Otley Camera Club is delighted to announce we’re about to take one small step back to normality – by hosting a live speaker at our clubroom on Thursday 10th February. However, to look after our own housebound members and invited members from other clubs we shall also be providing a live stream over Zoom.
Simon Sugden was born in Ilkley and has been interested in photography for most of his life. He loves most aspects of photography but his main passion is architecture, which led him to start taking images of abandoned buildings. He works freelance for a building company and Bradford Council, which has been helpful in photographing inside buildings normally closed to the general public and for whom he has been documenting the Darley Street Market project.
Simon has received a couple of awards, including one from the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford in the ‘Drawn by Light’ competition for his photograph ‘Lighting Up the Yard’ (Crossley Evans Scrapyard). He has a particular interest in documenting the old mills of Bradford and his earliest professional work was of buildings at the World Heritage site of Saltaire, including Salts Mill, near his home. He has also extensively photographed Drummond Mills on Lumb Lane, Bradford, creating a unique and timely record of this important 19th century industrial building before it was destroyed by fire in 2016.
This pushed Simon to study photography further and his images have featured in magazines and newspapers and also on album covers. An opportunity came up for an exhibition at the Cliffe Castle Museum, Keighley, where his work was shown under the title The Beauty in Decay for three months from July until September 2019. This was followed by another exhibition in November 2020 entitled Textile Mills and Derelict Thrills. The positive feedback from the exhibitions has helped Simon’s images to reach the public via this social media, newspapers and this book Derelict Britain: Beauty in Decay, published in 2020 by Amberley Publishing.
Members of other YPU clubs are invited to join us on Zoom to see Simon’s photography and listen to his stories (some rather spooky). Please visit www.otleycameraclub.net then go to Events, where you’ll find an announcement and access to ticket(s) – £5 per person by PayPal. Once this is completed, our Secretary will contact you by email, with details of the Zoom login. The show is scheduled to start at 7:30pm, Thursday 10th Feb., so please join the meeting a little beforehand and could you add your club’s initials after your sign in name. We’re looking forward to a great evening’s entertainment.