Exhibition setup at the Museum of Cannock Chase. Updated from 2008 with new images & video.

A busy week setting up my Littleton Colliery exhibition again. Updated from the original 2008 show to commemorate 30 years since the closure of Littleton. The area has changed a lot since 2008 and so has the community. Littleton Green school now stands where the pit once did and has created a new community to pick up the pieces left by the closure of Littleton Colliery. We interviewed the head of the school for the updated film, and found her to be passionate about teaching Huntington’s industrial past to the children.

See the Guardian article from the original show here: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2008/aug/13/communities.coalmining

Video projections for BLUE at the London Coliseum

The English National Opera’s production of Blue (writer Tazewell Thompson) looks spectacular! A pleasure to work on it and always good to see one’s work projected big! Excellent video design by Ravi Deepres and brilliant rotating wheel created by set designer by Alex Lowde. Ed Freeman did a great job projection mapping everything so that our projections turned at the same time as the wheel.

LIDAR & Photo-scanning in Harlem, New York for BLUE

A short but very productive few days in Harlem creating content for the opera Blue. Especially good as we got to meet and chat with it’s creator, the writer Tazewell Thompson.

Community consultation - Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery

I have worked on a number community focused projects based out of Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery over the years. These range from community consultation sessions to family open days, writers groups and disability projects. All of which require documentation for funding & marketing purposes

Filming for Maddaddam in Canada

It was a pleasure to spend much of 2022 working on Wayne McGregor’s production “Maddaddam” with video designer Ravi Deepres. I got to visit some great locations around Canada. We used a lot of techniques: Stills, Video, Timelapse, Drone, 3D modelling, LIDAR and Photogrammetry. A few highlights below…

A Place To Call Home - University of Birmingham

In late 2022 I was approached to take photographs for a University of Birmingham exhibition exploring aspects of Home. It was a great project and opportunity to meet & photograph folk with very different experiences including homelessness, involuntary migration and social issues.

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/the-exchange/exhibitions/a-place-to-call-home

…from the University website:

“About A Place To Home

In our recent interactive exhibition, Making Home, we invited you to respond to questions about home and homelessness. You told us that home is more than a physical place and that it can summon up strong emotions. Explore what we discovered about what home means to all of us in our follow up exhibition, A Place to Call Home.

We invite you to see homelessness, adult social care and displacement through the eyes of people who have lived experience, in a new exhibition that shares the University of Birmingham’s latest research.

Through this photographic exhibition meet people from the present and the past as they share their story”. 

Museum of US in Handsworth

“Museum of Us” is an exhibition curated by the residents of Somerset Road in Handsworth with the direction of curators at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. It was also the basis of a TV project on More 4:

Birmingham residents create their own museum for new Tony Robinson More4 TV series | Birmingham Museums

I was asked to photograph and thus document certain aspects of the exhibition, along with some portraits.

Venice Biennale Danza 2022

In July 2022 we were asked to film the shows of the Biennale for their archives. The request was fairly last minute and therefore we had to rush to plan, secure equipment and accommodation. Over 10 days, the work was technically challenging as it involved multi-camera shooting in dark theatres with little or no time to get to know the shows. Despite the pressure we all enjoyed the experience and hope to go back next year!

Afterite & LORE at La Scala, Milan.

Having worked on ‘Afterite’ in New York (premiere) and Copenhagen I was asked to go to Milan to help set up the projections at the historic La Scala theatre. ‘Afterite’ was performed as act 1 of a double bill with the new piece ‘LORE’ (also choreographed by Wayne McGregor). I worked with designer Ravi Deepres to create the films for ‘LORE’. The contrast of contemporary dance in such a classical environment was stunning!

https://waynemcgregor.com/productions/afterite

https://waynemcgregor.com/productions/lore/

Video projection at The Old Vic

Having worked with designer Ravi Deepres on the video original design ‘Jitney’ at the Leeds Playhouse it was great to get to adapt the projections for the run of shows at The Old Vic in South London. We worked with some lovely original black and white photographs from the period. Layering up the images using Photoshop and After Effects we were able to create some very effective animations. Fantastically atmospheric theatre and a great show!

https://www.oldvictheatre.com/stage/event/jitney

'It don't always turn out like you think it is. You don't always have the kind of life that you dream about. You know what I mean?'

Jim Becker and his unlicensed drivers take the people of Pittsburgh Hill District where regular taxi cabs won't – healing old wounds and tearing new ones as they pass the time in a condemned taxi rank between pick-ups.

Directed by Tinuke Craig (The Color Purple) and following an acclaimed run at Leeds Playhouse, August Wilson's (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom) groundbreaking modern classic explores the fragile bond between eight men as they live, love and work in a racially segregated, post-Vietnam America. 

