Sunday morning confessionals

I can’t believe this time last week I was a bag of nerves preparing to hang my photo show at The Allen Gallery.

I’d been to a hot yoga class to help find some calm/grounding/balance + it worked but I was also a mixture of excitement to be displaying images in a different way (tacked to the walls) + nervous as to how it would look and be received.

A week on and its been pretty intense. The volunteers at the gallery, Mick and Josie were soooo helpful and encouraging and Tony gave the seal of approval when it was all in place and between them they were such a tonic :-).

International Women’s Day 2023

Celebrating International Women’s Day, 2023

 What’s your ‘Wish or Hope’ for the future? 

This photography project began with Ivy, then 5, in 2021. I was curious at that time to understand what people were thinking and I loved the idea of using audio and visual references to record each sitter's response. The project lay dormant until last year when I picked it up again as part of my masters programme and began asking girls and women in our community if they’d like to participate. 

Photographing in the garden at The Allen Gallery (which is beautiful) and around Alton, it was my vision to create a variety of images, at differing distances from each sitter with a mixture of quiet moments, reflections and laughter in order to begin building a collective visual.

I am incredibly grateful to all the sitters who shared their time and stories with me, it has highlighted just how much of a rich tapestry of inspiring, creative, generous and kind women we are surrounded by here in Alton.

Friday Night Confessionals….surprises all round!

This week!! WOWZERS

I had completely forgotten about this amazing interview!!! SO beyond thrilled to share this article on my lockdown project!!!

Represented by....

The BIGDAY Film Collective, NYC

A selection of my film work is represented by BIG DAY Film photographers for art buyers and collectors and can be viewed by clicking the link or image here

International Women's Day 2020

Celebrating ‘Friendship’

March 2020

I couldn’t let this year pass without celebrating - every year I capture portraits of women which then become an exhibition with the idea of inspiring younger generations.

This year the arts project in Croydon is taking a break + I thought it would be great to do something a little more casual with the end results being shared online during the day of International Women’s Day. I set about thinking of friends who work in central London so I could be in one spot and it wouldn’t be too tricky for them to come to me with the theme ‘friendship’ + ask them for their own interpretation, feeling, word, colour - whatever it was that resonates with them.

• so Friday 6th these gorgeous ladies below swung by for chatter, tea, pictures + let me take their photo.

I also had in my mind that I’m trying something new….challenging myself + stepping out of my comfort zone to shoot in a different way, to step back slightly, to allow the images to sit together, to continue for the month of March, to include portraits where the sitter isn’t smiling - I CANNOT even BEGIN to tell you HOW HARD that was!!! + produce a lovely project + as it turned out, was a very poignant theme.

Above a screen shot of my final selection of images, Below the final cut (or so I thought!)

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I loved how everyone’s response was very different.

I wanted to bring people together with this project, to share their individual interpretation of “friendship” + to create portraits where I challenged myself in the image making. I am really good at getting right up close to people and in to their space to capture their essence + to be honest this has turned in to a process of challenging normality for me, for sitting on my own hands when I wanted to move in closer or select the happiest photo in the selection + publish on socials only my finely curated selection of happy.

What transpired was me forcing myself to choose images I loved but were perhaps a little more sullen than my usual work. Not soley to challenge myself but to look at the images with a different perspective, a different vantage point. That in itself challenged me to let go and reconnect to being happy with the images myself, whichever ones I chose + trusting the ‘process’.

It’s also been about a conversation Tanya and I had about the viewers experience and ‘seeing’ as the artist or photographer was at the precise moment in time and layering on top of that what we bring in the form of our own interpretation/feelings/emotions/life events to any art at any given moment.

My normal way of working is interacting, observing, creating ease between me, my camera and my sitter, recording just the right representation that I see in any given moment that I feel is an accurate representation of them - on Friday, I stepped back, I deliberately created space to see if it impacted the images I created, if it brought something else forward. So a project based on friendship and exploring how we see.

It’s interesting that looking through the selected images of each of my friends , the versatility of their emotions and our conversation serves as a great mixture to capture slightly different feelings in each picture + the selections below are to appease my controlling mind and show the fun we had!! :-) They also work really nicely as a set of images.

I’m continuing this project and excited to capture more friends through March - over on instagram you can also hear everyone’s interpretation of ‘friendship’ . Have a fab March + enjoy x

Dora Maar @TATEModern

Sunday afternoon I headed down to TATE Modern to check out the recently opened ‘Dora Maar’ exhibition.

If you love old skool photography and miss the skill and delight of darkroom photography then this will get the brain firing + nostrils wishing for that chemical hit that only a darkroom can provide.

If you love a bit of ‘Surrealism’

noun

1. a 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature which sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images.

then this is also for you! Original Photographs in all sizes from passport to A4 are displayed together enabling the viewer that intimate experience that only super tiny images can provide and ensuring you stay transfixed upon it, roving each small corner for all the details. Magazine layouts showing the final printed versions and the images on display are intriguing and fun to get close up to + figure out what was going on during their creation and perhaps how each part was layered over, printed, scratched.

