Sheffield Cooling towers - 24th august

On a raised acr park, you will get vibration through the ground. Whichever lens you go for, you are going to be down to 1/2 sec or possibly more. ANY vibration, or wind, will ruin your shot.

I would go for the hills, get there on Saturday, spend a couple of hours doing a recce around the hlls overlooking from the same side of the Mway. Then go and look from M&S car park and have a coffee and doughnut. See which of the options is better. Take the two lenses you are humming and harring between....and set the shot up. Then you will know.

Unfortunately my brief for the shoot includes demonstrating the effect that this demolition will have on the motorway network so i'm going to have to take the shots from Meadow Hall. However, i have now roped in a companion for the shoot who has shot 28 out of the 32 power stations in the country at night time so hopefully he'll be able to point out any mistakes i may make and we're going to get there at about 1:30 to get some test shots in.

I think the idea of the raquet balls sounds interesting, it has also been suggested to me that if i am doing a very long exposure it would be worth throwing a black cloth over the lens when the shock wave hits and removing once the vibrations subside.

I may "fake" my own shockwave before the event to see which method gives the best results. ;)
 
can anyone give me a lift my mate that said was gonig is not going anymore. I dont have a car. and taxis are near impossible at that time in the morining.
Live near the wednesday gorunds if it helps.
 
Drove back from Leeds shoot yesterday. The Mway is right across the towers if you shoot from Meadowhall. You can't get round that one.

There are a few fields to the NE of the site where you can get both towers in and look beyond down the valley over part of Sheffield. I have no idea what it is called, I just went exploring.

If you want to get the towers on the crumble you will have to be somewhere on the towers side of the Mway....and the hill is the only vantage point you will get anywhere near. I suggest you go and see the farmer before the event and give him a bottle of whisky to use his vantage point. A peace offering like this is worth its weighyt in gold - you can get a bottle fromLidl for £7 - I keep a few in the car for giving to people who help out, like the tractor driver who was recovering the boats at the Pageant of Power the other weekend.

I am sure if you go and see him early, with a peace offering, you will have the best seat in the house. papers do this kind of thing all the time. It works.
 
-snip- I have also heard that that demolition is staged for midnight - and are telling people different times as they are trying not to get big crowds.

If that is the case, does anyone live nearby (or know anyone that lives nearby) as they will more than likely have had something through the post letting them know when the demolition is going to take place. I know there are a few houses nearby and I would presume that they wouldn't take too kindly to them dropping them at any old time :)
 
On the Rotherham Council web site above, it mentions that the traffic lights will be all set to red just before 3am then returning to normal at 3.10am (in the immediate area) so I would guess it is a 3am 'show'.
 
I know this may sound a bit daft, but how many of you have got those big 50,000,000 (I may have over done that slightly :LOL:) candle watt torches? surely a few of those on the subject might give you a bit of extra light? :shrug: Might enable some light painting or what ever it's called... I'm so technical :LOL:
 
I remember when some of the towers at one of the steel works here in Scunthorpe were 'blown up' back in 1982 - 83. It was at the height of the CB craze and people nearby were warned not to go onto the CB as this may cause the explosion to go off 'accidentally'. I missed the best part of the demolition as I was talking to someone next to me and we were about a mile away in our backyard watching.

Of course by the time the sound of the explosion hit us, I turned and had just enough time to see the cloud of dust fly up - having missed the main part as the sound took time to travel to us.
 
Well I waved goodbye to them yesterday, the preparation for the explosive bit is well below the level of the motorway so it looks as if you need to be north of the M1 on Meadow Bak road or in the fields/trees just off it to get pics of the actual explosive having an effect.

Shame they are going though they are a real landmark, in a way I'm suprised they did not have a preservation order on them. Will be interesting to see what people manage to get of them though.
 
maybe you could ask them to do one tower at a time and slowly so you get chance to try different settings :exit:
 
I am not bothering anymore- if the weather continues it will be nice and clear (no rain). Logistics wise means i cant make it. Its probably going to be way to dark for any decent shots so i will see it on the news!
 
Don't think I am going to make this anymore :( Only just got back from Edinburgh and am uber knackered! no way I am going to be awake at 3am :(
 
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