Gromi-Roids

A bit about  Gromit Unleashed and my book

On 1st July 2013 the ‘Gromit Unleased’ public art exhibition was launch in Bristol and it’s surrounding area. Spearheaded by Aardman, the unique art trail featured eighty, giant, 5ft high Gromit sculptures. All were  individually decorated by an eclectic mix of well-known and local artists, designers and celebrities. The sculptures were distributed around the area with one also placed at London Paddington Railway Station. 

Bristol tourism staff estimated that the exhibition generated as much as £58 million for the city during the two-month display, with visitors coming to Bristol from all over the UK and from as far afield as the United States and Japan. 

The Gromit statues animated the city for ten weeks from 1st July, before being auctioned to raise funds to support the expansion of Bristol Children’s Hospital.

I’m a proud Bristolian and I love walking around the city so it seemed quite natural to pack my cameras and set off with my wife, Linda, to photograph a few Gromits one sunny day in early August. 

We started with Gromit No.39, ‘Stat’s the way to do it, Lad!’ outside the Aardman building and worked our way down  through  the docks and onward from there.  We were not alone though. We had to queue at most sculptures and found most of them by simply following the crowds. Grommiting seemed to have taken the city by storm! By the end of the day I had photographed eighteen Gromits and I was hooked.

We went back into the central Bristol area the same week and visited another 20 Gromits. I returned for a third session a week later but this time used my bicycle to get to see the isolated Gromits scattered around the suburbs.

We drove out to get the remote Gromits and finally with seventy nine in the bag I bought a train ticket and set off to photograph ‘Gromit’ at Paddington. I had a few odd looks when I told people I was going to London to do nothing other than photograph a Gromit sculpture but  having photographed the other seventy nine, in my world, I didn’t have any option other than to go. I’m glad I did as well. I felt quite good knowing I’d completed the task.

When I reviewed the pictures after our first trip out I began to think what could I do to make my efforts a little bit different, especially as I didn’t have my kids or grand children (they’re much too old or young for that) or anyone else I know in my shots. It was then I came up with the idea of converting them into Polaroid style shots using a conversation action in Photoshop.

Although it might seem a little bit crazy using top grade professional equipment ,which is honed to producing large super sharp, well exposed shots, to generate under exposed fuzzy 3inch square images, I really liked the results. As a photographer I was also forced to totally re-think the way I composed the shots with the final Polaroid result in mind and that was quite a challenge. Of course, no amount of Photoshop trickery can ever really produce a genuine Polaroid copy but the results are still something a bit different from what I would have expected at the start of the project. 

I decided to try out a new book supplier following some great reviews of Asuka Books so I decided my Gromi-Roids would make the perfect subject. All eighty sculptures are featured as Polaroids in the book with a few portraits of my favourites included. The books gone off to be printed, just a three week wait now before it's back..