Stunning Manchester Photography By Neil Roland

In the course of undertaking jury duty (I'm now in the second week) I've visited various buildings and rooms within the Manchester courts complex. One of them is a very modern building with a huge foyer, cathedral ceilings, and several gorgeous large-scale photographs hanging on the walls in front of the main entrance.

I felt immediately drawn to these photographs, went to take a closer look, and immediately realised that I had responded to them in this way because they were taken by Neil Roland, a well-known Manchester photographer. 

I have admired Neil's work for years (his photographs can be found all over the city in galleries, restaurants, cafes, even my local GP surgery) - in fact I like his work so much that I commissioned him to create a bespoke set of photographs of the West Didsbury area, which I gave to Andre as a wedding present.

Neil takes photographs of Manchester and the surrounding urban area - usually with a focus on capturing particular colours, street signs, and types of buildings, which he then displays in sets. He often takes the photograph at unusual or close-up angles, so it's not immediately obvious where the photo was taken, and a little detective work is required to identify the location. He also uses film rather than digital, and therefore has no reliance on PhotoShop to alter his images in any way.

Here are some of Neil's photographs of our local area - Didsbury, and West Didsbury:

And here are some of Neil's photographs of Manchester city centre:

It's very dark and gloomy in Manchester at the moment, so taking photographs is a bit tricky. But if it ever lightens up, I'll take a photo of our very own Neil Roland, which hangs in the living room, above the sofa.

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Turning Photos Of Venice Into Art For Your Home

So I had intended to share a little tour of the Manchester Craft Centre with you today. But I got distracted last night looking at old holiday photos, and this got me thinking.

I love making art for our Nest. I know you can just head out to Ikea and pick up some pretty nice prints for practically nothing, but I still prefer making my own. In particular I like playing around with photos, and Photoshop.

For example, I have a set of blue and red photos in the kitchen (all taken while on holiday in the Greek islands especially for this purpose) - we bought the copyright to our wedding photos (natch) and I used some of them to make a huge multi-window for our bedroom - and one of my Christmas presents to Andre a few weeks ago was a large printed photo of a beautiful view in Provence (where we are intending to move permanently in a few years).

If Manchester is ever again blessed with some sunlight instead of drizzly snow, I'll go round and take some photos of the various 'artworks' I've created, and share them with you all.

My next project is to make some art for our staircase, which is currently looking rather bare. But that's OK - I'm perfectly happy to live with some blank spaces in our Nest while we wait for the perfect accessory, picture or item of furniture to find us.

I saw this photo in Design*Sponge on Monday and thought it was awesome:

Our dinky little staircase is exactly the same shape, and I think I'm going to totally copy this idea. I love that although the pictures are a mix of photos and frames, they still feel cohesive thanks to the dark, angular surrounds and light mounts.

The photos in the D*S staircase mostly seem to be of people. But as I'm already planning a wall of family photos for our home office, I think I'll do a wall of travel photos on the staircase.

Check out these snaps of Venice, which are just begging to be taken off the PC and hung on the wall:

Damn, Venice is one fine city. If you haven't been, go there immediately (if not sooner). It's incredible. You walk around, thinking 'any minute now, I'll find the ugly bit'. People, there is no ugly bit. The entire city centre is like a film-set. Just amazing. And ignore the rumours that it smells - it doesn't. At least, it doesn't in spring and autumn. Oh, and stay in Cannaregio. That's where the locals live. San Marco is strictly for turisticos. And the best thing about Venice? There's nothing to do. Once you've been on a gondola, that's pretty much it. So you're compelled to spend all day wandering happily along the canals from cafe to restaurant to bar. Sigh. It's a tough life.

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Out Of The Picture - Van Gogh's Room At Arles Part Three

Today I’m finally ready to share the room design based on Van Gogh’s Room At Arles – as part of my Out Of The Picture series, which takes famous paintings and creates room designs inspired by them.

So here’s how this works. First of all I analyse the painting, and come up with a list of design elements. You can read more about this first stage here. Next up, I create an inspiration board based on these design elements – you can read more about this here. Finally I create a room design including furniture and accessories – and that’s what I’m ready to share right now!

Let’s get straight down to it. Here’s the painting – Van Gogh’s Room At Arles:

Here’s the inspiration board:

Here are a couple of inspirational interiors that work with the vision I have in mind via Desire To Inspire:

And finally, here’s the room design:

Here’s the supplier list:

Lamp shade, sofa, yellow cushions, plates, picture, curtains.

Coffee table, vase, coaster and mug.

Rug, seagrass baskets, square wicker baskets.

Wooden cabinet, cabinet handles, yellow candlestick, blue candlestick, lamp base, lamp shade.

Based on the inspiration board, the look I was going for here included:

• Vibrant colours - blues, yellows, browns, oranges and greens
• Interesting elements in the room to catch the eye
• Clean lines and shapes
• Rustic/modern feel
• Textures and layers
• Mediterranean/Provencal style.

So what do you think? Could you live in Van Gogh’s Room At Arles? I couldn’t – but then again I really don’t like yellow!

However, I could definitely stand to have one of those blue and white patterned ceramic vases by Virgina Graham in my living room – oh wait, I already do :-) 

And I also adore the chunky sideboard, which is made by an amazing company in Nottingham called Eat Sleep Live (who made our bedroom furniture – you can check out the wardrobe here) – I’ll definitely post about Eat Sleep Live in more detail in future.

To focus on one final element, the plates are by a Manchester designer called Elizabeth Prince – again, I love Elizabeth’s ceramics (thank you to The Beat That My Heart Skipped blog for bringing her to my attention!), and I'll share some more detail about her work in a future post.

Back tomorrow with some more tips on building a garden deck in a monsoon – stay tuned…