Catchup

The course has taken something of a back seat over the last few weeks, unfortunately. Photography itself hasn't - I've done more of that than normal, and more varied stuff than has often been the case.

On April 24th I got involved in taking photos of a 'Clean Up Mold' activity as part of the camera club. That was quite an interesting experience, with the opportunity to take a more 'reportage' style of photo. To some extent that is the way that my photography has normally worked - taking the opportunity to photograph the scene in front of me rather than particlarly creating the scene. That said, I've often found it sufficiently hard to determine where a picture is going to happen, what the best vantage point is likely to be and what combination of focal length, speed and aperture will give me what I'm hoping for. Some of the photos from that have been sent in to the local council for them to use. I also took the opportunity to keep an eye out for contrast photos, and think I've got one for continuous / intermittent - a road with solid yellow lines but a broken white line down the middle. Finding the right road, with the characteristics that I was looking for, without too many obstructions (such as parked cars) and which was also a slightly more interesting shape was not straightforward, but I think I found it. Now I neeed to decide whether to go with black and white or colour. B&W was my first thought, but the temptation to make the yellow lines more obvious is certainly present.

April 25th was a scout parade that my daughter and wife were involved with. Again, I went along to take some pictures of the event, with some ideas working quite well. Some nice portrait shots came out, as well as some slightly less obvious ones of flags and the like. Certainly some of these are likely to be used on the scouts web site.

My parents came up the following weekend, and with it the chance to do a couple of day trips. Speke Hall on the Saturday was all right but a combination of my father's poor health and a lot of scaffolding on the building itself reduced the photographic opportunities. On Sunday we went to a carnival in Mold, with a few decent candid shots and also of the musicians appearing. Then on Bank Holiday Monday we went to a Victorian Extravaganza in Llandudno. Lots of photos there, from portraits of people in Victorian costume to vintage cars / lorries to pictures of the town itself.

The weekend of the 8th was quiet, with me babysitting my son while my wife was away. The following week, however saw me take some photos of for a friend of her son's prom night get up. With his girlfriend I got some nice shots. Certainly the friend was very happy with them. On the Sunday I got to attend a group shoot in Chester with a number of models. This allowed me to play in the studio a little bit as well as outside. My comfort zone remains very strongly with natural light, but the studio was an interesting departure. It also showed how different it is to work with models who already know how to make themselves look good.

And so to the weekend just gone. We attended our first music festival of the year, one that we have been to for the last four years. Great fun, with good music and plenty of possibilities for photos. One of the nice things about it being a small festival is that they're much more relaxed about people with cameras than at bigger ones. It also gave me the opportunity to catch up with some of the other regulars, including one of the official photographers who gets to go into areas we mere mortals can only dream of. Regardless of that, there were certainly some good shots there and several that I am very pleased with. For the contrasts assignment I think I have also managed to get some which will work. Many / few could certainly work with shots I have from the front of the audience, one pointing towards the band and the other towards the audience.