Horses for Courses

This month's edition of BBC CountryFile Magazine carries a story I worked on last summer, with local Kendal based journalist Karen Lloyd, looking at a dying breed. Lakeland fell ponies are a rare breed of fell pony that are only kept by a handful of enthusiastic breeders, quite distinct from other similar looking breeds and said to be one of the toughest animals in the British Isles.

The assignment had it's moments; tracking down the ponies in the first place wasn't easy; these are wild fell ponies after all. "They could be anywhere" I was told, before mounting the back of the quad bike with an over-packed rucksack of camera kit and hanging on for dear life as we shot up the side of the fell in search of the elusive beasts. Not too elusive as it turned out. And really quite approachable, for a wild animal. Fortunately I've done a lot of horse riding in my time and I'm not really worried about them, but you never know - wild is wild.

On the second visit, to a different location and a different breeder, I found myself greeting a real character who I last photographed 25 years ago on a story about charcoal burning in the Lake District. Walter Lloyd was a proper old school back-to-nature craftsman/woodsman/gypsy, call him what you like - he was an encyclopaedia of forgotten old-ways knowledge. Scraping a living but living a full life, Walter made traditional hooped gypsy caravans by hand, taught woodland crafts and charcoal burning in workshops and lived a life on the road full of adventure and surprise. And here he was again, with his son Tom, breeding rare fell ponies - of course he was. he loved horses and the horse drawn life of the gypsy traveller so what could be more natural. He looked strong and full of vigour despite a heavy bout of flu recently but sadly he was not as strong as he looked, at aged 90 something, he passed away recently. He will be missed by everyone who came into contact with him and especially by his family and friends; a true original and a proper character.

His son Tom, equally passionate about the things that were important to Walter will doubtless continue the family tradition and hopefully keep the Lakeland fell pony tradition alive. That's what all those pack horse bridges all over the fells were built for after all.

I do love a cover...

This month I get the cover on Lakeland Walker magazine with another winter shot of my trusty model/mountain guide Paddy Cave (http://www.mountaincircles.com) We did this shoot some time ago when the Lakes still got winter snow - oh, hang on, I'm looking out the window and would you believe it, 2018 actually has some snow again!

It's time to get back out on the hill and shoot winter covers for next year. Helvellyn and the Red Tarn bowel are pretty reliable for holding the snow and giving you great backgrounds but the real trick to a successful cover shot is a red jacket - never go out without one.

Actually I did a bit better than just the cover - the full pager on the gear section is also Paddy - different location, different jacket, but the principle's the same - make the figure stand out from the background.

Back to School...

It's September, so of course school's back and for those of us who work in education it's a whole new sea of fresh faces eager to learn. I always look forward to welcoming my new group of part-time evening class enthusiasts on the Level 2 and Level 3 photography course, which I've been running now for 14 years.

Now that we are under the UAL (University of the Arts, London) umbrella, the course has so much more scope for students to develop their own personal photography projects and get their teeth into more creative projects. But what should a personal photography look like?

Let's take travel photography for example. Most of us love to travel with our camera and try and shoot something better than a holiday snapshot. We'd like to think we can communicate a sense of place, create some atmosphere or capture a more realistic sense of real life and community on our travels. That can be hard when you're competing with the demands of family and friends and the next round of ice creams on the beach. Everyone will find their own solution; for me it's taking an hour out to roam free and explore the back alleys and quieter places, away from the crowds.

My aim is to do "Street" photography, just as I would at home, to try and avoid the cliche postcard views. By setting myself a genre and a theme, I hope to stay focused and produce a set of images that say something a little different about where I've been and what I've seen. Essentially, that's what I'm going to teach my students. Set yourself a project theme, in a genre of photography that you enjoy or want to be challenged by, and stay focused on the subject, don't get too sidetracked by "pretty" pictures. Photography should be be about communicating
something real, not just for decoration.

If you live in the South Lakes area of Cumbria and you fancy coming along to one of our photography courses at Kendal College, check out the college website part time courses at http://www.kendal.ac.uk

Krazy, Krazy, Krazy, Krazy life...

This particular flavour of Krazy comes courtesy of the Lakeland Climbing Centre in Kendal, one of the UK's biggest and best indoor climbing walls, which just happens to be local to me.

A wild life at the BBC...

Over the last 12 months I've done a few commissioned shoots for the BBC; BBC Wildlife and BBC CountryFile. I've worked off and on with CountryFile for a number of years but usually with stock images or writing short walking routes for the out and about section. But it's the proper commissioned photo-shoots that you really want and it took a while to earn that trust.

It's Leica Ferrari...

Time, like Ferrari's, flies.
Hard to believe that I haven't posted a blog since July 2013. I guess that means either I've had nothing interesting to say/do or been too busy/lazy to post. I leave that one to your imagination.

