I finally got around to taking some photos of my photobooks (all pages) and uploading them. Here they are: Ponderosa and Pernoctators.
Archive for the 'Photographers' Category
Flickr have, without warning, deleted the account of Gail Orenstein, one of the few genuinely interesting and unique individuals I have had the pleasure to bump into on there (oh yeah, and also the only person to have written me a Flickr testimony).
For those unfamiliar with Gail, she is a working photojournalist, who has covered conflicts around the world, but more recently has turned her attention to the sex industry in London. Her photos, usually of London sex workers, are invariably accompanied by headlines, plucked from global newspapers or websites, which at first seem to bear no relation to the image. However, the photos of semi-naked women draw the crowds in, and the headlines get them talking (usually) about current affairs. Gail’s photos are, with the exception of Shhexycorin, probably the hottest talking points on Flickr. Her 3,451 photos have had over 1 million visitors served, and she herself had 150 testimonials. 40 of her pictures had over 1,000 comments.
So last night, I got this email from Gail:
:: Flickr has taken me down
Flickr took me down in the middle of the night without warning and without ability to retreave my work.
Please alert others I have already restarted my site at:
www.flickr.com/photos/gailorenstein/We are going to rebuild very quickly.
Please spread the word and let other know
Please join this group on my coming back to life
www.flickr.com/groups_members.gne?id=371420@N23
Please check out Gail’s photos, join the group, and cast disapproving glances in the general direction of Flickr, for their daring to try to silence one of the heros of the Internet in such an underhand way.
It’s not often that I stumble upon a Flickr user’s stream who’s photos really grab me, and it’s even less often that I “favourite” one, let alone several, of another user’s photos, but Penoni’s set Procissão de Todos os Santos 2006 is absolutely incredible! The combination of flash-light with Southern hemisphere twilight, and frozen stiltwalkers with blurred, zoomed and panned backgrounds, produces magical realism at its most lyrical and strange.
Bee Flowers’ new exhibition Liberation - Women and Abu Ghraib is simultaneously beautiful, shocking, funny, wonderful, terrifying, thought-provoking and incredibly insightful, everything that good art should be.
Tonight I taught my first photography workshop in Wath-on-Dearne. I had been dreading it - was on the verge of panic attacks last night - but actually it went very smoothly, the kids were wonderful (there were only 4 of them - I had been prepared for 2 or 3 times that number) and everyone had a good time. It’s been a massive confidence boost to me, managing to get this under my belt.
We started the session with a quick slide-show of about a dozen of my photos, then I showed them in about 30 pictures from the National Portrait Gallery Photographic Portrait Prize over the last four years. I got them to to talk in detail about each picture - what it told them about the person pictured, and how different things like the background, clothing, possessions, pose, framing, angle, lighting etc. could all affect our understanding of the person shown, and could add up to a story about that person.
Then I got them to split into two groups of two, and take photos of one another, thinking about some of those different elements and how they could be used. I just let them use the cameras on fully automatic settings, with flash (although a couple of them worked out how to turn the flash off).
Then I mixed up the groups, and gave each group two halogen desk lamps to play with, switched off the main lights and got them to play with lighting.
Finally, we downloaded the photos and looked at them.
I’m really looking forward to next week now! And on Sunday, I’m giving another workshop to a local Muslim girls’ group.
Several more photography commissions rolling in - I’ve got a conference to do on Friday, and it looks like I’ll have another party to do next week. Suddenly, all systems are go!
I was recently interviewed by the members of the Sheffield Flickr Group.
Last night was the opening of my photo exhibition at the Washington. There was a fairly good turn out, almost all other photographers.
First of all Lloyd arrived all the way from Leeds. We had a really good chat about the photography workshops I’m running next month, Lloyd had heaps of useful advice and I feel far more confident about how I’m going to approach the workshops now.
Next Christiane turned up fresh from a talk at the Site Gallery by Jerwood winner Daniel Gustav Cramer. Jacqui and Steve turned up, as did Paula (polly.jane) from the Sheffield Flickr group . Geraldine arrived with her family, only to find out that kids aren’t allowed in the Washington, so she sent them home and came in herself. And I finally got to have a proper chat with Moses/0742 (who I have photographed before, but only managed to talk to in brief drunken fits) and his friend Steve Withington, AKA Carlos Barcode. Steve and Christiane seemed to get into some sort of very heated debate over whether one needs formal art training to be an art photographer, or something like that (I didn’t catch very much of it), which I would like to have got involved in but I was busy talking to half-a-dozen other people. Moses told me all about the making of his Fargate video, and a bit about his past - working with the Human League, burning a million quid with the KLF…
Nort and Mark T turned up, and around about that time, things started getting a little fuzzy and I only have pictoral memories to remind me of the rest of the evening.
