A Rather BIG Project !

This is by way on an introduction to a project that I've been putting together for a little while now, and that is going to keep me very busy for the next 2 or 3 weeks .

Over the Summer I've had a lot of contact with Wrexham Arts Council, attending and photographing several events at their request, and also several events that have come about because of the people I have been lucky enough to meet whilst attending Arts Council events .

Several weeks ago, Steffan Jones Hughes told me that Wrexham will be holding a big carnival day, on the 22nd of September, and he suggested it might be a really good event for me to photograph - well, if I can point a camera, I am happy, so of course, I was interested . This chat was followed up by an e mail that started to give me some idea of how big an event it would be, and Steffan asked did I know any other film makers/photographers who would be interested in getting together with me, and covering as much of the event as we could. 

Straight away, I called on Holly Cooper, who I'd already worked with on the ReImagine live music event, and who I knew was interested in more event work, and spoke also to Dawn Field, another photographer, who I have also worked with before .  Then, as event pages linked to the whole carnival started to appear all over facebook, I realised that 3 photographers would not be enough, and that it would also be a fantastic opportunity for any film makers that I knew, to document a big event.

And I mean big - before sending a 'shout out' to look for other photographers and film makers to take part, I listed what was involved -

On the 20th and 21st, there would be 4 dance workshops, organised by SWICA ,  (South Wales Inter-cultural Community Arts) and SWICA would also be organising the parade and street entertainment on the 22nd.   Peace day would also be starting 3 days of events, tied in with the carnival - on the 20th there would be Peace Day workshops held at St Christopher's school, with 10 other schools taking part; on the 21st there would be a community picnic and live music on Llwyn Isaf, followed by more live Music at Saith Seren till late ; and on the day of the carnival, there would again be a big Peace Day live music concert on the bandstand at Llwyn Isaf, followed by more live music in Saith Seren.  In addition, there would be a Zine Fair, in the Oriel Gallery on the morning of the 22nd, and to finish it off, the whole event was also linked to Helfa Gelf  - The Art Trail, where for the whole month, Artists across Wales would be throwing open their studio's to the public . 

Initially, I got a rather lukewarm response to my asking for volunteers to become involved in this project .  This was disheartening, but for several reasons, I decided to persist - firstly, it was the opportunity and challenge this presented to work with a fairly large number of organisations, if I could get a team together  -  In terms of experience, forming connections, the chance to demonstrate and improve my ability to collaborate with others in the field, and the professional practise module of my degree, it would be invaluable . Secondly, through the connection with Wrexham Arts Council, over the Summer I'd become aware of just how much was actually going on in my home town, and how hard Steffan, the Arts Council and other organisations were working to provide community events that would be of benefit to Wrexham - and I felt very lucky to be given the chance to have a small role in documenting what was going on .  Added to that, again, it presented the opportunity for me to meet more talented and creative people, which I think broadens my views and experience in a positive way . So there were a lot of reasons I really wanted to pursue this .

There was also the fact that increasingly, I was being approached with events that would be better for having more than one person working as a photographer, and also I was increasingly being asked if I could 'find' people to film events - particularly music events . So, the idea of getting together a bunch of students and ex-students, who could provide this sort of service in exchange for experience and exposure (and hopefully, in some cases, expenses at least covered) started to form . And maybe, eventually, it could even lead to paid jobs, for some, or all, of us - the experience would surely increase our chances . Holly had drawn the same conclusions, we had discussed it a few times, and both of us felt that it could be a really positive move, for all those involved .

So, I sent out individual messages, and made some phone calls,  and also contacted Dave Robinson, who has taught some of the film classes I have taken in uni and who is very experienced and who (I hoped) would be able to suggest potential film makers, and I also spoke to Stewart Edwards, my film and photography lecturer at Gyndwr .

