alan frost photography: 'People and Places' at Glorious Goodwood

The end of July/beginning of August is traditionally the time for one of the most famous race meetings in the country - Glorious Goodwood. Situated on The South Downs the race course enjoys wonderful views of the countryside to the north and to the south, distant views of the sea and even the Isle of Wight on a clear day. I am not a seasoned race goer and definitely not a gambler buts its hard to resist the allure of Glorious Goodwood which attracts the famous, the not so famous and those that are simply there to win some money or have a good day out.

My reason for going this year was as part of a 'People and Places' photography course I was attending at West Dean College which is just down the road from Goodwood. I would thoroughly recommend West Dean College to anyone interested in an arts or crafts course held in a beautiful house set in quite superb grounds. The course was being run by Jacqui Hurst and in addition to myself there were five other participants. I will say more about Jacqui and the course in a forthcoming post.

At the outset of the week I set myself the objective of 'seeing' in black and white. We had to produce a portfolio of work by the end of the course, so however good some of the images might appear in colour the final selection would all have to be in monochrome. At Glorious Goodwood I wanted to capture the atmosphere of the place and its people, and whilst we were not in the 'posh' Richmond or Gordon Enclosures, the Lennox Enclosure would provide just as many photo opportunities.

I should just mention that a couple of weeks before attending the course I made the decision to buy the Olympus OMD EM5 with the 12mm to 50mm kit lens. The body and lens are weather sealed and having enjoyed the E-PL3 so much together with the three prime lens (12mm, 20mm and 45mm) I couldn't wait to see how this new camera performed. Being on a photography course for a week was the ideal opportunity to find out. I can tell you now, I was not disappointed, to the contrary the results are quite fantastic and I am now wondering when the Nikon D90 DSLR will get its next airing?

Here are a selection of the images taken at Goodwood. They were all taken with the OMD and one of the prime lenses. Shot in RAW, imported into Lightroom with minor adjustments before converting to black and white in Silver Efex Pro2; a dedicated B&W plugin by Nik Software.

Racing to the line
Olympus OMD 20mm f8 1/500 ISO 200