Well, this year took a while to get started but now, all of a sudden, it’s all kicking off. I already mentioned the Washington exhibition and Open Up event that I’m going to be involved in. In the last 24 hours, a couple more possibilities have come it.
Firstly, I got an email from fellow Sheffield photographer Andy Brown. He is organising a show “6*6″ - six Sheffield photographers each showing six photos, and with each photographer choosing a different subject matter or genre. Andy will be showing documentary photos, and also involved so far are Chris Saunders (music portraits), Denzil Watson (travel) and Stevlor (nudes). Andy emailed me along with 7 other local photographers to see if any of us were interested in making up the final two places. It remains to be seen whether I’ll make the cut, but this is something I’d really like to be involved in.
Just as I was getting over all this excitement, another email comes in, this time from Maramalade Magazine. A couple of months ago, they announced that they would be putting together an issue entirely composed of submissions via their Myspace page. This made quite a hit with the mainstream media looking for the latest Web2.0 bandwagon, and I sent in a few photos although I imagined they would get lost among a tidal wave of submissions. But no, I have been “selected through to the next stage of the myspace issue” - which is obviously no guarantee of being in the issue, but at least it means I managed to cut it through all the dross and now will at least get a fair crack at it. 45Mb (!) of high-res photos now winging its way to them via email (!)
My biggest problem now is finding a way to finance my burgeoning printing costs (I just had to spend £50 on my latest set of 12×8s) and framing (I don’t even want to contemplate that - I need to frame at least 10, preferably 15-20 photos to get a good base for exhibiting, and I’ve been quoted between £10 and £30 per frame & matte).
I had a hectic-frantic two days in London last week. Arrived on Thursday evening just in time to have an early dinner with Martin and then head to Forbidden Planet to meet M John Harrison, who was signing copies of his new book Nova Swing
After the signing, we headed around the corner to the Phoenix Arts Club, underneath the Phoenix Theatre in Charing Cross Road, where an elderly camp barman in a colourful waistcoat served us overpriced drinks. Meanwhile, the hits of the musicals provided an aural backdrop, like some kind of light-night version of Elaine Paige’s Sunday Radio 2 show. Very strange. Even stranger, among the theatrical ephemera were hung posters advertising all the latest sci-fi/fantasy doorstop novels (I presume something to do with the proximity to Forbidden Planet).
I made my excuses and left early, as I had to get to Islington in time to see Arthur and John’s band, Animal Maths, playing at the legendary Hope & Anchor in Islington. Animal Maths were great, although they could have been a bit livelier (I think I’ve been spoiled in this respect, having seen loads of great Sheffield bands recently who put on a good performance as well as playing good music). Both lively & musical (and photogenic) were headline band The Mighty Roars. After the gig I had a good chat with their Debbie Harry-esque Swedish/Swiss singer Lara, until another woman positioned herself between us and said to me accusingly “are you trying to hit on her?”. More photos of Animal Maths and the Mighty Roars on my photographers website.
After the gig I walked down to Angel tube station, only to discover that, at 12.30am, I’d already missed the last tube (London is such a lame-ass city!) so I went to the bus stop, where I witnessed a crash between two taxis, before catching a bus to Ed’s studio. Sat there chatting to Ed, Taku and Rachel, who were making leather reindeer for some film or shop-display or something. I read a chapter of Nova Swing to them before collapsing, almost unconscious, into “bed” at 4am.
The next day started slowly, a gentle walk around London (if only I didn’t have to lug my heavy bag everywhere), I meandered over to the BJP vision (the British Journal of Photography’s annual event for aspiring professionals). I wasn’t quite sure of my purpose in being there, I thought that perhaps I’d doze off at the back of a lecture theatre while picking up Photoshop tips by osmosis, but in the end I didn’t go to any Photoshop lectures, just one talk by portrait photographer Brian Griffin. Brian was charming, fascinating, eccentric in just the right measure, and inspiring. Although I’d promised myself I was going to keep my London trip on a tight budget, I couldn’t resist splashing out on a signed copy of his absolutely luscious Influences book BRIANGRIFFINFLUENCES.
