Gwen, Final Analysis by Zelda Cheatle
A lovely write-up in this months Amatuer Photographer magazine of my ’Gwen, Did I Want To Be Here?’ portrait, written by Zelda Cheatle.
My 5’6” tall image of Gwen can still be seen at the Royal Photographic Society ‘Squaring The Circles of Confusion’ exhibition in Bristol until November 6th along with great work by Takashi Arai, Susan Derges, David George, Joy Gregory, Tom Hunter, Ian Phillips McLaren, Céline Bodin and Spencer Rowell.
My portrait of Gwen is also about to be used to try to raise some awareness and funds for Alzheimer’s research.
ng The Circles of Confusion’ exhibition in Bristol.
The portrait is also about to be used by Alzheimer’s Research to try to raise some awareness and funds for Alzheimer’s & Dementia research.
Squaring The Circles of Confusion
Giving the exhibition it’s full name Squaring the Circles of Confusion: Neo-Pictorialism in the 21st Century.
The exhibition is curated by Zelda Cheatle, RPS Honorary Fellow, and features work from Takashi Arai, Susan Derges, David George, Joy Gregory, Tom Hunter, Ian Phillips McLaren, Céline Bodin, and Spencer Rowell. The exhibition will be on display at RPS Gallery, Bristol from 9 September to 6 November 2022
Opening hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 10am – 5pm, free admission
Cyanotype Prints & Cyanotype Toning
This week I taught a masterclass on cyanotype printing at The School of Art, Architecture & Design which forms part of London Metropolitan University.
Cyanotype is the most popular of the alternative processes, possibly because it is seen to be easy and cheap – in the past it was mainly associated with amateur photography.
In the 1800’s serious photographers used cyanotype chemistry to proof print their negatives before making silver prints, Edward S. Curtis made some great cyanotype portraits. It is actually easy to make an image with cyanotype but to make a beautiful print with a long tonal range that can compete with silver prints or platinum prints, then it’s definitely more complex.
With the advances in digital technology we are now able to print complex digital negatives that can be manipulated in Photoshop and printed on to OHP transparency film and then used to make contact prints for any of the alternative printing processes – in the past, you would have to have carried around a heavy, bulky, large format camera and tripod to make a negative the size of the images below.
The cyanotype’s here were printed in the typical blue cyan first, then the images were bleached and toned. A cyanotype can be toned in various things like, tea, coffee, wine tannin, tannic acid and various botanicals.
The first row of images below were shot using an analogue Rolleiflex f2.8 camera with Kodak Tri X 120 film, the negatives were then scanned, interpolated to a larger size and then printed onto OHP transparency film. This then allowed me to make a large contact print with cyanotype chemistry. The second row of images were shot on an iPhone to show that you don’t need expensive camera equipment in order to make a beautiful cyanotype print. The last of the images, the pear and the foggy landscape were shot on a Canon 5d digital camera.
Below are the samples that I made to show the students during the masterclass at The School of Art, Architecture & Design
Self-portraits with ancient Roman artefacts
I’ve been working on a couple of different projects recently, including this one. I’m looking at the Romans and the Greek (Hellenistic) influences on portraiture.
The Romans were big on hybrid forms of portraiture rooted in Hellenistic art, this period was really significant in the development of portraiture and portrait art.
Picasso and De Chirico looked to Roman and Greek art and classical ideas as a way of understanding the uncertainties of the 1920s. For me it’s a way to understand human psychology and the construction and representation of the ‘Self’ in self portraiture.
Roman sculptors and painters produced only a limited amount of outstanding original fine art, preferring instead to recycle designs from Greek art, which they revered as far superior to their own.
Roman art was mainly derivative and utilitarian. It served a purpose, a higher good: the dissemination of Roman values and respect for Roman power. Classical Roman art has been immensely influential on many subsequent cultures, through revivalist movements – (1900-30) led to a return to figure painting as well as new abstract movements like Cubism.