Over the next month or so we will be revising portions of the main website – so apologies in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.
It is our intent to place a greater focus on the website in general – we really haven’t been giving it the time and care it deserves. More information shortly.
While the prevailing severe weather hold (mainly in England, Scotland & Wales) we have made the decision to suspend event operations in these geographical areas.
Basically, events are likely to be cancelled and the law of the land requires that we look after those who work for us, or with us. So, for the month of January 2010 we are still taking bookings for the rest of the year, but we will not be putting any vehicles on the road before 1st February 2010 (England, Scotland, & Wales – Ireland under continual review). Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.
As Ireland has not been so severely hit by the weather our operations there will continue as normal – though please bear in mind the following:-
To all our customers, those who know us, and those we are yet to meet; we wish you a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year.
Notes:
On Boxing day 2009 the Greencastle 5 Mile Road Race celebrated its 24th year. It is estimated that over 800 individuals took part on the day – personally I’d believe it – the community centre was packed, and for the main race it was a few minutes before the last runner crossed the start line following the firing of the starters-gun.
Special Event Photography Ltd got the call to attend only 3-days before the event, yet given the time of year, the weather, etc.. we managed to pull a skeleton crew together and headed off to the snow covered Sperrin Hills near Omagh, Northern Ireland (where temperatures hovered between -2C and +0C with a little freezing fog, sleet and snow thrown in for good measure). We have just finished processing, and uploading some 400 images from the event into our Photo Gallery.
On the day there were 3 races – a walk, a wheelchair race, and the main running race. Despite the weather it was clear that everyone enjoyed the day. The races were followed by the award of prizes to the winners of the various races and categories. The end of event raffle was drawn by none other than the the great John Daly (who regardless of the pre-race rumor mill managed to keep his coat on and avoided actually taking part in any of the races) – the star prize was a weekend for two at the K-Club Golf & Spa Resort – 5 Star Hotel in Co. Kildare.
Next year (2010) sees the 25th anniversary of this event which welcomes participants from all over the UK and Ireland and occasionally further afield. Information on the 2010 event will appear of the event website in due course – this can be found at www.greencastle5.com (2009 Results)
One thing is for sure, the 2010, 35th anniversary event is more than likely going to be an even bigger event than 2009.
The benefiting charity for 2009 is the Ulster Cancer Foundation. This charity will also receive a proportion of our online sales arising from the event.
Congratulations to all involved – participants AND organisers.
If you are organising an event during 2010 please contact us – we can probably attend and offer our services FREE.
Isn’t that what they say? I don’t know about the ‘wicked’ label, but knackered would definitely cover it.
Boxing Day 2009.
A skeleton crew of just two answered a short notice call (3 days) to cover an outdoor sports event in Northern Ireland. The temperature must have been around freezing, the event was at some 600ft above sea-level, and with only a staff of two available at short notice in the midst of the festive season we soldiered on. These things happen and we do not mind answering and call for asistance short notice – though we cannot always guarantee to be avaiable.
Just for reference. The further ahead of your event that you book us, the better job we can do for you. A typical lead-in time is 4-8 weeks, some much longer.
We enjoy what we do, and lets face it… it got us away from turkey sandwiches for a day 
We would like to take this opportunity to say that we hope you all had an brilliant Christmas and to wish you a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year.
We are pleased to announce that each year we aim to help 2 specific charities in some manner – this can be by way of free photographic services, donations, or where possible actively promoting their cause. Each Summer we review our chosen charities and seek, over the years, to give everyone some degree of support.
Well we have chosen our first charity for the next 12-months. The Ireland Air Ambulance Service. A worthy cause to say the least. Why was it chosen? Someone mentioned in passing that the Air Ambulance service were holding an abseil and we realised that we hadn’t even got this service on our list – and one of the team is an ex-pilot! Enough said, we had to include them this time. In Ireland with the enormous number of country roads and isolated dwellings miles from a hospital etc.. it is vital that there is support for a service that can completely by-pass the road infrastructure and get needy patients to a hospital FAST.
