Yorkshire - a year in photographs by Charlotte Graham

There aren’t many people who can call on such a prominent figure to write an introduction to their book, but then Yorkshire-born Charlotte Graham isn’t any old photographer.

She has been in the business “on and off” for 40 years and her work regularly appears in the national broadsheet newspapers and will be familiar to readers of The Yorkshire Post.

Her new book includes more than 120 images of Yorkshire, taken over a 12 month period throughout last year and the early part of this one. They include everything from a supermoon rising over Castle Hill, to Whitby’s Goth Festival and just about everything else in between.

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Charlotte wanted to give people an insight into a news photographer’s life and show the breadth and diversity of the people and places that help give Yorkshire its unique identity.

“There aren’t many books on the general market that show the work of news and press photographers,” she says. “Mine is not about the grizzly side of our job, it’s more of a snapshot of the lives of ordinary people and Yorkshire itself, whether it’s our towns and cities or the rolling Dales.”

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As a freelancer, some of her best photographs have come about through jobs she’s been sent on. Others, like her picture of Beverley Minster at sunrise, come about by chance. “I was driving to Beverley for an early morning job and I just noticed the sun was coming up over the Minster, so I stopped the car and took a picture.

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“Sometimes you’re in the right place at the right time, but as a photographer you’re always looking around and you’re always looking for something different.”

Another photograph in the book features two masters of crime writing, Lee Child and John Grisham, at a sell-out event at the crime writing festival in Harrogate. “I was talking to Lee and John beforehand and I said I had an idea for a picture. Once they finished their discussion I got them to turn round in their chairs and look at me and smile a little, with the audience behind them, and it just worked a treat,” she says.

Another of her favourite photographs features a bugler at Stonefall Cemetery in Harrogate, during a Christmas commemoration. “I was struggling to get the picture I wanted and then I noticed someone taking a picture with an iPhone. I hadn’t realised it was still raining and this picture lit up the bugler so I asked him to stay there and I ran back to my car to get a light. I raced back and used a long, 200mm lens and the shot lit up his face and the bugle. I think that’s one of my best ever photos.”

It’s just one of many in the book that illustrate the photographer’s art. “I’m very fortunate to live and work in Yorkshire. It’s a constant voyage of discovery and all the time you’re trying to let the pictures tell the story.”

Yorkshire: A Celebration – A Year in Photographs, published by Amberley Publishing, is out now priced £16.99.