In response to the messages and phone calls, fellow students Dave Fisher (film), Gemma Jones( photography), and Paul Lowndes (Photography) came on board, as did  Mike Greaney, a talented photographer I had met whilst studying at AS level .  Dave Robinson hooked me up with Dave Hale, a graduate in film who I had worked with briefly, during last Summer - and Dave Hale brought Luke Parry, another graduate, into the project on the film side .  Stewart told me he was going to set up a FB page for all creative lens students - which he promptly did - and I put a post on there, explaining in more detail what was going on, and asking for volunteers - as a result of this, Beckah Hornsey, Ryan Ankers, Will Aron and Kathryn Lunt, all second year CLM students also came on board - several other people expressed interest also, but were unable to commit to the extent necessary .  Stewart, after I had explained what exactly it was we were tackling, gave us the uni's full support, and made the uni's film equipment available to us - which was very much appreciated, as was Simon, spending time with the film crews and taking them through using the new equipment .  With Dave Robinson also offering to oversee the film side and offer advice and support , this gave a good strong team to cover all aspects of these celebrations, hopefully in some depth, in both film and photography .

Whilst I was gathering together this 'team', knowing Steffan was swamped, I decided to 'take the initiative' and tracked down and spoke to all the various people and organisations involved, to establish contacts for us to work with, and to find out more about what each organisation/group/individual did, what they would like from this project, for information and just basically to introduce ourselves and explain what we were about . 

As a 'team' we then had a series of meetings, where we eventually established who would tackle film for this project, and who would be the photographers . After 3 meetings, tasks were assigned and people were appointed 'lead' on various area's to be covered.  By the last group meeting,  I had produced what I guess could be called an 'info pack' - in it, I broke down the various days events, listed locations and contacts for each component, and included any pertinent information that I had - deadlines, info on consent forms, details about different aspects - it ended up as a 14 page document, and was a solid days work to pull together into a format that I hoped was clear.  In order to allow the team to communicate effectively, following a suggestion from Holly, I set up a closed FB group - The Wrexham Film and Photography Collective - where any questions could be asked, and new information shared . 

The organisation needed to pull together a project like this was immense - and something I don't think I had fully appreciated before actually taking it on . Because I was the initial person approached, and because I already had links with a lot of the groups involved in this event, it made sense for me to be the person who I guess, gathered and collated all the info and handled introducing the others in the team to the groups/organisations/individuals involved . It felt like I spent hours at a time sending and receiving emails, phoning people and researching, and taking copious notes - but, it was clear it was a necessary part of tackling a project of this size. I was very grateful to have Holly's help - as said, Holly had kindly covered a couple of the bigger events with me, prior to this, and had met several of the people involved with the carnivals various aspects .Once Dave Robinson and Dave Hale were on board, they thankfully took all the info and organised two film crews to cover the 3 days, and all I had to do was introduce them to the various contacts - at this stage, I felt it was better that they had direct contact, rather than going through me - the more layers in communication, the more chance that information could be misinterpreted or lost . Plus, film is not my area of expertise - better that those who were directly involved with the film side took over dealing with it - they would know better than myself what other information they needed to source, and what questions to ask .  The two film crews consisted of 'Film 1' - Dave Hale (lead), Dave Fisher, Dave Robinson and Luke Parry; and Film 2 - Beckah Hornsey (lead), Will Aron, Kathryn Lunt and Ryan Ankers .  Film 1 would cover the Peace Day events and Zine Fair, Team 2 would cover dance workshops, Parade and parade rehearsals and street entertainers .

The decision was made that with so much for the film crew to cover, and taking into account the amount of post-production involved, the live music at Saith Seren would be covered by photography only - we had to accept that adding more to the film side, given the size of the project and the number in the crews, would probably have lead to the standard of the completed work being compromised - Beckah took the lead for the photography . 

Also, on the photography side, we arranged who would cover what, and where necessary, who would be the 'lead' person to communicate with the organisations involved - others in the group are every bit as capable as I would be at this side of things, and as said - such a big project that one person being 'lead' on everything could potentially lead to lost/misunderstood information, or simply something being overlooked .  So, on the photography side, it looks like this . . . 

