Purple Clouds Photography – Phil Oldham’s Photoblog

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!

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!

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.

This week had been fairly quiet since Monday evening’s football at Curzon Ashton, so I borrowed a friend to pose for some photos. Thankfully, being picked up at 6.45am didn’t faze him in the slightest… which is more than can be said for myself! But we all must make sacrifices for our art hey?

Anyway, gave me a chance to dust off the Pocket Wizards and experiment a little more in the field (woods, actually) with manual off camera flash. Not wanting to blow my own trumpet.. but everything was set up and good to go with no messing!

The image was lit with 2 lights, one shoot through brolly high, to camera left. The second a bare flash fired in from camera right to provide a little fill in the shadows.

Not a bad mornings work for me!