A PHOTOGRAPHER who turned his hobby into a business after being made redundant from his Dudley council job has opened an exhibition of his work in the town.

Alan Glover has lived his whole life in Dudley, and has spent most of that time taking photographs of the world as it moved around him, but it wasn't until after he left his full-time job at Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council for early retirement by taking voluntary redundancy that he really discovered where his love of snapping would get him.

He said: "My interest in photography started as soon as I was able to understand what it actually was. My father was a weekend wedding photographer and had a black and white darkroom, and my interest grew from that.

"Up until this year however I was just a man with a regular job and a hobby, having been a finance officer within Dudley MBC for over 20 years. In April this year I took voluntary redundancy, which has enabled me to have more time to pursue this interest and see where it takes me."

While he has been more focused on photography for the last six months, Alan has spent the last couple of years working with historic developing processes, rather than manipulating digital images with effects, and was asked to exhibit his work at the Artspace.

Alan said: "A couple of years ago I came across and started to develop an interest in working with historical processes. We take so many digital images, and do nothing with the vast majority of them. I did not get much satisfaction from only manipulating them on computers either and was looking for a way of expressing these images more artistically.

"The two processes I mainly use, called Gum Bichromates (Gum Prints for short) and Cyanotypes were first developed in the mid 1800s, and give me that opportunity to create unique and individual images more akin to paintings. For me it is the perfect marriage of current technology and history, where I can use digital technology to make the original image but then go back in time to create something unique using the original concepts.

"I was approached 12 months ago by Artspace, in Dudley, about putting this exhibition on, and agreed to do it. Artspace is very keen to support artists who produce work locally and I am really grateful for the opportunity."

The exhibition, called The Alchemy of Light, which is also the name of the company Alan set up for his work and reflects the work involved in producing prints using these historic processes, opened on September 3 and will be open to the public until September 24. There is a wide range of images being shown as part of the exhibition, but there are some Dudley classics, including local landmarks such as the castle, Eros in Coronation Gardens, Peggy's ‘Oss, and, of course, the Duncan Edwards statue.