art fairs.....on telling stories, working in series and ways to show art

Photo London at Somerset House 2016 © Caroline Fraser

One week, two photography shows, a book fair and plenty of food for thought.

First up, Photo London at Somerset House.

Bigger than last year, and so much busier. Expensive too.

So much to see that people got tired, and had to have a little sit down under some scrumpled up photos.

I started in the portacabins and found a work that instantly caught my eye.

A varnished photographic collage made by twin brothers.

Right up my street. So much so that I asked the price.

Only £42,000.

I resisted.

doug and mike starn 'the no mind not thinks no things'

I reckon I'll make my own.

For size,  execution of an original idea and emotional impact it was hard to resist Nick Brandt's series of 100inch and larger monochrome prints from his series 'Inherit the Dust'.

The series highlights the loss of animal habitat in Africa.

I found them very moving and of extraordinary quality.

Nick Brandt 'inherit the dust'

Nick Brandt 'inherit the dust'

Which got me to thinking about the strength of work in series. Something I have been aiming towards for a while.

There were several series on show....

Photographs of highly respected physicists' (working on quantum mechanics) blackboards around the world from the series 'Momentum' by Alessandro Guijarro.


.....'bridging the gap between science and art'

from Momentum by Alejandro Guijarro

Or what about children's playgrounds around the world.

James Mollison 'playgrounds'

Described further on James Mollison's website....

'Various scenes of laughter, tears, and games demonstrate the intense experiences which happen in the playground. For each picture, Mollison sets up his camera during school break time, making multiple frames and then composing each final photograph from several scenes, in which he finds revealing “play” narratives.'

Not as simple as it might first appear, and I didn't pick up on the constructed play narratives in the way intended, but found the series fascinating none the less.

So what I need now is a brilliant idea for a series that takes me around the world at someone else's expense. Ideas on a postcard please.....



And talking of postcards, I do struggle a bit with some of the statements about artists' work.

For example, the text below

He could have just written;

' I really like clouds and rocks'

'they show that nature is much more powerful than humankind'

Add caption

The stand out, most interesting piece of work for me was the reworking of a true story of a group of failed Arctic adventurers by Christina de Middel. 

Jan Mayen  is about a group of scientists who didn't wish to lose face after a failed adventure, so they constructed a photographic record of a fake 'landing' on an Icelandic beach , pretending that it was the island of Jan Mayen that they never reached. Christina has used sound found imagery and combined it with her own work to tell a story of her own, blurring further the line between fiction and reality.

Jan Mayen by Christina de Middel

detail from Jan Mayen by Christina de Middel

It reads more like a book, and got me thinking about storytelling with photography.

In fact the more I got thinking the more I felt that I need to try harder.

Stories, series, books.....

there is nothing like an overwhelment of images to get the creative juices going.

I haven't even got you to the book fair or FixPhoto

but I have created a new collective noun (I think).

Time for some lunch.

Martin Parr sandwiches

The Big Draw - in which I set down my camera and take up a twig in the spirit of Dave Mckean

twigs

The Big Draw is over.

The Big Draw describes itself as the worlds' largest drawing festival, and the theme this year was 'Every drawing tells a story"

At Rye Creative Centre we had the privilege to hear from Dave Mckean , artist and illustrator, about his work. He is a man who has produced so much and worked with so many. Illustrations, film, photographs, comic books. Having worked with Richard Dawkins and Hester Blumenthal amongst many, he has stories to tell. Not least, the secret of Hester's hot and cold tea; which he very properly didn't give away.

Someone else has done that for him if you really want to know...... though personally I suspect that, like magic tricks, it is more fun if the secret remains untold.



I  was particularly taken with his photographic works that were on show in the gallery.

Dream like. Clever.

Full of ideas.

Telling stories.....

Dave Mckean at Rye creative cente

Dave Mckean at Rye Creative Centre

The idea behind 'The Big Draw' was, obviously,  to get people drawing.

So that's what we did.

My thanks go to Stephanie Rubin , resident artist at Rye Creative Centre and talented sculptor for setting up a life drawing class with a  difference.

We had a four stage process, designed to prevent us getting 'precious'  about our way of working.


First; take charcoal

Charcoal

Do 'loose' drawing

Next........take stick and ink

stick

ink

Do a bit more work on the shapes, shadows and lines.

The add some light bits with white emulsion applied with a piece of orange peel .

Then wish you had ignored this stage as it all gets messy and wet, and can't be rubbed out with a  finger.

white emulsion

And finally add some red ink with another stick in a loose and liberated way.

red ink

painting sticks

The subject matter involved red velvet, some ancient cattle skulls and a lovely Italian lady who can sit so still that you might forget she is alive.

velvet drapery

now you see why I prefer photography

The story I am 'telling' is about a beautiful girl in a red dress and long dark tresses who falls in love with a skull that has accidentally morphed into a giant prawn. She is holding its tentacle firmly in the hope that it will keep still while everyone else is busy drawing and telling a story about beautiful girl holding an antler. The effort of holding the tentacle is making her look really weird.

Anyway. I tried.

And I understand what Dave McKean was saying about how you only really see something properly when you draw it.

A click of the camera is a totally different way of seeing;......... 'transient'......... 'momentary'.

And yet......... I remember intimately the places where I have spent time sitting thinking about where to make those clicks. Watching the light. Exploring the ground. Thinking about shapes, patterns and mood.

I'll stick to the clicks. But those bits of charcoal are oh, so tempting.......

charcoal

All I need now is some paper.

all tied up ; untold stories from a walk in the woods

Nothing like a birthday to get one thinking of bows and gift wrapping. Walking around Hawkwood last week I carried only my iphone, as dog was ill, and I knew that if I took a real camera I would be out walking for longer than would be good for her.

When I came home I was somewhat surprised by the collection of images that I had made of bits of string.

What fascinates me more and more is why we choose to take pictures of certain things. Most of the time I cannot explain what prompts me to click the shutter. Walking past the barn I was drawn to some blue string; probably prompted by the image of an empty barn that I created the week before and influenced by Zarina Bhimji's  work.


 Zarina's website


 I think of these images as 'fragments' , 'remains' or 'traces' of earlier, unseen human activity.

There is something attractive about knots and trails of coloured fibres. I can't say that I was conscious of any deeper meaning when I made the images, but what about the subconscious?

What would the viewer make of these?

How will they be interpreted?

 Of course knots are symbolic of life and relationships, but could also have other connotations depending on the individual viewer's perspective on life.

This one puzzles me the most; a bow of hazard warning tape tied high up in a holly tree, way out of reach. There must be a story behind this one, just as there must be for the pillow that still lies in the undergrowth, now covered in snow, and shown in an earlier post when first discovered.

This pillow has become a source of fascination; I find myself looking forward to passing the place where it lies, wondering if it will still be there, and how it will look. I have photographed it with a  variety of cameras from Rolleiflex to Holga, and await the prints to see what will work best.

There is a story to be told, and I feel task before me is to tell it. But what the truth is, no one will ever know.


David Ward , landscape photogpraher talks about photographic meaning in the latest edition of On Landscape magazine. He talks about meaning with reference to landscape photography. He might argue that these images are not landscapes, but for me they are as much a landscape as the traditional mountain or countryside scene. 


The difference is that rather than just being an expression of how the landscape makes me feel, which is how I would wish people to view my more traditional landscape work, these may be trying to say something more. 


Time will tell..........