Urban Landscape Photography

New 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle Design

in ,

The Mews, Ashby De La Zouch

1,000 Piece Real Photographic Jigsaw Puzzle

This article discusses a new 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle design that I’ve recently created, making the twelfth puzzle design in my series and only the second one from the project Leicestershire Photographed.

The Mews, Ashby De La Zouch - 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle

Leicestershire Photographed.

You might be aware already that I’ve started a massive project ‘Leicestershire Photographed’, where I plan to document the landscape across the entire county of Leicestershire. Along the way I’ll be on the lookout for pictures that might be worthy of going in to an adults colouring book, Christmas Cards, Framed Prints or my new calendar in the making for Leicestershire. Also (and of course), I’m searching for photographs that I can create jigsaw puzzles from and I think I’ve found another one for this project.

“So far…….
I’ve driven to quite a few places and covered 262.6 miles, collecting 178 Photographs and have created 2 x 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzles.”
— Paul Hands

The Mews in Ashby De La Zouch.
Since starting the project, I’ve been to Aston Flamville, Bruntingthorpe, Cadeby, Cosby, Desford, Heather, Kirby Muxloe, Lutterworth, Marefield, Market Bosworth, Peatling Magna, Potters Marston, Shenton, South Croxton, Stoney Stanton, Twyford, Watery Gate and Willoughby Watersley. I only started the project on October 13th, which in hindsight, I should have perhaps gone for a different date, so I’m not celebrating any birthdays on Friday 13th, but I will be!

The Old House, Cadeby

The very first jigsaw puzzle I’ve created for the Leicestershire Photographed project, is The Old house in Cadeby. I now have two jigsaw puzzle designs from this project and twelve in total, when including the designs from ‘Hinckley & Burbage Photographed’.

Here’s an example (above) of the box designs and the shapes of the puzzle pieces. The puzzle design shown here is of St. Catherine’s Church, Burbage, which has been one of my most popular jigsaw puzzles.
I only began making jigsaw puzzles in March of this year and all because of the lockdown. I lost all of my commissioned work that was set up for the year and didn’t really know how to get around the situation. I had nothing but photographs sitting on my hard drive that had come from my Hinckley & Burbage Photographed project, which I started in 2012. As you might imagine, I’d collected loads, over ten thousand.

I had to innovate, so I began by turning 6 photographs into jigsaw puzzles and began advertising them online in my website shop and shared them on social media. Oh my days, it was incredible. It was one of the single most important decisions I’d ever made in my life because my business boomed from that moment onwards.
I didn’t realise I had a proper product business like this and it surprised me, coming from nowhere.
Now I’m on a mission to replicate Hinckley & Burbage Photographed but for the entire county of Leicestershire.
It’s started off quite well, with two real photographic jigsaw puzzle designs within the first month.

Leicestershire Photographed Logo.jpg

The Mews, Ashby De La Zouch is my latest release and I’ve managed to get it in before the Christmas delivery cut off date. So they’ll be here in the first week of December. I’ve only ordered 20 x jigsaw puzzles, so these are a limited edition. Also for the first 7 days only, these are reduced from £22 to £20 on pre-order.
They’re available to order in my online shop, which is accessible by this product link below.

I'm a Photographer and Filmmaker but WHY?

in ,

What’s the point of making photographs and films?

There comes a time in any creators life when they question themselves.

I think I know the answer but then again, I’m not sure?

Derby Road, Crossroads, Hinckley, Leicestershire.

What do I achieve by making photographs?

Who cares anyway?

The above photograph was made on a whim. I’d always planned to make a picture from these bollards, knowing somebody had drawn a question mark on one. It attracted me because it’s quirky. I grabbed this photograph while walking home from a friends house late at night and while I a little worse for wear.

It’s a powerful picture and one of my favourites (of many)!