Motoring on, I walked the South Bank to the Tate Gallery, where I disgusted myself by being too chicken to ride down Carsten Höller’s wonderful slides (even though I thoroughly enjoyed watching the excited faces of every single person emerging from the bottom), then continued towards Waterloo and over the river to the National Portrait Gallery where I took a lengthy look at the finalists and winners of this year’s Photographic Portrait Prize which I entered but didn’t make the grade for. There was some wonderful stuff there, but also some confusing choices, including initially the winner, although some time spent absorbing it and the information printed alongside helped me to come around to it eventually.
By this time, it was almost 6pm, time to meet Arthur in The Tottenham for our annual pilgrimage to the Cardiacs gig at the Astoria. While I was waiting for Arthur to turn up, I bumped into Andy Wilson, maintainer of the Faust Pages, who I hadn’t seen for several years. Andy alerted me to the fact that on the 1st December, the ICA are screening a film of the best Faust gig I ever went to (also, apparently, the best Faust gig ever). My review of that gig still lives on via the Faust pages. Damn, I shall have to get back to London for 1st December.
Arthur finally arrived and we went in to the Astoria. First up were Jon Poole’s band the God Damn Whores. They played some great mungey punky metal. I’d planned to keep my camera in my bag for the night, but the number of camphone-wielding fans tempted me otherwise: I started snapping away. Bad move. I was spotted and singled out for using a “pro camera”. I thought this would come to nothing when the bouncer wandered off again, but at the end of the support set he tracked me down (not easy in an audience of thousands) and hauled me out of the gig. I had to hand my camera over to the box office, in exchange for a cloakroom ticket, before I was allowed back in to see the Cardiacs.
Meanwhile, Arthur had bumped into some friends of his, Scaramanga Six. This band are (almost) local to me - from Huddersfield, and I had previously met their drummer (who lives in Sheffield) and been told many times that I ought to check them out, but I still have not to date (I’m determined to see them on December 16th, when they’re next in Sheffield - at the Grapes). So it was good to finally meet them and all freak out to the Cardiacs together. I can’t say it was one of my favourite Cardiacs gigs - I was already too drunk when they came on, plus my mind was on my camera for much of the night. Still, it’s not really possible to have a bad Cardiacs gig, and from what vague memories I still have, it was a lot of fun.
Afterwards I collected my camera and tried to revive myself with a coffee, before boarding a tube to Old Street where Scaramanga Six smuggled us into the Cardiacs after-show party. Much madness I am sure ensued, but I’m sorry to say that I was too drunk to really remember any of it. All the band were there, I got to say hello to William D Drake and the DJ played Gong and King Crimson. Woo-hoo! I just hope I didn’t make too much of a fool of myself. Arthur and I stumbled outside at around 4am, realised the only way of getting back to Twickenham was in a taxi (ouch), I forked out £40+ (ouch!) for the cab and then collapsed on Arthur’s living room floor, aware that I had to wake up again in about two hours to be sure of catching my train back to Sheffield. I checked and re-checked several times that the alarm on my phone was set for 6am and was switched on.
Several weird dreams later… I’m one-quarter awake, thinking “I could get up now, but the alarm hasn’t gone off yet”. I decide to check the time anyway. It’s 9am. Shit! I check the phone and there’s no sign of the alarm - I must have switched it off “in my sleep”. I’m normally very good at waking up to alarms at any time of the day or night, but once in a while, when I’ve pushed my body too far, it switches to automatic mode and “deals with” the alarm for me without any need for my waking mind to kick in. My train to Sheffield was at… 8.25am. I meandered, still drunk, into St Pancras and instead caught the 11.25, but as I had a time-restricted ticket I had to pay another £52 for the privilege. Ouch! (again).
I recently got around to doing something which has been on my mind for several months: I built myself a more focused, photography-only website.
The website is intended to drum up a little more photography business for me, and ultimately to serve as a shop window for my art projects. I don’t feel like my work is quite fully developed yet (in particular, I wish I had a few more portraits & event photos to represent the kind of work I’d like to be hired to do), but I wanted to stake my claim and start building up search engine visibility.
Also some of the writing doesn’t quite feel comfortable - trying to write an artist’s statement is hard when I don’t really have a coherent vision of the direction I wish to pursue.
The site will always stay around this size - I plan to add “genre” sections on Fashion/Beauty, Music and Product/Still-life when I have enough good pictures to justify it, but I will never put more than 9 photos in a section.
Comments & criticism very welcome.
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