GDSF 2008
I'm all geared up for the big event and will be trekking on over with a few new bits of equipment (see http://www.flickr.com/photos/27960849@N07/ for some recent stuff - and a pic of Brighton Beach Gallopers if you scroll thru!). Anyone with instrument or engine wanting to be captured in high-res - or even in the 3rd dimension - get in touch this week! regards Adam

im not being cheeky, but a few snaps of our ruth would be great

3d is fun, but boy it gives me a headache to try to get my eyes crossed just right! Roger

Do the Brighton beach gallopers have an organ?

I can't wait for the rally to begin. It was the Great Dorest Steam Fair that inspired the American Band Organ Rally. I hope Nick Williams get's to take out his Chippa Fairground organ or his Dutch street organ this year such an amazing organ. -Justin Senneff

I would love to be there but an economy run, prior to starting a new temp job next Monday prohibits this! Enjoy it if you're going, Robert :org:

pictures!!!!! http://www.flickr.com/photos/26470899@N02/sets/72157607041606278/show/ Enjoy! regards Adam

Wonderful pictures, thank you so much! The long night exposures that capture the motion of the rides are especially nice. Roger

Robert Washington: Well living in California(America) kinda prevents that, but thanks for the wish. Maybe 2012.

Great photos Adam, Ben :D

- Beautiful photos. Thanks to share the photos. Gr. R. Pannenborg (Racer)

many thanks! I also set up a photo pool on Flickr specifically for GDSF40. http://www.flickr.com/groups/gdsf40/ These are all submitted by random flickr.com members who attended none of whom are necessarily enthusiasts for any of the things on display. What's interesting is these 100s of photos are a useful barometer for showing what people stop and look at as it catches their eye. How far and few between are all the organs! Virtually nobody apart from die-hard enthisiasts seems to have bothered with the 40-yr recreation area! Anyway, misery aside, some useful lessons may be drawn and, of course, another 400+ pictures to see! Do feel free to contribute yourself as it is "a group photo pool for pictures from the Great Dorset Steam Fair's 40th anniversary year! Submit as many pictures as you like - make them a bit varied though i.e. not just 30 consective shots of steam engine - jumble them up a bit to make the pool more interersting!" So, please remember it's a photographic group primarily and not a repository for 300 bog-standard front-on snaps of organs looking a bit grey from smoke wafting about all of which look the same as last year. Be creative! Hack your pics about in Abode or something! Give a few positive comments to the contributors also if you have an account! You might earn a few yourself in the process!

I've put together another pics-by-me ramble through GDSF 40 here if you fancy a further look at more stuff: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26470899@N02/sets/72157607077793902/show/ The GDSF 40 photo pool (see post above) now has 600+ images in it also!

Wonderful pictures Adam !! What camera do you use to take these ? Stephen

Hi there Stephen, I was using a new Sony DSLR. I set off in the car with a determination not to take the usual "picture of organ in van with smoke wafting across" which all just look the same in successive years as it's the same instrument in the same van. A long shot of White's Gavioli at GDSF or Pickering or wherever is always the same and a lot of the stuff is so well photographed there's little interest in doing more of the same. As to the night shots I read up on how to best achieve these with the equipment, took the camera out in the dead of night here even getting a few hundred practice shots in the weeks before to master how it's done with the Sony. A little pre-planning seems to have paid off! The 3D images which I also did (not exhibited on the net) have just come back from the printers and I'm really thrilled with them, they're rather spectacular especially the night-lit ones of the organs etc. Again though, whilst I have had 3D equipment for several years I did run off a good few hundred practice shots pre-GDSF with the new equipment. It's all manual set f-stops and manual shutter speed calcs. Frankly a royal pain - but worth it in the end! I hope to make available a few limited edition mechanical music 3D sets to anyone who's interested in the near future. That all said, there were a lot of good photographers there on the day and the GDSF40 photo group I've put together now has 30+ members and nearly 800 photos so if you fancy delving into GDSF 40 a little more than is possible in real life ina single day then do click on the group below and see the collective combined efforts of a few dozen others. What's nice is the range of technical abilities and the level of equipment people used. In the photo pool are pics from Apple iphones right up to equipment costing £000s and more! You can view these pics many different ways. Try clicking on the "random" button at the top - it was quite fun I thought! http://www.flickriver.com/groups/893819@N22/pool/interesting/