Long Time Posting

Its been ages since I last posted.  At the moment I class myself as an amateur photographer.  Why?  well at the moment I don't make the bulk of my earnings from my photography.  Not that there is anything wrong with being an amateur in fact some of the amateur photographers I know are more talented and more professional in the way they go about their photography than those that make a living and in some cases a very comfortable living from the art form.

The problem with being an amateur is time.  You have to balance your photography with family life and work that means sometimes the photography side of your life gets put on the back burner a little.  So lets go right back to when I last posted to see what I've been up to.

Well December so my return to Pendle's Mayors' Bit of a Do event.  This event is organised by Pendle Council staff on behalf of the Mayor of Pendle and is for the pensioners of the Borough.  Its a lovely little Christmas event and is often the highlight of the year calendar for some people that would otherwise be lonely.

My role during the event is to document people that are there and some of the acts that perform.  The first year I did this I found it quite a challenge now I don't find it that difficult.  In fact I think I've got this stage photography thing pretty much down.  My camera performs well at high ISO's required
for working in dark environments.  The stage light are quite bright so spot focusing is a must and often the ISO stays quite low.  The difficulty I have with this subject is predicting those little moments that make the photograph special.  So instead of slowing down like I do with film I tend to shoot quite a few shots and then narrow them down in the editing stage.  I don't particularly like working like this but it does get the shot.

When I'm documenting this type of event I have to be really careful that  I don't go all Martin Parr.  I like the that Martin Parr documents life.  He is sometimes described as being quite sarcastic however, I think he has a tendency to tell the story as it is.  Have a look at his essay The Last Resort.  Anyway  I caught two images that I felt were good.  The first image I think is a comment on old age.  The second is a little moment between the Mayor and Mayoress.

Is this something that I would like to do professional?  I think not.  I love music and would love to shoot some events, but I think I would soon get bored of it pretty quickly.