Martin Phelps Photography

Marlborough Mop Fairground Workers

2009-10-22T05:43:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday was the weekend of the Marlborough Mop, where the high street turns into a giant fairground for the night and all the local teens get drunk and dizzy, silly and sick. Oh, and a few families have a nice time too.

The history of the Mop Fair is succinctly described in the Wikipedia thus :

"Farm workers, labourers, servants and some craftsmen would work for their employer from October to October. At the end of the employment they would attend the Mop Fair dressed in their Sunday best clothes and carrying an item signifying their trade. A servant with no particular skills would carry a mop head — hence the phrase Mop Fair.

Employers would move amongst them discussing experience and terms, once agreement was reached the employer would give the employee a small token of money and the employee would remove the item signifying their trade and wear bright ribbons to indicate they had been hired. They would then spend the token amongst the stalls set up at the fair which would be selling food and drink and offering games to play."

Anyway, this use of the Mop Fair is long gone but the stallholders and ride attendants still come. And they're a pretty fascinating looking bunch. They lead pretty tough lives I'm sure, living on the road, keeping odd hours, grafting hard to get the stalls and rides erected and dismantled to a tight schedule. There's a certain toughness in the faces and it contrasts in interesting ways with the candy colours, fluffy stuffed toys and glitzy lights. All the effort goes into creating this wonderful, glittering, magical other world for a night, and if it was run in a corporate fashion these people would be wearing Hi-De-Hi blazers and cartoon animal suits. But they're not. They're real. Straightforward. Honest representations of themselves.

The Slidegun

2009-10-16T06:16:00.000-07:00

The following is lifted directly from my flickr page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/uncertainworld/2183447974/) where I described it at the beginning of 2008.

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ok, so I finally got around to describing this thing a little better....

a. sb800, liberally wound with velcro of course

b. nikon diffuser cap with the front cut out of it, velcro on the sides to hold slide.

c. slide, printed on acetate on a desktop inkjet, with tabs of velcro on the edges.

d. funnyfoam snoot to hold the lens, with a strip of velcro along each edge

e. 50mm 1.8 lens (lightweight and wide aperture) with a strip of velcro wound around it which goes in the nose of the snoot, something like 50mm off the front of the slide.

see it assembled at www.flickr.com/photos/uncertainworld/455957985/in/set-721...

check out photos tagged with slidegun in my stream to see what it does, then go make one. tag the results with slidegun, just so i get a thrill out of it!

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I'd actually been using a variation of the slidegun for nearly a year before that, but ideas gestate slowly in my mind sometimes. As far as I know nobody was doing this when I started. It's an idea that has huge possibilities for mixing scenes with branding, text, subversion, comedy, or simply creating an image in camera that's greater than the sum of it's parts.

I've only had a few opportunities to use the slidegun commercially since then, the majority for jeanswear company Real Real Genuine. Richard at RRG was really supportive and enthusiastic, for which I'm very grateful.

Quite a few people seem to have taken up the challenge and produced variations on the slidegun of their own. It's hugely gratifying to find someone in Japan or Australia or wherever has spent a day off building one of these and testing it, and posting the results on photosharing sites and blogs. If you're interested in trying it out, tag or name the results with "slidegun" just so everyone who has an interest can find them.

Here are some of my results :

Steam Barge

2009-10-08T07:35:00.000-07:00

This is Tony Bryant. He lives on a narrow boat which runs on a unique steam engine he built himself. It's fuelled with dead wood which he picks up from the sides of canals and surrounding fields. Seems like the ultimate in green transport!

I met him in August 2009 while I was working for the local paper (a rare event lately) and I gave him my number. A few days later he called me to ask if I wanted to come and ride with him through the Bruce tunnel on the Kennet and Avon canal near Marlborough. It's about a quarter mile long, and enables the canal to pass beneath the main London to Penzance railway line. And it's 200 years old this year.

He was on his way to Bristol, from where he was planning to turn north up the Severn. His ambition is to see Loch Lomond from his boat.

Smoke and Mirrors

2009-05-06T12:10:00.000-07:00

I've been playing lately with a very analogue technique for overlaying images in-camera. I've no idea where it's going but it's always useful to have another trick in your box when inspiration is needed on a shoot, though I can't see this one having many commercial uses until I find a few more clients who are brave enough to let me play around on their time! Here are some examples...

A bit of tonal adjustment in photoshop, but apart from that they came out of the camera like this.

More Car Photography - Drive It Day

2009-04-30T01:43:00.000-07:00

The FBHVC - Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs - were having their annual run last weekend, centred on the Royal Oak Pub in Bishopstone. I was there, for the third year running, to photograph the cars and their equally interesting owners.

