As with previous years, Brodsworth Hall in South Yorkshire is running its Enchanted Garden event. After the sun sets the house and restored Victorian gardens are expertly illuminated to become a place of wonder and enchantment.

This year they changed the route around the gardens which I personally thought was good. The route seemed a little longer and in places where you are travelling in the opposite direction to other years you got to see something new.

If you want to go, the event runs until Sunday 1st November, but be warned – its far busier than previous years. Get there early!

Follow the link below for more info on Enchanted Garden or click the image above to view more of my photos from this year’s event.

Brodsworth Hall – Enchanted Garden

Personally I once again got loads out of the sessions I attended which were excellent. Subjects covered everything from personal experiences of getting into model photography and tips on how to make money from your photography, through to more philosophical discussions on how we  approach and define photography and tutorials on panoramic photography and breathing life into photo archives. Day two was more fluid and although I only stayed until lunch I finally got to play around with off camera flash in a strobism workshop.

By the time I left on Sunday my mind was back in creative mode and there was even news that the Photocamp concept might be spreading to a city near you with the indication that the next Photocamp may be in Edinburgh (for more information keep your eye on the UK Photocamps website). So all in all a very positive and exciting weekend!

So I’ll leave you with a shot from the Sunday morning when we all met up in Cafe Nero in Bradford. The style of the image is called a panograph and although I did a few of these a while back its not something I had thought of doing of late so its nice to see how well it turned out. For more shots taken on the day just search for “photocampbradford” on Flickr.

If you haven’t already got a ticket, I understand there’s still a limited number available but you may need to be quick.

The team organising it are also looking for one or two people skilled in writing or journalism to report on the day from a third-party perspective. If you’re in the UK, free the weekend of the 5th September, and fancy this, then follow the link below and get in touch.

Photocamp Bradford 2009

Journalist’s – Don’t ask what photocamp can do for you…

Charlie Waite’s Take A View Landscape Photographer of the Year competition is open for 2009. This year the competition’s total prize fund exceeds £20,000, plus an eight-week exhibition at the National Theatre and the publication in a full colour book of Best Entries.

There are four categories you can enter:

1. Classic View – An image that captures the beauty and variety of the UK landscape.
2. Living the View – Images of people interacting with the outdoors – working or playing in the UK landscape.
3. Your View – What does the UK landscape mean to you?
4. Phone View – Images taken on a camera phone of 1 mega pixel or more.

Follow the link below for more information or to enter.

Take A View Landscape Photographer of the Year 2009

This Sunday (26th April) is Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day and you’re encouraged to go out and get photos using only your pinhole camera. Afterwards you can select your best shots and upload them to the WPPD site (link below).

There’s also a range of events happening – and for those near Huddersfield, a talk at Huddersfield University on the 30th by Jean Daubas with the range strange title of Pinholes, or the Fabulous Destiny of a Tiny Hole…

This lecture will permit us to approach the story of our understanding of what is an image, both by its historical aspects and its scientific, philosophical, and artistic developments. After that, we ‘ll consider pinhole photography under various aspects : origins and technical evolutions, the contemporary « renaissance » of pinhole photography, thoughts about the complexity of relation between reality, images and memory.

World Phinhole Photography Day site

Lecture: Pinholes, or the Fabulous Destiny of a Tiny Hole…

As always Digital Photography Review has a round up of all the action, including information on the over 100 products announced during the event. Their (as usual) comprehensive report breaks things down by manufacturer, outlining their announcements, new or updated equipment.

At the moment the site is showing an mainly updates on what they saw, but keep an eye open for their round-up report in the coming days, now the show has finished.

UPDATE: DP Review have just posted their 2009 show report. The below page now shows a full wrap up from this year’s show.

DPS: PMA 2009

Well PhotoCamp Leeds is now over and I think the presentation on Travel Photography I gave, along with Ade went down well. A few people asked for a copy of my presentation but I thought the easiest way would be to just post it here.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) you don’t get to listen to me providing a voice-over and its just the slides, but most of the points are pretty self-explanatory. Of course if you do have any questions or feedback, drop me a comment.

View the presentation after the break.

Light Night Leeds is based on the model of events such as Nuit Blanche in Paris and Toronto and Notte Bianca in Como, Italy. For one night each year, city centre venues that are normally closed at night open up late to host a range of cultural events, displays, shows, exhibitions and tours and provide bizarre, unusual and out-of-context entertainments, designed to celebrate the wealth of creative and cultural activity in the city.

Previous Light Nights have seen shire horses and ice cream vans parading along Briggate, thunderstorms inside churches, fire shows at the Royal Armouries, and visitor participation with white umbrellas and boilersuits. In 2007, some 50 venues and more than 240 artists took part.

For more information visit the website or download the 2008 brochure, both of which are linked to below:

Light Night Leeds web site

2008 Brochure (PDF)

Leeds was celebrating St Patrick’s Day early today with a parade through the city centre and lots of entertainment in Millennium Square. By chance I was in town with my camera and so walked around the city with the Parade.

Speaking with one of the organising committee on the way, he told me it was being held a week early as no one would be in a fit state next week! (Although I think the real reason was that Millennium Square was unavailable).

They were certainly a very friendly community and people had gone to the trouble of making an effort and dressing up, as you can see above.

The rather iconic Leeds International Swimming Pool will be demolished soon, but prior to its demise a couple of art installations have been created in the small and main pools by the Office for Subversive Architecture.

The exhibition will be open to the public in the second half of the week and at weekends from Friday February 22, with its final day for visits being Easter Sunday (March 23). There’s no problem with taking your camera to capture your last memories of the building.

The Accumulator