Photography - 16th February - Museum of Cannock Chase, Staffordshire

Yesterday my Dad and I went to the Museum of Cannock Chase in Hednesford for the second of our weekly photography course.  The Museum of Cannock Chase is another place I haven't been to before but is only a few miles from where I live.

The museum is an old colliery which closed in the mid 1980's and it describes the rich heritage in the area.  Cannock was a mining town and the landscape is due to mining in the area.  Even the hospital where I go for my treatment boasts ward names of some of the old collieries, such as Hilton Main, Hollybank, Fairoak and Littleton.  Many of the minors donated some of their pay to fund the building of the hospital and the names are a tribute to that.  I still remember Littleton when it was a working mine, I remember driving past it on the way home from the hospital and seeing all the minors coming up after their shift had finished. Now, unfortunetly, it's a housing estate.

When we arrived at the museum the lecturer Steve came over to tell me that my picture of the Blackpool skyline (if you can call it that!) was fantastic BUT and it's a big BUT, I caught a girls head in the picture.  I knew I'd done this but I wanted to ask him if the basic composition of the picture was correct and he said that it was.  He then asked me if he could show the rest of the class my pictures and discuss how he would have taken the picture or if I could have done anything differently, he also wanted to show me how to crop extra bits out of the picture.

Here are some of the pictures he changed:

My photo of Blackpool with this girls head became.....

The idilic landscape of the Maldieves became...

My pool pic became...

and the reason, because I chopped the tow of the flip flop off!

And the picture we all want to walk in and take a seat became...

After this we went for a look round but unfortunately we lost the group because we decided we would stay in the warm and have a cuppa before we went.  My Dad and I ventured out on our own merry way which, to be honest, was better because I can’t walk as far as the others.  This was the first time in about 20 years that I had set foot on Cannock Chase and it felt amazing.  I drive through it all the time but I hadn’t actually be able to walk on it and although I only took a few steps it felt good.

Here are some of the photos my Dad and I took.

Here is my Dad walking through the chase.

Everything is so gloomy this time of year.

I wonder how long this has been there.