Olympic Torch in Bognor Regis

16th July 2012 and the Olympic Torch arrives in the seaside town of Bognor Regis, West Sussex. Despite the prospect of rain the crowds turned out of force to line the High Street. The public gathered and waited; the torch bearer getting closer and closer, and so the rain came too and got harder and harder. What a summer! Union Jacks matched umbrellas in number as the torch finally came into sight. The crowd cheered, waved and I stood on a small set of steps, Olympus E PL3 in hand with the Lumix 20mm ready for the flame, still alight - well just.

The whole occasion was a great photo opportunity. The people of Bognor, colour and the sense of anticipation were very evident. I like street photography and this gave me some shots I enjoy. I hope you will enjoy them as well.

Olympic Torch bearer braves the elements

He's here at last and everyone is soaking wet but enjoying themselves.

Olympus E PL3 20mm f1.7 at f3.5 1/320 ISO 320

Festival of Speed 2012 - Art of Design

In an earlier post I referred to this annual event which I attended on two of the four days. The weather on the Friday was mixed with rain showers in the morning but Saturday was much better with blue skies and warm sunshine. Something of a rarity this summer even though it did not help my hayfever.

On the first of my two days I used the Olympus E PL3 as I thought this camera combined with the three fast prime lenses would encourage a more artistic approach, experimenting with depth of field etc. On the Saturday I reverted to the DSLR a Nikon D90.

I have been to this event on a number of occasions and its all too easy to take photographs of 'whole' cars followed by more of the same, either moving or still. So this year I tried to concentrate on taking some other images which would still say 'Festival of Speed' to the viewer but had a more specific theme. This is likely to be the first post of a short series on the Festival of Speed. This one reflects on the 'Art of Design'. Yes, images of cars but perhaps simplified in composition and rarely showing the car in its entirety, although the first of these images breaks this rule straight away! It's the JPS Lotus 72 which graced the huge sculpture which stood at the front of Goodwood House. After a morning rain shower the sun broke through the clouds momentarily and lit up the sculpture and beautiful lines of this famous Formula One car of the 1970's.

John Player Special Lotus 72

Olympus E PL3 Panasonic 20mm f1.7 at f7.1 1/1600 ISO200

Chichester Harbour - Dell Quay in June

Chalk writing on the blackboard outside the pub said quite simply 'Coming soon - the Summer'. Sadly this was a rather optimistic statement or just wishful thinking by the landlord, as a number of camera club members gathered to try and capture this superb location. It was grey, not that warm for June and the light was poor. So often Chichester Harbour is bathed in glorious evening light - the golden hour - at least thats what we had hoped for, but not today.

Instead it became clear that a different approach was necessary so I thought about monochrome or black and white. The old boat yard should be a place to find some interesting relics and compositions. This was an evening when normally I would have said the light is too poor for photography, but forced into a situation where the camera had to go to work, it was a surprise to me what I could find. Not my normal approach to a subject but an interesting lesson in observation, tonal contrast and depth of field. I didn't want to keep changing lenses so I stuck with the 45mm for all the shots with the exception of the last image when I used the 12mm.

I hope I have captured something of the atmosphere of the location particularly the boat yard itself. Yes, some of the subjects are rather typical of this type location but I think the black and white treatment brings out the texture and tonal values of the subjects.

All images were taken hand held with the E-PL3, shot in RAW and then converted into B&W in Lightroom. Some cropping, sharpening and levels adjustments to improve contrast and tonal range.

45mm ISO200 F4.5 1/320