The Gromit Unleashed Trail began as a public arts trail in Bristol in 2013, as a collaboration between Bristol Hospital Charities and Aardman Animations.

In the summer of 2013, eighty giant Gromit sculptures were placed out on the streets of Bristol for 10 weeks. They were sponsored by local businesses, with artists and household names including Sir Quentin Blake, Cath Kidston, Nick Park and Disney Pixar, lending their talents to design the dogs.

My involvement with Gromit Unleashed began when we visited Bristol with our Grandchildren, that summer, to follow the trail and spot some Gromits. We picked up a trail map and spotting sheet and set off around the Bristol City Centre area to find as many Gromits as we could.

As well as the Gromits being impressive in their own right, I was struck by how popular the trail was proving to be. There were family groups gathered around every Gromit we found, doing exactly the same as us.

We ticked off about ten Gromits during that visit and I came back with lots of photographs of our day out with the grandchildren and the Gromits. We’d had a really nice day and I’d enjoyed finding and admiring the Gromits as much as the children. I think out of that came an idea to try and complete the whole Gromit Trail. That would include visiting all 80 Gromits and photographing them.

In order to visit all the Gromits we needed to be organised as the sculptures were spread out across the whole city, with a few placed just outside the city boundary. The final Gromit was located in Paddington Railway Station, London, 120 miles from home! I had to make a decision on visiting that Gromit, but that was something to be decided towards the end of our challenge.

Quite early in the process I’d been wondering how I could make my Gromit images a little bit different from all the thousands of other photographs being taken throughout that summer. At every sculpture site there were people taking pictures, mostly using phone cameras, but from time to time we’d spot someone with a more serious camera.

I came up with the idea of perhaps taking polaroid images of the Gromits. I had a vintage polaroid camera and I’d been able to use it with Impossible Project film (a polaroid film substitute). My initial idea was to take that camera out with me to photograph the sculptures but that quickly became a non starter, mostly because of the cost involved.

At that time Impossible Film packs were £15 for eight instant sheets. So with potentially 80 Gromits to photograph that was going to cost a minimum of £150, assuming I nailed each sculpture image with one shot. That was never going to happen as the film and camera gave inconsistent results and I could easily use a pack of Impossible Film on each Gromit.

I still wanted polaroid style images so I decided on the best compromise I could and it worked really well. I’d found a set of free Photoshop Actions – ‘Polaroid generator V3’ – that allowed me to convert the images taken with my SLR into Polaroid versions.

Although I wasn’t going to have authentic Polaroid images, I did have to think about the images I was taking with my regular camera and imagine them as Polaroids. This was quite a challenge in itself as I had to think in terms of a small square image where some of the normal rules of composition, ingrained in me, had to be ignored. As time went on I became much better with this and it was a really refreshing photographic challenge.

It took us most of the Trail 10 week period to visit all the Gromit’s. A lot of them were situated in walking distance of the central area of Bristol but the rest were spread out over the city. Those we could walk to from a central point we did but, I did take my bicycle in to town and cycled to a few in the suburbs. We also had to use the car for a few that were situated outside of the city, like the sculptures below placed at Bristol Airport, Tyntesfield and Cheddar Gorge.

The big, final decision was whether or not I travelled up to London to photograph the Gromit positioned on a platform at Paddington Railway Station. Eventually that became an easy decision as by late August I’d visited and photographed the other 79 Sculptures.

It seemed crazy not to see the final Gromit so I bought a train ticket and travelled up to London. Trains from Bristol terminate at Paddington so I literally got off the train once I arrived, photographed the Gromit and caught the train back. A long way to go but I’m glad I did it.

With the photography project complete I decided I had to do something with my images, so I had a book printed with the whole collection processed as Polaroids. The book sits on a table in our lounge and gets flipped through from time to time. I really enjoy a photo challenge or project and this was one of the best I’ve given myself. Would I do it again? Definitely yes and…the Gromit Trail is set to return in summer 2025! Details are here Gromit Unleashed 3

Footnote. It’s estimated, by Bristol Tourism Office, that the The Gromit Unleashed Trail 2013 raised as much as £58 million for the city during the two month display. Visitors to the city, to follow the trail, came from as far afield as North America and Japan. The Gromit statues animated the city for ten weeks before being auctioned off to raise funds for Bristol Childrens Hospital.

All images: ©Stephen Hyde 2007-2025 – All rights reserved.