Launch party invite for Facebook

If you're on Facebook you can see your invitation at https://www.facebook.com/events/316205468417693/

Exhibition February at Miss Browns Coffee House

I am delighted to say I will be having a new exhibition of my Climate Pics series at Miss Brown's Coffee House , 152 Chapeltown Road, Leeds, LS7 4EE throughout February and March this year!

The Launch Party is on Friday 3rd Feb at 7pm so hopefully I will see you there!

Exhibition at Salvo's

I have a new exhibition coming up at the award-winning Salvo's Restaurant from 4th October to the New Year showing quite a bit of unseen work.

This is the Salvo's Press Release:

Imagine the Town Hall in Leeds overrun with tropical palm trees and parrots, rickshaws in Chapel Allerton or perhaps the University Parkinson building with wild and exotic animals wandering down the steps.

Well, a local artist from Calderdale just did; he imagined them as reality in a series of images illustrating what global warming could do to the region.

Photographer and painter Jason Elliott’s quasi-psychedelic images have transformed many landmark buildings in the Yorkshire region into a tropical setting for a new Exhibition in the new lounge of award winning restaurant Salvo's of Headingley, Leeds.

The exhibition opens on Tuesday 4th October between 4.30pm - 6.30pm upstairs at Salvo's.

From Hebden Bridge, the 46-year-old artist hopes the images will make people think about the consequences of energy use

"I have been involved in many environmental projects for quite a while and the message is quite rightly serious," he said

"I wanted to draw attention to the fact that climate change is happening, but to get the message across in a more light-hearted way than we are used to.

"It's an extremely serious issue, particularly in areas like ours that can be prone to flooding.

"But it's good to engage people in a way that doesn't make them feel they are being preached to. If you do that, quite a number of people will tune it out."

After working in the United States and Spain for many years, Mr Elliott was inspired to blend his photographs of warm climates with images of the Yorkshire town where he now lives.

"One person did send me a letter saying the pictures undermine the seriousness of climate change and I do understand where he is coming from, but generally they have gone down extremely well. People say they are very thought-provoking.

"I got the idea after playing around with a Henri Rousseau painting of a tiger in the jungle. Everybody said 'Wow, how amazing', so I started using some of my own photographs I have taken around the world over the years."

The exhibition will be open every day from 12 till 2.00pm and from 6.00pm every evening at Salvo’s and will run until January 2012.

Notes to Editor:

• Salvo’s is celebrating 35 years of business. It is a family run business, owned and operated by the same family since 1976. Currently run by Salvo’s sons Gip & John Dammone.

• Salvo’s, voted the UK’s Best Neighbourhood Italian Restaurant on Channel 4’s the F Word.

• Salvo’s, voted Leeds Best Restaurant Website at the 2010 Leeds Restaurant Awards.

• John & Gip Dammone given Outstanding Achievement Award to the Leeds Restaurant Scene at the 2010 Leeds Restaurant Awards.

• Salvo’s, awarded the 2010 Yorkshire Life Special Award for the Outstanding Contribution to Yorkshire Restaurants.

• Salvo’s received an AA Rosette in October 2010.

• Winner of the Oliver Awards 2011 for Best Italian.

• The Good Food Guide Restaurant of the Year 2012 Regional Winner

Salvo’s Restaurant

115 Otley Road

Leeds LS6 3PX

www.salvos.co.uk

Big Green Weekend

It's been quite a while since I added anything as I have been a bit busy with setting up a new company, Green Refurb Ltd, with a friend of mine.

I have also been somewhat sidetracked by another project; organising the Big Green Weekend in Hebden Bridge.

As part of the BGW there will be a market in the Marina (HX7 8AD) and I will have a stall selling prints and postcards of my images. So if you're about, come and check it out!

Benvenuti sul mio sito ai lettori di D-La Repubblica delle Donne!

The famous Italian newspaper "La Repubblica" ran a story about my images in its colour supplement "Repubblica delle Donne" this weekend so I'd like to welcome any Italian readers to my website.

A pdf version of the article can be seen here!

Rickshaws agogo!

For my latest image, Rickshaws in Chapel Allerton, I've diverged slightly from my usual habit of making my point with animals and used rickshaws as the symbol of Climate Change, mixed in with a bit of Peak Oilism too.

There is still a small flock of parrots though, for the purists!

Tropical World

Despite its tacky title, conjuring up images of plastic tigers and taped monkey noises, my recent visit to Tropical World at Roundhay Park in Leeds was a very pleasant surprise.

Although relatively small, the arbortoreum has several distict micro-climates ranging from rain forest to swamp to desert and proved a useful place to get some shot for more foilage for my pics.

The image posted here hasn't been used yet but if you spot it, or any of its component parts, in one of my images in the future, please get in touch and, if you are first to do so, I will send you a free a3 print as a prize.

I have already used a couple of the photos however, on my brand new image of the Seven Arts Centre in Chapel Allerton that went on the website today.

Leeds and Manchester

I'm hoping to get exhibitions going for both Leeds and Manchester this spring. One of my cousins thinks she may have a good connection for Leeds and someone else has asked if I would do the cover for a magazine they're involved with in Manchester so this week coming I will be out with my camera in each of these places.

Has anyone got any suggestions for places in either city that could do with the treatment?

And I'd like to thank...

As we come to the year's end I would like to thank some of the people who gave these images the oxygen of publicity, through the newspapers or internet sites they write for.

This list is in no particular order.

Thanks to Chris Ratcliffe who edits the Hebweb, Norman Masters from the Hebden Bridge Times who put me on the front page our local paper, Sue Jueno from allthingseco, Tracy Stokes from ecostreet and Fleur from Natural Matters who all added info about the exhibition to their websites, Dan Illet from Greenbang and Leonora Oppenheim from Treehugger who both added articles on their news portals, Rachel Dixon from the Guardian who use one of my pictures as the lead for their December green "what's on", Shanshan Dong, the Environment Editor of the Guardian, who blogged about the images, Simon Garner from Metro who made the "Houses of Parliament" their pic of the week, Rowena Mason from the Yorkshire Post, who wrote the most comprehensive article to date, Megan Featherstone from the Halifax Evening Courier, whose full page article has provoked an interesting online debate about whether the pictures are crap and whether everyone in Hebden Bridge is on drugs!

The beginnings of the blog

Hi there!

I decided that it was about time I got a little blog going about my Climate Pics artwork.

As well as keeping anyone whose interested up to speed about what I'm doing, it will also help me keep track of my thoughts and plan my stuff!