There are two key point to note in this assignment. One is the importance of careful planning and preparation. The second is that you should treat this as a 'live' professional assignment, not an exercise. Plan to shoot the event in a marketable way. It won't be enough to be merely competent, you'll need to bring your own individual way of seeing and photographing to the portfolio.
You'll also need to take a business-like approach to marking which means:
- identifying which publication might be interested in seeing your work
- understanding the potential client's needs
- preparing the material in an appropriate way, well edited, captioned and processed with support short synopsis that 'sells' the story
- ensuring efficient and timely delivery.
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Synopsis
Lyme Regis held a ‘Food Rocks Food Festival’
over the weekend of September 6th – 8th and as part of
that weekend there was be an
attempt at a new UK record for the largest number of guitarists to play a song
simultaneously. As
there was no British record for this event it was predicted that it would need
at least 2000 people to take part, as there were records abroad which were near
that number.
The event would take
place on the Lyme Regis town beach, as it was the only place large enough to hold
the 2000+ participants and the event would be split into two parts. Registration would take place in The Shelters
Pavilion on Marine Parade between 10.00 am and 4.00 pm. Everyone taking part had to be on the beach
at 4.00 pm when there would be a practice run through. The main event was timed to start at 5.00 pm.
Registration session during the day would be the main record of how many people
would take part. All money raised by the cost of registration, charge for a
certificate and wristband would go to three cancer charities. The well-known guitar maker, Fender, had
agreed to sponsor the event and had donated two expensive guitars as raffle
prizes.
It had been decided to feature a simple song for everyone to play.
“Rave On”, written by Sonny West, Bill
Tilghman and Norman Petty, which Buddy Holly recorded with his band The
Crickets in 1958. The song itself only
required 3 chords (G, C and D) and it was felt that new players would be able
to learn these fairly quickly.
The organisers invited West End star
Billy Geraghty to lead the band. Billy was the first British actor to play
Buddy Holly in the mega-hit musical Buddy, and, as September 7th was Buddy
Holly’s birthday, it was appropriate for Billy to lead a Buddy big band on the
day. Further entertainment was planned around the main event.
On the day everything went according to plan with 2,267 people
registering and taking part in the record attempt which was deemed a big
success.
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Choosing an Event
I researched local on-line websites to find
a one-day event that would be newsworthy and worth making an effort to
cover. The two main websites for Lyme
Regis are:
http://www.lymeregis.org/whats_on/events or
From these two websites I was able to see
that there would be a weekend of cooking events over the weekend of September 6th
– 8th and as part of that weekend there would be an attempt to
create a world record of the number of people playing guitars in one
place. As there was no British record
for this subject it was envisaged that it would need at least 2000 people, as
there were records abroad, which were near that number. I obtained the information on date, venue,
time, etc, from the local organiser who name was available through their
website: http://www.guitarsonthebeach.co.uk/
and an email contact address.
The event would take place on the local town
beach, as it was the only place large enough to hold the 2000+ participants and
would be split into two main sections.
Registration would take place in a building above the beach between
10.00 am and 4.00 pm. Everyone taking
part had to be on the beach at 4.00 pm when a practice run through would take
place. The main part of the whole thing
was timed to be at 5.00 pm. The registration session in the day would be the
main record of how many people would take part. Monies raised by the cost of
registration, charge for a certificate and wristband would go to three cancer
charities. The well-known guitar maker,
Fender, had agreed to sponsor the event and had even donated two expensive
guitars as raffle prizes.
It has been
decided to feature a simple song for everyone to play, “Rave On”, written by Sonny West, Bill Tilghman and Norman Petty, which was first
recorded by Sonny West and released February 1958. Buddy Holly subsequently recorded the song
with his band The Crickets in 1958. The
song itself only required 3 chords (G, C and D http://www.e-chords.com/chords/buddy-holly/rave-on ) to be played and it was felt that new players would be
able to learn these fairly quickly.
