Tag: photography

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Camera Obscura

Camera Obscura

Been covering classes for the head of the photography department this week. We agreed that I could teach image formation. So I trashed his room by turning it in to a Camera Obscura and had the students sit around in the dark. This is a photograph taken by a student of the image projected in to the room. I have worked on it in Photoshop (flipped 180 and mirrored for a more dramatic result- I’m not correcting the perspective).
It was a good lesson and obviously there was a lot more to it than have them sitting in the dark staring at a dull image projected on to the wall. Hopefully the learning will have sunk in!

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Man Ray’s letter to Knud Merrild

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I have been doing some reading on Man Ray recently- he is an artist known to most photographers for his pioneering Rayograms and solarisation and if, like me you trained in photography pre-digital days you would have experimented with these techniques in the darkroom.

The quote above is from a letter Man Ray wrote to an artist friend who’s work he greatly admired. Knud Merrild was a Dutch post-surrealist and modernist artist who ended up in California the same time as May Ray (who fled Paris in August 1940). Merrild’s work was bought and admired by several great artists and writers but he never gained the fame and notoriety of his contemporaries. He suffered a heart attack and returned to Denmark where he died in 1954.

Recently there has been much press about the cut in arts funding across the whole of the UK and It’s got me to thinking about how little the arts are valued within modern society- I mean good art- art that makes you think and feel emotion and want to do and try harder in your own practice- not the insipid zombie art people buy to match their sofas, or the kind of art that is all about the ego of the artist (I still long for the day when we have a row of plaster cast dicks from all of the well-known artists still alive lined up on pedestals in order of size from small to large and the largest one gets to be ‘top artist of the world’).

I like this quote because it offers hope and that is something all artists need to keep going- without hope there is nothing as an artist. I know we need it across every facet of life but it is the one thing that keeps me going- the idea that the ‘thing’ I am creating at that present moment will give me satisfaction and, in turn, perhaps inspire others, provoke an emotion in them or change how they think or feel about a certain something.  But I also like the fact that Man Ray uses the word ‘illusion’ as if Merrild is creating some sort of magical world (or personality). Like a great author, Man Ray is lost in Merrild’s work- the illusion has taken hold and is all-encompasing to the point of obsession. I’ve had a few art obsessions – most recently travelling to Vienna to see Klimt’s The Kiss and while there discovering the Striking Heads of Franz Xaver Messerschmidt- all these journeys in art, where just reading a few lines about a certain artist takes me deeper and deeper in to a journey.

But back to Man Ray and his love of Merrild’s work. We do not compliment each other enough or reward ourselves with a moment of happiness before moving on to our next creative obsession. It doesn’t matter that the world has not sat up and taken note of our latest creative outpouring. What is important is the journey and the acknowledgement from those who get it- whose opinion is treasured (not friends- they will always tell you they like it with little critical discussion). I can imagine Merrild’s happiness at receiving this letter from Man Ray and the impact it potentially had on his work- how such a letter could push his work on further and inspire him to keep going.

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Future Self!

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We are careering towards the launch of the Future Self exhibition in Stirling on Monday and it’s down to the last few tasks- order the vinyl lettering and layout the interpretation text and then it’s just the 113 portraits to hang!! Writing the interpretation text is the bit i don’t like doing- it’s really hard to concentrating three month’s work in to a few sentences. I want to write about all the planning meetings, upload all the worksheets, show you the photographs the children took themselves, share their funny anecdotes, tell you more about them and their stories. Until then, here’s a little formal writing on the project…

“Future Self is a photography project which aims to support children and young people at the transition stage within primary school before going up to high school.

 Future Self supported children and young people from the Primary 7 classes of Bannockburn, Cornton and Fallin Primary Schools to explore what they might like to do in the future with regards to career or further study, reflecting too on how they might change in the coming years and the skills they need or would like to develop. As they reflect on their time at primary school and look forward to starting high school, Future Self aims to use transition work being done by class teachers as a starting point for reflection on their school career to date and how they may develop and hone their skills whilst at high school to realise their ideas for future careers.

