ARTHUR CHAPPELL PHOTO TAKING DIARY 4

MY 4^th PHOTO TAKING DIARY

My photo-taking pace continues to accelerate to a far faster pace than my photo-editing pace. I ended up with over 800 images taken in the space of one weekend recently.

Job interviews in Ardwick and Weaste gave me a chance to capture images there. I have photos from two burlesque shows and a poetry event to edit, and some photos of friends in the pub and at a house party.

The bulk of images, now edited, are those from the Faint Fascinations group charity photo-shoot, Help For Heroes, which took place in Daisy Nook Country Park on Saturday 24^th April 2010, organized by Blaze, just days before she got married.

I had already taken scouting out images in Daisy Nook in preparation for a Trash The Dress shoot that had to be cancelled earlier in the year due to the weather. It remains one of my favourite locations for walks and taking photos. You can see the amazing history of the park and a description of a walk I took there at DAISY NOOK.

As many of the other photographers and most models on this shoot were less familiar with the location, my pre-knowledge was quite useful on the day. I arranged to meet some models on route to show them where Daisy Nook was. We met at a familiar Faint Fascinations rendezvous point in Manchester city centre, where some models and togs (photographers) were also meeting for another shoot, (not connected directly to Faint Fascinations) to take place in Salford Quays that afternoon. I had been to the Quays with the event organizer, Lethal Gemma, and a friend Tom Clark, to look at suitable locations for that shoot too, and while there we’d taken in both the Lowry Centre and the Imperial War Museum. At the latter venue, there was an exhibition of wartime Photographs by Don McCullin (see http://north.iwm.org.uk/server/show/nav.24321) I considered trying to make my images for our HFH shoot look photo-realistic but it would have been impossible and possibly insulting to try to fake the true horrors of war faced by true heroes on a regular basis. Nothing we produced was going to remotely resemble true war photography.

On the day of our shoot, three models met with me, including Lewis Shaw and two ladies from Preston, Ann-Marie ‘Annie’ McGeoghan & Claire Howard, who was new to modelling, and proved to be wonderful to work with throughout the day.

Buses to the Nook were infrequent at weekends and the city was playing host to two major football matches. Being late wasn’t an option, and we actually travelled with a strong likelihood of arriving quite early. With the Nook entrance being tricky to spot from a bus, I asked the driver to tell us when we approached it – he dropped us off three stops early and we had a bit of a walk on dangerously unpaved roads to get to the entrance, and the meeting point by the Daisy Nook Visitor’s Centre, which had a café, and toilets our models were able to use as changing rooms. Blaze and others were already waiting, with a few others still on route. A few of us bought ice-creams but mine fell to bits a few licks in and I ended up throwing most of it in the bin – most unfair.

I gave the togs and Blaze a quick tour to the area I thought might be best suited to our shoot, though we inevitably used barely a fraction of what the Nook has to offer, which I hope will be useful for future Faint Fascinations events. This was the main River Medlock valley, dominated by a shallow gently flowing river, with lots of little bridges, tunnels, woodland areas, sandbanks, etc, which gave a rich variety of backdrops and settings for our shoot. Everyone seemed happy with the location, though being such a hot day, it was attracting many other people to the Nook too. We often had to pause while the public got out of the view and some were quite inquisitive about our activity.

Our theme was a military one, in keeping with the Help For Heroes cause, and models came along with soldier’s uniforms, though for different kinds of military engagement. We had green Khaki, Wren’s uniforms, desert warfare fatigues, etc. It was a delightful if eclectic mix that created all sorts of challenges and opportunities.

What we lacked was weaponry – one model brought realistic looking imitation bullets but no fake rifles or handguns. He also had a penknife. I took along a set of binoculars which were to prove useful with many photos, especially when Lewis Shaw was given black ink coloured eye-make up to look as if he was an officer given prank-field glasses by the troops under his command.

Though the terrain was very gentle, it could easily be made to look quite harsh. Quite a few shots had the look of being suited to jungle warfare, with tall grass, and trees which could contain all manner of enemy attack potential. The Nook could look like Burma 1944 or Vietnam at the height of the Tet Offensive. We got shots of models, hiding in the tree-line, looking like snipers watching for enemy movement in tall grass, scrambling over rocks, crawling under a bridge that had the look of a desperate escape tunnel, due to the fractured masonry under it – a series of images that put me in a clump of stinging nettles. This was as much a challenge to the togs as to the models – I would find myself leaning over sharp drops and wading in the water as the day went on. I loved it.

