Park Plaza Hotels Competition

Everyone doing Photography at LCA has been given the chance to enter a competition for Park Plaza Hotels. Apparently the Park Plaza Hotel in Leeds is getting refurbished and they want photographs to go on the walls of the corridors and rooms. There were three categories - Yorkshire Hospitality (the people of Leeds), Icons of Leeds (the history, heritage and architechture of Leeds) and Wild Yorkshire (the landscapes, flora, fauna and wildlife of Yorkshire). The deadline is tomorrow, and here's what I've decided to enter in each category:

Yorkshire Hospitality

 These photos have to be in black & white, square and 15cm x15cm, to go in the corridors of the hotel, and be backlit. I think the first one is my favourite, although I do sort of prefer the second one composition wise. I like the first one because as soon as I walked in the market & got my camera out, the old man came over and asked if I'd take a photo of him and his son, which I thought was really sweet! There was also a lady standing next to him but she wasn't really paying attention/posing so i cropped her out so it fitted in nicely with the square requirements. (We're allowed up to three entries in each category so I entered all three)

Icons of Leeds

This one is of the roof/clock in the Corn Exchange. I think it counts as a pretty iconic place in Leeds because there's not many places like it in the whole country, and because it has quite unusual architechture.This category is to go in the Executive Suite rooms in the hotel, so I was also thinking this might be a good place to photograph because not many people in those rooms (I'm assuming fancy/rich businessmen!) might get the opportunity to see the Corn Exchange if they're just in Leeds for business or whatever. I also wanted to go up to Hyde Park Picture house to take some photos because I think that would have even moreso counted as a place not many people will see or have even heard of, however I've been a bit poorly therefore haven't been feeling my usual adventurous self recently and didn't fancy what would most probably involve me getting very lost in the wind/rain (plus I didn't want my camera to catch a cold as he'd been rained on quite a lot that day ;)

Wild Yorkshire

I was so stuck on this category, it would have been ideal to have a car so I could have gone to the actual countryside or something! Instead I just planned to have a walk to Hyde Park and see what I could get there, however this was taken before I even got there. I took these and was happy as I could be with them so decided not to go to Hyde Park as I'm guessing thats where everyone has gone! I was walking up Woodhouse Lane and saw this sort of overgrown patch of land (I called it a field in my actual description for the comp, to make it sound nicer ha) where the sun was lighting these flowers (probably weeds...) and I decided to try and capture the church in the background to add more of a countryside/Yorkshire feel to it! This is probably my least favourite as I find 99% of flower photos a bit cliched, but I was just happy to get something for this category as I seriously thought I was going to have to miss it out!

Bradford Photography Festival - The Verdict

Red Saunders - Hidden

From looking around the Ways of Looking website, Red Saunders didn’t really strike me as an exhibition that I wanted to see, or stand out to me that much. I think this is because I usually end up thinking I won’t enjoy things related to classical/historical painting, but in more than one case when I’ve thought this I have actually enjoyed it, in particular taking photographs inspired by paintings. Similarly, I did enjoy the Red Saunders exhibition more than I thought I would; I could tell this as soon as I saw the images.

I was glad to see they were large scale, as the size of a painting would be, to get across the amount of detail in the picture. They were taken using a 5x4 large format camera and printed using a combination printing technique, again to get across the detail that is in the image. The large scale and theatrical effect of the images is what made me able to appreciate the work, and the amount of effort that would have taken to produce such images.  The only thing I initially hated when first seeing the exhibition was the way the images were presented; they just seemed to be quite flimsy, bill board style, slightly creased at the folds and curling up, from a visual perspective, I actually hated this and thought it spoilt the dramatic effect of the images; it seemed such a let-down for images that had obviously had so much effort put into them!

Although after we had a talk from one of the curators of the exhibition, the reason for this was made clear. Because of the theme and meaning behind the images – undocumented events from history often of lower status - the underdogs, such as the peasants revolt, the presentation was obviously done like this intentionally to be reminiscent of picket boards and protests. Red Saunders had also wanted the images to be removed from the 'rich art object' status. Although this totally made sense to me, I still think it would have been nice to see them neatly stretched out or something!

Also found this video which shows how the pictured shot was taken! (this one was probably my favourite)


 

Alan Dunn – Scene for a small crime

I enjoyed this exhibition, it was one of the ones I was interested in seeing when viewing the website. It was set up in a 'pop up gallery', a previously unused shop space that had been turned into a gallery for the photography festival.
The imageswere interesting to look at, especially with the inclusion of the witness statements that transformed the image from a vague mystery for the viewer to add a meaning, to a documented and informed viewing of a crime scene. This is definitely the type of exhibition I would have enjoyed more if I saw it on my own. I don't know what it is, and it sounds pretty fussy, but whenever I'm at an exhibiton with a group of people I can never properly concentrate on what its actually about, I get distracted talking about the images and come away feeling as if I still haven't fully taken it all in, a bit like when you leave a shop with the feeling there's something you would have loved but didn't see!

Unfortunately I didn't get to see the Daniel Stancliffe's British Wild Boar work, as the gallery it was in wasn't open on the day we went.