at Jelly Open Studios

many thanks to the visitors of the Studios Open Day at Jelly  last Saturday, very nice meeting you and chatting with you. Hope you enjoyed the event and the exhibited work.
The work will be still displayed at the studio so if you didn't manage to come last Saturday just let me know and I'll be more than happy to arrange ad hoc visits.
Of course in addition to act as a gallery, shoots still take place at the studio as normal, so just let me know.
Finally many thanks to Vicky Slater Photography for allowing me to exhibit her work too. Her images will be available to view at the studio until Friday this week.

 

And of course many thanks to those visitors and exhibitors at the Jelly Open Studios who were so patient and allowed me to take their photos to put together a small visual memento of the day

and here you can see the stills (click on the picture for a larger image)

The Third Thursdays

For the past couple of months I had the honour and pleasure to be invited to participate to a new art programme in Reading, the town where I live: The Third Thursdays, another brainchild of the art organisation Jelly. 

The Third Thursday is a monthly event showcasing the creative talent of Reading and includes visual, literary, music and performing arts in non-traditional arts venues. This is another of a series of programmes and events that contribute to the enhancement of the local cultural life.

The launch event included an art auction where attendees had the opportunity to buy original works raising monies for charity.

Below is the image of my piece that was sold at the auction. Part of a Venice inspired lith prints series

the second and latest event took place last week and it was a great evening of photography, stories and poetry from Reading. I was invited to present and talk about my latest project and exhibition and I was glad it had such a positive response. People showed interest in the exhibition and asked questions about the stories behind it and the people that participated and about my photography and approach.
Particularly rewarding and chuffing was listening to the poet Anna-May Laugher from the Brickwork Poets group read 2 poems inspired by my exhibition.
You can read here a review of the event and I suggest you take a look at the Jelly website to find out more about them and the great things they do.

40 people: 40 little stories

“40 people in Reading: 40 stories of passion”
it is a photo portrait project and exhibition to explore, talk to, acknowledge and celebrate people within the community in Reading that dedicate themselves in activities motivated by a passion, a personal drive (could be volunteers, artists, activists, entrepreneurs). It is a local project, as it focuses on people that work within and with the local community and look more into what possibly is an aspect of Reading that many people do not look at or are not aware of. As we know normally Reading gets a pretty bad press (see the recent “clone Towns” survey or the notorious binge drinking culture) for me this is also a way of telling a different story and putting some faces in this story of people that break a mould. All these people have some form of connection with Reading, either through live, work, education or taking part.

The images are now an exhibition part of the Open for Art programme by Jelly, in 173 Friar Street, Reading town centre

I would like to thank the individuals and the following organisations for participating in this project:

• Reading International Solidarity Centre (RISC)
• Reading Refugee Support Group (RRSG)
• Rising Sun Arts Centre
• True Food Co-op
• Jelly
• Amnesty International, Reading group
• Age UK
• Age Concern Berkshire
• Progress Theatre

nuit blanche 2010, part deux: what did we do?

we were at The Artpad - aka Jelly's home in Market Place in Reading.  We set up a special photo studio (more a corner with a very basic lighting setting) from 6 – 8.30pm. The aim was to photograph 100 visitors to the Nuit Blanche event using a medium format camera and roll film (i.e. my normal 6x6 kit and medium). We wanted to take just a quick spontaneous record of the visitors, showing them how they are and how they wanted to be as in a sort of photobooth. People were great in participating, getting into the spirit and having their photos taken.  We did not quite make the 100 but quite a few though. You can see the effort here and the related post on the Jelly's page.