The Caravan Gallery

The Caravan Gallery is a mobile exhibition featuring photographs taken around Sandwell and around the country. It is visiting Sandwell towns this week as part of The Sandwell Pride of Place project. Yesterday, they were at Princes End in Tipton where they joined the Fun Day at Laybourne Park. I was there to record the visit in pictures. Today, the Caravan Gallery is at Oldbury Market and will return to Tipton tomorrow, setting up at Tipton Library.

The midday sun

The midday sun was very harsh and very hot. I was mostly concerned with the angles of my shots. Shooting with the sun to your left or right usually works the best. Obviously, you will have problems shooting towards the sun. You tend to get a harsh look to your images when you shoot with the sun behind you. Shadows can be very dark on a day when there is no cloud too.

The Caravan Gallery

I thought I would need to use the flash to photograph the exhibition inside the caravan but there was lots of light. I wasn’t just interested in the subjects of the prints displayed but how they were mounted and the sizes of prints used. The exhibition had an impact and the people who dropped in to see it seemed genuinely interested.

Aperture priority

I was shooting on aperture priority and most of these shots were with the 18 -105 lens. The narrow aperture shots were quite fast because I had more than enough light and when I went for wide aperture shots the shutter speeds were really fast freezing the movement and giving me sharp images.

Dark Shadows

The main problem with this event was dark shadows and I tried to choose my shots to avoid them. I noticed when I was editing the shots that the ones that I took later zooming in with a 55 – 300mm lens were too dark. I also noticed that most shots had a lot of contrast. I usually have to add some contrast but these shots needed very little editing. I made them a little lighter and then resized them as a batch for the internet and that process also adds my copyright notice.

The Caravan Gallery with be at Tipton Library on Wednesday, West Bromwich Market on Thursday and here in Wednesbury Market on Friday. You can get more info about the Sandwell Pride of Place Project and the Caravan Gallery on Facebook. The Caravan Gallery and Sandwell pride of Place were commissioned by Multistory as part of the Blast photography Festival.

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