News from the 2012 event –

Despite heavy snow falling, around 2000 people turned up to the 2012 Marsden Imbolc Festival. The weather did nothing to the spirits of the crowd with vocal support for the Green Man (or in some cases Jack Frost) in the final battle!

The photos below are available to licence media organisations via Barcroft Media – for prints or other usage, please get in touch.

Pre event article:

This years Imbolc Fire Festival will be held in Marsden on Saturday 4th of February. As usual, the procession starts near the railway station just outside the village centre.

This will be the forth Imbolc festival I have been to since I found out about the event back in 2009 and I urge anybody that has never been before to make a special trip down to this quirky, spectacular, unique event – I certainly enjoy photographing it – quite a departure from my usual wedding and landscape work!

Preparation for the event starts in early January with various workshops for making lanterns, costumes and practising skills needed on the night for anybody wishing to take part.

The event starts off at the Old Goods Yard near the railway station – there is usually something going on from a while before the start of the procession with strange creatures, lanterns and even (in the past) Samba bands! Who knows what will be in store this year! The procession leaves the Old Goods Yard at about 7pm to head towards Tunnel End. The procession is headed by mysterious figures carrying balls of fire – quite eerie!

Once at Tunnel End, the crowds are treated to a display by groups of performers including fire swingers (poi), jugglers, fire staffs and others.

The finale of the performance at Tunnel End sees the Green Man do battle with Jack Frost symbolising the start of the change in the season followed by a firework display.

Events continue in the village centre with one of my favourite performances by Mr Fox

This is an extract from the article I wrote for the Marsden Moods book:

Imbolc marks the time that the earth starts to wake up after it’s winter sleep. The Celtic tradition is over 2000 years old and was established in Marsden in the mid 1990′s. Initially set up by Kirklees Countryside Volunteers as an event for the local folk, it has rapidly expanded and now relies on many local volunteers. There are a few theories behind the name but my chosen one is that it comes from the Celtic “i mbolg” which means “in the belly”, referring to the pregnancy of ewes and the start of their lactation at this time of year, something that is important to Marsden, known for it’s sheep!

This spectacular event starts in the village centre before a lantern procession, accompanied by local Samba bands, to Tunnel End. Here there is a performance by the iplaywithfire fire dancers and Huddersfield University fire jugglers before the Green
Man does battle with Jack Frost, representing the start of the new season beating back the cold winter. There is an impressive firework finale then a retreat to the village centre for a warm greeting in one of the pubs and often more fire dances (including one by the fantastic Mr Fox group).

More photos and news from previous years can be found here.

Lets hope for better weather than last year!

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I just love living on the edge of the Peak District! All of these photos were taken within a 10 minute drive of my house (plus a 30 minute walk!) I headed up into the hills above Holmfirth once again – frost on the ground and moonlight overhead – to witness the sun rise on another day in this beautiful part of the world. The landscape just begged to be photographed! I started with a wander down the Wessenden Valley, heading towards Marsden but the distant sound of flowing water persuaded me to head across the bank of Wessenden Head Reservoir (following the sheep!) towards a little waterfall. Unfortunately, after finding the waterfall, the path turned out to be a dead end (I’d hoped it would link up with the Pennine Way footpath and lead me on a bit of a circular walk) so I headed back up the hill towards my car. I didn’t drive far before I had to pull over though – the cloud rolling up the valley from Digley towards Bradshaw and Marsden Clough was stunning so I jumped out and rattled off a couple of shots before heading home for a nice cuppa!

Click on the images to view large.

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It has been a while since I last got the chance to take some fresh landscape photos but I finally got the chance to go for a wander in the hills over Christmas and New Year period. I headed for a walk up West Nab in the near Meltham (on the edge of the Peak District). The wind was blowing me sideways and the ground was frozen solid but the view was worth the climb and the cold!

The particular spot I took this photo from is known locally Raven Rock – one of a group of local spots with ‘Raven’ in the name. One of the rocks has some ancient carving on it that is thought to signify the boundary of the ancient local tribes.

As always – prints or usage licences are available! I’m planning on getting this printed on canvas for our dining room!

Happy new year to all! Looking forward to seeing what 2012 has in store!

