Planes, trains and... Well, just planes, really!

Saturday 28th January saw me back on the road that is making films. I've got big plans for my final film, and I knew that the sooner I got things rolling, the easier the process would be.

I've always liked planes, there's just something fascinating about how they work, and why people go through all the training to fly them. But most people are familiar with the big commercial jets, and not the small, light aircraft that buzz around our skies. That's what my next film will look at, and I got the ball rolling with an early recce.

Myself, my cameraman Alex Dean, and my stills photographer, Richard Allan, headed to a small airfield that goes by the name of Tatenhill. The airfield is hidden away near Burton, Staffordshire, and it's a great location, with some lovely people.

We were able to take a look around the control tower, as well as the airfield itself. We also got to check out the Antonov AN-2 that's parked at the airfield. This gave us all some great opportunities for photography.

Richard has also written a blog entry about this recce, and has some stunning photographs of his own. His blog can be found here:

Richard's Blog and Photos

At the moment, shooting is due to commence in March, so I'm cracking on with the paperwork and such, and will update when I have more news.

Suddenly I See...

How do you follow the fastest team sport in the world, when you don't have 20/20 vision? It's a question few people will ever ask, but it's exactly what I do every week when I watch the Phoenix play.

It's not actually as hard to follow the game as I imagined it would be when I first started watching, although I have had a couple of seasons practice now. The thing that makes it easier for me, is that the sightlines at Altrincham are quite good. OK, you can't see the play if it goes directly under your block, but then you're helped out by the screens that are dotted around the rink.

I've learnt one very important lesson. Keep your eyes on the puck. It's announced each week, and it's important everyone does it, but more so if you can't see well. It moves very quickly and it's easy to lose. There is an incident known to friends of mine, and for simplicity's sake, we'll call it "the Puck Incident". Luckily, I didn't get smacked in the head on that occasion, but ask anyone who saw it, and they'll tell you that it was quite close. I was completely oblivious, but that's what a lack of peripheral vision will do for you!

The other thing I struggle with at a game, is spotting penalties and their respective calls. Sometimes I'll see what I think is a penalty, only for play to continue, and other times, the play will be stopped, and I'l be left asking "What happened? Who's getting called for what?" before I'm enlightened either by a fellow fan, or an announcement.

Other than that, my experiences of the game are the same as any other fan. Hockey was where I also developed my photography skills, which is another thing people are sometimes surprised by. I have had, since I was around 16, the innate ability to take an OK photo. With a bit of tuition from various people over the last few years, I've turned those OK photos, into some rather good ones. People ask how I can take such good pictures when I can't see as well as they can, and the honest answer is: I don't know. I just push the button, and hope for the best. Sometimes I get a great shot, other times, I don't, but that's not unique to me. That's something all photographers deal with on a daily basis.

I'm just living my life, watching hockey, and taking pictures, and on that note, I'll leave you with some of my favourite shots.

Bye Bye 2011, Hello 2012!

Well, another year is about to draw to a close, and for me, this is always a time where I like to look back on the year that we're leaving.

It's been a bit of a funny one for me, it started well, then there was a bit of a rough bit, and it's finished rather well too.

In January it all looked so promising, I was going to finish uni and head out into the big wide world, to start work. I was dipping my toe into photography, and loving it, and Phoenix were doing well in the league. Some things carried on well, others didn't.

2011 will always be remembered by a lot of people as the year Manchester Phoenix became EPL champions. I took a lot of photos of that night, and it still gives me chills looking back at them all these months later.

I attended my first Play Off weekend, which was a fantastic experience (thank you to all those who made me feel welcome and looked out for me :) ). I'd started to go to some away games too, something I've kept up with this season too. Again, thank you to those who are kind enough to let me travel with them and share those experiences :) This means I've been to a lot of places this year that I hadn't before: Peterborough, Sheffield, Milton Keynes, Guildford, Telford and Slough, I think that's all of them, anyway!

