A naked artist, a nice police man and me...

Every good photograph is an opinion; it says something revealing about the subject. Achieving that magical, fleeting moment is the essence of portraiture. It's truly collaboration between photographer and sitter. - Joe Budne

A couple of nights ago I collaborated with an artist friend of mine. She wanted me to photograph her in a small stream near where we live with water gliding over her skin. Using a long exposure we wanted to create a silk-like layer over her body, creating shapes from body parts emerging from the water... 'best laid plans of  mice and men...' and all that!

So, it turned out that the stream was a little shallower than we had anticipated ;-) we couldn't really attempt to get the images we had planned but I am actually quite pleased with shots we got in the end anyway. 

It was a fun experience, public nudity is definitely not something that goes unnoticed by passers by but no-one bothered us as we took the shots. At some points Genna, the artist and collaborator extraordinaire, was standing in her own little world with her head under a small waterfall. She couldn't hear me when I was calling to her asking her to stand still, change position or to tell her the exposure was finished, but we got there in the end... it's got to be said she has some serious 'mind over matter' skills. The water was freezing and she managed to stay solid as a rock and come across as serene and tranquil. Beautiful job Genna.

The shoot came to quite a sudden end as a police man rode past on his motorbike. At this moment, Genna's head was submerged in water and she stood beneath the running water with her eyes closed, blissfully unaware that the police man was even there. Luckily, he was a lovely man and I managed to convince him that for the sake of art I needed to take a couple more shots. He was actually more worried that some bad men could get the wrong idea at this time of night and told us we could be here just not so naked.

Anyway, these images aren't exactly what we were going for but it only gives us room for improvement! Next time we will check the water is deeper than an inch and that nice policemen on motorbikes won't be interrupting us.

Concept...

A palimpsest (/ˈpælɪmpsɛst/) is a manuscript page from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped or washed off and which can be used again. The word "palimpsest" comes from Ancient Greek παλίμψηστος (palímpsestos, “scratched or scraped again”).

I am trying to really think about the concepts behind the photo shoots, sets and series I am doing at the moment. 

Over the last year I have mainly just taken one-off portraits of the people around me, catching a moment or trying to capture an essence of a person in one image. I want to get away from this and really spend time planning or at least have an idea of what I am aiming for before snapping away. Not necessarily a really complicated concept, just more thought than your average point and click, pretty pics. With this in mind my most recent shoot with Eftychios, a greek architect student, was inspired by his thesis; the idea of 'Palimpsests'.

Eftychios is exploring the idea of palimpsests within the context of architectural interventions in order to rehabilitate and restore abandoned or ruined structures. 

In the 19th century 'Muralla Nazari', the wall that surrounds Granada, was partially ruined by an earthquake. Antonio Jimenez Torrecillas proposed a visual re-write of this ancient landmark and so a new, modern design was added to the existing wall. This is a perfect example of a palimpsest. Through writing his thesis, the Muralla Nazari has begun to mean something more to Eftychios; a connection that I wanted to develop.

With this set of photographs I was hoping to do exactly that; portraits of Eftychios with the Muralla Nazari. 'Palimpsest' being my inspiration. I wanted to take his idea and use it within the context of photography... the new narrative over the old.

I have uploaded the whole set here, so please take a peek, but my favourites...

Behind the scenes...

Asked what he would tell young people thinking of a career in photography, Clark was emphatic. "Don't do it," he said. But as his face broke into a grin, he added, "Don't do it unless you want to work harder than you have in your life, and have more fun than you could imagine." - Ed Clark

Been working hard this weekend! I've been continuing with my 'Home away from Home' series but I took a break yesterday and went for a wander in the woodlands… I've actually had this little project in mind for a while and my two lovely ladies helped me achieve it! The idea was to take your typical beauty/fashion shots and instead of advertising jewellery or clothes i wanted to just use plants and nature, instead of using models i wanted to use my beautiful friends and i loved the idea of a natural light, woodland shoot. We had a lovely day's shoot, a lot of fun! For something different I thought I would post the 'behind the scenes' shots!

Obviously there are real photos too so if you'd like to see the actual portraits we took have a peak here! 

Home away from Home...

It is part of the photographer’s job to see more intensely than most people do. He must have and keep in him something of the receptiveness of the child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveler who enters a strange country. Most photographers would feel a certain embarrassment in admitting publicly that they carried within them a sense of wonder, yet without it they would not produce the work they do, whatever their particular field. It is the gift of seeing the life around them clearly and vividly, as something that is exciting in its own right. It is an innate gift, varying in intensity with the individual’s temperament and environment. - Bill Brandt

I have started a new series.

I am surrounded by people living in a country that isn't their own and I really wanted to photograph them! I want to explore how people make themselves at home wherever they may be. We make ourselves feel comfortable by creating environments that feel familiar, with home comforts, people and objects that make us feel secure. We create a refuge and make ourselves at home with whatever space we are given; some quicker than others, some easier than others. 'Home away from Home' is taking a group of people who are living abroad and trying to capture this idea.

This is actually a subject that is really important to me as I have spent most of my childhood moving around and most of my adult life travelling and never settling. I am extremely quick to 'nest'! I can unpack and change a strange room into a familiar environment with in a couple of hours. I am really quick to make myself at home and all I need is something on my bedside table that is mine, a picture of a loved one hanging up on the wall and my lovely feather pillow that comes with me everywhere; straight away it feels like the space is mine.

So, anyway, enough rattling on... here is the beginning of my "home away from home" series. hope you like it!