Purple Clouds Photography – Phil Oldham’s Photoblog

Manchester Airport once again closed to air traffic due to the excessive snow unloaded on the region over the night of the 4th January. Looking for something different I went to the southern side of the airport to get a shot looking over towards the terminal building. To my surprise, and despite continuing snow flurries the airport had reopened and flights were slowly resuming.

The weather has also put paid to much of my sporting activities recently. Out of 5 jobs to be shot since New Years day, 4 of them have been cancelled, including both Carling Cup semi final first legs (between Blackburn and Aston Villa, and Manchester City v Manchester United). The fixtures lists will becoming somewhat congested over the next 4 weeks…

Christmas Bank Holiday. Fantastic. Another day in the way of the life… not even the chippies were open. Depressing. Thankfully, Mr Gary Eddleston from ‘near Liverpool’ but not ‘South Liverpool’ doesn’t work bank holidays.

We started the day off with a slippery trip to Etherow Park, at Compstall, Stockport. The hide was full on arrival so we went for a wander in Ernocroft Wood.. got bored and headed back to the now empty hide. We set up our perch and laid some seed out for the birds.. and it was business as usual! Even Gary got some shots

The cold set in after lunch time and we decided on some lunch. Lunch was had. Next up?

Strobism! I took Gary to the deserted Reddish Vale, at the Denton end and we found some snow and funky trees and had a play with some off camera flash – the sunsetting was just lucky, but as ever.. we weren’t quite lucky enough to catch the best bit!

The attached shot consists of a reflective umbrella, high to camera left and fill provided with a shoot through umbrella, low to camera right. Wonderful!

James from YNMS rang to say that Manchester Airport had buckled under the pressure of the weather and had closed. By the time I’d gotten there, it’d reopened! The weather was coming in waves, and at least two other heavy snow showers passed whilst I was there. First up was a shot across the airfield, so I went to the south side, however the weather made visibility very poor and I couldn’t see anything! I shot back round to the opposite side and managed to get the above shot of an airport worker de-icing an American Airlines flight on the apron.

Inside the terminals was surprisingly quiet, and passengers were moving through quickly. There were only two cancellations in the time the airport had closed, and I suspect they’d have changed to delayed before long!

Stephen & Laura booked me to do their wedding in the Summer of 2008, and how time has flown since! The weather this week has been very festive, and despite the city centre location (The Castlefield Rooms, Manchester) there was still a good amount of snow around. Its not very often that it snows at weddings – especially in good ol’ Blighty, so I intended to make the most of it!

I chose to post this picture though, because it is also not often (probably less so) that you end up with the Manchester United defence – albeit injured ones – turning up at the same venue for a pint. Probably before watching their colleagues being beaten 3-0 at Fulham! Left to right we have Rio Ferdinand, Johnny Evans, Wes Brown and finally John O’Shea.

More images are available to view from this wedding in the wedding portfolio. See the link at the top of the page!

All in all – a good day!

With snow on the ground, and Amy home from university for Christmas, how could I not want to a shoot? We had been intending on doing a 1940s style shoot for some time so decided to go down this route. We were somewhat limited with the wardrobe with most of her clothes still being at university but I don’t think they came out too bad!

The shoot took place in the walled garden at Chadkirk Chapel County Estate, near Marple, Stockport. Equipment used to light this shot was a shoot through umbrella, high to camera right.

Treve Whitford from PNE’s media department called to ask if I could cover their reserve teams away game at Oldham, with it only being a matter of minutes away, I was happy to oblige. But it wasn’t at Oldham. It was at Stalybridge Celtic. Wonderful.. lighting on a par with candle light to deal with! Still, it gave me a chance to give the 1D Mark 3 a good test at ISO6400.

The camera performed flawlessly, and I even managed to correct the focussing issues I’d be having previously. I was happily snapping away at 1/400 for 5 frames per second and feeling safe in the knowledge that they’d all be in focus and sharp. Something that I’d been struggling with beforehand. God bless Canon’s in built lens calibration tool!

Preston lost.

Sedgley Park score

Having had a cancellation for today, I took it upon myself to get in some practise with rugby union. Geoff Roberts was kind enough to allow me to shoot Sedgley Parks derby match against Manchester.

Manchester are currently bottom of the table, and the match promised to be fairly one sided. One sided it was.

I used the 1D Mark III with the 300 2.8 to shoot the game, the action never came close enough to warrant the 70 – 200 2.8. The Mark III was a life saver today, the light fell dramatically in the second half and I wouldn’t have been able to get anything hand’t I pushed the ISO up to 6400. Even then, the last 15 minutes were not really possible to photograph, as the shutter speed dropped to a lowly 1/250!

A cold, late November evening didn’t stop the stars coming out for the United for Unicef charity dinner hosted by Manchester United at Old Trafford. Many of the first team turned up, including Van der Saar, Giggs and Evra.

Amongst the raft of footballers were a number of TV celebs including the previously shot Ralf Little. We’ll be on first name terms soon.

Shot for Yorkshire News and Media Service.

I was asked, at 10.30pm on a Saturday evening, to cover a charity football tournament, only 12 hours later. Having had a rugby tournament cancelled due to weather, I was happy to oblige.

The event, organised by Disability Sport Events, in conjunction with Ralf Little (pictured) was to raise funds for the cause. Teams came from far and wide, and featured TV celebs from many famous shows such as Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Shameless and Casualty. Also supporting the event was Charles Reed, and ex Manchester City player, Danny Mills.

Unfortunatly, due to working commitments, Ralf couldn’t attend for too long however was kind enough to show his face and have a kick around for the cameras.

Not sure how much was raised yet, but all in all… a good positive day to support a fantastic cause. It gave me some ideas for more editorial portraiture too….

In the blue corner..

An early Saturday morning (again!) and a trip to Wigan’s Robin Park sports centre. Wrestling was on the cards today. Again, a day for all ages, although split by weight category. Everything from about 20kg right through to 90kg. Pictured, is somewhere in the middle, to give a sense of scale!

I ran in to pretty much the same problems as with the previous weeks karate, however light was more abundant (if you can call it abundant..) and there was a good mix of modern lights and natural light through the sky light.

This, is where the problems began. Early in the day was good, shutter speeds were relatively high, and I was even able to stop down to f3.2… yes, you heard me correctly! However as light failed, in the afternoon, and I became reliant on the electric lighting, light levels dropped and so I had to drop both the shutter speed, and stop up again to f2.8.

Fighting went on until 5.45, at which point it was entirely dark outside. Then we proceeded with a 50 minute presentation.. I don’t think a competitor left without some form of medal or certificate! As long as it makes the day feel though, the faces on the light ones were delighted, and surely, this is the only way to encourage development which will produce our 2012 hopefuls.