Shooting in Toronto, Haliburton and Montreal

A rare opportunity to shoot in Canada for a new contemporary dance piece to premiere in Toronto and London (The Royal Ballet and The National Ballet of Canada). We shot video, stills, timelapse and drone imagery. As well as photogrammetry and LIDAR scans. The show will premiere in Toronto November 2022!

The Staffordshire Gold Hoard at The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Hanley

In December 2021 I was lucky enough to photograph some of the Staffordshire Gold Hoard at The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Hanley. Several of the pieces had undergone conservation whilst others had been identified as belonging together, having come from the same item. The aim was to shoot them in their groups, or in their newly cleaned states. The work was managed by Drakon Heritage and Conservation. Incredible objects made with great expertise and quite tricky to photograph as they are shiny and small! So I used plenty of reflectors and a lot of focus stacking to retain depth of focus.

image copyright: ©2021 The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery

Shooting in Cornwall & Devon for "And Breathe..." at the Almeida Theatre, London.

In June 2021 I had a great opportunity to work again with Ravi Deepres. This time on the video design of And Breathe… by Yomi Ṣode. Premiered at The Almeida Theatre in London, the shoots took place largely in Cornwall and Devon over a number of days. With extra shots filmed in Malvern, Cannock Chase and the Lickey Hills. Returning to Cornwall after working in St.Ive’s some years ago was a great experience. A beautiful part of the country! The turnaround on “And Breathe…” was very short so we had to edit the footage quickly, and render the final video projections on-site (including multiple last minute changes). A great show!

Crave at Chichester Festival Theatre

In November/December 2020 I got the chance to work in Chichester with video designer Ravi Deepres. The production was Crave by the late English playwright Sarah Kane. We filmed the actors on green screen and created video sequences for front projection and also were able to integrate four PTZ cameras mounted at the end of the actor’s travelators into our projection. The production was live-streamed as well having a diminished ‘real’ audience (due to Covid 19 restrictions). The production team worked incredibly well together and we formed a sort of ‘committee’ to edit the live camera shots, animation and pre-filmed sequences that formed the live stream, into a cohesive film. This created a much better representation of the production for those watching online. It also proved a great asset when, after only a few days of the run, a new set of lockdown restrictions meant that there could no longer be a live audience. Fortunately the show carried on ‘remotely’ and tickets were sold for the live stream. https://www.cft.org.uk/archive/crave

Cast: Erin Doherty, Alfred Enoch, Wendy Kweh & Jonathan Slinger

Production: director Tinuke Craig, designer Alex Lowde, lighting designer Joshua Pharo, film designer Ravi Deepres and composer Anna Clock, with movement by Jenny Ogilvie.

I also found time to do some interesting runs around Chichester. Including one to The Trundle, an Iron Age hill fort with great views!

Snow on the hills…

A last run before Christmas & decided to go back over the top. Lucky to have access to this from my back door. Has proven to be a huge help during lockdowns.

Beacon on the Malverns - Jubilee 2012

Summer 2012 saw the most recent beacon on the Malverns. It was incredibly atmospheric. Seeing hundreds of figures walking up in the semi darkness was awesome. Looking out towards the Welsh Black mountains other beacons could be seen springing up on hills & down in the valleys. Felt like we were transported back in time. 

Forget digital, I'm processing E6 slide film today!

Nice to be processing my own films again. Makes me think about my Great-Grandfather, Joseph Unsworth. He was one of the first in England to use commercially available colour film, having bought it directly from Antoine Lumiere: https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/6060778.incredible-doctor-joe/

The colours & contrast of new Ektachrome E100 film are very natural and look great. Much better than a film from another manufacturer that I tried (which was magenta heavy).

Aerial photography in Wiltshire

Finished 3 weeks working in Wiltshire. Good to get out during the Covid 19 lockdown (job had ‘Key worker’ status). Some challenging aerial work but also chance to see a lovely part of the UK that I don’t often visit.

Video from footage shot by myself & Ravi Deepres at Saddlers Wells

Taken from Autobiography (Music from Wayne McGregor’s Autobiography)

Video directed & edited by Ben Cullen Williams.
Choreography by Wayne McGregor.
Music by Jlin
Filmed by Ravi Deepres and Luke Unsworth.
Lighting Design by Lucy Carter.
Projection Design by Ben Cullen Williams.
Costume Design by Aitor Throup.

People In Motion

Took shots of volunteers for refugee charity "People In Motion" over the weekend. They were doing a great job sorting through aid to send to those who need it in Calais, Syria and other countries.