Photography program for adults with acquired brain injuries.

I have been organizing a photography program for adults with acquired brain injuries at a fantastic charity, Headway East London. The members who have been involved have an exhibition coming up in February in conjunction with a fundraising event, and we are looking at moving it elsewhere so it can stay up for a few months. After the exhibition we hope to continue and expand the project. Read the blog by a member involved in the project here: http://www.headwayeastlondon.org/our-community/projects/photo-project/

This is a service I will start to offer on a one on one basis. With serveral years experience in the brain injury field and as a photography I am in a great position to offer this unique service.

Boxing Creative Shoot

These are some pictures from the last shoot I shot in Vancouver, never got round to posting them up with the mayhem of moving back to England. Had a great time doing these, and working with a very talented team. Jen and Cam had not modeled before and were fantastic! Grace is a very talented make up artist who works in the film industry in Vancouver, I was very lucky to get her on board. Evren who assisted me and gave creative and technical advice has recently graduated from VanArts, and received an honorable mention in the 2010 Px3 awards, a name to be watching.

Makeup: Grace Schoorl
Models: Jennifer Yager and Cameron Johnson of Action Boxing Club
Assistant: Evren D'souza











This shot was fairly complex. All (other than some minor retouching) was done in camera, one shot. Camera was on a tripod, six second exposure. Hitting the shutter fired a strobe beauty dish above Jen for the main light, and and gridded strobe behind her to the left for the rim light. We had a large softbox on a strobe for a hot light, Jen ducked and weaved to get the motion blur, with Evren firing a speedlite to the left of camera at one point to get the sharper form on the left. This took a fair bit of time, patience and experimentation from everyone!

London Temporary Autonomous Art 2010

Been a long time since my last blog post, had a very busy summer. Below are some images from the Temporary Autonomous Art (TAA) event back in June. If your unfamiliar with TAA head to http://www.taaexhibitions.org/ and http://www.randomartists.org for more information.

Prangsta: Town Hall Corner event

Did some shooting for lovely lot at Prangsta last week at their "Town Hall Corner" event. A fun time was had by all.




This remindes me of a Robert Doisneau shot, I'm not sure which one. Its vaguely Parisian I suppose.

Summer is coming...

Salisbury Cathedral

Spent a wonderful day visiting Salisbury Cathedral with friends at the weekend. No end of photo opportunities and a chance to see one of four surviving copies of the Magna Carta.



















A very kind lady named Margret offered to take this cushion embossed with my name on outside so I could photograph it. I found it in the chamber where the Magna Carta is kept, where no photos are allowed. It costs £12,000 a day to keep the Cathedral running and most of the workers there are people like Margret who kindly volunteer their time.




Following up culture with that other activity we Brits do well.

"Art", grime and pigeons

It must be London!

I've been very busy since I returned home. Having a great time, and managing to see my friends and family for the first time in year (felt like I'd never been away which was wonderful) whilst getting on with business bits. Been going to a few events and met a lot of interesting people and possible clients.



Borough Market – Looks dirty and decrepit, which may well be true, but I was fascinated by watching the traders at work, and exploring as the place is a lot more deserted than when I was last here over a year ago. I didn't take any photographs of the traders yet, but I am considering approaching someone to start a documentary project on the place.





Litter and pigeons – looking down from a footbridge near St Pauls.





This is a giant steel box billed as a sculpture at the Tate Modern. One side was open allowing you to walk inside, the two figures you see in the image are standing by it with me shooting from inside giving you some sense of the scale. It was really, really big, and raised on stilts so you could go underneath as well.



There is often a lot of good things on at the Tate, and I've been to some stella exhibitions* there, but the most telling thing about the place to me is that when you get on the escalator on the ground floor expecting to end up on the 1st, you instead arrive on the 2nd. No explanation or apology is offered.




*Street and Studio in 2008 stands out. It was an extremely well curated look at the history of street photography, and studio photography and how the two photographic disciplines from opposite ends of the photographic spectrum have developed and influenced each other. There were over 350 photographs exhibited, which would normally be to many and an information overload and result in loss of impact, but this was carried by the sheer quality and variety of the work, and the highly intelligent and informative way it was used.

Featured on David Ellingsen's blog

This week I had the honour of being featured on David Ellingsen’s blog. David is one of the top photographers in Vancouver and an extremely nice guy to boot. He was one of the members of my college portfolio review board and was evidently very impressed with some of the students work, and chose six of us to write up on. You can read his post here.

www.davidellingsen.com

Vancouver Winter Olympics 2010

I've not had to much opportunity to shoot during the Olympics, but between completing my grad requirements for College and getting packed and ready to return to England next week I've managed to to get out a little bit.


Shortly before the opening ceremonies.





A mother and child enjoy the free ice skating under Robson Square.





A policeman watches as the anti-Olympic protest gathers by the Vancouver Art Gallery on the day of the Opening Ceremonies. The protests have been smaller than expected, and met with a large degree of hostility by local residents. I am told the Police have had to hold back groups of testosterone and alcohol fueled young men from attacking the protesters.





Korea house. The Koreans are bidding for the 2018 Winter Olympics and doing their best to impress the Olympic community.





A touch screen display at Korea House.





A lone figure walks along the Seawall towards the Burrard Bridge. The lights are from Vectorial Elevation, one of the more prominent installations put in place during the Olympics.





Two “Bobwheelers”, part of Offsetters, a group that is working with Vanoc to attempt to make the games carbon neutral. They are running a rather effective marketing campaign, suggesting that as the earth heats up due to climate change, sports such as bobsledding will have to become bobwheeling. They are traveling around the city dressed in this manner, where lines of people are forming to have their pictures taken with them.

In the background you can see the Olympic flame, and the controversial fence surrounding it that has been likened by some to a prison.





The “Girl in Wetsuit” sculpture by Elek Imrek, a well known sight just off the seawall in Stanley Park was decorated by an unknown prankster with some official Olympic merchandise. The individual (or group) responsible must have had a considerable amount of time on their hands as the ques to buy merchandise are reported to be extremely long.





Not exactly Olympic related, but I am getting very sad at the thought of not being able to see this sight, sunset from Third Beach in Stanley Park, and enjoying it in February whilst England continues to freeze over.

Vancouver Musician Portraits

Recently I have been taking portraits of Vancouver based musicians. There is a very strong jazz scene locally and I felt it wise to take the opportunity to involve myself in it in small way before I return to England next month.


James Danderfer






Tom Colclough






Doe and Mark Bender