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!