The Big Picture - West Midlands

The team at BBC Midlands Today have been wonderfully supportive of the Big Picture all the way through the project, and have done a number of great features on photos that people have added.

On Tuesday they visited Millennium Point, venue for the World Record attempt and some of the mosaic workshops, and also featured the shortlisted photos.

You can still watch the programme online:

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Abigail Corfan is Projects and Events Officer at Audiences Central (who are running the Big Picture) and is one of the team busy planning the logistics for the world’s largest photo mosaic. This immense task requires a lot of planning and even more man power!

This week I’m busy trying to recruit volunteers to help build the individual panels that make up the final mosaic. The way it will work is that all 112,896 photos are being printed onto self adhesive vinyl, and at the same time grids are being printed onto 288 plywood panels. The photos will be numbered to match the grid so that its just a process of sticking every photo in the right place. As you can imagine this is going to be time consuming so we are looking for keen Big Picture volunteers to assist with this record breaking task!

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Helen Marshall is a woman with a plan, she’s the artist that has got to take all of your photos and turn them into a World Record breaking mosaic. It’s a huge and complicated process, and we’re glad that she’s agreed to blog abut it for the Big Picture site. 

Once we had all the images, they were downloaded from the website and sent to Helen. From then on, it’s (almost!) all up to her…

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Creative Alliance are running a course for photographers who would like to know more about studio lighting. It will help with various studio and flash lighting techniques and be run by Richard Battye. It costs £180.

For more details  call Anna or Zara on 0121 224 7308 or email info@creativealliance.org.uk

From Monday 4 August until Thursday 21 August production of the individual panels that make up the mosaic will be taking place in Thinkspace, in Thinktank, Millennium Point, Birmingham. Every day (including weekends) the Big Picture team will be sticking photos onto the plywood panels that will create the final mosaic, using a simple grid system. There are 288 panels to be completed, so we need lots of volunteers to help us break that record!

If you would like to help with constructing the mosaic panels please email us at workshop@inthebigpicture.co.uk and let us know which day you can attend at Thinktank. All the panel building workshops will be running from 10am - 4pm, and we require a minimum commitment of 3 hours (either 10am -1pm or 1pm - 4pm). If you would like to volunteer please let us know by Friday 1 August, as you must be registered to volunteer.

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Kyolo is a super easy way to add cartoon-style speech or thought bubbles to your photos.

Just upload them, place the bubble (adjust size and type if you want) and type away.

You can save the photos or share them by sending the link to your friends — why not leave a link to yours in the comments here?

Steve Gerrard has photographed some of the World’s biggest bands, but he’s also a wedding photographer. He blogs about his work and how he goes about it, which could be a useful read if you’ve been inspired by the Big Picture to become a professional photographer. He’s also involved with Birmingham Live! which attempts to help aspiring music photographers and writers across the region get access to gigs and gives them somewhere to show off their work.

We asked Steve a few questions about how he came to do what he does…

Tim Caddick is a professional photographer working in the West Midlands, who has been enjoying The Big Picture and has been uploading some of the pictures he’s taken over the last couple of years.

One of the things Tim enjoys doing most is taking photos for Comic Relief, and Sport Relief too, you can see some of his most recent ones in this gallery.

We talked to Tim and he agreed to share some of his experience with people, helping those who’ve got more into taking photos because of The Big Picture or who would like to improve.

So, have you got any questions you’d like to ask? Maybe you’d like to know about what to look for when buying a new camera, or you’d like to know what a term like “exposure” really means, or perhaps when to use flash. You can ask Tim anything, anything polite(!), just comment here and he’ll try his best to answer your questions.

We’ve been overwhelmed by the number of people that sent us a photo by post, or dropped into their local art galleries, Jessops shops or other Big Picture places.

While we’ve counted them all and they will be part of the World Record mosaic, we’ve not had time to scan each and upload and every one – so please bear with us while we do that. They will appear in the galleries on this site in the next weeks.

The site is also taking a long time (due to heavy use) to pick photos up from flickr — but they’ll all get here eventually and are part of the World Record, thanks for your support!

You may be bored of seeing our faces on Midland Today and in the papers, but did you know that your achievement has made the national news?

Reporters from the BBC News Channel (you may know it as News 24) came to the Big Picture office this week after hearing about the World Record target being reached, and wanted to share the good news.

You can see the report this weekend at around 3.30pm on Saturday, and at10.30am and 11.30pm Sunday on digital TV, or on the internet.

110,000 photos will take a lot of putting together!

There are drop-in workshops across the region, you can pop-in and help for 10 minutes or a couple of hours. Find out more here.

