Shooting Bolton Creatives

I recently organised a photo-shoot, starting with a call-out to Bolton creatives, in order to produce a promotional shot for a project led by local art and heritage group, Live from Worktown. The project, to reinvigorate Bolton’s participation in the 12th May Mass Observation (MO) Day, has its roots in a ground-breaking 1930s ethnographic research exercise centred in Bolton that involved a team of academics and locally recruited observers in documenting the daily lives of everyday, working class people.

The original MO left Bolton with a great arts and cultural legacy, from the writing and plays by Bill Naughton to the era-defining photographs by Humphrey Spender. It also attracted contemporary artists of the day to Bolton to paint the townscape at its industrial peak. So, it was this photo of Humphrey Spender with artist Graham Bell on the roof of Mere Hall that provided the inspiration for my photo shoot.

My first task was to scout out a suitable location, with help from Live from Worktown colleagues Peter Firth and Dave Morgan. I particularly wanted a place that would firmly anchor the shot in Bolton. While the new Elizabeth Park in the town centre was a nice idea, the top floor of the Market Place car park offered a fabulous view of the Town Hall’s clock tower.

With perhaps too little notice, I sent out a series of emails, inviting local creatives from all genres and disciplines to meet on the top-floor car park at 4:30pm on Sunday 14th April. On the day I was absolutely delighted that over 20 people turned up to take part. I took a few different shots, but I was really after one where each artist stood in their own space, so the photo at the top of the post is the one that I chose for the promotional image, as you can see from the poster below.

The Live from Worktown team were really delighted to be joined by film-maker, Danielle Baldock, who by one of those happy coincidences is making a documentary about Mass Observation, so visited Bolton on the weekend of our shoot, to record the event.

I’d like to extend a big thank you to everyone who took part in the photo-shoot:

Thanks also to the Market Place management team, for permission to take the shot and its use in promotional material, to Matthew Watson at Bolton Library and Museum Services for allowing the reproduction of the Spender photo and, finally to Daniella Baldock of University College London for helping us to make history by documenting the day.