When it’s a washout

This August family photoshoot began perfectly, with warm summer weather and pockets of sunshine. The children hopped through the mud and leaves, gathering fistfuls of feathery ferns, exploring dens.

One minute they’re pointing in the distance to their make believe farmhouses and then suddenly, around us patters heavy summer rain that was NOT predicted by Accuweather. I say it will stop soon but it doesn’t. There is no phone reception so I can’t check my weather app.

My autofocus struggles with raindrops. Fingers slip off smooth plastic as I struggle to put my lens caps on and untether my cameras from their harness. I chatter nervously and look up. Gasping at the beauty of it all, the muted colours and warm air, all the hard lines blurred by rain.

The children scatter joyfully, leaping around in the rain shower, hair plastered to foreheads. This is romantic rain; it’s-caught-out-in-your-gown-in-an-Austen-novel rain.

Eventually the rain eases off and we have a chance to raise our heads, reassess. Ice creams are promised. Blow drys are ruined. Our walk back to the cafe is interrupted by more showers but everyone has given up on being photogenic. Instead they look dishevelled and radiant. I laugh with the parents and they talk about how they met.

A reindeer trots towards us, unbothered, lazily picking leaves from low branches. We slowly make our way along the path.

I snap away.

I loved this shoot particularly for two reasons:

Firstly, the family I shot were open to things going ‘wrong’. With four kids, I expect you learn pretty quickly to take things in your stride. They were in beautiful outfits, with coiffed hair. We all got soaked and there was nothing we could do about it. It didn’t matter.

Secondly the rain and sunshine gave us a story. And there we have it. This family sesh reminded me about the joy in finding and embracing a narrative within a shoot.

We explored our space. We bonded in the rain. We tried sheltering under trees and got close enough to talk more. One boy picked up a make believe spear and fought an imaginary monster in the downpour. The children welcomed the warm summer shower; it loosened things up a bit. A deer emerged, empowered by the sound of the rain and lack of people. We shared relief when the sun came out. We followed the lure of ice creams.

What a gift.

Here’s to learning to love and embrace the unexpected – after all, it makes for the best stories.

Michelangelo and The Neighbourhood Threat

Are they Teenage Mutant Ninja or Hero Turtles?

Back in my day (ooo er), they were always Heroes rather than Ninjas… apparently because the UK government believed ‘ninjas’ had violent connotations and ‘heroes’ were more positive role models for British kids.

I digress. But should you happen to walk past a particularly bright and beautiful orange van around Manchester, it may very well be Michelangelo, named for the orange masked pizza-loving Teenage Mutant (Whatever) Turtle himself.

Michelangelo The Van belongs to designer Holly Ramsay. He’s her pride and joy and also features in some of her designs for label The Neighbourhood Threat.

She’s done collaborations with Nescafe and Lucy and Yak and now runs the Krafthaus store in Sale, selling her own products and locally sourced gifts and homeware.

Recently we got together for a photoshoot at her store. I photographed Holly with her colleague Liz, at work in her studio at the back of Krafthaus.

It rained mostly, but the sun came out for approx 3% of the total time of our shoot so we immediately darted outside for photos. Without any prompting, Holly leapt fearlessly onto Michelangelo’s back, riding him like a Mad Max character surrounded by the wild metropolis of Sale M33*.

*jokes. Sale is no wild metropolis, more a leafy Manchester suburb.

I asked Holly a few questions to find out more about her work as an artist.

How did you get into designing?

I’ve been making and selling stuff since I was 16 (maybe younger) and it’s all evolved from there! The Neighbourhood Threat started on Depop and Asos Marketplace as a vintage clothes boutique whilst I was at college.

The homewares side was born when I whipped up some cushions using old tea towels I found in a charity shop in Cheadle. As my tea towel stash was running out and they were getting more expensive to source, I got into designing my own fabrics!

What are your creative specialisms?

I think an important thing about Neighbourhood Threat is that me and Liz are still able to make so many of the products that we sell as a brand. The things we can’t make, like the bone china and wool blankets, are all sourced as locally as possible and I always make the effort to visit the manufacturers and work as closely as I can with them.

I think being able to trace back where all our things come from is quite special to us as a brand. I’ll always have a crack at doing it myself first though, before we started working with Duchess China I used to print all the mugs myself!

Do you have any other creative interests?

I wish I had more time to practice upholstery. I know the basics but think it’s such a cool skill to have and it would mean I could kit out the back of my van to look mint!

Name an interesting fact about yourself.

My middle name is Vegas!

What are your influences (can be from the worlds of music/film/books/fashion/art)?

I love the styles from the 70s and mid-century modern design! Everyday things looked so much better and stylish back then. A huge inspiration will always be David Bowie, we’re called The Neighbourhood Threat after his cover of the tune by Iggy Pop! He’s always been in my life for as long as I can remember and will always be a huge source of inspiration.

How would you describe your style in 3 words?

Retro funky groovy

Do you ever struggle with creative block? What do you do if/when that happens?

Creative block is so annoying because it always seems to happen when I’ve got to design something specific to meet a brief! A visit to Bygone Times is good to refresh the brain.