Prints available at www.photoboxgallery.com/martinphelps

Drive It Day - Images by Martin Phelps

Car Photography

2009-04-30T01:11:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I hooked up with an old acquaintance who now runs a business buying, restoring and selling classic european cars - www.europeanclassiccars.co.uk - and took some photos of a rather nice old Citroen DS Super 5 which he's selling. It's the first time I've dealt with trying to light something so unforgiving - curved, shiny, metallic, reflective - there's no place to hide the lights, so you have to make the highlights part of the composition. Which is (comparatively) easy in a professional studio, but a bear of a task in a dark barn with lots of other cars and assorted junk in the background, limited space, and a doorway that's leaking too much light to work with long exposures. The results were a bit underwhelming, but at least next time I can go with a much better idea of how to solve the problems.

Down in the Hood - Melksham Town Criers Competition

2009-04-29T04:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday afternoon in the Market Place in Melksham, and there are lots of people in very loud clothing taking turns to shout at the top of their lungs about how wonderful it is to live where they do. Places like Ilfracombe, Warminster, Bromyard and Wootton Bassett. Are these the Gangsta Rappers of rural England?

Later they were due to shout about the benefits of healthy eating, in an initiative sponsored by the NHS and something called "change4life" If you call it a name that looks like a text message, the kids will surely come, right?
The irony of having 16 walking Toby jugs shout about the benefits of regular mealtimes, low sugar cereals and "2 snax max" seems to be lost on the geniuses who thought of that one.

Wedding Site UP!

2009-04-21T09:03:00.000-07:00

Well I finally got it done.

It's not exactly the most full-featured wedding photography website I've ever seen, but it is at least up and running, and gives a little more information than the previous version which said pretty much "give me a call".

It's at www.martinphelps.com/weddings - competitive prices, slick Jorgensen albums, pre-wedding shoots, trash-the-dress-shoots, documentary/reportage style, a gallery of recent images, ...it's all there. Oh, and in addition to the 2-300 edited photos as standard with each package, I make available all the out-takes as lo-res .jpgs, so if I missed anything in the edit that's really important, you can dig it out and get me to run an edit on the original raw file. Can anyone give me a reason all wedding photographers don't do that?

Bashstreet Skinhead

2009-04-21T08:48:00.000-07:00

Here's a selection of shots from last weekend - a low-budget film shoot in Chippenham, for a company called "Kandu Arts for Sustainable Development", run by Ed Deedigan and Gracie Redfern. Actor Con O'Neill was lending his experience and support to an amateur cast.

Bashstreet - Images by Martin Phelps

I can't relate what the story was about as I haven't read a script. The scene I was there for involved bands, a nightclub, a number of rather scary looking skinheads and some Elvis lookalikes. Or rather, some Elvis lookalike lookalikes.

Cute or just weird

2009-03-30T08:58:00.001-07:00

I love finding places like this. I'm the Loyd Grossman of abandoned buildings. Sort of.

On a trip to the south of Spain last week, ostensibly to help my mate Mark out with a bit of concreting on his finca, I wandered off up the rambla in search of things to photograph and came across what appeared to be a disused quarry hut. Two rooms, a shower that still worked, a few pieces of furniture slowly taking on a covering of pigeon shit, rotting clothing on hooks on the walls, a bag with a flask, a half-empty bottle... in fact everything seemed pretty much as it had been left by the last quarrymen, and it seemed they left in a bit of a hurry. The calendar on the wall doesn't have a year, but February begins on a Thursday and the paper is still pretty clean, so in all likelihood it's from 2007. But more interesting than the calendar is the soft porn on the walls. There's always something interesting about rotting, faded, blueing porn, but these were all the more fascinating for the odd rubbing marks around the rude bits. Did the quarrymen touch them every morning for good luck on the way out to work? Or when they had showered off the dust, changed and were on the way home? Did the marks show while the building was still in use, or have they only appeared with the passage of time, the sweat of fingers rotting the paper gradually in betrayal of some secret fetish?

Photoshelter Folio Widget

2009-03-11T02:54:00.000-07:00

OK, this is a test - one of the handy things photoshelter provides is this little widget for embedding slideshows into blogs and websites. Great for viral marketing they say. Anyone can click on the little triangle (bottom right) and add it to their blog or site, and that way the word gets around. The cute bit is any click on the slideshow leads straight back to the Photoshelter gallery.

Well, here goes with a folio gallery....

Mish Mash Muse

2009-03-09T13:06:00.000-07:00

The Wessex Muse Magazine published some of my pictures of the Mish-Mash arts group in Corsham, along with an article by Sarah Singleton. I haven't seen the folding version, but it looks like they made a pretty nice job from the layout.

