The Photography Pages

Side Gallery – Help!

TPP — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 13:19:18 PDT

In case you didn’t know, Arts Council England announced its list of arts organisations that will no longer be funded. In the north-east, the big players, Baltic, Mima, The NGCA all did really well, and got more money than before.

Everyone has been left reeling though, with the news that Side Gallery, the region’s most loved photographic collection, archive and showcase, the one that exhibits work by and about mis- or under represented groups, the only documentary photography gallery in the country, is to lose the paltry £60,000pa, the whole amount of it’s grant, all it took to keep this incredible programme of work coming and coming.

SIDE GALLERY TO RECEIVE NO FUNDING IN THE ARTS COUNCIL’S NATIONAL PORTFOLIO: A PROFOUNDLY STUPID, CULTURALLY ILLITERATE AND ILLOGICAL DECISION

In a spirited and typically upbeat move, there’s a note on the door of the gallery, and there’s a statement to read and a petition to sign. Please help!

This is what you can do:

Read the Collective’s response in this newsletter and on the Amber Website.

Write to them using their Contact page giving them your support.

Sign the Petition.

Comment on the BJP article and any others you find, especially those in the mainstream press.

Join in Duckrabbit’s campaign to get the Photographers’ Gallery to give Side the loose change from behind their settee.

Come to A LUTA CONTINUA tomorrow, the opening of their latest most magnificent piece, curated and presented by the lively and dynamic Dean Chapman.

Follow them on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with any next steps and for any updates.

Look! Weegee!

See you tomorrow.

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A Year Off

TPP — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 05:28:23 PST

The last post here was sometime back in October 2010, so this might’ve been happening anyway, decision or no decision. There’s a lot of stuff in the archives, so it’s probably no bad thing to leave everything here on line.

There was going to be a bit of a 2010 retrospective, and a round-up of where I am professionally, but the elements of the first may well inform some future, and if so, references may well be made. In terms of the second, where I am is ah, probably nowhere, although good work does happen from time to time, none of it is being published, or sold, or shared.

Thanks for everything, all you commenters, people who have this in your RSS. I’m grateful for every insight, every question, every small word. It’s been lovely. Might see you again somewhere else, might revamp this space at some point, who knows? Nothing for a year sounds like a really good idea at the moment. I’d say it might help get my head together, but I’m not sure it will.Similar Posts:

Military Censorship in Iraq

TPP — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 15:23:51 PDT

“If he takes another photo, shoot him.”

Watch this.

Via the very perceptive David White over at DuckRabbit.Similar Posts:

Unboxing!

TPP — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 14:35:41 PDT

“It’s got nice little program modes on the bottom.” Make sure you click through to read the comments.

And it’s yet another timely reminder to finish the rest of that Kodachrome. Similar Posts:

Quotidian Ends

TPP — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 00:32:17 PDT

It’s been a long and rather interesting summer. No posts since August are the result of an hugely extra-busy personal life, changes in the big new collaboration, diversions at the local art group and a big increase in work on the weddings, all of which has been accompanied by the usual frustrations with digital darkroom hardware.

More on all of these to come.

And there’s an impending equipment clear-out as the practice is consolidated. Watch out for some sales of camera bags and equipment. The darkroom surpluses have been redistributed to a couple of local enthusiasts, but no doubt there will be more on this too, soon.

What has continued gently, throughout this period, is a humble little series of iPhone photographs that after a hesitant start, really began to take off when there began to be no time for anything else.

You get the idea, hmm?

The series was published exclusively to my Facebook pages, where access is restricted to people who mutually follow, and ran from 11th June to 10th October 2010: 121 pictures altogether. People seem to have either loved or loathed them, which is exactly the response we’re always seeking, especially since the people who loved them include several fine art photographers of some stature. But you’d have to be following me to know who they are.

There have been suggestions for publishing possibly a little book, and the temptation to send them off to get a set of little prints seems almost too great. They could, of course, look rubbish as prints. iPhone photographs may need to stay purely in the digital realm, and the sense of impermanence is wholly in keeping with the rhythm of the piece. But we shall see.

The master of the daily photograph is of course the mighty Russell Higgs, whose series of self portraits in a huge range of head embellishments has been featured here before. There are 999 of them. It’s hard to imagine the level of stamina it takes to make one of those every single day for 3 years, and they are rather compelling. Here’s Russell’s slideshow on Shutterchance.

And a piece of his work you may not have seen before:

Things to see this week include Jill Cole’s magnificent Training Land at the Decisive Moment Gallery in Darlington, and the DMG members’ show including my Jabberywocky low contrast darkroom prints moves to the Lamplight Centre in Stanley. The Sunderland MA Photography show opens on 17th, oddly enough with a drifting voile as its promotional poster. These happy little co-incidences are possibly a result of the rich cross- fertilisation of influences we experience in this broad and very eclectic community.

Long may they continue.

This ever-changing collection of photographers’ cards on the back of my blackout cupboard door includes gifts from Thea Panter, Craig Stephenson and Simon Norfolk, postcards from shows by Marjolaine Ryley, Jill Cole, and in the middle there’s the artists’s statement from my final show at college, and one of my own favourite polaroids from a series that never really gathered much momentum.

Polaroids, mmm… and Kodachrome, mmm. So much to write about, so little time.Similar Posts:

A New Topography of the Durham Coalfields

TPP — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 08:53:17 PDT

A New Topography of the Durham Coalfield by Adam J Brown

Found on Contact Editions’ blog, this wonderful book, which we know you’ll love to see. Oh for a copy but funds do not at present, allow. Couldn’t find a website or blog for Adam, but would appreciate knowing more about the project and his work. Newly graduated from Farnham, but a Durham lad, maybe?

