receiving my Third Place award prize from the legend himself – Martin Parr. Photo © Tricia Boulton (www.facetphotography.co.uk)
receiving my Third Place award prize from the legend himself – Martin Parr. Photo © Tricia Boulton (www.facetphotography.co.uk)
An amazing evening last week, where I was awarded Third Place in the finalists of The Hull Beermat Photography Festival, for an image of East Yorkshire I submitted to the competition.
All 16 finalists will have our work printed on beermats to be left in pubs round Hull, to get folks chatting about photography and the city. Great images selected by Martin Parr from over 7,000 entries, I understand! An absolute honour. Never could’ve imagined this when I was a bookseller stocking Martin’s books many years ago.
Photographer and Festival Director Graeme Oxby came up with the concept –
‘Hull turns traditional exhibition style on its head with a new photography festival curated specifically with social settings and social media in mind.
Forget white cubes, silent galleries and DO NOT TOUCH signs. Instead, picture images of Hull, submitted via Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook with winners chosen by world-renowned photographer Martin Parr, printed on to beermats and strewn across the tables of the city’s pub, clubs and venues.
Touch them. Critique them. Or simply just enjoy them – and maybe a pint or two, too.’
The Yorkshire Post’s feature on the festival is here. Kudos to Graeme and Martin for making this happen – ‘Stunning beermat images put Hull in the spotlight’.
… and the BBC’s coverage is here – ‘Winners of Hull 2017 beer mat photo festival announced’.
A wonderful entertaining evening at Kardomah94 with Martin Parr, festival director Graeme Oxby, and photography fans and finalists. Slideshow photos © Chris Pepper (jemstarimages1979)
The Final Three
Award winning photos by Michael Barnes-Wynters (2nd) – Jayne Selby (1st) – and me (3rd). A winning combo, but all 16 finalists are brilliant.
All the finalists
The work of all 16 finalists will appear on beermats in selected Hull venues in December and a limited edition of 100 full sets will be made available to buy for £25 per set with proceeds going to a Hull charity.
The images are smashing.
Want to see them good and large? The best place to enjoy Martin’s chosen finalists’ is here in this Facebook post – ‘The Hull Beermat Photography Festival 2017’.
Spurn
With my picture of Spurn I wanted to focus on the exotic and the wild. Perhaps not the first things that spring to mind when you think of Hull. Spurn Point’s a short drive from Hull, and is a haven for wildlife and migrating birds. An eerie, surreal place, being a long thin shifting peninsula of land with the River Humber on one side of it, and the wild North Sea washing in on the other. Every time I visit it’s invigorating. A National Nature reserve, this wild place has many important conservation designations to help protect its unique character and wildlife. Not one but two lighthouses, one recently renovated by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, are here, plus Spurn Bird Observatory at the top of the peninsula, who do fantastic work monitoring all the birds which come in, especially during the winter months as birds migrate here from overseas to enjoy our warmer winter climes.
There are signs of man’s hand all over Spurn: the lighthouses; the old war base remains; the lifeboat station; and the communities of homes at either end. It’s a fascinating area, One where you feel that ultimately nature is in control – constantly shifting and adapting – creeping into the edges of things. I hope my photo suggests something of that.
Delighted to have played my part in representing it in Hull City of Culture 2017!
Available to order
My award winning image of Spurn is also available to buy in my webshop here – buy ‘Out to Spurn’
