Oakamoor Skies, a trip to Beeston Castle, and two film shoots. Oh, and hockey!

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post on here, and it's been a busy couple of weeks at that! The night skies have been clearer than expected and this has allowed me to have another crack at shooting the stars, this time heading out to the remote village of Oakamoor. The hope was that the light pollution would be virtually non-existant, but alas it wasn't the case:



Nonetheless, it was still a learning experience! One day I'll get it right, but until then it doesn't hurt to keep trying it out and learning new things:



The set of shots from the evening's experimentation can be seen on Flickr here: Oakamoor Skies

Earlier this month, a rare Sunday without a Phoenix game gave Yol and myself the chance to go out in the car and pay a visit to a historical site, and after a quick consultation of the interwebs we chose Beeston Castle in Cheshire, an English Heritage site. The castle itself consists of the remnants of fortifications on top of a hill, with a circumference nature walk to stretch the legs and fill the lungs. As a place to visit, it's great for those who enjoy a little piece of history!





The weather wasn't perfect, but even under cloudy skies it was still a cracking place to visit! The full set of shots from our visit can be seen on Flickr here: Beeston Castle

This past Saturday saw the car being loaded up with filming equipment to head out to Tatenhill Airfield for the shooting of Vicki Smart's documentary "Tatenhill". With three location recces done in advance, pretty much every eventuality had been planned for, and the big day had arrived!






The shoot itself was set at Tatenhill Airfield, but it took place in several locations around the airfield thanks to the generosity of the pilots and staff who graciously allowed the filming to go ahead in the briefing room, in the hangar, on the grass verge, in the tower, and even in the air! All five members of the production crew (myself included) were invited to take to the air to get footage, opportunities that we all readily took up!







During the shoot, we were able to get close to a plane that I fell for when we did our first location recce at the airfield, the Antonov AN-2. This time around it was cameraman Danyl Rathband who was shooting it, and naturally I was on hand to take the production stills:





The full set of production stills from the Tatenhill shoot can be seen on Flickr here: Tatenhill Shoot

The second film shoot was one that my involvement in was a lot less planned in advance. A few weeks back I'd been chatting with Dan Barlow, one of the Media Production students, who was in pre-production for an experimental documentary piece called 'Crushed Ice', the topic of which is what's known as 'bar flair'. Think of Tom Cruise throwing shakers and bottles around in the film 'Cocktail' and you get the idea. Anyway, the shoot was today, and this morning Dan popped in to ask if I'd be able to take some stills for the shoot, even though it was a working day. So inbetween my other work duties, I popped in several times to see how the shoot was going, and to take some stills behind the scenes:





The shoot features the bar flair talents of Tom Dyer, an internationally renowned exponent of his art, and he was performing in front of a backdrop made up of carefully lit bottles and cocktail props:





The job of the Production Stills photographer is to document what's happening behind the camera as well as in front of it, which means getting shots of as many of the crew in action as possible:






The behind-the-scenes stuff is always the best stuff to shoot for me, as it's the least 'contrived' - what happens in front of the camera is normally deliberate, so for me you get a better sense of the 'reality' of a shoot by looking at the people behind the camera! But you still can't beat a good Crew Shot!:



The full set from the 'Crushed Ice' shoot can be seen on Flickr here; Crushed Ice Shoot

All the way through this, I've been carrying out my usual duties as Match Night Photographer for Manchester Phoenix ice hockey club, it's something that I always enjoy and look forward to, whether we win or lose!





One of the Phoenix evenings that I covered was the All-Star night, which included marks being awarded for the most unusual goal celebration, and I'll leave you with these two - make of them what you will! Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you: The Weight Bench, and The Toilet!

A Trip to the Bank, Two Tatenhills and a Galione Visit

Forgive me readers, for I have sinned, it has been more than two weeks since my last blog entry....

A few weeks back I took a picture of the Jodrell Bank site at night, after a trip to Congleton, and I was very pleased with the resultant shot. Jodrell Bank has been on my list of places to visit for quite some time now, and frankly it's amazing that I've not been before since it's really not that far away! So on the Sunday before Valentine's Day, Yol and I got into the car and headed to Lower Withington in Cheshire, the site of Jodrell Bank. The weather forecast had said that it would be misty but that it would lift by noon. Apparently forecasters lie...

