Central Library

A few weeks ago me & a few flickr friends spent some time at Manchester's Central Library, photographing the building before it closes for major renovations. Due to obvious changes that will occur, the library have decided to relax the rules on photography, so as long as we didn't photography people's faces etc (well unless we asked first) we could go mad and also post them to the Get Wisdom flickr group.
I will confess, it was my first time back in the building since I was at university and it was actually a lot more impressive than I recall. Designed by architect E. Vincent Harris and built in 1934 the 'heart of the library' The Great Hall (previously known as a the Reading Room) is probably the most recognized architecturally for it's large glass dome in the roof.
Outside this room is an outer corridor of beautiful arches
and more stacks of books,along with seemingly endless rows of tiny drawers containing microfilm cards etc.. which seemed to hold the group attention for a quite while, yielding some varied results.

Most of the library is now closed, with the ground floor general readers library closing 18th June and the Theatre & Box office closing 4th July with the newly renovated library planned to reopen in 2013 for more info check the Manchester Libraries website

Photocamp Bradford

Now I know this is a bit of a late review, but hey I've been busy!
Photocamps are described as 'Open Photography Conferences' or 'Unconferences' with the simple aim of sharing knowledge.
Whilst quite a few of my friends have attended previous photocamps, this was my first.
Held at the National Media Museum in Bradford, 150 people attended this event which had something for everyone. Starting off with the welcomes and a keynote speech from Natalie Dybisz aka Miss Aniela apparently somewhat a flickr celeb, she gave a run down on how she got started in photography (as described in the link), she seemed to divide the crowd into those who love her and those who hate her given the comments I overheard as we left the theatre & throughout the day. I'm not sure if was arrogance or naivety on Natalie's part but she didn't seem to really understand why people who've put a lot of time & effort going to college/university to study photography, researching, applying for grants etc.. would be somehow aggrieved at someone getting exhibitions and making money from photography (I mean that's the dream right, making a living doing something you love) almost instantly - I suppose it's akin to the whole Pop Idol/X-Factor thing, no longer to you need to spend years struggling playing every dive in every town, instant celebrity is around the corner! But back on subject, I found Natalie's photos quite interesting, with an obvious nod to David Lachapelle's fashion stuff in terms of style.

There was a wide variety of sessions throughout the day, including practicals (making a pin hole camera, creating still life set ups, strobism to mention but a few), discussions and gallery tours it was very hard to choose what to see & do, but I ended up not attending any of the practical sessions which surprised myself.
The Museum had on a exhibition of Don McCullin's photographs In England, gritty black & white shots showing poverty & wealth and that in between - worth checking the above link as (my)words cannot do it justice.

Without waffling on too much, the sessions I attended included how to promote yourself on-line with loads of useful tips to do with building a website etc..
Desmond Wee did a fantastic talk on his project "How to Wear A Camera like a Tourist", which reminded me a lot of of the sort of stuff I did & researched on my MA course many moons ago!
Also the king of the pano's ASBO Allstar aka Neil did a really cool talk on how (allegedly) easy it is to create stunning panoramas and stitch them together


There was also a street session on the Sunday, but I didn't make it to this event but saw some excellent shots from the day. A varied selection from both days taken by organisers & participants alike can be seen here
All in all a fantastic event and I'm looking forward to the next one!

Well I got the name sorted for now, blogbeat inspired by Cressboy, a witty take on my flickr sn of breakbeat. Clever huh?
Well I've spent the evening processing, editing and uploading more holiday photos to my flickr page including this wee fella

Taken at the Bardo Museum in Tunisia.
If naked statues with body parts missing are your thing then check out the rest of the set here