Archive for July, 2006
Himself and I spent the weekend in Leeds City Centre with my father. Now my father spent many years pounding the streets of Leeds when he worked for Remington’s forty years ago, so he was quite keen to see what had changed.
Quite a lot it seems. We walked miles whilst he reminisced about the old shops, theatres and businesses that used to be there, and have now been ‘developed’ or do I mean regenerated?
Well whichever it is, we ended up in a very modern bar – mostly because it was raining, but it also turned out to be the only bar in the City which only served bottled beer. The Yorkshire man that is my father was less than amused to be served a bottle of Italian beer when he was sat within view of the old Tetley Brewery.
Apparently the swanky bar is close to the old slum areas of Leeds. Certainly if we had stayed for more than one drink in that bar we’d have been very much poorer! Thankfully the rain moved on, and so did we.
July 31st, 2006
Yesterday I headed to Holt oblivious to the problems on the A14, which delayed me by some 2 hours. Once I knew I was stuck I called ahead, and fortunately the gallery owner arranged for his father to meet me so that I could leave my work.
In fact all week I’ve been feeling – well that there are a lot of obstacles in my way. It started last Saturday – I left the house to go to an appointment, and my drive shaft broke. This is two weeks after it had been repaired when the car, himself & I had to be recovered from just outside Nottingham. I was going nowhere fast this time either, but at least I was walking distance of the house.
Yesterday I was sat in traffic as we struggled to make progress along the diversion routes, and then to top it all off my window dropped into the door.
All of which has me eyeing up new cars!
Good job it was so warm, and driving through Thetford Forest after the rain was very refreshing. And actually the light was quite lovely as the sky turned an orangey red – the sort of colour that if I’d stopped to take a photograph everyone viewing the print would be utterly convinced I’d photoshop’d it.
Having arrived at the studio this morning nice and early I wasn’t able to open the door to the building – turned out the latch had dropped & locked the other side ….
July 27th, 2006
Wow this heat is intense. At Parndon Mill where I have an artist’s studio, a lot of people have taken to swimming in the lock once it’s full with water. Apparently the Mill Pond was also a handy swimming pool in days gone by, before the plants claimed it and made it a tad too dangerous. I just wish I could capture this heat and save it for the winter months when the studio is bitterly cold.
Had a creative evening last night – it’s my therapy! The last few days I’ve been busy on the kid’s photography front, and although I try to be creative it’s a different type of creative. It’s great when the kids do something funny and you capture it, or they pull a pose that is just so them when the parents see the results.
The theme for tonight’s creative session was movement and abstract – not together. And not my theme either – I was out with friends and their Camera Club has set those two concepts for a competition. Anyway we ended up in an abandoned graveyard, as the sun was setting & throwing us some gorgeous light. So lots of photographs of ivy covered headstones and details shots of lichen. I’ll submit them to my picture library and see how they do.
Once the sunset we went to a bridge over a motorway to photograph the light trails caused by a long exposure and moving traffic. In theory it should be simple to do, but there is a short window when the light is right and the traffic flow is right. It’s not good (for the final photograph) when cars change lanes, or big lorries slow down. Managed to take one photograph that I’m happy to share with the picture library.
Now I’d never have planned to go photograph these subjects, but it’s good to do something different and just see what happens.
July 21st, 2006
Oops! I seem to have neglected my blog for a while. Juggling too much, and something had to give and I guess it was this and my garden. The weeds are starting to strangle all my plants ….
So what have I been up to?
A lot has been happening. For the kids photography I have been delivering flyers – great excuse to walk up and down every street in my local area in the fresh air, but deadly boring. So far I’ve delivered about 1,800 leaflets and have now spoken to two distribution companies that specialise in doing exactly this.
In fact the whole issue of how best to market the kid’s photography business has me in deep thought. Lots of options, but which is the most effective?
And actually I’d rather concentrate on the photography not the marketing. Classic catch 22 this!
On the landscape photography front, I’ve just completed an exhibition in the City of London with Untitled Gallery. Not a roaring success for me, but sometimes people need to see your work more than once in a venue before they buy.
July’s newsletter is out now, and can be found in the newsletter archive.
July 16th, 2006