Folio Site Update

2009-03-09T10:57:00.000-07:00

Ok, now I'm on a roll...

My photography folio site is now updated with lots of new pics and an improved interface. You wouldn't believe how long this stuff takes when you're doing it yourself, but as I'm having a quiet month I thought I'd better get it done. The site's put together in flash with a custom slideshow thing which hopefully improves the experience by pre-loading the next slide while you're still viewing the previous one. At least that's the theory. I'm no expert with coding flash, but it seems to work. I would love to be able to point the slideshows at a database and have them pick the photos and captions automatically from the metadata, but that sort of cleverness is beyond me.

Anyway, here's a screen shot....

www.martinphelps.com/folio

New Website

2009-03-05T10:05:00.000-08:00

Well, not exactly a new website, more a re-organisation of existing websites to bring them under one umbrella site. It'd all got a bit spread out and disjointed, what with my folio site (www.martinphelps.com), a nascent wedding photography site, portraitfolio.co.uk which was my old domain for selling drawn and painted portraits before I took up the camera but which might as well be put to use as a vehicle for portrait photography, this blog and the recently added photoshelter archive, not to mention a couple of thousand pictures on flickr and 1,600 or so on Alamy.

A bit of rationalisation was called for, so I hope this looks like a rational front end for the whole thing....

www.martinphelps.com

Shepherd's Hut

2009-01-10T11:50:00.000-08:00

There are quite a few of these dotted around Wiltshire, quietly rotting in the corners of fields.

Back in the days before commercial fertilizer, the best way to keep the right level of nutrients in the downland soil was to graze sheep before ploughing and allow them to fertilize as they went. This naturally involved a great deal of sheep movement, and wherever the sheep went, the shepherd, his tools, medicines, dog - and at lambing time his bed - were sure to follow. The first recorded use of a rolling shepherd's hut was in 1596, and they were used right up to the middle of the 20th century.

This one's a bit of a beast with it's heavy timbers and big wheels, the better for navigating the rutted tracks between fields.

Canon G9 / G10 dust problem

2008-12-31T12:10:00.000-08:00

A quick word of warning to anyone thinking of buying a Canon g9 or g10 compact - DUST!

I've had a g9 for a little over a year, and while I can live with it's inability to shoot moving subjects, the noisy little sensor and fiddly-diddly menus (hey, what would you expect from a point and shoot? It's not a d3, after all...), the one thing that would put me off buying anything similar is the rubbish lens design. Surely with all their experience, Canon could come up with something that doesn't suck in dust and dirt and ruin every picture you take thereafter? Here's a pic of my studio wall at f8. That's the entire frame, btw, not a crop. There's a snake in there.

It took a couple of weeks and the cost of postage to an authorised repairer to have it removed (the snake's doing well in Bristol Zoo).

Update - I dunno, griping again, but they coulda thought a bit harder about the lens cover mechanism (the shutter that goes across the lens to protect it when you turn off the camera and the lens retracts) - it's pretty easy to get some grit in between the blades, which doesn't stop the lens retracting, but it does stop the cover closing. The front element now has two deep scratches where it bounced around in my pocket with the cover open, and every picture shows these two foggy patches. If it wasn't goosed before, it sure is now.

Lodger Shoes

2008-11-16T04:38:00.000-08:00

Lodger Shoes

2008-11-01T09:10:00.000-07:00

So the Lodger shoe shops are finally open for business///

This one, in Mayfair, ....

... and this one at www.lodgerfootwear.com

Congratulations to Nathan and his team for pulling it all together.

Read all about it in his blog : www.gentlemanscorner.com

Pewsey Carnival

2008-11-01T04:27:00.000-07:00

Pewsey Carnival 2008 - Somewhat more subdued than in previous years as the thought police have finally taken control. No alcohol in the procession? WTF?? I'm sure people have been getting drunk and going out in procession for generations. It's got that feel of a big blowout after harvest, a chance for everyone to go mad with relief at the end of September after working themselves into the ground 18 hours a day getting the crops in, to lose their grip, dress up and drink reindeer urine or something, to cop off with that someone you haven't been brave enough to speak to all summer, and generally have a party. Only now the fuel for all the fun, incendiary booze, has been removed from the equation by the local powers-that-be, the police force and the insurers, in the hope of removing all possibility of injury and of restoring the carnival to the mythical status of "family-friendly" event. And suddenly the magic all but disappears. Or at least the edge.

Oh well, here's some pictures.....

pcso on the prowl for illicit booze

and some more....

2008 Pewsey Carnival on flickr

2007 Pewsey Carnival on flickr

2006 Pewsey Carnival on flickr

2005 Pewsey Carnival on flickr

...and if anyone's stumbled on this and would like to buy some prints, there are a few hundred lurking over at my photobox gallery just waiting to be snapped up.

