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Rolling with the BIG Dog Whitby's Goth Weekend - part 1 of 1 2 3 4

by Damian McGillicuddy Published 01/06/2013

Time flies as they say and it only seems like yesterday that our lovely editor was hassling for last issue's copy! My life is a little like that old Chinese proverb at the moment, you know, 'Be careful what you wish for as you might just get it'!!! Since taking over as principal photographer and educator at Olympus my feet have hardly touched the ground - I may moan but I'm really loving every minute. Hopefully my story is testimony to the fact hard work, education, qualification and competition wins pays off in the long run ;0)

So I thought I'd use my column inches to share with you the events of my first Olympus 'Experience' day. Subsidised training courtesy of the big 'O' can't be bad - and you don't even have to be an Olympus user to benefit...we are all about sharing the photographic love, and knowledge, to all whom wish to listen and, most importantly, learn.

It was a real privilege for me to 'kick off' the new experience days for Olympus and the Olympus User magazine. The first one found me in Yorkshire at the Whitby Goth weekend!


Whitby is a beautiful seaside village but twice a year it sheds its pleasant seaside image and becomes a mecca, for goths, steam punks and allsorts of assorted fantasy-wardrobe adventures! In truth though I didn't know just how popular the event would be and Whitby's beautiful, cobbled, narrow streets seemed, at times, to be very near bursting at the seams.

One of the big advantages of my OM-D kit is its compact and logistically friendly form-factor, this meant that two small Clik Elite backpacks carried everything that Steve (my assistant) and I needed to have a SIX light studio with us.

As is often the case in my world, once we'd got to our location and saw the 'intel' on the ground, so to speak, our plans had to change. The challenge with the Goth Weekend was simply the crowds and lack of space!

So as not to infringe on the other visitors to wonderful Whitby we had to abandon our usual approach and par down our kit even further. There was no way we would get my 36" multi-modifier through the crowds and I was conscious that I didn't want to accidentally knock off one of the steam punk's top hats, my day would have been cut short quickly if that had happened, and I may have even faced the scary thought of looking down the multi barrels of Professor Joshua Caruthers coal powered Gatling cannon!!!

Contact Damian McGillicuddy

1st Published 01/06/2013
last update 20/07/2022 13:53:44



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