2013

So my normal yearly pledge to blog more often is yet again broken. However you still get the trusty yearly update.

So 2013… It went fast, It was fun and much has changed.

Lets Get Started ….

In early January I was commissioned to make some new images for The Monster Ceilidh Band for there up and coming album and for general publicity.

My love of a mono silhouette is once again put to use on the band.

In mid-January I started getting ready for a trip to the arctic along with a bunch of nutter togs! This trip would be slightly more epic than others with thousands of snow-covered miles driven over 14 days. We travelled though Sweden, Finland, Norway and back again. Temperatures ranged from + 3 degrees  to -38.5  c !

 It was hard at times but the sheer beauty of snow covered Scandinavia and getting to briefly witness the Northern lights made the trip worth the expense and effort.

On my return it took me many months to even look at the images. I remember when on location, being very disappointed in not being able to convey the beauty of the surroundings into the camera. This is often the case, sometimes the buffer of time is needed to know if you have succeeded.

I used a GPS tracker on my iPhone to capture the silly route.

A beautiful near-frozen river runs though the snow covered trees near Kiruna | Sweden

Vittangi Aurora Trees | Sweden

Ersfjordbotn | Kvaløya Norway

Hamnøy Coast | Sunrise | Noway

Hamnøy Harbor | Nordland County | Norway

Lofoten Bridge Reflections | Norway

Frozen Iso Syöte communication tower  Finland

Sommarøy Arctic Dawn | Norway

Iso Syöte Sledges | Finland

Sommarøy Aurora | Norway

Moving on, literally lots of moving!  In 2013 I thought it would be a great idea to move business premises and home over the space of 7 days. It all worked out ok in the end, maybe next time I will not choose to do both at the same time.

We moved out of Newcastle city centre to the small and beautiful village of Hedley On The Hill in Northumberland.

The new improved drive to work

We have probably one of the best local pubs / restaurants called The Feathers Inn and we are surrounded by beautiful countryside.

And it only takes 20 mins to get to my new Office on Team Valley Trading Estate, Gateshead. It was almost a no brainer. Saying that we still haven’t had any heavy snow fall this year so I might have a different opinion when we do.

Jennifer looking beautiful during a walk in the local woods

The 2013 BBQ season was excellent!

Getting used to cooking on the AGA has been one of 2013 highlights.

For Jennifer’s birthday there was a request for a Kitten but not your normal Tom cat it had to be a Birman. We went to meet the new member of the family around 1 month before we would get to take him home.

Young Teddy Ingram

Teenaged Teddy Ingram

One wasn’t enough, Teddy need some bromance so we decided to get his brother Indigo Tiger too.

Indigo Tiger and Teddy Ingram

Check out my Instagram feed for almost daily kitten updates!

The bulk of my year hasn’t really been photography. It takes a back seat as my Audio Visual rental / Production company Ingramsounds continues to grow.

I have also continued to tour with Karine Polwart Trio & The Unthanks  

New Ingramsounds logo / rebrand by Hey Myshko

The new improved Ingramsounds working environment

Ingramsounds continues to be the preferred supplier of Audio system for Durham Cathedral. Fantastic lighting by Vortex Lighting.

Mexican Wrestling
It was a pleasure to work with the team at Vamos! festival in 2013 and looking forward to the 2014 program of events.

This years Durham Book Festival Production was one of the best yet with the addition of the Book Case set designed by the team at Ingramsounds and built by Mike Brown at Durham Scenic Workshops.

Since moving to the Northeast 7 years ago I heard a rumour about the Victoria Tunnels underneath the streets of Newcastle Upon Tyne. In 2013 Ingramsounds supplied lighting for Unit 44’s first, “Into The Dark”  art exhibition inside the Victoria Tunnels. It was a fantastic day and a great experience.  After running hundreds of meters of power cable and installing the lights for the exhibition there was still time to make some images.

Victoria Tunnels #1

Victoria Tunnels #2

In 2013 Ingramsounds started suppling retro style festoon lighting systems to be used for events, weddings and installations. We now stock a wide range of incandescent filament lamps and festoon harness, in the age of LED everything these lamps offer a vintage looking alternative.

We now hire & resell incandescent filament lamps. globe, squirrel cage, EDISON, & oval types

Have you ever needed an app that can create tones from 20Hz to 20KHz ? Well now you can with the Ingramsounds Oscillator available from the apps store. Simon Athey and myself set out to create a easy to use app for testing speakers, it also has a fun side too. Download it and let us know what you think?

 

Myself & Jennifer had a wonderful night away in the Lake District visiting friends. I only took a handful of images but this one from Coniston was a 2013 favourite.

Coniston Path

At least once a year I travel to the west of Scotland to photograph many aspects of Barr LTD business. Below are a selection of images taken from the renewable, environmental and quarry aspects.

