Action photography with Welshot

This Sunday 19th May I attended a Mini module on Action Photography workshop with bikes at Ty Croes with Welshot . I went all the way to nearly the top of Anglesey to do it, but it sure was worth it as can be seen from this image which pretty much sums up how I felt about the day as a whole.

We met at the Paddock Caffe at 10:00. I turned up at about 9:30 and as I turned up they just started the first race. What a welcome, popped over the top of the hill to the roar of a lot of bikes heading towards me. We met in the caffe and discovered that there was no mobile phone signal.......{oh dear, what a shame, never mind}.  First of all we went for a walk around the paddock to acclimatise ourselves to the GTX filled air. This is not super bikes and we were allowed to walk amongst the competitors who were busily adding finishing touches to their bikes, and generally having the craic.

Just putting the health and safety head on for a moment, the paddock area is live, as in there are bikes travelling around warming up and being tested. They are a very friendly bunch and are usually quite happy to let you photograph them or their bikes. 

Eifion sent us off for about 45 minutes to take a few images at our leisure, then we went to watch some racing. We were given some instruction on panning with the moving bikes in order to get motion blur in the background and the bike itself in sharp focus.

We were told that it could be possible to get the exposure time down to 1/30th of a second. {the best I got down to was 1/60th but when the bikes are moving quite fast, that still allows for quite a bit of motion blur.

We watched one or two races from the bottom part of the circuit before lunch, then moved up to the top section of the track.

We moved position several times in order to get a variety of shots, and received instruction on which was most appropriate technique in each situation. The weather forecast had been for a bright sunny day, but it turned out to be a little overcast and dry. Which was pretty good as far as the lighting goes. 

And on the last lap the bikes are all moving that bit slower so are easier to catch with a shot.

I am now looking forward to the next time that I can go, what a fantastic day out.

Nos da, Ty Croes see you again soon I hope!

Mike Jones' Exhibition tonight

Tonight it was off to Colwyn Bay to view Mike Jones exhibition at Oriel Theatre Colwyn.

The images on display were from Mikes work over the last two years at Coleg Llandrillo, Rhos on Sea campus. Where Mike is about to graduate with a HND in photography. The pictures were all well produced and framed, with a mixture of giclee and gelatine fibre based prints. The room is relatively small but room enough for the viewer to step back and take in the image from a distance if desired.

Mikes subjects for this exhibition were; free runners/skaters and tattoo work.

There was a good turnout tonight. Including Tim Williams who heads up the HND Photography team at the college. {I understand that Darryl Lonsbrough was there earlier as well}. The buffet was brilliant too, about perfect for the size of space and throughput of visitors.

The exhibition is under the name of Pins and Needles, Mike's company. and the link takes you to the event details on Facebook.

Well done Mike!

Kiss me Kate

Last week I was offered the opportunity to cover Chester Operatic Societies production of (Cole porter's) Kiss me Kate that was on at the William Aston Hall, part of Glyndwr University in Wrexham.

The show closed tonight.

I really appreciated the opportunity to try out this new genre for me.

I was supported by Keith Barlow, Eifion Williams, Tim Charlsworth and Lee Iggulden all associates via Welshotimaging, however this was not a Welshot event.

I started at 1:45 on the Sunday afternoon and was shooting almost continuously until 9:15 with the mandatory breaks included that is. Monday we started at around 6:00 and continued until 10:45.

I was asked to provide 6 high resolution images for the Sunday night, and that it was OK to put the others on Facebook. So I stayed up until the small hours on Monday, just to prove to myself that I could meet the challenge really. I started off with around 1500 images. I put 6 high res images on a disk and 95 low res images onto a separate disk. I posted about 50 images onto Facebook because that was as many as FB would let me put in one post.

I have since posted the remainder of the decent images to Facebook and am including my 12 Favorites here;

Tom Wood's exhibition - DPA work

Tonight I have had an excellent night, visiting Tom Wood's exhibition of his DPA commissions in Merseyside. Rainhill Hospital & Cammell Laird Shipyard.

(DPA = Documentary Photography Archive)

I did ask if it was OK to put a picture of it up on my blog and he said so long as he wasn't in it. I said he might be but he wouldn't be recognisable. So if you recognise him, keep it to yourself please.

Tom was in Chester tonight for the second preview of the show. I can definitely recommend a visit, as any of his former students know, Tom is a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to printing his images and the quality of some of the images on show is stunning. Some of the larger prints had just been handed over to be hung and mostly worked very well. The show is on until 26th of May at the Contemporary Art Space in Chester, part of the University of Chester, Kingsway, CH2 2LB.

My own personal favourite was the image printed onto a solid board. Tom liked that one too. A lot of the images were simply pinned to the white walls and that was very effective.

There were many more images relating to Cammell Laird's than the Rainhill Hospital, but that I suppose reflects the public feeling at the time. There was quite a lot of public out cry when Cammell Lairds closed, I remember the day, I was working in Hamilton square at the time.

