Another Year, Another Batch of Resolutions

I guess it's that time of year again, to make a list of things I'd like to achieve, doable things though... not ridiculous things like shrinking down to a size 6.

1. Visit Hot Bed Press at least 3 times a month - I've been a member of the print studios for almost 6 months, and really haven't spent enough time getting back into it.
2. Read a new book every month - I must have at least 30 books sat on various shelves waiting to be read, it's time I really started ploughing through them
3. travel to at least 2 new countries - hoping to do either a couple of city breaks this year, or go for a bit longer and travel through a couple of countries, Northern Europe is high on the list.
4. Get fit and run a race - I've put back on 10lbs in the last 5 months, since I stopped exercising regularly - mainly due to the weather being awful and running being my exercise of choice, so I've bought a wii and intend to use it, aiming to lose around 20lbs by easter time.
5. learn how to use illustrator - I'm terrible for not sticking at things I find difficult, so I need some recommendations on good tutorials and to get stuck in really.
6. Get the bottle to try out colour film processing at home - apparently the only real difference is that colour film is more sensitive when it comes to the temperature, I just need to get out there and buy the chemicals.
7. Complete my NVQ level 3 before Easter and swiftly start on level 4 - this is a qualification I'm doing through work, and need to complete if I'm going to achieve my goal of getting a new job
8. Update my blog regularly (ie more than once a month) - I have a list of stuff I keep meaning to blog about, but never seem to find the time/inclination

I'm sure I'll come back and amend this, as I'm sure there's more things I will think of over the next few days

A permanent (aka year round) list of my goals can be found over at 43 Things

Happy New Year, lets hope 2010 is a damn sight better than 2009!


I'll finish 2009 with this photo, that was short listed for the Salford Photographic Prize 2009.

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!

U-turn for Much Needed Manchester Transport Updates

In 2008 over 800,000 people in Greater Manchester voted against the Proposed Congestion Charge. I can recall endless online debates that at times got quite aggressive, over whether the congestion charge was a good or a bad thing. The only consistency from both sides of the argument was that transport across Greater Manchester needed a massive overhaul. Over crowded, over priced and at times not very convenient meant that driving into Manchester for many is an obvious and easy choice over the alternative of trains, trams & buses.
One of the 'promises' from the For Campaign was that the Congestion Charge would allow a massive fund to improve transport, however, we (Greater Manchester residents & voters) were firmly warned that if the charge did not go ahead, there would be absolutely no funding to pay for transport upgrades!


Very interesting then, that this week a leaflet dropped through the doors of many a resident, stating that (despite no congestion charge) that GMPTE are planning to (finally!) introduce bus services across the City Centre, as part of a larger programme to deliver £1.5 billion of transport improvements over the coming years. Currently people living in the of North of the city have to swap not only buses, but bus companies to travel south of Piccadilly Gardens resulting in having to buy multiple travel tickets, from what I have read in the distributed leaflets, this will be a thing of the past. I'm sure it's too much to expect a similar system to London, where everyone pays a flat fee per journey/time period.

Warehouse Project 2009

Last night we went to the Warehouse Project underneath Piccadilly train station. After spending almost 50 minutes trying to find the venue (GPS locator sending us in the wrong direction, ending up behind piccadilly, unable to cut through!), we eventually arrived a little after half 10. After seeing promotional pictures and the "strictly no entry after 11.30pm" message on tickets, we expected to be queuing for a quite a while, so it was a nice surprise to find on a handful of people waiting to be searched before entry. We went straight in to find the venue (a car park during the week) fairly empty, which gave us plenty of time to have a wander around and explore. Very cleverly laid out underneath the arches, there is a foyer with merchandise for sale & cloakroom, the main room, with a bar off that area, around the corner there is the second room, and a chill out lounge with cinema!


The cinema was showing Beetlejuice & The Bourne Identity along with another film I can't remember, there was no sound but that didn't seem to bother anyone as you wouldn't have been able to hear it over the sounds from the rest of the club, there was a popcorn seller, and you could get your photo taken in the Smirnoff Cinema Seats - for this you are rewarded with 3D glasses and a visor! Along with having your photo uploaded to Facebook

The drink prices were pretty reasonable for a club, £3 to £3.50 for a can of beer (tiger, kronenbourg, red stripe etc), to £3.30 for a spirit & mixer, the bars were never too busy, we managed to get served within a couple of minutes each time we went to any of the various bars. The toilets (portaloos) were plentiful and the queues were not too bad, although they ran out of loo roll before midnight, which isn't great when you consider the club is open until 5am.

On to the music - Rich Reason was the warm up dj for the main room, he was ok, nothing particularly stood out, but it wasn't offensive to the ears either, by the time BeardyMan came on at 11pm, the previously empty room was packed out, he started with Shimmy Shimmy Ya and the crowd went crazy, it was a real party atmosphere! If you haven't seen beardyman before it's worth checking him out on Youtube.
After that we chilled out in the cinema room for a while, waiting for DJ Krush to come on at 1am. We ended up queuing to get into the relatively small second room to see DJ Krush, because he's that popular - luckily the room emptied out as most people apparently wanted to go see the radio 1 dj who's name escapes me. We didn't see all of Krush's set, but it was very Shadow-eque, it was a shame that the accompanying visuals displayed on the wall behind the decks weren't very bright, but over all a good night.
We didn't manage to see Friction or Roni Size as these were on way after out bedtime!
We headed out into the night around 1.30am, being old & tired having had a really good night out, will definitely be looking forward to more similar events.

