Pictures from the picket line

I was recently asked by Unison to cover their picket lines in Bristol. The weather was wet, windy and cold but everyone was in good spirits and there was a lot of public support for the strikers.

It normally takes an hour or two after a shoot to edit and send the pictures. To speed things up, I took a few pictures on my phone which could be published on social media immediately as the story was unfolding.

Some of the images taken on the day can be seen on here the Unison website.

Over the years, I have done a lot of trade union photography and worked for most unions including; UNISON, Unite, GMB, PCS, CWU, ASLEF, RMT. The range of work I have done for unions includes conferences, issues and campaigns, there are some more examples here.

I am also a member of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the University and College Union (UCU).

Agricultural machinery photography

JCB Fastrac for Farmers Guardian

I have quite a large collection of images of agricultural machinery so it seemed like a good idea to group a few of them together on my website. The pictures in this post have all been produced for editorial commissions.

The JCB Fastrac Icon images were for a story comparing the new model with its predecessor, a lot of the differences where in the technology controlling the vehicle so a lot of the images focussed on the cab.

JCB Fastrac Icon

JCB Fastrac new and old versions compared

JCB Fastrac new and old models compared

The Merlo tele handler was a full electric model and the shoot involved demonstrating the machine undertaking the type of jobs it might normally be given on a farm.

Merlo e-worker

An empty barn was used to shoot the vehicle which provided a less cluttered background and gave me more control over the lighting. I normally have a car full of lighting equipment for this type of picture.

Merlo e-worker

Often there is no time to take posed studio pictures and I just have to shoot the demonstration vehicle at work. The Unimog shoots were taken during a busy harvest. A brief technical problem with the combine gave me a few precious minutes to take a few more controlled images.

Unimog U435

Unimog U435 alongside combine

Unimog U435 on the road

Unimog U435 alongside combine

The weather was so dry that the vehicles were surrounded with huge dust clouds. This gave me the opportunity to capture a few extra atmospheric images of the huge Case combine harvester.

Case 9230 combine harvester

Case 9230 combine harvester in dust cloud

Fendt 516 tractor

To find out more about the photographic services, I offer, please email me at mail@nigelgoldsmith.co.uk

Agriculture and rural affairs

Agricultural Photography

Jess Palmer, student at Royal Agricultural University

Portrait of Jess Palmer, Agriculture student RAU

I had the good fortune of growing up on a dairy farm in Pembrokeshire so love the opportunity to put my wellies on and take pictures down on a farm. I was introduced to farm photography at an early age. As a toddler I appeared in a story about my parent’s farm in the Farmers Guardian. Over the years, I have photographed most aspects of farming life. Below you will see a range of images I have taken on farms and markets across the UK.

Going through the shooting brief with my subjects - cow photography

Going through the shooting brief with my clients

Lifestock

Cows make great subjects, they are naturally curious and with little encouragement will come right up to you in a field. While this makes close-up shots easy, you cannot put your camera bag down for long or their curious noses will leave a trail of drool over all of your kit.

Brown Swiss Cattle, Rancourt Farm near Swindon

Brown Swiss Cattle and Friesians , Cancourt Farm near Swindon, for National Milk Records

Free range hens

Ewe and lamb in field

Brown Swiss Cattle, Cancourt Farm near Swindon for National Milk Records

Piglet, Newton Farm

British Blue bull in field

Turkey

Location portraits

Every visit to a farm requires portrait images of the people behind the enterprise. I always try to provide atmospheric images that give a sense of the day to day working environment though the shot might be taken in the farm kitchen or in the middle of a field.

Ben Reynaldo and his free range poultry unit

Portrait of tractor driver

Portrait of Tim, Kingsclere Estate

Rob Addicott – Manor Farm near Wells for Farmers Guardian

James the Herdsman

Will and Dawn Hawking, owners of Marshfield Farm Ice Cream

Farm Profiles

If I am asked to photograph a farm profile, I normally try to document every aspect of the farm to provide an in depth record of the business and the people behind it.

Gwen the farm dog

Market

Market photography is very different to farm photography. The pace is fast and there are normally people and animals everywhere. Moving around the market quickly is difficult so you often need to find a few good spots to work in before the auction starts, and introduce myself to the auctioneers well ahead of the main event.

Frome Lifestock Market – auctioneer

Sheep at the market

Diversification

Quite a few of the farms I have worked at have diversified into other product lines or services from ice cream and cheese to clamping pods. While I am on the farm it is normally quite easy to pull out a set of lights and set up a temporary studio in a barn or farmhouse kitchen to get some product shots or portraits of the staff or owners of the farm.

Strawberries growing in poly-tunnel

Community Garden – part of Elims Direct Access Community (DAC) for rough sleepers at Manor Farm near Wells for Farmers Guardian

Agricultural machinery

Images of machinery for advertising, promotion and editorial applications.

Merlo – Eworker electric tele handler

Case Axial Flow 250 combine harvesting wheat

Case Axial Flow 250 combine harvester

More information on agricultural photography

If you would like to know more, give me a call or drop me an email

Agricultural clients include; Dairy Farmer, Farmers Guardian, NMR, Cow Management Magazine, Marshfield Farm Ice Cream.

Linear economics and the throwaway society

This is an image from a project I have been working on for some time on linear economics and the throwaway society. The image in this post is a close up of a damaged TV screen that I picked up on eBay. The damage area also captures a moment of acute anguish for the previous owner. The screen would have been part of a production run of many hundreds of thousands of identical units. In a single moment, the accident created something that was unique and one of a kind but also valueless.