In other shoots, models looked as if they were brutally giving orders to the ranks, and in a really dramatic sequence, one soldier seemed to go rogue and turn serial killer on others.

It was a scorching hot day, and I suggested that models might want to have some images taken in the water. I even brought along a special disposable water-proof camera with this idea in mind, though I expected no one to want to dare to get wet. To my delight, two models, Blaze and Roxie Ryder, were happy to go into the shallows. They started off paddling, and Roxie daubed her face in mud. They knelt on hands and knees in the water, splashed water at each other, mostly by throwing stones in front of one another to create a splash, and finally waded under a large Victorian bridge, where the water was thigh deep, and even completely under a shower spray of water pouring through from the arches of the bridge above. I went into the water in my clothes too to capture the moment, with other togs getting shots from the shore. I lacked the telephoto lenses that might have made that practical for me so the close approach was best for me, besides I enjoy such mucking around.

The water was cold, and the water-proof camera was slow to wind. The models might have decided it was too uncomfortable at any minute, so I risked using my own smaller digital camera, dreading falling or dropping the camera in the water but I managed to keep it dry enough, and the results were quite good.

We came out and rested, and then we returned to the Visitor’s Centre, to chill, dry off and meet two models, Princess Of Darkness & Raven Flame, who was joining us after taking part in the Salford Quays shoot.

Some of the other models and most togs sadly had to leave as the newcomers arrived, leaving me as the primary tog, which felt a little daunting at first, but a great honour too.

We were all quite tired now and as the waterside are we’d been using was approached by steep steps, I thought of using a fresh location, a water-feature area by the canal tow-path, but on route we passed the stark locks of an incomplete and unused canal cut (construction perished in mid-stride with the introduction of the railways). This had the look of being a great setting in itself. I got photos of Raven Flame leaning on the sloping lock-wall, and planned some shots of Clare Howard sitting on a large street stump that had been thrown into the dry lock, though that proved to be too rotten to cope with human weight, so we settled for some shots close by it. I got some shots of Princess Of Darkness simply sitting on the bank of the water-free canal, and when Blaze came to join her, I had a eureka moment and got them to sit back to back, creating the most relaxed and smiling but traditional model-like images of the day. As we were all so shattered after the more challenging work we had done and it was getting late, this created a happy laid back mood for everyone. Other models requested similar shots of themselves back to back with one another too, which I was happy to take, and after I took a final set of images of Raven Flame by the trees, we were done for the day and started to make our various journeys home or to other activities.

A huge thanks (in no particular order) to models, Lewis Shaw, Roxie Ryder, Princess Of Darkness, Clare Howard, Raven Flame, Ann-Marie ‘Annie’ McGeoghan & Blaze in particular, as the event organizer, for making the magic happen for everyone and photographers, Steve Ryder, Karen Browning & Peter ‘Caddo’ Coddington, as well as our various friends who were happy to look after clothes, bags, etc without being directly involved in the shoot.

I find myself increasingly drawn to fashion & photography magazines & TV shows, which can be useful for tips and pointers. I watched several episodes of America’s Next Top Model, a ‘reality’ show in which a lucrative modelling contract is gained as a prize in a Big Brother style elimination contest. Some advice to the models was useful, ie, making faces in mirrors, rather than your own, in order to learn how to be more expressive so you can respond when a photographer or film-maker wants anger, pity, despair, etc, even if you don’t feel it. More anger inducing was the show’s bigotry with one model being constantly admonished for being too short for Runway work, though she persevered and stayed the course despite the attacks. For me, models should come in all shapes and sizes, and levels of skill – The models I have worked with have all been exceptional, and lovely people to know. I feel deeply privileged to have been given opportunities like the Daisy Nook experience – the dynamics of the shoot would have been ruined by a competitive bitchy edge like the TV show presents as the modelling and photography world – We did it right. I can’t wait to see what we get up to next. Hope I get my editing backlog sorted out in time.

The Daisy Nook photos on Facebook - Photos taken in the river - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=219435&id=731547393&l=40514a2b48

The Help For Heroes photos http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=219018&id=731547393&l=860956933e

Help For heroes photos 2 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=219264&id=731547393&l=61cf8dd391

If you wish to contribute to the charity Help For Heroes or learn more about their invaluable support for the British war-wounded see http://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/

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