Due to popular demand, here are all the fine beards (and a few ‘taches’) which made it through to be featured in the Beards of Manchester charity calendar. I shot all twelve images within a tight 3 week timeframe in order to hit the deadline for printing of the calendar prior to the launch last month. We went out and shot amongst Manchester’s finest urban nooks and crannies and braved whatever the weather could throw at us.

Can I thank once again everyone involved; Sam and Chris for having the vision to bring BoM to life and who dreamt up such a brilliant idea, Common Bar for the support and exhibition and to all the magnificent hairy faces featured in the calendar and on the website. The fantastic coverage and interest is all down to you.

We are hoping for plenty of sales now Christmas is fast approaching, it’ll make a cracking stocking-filler, a guarenteed smile fest! All the money raised goes to Lifeshare a fantastic local charity helping the homeless in Manchester and Salford.

You can buy the charity calendar in 20+ places all over Manchester, the full list is over on the Beards of Manchester website. Massive thanks to all those stocking it for their support. For those not living close to Manchester, you can buy it online, as Fred Aldous is kindly selling the calendar at the shop and on their website.

More information on the project and the launch can be found in an earlier post here and of course there is loads more info on the Beards of Manchester site.

UPDATE: The calendar completely sold out and raised over £2,000 for the charity Lifeshare.  Thank you to everyone who helped spread the word, sold or bought a calendar, a terrific effort for a great cause.

Had a lovely cultural day out in Liverpool yesterday. Stopped off at the Bluecoat (great lunch upstairs at the Bistro) and the Walker Art Gallery for the John Moores Painting Prize 2010.

Fave images from the John Moores:

Ran out of time, didn’t manage to see any of the Wolfgang Tillman’s at the Walker or A Foundation “New Contemporaries” so another trip over is the only answer.  So much brilliant stuff over in Liverpool at the minute.

Also trivia note, spotted Stuart Maconie (@stuartmaconie on Twitter), recording a segment about the John Moores Prize for the Beeb’s “Inside Out”.  Would imagine that will be on this week or next.

Apologies for the lack of posts of late.  As well as being really busy on my commercial work I have been shooting, editing, processing and prepping this fantastic project “Beards of Manchester”.

The launch of the “Beards of Manchester” calendar will be at Common Bar this Thursday 21st October from 6pm.

It’s a hairy initiative to find the best beards in Manchester and all in the name of charity.  The brainchild of Sam (b & n magazine) and Chris (Oh Digital),  I was delighted to be asked to work on this project and played my part by taking all the photographs featured in the calendar in and around Manchester over the last few weeks.  The sun came out once and not even torrential rain stopped us.

All images featured in the calendar will be exhibited in Common Bar, Northern Quarter, Manchester aswell as a huge framed compilation of all the hairy entries which didn’t make the cut.

The charity calendar will be on sale on the night and at venues around the city after that, I think the guys are also trying to get an online vendor interested for sales further afield.  Will keep you posted.

There may be beer.  Could well be cupcakes.
Would love it if you can join me.  Thanks for reading and hope to see you Thursday.

Gill x

PS   Beards of Manchester has a website and a Facebook page.

It’s been a bit tough fitting everything in, but I’m so glad I did.  The launch is tonight and all the people, beardees et al, have been terrific to work with.  Hopefully all the charity calender’s sell out and we have to have a reprint.  I will write more once I’ve recovered from the launch.

Thanks everyone who has supported this project!   From all who submitted their beards at the start, those who gave their time, equipment, their vocal support, it made a massive difference.  You all made this happen.

I am hoping to take part in this fantastic art project which started in Berlin and now comes to Manchester in September.  I need to find time to print up some of my latest photography work (one print I’m submitting has just been shortlisted for an award but I’m not allowed to announce what just yet).  I am determined to find time to support such a terrific idea.

To get involved you can donate an hour or two and become an art distributer via bicycle or you can create and donate your artistic work.  Or both.  This art can be anything; any subject (within decency realms), any quantity, originals, prints, photos, copies etc. all are welcome.  Details of how to submit are here. Work should be between A4 and A1 in size.  The Deadline is 1st September 2010.

Each distributed art roll will contain several different works, so each one holds a unique combination of works.

The bike bit is designed to mean the art will go to anyone who happens to be in the vicinity of the cycle route at the time, so it’s completely random and without stereotype.  It fits with the quirky nature of the project and allows art to become public art.

All work will be exhibited at Nexus Cafe, Manchester Soup Kitchen, Norther Quarter, Manchester, prior to distribution and some contributors work is being featured over on the Papergirl tumblr site right this minute ….  so get along and have a shufty.

The project is on twitter and facebook and has been featured over at central station creative network and on the Creative Boom website.  You can read more about the original Berlin project here (don’t worry if your German is a little rusty there is an English translation).

Finally, if Ms Papergirl MCR (Janice?) reads this, I have two questions:

1) Can I buy a Papergirl MCR tee-shirt?  I see Berlin had one and it’s lovely.
2) Can cycling boys take part and be Paperboys?

UPDATE:  Sept 8th 2010. Preview Night, all welcome at Soup Kitchen: See the Papergirl Manchester submissions before they are distributed at our exhibition launch night, on Thursday 30th September from 7pm. Papergirl Manchester will showcase artists from Russia, Estonia, Canada, France, Ukraine, Italy, Spain, U.S.A, Sweden, Italy, Germany and the UK. So far we have received almost 700 pieces of work to be distributed. The exhibition will feature at least one piece by each artist.

UPDATE: Sept 8th 2010.  Papergirl still accepting late submissions: “We have a few late submissions coming in so if you haven’t submitted anything but want to, get in touch http://bit.ly/dcg2ik“

One of my favourite all time albums is Fear of Music by Talking Heads and it triggered a fun post over on Blake Andrews’s blog.  Blake decided to match images with each of the tracks.  Above are a few of the images plus the original cover which is the one on the far left.  I think my favourite is “I Zimbra”, middle image above, it fits the mood of the track perfectly with a hint of the tribal about it.

His blog is a great one to bookmark; delving into the photographic sphere and featuring loads of interesting, thoughtful and inspiring posts and interviews.