journal
On Sunday the 3rd of October I Googled an area of the Brecon
On Sunday 3 Oct I googled an area of the Brecon Beacons to try to find a remote part of the Brecon Beacons so travelled to Hirwain and then along a valley to Sennybridge using part of the old Roman road called Sarn Helen. Having been there before I knew it could be what I was looking for so travelling past the 4 waterfalls car par through and going through the village of Ystradfellte. I needed to get to the top of the valley following the Roman road to Brecon so I could move into a Raw landscape that I needed to photograph and getting beyond the pine tree forest plantation (a crop).
The road follows a river along the valley, and I stopped off to take images as I made my way up. Due to physical difficulties I cannot stray too far from the road at the moment, So I found it hard to get close images. I took small streams etc and I think these will suffice. with the Raw land Images, I wish to make them moody and bleak as this fits the bill in my imagination. Having taken some images, I found it hard to keep man-made object out to the photos. When I reached Sennybridge I went across to the Usk reservoir and took photos of the Carmarthen Fan from the
Roman road
All images were taken using ISO 100 and an aperture of, f 11 to give me good depth of field going over this reduces the image quality because the lens has a sweet spot where it becomes pin sharp and according to MTF tables. (Modular transfer Files)
Below are samples of the images from October 3rd that were taken from this shoot, of the moorland high in the Brecon Beacons with added mood to emphasise a Raw Image. This subject has to be by trial and error and numerous visits to find and take images that do not have man-made object showing in them
October 12th Went to Silent valley nature reserve near Ebbw Vale today.
This is another well-known place and I have visited this before, to try to get some autumn images. Not really good again too early for orange leaves but did find a couple of trees to photograph that had good autumn colours in them.
Finding life, a little precarious at the moment have a bit of a wobble with my blocked ear so I did not venture to far into the wood. Used ISO 400 F9 with a speed of 1/10 sec, should have upped the iso a bit more as the shutter speed was just a little too slow due to darkness in wood or have took my tripod, not with the state of my balance at the moment though. Saturated up the images especially the leaves in Photoshop and used layer masks to remove saturation where needed.
Silent Valley nature reserve.
A Reassessment the need to do a new project
Unfortunately, I have had to reconsider my option of the Raw landscape because in the process of growing old I get all sorts of ailments which I really don’t want but now have started catching me up, limiting me on what type photography I am able to do.
So the change of plan will be implemented here due to my ill health, I now feel it will be too dangerous to attempt this type of landscape photography anymore as I do not have very good stability and also vertigo, and because of this I felt very unsafe while working in Silent valley nature reserve. I realise now that any work I do must be on quite flat land or with a large amount of people who can call an ambulance or help me up. I decided that it must be a type of SPORT that I do and after thinking about it, I have gone and taken other images using this different type of project to use in the exhibition,
The Grasstrack event at Ledbury Grasstrack 26 /09/2021
https://www.google.com/search?q=ledbury+motorcycle+club
This is a motorcycle orientated sport which contestants race each other around a circular track on a surface or grass which rapidly turn to dust.
I have been to Ledbury motorcycle club events at this venue before and know what to expect.There are many races throughtout the day that cover different engine sized machines either with solo bikes or sidecar events. The sidecar events are the most dramatic. They have two sizes of engine the smallest are 500cc machines and the largest 1000 cc machines, with the 500cc having the sidecar on the right had side of the machine and the 1000 cc have the sidecar on the left side of the machine.
Above is a 1000cc sidecar converted to mono taken at the event you can see the drama and dust of the two riders as they roar around the circuit. Both images are taken by Ron Lines.
All the images the are taken on a Sony 7aiii camera with a 100-400mm lens at its maximium lenght of 400 mm the iso 640 and aperture setting is f6.3 and shutter speed of 1/640 sec.
My full intention were to use these type of images in my exhibition but in the end of October I heard about a couple of events being staged with pedal cycles being raced across fields and grassy hills circuits and with Covid lockdowns still looming, I took the chance to go and see what it was all about.
Welsh Cycle Cross events both at Newport and Caerphilly
The Welsh Cycle cross events are from Newport on the 31st October it was on a course built at the top end of Tredegar Park. I have never been to this area, so I had google it to discover where it was. The event was published on the Welsh Cycle Cross website.
Equipment used Sony 7a iii 100-400mm GM lens Yellow high Vis coat for safety, good waterproof boots
Youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9YSpAbO3dM women’s race.
