Thu 25th January 2018 - Bill Ward

[John]

Bill Ward is an actor and photographer, born and raised in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

He was awarded the Adobe Prize for his photograph of Kisdon Force in the Yorkshire Dales, at the 2015 Take a View Landscape Photographer of the Year Awards. His work was previously Commended at the 2013 Landscape Photographer of the Year Awards, and he has had over a dozen photographs shortlisted at Outdoor Photographer of the Year.

He has permanent collections with a number of fine art galleries around the country, including The Contemporary Six Gallery in Manchester, and the Mick Oxley Gallery in Craster, Northumberland. His work has been featured in newspapers, magazines, advertising campaigns and on book covers. He uses Pentax cameras, and is proud to be an Ambassador for Pentax Ricoh UK.

His primary photographic subject matter is landscapes, whether natural, urban or industrial. He is specifically drawn to water.

A lifelong traveller, he is particularly interested not just in the places he goes, but the time that he spends in them. It's this that forms the basis of his work:
specifically how it felt to spend this particular time, with this particular place.

He has for some time now been experimenting with ICM (Intentional Camera Movement - the process of deliberately moving the camera whilst taking a picture) and in-camera Multiple Exposures, both of which he finds can be particularly revealing of the "essence" of any meeting between a person and wherever they happen to be.
A professional actor since 2000, his career includes extensive rep theatre experience (Bristol Old Vic, Bath Theatre Royal, Manchester Royal Exchange, Northern Stage, Theatre Clwyd), West End (Spamalot, Million Dollar Quartet, Viva Forever), New Writing (National Theatre Studio, Battersea Arts Centre, White Bear), Off West End (Southwark Playhouse), Film (A Dark Reflection, Great Ghost Rescue, Ellie Rose) and TV (Silent Witness, Robin Hood, Footballers Wives, Cold Blood, Jonathan Creek, Midsomer Murders, Casualty, Doctors, The Bill, Coronation Street, Emmerdale, EastEnders etc.)

As an actor, he is probably best known for playing the badly behaved builder
Charlie Stubbs in Coronation Street, a role he played for 280 episodes and just over three years, and for which he won a number of awards. He recently finished playing the long suffering but pretty hopeless farmer James Barton in Emmerdale, also for 3 years and over 300 episodes.

Constantly in search of peace and quiet, his photography is a response, and in many ways an antidote, to the time he spends as an actor working in the public eye.

[PhilipHowe]

He's a very good photographer. On his website is a mesmerising gallery of trees.
Very good.