Our Blog
Watching through the night for Abu Qatada
By SWNS photographer David Hedges
After returning from a weeks holiday, I was given the assignment of getting a picture of Abu Qatada being released from Long Lartin Prison in Worcestershire. I was one of a team of 6 SWNS photographers maintaining a 24 vigil to try and capture an image of the notorious Muslim cleric. On the first night the temperature dropped down into the minus figures in the Worcestershire countryside. I sat in my car opposite the entrance, keeping the engine running periodically and my camera set up for a car shot (F/8, 1/250, 1/4 power flash, prefocused to a metre) Every time a car looked as if it was leaving, I would jump out to see if it was the car we were after. Being on commission for nearly ever national paper, I was a bit jumpy. After a while, I got to know when guard shifts would change, and even what some of their cars looked like. This allowed me to cautiously eliminate some cars from my hunt. After a guard change in the late evening all went quiet, and the only cars on the road passed right by the prison, on to some unknown location. But this didn’t mean I could switch off – In fact, it would be more likely for Qatada to be released in the quiet hours, when the rest of the press had gone home. For the next two nights I waited patiently outside the prison, nursing a flask of coffee. Each night at midnight, another photographer would take over and do the “graveyard shift”.
On my third night outside, another SWNS photographer came to take over at midnight. Just as I joined the M5 to head back to Bristol, and my bed, I got a call from the photographer outside the prison. “Two AFP photographers have turned up and say Qatada is going to be released in the next few hours” A quick call to the picture desk saw me heading back to the prison. Better to have two photographers on such a big story, especially since the release seemed imminent. The hours passed outside the prison, the temperature dropping once again into the minus figures. As the sun began to rise there was still no sign of Qatada. As photographers and TV crew turned up to take over from us, the other SWNS photographer and I made our way home. I got some sleep, ready for another night outside the prison.
The mood outside the prison on the night of the 13th of February seemed different. There was an air of excitement, the feel of an imminent event. There was also a lot more media outside than there had been the previous nights. We discussed camera settings, tactics for getting the best picture. But naturally that can all go out of the window in a matter of seconds when the time comes to get the picture.
A prison van came screaming out of the entrance. “Was that him?!” “Can anyone confirm that” Some of the TV news channels started reporting that he had been released. But the photographers, myself included, were not convinced. Earlier, a small van had entered the loading bay of the prison, with several men and women in suits inside. “Thats our car”, we thought. Another nerve racking hour passed before the doors to the prison loading bay began to slowly reveal the waiting van. It was all systems go.
Flash on and set, I prefocused my 16-35 lens on my 5D2 and took up position by the exit. The event which some of the photographers had waited all week for lasted a matter of seconds. The van swung out of the exit, and flash bulbs illuminated the otherwise pitch black countryside. We had no idea where Qutada was sitting in the van, but as the flurry of flashes began, I caught a glimpse of him as he was briefly illuminated by a colleagues flash. Holding the shutter release down and getting as close as i could to the window I got as many frames as i could, without being run over, and that was it. The van sped off into the night. The next minute was unusually quiet, with photographers frantically checking their frames to see if they had got a usable photo. I flicked through mine, nearly passing over one I deemed as missing him, but I zoomed in and there he was. It was a heavy crop, but I had got him. I loaded the image up onto my laptop and tried to get the most detail out of the picture. It was touch and go, but only myself and one other photographer had a useable frame of him. I wired it across to the picture desk, where my picture editor was waiting to add a caption and send it out to the nationals. Saying our goodbyes, members of the media one by one began to leave the front of Long Lartin. For some, it was over a weeks worth of waiting for that 5 second gap. But it was worth it. The next morning my image of Quatada was used on the front of the Telegraph and the Sun.
£1million Cotswold wedding for Kate Moss and Jamie Hince
By Jon Rowley
After weeks of mystery surrounding the location of Kate Moss’ wedding the venue was only confirmed hours before the ceremony.
The village of Southrop near Lechlade was surrounded by road blocks with only residents with passes being allowed through with police officers backing up private security guards.
We were told by police that although the private security could not stop us from entering the village the police would arrest us for breach of the peace.
For much of the day press gathered at road blocks either end of the village.
