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