The last of the Festival shots and workshops

The last weekend of the Sydenham Arts Festival went by without a hitch and I did two days of workshops instead of the one. I can't believe I actually managed to do them considering I had been admitted to hospital during the week with a ridiculously aggressive reaction to an insect bite of some description. Anyway drugged up and raring to go I got on with the rather oversubscribed Lumen print workshop on the Saturday and to be honest I was quite relieved when I had a couple of cancellations due to the intense heat. Needless to say these were filled within moments by casual visitors wondering what we were up to.

The weather was perfect for printing and very soon there were a number of makeshift tables and low brick walls covered in contact frames cooking in the sunshine. It was stifling and I was amazed how people stuck it out, though the run on ice creams in the café was stupendous. The day was very relaxed with people making their images and then going off to look at other things or just hanging around and talking about the processes.

I had discussed doing Lumens on film as well and a couple of eager photographers who had some expired film with them took the challenge and decided to try it on some Ilford. I would love to see their results.

Talking about results there is a lovely blog entry by a friend who took part in a number of the workshops, here you can see some of the results.

I was very fortunate to have a number of enquiries and requests to do more workshops which I shall follow up and also a 'demand' to have my work exhibited, Looks like it may be a busy summer!

New Bible To Alternative Photographic Processes!

I have been quietly waiting for my copy of Jill Enfield's Guide to Photographic Alternative Processes. It came the other day and I am delighted to share with you the fact that I have a tiny little entry in this amazing book.
I would like to thanks Jill for using one of my Lumens and adding me to the "Fugitive and not so Fugitive Printing" section, it really is an honour to be part of this and if you haven't got your copy yet and you are into this more experimental side of photography, I suggest you get yours now, it is busting with information.

The Photgraph that has been used was made a while ago using a Lumen on film technique. I found the colours absolutely brilliant when I first tried this.

Arts Festival First Weekend

I am again exhibiting at Grow Mayow Community Gardens this year as part of the "Little Greens" for Sydenham Arts Festival The first weekend has gone really well and the two workshops I did were well attended and I believe from the responses of those that attended that they "Loved it" "Wow""What a cool workshop" and ""That was the best way to start my holiday"!

The first workshop Camera Obscura was designed so that everyone would come away with a working Camera Obscura so that they could either use it to take photos through like TTV(through the viewfinder) so that you get lovely dreamy inverted images or if you were a child doing it you could come away with what could be a very cool looking steampunk telescope once finished with papier maché. I forgot to take pictures during the actual workshop but some SAF photographers had done so, I just await their images...

here are some post workshop of a couple using them.

The second workshop held on the Sunday was again well attended and we all sat outside in the glorious sunshine making Matchbox Pinhole Cameras, a little less taxing and not quite as hard on the hands the cameras came together as expected and I'm looking forward to seeing the results if any from those that came, I just hope they send some in to me. The cameras were all finished and promptly used in the gardens after discussing perspective exposure hand holding them and multiple exposures amongst other things.

Here are some of the people making and using their cams!

Whilst I was doing the workshops I was also exhibiting in this space and when I first saw the room I was a little dubious, it had an incredible amount of detritus inside as it was normally used as a children's science/playroom but after seeing the back wall and the wallpaper that was covering it I just couldn't resist. It was moths large brown repeat pattern moths in a faded gold, the edges were distressed and the paper curling but it just seemed right to use this space. It looked ideal to become an installation as well.

Here is another picture of me setting up:

My Ephemeral Moth series would look perfect in here it would hopefully not be lost but would look captured, it would be part of a large room of caught objects and ephemera including all my other lumens.
 The exhibition is still up and I hope to get more interest and feedback this weekend. I had some really fantastic comments and new subscribers, sales and promise of exhibition space and calls for more workshops. I managed to sell cards and books... fingers crossed for this weekend and let the sun be kind again as I need a lot of doing an oversubscribed Lumen Printing workshop!

New Toy Camera Blog Feature

There is a wonderful new Toy Camera blog by José Manuel Madronna and I am very happy and delighted to be a  featured photographer on the site. Toycamera.es is going to be a treasure trove of Toy Cam images in no time at all, featuring some brilliant practitioners of the plastic lens. Already online are Becky Ramotowski Diane Peterson and Mauricio Sapata, all with their highly individual take on creating a photograph.