Mayday at Chesterton Windmill
At the unfeasibly, hitherto unknown hour of 4am (yes, that’s AM!) on Saturday 1st May, I and 5 other intrepid fools adventurers set out to Chesterton Windmill to join members of the Hereburgh Morris to greet the dawn in a tradition as old as the windmill itself.
Although during the night before we had witnessed more rain than Noah, when the appointed hour arrived to actually haul one’s ass out of bed (as it were) the rain clouds had scattered and the first vestiges of light were appearing. Cursing this rapid meteorological transformation, I gathered the camera gear and headed off to join the others with the promise of sausage batches later keeping me going.
Once up at t’ mill we joined a crowd of nearly four (not including the actual Morris Dancers) who were already in full swing with sticks and hankies flying in unison. In no time at all the sun crept up from behind a clump of trees and the event was over almost as quickly as it had begun. With photos in the bag ready to be processed and sent to my friend Matthew (who had organised the jaunt) for inclusion in the local newspaper we were back off down the hill and heading back for breakfast.
Although it’s an extreme rarity that I am ever anywhere near conscious at that time in the morning, I was really glad that I’d made the effort as dawn truly is the best time of the day – particularly in terms of the light.
Below are a few of the photos from the morning.
Elaine & Alex’s Wedding
Under gloriously (and, let’s face it, uncharacteristically) blue skies a couple of weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to photograph Elaine and Alex’s wedding held at the delightfully picturesque church in Leek Wootton, Warwickshire, and then afterwards at Mallory Court Hotel on the outskirts of Leamington Spa.
A wedding is always a special and happy occasion but it’s great when the couple are so absolutely ‘right’ for one another and obviously very much in love. We wish them both a wonderfully happy life together.
Below are a few shots from the day.
New Year’s Resolution…
Ok, so it’s a bit past New Year which in a way typifies my blog lately – about 4 months behind.
So let’s call it New (Financial) Year Resolution.
I’m going to update the bog more regularly! Not just to update you information-hungry masses on recent jobs – many of which I can’t post for client confidentiality reasons anyway – but on general photographic topics and a few personal bits and pieces not necessarily related to the imaging world but that you may find amazingly interesting anyway. Perhaps.
There are a lot of exciting happenings within the imaging industry at the moment and I will be posting more over the coming months, so if any of this blurb is of ANY interest to you, please subscribe so that future scribblings can be rushed to your screen as soon as they are published.
Which WILL be more often that of late. Promise.
A Traveller’s Tale
I feel like I’ve just lost the use of my right arm. Not literally of course but the car’s in for service at the moment and I couldn’t arrange a courtesy vehicle so I am without motorised transport and it feels VERY odd. Just shows how totally dependent we become on our wheels.
Having dropped the car in first thing in the morning to Guy Salmon’s in Stratford-upon-Avon, I investigated the possibilities of getting back to Kenilworth – a mere 15 miles away. Options were (in order of preference)
- Lift
- Public transport
- Taxi
- Walk
Option 4 was quickly dismissed, nobody was available for Option 1, Option 3 would have been too expensive (and I’d have to put up with the inane banter and undefinable fragrances that seems to be de rigeur with taxi drivers), so that swiftly lead to Option 2 – public transport.
What a laugh.
I thought the quickest way would be to walk along to Stratford railway station, hop on the Warwick Express and arrive a few minutes later. This would indeed be close to the case IF I managed to catch the right train. The quickest one – which seems to run only every 2 hours(!) would get me there, directly, in 28 minutes. However, if I missed that one (which I would have done because of the timings at the garage) the next train would take 1 hour and 59 minutes and involve a change at Birmingham!
So… discounting the time taken to walk to the station in the first place (about 20 mins) and the time waiting for the train to arrive, I’d now be well over 2 hours into the journey and still be 6 miles away from my destination. But I’d have arrived in Warwick.
Next stage – bus.
Even more fun. Again, if I managed to miraculously be in the right place at the right time, I could catch one which would take me directly to Kenilworth in about 30 minutes including time for stops and people rummaging for the correct change in their collective pockets / wallets / handbags. BUT, if I missed the direct bus the next one would take me on a Magical Mystery Tour via Leamington and the delights of “Stud Farm A” (wherever that is!) arriving possibly next week.
(Just as an aside to this sorry traveller’s tale, the last time I saw a bus with “Stud Farm A” on the destination display, it was full of pensioners. Goodness knows what they get up to there but perhaps retirement is more fun that I think!)
Anyway… back to the story. The point is that to cover the relatively short distance of 15 miles it would take me at best about 1 hour 20 minutes and at worst about 4 hours. And this is just one way, don’t forget I’d still have to repeat the journey the other way!
Thus I decided to spend the day in sunny Stratford-upon-Avon, backpack and fleece on, looking like a proper tourist. I’m currently holed up in a well-known coffee shop enjoying free wifi access and coffee refills to accompany my blueberry muffin. I may be here sometime…
What this has proved to me (as if I didn’t already know) is that it’s pretty obvious why we have become so dependent on our cars. Convenience. Speed. Reliability. Comfort. Go anywhere, anytime.
