A West Pennine Night

October is a funny month. It's that part of autumn where things really begin to change. Leaves crunching under feet as they drop from the trees, the beautiful colours of September already forgotten; the first cold snap and waking to winter's jewles as the frost turns the morning dew in to green-white sticks of frozen blades of grass.

Not this year though.

October the first had come with almost every leaf still remaining on the tree.  The first frost still weeks away.  The September storms only now arriving in November.  Instead we were treat with unseasonably settled warm weather. Some nice clear cloudless skies meant that it was great time to get out with the camera.

At this point I should sort of explain something.

This night I was planning to head out to Hollinshead Hall to shoot some scary pictures of the Well House.  Normally, I'm really happy with being in the woods or on the moorlands at night on my own.   If truth be known I am more at home in the wilderness at night on my own than I am in the towns and cities.   However, this night was different.  You see, Hollinshead Hall has a a bit of a reputation for all things paranormal and the ghost stories were quietly running round my head as I was walking down the hall.  Being honest, I freaked myself out.  I really freaked myself out and aborted.  Chicken has nothing in it.

So I returned to where I had parked and noticed something really cool.  Over here in the UK we have light reflective units set in to the road known as cats' eyes.  The cool thing with the ones that were set in to this road is that they are LED lights.  They are permanently lit.  So I quickly came up with an idea.  Cats' eyes, car light trails and stars.  What more could a photographer playing with light painting ask for.  I took a few shots and quickly got bored.

So I decided I would move on.   I've had an idea of shooting Darwen Tower at night for a while.  However, on my own it would be impossible to get the shot that I want.  That being said a nice starry, clear night is something of a rarity at this time of year in Lancashire so I thought it would be a good opportunity to a few test shots.  I have to admit I love the results. It has spurred me on to create the shot that I actually want.  I just need the weather to play a bit now!!!

Back in the Box

As posted a little while ago, Remnants went back in its box with a little sadness both from me and the gallery at La Dolce Vita, Colne.  Finally, I have got round to sorting everything out and I have now got a little time to reflect.

As part of this process I took photocopies from the comments book and they are fantastic.  I thought I would share what has been said about Remnants.

‘Really impressive and very moving’

D. Claude.  Leeds

‘Emotive, calming’

G. Hensley.  Trawden

‘Very atmospheric and engaging’

I. Cleasby.  Oxford

‘Very beautiful images, dark and sombre but uplifting’

                                    M. Fielding.  Colne

‘Captivating, mesmerising images.  Beautiful.’

                                    Miriam & Andy.  Colne

‘What an unexpected surprise!  Very impressive indeed!’

                                    G. Read.  Colne

‘Simply brilliant and nice to see a local artist’

A. Ul-haq.  Colne

Thank you so much to everyone who visited the exhibition and took time to comment.

Feeling at Home

Jubilee (Darwen) Tower - Taken from 

Remnants.

For nearly as long as I can remember I have had a love for high places.  In essence it's not just a love of hills and mountains but more in particular Lancashire hills.

It began when I was a teenager.  I would get home from school, blow off homework grab my trusty spotted companion (a dalmatian named Billy) and head for the moors.  I loved the walk through the wooded valley and up past the reservoir before striding out on to the open moorland which is home to Darwen Tower.  Billy loved it too.  We spent hours and hours up there just wondering, sitting by moorland streams, listening to Skylarks and generally watching the world go by.

Even as I grew up that love didn't die.  In fact it grew deeper as I joined Lancashire Countryside Service as a Volunteer Ranger and eventually working full time.  Funnily enough, it was the same hills that I wondered as a boy that I now worked as a man.  Sometimes, Billy would be with me too.

The Ranger Service broadened my knowledge of the hills and sent me to other areas to explore, firstly in the West Pennine Moors and Rossendale, then the South Bowland Fells along with Clougha to the far North finally settling in Central Lancashire and becoming intimate with Pendle, Boulsworth and the hills surrounding the Wycoller Valley.

I do love the Lake District, I love North Wales even more but there is nowhere like my home turf.