I took up place on the road block to the east of Southrop where a police officer told me the wedding entourage would be passing through.
At around 16:40 the entourage with around ten cars including 5 classic Roll Royce passed by.
The press were not expecting any more than car shots of the wedding party but ten minutes later the head of the private security firm told us that a press area had been set up opposite the church and that we’d be able to get some shots of Kate and Jamie as they left.
The press area was full of international press vying for the best positions.
I’d arranged with my colleague, Adam Gerrard, that I’d shoot the wider shots and he’d do the close up shots on the 500mm lens.
I had my laptop set up and ready to go so we’d get our pictures off as soon as possible.
Kate and Jamie emerged from the church gates and posed up for the waiting press for about 3 minutes which was nice of them.
I got some really nice shots which I was able to file back to the picture desk before many other photographers had even left the press area.
The pictures were used widely in the national press as well as Hola and Hello magazine.
Kate and Wills Royal Wedding, 650 photographers, one Brad Wakefield
By Brad Wakefield
It’s 4am and I am sat on the floor of AFP photographer Carl Court’s flat in Camberwell, London.
I didn’t sleep much last night, I had been looking forward/thinking of this day for a long while now, it’s the 29th April, the Royal Wedding!
I have never ever covered anything like this before, in fact it was my first news job in London.
I pack all of my kit, deflate my airbed and drive to the nearest car park to Buckingham Palace.
I had been given a fixed point on the QVM (Queen Victoria Memorial) I was facing The Mall.
I arrived there at 6am greeted by many other photographers from various press agencies and newspapers.
I set a remote camera with 16-35mm on to a television stand, I had a 500mm on one camera and my 70-200 on the other.
The next few hours were spent waiting around, testing my cameras and watching the crowds.
The crowd roared with excitement when the car carrying Kate Middleton and her father drove past.
This was it, it had started, various Royals went past and before we knew it the ceremony had started.
After a good 40 mins they were married! In the far distance at the top of The Mall we started to see horses.
It quickly became clear that the newlywed couple were in a carriage in the center.
This wasn’t the easiest to photograph, with around 30 photographers all trying to get the same picture and dozens of horses getting in the way!
I waited until they were in clear view and took some photographs.
With some of the bigger press agencies having people to file for them I sent off 3 pictures, 2 tight and 1 wide as fast as I could.
The police brought the crowd down The Mall toward Buckingham Palace this was incredible to watch, it was very peaceful and executed perfectly.
It made for a great wide shot showing the thousands of people which was to make The Sun newspaper the next day.
There was a separate position for press wishing to photograph the balcony, we were not on this, but I was lucky enough and so were the other photographers around me to get an angle to shoot the balcony from either side of our position.
There was no way you could get both families in the shot but I could get William and Kate!
It was approaching 13.25pm the time when the couple were due on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, I picked my spot and waited there from 13.10pm. at around 13.20 they came out.
I took a few shots as they emerged, Kate had this huge look of disbelief on her face.
They were early! I was pirched on a little step hand holding 500mm lens.
They both went in for the kiss, I squeezed the button and took a sequence of photographs and thankfully the ones that mattered were sharp! Hooray!
After the flyby the couple went in and I went and sent a very tight edit of the kiss!
The day continued with people coming and going, I headed back to the car and unloaded all of my kit in to the car and started the drive home.
My pictures were published in The Sun, Sunday Times, Daily Express and The Sun online
Two minutes with the gorgeous Dita Von Tesse
By SWNS photographer Gareth Iwan Jones
After nearly three hours spent hanging around Bristol Museum, my colleague Adam Gasson and I were finally granted our two minutes with Burlesque performer Dita Von Teese who was performing later that evening.
We were taken behind the large black curtains keeping the performance stage hidden from prying eyes and told to set up in a particular position.
As I began putting up light stands and light modifiers a lady calling herself “Dita’s Personal Lackey” or something similar informed us that we were not allowed to use any flash photography and we litterally had “two minutes and no more”.
After a little arguing and pleading she allowed us one flash on top of the camera, we decided to push our luck and Adam came up on stage with me.
I asked him to point a Canon 580 II flashgun through a translucent umbrella for the duration of the shoot, which would give us a soft even coverage of light.
