Duncan Grove FRPS Photography Blog

New kit! Two Nikon new D4 and one new D800E bodies!!! The ultimate combination.

Duncan — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 19:44:28 +0000

April 2012. Nikon have just launched two very different flagship cameras and true to his strategy of always using Nikon’s latest and greatest (let’s face it, his images do need all the help they can get!), Duncan has invested. His two new Nikon D4 bodies represent the ultimate sports pro camera, 16 Mp with a staggering shooting rate and an incredible ability to capture images in low-light conditions without the resultant “noise” prevalent in images from most other cameras - they can shoot in the dark! Being a member of Nikon Professional Services, Duncan received his first D4 from the initial batch to arrive in the UK in March 2012 and his second arrived shortly afterwards.

In April 2012 he took delivery from the first batch of ground breaking Nikon D800E models. Whilst it shares some features with the D4, the D800E has an industry-leading 36Mp sensor that delivers unbelievable detail and represents the ultimate landscape and studio DSLR. The pairing of these three flagship Nikon bodies provides Duncan with the ultimate tools to capture images, whatever the prevailing conditions or photographic objective. Coupled with his in-depth knowledge of what all the various buttons do, he is well placed to capture some stunning images if only he could work out in which order those pesky little buttons need to be pressed!

New kit! Nikon Nikkor 16mm f/2.8 fisheye.

Duncan — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 21:27:05 +0000

March 2012. In the past Nikon have several times kindly loaned Duncan a 16mm f/2.8 fisheye lens. It is not the sort of lens to be used everyday but is handy if you want to “try to make something of nothing”. Duncan used the loan lens to capture shots such as those below. Inevitably there was method in Nikon’s generous madness because Duncan has now decided that the lens desrbes a permanent place in his camera bag!

Oxford & Cambridge Universities Boat Race 2012.

Duncan — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 20:40:26 +0000

Click to see full size.

February 2012. For the third consecutive year Duncan will again be shooting the Oxford & Cambridge Universities Boat Race as an accredited photographer. He will start shooting practice outings during the preceding Tideway Week on Tue 3 April and on race day will be on a press launch immediately behind the Blue boats. The race starts at 14:15 on Saturday 7 April 2012. Images will be uploaded to Duncan’s site daily – you can view them and those from other years at:

http://www.duncangrove.com/oxford-and-cambridge-universities-boat-race .

New kit – Dell Precision M4600 laptop.

Duncan — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:19:00 +0000

January 2012. Duncan uses a laptop for all his photography processing, docking to dual 27″ monitors at both his office/studio and home. His laptop needs to be high-end in order to handle today’s increasingly large file sizes. He has just invested in the latest Dell Precision M4600 laptop, which is designed to cope with such tasks. The machine was built to Duncan’ specifications, which include: Intel Core I7-2960XM (2.70GHz, 8MB cache, Quad Core processor); 16Gb RAM, Dual hard drives (one Solid State for fast boot-up and responsiveness from programmes); NVIDIA Quadro 2000M with 2GB GDDR3 graphics card etc etc. The link at the top of this window will take you to Duncan’s full equipment list.

Seven of Duncan’s ROWE British Grand Prix squash images published by International Squash Magazine, including a double-page-spread.

Duncan — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 19:38:02 +0000

December 2011. For the second consecutive year Duncan was Official Photographer for the ROWE British Squash Grand Prix, the UK’s largest and most exciting squash tournament, which this year was held 19-25 September 2011 at The National Squash Centre in Manchester.

International Squash Magazine’s December 2011 edition features seven of Duncan’s images, including a double-page-spread of Champion Ramy Ashour diving for his shot. Although the magazine is a leading printed publication with a circulation is excess of 40,000, an on-line version can also be viewed FOC here.

All of Duncan’s squash images from the 2010 and 2011 ROWE British Grand Prix can be viewed here.

Duncan’s Wimbledon Tennis image licensed for use on the front cover of a book.

