Duncan S
New member
This was a trip organised through a photography forum, so it classes as photographers heading underground rather than cavers waving cameras around.
Hence a cave as easy as Upper Long Churn made an ideal destination for the group, and it certainly shows you don't need to go on long caving trips to get decent images!
The group consisted of Duncan from Somerset, Chris from the Lakes and Frank from the Lancashire coast.
We were doing a lot of camera sharing as it was often easier to leave the flash setup alone and pass the camera around. We all took turns modelling as that required at least as much creativity as composing the image and looking after the technical stuff!
Some of these shots I can definitely say who took them, but most of them would need a discussion about who pressed the button and we still might not be certain. So we've taken a group decision and we aren't really caring too much about ownership. The images are a team effort and the button pusher was just one part of the teamwork needed in each shot.
We started by using continuous lighting in Dr Bannister's Handbasin.
Before moving on we decided to kill the main floodlight and put all the waterproof lights we had into the pool. The other lighting is a couple of small LED video lights out of shot on the right hand side, plus a small floodlight in the passage at the top of the waterfall.
It's a dramatically different image!
We spend quite a while shooting from the top of the waterfall, and it wasn't easy!
We'd ended up using Franks camera, Duncan's flash with Franks radio trigger in Chris' barrel strapped to the models back and a head torch lighting the foreground. We got a lot of cracking shots, way better than these, but hand holding 1/4s proved too challenging and most of them aren't acceptably sharp.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing; we should have either got a tripod or used Duncan's flash kit with multiple flashes or got one of the big floodlights. Hey Ho... It was a lot of fun and we all learned valuable lessons!
Back in the main passageway we set up a simple two flash arrangement which proved very effective.
We decided to try spicing up the image by splashing the water.
Once again, this was huge fun and we were pleased with the results!
While in the passage, we decided to have a go at some shots bridging the streamway.
These proved more difficult to set up than the water splashing shots as lighting is far more critical.
We concluded the day with another continuous lighting set-up in a different part of the streamway.
By this point we were all cold and had lost most of our enthusiasm - it shows.....
In summary...
A cracking day out, and well worth the drive up from Somerset!
I just wish we'd been more careful about noting who drove the camera as I like some of these images
Hence a cave as easy as Upper Long Churn made an ideal destination for the group, and it certainly shows you don't need to go on long caving trips to get decent images!
The group consisted of Duncan from Somerset, Chris from the Lakes and Frank from the Lancashire coast.
We were doing a lot of camera sharing as it was often easier to leave the flash setup alone and pass the camera around. We all took turns modelling as that required at least as much creativity as composing the image and looking after the technical stuff!
Some of these shots I can definitely say who took them, but most of them would need a discussion about who pressed the button and we still might not be certain. So we've taken a group decision and we aren't really caring too much about ownership. The images are a team effort and the button pusher was just one part of the teamwork needed in each shot.
We started by using continuous lighting in Dr Bannister's Handbasin.
Before moving on we decided to kill the main floodlight and put all the waterproof lights we had into the pool. The other lighting is a couple of small LED video lights out of shot on the right hand side, plus a small floodlight in the passage at the top of the waterfall.
It's a dramatically different image!
We spend quite a while shooting from the top of the waterfall, and it wasn't easy!
We'd ended up using Franks camera, Duncan's flash with Franks radio trigger in Chris' barrel strapped to the models back and a head torch lighting the foreground. We got a lot of cracking shots, way better than these, but hand holding 1/4s proved too challenging and most of them aren't acceptably sharp.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing; we should have either got a tripod or used Duncan's flash kit with multiple flashes or got one of the big floodlights. Hey Ho... It was a lot of fun and we all learned valuable lessons!
Back in the main passageway we set up a simple two flash arrangement which proved very effective.
We decided to try spicing up the image by splashing the water.
Once again, this was huge fun and we were pleased with the results!
While in the passage, we decided to have a go at some shots bridging the streamway.
These proved more difficult to set up than the water splashing shots as lighting is far more critical.
We concluded the day with another continuous lighting set-up in a different part of the streamway.
By this point we were all cold and had lost most of our enthusiasm - it shows.....
In summary...
A cracking day out, and well worth the drive up from Somerset!
I just wish we'd been more careful about noting who drove the camera as I like some of these images