The organisers thought
it was appropriate to invite West End star Billy
Geraghty to lead the band. Billy was the first British actor to play Buddy
Holly in the mega-hit musical Buddy, and, as September 7th is Buddy
Holly’s birthday, it was appropriate to have Billy leading a Buddy big band on
the day. He would lead a local band on a
sound stage at the head of the beach.
Further entertainment was planned around the main event. All in all it would be a big event to cover,
although only on a small area of beach, and this might prove difficult to get
around during the actual performance.
I thought through how to get the best
coverage and decided to feature a local man who already played the guitar and
who wanted to take part. He was also
working with two friends who had expressed their interest in being part of the
event. They first each had to buy a
guitar as neither had ever played before.
Thinking through the event I put together a timescale of what needed to
be covered and when. It turned out that
the local TV news programme also wanted to cover the event and did a live feed
from the town beach the evening of September 6th. Local guitar players were called together by
phone or social networking media Facebook to gather on the beach at 6.15 pm to
be part of a backing group for the live spot.
In the event about 25-30 players – young and old, heeded the call and
turned up on a very windy beach.
Planning
|
Date
|
Time
|
Event
|
Place
|
Lighting
|
|
31 August
|
Mid afternoon
|
Initial discussion with Glenn
Ford
|
Glenn’s back garden
|
|
|
|
16.00 – 16.30
|
Take photographs of Glenn
playing his guitar
|
Back garden
|
Natural light
|
|
|
20.00 – 20.30
|
Photograph Glenn and friends
(Linzi and Danny) learning to play guitar chords
|
Mermaid House, Linzi and
Danny’s house
|
Flash light
|
|
30th August – 6th September
|
|
Approach various publications
as to viability of event pictures/report
|
Local and national press and
internet
|
|
|
6th September
|
1800-1900
|
Live TV
|
North Pier, Lyme Regis Harbour
|
Fill in flash
|
|
7th September
|
1000-1600
|
Registration
|
Shelters Pavilion, Marine
Parade
|
Fill in flash
|
|
|
1500-1600
|
Live entertainment
|
Main beach
|
Natural
light
|
|
|
1600-1700
|
Practice run through
|
Town beach
|
Fill
in flash
|
|
|
1700-1715
|
Record attempt
|
Town beach
|
Fill
in flash
|
|
|
1715-1800
|
Live entertainment
|
Main beach
|
Natural
light
|
|
8th
September
|
|
Prepare images and write up
for submission to various outlets
|
Local and national press and
internet
|
|
|
9-10th
September
|
|
Submit material to agreed
outlets
|
|
|
I have always enjoyed taking people’s portraits whether by natural light or in a studio and felt I could do a good job in the various scenarios that presented themselves during the record attempt.
The
actual event
The first photo
session with Glenn was one that was ad-hoc. When I went round to discuss taking photos of
Glenn’s friends on the 31st, he offered to sit for me there and
then. Without much preparation I brought
my equipment into his garden, where he’d been sitting, organised the space and
went ahead.
The garden was quite pretty but
needed clearing of domestic debris but the main consideration was the
light. The light was coming in strongly
over a garden wall leaving half the garden in deep shadow and half bathed in
strong light. This would be quite a difficult
situation and, even with a modern camera and complex metering, it would be
difficult to get an even and balanced image.
I asked if he was free later in the afternoon, it was about 3.30 pm
then, but he and his family had other plans for later. It was now or never.
I took several shots in the lower
part of the garden where he could sit in the shadows which seemed to work. Then I moved to a higher part of a walled
garden where the sun was shining and there were no heavy shadows. This light was exceptionally strong so I had
to adjust the pictures I took in post processing.
Later that evening I went with Glenn
to the Mermaid House where his two friends lived. They watched and listened to what Glenn said
and I took pictures as they sat and stood around their main room. I found it that we had used sheet music in
the garden and then switched to an iPad, with Danny, to find the words and
chords in the evening; talk about contrasting situations. There were some good, strong set ups and I
was pleased with the session. I tried
various fill in flash settings so as not to overwhelm the images, as it was
quite dark in their fairly large room.
When I later checked the pictures I was pleased that two or three would
be useable.
