So - the end of year 2 - and the final module.

 Photo Essay and Book Jacket

Its been a hectic few months. Now I am studying just photography (HURRAH) my last practical module this year was comprised of 7 photography briefs - which doesn't sound a lot, but as always, the work involved was pretty intense - coupled with the fact that there seemed to be a massive amount of written work to contend with as well.

Because I did all 7 of the briefs, which resulted in the production of a huge amount of images, this blog is part 1 only.

Photo Essay

The brief in short, was to write a short article, about something that interested me, and illustrate it with photographs. 

I have always been interested in photographing wildlife, particularly macro work, so my initial idea was to do a feature on bugs of some sort - soon dawned on me that it was totally the wrong time of year, particularly as for several weeks, it just didn't seem to stop raining - not an awful lot of bugs around !

So - plan B.  Several years ago, I became aware that there was concern that British Garden bird numbers were falling. Wanting to do my bit, I set up feeders and a bird table, and have maintained them since, though to be honest, it had become pretty much a routine part of the garden, and not something I had paid a massive amount of attention too for some time.  However, noticing that our bird box was once again inhabited by a pair of blue tits, the idea of doing a feature on garden birds and the declining numbers, began to take shape.

I added a couple of new feeders, on the patio area, as I figured even in wet weather, as there is a covered area outside the patio doors, I would be able to set up the camera and get some good, clear shots.

The birds had other idea's - although they were visiting the feeders and table regularly, they took great exception to the camera being set up - or, more specifically, to any movement I made when trying to take the pictures.  And the sound of me actually taking a photograph sent them into flat spin panic - I'd decided to take the images with a very shallow depth of field, to really make the birds stand out - but with the birds reacting so badly to the sound, I spent the first few days getting some great pictures of 'blurs' shooting out of the frame.

So, I switched the camera to live view, selected an area to concentrate on (like the table, or just one of the feeders) got the focus and depth to what I wanted, and used a remote shutter switch to capture the images, if and when the birds decided to visit the specific area's I was focused in on. That took care of me being able to stay pretty still and not spook the birds - but I would say it took 2 to 3 weeks of me spending at least an hour taking pictures each day, before the birds were completely used to the sound of the shutter.  Finally, I started to get some images that I thought I might be able to use!

Although it took a lot more work than I thought it would, to get a selection of images that I was happy with, I really enjoyed this part of the brief - apart from anything else, it re-kindled my interest in my garden visitors, and I really enjoyed watching them.  I learnt, as well, from the practical problems I had to solve to get the images without the birds really being aware and nervous.  But, now it was onto the rest of the brief.

Writing the article was no problem, as it had to be short, it was just a brief explanation of how the 'Big Garden Bird Survey' had clearly shown the drop in numbers, a few examples of what could be potentially causing the problem, and the information about how important setting up feeders and tables are to try and combat the problem.

Stewart gave us some useful information on presenting the work as an article, talking to us about grids and using Serif, which I was able to get a somewhat limited, but free version of, and I found it pretty easy to figure it out, and after several experiments and trials, I got a presentation I was happy with.  But, I really struggled with what font to use - the style, the size, everything.  I went on line, and got information on the type of fonts commonly used in magazine articles, and used one of the recommended fonts from it - but I really wasn't happy with this aspect of the finished piece.

I really wish we had been given some sort of tutorial or workshop about this aspect of the brief, particularly as I assume that we will be marked on it? Although I was really pleased with a lot of the images I got, I felt the overall look of the finished piece wasn't as good or as polished as it could have been, had I been given some idea where to start with how to select the right font, sizes and so on - and feedback at my assessment confirmed this.  My specialism is photography, and whilst I really appreciate and understand that its a good thing to have some knowledge of the work done by  designers I may collaborate with in the future, I feel  if any aspect of a brief carries marks, and its outside of our subject, then some sort of guidance or tuition is appropriate.  I could look at the finished piece, and know that it wasn't right - but without even any basic knowledge of the area , I just couldn't work out exactly why - much less work out how to correct it. Typography is, after all,  a specialist subject in its own right.  I did put in a lot of effort trying to get it right, incidentally - and have to admit that I felt quite resentful as with the workload we had, I would rather have put that time into developing other aspects of photography - the subject that I am actually studying.

The trouble with Serif is that it won't allow me to save the finished article as a jpeg, or any other format that blogger accepts, so until I get the work back, and can scan it in as a jpeg, I'll have to leave adding the finished piece till a later date.

Book Jacket.
The brief was for us to produce a new cover for a book or magazine, using photography. We were told to think conceptionally about the image, and again typography had to be incorporated into the finished piece.

