More exciting news of the forthcoming Northern Eye Photography Festival in October is revealed today.

The festival which is a collaboration between the Oriel Colwyn photography gallery and Aberystwyth's The Eye Festival returns to Colwyn Bay with many eye catching fringe workshops, photographers, speakers and workshops.

One of the most eye-catching fringe workshops has the all intruiguing and eye-catching title At Home With The Furries.

Spanning his ten-year engagement with the British furry fandom subculture, Tom Broadbent’s At Home With The Furries takes a fluffy, scaly and feathery peek at a community of people who happen to identify as animal characters.

All the photographs are taken in the furries’ homes, gardens and favourite local haunts. A selection of images will pop-up along Platform 2 of Colwyn Bay Railway Station for the duration of the festival fringe.

Tom’s work communicates a feeling of empathy and camaraderie with his subjects. Exploring the relationship between each character and the fursona they inhabit, he describes a keen responsibility to tell their stories in a respectful and honest way:

‘The pictures only start the process of understanding what this subculture is about. It is in fact a collaboration, a trust between me and the furry. That relationship and the importance of maintaining that bond may go some way to explain how protective I am of the project and the furries themselves.’

Kinship is found through a shared, improvisatory approach to life that goes beyond the costume. Congregating online on websites and at furry meets and conventions all over the world, furries are unlike any of their cosplay brethren. Almost always invented by the wearer, every fursuit is unique.

On one level, Tom’s work is gently humorous, but never mean-spirited. We are invited to share in the fun, or if so inclined, to explore more deeply.

Just over a year ago Tom successfully launched a Kickstarter crowdfunder campaign to turn ‘At Home With The Furries’ into a book.

Featuring 29 colour plates the book contains an essay by Laura Noble of L A Noble gallery and a text by Uncle Kage, the chairman of Anthrocon, the world’s biggest furry convention in Pittsburgh. It even has a furry cover!

For details of this year's festival and the speaker's taking part in Colwyn Bay this year visit https://www.northerneyefestival.co.uk

Photography is copyright and reproduced by kind permission of Oriel Colwyn/Tom Broadbent.