I was very intrigued by the chance to photograph a different sport; It was announced by one of Camera club members that it was to be held on the 31st October at Newport . I had never heard of it and knew nothing about what it entailed. It was done on short notice of about a day and I had to google the area where it was being held. When I turned up found I was a good distance away from where the event was being held and had a 15 minute walk, it was easy to find I just followed the constant stream of cyclists that were heading to it.
There were many competitors at this event they had travelled from Swansea, Abergavenny, Cardiff, and other areas to compete in this event and getting into the circuit was easy, there was no charge,so I approached the main Race Marshall, to enquire itf there were any restrictions i.e young children or vunrable people that perhaps I could not photograph. He replyed that there were indeed some people there but they would all be in the early races so after 10.30 am I would be free to take any images I liked anywhere.
With this knowledge I proceeded to enquire with other marshall about where the circuit went to and pointed in the right direction i oroceed to walk the circuit a must as you need to get to know the layout and where I could get good images.I tried some area’s like cycles coming down a hill and on the flat. the track is clearly marked out with white tape or other markers to show the way.
After trying a few test shots with my Sony 7aiii and 100- 400 lens I decided on waiting near a large patch of mud, in a small wooded area. Placing myself in an area of safety I awaited the first race which was teenagers at 10 30am, after that came the womans adult race and then the mens adult race finishing around 2.30pm
In the images below I am in the wood its slightly dark so therefore I have put the ISO up to 2000 to compensate and give me a good shutter speed. but with the light changing constantly and heavy rain I had tp alter it around a lot. the rain was horrendous at one time and the mud even worse good waterproof boots helped with this and a waterproof High Vis Jacket. I was trying to catch them as they came into the mud and up a slight incline and the mud made the images better also needed to be in a play of safety away from the cyclists.
First row I have processed them and cropped them into a square frame I find this adds impact to the image.
Teenage race 114mm iso 2000 teen race 111mm ISO 6400 1/250 shutter female race, light fluctuating F 4.5
F4.5 shutter 1/250 f5.6 aperture ISO 4000 shutter 1/50
Male race at 13.50pm ISO 6400 Male race 13.47pm ISO 6400
F5.6 shutter 1/200 173mm focal f5 1/160 156 mm focal length
Teenagers, adult women and the adult males are the final race. I had to ask the race marshal. On the rules and it was no pictures of the children, but the rest were OK.
I proceeded to move into a place of safety as even cyclists out to win in a race can be rather dangerous as they don’t look to see any observers. True to form the teenagers came around in a mad dash so using my 100 -400 lens at around 200mm, I set the shutter to around 1/250 sec aperture of f7.1 for depth of field and let the ISO do its own thing.
This was a learning opportunity and it took about 30 mins to settle into taking good images and trying to keep in a position of safety. After an hour down came the rain which seemed to go down the back of neck and come out of my left boot, but it made for extremely good pictures.
After 22 hours I moved around the course where a small bank meant riders got of to push their bikes up which gave me the two images above. The one on the left I eventually decided to crop down via Photoshop into a square to give a very dramatic high impact view of his face.
contact sheets for Newport
Caerphilly event
The Caerphilly event was stage
For the exhibition I chose to use the Cycle Cross images and not the motor cross as the theme is Raw Power and I felt that the cyclists were more the raw power than the motorcycles.
Preperation for the setting out the layout of the images images and printing them out on my A3 printer then using my Logan Mount board cutter I placed them into the cut out windows using a 2 board set up of backboad and then cut wind on top.The mountboard was purchased from Pinnacle board or Spectrum Papers of Leicester.
choosing the print for Exhibition cutting the mount board
Using a grid or rectangle of 12 images in their frames. I would have liked to display them in 2 rows of 6 but due to lack of space I will have to be content with 3 rows of 4 images.
I have erected around 5 exhibitions for the Welsh Photographic Federation, and these have always taken the form of 2 rows of images in 20 by 16 inch frames with an A3 print mounted in a cut out window in a 500 by 400 cms mount board.
I have always liked uniformity and do not go out of my way to do what I consider to be any arti-farty ways of hanging an exhibition. Therefore I plumbed for the rectangle approach, I have always taken journalistic type images and again do not like any arti-farty approaches to the way I take photographs. if I did, I would be an artist not a photographer.
I purchased 6 20 x 16 frames from IKEA and with a loan of a further 6 from the college I have the 12 frames I need for my exhibition.
Photo of my Exhibition on show. Here you can see the 12 images in their 500 x 400 cms mountboard inside the frames I purchased from IKEA.
The lighting in the unit is not doing me any favours as you can see the strip effect from them reflecting on the surface of the glass. On reflection it would have been better without the glass in the frame again lesson learnt. With the advent of some of my frames falling off the wall because the command strips being used to hold the frames on the wall kept becoming unstuck, because they don’t have enough purchase area on the back and 2 of mine have had the frames broken. This has now cost me 2 x £8 in lost revenue.
