I have been doing freelance work for Right To Play for nearly a year now and have done quiet a few events for them, it has always been a pleasure to work for them and so far I have always been pleased with what I have been able to take. The next event I will be doing for them is their annual football tournament which is held at Chelsea Football Clubs ground. This was the first job I ever did for Right To Play and things have come a long way since then, I am looking forward to it and I will post up some of the photos from the day here.

I also wanted to say that I have a lot more photos from the day that Right To Play did not publish. So if anyone wants any of the photos from the day and wants me to look and see if I can find some more for them, feel free to get in touch with me and I will be more than happy to help out.

Here is a few photos from Friday which I liked:

What does this mean for us?

As photographers we are constantly in a fight to retain the ownership of our images especially with huge social media sites like Facebook and Flickr actually removing metadata from photographs! This really emphasises just how important it is, more than ever before, to have your photographs correctly copyrighted with all of the metadata embedded in the image, as well as using a watermark. Already apps like Marksta are around so you can take precautions when you upload photos from your phone.

This bill is just giving the huge companies potentially more power to go and basically steal photographs and use them for whatever they want without crediting the owner, let alone paying them a penny!  Even though the bill has received Royal Assent the proposed copyright changes have not yet been approved by the government, however if it does get approved then all sorts of ridiculous copyright laws could be passed as all MP’s have the power to do is to vote yes or no, they cannot make changes to the bills. Basically all of this is completely ridiculous!

What to do now?

Now is the chance to make a stand, as a photographer I have already signed this e-petition and I think everyone who works in the creative should do the same because it is not just photographs that could be stolen, graphics and artwork can just the same. Here is the link to sign the petition: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/49422

And if you would like more information and in more detail about the new copyright laws check out this blog post on PetaPixel.

Check it out! 

On another note, I do have a whole load of new 35mm film scans to add to the website and as soon as I have a working mac again I will get them up for everyone to look at. And on that note I am really getting back into my analogue photography, and I am enjoying the entire process, shooting, developing and then making my own prints. So there will be a lot more 35mm photographs to come soon…

Chad Dropping In

Chad Light Trails

To take these photographs I set the camera to shoot with rear curtain synchronization. This way the flash would only go off just before the shutter closed. I shot with a long exposure to get these nice long light trails created by the LED’s that my brother was wearing. I positioned the flash so that it was just out of the frame and so it could stop the action at the end of the drop in.

I would also like to just say how amazing Chad was in constructing this entire drop in with a tiny jump to a rail feature (not photographed). It was all built out of wood and PVC so that we did not need any snow! It was an awesome set up and now that it is snowing in the UK we can use it as an actual drop in with snow.

So as you can imagine I am so stoked! And I am really happy to see that some snowboarding photography can be published and win competitions that would not have even thought about snowboarding before!

Thanks National Geographic!

Have a look at the competition HERE.