Merry Christmas, you 'orrible lot.
Sorry I've been so quiet lately, various things have been going on meaning I haven't been in a brilliant mental state and as such I haven't been able to make any new work for a while. But I've been lying dormant for too long - I'm one of those people who can't stay quiet forever.
First of all, some excellent news - I entered some of my photographs into an open submission call for Cork Street Gallery in London, and one of my old Polaroids from Berlin, Holocaust Memorial II, made it to the shortlist. It might not actually get hung in the final show, but it will still be in the gallery's catalogue and I've got complimentary tickets to the private view - and that's some seriously good exposure. Plus I'll be netting a tasty wad of cash if I manage to sell the piece.
I'm also looking in to a photography internship with Brick Lane Gallery; they need someone to document their shows. I still need to figure out if it's feasible in terms of travel and fitting it in around my course and cinema job, but I think it'll be invaluable experience.
So as I said, not an awful lot has been going on in terms of creativity recently; I have been focusing on just being with my family for the Christmas period. However before the semester ended, I did put on a one day show; a collaborative project with several of my fellow students called In This River - basically, it consisted of plaster limbs poking out of a shallow river running through Stanborough Park, near Welwyn Garden City. Partly inspired by the engravings of Gustav Dore seen in Dante's Divine Comedy, it was produced for one my course modules.
I did start working with text more as well - I've been doing a lot of writing, mostly improvised scribblings on whatever was to hand at the time, very stream of consciousness style.
I still need to do that typewriter experiment with the massive ream of paper. But alas, it would appear that the bloody things are not easy to come by. And everyone selling them want shitloads of money for courier delivery, since Royal Mail don't like lugging around heavy boxes. I am determined to get one though... even if I have to borrow one from a charity shop or something.
I also started to play with writing on my negatives as a way of incorporating text into my images. One piece I made that created an interesting reaction was a photo of Harold Shipman, with MURDERER / SAVIOUR written across it.
When I presented it in a critique, a heated discussion followed on whether I genuinely thought that Shipman, widely recognised as a bit of a douchebag because of all the patients he illegally euthanised, was a "saviour". The idea of the piece was to examine this dichotomy; was he murdering the patients, or saving them from their pain? Ultimately, I believe he was a murderer - I support the idea of euthanasia, but Shipman did it for monetary gain rather than to prevent the suffering of his patients. While I was surprised by the reactions I got, I was also pleased - but then again, by hijacking an existing image of a person I know people to dislike, just to get a reaction - I feel like I was kind of cheating. Either way, definitely want to do more of this stuff... I still have a lot of negatives to print anyway so I'm looking forward to having a bit more time in the darkroom to experiment.
Anyways I had best punch out and get some shuteye before I fall asleep on my laptop - been a long few weeks.
Merry Christmas y'all.
-Padfoot
