Brooklands Motor Museum

Brooklands Motor Museum opens its doors on New Year's Day for car enthusiasts and visitors alike (it's open the rest of the year too), and provides a welcome respite from the festive season. Owners come from far and wide to display their vintage, rare, and specialist vehicles, and it really is quite a sight. The location itself is an historic one, it's the world's first purpose built motor circuit, dating from 1907. It is known as the birthplace of British motor racing and aviation and has seen many of the great technical achievements of both. The museum is home to a wide range of motorsport and aeroplane exhibits, together with a charming array of restored outbuildings and hangars. Brooklands Trust is a charity and works hard to preserve the character of British historic motorsport and aviation.

Brooklands also has its own Concorde and visitors can book a ticket for an 'experience' whilst learning more about the Concorde story.

The event is a social one and it was great to talk to the owners and get a really close look at the sort of vehicles one would never normally encounter. Hot, comforting food is available in the downstairs cafe and the restaurant above and I was able to enjoy my lunch in the company of two racing drivers who shared a fascinating (and slightly hair-raising) insight to their world.

Modern car clubs are also welcome, and I took up my place in the Independent Porsche Enthusiasts Club area before spending several fascinating hours photographing the hundreds of stunning cars spread around the track and grounds, offset by the many static aeroplane exhibits dotted about the site. The weather was spectacular - freezing cold with a strong vivid, low winter sun. This is a little challenging in photography terms, especially when one has no control over the subject's placement, so it's a question of moving around until the best compromise is achieved.

If you'd like to see the full set of images, visit my main website, choose the Flash site, click on the clients tab (at the bottom) and enter the password: 01jan10 (space and case sensitive).

Birthday Treats

It's always a bit strange having a birthday so close to Christmas, but despite the treacherous weather conditions (heavy snow and sheet ice here in West Sussex) I grabbed a couple of relaxing hours away from my desk. An outing with the car was out of the question, but a snowy walk on the local National Trust land was a real pleasure. I was sent some beautiful orchid stems and a huge spray of pink and white blooms. They're so gorgeous I just had to photograph them. Other birthday treats came in the form of some scrummy makeup and some much-needed and greatly appreciated help towards impending hefty business costs, and a fab software upgrade.

See our main site here.

Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, Arundel

The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Arundel is the perfect retreat after a heavy working week. The carpark was more than half full when we arrived, but the centre was tranquil, warm, and comforting. The grounds were well populated with winter migrants and some very tame pheasants, and we were lucky enough to watch a Kingfisher darting back and forth by the lake. The light was a little strange today, there were sudden and brief bright intervals where I could achieve a Tv of 1/1000 at f5.6 and ISO400, and just as quickly the skies would darken and I'd be getting 1/30 sec, not exactly suitable for moving birds!

You'll spot some Nenes in the shots below - Nenes are the rarest geese in the world, but we always see them at Arundel, and they love to be hand fed with the special bird seed available at the centre.

 

You can visit our main site here.

 

Animals and Pets

Pet photography (or animal photography of any kind) can throw up a host of technical and practical challenges and it's safe to say that the outcome of any shoot can never really be predicted. Most animals move around, some more than others, and comparatively few of them understand what we say to them (and like people, many suffer from selective hearing). Animals should always be photographed in a secure and familiar environment, which of course isn't always the ideal environment for photography. But when we're shooting we often have to play the hand we're dealt. Of course, that can be a great opportunity for a photographer to see what is or isn't feasible in the toughest conditions - very low light (with repeated heavy showers) and animals which might be enclosed behind reflective rain-splattered glass. Practice always brings us closer to the results we want to achieve, so photograph your friends pets, your neighbours pets, whatever appears in your garden, and any other animals you might have the opportunity to see.

So what does this mean in photographic terms? First of all most animals move and I'd like to get a shutter speed of at least 1/200 of a second for slow moving animals, and in an ideal world around 1/1000 for fast moving species. In dark conditions this is completely impossible, and you'll soon reach the limit of ISO and aperture - in the end I was shooting at anything from 1/15 of a second to 1/60 if I was lucky - and at ISO 1200 - and at f2.8. The risks then are blurred shots due to subject movement, noise from high ISO settings, and very shallow DOF at wide f stops. Oh - and don't forget the reflections off glass if the animals have to be contained in this way, and the fact that accurate focus is difficult and often impossible in low light, not to mention through physical barriers. All in all, it isn't always certain if any worthwhile shots will result, but the trick is 'shoot many to keep a few' and of course, the aim is to have fun. I don't know anybody who doesn't have a big smile on their face after shooting animals, and we are no exception.

The kit comprises a Canon 5D and a Canon 40D, and so that we can travel light we often use just two smallish lenses - the fantastic Tamron 28-75 f2.8, and the highly accomplished Canon 70-300 f3.5-5.6 IS. For a few hundred pounds each, these lenses have near 'L' quality optics.

 

See our main site here.