Dance Workshps with SWICA , on the 20th and 21st - Sue (me)
Peace Day workshops at St Christophers  on the 20th - Holly (lead) and Paul, with Gemma also attending if possible - with 300 children potentially involved, and several workshops plus the picnic, this was too big to ask just one person to cover .
Peace Day picnic and Music on the 21st - Holly and Paul.
Peace day Live Music at Saith Seren on the 21st - Will and Ryan.
Parade Rehearsal and actual Parade on 22nd - Sue (me) and Mike .
Zine Fair at the Oriel on 22nd - Holly and Dawn .
Street Entertainers on 22nd - Mike and Dawn .
Peace Day Live Music at Bandstand on 22nd - Sue (me) and Holly .
Peace Day Live Music at Saith Seren on 22nd - Beckah and Kathryn

Mike will hopefully be able to join the other photographers at one of the Saith Seren nights, at least :)

On the 22nd, Gemma is going to be literally where ever she needs to be - and she will be joined by Paul in the afternoon - it makes sense to have a couple of 'floating photographers', who are not tied to being at specific locations and events at specific times - they can literally 'wander' and in that way, hopefully they will catch a lot of unscripted and spontaneous moments, and be free to follow anything that comes up - the idea is this will give added depth to what is produced .

Helfa Gelf hasn't been forgotten either - Dawn and Mike have agreed to cover most of this, though Dawn and I covered the Glyndwr Collectives opening show as part of it,  both Dawn and I have visited the studio's at Glyndwr to photograph some of the artists at work, and Dawn has already visited and photographed yet another artist at their studio . 


Having got so far, and with the carnival now not so very far away, we are now at the stage where I feel pretty confident that between us, we are going to do a good job in delivering on this project .  I am so glad that so many film makers and photographers have committed to the project, and I really appreciate all the hard work that they are putting in .  I hope that this experience will stand us all in good stead, and hopefully generate more work experience and increase job chances for us all .

Its been a big learning curve, and pretty challenging - getting a team of this size together, having to sort and source all the information from all the organisations involved, connecting the various group members with the appropriate individuals and organisations, dealing with all the communication that's involved  for something like this - all new territory for me.  I've enjoyed it, but didn't realise in advance how much time and energy it would take , though I think from a learning point of view, its been worth every bit of effort I've put in . 

Whilst all this has been going on, I haven't neglected actually taking photographs, either - aside from the Glyndwr Collectives opening show/exhibition, I have also photographed at two other music events in the last week or so .  Blogs are to follow, on the absolutely fabulous time I had with @67, The Wrexham Community Choir and Africa Entsha, at the Glasshouse, Cefn Mawr, and also at The Wrexham Bandstand Marathon event, that Holly and I were lucky enough to go and photograph .  As well as that, the photography page I set up , Moments - Photography By McGrane  has been generating a lot of interest and I've spent considerable time keeping that up to date - and I really appreciate how many people have taken the time and trouble to look at and like the page, incidentally :)  Once you generate a certain amount of 'likes' for a page, you start to get feedback and statistics - discovering that in some weeks, the page had been viewed over 2,500 times is incredibly gratifying  - as well as surprising !

Blogs on the carnival will follow once we have the event over, and the work done . So for now, I'll just say Thank You to a whole lot of people who have helped us get this far, and who have welcomed and facilitated our involvement - to Steffan Jones Hughes (Wrexham Arts Council Manager), to Genny (Peace Day), Jenny (SWICA), Abi (Zine Fair), Laura (Oriel Gallery), Brendon (Live Music), Diana (Artist - Helfa Gelf), Vicky (Artist - Helfa Gelf), Angie (Artist - Helfa Gelf) , Katie (Artist - Helfa Gelf)  and all the other representatives from the organisations involved; To Dave Robinson and Stewart Edwards for their support . And to the other film makers and photographers who are involved, and who are working so hard :)  .