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What a wedding day A real joy to photograph! A couple that that really know how to throw a party A fantastic atmosphere, some real characters and a great bride and groom! Congratulations guys!

For those that don’t know it, Hey Green is situated in the Pennine village of Marsden, near Huddersfield and it was a return trip to the venue for me – except this time I was the photographer rather than the groom! Yes.. That’s how much I like Hey Green as a venue – it’s where Mrs Stevenson and I chose to marry back in 2007!

My day started out with the bride and her bridesmaid at her fathers house in Honley (very handy – it’s the same village as I live in) capturing the preparations for the big day. From their, I drove direct to the venue to photograph the groom, best man and the grooms men before the bride and her posse arrived The day flowed from there! The rain just about held off for us to do the group shots outside as well as allowing us to wonder down to the lake to take some photos amongst the autumnal trees – photographic gold!

You can see some shots from their pre-wedding shoot at Hey Greeen here.

For anybody interested in high quality, personalised coverage of their wedding, get in touch! I still have dates available in 2012!

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Hey Green, in Marsden, is a real gem of a wedding venue – one that I have been looking forward to doing the photography at for a while – not least for the grounds but also it’s location which is in easy reach of Huddersfield and Oldham.. Oliver and Kate are getting married there is a few weeks so we headed down there to have a pre wedding photo shoot and go over the plans for their big day. I can’t wait! Incidentally, it’s where I got married a few years ago

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Last weekend saw the wedding of Steve and Julie at The Talking Point Conference and Exhibition Centre – a very modern, converted church near Scouthead, Oldham. I was delighted to be asked to photograph their wedding – a lovely, relaxed couple at a unique venue – what could be better! Well… the weather could have been slightly kinder but hey – nobody was going to let that get in the way of having a great time!

Julie and Steve opted for coverage at from arrival to the first dance.

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It’s a cliché but I honestly mean it – I had the honour, privilege and pleasure of photographing Vic and Alex’s fantastic wedding the other weekend.

The day started with a visit to Hair by Trudy’s in Marsh for the ladies to have their hair done before heading back to the brides house for general preparations. The fellas were joined by Bob Bray (my second photographer for the day) for a pint in the Old Bore in Rishworth.

The wedding took place at St Bartholomew’s, a beautiful little Church on the banks of Scammonden Reservoir. Both the bride and groom were officers in the Army and were welcomed by a guard of honour as they emerged from the church.

The wedding reception was held at the Turnpike Inn near Rishworth where the couple were piped in for their wedding breakfast.

I did an engagement shoot for them back in January – how time flies!

I was absolutely delighted to receive this message from John, the father of the bride:

Some pictures nearly made me cry, some of them made me laugh out loud but your biggest achievement was the way you captured the real joy of Vic and Alex's wedding day.

Can there be a better compliment for a photographer?

Here is a taster of their special day – Vic and Alex’s wedding story:

The weather in the early part of the day didn’t always look as though it would be kind!

..but thankfully the sun came out!

…

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After a bit of a break from wedding photography to spend a bit of extra time with my new born son I was delighted to be joining Ryan and Cheryl for the UK leg of their wedding. There wedding ceremony was in Mexico and it sounded as though they had a fantastic time – especially since they were joined by so many members of the family. The UK leg was held in Ryan’s very own club, “Rhinos” with the the outdoor shots taken in the beautiful garden next door.

Here is a sneak peek at a small selection of the shots.

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A little while ago I dropped a hint about a project that I was involved with for the Marsden Moor National Trust Estate – well – it’s now out in the wild!

Lightbulb brand design agency got in touch with me back in February asking to licence some of my landscape photos for use in a promotional video for the National Trust.

Lightbulb also managed to pull some strings and get a reading by local poet Simon Armitage CBE. The video and some of the photos were also shot by the team based in Honley, Holmfirth.

I’m rather chuffed with the outcome of this project.. I love to see my photos used in such a way and look forward to working on similar projects in the future.

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Album 1 got full so here is Album 2!

Here

“Album 2 – Because the others full!”

From Thomas Edward Stevenson Album 2 – Because the others full!, posted by Gary Stevenson on 5/02/2011 (104 items)

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Here

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