CVTEC Working Day

Cheshire Vintage Tractor and Engine Club hosted their annual working day last week. I headed down armed with my Canon camera and a Hassleblad and shot some working images and some portraits. Unfortunately at the moment I can't show you the portraits as I am awaiting them to be developed. However I can show some of the working shots I was able to grab at the event.

Newbies and visitors were also encouraged to have a go.

In all honesty I am pleased with these shots but just wish the sky had been something more on the day of the event as many of my images as you will see below are lacking sky detail. This is something I have tried to make up for in my framing. 

Shooting on the Streets

You might know that at the moment I am working on a portrait project that involves photographing people on the street. When I was in Birmingham I found this group of musicians entertaining shoppers and could not just walk past.

There is a lot of energy in this image, particularly for the chap playing the accordion - with his bright red jeans that match his instrument.

Since shooting the streets digitally, I have now taken to using the Hassleblad to get portraits. A camera which gets many peculiar looks when I'm out shooting with it but also a good conversation starter. Unfortunately the turn around for the images will take longer but it will be well worth the wait when we get to see what they have come out like.

Mooove Over! Females Coming Through

Every child grows up dreaming about what will one day be their career. Some make it that far, but others do not. Little girls that want to be dairy farmers will sadly never achieve their dreams because this modern society continues to determine who will do what and when. Sexism remains ever dominant.

Recently I paid a visit to a local farm where I met a very lovely man who is clearly passionate about his work in the dairy industry. However, I found myself feeling most frustrated when he told me he was stuck in a “difficult position”. Despite, having four daughters and a two year old grandson, he proclaimed that, when he passes on, he will have nobody to take over the farm.

Personally, I cannot see anything that sets males from females apart in the industry and there is no reason a woman should be stopped from taking on such a role should it be what she desires; not only men are capable of running an effective business. We know it is not all numbers and paperwork but we are not scared of a bit of grafting. We are prepared to get our hands dirty if needs be and we will not be fussed about the state in which our clothes are at the end of the day. In fact, I would prefer the grafting – I have a phobia of math.

There is no reason that only men should be able to work in this environment. I know it sounds ridiculous, but cows are female. Perhaps that is why men do thing this way; they simply can’t get enough of the female attention. The fact that these females are cows is irrelevant to them. But let us be honest, we, as women, are not going to get all embarrassed about milking a cow. There is a chance a few of us might be grossed out at calving time but that happens with men too.

“Relief worker”, a position where people take over when others are sick, or there is just too much work, is also not a role I would appreciate to be given. Essentially, you are being told that, despite being obviously capable of the job, it is only the case when the top dogs are not. I would rather have no job on the farm than a relief role. After all, if it is such a man’s domain, and he is perfectly capable every other time, why is he not capable now? Why should he need a female’s help?

It seems that, within the dairy world, the tradition of the wife staying at home to cook and clean is still what is expected. Possibly, women are given the accounts to look after and occasionally allowed out of the kitchen and onto the farm as a “relief worker”.

Although I am not convinced it is just dairy production where this takes place, it is the most obvious and most recent I have myself had to bear witness too. However, as Australia’s Dr Cannold says “business is still a man’s world”; women clearly have a long way to go to prove society wrong.

Preview!

It's been a ridiculously busy week for me so I haven't managed to get much done and I'm trying to get this article on dairy farming written. However, I have done a teeny bit of reviewing of images. These have no been edited in any way.

All of these photos were shot at John Platts dairy farm in Wimboldsely, Cheshire. They milk just over 800 cows at two different sites and I was given full access to everywhere. Amazing to see

The first calving shed, all calves here are between 4 and 14 days old.

One group of cows on the way out of the miking parlour whilst another is milked.

Looking down the milking stands. They cows were held in by what reminded me of a roller coaster barrier.

This is Gem, a very well loved Australian cattle dog. 

I was very lucky to get this shoot and a big thank you to John Platt for allowing to me go around. I am now officially over my phobia of cows as well having spent time in the calving pens and the cow sheds. Not to mention having one stood right next to me while I photographed the milking parlour.

Published

I've been published again this month, however it's somewhere new this time.

Mid Kent College have an excellent Student Magazine, and in their Winter Edition for 2013 they have used one of my images from National Demo 2012 of a group of their students.

Very pleased.

In all honesty I need to scan in copies of Space and the work I've had in their but it just doesnt fit in to my scanner. I'll have to sort something so you can all see. 

Woodlands, Visit One.

I don't know if I've mentioned this project before of not, however today myself and four others visited Woodlands Farm, Chedworth to start shooting for our group project based around Dairy Farming. I had an excellent time and learnt a lot whilst I was there, Nigel Finch is a very interesting man to listen to. We spent a good couple of hours at the farm and received an excellent tour of the facilities, giving us chance to start snapping.

