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Category Archives: news

16
Jun 2012

The Chelsea Fringe Festival, 2012

A gallery of photographs from my tour of Chelsea Fringe Gardens. The Fringe, in its inaugural year, is a new garden festival, directed journalist and author, Tim Richardson. From their website : “The Chelsea Fringe festival is a brand new initiative, entirely volunteer-run in its first year. It’s all about harnessing and spreading some of the excitement and energy that fizzes around gardens and gardening. The idea is to give people the freedom and opportunity to express themselves through the medium of plants and gardens, to open up possibilities and to allow full participation.  Entirely independent of the RHS Chelsea […]

The Bicycle Beer Garden team - taking a break at The Edible Bus Stop.
13
Nov 2011

Remembrance Day

I went to a Remembrance Day service this morning. It was a shame that a local resident decided 11am was an appropriate time to start manoeuvring a car next to the memorial. Couldn’t even wait a couple of minutes. It made me think about some of the sites I’d visited over the last 18 months – Thiepval, Fromelles and Delville Wood. Amazing places to see, though very sad.

18
Oct 2011

The Olympic Stadium, Stratford

I’ve been to the Olympic Park a couple of times recently, photographing some the grounds and landscaping set out by Nigel Dunnett. After one of these visits, I was allowed to stroll through the stadium itself. I just wonder if the red notice is a warning to Mr Rooney! It was interesting to see though. The football pitch seemed dwarfed by the bank of seats, and without the track in place, looked no bigger than a tennis court!

2
Oct 2011

Eradicating ecocide mock trial

The concept of ecocide, or crimes against the planet,  has been brought into the consciousness of many people by the barrister and author, Polly Higgins. She has been campaigning for several years, negotiating with the UN, and governments around the world, asking for ecocide  to be adopted as the 5th crime against peace. Her book, ‘Eradicating Ecocide‘, highlights the problems and why it is necessary for large corporations be environmentally responsible and accountable for their actions. On Friday a mock trial was held at the Supreme Court in London, where the proposed new law was tested. Two company CEO’s (played by […]

12
Jun 2011

RPS photography course at Mill Dene Gardens

After the success of the flower photography course Jason Ingram and I ran last May with the Royal Photographic Society, the follow up was held last weekend. This time it was for two days,  with detailed assessments and plenty of time for practical experience in the beautiful gardens at Mill Dene, in the Cotswolds. Again we had a full house with 10 students who all appeared to enjoy themselves, despite the fact that at 6am the expected beautiful morning light was, in fact, rain! Plan B came into play and a daylight studio session was held instead. Our next planned course will […]

1
Mar 2011

Garden Photographer of the Year competition 2011

This year I have been lucky enough to have a single image selected in the final of the IGPOTY competition and have a portfolio commended. The exhibition will be on show at Kew Gardens from May 14th. The single image is a portrait of a gardening team in the WW1 cemetery at Le Trou Aide Poste, near Lille, Northern France. This photograph is based on an image, taken around 1920, of a team of War Graves Commission gardeners. It is part of a story on the Fromelles Cemetery near Lille, opened in 2010 for the reburial of British and Australian WW1 […]

9
Jan 2011

Joiners and montages

One of the unusual jobs I did last year was to produce three photo montages for SAGA, illustrating parks that had been restored using lottery grant money. Actually it was one of those jobs that was great fun to do because the brief was very open. I had free range over the interpretation, providing each image was identifiable with each of the respective sites. A rarity! The parks in question were Myatt’s Field in Lambeth, London, Catton Park near Norwich, and Sandall Park near Doncaster. Due to the hot weather in early July 2010, the time scale for shooting was […]

5
Jan 2011

Worth a look…….Vivian Maier, nanny and street photographer……and The British Council film collection

Just a quick note on a couple of things worth looking at. The first is a clip from a WTTW broadcast on American TV called Chicago Tonight. It details the discovery of a collection of street photographs taken by a nanny named Vivian Maier, who worked in New York from the 1950’s through to the early 1990’s. The collection amounts to an estimated 100,000 negatives, and could be one of the most important photographic discoveries for many years. The work is largely unknown – even her employers through the years didn’t really appreciate what she was doing. But it is […]

24
Dec 2010

Gardeners’ Question Time Christmas broadcast

I’ve listened to BBC Gardeners’ Question Time for years, so when recently asked by Gardeners’ World Magazine to photograph the Christmas recording, I really looked forward to a behind the scenes view of how the show was put together. It was also the first time they had all panelists together for one broadcast. The production company’s office is located in a small side road near Old Street Tube station, and like many London streets, the building numbering is a bit haphazard.  Whilst checking the address on my phone, I was approached by a very nice man who asked me, “Are […]