Sport
-
Somerford Park Farm International Horse Trials August 2021
I’d like to photograph sports more often. It presents different challenges from my usual landscape, nature and people photography. Within an hour’s drive are the International Horse Trials, held at Somerford Park Farm each August, though they were cancelled in 2020. I’ve been there twice before and each time I learn something new, hopefully improving my skills with technique and timing. I was happy to be able to go there again in August 2021 and am still sorting out and processing some of the images. Below are some of my favourites so far. The first two are of Olympic Champion, Oliver Townend, riding Tregilder and (I think) Cooley Masterclass…how those…
-
Somerford Park Three Day Eventing
Today I spent a very happy half day at Somerford Park Farm for the the last day of the Three Day Event. In the company of a few friends, I had a fun time photographing the cross country event. As always, the water jump is my favourite part of the course – I just love those splashy pictures! Backgrounds are a real problem at all such events, as are the red and white flags, marshals in high viz jackets, spectators and even parked cars, so it is particularly important to choose a spot where distractions are at a minimum and blank skies are eliminated….not always so easy! Add to that the…
-
Humber Estuary at Cleethorpes
A couple of weeks ago I was invited to help open the joint Exhibition of Cleethorpes Camera Club and Grimsby Photographic Society and to speak at each of the Cleethorpes clubs on the following two days. It was also a wonderful opportunity to catch up with my long-term friend Barbara and take a few photographs. The day began with a visit from Barbara’s local urban fox, Lyndsey. …then a walk along the estuary…
-
Racing on the Mersey
On the basis that I’ll try anything once, I decided to try a little water sport fun. We have visited the Mersey River Festival a number of times over the years and tended to stay in the docks to capture pictures of street performers and the like. This year we went along purely for the water sport, to try our hand at something new. There was plenty of opportunity to get to the front of the queue to photograph the Zap Cat racing – in fact, there was no queue. Taking up position near one of the buoys, soon we spotted a fellow Wigan 10 member, whom we were not…
-
Equestrian Event Photography
Somerford Park I would like to dedicate this page to the memory of 24 year old New Zealand Rider Tom Gadsby, who suffered fatal injuries at Fence 4B on 18th August 2013, when he was involved in a rotational accident; his horse, seven-year-old skewbald gelding, The Drove, fell on top of him, crushing Tom to death. The Drove was uninjured. There are no photographs of Tom Gadsby in my selection.