Onsite with the surfacing team

Harestanes wind farm near completion.

barr quarries

barr environmental

Landfill

 

Dan Bye asked me to photograph his new show “How to Occupy an Oil Rig” days before it was heading up to the Edinburgh festival. The set was made out of large Lego bricks so I was very excited! Below is one of the promo images I made.

Dan Bye | How to Occupy an Oil Rig | Northern Stage

One big highlight of the summer was being offered the chance to go flying with my friend Sam, I instantly replied yes and jumped in the car with my camera gear and headed to Teesside airport for this mini adventure.

Piper Warrior PA-28-161

Somewhere above County Durham

Durham Cathedral from above

The trusty Pilot Sam Smith

Lone Cloud

I was so happy to have 2 of my North East Aurora images nominated for APOTY (Astronomy Photographer of the Year)

My 2 shortlisted images both can be purchased from my web site. They also appear in the 2012 APOTY book.

In late October Jennifer and myself took a short break to Sorrento, Italy. It was such a wonderful trip, we got very lucky with such amazing weather especially since it was the last week of the season. We explored  Pompeii, Herculaneum, Capri and we did the stunning Amalfi drive and stopped off at Positano for an ice-cream.

Italian Jennifer

walking around Sorrento

Old Church Doorway | Positano

Blue Lagoon | Capri

Jennifer | Positano

Villa

The Old Mill | Sorrento

Sorrento Pussy

Back Streets | Sorrento

Sorrento was beautiful, I would fully recommend to anyone who wants an interesting break. Especially to any coffee lover!

So thats nearly everything for 2013, Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. I will leave you with an image of one of my Granddad’s old cameras. I was given his whole collection and one day I intend to run some film though them. Maybe in 2014 eh…

Granddads Zeiss Ikon

Remember you can follow me on the following,

 Twitter  | Instagram  | Facebook

Happy new year to you all!

Reed

 

Chasing Aurora in the Convertible Aurora Ship

After the long bright summer skies, we finally have darkness again and with the increased solar activity, it was only a matter of time before the Northern Lights would return to Northumberland.

This wasn’t the first time I’d seen the Northern Lights from Northumberland. I photographed the Aurora back on the 10th March 2011 at Lindisfarne, not long after my amazing Irish Aurora experience.

Lindisfarne causeway Aurora featuring yours truly 10-03-11

This time things were just slightly more fun with the addition of the Aurora-chasing convertible warp ship. It can transport two persons and camera equipment at high warp.

The Aurora Ship docked at Lindisfarne Causeway 26-09-11

I was aware there might be a possiblity of a severe geomagnetic storm following three CME eruptions from the Sun. But it wasn’t until around 17:00 that evening I really fully believed that there would be a chance of viewing the Northern Lights from the Northeast.

I checked all my available data and everything added up so I called my co-pilot, friend and colleague Patrick Hussey, and we launched the Aurora Ship up the A1 at high speed (within the legal limit, of course).

I decided to head for a place called Howick to do the first check and see if we had any Aurora in the sky. As soon as we pulled up, the sky to the North was bright with a tint of green but we had heavy cloud obstructing the view.

I set the camera up on a tripod and took an exposure of around 8 seconds. This confirmed the Northern Lights were out to play. We got straight back in the Aurora Ship and headed further north. We pulled up at Bamburgh  despite the large amount of light pollution from the village and castle, the Aurora was building in strength and structure, so it was well worth a few photographs before setting off to the next location.

Northern Lights Bamburgh Beach 26-09-11

Northern Lights with the Aurora Ship Bamburgh 26-09-11

The next stop was just slightly further North at Budle Bay. The light pollution was much more under control, we could even see the Milky Way!

The Milky Way with some added lens flare supplied by the Aurora Ship's particle sensors.

After viewing the Aurora here for around 20 minutes, I decided we needed a clear view North and the best and closest place for that is Lindisfarne Causeway.

After a cracking little flight in the Aurora Ship, we arrived not knowing where the tide would be. Amazingly, the tide was out so we had a safe crossing to Holy Island. We parked up about halfway across the Causeway and set up the camera.

By now the Aurora was very bright and clearly visible with structure and an array of colours. I took some comedy photographs of the Aurora Ship but while doing this, the sky ignited.

What was already bright visible Aurora became insane with large curtains of light falling from the sky! It was quite a sight to see such a display from Northumberland and I was so happy I had followed my heart and belief that we would see the lights that night. The insane display didn’t last long, probably only 5 minutes, before it settled and faded away to just a slight green hum in the sky.

Northern Lights building in strength at Budle Bay 26-09-11

The Climax of the evening with a large array of colours and curtains of light 26-09-11

After the epic display 26-09-11

Now for the science bit. | © Tromsø Geophysical Observatory

As it’s quite rare to have such powerful displays of the Northern Lights in England, my images were published by major UK papers including The Sun, The Mirror, The Daily Mail, The Telegraph, and online publications including Spaceweather &  National Geographic.

