The Heavy Cavalry and Cambrai band are based in Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire. With all band members trained as musicians by the military their role is to provide music at official parades, visits or other special occasions. To reach such a high level of musical skill they practice and practice. The following multimedia piece is from one of their recent rehearsals....
Thursday 18 December 2008
After the Silence - Harry
Former soldier Harry is a veteran of Burma and India at the end of the second World War, after being called up for service in February 1944 when he was 17 he set sail from Scotland and sailed to India on the SS Orion, arriving in Bombay over a month later. "It took us ages to get there, because of the threat from U-boats we had to zig-zag all the way there" said Harry.
The following photographs are from a shoot I did today with Harry...
As one of the first former servicemen to take part in my 'After the Silence' project, Harry kindly agreed to meet up with me and let me take some pictures and share some stories about his time in India, a keen photographer, then and now, he still keeps many of his old negatives in his home and in the picture above he proudly showed me his favourite photograph from that time of an Indian beggar whose picture he took on a street in India.
More of Harry's adventures will appear later as the project grows in size, and the hope is to also produce a multimedia piece featuring many of the ex-servicemen.
This project is still ongoing so if you are an ex-serviceman or woman from any conflict from any time and want to get involved in this project then get in touch and we can discuss the details.. 
My contact details if you want to get involved with this project or if you know somebody who might like to you can email me at..... ianforsyth2003@yahoo.co.uk
The following photographs are from a shoot I did today with Harry...
As one of the first former servicemen to take part in my 'After the Silence' project, Harry kindly agreed to meet up with me and let me take some pictures and share some stories about his time in India, a keen photographer, then and now, he still keeps many of his old negatives in his home and in the picture above he proudly showed me his favourite photograph from that time of an Indian beggar whose picture he took on a street in India.
More of Harry's adventures will appear later as the project grows in size, and the hope is to also produce a multimedia piece featuring many of the ex-servicemen.
This project is still ongoing so if you are an ex-serviceman or woman from any conflict from any time and want to get involved in this project then get in touch and we can discuss the details..
My contact details if you want to get involved with this project or if you know somebody who might like to you can email me at..... ianforsyth2003@yahoo.co.ukGo the extra mile!
Once again it always pays to have your camera with you, or at least, to be prepared to drop everything and head out to try and catch a story as it unfolds and before the best shots have gone.
Sometimes though you have to go a little further, in this case over a mile and a half across the beach at Skinningrove on the East Cleveland coast. In this incident, some poor sod had gone over the edge of the cliff and fallen some 70 foot, breaking his leg in the process.
An RAF Seaking helicopter was already there as were the police, ambulance, fire brigade and the coastguard, unsure as to whether I would be able to reach the scene before the casualty was airlifted I tried to get some shots as I accompanied the emergency services along the beach to try and show the distance they had to travel to get to the scene. Some pictures would be better than nothing if indeed the helicopter had rescued the casualty before I was able to get there.
As we closed in on the area where the casualty was lying, the Seaking was dropping a crew member off to allow him to get to work with the medics already at the scene to make sure the injured man was initially treated and secured to the stretcher prior to the lift taking place.
As the Seaking landed on the reef to wait for the word to go back and winch the casualty aboard, firefighters at the base of the cliff liaised with other emergency services as to the condition of the casualty.
As the word came that the casualty was ready to be hoisted aboard, the Seaking took off and moved slowly into position, obviously taking extreme care with the high cliffs nearby until it hovered above the place where the injured man lay.
With the winch-man hooked up and with the stretcher secured the injured man was slowly winched aboard the helicopter before being taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. All in all not a bad job, a couple of newspapers picked the story up after I wired the pictures in, but that wasn't until I had walked the mile and a half back to where my car was parked!
Sometimes though you have to go a little further, in this case over a mile and a half across the beach at Skinningrove on the East Cleveland coast. In this incident, some poor sod had gone over the edge of the cliff and fallen some 70 foot, breaking his leg in the process.
An RAF Seaking helicopter was already there as were the police, ambulance, fire brigade and the coastguard, unsure as to whether I would be able to reach the scene before the casualty was airlifted I tried to get some shots as I accompanied the emergency services along the beach to try and show the distance they had to travel to get to the scene. Some pictures would be better than nothing if indeed the helicopter had rescued the casualty before I was able to get there.
As we closed in on the area where the casualty was lying, the Seaking was dropping a crew member off to allow him to get to work with the medics already at the scene to make sure the injured man was initially treated and secured to the stretcher prior to the lift taking place.
As the Seaking landed on the reef to wait for the word to go back and winch the casualty aboard, firefighters at the base of the cliff liaised with other emergency services as to the condition of the casualty.
As the word came that the casualty was ready to be hoisted aboard, the Seaking took off and moved slowly into position, obviously taking extreme care with the high cliffs nearby until it hovered above the place where the injured man lay.
With the winch-man hooked up and with the stretcher secured the injured man was slowly winched aboard the helicopter before being taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. All in all not a bad job, a couple of newspapers picked the story up after I wired the pictures in, but that wasn't until I had walked the mile and a half back to where my car was parked! Monday 8 December 2008
Keep your eyes open..
When I'm out on a job, either my normal work as a photographer for the Army or when I'm doing shifts for a local paper (...in my own time in case my boss reads this!!) I try and keep my eyes open for other picture opportunities that I might come across when out on other jobs.
You never know, it might lead to another story, or something more interesting or simply allows you to 'keep your photographic eye in'.
In this case I was in Newcastle the other week doing a shift for a local newspaper. While out getting pictures for one of their regular pieces in the paper there were a couple of events taking place in the Grey's monument area of the town that I stopped and photographed..
This is a guy trying to promote the 'Fight Against Global Capitalism' by highlighting the plight of Cuban socialists by urging people to fight against the US blockade in Cuba...
...in the same area, about 20 metres away, there was a bungee trampoline contraption set up which allowed members of the public to get harnessed in and have a go on the trampoline.
I thought it a bit of a surreal mix - Fighting global capitalism on the one side and bouncing on a trampoline next to it.
Worth photographing though.
Keep your eyes open - there's always something to photograph.
You never know, it might lead to another story, or something more interesting or simply allows you to 'keep your photographic eye in'.
In this case I was in Newcastle the other week doing a shift for a local newspaper. While out getting pictures for one of their regular pieces in the paper there were a couple of events taking place in the Grey's monument area of the town that I stopped and photographed..
This is a guy trying to promote the 'Fight Against Global Capitalism' by highlighting the plight of Cuban socialists by urging people to fight against the US blockade in Cuba...
...in the same area, about 20 metres away, there was a bungee trampoline contraption set up which allowed members of the public to get harnessed in and have a go on the trampoline.I thought it a bit of a surreal mix - Fighting global capitalism on the one side and bouncing on a trampoline next to it.
Worth photographing though.
Keep your eyes open - there's always something to photograph.
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