Luckily this didn’t attract to much attention and out came Dita Von Teese dressed head to toe in pink and sequins.
I went over to introduce myself at which point Dita told me in her husky sultry tones “this is the first time I’ve ever let anybody shoot me before a show” which definitely helped calm the nerves.
We agreed on a few poses that would incoporate her stage carrousel horse and exactly two minutes and twelve seconds later we were finished.
In those two and a bit minutes I made sure I shot super wide and super tight, Dita’s experience in front of the camera helped as she didn’t need much direction.
Given the constraints we had to work within I was pleased with the results, we came out with a set of six beautiful pictures.
The stage, props and costume all helped but pushing for my one voice activated lightstand (thanks Adam) really made the difference.
If you find yourself in a situation similar to this where you need to shoot very quickly without sacrificing light quality try and rope someone into holding and pointing a flash through an umbrella for you.
If you expose two stops under the ambient light and use your one flash diffused and just off centre axis to fill in rather than overpower you can achieve polished results with minimal fuss.
Story behind the picture – QE2 grounded in Southampton
by SWNS photographer Sam Furlong
I had never been to Southampton before, nor had I had a chance to take a trip down there during the planning of my mission.
Thanks to Google earth, the careful studying of ship AIS (a maritime GPS tracking system) and with the help of a friend I had managed to arrive in Calshot, just south of Southampton.
My mission was to photograph the QE2 arriving and then later in the evening, leaving her home port for the last time as she made her way to Dubai to become a floating (static) hotel.
After leaving home at 2am and driving 150 miles through the night I found myself standing on the shingle beach at Calshot in driving rain high winds.
From here I could see over to the Isle of Wight and in front of me was the mouth of the Solent, complete with a ship in the distance not really appearing to do much.
It was hard to make out the identity of the vessel in the dark, the QE2 was not supposed to arrive for another couple of hours but this was too big to be any old cruise liner.
A quick scan with the binoculars confirmed that this was indeed the ship I was looking for. I was trying to work out why she was so early, why she was sat there motionless off the Isle of Wight when she was so close to home.
That would have to wait, as a press photographer it is a case of ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ so I duly set about taking pictures.
It was quite a long shot over the water so a 500mm lens was necessary to fill the frame and a sturdy tripod owing to the fact it was about 5am in November and as such was pretty dark.
My first exposures at ISO 400 were around the 10 second mark shooting wide open at f4 and they looked alright but there were two problems.
The movement in the ship on the water was causing blur and also the high wind was catching the lens hood of the 500mm like a sail, making it impossible to keep the camera still enough for exposures of that length.
I ended up removing the lens hood and shielding the front element from the driving rain by holding my jacket up in front of it and shooting at ISO 1600 to achieve a more manageable 4 seconds shutter speed.
I had made a few decent pictures when out of nowhere a flotilla of tug boats appeared and lit up the ship with their spotlights.
My exposures lept to half a second as the light levels increased and my pictures were instantly transformed as the lights lit up the ship and the smoke from her chimney.
The tugs eventually dragged her away from the Isle of Wight and up the Solent towards her berth and I followed in the car to get some pictures as she was towed into port.
It was light now, getting on for 7:30 am and I heard the first radio news broadcasts of the morning telling how the QE2 had been stranded on the Brambles sandbank off the Isle of Wight on her last entry into Southampton.
It was a journey she had made hundreds of times before without incident and yet this time, the last time, she had to be pulled clear by tugs and limped into port on tow rather than under her own power.
It was only then that I realised what I have captured and I crossed my fingers that I was the only one.
As it was still early in the day by the time she was docked I retired to a cafe to get some WIFI and send in my pictures from that morning.
As I was sitting down I got a call from the picture desk: ‘Sam, we are getting reports that the QE2 has been stranded on sandbanks, I don’t suppose you saw anything did you?’
It is nice when you can reply ‘Yes, I got the whole thing and I think I was the only one.’
I hung around for the day and photographed the ships departure that evening but the grounding on the sandbanks that was the story that day and luckily it turned out that I was the only one to get it.
You can see Sam’s picture on the Daily Mail website here
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1084667/Firework-farewell-QE2-Historic-ship-sails-away-UK-final-time–runs-aground-sandbank-first.html