Category: Portraits

  • Want to collaborate?

    A collage of red icons representing various digital media services including photography and podcast production

    There’s a common question I get asked: what exactly do you do?

    The honest answer is… a few things. I’m a documentary photographer. I host and produce podcasts. I write.

    But the real answer is that I bring these together to tell fuller, more human stories.

    Because one medium on its own can only go so far.

    – A photograph can stop you in your tracks.
    – A conversation can reveal what sits beneath the surface.
    – Well-crafted words can give context, clarity, and lasting meaning.

    When these come together, something more powerful happens, stories that feel authentic, layered, and genuinely reflective of the people and communities at their heart.

    Much of my work has been alongside charities, community organisations, and purpose-driven projects. The aim is always the same: to represent people honestly, with care and respect, and to create media that doesn’t just look good, but actually connects.

    That might mean documenting a project over time, producing a podcast that gives people a voice, or creating written pieces that help audiences understand why the work matters.

    I’m particularly interested in collaborations where there’s a story worth telling, especially those rooted in community, culture, or positive change.

    If you’re part of an organisation, business, or project and you think there might be something we could create together, I’d genuinely love to hear from you. No hard sell. Just a conversation to see what’s possible.

    Jerome

    Get in touch anytime: hello@jeromew.news

    PODCAST UPDATE: 2 minutes

  • Embracing wonkiness builds creative confidence, says artist Amy Davis

    Artist Amy Davis is on a quest to help people embrace wonkiness and imperfection in their creative pursuits.

    Artist Amy Davis, Stoke. © Jerome Whittingham.

    Amy’s recently been using some mini potters wheels, and making tiny wonky pots. She explains how these ‘toy’ potters wheels are helping her and others to learn to play with clay again, building creative confidence.

    PODCAST: 15 minutes

    “It’s about celebrating imperfection and all that it’s about. Your creativity doesn’t have to be perfect, because the moment things become too perfect or people overthink their creative process, that’s when people tend to step away. And I think a lot of the time it’s education, when we were younger, that makes us think that creativity is a scary thing. When in actual fact, if more people were able to embrace the joys of creativity for what it is, rather than perfectionism, I feel that’s when people will get more out of the process.”

    Amy Davis

    Amy’s now looking to extend her Wonky Pot Initiative, and is looking to partner with venues and organisations across North Staffordshire to help her bring the fun of wonky creativity to more people.

    Interested?

    Get in touch with Amy on Instagram:

    https://www.instagram.com/alouartist

    https://www.instagram.com/thewpi

  • Anarchy Is Her Birthright

    Artist April Star Davis, Stoke. © Jerome Whittingham.

    Anarchy Is Her Birthright, a group exhibition curated by artist April Star Davis, brings together women and non-binary artists to explore ‘resistance, care, survival and feminist refusal, shaped by lived experience and place’.

    PODCAST: 8 minutes

    Presented at ACAVA Spode Works in Stoke, ‘Anarchy Is Her Birthright’ follows April’s residency at ACAVA, awarded as a prize after her success in the Three Counties Open Art exhibition at Burslem School of Art in 2024.

    “We are in a time, globally, when there are some extreme uses of power and force. Part of the job of an artist is to speak about that, and also to document it. In time people will want to know ‘what was this about?’ I can document from my perspective what I saw. What I saw wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t beneficial.”

    April Star Davis – artist

    EXHIBITION: Anarchy Is Her Birthright

    PREVIEW: 5.30pm, Friday 20th February, ACAVA Spode Works, Stoke, Elenora Street, ST4 1QQ. All welcome.

    The exhibition then continues to 1st March.

    Instagram: @april_star_davis_

  • A Festival of Hands

    Designer Megan Fitzoliver makes a frame for her face by placing her hands into a rectangular shape.
    Megan Fitzoliver, Stoke. © Jerome Whittingham.

    Designer and creative thinker Megan Fitzoliver is co-ordinating a celebration of North Staffordshire’s creative and caring individuals, groups, and industries.

    The inaugural Festival of Hands will take place across Stoke-on-Trent and beyond, 1st to 14th June 2026.

    PODCAST: 10 minutes

    We sat in Spode Rose Garden in Stoke, enjoying a coffee from the Bluebird cafe, chatting about the festival and its themes.

    Megan’s looking for expressions of interest from anyone that wants to get involved.

    “Let’s join hands, build on the centenary celebration foundations, and show the world what we can do together in this creative city.”

    Megan Fitzoliver

    Get in touch with Megan at:

    megan@festivalofhands.org.uk

    A website will be going live soon too.

  • On The Edge

    Ukrainian Artist Yuliia Holovatiuk-Ungureanu holding a ceramic brick, from her exhibition On The Edge
    Artist Yuliia Holovatiuk-Ungureanu, Stoke-on-Trent. © Jerome Whittingham.

