Not Strictly London

I have to admit that being invited to submit pictures to a show called Snapping Little Britain had me a little worried but it turned out to be better than I expected. It’s a group show which, although it had too many seaside pictures for my liking, I wanted to be positive about by linking to some of the other work. Unfortunately I can’t find any useful web links (I thought all photographers had web sites!). The show is at the Orleans House Gallery in Richmond and runs until April 30th. It’s in a nice location if you fancy a day out by the river. If you can’t make it, my three pictures are here (removed), including one which I did as an A2 lightbox. This picture was taken after the private view last night.

Resisting the List

Teaching yesterday I probably made it sound like I’m in constant turmoil battling the list of things that I don’t take photographs of. Chairs dumped on the street are on the list partly because they always make me think of Richard Wentworth. So today I walked past and then went back just to prove I’m not completely ruled by my own rules.

The Unquiet Thames

My dislike of 360 degree panoramas printed flat was confirmed by this exhibition (The Unquiet Thames - you can see more pictures in the “press pack” PDF although the prints are printed over two metres wide). I had to explain how they were made to a couple of parents who were telling their small son that they were “fisheye” pictures. I started with the fact that the verticals would be curved as well if they’d been fisheye pictures and wished I hadn’t started. My problem is that I find 360s are just too hard for me to read when presented flat. Maybe it’s just that I’m more used to the cylindrical presentation which is difficult in a gallery context. I prefer it when they are more tableaux-like with people in them, like most of John Brownlow’s here. I’ve unwrapped and printed this 360 of mine but again it has people to hold it together. Without people they seem to descend into not unattractive graphics. The symmetry in the bridges is interesting but the upstream and downstream of the river both going into the picture seems too wrong. JB has an under a bridge shot in the set above but to me it’s the sofa and in the London set, the collected crap, that draws the eye - the part that has the easily read perspective - with the architecture becoming a spectacular framing device. So, worth a look if you’re in the area but I will be sticking to partial panoramas. It was also my first visit to the Museum of Docklands (it’s been open nearly three years). It had lots of non-functioning technology (like the audio that should have accompanied the panoramas) but since there was much more to look at than I’d expected that didn’t seem to matter.

Pick A Number

Janet Hall was one of the founding members of LIP and she left some of her camera equipment to the organisation when she died recently. If you are interested in a 5×4 Sinar, lenses or a pair of studio flash heads, here is the link to the ebay auction (NB: now finished) which I am running on behalf of LIP. (link is to the camera, follow the link to my other auctions for more).

Time to Play

I’m sure there will be lots of photoblogs bulging with excitement about Adobe Lightroom but all I have to say is that I’m glad I wasn’t sucked into the Aperture hype - as much as I like Apple. Not wishing to get into arguments over which is better I can see these programs being quite appealing to a lot of photographers who don’t want to deal with the behemoth that is Photoshop, as well as those who need a better way to deal with editing, cataloguing, etc. This picture comes via my first, five minute play with Lightroom.

Newly Served

I moved my domain last Friday (16 Dec 05) so if you’ve emailed me in the last few days and haven’t had a reply please resend.

Jeff Wall

If like me, you’ve only seen one or two Jeff Wall pictures in group shows before, then the current show at the Tate Modern is well worth seeing. I’m still wondering how much of my admiration for the pictures is to do with being seduced by the format (huge lightboxes) but they certainly have more interest than say Gregory Crewdson’s huge (non-lightbox) pictures. Perhaps somebody will fund me to produce some of my own pictures as lightboxes and then I’ll have a better understanding (roughly sliced).

Paddington

Reminder: LIP show - Sunday 16 Oct. to Saturday 29 Oct. My pictures and more info, here.

Boy with Bangers

The new book is finally rolling out. Find out more and buy a copy: Pavemental.

Three Bollards

I went to see William Eggleston in the Real World at the Barbican but the DVD skipped, eventually stalled and the show was abandoned. Michael Almereyda said it was “nobody’s fault”. The discussion between him, Martin Parr and Val Williams was pretty lame too. There should have been a riot or at least the offer of a refund. (Update: the Barbican organised a free re-screening)

Twins II

Oh look - at last!

Twins 2 is now online. Go here to see.

Meyerowitz

Back to diary mode: I went with Tom to a talk by Joel Meyerowitz at the Tate Modern last night. JM is an impressive speaker on photography as well as a great photographer. When I saw his Ground Zero show at the Museum of London I was amazed to learn that it was his first solo show in the UK.