On Tuesday I will have my biggest shoot ever. Tuesday is Liverpool’s 800th birthday. It is going to be one hugely hectic day for many reasons. The main shoot of the day will be to take 100 portraits around the city. Some, hopefully, will be of friends. Most will be of random people on the street. We are working from 8am to 8pm. 8 photographers. 800 portraits. Liverpool’s 800th birthday. Now here’s were it gets hectic. By the next morning they should hopefully all be online. By the day after, Thursday, they will all be exhibited at the Albert Dock. 800 portraits taken, processed, printed, exhibited in 2 days. Everyone who I shoot gets an invite to the launch night. It is going to be insane! Now to add to the chaos it’s Liverpool’s 800th birthday so I will also want a piece of that action. Street parties, parades, and the biggest baddest fireworks display ever. The Pier Head and both cathedrals will be exploding with fireworks. That will be a shot to get. I’m even thinking of using 2 bodies, one strictly for the Pier Head and one wide angle for the landscape. Tuesday will be some day. We’ve got the Popcultured website online now where the galleries will be displayed. Go check it out and pray for us.
This photo was a test really. DRZ, Benneh and I went out to Bold Street in an attempt to build our confidence before Tuesday. I was fairly surprised at how easy I found it. I was able to direct people, chat to them, and hopefully make them feel at ease. Obviously it will be harder on the day. We can’t take 100 photos of attractive girls. It needs to be a large scale high octane documentary of Liverpool’s people. So it gets harder when you try to take photos of people who may not want it. Its easy on Bold Street because its like a magnet for the cool trendy people in the city. Funnily enough I always run into people I know there too.
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Sorry, again, for no photo yesterday. I was out with friends on Monday and decided to crash at theirs for the night. No net access and I didn’t take my laptop so I couldn’t post. I had a great time though and I wish I was still there. In other news, my “At the lights” photo was 1 of 20 chosen by the BBC in their Britain in Pictures online photo gallery in association with Flickr. They had to chose 20 shots from over 20,000. Its quite something to be in the top 100 let alone the top 20 and I’m over the moon. They will be exhibited in the National Media Museum in Bradford from November 20th to March 2nd 2008. I’m going to have to find my way to Bradford now.
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The sunset on Thursday night was stunning. It went on for about an hour. I’m glad I was in the area with my camera. On Friday I was out at the Bold Street Project’s Flickr group meetup. It was a great night out, chatting and touring some of the spots in Liverpool. Its the first time I’d seen the exhibition at FACT by Michelle Wren and it was fantastic. Very impressive. We moved on to the Open Eye gallery for the medical photos exhibition, which I’ve seen before and still creeps me out. Afterwards we visited 59 Rodney Street where a Liverpool photographer called Chambre Hardman worked. I’d never heard of him till that day. It was a really impressive tour. What I found most interesting was that back in the 40’s he used “Photoshop”. He used the clone tool to fix spots and stray hairs on portraits. He would spend hours in the darkroom perfecting his work. His house was supposedly a mess because he put everything into photography. Portraits and landscapes were the two subjects he covered most. There was a great selection of Liverpool photos in the house too. What I found most interesting was just how like me he was. Portraits, landscapes, perfectionist, used photoshop, photographed Liverpool a lot and he used to live in Barnston which is right next to where I live. Oh he also wore a hat. Take a look at some photos of his.
Another of my nephew. Not really much else to say about it. Just a photo I like. I do feel that shooting a family member is tricky. If someone says they think its a bad photo I have to try and seperate the “aw its my baby nephew” from my photographer side and accept their criticism.
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This is my nephew Jack. He’s got to the point where he knows the sound of the shutter on my 30D, looks into the lens and smiles. He’s a natural.
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Thinking about what to shoot before I sleep.
My Mum and Jack (grandson) on her birthday
Happy Birthday Mum
Birthday Cake
Jack’s feet
I went to play Crackdown
After I went to Liverpool to Size? up the place.
Ranelegh Street
Bombed out church
Graffiti
Someones face
Someone elses face
Went for a drink in Fact
Paradise street development
I love this view
One of the new apartment buildings
Construction of the canal
Heading home
On Saturday it was 24 Hours of Flickr. “On May 5 2007, grab your camera and whatever else you need, and chronicle your day in pictures.” It was my Mum’s birthday, a sunny day, my sister visited and I played some games. Pretty much a great day for photography. I’ve never really taken photos of my family. I’ve got a couple but they’re kind of posed. I’ve got plenty of my nephew, thats easy as he’s so photogenic. I came to the conclusion that if I can’t take a good photo of my parents then I can’t call myself a photographer. Of all the people in the world I should be able to take candid photos of them easily enough. So the 24 hours of Flickr challenge combined with my Mum’s birthday gave me that chance. I put the 50mm on and went to work. I was very pleased with the results, as was my Mum. After that I played some Crackdown on the 360. I couldn’t really think where to go and shoot so I killed some time waiting for sunset. I played for about an hour and decided to attempt street photography again. Well I failed that, as you can see. I saw some chances but I just couldn’t bring myself to stand next to a stranger and take their photo. So I wandered around Liverpool a bit, got some snaps and went for a drink in Fact Cafe. After that I went to find I had no more change so I was going to park in the Q Park but it was closed, on a Saturday?! I drove down to the Pier Head and waited to see if the sun came out behind the clouds and it didn’t. I drove past my new favourite view and got a shot I liked, and a shot of the new apartments being built. With the light fading I headed home. I had many more hours where I could have taken more shots but I figured I had enough and I wanted to chill out with the TV. I didn’t take that photo as it would have been dull. So that was my Saturday.
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