A Yorkshire show in Lancashire

Taking photos at poultry and agricultural shows I sometimes get asked where people can see my feeble offerings. Partly with that in mind, as I don't do Facebook, I'm trying to build a website to easily display my photographs so they don't have to read my ramblings on here. Today's efforts round the sheep pens at the Todmorden Show (helpfully held in Holme on the right side of the border) can be seen in gallery form here (for the best viewing experience click on the first picture and click next to scroll through) or here for a slideshow. The site is tablet and mobile friendly so tapping and swiping should work. I hope!

Despite the picture above the weather was mixed. Cooler than of late and showery. The poultry tent kept me dry a couple of times. And that was where I started the day. Struggling to find anything to photograph that was different to the hundreds of pictures I already have of poultry shows.

I tried to channel my inner Martin Parr for a while, but it didn't go well. The only way I can think of to take the project further is to step right out of my comfort zone and ask people if I can take portraits. I'm not too sure that's the kind of pictures I want to be making. While it isn't easy for me to ask, it is a bit of a soft option because I'll have a set idea in mind for what I want to achieve. Much of the attraction of photography to me is the unexpected.I t could also become a collection of pictures of 'characters'. Which would feel kind of exploitative.A tricky balance would have to be struck. Meanwhile at the sheep pens...

Things didn't go much better. Not being in close to the action puts obstacles in the way of the lens and demands the use of longer focal lengths which put a psychological distance into the pictures making them less immersive for the viewer. I saw three photographers around the show using 70-200 lenses. My 28-300 might not be as optically superb as those, and it doesn't always give the same subject/background separation, but it does go wider so I can get in close when the opportunity presents itself.

Another advantage it has over the 'pro' lens is that its closer focusing  allows me to get close-up detail shots. And I don't have to keep swapping lenses or camera bodies!

Overall my haul of pictures to add to the project files was slim. I did get the obligatory sheep judging picture of the teeth examination. And a decent example too. Something I have noticed me getting lazy about is making pictures that have a satisfying visual structure as well as interesting content. I must concentrate more. Although when my viewpoint is restricted so are my framing options.

I also got some human/sheep interaction shots which work quite well, as images an as story telling. Capturing moments is something that is difficult and often at events such as country shows it's easier to fall into the trap of photographing characters from afar. As I often mention here and to myself when I find the lens zooming out and pointing towards some weather beaten soul.

 

I don't often photograph children in these paranoid times, but some pictures demand to be taken. It's all about expression and gesture.

 Smiling people aren't a common sight in my picture files but when there's a sheep complaining in the same frame...

Although all the sheep pictures were taken with my trusty do-it-all lens I had intended to use the little Fujis. I started out with one in the poultry tent. Got a couple of sharp, well exposed pictures of a chicken then missed some people pictures because of the focusing and put the ting back in my bag for the rest of the day. I saw one or two people using small cameras and I still found I could get in close with my cumbersome old thing without anyone batting an eyelid. It really is all down to having the confidence to do it and be brazen enough too. I don't always have what it takes, but some days i do.

I didn't just photograph poultry and sheep. I took some snaps around the show. Cattle aren't my favourite animals. I prefer them slightly more than horses. While goats might have some similarities to sheep they don't appeal to me the same way. However, both cattle and goats can be photogenic.

And finally. Going through my four hundred plus wastes of disc space I did the old trick of converting to black and white to see if a picture still worked. I came to the conclusion that black and white is more forgiving than colour. You might not be able to make monochrome silk purses from coloured sows ears, but you can get away with more in black and white. Distracting blocks of out of focus colour become far less distracting blocks of grey as soon as you desaturate a picture. Compositionally there is less to worry about when framing shots. And if you give it that good old black border and present it on white a mono shot instantly becomes art!

