Mission: Seemingly Impossible
What a busy few months it’s been, there’s been a lot going on at work, a lot going on at home and loads going on with all of the stuff in between.
September’s assignment from the Caterpillar Photographic Society was Silhouettes/Shadows, chosen at random from a bag of suggestions by club members.
I didn’t have any idea whatsoever what I was going to do with it so I went along with the flow of the month to see what would happen.
Flax Attack
First, in early september we had an open day at the Flaxmill and I took my family along to see where I go every month! There’s bound to be some images of silhouettes and shadows I thought. Not really. In this set of buildings that are some of the forerunners of modern buildings we see around us everyday were plenty of opportunities but none that I could find.
Sometimes there are just too many people around to get a clear picture of what it is you want to capture. Other times you wish you’d put someone in the picture as it was too bland. See the HDR assignment blog coming up next.
OHMSS
The next opportunity to get out and perhaps capture some images to fit the bill was a day trip out to the DSEI Exhibition which was held at the Excel Centre in London’s Docklands. I went armed with my camera but not with all of the lenses. I took my 10-20 Sigma and my 70-300 Sigma with me to try and reduce some of the load that often leads me to develop a sweat patch where my camera backpack sits. Nice huh!?
As I walked up the driveway into work at 4:45am to get on the bus for the trip I snapped a picture of the coach which I then tweeted. It was to be the first tweet of the day and would be followed by many others to document the activities of the day. Or so I thought.
After a few tweets on the bus with pictures of the on-board clock stating that we were on our way, we actually arrived. Queueing up for the ticket checks and then the security screening, with metal detectors and bag searches I waited for a few people to make it through to join us. My ticket needed to be checked and that slowed down my entrance a little but the people I was with were delayed for a good length of time so while I stood there waiting I figured I may as well post the next tweet. Now I know it’s not a shadow or silhouette picture but bear with me.
Then once the rest of the group had made it through we headed through to the stand for the company who employ me. Upon entering the stand and taking a moment to look at the quality of the presentation, I was pulled aside by one of my colleagues who’d been there all week with the exhibition and he asked me why I’d tweeted a picture of the metal detectors in the security area.
Apparently the Royal Military Police had visited him and asked him several searching questions about why I was attending and why I’d do something like tweet about it on the internet. My colleague answered their questions honestly and openly as he was aware of my personality and promptly told them I was a nerdy geek and this sort of thing was to be expected, no hidden agenda behind it.
It seems that my quote regarding making it through the metal detectors had got the security forces thinking I was smuggling an rpg into the show or something.. Still, at least I wasn’t shot or tasered. Also goes to show that the security of these events is a strictly considered factor. Which I’m pleased about obviously, but some of my colleagues were thinking that my phone was hacked or something and that was how the RMP’s found out about me. In actual fact, it was no more difficult for them than logging on to twitter and searching for the term “dsei”, then checking my profile name against the visitors registration list. Funny how people have this huge idea that life is like “Enemy of the state” or “Bourne Ultimatum” when there’s a far easier explanation.
There were no further tweets on the day as I was advised not to. An excuse to lock me in a shipping container and have electrodes strapped onto my “boys” was not something I fancied giving anyone…
Her Majesty’s Pleasure
Next up was a rare trip into HMP Shrewsbury. (Visit not related to twitter incident either.) The town’s prison had recently been closed by the Ministry of Justice as it was not financially viable to keep it open. Many of my colleagues had wanted a trip into the prison as a group to take some photos before it was all re-developed into a hotel or swimming pool etc. This I’d tried to organise by liaising with local councillors but was unable to obtain a path to get in there. That was when the MoJ announced that there’d be guided tours around the old place now that all the locks and equipment had been removed.
The application process was online using eventbrite so I applied and was successful in getting a ticket!! I only mentioned it a few times to the rest of the Cat PS.
The day came and a group of around seven of us were escorted around the prison by two former guards at the prison. Surely there had to be a dank corner in here somewhere that would contain a shadow or two, maybe even some part of the facilities that I could silhouette against a lit cell window.
The tour was great and there was loads of history to learn about this Victorian building and the stories that go along with the bricks and mortar. We had a visit into the “Topping Shed” the room where the executions took place. Hangings were still occurring in this prison until the 60’s.
There wasn’t time though to set up shots and spend a while making sure everything was right, before everyone else wanted to move on to the next part of the tour. I got a load of photos of the interiors of cells and the atrium over the main wing but there was very little that I’d consider a nice photo. Oh well, maybe the next time they open the place up for a trip I’ll get in there and have more time.
Auto Focus
It was around this time of September that the first ( I think) Shropshire Motorshow took place in Shrewsbury too. There were some really class examples of British engineering and a Ferrari in the Market Square and I wondered if I could get a reasonable shot of the cars and also if there could be any way of silhouetting a car against the sun or something similar. Nothing of the sort to be had here.
I did try and take some unusual angles of the cars though, instead of the usual “whole car, front corner” photo I tried playing around and doing something different.
The next photo is of an e-type Jaguar which I tried various different angles of attack. Some of the front grill, some of the rear and even some top down, but the most pleasing angle I found was a close up of the radio antenna and it’s reflection in the wing mirror. This was taken with my 50mm Canon Prime lens and set it to an aperture of f/1.8, the ISO was set to 100 and I’d toned down the light by underexposing by 2 stops.
My favourite shot of the cars though was this one of a Ferrari showing the prancing horse, the top of the engine and the world recognised logo. I took three shots of this with Auto Exposure Bracketing set to +/- 1 stop. Although it’s neither a shadow or silhouette, this is my favourite photo from September.
Fairground Detraction
By now it was getting close to the deadline for the assignment and I thought I’d better get my backside in gear and get out to take a specific silhouette or shadow photo.
Fortunately, I’ve a daughter who is willing to help me out with my stupid hobbies and on this occasion she volunteered to be the subject of the photo. So off we went to the local park, the Quarry Park, in town where there was a funfair taking place. I hate funfairs, I have done since I nearly got my head kicked in by a gang by the Out Run machine. I thought though that the lights and the effects of them would complement a portrait with a side of silhouette.
As you can see from the pictures below, I had a long exposure time to capture as much light as I needed without picking too much reflected light from her face or clothes.
The first of these two was taken using a shutter speed of 2 seconds, an ISO of 400, F/18 through my Sigma 10-20mm lens.
The second picture was a shorter exposure of 1/10th of a second using my nifty fifty on an ISO of 100, an aperture of f/1.8 . The low f number and wide aperture ensured a narrow depth of field and the lights of the fairground attraction in the background would be bokeh’d a little. There was a little light on the left side of her face which gave the image some detail without it being a pure black outline.
For my entry into the Cat PS competition I chose the first of the fairground pictures showing her standing in front of the spinning ride. Looking back now I’m much happier with the second image and would now submit that instead. Isn’t hindsight a marvellous thing?
On the whole I found that this topic was a tricky one to get to grips with. The winner of our society’s award for this month was Steve Jones who’d taken a great picture of the Iwo Jima memorial in the US, silhouetted against the sky.
Next post, we’ll see how we all got on with the HDR image task and the fun that came out of trying to appease everyone.
Be First to Comment