The Unthanks

‘Can you see if you’ve got a pound in your bag??’

I uttered these words rather frantically as we drove into the depths of the Tyne Tunnel. There was a sign as we entered saying that the exact amount was needed. I was coming in at £2.70 found in the collection of car change I keep in the water holder (alongside the odd Werthers Original sweet wrapper). We were down a quid. I remember from the last time me and Suze drove through that there’s no card payment option, and nobody sitting cheerily in a kiosk waiting for their palms to be crossed with silver. So it was down to my travelling companion Matt to rifle through the multitude of pockets in his bag. I swear there was a glint from the coin as Matt held it aloft!

With the drama of the tunnel behind us, we pulled into Cullercoats, a small North Eastern coastal town, and we breathed a deep sigh as we took first sight of the bay and the ebbing tide. Matt may have been disappointed that he hadn’t seen The Angel Of The North (I did promise but we turned off just before she majestically looms above the A1), but thankfully he didn’t hold it against me!

After scouting a couple of locations, we grabbed a cup of tea in the sun outside a seafront cafe, and shortly after, we were joined by the smiling faces of Rachel and Becky. We were here to take photos for The Unthanks and their upcoming tour and album. Me behind the camera, and Matt bringing his lighting wizardry. He also took all of the behind the scenes shots that this blog is peppered with.

The North East light and landscape provided the perfect backdrop.

We based ourselves close to the shore for most of the day, and found some local landmarks to shoot in and around too. As we tested the lights, I think Matt was planning his Unthanks audition tape!

A few moments later…

There was singing, and there were seals. We watched the ships as they queued for the tide to rise before making their journey down The Tyne. Away from these metal giants, we spotted a pod of dolphins heading north.

As we walked around taking images, I noticed this colourful underpass, and thought it would make a great backdrop.

I loved creating this underpass collection, and this image above was used to promote the Sorrows Away tour.

As the sun was leaving the sky, painting it with saffron streaks, we took a few down in the bay where Adrian (pianist and producer) came to join us too.

The Unthanks music reaches into your heart and pulls on the stories hidden there, into the dust the light and the shadows. If you haven’t heard their beauty yet, you are in for a treat.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with them a couple of times. You can see and read about creating images for their Mount The Air album here.

A couple of weeks ago, the new album arrived in the post. Straight on the turntable it went, and I’d highly recommend Sorrows Away, what a feast for the senses. Inside the album on the lyrics sheet, one of my photos. And within that image, the memories of a lovely creative day.

And I’ve nearly got to the end without mentioning Matt’s infamous recovery dance down the slippery rocks. A move I called the seaweed shuffle! Let’s just say, he has skills. Thanks for everything Matt, you’re a star.

The Studio Fire

As some of you know, a fire raged through our studio building last week, a space we share with our friends Hannah Nunn and Julia Ogden. The Victorian mill we were situated in also housed other businesses, there are 16 of us all together. It’s a creative hub situated in the centre of our town, Hebden Bridge. Thankfully everyone is safe, and we’re all holding onto that.

I want to say here that the support all of us have had in the building has been nothing short of incredible. Hebden Bridge is built on resilience. After the floods over the years, this town seems to just get stronger, it rallies, it holds the people it affects. What a community we live in. And this has spread to the wider community, to Instagram, Facebook, around the world. And the support from you, from everyone has been overwhelming. Through all the emotions, that’s what keeps us going.

I haven’t written here for a while but just last week I’ve built regular blog writing into my schedule, and Monday is that day. I felt I needed to write long form and we’ve had so many lovely people asking how we are, so I thought I’d make this the place to write about it.

It seems hard to comprehend that this didn’t even happen a week ago yet. A lot has happened in these past 6 days. But I’m going to rewind just a bit.

Me Suze and O had travelled down to Suffolk last Monday to spend a bit of time with Suzi’s parents. The flat lands were so parched, everything brown and dusty. We sat in the garden in the shadow of the plum tree chatting, and then had an early night.

On Tuesday morning, I woke up about 6.45 am, I’d already prepared a post for Instagram to talk about our Life In Motion registration, so I pressed live on that. And then I scrolled Twitter. The first post I saw was a video of a building on fire, the flames leaping into the night sky. I recognised the building immediately, my stomach lurched, my heart leapt, and everything was confirmed when I read our building’s name beneath it.

I’d missed a call from Hannah. We called her, and we spoke to her as she sat on a hill just above town watching as the 80 strong fire brigade were still dousing the building with gallons of water. The fire had been raging from around 2.15am until dawn. These photos were taken by Chris & Bec, Tim & Sarah who live directly next to our building.

I don’t even know what we said. From that moment our phones were pinging every minute with new messages offering help and sanctuary, and to find out how we were. My thoughts were immediately with Hannah and Julia and everything they had lost. And to all those people that are under the roof. And to Chris and Bec who live immediately next door to our building. The gap is so very small between their house and the mill, and it was the tireless work of the fire brigade which eventually made their house safe. I can’t begin to imagine what that must have felt like being evacuated and not knowing if the house you’d just left was going to make it. Bec wrote this Instagram post about being a witness.

I took this photo on Saturday, their house is the one on the right.

