Observe to Preserve... back in Wales (part 1)

Back in time for the blog tonight to last October (we're a bit busy at the moment preparing some bits for a couple of exhibitions, after the traditional Tax Self Assessment break from being arty to briefly become accountants).

Anyway, October 2018 saw the last visit to Wales; we needed to produce some work for an upcoming open call in Jan '19, so we both planned a ton of ideas we could shoot whilst we were there... and then for me (Ben) it all fell apart in the weeks before the hol, as various health and work concerns got in the way, and none of the planned models got built.

Needing to shoot something, anything, I took the opportunity to try and nail the least-successful shoot from Observe to Preserve, and the Rail Studio shots (which had to be rushed on a single, very wet day up in the Dales back in July in order to hit a tight deadline).

On top of that, I thought I'd shoot some more pics/redo a couple of shots with the road studio too.

Digging the models out of the loft however revealed some problems; being kept wrapped up in a sealed box up in the roof during the heatwave hadn't done the models any favours.  Plastic had warped, adhesives had melted or come unstuck, damage had occurred, and so a whole evening was spent in Wales re-gluing and re-painting a lot of the models.

With a fair bit of work though, the Rail Studio was restored ready to shoot.

The main shoot was planned to be done on the beach, but I'll put that in a separate post.  

The first shoot of all though was on the sea wall at Criccieth using the Road Studio model, which had fared better (being stored in a cupboard), where a drainage channel created as close to a scale concrete-lined canal as I was likely to find.  I'd stumbled on it last time and improvised a shoot, but felt with a few more models, it could make a more satisfying pic with the Road Studio miniature. 

On our first night in Wales we popped down there for a recce, but the light wasn't terrific, and I wanted a sunset to backlight the pics... so we abandoned the shoot and headed to pick up a curry.

Of course within minutes of ordering the curry, the sun popped out most dramatically, but there was therefore no time to do the shoot before the food.  Never mind, we thought, we have another 6 evenings, there's bound to be another dramatic sunset.

Sooner or later, we're going to stop saying things like that...

Returning to the location on the last day of the holiday we found a dull sky, but there wouldn't be time for a reshoot, and so we pressed on.

The props were quickly set up; last time (practise shoot in the spring) I'd thought a few bits of set dressing including some bridges would be good, and so the ruined girder bridge from the original Rail Studio shoot, and the ancient Britannia Model Village bridge sides, were used this time.

The first shoot had the figure on the right-hand side, but I didn't like the composition (nor the logic that the artist got out of the road studio, walked all the way down to the far bridge, and walked back up to that location)… something I only realised after a couple of minutes.

Moving the figure improved matters a bit.

All in all I was pretty satisfied with the way the shots came out.

Needing another shot with the Road Studio, I chucked the models in one evening towards the end of the holiday for a shoot; we ended up going out a little later than planned though and the light was a bit poor.  

A further problem was the intended original location at Tanybwlch, which we'd done a recce on a month before, but the Forestry Commission had in the meantime cut down a ton of trees rendering it unsuitable... so we ended up in the hills above Beddgelert.  The background was near enough what I wanted -a woodland setting, but in such a way that the models could be distanced a bit from the trees to help scale them a bit- though the lighting wasn't great.  We cracked on anyway.

I had planned to create a weathered road surface on the railway trackbed with fine wet and dry paper, but ended up needing to shoot with the Rail Studio later, and couldn't afford to damage the set gluing the wet and dry down, somewhat ruining the desired effect.

This is more obviously post-apocalypse than most of the other shots, and in hindsight rather over does it with so much set dressing.  Too many wrecked vehicles and things... less is more.  I think having the hints of catastrophe more subtly sprinkled into the pics works better, though it does link it a bit more strongly into the earlier Britannia Model Village series.

Nothing says sci-fi like Dutch Angles... though there wasn't too much room to tilt the camera on the large rock it was all set up on.  I could have done with a lamp or reflector too I reckon.

Meh, lesson learnt.

With light fading, we drove west (in the general direction of the takeaway in Criccieth, always nice to have a destination to look forward to) and tried to find a spot for a shoot with the Rail Studio.  We revisited the mountain lake we'd shot at for "The Home Is..." (chair project) but were put off by the gloomy lighting and mass of "HIDDEN CAMERA" signs.

Snow on the mountains.

Down the road into the Nantle Valley, which looked glorious.

Trying to find a location was problematic; the best spot for a shoot down the valley towards the light was behind a tall fence, and we didn't feel like trespassing (especially with several boxes of models).  Down at the bottom of the valley though there was a handy layby with a flat wall, perfect for setting up the track and embankment models...

Pity about the telegraph wires, and a quick shot proved it would need to be low angle to keep the road out of shot...

… tough I was very happy with how it came out in the end, and indeed a modified version of the above shot is being entered for at least one open call in the first half of 2019, perhaps two...

In the next post, the main shoot on the beach, done earlier in the week than most of the above...

Observe to Preserve... Under The Bridge

With a couple of Open Call exhibitions coming up in 2019 (with shorter notice deadlines than we'd been expecting) we both ended up focusing on existing projects for autumn 2018 rather than shooting newer ideas.  In my (Ben's) case, that meant the ongoing "Observe to Preserve" project.  Being as weekdays I only have public transport as an option, whatever I shot needed to be compact and easily transportable, but I'd had issues with the Artist Figure, with scaling the miniature in the real world.  Works easily enough on a beach where sand and rocks can make for an easily scaled set, but less well inland where we live, where grass and trees tower over the model.  The solution was to try an idea that I'd toyed around with in the summer, and to build a miniature set on which to shoot the figure.

This was going to be quite experimental; I didn't want to waste time and budget on something that might not work, so I decided to build it from whatever was lying around, just to test the idea out.

I wanted an atmospheric way of framing the shot, and dug out this broken old Hornby overbridge, which last saw use as a background item in a Steampunk miniatures shoot.  It's not to the right scale, but compact enough to provide the effect I was going for.

It needed some modification though; it wasn't tall enough for the 1/32nd figure, so I cut the parapet walls off and mounted them on the base.  Scrap cardboard gave a basis for the ground, and the whole lot was glued onto a piece of scrap MDF, cut to the size of a Really Useful Box for secure transport to the shoot.  Actually the box decided the whole size of the project, being of a size which could easily fit in a rucksack for transport to a shoot.

A quick mock-up of the effect I was looking for.

I wanted to create some interest in the ground cover, so after laying sandpaper to give the impression of tarmac, I cut some holes to become puddles.

Grass was hanging basket liner, the puddles were filled with hot glue (as I didn't have time to wait for multiple coats of varnish to dry), set dressings were odds and ends from the Britannia Model Village leftover props, and the whole lot was hit with a couple of coats of spray gloss to give a glistening, after-rain effect.

For the first test shoot, I decided to return to the Leeds-Liverpool Canal at Shipley, only to find that the planned spot alongside the towpath had been cleared and dug-out for some sort of redevelopment...

The rest of the canal was looking nicely autumnal though.

Back to a previous location from the shoot, the rusted girder bridge from the old Esholt Works Railway, which gives a nicely post-apocalyptic backdrop.

A bit more set dressing visible in this shot, a poster from the Happygoth project, which slightly ties the Observe to Preserve series into some of my earlier work...

Another bit of planned location lost though; when I was here earlier in the year, there was a graffiti-covered metal container/office here which I planned on incorporating into the project, but it had been replaced by the time of this visit...

I was quite pleased with the result though; the backdrop was reasonable, though the lighting was a bit dull, so I planned on at least one more shoot with a more dramatic sky, if possible, to test the idea a bit further...

A short while later saw me in Utley, at one of my regular railway photography locations; not much to photograph in the autumn/winter anyway on the main line, but the overgrown lane could provide a suitable backdrop on a sunny winters morning with the sun low.

Again, not too bad; I prefer the lighting, but it still isn't quite what I was after.

