Did you know that I went to Belgium for a weekend break with my family in December last year?
Probably not, as I’ve only just got round to sharing my photographs from the trip. If you’re a regular reader of my blog you may recall that I went on holiday to Marrakech in December 2010 for my Mum’s fiftieth birthday.
Well for my Mum’s fifty-first birthday we went to Ghent in Belgium to see where my Mum had lived during her younger days.
Three years ago I was commissioned as the Photographer in Residence for the NALGAO (National Association of Local Government Arts Officers) annual conference which was held at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool.
The underpinning theme of the conference was the contribution that the arts and creative industries make in building sustainable communities and supporting regeneration.
The conference was a huge success and I had a fantastic time photographing keynote speakers, workshops and cultural study tours. Earlier this year, NALGAO rebranded itself as Arts Development UK and decided to come back to Blackpool for the first time since 2008. I’m pleased to say that I was asked back once again to undertake the role of Photographer in Residence.
The last time I went to Wales I was much younger and somewhat shorter than I am now. At a guess, I’d say it’s nearly fifteen years since my last visit. Back then, when I was a mere boy, my parents used to take me to the Sun Centre in Rhyl to go swimming and enjoy the Welsh seaside.
I have fond, yet faded, memories of this time and now, as an adult with his own automotive transport I thought I’d go back with my camera to take a few photographs.
Truth be told, the main place of interest during this road trip was the seaside resort of Llandudno. I spent most of the day there, lapping up the sunshine, occasionally moaning about the ridiculously high humidity and shooting plenty of photographs. Llandudno is a truly beautiful seaside town and photographing it’s stunning landscape inspired a much needed revival in my personal photographic work. However, you’ll have to wait a little longer to see some of the shots I took as (for now at least) I’d like to share this photograph I took later in the day while in the seaside town of Rhyl.
Since my introduction into associate lecturing at UCLAN in November 2009 I have found that my desire and determination to learn as much as I can about the medium of photography has played an crucial role in how effectively I write assignments, plan critiques and deliver lectures.
In order to teach others about contemporary photography in a fresh and imaginative way one should not only be a creative practitioner of the medium, but also have an innate interest and understanding of culture, history, social issues and technology (to name but only a few).
In an attempt to form some kind of narrative structure to this photography blog, I thought I’d share a short video of Taryn Simon speaking at Ted Talks that I showed students of the BA (Hons) International Journalism course earlier today. We were discussing how we can develop our ideas from concept into practice when I remembered watching this fantastic talk by Taryn Simon.
