Well as I have said before my most favourite Café in the World (and I have been to a lot), is Café Art in Old Town, Swindon. I just love the staff there and they have all become good friends over the years.
So I had an impromptu photo shoot with them yesterday. They were so much fun to photograph. I also wanted to photograph the Café before it changes.
Go visit Café Art, you wont be disappointed.
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.
George Ezra headlines the first night of The Bristol Summer Series.
Wow, what a morning. I was photographing at The Conservative Party Manifesto launch here in Swindon this morning.
It was presented by Prime Minister David Cameron but George Osborne and Theresa May both made speeches as well.
I have never seen so many famous faces in one place. The security must have been a nightmare. I think the whole of the Cabinet was there as was Samantha Cameron. Not only that, there were all of the famous journalists that I have only ever seen on TV. And I was in the media room with them.
Star struck, me nooooooo.
Friday morning I attended a short photo shoot of Hilary Benn Labour MP and Shadow Minister for Local Government and Communities. He was visiting Lotmead Farm just outside of Swindon, as part of the Labour Campaign Trail. It was fun, not only was he very jolly and nice to talk to as was Anne Snelgrove the Labour Candidate for Swindon South I had a good long chat with some of the other photographers there.
Talking to and meeting other journalists is always enjoyable and enlightening.
So just a few shots of Hilary Benn.
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.
Well, Friday was spent at the first day of Fairford RIAT 2014. Despite it being a cloudy day I still managed to get sunburnt and the clouds were high enough to not affect any of the flying displays. It was a nice day but exhausting and was pretty tired by the end of the day. The Red Arrows of course were the star attraction of the day as the F-35 was cancelled due to engine problems back in the USA. I managed to take 600 images so this is a very very very small selection of the day.
And as I understand it the good people of Swindon got a really good view of the Red Arrows as they flew over a couple of times, nice.
Today I met two of the coolist guys on the planet, well apart from me of course. Let me explain.
I was invited to the Lockheed Martin unveiling/briefing of the new F-16 and F-35 fighter jets. The F-35 has never flown in the UK yet and will do so for the first time at Fairford RIAT this weekend. I got to fly the simulators for both aircraft and was surprised just how easy it was, well compared to flying Chipmunks which is what I did 30 years ago!! It is all computerized now and it was a real pleasure and fun to fly them, especially the F-35. I even got to fly it in the VTOL mode which was pretty cool. But the best bit was meeting the test pilots. They were so interesting to talk and listen to. These guys had thousands of hours flying experience each and were just so cool. A F-35 cost $42M and they talk about flying them as you and I drive our car. They were really enthusiastic and clearly loved their job, well who wouldnt???
After today I am really looking forward to attending RIAT on Friday, great stuff.
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.
St George
Medieval Knight
Ethemia
St George
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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.
The Swindon Photojournalist 