Cardboard Kid is a little character that popped into my life back in 2007 and has been with me ever since. The Kid enjoys his travels, having visited a number of countries around the world and he also likes a bit of cultural tourism, visiting all manner of exhibitions, musuem and galleries. There's also a Cardboard Kid Online Store, where t-shirts and other items are available.365 days of Cardboard Kid took place during 2010 and upcoming in 2012 is Cardboard Covers, a weekly Tumblr depicting the Kid's adventures in album covers.
I've covered a variety of events over the years, from club nights through to multi-week festivals. I'm always looking for interesting imagery, always aiming to to capture the general atmosphere of the event.
I documented the 2011 Chinese New Year celebrations in Manchester Chinatown for the Manchester Chinese Archive Centre, photographing VIP's attending the event along with capturing the sights and atmosphere, in particular the dragon dance.
Chorlton's Big Green Festival is an annual celebration of environmental issues and sustainable living taking place at St Clements Church, Chorlton with the day filled with bicycle parades, fashion shows and live music. I've photographed the festival every year since its beginning in 2009.
The Family Friendly Film Festival is an annual festival of film, normally taking place towards end of August. I worked closely with the Family Friendly team to photograph the children and families taking part in the many workshops and screenings that form the festival, documenting events in venues across Greater Manchester. More of my photographs from the last three festivals can be found on their flickr site here.
A Manchester based clubbing collective, I worked as part of a team of photographers to document their club nights, from the patrons to the on and off stage performers.
Part of the Manchester International Festival 2010, several of my photographs of the event were included the book Procession by Jeremy Deller, published by Cornerhouse.
I am a regular attend arts and exhibition events around the Manchester area and always aim to have my camera with me.
Over a three year period I was official photographer for the collective, responsible for documenting exhibitions openings, artist Q and A’s, music gigs, workshops and performance pieces. I also maintained and edited the official Flickr site.
An annual October fixture for the last three years, I've photographed a number of their launches, art auctions and events, with a number of my photographs being featured in their 2009 and 2010 exhibition catalogues.
I worked closely with fashion designer Valpuri Vihriala to photograph her 2011 Summer Collection, using the garden area of Nexus Arts Cafe as a backdrop to her wonderful knitted creations.
I started taking photographs at gigs many years ago and, in the intervening years, have photographed bands at pretty much every venue in Manchester by now. Recently, one of my Wy Lyf photographs was selected as part of the I Love Manchester photography competition to be showcased backstage at the M.E.N. Arena.
Advances In Mathematics are a Manchester based post-rock band, signed to PYT records. I've had the pleasure to photograph them play on a number of occasions and have a number of my photographs featured on their website.
Between 2008 and 2010 I contributed a number of photographs to Guestlist - a blog site focussed on the Manchester music scene. The original website is now defunct, but a lot of my photographs of those gigs can be found here.
I was offical photographer for the 2011 festival, tasked with capturing the performances of the bands and poets taking part along with the general atmosphere of the event.
- KEMS
King Edwards Musical Society (KEMS) is a Macclesfield based musical society officially started in September 1957 and currently comprising of three sections: a large mixed-voice Choir, an Orchestra and a Concert Band. I regularly photographed the Orchestra during their 2010/11 season and will be doing so again during the 2011/12 season.
Toronto's little brother of the more well-known SXSW, I was lucky enough to be visiting the city during the 2010 festival.
As can be seen from my Colour of Light work, I’m absolutely fascinated by lights, the effects they can create and how they can define our world. Night photography lends itself particularly well to this interest, especially when photographing cityscapes.
A project started for the now-defunct Hive Magazine, Manchester by Night was a collection of photographs taken over a series of evenings, each part focussing on a different part of the city centre. I plan on coming back to this work in the near future.
I’ve undertaken a small number of photoshoots while working as a photographer. It’s something I'm looking to do a great deal more of during 2012.
I've undertaken a great deal of travelling over past few years, visiting countries on three continents and always with my camera in tow.
Visited in May 2011, I stopped at locations across the country capturing all manner of sights, from the Crystal Caves of Yanchep National Park to the collections of the South Australian Museum.
- Canada
I've visited Canada a number of times in recent years in both the depths of winter and the warmth of the summer, photographing everything from the raccoons of Mont Royal to dog sledding.
I've photographed the making of a number of locally-made films and you can find all my credits list on IMDB. Not yet featured here as yet are my set photographs from Will Power, due for release in 2012.
"There are many tales from the Heights; a drug fuelled Kingdom where brutality reigns... a place where the right post code sells you a wrap or the wrong one buys you a bullet...every street has a story, every person has a tale..."
"Clint Eastwood wannabe Jimmy finds escape in his shoot 'em-up video games - which leads to a caffeine-induced flight of fancy including Mexican stand-offs, mischievous gnomes, and invisible bullets."
Street Photography
When walking around with a camera in any city, there’s always going to be something that’ll catch your eye.
When walking around with a camera in any city, there’s always going to be something that’ll catch your eye.
I have a particular interest in documenting street art and have started a number of small projects recently to capture the ever-changing face of the Manchester (and further afield) streets.
OxfordRdStreetArt is a ongoing Tumblr project dedicated to documenting the sticker art, stencil graffiti and poster work on display along Oxford Road, Manchester. Updated on a twice-weekly basis, all photographs are taken on a Sony Ericsson k800i. Spinning off from this are NQStreetArt (updated thrice-weekly) and QuebecStreetArt (updated weekly).
Over the years I've ended up visiting a number of underground attractions, visitor centres and caves in various countries around the world, writing and photographing their many and varied sights and content.
There are a selection of underground tours of Manchester and I hope to provide information on each and every one of them over time.
The Williamson Tunnels are Liverpool's hidden treasure, a vast network of tunnels that run under the city's streets. I'm planning on going back for another visit sometime soon.
Wildlife photography is an occasional hobby of mine, with one of my Gauntlet Birds of Prey photographs shortlisted in Digital Photographer of the Year Awards 2011 - Wildlife Category.
I've written various bits and bobs over the years, ranging from detailed blog entries on here, through to numerous reviews covering films, exhibitions and music gigs.
- Articles
Completed while undertaking a volunteer journalism course, these are the most interesting pieces to emerge from the classes.
These reviews are mostly focussed on Manchester galleries such as the Art Gallery and the Whitworth, though there are several from further afield.
Some very brief snippets of ideas. Whether anything will happen with them, I do not know.
- Music Reviews
- Music Reviews
Between 2008 and 2010 I contributed a number of reviews and photographs to Guestlist - a blog site focussed on the Manchester music scene. The original website is now defunct, so I'll uploading my past reviews here in due course.
