Through the UK Cityscapes project (a quest for me to photograph all of the 69 cities in the UK) you have the opportunity to gain profile for your business for a very limited investment of only £100 (and I'll be using this investment to fund the project).  I know advertising can cost the earth, so I'm offering an alternative - online promotion for only £100 to last a whole year - no catch.

Just to give you some idea of the scale of the opportunity, within only a couple of weeks I've had:

1.    A 2 page article in the Journal/Sunday Sun

2.    Over 600 hits to my blog a day every day last week (that's where your business will be profiled)

3.    Over 12,000 visitors to the UK Cityscapes crowd funding page on Indiegogo (you'll be mentioned there as an investor too)

4.    Thousands of social media followers/fans all following the progress of the UK Cityscapes project (and I'll talk a lot about you there, too!)

beautiful Newcastle, one of the first Cityscapes of the UK Cityscapes Project

This offer is only available for another 2 weeks, so if you're interested in making an investment of £100 to raise the profile of your business online, there's no time like the present (I know you can do the maths - that's only £2 a week as the promotion will be for a full year).

For your £100 you'll get national profile alongside the UK Cityscapes project for a whole year.  If you're looking to get your name out there, I can definitely help you to do that!

Here's exactly what you'll get for your £100:

1.    - A blog post dedicated to promoting your business, including links to your website, news/images, links (my blog receives over 600 hits a day and your post will be there for the full year)

2.       - A mention in a daily promoted tweet which goes to over 70,000 businesses just like yours many times throughout the day.

3.       - Regular mentions via Twitter and facebook, and of course my blog, over the next year (these also reach many thousands of people and businesses)

4.       - Your business logo will be in the book that emerges from the project, and a live link to your website in the digital version

So, to purchase your promotional package for £100 click HERE - this link takes you to a funding page - just follow the instructions and we'll soon be in business :)

Writing the book, I've begun

Yesterday I started to write the actual book for Uk Cityscapes, at the moment the working title is "Postcards from the City" it may change of course depending on popularity and publishers but it's a
good working title.

One of my favourite images from the top of the radio tower in Liverpool, spot the travelling ants down below!

I have an enormous decision to make as well, do I publish a photo book full of the UK cityscapes and then another book "Postcards from the City" which tells the adventures of the whole project?  Which one would you buy?

At the moment I'm keeping a folder of images separate to the actual text in case it actually does become 2 books.  Thinking of book buying, if you end up with a book which has 300 pages and then another 300 images it just doesn't seem a good idea to publish a tome like "War and Peace"

The story of the adventure and the crowd funding certainly make for a great and sometimes humorous read, I've been immersing myself in lots of travel books for research trying to learn the art of painting a picture of a city without actually plonking a photograph in between paragraphs but I think I'm getting there and I am truly excited about the book.  If the first 2 chapters and the introduction are anything to go by I'm pretty sure that you dear reader are going to love it.

I'm pleased to say that my blog now gets up to 600 views a day which is amazing, and I have readers from all over the globe, particularly the UK, Australia and the USA, this of course is one of the reasons that becoming a business investor for my project would be great for your business, you can find out more about becoming a business investor HERE

This week is all about securing the remaining investment I need for the first part of the project and that's where you dear reader come in, if you haven't ordered your book yet or you'd like to own a piece of art from the project then click HERE

I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully with news of next weeks travel schedule, I'm taking advantage of half term and intend to visit at least 3 or 4 cities next week, possibly Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Wakefield.  I did ask the girls,  but one said Inverness and one said Cardiff so I took the middle ground and they'll both be joining me for 2 days each.  This of course means negotiation and bargaining about how much photography I am allowed to do before we have to visit the nearest museum, big wheel or attraction but that dear reader is all part of the adventure.

It's going to be a bright, bright, bright sunshiny day...

Well will you look at that, skies are blue and the sun is out, I love the summer months, I know it's technically still spring, not long to go now though...

So, it's Friday and where are we with all things #UKCityscapes?

