Lee Durant
Archive for the ‘Editorial’ Category
A Day in Rome
Tuesday, November 8th, 2011
My wife Sara and I spent our Anniversary weekend in Rome, and for the first time in a few holidays I took my D3 along for the ride and took a few pictures for a day. We visited the Colosseum and the Vatican City and here are a selection of the best ones. (I have been having a play around with some filters in Lightroom here so for those of you that may complain that they have been photoshopped…. Well they have, and I make no apologies for this as they are my holiday snaps after all!)
Men dressed as Roman Soldiers litter the outside of the Colosseum posing for photographs with tourists for money. Some of their costumes are pretty good and wouldn't look bad on a film set
St Peters Bascilica is the highlight of the Vatican City tour for most and you cant help but be both surprised and impressed by the sheer scale of the opulence inside the church
Every square inch of the Church roof is stunning, This shot was taken handheld with my 24-70mm 2.8 lens, unfortunately I didn't take anything wider with me so you cant see the whole roof in its complete glory
The Vatican City has miles of museums to walk around and admire. According to the narration from our tour guide it all belongs to the Pope!
Candid moments near the entrance to St Peters where tourists wander amongst more serious church goers
The Vatican museum's corridors and rooms are lavishly decorated with painting's and sculptures
I have no doubt that even non-Catholics can appreciate this place, if only for the sheer scale of its impressive architecture
The Trevi Fountain
There you go, one day’s photography in Rome… Well, the best ones anyway.
Tags: City, Editorial, Europe, Foreign, news, Travel
Posted in Editorial | 3 Comments »
President Obama – A State Visit
Thursday, May 26th, 2011
On Tuesday this week I decided to take a trip to Downing Street to cover the arrival of Barack Obama to number 10. The American President was on an official state visit to the UK. He and his wife, the first lady Michelle were staying at Buckingham Palace as guests of the Queen for three days and during their time here the President was to come to Downing Street on two occasions and I was determined to be there for at least one of them.
I arrived well before most of the other press, but as the morning rolled into the afternoon preparations were being made for the big moment. The Prime Minister and his wife would meet the President and First Lady in the street in front of the waiting Press Pack. The red carpet was laid down and the door was cleaned. Security was obviously tight with a lock down due 2 hours before the Presidents motorcade was due in through the black Iron gates.
Heightened security was evident all around the visit, on the roof of the foreign office police snipers were keeping a watchful eye on proceedings
The waiting press kept themselves busy, setting up their remotely controlled cameras in front of the barriers, or moving their ladders into position so that we could all get a clean shot of the front door
Anjem Choudary and around 150 or so British Muslims staged a protest outside Downing Street demonstrating their views on the visit of the President and that Barack Obama was one of many Western Leaders and Politicians that are wanted under Sharia Law for crimes against Muslims
Barack Obama’s convoy rocked up as expected and the Camerons came out to meet them. The presidential car (of which there were two) was huge and had armoured plating that made the doors look about 8 inches thick. The two couples met by the car and made their way to the step for the Photographs before retreating inside for no longer than about 20 minutes. The Prime Minister and President then left in “The Beast’ for an official engagement and a game of “Wiff-Waff” at a local London school.
It was quite a difficult event to photograph many ways, and although all of the events are unfolding right in front of your eyes it is hard to get a good sequence of shots that have enough variety to tell the story of the day. You are in one static position at the very top of your step ladder throughout, surrounded by other snappers all in competition with each other and you don’t have a lot of time to react if things were to go wrong with your gear.
Through my shots one thing I wanted to get was a clean picture of the President on his own and I just about managed it with this one
All in all, not a bad days work. This was only the third ever state visit by a US president to the United Kingdom and I find it’s a real privilege to have the opportunity to photograph historical events such as these.
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New Look Website
Friday, February 4th, 2011
For those who are occasional visitors to my site (I might even have a few regulars somewhere), you will have seen a lot of changes to the look of it over the past few weeks… I have gone through so many ideas and so many different designs I’m cracking myself up. I have finally decided that this is the one to shout about and therefore the grand unveiling happens now (via RSS).
Knowing me I’ll probably change it again next week, but I suppose it keeps things fresh and new… I like this one though so maybe I’ll keep it a while!
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Winter portraits
Thursday, December 30th, 2010
The Buckinghamshire town of Chesham saw some of the coldest winter temperatures on record during the recent cold weather spell here in the UK. One day the temperature reached its lowest at minus 19 degrees celsius. I was tasked by the Daily Mail to go to the town late in the afternoon to collect some Voxpops with Sam from INS News. The following are a couple of these portraits taken of some of the townsfolk.
Chesham resident Janet Lynch (59).
Pictured are the Muncie family, mum Nicola (38) dad Ken (45) his son harry (5) with neice Sophia Bowe (5) walking through the town centre.
Brian Rayfield (65) with his two grandchildren.
Tags: news, Portraits, Weather, Winter
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Student anarchy on the streets of London
Monday, December 13th, 2010
Last Thursday I found myself amongst the chaos in the heart of Westminster as the student protest march turned from a peaceful one into one of violence and anarchy. The coalition government decided, by a narrow majority, to vote for an increase in the maximum threshold universities can charge for tuition fees from £3,000 to £9,000. The result means that some students may complete their education with at least £27,000 of debt hanging over their heads.
Police in Riot gear arrest two student protestors who helped un-saddle one of the mounted officers during the violence.
The moment the police rider was pulled from his horse.
Even before the vote was passed in the House of Commons violence had broken out around Parliament Green as students were guided into a barricaded area to make their stand. A portion of the crowd seemed focused on causing trouble from the start, donning masks to hide their identity and goading the police into confrontation.
There were some great shots published the day after in the papers, and its so easy to see what you’ve missed from an event like that, but it is all about being in the right place at the right time and beating everyone every other photographer to the pages of the papers….
The barriers that were set in place to prevent the students from violence were picked up and thrown against the Police lines.
As the darkness closed in the voilence increased with masked groups trying to single out officers and trying to provike the police.
Several officers were injured through the day.
Tags: Demonstration, Riots
Posted in Editorial | 1 Comment »
On Assignment – The Popes Visit
Monday, September 20th, 2010
I have just completed a week of filming for Reuters TV. I was not a part of the Pool camera crews but a team of Producers and Cameramen that were tasked with filming everything that happened around the televised visit. Tasks included GV’s, voxpops, interviews and the filming of any demonstrations that happened at each of the four main locations. With an emphasis on being on hand in case anything dramatic happened during the 4 day Papal Visit. (more…)
Tags: Editorial, Events, london, news, reuters, tv, Video
Posted in Editorial, Video | 2 Comments »
On Assignment – Catherine Casey’s Shed
Thursday, August 19th, 2010
The brief for this shoot for the Daily Mail was simply, travel to a location near Farnham in Hampshire and photograph Catherine Casey and her shed on wheels. The only instructions further was to have her smiling with the usual head, mid and full length shots…. Other than that it was up to me to be creative. (more…)
Tags: Editorial, news, Photography, Portraits
Posted in Editorial | 1 Comment »
On Assignment – Vintage Goodwood
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
I was commissioned by the Daily Mail to cover the Vintage Goodwood festival event at the weekend, and as promised to so many people I took pictures of, here are some of my favourites for all to see.
The Vintage festival at Goodwood celebrates five decades of British Cool. The three day music and arts festival aims to be the country’s biggest celebration of all things great about Britain’s vintage past. (more…)
Posted in Editorial | 2 Comments »
