Arrival at Turvey

Today was clear and bright, and I did have an initial destination in mind, but Road diversions put paid to that, and I found myself on a diversionary route, and this meant I was losing daylight, so I ended up heading for Turvey, where I found a different subject of interest; architecture. On this occasion, not avant-garde, but historic. But a look at my route taken before arriving there, involved several ‘about turns’ because every time a convenient turning appeared oncoming traffic would have meant holding up those motorists behind me, so I drove on! This added considerably to the mileage I encountered, as simply stopping was not a viable option due to the available width. However, upon my return I did now know where I was able to turn around, and find a suitable spot to park up.

On this occasion, the choice of lens was straightforward, so I was back to using my 5D MkIII with the 24-70mm, and the subjects I chose were all well lit except for one. Also, since I am somewhat pedantic in relation to verticals being vertical, I was invariably shooting with spare space enough to make such adjustments on the Mac when in post-production in Lightroom. I only took enough images to create a single page gallery, but it was therapeutic, and satisfying, especially as it was the first occasion for several weeks that I was not shooting with my mirrorless EOS R.

25th Anniversary Concert – Aylesbury Concert Band

My younger daughter plays saxophone in the Aylesbury Concert Band, and I do my level best to join her for several reasons, I love listening to live music, I obviously enjoy the opportunity to join my daughter and share a part of her life involved in Music, and naturally it affords me the chance to keep in touch with my family, oh, and perhaps I forgot to mention, I love taking the opportunity to indulge in picture taking.

On this occasion which marks the 25th Anniversary of the Band, which was held at Trinity Church in Walton Street,, Aylesbury, I must apologise that I would have loved to be more informative in the narrative for the event’s images, but in the interests of ensuring the gallery of images makes it to the Web on the Monday evening, I am afraid that the pictures will largely have to tell their own story. Certainly it was a celebration of some of the past Band members and leaders, though one apology was read out from one such who for family reasons was unable to make it.

Fortunately for me, two of my grandchildren were able to make it as were my ex-wife and her husband, who had the joy of looking after them, whilst their father stayed at home doing maintenance work on their house uninterrupted.

On occasions such as this, I become a one-man roadie, as well as photographer and family member, the latter being far from a chore, it keeps my creative juices flowing as taking pictures and maintaining my expertise is an essential part of keeping the ‘little grey cells’ active. It keeps my eye in, a prerequisite for anyone determined to stay fresh and attuned to the capture of the many moments that occur. One point in this series of images is that the opportunity arose when processing the images for the gallery, for me to render one image in monochrome simply because of the nature of the lighting. On another occasion, the highly articulate display from one of the Conductors caught my eye, and in a quiet moment my daughter likewise caught my eye with the slightest of smiles.

Listening and foot-tapping to music, coupled with the joys of recording meaningful but mysterious moments in the lives of others’ lives is one of the pleasures of being a photographer — I may never know what transpired in some of the moments I witness, such as what was taking place between two of the Conductors, but should they see the image I captured they might well have a wry smile! What circumstances arose that triggered some of the smiles I captured I may never learn, but for such moments, I saw and recorded a meaningful moment in someone else’ s life, and those moments were fleeting, but I felt I was privileged to have seen it without ever knowing its meaning. It reminds of a black and while film I saw as a youngster, with a title that has remained with me ever since — ‘I am a Camera’.

0n this occasion as I mentioned at the start, there is little in the way of a description of the event, the taking of these pictures is simply to keep my sanity in a world that seems to be falling apart at the seams but I keep constantly reminding myself there is beauty and good humour to be found, and all I can do is hope that sanity ultimately prevails. I also hope that my words and pictures give others pleasure, it is rewarding to know that the blog’s hits have never gone below 350 per week for at least the last year, so someone is showing some interest! Surely they are not all robots.

In case anyone is interested only one camera, the EOS R was used throughout, and three different lenses from 24m to 300mm

Goodwood Revival Meeting 2019

The Duke of Richmond and Gordon seemingly has the Weather Gods in his favour, for in the more than ten years I have been lucky enough to be visiting his grounds to attend the Revival Meetings and the Festivals of Speed, I have only encountered inclement weather on two occasions, and only one of those was really a problem, but every last one has proved thoroughly enjoyable.

My early contact with Goodwood was through Peter Morley a neighbour of mine in Bromley, Kent. He was a Rally Driver and a Director of Tesco, who at the time was the Assistant Chief Pit Marshall at Brands Hatch, a role I later inherited jointly with a colleague Peter Melville, when Peter Morley became the Chief. The first occasion he invited me to Goodwood, it was a regular and fully functional race track, and a year or two before the fateful crash that brought Stirling Moss’ racing career to an end. On that occasion as we drove through some of the villages, people waved to us as we passed, and Peter told me that when he had come to a standstill for a longish time on some occasions, villagers had offered him cups of tea!

