sunderland air show

As I'm sure you know travelling to sunderland is not often top of my list of destinations but I have to say they did a fantastic job of running the 21st anniversary air show. I was a little frustrated leaving my house as the rain was coming down but I was hopeful that sea breeze would help me out and keep the day good enough.

being honest the whole of the red arrows set was amazing! i have only had the chance to see them once when i was shooting for the great northrun. they were nothing like this! they did 20mins of some of the most amazing things i have seen!


other great things included the chinook and the apache. the event as a whole was not hapered by the dodgy weather but it woudl have obviously be a little better if i had been in the lovely sun!

Flash AAHHHHHHH ! (that was meant to sound like freddie mercury)

For some time now i have been toiling with the wonders of moveable light. but being honest i have had mixed success and lots of trial and errors! Couple of weeks ago i had the pleasure of teamig up with some fellow leeds flikr-ites to get a bit of a lesson in flash. we tripped up to Roundhay Park and had some fun.

This shot of ibecks was where i started....or at least with the camera, neal ad steve had spend a long time setting up the lights to get us this shot. basically 4 big flashes are set up around becks and all on 1/4 power to get this cool effect. being honest i don't have the gear to set all of this up on my own but i would like to try this again. The nature of the fun you have in a group leads to 'playing with other people's gear'. Neal some how had hold of 85mm 1.2....wow is all i can say!

this shot of daf is just uber sharp!
Well after the sun started to go down we played abit more than we expected too, the folly proved to be a fantastic backdrop to these type of shots.


being honest i was so happy with howthese have turned out, really i never thought i would be able to take shots like this! If you would like to see more of the set and some of the set ups check out the group Neal set up.

York visit

Having lived in York for 8 years you eventualy get used to the tourists being everywhere! but going back yesterday was fun as i sort of forgot how people walk round and take the same shots as everyone else!
I tried my best to look at things as per usual a little bit different. i'm not sure if i did but hey!



some of the people out dressed up were great, not sure if they should have thought about what they were wearing before they left the house!

Marc Riboud

the other week i attended a mini conference/workshop on the works of Marc Riboud specifically in Leeds. There has been an exhibition in the Leeds museum that i hadn't actually been to see. His works were taken in 1954 and included a range of street style shots of the areas of leeds like burmantoffs and burley. they show a leeds very different to the one i know and made me ralise that some fo the over the top post proccessing is not needed but a good black and white photo can be just as dynamic. Dye to copyright issues i can't really post many links on here of the original works but when i visited York yesterday i tried to cover this as one of my aims for the day.
Here are a few of my attempts to capture the mood of tourism in York city centre.



What i need to do next is try and lean what settings will make the most effective black and white converstions. A pal of mine paddy is outstanding at this but i have a bit to go yet!

Dragon boat racing

Living in Leeds the main sport is a bit of a toss up between Football and rugby league, so a visit to clarance dock was a bit of a suprise when Dragonboat racing was the order of the day!

The actual races were great an an opprtunity to try and get some more fun use out of my 70-200mm, but as you can see from some of the shots i did struggle to get the angle i wanted. after the course i went to with Andy Rouse who is a STUNNING photographer. his main tips of the day was to get as low as you can. now this was obviously in the context of nature photography but the same applies here. I really wanted to get nearer to the water to get a better shot of the oars going in but the side of thedck said no. So i'm a bit frustrated that i didn't really use the full capacity of my fav lens in this shoot.

As mush as i complain that i don't have a thing about street photography but events like these do make me giggle at all of the fancy dress related goings on!

Suffolk Sortie

Last weekend saw us taking a visit darn sarf to Ipswich. It wasn't intentially a photography trip but it was fun and i got some interesting shots. The main thing i realised on my trip that i seem to have changed my thought processes slightly.

Up to now i feel like i have walked around places and taking some shots of different things, mostly quirky things that are infront of me. Now i feel that i have stepped away from the 'snaps' that i would have taken on a trip like this, to take a set of images that are more structured.

That is not to say that i am taking better shots but the styling has changed. Some of the shots i took were styled in some way by the work of Martin Parr. again i'm not saying that my shots mirror his as i'm not anywhere near Martins quality but the colours and the flags in faces i can copy!




I enjoyed my trip to Southwold, the home of Adnams beer...and yes i did have some...not lots but some!
I would advise trying some street style on the beach and the front as some interesting shots do pop out!

various adventures

Well at first i have to apologise for being rubbish and not posting recently, i have been out to take shots but not really had the chance to sit and post anything on here charting my experiences. On the whole i have taken some shots i'm happy with in some different styles to what i normally do.

