N Hampshire Photography 1 People and Place: An organised event

Saturday, 12 July 2014

An organised event

L'Eroica Brittania, Bakewell, Derbyshire, UK

20-22nd June 2014

This exercise called for research and preparation into an event where there would be plenty of people moving around and I could photograph them freely. The aim was to think about explaining through my photographs. A series of photographs (each unique and self contained) should tell a story of an event.

I first thought of using the 100 years of Women's Institutes as events had been organised in Nottinghamshire to celebrate the baton passing through the county (as in the Commonwealth Games). After considering and talking through plans for my mother's WI, I thought there were probably only about 5 or 6 shots possible without repetition, and I ruled it out as most of the event would be inside a dark building and flash may distract the participants.

My next idea was a village show - few and far between in my area. My event also had to fit into my timescale. Whilst in tourist information, I came across a leaflet for L' Eroica Britannia which interested me as it was based around cycling and the first of its kind in Britain.

The ethos of this festival of cycling lay in re-use and re-discovery including promoting wellbeing of people and encouraging people to dust off their old bikes and take up cycling again, promoting local produce, and looking at how preserving the local unclassified roads and trails will benefit the locals and the environment and help tourism in the area. There was an emphasis on helping to educating people within the community. The organisers hoped that if the event was successful, it could become a national event and attract overseas visitors.

Learning points from this exercise

Lots of cameras and people taking photographs so it was easy to blend in
However, people were aware that visitors were walking around with cameras
Need to balance different focal lengths and use a variety of telephoto and wide angled images to get a good mix.
Very busy so use lenses for their particular qualities and avoid too much happening in one frame.
Possibly use 2 cameras - 1 set up with a wide angle and one telephoto as 105mm is not long enough
Need to show more faces - viewpoint
Perhaps need more close-ups of people to tell more about what they are doing
Like the stage images with words behind the men and the "smoothie miles" as they add additional information for the viewer.
Had to crop a few images due to additional people detracting from the scene I was trying to depict