I made it because I like the look of it and fits with my quizzical mind. It doesn’t fit with any project and stands alone as a single image. Once I got home and did a little post production on it. I only ever perform digital darkroom techniques and never crop a photograph in post. This is simply because I have been trained to get it right in camera and it’s become a firm belief of mine, that if you have to alter the picture in post, then it’s not good enough anyway and I tend to just move on if I don’t get it right.

WHY THOUGH?

I posted it on social media and possibly got a few likes from people following my social pages but that’s it. That’s where it stopped! What was the point of that? Well, I’ve got a huge library of photographs that tell a story of my journey through life and it gives me a record of the weird things that I notice on my travels. A lot of my photographs also tell parts of other peoples stories and journeys.

Maybe he was walking home from the pub?

I like to think I can second guess peoples stories. Was this man walking home from the pub late at night? I noticed the difficulty in walking up this hill, so I flattened it for him, levelled it out.

My little doggy, Laila

I often take my dog for walks at night and with my camera, just looking for things that I find interesting. Usually it’s something different and more often than not, the photographs just pop up on social media and then sit on my hard drive. I always plan to print them and make a book one day (which is sooo expensive)!

So, going back to they why…

I wrote a post about this on social media and it went something like this…

“Why do I bother making photographs? I mean what’s the point? Seriously, I could just sit at home and look at other peoples work on the internet or spend some real time going to see an exhibition.
Actually, I’ll tell you why. It’s because I have to. It’s a burning desire that cannot be ignored. I’ve become a creator, a storyteller.
Well I’ve always been quite good at talking up stories but now I know how to use a camera, I have to do that.
It’s like having a child and needing to have time with them, to see them and watch them growing. It’s not exactly like that but I can only liken making pictures to that with this level of passion.
Every day I see something that would make a great photograph, in fact I see things more than just once a day and it hurts when I can’t record that moment. It burns away inside of me.
I am a photographer and now I’ve said it, I can’t ctrl z that!
I must make, I must create, regardless of how many people like my work, regardless of who sees it and regardless of what anyone thinks, I still have to do it.
I know I could never stop!”
— Paul Hands

I think this just about sums it up, although you’ll never get to understand how my mind works, I don’t think I’ll ever know, I just know it’s a little bit odd, a bit weird and not quite the same as everyone else.

Let’s just leave it at that shall we?

Brookside, Burbage

Don’t forget that you can subscribe to my long time dribble and get my blogs straight to your inbox!

Yellow Is The Colour Of Sunshine

in ,

"Of the colour between green and orange in the spectrum, a primary subtractive colour complementary to blue; coloured like ripe lemons or egg yolks."

Often Yellow is a beautiful colour in the Sun and is synonymous with nature, the brightest of all the spectrum and the colour that usually automatically attracts the eye toward.

This is a short body of personal work that is experimental in practice.  Something which I do to keep my eyes trained on the world.  I find work like this is more a test for myself to prove to myself that I see things differently to others and my desire to share my vision of a slowed down world, brings your attention to this project.

This is my personal work that I sometimes like to just go out for a walk to see what I can find.  A test to see what my eyes and mind are looking at, something that puts me in the zone.

I had no brief, just walked and worked with what ever the environment presented to me.

If you'd like to chat to me, click here.

 

Jewellery Quarter

in

I was invited to talk to a photography club in Birmingham earlier this week.  I spent a few days organising my presentation about my own photographic journey and especially around my documentary photography.

It was nice to meet so many pleasant photographers showing an interest in my work because lets face it, photography is an industry where your work is created from the heart.  Recognition and being able to show your work is what it's about for the most part.  

I think the majority is more to do with understanding yourself and your own practice.

Prior to doing the talk, I spent a couple of hours walking around the Jewellery Quarter making some photographs.  I did some Street Photography and made a few Urban Landscapes.

Click on each image to enlarge...

In other news;  I've picked up a fantastic new client that I'm really proud of.  SSAFA is the Armed Forces Charity and have requested that I cover some very emotional events for them and the families that they support.