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
New Book & Art Cards, Now Available
I’m happy to announce that our new book and art cards for our exhibition ‘Squaring The Circles of Confusion: Neo-Pictorialism in the 21st century’, are now available from the Royal Photographic Society website/shop on this link here.
This book accompanies the exhibition of the same title which will be shown in the RPS Gallery in summer 2022, postponed from 2020. Through the work of eight contemporary photographers: Takashi Arai, Céline Bodin, Susan Derges, David George, Joy Gregory, Tom Hunter, Ian Phillips McLaren and Spencer Rowell it looks at how the craft of photography is being explored by leading artists. Making use of processes from daguerreotype, cyanotype, collodion to photogravure, kallitype and film in their work each uses historical techniques and approaches to make contemporary statements in their work. Introductory essays from Alice Zoo and Michael Pritchard discuss neo-pictorialism and the RPS’s role in pictorial photography and a glossary explains the processes and specialist terms used. The book illustrates all the work to be shown in the exhibition.
A very special thanks to curator Zelda Cheatle.
The book is available to buy here
Squaring the Circles of Confusion will be opening in 2022
The art cards of the artists work are available here
Gum Bichromate Print
This is a gum bichromate print from my recent ‘Drive By’ series called ‘The Road To Debden’ I decided to leave some brush marks on the bottom of this image to reinforce that this is a photograph made with watercolour pigment.
Duotone Gum Print
Two new Duotone prints from ‘In The Mist’ series.
Printed on 24cmx32cm 140lb watercolour paper.
Hand-Crafted Gum Bichromate Prints
Gum bichromate prints:
Two new prints, from ‘Drive By’ and ‘In The Mist’. Printed on watercolour paper.
Down My Lane
The thick fog came over the fields down my lane. I had to go and capture them.
Prints on Japanese Paper
Fine Art Prints on Japanese paper:
Some random prints that I made with the view to starting a project .
These images are printed as Limited Edition handcrafted archival prints, on hand coated Japanese Kozo paper. I may print these as open edition archival pigment Giclée prints ( which are more affordable ) if anyone is interested in them, they’d be printed on a similar Japanese Kozo paper.
New images from the Drive By series.
Contemporary landscape photography:
Some new images from thedrive by series. The Super Blood Wolf Moon shot on the 20th January 2019 – Some of these images would work really well as book cover art or record sleeve / album cover art.