 Through discussion and exploration in class and at home, and creatively through photography and costume, the children created a double photographic self-portrait of themselves as they are now and who they think they might be in 20 years time. The children are encouraged when taking the photograph of them as they are now, to consider a piece of advice they should give their future selves to enable their career goals. Then, using costume and make-up the children are transformed into that ‘future self’ and re-photographed. These two separate images are then merged in Photoshop and here today are the 113 portraits of the children who took part in the project.

 At the beginning of the project the children visited the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh and learned about pose and symbolism in art. Back in class the children learned about representation in photography and how the way we choose to represent ourselves in public can reflect upon our later lives.

 Future Self has reached a broad spectrum of children across Stirling.  Engaging in creative experiences can create a thriving learning environment, transforming levels of aspiration, enthusiasm, motivation, self esteem, critical thinking and openness to new ideas.”

 

 

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Heartlands Project

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I was commissioned to develop a project with two primary 7 classes from Whitburn which took as it’s topic the Heartlands development. This development, just outside Whitburn, is currently the largest development project in Britain. Taking the history and surroundings of this site as inspiration my brief was to create a full day’s workshop with half of the day taking place on site and the other half back in the classroom.  The difficulties lay in relying upon the Scottish weather, class sizes and access to enough of the site to be able to produce a set of good quality, varied images.

I chose to focus my attentions on the beech trees – one in particular which you can see above. I used a digital projector to create a template of this tree on to A0 mount board. The children would create a collage of lots of small photographs taken during their visit, printed on to A4 sticker paper, cut up and stuck on to the Beech tree template.

We could not have asked for better weather during the two school’s visits allowing us to wander the site taking a variety of images. The children were asked to focus their attentions to photographing to specific colours; brown, green, grey, blue and white.

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The children really enjoyed taking their pictures and learning the geology of rocks on the site, they listened intently to Alex Muirhead, Development Director of the site.

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After their site visit the children returned to their school where I joined them and we began printing their photographs out on to contact sheets. They were encouraged to choose a job suited to their skills; cutting out the pictures, dividing them in to the separate colours, helping with the printing, taking the sticky backs off the prints and sticking them down.

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We almost finished their collage! The class teachers were happy to finish their collages in class next week but below is an (almost) finished collage. The pupils and teachers alike were very happy with their work, which will go on display at a sharing day at Whitburn High School in September so I hope to be able to post photographs of the finished tree collages. 

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This project was successful on many levels not least of all because the children learned new photography skills, gained confidence in their creativity, worked as a team to produce a piece of work and of course built upon their knowledge of the Heartlands development. 

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Mapplethorpe-inspired portraiture

“The guiding principle of ARTIST ROOMS is the concept of individual rooms devoted to particular artists. The collection of over 725 works includes major groups of work by seminal artists…

The aim of the collection is to create a new national resource of contemporary art that will be shared with museums and galleries throughout the UK so as to inspire new audiences, especially of young people.”Image

I recently did a workshop for West Lothian Council for their Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition at Linlithgow Burgh Halls. In 2008 , art collector Anthony d’Offay gifted his art collection to the nation and it is managed in partnership between National Galleries of Scotland and Tate.

My brief was to lead a tour of the exhibition and a workshop in self-portraiture which took as it’s inspiration from two specific self-portraits of Mapplethorpe; one mid-career and one towards the end of his life respectively.

For the gallery tour, I spoke to the young people about symbolism in art; specifically photography, the playfulness of Mapplethorpe’s early self-portraits compared to his last one, and we looked at how the search for perfection in the human form was a major influence on his work. We skirted around his life as an ‘out’ gay man living in New York in the 1970’s and 80’s, his Catholicism and his death from an AIDS related illness- these topics needed to be addressed because of his self-portraiture, and to give the young people attending a sense of the historical implications of his life- of him living in a different time from now.

