Deer, Snow, Trains and Beach Toys- Jan-Feb 2013

So, despite the best laid plans in the last post, of updating more regularly on here, things went awry.  Largely because the laptop decided to throw one of its semi-regular wobblers, and had to be restored to factory settings.  Not that this is a regular occurrence or anything, but the supplied System Restore Disc is starting to look rather worn from overuse...

So, now that we have rejoined the computer age, a catch-up of January's goings ons...

Art...

For a change, we managed some of the Art side of Ribbon Art and Photography, Amy having embraced doing animal illustrations, which started out as example pieces for the Day Job, but which has now expanded out into a full scale project, more on which in a future post.

...and Photography

This may have passed people in the UK by, but some may have noticed the snow we recently received.  Despite the collapse of transport infrastructure, the complete failure of the postal delivery service for several days, and the newsypaper headlines shrieking "SNOW APOCAGEDDON!" and so on, most people, ourselves included, just got on with life, and took the opportunity to snap a few pictures.

Being as every other person with a camera in West Yorkshire seemed to be out taking pretty landscape photos, I ended up doing some more abstract stuff, hence the duck footprints above, and the long exposure 'rush' shot, both in my perennial favourite photography location, Hirst Wood, Bingley.

It wouldn't be a photography outing without some train shots, largely because there is the outside chance of getting something in print.

Trains in the snow.  Grubby, running slightly late, perhaps a little boring, but still the sort of shot that would seem to be of interest to magazines on occasion. 

Rather nicer trains in the snow, a bit closer to home on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway.  A day marred somewhat by the police hunt for a murderer further down the valley, which did at least explain the suspicious looks we got from the van full of police whilst we were walking up the valley in the morning.  Anyway, the shot shows the visiting Lancashire and Yorkshire loco 1300 piloting the resident 957 out of Haworth.

Exhibitions.

Just a quick word on exhibitions- The above shot was in the "Dromology" exhibition at South Square, Bradford, which finished last week, and we both have work up at the lovely Cupola Contemporary Art Gallery in Sheffield, to whose group shows we have often contributed in the past.  Though both these shows will be over by the time this post goes up, its nice to recount the exhibitions we have been in.  Nothing on the immediate horizon at the moment, but this time of year is always like that whilst we wait for galleries to announce their open call programs.

Ongoing/Upcoming Work

In actual photography news, we're both working on various projects at the moment- Amy is starting to develop the fore-mentioned Animals project, I'm reshooting an old project from Uni days, "Inflate/Deflate" whilst I have time and opportunity to do a sprawling still life shoot.  Its practise for an upcoming project, and also partially to bring the images up to scratch now I have a better camera than the originals were shot on. 

Basically the shoot consists of abstract photos of inflatable toys, but there is a bit more to it than just that, so I'm going to assemble a separate post in a bit about the shoot.

In other shoots, the surviving figures from the Britannia Model Village project will be getting an airing, as part of an 'intervention' project for an open call, more on which after the shoot is, er, shot, as at the moment it consists entirely of ideas in my head.

And so that was January- Feb should bring some more projects and shoots, though my day job shifts up a gear as we head into the 2013 season so this may play merry hob with some planned photography, we shall have to see.

Ben

Sat in the cold in Keighley