Past Club President Roy Featherstone is well known as an accomplished photographer who has ran his own very successful professional studio in Scunthorpe for many years. His expertise is invaluable on club studio nights when Roy demonstrates how to get the best results when working with models.
On this occasion however Roy entertained the club with another aspect of photography – photojournalism. Roy was a freelance photographer for Lincolnshire LSG and the Scunthorpe Star for many years.
His assignments covered a wide variety of events. These could be both indoors and outdoors in a variety o
Weddings were a regular assignment with an average of 10 head & shoulder shoots every Saturday. Readers also want to know what people in the news look like. Roy’s portrait assignments included visiting royalty, musicians and politicians. He tried to capture a person’s personality in the image – which is no easy task.
Roy explained how a photojournalist can now use a digital camera, a mobile phone and a laptop computer to send a high quality image in minutes. He developed his film in portal, on the floor of the exchange. Roy owned a portable unit for colour transparencies - essential for special colour editions. Once the pictures are taken, contact sheets are given to the editor for the final decision.
One of the most common assignments was sports which combines the action with the excitement of news. Roy covered a variety of local sporting events including gymkhanas, football and speedway.
Some assignments were unpleasant. Roy presented some dramatic pictures taken of the standoff between miners and lorry drivers at the Deephouse Wharf picket line around 1973/74. Events were sporadic, moments of activity were them followed by quiet - waiting for another lorry. There were ugly scenes and stones were thrown at the press. Roy climbed on to an oil drum to get a decent vantage point for his shots. Photographs shown to the club illustrated how he had managed to act quickly to capture the events on film. These were printed in both the Scunthorpe Star and the national press.
A features assignment such as It’s a Knockout, Children’s Gala and Family Weekend offer an opportunity for a newspaper to be highlighted with a pleasant, happy picture. 1 June 1974 however, saw this offset by the tragic events of the day. It was the day of the annual Appleby Frodingham steelworks Children's Gala, when Flixborough plant went up.
There was widespread damage to homes and property. Some buildings had collapsed and windows were shattered, blown in and out. Others were untouched - one window had 2 goldfish unharmed on the windowsill! Roy’s contact sheets and images documented the aftermath of this harrowing event, and were featured as a Sunday Mirror exclusive.. This was the worst industrial disaster this country had seen.
Roy held the avid interest of the club with the numerous photographs and contact sheets used illustrate his talk. Club President Vic Llewellyn thanked Roy for an informative and entertaining evening which had demonstrated that a photojournalist needs to be a mixture of reporter, artist, and craftsperson. Roy had combined an ability to find and record dramatic action with photographic talent.