There are 9 rooms in total and I literally squealed with delight in the first two rooms! Looking curiously at each image, inspired by their form and tone and technique. A few fireworks went off inside me as I referenced a personal project I’m currently working on - this was such a joy to behold.

The hesitation in writing steps in now because I left rather flattened. Here’s why - I LOVED the first rooms, I loved seeing hand crafted, considered pieces of photography and reading about Dora Maars life was fascinating yet I stalled at room 6 + 7 - I’m not sure if that’s the curators intention.

In these rooms the exhibitions and my attention turned to Picasso.

Because of this interjection I’m afraid my concentration on the beautiful work I’d seen in rooms 1 through 5 slithered away + became diluted. MY NOTE TO TATE Modern - Picasso was obviously an important part of Dora’s life BUT it seems a little unjust to dedicate some of the rooms to his work and her inspiration on him - as if a house hold name would ‘pad things out’ when that was the last thing that was needed. **The exhibition up until this point had been full and robust, inspiring in its freshness and the inclusion of the solarised image which inspired ManRay was sublime.

As a female photographer myself I applaud the ever growing inclusion of female photographers being displayed now because I remember a time in the not too distant past, when my photography history programme wouldn’t include even 1. + yes I realise that in fact makes me sound ancient - I’m not!!! However, I felt the reference to their relationship : single/complicated/married wasn’t needed, it didn’t add to the validity of her work and his work then overshadowed hers because it felt so off piste + random to have two rooms dedicated to it..

If you absolutely needed to, just perhaps one image representative of his painting of Dora during their time together would have sufficed, remove the fact she was having an affair with him and the huge image depicting the painting of both of the women in his life and we would have a gorgeous collection of images, inspiring the viewer to learn more about Surrealism/Photography/Dora.

I felt confused as to what you felt these rooms brought to the viewing experience aside from confusion and a peppering of annoyance?

The following 2 rooms of her return to painting was both textural and fluid although in part also looked like she was thoroughly pissed off their relationship had ended + in all honesty was how I felt that so much of his work had been included. I didn’t go to see Picasso, I went to see a little known female photographer and artist in a celebration of her contribution to the Surrealist movement. Step it up TATE, the work speaks for itself.

**Perhaps the exhibition’s natural ending was in room 5 with a last room (6) full of her sojourns in to painting, her development + experimentation in to this area along with her return to the darkroom + lifting Picasso from his bereft dessert because the exhibition up until this point had been full and robust, inspiring in its freshness and the inclusion of the solarised image which inspired ManRay was sublime.

Sunday Morning confessionals......Venice Biennale......

There’s some magic in Venice..

I haven’t visited since 1998 when I was living in Milan and caught the train over for the ‘Carnivale’ in deepest darkest February with my fellow room mates + stayed up ALL night because as students we had no money + just thought we’d wing it. It was epic + even sheltering in a ‘Banco-mart’ adds to the memories and stories along with finally finding a cafe open at 5am and being told the photographers were in St.Marks square taking postcard pictures - as we zipped out the door and around the corner, mist rising off the lagoon, there sure enough were photographers eagerly capturing the ‘official’ postcards images of those costumed in their most elaborate finery.

I have fond memories but it had been a long time and now this week I was returning for an entirely different reason and with accommodation booked lol no sleeping in a ‘banco-mart’ for me!

My friends and fellow photographer ‘Jackie Neale’ is exhibiting at the Biennale and I went over to support her and well have a couple days of art immersion and hopefully some sunshine. This trip blew my mind. Great art, super food, amazing meetings of minds AND catching up with friends I hadn’t seen in FAR TOO LONG.

Jackie’s opening was Thursday + Friday evening at the European Cultural Centre and her work is based on Immigration. She has created beautiful, etherial LARGE cyanotypes which measure 5 feet x 7 feet and for their size hold a delicate beauty.

As I looked out of the window next to her work, the courtyard was full of people as was the two terraces , the air was full of an electric, excited but very cool energy - I was in Italy after all and they sure know how to do an opening!

Friday afternoon I met Jackie to listen to her artist talk and discussion on her work (+ take a selfie) + also re-look at some of the artworks which had been near impossible to get close to the night before. One of my absolute favourites was by an artist called ‘Maxim Wakultcshik ‘who created two portraits from coloured tooth picks!!!!!!!!!!! There are not enough exclamation marks to get across just how sublime and entrancing this was so I have included pictures below :-)

Friday night I met fellow photographer Marta Buso who lives in Venice and post art opening, took me for a delicious beer at a pretty secluded spot off the Grand Canal with fun view of the Rialto Bridge….my phone camera doesn’t do it justice but the light was pretty special!

OH + the chance to have my picture taken against the most beautiful textured wall…turns out I just laugh when a camera is pointed in my direction lol there is no hope! LOL

AND THEN SATURDAY! MAMA MIA!