Bradford Mela:

The Mela had the potential to be a fantastic event with a vast range of photos. i only managed to get a couple of hours but even in that time i managed to go from 'street'-off the hip shots, to low light gig shots. Obviously i have been using a number of similar techniques on my post processing recently, its still eerimental as i'm not fully sure if its the best way of doing them as its a bit over the top, please tell me if this is the case! i seem to be struggling to make slight improvements and make my photos stand out. again this is back to my problems i have with 'my style', PP work is the easiest way to make this style but these could be over the line when it comes to 'too much work'.

At the mela i did take down my 70-200mm 2.8and it was great for some of the cadid/street shots. but i was a little scared carrying round as much glass in a bit of a busy atmosphere! it wasn't intimidating but i do feel i'm being watched when i have such a big white thing on the end of my camera. I think that the street style shots i took were a bit different for me as i did start to wait for the right moment to shoot rather than the panic shots i have done thus far. As i'm sure you have heard me say before i don't really get the whole street thing yet but i am getting happier with some of my shots. could this be that i'm turning to the dark side??


Craig visiting i.e. Leeds street and moo cows



A quick trip in to Leeds with Craig and we decided to try and find a 'no flash corner'. This is a fun place where the liht is comingfrom a different side to the sun...kinda. all i was really doing was copying off Griff and Lloyd but hey it was fun. shots came out ok but has got me thinking of going out again nearer when the buisness people are leaving work rather than early pub time.
On the way home we tried again to get some shots of the infamous highland cows in the field in Drighlington. some of them came out well even tho we did the naughty of shooting them with flash.
Craig tells me this is the money shot ;-)


We wouldn't have gone down this road ifthey had been bothered by the flasehes but they really were interested in what we were doing so these shots just happened! being honest i would like to investigate how some other animals react as if they don't see it as a problem there is some potential for some very cool shots. but i will not go down this road if it goes down badly.

I suppose again i wouldn't have been able to take this shot had i been on my own as i had the great voice activiated flash holder to make these shots happen.

being honest i was hoping to go a bit more in depth with this update but as its now 2303... i should go to bed. i'll do some more stuff on my nextpost that will go through my shots from suffolk!

all the best

Haewood Hill Climb

Another weekend and another trip out with my camera. Harewood holds a number of hill climb events each year and this was my first visit. I was shocked at the vast array of car and also the potential for some amazing photos. At the moment i am still learning and the number of different shots i could have taken in some ways made it difficult to focus on the shots i wanted from the day.
At the outset i was hoping to have a try at panning, this is a technique i have only had the opportunity once before to really try. Unfortuntley my plans of finding a long and flat ish straight.... as i found out quickly, hill climb doesn't lend itself to long straights! this meant i had to make use of my 70-200mm 2.8 and this seemed to work out well.

I did take a lot of the panning shots but i seemed to have problems getting the focus correct, in changing over to my more traditional shots i feel the results were better. hand holding at 1/60 is not easy with a 2.8kg lens on the end made it difficult. next time i will have to take my monopod and have another go.

I think i need to start being a little more technical in these posts..... but as i'm half watching the apprentice i have an excuse!

Liverpool is great!

Myself and Lisa had a trip out to Liverpool on friday which was great. Niether of us have been before so we weren't sure what to expect, we were both very impressed by the vast amount of cool buildings and interesting ideas that are in the city. Having lived in York for years and now in Leeds i'm used to seeing the ever changing skylines and 'new' ideas in the lines used to be inovative, but Liverpool took this too new levels. The picture above is one of the older buildings in the docks area as there were too many porta loos and workmen around to get any cool shots of the new building but we defs got back to shoot them when they are nearer to completion.

In One of my earlier posts i mentioned that i was really impressed by Mathieu Young shots of street life with a strobe, well this is my first attempt of shooting a sunny day with flash! its not 100% there but i'm happy with how it has come out. I'm sure there will be a few more of these type of shots in the coming weeks.


this shot is my fav for the day, its shows one of the coolest bits of the city, the entrance to chinatown.

Check out the rest of the stream, there is an Emin and a Bankys in there!

SET

Ripley castle

Create a Free Slideshow

Suprisingly i managed to get out and about again today! i wasn't expecting to be shooting as often as this!
Well after a search on the internet i stumbled on the Ripley classic car rally, i wasn't sure what to expect but it was great. I managed to get some experience shooting stationary cars and also some very moving falcons. i have attached the slideshow instead of a few shots, not sure if its a good way to do this but you let me know.

what next?

