Fire Photography – Part 1
Sandal Castle in Wakefield
It all started with Facebook
So, I was scrolling through facebook endlessley as you do, I was stopped in my tracks when I saw a post by Hattie Byrne. Hattie is a fire performer and she was looking for a photographer, i quickly jumped on this and messaged her. I first met Hattie at a Charity event at Motorpoint in aid of The Prince of Wales Hospice where she was stilt walking and fire breathing. We got our heads together and came to an agreement to shoot, and this is what brought us to the first part of the fire shoot series. Keep Reading for part one
Sandal Castle
We decided to go to Sandal castle in Wakefield. It has been a long time since I actualy visited this iconic medieval castle ruin. Just out of interest Sandal castle was actually built by William The Conqueror’s followers, how amazing is that! The older I get the more I am loving history and local history even more so. Another fact relating to Sandal Castle is that it cameos in Shakespeare’s play Henry VI, Part 3 (Act 1, Scene 2) set in Sandal Castle. Another amazing fact! If you want more information on Sandle Castle check out the Wiki for it.
Anyway back to the shoot.
The reason we went to Sandal Castle wasn’t because of it’s history as good as it is. we went becuae its just a beautiful place and very scenic, we were hoping for a spectacular sunset, unfortunately we didnt get one, but we did get some fantastic shots
The Arrival
Hattie Byrne (the Model & Fire Act) followed me from our hometown of Castleford to Sandal castle, I was in my crappy Fiat Scudo Van and Hattie was in her Fiat 500 (which was lovely) When we arrived there were quite a few people around the castle ruins, both me and Hattie looked at each other and laughed. I got my equipment and Hattie got hers, I had to laugh I have never walked with someone holding a big bottle of parrafin before (we aren’t arsonists I promise).
After the short walk up the hill we arrives at the ruins as pictured. We both got ourselves sorted out with our equipment, I decided to use a strip box here as I wanted to have some shadowing on the Castle ruins and also not wash out the flames too much.
We started taking some practice shots, getting the correct exposure and flash powers etc. Hattie was setting her equipment alight and a group of young guys saw this and proceeded to come towards us, they were quite a few of them and in credit to them they were all well mannered and just curious to what was going on. Of course we had the cheek and wit fom them but itr was all in good taste, we even had a picture with them. They quickly dissapeared and unfortunately I didnt get a card to them. If you are reading this blog post and recognise the handsome cheeky buggers, please pass on this link. I am sure they would love to see it.
The Gallery
So What’s Part Two?
basically we decided that we wanted to do more than 1 location on the night, neither of us had any plans and nothing was spoiling. We headed to the Dark Arches in Leeds. I dont want to give too much away about the shoot but I do have a little teaser of what is to come from a fantastic shoot with a great artist and model.
