MAGICAL MYSTERY TORCH...

July 20th, 2012, and the Olympic Torch relay leaves Maidstone for the Medway Towns, bright and early for 07.50hrs in Gillingham.

Logistically, I understand this all was a nightmare to sort out, with much of the final detail being confirmed only as the day was going on. The paper had committed itself to a magazine-style special, to be on sale on Saturday morning, which meant a 2.00pm deadline that afternoon for the last day in Kent. Which sounds OK until you understand that the photographers were often also having to taxi colleagues as they leapfrogged from area to area, before then getting down to taking more pictures.

My own brief, evolving throughout the week, was as follows: at 07.50hrs, the torch would begin it's formal relay from Canterbury Street, Gillingham and I would be strapped to the media bus, running ahead of the bearers, from here until the relay left the towns on Gravesend Road, Strood at 09.34hrs. Then I would be picked up (by varying people until that morning!), ferried into Gravesend where I would be in the crowd as it passed, then meet a reporter to head to Brands Hatch together. At Brands Hatch there would be a photocall involving a Paralympic cyclist and a representative from the British Superbike Championship, racing there over the weekend. This was timed for 11.16hrs.

Now, as you can see, I was a long way away from my car, which worried me on two counts; one, that I was in the hands of others for transport from Strood to Gravesend to Brands and then finally back to my car at Gillingham, and two, I would have to decide, well beforehand, what I was carrying with me, as I would have to carry it with me...

On Boley Hill, Rochester, and probably one of my favourite images from the day.
Check out her expression...  D3S, 24-70 f2.8 at 60mm'ish, 1/800th f5.6, ISO 320.

More after the break...


A ring-around to a couple of people who had been on the media bus earlier in the week and a former colleague, who'd done something similar in his time, settled up the gear and tactics in my head.

Initially I'd thought to take the 300mm lens, but as it evolved that I was expected to mingle in the crowd at Gravesend, carrying a laptop and all that paraphernalia too, I dropped the idea.

In the end I settled on: two D3S bodies, one with the 24-70 f2.8, one with the 70-200 f2.8 and the TC14E2 converter, which made it a 100 - 280mm f4 and gave me at least some reach. I wouldn't worry about flash on the media bus, but had to carry one for later on, so the smaller, lighter SB800 was chosen. The 50mm f1.4 and 16 - 35 f4 were left out, spare CF cards and cleaning cloths left in. There was also the threat of rain - thought it didn't materialise - so some sort of waterproofing was needed. I settled on a couple of plastic bags, but it meant I carried my raincoat, too.

I often use a ThinkTankPhoto StreetWalker HardDrive rucksack, so it was modified to take both bodies, the lenses, bits and bobs, and then my 13" MacBook, charger, card-reader and Vodafone 3G dongle were packed in.

This is a bit of a weight...

On the day itself, I was waiting with the crowd building up in Gillingham. Sadly, there was a flat overcast, so not much interesting light even if it simplified the exposure situation. I knew by now that timings were so tight that it would have to be JPEG all the way, not my usual JPEG to select and then edit from the raw. I'd been warned that the media bus could be a bit... bouncy... so I went with manual settings - of 1/1000 at f5.6 on the long lens - with Auto-ISO taking care of any exposure changes, overridden by exposure compensation if I spotted a need.

The bus is here, lets go..!

Canterbury Street, Gillingham, and the first torchbearer. 70mm of lens, 1/250th (we aren't moving yet), f5.6, ISO 200.

Climb aboard, get the first bearer and straight away realise there's a problem - although I've printed off the names of the Medway runners, I don't know the order in which they take the torch... and the LOCOG people on the bus don't seem certain, either. To me this seems a major gaffe. A local newspaper wants to know it's locals, the runners have all been allocated numbers and yet there's not even a piece of paper to hand to the snapper on the day which says "runner No.9 is xxx".  I suppose I should count myself grateful that it was just me and the LOCOG photographer through Medway, as it had been a little crowded (even though supposedly all-accreditation-only) earlier in the week in some parts of the county.

