I usually know what’s in store for Light Night but this year I just let Charlotte from Open Culture guide me through a list as long as the night and we started the evening off, as you do, with a Roman lobotomy workshop at the Museum of Liverpool and ended up at the Dilettante Disco in the brilliant new Baltic Bakehouse.  Samba bands at the Pier Head, a massive Céilidh in St.George’s Hall, choirs in the Town Hall and dance classes up at The Blackie meant that even with the longest of long weeks behind me there was no sleep ’til Camp & Furnace which hosted the Look13 opening party at the end of night. Amazing work from Open Culture, all the venues involved and everybody who joined in the party!

Light Night

Musem of Liverpool

Museum of Liverpool

Museum of Liverpool

Samba at the Pier Head

Walking History Tours

Food & Drink Festival

Liverpool Town Hall

Town Hall

Baltic Creative

Liverpool Cathedral

Lantern Maze

The Blackie

The Blackie

Central Library

Central Library

St.George’s Hall

St.George’s Hall

George’s Dock Building

Baltic Bakehouse

Well the day has finally arrived and the shiny new library will be open at 10am and I’ll be there for the launch. I’m also going to be at the Open Eye to shoot their Look13 show and then it’s full steam ahead on everything Light Night. Needless to say, one of the highlights of Light night is going to be the Central Library launch and I got a sneak preview last night and it’s well worth going later on as the projections on the buildings looked fantastic and you might get to meet a few characters from some of the books! I also got to meet Trevor James, the former chief librarian of Central Library who, now aged 94, worked at the library up until 30 years ago after moving there from West Derby Library in 1971!  Anyway, that’s all for now  as I’ve got to get back there but here’s some photographs from last night and I’m sure there’ll be more to follow!

Light Night projections

Central Library Launch

Sense of Sound

Hope Street Theatre

Trevor James

The Oak Room

Ken Dodd

Dorothy

Light Night proejections

My last post was all about the empty library and today’s quite the opposite as I went back yesterday to do some more finished photography and the place is looking incredible. We also got to see the conservation staff bring in one of the Audubon books which was pretty amazing too. I’ve been shooting some of the rare books for some of their electronic displays but seeing one of the volumes installed in it’s custom made cabinet in the Oak Room was the finishing touch ahead of the public opening tomorrow. Needless to say there’ll be lots more library related posts over the next week or so as I’m back there tonight and tomorrow.

The new look Central Library opens on Friday and I’ve been back and forth all year photographing it for a few purposes including producing marketing material for the launch and photographs of the rare books collection for  multimedia displays and at the same time as this, I’ve been documenting the return of the books from empty library to full and some of these photographs will be on display during Liverpool’s International Photography Festival which also launches on Friday. My exhibition will be on at Bold Street Coffee and will feature portraits of people with the books that changed their lives alongside some of my work shot at the library.  This exhibition is also the start of a longer term project with it’s own website where you can find just what those favourite books were and why they were so important to people and the site will be live in the next day or so and during Look13 there’ll also be some opportunities to be part of this site and to add your favourite book to the library so please get in touch if you’d like to be photographed and I’ll keep you informed of the forthcoming sessions.

Polly Moseley

The Oak Room

The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus has been touring in The States for fifteen years and last week saw the launch of the European version which will tour cities, giving children the chance to see a state of the art mobile recording studio and take part in songwriting workshops and recording sessions.  In a couple of weeks, the bus will be sat outside the South Bank Centre for the Yoko Ono curated Meltdown and Yoko came to Liverpool last week to launch the bus and meet some of the students and young local musicians who got try out the studio first as well as taking the bus on a visit to Alder Hey!  The bus has three live onboard studio engineers who work with some of the most amazing up to date HD video and audio equipment and the first band to record on it Liverpool were MiC Lowry who also performed at the launch at the Museum of Liverpool. There was also a gig at The Cavern to celebrate the launch with The Verdict plying alongside some of the John Songwriting Competition winners of whom Gaby Moreno was one of the greatest singers I’ve seen in a good while.

John Lennon European Tour Bus

John Lennon European Tour Bus

Alder Hey

John Lennon European Tour Bus

The Verdict

Gaby Moreno

Gaby Moreno

I won’t bore you with loads of holiday photos but here’s a few quick shots from a fantastic weekend in Berlin just gone. It was a bit rubbish missing the last couple of nights of Liverpool Sound City but Bearpit Karaoke and the amazing but slightly bonkers NHow Hotel more than made up for it. I’m now in the middle of working out the final plans for my Look Photo Festival show and doing the last of the photography for the opening of Liverpool’s Central Library so stumbling across a reading festival was also perfect timing. Anyway, there’s going to be loads of new blogs going up over the next couple of weeks as well as a new website (or two) so keep an eye out as things are going to get very busy.

The Spree

Straleaur Allee

Reading Festival, Berlin

Unter Den Linden

Bearpit Karaoke, Mauer Park, Berlin

Bearpit Karaoke, Mauer Park, Berlin

Bearpit Karaoke, Mauer Park, Berlin

NHow Hotel

Holocaust Memorial

Air Service Berlin

My legs are killing and I’ve got a headache but then it is the morning after day one of Liverpool Sound City. I’m also out of town this weekend so I reckon I packed a three dayer into one night and, amongst a whole load of other jumbled up things I sort of remember from a very long day, I do know that Jetta is a force to be reckoned with,  I now love The Loved Ones, Tracey Thorn talking to Dave Haslam was a daytime festival highlight ever and that God’s got the best stage!  There’ll be more photos on the new portfolio site coming up over the next few weeks.

The Loved Ones

Tracey Thorn with Dave Haslam

Kepla

Jetta

Noah & The Whale

Noah & The Whale

Noah & The Whale

Noah & The Whale

I think I can safely say that, although I’ve seen my photographs appear in all kinds of places, this week was the first time I’ve ever seen one on a Macaron! It was the launch of the RLPO’s new season at The Phil on Tuesday which also means the launch of the new brochure featuring this cover image of Vasily Petrenko that I shot last year. The event featured a film about what’s in store from September onwards, a discussion between Classic FM’s Darren Henley, Vasily and members of the orchestra and a short performance by James Clark and Jonathan Aasgaard before a packed out hall  moved into the bar, devoured the cakes, had a glass of bubbly and hopefully bought loads of tickets for what’s in store.  Anyway, the full listings are now online and my photos have made it onto cakes. Onwards and upwards.

I’m back at The Phil tomorrow night to see what the new season has in store and I just realised I’ve not blogged anything from the work I’ve been doing there. I’ve been a few times this year and one of the highlights has got to be the 4th birthday of In Harmony, the West Everton Children’s Orchestra who were joined by the West Everton Superstrings for an incredible celebration back in March. I’ve been photographing this orchestra since day one and it’s just amazing to see how far they’ve come along and it’s recently been announced that they’re to join the RLPO in a concert at the BBC Proms on September 1st!

I did some work with The Coral’s James Skelly a while ago and one of the photos has been used on this forthcoming single release. The tune, co-written by Paul Weller is brilliant in a full on Northern Soul kind of way and another great taster for the album out on June 3rd. Meanwhile, I’m getting close to finishing my new website, close to finishing my exhibition work for Look13, very close to Sound City and close to being worn out! Onwards and upwards.