What do you get if you cross these two lovely people
With a photographer ?
(this one below, for example)
and a week long community festival ?
A couple of broken hard drives and 150+ hours later, you get this (it’s not a pleasant sight !)
Sorry for the delay between posts, but I have been a little busy. It has been manic for the last month, the first ten days of which were spent documenting Codswallop’s Tales Told festival 2017.
This is a series of events run by a young couple, Jacob and Lucy Phillips (both just 22 years of age !). Lucy doesn’t look 22, Jacob … well … anyway, moving on.
I was delighted to be asked to photograph and document the first ever Tales Told event back in 2016 and I was equally as pleased to be involved this time around. It really is an honour to be in at the beginning of this great new community venture with such a fantastic bunch of people.
It takes an incredible amount of work by all concerned, with a large number of volunteers and friends and family working hard in the background to bring the numerous events to life.
I’m not going into much detail about the events as there is much more information to be had on the Codswallop link above. (Codswallop is the brainchild of Jacob, and Lucy).
What these guys do for the local community is incredible.
Very simply, they bring communities together. Communities, which over time, fracture and splinter while everyone gets on with their own lives – we all get on with our lives and a few years down the line, you don’t see your friends (or just as importantly, make new ones).
Life is busy, but are we really all that busy that we can’t actually LIVE life ?
Surely we can spare a few hours to remember what life is/should be about. Life should not just be to make it through each day, desperately trying to get to the weekend.
To really live life to the full, you need to share your time with family, with strangers, with friends. The relatively short time we have on this little planet should not all be about working and how big your bank balance is by the time you retire.
Where am I going with this ?
Well, if a couple of my friends just starting out in their lives together, can bring so much fun, laughter and enjoyment to complete strangers, then why can’t the rest of us ?
The good news is that after watching all the ‘madness’ unfold over the last 10 days or so, something is happening, there is a real sense of togetherness and of a community returning to life.
Get involved, be part of the community. It doesn’t matter about your religion, your race, your sexuality or if you are young or old, we are all one and the same.
Love, warmth, friendship, respect, togetherness, honesty, laughter, smiles, fun are just a few words to describe what (the madness in) Jacob and Lucy’s minds are bringing to others.
As part of the festival, I ran a couple of workshops and yet again, met some new friends and had a really enjoyable time, showing people just a small part of the area we live in. Plus, I also had the chance to share my passion of photography.
More about the workshops in a future blog.
Put your phones down and engage in a large scale tug of war – so much more fun !
As for the title of this blog, for Jacob, Lucy, madness and breakdowns – see above. Lucy (B) does an incredible amount of work behind the scenes and is a director of Codswallop – she is mad as a box of frogs (and a lovely person) so she fits in nicely.
Brokeback ?
(I give you Mr Matthew Gill in a relaxed pose)
Jacob and Lucy, you did this, you made it happen