Spectators in Canterbury Street. I picked the seat on the outside of the bus, so I could have a chance of leaning out to get bystanders. This was the main use for the 24-70, and although I'm at 1/640th anyway, the panning practice I get at motorsport means that they're nice and sharp - for the usual newspaper face-count... 

Further down the road into Gillingham, I became aware of another few problems: the bus wasn't staying too close to the bearers, so sometimes even 280mm didn't give me the tight shots I wanted as well as the scenic wide views, and the headlights, on the Police bikes in particular, were causing erratic exposure...

Deb Puxty (one I do know now), and worth it for her expression. Not shot as tight as
I'd wish at the time - 112mm - but allows for the unexpected so I'm OK with it now.
BUT; it's had to be brightened by 3/4 stop, normally not good on a JPEG, as
the headlamp and blue beacons on the 'bike back right combine to fool the
camera meter. The frame after is better exposure-wise but not for the expression, and
there's no way to compensate for this sort of random event in time...

So here I went to purely manual exposure on the long lens body, and hoped I could find a nice neutral in a scene to adjust the aperture in time. The media bus' distance from the runners sometimes meant that the hand-over was a long way away, and again I'm not sure the LOCOG people - even with their own photographer aboard - kept a tight enough check on this. The LOCOG guy was equipped with a 300mm, too.

Mohamed "Danny" Dada (another I found out about) running past Medway Park sports complex in
Gillingham as confetti flies. I like this one, but we were too far ahead - this is cropped-in to the equivalent of nearly 400mm of lens on..!! Great expression again.

The sort of wide view I also wanted to capture, in Dock Road, Chatham. This is still on 100mm of lens, though.

Great reaction from a torchbearer hand-over, as these two did a little dance in Globe Lane, Chatham. It was good to see that so many people really seemed to enjoy the experience of the relay. Still at 122mm, I should point out, and with the camera going "brrrttt!" at 9 frames per second to get a sequence. I went with the one that shows both faces best (though I hate myself for giving in to that..  :-/ )

Jessica Cheesman, running with wristbands and hair in the supposedly forbidden colours of the charity "Help for Heroes". I don't think anybody was going to be churlish enough to stop her on the day. This one illustrates something that occurred to me on the route  and I began to take advantage of it.  The torch was always followed by that yellow car and coach, but at the sharper turns you might get lucky and have a better background, just the crowd as here, for a short while. Note, again, that this is at 270mm, almost as tight as I can get so we are way ahead of the bearer once more.
Vines Lane, Rochester.

More crowds, shot looking past the bus on the 24 - 70.  I confess to priming them a bit, leaning out and looking ahead and waving myself to get them going. *Ahem*. St Margaret's Street, Rochester.

There was a 15-minute crew "rest break" scheduled on Boley Hill by Rochester Castle, but the photographers didn't see much rest. We had to de-bus, so I set about getting a few more crowd pics, though I did see a couple of freelance colleagues who told me they were sending pics in, and a reporter wielding a camera too. It was here that I'd been told I could do some editing... Erm. No. I'd got nowhere to go, was concerned about firing up the laptop only to have to get going again and there was no way 3G would work with so many people around. I've seen the guys from the Nationals work with laptops perched on walls and such, but I hadn't even got that luxury. I'd also shot around 600 images already, so a card swap was more important.

Here's where I picked up probably my favourite image, as the relay
got going again after the break. Shot on the 24 -70, as I said. And then...

And now the day took a turn for the worse. Leon Neal tweeted from the Opening Ceremony on Friday 
"There's an often used saying photographers share ahead of the more important jobs: "I've f**ked up bigger jobs than this before...""  Whatever, as we drove away for the next leg across the Medway and into Strood, I realised with a slightly sick feeling that I'd got no autofocus on the long-lens combination... A very rapid swap of lenses confirmed that it wasn't the body, as the 70 - 200 +1.4 declined to work on the other D3S. I haven't manually focussed seriously in years - I've said before that AF technology is far better than I am at it now - but I'd got no choice. Ever tried manually focussing 280mm of lens in a moving vehicle, that actually likes to bounce up and down so that just framing up is difficult? I can't recommend it except as an exercise in frustration...

