Prime Objective Blog

Bewildered Bristol…

2009-07-08T09:59:00+00:00

I’ve been part of The Joyful Bewilderment exhibition since it started touring last October, with its first opening at Rough Trade in London.

The show consisting of illustration and photography from over 100 international artists has since graced the walls of Analogue in Edinburgh and opened for it’s third time last night at Here Gallery in Bristol.

The current show runs at Here till 8th August - so if your down in Bristol please give it a look and see if you can spot my Mardi Gras Elephant image in the show…

Art of Ideas 2 - Visual Exhibition

2009-07-01T11:09:00+00:00

Art of Ideas 2, an array of art events and debates in the city of Birmingham launches tonight with an exhibition of works curated by Stephen Snoddy, director The New Art Gallery Walsall and Curator of British Art.

Seventeen artists are exhibiting in a display which includes fine art painting, sculpture, photography and contemporary craft and I’m one of them!

Stephen chose works from the Visual Collection and picked out my Last Flight From Brighton and Franz Joseph Glacier images as they tied in with his chosen theme of nature.

Rockness Recovery…

2009-06-21T11:30:00+00:00

Last weekend I was working up in the highlands of Scotland, documenting Scottish ravers partying hard at the Rockness music festival, overlooking Loch Ness!

I was stationed at the SoCo Social tent which was rammed with wild audiences the entire weekend! A week later and I have just about recovered from the Rockness!

Below are a couple of my favourite moments from the festival…

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band as they walked through the tent onto the stage… Proper New Orleans style…

Dub Pistols font man Barry Ashworth amping up the crowd!

Followed by a bit of crowd surfing…

The crowd loving their glow sticks!

Took way more shots which I’m sure will be going up on the SoCo Social site over the next few days…

Beautiful Disasters

2009-06-08T23:02:00+00:00

The Photographers Gallery have put together another online public web gallery under the theme Beautiful Disasters! Where photographic blunders lend themselves to the outsider aesthetic!

Half of the shots I take using Holga cameras are covered in light leaks and this is what gives them their beautiful random quality which makes them so unique.

I decided to submit the Holga shot below..

What do you know it already has a four star rating!

Flak Photo

2009-06-01T08:02:00+00:00

I recently stumbled upon Flak Photo, an online photography blogzine… It’s beyond inspiring! Put together by Flak Magazine and Andy Adams...

Polaroid 665 Film! First Scans!

2009-05-28T18:08:00+00:00

A few weeks back I bought a batch of the rare Polaroid 665 film…

My early attempts with this positive / negative Polaroid film are now live on the site. The portrait of Log Roper below is probably my favourite out of the first outing with the film…

Vote for Prefab in JPG!

2009-05-26T00:20:00+00:00

That’s right folks! Your votes really do count and I need them quick to get my recent Prefab photograph into JPG magazine! Simply click below and go give me a ’Yeah Vote’!

Glacier for Good Cause!

2009-05-20T13:04:00+00:00

On Tuesday night I had the privelage of attending the Cure Leukaemia Art Auction with one of my works going under the hammer! An array of wonderful art and photography was full sale including my Franz Joseph Glacier image. It was also used as the key promo image on all marketing and ended up selling for the healthy sum of £375.00 in the live auction!

Below are the lucky couple who bought my work!

Prefab at SynthEastwood

2009-05-18T22:28:00+00:00

I spent last Friday night over in Dublin enjoying the delights of the latest Synth Eastwood show, under the theme ‘Homemade’.

I was delighted that my entry, image of a Birmingham Prefab house with owner Tom, was selected to be one of the A1 Posters in the exhibition.

This is the second time my work’s been shown at Synth Eastwood but my first visit over to experience the mega show they put together! I had some interesting chats with people about Prefab’s and the image genuinely received a lot of attention on the night!

Got to give huge props to the Synth Eastwood crew who work incredibly hard, pulling together what is a full on assault of the senses around the theme! They’ll have images up on their site soon enough.. I’ll put a link up here as and when…

Can’t wait for their next show!

Prefab Excursions

2009-04-25T21:35:00+00:00

I’m currently working on some images for submission to the next Synth Eastwood exhibition over in Dublin, in a couple of weeks time…

The theme for the show is ‘Home Made’. I had various reactions to this theme, but the one that jumped out most was to capture images or video of Prefab houses.

Prefab’s for those who don’t know, were originally built after World War 2 as temporary homes to house those whose homes had been destroyed by bombs. However English Prefab’s are now cherished by many as part of our heritage and as such have gained listed status over recent years. They often have a seaside holiday cabin feel to them and although basic I think they’re wonderful homes that should be celebrated.