New Agricultural Photos Microsite

2008-11-01T04:19:00.000-07:00

I put this one together in the hope of attracting a few clients from the food and farming industries. Most of the work on the site was done for Eastbrook Farm Organics, The Soil Association, The Land Trust, and various magazines and newspapers.

Take a look....

www.martinphelps.com/farming

Bourton on the Water, Football in the River

2008-08-26T00:06:00.000-07:00

Skypower Ballooning

2008-08-25T01:57:00.000-07:00

I first met Phil Hossack, owner of Skypower and GoBallooning a couple of months ago whilst photographing for an article for a local magazine. He'd just been awarded the freedom of the City of London, which allows him to drive sheep through Trafalgar Square and get drunk and disorderly without fear of arrest. Since then I've flown with him twice (sober and without sheep) in tiny baskets high above Wiltshire and Northamptonshire, and once in one of his big "ride" balloons with 14 happy customers.

Napoli Pics

2008-03-20T06:03:00.000-07:00

Again, it's taking me a while to get round to posting stuff.

This time it's February, and I'm on a trip to Naples to photograph a shoe factory.

It all ended in tears when I was arrested by four policemen with sub-machineguns on the steps of my Sleazyjet flight back into Stansted. Tears of laughter, that is. Here's the story....

I was recently booked on and Easyjet flight from Naples to London Stansted, the return leg of a journey, which was cancelled due to the pilot on another Easyjet flight falling ill. The flight was at scheduled for 19.10 Monday, but was cancelled about half an hour before that, whilst the passengers were waiting at the gate. There was a lot of confusion and misinformation, and very little communication from staff. Eventually everyone was herded onto two buses which dumped us at a hotel at around 21.00hrs. We were all fed, and given keys to rooms by 23.00 hrs. Unfortunately the first room I was given turned out to be occupied by a number of children who were sleeping when I entered the room. On complaining to the staff I was given another room. The following morning we were given breakfast at 08.00hrs, but only rumour as to what time the flight was, or what time the bus was to leave for the airport. Somehow most of the passengers found the bus at the right time, and it duly reached the airport at 10.00, and the flight was scheduled for 12.15, but didn't take off till 13.00, scheduled to arrive at 15.40 CET. By 13.40 I was hungry again, having not eaten for 5 1/2 hours, despite the statutory obligation for the airline to keep it's passengers fed during the delay. The hostess came round with trolley and food, and I accepted a tuna sandwich and a 330cl bottle of water, but when asked for payment of £4.90, I refused to pay. Given that there would be another two hours before any other opportunity to eat would be available back on the ground at Stansted, I felt the airline were wrong to expect me to go without food for 7 hours and 40 minutes, and in breach of their own terms and conditions forced on them by the AIr Passenger Charter. The head stewardess refused to accept this, and had the pilot radio the groundcrew at Stansted. On landing, I was met at the door of the plane, while all the other passengers were made to wait in their seats, by four armed police officers, despite the fact that I had been courteous and polite throughout. I was detained for about ten minutes while they ascertained that it was a civil rather than criminal matter (they were not dealing with it as theft, rather that the ownership of the goods was disputed). They were extremely understanding and conciliatory while they filled out their forms, then allowed me to go, and it is now up to Easyjet to pursue me for the £4.90 which they claim I owe them. I, on the other hand, would contend that they owe refunds and apologies to all the other passengers on the plane, who had to buy food or go hungry. I wonder what would have happened if I was both out of money (through no fault of my own, given that we had been delayed for 18 hours) and diabetic? Incidentally, at no time was it made clear that Easyjet were liable for the cost of two phone calls, emails or faxes, and I'm sure a lot of people will have paid for those too. No compensation has been offered, and to add insult I can't seem to stop the easyjet website from sending me promotional material via email. How do you deal with a company which feels sub-machine guns are the way to deal with passengers who have the temerity to insist on what are their legal rights?

I think the little fiat is scared - there's a puddle leaking out from under the bonnet...

Westmill Wind Farm

2008-02-25T14:10:00.000-08:00

More photos at www.martinphelps.com - click on the "5" in the projects section.

Keep Your Ears Young

2007-11-14T14:00:00.000-08:00

Today I picked up a copy of the Band of Gypsys - Live at the Filmore East. Music I've known since the age of about 14. Some of it half forgotten, viscerally remembered. If I had to offer an explanation of why I don't work in a bank, this is it. Was there ever a sound that bypassed the brain so effectively and went straight for the solar plexus? Is there any anti-Iraq "war" music that has this kind of impact? Tell me if you know of anything.... I'll make a list.

Youtube link - Machine Gun