awards Archives - Tim Gander, Photographer, Bristol

March 22, 2016 by Tim Gander

Proud to be shortlisted

It’s rare for me to enter photographic competitions; for a start there aren’t that many I feel qualified to enter, and when you strip out the ones with dodgy terms and conditions this narrows down the options even further.

But last year I decided to enter the British Life Photography Awards, a competition which celebrates British life in its many, varied forms. The photos don’t even have to have been taken in the year of the competition, which is some help to me, though most of my catalogue wouldn’t fit the criteria of the competition.

I entered a small selection of photos including my portrait of Donald at the local tyre fitter’s shop and a few from my Standerwick series which studied the life and work of the farmers, traders and auctioneers (as well as the animals) at Frome livestock market.

Donald of H&B Tyres in Frome, Somerset, UK, looks to camera with a cup of tea in his hand and car exhaust pipes ranged behind him. He's wearing a blue polo shirt and braces.

Donald at H&B Tyres

A herdsman opens the auction ring door for a heffer and calf to pass through after bidding is complete. The herdsman has the look of a stoic butler on his face.

Standerwick livestock auction

Out of the set I submitted, one did get shortlisted, though sadly it didn’t make the cut for the final rounds. But still, it’s been many years since I entered any competition at all and I was pleased to even get shortlisted.

The BLPA competition itself isn’t free to enter, but the fees are reasonable and the T&Cs don’t grab complete control of the entries, so I very much hope to be entering again this year. I’ll also be on the lookout for other competitions with similar aims of simply recognising good photography because it can be a great way to give myself more motivation to take pictures of the subjects which interest me, push me to be more technical and “pure” in my approach and hopefully will give me something to crow about when I win!

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March 28, 2014April 14, 2014 by Tim Gander

Case Study: The Awards Event Photography

Innovator of the Year glass panel in the main hall, Horticultural Halls, London as delegates gather

This shot was created by firing a remote flash behind the glass panel to highlight the event title and add light to the delegates as they started to gather

Last Thursday I was in London covering the Fostering Innovation awards event for Biotechnology and Biosciences Research Council (BBSRC), an annual event which recognises those whose research is truly innovative and which will have real impact on society. It’s probably explained better here.

My challenge in covering this event is that every year it’s held in a different venue. This year it was the Royal Horticultural Halls, a very splendid setting, but the lighting was definitely on the lower side of low. This is often the case with large venues, and while some photographers make a big deal of working solely with natural light, they would have come spectacularly un-stuck in this situation.

Whenever I cover an event which involves a stage, a podium and a mixture of general shots and individuals either with their exhibits or receiving awards, if natural light isn’t abundant and of a good enough quality, I get to working out how to use flash without destroying all of the ambience or style of the event.

For this venue I decided to set one flash to cover the stage with a view to making it look as if there were a powerful stage light on the speaker (the light set by the AV guys was too weak and too strongly coloured for still images, even if it looked great from an audience point of view) , and the rest I shot with a hand-held flash held a little way away from the camera and using my favourite technique for softening the light to keep it as flattering as possible – direct, camera-top flash is unremittingly harsh and tends not to cover the subject as reliably as I like.

Keynote speaker addresses the Fostering Innovation Awards 2014 audience at Royal Horticultural Halls, London

Setting up a remote flash to cover the stage meant I could illuminate the speaker while audience heads finish the frame nicely

Portrait of Innovator of the Year 2014 Luke Alphey of The Pirbright Institute with his award trophy

Innovator of the Year Luke Alphey of The Pirbright Institute whose work investigates the genetic control of pests, including the dengue fever-carrying mosquito

The other difficulty of the low light was that sometimes this made it tricky to focus on subjects, but using fast, professional lenses certainly helps with this. It often strikes me that as camera technology has developed, I often find myself taking pictures in scenarios I might once have written off as impossible a decade or more ago.

But that’s what keeps this job interesting; giving the client creative coverage of their event in spite of all the challenges. I enjoy problem solving with each new event, venue and lighting challenge this presents. In fact I’m hoping next year’s awards ceremony is held in the darkest cavern imaginable just so I can really test my mettle*

*Please ignore that last statement, BBSRC, I didn’t mean it!

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November 19, 2013March 10, 2014 by Tim Gander

Yes, you herd…

Sometimes my job can be quite mucky, and one recent commission was especially so.

I was booked to shoot portraits of a couple of Somerset farmers who were nominated for a national dairy award. The forecast for the next day was dull but dry. The thing is, when I woke up it was dull alright, but it was lashing with rain. The weather and the roads were so filthy that on my way to the first farm my windscreen wipers were shifting muddy spray as well as the rain, but I was on a deadline so couldn’t reschedule.

The brief was to get a selection of shots of each farmer, perhaps at the gate, but certainly with some evidence of their herd behind them. In both cases, because of the time of year and especially because of the weather, this meant the herds would be in sheds. Probably not the best of photographic situations because of the low light inside, made worse by the low light generally.

However, despite the weather, my subjects getting rained on and the animals all being fairly dark colours in dim lighting, I was pleased with the results. It wasn’t easy, but it was helped by the good nature of the farmers and I’d like to thank Alan Creed of Withial Farm near Shepton Mallet and Philip Cotterrell of Warren Farm near Wells for their help and patience when they probably had better things to do. It’s fair to say though, I had some laundry to do when I got home.

Dairy farmer Alan Creed poses in his cow shed with cows visible behind

Alan Creed was very patient with me as I had to wait for a cow to pop her head into just the right spot for the shot to work

Somerset dairy farmer Philip Cotterrell smiles as he is sniffed by one of his cows

Philip Cotterrell is clearly liked by his animals

Dairy farmer Philip Cotterrell smiles at the farm gate as he's surrounded by cows

Despite being soaked with rain, Philip is still smiling in what turned out to be my favourite shot of the day

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November 6, 2012March 10, 2014 by Tim Gander

TIGA Feats

Last week I was at the annual TIGA Games Industry Awards to photograph the gathered great and good and the award winners in particular.

TIGA is the non-profit trade association which represents the digital games industry in the UK, and this year’s awards were presented at The Assembly Rooms in Bath, a historic venue contrasting with the relatively new art of game design.

I’ve covered a few events at the Assembly Rooms over the years, and though it’s a lovely building it’s always quite tricky to deal with the very low-level, yellow lighting in the Great Octagon (see this post on a similar recent challenge), where delegates gather for drinks prior to being seated in the main ballroom which, depending on what the lighting guys have set up, will be a whole new challenge.

Normally I’ll use on-camera flash of some sort for the drinks reception, and then portable studio lights directed at the stage to cover the dais and awards presentations up on the stage, but this time I decided to use available light for the drinks bit, and hand-held flash for the awards as I had to be super-quick for the presentations. The client didn’t want the photography to hold up proceeedings. There were a lot of awards being presented, and I needed to be nimble to get a shot from each one – the studio lights can slow me down as they don’t always charge back up fast enough to be ready for the next photo.

In between covering the flavour of the evening and the awards on the stage, I was also nipping backstage to send images out from my laptop in order that social media coverage could have pictures live on the night.

A pretty long night and tiring too, but great fun and an interesting insight into the gaming industry. I’ll be back at The Assembly Rooms before the month is out to cover the Regen SW Green Energy Awards. I can’t wait to see what the lighting engineers do this time…

In the meantime, here’s a small selection of images from the night: