Moving home

This will be the last post on this blog - but dry those tears, the blog has just moved to www.chrisbullphotographer.com (where you will also find my portfolio) . See you there !

Bacup Slideshow

The Britannia Coco-nut Dancers of Bacup

One of my favourite photographers, Tony Ray Jones,  photographed the Coco-nut Dancers in 1968. It was great to tread in his footsteps and witness this bizarre spectacle for myself.
On Easter Saturday every year, the Britannia Coco-nut Dancers take to the streets to welcome Spring and ward off evil spirits as they dance from boundary to boundary in Bacup , Lancashire .
The coco-nut dancers' faces are blackened to disguise themselves from evil spirits and to reflect the coal mining roots of the tradition.

Portia Portraits - Model and singer Portia Victoria photographed for an article in New! Magazine

Family and friends of Sam Walker gather in Chorlton Park to release lanterns in his memory on the day he would have turned 16. Sam was killed by a car on 9 February 2003 and the driver has never come forward. Sam's mum Jackie Tokmak is pictured with a lantern .

read the full story at http://tinyurl.com/cwj4x9r

Fashion shoot for the Manchester Evening News with Cheryl Cole .... well , almost . This is her alter ego from Manchester , Charlotte Metcalfe .

It's not every day you get to meet an English World Cup winner. Here's Nobby Stiles looking mighty dapper at a charity do in Manchester.

Shrovetide Football in Ashbourne

The Royal Shrovetide Football Match takes place in Ashbourne, Derbyshire,  every Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday . I went to photograph it on Tuesday . It's a bizarre mix of wrestling , football and rugby similar to the Haxey Hood I photographed recently. The games origins date back to at least the 12th century and some versions of its history suggest that the ball used for the game was originally a severed head tossed to the crowd after an execution. The game starts at 2pm and can go on until 10 at night . There are no boundaries to the game, resulting in the ball ending up in such diverse terrain as rivers , muddy fields and car parks. A glimpse of the ball is a rare thing as most of the time all you can see is a swaying , steaming , mass of men slowly moving around the town and fields. Every now and then the ball is greeted by cheers at is emerges into the air for a few brief seconds. There are few rules other than the main one that committing murder or manslaughter is prohibited!

Craig Revel Horwood and Lisa Riley pictured backstage at the Manchester Arena ahead of Strictly Come Dancing Live . Lisa is to star in to star in stage show Strictly Confidential later this year . The former Emmerdale actress will appear in the show directed and written by Strictly judge Craig Revel Horwood

Happy New Year ! The Chinese Year of the Snake is celebrated on the soggy streets of Manchester

A few pictures from a fantastic couple of weeks in Thailand . Spent most of my time either eating food from street vendors or photographing them and I became partial to the Thai concept of meat on a stick - like an ice lolly but with meat (nicer than it sounds!) . We travelled from Bangkok to the north of Thailand where we spent a couple of days trekking in the jungle led by our guide Mario who seemed to survive on no sleep and carried an old hunting rifle which he would periodically fire into the undergrowth . He never hit anything although I was expecting him to hit one of us at some point . We then travelled south to the island Koh Phangan which although famous for its full moon parties was beautifully peaceful .

                                         Koh Phangan

Picking clams at sunset on Koh Phangan island

A butcher at a market in Thong Sala , Koh Phangan

Preparing squid to be sold at market

North Thailand

Preparing dinner by torch light in a jungle village east of Chiang Mai , north Thailand

Bangkok

Christine Williams was aged 17 and just weeks from giving birth when she was sexually assaulted by Jimmy Savile in Salford in 1966.

read her story here - http://tinyurl.com/bx2jt77