The participants were all from James Young High School in Livingston and are studying art in 4th year. They were rather quiet and reserved during the tour which can at times be a bit unnerving but during their workshop they came in to their own, expressing their personalities, having fun, enjoying being photographed, expressing themselves in a safe and creative environment. The young people were given the brief to take two self-portraits showing their outward personalities and two showing their inner selves. I set up a black background and a white wall sufficed for the other surface. They chose which they wanted to be photographed against and worked in small groups to achieve their portraits. I set up two DSLRs as I did not want the workshops to be about the technical aspects of photography it had to be about expression and, in such a short time frame it was easier to set up the cameras for them. However they were responsible for shooting each other. All the images were shot using one reflector and natural light which came flooding in through the windows of the beautiful top floor of the Burgh Halls.

I cannot stress the importance of gallery visits, showing and discussing artworks, themes in art, stories behind the artworks and the artists themselves.

I have managed to get several model-release forms from parents to share their portraits with you. I was so excited to see the images produced by the group I just had to share- put simply they are all beautiful and there is a quality of vulnerability to of them, a sense of fun, of self-expression and exploration, a chance to share with others the different facets of their personalities. The young people were all sent copies of their images on disc and a print of their black and white 4-image collage but I have chosen to show their single colour images as I think I prefer these.

With thanks to West Lothian Council, James Young High School, Linlithgow Burgh Halls and especially Nancy Douglas.

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Great Art Quest

Great Art Quest

“Each year Great Art Quest introduces children from 16 primary schools in the UK to the visual arts by partnering them with local galleries, professional artists and storytellers.

Great Art Quest works in high-need areas and schools taking part in Great Art Quest are specially selected based on Ofsted reports and local knowledge.

For many of the children taking part in Great Art Quest this will be their first experience of visual arts in a professional gallery setting and Great Art Quest is designed to have a transformative impact on children’s academic achievements and self confidence.

Following visits to their local gallery and workshops with artists and storytellers, Great Art Quest culminates in a perhaps once in a lifetime opportunity to exhibit their work in a professional gallery.”

Great Art Quest, The Prince’s Foundation for the Arts 2012.
I am currently working with four schools from North Edinburgh on the Great Art Quest. I am collaborating with storyteller and musician Marion McKenney to develop the schools workshops and visits to the Queen’s Gallery, at Holyrood Palace who are leading the project through their education officer Alison Campbell.

It has been hard work, bringing together all parties to develop ideas that can be delivered over two sessions in the schools, in an art form where these skills will be easily transferable to the teaching staff to have the confidence to run the project again on their own. There has been much planning in order to direct each school to specific art works in the collection, to help them focus and learn what can be achieved in their classes. I am delivering workshops in casting, paper making, portrait photography and painting which will produce a diverse exhibition and teach new skills to both children and teaching staff. To achieve this, each child was given a sketchbook during their Gallery visit with a series of questions, looking specifically at various art forms and pieces form the collection. They will use their sketchbooks back at school to record their creative progress, sketch out ideas, and write about their experience of working on their project.

I am posting some of the pictures of the children visiting the Gallery. Having the opportunity to talk with them about Van Dyck, Lorenzo Lotto, Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Rembrand, Faberge, symbolism in painting, looking for stories within the art works, the histories of certain pieces- to teach them to question what they are looking at doesn’t feel like work at all! It is an utter joy to see them, with their sketch books, navigating the gallery looking to answer the questions they have been set through drawing and writing. To have the opportunity to sit and listen to Marion play her harp and engage them in stories is quite a magical experience and it makes other visitors (and staff) stop and listen.

We have just started in the schools this week and yesterday one of the teachers sent me an email which I have posted here. It’s by far the best part of my job when a truly collaborative project comes together- there are lots of partners in this project- the Gallery, myself, the storyteller, the teaching staff and the children. It takes a huge amount of planning and thinking to ensure all parties are considered.

