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Behind the Scenes: “The Doddington Stories”

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Bit of behind the scenes website work-in-progress for you? Ok.

So, I wanted to make a bit of a ‘thing’ about the Trophies, Shields and Awards that we hand out each year, and wanted them all to appear on the website.


All Awards that we give out to the Winners and Runner-ups on Doddington Village Sports and Carnival.

At present, we list the various awards and their respective winners, but I wanted to have a little extra … something for each one.

So, just as we were setting up for the Awards Presentation evening, in September 2008, I took my camera along to the Village Hall, and took the opportunity to photograph (to the best of my ability!!) each and every Award.

I used one of those fabric-based pop-up studio-style photo boxes, (bit like this one  =>) such that the background on each trophy was white and therefore easier to use on the website.

However, as I might have hinted at, I’m not a photographer and far from knowing what I’m doing with a photo studio!  Either way, I took about a hundred photos, as my idea with digital cameras, is that if I take enough photos, there has to be at least one that’s useable, right?

So, my current job is cutting away the seemingly-white background from the images, and having the award appear on a solid white background.

The Jon Tibbett Shield (above) and the Fiveash Achievement Shield (below)

Now – you know I mentioned about my photo skills? Well, my PhotoShop skills are on the same rung of the ladder..! I’m slow and ok-ish at cutting away the backgrounds in my non-PhotoShop image editing program, but it’s the only one I have!  And it turns out that we have  a lot more awards than I remember!

So, back to the website – my little plan is to not only show the winners/runner-up names, but to also show a photo of the award that they’ve won. But. I’m not stopping there. The next pieces of the puzzle I’d like to add in, is a little back-story as to each award, and how (or why!) it became an award.

For instance, it was only when I asked, was I told about the ‘Karl Allen Memorial Shield’ – having not lived in Doddington as long as others, I wasn’t aware of who Karl was, nor what had happened, let alone why the Shield with his name on it came to be.

But I think more people should know.

And not just about Karl Allen, but of all of the other awards, too, as each has it’s own story. Part of a Doddington Story, if you like.

And that’s where I’m aiming with the website, and in the short term… this blog post! 

Admittedly, chopping backgrounds out of photos is a slow job. But so, too, I’d imagine, trying to find out who some of these people are and to chase them down to get the stories.  So - if you’re reading this, and you know who is more connected to each of the awards, why not give them a nudge and ask them to drop me a line?  (I’ll hunt them down otherwise, but I thought I’d try to ask the Internet for help first. )

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