I’ll go back a bit further. We moved into the mill in 2013. Hannah needed a bigger premises, and found the studio, it had additional office spaces too. I jumped at the chance of moving from my attic, and we got the keys in January 2013. We did a lot of work on the inside to get it how we wanted it to look, laid new floor and with the help of friends, stripped off the old office wallpaper. I took a couple of pictures on my phone. one here of Hannah imagining where her desk might be.

We realised very quickly that the low winter sun streamed through the big bank of windows, and for the first couple of weeks we were wandering around in vests and sunglasses. I couldn’t work as I couldn’t see my screen! We booked Tony to come in and fix blinds for us. And it grew from there. Hannah building up new collections of lamps, wallpaper, tiny treasures and window film, and me and Suzi had a space to invite clients in to view their photos and films, and for me to run my 1-1 classes. Thanks to Diana Hagues for the photo of me here.

And then Julia came to join us too with her big sky paintings and art workshops. Our little creative hub was complete.

When Covid struck, I didn’t go into the office, and adapted working from home. Agoraphobia struck too and I was struggling to get myself down there, but we were just building back up to it with new plans for our space and booking in new 1-1s. Matt Radcliffe took this sneaky little snap whilst we were chatting last year.

We’ve just invested in new editing and computer gear, waiting in brown boxes down there for us.

We have lost stuff. Thankfully quite a bit of the computer equipment we had there is covered by the insurance. It’s all our products and frames and sample albums that weren’t. Our friend Emma did a very lovely thing and set us up a crowdfunder which we really hadn’t expected.. We’ve been overwhelmed with the support from this, and it means we can now build on all these things again. Thank you thank you.

I hadn’t realised that in the crowdfunder Emma had titled it that we’d lost everything. I wanted folk to know we hadn’t so I asked Emma to change the wording. I have a laptop and my camera gear, so I can still operate. I can still make and create.

At this time it’s very hard not to reminisce about times in there and I’ve been thinking about all those sofa moments. Families looking at their photos, clients watching their films for the first time, lightbulb moments as someone had a breakthrough with their camera.

It’s more than just a space. It’s where all our businesses have grown.

We’re not sure what’s next. We’ve been thinking and chatting with Hannah and Julia. It was so good to see them for hugs and pizza and ice creams the other day. O took this phone photo of all 4 of us.

A couple of days later, I had a morning walk with Hannah. I need to tell a little story here about Hannah’s latest design. She’s been working on a Rosebay Willowherb lamp, and there will be wallpaper. This was her last post on Instagram before the studio fire.

These vibrant pink flowers line so many paths around here and cluster at the edges of fields. Their silhouttes dancing in the evening breeze.

It’s also known as Fireweed for its ability to grown from land that has been ravaged by fire. With this in mind, I took this as I was going to meet her.

We have a step where we sit and talk things through. Over the years, those stones and trees have heard so much. So that’s where we headed with the flask. We greet each other at the same place, where our paths meet, and the heather is blooming.

We got to the step.

We just sat and watched the light through the trees. It was incredibly still. The sounds of an outside world muffled through the dense canopy of leaves.

Hannah was trying my camera out. I rather like this first shot she took with it.

It was good to see the catchlight in Hannah’s eyes.

We left our step and wandered into town. We passed the celebrity geese on the way. They have a bit of a reputation in Hebden.

I hadn’t seen the building. Even though I’d watched footage and looked at photos online, it was still a shock to see it. Beams burnt to black, metal curling from the heat it endured, glass knocked out. And the smell.

Hannah took these next two images from Chris and Bec’s house.

We don’t think anything will be salvageable. If things weren’t destroyed by the fire, they were doused in gallons of water that was poured through the collapsed roof.

I thought I was only going to be out for a short walk and then back home, but I actually stayed out all day. I chatted to people in town, there were big hugs, I bought some thank you cards, went to the vintage car rally with Suze and O (I loved that peep into that world) and then sat in a friend’s garden.

Olive fell asleep on the way back up the hill and then I went out for a run down the lane. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted my barn owl swooping into the trees. And it gave me great comfort.

Hannah and Julia will be starting the process of building their stock up again over the next few weeks. In the meantime there are crowdfunders to help them get back on their feet. Hannah’s here and Julia’s here. And do give them a follow on Instagram and sign up for their newsletters to hear more from them. And if you’d like to keep in touch with us, you can share a cuppa with us every month in our newsletter The Monthly Brew.

There is also a crowdfunded for the whole of the Burlees House building which you can find here. The mill is listed, so it will come back in the next few years.

And for me and Suze, we’re going to be OK. Through the cracks the light always finds a way through.

We’re a business and we need to keep going, so I’ll be chatting further about registration for our Life In Motion course this week. You can find out all about our online filmmaking course here.

And I just want to sign off this blog by saying the very biggest of thank yous from us both. Your support over this last week has been nothing short of incredible. Thank you. And we’ll be speaking to you again on our blog soon. x

Half The Story

I don’t think I’ll ever not get excited when an email pops up from the lab to say my scans are ready. When I started shooting film again a few years ago, there’s sometimes that little added element of surprise with the first of the roll shot. The ones that are not shown in their entirety. The ones where I’ve taken the first test shot when the film wasn’t fully wound to its correct beginning position. What makes up the other section? Those colours that seep onto the image, the embers that burn onto the emulsion. Tiny fires that swallow a little part of the story.

I thought I’d share a few from the last couple of years.

And very occasionally, there’s a little surprise at the end too.