That leads nicely onto another first. I went on holiday, with my good friend Becky, for the first time. We headed out to Paphos, in Cyprus, and had a lovely week in the sun, back in October. Definitely something I'd love to do again.

There were some low points. I got chicken pox back in May time, which didn't help with university deadlines, at all. I got over it, and managed to submit everything OK. Unfortunately, I was to find out soon after, that I'd not passed some modules. So my plans changed in an instant. I'd have to come back to uni in January, to re-do some films.

A lot of things went through my mind, and I even considered, and applied for, a job as a junior photographer on a cruise ship! That would've meant being away from home for up to 8 months. I didn't get it, so I was wondering what to do with myself.

I decided to do some voluntary work, and that's how I found myself standing in one of the shops of a local charity, the Douglas Macmillan Hospice. This is where I met some wonderful people who have shared in some fun times with me, and have helped me grow as a person.

There have been other good things, like, finding someone who I really care about, and who really cares about me, and that has made the last few months wonderful.

So here's to 2012, which will see me making more films, taking more pictures, and generally being me. It's a year for defining who I am as a filmmaker, as a photographer, and it's about taking chances, going outside my comfort zone and generally pushing myself to achieve my potential.

Happy New Year everyone!

Where Have the Months Gone?

Again, it's been a while since I last posted here, and there's a lot of news to share with you.

The first is I've now got 2 blogs. That's right, I am now an official blogger for British Ice Hockey. Basically, I try and do a weekly blog, although I've not managed this week, but I blog about the games, giving my perspective on them and also talking random hockey stuff. So far it's thrown up some interesting things to write about.

The second bit of news is I've been volunteering at a local charity shop, and loving it. I've made some brilliant friends and I'm gaining new skills, but most of all, I'm having fun, and it's given me a photography opportunity as well, which is even better.

And finally, for now, I'm off to sunny Cyprus in 2 weeks with a lovely friend of mine named Becky. I'm taking my camera so expect a very long blog post/photojournalism piece when I get back!

Film Screenings, Planes and Concerts

As I said in my previous post, I was planning to hold a film screening up in Manchester, to showcase my latest film and the films of some good friends of mine. On Sunday, 10th July, this event took place. I don't have any pictures of this event, sadly, as I was a bit busy presenting it at the time. I might be an OK photographer, but being able to shoot my own pictures while doing something else is way beyond me!

Anyway, the venue for this event was the Cresta Court Hotel in Altrincham, and myself, Richard (another keen photographer, and good friend of mine, as regular readers will know) and Helena (another very good friend) arrived at about 4.15, ready to set the room up and generally prepare. You can ask either of them, on that particular journey to Altrincham I was VERY nervous, but they kept talking to me about various topics and the nerves disappeared, til we arrived.

It was an easy setup, plug my laptop into the mains, plug the laptop into the projector, and plug the speakers into the laptop, check the DVD worked and I was good to go. People began to arrive and in the end there were roughly 30 people in attendance, a great result for me, and we began proceedings.

After the first introduction, the nerves disappeared completely, and it was just like talking to a group of my friends. Which, to be fair, it actually was! All the films played no problem, and I think it was a great success. But then I'm biased, so I'll let people who were there pass comment :)

Anyway, we wrapped up the evening and headed out. By that point Helena and I were quite hungry, so we decided to grab some food. It is here that I learnt the art of the spontaneous photo shoot, the value of smartphones in certain situations, and to ALWAYS bring a camera, even if you're hosting an event and probably won't need one!

Richard had an idea, since we'd been talking about it earlier, to go to the Runway Visitor Park at Manchester Airport. This is where the smartphone came in handy, I was able to look up the postcode and opening times, and we set off.

I'd never been to this bit of the airport before, and it was actually a really enjoyable experience. It's basically an open air area with various exhibits, and obviously places to stand, watch and photograph the planes. We enjoyed a good hour there, I think, before we had to leave, and I REALLY want to go back for a day, because I've found I quite enjoy taking pictures of planes.

