Eye On Manchester blog by Aidan O’Rourke Tutor Photographer

Personal & professional diary on photography, languages, Français, Deutsch, local interest, art, music, travel and more

Manchester Television and the city Ghosts of Winter Hill graphic

I am at the preview of the exhibition Manchester Television & the city, Ghosts of Winter Hill, on the top floor of Urbis in Manchester.

All I can say is that I am bowled over by this exhibition which trawls through lost images – still and moving – from the history of television in Manchester.

I pretty much grew up with local TV. I remember getting our Murphy black and white 405 lines TV around 1965, and seeing the Granada logo flickering on the screen. We had to hold the aerial in various positions to pick up the signal from the Winter Hill transmitter.

The exhibition documents the remarkable history of Manchester as a television centre from the mid-50s to the present day.

There are scores of amazing archive black and white and colour pictures of personalities and locations, including the Granada TV studios on Quay St, as well as key figures such as Michael Parkinson, Ray Gosling, Fred Dibnah and many others.

There are also compilations of archive footage from obscure and long-forgotten programmes, some of which I remember. They make fascinating viewing and I’d love to have them on DVD.

Starting at the earliest origins in the fifties, we walk through a series of living rooms each with a sofa and period tv set up to the present day and the future in the shape of Media City in Salford Quays and the imminent digital switchover.

I’m happy to say I have one image in the exhibition: It’s the Manchester dusk cityscape background in the living room half way through on the left.

My reaction was quite emotional, seeing long lost faces like those of Ray Gosling – who is still active – and of Fred Dibnah and Tony Wilson who sadly are no longer with us.

The exhibition has been curated by veteran Manchester broadcaster and writer Phil Griffin and Urbis exhibition project manager Paul Luckcraft.

I can’t recommend it too highly. It’s on from 4 November 2009 to April 2010.

For more info go to the Urbis website.

Neil Roland, Didsbury-based photographer and author has written a piece about me for the South Manchester Reporter. It appeared in the edition that came out on Thursday 22 October 2009.

It’s also on the South Manchester Reporter website. Click here to go to the page

Neil wrote the article following a long chat we had in which I tracked my entire career from school and university to the present.

I was honest and open about my failures as well as successes.

He also mentions my wife Ann and her Filipino grocery shop Adele’s Superstore.

It’s a thoughtful and thought-provoking piece of writing from Neil, whose column appears on a regular basis in the South Manchester Reporter.

Neil is a photographic artist and has also written a novel set in Didsbury.

Here’s the link to the online version of the article.

http://tinyurl.com/ykgmyn5.

This evening I went to Font Bar in Manchester to attend the launch party for an exhibition of photos by Manchester-based photographer Jon Shackleton.

The photos feature a striking use of long exposure combined with unusual lighting effects.

Many of the photos were taken with exposure of 2 or 3 minutes up to 10 minutes. Some featuring star trails have an exposure of up to an hour and a half to two hours. All include unusual lighting effects made using coloured gels.

One of my favourite images was the one of the ‘Dream’ statue near St Helens.

The giant elongated head is pictured against a night sky with curved light trails caused by the movement of the earth during the exposure of 36 minutes.

Others portray eerie abandoned or remote places – a derelict house, a hilltop in the Lakes, a sculpture park in Hungary and an old T33 Lockheed shooting star plane in an undisclosed location.

The images are impressive and fascinating from a technical point of view.

Jon has used a Canon 20D digital SLR camera and amazingly there is no noise in the images.

Prints are for sale at prices from £15 to £40.

The exhibition is on at Font Bar, New Wakefield St Manchester (behind Oxford Rd Station) until December 09.

See the exhibition pieces on Flickr.

For more info about Jon Shackleton go to www.tdmphotography.co.uk.