TEDx Oldham 21/11/19

I was very fortunate to be invited to cover the photography at the Enterprise Trust TEDx Oldham event at the Oldham University Campus with the topic of 'Create Your Future From Your Passion'.

The event title could not have been more perfect for me and listening to the speakers was inspiring.

There were a number of speakers from the Oldham Business Community sharing their stories of success and failure and their experience of support from the Enterprise Trust.

The low light in the theatre worried me at first and I thought I would find it difficult but the lighting set the tone nicely. I prefer the look of dark images over the bright clean look I just had to make sure I balanced my ISO correctly.

I enjoyed moving around freely although I did worry that I may have been a tad off-putting to the speakers but no one seemed to mind, everyone was very accommodating of my camera snap happy ways and I really enjoyed the uplifting atmosphere, so I managed to get plenty of happy faces where I needed them and everyone was very photogenic which made it all the more fun.

I decided to put the images in to a small hard backed book to commemorate the occasion and send to the TEDx Oldham event organisers and as a bonus I was given an online version so all the participants can have a copy if they so wish.

To take a peek at my book comprising of pictures taken at the event click on the pages below. 

Park wandering!..

The kids were attempting their NNAS Otdoors Discovery Award so I took the opportunity to put some of the photography skills I have picked up over the past few weeks into practice and photograph around Nuttall Park.

Some of things I photographed were things that I would have normally passed up on but putting the boring project task into practice I managed to photograph a rusty old frying pan and some old plastic windmills and made them look quite interesting I think. The fence I used the trees to frame and the colours came out stunning.

 

and a manky old mud kitchen.

The light was also really good, the sun was shining down on the trees so I decided to take advantage of the natural lighting and take a photo of the sunlight hitting the tree trunks and lighting up the ground.

 

I like the effect of the sun hitting my lens leaving a rainbow effect.

I love the winter colours of the leaves about to fall to the ground in contrast against the green moss covered trees that look like they are about to break in to a waltz and the sun just kissing the moss covered tree trunks, however I felt this needed a boost so I edited in photoshop to bring out the colours..

The wheelbarrow in the woodpile.

The Remembrance Stones was a great way to use leading lines.

Experimental Practice

We have been learning about experimental practice which has inspired me to play around and look at the photographs I have taken in a different way, and today I stumbled upon using the noise in my photographs when taken at low light.

My initial intention was to gather a number of fireworks pictures and stack them in photoshop and end up with an array of fireworks on one picture.

Using the series of fireworks photographs that I had taken on bonfire night, looking across towards Manchester from Hartshead Pike, my intention was to capture some pretty fireworks dotted across Ashton, Oldham and Manchester. 

I wasn't impressed with the noise in the photographs but on one I noticed a lively part of the picture to the right hand side and decided to enlarge it. To my surprise I loved the effect I ended up with, it looked like a painting or drawing which I loved the grainy detail of the car and headlights driving along the road under the street lights and the pub just ahead of it.

F8, 1/200, ISO 25600, exposure bias + 1 step

7 Shutters Young Enterprise Competition

I have joined the 2nd Years as a Financial Director on their venture to enter the Young Enterprise Awards Competition, although I have joined late and after they have won the University finals we are now heading for the North West Regional Finals and then hopefully on to the UK Finals which will lead to the European Finals.

Yesterday we ventured to the Bentley Motors Young Enterprise Start Up talk.

Despite feeling pretty awful all day as I was not feeling too well, I decided to still go as we had an opportunity to meet some of our competitors in the competition and it was also a chance to hear about Bentley Motors Graduate/Undergraduate Schemes.

They have an amasing program for University Graduates and Undergraduates and although they are a relatively small company compared to their competitors they  take on over 200 University Students on their graduate/undergraduate schemes.

 

It was interesting to hear from some Graduates talking about their experience with Bentley Motors, and I was pleased to see there were also a few more mature students that attended besides myself.

 

Their schemes are quite impressive and allow the students to grow and experience different roles within the company and some continue on with Bentley Motors after their studies have finished.

 

The quality of their training scheme matches the brands high class image and is extremely luxurious in its content, and they look after their students with a nurturing attitude.

Although not many creative positions are available for students in the creative fields such as photography, the business skills positions are in abundance and I believe they are developing ways to incorporate creative positions.

You can see why they are as lucrative and as successful as they are as they do take the best of the best in student terms and nurture them, I was very pleased to hear that Universities such as Sheffield Hallam are among those taken on and it is not just the cream of Universities such as Oxford and Cambridge that get a look in, in fact there are few that are.

 

I was very impressed and it gives me some hope to hear that age is also no barrier for entry to a company such as Bentley Motors, as they take people on their ability and not their age, so I would have some hope if I decided to apply, although I doubt that would be the way I go with my future, but it was nice to know that it was an option.

When you fall off the horse, get back on!..

After my disappointing weekend I thought I would take advantage of reading week at University and go into town and cover one of our projects by walking around Manchester taking portraiture photographs.

I thought I would cover all my bases and use the techniques I discussed in my last post. I kept my shutter speed above 1/200 and the results were a lot better. While not perfect, the blur I was experiencing has definitely reduced and it really shows, especially as I was photographing moving subjects.

I had a mixture of results, some I was please with and some I was not so pleased with but at least now I can move on and focus on my technique and the technical side of compositions etc, rather than worrying solely about blur. 

I tried to work on single image narrative and I managed to get one image that showed the contrast between poor and not so poor, the irony of the picture was that the words 'the difference' was written above the door. The concept I feel worked but the picture was poor as it was busy as people walked right into my shot as it was busy, and I was rushing to get the image before I was seen and I have my elusive blur that crept in.

I attempted narrative shots and portraiture with a background story. Brian who was drawing on the street was an interesting guy. At first glance his pictures were not much to look at but when you take a closer look they were very technical and after a conversation he was extremely fascinating.

While he could hardly stand while he was speaking to me, he was telling me some of his history and all about his work as an artist. He was telling me that he has some of his art work exhibited in Greece and he also shared some of his conceptual work with me that he had on his mobile phone. His van had been stolen a few days prior so what he had on show was just a few pieces that he had managed to get together for the day. It was well worth standing with Brian for half an hour chatting.

 I decided a few portrait shots could not be missed, so I honed in on the street musicians to test out my blur control.

I thought I would do some environmental perspective shots while we were in Piccadilly Gardens at the fountain.

 My narrative portraiture shots of the day...

The obligatory street cleaner shot.

The girls in fancy dress..

The funny rude sign...

 It was freezing but it didn't stop some from enjoying the cool sun rays...

and of course the police interrogation...

and the street vendors..

and of course some religion.