Neil Roland is a photographer who celebrates the intrinsic beauty of the urban environment.
A fiction author and travel writer, he was born in 1965 in Manchester, and graduated in law before training in journalism. He is currently writing his second novel, and working on new collections of photographs.
Author of the novel Taken For A Ride, itself set entirely in Didsbury, Manchester 20, Roland wanted to record the myriad colours and fascinating architectural details of his home city using no digital imagery, simply a camera he has used for twenty five years, no filters, but an eye which sees what other's often don't.
The Independent on Sunday reviewing his most recent one-man exhibition 'Urban Eyes' wrote: "Roland has a sharp eye for symmetry, a penchant for perspective. He spots the details that others don't..... He knows what people want - derelict mills reflected in ruffled canals... his views feed civic pride."
Roland's images of old often over-looked city-scape buildings tease the eye, excite the senses with vivid colour and swirling forms of buildings which seem familiar, but are reflected in the glass, steel, water and polished granite that surround them.
Metro Magazine wrote of his exhibition "Urban Eyes", "Neil Roland has taken a step back from the high rise glass buildings to look at the beauty which has always been here and is so frequently ignored.... his work reveals splashes of pure colour. He avoids predictability and the results are dramatic."
A travel writer, and author of several Rough Guides around the world, Neil Roland's photographs are now in private collections in America, Finland, Germany, Poland, Israel and France as well as a large collection of images of Southern Sweden on permanent exhibition at the Embassy of Sweden in London.
There are current displays at Manchester Visitor Centre, St. Peter’s Square, Loop in Beech Road Chorlton, The Deli in Didsbury Village, Wilmslow Road and the A6 Café on Stockport Road Levenshulme.