Alan and Michael are snap happy

Michael Smith, and Alan Hobden, both won certificates in the photography section of the annual Nuneaton Festival of Arts, and collected them at a ceremony last Friday. Michael got a certificate for third place in the still life category, and Alan won third place in portrait as well as a merit in action. This is the 1st time Alan or Micheal have entered a mainstream photography competition, although both exhibited work at the Herbert Art Gallery, in Covnetry, last Autumn, as part of a touring exhibition of contemporary photography from the Victoria and Albert.
Michael said, “I’m very excited at winning a certificate and hope I win one of the trophies next year”, while Alan added, “I can’t believe it, I didn’t expect to win”.
Their certificates were presented by Nuneaton’s Mayor, Councillor Gerald Smith, who also posed for photographs with Alan and Michael after the ceremony, and even gave them both a short ride around the block in his chauffeur-driven car – something Alan and Michael enjoyed almost as much as collecting their awards.

Coventry Team's photography session

We were lucky to have a photographer come and work with the team, to help us understand what makes a good image and how to take a decent picture. After we had learnt about how a camera works and some of the technical stuff. We looked at a variety of pictures and then went out in between the April showers to take photographs of Coventry. We only had time to walk around Spon End and medieval Spon Street but the team managed to get some great images. We have opened a flickr.com website called grapevinemedia67 and have also posted lots of pictures to the BBC's record breaking attempt project called the Big Picture 2008.
Why not visit our flickr website and have a look. Peter has also opened his own flickr website and will be adding some of his pictures next week.

photography competition

If you live in Coventry or Warwickshire and have a learning disability why not enter our photography competition? You can enter up to 3 pictures, they need to be at least 20cm x 25cm and can be in any of the following groups:My home town, my friends or family, my job, my life or wildlife.The closing date is 30th May and we will be having a public exhibition of all the pictures sent to us. If you are interested let us know and we can send you the enter form. Go on give it a go!