This is one I'm pretty proud of:

As well as this one:

This one, I hadn't realized there was a plane in the sky as well as the one on the ground:

The rest of those shots can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/45456370@N02/sets/72157627169677512/with/5926664726/

So, after all that, you'd think I'd be taking a break from pointing a camera at stuff? Oh no, I went to 2011 Live, an open air concert that was held in one of our local parks. I'll write more on that in the next blog, but to give you a preview, I'll tell you that, that was the day I learnt a lot about photography with a point and shoot camera.

New Kit, and a few interesting happenings...

Well, it's been a while, again, and things have moved along quite a bit since my last entry.

First thing first, I'm not going to be dropping the "film" part of this blog title just yet. Short version of events: chicken pox set me back more than I thought, I've got to retake 2 modules at uni in January. So that's a pain, but, what can you do?

Now, the good stuff! I have a new camera! I am now the proud owner of a Nikon D5100 and a whole load of extras for it. Wonderful camera, loving the results so far, and looking forward to experimenting further.

Big, big news on the film screening that I was hoping to put together! It's going ahead, and all the details can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=200511993325046&ref=ts

Lots of films, hopefully lots of people, it should be a great night.

I took my new camera out for the first time, to a couple of local museums, and the pictures from those visits can be found on my Flickr page.

I've also been asked to take photos and video at a local event tomorrow, so those pictures will hopefully be up next week. I'm looking forward to it, it'll be a chance to build my portfolio, and more importantly, hopefully build contacts to get closer to my goal of making this hobby at least part of my profession.

The 4 days in Southport went very well, great company and a lot of hard work, but all worth it when I got to see my first professional camerawork go out on a big plasma screen in the closing sequence. I will admit, I shed a few silent tears of joy and pride at that.

So, until next time, bye bye!

Endings and Beginnings

Well, it's certainly been a while since I wrote here. Apologies for that, but things have just been insanely busy.

I went into the Easter break from university with a small profile piece to shoot, as wel as one other documentary. All was going well, got the profile piece done, all good. That was a saturday shoot. On the Sunday and Monday I felt a bit under the weather but thought it was a bug/summer cold/something insignificant. Tuesday morning, I wake up to find my face and back covered in CHICKEN POX!

Let me just say, everyone, I hope you all got it as a child, because at 21 it is absolutely vile. I felt ill, couldn't go out, and then ended up being off uni for 2 weeks under doctor's orders. Great. That meant I was back in uni on the 11th of May. We had til the 20th to get all our work handed in.

You can see now why chicken pox was a slight inconvenience. I managed to get my other film shot on the 12th of May, thanks to a lovely understanding group of contributors and 2 fabulous crew members (Adam and Ben) who stepped in at short notice to help me get the thing made.

"King Street" will be available online soon, in various forms.

"Plexi" is also finished, which in a way, I'm a little sad about. Both my films interest me, but this one in particular, captured why I love the sport of ice hockey so much. It also made me realize we've got a fair bit of off-season left, which is probably where the sadness comes from!

That will also be making an appearance online soon, as well as, hopefully, a screening up in Manchester.

So, both films are done, and hand in day comes along. This was actually a really happy day, I've been so stressed with having to miss time at uni and get everything done, that it was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

But that's it. One presentation tomorrow afternoon and it's done.

My degree will be finished. That's quite sad, as it's been a great three years, but I'm also so proud. There were hard times, there were many times where I thought I wasn't going to do it. Times where I wanted to quit and do something else. But I didn't, I had a cracking circle of family and friends who supported me and made sure I did what, I know in my heart, I wanted to and was good at. They know who they are, so I just wanted to say, thank you.

So that's the ending, and the new beginning is my life in the working world. I've got a little 4 day job in June, as a freelance camera operator, and who knows, that might lead to more regular work. I'm also still looking at post production jobs, just in case.

This is the start of a brand new adventure, and do you know what I say?

Bring it on.