A longer hiatus than expected, apologies for that. Normal service will be resumed here soon, promise. Similar Posts:

Natchwey, Griffin and a Brief Hiatus

TPP — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 02:46:04 PDT

Somewhat hypnotic film from Asa Mader.

Natchwey’s clever cousin Martin has joined the team at Duckrabbit. “Martin Nachtwey does a masterful job of capturing the dystopian cacophony of conflicting rivers of delusion of our modern day irrational existence.” Describes that film quite well, wouldn’t you say?

The authentic James: “I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.” here.

Martin Parr (whose brow is nothing like as furrowed, and who needs no linking from me) is going to be at Port Eliot Festival this weekend. He sent a contribution to the Falmouth Students’ fundraising cookery book. They asked famous photographers for recipes, and he sent them “beans on toast..“. Not a recipe for beans on toast, that would be too generous of him, too giving of his precious time. Just those three words. I’ll tell him what I think if I see him wandering about, but will not be going to watch him hold court.

It is perfectly possible in this industry of ours to get famous and even notorious, without pomposity or arrogance. We know that. Brian Griffin liked my photo on Facebook this morning, not for the first time. We can only love an artist like that, at the top of his profession and free, still, with his opinions and praise.

Griffin’s Road to 2012 Olympic preparations photographs at the National Portrait Gallery are here. Go and see them: I certainly will.

So while work progresses in the studio on the sculpture, for me, a few days in a tent, in Cornwall! I’ll be taking a sweet little rangefinder and some rolls of 3200 and 6400 Ilford Delta for the evenings, and possibly a monopod.

More from the darkroom, including a short one-take film so you can see exactly how organised and tidy it is, sometime around the end of next week. Meanwhile, this is my first, hopefully of many more, moving photos, as I believe they are becoming known. Turn off the sound, I haven’t worked out how to do that in camera yet. Feel free to follow The Photography Pages on Youtube.

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How to Hang a Picture

TPP — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 05:23:48 PDT

From a BBC arts blog I’m following. Very useful indeed. Please share freely!Similar Posts:

Family Cookbook [2]

TPP — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 04:26:05 PDT

Festival Salad

Summer is time for long bus or train journeys to Bestival or Latitude, or Port Eliot. This’ll get you through 5 hours on a hot National Express coach or a Cross Country train with no buffet.

1. Bring a pan of water to a rolling boil, add a splash of your favourite olive or locally grown rape seed oil, and a handful of pasta shapes. Cook for the time specified on the packet (maybe 8-10 mins), drain and add lots and lots of ground black pepper. Rinse the pan.

2. Add another dollop of oil, and finely chopped red peppers, celery, carrot You can use any veg, but this combo is less likely to drench the coach and your neighbours with cooking smells. Saute until softened. Set aside to cool.

3. Chop a couple of ripe tomatoes, snip the roots off your rocket thinnings and snip the tops off your windowsill basil.

4. Combine all the ingredients, taste for flavour, add salt & more pepper if you think it’s needed. Go on the strong side flavour-wise. This might have to sit about in your bag and will be better rich than bland. A few walnuts or sunflower seeds will add crunch.

5. Tip into a container, snap the lid tight, wrap in a second bag and tie with an elastic band.

Wrap a few thin slices of crusty bread and some Wensleydale (a big favourite with Jim Nelson) or some Yorkshire Fettle, and maybe since it’s high summer, a couple of nectarines or a bunch of grapes. The obligatory bottle of tap water, and you’re sorted.

If you haven’t got any rocket thinnings:

1. Go anywhere that sells seeds, buy a packet (about 99p) open, and sprinkle about half anywhere in your garden, or just a few in a pot or tray your windowsill. You can even grow micro rocket on kitchen paper towels.

2. Wait for about a week. If it doesn’t rain, add a can of water now and again.

3. Pick.

4. Eat.

Delicious, peppery flavour, handful after handful, almost free.

You are now a market gardener in the best tradition of the Raines and Nelsons in our family. (If you’re following me on Facebook you’ll have seen the pictures. I’ll upload them here, too.)Similar Posts:

Contacts and Sunshine

TPP — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 00:28:58 PDT

Four rolls of this PlusX 125, contacted. They’re a bit heavy, deliberately. It’s easier to pick out the detail when they’re darker. One more roll in this batch to be developed, when the new chems arrive.

These are the 4 rolls of Agfa Vista exposed at Easter and contacted especially for my meeting today. We agreed that it’s not particularly important to publish straight away. That immediate bang-bang live blogging imperative driven largely by digital and our willingness to consume large amounts of things of relatively low significance (me too, of course), is something I’m trying to avoid in this part of my practice. Incubation, gestation and timing of delivery. Crucial.

Colour negative film makes for lovely monotone prints, especially on fibre paper. The blacks are softer; it’s all low contrast stuff. Fitting for the subject matter. Someday my prints will come. Well, I’ll do them myself, but that pun is irresistible.

Three super-quick morning sun prints as a gift for my lunch companion. They really could have been exposed for double the time, but the light between 0800 and 0930 right here, was lovely, and just enough. Doing this is like scooping up the light in one’s hands and holding it, lightly, with the leaf, or feather, or whatever it is. Sharing the exquisite coastal light that falls against my skin each morning feels quite special.

There’s quite a bit more cameraless photography to show, but of course it needs scanning, or photographing, and it’s boxed, awaiting the right time. The portfolio website is being rebuilt, so they’ll appear there, but perhaps you’d like to see the before pictures, like these above? Or maybe see them as pairs? Just thinking aloud…Similar Posts: