Jousting
Date: June 22nd 2024.
This was a Medieval Jousting day held at the Chilton Open Air Museum near Chalfont St Giles. The event was presented by a group of travelling medieval jousting re-enactors consisting of four Knights who fought on foot and and on horse and performed a number of Knightly skills. Supporting cast was Henry VIII, (Master of ceremonies), a Jester and a number of grooms.
This was Midsummer so it was raining when I arrived and overcast, it got slightly brighter and warmer as the afternoon went on. I was looking for photo opportunities that were different to what I already have. The idea of colourful Knights in armour Justing and fighting seemed an attractive proposition.
Before arriving, I couldn’t be sure of the set up and the orientation of the Jousting arena and where I would be able to stand to take photographs. I assumed it would not be too close due to health and safety. I took the Fujifilm XH2 and the 50-140 mm zoom lens. I shot this wide open at 1/2000 of a second throughout the day. It turned out the arena was surrounded by the public so there was very little opportunity to get a shot without people in the background. I may edit one or two photographs to remove members of the public if I were to use them for competition purposes.
I arrived around midday, and the jousting session was due to start at 12:30. This gave me time to get a cup of coffee and a sausage roll and find an appropriate spot on the crowd line.
It was a 45 minute session consisting of a number of traditional Jousts with lances, and practicing a number of skills, collecting hoops by placing the Lance through them at full Gallup or spearing a fake skull on the ground. This was complimented by some hand to hand combat and the theme was it was the two red team versus the two blue team, and we were encouraged to cheer for our teams. My team were the Blue team, and they came second.
All of the combatants were excellent riders and the performance was excellent/
In hindsight, the only changes I would’ve made would have been perhaps to bring one of the longer faster lenses, the 200 mm F2 to try and get a shallow depth of Field and lose the public into the background blur. However, I was pleased with the shots, the vast majority are in focus, the ones that were not in focus was down to user error.
