BILL WARD LIGHT AND LAND

Preview by Steve Cooke

Our good friend the multitalented Bill Ward has announced 4 Brand New Workshops and Tours with Light and Land for 2026/27!

Bill is an actor and photographer. For Soap fans is remembered as the only actor to be violently murdered in two shows, Coronation Street and Emmerdale. playing Charlie Stubbs in Coronation Street (2003–2007) and James Barton in Emmerdale (2013–2017).

His stage work includes West End roles in Spamalot (2007), Viva Forever! (2012), Million Dollar Quartet (2016), and Everybody's Talking About Jamie (2019), as well as national tours of Shakespeare in Love, Legally Blonde (both 2017–2018), and The Full Monty (2023–2024).

As a photographer, Bill is self-taught and has been taking photographs since he was 6.  He has been a Brand Ambassador for Pentax Cameras and Ricoh Imaging since 2014 and is on the Pro-Team for 3LT.  He gives talks at photography shows, camera clubs,  and photographic societies all over the world, and is proud to be a tour/workshop leader for Light and Land, and a judge at UK Landscape Photographer of the Year 2022 and 2023.

Bill has won many awards and commendations, both nationally and internationally, including the Adobe Prize at UK Landscape Photographer of the Year, and Best Seascape at Scottish Landscape Photographer of the Year (see attached Photography Awards tab for full list). His work has also been featured in a number of books, newspapers, magazines, advertising campaigns, and on the BBC website. He is a regular contributor to the worldwide ICM Photo Magazine, and shoots for the photographic agencies Robert Harding and ArenaPAL.

For many years he had a permanent collection with the Mick Oxley Gallery in Craster, Northumberland, and has had solo exhibitions at the Wendy J Levy Gallery in Manchester, The Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, The Tabernacle in Notting Hill, The Number Ten Gallery in Rochdale, Hollingworth Lake nr. Littleborough, and The Alhambra Gallery in Sydenham. His work has also been exhibited at The Mall Galleries and The Diemar Noble Gallery in London, The Contemporary Six Gallery in Manchester, Webbs Fine Art Gallery in London, The Louise Janetta Studio in Buxton, the Rochdale Literature and Ideas Festival, the Manchester Buy Art Fair, as well as numerous bars, restaurants and cafes.

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.

His primary photographic interest is landscapes, whether natural, urban or industrial. He is specifically drawn to water and has a strong interest in history. Things that were once great, faded glory, a wistfulness for a time when, loom very big on his radar.

He is particularly interested not just in the places he goes, but the time that he spends in them. It’s this “time”, the time spent in, and with, a place, that forms the basis of his work. His photography is a deliberate attempt to explore how it felt to be there: specifically how it felt to spend this particular time, with this particular place.

Since 2012, he has been a vocal advocate and one of the UK’s leading proponents of ICM (Intentional Camera Movement – the process of deliberately moving the camera whilst taking a picture) and in-camera Multiple Exposures, which he finds particularly revealing of the “essence” of any meeting between a person and wherever they happen to be.

He’s a fundamental believer not just in the beauty, but also the wonder of planet earth, and the privilege we all have of spending the limited time we have on it, and with it.

You can find out more about Light and Land by visiting: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=e6cab98408&view=lg&permmsgid=msg-f:1864010470498592250

You can follow Bill on. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/billwardphotography

and Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/billwardphotography/