Trip to Alton Towers

During the early weeks of the summer holidays, after my trip to Tenerife. Me and three friends visited the theme park, Alton Towers, which all in all was stressful but amazing!

We began with queuing for our first ride which was called Nemesis. As you can see I was photographing the ride whilst we were waiting to get on it and trying as best I could to create shots from several different angles in order to capture every movement possible. Whilst doing this I realised just how satisfying the flowing shapes of the rollercoaster was, especially with it being so curvaceous which means it relates massively to one of artists I am currently studying called named Maggi Hambling who focuses on crashing and rolling wave movements.

 This ride didn't just provide amazing loops and deathly highs but also an unbelievable animation side. Large alien inspired arty decorations were moulded to the exterior of the rollercoaster. I found the textures, colours and techniques of this creation so intriguing, I wanted to photograph it in much more detail but the line was moving fast. Although this doesn't relate to many of my artists really, I though it was so interesting and I now want to look into alien forms because with inspiration from these photographs I think I could create some really eye catching compositions.

The experience of this ride its self was absolutely amazing! After this we wanted to visit the other side of the park and to do that you could take a ride on the cable carts but the queue was ridiculously big, therefore we took a little detour...

 

There was an optional route where we were able to follow the red signs in order to get to the other side of the park which I really enjoyed as it provided me with oppositional perception of the park and showed me what else it had to offer as well as proving that it had the ability to be suitable for people of all ages, and interests.

One of my favourite things about these pictures is that most of the surrounding areas haven't been messed or tampered with and it shows a more rural environment even within the most man made of sites. The first photograph I have provided shows a large white structure, this build was currently in the process of being improved and converted but we weren't informed as to what the final outcome is going to be. Despite this, I thought that it had quite a spooky abandoned circus type of vibe which lead on from the scary alien abduction from the previous ride, giving an overall Halloween aura which really intrigues me.

Reaching the end of this exploration, we arrived back in the main section of the park, and whilst we were searching for our next ride I couldn't help but notice the beautiful lakes and the wildlife that it held inside.

 There was a gorgeous family of ducks, as well as a few floating around independently. Although I wasn't able to get up very close for a picture, I really love the photograph on the right here with the duck alone because the contrast is so perfect and balanced also the surrounds and slight ripples of the water creates so much elegance for the duck. Despite these pictures having a different theme to the rest, they haver still really inspired me, and I could also think about combining the two.

 Once we had admired the outstanding nature, we carried on around to see what the rest of the park had to offer;

 

One of the things that stood out to me the most must have been the exquisite buildings, although they were freshly painted in bright colours, they have an authentic feel about them which adds to the feel of an alternative fairy fantasy world. The also provided a sea life centre area as well as smaller game stalls rather than just large rides which made the park more appealing to children.

Also on our travels we came across something which definitely makes me want to revisit this theme park next summer. This reason is one I didn't expect to spot.

It was a brand new build occurring! We had no idea what was being constructed here but as you can see from this picture, what is already built looks similar to the structure of a roller coaster. Through research I have found that the last new roller coaster released was in April 2016 called Galactia and the theme park have not yet broadcasted a new ride.

Finally on our way back to the car park when all the fun was over, we took the sky high train to the area where our vehicle was parked. This wasn't just an ordinary train, it was completely covered in a jelly bean pattern;

The reason that this pattern is so significant is because it relates back to something I have mentioned in a previous blog post...

Before, I made this similarity between the photograph and the experiment I had created, we had a class discussion about each of our photographs and during this, one of my peers suggested that the pebbles could also look similar to a collection of multi-coloured sweets such as skittles or jelly beans.

The photo of the train is now an eye opener because I was able to see in real life what a collection of sweets would look like, now I could move on to photographing the sweets myself in real life.

The day was over but by far my favourite thing to photograph throughout were the things that people don't really tend to pay much attention too;

I think these pictures are the best and by far the most interesting, especially with the rust and cob wedded areas.