Smash!

The edited video is displayed simultaneously on two large damaged plasma TVs. The video below shows Smash as it was displayed in a group exhibition in the Sion Hill Gallery in Bath.

Time to upgrade the old trolley

The case for a new location trolley

I know a lot of photographers who have back pain thanks to a career of carrying heavy equipment for long periods of time, loading and unloading countless cases and bags, crawling around on the ground to get low angle shots or craning their necks and backs to operate an elevated camera or light. When budgets allow, I hire an assistant to share some of this work but, thanks to the pandemic, limitations on the number of people allowed in indoor spaces has meant that I have had to do most interior shoots on my own and literally shoulder all the carrying myself.

My old trolley loaded and ready to fall over

I have had a small folding trolley for years which packs completely flat and carries two or three square shaped cases but as soon as you put a couple of tripods, light stands or reflectors on it, the whole thing becomes totally unstable. I needed a solution that could carry everything I required in one go without tipping over and that would be reasonable compact when stored.

My research

I have not gained commercially from writing this, I just felt that I should share my research and experience and possibly save others some time as well as visits to the chiropractor.

I recall when I first started carrying a lot of equipment around in the 1990s, the professional photography shop KJP, which became Calumet published a huge A4 professional catalogue which devoted a couple of pages to location trolleys. It would have saved me a lot of time and effort if I had kept one of those old catalogues, The products listed in the catalogue had all been selected with the photographer in mind, they were strong, could take a lot of abuse and would fold up to go in the average car. When I Googled location cart / trolley or photographer’s trolley most of the results were bulky, cheap, unstable or just not fit for purpose. I thought I would do an image search with the aim of finding something that looked similar to the images I remember from the old KJP catalogue. Eventually, I found a review of folding carts for festivals which included the Dura-cart, a British made folding cart made from aluminium that looked quite tough and folded up for storage or transport in a car. The Dura-Cart was 90 cm wide when in use which would go through my garden gate but not the front door of my house. The Dura-Cart site clearly described the product and its features but before I press the ‘buy now’ button for a product of this value on an unfamiliar website, I like to see a physical address or other business information on the website. For the reassurance of the Amazon buyer protection programme, I purchased the item from the company via the Amazon Marketplace. The trolley arrived on a Saturday, the day after it was ordered.

UPDATE 24/10/21

The Dura-Cart site seems to be down and Amazon is out of stock. Hopefully this is a temporary issue and they will be available again. I will update this post if I hear anything.

After sales

The after-sales service from Dura-Cart was brilliant, I had a couple of questions about the item which I emailed on the Saturday expecting a response no sooner than the following Monday. Craig from Dura-Cart answered my email first thing on a Sunday morning!

Setting up the Dura-Cart

The cart takes seconds to unfold, basically you move the wheels away from each other, unfolding the chart and creating a flat base. There are two identical aluminium panels, one for the back, one for the front. These slide into grooves which stops the cart from folding up. The handle which is in two parts can then be released from its stowed state and secured with a locking bolt. Four bolts attach the handle to the cart when in use.

In use

My first job for the Dura-Cart was filming at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory in Bristol. My kit for the job included; a camera case, lenses, two lighting kits, large black drapes, a pop-up green screen, stands, tripods, sound mixer, blimp, clips, tapes, laptop, and extension cables.

Equipment unloaded

The trolley carried all of the equipment without issue, the lighting stands were too long to sit inside the cart so they had to lay on the top in a soft stand bag. To keep everything in place, I used bungees wrapped around the tubular frame of the Dura-Cart.

Dura-Cart loaded with equipment

The cart carried everything I needed with room to spare. It was stable and would go through most doors in commercial spaces. While I mainly bought the trolley for interior location work, its stability and large wheels would also be useful in shifting equipment to some exterior locations and provides a working platform above the dirt, dust and mud.

On my second trip to the location, I added a ladder, a soft box, a dolly and a ski bag (holds the track for the dolly). Securing everything with bungees the trolley carried everything with ease though the tyres show some evidence of the weight they are carrying.

Car boot fully loaded with back seats down, folded trolley on the right side.

Fully loaded trolley on location. The tyre needs some air.

Wheeling the Dura-Cart through an industrial building.

The cart in storage

When folded the trolley is about a quarter of its working width. While the trolley is mostly made from aluminium, it is still quite awkward to carry when folded. It is possible to wheel it in its folded state on flat ground if you are moving it through narrow doorways etc.

View from above of Dura-Cart in its folded state

The two end panels must be removed when the trolley is folded. I couldn’t see any obvious places to store the panels and could imagine them being separated in my sometimes chaotic studio. To try to keep them together, I used heavy duty clips to pinch the panels against the side of the trolley next to the wheels. These clips are used a lot on set to secure drapes, cables and reflectors so it is good to put them to work as they are coming with me anyway.

Dura-Cart folded with end panels removed

Clips attached to tubular frame to secure end panels while stored

Side view of folded Dura-Cart showing clips securing end panels

Summing up

I believe that if I had saved the money and bought one of the cheaper ‘festival’ trolleys I would soon be suffering from buyer’s remorse. While the Dura-Cart is considerably more expensive than most of the other folding trolleys, I believe it is well made and should endure the rough and tumble of daily use. When things return to normal, I believe my assistants will also thank me for it.

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