Wells-next-the-Sea

We went to Wells on the north Norfolk coast a few weeks ago late in the afternoon and walked out across the beach and past the beach huts to watch the tide come in and see the setting sun. I know from the last time I went there in the winter just what a great place it can be for photography at the end of the day, with the vast expanses of sand, broad vistas, and sense of isolation.

These images were taken in the rapidly fading light and I was quite pleased with both of them - after several tries.

Norwich medieval churches (part 2)

Continuing with the remaining four themes of the photography competition, and following on from the previous post, these are my chosen pictures:

Worship and contemplation: St Peter Mancroft - I took several pictures of the chapel sign, as I felt that from one of these I would find a suitably plain image with reasonable lighting. I considered other churches but came back to what is a fairly serious image in the end.

Art and architecture: St Peter Mancroft -

Again, this church provided great opportunities for another category. After several attempts to find an interesting angle of the carved oak figure of St Paul - with St Peter in the background - this one seemed the most satisfying.

Enjoyment and fun: St Peter Parmentergate, King Street - Here I made a couple of visits to the Tae-Kwon-Do class in the church and decided to enter a shot incorporating the martial arts Mickey Mouse and a student in the background - one of the more light hearted entries.

Innovation and change: St Lawrence, St Benedict's Street - although I made three visits with the camera and tried all sorts of possible angles and subjects ath this church (it has a fashion and textiles display two days a week) I came back to one of my first shots, with a fashion display and mirror reflecting the church window.

Al in all, an interesting project that made me think of Norwich's churches in a wholly new way - which was one of the aims of the competition.

Norwich medieval churches (part 1)

Norwich has A wealth of medieval churches in its hidtoric core. I've just recently finished my submission for a photographic competition run by Norwich Heritage and Regeneration Trust. This explores themes relating to the past and present churches and their place in today's society. Hence there were eight themes: history and tradition, people and community, inspiration and learning, restoration and conservation, worship and contemplation, art and architecture, enjoyment and fun and innovation and change.

Aftere much wandering around in and out of churches I finally came up with my chosen submission of eight pictures. I really enjoyed looking round churches I hadn't seen much of before, and have come to appreciate them not just in terms of the quality of their interiors, and the range of photographic subjects they offer, but as havens of peace and tranquility in the busy commercial centre of the historic city.

I did get more than I bargained for in one church where I ended up being invited to stay and document an importand church service and presentation of an honary award - quite a big responsibility.

Here are four photographs from my entry, one for each of the first four categories:
History and tradition: St Peter Mancroft, Haymarket, Norwich - a lovely large church in the middle of the city and opposite the Forum, it could easily have provided images for a whole range of entries...as it was, it provided three. Searching for an unusual viewpoint in this much-photographed church, I liked the very low angle and the lighting here, with the eye being led throught to the display of flowers below the organ.

People and community:St James, Whitefriars, Norwich, the Norwich PuppetrTheatre - in the foyer of this wonderful buildong in front of a photographic display tracing the history of the theatre in this converted church. Again, I took a lot of photographs in the auditorium and in the foyer, and hasdn't really considered any taken in this part of the foyer to be serious contenders at first, but in the end I rather liked the quirkiness of this, combined with the link to the people theme in the photograps on the wall.

Inspiration and learning: St Michael Coslany, Oak Street, Norwich, the Inspire Discovery Centre, teaching children about science with a range of interactive and boldly coloured exhibits. A good many interesting images available here, but my preferred option was always going to be one featuring the child and her binoculars. Just a question of which one to choose.

Restoration and conservation: extrenal repairs in progress at St Stephen, Rampart Horse St, Norwich, after a large crack was discovered and the whole structure of the building put in doubt! I struggled a bit to find enough subject matter for this one, which I hadn't expected.

I will include the other four pictures in my next post.

....and Chesterton Windmill

Chesterton Windmill is an imposing structure on a hillside close to the Fosse Way and to the east of Warwick. Information and some photographs here:
http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/Web/corporate/pages.nsf/Links/155D9C8F3E61BDB6802571020049F89D
When we were arriving we just caught the end of a wedding photoshoot - a photographer taking shots of people posing with one of the wedding cars with the windmill in the background. There was also someone taking picures from a point in the adjacent field. Other than that, we had the place to ourselves.

Compton Verney.....

Last week I visited Compton Verney in Warwickshire with Rachel, my youngest daughter. We're both keen photographers so it was a great chance to take a few pictures each and see what kinds of subjects appealed to us. Interestingly she tended to notice the small details of colours and textures, and I tended to be looking for landscape shots of the buildings across the lake. Compton Verney's grounds are beautifully landscaped by Capability Brown and the house itself includes an art gallery and a very fine cafe. The parkland and woods were well maintained and the house remarkably free of outside clutter, so altogether a very pleasant visit indeed.

An unofficial wedding photographer

Jamie and Amy's wedding near Buxton a month ago gave me a great opportunity to put into practice an idea I read in Amateur Photographer recently - basically to enjoy taking interesting

wedding pictures without any of the major responsibility of the official wedding photographer: in other words, to be something of an 'unofficial' wedding photographer looking out for the interesting candid moments and trying to capture the spontaneous and the unusual.,

On the whole I was happy with the results - out of around 220 exposures I saved on the camera ended up with just under 100 that were worth using, admittedly with a fair amount of cropping and brightness correction at times. Partly this was due to having to shoot at unusual angles and partly at having to adjust to the changing light throughout the day.

At the end of it all, though, I think I'd really like to carve out a niche as a wedding photographer, if only I had the nerve.

Exposure considered

The Exposure photography exhibition has been and gone. A learning experience for both of us, though I did sell two pictures and Teresa sold one, and we also sold a few postcard size prints for a few pence each. Interestingly both photographs I sold were from my collection of images from the historic covered market in Porto - maybe I should make these the focal point of any future exhibition. I've already planned to return to Porto in May next year and I think I'm going to have to spend a couple of hours at the market next time.

We did learn how to cut mounting board, looked at various different ways of hanging our photographs, and thought about how others had gone about it. Certainly the process has made us think through what we are trying to achieve, and why. We bought and restored second hand frames, sand on the whole this was successful. Here's one of the images from my short list(Livraria Lello bookshop in Porto) that didn't quite make it into the exhibition this time.

Things move on, and I've been rather preoccupied with sorting out a set of wedding photographs and sifting through photographs of Norwich's medieval churches for a competition entry. I will put something on the blog as soon as I can. I've also been providing photographs for some people at a church where I just wandered in......and ended up being co-opted as the official photographer for an award ceremony. Occupational risk of being seen with a decent camera, I suppose.