A Bit of Bath

Foto Fest

It seems that the team at Fotospeed have a nack of being able to pull together a lineup of great speakers. I saw this first hand at The Photography Show this year where I was lucky enough to listen to some talks from some wonderful photographers. With their excellent record of organising speaker lineups it came as no surprise that for Foto Fest 2019 they organised Tom Way, Rachael Talibart, Nigel Danson and Martin Parr! With the location of Foto Fest less than 100 miles away in Bath and that excellent line up I really couldn’t miss this cracking event, again.

These types of event are always a good chance to meet up with friends so it was fantastic to hear that my friend and fellow photographer Gareth Danks was going to join me in Bath. As with our meeting at The Photography Show earlier on in the year, we would of course use this as an opportunity to do a little photography as well, but more about that later.

Let me give you a quick review of Foto Fest first. Put simply, I thought it was great! I was thoroughly engaged by all four speakers. Even though I could relate more to the work of Rachael and Nigel, I found Tom’s wildlife photography fascinating and Martin’s review of his 50-year career was both hugely interesting and very humorous. Each talk was a perfect length (about 1 hour) and each talk was separated by a break allowing me to check out the Market Place (and perhaps spend a few £’s!) At the end of the day all four photographers were brought together for a Q+A session hosted by Sam Gregory.

It was a top-notch show and I really hope I can attend again next year. I definitely recommend that you attend as well.

Urban Photography

With Foto Fest done, me and Gareth decided to head down into the beautiful city of Bath for a spot of street photography. Well, I say we, but really it was Gareth that was doing the street photography and I was stumbling behind with my camera try to try and figure out compositions. If you’re a regular reader of my blog you’ll know that I am about as far away as a street photographer as one can be, but that doesn’t stop me trying as you might have seen in this video:

While my first attempt wasn’t exactly a roaring success, I did really enjoy it and wanted to do it again. So with Gareth in Bath as well it seemed the perfect opportunity to give it another go. Below you’ll find a selection of my urban / street images from the brief time we spent in Bath.

I know these images aren’t going to win any awards but sometimes you just need to let go of the serious side of photography, try something new and have a bit of fun with a mate!

Don’t worry, I’ll be back on the blog next week with some “serious” landscape photographs.

Oh and before I forget, here is Gareth’s video from his time in Bath!

The Importance and Joy of Printing at Home

Photography Show Talks - An Opportunity

I'm a firm believer that if a good opportunity presents itself that you should grab it with both hands.  So when the team at Fotospeed asked if I'd like to do a talk at The Photography Show this year there really was only one answer to give.  Yes! 

The topic of the talk was up to me but I knew almost straight away that I wanted to talk about printing.  Printing has become an integral and enriching part of the photographic experience for me.  As regular readers of this blog and viewers of my YouTube channel will know I like to do my printing at home.  I've owned a Canon Pixma Pro 10-S for a couple of years now and ever since I made my first print I've been addicted to hitting that print button.

I wanted this talk to be an opportunity for me to share that passion for printing at home.  I wanted people to get excited about printing their own work, to have fun with it, and use it as a way to improve their photography.  Most of all I wanted people to see that it's a much more rewarding experience viewing their photographs in printed form.

The Importance and Joy of Printing at Home

Thanks to my fellow photographers and friends I'm able to share with you a video of the entire talk I did which was called The Importance and Joy of Printing at Home.  Gareth Danks kindly filmed the talk for me, and both Gareth and Chris Sale were good enough to take the still images you see in this blog post. 

So if you missed my talk at the show, or you did catch it and perhaps want to see it again, here is an unabridged recording.  Enjoy! 

On The Fotospeed Stage

Presenting a talk on printing wasn't the only thing I did at the Fotospeed stand.  I was also asked to be compere for the weekend.  This granted me the privilege of not only meeting some wonderful and interesting photographers but also a seat on the stage to listen and watch Rachael Talibart, Martin Hartley, Trevor & Faye Yerbury, Margaret Salisbury, Matt Hardy and Joe Cornish all talk about their photography.  With such a breadth of skills and experiences brought by these photographers, it was little surprise that each talk inspired my photography in its own way.

On stage with Joe Cornish. Photo courtesy of Gareth Danks.

You can also see me discussing my time at The Photograph Show in this Fotospeed video.

Next Year at The Photography Show

I've attended The Photograph Show every year and it just gets bigger and better each year.  From the variety of talks, the products on show and the number of people I get to have conversations with, it's now become an integral part of my photography calendar.  One thing is for sure, I will be heading back to The Photography Show in 2020.

I do hope you enjoyed this blog post.  Did I meet you at the show?  Did you get to see my talk live?  Did you enjoy the talk (recorded or live)?  Let me know in the comments below.

PS - Trying Something New

As I was at The Photography Show all weekend I had some spare time on the Saturday evening so I decided to try a different genre of photography with a fellow vlogger.  I'll be publishing the video for that soon, but can anyone guess what type of photography I was doing and who with?

PS - You can watch that video here.