This brief really appealed to me - I am an avid reader, preferring books to TV, 99% of the time, and the biggest difficulty initially was making a choice of book - I have so many I enjoy, covering a lot of different genres.  So spoilt for choice that I was having trouble making a selection, I decided to choose a favourite author, to help me narrow down the field.

Patricia Cornwall is an award winning American writer, who specialises in crime fiction.  She has written a series based on a central character of Kay Scarpetta, who is a pathologist, who's work often brings her into contact with victims of crime - specifically murder.  Both the characters and the plots are complex, full of twists and turns, and there is a great deal of technical detail about forensic investigation and procedures.

I selected one of the series that I had enjoyed . . .

And then began thinking of how I produce a new cover, that would work.  Given the nature of the content, I felt it had to be quite a graphic image, and I also felt the typography should be strong - but I didn't want the Title and author to be the main focus of the cover, as that seems to have been the approach for the original cover.

Despite the lack of much insect activity in general, you can generally find flies about, so I began by taking several shots of them - I wasn't too worried about them being the exact species specified in the title, as I had idea's about manipulating the image in photoshop, to increase impact, and if it worked, I hoped that getting the exact species wouldn't be an issue from a visual point of view.

Text wise, I found a font that I felt worked, but I used it at a much smaller size than that of the original cover - however, I kept the colour quite bold.  I was pretty happy with the two final images for this idea, that I came up with.

I used unsharp mask, and played with contrast and sats to make the image of the fly the main focus.

I think both these covers work pretty well, and fulfil the brief - and thankfully, although more by luck than judgement, the fonts chosen and their placement seemed to work well - BUT, whilst working on these, other idea's were beginning to take shape, and I decided to pursue this brief a lot further.













As I said, I do a lot of reading - and I also like to collect books too.  One of the collections I have is based on the stories I loved as a child - when I had my first daughter, I began to collect all the books I remembered from my childhood, hoping my daughter would one day enjoy them as much as I did - classic like the Alice books, and Heidi Books, lots of Enid Blyton, and Elenor M Brent-Dyer, and Louisa M Alcott  - and inevitably, lots of fairy stories, from the traditional to the modern.

It struck me that an awful lot of the traditional fairy tales are quite dark and actually pretty scary, so I played with the idea of re-writing a short famous tale, emphasising the darker side, aiming it at an older audience and taking a photograph that reflected this.  But as I am thinking fairy tales, I also started thinking about fantasy art work, which is something I actually quite enjoy, especially the work of Jasmine Becket Griffith -

    I love the colours she uses

And I think her style can be,  and actually is aimed at an older audience.











Whilst not aiming to reflect her exact style in a photograph, the idea of illustrating a book of fairy stories with fantasy art created using photography, really started to appeal.  I looked at several examples of fantasy photography, and as its something I had experimented with before, I decided to go down this route for my second attempt.

I discarded the idea of re-writing a fairy story aimed at an older audience, simply because of the time factor - and the fact that I felt I had done a lot of written work already this semester.  Instead, I found a book of short stories that were aimed at an older audience, and which focused on the darker side of fantasy and fairy folk.

I liked the fact that this book had what I thought was a fairly traditional style illustration for the cover, as I felt this gave me plenty of scope for perhaps creating something a little more modern, which would hopefully appeal to the target audience.  Thanks to the likes of firstly, the Harry Potter novels, and then the Twilight series, fantasy stories are now quite a popular genre with audiences in their late teens, and I decided that this would be the audience I would try to appeal too.

I started by selecting images that I had taken of both my daughters, that I felt might work, and using photoshop, I isolated just them from the background.

These are just two examples of the images that I experimented with - as well as isolating the subjects, I also played with tone and saturation, as I wanted the overall feel to be quite magical and eerie

Although I did produce several drafts of the cover using my younger daughter, I decided in the end to focus on images of my older girl, as I felt her age was more appropriate to the books potential audience.











I also went out in to my garden and took macro style shots of little bits of it - I intended to used several layers of different images to create the final piece.

I deliberately used flash when taking these images. I wanted the final image to look like it was taken at night-time, and the effect from using the flash went some way towards giving this impression.

This was my favourite of the photographs I got - the forget me nots in some of the other images were just a bit too 'sweet', given the feel I was after.

















I also found and downloaded some stock images of different types of 'wings' - lots of these are available free, especially for this type of photographic editing.


I then went through the font styles available and listed several I thought might work

And then it was into photoshop with all the images, to begin putting them all together.  I combined 3 or 4 layers, then used tools like burn and blur to add shadow and blend the layers together.  Depending on the pose of the central model, I occasionally had to manipulate the perspective of the wings, and often play around with changing the actual size of the different components.

