Canal swans’ lives set to go on show

The sight of these majestic birds sweeping down the canal is as much a part of Shipley as the factories they pass, yet many people only see a fraction of their lives.

The Shipley Swans, a new exhibition by local photographer Andrew McCaren, aims to capture some of their more intimate moments.

Now on display at Shipley Focus’d Photographic Art Gallery the images document the highs and the lows of two adult swans raising their four cygnets. The works will be on display for six weeks.

With 30 large photographs and almost 100 images on an HD screen, the beautiful and moving exhibition follows the swans from early May as the cygnets make their first journeys on the canal. It then tracks them through the harsh winter when competition for food forces the last of the cygnets to leave their parents and find their own stretch of water to call home.

Mr McCaren said he spent six months photographing the cygnets growing up.