Portrait Salon

In 2011, Carole Evans and James O Jenkins started Portrait Salon, a Salon des Refuses aiming to show the best of the rejected works from the Taylor Wessing Photographic Prize. In previous years the Salon existed as a newspaper and a one off projection event, but this year the they will also reside in the Four Corners Gallery in Bethnal Green for a week.

I am proud to have been part of the sponsorship team for the last two years and last night attended the launch in London, it was a great night with some stunning work on show.
With simultaneous projections of the submitted work in five different cities: London, Leeds, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Brighton it was great to see the photographic community come together to celebrate in such great numbers.

And tomorrow, November the 14th, there will be a panel discussion on the nature of photography competitions at the Four Corners Gallery featuring Steve Macleod from Metro Imaging, Eleanor McNair from MediaSpace and photographer Harry Borden. A must see!

The 2013 Portrait Salon press release can be found here.

Creative Advice Network

As most of you know I am the co-founder & a director of Creative Advice Network.

Well hopefully most of you know :)

For the past year CAN has acted more as a hub company for me and my business partner Marc.
People come to us and generally they filter either to my consulting branch or to Marc's accounting & financial business at A.E.L. 

But now with our lovely new logo and a few things up my sleeve I am slowly but surely moving my freelance consulting solely under the CAN banner.
It feels like the right time to do it too. I've always been a firm believer of letting things take their own time to grow, never rushing decisions, certainly not in business. And this formative year for CAN has allowed me and Marc to see what we had created and where we wanted to take it to next.

So go and have a look at our website here <==   and keep an eye out for new developments over the coming months.
Oh! And follow us on twitter too :)

Just one of the many things we can help you with.

A great project to crowd fund

A lot of you will know Marc Wilson and his ongoing project The Last Stand.
But did you know you can now get involved to help him crowd fund it's next steps through emphais.is ?

Have a look at Marc's videos here & get involved ==>

Inspiration

Sun patterns within the Sydney Opera House, 1962. by David Moore

Celebrate the sun, celebrate Spring, enjoy the light and breathe!

Mini Click - March Programme

To coincide with International Women's Day, Jim Stephenson & his Mini Click crew have lined up a fantastic programme of talks throughout March. 

Over to Jim . . .
"On March 2nd we're doing a full-day of talks and panel discussions co-curated by us and Fiona Rogers from Firecracker and hosted by Miranda Gavin. It'll feature Jo Metson Scott, Agata Pietron, Maria Gruzdeva, Chloe Dewe Matthews and Abbie Traylor Smith. More info here <== 

On March 24th we're running a workshop with Laura Pannack. More info here <==

And on March 28th we've got a night of talks from Alma Haser and Natasha Caruana. We're also launching the first issue of our new magazine that night, which is also on the theme of Women in Photography. More info here <==

The talks are free entry & the workshop £90. Thanks for curating another great programme Mini Clickers.

O'Neil Awards 2012 - Pt1

Lossiemouth, Scotland. 2011 by Marc Wilson

Last Thursday night I went along to the O'Neil awards.
There's a great selection of work on show this year and it was fantastic to see Marc Wilson's The Last Stand scooping up third prize.

If you're not familiar with the project, in written description it's a documentary landscape series of the 'physical remnants of war in the 20th Century in the UK and Northern Europe'.
But in print, on a wall, it is a stunningly eerie, softly lit set of landscape art.

It leads your mind towards Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy.

Studland bay, Dorset. England. 2011 by Marc Wilson

I was also thrilled to see some work from Wendy Sacks. Which literally took my breath away. But more on that in the next post.

An added highlight of the night was the delivery of the winners names. Due to the poor sound system we all got a chance to announce them in a wonderfully complicated game of chinese whispers over two floors. Made us all giggle :)

Back to School!

So the 'Out of Office' Has been switched off and I am back to acknowledging my emails. About time reallyI suppose, but boy will I miss all that sleeping.

There are lots of exciting things lined up this year so keep an eye on here.

In the meantime treat yourself to a look at the work of Annabelle Nicoll, someone I'm thrilled to be working with this year.

The Twelfth Day / Me and I. By Annabelle Nicoll

Thoughts For Photographers

Before I meet with photographers for me 1hr consult sessions I ask them to bring a list of questions. And recently a really interesting one cropped up. . .

"What's the trick to getting my work/life balance right?"

A really great question I thought and one, if you're honest, we've all considered at one time or another.
The thing is the answer is ridiculously simple. So incredibly simple. They are utterly the same thing, or they should be anyway.

If you're working in any kind of creative discipline you're pretty much a creative right down to your bones. So you're never off the clock, not truly.
Photographers when out from behind the lens are walking down the street and spotting the way light hits a building, or eating an apple that reminds them to explore the notions of gravity in a new personal project.
You are constantly absorbing your surroundings and this all feeds into you work.

This is not a job folks and if it's starting to feel like one then something isn't quite right.

Portrait Salon This Thurs

I am really looking forward to this Thursday 29th Nov, because it's Portrait Salon night!

Last years launch party was a great gathering of beautiful imagery, lovely upbeat photographers and plenty of boozes.
I was really impressed with how quickly and impressively Carole Evans and James O'Jenkins (PS Founders) had turned the event around. It's inaugural year was a real success and showed real promise as an annual event in the Photography world's calendar.


