Speaker Neil Cave on Time Line Events, Tuesday 19th February 2019

Hi Folks,

Last night Neil Cave came along to give us a talk on Time Line Events.

Time Line Events are organised trips to photograph  re-enacted scenes from the past using steam trains, aeroplanes and boats with the people dressed up in the era to be photographed.

I counted thirty three club members were there for the talk so a good club turn out.

Neil began his talk taking us back to when he was around 8 years old and having his first camera a Kodak 126. Neil enjoyed taking pictures and excitedly waiting for the prints to come back often to find his subjects heads had been disappointingly cut off.

By the age of eleven he had a Praktica NTL camera, then an Instamatic 110 which Kodak had tempted people into buying. Then moving on to an SLR which he used in his hobby of taking pictures of steam trains.

In 1995 he worked for a company in Andover producing materials in processing of printing, supplying companies like Bonus Print with the materials . In 2000 Neil along with some associates bought the company and sales went up. The company made 35mm sleeves for negatives and the numbering system used after the negatives had been processed.

Also they made stickers for Bonus print to tell you your picture was ‘over exposed’. Now I have a whole collection of those stickers in my loft are they worth anything lol.

Around 2001 digital cameras were beginning to be made, mainly for use of the press who could upload their pictures from a hard disk. Fuji in the latter part of year 2000 produced the SI Pro a camera with the digital workings inside and other makers soon followed. Neil could see the writing on the wall and then sold the business to Tudor Photo and from then on 35mm  processing was fading and profits soon dropped. However, Tudor asked Neil who was knowledgeable, to act as a consultant for a couple of days a week.

I understand Tudor sold on the business in 2009 to Swains International in Hunstanton and Neil made many trips up there and he remembers the journey of 186 miles  very well. Swains produced the materials for companies like Jessops, Snappy Snaps and Boots.

During some of Neil’s free time he did some weddings and would go on organised steam train events but he found that a lot of photographers only wanted to go on sunny days. On the poorer rainy days the trips were cancelled and those wanting to take photographs in the rain missed out. So in 1997 he organised a successful trip himself. However by 2010 more of these events were put on and a really successful one was to hire a pleasure craft to follow the Paddle Steam boat  Waverley going out from the Solent to the Isle of Wight. Unfortunately the Waverley could do 18 knots and the pleasure boat could only do 12 knots so a lot of manoeuvring had to be done to get the required shots.

Another Event organised involved a 1940’s recovery launch and Neil having RAF connections knew an air show was close by and managed to get a spitfire and a hurricane to fly past for them to take pictures.

 

There are now many of these Time Line sessions and they have expanded to lots of other heritage events and only 30% are now steam engine related. Fashion, buses and even pumping stations have been added to different trips.

Some camera club members use the shots in competitions. They have reported to him that some judges just say this is Time Line and it has been orchestrated but Neil said, get the judge to speak with him and he will tell them that the photographer has many places to shoot and different angles to use to be creative in producing a picture.

We were then treated to a  video of hundreds of images taken on events and played to music. I was able to sit back and let Des Fox take some of the pictures for me (with Neil’s permission)

Coffee time

Whilst coffee and tea was had, Neil put on a display of photos taken with his Iphone and said things have moved so fast in this world that the SLR cameras will soon become things of the past.

In the second half Neil showed us a series of pictures taken by another Time Line member who has a different way of taking photographs to Neil.

 

Finally Neil talked about storing images and said the only reliable way of archiving was to print the images. This can be done by using the new ART cotton rag paper and the new Epson ink which is guaranteed to last 100 years.

Also print in 360 dpi mode rather than 300 dpi.

Storing images on places like Cloud is not safe. He advised us to buy say 4 x 1 terabyte disks rather than one 4 terabyte disk. Also buy more as backups. CD disks are not reliable and lose data.

So the subject of Inspiration, capture and print had been covered this evening. Neil handed out leaflets with a discount to members for any Time Events and Chris has some available if you missed the evening.

Thank you to Neil for an interesting evening and love the music along with the pictures

Next week is

Informal Critique Session