Wrexham Community Choir Workshop

One of the nicest aspects of being asked to go along and cover a lot of events, for work experience, this Summer, has been finding out about how much goes on in the local area, and how its allowed me to meet so many really lovely and creative people.  The message I got from Steffan, The Arts Council Manager, asking me to go along and photograph this workshop, held in The Oriel Gallery, is a prime example of this . 

I'd met with the choir, once before, at the Olympic Torch Ceremony - and I was blown away then by the fantastic music that they make .  So off I went with camera - and my youngest daughter, who is very musical and has a 'voice', and who was keen to take part in the actual workshop, whilst I photographed it.

Yet again, the members of the choir who were attending made me very welcome - its not just that they make wonderful music, its the enjoyment that they all so clearly get from their involvement with the choir, and their enthusiasm, that makes photographing events connected with them such an absolute pleasure.

The workshop started with Carol, the choir leader, taking the group through a series of warm up exercises - both physical and vocal .

It was great to see even the very young joining in :)

This didn't just 'warm' everyone up - it had everyone laughing and was a great ice breaker :)

Then started the singing - within a very short time, they were split into 'top, middle and bottom' and started off on a version of 'Pick a Bale of Cotton' - under Carol's guidance, the harmonies just seemed to pull together effortlessly, and my feet were tapping and my head nodding, within minutes - it really sounded good :)

From a photography point of view, the usual problems with light - I prefer not to use flash, when photographing something like this - apart from anything else, its distracting for the participants . Test shots had shown that with the high ceilings and artificial light settings in the Oriel, AWB worked best - with an ISO of 800. Just as the music had my feet tapping, it also quite naturally, had the singers moving - 800 was the minimum I could use and not end up with blur, and as I moved around the room, I sometimes had to up it from that too !

I spotted a window from the second floor that overlooked the gallery, and asked could I go up there, to try and get some different perspectives on the workshop, and as ever, the Oriel staff were very obliging and it wasn't a problem - not knowing I needed the circular polariser (to cut reflections) for this shoot, I hadn't brought it with me, for the lens I was using, but I did manage to get some images where the reflection from the window I was shooting through didn't intrude too much .

Back down to the main Gallery, and I just kept snapping away

The workshop lasted over an hour, and the time just flew by - at the end, I gathered all the singers for a group shot or two . . .

Just to be completely predictable - we had to have a 'jazz hands' shot :)

I want to say a big Thank you to Steffan, firstly, for inviting me along to photograph this workshop, and secondly, to every member of the choir and all the participants that made me so welcome :)  Several members of the choir were later kind enough to visit my facebook page Moments - Photography By McGrane and leave some lovely comments, the choir also asked could they use the images on their web site and facebook pages, which I was more than happy to agree to.  Best of all, the choir in association with @67 have asked me to come along and photograph 2 more upcoming events - @sixtyseven presents Africa Entsha live at The Glasshouse, Cefn Mawr and Wrexham Bandstand Marathon - which I am really, really looking forward to .  More info on these events can be found on the above links .

I really appreciate all the opportunities I have had to gain photographic experience through doing all these events - big Thank You to all of those organisations and individuals who have invited me along to take part :)

Caergwrle Castle Capers - Informal Family Portraiture

I had the pleasure, yesterday, of spending an afternoon photographing one of my best friends, and her lovely family. I've known Hazel and Mark for a long time, and have had the privileged and the pleasure of photographing both their engagement and wedding, and of doing a couple of studio shots featuring Hazel, the children - and Hazels' Dad, the Inimitable Dennis .  However, up until this shoot, I hadn't yet had the chance to do a family portraiture session for them - so I was thrilled when Hazel asked me if we could organise a photo session .  They particularly wanted to include another very important family member - Bernard, their dog :)

So, with by some miracle, the skies being blue and the sun shining, Hazel and Mark settled on Caergwrle Castle as their location of choice, and off we set .  One of the reasons I love to photograph this family is that the whole shoot was absolutely full of laughter - they are fantastically relaxed and warm people - and I think it shows :)  During the shoot, I wanted informal family groupings, individual shots of the children, Declan and Hannah, and just to try and catch the interaction between them all, to reflect how close they are - and how happy .

