Trip to the hills.

On Friday night I decided to do a little more work on one of the projects I’m working on. The local council has deemed fit that our local village square should be torn down and an oversized supermarket and an excessive number of flats and underground parking should be created. The residents have been in uproar but the powers that be have deemed that progress is progress. To this end I feel it is my duty to document the people and the place before the community spirit that thrives here is squashed and modernity takes over. For the last few months and in all different types of weather I have been trying to fulfil this task. The people have generally been very good about letting me take their photographs and no-one has ever so much as complained. Until Friday that is.
It was dark and really cold and there weren’t too many people around, but I figured I’d try and grab a few frames before retiring to the warmth and a nice bottle of Rioja. To cut a long story short, one individual had taken an affront to having his picture taken, and rather than ask me to stop or walk away, had simply called the police! So it wasn’t long before I was confronted by a PCSO (Police Community Support Officer) and then two Police constables. The PCSO got himself quite hot under the collar and was adamant that the constables should detain me for “breach of the peace” for taking his photograph too. After much talking on my part, desperately trying not lose my cool, I managed to get the constables to see my side of the story and they let me go on my way, providing I took no more photographs of people in that area that night. Well by this time it was getting late and my fingers were so cold, that I probably couldn’t have pressed the shutter button again anyway. But by the time I got home and had stewed over the events, I was really rather angry. Neither was I in the wrong nor in any way breaking the law, yet I had had my character besmirched by several onlookers and was made to feel as though I were some kind of weirdo by the Police. On a side note there are at least 3 surveillance cameras in this area, but I didn’t see anyone complaining about them, nor did the Police do anything about the hoodies loitering in the doorway of the local convenience store harassing passers by.

So the next morning, I decided I’d revert to some good ol’ fashioned landscape photography and get myself out in the countryside. I headed out to the Peak District armed with a flask and plenty clothing at daft o’clock. As I rounded a bend over a crest about an hour before sunrise I was presented with the beginnings of a lovely orange sunrise and the silhouette of a horse munching on some hay in a field. I though it would make quite a good image. So I decamped and after several shots I decided to close in on my prey subject. After a few HDR frames, I thought that maybe I’d try a little fill flash to illuminate the horse a little. Nothing too bright mind as I didn’t want to startle him. After a couple of shots I heard some additional snorts coming from the other side of the horse, and a dozy looking bull appeared looking right in my direction. I grabbed a couple of the bull and then looked up again, only to see about half a dozen of his mates glaring at me. It was at this point I figured that maybe I should leave, sharpish… I hastily threw all my stuff in whichever pockets I could find and made a very sheepish retreat. Not easy to walk backwards on frozen mud carrying camera bag, tripod and with pockets of gear falling out all over the place. Fortunately I made it out of the field intact and without leaving anything behind. I reckon if I hadn’t of looked up at that point and had continued shooting for a couple more frames, I would probably have been comprehensively skewered! I laughed my socks off when I got back to the car and had a look at the LCD. The last frame that I shot I reckon was worth the experience. Check it out above.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 at 6:08 am. It is filed under Personal Projects, Photographs, Photography and tagged with Landscape, Peak District, Personal Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.