6 Reasons why the Paris Metro is better than the Tube

1. Zones - basically if you're a tourist, once 'in' Paris, everything is zone 1, apart from Euro Disney or the airports. So no need to worry about being taken to some French jail for not having the right ticket (the threat of which made me and my college friends spend a week doing Paris on foot, compliments of the course tutor). If you're only there a few days, the best thing to do is to buy a carnet (book - ooh get me showing off my GCSE French) of ten tickets - each one valid per journey or you can actually buy a few or many as you need - there is no saving for bulk buying.
2. Rush Hour - we travelled several times in what would be considered "Rush Hour" in most cities (ie between 5-6.30pm), and not once were we crammed sardine like into a carriage with our faces smooshed against the glass, which is a common occurrence in London, neither were we subjected to a smelly armpit in our face.. in fact the rush hour period was barely distinguishable from the rest of the day. My only conclusion can be that A. Parisians don't finish work the same time as the every other major city in the world, or B. because they keep the trains running regular the entire day - thus keeping everyone moving at all times, rather than trying to put on a few extra trains at peak times.. I swear we never waited more than 6 minutes for a train.

3. Air Con - now I don't know for sure if the Metro has air con, but despite it being 30c outside, the stations and trains themselves were fine, not humid or sweaty, maybe it's just that their tunnels are bigger? Either way, being able to travel by underground train in august at a temperature that do not exceed the legal level for transporting livestock is a plus point.
4. Vending Machines - Unless there has been some radical changes in the 6 months since I last stayed in London, the majority of platform vending machines were full of chocolate bars. Not very useful say when you're about to faint through dehydration (see No.3). Needless to say every platform we used on the Metro (and there were plenty) had vending machines that stocked most importantly - Water, and lots of it. Along side various sodas, crisps, and haribo - Bonus!
5. Buskers - I have to say I have no qualms with people busking, on the underground or anywhere else, but in Paris we saw a puppet show (although I have to admit, we were subjected to some pretty awful dancing and karaoke).
6. Doors - the doors on a lot of Paris Metro trains are not controlled by the driver! which means (as we often saw) that you can open the doors a second or two before the train fully stops to jump out! It also means the doors only open if people are entering/leaving the train.

Summertime Catch Up

My blog posts over the summer have been very sporadic at best. I just feel like the past 2 months have passed in a blur!
I spent almost 3 weeks of July volunteering for Manchester International Festival along side my day job. I worked mostly as front of house for the Bach/Hadid Salon at Manchester City Art Gallery

I was very lucky in that I managed to catch at least one half of each performance for the three different concert solos (piano, cello and violin). I also worked at It Felt Like A Kiss although that was mainly waiting at designated 'escape routes' in case people left because the experience got too scary/intense, on my last shift the assistant director gave us a whistle stop tour of the space/show explaining the story including a lot of the more subtle clues through out which was the highlight of my time volunteering. The film by Adam Curtis which is a part of the installation can be viewed online at the BBC. I have to say, if I'd known a bit more about it, I would definitely have bought a ticket to go see, although I thought that about quite a few of the MiF events.

Along side that during August I joined Hot Bed Press, a print studio in Salford. I thought it was time I got back into it and put my MA to good use! I have successfully exposed a zinc plate with photec, hoping to go back next week to dip it into the acid so I can produce my first print in about 5 years!

Mid August also saw me & Ant heading to Paris for a 4 day city break - I'm still processing the photos, so a full blog post on that at a later date, but here's one of my fav shots so far taken on the Metro

Prima Donna at the Palace Theatre

One of the perks of volunteering for Manchester International festival is that hopefully you get to see parts of the shows/events you work on, but a totally unexpected bonus was that we got to choose a free ticket to a dress rehearsal of some of the events, I chose to go to Rufus Wainwright's Opera, Prima Donna at the Palace Theatre.


The story is about a day in the life of an opera singer, and without wanting to ruin it for anyone, the storyline has some amusing and ironic elements to the plot. The singing was truly amazing, as was the music.. I was so blown away by the scale of it all... the sets were the best I've seen in any stage show before and along with the costumes, felt very contemporary whilst being set in 1970. The subtitles were large enough to easily read, whilst not interfering with watching the performance, although I'd forgotten how cramped the chairs are at the Palace, even with me at 5'4" and my friend at 5'2" our legs were seriously cramped.
It is definitely worth a visit to see this, although I suspect it's close to selling out/sold out - Prima Donna is on at the Palace Theatre Manchester on the 10th, 12th, 14th, 17th & 19th July 2009, check here for ticket details.