Purple Clouds Photography – Phil Oldham’s Photoblog

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.

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….

I spent a cold Monday evening at the Tameside stadium in Ashton-Under-Lyne to photograph their Unibond Presidents Cup tie versus Clitheroe. Curzon initially went down 0-1, before pulling back an equaliser. This took the game to extra time where both teams scored again, before Ashton fired in two winners in the second half.

All shot on the 1D Mark II and 300 2.8L at ISO1600, f2.8 and 1/320. It was quite dark!