What has this got to do with photography?  Everything.  I produce my best work when I'm working in Lancashire.  Why?  I think its because I love it or that I know it as well as anyone else.  Maybe it's just because I'm fascinated and amazed by it.  Perhaps its a life long love affair.

Some places I am really drawn to.  One of these is known as Walton Spire.  The Spire sits on Knave Hill high above the towns of Nelson and Colne in Lancashire, is directly between both Pendle and Boulsworth Hills and is in close proximity to the site Castercliffe Hill Fort.

Knave Hill is a bit strange.  It is my opinion (and also that of others) that the hill is man made.  Looking at aerial photographs it is possible to identify concentric rings of terracing that appear to be the construction of the hill.  However, the site has another feature in the Spire it self.  The bottom part of the cross is an ancient stone monolith that would have probably acted as a marker for travelers on the trade route from the Irish Sea to the North Sea or vice versa.  It is possible that the monolith could be somewhere in the region of 4,500 years old although some legends say that it was erected in rememberance of the Battle of Brunanburh in 937.  The top of the spire was added in the 1830's by Richard Thomas Wroe-Walton a local gentleman with strong religious values who live in Marsden Old Hall that still stands in nearby Marsden Park.

What ever the reason or how ever old the Spire is.  I can't help being drawn to the place.  Earlier this week I went up there in the snow and got some lovely pictures of it while enjoying a bit of pleasant if not cold weather!  Even the sheep seemed happy to be there.

Remnants Update

Remnants now has its own page complete with Flickr slideshow illustrating all the images from the project and a preview of the book from our Blurb bookstore.

Remnants Book Released

Today sees the release of Remnants book.  The 86 page book is available in paperback and two hardback editions from our blurb shop.  See preview below.

Remnants by Lee Johnson | Make Your Own Book

Exciting times and being busy!

It's been exactly a month since I sat down and wrote a post.  I can't believe that I have been this busy!  So what's been happening in my world?  Sit back and I'll tell you!

In the last post I wrote about a talk that I was due to give at the Blackburn Camera Club.  This was done with Bob Singleton, club secretary and very much partner in crime.  We did a ten minute talk (each) on our influences.  We hadn't conferred or discussed our selections previously but it turned out that the evening was going to be monochromatic!  Bob talked about Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado who is an extremely talented individual.  His catholic upbringing obviously comes through in some of his photographs which can only be described as epically biblical.

My talk carried on the monochromatic theme but with very different results.  Those being of Jerry N. Uelsmann.  Uelsmann is an American born photographic surrealist who creates all his images in the dark room.  Obviously, I don't have the time (or the space) to do that so I do my surrealist images in Photoshop.

In addition to this I have been busy putting together my submissions for Blackburn & District Camera Club's Annual Exhibition.  I've come to a decision that this will be my last year of doing this as I want to concentrate on my own work and not competing.  In fact, I've decided that it will be the end of me competing altogether.  The side of the camera club that I seem to be enjoying the most is that of delivering talks, seeing what other people are doing and helping people learn more about the subject of photography.  With this in mind I've decided that it would be better if I didn't compete at all and concentrate on the areas of the club that I am interested in and my own body of work.

Remnants has grown a few more images and has now been finally put to bed.  It seems that every time I add something to it it grows that little bit more.  So it is time to call it a day with that project and finish it.  The final shots added were of Jubilee Tower, Darwen taken during the warm spell towards the end of March.  All the images have now been processed and completed.  A Powerpoint presentation has been put together ready for the delivery of the project as a talk.  This slideshow has in excess of seventy slides and around 80 photographs spanning the entire project.  It includes images that will not make it to print or the book.

The book is still in the writing stage but should be available from my Blurb bookstore in the very near future.  Keep an eye on this blog for an audio-visual preview of the whole project and dedicated page.

I'm also working on an update to the Images of Marsden Park project.  This year is the parks centinery and so I'm developing an AV production to commerate.  Keep an eye on the images of Marsden Park page of this blog!

A couple of other things are keeping me busy at the moment.  Pixel, the camera clubs magazine continues to do well and I'm enjoying the privilege of editing it.  As well as this there are a couple of little projects that are on the go that I am involved in but you may read about these in the near future!  Well, I have to have something to keep you hooked!