Yesterday i was asked to help my mate Jon photograph a photo...... complicated old affair but t was as part of the course he is doing. Basically the ason behind it was to photograpgh the scene behind jon while he took shots of anoter tog, through a mirror taing a shot, i think the photohelps explain it.
After taking the shots we had a quick pint an a good chat about general photography and how i should be looking to develop myself in the coming months. I finished my 365 in april and since then i haven't really made many efforts to push myself, i have do some cool shooting and i'm hapy wit the results but nothing has really stretched me. After some discussions i'm now thinking that i need to set myself a challenge. I am not the most creative person in the world so this could take some thinking to come up with some ideas for a mini project to stretch my creative juices and get me some cool photos
so at the moment my plan is to try and get settings correct for a shoot round pudsey in the style of mattieu young (last post) with flash street ish stuff /documentary shots, the only worry i have s the great blue skys in the states don't quite translate too well to the greyness of Leeds....
i have loads of books to read too but as i'm rushing out to watch the match....and the toon stay up i'll have to post more tomorrow.

Kirkstall Abbey

this week i have been mostly shooting.....
well for a change we organised a shoot don at Kirkstall Abbey. 4 of us went down there for a few different reasons, myself i wanted to try and practice some more stobist things with at least 1 flash. i'm actually really happy wit the results, in th past my flash shots have been a bit dark and as much as i like them i think i need to give them a bit more light! this one here for example is at f13 1/60, which is a very different set up to the ones i have done before. (check out my stobist set on flickr). Also this was a good opprotunity to shoot someone else, as much as i enjoy shooting Lisa i do need to have some diferent shots in the old portfolio! Paul aka jinky jim was a willing model.... for a bit ;-) but i had to recipricte! and yes i need a hair cut!
on the whole these random get togethers are really fun and mean that i can try ot some different shots in some locations that i wouldn't normally shoot in.

on a separate note i have been trying again to get my shots to look like they are 'mine'. this is a bit of an issue i have had since i started with the Leeds group, i was asked at my first meeting 'whats your style' ad i don't think i have foud it yet! my mate Stu thinks i have but he isn't a photographer... but thats maybe the point i don't know. i would like to be able to shoot and people be able to pick out my images but as i shoot such a varied amout of things i'm not sure if it lies within the post processing i do...... and i'm not amazing at that... lightroom has helped me a lot, or at leas the plugins that daf sent me have ;-) cheers daf. i mean being honest i'm enjoying shooting so much at the mo i'mhappy to just let things happen and see where i end up style wise.

after the comment i got from my rain shots (last post) i may have to have another go at his street malarky. its not something i 'get' as i don't see how it isnt just sots of people on the street... but maybe i'm missing the point. i do like these shots but they are done with a strobe in america when its sunny...with a flash that has more settings that the 2 settings mine has...being ON and OFF. all will be fine in the end i'm sure.

live ong and prosper, but not at my expense - dr spoook

its been a bit wet out

briggate-2
Originally uploaded by gav_forster

well saturday was a bit of a wash out! i was hoping to buy a few things like a rain hood for my shoot today.....the best i got was a couple of plastic bags from home bargins!
but while i was drying my head in the carphone warehouse door i got a couple of shots of the wet people in the middle of Briggate. After a bit of photoshopping i'm happy with these couple of shots i think....

as for today i was in manchester shooting the BUPA Manchester 10k, it was cold windy and wet but hey its always fun to shoot the runs. so many people making a difference to lives through the fantasic fundraising that has been going on.
I hot in the region of 3k images, i hope that josh is happy with them and obviously the people in the shots are also happy!

i'm not sure if i'm getting out there to shoot much this week,hopefully i can get some extras to come along to kirkstall abbey for the shoot on thrsday.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

something for the weekend!

Well this is a bit of a new thing for me but as i often get a bit cluttered i thought that this may help me clear some of it out!
As you know most of my life focuses around the pursuit of taking pictures, golfing and trying to find time to fit in work and oh yes my fiancee!
My photography has made soe improvements in the recent past, mostly due to my working with a great bunch of people in the Leeds Flickr group. I only picked up a DSLR 3 years ago and i'm shocked myself to how i can take so much better shots in such a short space of time. i started taking shots of 'things' and now my shots are starting to be a little more creative...sort of!
In recent times i have been enjoying using flashes andhave come up with some cool results!

anywa this is the first one on here so ...... hopefully i can find the time to keep this up and clear my old noggin!

laters!