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The gift that keeps on giving

Not having been to the sandplant for a few weeks but having driven past it I thought an evening visit might be in order. What a difference low evening light and blue skies makes! I like dull overcast days well enough, but raking light brings out texture far better, which can be important for some pictures. Bright sunshine also makes colours more vibrant. Something that no amount of computer trickery can manage if the light was dull in the first place. Different light gives different ambience to pictures, as does it's direction. All of which makes me thing about different pictures from the same subject, and given the changing nature of the sandplant there are always new photographs to be made.

This picture wouldn't have worked had the sky been overcast and the light flat as it's all about the colour and the cloud seemingly hanging over the skip.

The annoyance with this picture is that the top of the skip is in line with the horizon. Unavoidable really as I wanted to include the rust metal in the shot. If I had been lower in order to push the top of the skip above the horizon less of the tangle of metal would have been visible. Any higher and ther ould have been too much space between the skip and the cloud.

It's a funny thing, but I find if I am using a zoom lens it usually gets used at the two extremes. rather defeating the purpose of the thing! At least when using two zooms that gives me four focal length choices. A good enough reason to have lenses that don't do what most amateurs want them to do - cover a continuous range of focal lengths. I know it's often mentioned that single focal length lenses make you think about your pictures and that zooms make you lazy. It's often said because it's true. When you have to use your feet to frame shots you tend not to just walk forwards or backwards, you also move left and right, and even up and down to get the framing you want.

While the first picture was shot very wide with the sun to my side, the next one was shot long and into the light. There's compression and shallow depth of field to provide isolation, and the quality of light adds a different feel. Most photographers would have preferred a gorgeous blonde as their subject rather than the bucket off a digger. But that's so clichéd!

The place has changed dramatically. The outer bunds are disappearing fast, but the rabbits are clinging on. The interior space is getting flattened and the concrete is almost all broken down now. This time next year it will be unrecognisable to what it was twelve months ago. The next picture is a very boring one, but to me it has a symbolic significance. The grass on the right is original saltmarsh, the track-marked sand to the left is reworked land. If all goes to the plan I have heard I expect it will eventually all look the same. I expect that there will remain traces of what went before under the returned saltmarsh as I cannot see every scrap of rubber, plastic or iron being removed from the site.

As ever after a trip to the sandplant there's a gallery/slideshow of today's pictures to be found here.

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An experiment

A test post to see if a video slideshow with some snaps from yesterday works on this blog...

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Misty morning

Ever since I got my first SLR I've liked taking photographs on misty days. Tones become mutes, the light is soft and even and distant backgrounds get obliterated making for flatter images that are often more graphic - which suits my way of seeing.

Unfortunately the mist burned and blew off before I arrived at the sandplant. A pea souper would have been more suitable for what I had in mind. However, things had altered since my last visit and I managed to make pictures that were different enough to those I've made in past visits. One in particular could be the best I've managed of the sand washing troughs.

I had intended to use the tripod but I didn't see any need for small apertures. I prefer using a  shallower depth of field in the sandplant than I had done in the quarry the other day.


View larger here.

As I headed inland the mist was still quite thick so I took a detour to the lane that winds over the moss. Just as my arrival at the sandplant seemed to cause the mist to rise so it did along the lane. There is a stand of trees that I want to photograph, but they usually get lost amongst the background. Today they stood out against the mist. Until I got the camera out that is. I grabbed a few hasty shots before the moment had gone completely. Oh well.

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Out of the comfort zone

Quite why I ventured forth with my tripod and remote release this afternoon I'm not sure. Making something of the flooded farmland using the tripod, its use forced on my by the very dull light late on the other day, must have played a part. Indeed, it was my intention to try more of the same today but I took a detour to the disused quarry I've visited many times before without much photographic success. Rather like the sandplant it is a mix of a man-altered landscape and natural recolonisation, but in this case with some landscaping as the place is now a country park come nature reserve. It is still prone to misuse by the mountain bikes which the signs clearly forbid.