Here are a selection of my images:

Lets start with this animal portrait, whilst I am a little gutted that I cut of the edge of the right ear I am pleased with the shot.

A crowd of University students crowding in to the shed was clearly of interest to the cows as they swarmed to the gate. I'm pleased with this shot and the numbers of cows that squashed in for me.

Then of course we need a cute shot of the calves, this shot I think is good for showing hints of the environment behind them without being the focus of the shot.

Whilst this shot came out darker than I would have liked when taking it I am pleased that it has as it just highlights the one cow who is standing with his peeping over the rest of the crowd.

And to finish...

A portrait of Nigel Finch himself, lit with natural light coming through a small window as he talked to us about his job.

Have You Ever Heard of Ragnar Axelsson?

No? Well he’s a photojournalist who works in Iceland and somebody whose work I adore. In fact, I’d love to be able to buy his book one day, sadly I’m just really poor until then.

Anyway, with all this snow that’s been lying around the past few days, I’ve been looking again at his work, it is wonderful.

 It’s the composition of his images that gets me the most. A lot of his work he features the subject in a corner, or on it’s own in the middle of the frame, meanwhile the rest of the shot is bare, pure white or so fresh and overexposed that no detail is visible. But it is never boring. The contrast is always high, so the topic does clearly stand out.

 My favourite photo of his is this one, the Husky barking. The shot makes the animal look quite vicious yet this is unlikely as husky dogs are supposed to have very friendly and protective personalities (I think).

However, if I were you, I’d check out his website. Well worth a proper look.

First Protest of 2013

I've been putting off posting this blog until Politically Me posted their article because it ties in very nicely to my photos of a protest I accidentally found when in Birmingham on Saturday, 5th. I'm not going to say anymore about it, I'll let you read it from the link above.

However, one thing I will point out is that I was not protesting at this event, I followed it for a period of time in order to document it.

Outside Burtons.. just about.

Staff inside, manager with the radio calling for more security.

After the protest moved on from HSBC staff were still reluctant to open the doors while a customer tried to get in.

Two of the protesters.

A young child present at the protest.

Protesters made their way in to Armani Exchange before being forced back out again.

The Bullring shut all entrances/exits in order to keep shoppers safe.

Here security battled with a protester in order to be able to shut the door.

At the rally, balloons were released in which some of those gathered chose to jump on.

Large congregation of protesters.

Group shot.

Close up of a second group shot.

More young protesters present at the event.

These two men were debating whether or not the protest was good or bad.

The final shout out of the rally.

Unfortunately, post rally, shops such as Starbucks had to clean up bits of graffiti from their shop fronts. 

When I hit the city that day I only expected to test a few new filters I'd been given but it certainly turned out to be more eventful than I imagined. Many of those attending were armed with cameras - both for stills and video and I'm not sure whether that was to protect themselves as they recorded the event or to document it because they were proud of themselves being there. Who knows? I'm just glad I had mine on me. 

Tractors, Lots of Tractors!

It's been a while since I photographed tractors, but on the 27th December, CTVEC hosted their annual Christmas Road run, complete with a Santa. I had a ball and despite the awful weather got some decent snaps of the day.

The early birds watching arrivals.

Happy driver

There's quite a queue to book on.

Booking in

Exchanging raffle tickets.

Double seater?

Cold and wet? Yes.

Watching everyone in to the parking spaces.

The weather didn't stop Santa visiting though.

Almost Ready For Christmas

I was gunna take a few "pretty" snaps of our house all decorated for Christmas, kindah like this one..

Look at that snowman keeping warm behind the candles, he's so cute. 

However, we have four cats. We've always had cats but this year one of the cats is a little doolally, racing everywhere and climbing everything so I thought it would be more fun to photograph the aftermath of her mad half hours. So this morning I came down to this, the tinsel that was wrapped around the bowl, now isn't. 

Shadow was after one of the presents tied to the tinsel.

Cannot wait to see my Mums face when she's home, although she'll probably just be relieved the tree hasn't been pulled down.

Pittville Park

It's been bloomin' busy recently with lots of hand-ins and deadlines and oh so much. But today I've had my second hand in, tomorrow is my third and final one. It's gunna be nice then to have a break and relax.

Anyhow, today has been very foggy in Cheltenham but Pittville park looked beautiful in the fog - all mysterious. Even at 3pm.

It took me ages to get this shot of the man walking across the grass between the trees in the fog.

The grass looked so pretty with all the frost on today.

These two lads were having great fun playing in the icy puddle.

This shot was taken much later on in the evening.

I really enjoyed shooting in the fog today, it's not something I've done before properly to this extent so I found it really interesting to see what my camera took in a different speeds.