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.

Play-Offs, the off season, and a lesson about assumption

OK, so on 8/4/11, I, along with a couple of good friends, headed off to Coventry for the EPL Play-Off weekend. It's basically a big social event with some hockey thrown in there, just to keep us all amused.

It was a great weekend, I met new people and got to know my friends even more. The only bad thing was Phoenix going out in the semi-final stage with 20 seconds of overtime left. But as the saying goes, "Que sera, sera". It wasn't a big photography weekend, my lens still hadn't been repaired, so I just took my compact camera and gave it a test or 2, then just sat and enjoyed the games.

So, now we're into the off season, the rumor mills are in full swing, and I've got Sundays free again. I've no idea what I'll do with the time, but until uni finishes, I'll be working on my films. "Plexi" is now at a point where I can put it on the back burner, as my other 2 shoots are coming up, so that's good. I'll have more film news once the shoots are over, I'm sure.

News on my lens, it's fixed! It came back yesterday with a replaced scale ring, whatever that means. All I know is, it's back, and that makes me one happy photographer.

Now for that lesson in assumption. I had to go to Manchester yesterday for a chat about possible employment after uni. All went well, and I head to the station to get the train home. I go to the platform where I normally get trains home from, the first calling point and eventual destination are correct, so on I get. I notice the little scrolling LED isn't working, and the driver only announces the next stop and destination, so still I think all is well.

Train goes to the first calling point, but then at what should be my stop, I see Wilmslow out of the window. Hang on, I think, I've gone somewhat wrong here. So I fortunately get off at Crewe, the next stop. If I hadn't, I'd have ended up in London. Cue another train journey to get to where I need to be. So, let this be a lesson, even though all seems correct, never assume the train you're getting on is going where you think it should!

What a Weekend!

All I can say is, wow! I have had a mad week. As I wrote before, my main lens for shooting the hockey had to be sent off for repairs, and this left me with a situation when it came to shooting the weekend's games. I couldn't use the kit lens that came with my camera, I've tried before and it's just not good enough. So, I was able to borrow a Nikon D90 from the uni, and shoot on that. It was a bit weird, I'm a Sony user and there are some fundamental differences, but I managed to get my head round it all for the trip to Peterborough on Saturday.

At that point, Phoenix needed a point to take the League, and we all thought it'd be done that night. The atmosphere among the traveling Phoenix support was immense, but alas, it was not to be, we lost 6-2.

It was a pretty subdued journey home, but really, looking back, I'm glad we lost.

Because it set up an amazing end of season clash between Phoenix and the Swindon Wildcats. The Ice Dome was packed, and the atmosphere was electric. I don't think I'll forget looking round as the intro video played and seeing packed blocks, with everyone on their feet, clapping and cheering, something I'd never seen before.

The game was a nervous affair for me, and also for Helena, but Phoenix did us all proud and won the title, with a 5-2 victory. This is where the atmosphere basically went from electric to what can only be described as "all hell breaking loose" both on and off the ice. It's also where I learned that yes, I am getting the hang of this photography business, because in between turning to Helena and shouting "We've done it, we've done it! We've won the League!", I was able to capture some cracking shots of the players celebrating. Some of them are below:

More can be found on my Flickr page here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/45456370@N02/

Now, onto some film news. I've got a target time of 6 minutes for "Plexi" and my 2 other films are taking shape. I got a lot of advice about "Plexi" from my supervisor, who said that once I've transcribed my interviews, I can basically build a script and edit it to that. I'll be having a go at that during the week. I'm also hoping to have cut together a trailer by the end of the week and will hopefully have it online ASAP.