Talking Italian

Whilst shopping in Beeston this morning, I was surprised to see two friends of ours, Leone & Yarden. Especially Yarden, as he lives in Italy. Leone meanwhile lives in Derbyshire.

Gail & I first met them last year on our tour of Tuscany. Leone was one of the travelling party, whilst Yarden, a fashion designer, unveiled the 'Volcano Dress' during our stay in Italy. The Volcano Dress is based around a photo that the artist Roberto Alborghetti took of the now famous Barton's bus, nicknamed The Ghost Bus.

It was nice to see them, especially now that they have become a couple.

Dog Gone

This is Tag, our friend Marysia's cheeky fox terrier.

He came for the walk along the towpath at Beeston Marina, when I met up with Roberto Alborghetti for a chat and a bit of exercise in the Saturday morning sunshine.

Talking Italian

Italian artist and journalist Roberto Alborghetti has come to Beeston for a couple of days to catch up with some friends and to see the Ghost Bus again.

It's nearly a year since I first met Roberto, purely by chance, as I went to see the Ghost Bus show at Barton's, and ended up interviewing him for a magazine that I write for called The Beestonian.

It was good to see Roberto again. I had not seen him since we were in Tuscany in October.  I met up with him down near Beeston Marina, where he was being shown around by another friend called Marysia, and her dog Tag.

Of course photos were in order, and here is one of Roberto, proudly showing off the book he wrote about the current Pope. The first in a series I believe.

Photo Of The Year

The City Daily Photo theme for January is 'your best photo of the year'. So for my entry I'm going with this one that I took on 27th March.

It's probably not the best photo that I've taken during 2015, but it's one that has the most relevance for me for a number of reasons.

This is Barton's 'Ghost Bus'. An old rusted and decayed coach that was built in the 1950s and has spent the last 20 odd years in a farmers field. Only to be rescued and brought back to their garage in Chilwell.

I saw an advert for an event at Barton's that was featuring the bus, so I went along, as I had seen it before. But in the daytime, and wondered what it would look like in the dark. The event included a screening of a short film that had been created by Italian visual artist Roberto Alborghetti, and based on close up photos that Roberto had taken of the Ghost Bus.

After the show, I got to interview Roberto for the Beestonian magazine that I write for. In fact someone else was meant to be covering the event, but couldn't make it, so I did it instead. Serendipity I think they call it. Roberto was pleased with the article and I have been his friend ever since. I also made friends with Marysia, the organiser of the event.

To cut a long story short, this friendship resulted in Gail & I going to Tuscany in October with Marysia, her son and four other travelling companions. Besides seeing different parts of Italy, one of the aims was to get Tuscany twinned with Beeston. To help this along we met two mayors and Marysia presented them with a 'Beeston goody bag' which contained a copy of the Beestonian, a locally produced lace shawl, some postcard and a scale model of the Ghost Bus itself.

I'm not sure if any progress has been made with the twinning, but Gail and I both agree that we loved seeing Tuscany and plan to make many more visits to Italy.

Art Of Decay

Back in March I met Italian artist Roberto Alborghetti at Barton's when he launched his Ghost Bus film, which used lots of close up photos of the decaying coach set to music.

He recently put up a new film that used photos he took of some cracked and decayed blue and white tiles on the Amalfi Coast, which looked like the sea and land on a map.

So I got thinking as to whether I could make one myself, with my limited talent and computer skills. I also wondered what I could use for a subject matter. An obvious choice was our wooden garage doors that have seen better days, with peeling paint and a bit of rot.

So I took some photos, fiddled with them in Lightroom and created a short, 40 second film in iMovie.  I also added some music from Kitaro and uploaded it to YouTube.

Here's the link to the video, so you can see for yourselves. Enjoy.

Spirited Away

There was an unusual, and exciting event that took place in Beeston tonight, a world premiere film show based on close up photographs of the 'Ghost Bus'; the old dilapidated Bartons bus that was found rotting in a Suffolk field.

The bus made its first appearance at Bartons in October 2012, and of course I popped along to see and write about it for this blog. Last October a well known Italian writer and visual artist called Roberto Alborghetti saw the bus for the first time and was amazed at the state of the vehicle. He then spent a couple of hours taking 500 close up photos of the rust, peeled paint and general distress on the buses bodywork and has turned 130 of them into a thirteen minute film, naturally called The Ghost Bus.

Besides seeing the film, Bartons had put lights and a smoke machine inside the bus, to give it a supernatural and atmospheric air, amplified by the darkness of the garage setting. Would you want to spend the night alone on this bus?

Roberto has also made a shorter, six minute film, using some of the other photos called Seaside Film, Both films were impressive and well received by the audience. There was also time for a small question and answer session.

It was a wonderful event, and for those that are curious about what the film looks like, Roberto has put a small extract on YouTube - https://youtu.be/1YWqP38vHQo