Oldham Carnival

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Last weekend, Oldham PS members took part in the Oldham “People’s Carnival” with an exhibition of prints in Alexandra Park.

At 8 am on Saturday, Mike Lawrence, Mike Donough and Shaun O’Hara met to erect the tent in the pouring rain…didn’t take too long by all accounts, but they soon found out they’d put the cover on inside-out, which meant that once it was turned the right way out, it continued to rain inside the tent for some time!! Christine (Widdall) arrived just in time to help to put up the display stands and we all then hung the prints using the tried and tested paper binders and Velcro method (sticky-back Velcro strips on the binders, which are then slid onto the edges of the mounts and stuck to the boards, holding the prints firmly in place).

carnival tent

Then it was time for MikeL to get into costume….helped with painting his nails by a young carnival performer…

nails

MikeL and Christine set up a studio backdrop, computer and printer and we offered family portraits, which could be printed out within a few minutes and slipped into strut mounts. MikeD helped with the practice run in the studio by taking a photo of MikeL and Christine in “Alice in Wonderland” inspired costumes and a very good job he did of it!

MacHatter and the Red Queen

Take-up of the portrait service was rather slow during the day, but we had a flurry of activity later in the afternoon as two carnival queens and their friends came to be photographed.

Most of the other community groups had only been there on the Saturday so, on the Sunday, we found our pitch was a little out on a limb and away from most of the activity. However, we were joined by a slack-line walking organisation who set up next to us and MikeL couldn’t resist having a go!

During the weekend, we were also joined by John Widdall, Tony Capuano, David Reeve and Geoff Rees, who all stayed as long as they could in support.

Quite a few amateur photographers showed interest in joining the Society and if just a couple of  them do, it will be all worth while and I guess we’ll do it all again next year.