21 years ago I met these two amazing, kind, lovely ladies when we studied at NABA in Milan, it’s been 15 years since I have seen Harriet (right) + 12 years since seeing Irene (left picture). OH MY GOODNESS, SO SO SO GREAT to see them, they both travelled from Bologna + Milan to Venice on Saturday for our little reunion and well, it was as if no time had passed and we spent the whole day chatting + laughing + remembering all the funnies, it was so special to see them both again!! (we even checked out St, Marks Square for good measure too)

It’s been the most inspiring, heart filling few days + I’m off to get a new phone that can take a half decent, ok fully decent picture when I don’t have my camera with me lol + just let the glow of Venice remain with me for as long as possible :-)
Have an amazing week everyone xx

Sunday Sass

Just for this week, Friday night confessional moved to Sunday Sass!

Whoooo-eeeee I’m sitting here, Sunday night, Mothers Day, full of delight at having spent a fun, laughter filled day with my parents. Sunday roast, a little trip out around the countryside and a nap when I got home lol well, I did do a ‘Blaze’ class this morning before all this exuberance and I am feeling it tonight :-)

This past week has been full of family photo sessions mostly in London and with gorgeous families with teenagers (as opposed to teeny people) + the energy of London mixed in with young adults really sets you up to have perky, energised interactions and days - up in a super fun way!

On Friday after a session near London Bridge I caught the overland down to Croydon to say Good Luck to Jack at Lives Not Knives. He has been such an amazing influence within the charity with all his work on the schools roadshows and mentoring young people + is leaving to pursue other interests which I just know he’ll be amazing at!!

Whilst in Croydon AND with it being sunny I took advantage of the visit to swing past Katharine Street and check out the Ladies First exhibition opposite the Library. It looks fabulous! and I made a little video for instagram which I’ve shared above :-)

Happy Sunday everyone, Happy Mothers Day + have an amazing week ahead!!

Happy International Women's Day!!

TODAY our fabulous exhibition officially opens! Angel & Julia of the Croydonist have written about us https://www.croydonist.co.uk/iwd19/ Please check it out :-) x Have a great Friday Everyone xx

Friday Night Photo Opening!!

I'm so excited to share pictures from Friday night's exhibition opening in Brixton!

A selection of my Fine Art imagery is on display until June 4th and we had such a great turn out for the opening and it was brilliant to chat with so many wonderful photography lovers :-) 

Studio 73 is at Brixton Village, Coldharbour Ln, Brixton SW9 8PS

Daphne Travels

New Zealand

Daphne on display in the window

Crazy Lady 'Penelope' is also being displayed - Here 'Crazy Sunbathes' 

THIS is happening!

I'm thrilled and delighted to share the poster for a photography exhibition I am part of at Studio 73 in Brixton. Opening next week and running for 3 weeks. Ben is exhibiting a collection of images from '80's New York (one of my favourite cities) and portraits include Any Warhol and Goldie and I am showing my crazy colourful work.

The Gallery says.......

POP FLASH Collectable photographs by
BEN BUCHANAN AND JACKIE KING

New York in the 1980s was the last exciting decade in NY. For three brief but memorable years the worlds of art and fashion, music and film, collided four times a week at the downtown Manhattan nightclub Area. English / USA photographer Ben Bunchanan was there every night to record what went on at the club, famed for its elaborate and extravagant ever-changing themes such as Suburbia, Sex and Sci-Fi. "They would shut down on a Sunday night and reopen four days and $50,000 later with a whole new look," There are icons of New York nightlife like Andy Warhol and David Hockney along side young protégés like Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, who made their names working on Area's regular refits. By 1987 Area had gone, and the bohemian neighborhood where Ben had shot so many local artists and musicians would soon be gentrified and rebranded as TriBeCa. But the spirit of the age lives on in the photos of the people who put Downtown on the map. 

Jackie is an English professional photographer, speaker, mentor and workshop host. Her career has taken her to Italy, Ireland and the USA and covered many fields of creativity before returning to the UK and within one year of setting out as a freelance photographer, won the top honours at the 2005 professional awards as 'Photographer of the Year'. In 2006 Jackie gained a scholarship from QEST to study for an MA in Fashion Photography at the London College of Fashion.Jackie rose through the ranks of the BIPP (British Institute of Professional Photography) and ended up sitting on the Board of Directors whilst studying for her MA, the first female and youngest photographer to hold this position whilst also running her own photography business. Her work has been exhibited in an array of international locations from New York to London to Sydney and her portraits and lifestyle work printed + featured in a myriad of media outlets, including The British Journal of Photography, Digital Photo Pro magazine, The Sunday Times magazine.

Fascinated by pop Art of 80's and celebrity culture Jackie has an intuitive approach to colour and vernacular in her image making. She creates a performative series of coloured photographs depicting herself in mesmerizing landscapes and transformed her portraits into a celebrity persona ......echoing the 80's celebrity culture.

Crazy Sunbathes