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.

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.

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.

I was at the rehearsal in the afternoon and am at the concert in the evening, starting 7.30.

St Ann's Hospice choir at RNCM

Photographing at this type of event is very interesting. I brought a tripod and didn’t use it. Also I used the flash a little but have found that the best results are gained under the stage lighting. With the camera set to 1600 ASA, i.e. the maximum sensitivity, you can get great, natural looking photos that really capture the atmosphere of the event.

And switching to the 300mm zoom lens I am able to go right in on the faces of the choir members – some images are shaky but others are razor sharp. I have the camera set to aperture priority 1/30th of a second – or 1/60th. Keeping the camera very steady it is still possible to get great, sharp images with no shake or blur.

Flash? Forget it! Use the stage lights for best results.

I am using the Sony Alpha A350 digital SLR camera.

Neil’s creations are made using only traditional film-based photography. He captures elements of the city around us and combines them into framed images on a particular theme, maybe a colour, a word or a place.

The pictures are often produced in association with buyers of his work, who might request a theme of their own.

Neil Roland something blue

The photographs explode with colour and fine detail. They are fascinating to study and it can be fun to try and spot the various elements – for example signs, clock faces, details of buildings, statues, architectural details – and identify where they are located.

Superb work and an inspiration.

For more info go to www.neilroland.co.uk

Eye On Manchester was launched in 2006 and was intended to follow on from my older website Eyewitness in Manchester, which I produced from 1997 to 2005.

I found it did not lend itself well for the presentation of my photo archive. That is done much more effectively on my aidan.co.uk site.

However, WordPress is useful as a blogging tool though for security reasons I would rather not run it on my main aidan.co.uk site. A security flaw in WordPress once caused my main site to be temporarily removed from the Google index.

That’s why this Eye On Manchester blog is hosted at www.eyeonmanchester.com domain, while my main site with photo collections, articles, forums and more, runs on the aidan.co.uk domain. My Eyewitness in Manchester site should be returning on the www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk site, subject to confirmation.

There are ten prizes of £500 for nine images chosen by judges and one chosen by a popular vote at CUBE Gallery.

Read more on my aidan.co.uk site

Joe is Manchester’s very own crocodile catcher and a conservationist. Originally from north Manchester, he has spent many years in Australia.

He takes his show, which includes live reptiles, snakes and insects to shopping centres and schools around the country.

Whilst he is talking to the crowds, they are invited to interact with his snakes and lizards, stroking their skin or posing for photographs.

While he was living in Cairns, Australia, there was a series of attacks by one crocodile. The crocodile was caught but died a few weeks later. Joe was angered when the autopsy revealed that its stomach was filled with plastic bags.

Joe has preserved the 14 foot crocodile, which he displays at his show in order to educate people on the misuse of plastic bags, and how animals that have even outlived the dinosaurs are being put at risk.

It was a fantastic show, I’ve never seen anything like it before. It was great to see how the children were captivated by the sight – and touch – of these creatures most of which you won’t get to see anywhere else.

I’m sure the show is of great value in schools. I’m all in favour of bringing this type of real experience into the classroom – I’m sure a visit from Crocodile Joe would be worth many hours of conventional teaching.

To find out more, go to http://www.crocodilejoes.com

I had dropped our Skoda Roomster off at Claybank Motors and had originally intended to walk to the Trafford Centre and back. But the car wouldn’t be ready till later in the afternoon, and I needed to pick up my daughter Adele from school, so I decided to continue walking.

After stopping off at the Lowry shopping centre Salford Quays for lunch, I made it as far as Oxford Road and Grosvenor Street before hopping on a 197 bus to the school, St Joseph’s on Plymouth Grove.

View Larger Map

Total distance was about 8 miles. The weather was overcast, I didn’t take any photos.

Highlights and points of call included:

Barton road bridge and swing bridge
Venus Trinity statue
Apple store in the Trafford Centre
Guinness Road Trafford Park
Imperial War Museum exterior with tank
The Lowry shopping centre for curry lunch
Salford Quays former Docks
Trafford Road Bridge
Stretford Road
Hulme Arch
Grosvenor Street and Oxford Road

I left Claybank Motor Company at around 10.40 and arrived at Oxford Road around 2.50. I found the walk pretty easy.

To get back to Peel Green, we travelled on the 192 Magic Bus (Stagecoach) to Piccadilly – adult and child £1.90*, walked to Shudehill Transport Interchange and took the 67 (FirstBus), cost £3.20. So the journey cost £5, in my opinion, too expensive.

I’m planning more walks from the M60 to central Manchester – the next one Stockport to Victoria Park, (Manchester South). I find walking in the city more interesting than on the moors and less monotonous than on a treadmill in a health club!

Weather: Mostly overcast. 10 degrees celsius / c50 degrees fahrenheit.

To

This week I heard the very sad news that Tony Whalley has died. Tony Whalley played a key role in the early development of the Manchester Online website.

He gave support and encouragement to my Eyewitness in Manchester site in the early days. I launched it in 1997 and in 1998 – thanks to Tony – it became part of Manchester Online. I continued to develop it as a freelance contributor until 2005.

On the right is a screenshot of what I believe is the very first edition of Eyewitness in Manchester to be published as part of Manchester Online.

Tony came from a traditional newspaper background, but had the vision to see the possibilities of electronic media and the internet.

He had a great sense of humour, and an energetic ‘can do’ attitude to all things. I had many enjoyable meetings with him at the former Manchester Online on Hardman Street over the years.

Thanks to his support I was able to develop Eyewitness in Manchester into a vast archive of photos and writing, now an important document of Manchester at a decisive phase in its development – from post-bomb to post Commonwealth Games.

I continue to present my photography and writing on this Eye On Manchester blog site and my related aidan.co.uk photo and articles portfolio site.

I hadn’t seen Tony Whalley for a long time and often wondered how he was doing. Some people prefer to keep a low profile, but make a big impact. Tony was one of these he will continue to be a driving force with me.