An interesting new direction?

A new direction?

Before even starting to study photography at college and then later at university I’ve always held an interest in video, and more specifically news and documentary work but for a number of reasons including other opportunities, fate and not least the cost of running a pro video kit alongside my Nikon stills kit, it was not something I was able to actively pursue until about two years ago.

With the an eye on the shrinking newspaper market and the increasing convergence of technologies and delivery formats, in summer 2008 I made a moderate investment (by professional still or video equipment cost standards) in a Sony HVR-A1E HDV miniDV tape based camcorder (a video camera favoured by documentary and fly-on-the-wall type programme makers) together with the required ancillary equipment such as Sennheiser G2 radio mics and manfroto 701HDV video tripod etc. I'm watching with interest the work produced by video DSLR shooters like Dan Chung, Travis Fox, Khalid Mohtaseb, Christopher Morris and Edmond Terakopian amongst others but chose the Sony as at that point Nikon whose system I'm tied didn't offer the right product for me to go down the video DSLR route.

Since that time I’ve had a number of video commissions from The Sun newspaper for their website and importantly the kit has now just about paid for itself but my biggest and most important video story to date was the recent exclusive interviews I was privileged to be asked to film for The Sun with policeman PC David Rathband and his wife Kath. PC Rathband was the unarmed police officer blinded when callously shot twice a point blank range with a shotgun by Northumbrian gunman Raoul Moat.

I’d been working on the Raoul Moat story for The Sun in Newcastle and Rothbury in the week leading up to his feeble and cowardly stand off with armed police in the Northumbrian village, before meeting his end so fittingly next to a drain and I not only felt lucky at getting to work on this exclusive, ahead of many well known names in the media along with who I’d been chasing speeding police cars and armed cops in the surreal situation that had unfolded in the area around Rothbury in the hunt for Moat in that previous week but also felt honoured to get to meet such a courageous and inspiring man that is David Rathband.

Two of my interviews with David and Kath Rathband were also sold to Sky News by The Sun aswell as featuring on the newspaper's website and one ran for around 8 minutes as the top news story for a time on Wednesday 14^th July 2010.

My recent experience of shooting video has been a fulfilling one and it will be interesting to see what now follows, I'm learning more with each shoot and already researching new kit (come on Nikon where's the D700s / 5D mark II equivalent / beater?) and a Final Cut video editing / shooting course at The Frontline Club.

Here is one of the versions of that first interview as shown on Sky News.