With water in mind I was drawn to the peaty pools that are a feature of the quarry. It took me a few attempts to find my eye, but by the time the light was failing I was wishing I'd arrived earlier.

There was an accidental discovery. The shot on the right was taken by my inadvertent firing of the shutter by the remote release in my pocket. I liked the look of the frame and tried to use the slow shutter speed to better effect. I'm not sure why it is that the consciously made images never seem as spontaneous as the accidental ones even given the abdication of some control. The frame below was the best of the bunch. It sort of captures some of the atmosphere of the quarry in winter.

More straightforward were the static shots of the pools, birch trees and rocks. I deliberately desaturated the files to try and stress the overcast, late afternoon winter light and the feeling of dankness in the quarry. It was interesting to work in a different way, using the tripod and often the live view screen for framing (although I still check composition through the viewfinder).

All today's shots were made with my little used ultrawide zoom. In the confines of the quite claustrophobic quarry it proved invaluable. I think I'll be returning for a longer session at some point to try out some more ideas.


View larger here.

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Isolation

 There's this lump of concrete in the sandplant that holds a peculiar fascination for me, but quite why I'm not sure. Nor am I sure how to show what it is that interests me about it in a photograph. I first tried to isolate it from the surroundings by using a shallow depth of field using a long lens and a low angle. This worked to a degree.

This afternoon I stopped by on my way home from the bank armed with a wide zoom I don't use much. There wasn't much light and I was restricted to the camera's built in flash. The darkening, cloudy sky provided a more contrasting background with the low angle I chose. To get so low I was shooting 'blind', aiming the camera by judgement rather than trying to look through the viewfinder with the camera almost on the ground.

I think this shot is the best effort I've made yet at capturing what I see when I look at the stone.

Although this brief visit didn't produce any outstanding pictures what I did get have provided me with a clearer idea of where I'm going with this project. I'm starting to understand what I'm seeing and how I might photograph it.

See gallery larger.


As well as taking a different lens I also took my ignored neutral graduate filter. Being bone idle I simply held this in front of the lens. Although it's not a strong filter it does make a difference and with the banks of the sandplant in shade helped balance the exposures which included the sky.

Something seems to have changed every time I visit the sandplant, and this time a portaloo had appeared, Tardislike, with the opening of the cockle beds which are accessed from the haul road out through the marsh. Quite incongruous, but in keeping with the almost other-worldly atmosphere of the place.

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Another viewpoint

Realising that I might be getting stale at the sandplant I took a walk ouut along the track the trucks and diggers used to use to reach the sandbank where the sand was dug. This is simply a path of hardcore which stretches out over a kilometre through the salt marsh and into the sand exposed at low tide. Where marsh meets shore are two weathered concrete posts.

My intention had been to photograph the sandplant from the track, but it became apparent that a longer lens would have been better suited in order to make the sandplant larger in relation to the foreground while retaining a sense of context in the landscape. So I gave that idea up and made what I could of the flatness and light.

Back at the sandplant the recent rain had altered it a little, and the with the sun higher in the sky than previous visits the light was different. It being a Sunday there were also more people around. The shot below wasn't planned. I'd been trying to satisfactorily frame a shot of the plant against the water when the dog and woman appeared. Rather than wait until they had passed I took two shots. I'm still undecided if the one below really works.

Having amassed a fair number of photos of the sandplant I thought I'd print them out as a means of sorting them, a mass of prints being easier to judge en masse than files on a screen. With there being some seventy plus I printed them two per 5x7 sheet.

This lead to the inevitable message that the inks were low and the cartridges in need of replacement. A warning I have learned to ignore. Sure enough, despite all the colours being low, I managed to rattle off thirty six sheets without a horrible colour cast being apparent from the lack of one ink. Not only do printer manufacturers rip you off by putting very little ink in their cartridges, they set things up to tell you there is less remaining than there really is.

Having made the prints a quick scan through them gave me ideas of what to do next with the project. Although I'm still unsure of where it's all going.

