Blackpool Trades Club

I went back to photograph the club once more just to get a few final shots for the final edit. Once of this shot which turned out not to work at all not matter how it was shot with the table - there was a massive pool table in the way so the tripod could move and not matter what you did with the table it looked wrong.

Unfortunately I also learned that it was the last day the club would be open as for financial reasons it was shutting out. An interesting end to the project.

I took the shot below of the bar was mainly because there had been lots of things taken down already, and can be seen in the bit of ripped paper on the left of the image.

I was reshooting this image for the focus unfortunately as the hand written notice (see here) had already been taken down. Now it looks very bare.

Blackpool Trades Club

More close up's from BTC, looking at hand written, club specific signs. Or in the case of the bottom one, where a hand written message should be.

Blackpool Trades Club

These images are from when i went back for a second go at "getting closer" to the stuff on the walls at BTC.

This one below I think works because it is the clubs football clubs team photo complete with hand written notice at the side. Again showing something about the club and its members.

The image below was suppose to illustrate the clubs interest in pool and also in football which is evidenced less obviously in the images on the wall.

Blackpool Trades Club

These images are from my next visit to the club in which i "got closer" to the stuff on the walls and whatnot as instructed previously in Waterloo.

This image below I like except for the table. It's neither in nor out. I think the cream and green colours add quite a nostalgic feel i think. Especially as the celtic shirt on the wall also ties in with this colour scheme.

This doesnt fit as the perspective is totally different from the rest. Even tough the focus was suppose to be on the stuff behind the chairs but it doesnt come across like that and so doesnt work.

This was suppose to be about the hand written signs on the door but I didnt get close enough.

I like this shot, it is of a dedication of a booth in the Spen Hudson Room that "Dolly" always sat in. I think it adds, like with the Sedge McClelland plaque, to the sense of how close knit the communities are in these clubs.

I reshot this to better frame and light it. Before there was both natural light from the right and strong tungsten light from the left which made it impossible to colour balance, it looked odd and the tungsten light doesn't fit with anything else I've shot in this club.

Blackpool Trades Club

As I am still getting nowhere with the trades unions members i deceided to go back and photograph the Blackpool Trades Club's (BTC) interior in the same way i have been at Waterloo. I have taken a selection of wider shots of the club to try to get a better feel for the space in the 647 format i will be working in. 

This shot of the games room I particularly like. The focus is not on the pool tables but on the small gold plaque on the wall at the back of the shot. It is a room dedication plaque to Sedge McClelland, a snooker and pool coach who was a member of the club playing for and later coaching at the club. I did this because I was trying to make the image more about the club and its members then just about the space. Which i also appreciate, the large amount of soft natural lighting coming in from the left lights the room nicely whilst the small strong light from the right balances the light on the pool tables that dominate the shot. I like this because it softens them a little, a heavily shadowed side would create too dominant a contrast in the pool tables making them the central focus of the image.

The three shots below are off the Spen Hudson Room. In the shots the room has been laid out for a poker night that is held at the club once a week and attracts a large crowd, helping to increase club revenue. I do not like any of the shots I have taken particularly in this room other than the photograph of the picture of the old man under the tv.

This is one of the stages I mentioned earlier. Although it's interesting to see how the diffrent stages are presented in the clubs. For instance the one below has a very social setting, chairs and tables are not arranged to view the stage, where as this room (image one, image two) is laid out so that people are there to view the stage, it is the centre of attention.

Blackpool Trades Club

So as well as Waterloo Social Club, I have been visiting the Blackpool Trades Club as I have found that the Trades Union still meets there, and has done since the early 20th century. There is a lot of history to the union as they have played major roles in the shaping of workers rights over the last century or so. (Trades Union Council (TUC) website: http://www.tuc.org.uk/). The TUC was started in 1868. The TUC's leaders bargin with employers on behalf of union members in order to negotiate labour contracts in terms of things like wages, work rules, and the hiring and firing of employees as well as many other things.

The current owner of the club, Terry, allowed me access to the Trades Union Meeting Room to take a few images of the banners they have displayed.

I think there is so much to be told here and am trying to get in contact with some of the members to see if I can explore the union further as I feel there is a lot of potential in a project like this, especially given the current economical climate - there is a fair amount of activity within the unions at the moment.

The Trades Club in Blackpool is a central meeting point for monthly meetings between leaders from the smaller districts in the area. Blackpool was considered to be a central meeting point for all the unions in the north west regions, especially given its highly sucessful tourist industry and in 1919 a club was erected for the unions. Layton also has a club built for the union's to meet. Originally the Trades Union Council met at what is now the masonary hall on Adelaide Street in Blackpool. In 1929 it was decided the union's needed a new building and so a new design was created and The Blackpool Trades Club as it is now was built. The first TUC meeting was held there on February 25th 1930.

I think these banners make strong images as they really punctuate their surrounds which are very subtle and basic. Which i think reflects the strength and unity in the unions. However I dont think they images really explore the space at all which is something i wanted to do.

This came from downstairs in the Spen Hudson Room, not the meeting room.

Notes from a meeting with Terry, the owner of BTC