Let me say this about Jodrell Bank before I say anything else: if you've got even the faintest interest in astronomy, the place is an absolute must. I spent our time there looking in awe at everything, giddy like a child in a sweet shop! Educational, informative and extremely interesting, as well we fun and fascinating, we both hugely enjoyed it.



The 'main attraction' at Jodrell Bank is the Lovell Telescope, a 76 metre diameter dish array that probes the heavens. It's one of the most iconic man-made structures in the country, and even in the mist it's extremely photogenic!




We'd not been there long when a siren sounded, and the whole array began to rotate and realign. To see the dish move is an awe-inspiring experience, a feat of engineering that astounds to witness! As well as the Lovell, there are two buildings containing informational displays and features, as well as a lovely cafe and some scientific installations (check out the Whispering Dishes if you go!)





There's also an astronomy-themed garden area that will be coming into bloom in the next couple of months. All in all a cracking place to visit!



The full album of Jodrell Bank photos can be seen on Flickr here - Jodrell Bank set.

A couple of blog posts back, I wrote about a visit to Tatenhill Airfield with documentary-maker Vicki Smart. Since then we've been back for two more location recces, one last weekend and one this weekend. Last weekend was a little bit of a wash-out, in that it absolutely chucked it down as soon as we'd got there. Nobody was flying, the rain was beating against the windows of the cafe, but that didn't stop the crew from getting some materials in the can. Cameraman Danyl Rathband wrestled the camera into its raincover and shot some cutaways, with Vicki directing:





The rain-soaked visit can be seen on Flickr here - Tatenhill visit, 18-02-12

The second visit was, in terms of climate and shooting opportunity, a much more fruitful experience! This time, Vicki and I were accompanied by cameraman Alex Dean, and no sooner had we arrived on site than we were offered a chance to go up and get some aerial footage, courtesy of pilot Mike Tidmarsh. Mike, and fellow pilot Kevin Arblaster, also allowed us to film and shoot the pre-flight checks and inspections on N84VK, a four seater Piper PA-24-250 aircraft:





Before long it was time for take-off, with Mike as pilot, Alex filming from the front passenger seat, and me shooting stills from the back alongside Vicki:




The flight itself was short and very bumpy, the latter contributing to the former. Soon after take off, all three of us non-pilots were feeling pretty queasy, with Alex being the first to tap out and request that we land. Alex had been filming since before take-off, looking through the camera's eyepiece, and this can't have helped! Hopefully the footage will be good though! The view from up in the air was spectacular, the clearness of the day giving us a tremendous vantage point:




Before long we were back on the ground, and finding our feet again as we filmed and shot the post-flight checks:





The full set from the visit can be seen on Flickr here - Tatenhill visit 250212

At the Uni recently, I've been involved in teaching our Media Production students how to use a piece of kit called a Glidecam (very similar to Steadicam, which is a brand name). I'd posted some pics on Facebook from the teaching sessions, and was soon contacted by former student and current professional Steadicam operator Jon Galione. Jon and I go way back, we worked together on the Manchester Phoenix match night crew - Jon was one of the two original camera operators for the team, spending many hours perched up in a cherrypicker filming games at Deeside and Sheffield during the season that Phoenix played on the road! We've also worked together for Comtec as freelancers, taking a trip to work a conference at EuroDisney. Jon had some ideas on how to better operate the Glidecam using the camera that we were teaching it with, the Sony EX3, and he very graciously accepted our invitation to come in and take a look at it:




We were joined by fellow technical instructor Matt Lewis, and student Ciaron Craig, as Jon fine tuned our Glidecam and showed us all the most effective methods to get the best visual results from it.




Jon also posed for a spontaneous portrait before he left, indulging my passion for trying to capture the essence of people's characters. I think this shot sums up Jon quite well!:



The full set of shots from Jon's visit can be seen on Flickr here - Jon Galione visit.

Thanks for reading!