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Sunday, 24 June 2007 18:09 |
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The village of Kelsall comes alive with visitors camping here for the three day bank holiday weekend.
 Street dancing outside the Oak
Featured performances from Chester City Morris Men, White Hart Morris Men, Bradshaw Mummers and the Britannia Coconut Dancers.
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Sunday, 24 June 2007 18:09 |
 These images represent a very personal journey for me. It was in this location that as a youngster in the late 60’s and early seventies I spent most of my time. These images are in fact the garden of my uncle and aunt who at various stages of my life looked after me. Summer holidays spent here were the norm and I had many a happy day fishing in the river or playing around with the many distractions that lay in abundance.
What is left is the decay from a once active boat builder and restorer. The house lies on the river and during the twice yearly high tides flooded. During the recent storms you can see the new damage with trees blown on top of boats and old cars, boats knocked off their moorings and even a sunken landing stage.
I sometimes find it hard to believe that my uncle used to hand build boats in that shed for himself and others. I still remember the clinker (wood) construction he used to do, and later on (early seventies) the new fibreglass hulls. Must go now, i'm off down memory lane...
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Sunday, 24 June 2007 18:09 |
 Armed with a new camera, this was my first outing to see what it could do. The images are of the river Dee, Meadows and Chester.
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Saturday, 24 June 2006 00:00 |
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Having spotted the big dish through the trees of the Cheshire countryside we had to stop and get as close as we could. £3 later and we were inside (two of us) hammering away with out cameras. I'm not sure whether the overcast day helped or hindered. The light was reduced, but the softness helped open up the underside and made the shots through the steelwork possible.
All photos were handheld using the Canon 350d. I used two lenses, the 28-135mm F3.5 - 5.6 IS and the 'standard' 18-55mm F3.5 - 5.6. I think using the polarising filter may have yielded better images, but it never crossed mind until I was looking at the images on the PC. Ahh well, somthing else to remember.
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Saturday, 24 June 2006 00:00 |
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Woo hoo! The internationally recognised village of Brigadoon Kelsall. This time it’s the annual Folk Music Festival. Being a cheapskate I snapped up some musicians who were jamming (is that a real word?) in the Olive Tree pub.
The music was excellent, the atmosphere charged and the music began to flow.
I asked if I could take “a picture”, and after receiving the nod took these in a sharp fashion.
All the indoor images were shot at ISO 1600 on a Canon 350D with a 28-135mm F3.5 – 5.6 IS EF lens. Some images are wildly wrong in terms of exposure, however a couple look ‘right’ to my untrained novice eye.
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Read more...
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Saturday, 24 June 2006 00:00 |
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For my first attempt at studio lighting I was forced to practice on statues as nobody would post for me. I really wanted a few sessions getting to grips with the lighting kit that I had assembled. Where my own kids are involved I’m rather lucky if they will sit for 2 minutes, so some of my first efforts were very rushed; - not too good for a novice.
I ended up with a 5 light set up, main, fill, 2 x kickers and one on the background. It would have been even more fun had my subjects been willing.
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Saturday, 24 June 2006 00:00 |
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Here’s my Shaman statue. He sits on my office window ledge bringing me luck every day. When I saw him in the shop, the assistant there told me that everyone was afraid of it. I think he’s full of atmosphere and misunderstood by everybody. People probably think dark things when they see him, but I see him doing good work for his tribe. I hope my attempts to photograph him do him justice; - after all he oozes atmosphere and I’m sure he’s alive.
I mounted him on a Marshal guitar amplifier, with soft light coming in from the window 90º from the left. I then set up the camera on a tripod, using a 400 mm lens between f11 and F5.6. To the right at 45º from the camera I set up the quantum flash (radio controlled), in manual mode running at 1/32 power. The exposure was set based on the ambient light at about 2.5 seconds and the flash just eliminating the shadows. This was the first time I had set out to deliberately use full manual control, exposing for the ambient light and filling in with the flashgun and mounted soft box.
To take the images I set the 10 second timer on the camera and hand held the Quantum flashgun and soft box. The 10 seconds on the timer allowed me to run to the subject (which using a 400 mm lens was quite some distance). I reversed the solar disk reflector for the black background.
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