Cider County

Cider County
Originally uploaded by Nostromoo

So anyone who follows cricket, particularly Somerset, ought to recognise a couple of these faces. Of course it's Andy Caddick, who also played for England, and local lad Keith Parsons. Both really big names in the region. I thought I'd share the story of how I cam to take this photograph.

It all started long ago. Well perhaps not that long. As regular readers of the blog may know (if such people exist), I occasionally have images printed in the local paper, the Somerset County Gazette. Generally they are in the leisure section, although I'd had a front page before.

One of my more recent pictures was used without attribution. Now I realise that attribution isn't worth a dime, but frankly it's all I get. I don't get paid by the Gazette, and I seldom get paid by the person I am promoting (either the band or the venue) so to lose the attribution as well is too much. And my mom likes it that I can get in the paper and she can read my name.

So because I was rather annoyed I wrote and complained, and sure enough with my next image my name was printed. And to show my appreciation I wrote to the journalist who "wrote" the story that went along with my image to thank her. (Yes someone else gets credited for the words I write too because presumably they edit them to fit the space available and sometimes they add a paragraph to publicise future events.) And thus we've had a little dialogue going now. And in fact I just send my stories and pictures direct to her now anyway.

On my last submission, I included a line, something like "I'm available for freelance commissions, I don't only do bands." A few days later I had an email out of the blue from a P.R. agency in London. They asked if I was available that Friday for a freelance commission as they had received my details from the Gazette and they needed a photog at short notice.

COOL!

So of course I accepted. The story unfolded that Blackthorn Cider (Gaymers) were planting a tree at the County Ground as part of the redevelopment at the stand. As sponsors of Somerset CCC, they had a little plaque with the tree and they wanted a PR shot of the orchard manager with a couple of the cricketers they could use.

I was really thrilled to be asked to do this shoot, and I had a lot of fun doing it, despite the fact it was actually raining very slightly. In fact I submitted my final images just today and uploaded a zip file they could download there and then from my website. TIFF files come out somewhere in the region of 250MB so I'm offering to supply them on CD if they need or want them, the JPEGs were only 30MB so it's much easier to download.

For the record I supplied a contact sheet of the 19 'best images' within 3 hours of the shoot. I then supplied at request quarter resolution copy (i.e. somewhere like 1600 pixels long edge, with a faint watermark) for their further review, and submitted full resolution images (including hdr processed versions - to tone down the sky from the solid white overcast) less than 24 hours after their final selection. I think that was pretty good service myself.

I hope they are please with the results. The Gazette man visited the shoot and took a couple of images quickly. The one they printed in the paper was very nice, and he didn't lie, like Arthur Dent, in the mud (as I did). I kind of which that I took that image myself, but I am still happy with the ones I did take. I think it's a good start and certainly stretches my comfort zone for photography and honestly makes me want more.