I will be taking my images to Jack Lowe Studio were he will be making a series of fine prints that will be available to purchase on my new website. It should be live over the next few months.

In the meantime, should you want to order a print or talk about licensing, please contact me direct.

If you live in the North East and want the chance to see the Aurora, feel free to follow me on twitter and check now and again. If it’s happening I will be talking / tweeting about it.

Irish Aurora

Over the last couple of months I have been chasing the Northern Lights around the Arctic circle with minimal success but on the 1st of Mach 2011 when I stopped looking they decided to come to visit me!

On the day in question I had flown to Northern Ireland to visit my Aunty and we had a great day driving out to the coast looking at the huge waves break at Portballintrae we even had an ice cream, you’re probably thinking how could you possibly improve on that day? Well I often look at various websites showing geomagnetic levels and predicted Aurora levels and after a quick check on my phone at around 4pm It looked like something strong was brewing.

Tromsø Graph above and NOAA Aurora Doughnut below.

A large fast solar wind had hit earth’s magnetic field causing a geomagnetic storm that shifted the normal position of the Northern lights south. After looking over the available data I was convinced if I drove to the North coast of Ireland I would be sure to see the Northern Lights weather permitting. I asked my Aunty if I could borrow the car and she agreed reluctantly as I think she thought I was a crazy person suggesting that I was going to photograph the Northern Lights in Ireland.

I decided to head for my birthplace Ballycastle as it is nearly the most northern point of Northern Ireland. Even on the drive there I could see a large band of light in the night sky and I was sure it was the Aurora borealis,

When I reached Ballycastle I decided there was way too much light pollution from the Harbour so drove west along the Causeway Coastal road until I reached Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge car park. I parked up and jumped out of the car with excitement and there it was glowing bright about 35° above the horizon. When my eyes adjusted from the complete darkness I spotted Sheep Island and included this in most of the photographs from this location. Exposure was a complete nightmare all my photographs are totally under exposed due to the 8% moon that wasn’t even in the sky and zero light pollution, the only real light source was the light house on Rathlin Island. another problem I had was the fastest lens I had with me was a Ziess 50mm f/1.4 so in any exposures over 10 seconds the stars would move very noticeably. Even with a 30second exposure @ f/1.4 at ISO 1600 the images were still coming out dark. so I just had to balance the settings as best I could. I knew I wasn’t going to make a masterpiece but I was committed to recording this moment in time to the best of my ability.

I stayed at Carrick-a-Rede for about an hour before driving down to Ballintoy and having ago there but it was hard going with the horrible yellow lights so I decided to call it a night still feeling amazed I had even seen them at all!

Below are a selection of images from 1st March 2011

Balintoy Harbor, Ziess 35mm f/2 ISO 1600 3o seconds

Sheep Island 1,  Ziess 50mm f/1.4 ISO 1600 10 seconds

Sheep Island 2, Ziess 50mm f/1.4 ISO 1600 6 seconds

For me this was a very special experience and will not be forgotten and maybe in the coming years I wont even need to drive north as they will be flying over my head as we approach Solar Maximum in 2013 /14

If your interested in chasing the Northern Lights I have listed some useful websites below,

http://spaceweather.com/

http://kho.unis.no/forecast.htm

http://tiny.cc/mwq78

or you could always follow me on Twitter @reedingram as if the Aurora is out in strength I will probably be talking about it!

Thanks for looking please feel free to leave a comment or message,

Reed

Update

First of all sorry for the lack of posts on here , I have had a fair bit going on and couldn’t decide on the subject. So I will give a quick run down of what has been done and what is coming up in the near future.

I have been doing quite a fair  bit of wedding photography recently I covered Julia + James Wedding party in Whitley bay I also covered Robin + Emma’s Wedding at Crook hall in Durham, I was also assisting the very talented Katy Melling with some weddings back in July it was a really great experience for me. I recently also did a pre wedding shoot for my friends Gavin + Jane who will be getting married at the start of September.

I have also been doing some promo portraiture work for some fantastic musicians that include Kathryn Tickell , Brian Finnegan , The Monster Ceilidh Band , and my beautiful and very talented girlfriend Katie Doherty,

In other news I am very excited to be heading out to Tromsø in Norway with some other great photographers that include Antony Spencer for 4 days in September in search of the Northern lights I am very excited about this trip and hope to bring back some stunning images. I will be running a Twitter update during the trip (Phone Signal depending) I am also hoping to do a video diary to document my experience.

I am am going to strive to be a more active blogger so watch this space…….

Below is an image taken at Sandsend North Yorkshire.