Hazel wanted a selection in both colour, and black and white

The nice thing about this location is the number of area's where you can set up a shot.

Declan - the Cool Dude !

I liked catching the kids just - well - being kids !  The tree's were irresistible from a climbing point of view

Even Bernard seems to be laughing in this shot

Declan being Action man !

Hannah invented a new game - it was called 'lets give Auntie Sue a heart attack by seeing how high we can climb!'

Bernard proved to be a very gorgeous 'model' .

As always, taking pictures of this gang was brilliant fun - this shoot was something we had talked about doing for a while, it was great to finally make it happen - and this is just a small selection of the 200 plus images I was able to give them . Huge thanks to Hazel, Mark ( or, The Stud, as he is known :) ), Declan, Hannah and Bernard - I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this afternoon, or how glad I am that you loved the photographs x

Peacocks and Waterfalls

Again, I have had the absolute pleasure of working on a project with the very creative Samantha Raynbould , Make up artist .

This shoot was a continuation of us using water - in the form of an actual waterfall - as the backdrop/location to the look created, and combined with Sam creating a 'fantasy look' based on that beautiful bird, the peacock.

The aim was for Sam to display her skills in these area's, and for me to produce editorial style shots, on location, using natural light and to create images that high lighted Sam's skills and pushed me to be more creative and innovative. We wanted the images to have a 'WOW' factor .  Once again, the model was the lovely Isabel Sophie, Anna Schwarz (Izzy)

Location was Plas Power Woods, in Bersham, and once there, Sam put the finishing touches to the make up.

I turned 'hair stylist' rather than photographer, for long enough to style Izzy's hair into this rolled up-do

Close up of eyes

The final touch was adding peacock feathers - Sam had bought up the entire stock from a large craft and hobby store - She had also crafted a 'peacock tail' which we could use as a prop/backdrop in some shots - it was a little small for one or two ideas, but a little work in photoshop to extend it, and itturned out to be incredibly effective .

The dappled light through the tree's was really effective, though very dark, so I used a flash and played with the settings to try and capture the light in a variety of ways that would accomplish what we wanted .

I also played around with over exposing, and then in post production, boosting the sats around the eye area . . . I quite liked the effect .

We then moved on to another area of the woods, stopping as we found locations and light that I felt could work to help create good, strong images .

I liked the way the spiky branches formed almost a halo .

Here, it was the shadows of leaves on Izzy's skin that I thought was effective .

Then, eventually, we made our way to Bersham Weir - the waterfall .  The light here was just fabulous, and the original idea had been to pose Izzy actually standing in the falls - however, recent rain had the water coming down with such force, that both Sam and I were very worried about this - Izzy, as always, was very game to give everything a go - she is an amazing model to work with, prepared to try everything, an absolute natural in terms of interpreting what is asked of her and moving and posing effortlessly .  However, we started off with shots just using the light, and the back drop of the falls to enhance the images .

Izzy was keen to have a go at actually getting in the water, but Sam and I were concerned about how safe it was . .  . so we compromised, by having Izzy stood at the edge and just sort of 'ducking under' . . .

Poor Izzy was blue with cold when she came out - but was still game for another couple of shots .

I was really happy with a lot of the shots we got - I think that they showed off Sam's skills, as well as feeling that my own skills and ability to gauge and use natural light, and to produce editorial style photographs in an outdoor location, were definitely improving .

Sam and I have quite a few other projects in the pipeline - I can't wait :)