Photo Shoot at Hyde Park Picture House

A few weeks ago, a classmate and I took out hats out of the college final show, and took them off to Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds, to be photographed by the incredible Jessie Leong and Lauren Danks.

I don't have the pictures yet, but...

The picture house is a cinema - with just one screen - that opened in 1914.  The little cinema faced all sorts of challenges - the First World War, the big cinemas of the 30s, the Second World War, the onslaught of television, and of video, but it eventually faced closure.  In 1989, Leeds City Council stepped in to save it.  It is now part of a company that is registered as a charity, and owned by Leeds Council, in order to save the cinema, and two other Leeds venues, the Leeds Grand Theatre and Opera House, and The City Varieties.

It's a lovely little Art Nouveaux building, now opposite a Sainsbury store, slightly off the beaten track, and surrounded by residential buildings.  http://www.hydeparkpicturehouse.co.uk/

Some photos I took when we went to have a look at the place:

The back of the auditorium

The curtain in front of the screen, with a small stage in front of it

The projection room, with old projectors

The projection room, with big rolls of film

The front of the cinema

Behind-the-scenes piccie of one of my hats being photographed in front of the curtain

Behind-the-scenes of another of my pieces being photographed in the projection room , surrounded  by  film reels.

One of my hats again (though invisible because I'm under the light) being photographed in the projection room, alongside between two of the big projection machines.

Hyde Park Picture house is a lovely, lovely venue, and still a functioning cinema, (and one with a programme more diverse and interesting than the multiplexes), so if you happen to have an evening to kill in Leeds, have a look to see what's on!

The credits for the photo shoot are as follows:  photography and lighting by Lauren Danks and Jessie Leong (although the shots in here are by me, taken by phone - their shots to follow), Model Kirsty Buttle, and Make-up by Jack Tyson.