1. £1,042
2. 42%
3. 22 days to go
4. 8 cities photographed
5. 61 cities to go
6. 49 weeks left to finish in a year

yep, that's the statistics of where we're at, I still feel like it's very doable and I'll reach and possibly even exceed my target, it's just a slight lull while I attend to other parts of my business, I had a couple of wonderful photo shoots yesterday and I have more over the weekend, back in the actual office on Monday and I think that's the day when I'll be on a mission.

So what can you do?

1. pre order a digital copy of the book, for this weekend it's only £2 once again BUY YOURS HERE
2. pre order the actual photo book, a glorious hardback containing all 69 cities and the adventures it took to get me to them, for this weekend there's £5 off meaning it's only £25 BUY YOURS HERE

So have a wonderful weekend in the glorious sunshine and don't forget to save and go order your Uk Cityscapes book today!

UK Cityscapes - York, city 8 of 69

Yesterday I boarded a train for a day in the 8th city of 69 in my quest to be the first person to document and photograph all 69 cities of the UK.

That 8th city is of course York which happens to be one of my favourite cities, York has been a city since AD71 when it was founded by the Romans as Eboracum where it became the capital of the roman province of Britannia later on the Vikings would go on to make it there own giving it the name Jorvik, it literally has history every where you turn, you could say it's seeping out of the river Ouse!

If you have kids it's the perfect place for a day out, as well as that viking museum Jorvik you'll also find the National Rail Museum, the York Dungeons, The York Castle Museum, Cliffords Tower, York Minister and many many more, you could spend a week in York with the kids quite happily entertaining them with something different every day.  I adore York Minister, it's simply beautiful.  I love the architecture of York, it's quite like Edinburgh where everywhere you look is beautiful and don't get me wrong there are newer buildings but they're either not so visible of they've managed to blend in to the background quite easily.  Shall we look at the photographs?

From the train station as you come out and walk towards the city this is one of the first views you'll see, the Minister is such an imposing building that you'll often see parts of it when you look up or glance down a street, you'll probably notice it from the images.

I recommend that you go on the riverboat tour if you've not been to York before, I've done it a few times and quite like the hours jaunt down the river Ouse and back again.

On the right of this image you can see the coffee of one of Yorks most favourite resident buildings, Bettys, one of the best places in the country for an afternoon tea or a morning coffee, light lunch but be ready to queue, it gets very very busy, especially in the summer months, it's worth it though, I adore Bettys!

To get an actual cityscape of York I climbed this building, Cliffords Tower is owned by the English Heritage and as you can see from the image, it's a bit of a climb but totally worth it for the 360 degree panoramic views over the city.

while I was at the top I noticed there was filming going on, something to do with "How to train your dragon 2" not sure what as the movie is a cartoon and it wrapped ages ago, dvd extras maybe?  I would have tried to creep in but sadly I wasn't wearing my viking horns.

and here it is, this is the image which will go forward as a cityscape from York, it is a shame that part of York Minister is shrouded in scaffold but actually if you know York, the Minister is constantly undergoing essential work so it's often seen just like this.

I couldn't of course come to York without visiting the Shambles and getting one or two images, the streets are always crowded with tourists whether it's January or June.

and there's Bettys again, those famous tea rooms.

Today for one day only you can buy any 12x8 inch print of any image from the project for only £20 here

if you would like to own any of these images as a 5x7 print for only £10 you can buy one here

if you would like to own any of these images as a 5x7 fine art print  for only £50 you can buy one here

If you would like to own any of these images as a  16x24 inch Canvas for £150  you can buy one here

If you would like to own any of these images as a  10x8 framed fine art print for £150 you can buy one here

UK Cityscapes Day 21 - We're Everywhere!

It's Day 21 of the Uk Cityscapes project and things are getting exciting.  Sundays press coverage really seems to have kicked things off and I'm delighted to say that I have now reached 40% of the funding with 24 days to go!

