Category Archives: Pictures

Best Images of 2008

A Georgian man cries near the body of his relative after a bombardment  in Gori, 80 km (50 miles) from Tbilisi, August 9, 2008. A Russian warplane dropped a bomb on an apartment block in the Georgian town of Gori on Saturday, killing at least 5 people, a Reuters reporter said. The bomb hit the five-story building in Gori close to  Georgia’s embattled breakaway province of South Ossetia when Russian warplanes carried out a raid against military targets around the town.  REUTERS/Gleb Garanich  – © Reuters-Used with permission.

As the year comes to a close, here are a few links to the best images of the year. To say they are well worth a look, would be an understatement. There is some stunning work.

My personal favourite news image of 2008, because of its strength, emotion and respect is by Reuters photographer Gleb Garanich (above) from the war in South Ossetia. If any image is deserving of a Pulitzer and a World Press Photo award this year, its Gleb’s. Its part of a series, but this particular photograph captures the whole war in one frame. A stronger case for a stills picture having more power to convey emotion and the story than any other medium, I have not seen this year, or come to think of it, for a very long time.


Prints Now Available

My migration over to Photoshelter is now complete. Having said that, the archive will continue to grow!
All of my images on my Photoshelter site are available for purchase as prints. If you’re a lover of photography or in need of a unique gift, feel free to have a browse. I hope that you’ll find something to your taste!
If you know of anyone who may be interested in prints, please pass on the address:


Many thanks.

Photoshelter Slideshow

Great Reportage & Street Photography

Just wanted to share some excellent work with you. The first is the work of Hana Jakrlova who’s photography is new for me. However having just looked through her entire web site, I just had to share; its absolutely superb:



The second is the amazing street photography of Nils Jorgensen. I’ve known Nils for years and it was relatively recently that I discovered his personal work. He is truly a master at what he does:


Red Bull Air Race, London. Part 1

I spent Friday through to Sunday covering the Red Bull Air Race in London. Its an amazing site to see. These tiny little planes fly at around 220-230 mph around a course of air gates set along the River Thames just by the O2 (formerly known as the Millennium Dome).

I decided to go to the practice day on Friday to get a feel for the course and the way the planes flew. It was also a chance for me to practice and figure out the best settings to use. The way to photograph any aircraft with props is to make sure that there is blur on the rotating props so as to make it look like they are actually flying; otherwise you get a very fake looking image which looks like you’ve just stuck on the aircraft to the background.
Easier said than done though! These tiny planes are so small and so quick that my initial thought of using a 250th of a second shutter speed proved wrong. After a lot of experimenting I decided to settle for between 640th and 800th which was slow enough for prop blur, but fast enough to let me pan and get a sharp picture of the planes.
The other problem was the very quickly changing light levels and this turned out to be one of the rare occasions that I didn’t shoot on manual exposure. I set my Canon 1D MkIII bodies to TV (shutter priority), and dialled in around a plus stop on the exposure compensation.
My lens choices were the 16-35mm f2.8L MkII, 24-70mm f2.8L, 70-200mm f2.8L IS and a 300mm f2.8L IS, usually with a x1.4 converter attached.
A lot has been said about the 1D MkIII and its focusing issues. When the camera first came out, I did a review for the BJP and I wasn’t impressed by its focusing ability. However, since the hardware fix and the new firmware, the camera behaves like a totally new tool and at most I must have had a 5% out of focus rate (actually probably even less than that). I was very impressed by its performance and standing in almost constant rain on Sunday did nothing to hamper performance.
This was the first proper outing for my new Think Tank Photo “Skins” pouches and I must say I was very impressed with the way they worked.
The days were long, editing even longer (so many pictures!) and captioning longer still; it was a nightmare matching up the pictures to the pilots! A big thanks to Red Bull for having really useful press packs though, fast ethernet connections and most importantly an espresso machine in the press tent!

Red Bull Air Race, London. Part 2