When public transport works it’s great. Look at the London Tube network. Fantastic, and it really is the best way to get around in London. But for the most part, anyone trying to get between rural destinations is pretty much forced to look elsewhere. Before whichever government currently in power taxes personal transport off the planet, perhaps they should consider viable alternatives? Ones that could actually get you somewhere for a given time.
And then back again.
Haven’t Been to the Blog Recently!
I’ve been extremely, unforgivably, almost unaccountably lax with updating this blog recently for which I apologise to those who frequent these pages on anything more than a casual or accidental basis.
In part things have been busy over the past few months with a couple of other projects that are on the go, but also I have to confess to being a slightly reluctant blogger. There always seems to be a more pressing task or engagement which calls for my time over sitting at the computer searching for words to add some meaning to the accompanying photographs.
Thus, there are several posts featured below that all appear in one mad outpouring rather than as timely ditties published as close to when they actually happened as is humanly possible.
Perhaps I flatter myself that anyone actually notices (or indeed cares) but in these days of Facebook, Twitter, Flickr etc where it seems every moment of one’s life needs to be immediately documented I feel guilty if several jobs go by without letting the World know about it.
So…. enjoy the following posts whilst I slip off to make some lunch. Who knows, I may even Tweet or Twat or whatever later to inform the information-hungry masses what that consisted of.
Laura & Lee’s Engagement Party
A visit to the Hyatt Hotel in Birmingham was called for to photograph the engagement party of Laura and Lee recently.
Although the actual job went well, the start of the evening was a nightmare simply getting into Birmingham city centre. Seven o'clock on a Saturday evening is apparently not a good time to be in any form of motorised transport and actually expect it to move. What made things worse was that, having finally arrived at the car park next to the Hippodrome, it seemed that everyone else driving that night had also decided to use this car park to abandon their vehicle in.
I'm not sure who was playing at Symphony Hall that night, or what theatrical extravaganza was being performed at the Hippodrome, suffice to say that the average age of the audience attempting to park their collective vehicles was about 103 – together with the sort of driving skills that are commensurate with drivers of that age.
Not only that, but the car park was a Mickey-Mouse Pay-and-Display affair rather than the, now rather more common, Pay-on-Exit type. All very well except I had no change and only a £20 note in my wallet. I will therefore be eternally grateful to the gentlemen who kindly donated my £2.50 parking charge (for which at the time I was willing to part with the £20 I had) and would accept nothing in return except a promise that I would offer a similar act of generosity in the future, should it be required. 'Pay it forward' I believe it's called.
Thus I arrived at the venue slightly past my appointed time and was amazed to walk into a virtually empty room. Thankfully, everyone else was running late too so it appeared that I'd been patiently waiting around for some time. Of course I didn't mention that I'd literally just walked in…
Crown Inn Refurbishment
Following on from the wedding of Helen and Mark (see below) Lucas, the proprietor of the Crown Inn at Pishill, requested some publicity photographs of the barn used for the reception.
Over the past few months the venue has been tastefully refurbished and redecorated to provide a wonderful venue for a wedding ceremony and / or reception.
In addition to using three Bowens Gemini flash heads to balance the lighting in the room as usual, I thought I'd try a bit of HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography to see how that turned out. For those who are new to this concept, it involves taking multiple images at different exposures for the highlights and shadows in a scene and then combining them into one image in post-production.
With the barn, I took five separate images exposed for, in turn, the extreme highlights, highlights, mid-tones, dark tones and shadows and then combined them using the Photomatix plugin for Aperture.
The result? Not too bad actually. I think with a bit of time to really finesse the images this HDR lark could be a useful alternative to humping a shed-load of lighting kit around. For the moment though, I'll play safe and do both.
Exterior of the barn and pub at the Crown Inn
Image created using the Photomatix HDR plugin for Aperture
Same view (nearly) but using additional fill-lighting
Another go with the HDR plugin
Anna’s Batmitzvah
The magnificent Singers Hill Synagogue in the heart of Birmingham was the venue for Anna's Batmitzvah held in June of this year. Family and friends gathered to witness and celebrate this most important occasion in a young person's life.
Helen & Mark’s Wedding
Congratulations to Helen & Mark who tied the knot on the 8th August at the newly refurbished Crown Inn located in the unfortunately-titled village of Pishill near Henley-on-Thames.
We wish them every happiness for the future!
Knickers & Vests
This strangely-titled piece concerns Triangle Theatre Company's latest project is descibed as 'an “oral history of the PE kit” and archive memories of the compulsory PE experience particularly of fitness regimes in school since 1948'
For Knickers & Vests the company assembled a team of actors in-role as “sports instructors” to document memories during or immediately after exercise. Knickers & Vests begins with the premise that sports phobia is linked to a dread of embarrassment and aims to re-member and re-enact sports histories via the tactics of both reluctant and zealous sports participants, of skivers and misfits, and to investigate “discipline” and the body as they are understood in both sport and theatre.