There are a row of Prefab houses in Moseley, Birmingham, just a short walk from where I live. These were amongst the first Prefab’s to gain listed status and I thought given the Synth Eastwood brief I’d take a visit to the last row of Prefab’s in Birmingham…

Polaroid Portraits

2009-04-17T20:55:00+00:00

Just added a few more Polaroid 600SE portraits to the collection… Shot on the awesome Polaroid 664 film… Still getting around to scanning my shots on the super rare Polaroid 665 film.

SoCo Belfast

2009-04-09T09:41:00+00:00

Still recovering from photographing Friday night’s SoCo Social in Belfast! One of the best events I’ve shot for Southern Comfort yet! The energy of the crowd was more like a music festival than a nightclub!

The images I’ve captured from Belfast and all this years UK SoCo events are up on their site for you to get a taste of the party action!

Joyful Bewilderment in Edinburgh!

2009-04-01T17:07:00+00:00

Last October saw the first outing of The Joyful Bewilderment - a group exhibition of over 90 artists down at Rough Trade in London…

Six months on, the second installment is now on display at the wonderful Analogue gallery in Edinburgh!

From the pics on the Analogue flickr page the opening of the show last Saturday looked like a real fun night! You’ll also find a great review of the night by Lee Basford on Mumble...

Also stoked to receive an email today telling me that my Mardi Gras Elephant photograph actually sold on the opening night! You can see it below - 2nd row from top and 2nd in from left!

Take 10 Metal Fans!

2009-03-14T12:51:00+00:00

A few weeks back I was photographed by awesome photographer Barry Lewis for a regular piece in the Guardian called Take 10! They do various themes from Clowns to Heavy Metal fans! This time it’s Metal fans and here I am in an old Napalm Death t-shirt bought at a gig during my teenage years!

The piece coincides with a Birmingham project called Home Of Metal, celebrating the rich musical heritage the Midlands has within the metal genre, such as the major influence bands like Black Sabbath and Napalm Death have had on the music over the years.

Polaroid 665 Film!

2009-03-13T18:00:00+00:00

A few seconds ago I was brave enough to buy 15 packs of the near extinct & legendary positive / negative peel apart Polaroid 665 film!

665 film is incredibly hard to find and has been out of production since way back before Polaroid gave up the game last year!

This film offered by Polapremium was by no means a cheap purchase! So gonna have to use it for a set project I think. Actually feel a bit sick in my stomach...That’s what buying the rarest and most expensive Polaroid film on the planet does to you!

If you own a Polaroid 600SE I recommend you get a few packs before they’re all gone! Probably the last chance to get hold of this rare and unique film! They’ll all be sold out before the day is through!

Rachel Hulin

2009-03-09T23:58:00+00:00

Nearly every day I stumble across another photographer that inspires me to keep shooting. Today I stumbled not only on the work of photographer Rachel Hullin but also her incredible photo blog. Talk about inspiration! This shot of the balloon jumped out at me most from her portfolio…

To keep an eye on her awesome blog jump into the Friendly Fire section of my blog to be inspired by that and many more RSS treats!

Apples

2009-03-08T16:10:00+00:00

Last night I was involved in some music photography at The Apples gig here in Brummieworld! Been going through my efforts today and for some reason this image jumps out at me more than any other! Something kind of wrong but right about it…

Adventures with Polaroid 660SE

2009-03-03T15:41:00+00:00

About this time last year I purchased a Polaroid 600SE off Ebay - that was also around the time Polaroid announced it was to stop production of it’s instant film! Talk about timing!

Anyways after a year of owning this beast of a camera I’ve got round to shooting a couple of okay shots with the limited supply of film I was able to source from a shop in Germany! Thankfully it’s a little easier to get film now, from places like Polapremium!

I plan to come up with a project that I can shoot using just this camera alone! For now just enjoy the sample shots below…

Continue below to see a few more shots…

Happy Mardi Gras 2009!

2009-02-24T10:25:00+00:00

Today is Mardi Gras and people over in New Orleans will be celebrating in their usual fashion.

The images above & below were taken during Mardi Gras 2006 - I’m not there this year but will be cooking up some creole later!

Happy Mardi Gras to all my friends over in the Big Easy and to all you folks reading this! Go get your beads on!

Back from NZ Blues….

2009-02-20T09:30:00+00:00

I’ve been back from New Zealand for over two weeks now… As you can see from the posts I didn’t keep up to date with the action over there! Happy to say I focused on the trip rather than the screen!!!

The image above was taken whilst hiking up the Franz Joseph Glacier, which happens to be the worlds fastest moving glacier! Climbing a little way up this fella was a real treat and I’m stoked with the Holga shots I got whilst traversing the ice! Especially the shot above, probably my favourite image from the whole trip…