I cannot speak for all UK motorsport venues, but for an atmosphere of joyous camaraderie, Goodwood for me has been in a class of its own, followed closely by Brands Hatch, Oulton Park, Lydden, and Castle Coombe. Short of some major disaster befalling you, Goodwood never fails to deliver.

I always bring a camera, and on this occasion, I had decided to forego my superb Sigma 60-600mm and had brought my much earlier and far lighter Tamron 150-600mm on the mirrorless Canon EOS R body. I had one further ‘tweak’ — the 2x Converter — which meant I was actually using a 300-1200mm full-frame camera! Knowing There would also be opportunities for closer work, I also had the 24-70mm — which I used to get shots within the ‘Motor Show’ feature.

I will make an admission that despite my careful preparations there was one failure on my part; the one item which could have made my life far easier was still carefully nestling in the boot of my car — a monopod! However, that only surfaced once I was trackside, since to make the trek to the car would lose me too much time, I was going to have to rely on whatever support I could find, such as the top of fence posts, and my daughter’s willingness to provide her shoulder on one occasion! The sacrifices one’s family sometimes endure for their forgetful parents!

Goodwood as I mentioned is a friendly place and an example is a charming mother of two young children who was just in front of me at the banking, who opened a conversation wondering whether she was in my way whilst shooting, I assured her she had no need for concern. Later, she had insisted the boy and girl stayed together which was good advice, and later still when both were at the front fence, in return I suggested that they don’t watch from beneath the wire fencing as they were at that time, because they were unprotected. Somehow, interactions between strangers here at Goodwood is the norm.

I watched an old business colleague, Simon Diffey, do well in his race, and listened over the speakers to his delighted response to his good fortune whilst being interviewed. Later I briefly met up with him, still in high good humour. Another familiar face I spotted was photographer, Jeff Bloxham, but I failed to catch his eye as he was trackside at the Kids’ Pedal Car race and we were in the enclosure. Over the years visiting Goodwood rarely has there been a time when I have not come across old friends, but perhaps the clue is within the adjective ‘old’!

Also, most of my visits, I have bumped into Charles March during the course of the day, as in what I term my ‘former life’ he had been a client of the retouchers, The Colour Company with whom I had worked for many years — in fact it was through them that I had been twice invited to stay at the house to give him some Photoshop help. This day, I did listen to him over the Tannoy, give a moving tribute to his absent friend, Stirling Moss, and later watched him take Susie, Sterling’s wife around in one of the many cars he had driven to success over the last many years. I have tried since to find a recording of his piece, but thus far, in vain. It undoubtedly came from his heart and in his own words as a friend. Sadly, Sir Stirling was not up to travelling to be present.

The last pictures from our day were all taken on my handy 24-70mm, and this turned out to be one of the very few times when I never used its handy macro feature, but this lens if I ever am limited to just camera and one lens and weight, proves invaluable. Another, wonderful, warm, and welcoming day nears its end, just the journey home and the parting with my daughter Lizzy as she heads back to her husband and young family.

Aylesbury Concert Band Plays at Fairford Leys

A seriously warm day as Fairford Leys celebrates its Summer Fair with the Band to play from the Bandstand in the Centre of the complex. This was an occasion where I was able to use the EOS R with just the one lens, in this case the 24-70mm Canon lens. A mark of just how good the EOS R is can be seen by the shots towards the end where my son-in-law and young grandchildren were tiny fractions of the full frame on the Ferris Wheel whilst using this same lens — well-cropped! The other point worth a mention was the high ISO speed used, yet displaying little evidence due to that tight crop.

One of the beauties of this venue is that since there is always an abundance of activities for the visitors and a central location, not only can I listen to and enjoy the music, I can move all around the Bandstand to capture the musicians and Conductor performing, without disturbing the experience for the audience.

The Concert is in two parts, so I also get to spend some time with my young grandchildren. There is also no need for long lenses as is often the case with all the normal venues that I cover with my daughter who plays Saxophone in the Band.

I still consider myself a complete novice in the handling of this mirrorless body, there are several occasions when I simply do not perform as smoothly and instinctively as I do with my dSLRs; the 5D MkIII and 7D MkII, but with each time out, many of the techniques I use with this camera become smoother and with increasing confidence, but whereas with the dSLRs failed shots are infrequent, the Success Numbers with the Mirrorless are interspersed with either failure due to the focus point  moving to the edge of screen, or my failure when panning to be able to follow due to delays in the screen image displayed related to actuality.

