Roof space

(Best viewed large)
Normally the roof space of Salts (West) Mill is not open to the public. But it was used as gallery space for the Saltaire Festival. So I had two good reasons for exploring up there on the top floor - to experience the enormous space (over 190 meters long - that's nearly the length of two football pitches!) and to enjoy the exhibition and a talk by the photographer Asadour Guzelian.

'The Art of News' showed photographs from the archive of Asadour Guzelian, who runs the Guzelian Picture Agency from premises in Little Germany in Bradford. Prior to moving to Bradford, he had an office on Victoria Road in Saltaire for 15 years, so he counts as something of a 'local'. Some of the images in the exhibition are shown on the Guzelian website. His talk was a fascinating insight into photojournalism.

I was encouraged to hear that on a 'shoot' he might normally take between 70 to 90 photos, discard 90% of them, and only really be pleased with one or two. That about equates to my experience too! He also said that many of the pictures that appear spontaneous are not really 'candid' shots but that he does set them up to an extent - so that was encouraging too, as I'm never very pleased with the candid shots I take. There's always something that could have been improved if I'd dared to 'manage' the situation a bit more.

(Thank you all for your kind good wishes - I am pleased to report that my back is much better today. I discovered Voltarol gel - magic!)