Odds & Sods

I haven't been up to much over the last couple of months but in the last couple of week's I've started getting out and photographing again.

The first thing to happen was that the Kodak 2238 project, I was part of had a zine printed for all the photographers taking part, I think in total there was 30 people involved and we each got to have 2 images in the final zine.  I call it a zine but to be honest its more like a book, it is perfect bound and has around 56 pages.

Kodak 2238 Project

Through October we have had the Extinction Rebellion going on in London and I managed to get along to Trafalgar Square and capture some images of the protesters.

The Red Brigade in black & white 

One of the film podcasts I listen to is the Sunny 16 podcast and over the last few months, the hosts have been doing assignments, and encourage listenersto join in, the last one was to photograph Day into Night and I thought I would have a go at this one.

I decide that for me, the easiest way for me to achieve this was to take a series of images over a set time (a bit like a time lapse) and then blend them in photoshop.  I decided that the best palce to get this shot was from the Southbank looking back across to the City of London, with its high rise building and hopefully the lights from the building. 

I worked out what time sunset would be and thought I would start shooting about an hour before that and take an image around every 20 minutes or so and shot for about 3 hours to cover a good period from before sunset until dark.

Things started out well until the rains arrived 2 hours into the shoot, although I didn't get as many images as iI would of liked, I did get enough to produce something that worked out O.K.

I sent the final image into the sunny 16 podcast and it got a good response from the hosts, if you'd like to listen it is on Episode 176

Day into Night

What I did on a day off

Yesterday I popped into Central London to pick up some film, for my OM10 and look for a roll of 120 for an old camera I found.

The film was bought at The Photographers Gallery; which has Wim Wenders, Instant Stories on at the moment a collect of 200 Polaroids.  I didn't fancy looking at that many small images but its on until February so plenty of chances to see it.

As usually I had my RX100m2 with me but I couldn't really see anything worthwhile shooting, this tends to happen to me when I haven't been out shooting for a while.

Crossing over to the Southbank didn't improve things, as the undercoft was devoid of any skateboarders (not surprising on a weekday).

Next stop was the Tate Modern, the Turbine Hall is filled with lots of three seated swings and lent itself to some images of adults on swings.

1-2-3 Swing!

Not having really having explored the Tate since the Summer of last year, I had a wander around to see if there was anything of interest to me.

The first thing was a giant print by Daido Moriyama called Memory 2012

Memory 2012

Nowadays we all seem to worry about super sharp images without any noise or grain in them, this image goes to to show the great images don't have to be all about sharpness.

Next up was Stephen Shore's American Surfaces, this is a collect of 72 prints form Shore's road trip across America in 1972., the idea was to explore the country as an everyday tourist.  All the images were shoot on a Rollei 35 and Shore shot hundreds of rolls of film, which were then developed and processed in Kodak labs across New Jersey.

Shore's work shows us the a snapshot of life in America in the early 70s, the mundane, the ordinary, the everyday life of motel rooms, grotty lavatories, food on tables, odd people and shop fronts.  This series by Shore helps to elevate colour photography to a  fine art level, which had up until then the preserve of black & white photography.

Stephen Shore's American Surfaces

One thing I didn't know when I saw these images in their frames and matted in the Tate; that when Shore first exhibited them, he wanted people to know that they were snapshots and they were just stuck to the wall, so that people could see that they were Kodak snaps and he felt it made they a cultural object.

Art of the brick

Art of the brick are DC Comic book Superheroes and Villains sculptures make from Lego.

There are over 120 artworks, with some standing 2ft high, others larger than life, all made from over 2 million Lego bricks.

 The exhibition is housed in a tent at the back of the Southbank in London.