchy look, with a lots of colour.

They (i’ve never really known who ‘they’ are) do always say never work with animals, but Lydon the owl was actually quite cooperative. Only attempting to fly away once.

A good shoot overall, and more good practice for my features lighting

Images © David Hedges/SWNS

Glastonbury Aerials

With Glasto starting properly tonight, I thought I would post some aerial shots of the site I took on Thursday. Also, on a side note, this is my first post in ages and a lot has changed since the last one. I am now working as a staff photographer for SWNS, and loving it!

This was my first real shoot from a helicopter, so I was nervous. Not so much because of the heights etc, but because I really needed to get the shots. At £1000 an hour, the chopper isn’t cheap! Here are some of the resulting pics from me leaning out of the open door with a variety of lenses. 16-35, 70-200, 300 and 500

 

 

All in all, a great experience. And definitely a less muddy one!

Eden Project Aerial Acrobatics

Last week saw me drive down to Cornwall’s Eden project to get some shots of an aerial acrobatics show put on for the 10th anniversary of the project. It was a truly miserable day weather wise, luckily we were photographing inside the Mediterranean dome – so we got some cover from the rain, and the lenses didn’t steam up too badly. The nice people at Eden had set up some lights on the performers, so the lighting was not as bad as I thought it was going to be either!

Here are a few shots from the day:

 

 

 

 

 

Nick Clegg Visits Newton Abbot

Friday saw me heading up to Newton Abbot to photograph Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on a visit to the South West. The first port of call was the council offices, after parking up and unloading some gear, I headed to reception and was told to wait for the press officer to come down. Although I was not on the list, he said it was possible to get put on it. Fab! There was a BBC camera crew and one other photographer at this location, a fantastic building called Old Forde House. We all waited outside for Clegg to arrive, testing out camera settings on each other. The weather was nice, but kind of annoying. The sun kept going in and out of the clouds, so one minute there would be a nice diffused light coming through the clouds, and the next minute the sun would break through, casting horrible shadows over everything and make everyone squint. Luckily, as the convoy of vehicles pulled up, the the sun wasn’t too bad, and Clegg had his back to it, so with a bit of fill flash, it just about worked.

After getting a few shots inside the house, I had to rush over to the next location, a nursery where the “Making Amends Project” is based. Nick Clegg was going to meet the staff and people involved and have a few interviews for TV. 10 mins or so after I arrived, the convoy of cars pulled up once more. Clegg walked across a very muddy track to get to us…walking boots were a good move on my part.

From here, I just snapped away quite happily. I had time to get quite a few portraits during the TV interviews. Cows were being herded in the field next to use and made SO much noise…along with the farmers shouting at each other trying to get the cows to move…made for an interesting interview im sure! One of the shots I got was of Clegg framed by the hands of a cameraman (doing a clapperboard motion to get the video and audio in sync). But the way it came out looked as if he (Clegg) was being framed…or kind of patted on the head. I almost didn’t upload it…but thought…it is often the more amusing pictures of politicians that make the papers…so I went ahead and filed it. My office for the day was in the middle of a farm in my car… strangely I actually had better internet signal there than in Plymouth most of the time!

Amazingly, it made page 2 of the Saturday Telegraph the next day!

A few more of the pictures from the day can be seen below. All in all, it was a great experience and something to add to my portfolio…as they will be the first pictures of a politician in there!

Another slightly amusing facial expression…