I think with the experience gained from this exhibition that if I were to do it again, I would purchase the frames from the Range Warehouse and not IKEA as they are £1 cheaper and the frames themselves are much wider. The other times I have hung frames I have normally screwed them to the wall. Thus, stopping them from falling down but because of potential damage to the walls in the shop which would need to be repaired I decided to go on recommendation to the command strips which have a sticky back to make them fix to the wall and then to the frame stopping the need to drill holes in the walls.
In looking at my own exhibition I have in my home you can clearly see that I prefer the rectangle hanging pattern of the frames and I decided I would do the same at the gallery.
I like to be professional therefore I wanted all my images mounted in 500 x 400 cms Mount board with a window cut out to contain the print which I printed out using my Epson A3 Printer.
exhibition
The Opening
On Thursday 3rd March at 6.30pm we had our official opening with many of the students inviting their guest to it. It was well attended with over fifty people there and even with that amount of people in the unit it was still spacious with nobody being crowded together.
Its went down well many were pleased to have come and seen our work,It was nice to see the different tyopes of work being exhibited by the 19 students on our 3rd year BA course.
The Exhibition will be open for around two weeks and will be staffed by the students themselves giving up their own spare time to sit in the exhibition. Looking at Camarthen universitys exhibition which is being held for 4 days 23rd – 27th I feel that we have opened this for far to long.
The exhibition space itself as you can see it is an empty shop that we have rented for a period of around 3 weeks it is very large and can easily accomidate a large amount of people. In the entrance we have positiones one of our large raw exhibition poster explaining why the exhibition is being held here.
Exhibition entrance Unit 2 Friars Walk Newport
Friars walk shopping archade unit 2 is part of this.
This is part of the new modern buildings called Friars Walk in the main town centre shopping area, this at times can become quite crowded with lots of eager shoppers going about their business so there could provide us with a large footfall coming through the door.
This is an the interior shot showing just how spacious it is.with the added mobile boards we have created a large space not only to hang our images but also plenty of room for the viewers to look at our images.
Here we can see a member of the public who has come into the exhibition with one our students explaining the images.
Again, below we can see just how spacious this exhibition area is where a disabled woman is able to drive around on her mobility scooter to look at all the images along with a couple of her friends. The uneven floor in parts of the unit have not prevented her from driving around to view the images.
The posters which all students were able to help design announcing what it is about which has been placed in the windows and other prominent visible areas.
This poster has all the student names on it and tells people it a photography exhibition of a BA photography, this is in the main front window and suspended away from it so as not to damage the window
Health and safety at our exhibition in Newport.
My major concern is that the floor is uneven where walls have been taken out and there are gaps in the floor tiling of around 6” wide. This could cause someone who is unsteady on the feet or disabled to trip over or fall over. There should be a notice in the doorway telling people to be aware of the uneven surface. That problem is my major concern.
All lighting in the shop unit seems to well-fixed so there should no danger from falling lighting. The ceiling tiles also look well secured but there are cables in boxes in the walls that could be touched but a neatly tucked into the boxes so should not be live. These socket and lighting boxes should have been covered over.
We are renting the shop so therefore do not have any jurisdiction over the inside of the building. The other major concern is that the images in frames are falling off and could be a possible danger, but most seem to do so overnight.
The exhibition is set out using the large space we have most of the student’s images are fixed on the building walls. We have been giving some large wheeled exhibition screens by the college, which we have used to hang pictures on, these are professional made types and have wheels so they can be moved around and therefore are fit for purpose with only light loading on them in the form of
photographic paper, so should not be overloaded as to make them unstable. If I hung my 12 frames on them it would make them unstable.
When the exhibition opened, we had a large amount of people in the room the space was quite adequate, and people were able to move around freely.
The security and management of Friars Walk have given us an induction and we must have a designated fire warden a red high vis vest is to be left in the unit and the stewards on the day must designate one of them to act as this. We have been given a security phone number and have designate our own key keepers who hand back the keys every night with 2 of our local students giving their numbers in case of any problems.
The evacuation area for Friars walk was shown to us by security and is across the road by the riverside theatre there are papers showing this which need to be in the unit at all times.
In case of any fire or the need to evacuate we will all leave by the front door and cross over to the safe area, if we cannot leave by the front door there is an emergency door at the back. Any members of the public as well as the stewards on duty must go to this evacuation area.
The fire extinguishers are out of date and may not work this is the unit’s responsibility not ours.