Winter Photography

We identify over 500 places that are always open

We have now reached the time of year when some places close down for the winter and many photographers put away their cameras until the spring. Some of us however enjoy photography right through the year, and this week we take a look at what is open throughout the year, some of the advantages photography over the winter months offers and more.

For those that don't want to venture out, we look at photography that you can do inside.

There is a surprisingly large number of places open throughout the year, and we have

undertaken a major project to identify these. From this we have produced listings by county, as well as an overall alphabetic listing. This listing principally covers major heritage places, but in the article - Always open we look at other types of places that are also open throughout the year, as well as both advantages and problems of photography through the winter months.

The listings can be reached by visiting - Major Heritage Sites Open All Year, you will find it allows you to find places both by name, alphabetically and by county. So far we have over 500 places listed, but if you know of others then please let us know and we can add them as well. All  our location guides also contain, within their grid, an area that shows when places are open.

A further article - Photography over the winter months looks at other photography and tasks that you can undertake through the winter months. Much of this could be done any time of the year, but perhaps in the winter months working inside in the warm can be more appealing.

There is of course one other solution that we have not looked at here, jump on a plane to somewhere where you will enjoy taking photographs over this period. This time of year can be cheaper, as most in the UK have fixed habits and therefore are not travelling much at this time. We have been doing a lot of research on this, so expect some articles covering this soon.

Photographers Diary

Last Monday we completed the December photographers diary and loaded this onto the system and moved the calendar forward.

We also at the same time updated the highlights page with many future events over the next year.

Always open

Photography over the winter months

Major Heritage Sites Open All Year

This section page links to a large number of lists, both providing an alphabetical index and list by county. We have not duplicated these entries here. At the beginning of the section is a fuller description of what is included. We have over 500 places included so far, but we welcome your suggestions for other places that should occur in this list.

Photo-Skills delay free photography courses - Photo Skills have produced the first section of two courses, one looking at digital photography and the other at editing in Photoshop. It was intended that the courses would now be running, with new sections added each month, but they have decided to add a short delay until the economy stabilises.

The free courses can only be provided by covering the cost by including advertising, in a similar way to getting ITV programmes when all the TV licence fee goes to the BBC, and they were just about to start to market the advertising on this project when the banks all started to go belly up, and as a result the economy was destabilised. It was not the time to approach advertisers about a new project that allowed them to increase their advertising.

These courses will continue, but after a delay to allow the economy to stabilise and for them to start to then pick up some advertisers. We will bring you an update from time to time and announce when the courses are to run.

Photography advertisers start to pull some advertising - It won't yet be noticeable, as the lead time on magazines means that advertisements committed to prior to problems encountered with the economy and subsequently until advertisers started to spot how much of a slow down there has been. Some are now pulling future advertising, and by this means reducing risks. The effects will start to show probably from mid to the end of December, when a number of well known names including Camera Images and Photography Skills will take a break from magazine advertising. Otherwise they will continue as before. Both have plenty of available dates for training at the moment.

Nikon Solutions Expo is on this year at Olympia, London on the 9th and 10th of December. You can register now for a free ticket to attend this by going to www.solutions-expo.co.uk/register_now.htm. This appears to be the same format as earlier years, an area with trade stands, a couple of areas where models and others are at times available to allow some photography to be done and several lecture rooms with short sessions related to the marketing or use of some products, both by Nikon and others with stands.

On previous times the chance to get any good photos at the practical session is very limited, as there are so many with cameras there and you end up with many people in front of you. Although I took my camera before I think if I go again I won't bother to take it.  The Nikon stand is so busy that seeing much is difficult, and as people with little knowledge are making up numbers you may be lucky and get a person who knows what you are looking at or may not. There does not appear to be anything on show that I have not seen in a photo dealers window in Cheltenham this week. Often many of the other stands, especially when seminars or practical's are running are light enough for you to talk to exhibitors.

The seminars are not announced yet, and this has been the practice other years. Last year I registered but when the seminar list eventually appeared a couple of days before it was to be held, there was not enough of interest to make the trip to London worthwhile. Seminars are fairly short and run in three rooms, allowing a small amount to be covered on a range of topics and products across the businesses exhibiting. I found before that this format allows you to pick up odd bits of wisdom, but highlights perhaps areas that you need to look into further rather than informing you about these.

If you register, you will get to a sheet with badge on it that if printed has large black areas, wasting a lot of ink. You don't need the badge just the number that is on it, so make a note of the number instead of printing it. They also send you the same badge page by email, and you can selectively print the badge if you want, without the large black areas of the page. I have registered, I will decide when the seminar programme comes out if I will actually go, or not.

We have not added any location guides this week as there wasn't time by the time we had researched and built the large listings of places that are open all year.