"Home is..." Yorkshire, and back in Wales briefly

So a little update on the "Home is..." project.  Its sort of on a little break at the moment, mainly because of the weather, and also work commitments.  Before the weather became too rough, we did a location recce on a spot back here in Yorkshire, and an abandoned railway viaduct which now carries a cycle path near Cullingworth.  Looking at Google earth (and driving past it most mornings) it seemed to have potential...

However, it was a bit uninspiring actually on the viaduct (the one we wanted to do, in Wales, has rather more dramatic scenery, low railings instead of walls, and also annoyingly a lot of anti-tresspass notices and CCTV cameras monitoring it).  We've decided not to bother with the viaduct here then.

Early October saw us back, briefly, in Wales, where we returned to a location we'd tried twice before in the summer.  Once scrubbed due to bad weather, and once due to a camper van full of people sleeping in the parking bit next to the lake.  Out of season though, and no such distractions, so we set up and shot the pictures.

Just as we were packing up we met a group of people who'd been camping up on the hills, and were a tad curious about what we'd been doing.  Being as they were about to go wild swimming in the lake, with the temperature pretty cold by all accounts, we reckoned they were the ones acting strangely, but hey-ho.

That shoot has marked the end of the "Home is..." shots for the time being, mainly because the rather full-on nature of the shoot over the summer has damaged the chair, which needs mending.  In fairness it is quite old, and its manufacturer probably didnt anticipate it being carried around the landscape quite so much.

Updates on some other shoots coming soon...

October Update

Bit of a general update on our recent happenings…

First off, we were once again involved with doing the official photography for the Bradford (South) Scout Assoc. Bronze and Silver Award Ceremony.  As with last year this was done in the main chamber at the City Hall in Bradford (a rather marvellous building) and involved Amy being right down the front photographing all the youngsters getting their certificates presented by the Mayor.  Now for the mass of editing, printing, and mounting of images associated with this kind of shoot…

I also got in some quick shoots at work on behalf of the shop- another opportunity to combine the day job with the photography job.

This was followed by an arty visit to Liverpool for Amy with the Day Job, and a visit to the always-entertaining Tate Liverpool at the Albert Dock.  The usual mix of weird sculpture and art work, but whenever we’ve been there’s always something to look at.

The big news this month is that we’re exhibiting work at Cartwright Hall Gallery in Bradford.  The Bradford Open is a massive open-call exhibition which runs every two years, and is open to all artists in the area (assuming your work gets passed the judging panel).  Amy got two out of three pics entered into it (one each from her “Light Trails” and “Cumbrian Coast” projects) and I got one of the “Century Survey” (Saltaire Steampunk) pics in. 

Overall though the show was rather heavy on printmaking this year, not a lot of photography or sculpture, and it seemed to have less work on display too compared to last time.  Not a bad thing as such, but perhaps reflects the tastes of the judging panel.

(Incidentally we have another exhibition in the pipeline, at Cottingley Cornerstone, more on which next month).

Below is our work, nicely grouped together- again, all older projects, but ones which have been well received in the past.

So what else?  The “Home is…” project is, after a brief hiatus, about to kick off again; we’re in Wales, where we intend to pick up a couple of locations we missed whilst doing the shoots earlier this year (weather dependant).  Of course we have the mixed blessing of it getting light later in the day now, which means more people about to worry about getting in the shots, but less getting up at 5am too which is pleasant.  We’re also at the stage of contacting a few potential locations to see if we can shoot pics on their sites whilst they’re closed for winter.

There’s been plenty of opportunity for some transport photography as well recently; both the Keighley and Worth Valley and the Ffestiniog Railway have held gala weekends, so we've been able to get some pics in whilst we’re nearby each area.

I’ve been experimenting with some concept shoots for some long-exposure projects using miniatures; there’ll be more on these projects in a future post when the main block of concept shots are done.

Right, that’s about it for the time being, hopefully some more posts coming up soon relating to some of the above planned shoots, should all go to plan.