My Greatest Enemies are Women and the Sea

Recently I was lucky enough to meet the very beautiful and completely lovely photographer Ellen Rogers. I have been a huge admirer of her bewitching photography for ages so when I heard she was speaking to the first years on my course I snuck along because I didn't want to miss out.

I got up the courage to speak to her afterwards and she was utterly lovely, we spoke about Polaroids and books and other great photographers and my plans after uni and how scarred I was of ending my student days and joining the real world. I think we have some quite similar artistic influences. She also gave me amazing feedback on my images, which was invaluable really.

Anyway if you don't know her work here are a few examples from her gorgeous website www.EllenRogers.co.uk

 These are just a few examples of an incredible canon of photographic work which the artist described as a world she has created, that can be viewed through these images.

She had a book launch recently at the Last Tuesday Society that I went along to with some friends, and even though I am stoney broke at the moment I bought a copy of her beautiful book Aberrant Necropolis which she kindly signed for me.

It's a stunning book, you can purchase one here if you too would like a copy.

After this my friends and I had a lovely time exploring the Last Tuesday Society's hidden treasures:

It really felt like such a privilege to meet such a talented photographer who also turned out to be so kind to me and so interesting. I'm really pleased I bought her book and now it has pride of place on one of my bookshelves:

The Crow Wished Everything Was Black, The Owl, That Everything Was White.

These stunning screen-prints are by the incredible artist David Noonan. I was introduced to his work by the very lovely photographer Ellen Rogers and I have found them incredibly inspiring.  

I think I like them because they are both dark and sinister as well as being quite theatrical, and these are elements that I can identify within my own photography.  I think I also find them really interesting  because a lot of them feature birds, and I am personally terrified of birds, while simultaneously finding them quite fascinating in a repulsive sort of way... 

Anyway this is what the Saatchi Gallery have to say about his work, far more eloquently than I could ever articulate:

"Beginning each of his screen prints by making a collage, David Noonan brings together an eclectic array of found imagery – sourced from film stills, books, magazines, and archive photos – to create dramatic scenes that suggest surreal narratives. These collages are then photographed and turned into large-scale screen prints, a technique remarkable for its sumptuous finish that relates to both artistic authenticity and mass media. Printed in harsh contrast black and white, Noonan’s images encapsulate the romanticism of golden age cinema, and its associations to memory, fiction, and modern mythology.

Approaching image making with an auteur’s indulgence, Noonan presents a fabricated vision that is awesome in its complexity. Using the liturgy of art itself as a departure point for invention, Noonan conceives his work as ‘documentation’ of plausible performances: his cast of characters are positioned as participators in highly elaborate artworks, invoking covert and futuristic ritual. Stylistically referencing Surrealism and experimental film, Noonan’s work poses as the aesthetic remnants of ‘lost masterpieces’, weaving his own extravagant fantasies into fabric of collective consciousness.

Piecing together plausible narratives from his readymade motifs, Noonan renders the intimacy of psychological space as indistinguishable from public cognisance. Using the qualities of photomontage to replicate the linear aspects of film, Noonan’s disparate imagery collates to convey a transient sense of time and space that is both theatrical and strangely insular. Through his process of screen printing, Noonan capitalises on the effects of transluscent layering and exaggerated lighting to replicate the flickering chimera of cinematic projection; an intangible illusion simulating the abstraction of dreams."

 

 

Wasting Time Thinking About a Girl

Yet another disjointed attempt at my calendar project inspired by the wonderful photographer Lina Scheynius... 

I keep forgetting what day I'm up to and getting behind and deciding to start again. I need to find another camera to dedicate to this project, and get myself better organised, or come to terms with the fact that I will never be able to do it for a whole year...

But I don't think I'm ready to give up on it quite yet. 

This is the challenge (that I am yet to successfully complete) as set out on Lina's website:

"take one picture of yourself every single day for one year. use whatever you might find in the place you happen to be - just make sure that you are always in the frame somewhere, somehow. there will be tons of days when you will not want to take a picture of yourself - do it anyway! take the first one in july 2009 and the last one in june 2010 - and then develop all the rolls all at once. voila!"

If you think this is interesting have a look at these projects by other photographers who are more dedicated and organised than me:

Lina Scheynius's "Calendar" 

Noah Kalina's "Noah K Everyday"

and Jonathan Keller's "Living My Life Faster"

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Merrily Merrily Merrily Merrily

I just got my cameras developed from The Hackney Regatta, aka Canal Stock, and felt like I should share them here because, even though it is nothing to do with fashion photography, it was so much fun.

Some friends or mine organised this event, not really for any reason, just a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon: About 30 rubber dinghies full of people floating down Regents Canal from Angel to Broadway Market. 

 

 

 

Lovely.