ICHF Crafts for Christmas Show at the Birmingham NEC 2014

It's the first day of the Crafts For Christmas Show at the NEC Hall 19.
Open until Sunday 9th November, 9.30am to 5.30pm. Free entry into Hobbycrafts Show as well. Several hundred exhibitors in both shows.

Our stand is F06. Here are a few photos. Lots of show offers for Christmas shoppers!

ICHF Crafts for Christmas, Birmingham NEC

It's the first day of the ICHF Crafts for Christmas Show at the Birmingham NEC today. It runs until Sunday 9am to 5.30pm, 5pm Sunday.

We have a few hundred darkroom prints here at Good prices. All 4 of my books are on sale. The 2014 course dates are out now, and on the website, so we can talk about these too.

More details here: www.ichfevents.co.uk

Health and Photo Course

Thursday I had to visit the dentist in Knutsford to have a broken filling replaced. It needed a jab, so no pain at all. Called in at Booth's supermarket before coming home, they have an amazing selection of bottled beers and Jan thought they would help numb the pain. I didn't like to say there wasn't any! Stocked up with Dent T'Owd Tup, one of my favourites, and another 6 different beers.

Today I had acupuncture and massage on my bad back to keep me going for another few weeks. Walked up Eccles Pike this evening, fourth time this week, just 3 miles and 600 feet of ascent, so good exercise for the end of the day. I also walked 12 miles on Wednesday to Buxton and back, for a day in Gallery in the Gardens. 

Trying to build up the miles ready for finishing the Coast to Coast walk in August with good friend Al. Then in September walking the first part of the Alpine Pass Route, with Jan, Rob, Annie and Phil (we all did part 2 from Grindelwald to Montreux in 2006) from just south of Zurich to Grindelwald in Switzerland. 

Just booked a trip to Berlin for next month, lots to photograph there and 3 full days will give us a good chance of covering the most important views. The locations are spread out so I'm sure we'll do lots of walking there too. It will be our first overseas trip this year.

We have quite a few courses to run in the next few weeks as well as 3 shows, the first in Henley starting on Friday, and 2 in Buxton. This used to be a quieter time of year, not any more!

Heard at the start of the month that the Focus on Imaging show has been cancelled. This years was the last one. That's the end of an era. I guess it means we can go skiing later in the winter, rather than always going in January so that I have time to prepare darkroom prints for the stand display in February. We will miss not seeing everyone once a year too. We have made so many friends over the years at this show I think that's what I will miss the most.

Ideal Home Show Scotland - All Set Up!

Jan drove us up to Glasgow today to setup for the Ideal Home Show at the SECC. It's our first time at this show but it's much easier than at the NEC where they give you just an hour to unload, unpack and remove packaging back to car and return to the payment station on the furthest boundary of the NEC site or you forfeit a £50 deposit that you have to pay in advance (you may have gathered that I hate the NEC). It's also within walking distance of our hotel and the city centre. This is our 3rd show at the SECC in 18 months and we like coming here, so far!

I forgot to take a photo of the stand today so I will do that tomorrow. We found space on the walls for 20 framed photos and have another 300 or more in various browsers and spinners. I worked hard to do new stuff for this show, lots of Scottish shots of both landscapes and cities. Some large new photographs of Glasgow and Edinburgh too.  Newcastle, Durham and Northumberland castles also feature in the new prints. Fingers crossed that visitors to the show like them! For example, quite a lot of the photographs are in sizes and formats not available through the website such as lots of square pictures for square frames. Now there's a novelty!

We also have some posters and lots of copies of my 4 books. Good special show prices on lots of the items too.

Our stand is S230 near the lecture areas in the shopping area. Try and come along before we sell out (I dream of doing this one day!).

Focus on Imaging Day 1

The first day of Focus on Imaging is over. My new City Light book was officially launched. We saw lots of old friends and met many new ones.

I took some photos on my mobile of the stand before the show started and expected to do this post shortly afterwards. We were busy from the start so just finding the time now at almost midnight.

Still 3 days to go. We are on the Ilford Photo stand C2 hall 9 at the Birmingham NEC. Discounts on books and courses. Ilford/Harman have big show discounts on film, paper and inkjet media if you can get down here. Also a new low priced pinhole camera, obscura, as well as the Titan pair of pinholes for 5x4 and 10 x 8 in.

There is even a full blown darkroom with a film processing machine, an enlarger and a paper processor.

Staying with good friends Peter and Sally and their family in Kenilworth. Lot more enjoyable than the normal NEC show!

City Light Book at Loop Printers

My new book City Light was at the printers in Sheffield, Loop Print, today. They also printed my last book Lake Light.

Here are a few shots. Jan and I went over to check the first 2 sheets of pages as they came off.

Trevor the printer (featured in the shots below) had a bit of work to do to give us the blacks and contrast that we wanted. It was looking good after he worked his magic.

