2004

Top Photog Tells All
 

Alan Betson, the photographer of the year in the annual AIB-Press Photographers Association of Ireland competition, was pleased and proud of capturing his profession’s top honor. But he’s still learning to do better at his craft, he emphasized.

Betson and other photojournalists celebrated in grand style Feb. 18 at Jury’s Hotel in Ballsbridge, Dublin. The awards ceremony acknowledged the best pictures from 2004, rewarding the shooters’ quality and excellence.

When he’s not out snapping award-winning pixs, Betson currently lives with his family in Dunboyne, Co. Meath. Once its own village, the community has become a Dublin commuters’ hideaway. Wife Deirdre is a nurse, and their 4-year-old daughter Hannah is just starting to understand what her dad does. She occasionally sees him "on the telly" or at home working on his computer. 

Betson, 34, moved to the Dublin area with his mother and father from Cork when he was a youngster. The PPAI just sent a display of the winning photos to Cork to kick off a series of exhibitions around the country. Subsequently, when Betson went down to the city from Dublin to help inaugurate the show, he had to give his birth-town its due, he laughed.

"My dad, David, was in the Army and was a keen amateur photographer and really gave me the impetus to start in photography," he said. When he was 10, Betson lived in the Middle East for two-and-a-half years while his father was in service. While there, the young man began taking photos and sharpening his skills. Naturally, his parents were very excited to learn that their son earned top photog honors this year. 

"At the time, cameras and film were very expensive. So you learned to make every frame count. You really had to concentrate," he pointed out. Although today, whiile he uses digital cameras, Betson still appreciated the discipline he learned while using the older equipment. 

Betson began working at Inpho, the Irish sports photography agency and was picked up by The Irish Times when he was only 23, becoming the newspaper’s youngest shooters at the time. "I was greatly honored to be part of The Times, the paper was revered and something that people aspired to be part of. As such, you always try to get better, to put your heart and soul into the photography there," he said.

However, Betson wasn’t always sure he was going to be a photographer and, in fact, was tending toward engineering. "I wanted to be outdoors but didn’t have the qualifications to go toward engineering. I got summer jobs at Inpho and they persuaded me to stay on after I graduated," he said. Betson spent his winters in the darkroom, "going in to work in the dark, working in the dark and leaving work in the dark," he lamented, a situation that convinced him to seek a job elsewhere. 

But while at the agency, he was mentored by the fabulous Billy Strickland, who always had suggestions and tips on how to improve his photographic skills.

Dermot O’Shea, the now-retired Times photo editor, saw Betson’s talent and made him feel at home with the newspaper. Betson is now one of a staff of nine photographers, usually working from 10 a.m . to 6 p.m., plus every other weekend. He also does the occasional night shift from 3 to 10 p.m. On any given day, Betson will be shooting a feature spread, some sports and a range of other assignments. 

"We all look out for each other," Betson said of the photographers camaraderie and craic while out on a photo shoot, even with the competition to see who gets a front page picture or an award-winning shot. "Everyone has their own style, thank God. It’s great. Everyone complements each other’s look," he indicated.

When The Irish American Post caught up with him for a chat, Betson had just completed a photo spread on Dublin Castle, photographed two brothers, one of whom was a musician and the other a writer and was on his way home. But he first had to stop and photograph two Georgian doors in the heart of the city. The previous day he photographed the rugby championship prelims in which Blackrock defeated St. Gerard’s. He recently completed a spread on the National Aquatic Center, the country’s first 50-meter training pool and high dive facility in Blanchardstown.

Recently, Betson has been doing a lot of work on The Times Saturday magazine, giving him the opportunity to hone his lighting, portraiture and related skills by doing fashion, architecture and similar non-news subjects. 
During a trip to Turkey for holiday, he shot a spread on charter sailing. 
Now a sailing fan himself, Betson also enjoys scuba diving.

On the side, he occasionally shoots travel photos for the New York Times and, for a time, was doing a lot of his friends’ weddings. "It was a strange period. I was shooting in black and white, as a fly on the wall," Betson chuckled. Times photographers can shoot for other outlets if the job doesn’t compete with their employer-newspaper but everyone is generally so busy, there are few of those opportunities. 

Later in the spring, Betson and his family will travel to Australia where he had spent time three years ago on an exchange program with a Melbourne newspaper. "We swapped cars, cameras, houses and stopped short of our wives," he laughed. "They are really advance down there, their way of working really inspired me. It changed me as an individual," Betson reported. 

On his return to Ireland, he hosted a seminar for his fellow Times photographers, using material he had completed in Australia, as well as showing other photographers’ work from Down Under. When he travels back there, he will showcase the PPAI award winners for his Australian photographer friends. 

"Our photographers also do well," he asserted, relating recent awards garnered in worldwide competitions by his fellow Irish photojournalists such as Joe Shaughnessy of Galway.

Regarding his own top win, Betson said, "I was proud to be part of it, to see the quality of work put out there. There could have been two or three other photographers standing there in my shoes. Of course, it’s always up to the judges. But I was hoping!" he said. 

After the award’s program at Jury’s Hotel, he and his pals had a "very liquid" party, finally winding down about 4:30 a.m. Betson was appreciative of the fact that he didn’t have to work that day.

It was a rest well-deserved.

Press Photographers Association of Ireland Snaps Up AIB Awards

Address by Donal Forde, managing director, Allied Irish Bank sponsors of the PPAI Awards

Address by Stephen Humphries
President, Press Photographers Association of Ireland

The winning photographs in ten categories at the Irish Press Photographers Association of Ireland Awards 2004.