Looking to the Heavens, Spot The Moggy, Holy Spiders and Exploring Around the Corner

One evening last week, several people on Facebook were posting statuses about how beautiful the moon looked, and since I had a borrowed Nikon D90 in my possession I decided to go out and shoot it. (Regular readers will know about my almost lycanthropic fixation with our natural satellite!) But alas, it wasn't visible from my garden (or from the front of the house) so instead I decided to try a little astral photography. The clear skies above gave a lovely view of the heavens, but the light pollution was understandably high for an inner-city location. Still, I gave it a shot!




I'm hoping for another clear night soon, when I can go out of the city and see what I can get. I know that there are better images of the stars just waiting to be taken!

These images can be seen on Flickr in the Sunsets & Skies set.

Saturday was a day of gardening, which for us necessitates taking our lives into our hands and working on a slope (our back yard is a steep slope upwards). It also necessitates pulling my hockey kit out of the shed to give us access to the gardening tools, so I take the opportunity to unzip the kit bag and 'airate the kit' a little. This, naturally, results in another round of 'Spot The Moggy':


Another chance encounter on Saturday in the garden was with a common garden spider, sitting in the middle of his (or her) web, lunching on a ladybird:


I'd never really noticed the cross pattern on the backs of garden spiders, so this one was too good an opportunity not to shoot. At least, that's what I told Yol when I left her sorting out the gardening whilst I faffed about with macro lens adaptors!

Sunday, traditionally a day of rest (except in hockey season), but for Yol and I this week it was a chance to go and explore a couple of locations that we'd had our eye on for a while but not gotten around to visiting. The first of which was Park Hall Country Park, about a mile away from our house - we'd driven past it dozens of times but never ventured in. The first thing to say about it is, it's bigger than you think!




The range of wildlife and plantlife there is impressive, and the scenery is something to behold. Plenty of options and opportunities for the aspiring lensman. We spent a good couple of hours wandering around, following pathways and shooting the scenery, the woodlands, the plants, the birds, pretty much anything that looked interesting!





After walking around the park for more than two hours, we stumbled upon the Visitors Centre and discovered that they sell maps of the Park, along with wildlife guides. In honesty we could probably have benefitted from those earlier, but it has inspired us to return again and explore the areas that we were yet to see.

Our next destination of choice was Caverswall Castle, so off we set to where we believed it to be. Needless to say, it's not there. It's not where the Satnav tells you it is, it's not where their own map tells you it is. So it remained undiscovered (until we went home, looked on Google Maps and spotted it, where it's always been, on a road that we travel down on a regular basis...)

Whilst out looking for the Castle, we came across Foxfield Railway Station, a tourist attraction near Blythe Bridge that is based around steam locomotives. So we stopped off for a look around, and naturally a few photo opportunities presented themselves:





It turns out that we'd stumbled upon the place during one of their 'event days' when the trains were up and running, so our piece of bad fortune at not finding the castle turned into a piece of good fortune in discovering the station!

The full set of photos from our day of exploring can be seen in the Flickr set here.

Padded Gloves, Shin Pads, and Shooting The Moon

Over the past few weeks I've been working on a series of student induction films for the Uni to use, working closely with my colleague Chris Leese. Chris is also working on a promotional short for the gym where he trains as a kickboxer, and we had the idea of shooting some material in our Shoot Studio at the Uni. So that's what we did! We set up some harsh, moody lighting, and got some shots of Chris putting his fighting pads on and doing some shadow boxing, and whilst we were filming it struck me that this was a great opportunity for an impromptu photo shoot. Chris sportingly agreed to it, and we squeezed in a quick 15 minute shoot:



The lighting was mostly from a single overhead 300W spotlight, pointing straight downwards, with a little fill light coming from two dimmed and diffused 300Ws off to the sides. I felt that the result was very pleasing, and Chris was quite chuffed with the outcome as well. We ran through some poses, and then Chris shadow-boxed some more whilst I shot away:




Sometimes, when life presents you with a photo opportunity, you'd be mad not to take it!

The full set of photos from this shoot can be seen here: "Chris Leese: Kickboxer" set on Flickr.

Regular readers will know that I have a bit of a fixation with shooting the moon. The face of the moon that we can see from Earth barely changes, so most shots of the moon are pretty similar, but there's still something special about our planet's satellite. A clear sky and a view through the trees behind my house gave me this view during last week:



It was the first time that I'd gone for a more stylised shot of the moon, and I was quite pleased with the result. It's not perfect but it's not too far off what I'd intended. I couldn't resist taking a regular moonshot though, it had to be done!



This past Saturday, I was in Grimsby for a family celebration (parents' 45th wedding anniversary, sister's 4th wedding anniversary, mine and Yol's engagement, and my birthday too!) and after dinner I took the chance to go out into the garden and shoot the full moon. This time the clouds were giving the light a lovely diffused aura effect, and so I snapped away at a variety of exposures to see what I could get:



At one point the moon was partially covered by a sash of cloud:



But the clouds parted long enough for me to get a birthday night full moon shot, and so I took the chance:



Just had to be done!

The updated gallery of moonshots can be seen here: "Moonshots" set on Flickr.

Thanks for reading!

Shirt Launch, All Hallows and a surprise encounter with a Lightning

Last Sunday was the annual Manchester Phoenix shirt launch, and I was there as a second snapper (alongside Nick Ogden) to get some pictures of the event. Nick's main job was to get the photos of the new team shirts for the team website, so my role was to get a general feel for the event, and go for a more candid feel. This to me is the best approach to take - I've never been much of a fan of posed photos (don't get me wrong, there's a time and a place for them) but I'm much more in favour of spontaneous shots, capturing moments, and taking photos of people being themselves rather than grinning for the camera.




After the end of the last hockey season, there was a need for an overhaul of how the Phoenix photography was made available for the press, and how the pictures were distributed. I put together a proposal for some changes to the infrastructure, and the first step in its implementation was the establishment of an official Phoenix Flickr page, which is where the shots from the shirt launch event can now be seen.

Yesterday, Yol and myself took up an invitation to visit Michael and Sarita Ainsworth for a barbecue and a look around All Hallows Church, in Mitton, Lancashire. Those of you who've followed my blatherings for a while will know that for some reason I've developed a bit of an interest in shooting churches, cathedrals and places of worship, despite registering largely on the atheist scale. Michael and Sarita were kind enough to give us access to all areas of the church, and this proved to be a great opportunity for a "spot of shutterbuggery", to quote Eric Idle! The church itself is lovingly looked after, and very interesting on the eye.





Michael was also kind enough to give us access to the top of the church tower, and to see the stunning views that the elevation afforded us. To the east of the church is Pendle Hill, the home of the Pendle Witches in the 17th century, and all around were landscape views to take away the breath and to give the soul a moment's pause!




Thank you to Sarita and Michael for their generous hospitality! The album of photos from the visit can be seen on Flickr here.

The trip to Mitton also provided me with a surprise encounter that caused me to turn around the car, park up and get the camera out! Regular readers will know that as well as churches, I also like to photograph aircraft, and being a Grimsby boy born in the flightpath of RAF Binbrook I've a soft spot for the Lightning. So it was with pleasure that our route to Mitton took us past the BAE Systems site in Balderstone where there is a Lightning on display in the grounds.



The plane was behind a security fence, so I had to get as close as possible to the barrier and shoot through the chainlinks! Quite tricky, but totally worth it! The shots of the Lightning can be seen on Flickr here.

Thank you for reading!