Barnwell Pix

Spitfire shoot

2012-02-23T22:33:00.000Z

On Monday I was fortunate enough to do a shoot at the Imperial War Museum Duxford with a pair of spitfires. A Triumph Spitfire sportscar and a Supermarine Spitfire fighter plane (well alright it was a trainer version which had been in service with the Irish Air Force until 1965 apparently). This was for feature's in three of the client's classic motoring magazines to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the car, being named as it was after the plane.

The client had paid a lot of money to have the use of the aircraft for a relatively short time and so my main concern was to get everything we needed shot by 1pm at which time the plane was to be put away. Having barely finished the shoot by then you can imagine my delight at being given the opportunity to have a sit in the plane before it was towed back into the hanger. Actually looking at the photograph of me you don't really have to imagine as it's written all over my face.

Worth the effort

2012-02-10T16:58:00.002Z

After a tricky drive on the icy fen roads and trudging through the snow to the hide I was rewarded by a good turn out of birds, the highlight of which was this Great Spotted Woodpecker.

The snow duly arrived.

2012-02-10T16:54:00.001Z

As the light was so good I decided to go to my local nature reserve to shoot the wildlife. Probably shouldn't have gone across the fens though; snow over ice with dykes on both sides!

Snow stops play

2012-02-09T15:25:00.000Z

Although I have jobs waiting to be done, the snow and sub zero temperatures have so far stopped me from arranging them. I've convinced myself that it would be a hardy owner who will hang about in this cold while I shoot his classic vehicle, even assuming he'd be prepared to take it out on the salty, gritted roads. I'm shooting pictures now for spring issues of magazines which means avoiding having snow in the shots and with more snow forecast for tonight and tomorrow it could be some time yet before those shoots get done.

Rain stops play

2012-01-24T12:28:00.001Z

I should be out on a shoot today for Classic & Vintage Commercials (old lorries), but the weather isn't playing ball so postponing the shoot for a few days seems to be the sensible option. Invariably when I do this I arrive on the new date to be told that I should have come on the original date as the rain stopped and the sun came out or alternatively the new date turns out to be just as bad, if not worse than the original!

Long time no post

2011-12-15T22:09:00.001Z

I can't believe how time flies by, getting round to doing even the occasional blog is clearly proving difficult for me, first a busy spell of work and now the run up to Christmas (I really must do my cards). But enough excuses, I've been very pleased to start getting the odd equestrian shoot again, horses always were one of my favourite subjects, so getting a couple of jobs recently for 'Your Horse' has been very pleasing. I probably shouldn't put one on the blog as technically they are not my copyright in that to work for them I was obliged to sign over copyright to the magazine, but what the hell, this one should have been published by now.

Business and pleasure

2011-10-21T14:34:00.000+01:00

Sometimes on shoots, I am able to combine work and personal photography, business and pleasure you might say, as happened earlier this year on a couple of occassions. First whilst out on a car shoot for Classic Car Buyer my eagle eyed colleague spotted a snake at the side of the road as we were driving past. After a hurried u-turn we returned to the spot, unable to see anything at first until the snake, a grass snake it turned out suddenly made a run for it, so to speak and began slithering up a vertical stone wall using the gaps between the stones to slide along (see pic), needless to say despite it's herculean efforts it eventually fell off back into the grass, but it was a very impressive attempt while it lasted.

Later in the year on another shoot for Classic Car Buyer, a Red Kite drifted almost directly overhead whilst I was standing at the side of the road doing action shots of a Sunbeam Alpine. Although a relatively common sight nowadays, it still presented a magnificent spectacle and was one of the best opportunities I've had to get a shot of a Red Kite, it was just a shame that I only had an 80-200mm lens fitted at the time.

New pages

2011-10-14T17:45:00.000+01:00

Well it's been a week since the last post but in the meantime I have added some new pages to illustrate the range of photography that I do, both commercially and personally. The plan is to change the pictures or add to them as and when I have interesting new shots and possibly add new pages should the range of material dictate it. If anybody wishes to leave comments regarding the pictures please feel free, but keep it clean!

As can be seen my personal work, when I get the time is mainly local wildlife photography, which is what started me in photography in the first place more years ago than I care to admit. Most of the shots including all of the bird pictures currently on this blog are taken with my old manual focus 600mm f4 IFED Nikkor lens which will be 30 years old next year. So clearly although it's a high quality piece of glass it's very cumbersome to use weighing an absolute ton and making hand-holding a near impossibility.

The local reserve where I take most of my pictures has a wide range of interesting wildlife, or so they tell me as more often than not when I visit all I seem to find coming within range of my equipment are Reed Buntings, so with that in mind I've decided to illustrate this post with a picture of one.

Even the dog's getting in on the act.

2011-10-06T17:12:00.000+01:00

Tilly on the telly.

Back in February Sophie and Tilly (the dog) auditioned for the CBBC program 'Who Let The Dogs Out' and although they weren't chosen to be featured in the program, a couple of clips of their audition were used in this week's show. So a long trip to Manchester, in the snow and a long cold wait to audition wasn't entirely in vain, shame they got Tilly's gender wrong though. See it on the iPlayer now (shortly after the opening credits and again a little later with Sophie - http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b015scnb/

Keeping it in the family

2011-10-03T10:54:00.000+01:00

Sophie's picture.

Rhys's picture.

As if to prove that these things run in the family, my children both recently entered Notcutts 'The Magic of Gardening' photography competition and both have won the top regional junior prize of £25 of Notcutts vouchers each. The downside being that my daughter is spending her vouchers on a hamster (the one in the picture below with a fondness for biscuits was the school hamster), no prizes for guessing who will end up cleaning it out!

Slideshow Struggle

2011-10-01T12:44:00.003+01:00

After much more of a struggle than I'd expected I finally managed to get the slideshow gadget working on the sidebar. It appears to be a simple process at first sight but making it work with pictures hosted on Flickr required a number of Google searches to find out how to get it working. I'll update it from time to time with newer covers as they become available.

Chevrolet Corvette Stingray

2011-09-30T14:40:00.001+01:00

As this is a stand-in for my website I really need to post some of my work and as it's also a blog then it makes sense to post recent work. However some work can't be posted at all due to copyright restrictions entered into with the publisher (Bauer) and most of the rest can't be posted until after it has been published in the MSM. So with that in mind I will post some recently published shots in this case a Chevrolet Corvette Stingray taken for a road test feature in 'Classic Car Buyer' at the end of June.

All linked up!

2011-09-27T19:31:00.000+01:00

Just managed to get my barnwellpix.co.uk domain (formerly known as my website) to point to this blog, so I think I deserve a cup of tea and a biscuit. Good excuse to try uploading and inserting a photograph too!

Domain is cancelled!

2011-09-25T18:09:00.000+01:00

I hadn't intended to start a blog, but as Microsoft decided to pull the plug on my website, which they had been hosting on 'Microsoft Live' for many years, without any warning whatsoever, I thought I'd better create an interim web presence.

So here it is!