We encourage everyone reading this blog entry to vist the Air Ambulance website to learn more. Indeed, we would suggest that if you are not based in N. Ireland that you seek out information on Air ambulance services in your geographical area – and if service is lacking that you and other like minded souls look into ways of establishing a service. The key thing here is that you never know when you, or someone you care about will need it.
Ireland Air Ambulance will be launching Ireland’s first ever dedicated Air Ambulance Service later this year. The service which reguires funding of approximately £1.6 million per annum, will operate 52 weeks of the year and will carry a specially trained trauma surgeon on board at all times. This will allow Ireland Air Ambulance to deliver life saving medial services at the scene of a potentially life threatening emergency.
Responding to emergency calls Ireland Air Ambulance will provide free air ambulance cover to 19 counties in Ireland, including Northern Ireland, Donegal, Dublin, Galway, Leitrim, Louth, Longford, Mayo, Meath, Monahan, Roscommon, Sligo, Westmeath as well as Rathlin Island and The Isle of Man.
The Charity is funded entirely by donations from the general public and members of the business community, the charity’s aim is to ensure Ireland is no longer the only region of Europe without any Air Ambulance, but they need your help.
If you would like further information please visit their website at www.irelandairambulance.org , or contact Ireland Air Ambulance directly on 0870 200 4050, or via e-mail to info@irelandairambulance.org
Safe journeys to all.
The Tall Ships have arrived safely in Belfast. Some 40 vessels of various ages and sizes are now docked alongside the Odyssey Complex in the Titanic Quarter of Belfast docks.
Some 500,000 people are expected to visit the ships (which are open to viewing each afternoon and evening) and to line the shores of Belfast Lough on Saturday afternoon as the group of ships form a spectacular convoy as they make sail down the lough. Each evening at around 9pm there is a scheduled fireworks display. Park & Ride facilities are available from various out-lying areas of Belfast.
Special Event Photography attended the opening evening of the event. Thousands of people were there. Many attempting to use their cameras in automatic mode to record the ships, fireworks, and more. Our advise is to switch your camera to manual mode and play around with the numbers and dials for a few minutes to get the image result you are looking for. If you meet any of our team at the ships – simply ask for advice.
We are please to announe that we have now acquired an enhancement to our abilities for on-site printing. To date our portable printing solutions have allowed us to print up to 8×6in; with our new arrival we can also produce 8×10in and A4 sized images all within 2 minutes of an order being placed at an event. We are very pleased with the quality of the images produced.
While we have been able to provide (and continue to do so) these larger sizes via our website based gallery and ordering system we have lacked this capability at an event – no longer!
Long live bigger prints…
For the past 3 years Special Event Photography has been covering fundraising events for The Cedar Foundation in Belfast free of charge. This is something we offer to all charities. Where possible we also provide a donation to the charity involved from the proceeds of photo sales. So if you represent a charity in Northern Ireland and require an ‘Official Photographer’ for an upcoming event (abseils, fun runs, Annual Dinner, Conference etc..) then please all us and we will do our level best to support you however we can. Remember that to registered charities of event coverage services are FREE, we will make imagery available to the charity after the event, and where possible we will offer participants, friends, and family images from the event at significant discount over our normal commercial rates.. and hopefully, still be able to generate extra cash for the charity.
As for The Cedar Foundation – we have just completed coverage of their annual abseil in Belfast. On this occasion it involved the roof of the Radisson SAS Hotel, a couple of rather long ropes, and an assortment of volunteers to go over the edge. Needless to say, given that we were entering Summer the weather was a little iffy – but we all got through the day without getting too wet or cold. Over 70, otherwise sane, people of all ages and abilities decided to take the rope assisted walk off a perfectly good roof and make the decent to ground.
The photographic results of the day are presently online in our password proected galleries – the password is know to Cedar, and was issued to all participants in their information packs.
Thank you to all involved for their effort.