Photo of a bin.

From this: To this:

Return from North Africa

I'm officially back from my mini adventure where I managed to take over 1,500 photos of life in North Africa. I visited the usual touristy destinations such as film locations of Monty Python's Life of Brian, Star Wars and Jesus of Nazareth along with the 3d largest Roman amphitheatre and the Sahara Desert. Other visits included Tunisia's cosmopolitan capital Carthage and Sidi Bou Said, the blue and white picture postcard village. I did venture off the track to many back streets of deprived small towns and villages along with getting quite close to the Libyan border at one stage! I managed to wander through the streets as an outsider with cameras in hand with my very basic spoken French and few Arabic phrases to get by. It was quite an adventure. With 'Survival' - the title of my final major project for my Art+Design course in mind, I hope you find these images captivating.

"Never stop taking photos"

... That will be my famous quote if I ever make it in the Art, Design & Advertising world! Here is a selection from almost 300 images taken from my photographic study of Oxford. Notice I have not adopted any particular style and like to experiment and capture everything.

I'm heading off to North Africa this evening which will be an another excellent opportunity to snap photos on another continent. Will be sure to post my findings.

Winter Blues

I love how blue seems to creep in as a major colour of Winter. My Winter blues has kicked in now the snow has all dissapeared and sadly melted away. Without forgetting the true meaning of this this time of year, I adore how brands + retail go all out, to cash in on the religious event.

I was able to brave the worst of the snow and drove up to Birmingham for my annual pilgrimage to UK's largest outdoor German Market, where every stall looked like Santas Grotto!

I did however, manage to take many digital photos in the white stuff as well as getting to grips with my recently acquired Canon AE-1 film camera. This oldschool relic has a multitude of shutter speeds + exposure settings that have been perfect at this time of year to capture Christmas lights.

Seasons Greetings.

the bigger the better

This image has been a wallpaper on one of the mac's in the design studio since September and has always caught my eye. So I finally decided to look into the work of American photographer Greg Crewdson. His style and techniques are well known for being large scale and rather elaborate with most focusing on American small town suburbs and rural neighbourhoods. He brings the use of light into the equation due to his fascination of the 'poetic condition of twilight', which give a distinct signiture to his photography. Each image is a staged scene with actors on a large set, a crew and the use of lighting and other special effects like fake rain, smoke and dry ice, all affecting how you see the image.
His collection “Beneath the Roses” came together with work from over six years and was completed in 2008. The image below is of Massachusetts in Winter (obviously) and is hanging in the V&A photography gallery. It is needed to be seen, as this small image does not do it justice. With so much going on, details and aspects of the image can be easily missed. So well brought together, his techniques would prove to be powerful images for an advertising campaign.
You can clearly see from this small selection of his photography, that a lot of time and work goes into setting up the scenes. On a much less grand a scale is a small creeative project I brought together last month using a few Swansea Met Art and Design Students. Below you can see the effort that has gone into staging this image, that was a part of a small series that were meant to play a trick on the viewer. Let me know what you think!

Another London Visit

Just back from another magical yet hectic exhibition filled trip to London...

• On the top of my list was the Design Museum. Quite happily flashed my student card to gain discount to the two exhibitions - top floor was the Plain Space exhibition - the work of 'The father of modern architectural minimalism' John Pawson and the middle floor was fashion illustration from over the centuries with Drawing Fasion. There were interviews and film clips but nothing took the attention away from the original illustrations. The collection displays some of the most 'remarkable fashion illustrations from the 20th and 21st centuries', so I spent a good while with my sketch book open sketching and scribbling down work by Karl Lagerfeld, Antonio Lopez and more recently Mats Gustafson (illustrated for Alexander McQueen in Vogue China, 2010).
• My second port of call was the V&A. After standing outside in the cold for what seemed like forever - was dissapointed to find the fashion collection, that always deserves a walk through was closed. Also the photography room was only showing about 8 new images! It was still inspiring as it displays examples of different photographic techniques and saw work by British photographer Nick Veasy, who uses a camera less x-ray as an alternative form of fashion photography.
• Last on my list was the The Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park. It was showing the first exhibition in the UK of Philippe Parreno. Guiding you through the gallery space, it was a small collection of shorts films. One film titled June 8, 1968, (2009) recalled the transportation of assassinated senator Robert Kennedy's corpse from NYC to Washington D.C. It was so interesting I had to see it twice!

A walk in the woods

Just thought I'd upload some recent photos from a walk in the Brecon Beacons. Nothing magnificent, just still trying to stay creative!

urban interaction

This was an attempt to study the urban environment. The cities of the world have proved to be a rich and varied location for numerous artists, photographers and film makers, each with their own motivation, impulse and method. I have produced a series of images that responds to the idea of 'urban interaction'. After assigning myself a location in Swansea city centre, I took over 200 photos and narrowed it down but here is a small selection.

