Ince Blundell Exhibition

The second and final exhibition I had was at Ince Blundell car boot sale, small town in rural Merseyside. My dad and I arrived at 6.30am and there were certainly no dealers mobbing us when we arrived this time! In fact we were the second people to arrive! I couldn't quite believe how different this car boot sale was first thing in the morning to how 'The Big One' in Leeds was.


When it eventually got a bit busier with more sellers and buyers, I noticed that there was only white British middle aged or old aged pensioners at this car boot sale. There were families too, and a definite community; especially inside the hall were all the regular stall holders were set up.



Most people were very interested in my project and were happy to answer questions I asked them. The majority of people I spoke to where locals and came regularly to this car boot sale, to meet friends and see if there were any good bargains on offer. Some of the stall holders told me that it was especially quite that morning and it was probably due to the fact it was a bank holiday and people were away on holiday.

Exhibition at 'The Big One'

On 18th May 2008 I held my first exhibition of my collected car boot items at 'The Big One' in Leeds. We arrived at 6.01am and were immediately surrounded by dealers who were peering into the back of my car to see what we'd brought. They shouted questions like "Jewellery? Records? Mobile Phones?" We just gave them a terrified look and said no! I set up the table as seen above, and people started to come to talk to me about what my stall was all about. I got a great deal of feedback from my audience and got a real sense of the community at that car boot. The people who attend it are very friendly, and they were interested in my project. There was quite a large range of ages and races. There seemed to be a large Muslim community who go every weekend to chat and gossip. There was a bouncy castle for the children to play on, and I noticed there was always one parent supervising them as they played so the other parents could wander and chatter.



Quite a few people engaged with my catalogues and looked through them to get information about certain objects. Because the car boot sale is quite close to the airport there were quite a few people I spoke to who had just popped in because they were on their way back from the airport and noticed all the cars. There were of course, regulars there that come every weekend to have a wander and to get out the house. A few people I spoke to said they were there just to walk off a hangover!



Over the course of the morning I spoke to many different people from all walks of life, I heard many different languages being spoken, I got asked if I was selling my camera, and made a profit of £10 by selling some of my objects!

The Next Step...

The next stage in my project was to create some form of information catalogue that brought together each of my collections: children's toys, shoes, mugs, ornaments and religious artefacts. I designed my catalogues around auction-style catalogues that I collected for research from Bonhams. The catalogues look great, I'm so pleased with the clean, sophisticated look they have. They really make the objects look so much better than they look in real life!

More Collecting!!

After the success of my photo shoot, I felt my collections were still not quite enough...so I did another 2 collections. Firstly I went to 'The Big One' which is a car boot sale near to the Leeds Bradford airport. Here I collected SHOES!!!



As we were car booting, my sister took pictures of me whilst I bought shoes from various stalls. This was a very friendly car boot sale, there seemed as though there was a real community there.



After this car boot my sister and I went to the Otley Cattle Market car boot sale where I collected mugs. In order to get into this car boot sale we had to queue in this queue!!



We couldn't quite believe we were having to queue to get into a car boot sale, it was totally strange. But quite obviously from looking around, this happens every week and were stood amoungst all of those to queue to get in first every week in order to get the best bargains!

The Second Photo Shoot!!

This photo shoot was far more successful, although when I arrived at the lighting studio first thing in the morning, hired all the things I needed for the shoot, I realised I had totally forgotten what I was doing with the flash lights. I have used them in the past but it was 3 years ago now and I had no idea what I was doing so had to get someone to help me! But once I got myself set up with 2 flash heads with reflectors and one underneath the table lighting it from below with a honeycomb diffuser on, I was ready to go! And it was a success!