The Demolition Crew in Swindon

Some of you may be aware that for the last several weeks I have been photographing the demolition of the Carfax Car Park here in Swindon. It is a long term project to photograph Swindon as it is changing and it is changing quite quickly at the moment.

Now it took me a while to get permission and I have done all the relevant HSE courses etc got my own safety gear and only go where I am allowed. I have t say I am so grateful to Lawsons and SCS for allowing me to do this. The intention is to either publish or have an exhibition but that is some way off at the moment. I am also getting to know the crew really well and they are a really nice bunch of guys. These are just a few of them. I just thought I would put a few of them up on here. There will be more to come as I get more and more access to them actually working etc. I have some several hundred of images of the demolition and I want to make a considered selection before putting any up on line.

Hope you like so far.

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Ed Miliband in Swindon a Photojournalist’s View

Part of the reason why I like being a photojournalist is the press scrum. It is fun and funny. Pushing and shoving some of the time. Other times we all let each other take prime spot and change around.
Yesterday I was photographing Ed Miliband who was visiting Los Gatos in Old Town Swindon as part of the Election trail and to show support for Anne Snelgrove the local Labour candidate for Swindon South. Los Gatos was just heaving with customers and Labour supporters before the media got in there. It was heavily controlled by the Police and Labour party officials and so we had to be in before he arrived. Not only that, all the media had to be behind the bar!!!!! So we were all pretty much going to get the same shots. I was too late in grabbing a chair to stand on and at first all I got was the backs of all the rest of the media. (See photo). After that I just moved around a bit trying to get something different. I don’t think I managed to achieve it. I did manage to get Ed Miliband being interviewed by the Swindon Advertiser journalist. Only because the Labour official in charge thought I was with them so I didn’t tell him otherwise 🙂

My point in all of this is that news photojournalism is all just a matter of luck, being at the right place at the right time. Pushing and shoving and standing your ground at times. Being really nice and accommodating at others.

Fun though, either way.

Pride of Swindon plaque unveiled in the Library

Today was the unveiling of the Pride of Swindon plaque in The Swindon Central Library. The small event was hosted by Shirley Ludford of Swindon 105.5 radio.

A host of celebs at Jason Vale Superjuiceme premier

Saturday I had the pleasure of being the official photographer at the Jason Vale Superjuiceme documentary film premier at the Odeon Leicester Square. Firstly you just have to watch the film superjuiceme.com it was soooo powerful and inspirational. I have been juicing for a while now but this took it to another level, wow.

Secondly there were celebrities everywhere you turned. It was wonderful. And I managed to talk to most of them and guess what, they were lovely, all of them. I cannot pretend that I wasnt nervous before the job started but as soon as I started shooting, all the nerves went and I just got on and enjoyed it.

If you ever read this Jason, thank you.

Captain Hook meets his arch enemy at World of Crocodiles

Captain Hook and Crocodile

Captain Hook and Crocodile

Pirate and Crocodile

Captain Hook Pirates and Crocodiles

Captain Hook and Crocodile

Pirate and Crocodile

Captain Hook Pirates fighting crocodile

Crocodiles of the World and pirates

Friday morning was a very fun and interesting photo shoot for the Wyvern Theatre. We took Captain Hook and a couple of pirates from the Russian Ice Stars Peter Pan on Ice cast to World of Crocodiles over at Brize Norton. What a time we had. I even managed to hold a croc myself (a very small one mind). There were some really really big crocs there and Shaun the owner took Captain Hook and the pirates into one of the enclosures where there were two very big crocs. Needless to say they were pretty nervous as I would have been. The interesting thing though was they (the crocs) were not that interested, Shaun shouted Albert a big male croc over, which duly swam over to them and made out he was going to get out the water and onto the bridge with them. Which it didnt of course. It was so well trained !!!!

It is really worth going over to World of Crocodiles and watching Peter Pan on Ice at the Wyvern in May.