Having completed the preparation of the gallery, I can say that the quality of the Concert images is good technically, only you, the viewer can decide whether emotionally the images carry the same message as the music the Band were playing, which I was enjoying. I certainly was as always, I hope that I convey the spirit of what is being played, and provide the Band with images that promote the concerts into the future. After I had made a concerted (pardon the pun!) effort to include the banners strategically, I learned that the Band is changing its Identity, so that was bad timing on my part.

I am now having problems reaching my blog to get these images online, so hopefully, this will be resolved shortly.

Easter Sunday Stewartby – Flora & Power

I felt I needed exercise and despite the light being flat and therefore unexciting, I decided I would go out to cycle around Stewartby Lake and took my EOS 5D MkIII and the 24-70mm and 100mm Macro, the latter being really handy later, but not so much as a macro lens, but as a longer prime. The intention was to cycle down Station Road to the gate into the encircling path around the Forest Centre boundaries which was firm; what I had not expected was the level of standing water across many parts of this track, but the very first person I met was a cyclist who was covered in splattered mud, who had stopped and waited for me to make my way through the kissing gate. Before he ventured through the gate we chatted and he mentioned the parlous state of the path in some areas which explained the generous coating he and his mount had suffered!

I headed off having thanked him for his useful insight into the journey I would be making, and the going for the first stretch was puddled, but not a hindrance, but as I cycled further many of the puddles extended fully across the path and even into the once grassy boundaries, which had since been churned by the wheels of bikes, prams, buggies and the boots of countless walkers; many of the cyclists I noted had not dismounted judging by the depth of the narrow ruts they had created. I chose to dismount, and in some cases take wide detours so as to not worsen the situation for others. Where the water was shallower I walked the bike through slowly. I came across few people in the early stages of the ride, but soon spotted a couple atop the bank at one of the numerous viewing sites of the enclosed wildlife areas. The couple were knowledgable birders and both had binoculars and were naming some of the species of birds that were visible beyond, either on the small lakes or on the banks at their edges, it turned out that the husband was also a photographer and used a 400mm Canon, and in our conversation I mentioned kingfishers and he showed me a shot he had taken at Rye Meads Nature reserve that he had put on his phone.

I left them and continued my ride and after several negotiations of larger puddles entered a wooded section close by the railway line, where a lot of coppicing and hedge-laying was being done and it was at this stage I got out my camera and started taking shots of the signs of new growth against some remnants from the preceding autumn, the only sadness from my point of view was the dismal lighting for most of the time. After travelling some distance around the lake, meeting a growing number of families with young children who were following clues on posters to some of the features to be found along their route, I began to hear the roar of high-powered motors which at first sounded like bikes or Go-carts, but soon were revealed to be powerboats. Fortuitously I had run out of interesting new growth and came round to the enclosed area belonging to the Watersports Club, so headed beyond their entrance gate, and started taking pictures initially with the 24-70mm before changing to the far more suitable 100mm, but way short of what might be considered a reasonable length lens for the subjects.

After a while taking shots from this vantage point I waited at the gate hoping I might be able to ask someone whether it would be possible to enter at a future date; I caught the eye of a lady called Sue who had the bearing of an official and learned it would be possible to enter the enclosed area, and the club were due another Powerboat Meeting in three weeks time. I shall be back with a far more suitable lens on that occasion – my 150-600mm!

An Abundance of Berries – Portent of Cold Snap?

In Marston Moretaine currently there is a strong showing of berries; red and gold, in the past this has been interpreted as a forecast of a cold Winter, so I wonder whether the bush telegraph is foretelling this as an outcome? Certainly as I took a late afternoon stroll to see whether the bridge over the old A421 might prove to be a good viewpoint to capture a future sunset, the birds were certainly very active and vocal, was their chatter all to do with their reading of the berries, and the possible onslaught of a harsh winter, and Nature’s response in offering the berries to fortify them in the time ahead?

As the sun broke through clouds then hid again, I captured the last of the leaves that still clung to the bushes as the majority now carpeted the ground, the berries provided foreground for the path that tunnelled beneath overhanging branches, and added colour to the black and rust, hooped railings of a bordering garden that shielded the trellis beyond.

As I returned with last of the sun’s rays only catching the very topmost branches, house sparrows flitted back and forth between adjacent bushes chattering incessantly amongst themselves and woodpigeons gently murmured but generally stayed hidden and stationary, geese overflew as did starlings and gulls, and the geese in the gardens of Moretaine Manor occasionally squawked in some local squabble by the water’s edge behind the hedge. I had hoped that as I was out and about with a camera I might be graced by a reasonable sunset, but that was not to be, but on hearing the chatter from the sparrows I had nipped to the nearby car and changed from the 24-70mm to the 100-400mm before there activity subsided for the evening, thus getting a few shots of them and a lone well-preened robin, which had he courtesy not to hide behind the tangle of hawthorn branches.