Mental health establishments were still quite a taboo subject at the time, so Tom's interpretation through his images is helpful in seeing where we are today by comparisson. As well as giving a voice to the plight of mental health patients of the time.

As a former voluntary resident of mental health establishment in Halton in 2000, I can safely say that we have come a long way and in the last 13 years, we have advanced a lot further, thankfully. Would it be worth doing some sort of retrospective Tom?

As for the Cammell Lairds documents, quality work as ever and definitely a book in the making here especially as he says that there is a lot more of it. If it's only one shelf of that lot he's got stored in his house, there will be plenty.

The gallery space itself is brilliant. I don't actually rate the area of Chester as that photogenic but I was more than pleasantly surprised. The Architecture of the building itself is great and is well matched by the roomy squeaky clean exhibition area.

Tom's exhibition Men and Women also opens tonight in the Thomas Erben Gallery in New York (In theory he could make it from Chester to NewYork for that but, as well as shutting down Cammell Lairds, market forces also grounded Concorde) , and I think that another set of his work is on show as part of the Liverpool Light Night event that is taking place in Liverpool tomorrow night between 4 and midnight, where a lot of art galleries will be open until late, with free admission. See Light Night Liverpool

I was looking forward to that event in Liverpool but budget constraints and all stopped play, is that what they call sod's law?

A bit about my GI diet.

Well it has been a very busy weekend. I will update by the end of the week on what's been happening re an opportunity that presented itself, via Welshot, however in this post I'll just tell you about my new diet, with some pictures of some of the food.

I have started the GI diet, which stands for Glycemic Index. In principle it's high fibre and consists mainly of food that will get your stomach working properly so that you actually burn off the fat. Where as a lot of diets work by reducing the weight by water loss, this fat burning diet tends to be longer lasting.

I got told that I have to loose 5 and a half stone by the nurse at my local GPs. When I picked myself off the floor from the ensuing laughing fit. I asked for a gym referral and that combined with the diet helps speed my metabolism up to the same rate as it was at before I started taking medication.

Anyway I started taking pictures of some of my meals which are mainly green light.

I have 3 decent meals a day and 3 snacks in between, all planned out, it is surprising how quickly my stomach seems to have adapted to the new routine. This is not a starvation diet, so I don't feel hungry on it.

Anyway here are some of the dishes;

first of all have a decent breakfast. Porridge is good, basic oats and water, with a few blueberries in for a bit more flavour. Water is recommended, decaf coffee is also OK.

A bit of variety is good too, I learned to make rolled omelette, I put it with some rice here for brunch as it took a bit longer to make than expected;

Granary bread with a little low fat spread.

Next to some snacks, home made snacks that fit in with the diet are a must. So best make them at the start of each 4 days. If you keep then much longer they tend to dry out, except the Banana loaf which seemed OK for a bit longer.

Mix for the Muffins;

Blueberry and apple muffins;

Banana loaf;

Gluten free cake;

This started out a bit dry, my partner said it was nice with some low fat custard but I had to take her word for it, next time I make it, I will be putting a bit of fruit in it.

Then on to lunch or dinner (which is generally lighter than the main meal at tea time)

Home made vegetable soup, with some light Creme fraiche; 

Or some Greek yoghurt with fruit and nuts;

Then to the main event, tea,

Baked fish in lime juice and rosemary, with stir fry vegetables, only using a tsp of rapeseed oil for frying;

Stuffed Pasta shells and mushroom salad, crisp bread and water;

                                      

This was the first meal of the "diet" and not green light at all, I had a rack of ribs in the fridge, which I strictly should have gotten rid of but I buried them in this salad. There is probably a way of doing the ribs so that they are low GI but I hadn't got to that bit of the book yet;

Bit naughty...(so sue me)

Anyway by the end of the first week after resetting the scales, I lost between 10 lbs and a stone in weight. And loads of my old clothes that I just couldn't bin now fit. Still a long way to go yet though.

Today I went for a walk up Moel Ffammau.

It took all of two hours to the top and back, with Darren. I was knackered when we got to the top and Darren had hardly broke a sweat. I only had my Full spectrum camera with me so I did a few false colour shots. Some playing around with colour channels in photoshop.

The following image has had red and blue Channels swapped.

here are two copies of the same image the one on the left has had channels swapped the one on the right has just had HSL adjustments in lightroom.

                   

                     

Franticly searching for an open Subway

Hi, went out to a photographic exhibition last night. On the way back I promised to bring back a subway for Anita. Flint closed, BP on the industrial estate closed so to Queensferry and driving across the blue bridge I saw this and thought, that was a "click" moment. Then I remembered I had my IR camera in the back hence......

And the Queensferry Subway was open......bonus. Will update this tomorrow.

Flintshire Social links trip to Greenfield Valley (from the top)

We visited greenfield valley today from the top car park next to Tesco.

Some of the shots were taken with normal visible light Canon 550D

Then this one is especially for a mate, primarily because they don't like the HDR look.

Then I switched to my full spectrum 550D with a Hoya 720nm IR filter and played around with the channels and individual colour HSL in Lightroom.