A Narrative Picture Essay - Groundplan

For this exercise I am going to form a brief groundplan, as the course materials are quite clear that photographing an event requires careful planning for best results.

My choice of event is the Blackpool Illuminations, which I am visiting in a couple of weeks. I think this will give a wide variety of subject matter that I can exploit in order to put together a picture essay. I have broken my thoughts down into the following categories, each of which contains ideas or an avenue of research:

Technical considerations

• Shooting at night with bright lights.

 Shooting at night has its own technical challenges, and I will be taking along my tripod. This will allow long exposures at low ISO to capture the highest quality images. Where a tripod is not suitable due to crowds, I will handheld at a high ISO, and use noise reduction later in Lightroom.

I also need to take care not to overexpose the lights, turning them plain white and losing their colour. I will use exposure compensation where necessary, and have the highlight clipping monitor set on my camera (which I always do anyway).

Avenues of Research

• Google Street View.
• Youtube.

 A youtube video of the illuminations a couple of years ago proved useful to acertain the kind of subject matter I will have available. Due to the distance from where I live, it is not practical to take a physical walkthrough beforehand, although Google Street View is just as good. The images on street view were taken in the day time, but it allowed me to see that the main material will be found in the vicinity and immediate surrounding areas of the tower. We are planning to arrive in Blackpool before dark, so this may also provide a brief opportunity to scope the area beforehand.

Ideas for Variety

• Before and after dark (the town transformed).
• Some black and white images.
• Vertical and horizontal.
• Closeups of details on illuminations, people's hands on rides, slot machines, fountains, people on train, etc.

Subject Ideas

• The tower and rides.
• The promenade.
• Individual Illuminations.
• People.
• The beach.
• Car light trails.
• Shops.
• Casino.

UPDATE

We didn't go to the illuminations in the end, as the weather was extremely poor; not ideal for a family day out. Luckily I have a backup plan, in the form of the Birmingham Christmas market. A lot of the above will still apply, apart from certain things like the tower and casino. In project terms it will be quite similar, as they are both mainly night-time events with artificial lighting.

The market itself opens at 10am, so this gives an opportunity to arrive early, to capture some images of the stalls being opened/set up. When the market gets busy, it gets very busy, so my opportunities to use a tripod will be limited, but I'm sure I'll be able to find a vantage point somewhere for one or two images.

I am very familiar with the location, and have visited the market several times before, so this will be a significant advantage on the day.