The latest selection from Sunday below.


See gallery larger.

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Dilemma

I stopped by the sandplant again today. This time deliberately using the X10 to change the way I would see things. This certainly worked but not in the way I'd imagined. My intention had been to take mostly close ups, particularly of plants, and to try some panoramas. The panoramas didn't pan out as well as one I took last time.

While using the screen to frame low level shots usually works well it proved difficult in the bright sunlight. The screen was often useless at low level, and not much better at eye level. Despite this frustration I had to drag myself away as I kept finding new things to photograph.
 
While I am having no trouble finding photographs I am struggling to come to terms with is the direction to take with them. It is tempting to take the gritty black and white line to point up the industrial dereliction. Then again colourful close ups of plants thriving in the desolation would suggest another viewpoint. As always with photography there is a tendency to prettify everything. More so when the sun shines or the light is dramatic. Although objectivity is impossible I'm striving to be as neutral as possible while still showing how I experience the place.

If the photographs ever get to a point where they are to be gathered together in a coherent selection then it will all come down to the final edit. There's no doubt that I like the place the way it is. How it offends common sensibilities with it's neglected dereliction while proving nature can take care of itself without being managed. Perhaps I should eschew objectivity.


See gallery larger.

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Blot on the landscape

Perception is all. For normal people Southport's sandplant is an eyesore in need of 'development'. To me it's a shining example of how the natural world recolonises a man-made landscape. Since the plant was demolished the wildlife has moved in. There are rabbits living there and their predators visit. Plants are taking over and these draw in birds.

Of course it attracts humans too. Motorbikes tear round it at times, travellers have stopped there, dogs are walked and allowed to run free, people fly model aircraft and race model cars, birdwatchers use the bunds as vantage points to scope across the saltmarsh, vandals spray graffitti, and I wander round it with a camera as do other locals.

Most times I just pass through, but today I spent some time with a bit of a plan in mind. The initial idea was to concentrate on the recolonisation, and the way people use the place (if there were any people about). Then I got sidetracked by the forms of the place itself and the light. As a result the pictures split themselves into two. Colour and monochrome almost paralleling the two themes, although there is some crossover between the two sets below.

I intend looking back through my older photographs of the plant to see if I can make a larger coherent collection, and to return with other ideas in mind to further explore the place.

See gallery larger.


See gallery larger.

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Unexpected directions

There's this gutter on the marsh, right by the road, that has always cried out to be photographed at sunset. Such is it's alignment that right now is probably one of the two annual windows when the sun sets more or less in the ideal place to get it reflected in teh water. With there not being many sunny sunsets of late I took the opportunity yesterday to give it a go.

I didn't expect it to be easy to make something of it. Ideally I'd have got a higher vantage point to take in the pools further out on the marsh, but that didn't seem to be practicable. I spent quite some time, making a lot of exposures, until after the sun had left the sky. One was half reasonable. The best light and cloud combinations all came when the sun was not in the best position.

I used a convenient fence post as a monopod, but I really ought to use a tripod for thsi sort of stuff. It's just that that seems like taking it all too seriously to me. It also kind of commits you to picking one composition and sticking with it, which goes against my impatient nature.

On my way to the gutter I got an idea to photograph the wildflowers growing by the side of the road putting them in the context of their situation colonising the man-made environment. It seemed a reasonable idea to include the traffic, slowing the shutter speed to provide motion blur. A couple worked quite well and it's something I might do again.

With the light failing as I walked back to the car I popped a flash gun on the camera and messed around balancing the artificial and ambient light. In the old sand-plant this gave me my first real concept of how to photograph it's recolonisation by plants. I don't know why the use of flash at dusk makes the photographs work better than ones taken of similar subjects in daylight. Perhaps it's the contrast of light that highlights the contrast of plants against bricks, concrete and rubble. Again this is something that really requires a tripod to get sufficient depth of focus with the slow shutter speed required to expose for the sky, and probably off-camera flash, to do justice to.