    I met Yuliia Holovatiuk-Ungureanu, one of two Ukrainian artists currently exhibiting ‘On The Edge’, at the University of Staffordshire in Stoke-on-Trent.

    PODCAST: 19 minutes

    Yuliia talks us through the themes of the exhibition, co-produced with fellow Ukrainian artist and friend Olha Barvynka.

    The exhibition explores ‘transformation in response to a world shaped by crisis.’

    One part of the mixed media exhibition, Yuliia’s ceramic bricks, have attracted unwelcome and upsetting attention from a small number of visitors to the Henrion Gallery space – a thoroughfare used by students and visitors to the university. Yuliia updates us about what has been happening.

    “Sometimes art is born not from nice feelings inside, sometimes art is born from pain. And from my experience, and actually it’s one of the reasons why I’m doing art, is that I feel pain. I feel so much pain inside, so many emotions, different feelings, that you can’t do anything else only express it somehow, and I express it through art.”

    Yuliia Holovatiuk-Ungureanu

    UPDATE: since recording yesterday morning, the artists’ exhibition in the Henrion Gallery at University of Staffordshire has suffered more vandalism, including the breaking of several of Yuliia’s ceramic bricks. We’ve welcomed both Ukrainian artists into our city to give them safety and a home. They’ve responded in gratitude by giving us incredibly poignant art, adding greatly to our local arts scene. It’s shocking to think that a small number of visitors to the gallery would act in such a vile way to our friends. I hope the police and university exercise their fullest powers in bringing the perpetrators to account.

    Instagram: @yuliia_art_uk_ua

  • ‘Painting Through The Dark Month’

    Artist Rob Pointon, Newcastle-under-Lyme. © Jerome Whittingham.

    I met up with artist Rob Pointon in Newcastle-under-Lyme town centre as he battled the elements to continue his series for the Brampton Museum and Art Gallery, entitled ‘Painting Through The Dark Month’.

    Local artist Rob Pointon will be attempting the challenge of completing an oil painting a day throughout the month of January. Rob paints outdoors in all weathers, temperatures, day or night. As soon as the painting is completed we will hang it and gradually populate this exhibition.

    Brampton Museum & Art Gallery

    We enjoyed a chat about the town’s palette and his notable style of painting with an exaggerated perspective.

    Also good to be reminded we’re both alumni of the University of Wales, lol.

    Website: https://www.robpointon.co.uk/

    Website: The Brampton Museum & Art Gallery

  • Jon French, artist

    Portrait photograoph of ceramic artist Jon Frence, by photographer Jerome Whittingham. Jon is demonstrating ceramic illustration techniques to the public in The Potteries Centre, Hanley.
    Portrait photograph of ceramic artist Jon French. Copyright Jerome Whittingham.

    Jon French, ceramic artist and master craftsman, has been demonstrating his skills to shoppers in The Potteries Centre, Hanley, this week – part of a programme of events during the Willow Pattern Ceramics and Stories of ‘Other’ exhibition at Spode Museum Trust in Stoke.

    Commissioned as part of Stoke-on-Trent’s Centenary celebrations, Willow Pattern Ceramics and Stories of ‘Other’ explores the enduring legacy of the Willow pattern – one of North Staffordshire’s most iconic and globally recognized ceramic designs. Originating around 1790 and inspired by Chinese porcelain, the Willow pattern became a worldwide commodity through British adaptation and mass production, embedding itself firmly in global visual and material culture.

    Spode Museum Trust

    The exhibition at Spode is curated by Professor Tiejun Hou, Jingdezhen Ceramic University and Professor Neil Brownsword, University of Staffordshire. It continues until the end of March 2026.

    Website: www.spodemuseumtrust.org

    Website: Jon French ceramics

  • Got a light mate?

    Penkhull, Stoke-on-Trent. Copyright Jerome Whittingham.

    Penkhull wassail.

  • MOVED: Mark Page on ‘The Snake’ by Al Wilson

    Mark Page, dj
    Mark Page, Hull. © Jerome Whittingham.

    Recorded as part of my ‘Moved’ project, in which Hull’s movers and shakers recall moments in their life when they’ve been moved by an artistic experience.

    PODCAST: 5 minutes

    Mark Page, DJ, music promoter, and the guy that brings us The Sesh, shares a moment from his early teenage years that switched him on to the music scene for life.

    You know, I think it was that summer I had my 1st kiss with a girl, and it was all about this sort of northern soul scene that had sort of started developing amongst the under 18s. And yeah, it gave me a sense of belonging, away from parents and away from, you know, my brothers and sister. It was, it was our moment. 

    Mark Page

    ‘Moved’ was commissioned by Roots & Wings and Hull Library Services. Eventually it ran to 30 interviews.

    Jerome