In fact I was so impressed that I offered to help them raise funds for this years event; after all they had self funded Yr1.

So I wrote a reference for their Arts Council grant and devised a sponsorship format that they could approach photographic businesses with.  And I jumped on board under my Creative Advice Network banner as one of their first sponsors.

This year Portrait Salon will simultaneously launch their 2012 exhibition in London, Brighton, Leeds and Cardiff. to find out more visit their website here <==

A selection of the 2011 exhibition

Officially Moved In!

Home

I'm incredibly happy to say we are now properly moved in to the new Fox Den.
Lovely new light shades have been bought from fave new local shop Lush Designs, many walks across the heath and through Greenwich park are being enjoyed and I've just treated our mantlepiece to a new Robin sculpture by Michael Lythgoe. Domestic bliss :)

Most importantly for you lot my office is now fully unboxed.
So if you're a photographer wanting to send me any lovely postal bits make sure it's to my new office base.

The Fox Den
53 Westcombe Hill
Blackheath
London
SE3 7DU

Inspiration - For Our Pleasure?

by Daniel Kukla

For Our Pleasure? New Exhibition at the Hackney Picturehouse
270 Mare Street, E8 1HE
1st - 28th November, 11:00am-10:00pm daily
Panel Discussion: 18th November, 2:00 - 4:00pm

by Martin Usborne

Alex Grace has brought together photographers Daniel Kukla, Martin Usborne and Adrien Ehrhardt to create the thought provoking Exhibition 'For Our Pleasure?' which examines the weird relationship we have with animals.

From stuffed Bison heads and a taxidermy stag head wearing make up, the exhibition shows the work of four very different photographers and looks at the way we, as humans, exploit and interact with animals in the created environment around us.

By Royal Appointment - Gregoire Alexandre

I'm currently having a serious bit of eye love for the floaty work of Gregoire Alexandre. It started with the lovely French Connection ads, from 101 and CD Richard Flintham.

Don't get me wrong there's more on the site than just wispy photos, there's an awful lot of graphic still life too. But it still retains an ethereal quality of light that brings a calm consideration to Gregoire's work.

My current favourite on the website is this beauty, very reminiscent of the Antony Gormley Blind Light exhibition.

Check out more of Gregoire's work here <==

Portrait Salon 2012 Is Open!!!

Just received your Taylor Wessing rejection email? 
Well lucky you, you're now eligible to enter the 2012 Portrait Salon FREE!

This morning at 8am they opened their submissions page here <==

Launched last year Portrait Salon is a form of Salon des Refusés - an exhibition of works rejected from a juried art show - which has a long tradition as a fringe way of showcasing artists’ work that may otherwise go unseen. Devised by Carole Evans & James O Jenkins, Portrait Salon aims to show the best of the unselected entries from the annual NPG Photographic Portrait Prize.

Submissions deadline is 21st Sept with judging starting from the 8th Oct.

And after last years highly successful and enjoyable evening PS is returning to Roxy, Borough High Street for the winning projection evening on 29th Nov.

I'm proud to be helping as one of this years sponsors under my Creative Advice Network banner. And I'm in great company alongside Locate, Folio Book, Lucid, Hero, Mustard Post and others.

So what are you waiting for? Head to the site now and get submitting.

A Great Interactive Project

Still Life photographer and thoroughly top bloke Jonathan Minster is starting a great new project, and he needs YOU!

Jonathan is asking for folk to post him objects, direct to his studio and without any packaging.
So we're talking no envelopes, no parcel paper, no boxes!
Just his studio address either on a label or written directly onto the item. And don't forget the stamp :)
He'll then photograph it and send you back a print, also unpackaged.

There's a beautiful random unrestrained excitement to this that I'm very on board with.

So if you want to get involved the studio address is . . .

Ermine Works Studio

Arch 348,

37 Ermine Mews,

Hackney,

London,

E2 8BF

 

And you can give him a heads up on a pending delivery by emailing him on studio@jonathanminster.co.uk

 

Inspiration

Kat Dennings by Kurt Iswarienko

I adore this shot, to be honest I'm a little smitten with Kat Dennings anyways.
There are some tremendous portraits on Iswarienko's site. Repped by CLM.

Inspiration

Large Fox Stamp by Tom Frost

Everyone knows I've got a thing for foxes. You do right?
You're all following me on Twitter, right?

So it was a given when I saw this wonderful piece by Tom Frost (and an otter one) that I had to have them for my very own, well mine and the hublets very own.

As well as a stunning array of prints The Boy Frost also sells incredibly beautiful screen printed plywood toys like this Rocket Racer.

Go have a look at more of his work here <=

The Photographer's Gallery is back with us!

But you all knew that and no doubt rushed down at the weekend to sniff it's newly painted walls. Mmmm . . . lovely :)

And just to spoil us that little bit more they've just launched a new look website. A huge improvement and real feast for the eyes. Check it out here <==

This room is good for your soul

© Do Ho Suh, courtesy Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York

Since the instillation of Do Ho Suh's 'Staircase III, 2010', in Tate Modern, I have been back four times to soak up it's warm, mood elevating glow. And I've been bringing friends back with me too.

I urge everyone to go. The room is an absolute tonic against Creative Block.

And heaven knows when you're feeling down a tip like this is magic.

The work is currently on display at Tate Modern, Level 5: Energy & Process, Room 7.