Both these ideas are the sort of thing I could imagine a student working up into a project accompanied by a lengthy statement justifying the subject and practice and coming across as ever so intense and pretentious. They're just photographs of an interesting idea to me. I've made a few, so I'll probably leave it. I find that when you start realising what you are doing things become stale and samey. It was the spark of inspiration that lead me to try the two techniques out on the subject that really interested and excited me. Doing it again and again until I get the 'perfect' shot or shots sounds too much like the tedium of work. Although they do say genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. Sod that for a game of soldiers!.

What the evening's events did bring home to me is how it's good to have techniques up your sleeve to use when they are fitting to the subject in hand. After all, it was pure chance I put a flash gun in my bag as my intention had been to photograph a sunset. A lot of people are prone to going out with the intention of using a particular technique (such as a slow shutter speed to provide blur) rather than going out looking for pictures and using the technique when it is appropriate. The hard part is remembering these techniques when you need then!

A selection of some slow shutter and flash photographs in the gallery/slideshow below.

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Hard times

Shopping in Preston I was struck how many shop fronts were boarded up along Church Street where all bar two of the pictures in the gallery below were made. There are a couple of strongish pictures in there. The overcast light adds to the sense of depression but I can see how a stronger set could be made by spending more time on the subject concentrating on the blue boards, but as usual the parking ticket was running out.

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Sunday morning

Trying out a different Lightroom web gallery. All pictures made with a 35mm lens bar the final one.

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Another eye-opener

Having to venture to Liverpool today I took the chance for a flying visit to the Open Eye Gallery to check out the two current exhibitions. What I'd read about the Richard Mosse show on the BBC photography pages didn't fill me with hope. It all sounded a bit pretentious. As with the Mitch Epstein exhibition, however, the pictures were different in reality than seen virtually on the web. This is something I'm coming to realise more and more. That physical photographs, actual prints or printed on a page, give a better feeling for what photographs are about than images on a screen do. Some of the prints were very large, the others just averagely large. This also altered how hey were experienced.

I've always though that using infra-red film is a bit of a gimmick, and still do, but the effect it had for the subject matter was in stark contrast to the images in the other exhibition. Simon Norfolk's carefully crafted prints of subjects relating to genocide beautified the images which in turn distanced them pictures from what was being pictured. The inra-red film had the opposite effect. By taking away our preconceptions of what things look like it brought the subject to the fore. I'll be going for another, longer, look when I get a chance.

One my way to and from the gallery I made a few pictures of my own. Although I prefer being in the countryside I much prefer taking photographs in the urban environment. The straight lines make it easier for me to find compositions. The natural world is all too amorphous for me, especially when the vegetation is lush and green. In winter the colours are muted and there are more clearly defined shapes from bare trees and the like.

So it was on this sunny morning I found myself framing architecture and shadows, along with a few more for the Stub It Out series. I was using the X10 again, and again being frustrated by my inability to easily frame accurately with the thing. The focus/shutter lag also lost me a couple of shots again. I must keep in mind that the camera is only a compact. It's a shame it doesn't handle like an SLR as the files really are fantastic, and it's so small and light.

If I had been properly ruthless in the editing of the selection in the gallery from today's wander there'd be two less. But it's not important in the grand scheme of things. Larger here.

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No sunshine

True to form the Great British Weather turned 180 degrees from yesterday and there was no sun, only grey skies and low contrast clouds. Out of boredom I took a walk along the canal from the old mill to the boatyard and back. The results surprised me and with careful editing made a reasonably coherent set with a couple of pictures I think work rather well. In fact the flat light helped to eliminate the harsh shadows that the cladding would have cast on itself, which worked in the pictures' favour. I'll be printing some off to stick in frames for a longer consideration. As usual the gallery looks better larger.

