Gardens, a church, The Duke, the night sky, and Nazis....

Last weekend Yol and I took a trip to Bridgemere Gardens to have a look around a wedding fair, and whilst we were there we had a chance to take a wander around the gardens there, enjoying the sun and getting a breath of fresh air. The Gardens are a peaceful place of greenery, with a variety of different 'garden themes' on display, and they're a great place to get the camera out!





The journey back from Bridgemere passes through the village of Woore, and it's there that we spotted a church that looked a little out of place, but in an eye-catching way. Saint Leonard's Church is, to me, very reminiscent of the churches of New England that we saw on our trip over there in 2010, so much so that I just had to pull over and get a shot!



The journey back also gave me the opportunity to track down and shoot a local landmark, The Duke of Sutherland. Well, not the Duke himself, the statue of him. Tracking it down is surprisingly tricky especially considering that it doesn't tend to move around anywhere, what with it being a statue. It's visible for several miles around Stoke, perched on top of a hill near Trentham, and to find the pathway up to it required a little scouting around on Google Maps. The walk up to it is a sod, no two ways about it, but it's worth it when you get there!





The set of photos from the day's trip can be seen on Flickr here: Bridgemere, Woore and The Duke

Regular readers will know that I'm still trying to get some decent shots of the night sky, but that finding a place to shoot from that doesn't suffer from light pollution is a problem. I took some advice from a member of a photo group on Facebook, and tried out a shooting spot near the village of Thorncliffe in Staffordshire, and took the opportunity to shoot the moon, the stars, and the light trails from passing cars:





I'm still not 100% happy with the stars photos, but one day...

The set of shots from near Thorncliffe can be seen on Flickr here: Thorncliffe

On Monday I found myself back on set once again, this time on director Jay Guy's shoot for the film "The Path". The shoot was taking place at Bantock House in Wolverhampton, a small historic building that was doubling for the home of a wealthy German SS officer in World War Two, and the shoot gave me the opportunity to shoot not only behind-the-scenes shots but also character portraits. Of the behind the scenes shots, I was lucky to have been working with a great cast and a very lively, character-laden crew:






Shooting the character portraits was an interesting challenge too, it was like shooting regular portraits but with the actors in full costume and remaining in character. Even though it was a sunny day, I decided to shoot in the shade in order to get more even lighting, and it seemed to pay off!:







The experience of shooting on the day was incredible, a fun but professional shoot with a great bunch of people! The full set of photos can be seen on Flickr here: "The Path"

Cheers for reading!

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!