Morecambe Winter Gardens

I have just had the pleasure ( and privilege ) of spending three days shooting a thorough photographic survey of the beautiful victorian gem which is the Winter Gardens Theatre, at Morecambe.

This was on the instruction of Professor Vanessa Toulmin of Sheffield University , the UK’s leading expert on theatres, resorts and all things Fairground, for whom I have done similar work at Blackpools’s Winter Gardens, Tower and Illuminations.

The Photography at Morecambe constitutes a record of the building in its current state, prior to full restoration, although the wonderful victorian ceramic tiling in the Foyer has been fully restored in the last three months. The auditorium had very limited lighting so for the first time in may years I lit a theatre with my own tungsten lighting. I also used a Drone indoors to shoot the ceramic tiled floor and detail of high level ceramic tiling.

Being Challenged at my ripe old age + Using AI

I have been around this industry for quite a while now, but still something comes along that makes me think and challenges my wee brain.

I was asked to shoot a huge industrial estate at Doncaster from the air at 1500 feet, way above legal drone height, at night! A helicopter flight would require a twin engined aircraft to be legal, and flying quotes coming in were around £5000. In the end we decided to fly a conventional fixed wing aircraft and use Nikon VR technology to enable me to shoot at realistic shutter speeds.

The Images below were shot at 12800 ISO, 250th second exposure at F2.8, VR did the rest. To reduce grain down to an acceptable level the images were improved using Topaz De-noise which uses AI technology, the results were amazingly good

iPort Doncaster, 9.00pm, full dark shot from 1500 feet

Historic Buildings Photography

One of the best bits of being an architectural photographer, is being commissioned to photograph some of our national treasures. Over the years I have been so lucky to shoot some fabulous buildings, and I have now collated some images my architectural page

My First book review

A big thanks to The Scots Magazine for reviewing my book in the November edition, quite favourable. It is a slow old process to sell copies, but since May I am now heading towards 100 sold.

New Landscape Photography Book

I have fulfilled a long standing ambition to publish book of Landscape images, of the North West of Scotland, where I have strong family connections, and have been photographing for most of my life.

The book is entitled " Second Coast" and tell the story of my branch of the MacKenzie family, interlinked with some powerful landscape images.

The cost is £20.00 and can be viewed at http://www.3secondcoast.com/new-products/

iphone photography

Over the last couple of years I have shot a lot of personal images on my phone, I have really come to appreciate the almost filmic quality of iPhone images, and also to enjoy the freedom and spontaneity.

I have uploaded some of these images to my Personal work page.

My most Published picture?

This aerial shot commissioned by York Minster, the Tower dressed for Le Tour, has appeared on the front of the Yorkshire Post and on the BBC and they are the only ones I have found, however no credits!

My best ever building?

Every now and then people ask me which is the best building I've ever photographed? How long is a piece of string? I've been privileged to do make a living shooting architecture for over 25 years, and I have shot a lot of buildings both old and new.

However I am starting to come to the conclusion that the photography I did for Professor Vanessa Toulmin of The National Fairground Archive, in conjunction with Blackpool Council, has to be high on my list. Over three years I shot The Winter Gardens, The Tower, and the Illuminations, to Illustrate three books published by the council.

Here are a few images

Winter Gardens Ballroom 

Winter Gardens

Tower Circus arena

Tower Circus Arena

Tower Ballroom

Blackpool Illuminations

Tower Top

Wales, a very long Coast

I shot various aerial sites in Wales this week, and we flew the whole length of the welsh coastline, The Bristol Channel along the south coast to Milford Haven, and then North along the west coast up to Holyhead. Some days my job is amazing but 5 hours in a Cessna does result in major discomfort!

Cardiff Bay

Cardiff City Centre

Milford Haven

Welsh West Coast

Holyhead

The joy of our job

Once in a while I get to do work that actually I would probably do for free. Last week I did some aerial photography ​of a site at Fort William in NW Scotland, flying from Prestwick up the west coast via Oban, on a glorious day. From 3000' we could see for miles out over the inner Hebrides and north over the mountains. A real privilege and I got payed for it!

​Fort William with Ben Nevis, still snow topped in late May

​Looking up Glencoe with Ballachulish bridge 

Our Industry Fee Rates

A recent survey of photographers fees by the excellent people at Eposure, showed ​a staggering range of charges for day rates, from £100 up to £2000+.

The majority were in the middle, in the range of £5-600. this may sound a lot but considering that most of us only work one or two days a week, and overheads account for about 50% of fees, this is about right. 

​What was deeply disturbing, was that some 23% valued themselves so low that they were charging less than £400 per day, of that 5% less than £200 per day and 1% less than £100 per day!

Come on folks get real! If clients have to see us as professionals we ​need to price our work as professionals and not give it away, stupid fees only devalue what we do. I personally have £30k worth of equipment which needs replacing every 3-4 years, and most photographers I know are the same. 

There endeth the rant.​

The danger of air rifle pellets

Top tip - never, never, NEVER EVER drop a tin full of .22 air rifle pellets down the working bits of a large format printer. I did it yesterday and spent three hours on my back picking them out with tweezers. Don't ask!​

Too Windy

I've been waiting for three weeks to do a shoot in Leeds, sunshine and blue sky   essential. Now we have perfect light but it's too damn windy! Who wants pictures of beautiful people standing in front of a deep blue sky with their hair blowing all over their faces? What a sod.

The early bird

The early bird sees the world renewed. As the tide receded early in the morning I shot this picture on Gruinard Beach in Wester Ross, Highland Scotland, the wonderful patterns in the sand highlighted by the low cross lighting from the early morning sun

​Gruinard Beach March 2013