Should be finished tomorrow. Then it goes to binders. We should take delivery Wednesday or Thursday next week.

The launch will be on the Ilford Photo stand C2 Hall 9 at the Focus on Imaging show at the Birmingham NEC, Sunday 3rd to Wednesday 6th March.

Just arrived in Market Deeping near Peterborough to give lecture tonight. Lecture in Bury tomorrow.

City Light - Cities of the World and Buxton, New Book

I have just sent back what I think are the final edits to my new book, City Light - Cities of the World and Buxton.

It should go to the printers later this week and be ready for launch at Focus on Imaging at the Birmingham NEC from 3rd to 6th March.

Ilford Photo / Harman Technology have once again invited Jan and I to join them on their stand at the show, which is open to both trade and retail visitors. The stand number is C2 in Hall 9.

There are 31 cities and 123 images in 80 pages, as well as an article on city and night photography and technical data on every image. The cover price is £15 but there will be an introductory show offer for visitors for the 4 days of the Focus show.

Come to the show if you are able to and say hello and look at my new book. We can take cards and cash!

We will put it on the web site as soon as we can after it is printed and on Amazon Marketplace.

The photographs were taken over 22 years, hope you like them.

ICHF Crafts for Christmas at Birmingham NEC

We are at the Birmingham NEC for day 1 of the ICHF Crafts for Christmas show. Stand E6 in Hall 19.

Open 9.30am to 5.30pm until Sunday night.

We have several hundred photos on the stand. Show offers too!

It's actually 3 shows in one. On the same entrance ticket you can also get into Hobbycraft and Cake World. If that isn't enough to tempt you I don't know what is!

Focus on Imaging 2012

Focus on Imaging is over for another year. It was good to see so many friends old and new at the show. We hadn't exhibited for 2 years so it had been a while.

Ilford Photo / Harman Technology kindly invited us back on their stand for the 5th time in 7 years and gave us a lot of space to display photos and sell books and courses. We are very grateful to them for this generous support. They also printed my poster of show offers as well as generating QR bar codes for my web site. I hadn't even considered these as useful until this show. For example, I took a photo of the stand on my mobile phone which included the QR code as a small part of the picture. The phone immediately told me it had found and recognised the bar code to my web site link and would I like to click the link. It was very fast and more importantly it worked, going straight to my web site home page! I will use these at shows throughout the year to help customers look at my web site.

Jan took these 2 photos of the stand one morning before the show started. The QR code is on the end of the counter next to where I am standing.

This one shows my shot of St Paul's from Millennium Bridge London printed at 1 metre by 0.5 metres by Ilford Lab Direct from my negative scan.

The show was good for us, we sold lots of books and some courses.  The low price for books certainly made a difference but don't expect this all the time! We needed to make some space for the new book, City Light, which will be available from February 2013 and officially launched at Focus 2013.


We actually packed up and were away from the NEC by 6.20pm. Jan went for the car when the show finished and for some reason the security gates were open so Jan just drove straight through and up to the back door of the show. Couldn't have been easier. Home by 9pm, including a take-away! Last bit of the drive it was snowing.

Focus on Imaging Setup Day

Jan is just driving us down to the NEC at Birmingham for the Focus on Imaging show http://www.focus-on-imaging.co.uk . We are setting up our part of the Ilford Photo stand. They have generously given us space for 7 large framed hand prints and space to sell books and courses.

The show opens tomorrow 4th and ends 7th March. If you're coming along visit us on C2.

Staying with good friends Peter and Sally in Kenilworth which we are really looking forward to.

Crafts for Christmas 1st Day, NEC

We are doing the Crafts for Christmas show at Birmingham NEC for the first time. Second of 4 days tomorrow, Friday. Busy day today. Included sales of 2 framed copies of St Paul's from Millennium Bridge at Night (1m x 0.5m), one here at show and one at Buxton Gallery in the Gardens. Nice coincidence! Open 9.30am to 5.30pm, Hall 19, stand B09. Hope to see you here sometime.

Spring Fair - Home at Last!

The big trade show for the gift industry at the NEC Birmingham, Spring Fair, finished yesterday after 5 days. We made it home about 8.30 pm yesterday and celebrated our return with an Indian takeaway and a bottle of wine. We know how to live it up!

Lots of hard work still to do though, chasing up leads from the show. We spoke to so many galleries and retailers, as well as card and calendar companies.

We showed the new range of Silver Prints that are made from digital files of my negatives and printed by Ilford Lab Direct onto traditional silver gelatin paper. We had 30 x 24 cm and 70 x 70 cm prints on display. There were also examples of my Original Prints and Limited Editions. I now have to add the Silver Print range of sizes and options to my web site so that customers can buy them.

Here are some images of the stand, all taken by Jan, so that you can see them in full colour, if I had taken them they would of course have been in black and white!

People queuing up to talk to us and Jan is taking photos!

 Calm before the storm. Waiting for the show to start.

 These 2 shots show the stand.