Look out for Holly’s latest collaboration with fashionwear Lucy & Yak, available exclusively on their app from today (12th June, 2023).

Formby

It’s an easy hour’s drive away; far enough for a child to get car sick, but close enough to pack up and decide to go that afternoon if the sun’s out and we’re feeling bored. Formby.

I’ve been to the beach numerous times with children and in the hot sun, it’s a stress. Whines as the suncream is slapped on. Babies obsessed with putting sand in their mouth then crying because there is sand in their mouth. Toddlers running in exactly the opposite direction to everyone else, usually towards the closest road or cliff. Heat makes all movement unwelcome.

Hot beaches remind me of cocktail hour and reading books and large Vietnamese prawns bbq’d on the sand…

Hot beaches are no fun with small children.

But then there’s windy beaches, with cold water that invigorates you from the toes… you really don’t want to go in that water… but the children do, so you have to.

And they love your screams, and your screams are lost to the wind and they want to wade in deeper so you wade in deeper.

And you’re not enjoying yourself because it’s awful but it’s also kind of great because it’s living. The cold is invigorating; the adrenaline makes you hop and run.

This is the year Rory is finally interested in collecting shells, and I mean: really interested. It’s what I used to do when I went on summer holidays to the beach in West Ireland, I was OBSESSED. I start picking up shells to show him and then we compare what we’ve found and suddenly I’m just six again, hunting for shells.

Etta likes the idea of building sandcastles and I’m well up for it too. I begin filling buckets and marking out the space for a fortress, but as soon as I produce a textbook tower, she gleefully kicks it to pieces. It’s gone.

This happens with every single tower I make. I’m confused because at this rate, there’ll be no sandcastle, but she is perfectly happy, so we carry on.

Tim and I pull out the surprise – the sledge we bought for last winter’s snow that never came. We brought it to take down the sandy slopes of the dunes, and it almost works, not really gathering enough momentum, but Tim pulls the kids along and they love it.

We try steeper slopes and we try smoothing out the sand beforehand and it’s mostly fun just trying to work it all out.

Then I run to get us Mr Whippy ice creams and they melt too quickly but taste great.

Etta hands Rory her flake and spreads the ice cream around her face like shaving foam. She keeps asking me to wipe her hands but seems completely oblivious to the fact 55% of the ice cream is smeared round her mouth.

I’m not gonna be the one to break it to her.

Throughout my life there have been places I’ve made my home. Places that have developed meaning slowly, collecting layers of memory, trailing ghosts of myself and the people I’ve known.

I think Formby will become one of these places.

Project Love

One Saturday a group of women met in a London space to jump around, proclaiming their love and support for one another and themselves. And I was there to join in! In fact, photographer Sarah Shattock and I leapt at the opportunity to capture their energy and find a little bit more out about their plans.

Selina Barker and Vicki Burtt have been drumming up attention for their new project – PROJECT LOVE – where they encourage women to try a new approach to dating and relationships – including that most valuable of all – our relationship with ourselves.

It’s a cliché but so true: women often put themselves under immense pressure to achieve in all aspects of life – including love. The Project Love crew encourage us to be a little kinder to ourselves. In developing positive habits, we can very naturally build on our emotional intelligence and improve our interactions with others*.

*Others may or may not include that hot stud from across the office/road/supermarket aisle.

It makes total sense.

Their ideas have already captured the attention of Psychologies magazine and The Huffington Post – so Selina and Vicki were on the lookout for photographs to illustrate their online content.

They invited a group of women who’ve supported the project so far and arrived armed with silver balloons, sparkling wine and 70s disco. There was little left to do other than line ’em up and throw props at them as they paraded their joyful faces in front of the lens.

It proved to be an inspiring and very fun shoot. DO check out the Project Love website for more information.

Admission: A number of helium balloons were harmed in the making of this album.

Fairport’s Cropredy Convention

August 2015. It was a three day adventure; I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. On Wednesday lunchtime I set off alone in my little silver Renault through relentless rain. I’d not long had my driver’s licence so this turned out to be my first solo motorway trip. I drove with my shoulders hunched over the steering wheel, squinting through the storm, steeling my nerves with a continuous supply of Murray Mints. It seemed to work – that and the occasional gasped swearword…

Sweet wrappers collected on the seat next to me, around my recently acquired Canon 5D mk II camera. And what a great opportunity to take it for its first run. I was booked to cover Fairport Convention’s Cropredy festival for BBC Oxford.

I prayed the rain would stop soon. It would be my first time shooting from the photographers’ pit at an event.

Exciting!

Ok so it WAS exciting and all – the torrential rain even calmed down a bit – but things got off to a shaky start.

There was an embarrassing moment early on where I misunderstood instructions.

A band was already playing the main stage, so I gripped my camera, climbed some wet stairs and bounced joyously in my wellies onto the stage from behind… before security gripped my shoulders and firmly escorted me from the area.

The pit was fine but the stage was off limits. I could see the backstage team eyeing me up, trying to gauge whether I was:

a) Well sneaky

b) Well dumb

I was actually:

c) Mortified

I think they could see this and let me off, warily. It could’ve so easily ended before it even began.