The motley crew, pictured left  are gathered around the aforementioned sports car for a good reason;
Tip: always make sure you have £100K prop and a designer building close at hand whenever you are forced to do a group shot!

Let's dance!

Finally, I get round to posting something after two months. Anyone would think I've been busy. In the last eight weeks I've photographed kayaking, car mechanics, engineers, nursery kids, chefs, a theatre, a CEO, food and the Queen!
So I thought it was about time I shot some action again, but in this case it would not be sports action. No, in this case it would be something completely new to me; contemporary dance.

Food for thought

Mmmmm...This looks a bit different! I mean different from my usual fare of outdoor sports subjects. I accept that it's pretty normal fare for food photography.
Anyway, this month's post is about tackling a subject that is a bit outside of your comfort zone and the main theme here is that photographers are generally well served by having a broad range of skills and experience even (especially?) when they are pretty niche like me.

Don't push me, 'cos I'm close to the edge...

...Striding Edge to be exact. You maybe spotted that already.

Yesterday I took fate by the short and curlies and headed up Helvellyn with my good pal and long-suffering, yet curiously ever-willing "model" Paddy Cave, in spite of an iffy forecast that could go either way.

Work in progress

In this months post, I'm going to talk about a personal project I just finished. Alongside my professional photography work, I also lecturer in photography at  Kendal College, here in the Lake District. Recently my colleagues in art and design staged an exhibition to highlight the professional art work they do outside of teaching, which inspired me to get involved and shoot some artist portraits.

Run out of time

This weekend, the weekend of January 26th/27th 2013, has been remarkable for weather. On Friday evening it started snowing, so much so that people were stranded in their cars, unable to get home, with roads closed and all the rest of it. This should be a great opportunity to grab some winter sports images but there's a problem.

Bothered at the bothy.

It's another TGO assignment this week and the question is, can I be bothered to haul all my flash kit up the side of a mountain, in the snow, at this time of the morning? Of course I can.

Back against the wall

Friend of mine is writing a book. I've turned out a couple of my own - nothing very impressive, just a couple of picture books - but I know what's it like. It's always a stressful process, what with deadlines looming and work avoidance tactics kicking in to try and distract away from the reality of actually having to produce the thing - just before Christmas too!

London calling....

It's not every day that I get into "town", as they say but you know, every now and again it's good to get a dose of city lights, just to get a different perspective on life. I found myself in London for a couple of days earlier this month, visiting art and photography galleries; a work related visit, I might add.

It never rains....

I've been waiting to post something on this shoot for a couple of months (never scoop your own client!). Now that the weather's crapped out it seems like a good time...

Industrial action

As an outdoor photographer I have some skills that allow me to work in adventure sports and outdoor activities with a degree of comfort. One of the skillsets that I worked to aquire is my "Working at height, rigging and rescue' ticket. The experience enables me to undertake work on industrial sites which is a very different theatre of operation to the crag, believe me!

Accidental heroes

This weeks' post has a serious tone because it deals with a climbling accident - with all the "what if's," "could have's" and "should have's" that are an inevitable consequence of such a thing.
But I'm not dwelling on those. Instead, my thoughts are about the humanity, compassion, shared responsibility and comradeship shown between climbers (and other outdoor users) when the shit hits the fan.

Tough at the TOB

The Tour of Britain came through my local town of Kendal, up here on the edge of the Lake District, just a few weeks ago. I knew it was coming of course. Cycling has been "flavour of the month" in the wake of the Olympics.
I don't get much opportunity to shoot road racing, which is a pity because I love watching it on telly. Shooting it live is challenging and quite a buzz. These guys don't hang about and you have to be right on your game to catch the moments and create something worthwhile.

Light the bike

In this months post I'm going to look at a shot I created as part of a workshop day on mountain bike photography.
What I tried to do here was build a lighting set-up that would be easy to re-create in any forest/woodland situation.
By testing out a basic set-up and taking note of the settings I hoped to give my students a reasonable starting point to work with.
Ok, so let's deconstruct it.

A new hang out

Note to self; Don't start this post with the word "So"...

You won't believe this but the climber in this photo, hanging from from the roof by ice axes is called Paddy Cave! Honestly.

Anyway, Paddy was  telling me about this whole new thing in climbing -  "sport mixed" or "dry tooling". The idea came about as a progression from climbing hard mixed winter routes which rely on climbing sections of steep rock between bands of ice - using the ice tools - and climbers training off-season for winter routes on artificial climbing walls with ice tools. Supposing you used disused quarries instead of climbing walls, and manufactured some really hard routes by drilling or chipping some axe placements, bolting the wall for the placement of protection ( what climbers call running belays or just "runners") and seeing just how extreme you can get with dry tooling? Et Voila! This is the result.