Tristan Savage – Co-Founder & Professional Amateur

Southsea creative and Strong Island Co-Founder Tristan Savage describes himself as a Professional Amateur. Working as a graphic designer by day and full time creative practitioner the rest of the time, he’s consistently trying new things and love’s the fact that there is always something different to practice, hence the title of Professional Amateur.

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Paul Gonella – Co-Founder & Photographer

Coming predominantly from a skateboarding and film making background I’ve been progressively falling in love with photography over the last ten to fifteen years. Although not principally the subject of my photography, skateboarding and it’s inherent eye for forgotten or ignored views of the everyday world definitely has a strong undercurrent in my own personal perspective as is time and it’s effects on the physical world and the subsequent emotional repercussions.

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Ben Mills – Contributor & Publican

I’m a 26 year old former roadie and club dj with a passion for music and football, i’m an avid Pompey fan and general sports enthusiast. I now run and part own Little Johnny Russells and The Belle Isle down here in Southsea. I’ve been known to organise an event or two as well regarding the social side of living in this fair city.

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Claire Sambrook – Contributor & Portsmouth University Lecturer

Heading to London in the 80’s enabled a thorough understanding of media and design whilst working with leading photographers and editors. A wealth of experience was gained in advertising and TV. Freelance photography and voluntary teaching for 3 years before working in web design and image consultancy with clients such as U2, Prince and Frank Zappa’s Estate. Currently a lecturer at Portsmouth University and also involved in running projects that showcase the creative elements of the city with students and local artists/designers.

I love doing things differently just to piss people off. Adore my old dog Twm and always have a camera with me.

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Tom Hussey – Contributor & Musician (Attack!Vipers!)

I’ve been playing in bands for the better part of 10 years, been all over England and some of Europe. I try to take photos and make videos. I like slow and fast music. Would like to be a better skateboarder.

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Charlie Thompson – Contributor & Bon Viveur

If there is one thing that gets me going it’s cooking. Originally from Portsmouth but having spent a large wedge of my life living in Paris and Barcelona, the love of creating good food runs deep. You will find me at my happiest in my kitchen, with are large glass of red, BBC 6 Music in the background and something bubbling away in front of me.

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Lou Bush – Contributor & Artist

Im Lou also known as ‘ooh la lapin’ my alter ego. I spend most of the day making and crafting in my studio at the back of a tiny house. I have soft spot for taxidermy owls and listening to Americana and Folk music. My perfect day in Southsea is visiting the Butterfly House followed by chips and beer on the beach. Then stopping off on Albert Road to do some shopping.

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Stu Barker – Contributor

I’ve been a regular visitor to the Strong Island since it started in 2008. I’ve always appreciated the work and time that all the contributors give to making the site successful. I was really happy to be asked to join the team of contributors and look forward to playing a part in continued success of Strong Island.

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My Dog Sighs – Street Artist

My Dog Sighs has been living in and decorating the streets Portsmouth since 1999. His philosophy of viewer friendly, interactive pieces have been placed on his wanders around this fair city as part of his ongoing Free Art Friday project as well as larger graffiti based murals dotted around the city. One of the founding members of the Portsmouth Creative Movement (PCM) he is keen to promote inclusive creative opportunities across the city. As well as the streets of Portsmouth his work can be seen in Galleries, private collections and walls across the globe.

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Adam Wintle – Strong Island Web Developer & Freelance Web Designer

I have a simple mission: to deliver an outstanding service that’s going to help your business grow and succeed. Focusing on your organisation, your target audiences and most importantly your customers’ needs.

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Wannop Fox Staffurth & Bray – Strong Island Legal Partners

WFSB Law is pleased to announce that we are proud legal services partners of Strong Island.

Over the past few months our Company Commercial Department, in particular William Anderson and Adam Workman, have worked with Strong Island providing them with business advice and assistance so that the guys can concentrate on continuing all the good work they do for the people, businesses and culture of Portsmouth & Southsea.

The senior Partner of WFSB Law as well as a number of their solicitors and support staff live in Portsmouth & Southsea and have been frequent users of the Strong Island website for some time. It was during a leisurely cycle from Southsea around Hayling Island and back that Tristan and Will first discussed the idea of working together to provide any legal advice that Strong Island needed.

WFSB Law is a full service regional law firm advising businesses and individuals throughout the South East and London with a number of our clients operating in the Portsmouth area.

We work with a range of clients including private individuals, partnerships, small businesses right up to large national and multinational companies and corporations. We also work for charities, community interest companies and other not for profit organisations such as Strong Island.

As partners of strong-island.co.uk we are pleased to offer special discounted rates on our legal fees to new clients who contact us through visiting strong-island.co.uk.

To take advantage of this offer please direct your enquiries to William Anderson at wanderson@wfsblaw.com or by telephone on 01243 753295. When emailing or calling please quote ‘Strong Island’.

Just some of the services we provide are set out below:

Business Services: Corporate and Company Commercial, Commercial Property, Commercial Dispute Resolution, Commercial Litigation, Debt Recovery and Employment.

Individuals: Residential Property & Conveyancing, Private Client (Wills, Probate, Trusts and Tax), Litigation, Employment, Personal Injury, Family & Childcare and Crime.

For more information on the services we provide please visit our website at www.wfsblaw.com or call Will on 01243 753295.

PRIMARY – Extended & Improved

We have some great news about our PRIMARY phonography exhibition (find out all the details here) that we can now announce:

- The deadline for submissions has now been extended to Sunday 4th March. We have had some incredible submissions but want to set aside more time to make the exhibition something really special.

- The competition is now open to up to 10 submissions from each individual. With the ability to capture many photos on your phone over the next two months we we want you to not feel restricted to just three. The same rules apply about the photos conforming to compositions using the primary colours though. If you have already submitted feel free to send more photos over as and when you please.

- The exhibition will be hosted by Albert Road’s own Bonzo Studio who are also partnering up with us in the creation of the exhibition space. More news on this soon!

- Finally, we will be running a competition as part of the exhibition where the best three photos submitted will win some incredible prizes. We will be announcing the prizes available very soon but got to say, these will be the best prize haul we have ever offered.

- We will be putting together a poster for the exhibition that will be on sale on the opening night. The poster will feature some of the best submissions and all profits from the sales will go to a local charity (details to follow soon). Due to this we need to say that any photos submitted to PRIMARY will involve you giving us permission to use them for commercial purposes, if you do not want your photo used in this way simply let us know via email.

Well, that is it for now! We really hope to drum up as much coverage locally for PRIMARY in the next couple of months so if you could Facebook/Tweet/+1 about the exhibition we would really appreciate it. We would love this exhibition to be a real reflection of the whole population of Portsmouth with everyone taking part and feeling involved.

It’s going to be a Strong Movember – Closed at £725

Righto chaps, it’s time to clean shave your boat race and get that mighty moustache on the grow in support of Movember for The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. For 30 days of November you can help support and raise awareness through selflessly parading your top lip for charity.

You can sign up yourself, as I’m sure many of you already have, or you can join the Strong Island team and seek out sponsorship as a team. Through the Strong Island Movember page you can ask people to join the group, make donations, upload photos and post updates via the MoSpace page, Facebook and Twitter.

Head over to www.mobro.co/StrongIsland if you would like to get involved and grow a Strong Moustache to help raise awareness, or simply head over to www.uk.movember.com and sign up to personally raise money.

The funds raised in the UK support the number one and two male specific cancers – prostate and testicular cancer. The funds raised are directed to programmes run directly by Movember and our men’s health partners, The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. Together, these channels work together to ensure that Movember funds are supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programmes in line with our strategic goals in the areas of awareness and education, survivorship and research.

Poster: Tristan Savage