I hope to be able to post some of the art works created by the children over the coming few weeks- they will be exhibiting their works at Holyrood Palace in the New Year which is exciting not only for them but also for me! The exhibition will take time to plan;it won’t just have their art works on display it will include quotes from the children and teaching staff, excerpts from writing they will be doing with Marion, and photographs of them working on their project.

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Positive destinations

One of the best parts of my work is when I say goodbye to some of the people I have worked with knowing that they are on to new things in life. One of the more recent times was working with the young people on the HYPE project in West Lothian. HYPE (Helping Young People Engage) is a project which assists young people transitioning from school to work/further education through skills training to move on to positive destinations. Over the ten weeks I worked with the young people they proved themselves to be keen to learn much about photography and we developed a book project which they recently published on Blurb.com. Two of the young people have just started their NC in photography at West Lothian College and are looking forward to continuing their photographic learning up to HNC and degree level.

On a personal level, it was a joy to work with such a dedicated and interesting group of young people- keen to learn about the work of other photographers, engaging in conversations about art and photography and working collaboratively to produce a stunning set of images in what was, in photographic terms, only a short time. OK, so I know that out of the eleven young people I worked with only two have gone on to study photography but it’s so much more than that. A group of young people, who didn’t know each other, and who, for the most part had stopped attending school, turned up every week to work, meet people and learn. Friendships were forged, confidence grew, knowledge was shared.

This week, three of them came along to the Civic Centre in Livingston, set up their exhibition, and spoke to strangers about their project. They took great confidence in being asked questions, seeing that people were interested in what they had achieved and how working on this project had lead them on to a positive destination.

Their book, Show me the Light, is available to view at Blurb.com

http://www.blurb.co.uk/bookstore/detail/3472114

This picture was taken by Heather, the community education officer leading the project, who was also inspired to take better pictures.

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my history is not important

I have been working through in Livingston recently with a bunch of young folk. This is a picture of Chris who attended all the sessions. I liked Chris- he was a nice lad. He has hopes for his future and is looking to get a job soon to support himself and his girlfriend. I admire Chris- I don’t know much about him, I just took him as I found him, as I do with all the participants I work with. One of the most important things I do in my work with young folk is to give them a safe haven to express themselves creatively and without prejudice. Who or what Chris is, is of little importance to me. My job is to help him increase his soft skills and express himself, not to help him solve his problems. I know the group he’s attached to and like many young folk he finds it hard to listen and concentrate but when we go out taking photographs he comes in to his own. The pleasure he gets from composing, taking and then looking at his photographs pushes him on to take more photographs, to take his time, to come up with more ideas, and this is infectious. He’s an alpha male and so other members of the group start to join in…
This group wanted to look at showing young folk in Livingston in a positive light, which they did successfully with their work which I will post at a later date, but through their less formal photographic works they have showed themselves to be caring, sensitive, attentive and creative. Livingston can get a bad rap from folk but their photographs show it to be rather idyllic in some respects. I show them how to find, and compose beauty- and perhaps for the first time, they are looking and seeing things a little differently…

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Inspiration takes many forms and hits at any time…

Yesterday I was working through in Falkirk with a group of young people about to start high school. One of the boys was very keen to have his photograph taken. I’ve never been that keen on photographing people facing me smiling and moreover it’s not easy to gain permissions to use images of children and young people within the public sphere. It was a beautiful sunny day and the clouds moved quickly across the sky. The light hitting the glass panels of the building was the perfect backdrop to shoot against- allowing me to isolate subjects. I photographed the first boy, and loved the quality of the image so I did something rather out of character, and asked some of the other young folk if they would like their to have their photograph taken. I am painfully aware of the power I hold in my hand each time I raise my camera to photograph a person and this occasion was no exception.But by using the reflective qualities of the glass I allowed my subjects to be completely in charge of their pose and how they chose to be represented.
I love the colours, and the poses in these photographs, and it’s given me inspiration to continue shooting anonymous portraits with the full consent and control of my subjects…