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Old school

Today I did something I've been meaning to do for a while. Stick the 50mm lens on the full frame body and see what happened. As a crutch I shoved a couple of zooms in my shoulder bag. I even switched the camera into black and white mode. As I was shooting 'raw' that still gave me the full colour file to work on if the monochrome proved a total failure, or I saw something that had to be shot in colour.

My first port of call was near a system of drains where I wandered around for a while seeking inspiration without reaching for a zoom until I got back to the car. As it turned out all bar one of the shots I took with a zoom got deleted on my return home. And the one that was saved has only been retained as a reminder of what could be done better. That said the other shots were pretty mediocre with only one working reasonably well as an over-processed black and white - which the blog software looks to have degraded somehow.

Next I ventured to town to wander round the seafront area. This took me back thirty years when I used to do the very same with a 50mm lens on a 35mm film camera. Again I didn't find the lack of a zoom too restrictive. A time or two it would have been handy to have had the flexibility, but I don't think I missed anything without using a zoom. I'm sure if I had seen something that really did require a different focal length I would have reached into the bag for a change of lens.

Two things I did notice: even the big lump of a camera wasn't annoyingly heavy with the small lens attached; I can't walk as far as I used to when I was 20 without my joints aching! When I got back home I noticed that the lens, while cheap compared to a fast zoom, is pretty sharp. Certainly sharp enough for me - and that included the shots I took focusing manually, which either suited the way I was framing or just seemed a more natural way to work.

Although most of the pictures I made were pretty average the walk along the pier provided a different viewpoint and I got one which, at the moment, looks like it might prove to be satisfying in the long term. Another is a picture that has to be printed out to work as it relies on fine detail for its effect. Even at A4 it doesn't give up its secrets too well. A few more are certainly contenders to be given time to consider and will find their way on to Sandgrounding.

I came away from the afternoon with as many questions as answers. Could I do everything I need to with maybe three cheapish single focal length lenses? Maybe not, but I'm sure I could make just as many good pictures with them. A 24, 35 and 50mm set would do a whole lot. Why not just use a 24-70 zoom? Well, those three primes would weigh less for one thing!

Could I do away with the 24-70 and manage with a wide and a telephoto zoom using a 50 to fill the gap? Almost certainly. In fact I'm not so sure that the wide zoom and my little 28-105 wouldn't do most of what I do.

However, as in any endeavour, as soon as you ditch a particular tool you find a need for it! So thing are staying as they are for a while longer.

One conclusion I have reached is that you only see the pictures the lens on your camera will let you see. Or very nearly so. In that respect lens choice is pretty irrelevant unless you are being asked to fulfil a brief.

Something else that today has rammed home is that my thoughts of downsizing to a smaller camera system (prompted by reading too much on the Internet) are well and truly behind me. There's no point. While the smaller sensor cameras are delivering great quality they lack important practical features. Viewfinders being the biggest missing feature, although this is changing. The size aspect is not as great as it could be. By the time you've slapped a decent lens on one of these small cameras it's nigh on as bulky as a small SLR. There's little to be gained financially either if you want to buy comparable lenses. For what I do I might as well stick with the old fashioned, but beautifully functional SLR. I'll be keeping the X10 handy for times when I'm not setting out to take photographs, but when that is my aim in leaving the house the SLR will be what I'll be taking.

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The Bay Leaf

Another brief wander round my village this afternoon.

The date over the original door was 1640 and the name of the pub The Ram's Head. Times move on and the building was extended and modernised to become a restaurant. It never lasted long under any management and has been boarded up for some time now. Black and white seemed to make sense when I looked at the pictures on the computer owing to the dull light and the subject matter. More here.

On a cheerier note a picture, from when the sun came out again, of the old warehouse between the river and canal - cornily framed by the canal bridge..

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An experiment

Messing about in Lightroom I tried out the gallery creator for the first time with some shots from my walk around the village. This is purely to see if the gallery can be embedded in this blog. Looks as if it can. The gallery can be viewed larger here.

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