Phil Hickes. Usborne. (224p) ISBN 9781474972147 Talk about a gripping read, picked it up at noon, finished it by 4:30pm, just couldn’t tear myself away! We follow the adventures of Aveline Jones (great name by the way) after she is left with her Aunt in Malmouth, a sea town on the south coast. Aveline loves …
The Photography Ideas Book*
Lorna Yabsley. Octopus Publishing. (176p) ISBN 9781781576663 I picked this book up at The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead along with several others of the same series on a recent trip. I’ve been feeling very stale about my photography recently and was looking for books to help stimulate and inspire. This is an …
Deep Wheel Orcadia*
Harry Josephine Giles. Picador Poetry. (164p) ISBN 9781529066609 This has been one of my most anticipated releases of the year ever since I saw it mentioned in The Bookseller. A space odyssey science fiction novel written in the Orcadian dialect in the form of an epic poem, if this isn’t enough to sell it to …
October 2021 Photo of the Month*
A fresh uncurling Hosta leaf. Taken at Thorpe Perrow when on one of our various expeditions in North Yorkshire, the curl and sunshine in this just attracted me immediately.
Prayers of Steel*
Angel of the North (1998), Antony Gormley. Built at Hartlepool Steel Fabrications Ltd, the use of steel reminds us of the North’s industrial heritage, especially now when steel work is disappearing from the area once more. A distinctive and well-loved landmark, this is a collection of images (collected from social media) taken from vehicles as …
Edgelands*
“First coined by Marion Shoard, the term edgelands refers to those in-between spaces created by urbanisation where space for nature still persists alongside cities, towns, shopping centres, motorways, canals, and so on. These zones sit between urban and rural areas, and they also sit uneasily between the two categories of urban and rural, often defying …
untitled (barriers)*
Went for a walk around Edinburgh Botanical Gardens a few winters back and was caught by how many plants were trying to press through the glass of the hothouses, I don’t think I’ve really noticed that before. It was cold and wet out, yet these hothouse plants didn’t want to be confined and wanted to …
Cyanotype*
I’ve been thinking about this process for a while as it seemed more straightforward than silver-based development at home and possibly I would be able to use the loft as an area to process the chemicals and the paper as it doesn’t need the absolutes of darkness that silver-based photography requires. The other factor is …