There are other chances to help create the mosaic for our World Record attempt, either by yourself or as part of a group like a team or club. If you’d like to get involved, please email us at workshop@inthebigpicture.co.uk. We’ll get in touch personally with more details as soon as the wheres and whens can be decided.

We’ve done some investigation of all the photos that are part of The Big Picture, and here are some facts we’ve found out:

• Birmingham featured in the most photos, followed by the Black Country, then Stoke and Staffordshire.
• Stoke was home to the biggest single contributors, with one Big Picture supporter sending in 5,000 images
• The most photographed places in the Big Picture include Ironbridge and the Shropshire Hills.
• There are over twice as many cats than dogs in the Big Picture
• There are four times as many photos tagged ‘work’ than ‘home’
• The most photographed activities on the Big Picture include holidays and sport

We’ll keep looking and bring you more facts over the coming weeks.

Are you between the ages of 11 - 19 years old?  Do you enjoy taking pictures?  If so, here’s a competition for you:

Subject matter could be photographing a friend, illustrating a feeling or emotion, covering an event, time or a place – anything, there is no particular theme – and, anyone can enter providing they fall into the two age categories; category 1 is ages 11-15 years / category 2 is ages 16-19 years.

Deadline for entries: 26 September 2008

Prize winners and selected entries will be part of an exhibition at Hereford College of Arts in the autumn.  The overall winner will also be given the opportunity to exhibit as part of Hereford Photography Festival 2009.  All details about the Young Photographer Competition can be found on the College website at www.hca.ac.uk

With the summer holidays coming up there will plenty of photo opportunities coming up – so get snapping!

People around Birmingham are being urged to Get into Digital in June — and enter the ‘Birmingham Snaps’ competition. There are fantastic prizes of digital cameras for the best photo from each of the 10 constituencies across Birmingham as well as a community prize to the constituency that sends in the most photos and you can add your photos to The Big Picture as you enter.

Find out all about it, and enter here.

You don’t need an expensive camera to take great pictures or capture the moment — in a fact you don’t even need a camera, in most cases your mobile phone can work too!

Photos added to The Big Picture by MMS get added to our galleries and to the World Record attempt just like any others, but now you can see them framed and hung - in as special “virtual” art gallery.

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Yesterday saw the Big Picture visit the famous Birmingham Rag Market taking a stall near the Market Customer Centre in the indoor market. Artist Faye Claridge was on hand to give out lots of photo tips and take pictures with with and off anyone who came to visit.

Some people brought along favourite photographs, or had interesting stories to tell, others just had fun.

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You’re invited to drop in to a Big Picture workshop near you and take photos that will add to the world’s biggest photo mosaic, which will be created here in the West Midlands.

Artist Faye Claridge will be available to give you lots of photo tips and take pictures with you — or of you! You might be filmed talking about what pictures mean to you, as well, all for a reward of a free badge to say you’re part of a world record attempt.

Empty the mantelpiece and bring along your favourite photographs for your best chance of being in a video, which may even be shown on the BBC.

These are all FREE events, just turn up! More details:

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As part of Big Picture Day, eight photos were picked to be blown up and shown on huge billboards around the region. This week they go on display, helping to encourage everyone to keep adding as many photos as they can over the last month of the Big Picture.

Kerry our project manager is really happy with the results “The images capture a special or memorable moment in time for each of our winners. They include everything from Stoke City’s promotion to Hereford’s skyline at dusk, from enjoying a day out with a grandchild in Telford to collapsing in a deck-chair in a Birmingham garden! They really sum up what the Big Picture is all about, creating a unique snapshot of the region through the eyes of the people that live here.”

In case you don’t see the photos on your travels, we’ve put them all up here, and there are links to stories on local BBC websites:

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You’re invited to drop in to the famous Birmingham Rag Market and take photos that will add to the world’s biggest photo collage, which will be created here in the West Midlands.

Artists Faye Claridge and Helen Berrow will have a stall near the Market Customer Centre in the indoor market, on Tuesday 17th June to give you lots of photo tips and take pictures with you — or of you! You might be filmed talking about what pictures mean to you, as well, all for a reward of a free badge to say you’re part of a world record attempt.

Empty the mantelpiece and bring along your favourite photographs for your best chance of being in a video, which may even be shown on the BBC.

This is a FREE event, turn up on Tuesday 17th June between 12.30 and 3.30 to take part.

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You’ve got all your digital photographs, and you’ve added them to the Big Picture, but apart from sharing the what else can you do? How about making your own comic strips?

Comiqs.com lets you do just that - you can either upload photos, select from your Flickr account or use the supplied bank of pictures, then add speech bubbles, captions and put the photos together to tell any story you like. The finished comic can be shared or printed off, it’s great fun.