Though to my pleasant surprise, thanks to some swearing and persistence, I did manage to get at least one useable long lens shot of all the remaining torch bearers. They weren't all in perfect focus, but they were at least OK. Perhaps I'm not as crap at this as I thought...

Nathan Mitchell, 12, on Rochester Bridge over the Medway, and another wide view that I wanted to make sure I got.
Though, once again, this is on 165mm of lens, so the bus has pulled away in front too much. It's also manually focussed too, thanks to a problem and this image is actually just about spot on. Phew...

Another crowd shot, on London Road, Strood (I think. It was all beginning to blur together..). Good to get a nice reaction from bystanders.

And then we hit the end of the line, and debussed. I was picked up by fellow snapper Martin Apps (decided only an hour or so before - and he'd done the section through Strood from kerbside!) and we dashed into the east side of Gravesend. We only just got there before the torch, and I got nothing worth filing - as I suspected I might because it was just too tight - before meeting up with reporter Thom Morris. We crawled out of Gravesend because of the crowds, and I had to navigate him (bless!) up to Brands Hatch on the A20. We just got there and signed on in time, by about 10 minutes, I think, then the paralympic cyclist Craig Preece did his photocall with BSB rider Tommy Hill and bike team owner Derek Redman. 


This took a few extra minutes, as all "non-Olympic" branding had to be removed first. Derek's T-shirt was gaffer-taped, and Tommy wore his inside out...

From left, 'bike team owner Derek Redman, paralympian Craig Preece and BSB rider Tommy Hill. Tommy warming his hands and asking if there's any marshmallows about... 

 And then it's dash back to the Brands Hatch media centre, hurriedly sorting through the images I've shot - over 1000 by now - looking for just 15 or so from Medway and Brands Hatch. This to a background of increasingly concerned 'phone calls about the looming deadline. I knew it was too tight - I should have been given a ride straight here, with hindsight.

And sadly, in the end, there were no images from  the back of the bus in the supplement the next day.   I did manage to get 18 ready to go in good time but the data transmission speed from the Media Centre was as slow as a weak 3G signal, and so in the end I got told to send just the 4 selects from Brands. Even these I ended up having to file one at a time, as the FTP transfer kept stalling if I tried multiple images...

Not pressed by such a tight schedule, the regular Monday and Friday papers did make decent use of the bus images, fortunately.

There were actually jobs on the picture list in the afternoon (!!!) and I got to two out of the three when I got back to the car. Eventually, after three sweeps through what I'd got in Aperture, I filed 95 images for the paper by around 20.00hrs that evening. 

I'd actually hoped I might see some familiar faces in the crowd to get pictures of them, but apart from one former colleague, who saw me before I saw her, I just couldn't make out individuals well enough. A shame. I didn't try any slow-shutter stuff, as I thought I might at first, as with the long lens it was just too risky and too bouncy. "Next time" there might be something similar (hah!) I would definitely give it a go with the short lens combination at least. It was disappointing, too, that there weren't too many different shots available and that the bus was too far ahead at times. Next time I'd also insist that I'm not dropped onto the ground to do shots from the roadside, as then I can take the 300mm lens I'd first thought of using. The LOCOG photographer, able to stay with the bus, had one as his main lens. I'd also - possibly - go wider, taking the 16 - 35mm for better effect. 

I cleaned the contacts on the 70 - 200 lens and the 1.4x converter at Brands, and the 70 - 200 worked again straight away. I think it may be that the 1.4x - one of the few bits of company kit I still use - causes some interference and may have an intermittent fault, so I need to check this out on a long-term basis.

For all that I was pretty concerned about the schedule proposed before the day, I quite enjoyed that in the end!!!

PS. There is a truly horrendous picture of me, sitting on the back of the media bus, that I have decided will not be appearing here. Need to spare you that...