As mentioned in Part One, we've both entered some work successfully into an Open Exhibition at the Water Street Gallery, Todmorden; The Darkness and the Light. Amy having used it as an opportunity to return to her "Light Trails" project, I decided to also dip back into an ongoing project, "Inflate-Deflate".
I had some fun a little while ago doing some shots on a beach in Wales, and before this open call was announced, I'd already decided to shoot some new pics this year. Partly because I had a better SLR available, and partly because for various reasons we're likely to lose access to this beach after 2022.
Amy sensibly elected to stay at home, as messing around photographing blow-up toys at midnight on a deserted beach doesn't really appeal. Luckily, Elder Child was up for a spot of assisting. We arrived to find full-tide, a somewhat confused night-fisherman watching us, and then a pair of young women who skipped past us to go for a paddle. Wanting to avoid a potential situation, we packed up the cameras and went for a walk whilst they got the need for a midnight dip out of their system, and we could have the tide drop a bit. Happily we hadn't sorted any of the toys out yet at that point, or I suspect they'd have grabbed some floats and we'd never have gotten rid of them.
The sea was ridiculously calm, and the moon bright when it peeked from the clouds. At least the lack of breeze would stop the toys blowing away this time, a problem which affected the last time we tried this.
With the beach still covered with water, but the apprentice mermaids finally out of the water and driven off, we set up the 4ft-beachballs on the rocks. Shame about the lens flare.
After an hour or so, the tide had dropped enough to enable some shots on the shingle.
It's worth pointing out, that one of the themes behind this aspect of the project is plastic waste, and things like these toys being considered disposable and left on beaches as litter... ironic, given that I go to great efforts to make sure none of these get damaged or lost on the shoots, and some of these inflatables are older than Elder Child herself.
I was really liking the effects with the pools of standing water around the rocks.
Playing with long-exposures and the rockpools.
Finally, some sand! Probably the shots I was happiest with were with this toy. The whole 'inflatable unicorns for insta pics' fad having passed, this was dead cheap in a beach shop, but produced some of the most eye-catching pics of the night.
Though it was a successful night, by 1.30am we were both rather knackered, and elected to head back. I'd gotten a decent selection of shots but thought it would be nice when we were back in Wales a few weeks later to bulk out the project with some more images.
And so the end of August saw us back in Wales, and whilst on a daytrip to Aberystwyth, we came across a lovely traditional seaside shop. I took the opportunity to add a couple of extra toys to the prop box, like the "48 polkadot ball. Actually there haven't been that many inflatable toys for sale this year; whether for economic or environmental reasons, they seem somewhat out of fashion. There was certainly a bit of peer pressure against us a few times this year when the kids broke out the inflates on day trips to the beach earlier in the summer.
The second visit to the beach saw the tide out on arrival.
Probably the oddest one I've ever used, acquired by a photographer friend in the North West specifically for me to shoot some pics with. If I'd not clumsily forgotten it, it would have featured in the first shoot.
Compared to the first shoot, the sky was ridiculously dark this time. I could have been shooting in a studio, for the enveloping blackness.
This has fast become another favourite props, having been used successfully for a daytime shoot earlier in the hol (more on which in a separate post). I've actually been using these ones since a fashion shoot I did way back in 2004 at Uni.
Compared to the last time, when the tide was dropping, this time it thundered in, making the project a race against time to stop us getting our feet wet. Less shots managed, but it did allow me get a few new angles with some new toys.
And so onto the exhibition; as with Amy, 6 shots entered, 6 shots selected.
...and even harder to photograph than Amy's pics, as if anything mine are even darker and glossier.
Always nice to see these pics exhibited, and even if this is the last outing for this iteration of the project, then it's going on a high note. More on the related daytime shoot (also produced for an open call) in a forthcoming blog post...
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