Miichael Ormerod was born in Cheshire, but lived most of his life in Newcastle Upon Tyne. He died in a motorcycle accident in Arizona in 1991, about 5 years too early for the internet to have much of a record of his life or work. Certainly there’s no website.
There are approx 70 of Ormerod’s photographs with Millennium Images: click through to see the pages.
An annual competition amongst the photography students at Newcastle College was recently won by Pierfrancesco Celada. We’ll be interviewing Pier about his photographs and his travel plans in the next week or so. Adrian Lourie’s photographs of Blackpool were the result of last year’s Award.
We would like to develop a growing archive of entries to and winners of the Award as a continuing tribute to Ormerod’s life and work. If you are or have been a:
1. judge of one of the annual Awards (there’s been a different judge each year).
2. student who entered and won the Award
3. student who hasn’t won, but has a body of maybe 10, or a single photograph you’d like to show
4. a friend or colleague of Ormerod’s who would like to share thoughts or ideas
5. a trustee or similar of Ormerod’s estate
Please get in touch!
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23 Comments
Lovely idea B. Happy to be involved. Adrian
Great- that’s 3 of us, and there’s Vicki and a young woman who did some amazing US road trip photos. More will come, I’m sure. The name gets Googled regularly, so hopefully other people will this and respond. I’ll make a page soon.
Hi, I would be pleased to contribute to an archive celebrating Ormerods life and work.
I was a winner of the travel award in 2006 and I admire his work. Ann Taylor.
Ann, thank you so much for writing, and apologies for the silence, you just caught my summer hiatus.
I believe you made that set of work about a school in Africa, did you? Would be more than happy to include it in the series. Will keep you posted.
Pierfrancesco’s Celada (the 2009 winner) is working on his pieces now, and will be exhibiting in October, we think. Maybe a local meetup after his opening?
I had the pleasure of working with Mike in Stoke-on-Trent during the early 1980s. He was a fantastic guy. I’ll see if I can find any photos that I can send.
Be very interested to see them.
As Michael’s Daughter, i am honoured to see this award going to such great use by the winners of the prize. He really is an inspiring man, and i too hope to follow his footsteps in the near future. Thankyou for taking an interest in his work, it is so nice to see that his photographs are still being admired to this day.
Ali, thank you so much for writing. Some of us were hoping to put on a show of sorts, inspired by or results of being effected by his legacy. I’ll drop you a note.
Hello everyone,
I’ve done some work on Ormerod’s archive (at Millennium) in 2007 and would be very pleased to share some information about the archive and my experience with interested parties. I’m working on my PhD at the moment (slowly!) and am hoping to focus on Michael’s work for a portion of my dissertation.
Let me know if I can be of assistance- I’m very willing to get on board with any shows, etc.
Is this Giz?
Andrew, that’s great! We were definitely thinking of doing something, but no ideas yet about exactly what. We really could do with the other people who’ve won Ormerod prizes to come forward so that we can have some kind of discussion about it.
Whereabouts are you?
I’m currently in Austin, Texas- I back home (North Wales) fairly frequently. Not too close to the Northeast, I’m afraid, but a trip could always be made.
In 1986 I travelled the midwest with my wife and our two sons of 2 and 5 years. We stayed in Faith South Dakota, because the annual rodeo was on and I wanted to shoot som pictures of that. We camped at the bottom of the small townpark where there was some camping sites set up. The next day arrived a gentleman from England in his VW-bus ( as I recall a VW bus ) he was a photographer out roaming the US. He had just come up from the motorcycle rally in Sturgis SD to take pictures of the Faith rodeo. His name was Michael Ormerod and we had som great days together in Faith, working side by side taking pictures, never got into each others way, and in the evening we shared some drinks while cooking dinner with my wife and kids. After the rodeo we went north together, visited with the rancher Gay Hattle ( cowboys with cows in Michels pictures ) before we stopped and spent the night in the townpark of the little town Lemon. The next days he took of for Butte Montana and we went south. We wrote some letters when back in Europe but never met again. / magnus westerborn – sweden
I think Michael was a brilliant reportage photographer and I’d love to give him a show in our gallery in NYC, send me an email! Cheers, Gary Brant
glad to hear that the idea is moving forward! Really good!
As Michael’s partner and mother of his daughter I am so pleased to read the comments and to know that his work goes on. I travelled with Michael throughout America and learnt to see just a little of what he saw and captured through his lense. He was always an inspiration and I still is to this day.
Great to hear from you Ann. His work is indeed an inspiration to this day. Although there is always the offchance that staffing changes at the College might shift responsibility for this at any moment, I suppose.
did you ever follow this up?
ill hopefully be putting parts of my 2 shows out on the net sometime in the next month
Lewis, follow this up? Did you email or send me anything? Are you the 2009 winner?
by follow this up i just meant get any further with it. didnt send you anything as this is the first time I’ve come across the site. most of the links to previous work seem to be dead.
I won 2009 and also in 2004 (i think?) when i did the fd photography, first time i took photos of a fairground as the origional project backfired, this year I travelled to the tour de france.
Excellent, and ah well done. :)
This means you will know who won in 2003/5 (?) before/after your first one? Can you find anyone else? There is no interest at the College in doing anything about it, but assembling the work year by year would be great. So far the list I have is:
Ann Taylor 2006
Adrian Lourie 2007
Pierfrancesco Celada 2008
Lewis Greener (ta!) 2009
.. and there are a few runners up, including me, who we could add in. At the moment I’m just thinking a page, on the internet, with names, the relevant years and one pic + a link to a gallery of their work.
Tbh I’m amazed you’re finding links at all, there was absolutely nothing a mere months ago. Adrian Lourie’s and Pier’s work are online. You found those okay?
Hi All,
2006 winner here. If you let me know how I can contribute I will be happy to oblige, Ann.
Thanks, Ann. Nice to hear from you.
Okay, what I’m proposing is that everyone uploads a slideshow (or similar) to their own website. That can be either your winning photographs, or the photographs you made with your prize money, or both. Both would be great. Then send me a leading picture from both sets, and your link. I’ll link to your pages from a page I make here. Sound good?
When we get a few more – Lewis? – we can make a website, and maybe add some pictures from the Michael Ormerod Trust, from Ali, from Ann, whatever we chose. If anyone would like to help further, get the word out etc, that would be really great.
The hope is that this can grow, organically, as more people find out we’re doing it. This page gets googled many times every year, around the month the prize is announced, and when the exhibition is being held.
It would be good to hear from any of the trustees of the fund, as at the time of writing, we don’t know who they are.
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[...] Yesterday’s response from Michael Ormerod’s daughter on the competition winners we’ve featured here reminded me to post my 2008 entry. Click though to see a slide show. [...]
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