St George’s Day in Swindon

St George

Medieval Knight

Ethemia

St George

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

Rebecca inSwindon

Today I had the pleasure of photographing the Swindon St George’s Day celebrations in the town centre put on by inSwindon BID company. Centre piece of course was the 20 ft St George that after being blessed traveled from the Cenotaph down to Wharf Green accompanied by 100 school children and Ethemia who had written a song especially for this occasion. Once in Wharf Green the children were split up into different groups where they were taught fold dancing around the May pole, made dragons out of clay and took part in sports competitions. It culminated with a performance of Folk Dancing or should I say alternative Folk Dancing by the group FolkDanceRemixd.

It was great fun, the weather held and everybody seemed to have a very enjoyable time.

Holmes Music Store Vinyl Record Weekend

Well, here I am back again. It has been a very busy few weeks and hence no posts for quite a while. Not the least I ran the London Marathon last Sunday. I wasnt happy with my time as I got tripped up at mile 5 and face planted the road. However I was very very proud of Kirsty Heber-Smith who ran it in a time of 3.44, exactly as we had planned it and also raised £2.5K for the charity Goldenhar which is one close to our hearts. If you dont know what Goldenhar is please chaeck it out, it’s worth it.

Anyhow back to photography. I spent several hours over two days at Alan Holmes Music shop where they were celebrating Vinyl Record weekend with lots of live music by local bands and artists. I wont list them all out as there were too many to mention, but I was impressed with all of them. Have to say the lighting was a nightmare as they had a back drop of the window and day 1 was bright sunshine, day 2 was dark clouds and rain!!! good old British Easter eh!!!! However the good thing about situations like that is firstly it is good to work in difficult situations that are out of your control and secondly you can get up close and personal and nobody minds.

It was a good weekend. I have also a very busy week coming up this week, lots of photographic jobs on so should be posting a lot in the next week and less rambling on 🙂

Peter Pan and Tinkerbell Anton and Katya in Swindon

Tinkerbell

Peter Pan and Tinkerbell and Swindon Wildcats

Tinkerbell and Penguin

Tinkerbell and Wildcat

Peter Pan and Tinkerbell and Swindon Wildcats

Tinkerbell Peter Pan and Wildcats

Peter Pan and Wildcats

Peter Pan and Tinkerbell

Peter Pan and Tinkerbell

Yesterday I took part in the photo shoot for The Wyvern Theatre at The Link Centre where Russian Ice Stars Anton Smirnov and Katya Bokiy who are Peter Pan and Tinkerbell met the Swindon Wildcats Ice Hockey Team. It was as usual a fun photo shoot albeit a bit cold and I couldnt believe how quickly they moved when skating. I dont think you get the impression that they are going quite so quickly when you see it on TV. As an athlete myself I was really impressed with the physicality of it all. It definitely looked tough to me.

Peter Pan on Ice will be being performed at The Wyvern Theatre from 7th to 11th May

Peter Duncan and the cast of Birdsong at the Wyvern and the Cenotaph

Peter Duncan Birdsong

Peter Duncan Birdsong

Peter Duncan Birdsong

Birdsong the cast

Birdsong the cast

Birdsong the cast

Tom Stimpson MBE

Peter Duncan

I was lucky enough to photograph and meet the cast of Birdsong (as show based on the book by Sebastian Faulks) which included Peter Duncan, Jonny Clarke and George Banks. They were in costume, uniforms from the First World War which was quite strange when we were taking photos at the Cenotaph in the Swindon Town Centre. The cast also met Tom Stimpson MBE the representative and ambassador for Help for Heroes charity. Firstly I had a really good chat with Peter Duncan. The last time I spoke to him was at around mile 20 of the first London Marathon which we both ran. I also had a really good chat with Tom Stimpson MBE. Tom is ex RAF as am I but Tom was unfortunately injured in Afghanistan and has suffered from PTSD and now campaigns on behalf of Help for Heroes and other mental disability charities.

All in all a very interesting couple of hours.

Prince Andrew The Duke of York visits UTC Swindon

Prince Andrew

Prince Andrew

Prince Andrew

Prince Andrew

Prince Andrew

Prince Andrew

Prince Andrew The Duke of York made a flying visit in the rain to The UTC University Technical College in Swindon. The site which is still under construction was rather wet and muddy and we all had to wear boots, hard hats, hi viz jackets except the Prince himself!!

The Prince seemed genuinely interested in what was going on and seemed to enjoy himself. He met a selected few of the students, parents, staff and construction workers.