Research included photographer: Walker Evans who documented subway passangers in the 1920s and 30s; artist and photographer Ed Ruscha who captured the essence of American Gas Stations and the Sunset Strip. Having travelled to New York City four times, I took great interest in the work of Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander and Joel Meyerowitz. Their study of New York streets show the true character of such a busy and hard working city. I've taken many photos of the big apple which could prove worthy of a future blog so will dig out the snaps.

The Balkens

3 weeks ago I decided to book a next day flight to Croatia and ended up sailing around the Balkens for 2 weeks, hence my 'lack of blog'. I'm always snap happy where ever I go and took over 1000 images. Here are the top 3 photos from my travels.

Crack on the Street

This is a continuation on from the recent blog about Doris Salcedo's 'Shibboleth' at Tate Turbine Hall in 2007. This is a brief photographic exploratory study of 'crack on the street' and where inspiration for the installation could have come from.

Shibboleth...

...the title of Doris Salcedo's installation in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern 2007.

This Hebrew word ‘shibboleth’ is part of a plant containing grains. The correct/incorrect prounounciation of the word was used in biblical times to distinguish between one group and another. This was also used in WW2, where American Soliders used knowledge of baseball to determine who were fellow Americans and who were German infiltrators in American uniform. Today however it is a word to describe a popular group or in-crowd.

Doris Salcedo is an artist and sculptor whose work is influenced by her experiences of life in Colombia. This piece was the 'first work to intervene directly in the fabric' of the museum and a brief explanation of it can only be described as a long 167 metre crack along the length of the concrete Turbine Hall floor.

It raised so many questions: What lies beneath? What made it? How small did it start off as and how big will it get? It also holds a lot of meaning such as what it is supposed to represent - a division, a problem? She said her work "represents borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation, the experience of racial hatred. It is the experience of a Third World person coming into the heart of Europe".

more photos

Not much to talk about so again, just communicating through the power of image. These are kind of bokeh-esque. I have mentioned this before but just to re-educate you, 'bokeh' is the Japanese word for blurred/out of focused. These recent digital snaps show the use of macro in taking photographs which result in the out of focus background.

Everyone has a digital camera of some kind and should have a setting on it for close up. Any good digital camera should have a focus that lets you snap sharp pictures of things closer than 20cm. Why not be creative and have a play around and see what you can come up with. It's actually a fun way of seeing things up close and in a new viewpoint. Have a look at this online gallery of similar inspirational photographs.

You're going places!

Today was GCSE results day and this morning I was explaining where my sister could get to with the right attitude and determination. Even though I am still trying to get where I want to be in the art & design world, I offered her suggestions and inspiration as to where she could end up! Two examples of successful female arty names, that came up were:

1. Vivienne Westwood: A Designer who started off in the world of Fashion by selling her own jewellery on Portobello Road who later became British Fashion Designer of the Year in 1990, 1991 and again in 2006. Since then, she has been recognised by the Queen for her services to fashion and is now Dame Westwood.
She first studied silversmithing and I was told by someone who worked with Viv, that she is always very hands on. Well known for her own personal dress & flamboyant style, her outrageous and outlandish designs came from a wide variety of inspiration including Hobo and Buffalo, Pirates and Punk. I am proud to say that I am lucky enough to own a Viv tie, which I have included a photo of!

2. Jamie Nelson: Not so well known as the above, but still successful as a New York based photographer with a well established portfolio. Having mastered photography for beauty & fashion she's also lucky enough to have bridged the gap into advertising photography. Here's a collection from Online Fashion Mag' Trendland. The point I was trying to get across was, if you are talented and have the right motivation, you'll eventually get far. Congratulations to my sister for getting an A* in GCSE Art!

V&A

The Victoria and Albert Museum is not only the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, but is always on my to do list when I head to London.
Not that I have counted, but it boasts 145 galleries and with 12.5 acres of museum space attracting tourists who flock to see the massive collections of post-classical sculptures and South Asian art. The good thing about that is they never make it to the harder to find collection of photography. It is always changing and a great source of inspiration.
The fashion and textile gallery is always worth a look. Spent a while sketching a dress designed but the late Alexander McQueen, that took inspiration from a butterfly. They also have a collection on designer menswear, including now vintage suits from Paul Smith, Yves Saint Laurent and an original and eye catching Tommy Nutter! (Now he is one designer I would have liked to meet). Due to the variety of collection, the newly designed garden space, the grand eating space along with the V&A being a great source of inspiration, if you have yet to visit ... GO!!!