TV Live Stream
During the day of
Friday, the 6th, I read on Facebook for a call for musicians to
gather on the beach at 6.15 pm to take part in a live broadcast for the BBC
local TV programme Spotlight. They would
be doing a live interview with the man who was organising the whole event. They also wanted a background-backing group
to accompany the whole item. As it was,
the broadcast went ahead and between 25-30 people of all ages turned up; even
the mayor with her guitar was there. I
took quite a few pictures using fill in flash as the evening light quickly
faded. It was good to be able to get
some background images even though there were several other photographers there
who keep getting in the way taking pictures on their smart phones. The session ended at 6.55 pm when the guitarists
played Rave On as the programme finished.
Registration day
Saturday, the 7th,
started out with brilliant, bright sunshine.
The area, where the registrations would take place, faces south so would
be in continual bright light as long as the sun shone. This was okay as my camera could meter for
that and I used a light fill in flash when anyone had their backs to the sun.
The Pavilion where people signed on
was another matter as it had big picture windows which allowed the sun to
stream in but had dark areas in between.
Again, I had to resort to fill in flash to get some decent
pictures. Registration took place all
day and I took pictures of groups and single players coming and going for over
an hour until my featured group appeared.
Practice run
Everyone had been
told to be on the beach at 4.00 pm so that there could be a practice run of the
chords and the song itself. What hadn’t
been foreseen was that there were a large number of ‘extras’, family members and
friends, on the beach area as well. This
meant it was hard to move around and get into position for a range of different
shots. Once on the beach you were more
or less hemmed in to one particular area.
Even the slope leading on/off the beach was clogged with people.
There had been a local group
entertaining the audience from 3.30 pm until the rehearsal began, then Billy
Geraghty (see earlier explanation as to who he was) came on to the stage and
the rehearsal began and so did the rain!
Consequently, with the BBC TV cameras running (and THEY didn’t want to
get their equipment wet, at 4.45 pm it was decided to go for the record there
and then. With no thought to people who
were still coming on to the beach (which meant that no everyone who had signed
on during the day was on the beach at that time) the song was played and a
record declared as achieved.
Record attempt
By that time it
was totally impossible to move around on the beach. I had thought through several areas to take
pictures but it was impossible to get to anywhere other than where I stood with
Glenn, Linzi and Danny. All pictures had
to be taken in the rain so I had to be aware of my equipment, unfortunately I
didn’t have a magic plastic bag in my camera bag (perhaps next time I’ll remember
to store on away just in case.
Once the ‘record’ was in the bag the raffle for the Fender guitar
was drawn and luckily the winner was on the beach. She was hoisted onto the stage and presented
with her prize, much to her delight.
As the event was deemed over and the
record attempt successful, and it was still raining hard, many people attempted
to leave the beach to make their way home, as did I. Half way along the beach road I heard someone
calling to come back as the record attempt would be run again at 5.00 pm. It was impossible to turn round and go back
as the crowd who had left the beach was all heading in one direction. Five minutes later you could hear the song
being played again but whether it was a true record I’ll never know.
I took some interesting pictures of
people with their guitars, families playing together and the final shot of
everyone holding up their instruments in the rain in tribute to Buddy Holly.
Conclusion
I found the whole
event very challenging as I hadn’t really been able to imagine all those people
on the beach and surrounding areas and how they would make moving around the
area impossible. It’s not as if I don’t
know the area but there were so many people just everywhere it became almost a
nightmare.
Planning what
areas to cover over the run-up to the attempt and what pictures to take in each
one gave me a lot to think about. It was
especially challenging when I was faced with an impromptu evening shoot on a
cold, windy beach with the tide coming in and other photographers determined to
hog the best shot with their phone cameras.
That required not just tact and diplomacy but blunt ‘could you move please as there are others
taking pictures’.
I’ve really got a lot of
satisfaction from the whole event and, I feel, that I took some strong images
which would be very acceptable if presented to features editors of local
publications. It’s also made me think
more about being prepared for any eventuality, i.e. the weather and crowds
which can make picture taking difficult and, sometimes, nigh impossible to get
the shots you want.
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