Congratulations to Jane Davies who is this month's winner! Our theme for February was 'Change' and we liked how this photograph of the Liverpool Loop Line, taken between West Derby & Knotty Ash, captures the change in use of the local environment. The Loop Line is an old railway track which has been converted into a walking and cycling route throughout Liverpool; a great example of turning something historic and out of use into a positive resource in our community, much like our aim for The Old Library!

Check out the winning photo, plus some of the other great entries in our gallery below.

Jane's shot will feature in our 2020 calendar and be considered alongside the other monthly winners at the end of the year for the chance to win a camera. Next month's theme is 'Shadows' so send us your entries from L13 and the surrounding areas by 25th March to get involved!

We’ve got loads of great photography-based activities going on this year thanks to our friends at Periscope CiC and on Saturday 2nd February, we kicked off with our community photography workshop. Ten brave souls came along despite the freezing temperatures and it was great to meet some new friends, as well as catching up a few familiar faces.

The day started with Jon & Vicky from Periscope sharing their top tips on how to look for the unusual within the everyday by playing with angles, shadows, textures and different perspectives. They explained that it doesn’t matter what kind of camera you have, you can create really interesting photographs by looking for these things, even just using your phone! Once we were all set up with cameras, we set off towards Newsham Park with a list of things to look for (take a photo with parallel lines, take a photo of something broken, take a photo of a letter in the alphabet).

However, the lists were soon abandoned as everyone got into the swing of things, snapping away in the sunny conditions which gave us some great light to work with. With the railway, park, lake, skate park and the old orphanage all on our doorstep, we weren’t short of inspiration and had a great range of things to shoot from the natural environment to architecture and man-made structures. After an hour and a half taking photographs, we headed back to Lister Steps to warm up.

Then it was time for everyone to pick their favourite photographs and to share them with the group. There were some fantastic results with so many different and interesting shots from the group – some of which you can take a look at in our gallery below.

It was a really enjoyable day and I think everyone was surprised at how much there is to notice around our local area when you start to look closely. It was also a great start for our 2019 photography competition which kicks off this week. We’re looking forward to seeing more of the amazing photos of our area that people across our community come up with this year!