Things to redo?  The hanging basket liner used to represent the grass needs to be a bit greener to match the trees and things, unless I manage a nice frosty morning, and the bricks are perhaps a bit on the small side, though I think I'd struggle finding a suitably detailed model bridge in the right scale to the right dimensions.  Some minor rebuilding of the set might be needed if the idea is to progress, but it's proved the idea of building the miniature set for the shoots with the smaller models.

We Got Our Hogwarts Letter :)

Back in the half term holiday, we had a jolly excursion down to the Harry Potter Studio Tour, courtesy of my (Ben's) sister who got us a family ticket as an xmas pressie.  It had actually been on our to-do list anyway, so the tickets finally gave us the chance to go.

We started with the Great Hall...

Being as we're both creative types, it was amazing to see so many practical builds and things.  And stuff we'd quite like in our house to be honest, though the above might look a little out of place in our suburban terrace...

Naturally I was drawn to all the supporting stuff; the concept model of the great hall was stunning, and a taster of what was to come later...

Something else we'd like in the house, if the house was replaced with a castle...

We both loved the Ministry of Magic design in the films; basically we'd love green and red tiles somewhere.  More surprising to realise not only was it all polished wood, but that the interior contents were consequently made from card and other lightweight materials because of the wooden set construction.  It all looks completely convincing, and a testament to the skill of the production team.

Yep, I can get in some train photography anywhere...

Actually this completed an ambition from a few years ago; the first year the kids moved in we were meant to see the loco run near the house on a railtour, we turned out with The Childs in tow, stood by the lineside... and the loco had been withdrawn as a fire-risk so we never got to see it.  Very impressively displayed and lit here.  Managed to avoid the temptation to buy a toy of it... though didn't manage to avoid buying a mug and a tea towel however. 

Down Diagon Alley, which was pleasantly like York (one of the inspirations).

The bit which The Childs were least interested in, and consequently less than amused at how enthralled we were.  The recreation of one of the design offices...

...the plans and blueprints...

...and the works of art which were the concept models.

Which paled into insignificance when presented with the absolute belter of a model which ends the tour.  It's beautiful, and a simply superb bit of miniature work.  I tend to dislike CGI in films, but do slightly more approve of them building models to shoot and use as the basis.  This model is utterly amazing and very, very large.

So thoughts on it all?  The tour was brilliant, very interesting to people like us interested in all the behind-the-scenes production and design aspects.  It's terrific that so much of this stuff was saved after the films were made and put on display.  The Childs were entertained and madly into it all, and the quality of stuff in the gift shops very good indeed.  All in all a very nice day out indeed... thanks Sis for the tickets :)

York Station for a Steam Excursion

A Christmas shopping excursion to York the other week incorporated a little bit of railway photography at the end of the day; with a railtour featuring two steam locomotives on a cold, clear, crisp day it would have been rude not to have popped along for a look...

Arriving at the station with half an hour to kill, the nice sunset wasn't illuminating anything more exciting than a soon-to-be-scrapped Pacer unfortunately.

HST under the very impressive roof.

6233 "Duchess of Sutherland" (which had earlier bought the train in from That London) arrived with the empty stock for the return to Ealing Broadway.  Interesting in that it was the steamer working it, and not an assisting diesel loco in sight which made a nice change.

A4 Pacific "Union of South Africa" was hauling the return leg, and arrived a little bit late.

Sadly by this time the sun had dipped below the horizon, but there were still some nice reflections possible in the streamlined cladding.

I mainly went for shots along the side of the loco; there was a proper scrum in the restricted space at the end of the platform, there must have been over a hundred photographers plus other interested passengers and families... I only managed the one shot from the front before being elbowed out of the way.

I was pleased by how the shots came out; after a disappointing week of photography under a Tupperware-lid sky, it was nice to get some slightly abstract shots of the A4; doubly so, as this is an engine I used to see a fair bit as a kid, but after next year it is apparently being permanently retired to a museum in eastern Scotland, so this will probably be the last time I'll get chance to photograph it.