Today was the day where I got to visit the Evening Standard picture desk and see how they work. Over the course of the day I met the picture editor, had the ins and outs of picture sourcing, editing and placement explained and got to go out with one of the photographers on a couple of shoots. Being the digital age all photos come in in digital form and the picture desk have to sift through thousands of photos a day that come through from all the different picture agencies. They had received over four thousand by 9:30am. News items also come in and the Editor and his team need to plan ahead for the days paper as well as looking ahead to the next day as well.
Around 10:30am I went out with Alex, one of the Standards photographers and also one of the judges of the London Eye photography competition. We had two shoots lined up, the first a photo-call involving current it girl Peaches Geldof and the second the launching of the Royal Park Foundations range of deckchairs.
The mobile phone company Orange are having Peaches make video diaries at this years Glastonbury Festival and the photo-call involved Peaches standing in front or an Orange branded tent while holding an Orange branded umbrella and wearing Orange branded boots. We arrived to find a group of paps (paparazzi photographers) already in place and waiting. Being famous and young Peaches herself was quite late, not to mention surly and looking rather put out. She was in position for all of five minutes before heading off having had enough. We moved off and the photos were downloaded, basic edits done and then they were sent to the photo desk over the Internet – a process that took all of fifteen minutes.
Peaches Geldof at her photo-call
Pictures uploaded we headed off to Regents Park to find the chairs. The Royal Park Foundation was putting on some lessons for a number of Foundation girls which involved them being taught how to hold themselves in the correct position and also how to sit in and then extract themselves from the chairs correctly. Alex quickly took charge and had just one of the girls (Ellie) walking around and posing with the chairs. You can read more about the chairs and the 25 designers at the Deckchair Dreams website.
Designer Deckchairs at Regents Park
Ellie from the Royal Parks Foundation with the deckchairs
While sitting in the car and uploading the latest set of photos Alex got a call for a new shot. The Lord of the Rings Musical has opened in the West End and the Standard had received a tip off that the theatre was using generators on the street to get enough power for the show. The report said that polluting fumes could be seen discolouring the theatre and a shot was required to go with the story. Off we went through busy London streets and we parked up opposite the theatre to get some shots. There wasn’t really a lot to see and ten foot high hoardings surrounded the generators but we got a few shots.
Polluting generators at the Drury Lane Theatre
Last job done we got a drink and wandered around Covent Garden for a while. Then it was a phone call back to the picture desk and I was free to go. The original plan had been for one of my Peaches shots to be used in the free evening paper but because of the delays the photos reached the desk 10 minutes too late. There will probably be something going up on the This is London website tonight or tomorrow so I;ll put a link up when I get it.
That was the day, interesting and a learning experience.