I soon got up to speed. The festival has taken place every August since 1978, so I was 37 years late to the party… but it didn’t matter. The performers were enthusiastic and warm and the staff welcoming – despite my initial transgression.

I bobbed about singing along and photographing in the pit – learning quickly to never go anywhere without a pair of trusty earplugs. (Turns out even folk music gets loud by the stage.) The crowd beamed at everyone from behind the barriers.

Backstage security and fellow photographers took it in turns to relay to me the history of the festival and the stories behind many of the performers. There were tales of alcoholism and incredible talent and arguments never resolved and DEATH. It was a brilliant window into the world of British folk music – a world I was previously pretty oblivious to.

Many people involved with the festival take a real pleasure in being a part of it, leaving their day jobs to volunteer, to escape to this family in a field. It felt incredibly free – just me and my camera, photographing people, chatting to people, adapting to the great outdoors, taking in each hour at a time. For the first couple of days it rained intermittently, but it really didn’t matter. I became inseparable from my trusty Dunlop wellies and my hair inflated to twice its normal size.

The crowd’s a fair bit older than at your average festival; I have never seen so many mobility scooters at a public event. Obvs in the wet weather I nabbed one to put my new driving skills to use.

(They accelerate faster than you’d think. Also the terrain was rugged in places so I screamed. A bit.)

But when the sun came out in the evenings – it was glorious. The mud dried fast. The crowd laid out on rugs, drunk on real ale, nostalgia and sunshine. It all felt incredibly… British.

This was the moment I got the shot featured above. A girl blowing bubbles in golden light, before the main stage. A chap came over to me hour later, saying he’d seen me photographing and asking ‘did you get it? Did you get it?’ I must’ve looked crazy, I remember being utterly mute but ridiculously hopping excited.

It was my favourite shot of the festival; one of those moments when you see the photo in your mind’s eye before you’ve captured it.

And ‘click’. It’s done, I have it, it’s mine.

I’ll leave you with that and other photos from Cropredy; an unforgettable few days.

Steve and The Achievers

What do you get if you cross singer and guitarist Steve Ferbrache with a team of blues musicians?

Achievement!

Steve and the band are dear friends of mine who put on a fantastic show, so allow me a little plug for them.

At one gig they were adopted by a tres glam hen do – beautiful young ladies in 1920s attire who insisted on booking them on the SPOT for the forthcoming wedding. 2 weeks later, there they were, on stage, playing their signature Rhythm & Blues for the ladies and their fellas, friends and family.

Their website is here: http://www.steveandtheachievers.com/

In pictures, this is how they do it:

Running Wild: WildLive Festival

Some people just make things happen. This… is Tom.

He’s looking pretty smug in this pic after a successful Saturday night. Tom wanted to put on a festival a few years ago, and so he scoped out what he’d need to do. And did it. The result is WildLive, a teeny tiny festival that’s been running for a few years, with us, our mates, music, guaranteed sunshine and rain and rainbows every single year. Without fail. We use it as an opportunity to let loose in a field for a few days, eat bbq’d food and dance around like mad things. Last year there were events: live music, the quad bike obstacle course, the poi challenge, the Not In Hill Carnival… and many happy smiling people, like these…

Running Club

The boys played a stormer. Their last gig, after 8 years of the band. It was late 2004 when two of them and the P1000 (Piet the drummer) launched the band down The 12 Bar on Denmark Street, London.

I just asked Tim why Piet was called the P1000. He eyed me up suspiciously, said it was a Terminator 2 reference, and that I should never write ANYTHING about popular culture. But I digress.

Tim, my old friend, and new boyfriend at the time, was singer. Adam, his oldest school friend, bass. And drummer Piet was a sound engineer they’d met on London’s acoustic circuit. Because of the stage setup we couldn’t see the tops of their heads, but that didn’t matter. All our mates danced around with pints of beer like mentalists and it was great.

The band changed, grew. The boys spent years developing their sound, enlisting Tom and Andy, the brass section. Leon took over from the P1000 – he was the only man who could. Together they played festivals, sent their EPs to radio stations, sold CDs at gigs. I saw how much work it was – practices and lugging equipment and plugging gigs and recording over and over. But I could see it was worth it after each gig. Tim would walk over, pupils dilated, smiling sheepishly, T-shirt almost too drenched with sweat to hug, almost…

He had the hunger to take the band to the top. He planned for no other future. It’s what he’d always wanted to do.

So I thought the last gig would be a sad thing. But it wasn’t. This music had been the soundtrack to many major events in our twenties; house parties, gigs, festivals, weddings – it was a celebration of the good times. Friends old and new, family, everyone was there to share it. It was great.

They never got a record deal. But they did fulfil musical ambitions solo. They found meaning in their day jobs. They made homes with the women they loved. They had daughters. They all got what they wanted. And for that night on stage, they were what they’d always been: the band, rocking out with their friends, just like every other time before.

I took pictures of the gig. Here they are. The band are called Running Club.

Nicola Arber

Author: Nicola