Manchester Pride 2014

This weekend was my home city's LGBT Pride festival which I consider to be Manchester's best photo-op, not to mention a ton of fun. The festival itself takes the entirety of the August bank holiday weekend but I typically just attend the parade, which takes place on the afternoon of the Saturday. Normally I haul myself up to one of the deep window ledges that abound in the former warehouse district of the city where the parade finishes up (and I happen to live, by the gay village) but this does mean that I get the same kind of photos year-on-year so this year, since I was accompanied by a friend, I thought I'd switch it up and try and get closer in. It definitely netted some benefits and even my notoriously bad 28-300mm lens delivered some decently sharp shots. A selection are shown below but, as always, the full compliment can be found on my Flickr account.

The Advocate

I'm delighted to report that high-profile LGBT interest magazine The Advocate has prominently featured a number of my photos in their selection for an article of photos from this year's Pride parade in Manchester. My Pride photos garnered a lot of traffic this year, even more than in previous years, and it's great to see them featured in this way.

50,000 views

A bit of a milestone, the usual Pride-oriented surge in hits has meant that the photos on my Flickr account just passed 50,000 cumulative views. Although unlikely to be troubling the Alexa rankings anytime soon, it's pretty decent for one guy with a camera he bought three years ago and had to learn what "aperture" meant. I think I've a realistic view of my ability now and the work I still have to do but it is nice to see the distance travelled to date.

Cheers to anyone who's ever appeared in one of my photos, especially if you didn't really want to. Cheers to anyone who's used one of my photos, in print or online, whether you paid me or not. Cheers to anyone who's given my photography a kind word, or indeed honest critique. Cheers to the many beautiful places who've given me someting worth photographing and to anyone who's stood, danced, partied, marched or rioted in front of my lens.

Cheers guys.

In fact, not only did Pride & Rushcart tip me over the 50,000 hits line but boosted me all the way to, at time of writing 73,000 views. That is to say that I got nearly a 50% boost to my views in the space of a week.



I'd noticed that my account seemed to be getting more hits for innocuous searches on various search engines of late, including Flickr itself. It's almost as though my visibility had increased. That, combined with the two large events over the bank holiday weekend seem to have been a perfect storm resulting in the hits spike.

Saddleworth Rushcart 2013

The day after Pride, a friend invited me to Rushcart in Saddleworth. Essentially, it stems from a tradition whereby a cart would be processed around the villages and hamlets and piled high with offerings of bullrushes from each with which to carpet the floor of the church. It’s a fascinating tradition and worth reading up on but more importantly from my own selfish viewpoint it makes for a great photo op, not least because those processing the cart are Morris dancers. I was astonished at how far some of the Morris troupes had come- from all over England it seemed, and the hundreds upon hundreds of locals (and presumably visitors too) who turned out to see the procession, the Morris dancing performances, the wrestling, the gurning competition and other British folk traditions.




As always, the full set are available on my Flickr account.

Manchester Pride Parade 2013

It was my home city of Manchester’s annual gay Pride parade on Saturday, one of the largest and longest-running of such parade’s in the country thanks to our sizeable LGBT community centred around the gay village of Canal Street and the surrounds. It's a great event and all of 100 metres from my home and it’s probably the best photo-op that the city has to offer so I did my usual thing of clambering up to one of the deep window ledges of the former warehouse buildings that dominate the area and snapped over the crowd as the parade went past. It’s been a decent tactic in previous years and resulted in a number of my more successful (according to recorded views) photos but it does mean that I essentially get the same shots year on year. I think next year I’ll aim to get to the front of the crowd and use my 50mm prime instead. Push myself to try different approaches.

The parade was good, if perhaps not quite as good as I've seen it in previous years. In 2010, they had Sir Ian McKellen and in 2011 they had a tank. That sets the bar pretty high. Still, some great costumes and the usual wonderful atmosphere.

The other observation is that my new 28-300mm lens really ain’t all that sharp. Now I knew it wouldn’t be given the range but I was expecting it to be sharper when compared with the lens it replaced (Tamron 18-250) and the price difference between them (the Nikkor being something like 4x the price), I was really expecting more. Nonetheless, I got some decent shots. Here’s a sample:

As always, the full set are available on my Flickr account.

Village Day 2013

I grew up in a small village in Northwest England and, just to live up to the stereotype, we have a village fête. Pretty traditional: bouncy castles, apple bobbing, face painting, homemade jam and all that stuff.

It was also the first proper outing of my new zoom lens where I was shooting at the long end. The first thing to say is that we were blessed with a sunny day, meaning I could keep the shutter speed way up (640/1), even while shooting in ISO 200 at f/8. I guess that's likely necessary at 300mm on a DX-format sensor. That out of the way, I found it performed pleasingly well. Yes, it's a touch soft on the long end. But only a touch. It's never going to be competing with a prime, is it? The VR helps, of course, and the SWM focussing is a blessing compared to my old Tamron 18-250. Overall, very happy and it gives me exactly the versatility I was looking for. I'm pleased that I opted to get this over the (cheaper & presumably sharper) 70-300 since I was shooting at the full range, swithcing from zoom to wide shots at no notice where I wouldn't have wanted to change lenses.

Bizarrely, the small handful of photos I uploaded pulled in nearly 1000 views to my Flickr account yesterday. I guess the kids love quaint rural funsies. Also dancing girls.

First 28-300 outing

I had the first opportunity to use my new 28-300mm lens last night. A friend of mine held an "indoor garden party". Overall, really impressed with it in all kinds of ways. It's my only SWM (silent wave motor) lens so its autofocus is superfast and really good in low light compared to my 50mm prime. It's also definitely giving me the versatility that I need although last night didn't provide me with the opportunity to test out the long end of the lens but given the low light, high ISO, wide aperture nature of what I was shooting, I'm very happy with the investment. Hopefully it's as good on the long end (I'll get the opportunity to find out at my city's Pride festival next month) and I can't wait to try it on an full frame body.

Manchester Day Parade

It seems like a lot of my entries of late have become rather text-heavy. Better try and liven up the place with some photos, hmm? These were taken at the Manchester Day Parade, a parade in its infancy to stir up a bit of local pride. It's not a big thing but hopefully it will continue to grow. These photos are a touch soft, it's what finally convinced me to upgrade my lens from the cheap Tamron super-zoom I was using.