Since January I've been running the TSC Clay Shooting channel on YouTube. TSC, or The Schools Challenge as it was known, is an excellent initiative devoted to encouraging young people to take up shooting, identify talented individuals and encourage and help them develop into the shooting stars of the future. 2016 Olympian Amber Hill, for instance, cut her shooting teeth with the Schools Challenge, and there are other promising youngsters following the same path - Tom Scott for one.
Plus I'm busy producing video content for other channels too. Take this week, for example. If you're a fan of shooting videos, you've probably watched several pieces I filmed and/or edited, probably without even realising it. There's usually a credit at the end, but who reads those!
The week started on Monday with a piece that I'd filmed and edited for The Shooting Show, following long-range rifle shooter Mark Ripley on his mission to protect this year's crop of lambs from marauding foxes:
Next up, on Tuesday it was TSC Clay News, the channel's weekly roundup of all things clay shooting. This week's show included a fun item on Olympic gold medal winners Richard Faulds and Peter Wilson trying out the guns that belonged to the late Bob Braithwaite, who won Britain's first ever Olympic shooting gold medal at Mexico 1968:
Wednesday brought this piece that I'd filmed for Fieldsports Channel, a look behind the scenes of the Princes Trust charity clay shoot in Yorkshire, featuring Promatic Traps:
Tonight will be the weekly TSC Clay Shooting feature, which I can't put up here until it's released at 7.30pm. UPDATE: Here's that feature...
In the meantime, I've also produced a couple of IT training videos for a bank, done a selection of photos for a shoot, and even managed to win a charity clay shoot myself! I'm rather proud of that one. It was the World Pheasant Association shoot near Stockbridge, and I get to have my name engraved on this splendid trophy, a black grouse sculpture by the talented Simon Gudgeon.
Yes, that's me on the right, sharing an inappropriate joke with Jonathan Young of The Field.
So that's my week so far. Who knows what Friday will bring? But I'll be heading out with foxshooter Robert Bucknell to see if we can film him shooting a fox. Always a challenge that one - how many videographers are happy to work singlehanded off the back of a pick-up truck in total darkness? Filming a wary animal that most people only get a fleeting glimpse of at the best of times?
I'm not complaining. I love it! The only thing is, it does rather distract from updating this blog.