Duncan — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 21:16:36 +0000

November 2011. Duncan’s shot of Serena Williams on Wimbledon’s Centre Court displaying her trophy (having just become Wimbledon Ladies’Singles Champion 2010) has been licensed for use on the front cover of a book.

Duncan carries away three trophies at the opening of the KCC Exhibition 2011.

Duncan — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 21:14:53 +0000

November 2011. Although Duncan has consciously scaled-back his camera club activities of late, especially competition entries, he remains mindful of how his memberships have helped him to develop his photography and still supports his main club Malden, and second club Kingston. The latter opened their impressive annual Exhibition (held at Kingston Museum) on Friday 4 November 2011 and Duncan performed Official Photographer duties for the evening. He had to hand over his cameras to others though when he himself was presented with three trophies. These were for “Best Print of the Exhibition” (the second consecutive year that Duncan has won this, “Winner, Advanced Print League Competition 2011″ (the third consecutive year he has won this) and “Winner, Best Panel of Six Images”.

Duncan Grove FRPS being presented with his three trophies by Rosemary Wilman Hon FRPS, until recently President of The Royal Photographic Society.

stll supports his

Duncan’s review of Zenfolio’s new video hosting web service published in Photo Professional magazine.

Duncan — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 19:55:13 +0000

November 2011. UPDATED WITH A LINK DECEMBER 2011. HD SLR Movie maker is a free supplement distributed quarterly with Photo Professional magazine. Each edition has grown in size and importance as the divergence between still and moving images capable of being captured by DSLRs really takes off. Duncan’s article reviews Zenfolio’s latest upgrade, which quite extraordinarily delivers a unique new video hosting service at no extra charge. With kind permission form the magazine ou can download a .pdf copy of the article by clicking the image below. Better, buy Photo Professional from any of the larger WH Smith stores or on-line – it is a really good read!

Use Zenfolio Referral Code 8D1-PKN-B8F for 10% discount! See samples of Zenfolio-hosted videos here.

Duncan’s ROWE British Squash Grand Prix images now available to view and download.

Duncan — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 08:51:08 +0000

October 2011. Duncan has just spent a hectic but enjoyable week as Official Photographer at the ROWE British Squash Grand Prix, held at The National Squash Centre in Manchester, UK.

All of the world’s top men players were competing in the UK’s largest squash tournament and Ramy Ashour emerged as eventual champion. Galleries of every match played as well as collections of highlights can be seen here.

Duncan commissioned to shoot millions of pounds worth of impressionist paintings.

Duncan — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 13:08:14 +0000

September 2011. Duncan has just completed a commission to shoot millions of pounds worth of impressionist paintings for the prestigious Mayfair, London gallery Trinity House. The nine images he photographed included work by Childe Hassam, Gaston La Touche, Victoria Dubourg Fantin-Latour, and Henri Le Sidaner amongst others.

To see a gallery of all nine, please click the image below.

International Tennis Magazine publishes four of Duncan’s images.

Duncan — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 13:25:36 +0000

September 2011. With a circulation in excess of 60,000, International Tennis Magazine is the UK’s highest circulation publication of its type. Duncan shoots the Wimbledon Championships on their behalf and their parent company internationalSPORTgroup has for the past two years appointed Duncan as Official Photographer for the ROWE British Squash Grand Prix. (Takes place 19-26 September 2011 – see earlier post to order tickets).

September 2011′s edition of International Tennis Magazine features four of Duncan’s images, including a double page spread of the Men’s Champion Novac Djokovic. Duncan also supplied the inset image, another Djokovic trophy shot and one of the Bryan brothers. An electronic version of the magazine can be downloaded here.

New kit – Lastolite 90cm Hotrod Octa Softbox.

Duncan — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 13:01:19 +0000

September 2011. Duncan has been pleased with his earlier purchase of a Lastolite 54cm Ezbox softbox and has now complemented this with a Lastolite 90cm Hotrod Octa Softbox. Both of these products consisit of lighting stands and softboxes into which portable flash guns can be fitted. They provide a broad soft and highly portable light source and the octagonal shape of the Octa provides espcially attractive round catchlights, perfect for portraits.