I want to give a couple of massive shout-outs today, firstly I want to welcome business investors to the project Sharpe Recruitment and Epic Times, Sharpe Recruitment is the leading recruitment company for the tech industry in the North East, run by the amazingly talented Laura Sharpe.  Epic Times is run by Julie Sharpe and George Sharpe and they are a magazine, a news hub and place to find all that is good in the creative, digital, tech, culture sectors of the North East, they're about to launch a brand new site which is coming soon, very exciting times for them.  I'm sure you'll be hearing a lot about these wonderful people and their fabulous companies over the next year and really the UK Cityscapes project could not move forward without their support.  If you would like to become one of a very limited amount of business investors and grow a national (and international) market for your product or service for less than £2 a week click HERE

I also want to give a shout out to Jayne Graham of Colleagues on Tap, without Jaynes ongoing support I would have gone quite mad already, she's quite simply one of the most talented heads in the region when it comes to coaching, marketing, getting your name out there, strategising, I'm not even sure what her actual title is because she just knows masses and masses of valuable information about business.  She is also the founder of Colleagues on Tap co-working days where working by yourself doesn't mean you have to work by yourself, I was at one of them yesterday in beautiful Alnmouth, got a lot of stuff done and got to visit one of my favourite places on the Northumberland Coast.

I've heard mention of a blog post all about the project by top blogger Andrea on her blog, There and Back, a Mothers Tale

pop over and give it a read, leave a comment too, I'm always so grateful of any coverage which gets UK Cityscape out there into the world.

Today, I've been to city number 8 in the project, glorious historical York, full blog post devoted to all that is amazing about one of my most favourite beautiful cities.

Finally don't forget to pre-order your digital copy of the UK Cityscapes book HERE for £5

Or to pre-order a glorious real life edition please click HERE

To speak to me about PR, press release or sponsorship opportunities please email mandy@mandycharltonphotography.com

UK Cityscapes in the News and the North East isn't Britains Detroit Andy Beckett of the Guardian!

This weekend has been high on excitement after this amazing piece in the Sunday newspaper, I'm trying to find out if there's any way to view it online at the moment so once they put it up there I'll update this article with a link.

Newcastle, not so much a barren wasteland as it is beautiful.

It's all delightful and exciting news though because it means it's out there in the world, funnily enough there was an article published by the Guardian on Saturday which stated that the NE is the British equivalent to Detroit and it made me very angry, the article published several very negative images of the North East and so I replied to the article sharing some of the blogposts I'd written showcasing our beautiful region, we are very far away from ever becoming Detroit and the truth of the matter is that all cities have nice bits and nasty bits, beautiful bits and depressed areas and the whole country has been affected by the arts cuts and the recession we've lived through but for me the North is full of beauty and cultural heritage, it has a vibrant tech scene, is home to Thinking Digital Conference, we have many art galleries, museums and music venues, we do not live in a cultureless depressed place.  London has just as many depressed recession affected areas as the rest of the country!  Please go and leave a comment on the article if you feel as I do that the writer Andy Beckett has got it all completely wrong, point him towards any of my blog posts about the project, particularly the ones featuring images of our gloriously pretty, steeped in heritage and culture region.

I'm sure on my journey I am going to see many sides to the cities of the UK and not all of them will be pretty but this is a feel good project and there's beauty to be found in every city, some you might have to search a little deeper but it's there if you look.

Please support the project by pre-ordering the E-Book or the actual book HERE

UK Cityscapes, The Movie

It's not like me to blog twice in one day but here it is, the movie premier of my movie, of course it's all in aid of the UK Cityscapes Project and if you like it I would love you to do one of the following things

1. Visit igg.me/at/ukcityscapes and share the link, or claim one of the wonderful rewards
2. Buy a digital postcard from your city for only £3 HERE
3. Pre-Order a digital copy of the book for only £5 HERE
4. Pre-Order a copy of the actual book (10x8 landscape photobook) for only £30 HERE
5. Become a business investor and secure yourself a year of sustained marketing for only £100 (that's less than £2 a day and you will be reaching thousands every single day HERE
6. Buy a Canvas from the project to decorate your home, workspace or office (16x24 inches) for £150 HERE
7. Book a 1 hour photo shoot with me for you and your family/kids when I visit your city (if I've already been to your city and it's in the NE of England don't worry, I can come back) HERE

Thank you, you're amazing!