Duncan operates the lights remotely using Pocket Wizard radio triggers, see separate post.

New Kit – PocketWizard Radio Triggers.

Duncan — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 12:46:46 +0000

Speptember 2011. Duncan has invested in two PocketWizard FlexTT5 receivers , a TT1 transmitter and an AC3 Zone Controller. This kit allows him to trigger remote flashes wirelessly, control flash output from the camera and still benefit from Nikon’s TTL metering system.

For his role as Official Photogrpaher at the recent ROWE British Squash Grand Prix he hired an extra two receivers and on several occasions used four flashes remotely with good effect. Whild the two extra units have now been returned they will be referred to in his forthcoming letter to Santa!

Duncan’s commissioned images published on cover and A3 pull-out by L’étudiant magazine.

Duncan — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:33:44 +0000

August 2011. Tunisia’s leading youth lifestyle magazine “L’étudiant” has been following with pride the progress of Tunisia’s Junior Girl tennis player Ons Jabeur. They describe her as “simple, sociable and determined” and as representing the hopes of Tunisian youth following the recent revolution. These characteristics led her to become Girls’ Champion at this year’s French Open and her compatriots are eagerly following her progress at other tournaments during the year. L’étudiant has just published a feature on Ons, which is illustrated with images they commissioned Duncan to take at Wimbledon 2011. These include the cover, an A3 pull-out and images accompanying the article itself. Duncan found Ons to be a very friendly and pleasant young lady who, along with her coach Luca Appino, was very helpful and cooperative. How did she do at Wimbledon? Let’s just say she was not as successful as she was in Paris but look out for her in years to come!

L'étudiant magazine July 2011 - cover

The World’s Top Eight Squash Players to compete in Manchester’s ROWE British Grand Prix 2011.

Duncan — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 10:48:13 +0000

August 2011. Duncan will have all the world’s major squash stars lined-up in his lenses next month when he acts as Official Event Photographer at Manchester’s ROWE British Grand Prix, since world’s top eight squash players have already confirmed their entries!

The ROWE British Grand Prix – Manchester 2011 is one of the year’s nine PSA World Series championships and will take place at the National Squash Centre in Manchester from 19-25 September.

With entries yet to close, a high-quality field is guaranteed for the biggest event to be staged in the UK in 2011 – led by England’s own world No1 Nick Matthew and defending champion Ramy Ashour, the world No2 from Egypt.

But these formidable players – Matthew is the reigning world champion and Ashour winner of the world title in Manchester in 2008 – will have their work cut out against competition provided by Egyptians Karim Darwish and Amr Shabana, the world No3 and No5, respectively; Englishmen James Willstrop and Peter Barker, ranked four and seven; plus French pair Gregory Gaultier and Thierry Lincou, both former world number ones currently ranked No6 and No8.

And the full draw will feature a number of exciting young players – all eager to make inroads into the elite top eight group after success on the National Squash Centre’s spectacular all-glass court.

The ROWE British Grand Prix, for the second year the biggest event to be held in England, will be the fourth PSA World Series event of the year, following the Australian Open in Canberra in August.

This is the second consecutive year that Duncan will have been Official Photographer at this event. For those that cannot visit personally he will be posting images daily at http://www.duncangrove.com/squash (last year’s galleries can also be seen here). Howver, with tickets costing from just £10.00, if you are anywhere near Manchester during 19-25 September it is well worth visiting and experincing the atmosphere for yourself! If you are a regular follower of this blog, do ask one of the organisers to find me and I shall be pleased to say “hello”!

Tickets for the ROWE British Grand Prix – Manchester 2011 can now be booked online at www.isportgroup.com/ticketing or by telephone on 0844 8797 949. For further information email: sales@isportgroup.com

For all the latest information, visit the official website:

http://www.britishsquashgrandprix.com/