Here's a selection of the pieces I came up with

I played with using sepia for some of the pieces, as I felt that its slightly old fashioned look might work

I also did some in black and white, again looking for something to compliment the 'darker' eerie feel I was after

I settled pretty quickly on the font that I thought worked best

I also played with adding filters like 'glow'

Another sepia, with glow, piece

I also played with using different tints and tones, trying green as that colour can be used to eerie effect.

With this one, as well as using stock wings, I also played with using stock images of toadstools - however, I felt it was more appropriate to stick with the backgrounds that i had actually photographed myself.













I liked several of the ideas I came up with, but in the end the final choice was made based on the preferences of my daughters and several of their friends - particularly with my older girl, I thought that she and her friends would give me the best idea of what was appealing to the audience the book is aimed at.

This was the one that all preferred.

With this image, I had increased saturation, and also used one of the light effect filters - omni - as I felt this was pretty close to the effect of bright moonlight.


Happy with this, I then used a programme that a friend had discovered, to turn the image into a 3D representation of how it might look if it was really made into a book jacket.

This project took a lot of work, but I enjoyed every aspect of it, from the photography, to the photoshop work.  The photography side involved both portraiture and macro, and it was interesting to have to take the images with the fact that they would be combined held in my mind.   Using photoshop in this way is to me, almost a separate genre to photography, but I felt it worked really well to use the different techniques and tools to produce the final image.

Once again, though, at assessment, the placement of the text was questioned - considering how much work I put into this, and considering that the image itself received a lot of positive feedback, it was frustrating to realise that I may be marked down for an aspect of the finished piece that can't really said to be part of photography at all, in my opinion . Out of the 7 units, 4 of them required us to use typography in differing degree's, and at assessment, 3 out of the four generated feedback that was on the negative side.  Again, I wish that considering typography played a part in more than half the units, that we had been given access to some tuition and guidance on it.


Next - Modern Master and  Elegance of Decay/Fallen Grandeur.

Damsels

Loving the hot weather of the last few days, not least because it means some of my favourite photographic subjects are likely to be about - Damsel and Dragon flies.

One of my favourite stalking ground is actually the memorial pond at a local crematorium - its been cultivated as a wildlife pond, and its a location where the different types of damsel are more varied than anywhere else I tend to go.  Just a few short hours there today, and I think I have maybe 4  different species captured.

Dissertation Proposal (Research Methods)

Controversial Images - with reference to the work of Annie Leibovitz.

Controversial  

If something is 'controversial', the definition is that it is the subject of intense public argument, disagreement or disapproval.

In considering the history of photography, it is perhaps unsurprising that there have always been certain images produced, that have been labelled ‘controversial’.

The ‘controversy’ may surround the content of the image, which at the time it was taken or published, may have challenged what was considered socially, morally, ethically or politically acceptable. The question of whether or not the label of ‘controversial’ is justifiable, can also be the subject of intense debate and discussion.

The Intention is to take a brief look at several photographs that have caused controversy, and examine the different reasons for this description having been applied, and then to perhaps narrow the field down further, by looking at 3 photographs by one photographer in particular.

A photographer who seems to frequently produce images, that are then labelled with the tag 'controversial', is Annie Leibovitz.  Her work, whether it be for magazine covers, for exhibitions, or for books, could often be said to stir up an immense amount of debate and reaction on occasion.

An example of this is the cover she produced for Vogue in 1991.

It depicted the actress, Demi Moore, naked and seven months pregnant, and it created an immense amount of debate in the media when it was published.  It produced such wide differences of opinion, from the view that it was sexual objectification, through to claims that the photograph celebrated female empowerment .

The Demi Moore cover is just one of the magazine covers that Leibovitz has taken, that has sparked debate and discussion in the media.

Others include this image, of Mylie Cyrus,  taken for Vanity Fair in June 2008 .

The fact that Cyrus was only 15 years old in this photograph, provoked a huge storm in the media.  Germain Greer discussed the image in an article she wrote where she cited the image as being typical of the sexually exploitive way children are often portrayed in images.

"The subject of Leibovitz's photo could be a child prostitute from Casablanca, vintage 1900, the camera in the hands of a sex tourist who is about to toss a few coins to the doorkeeper"

Hamilton Nolan, (2008) writing for Gawker.com, an online news magazine/blog, is particularly critical.

"Annie Leibovitz: come off it. Really now. As dirty as the media business is— and particularly the celebrity media business, which Vanity Fair revels in under a sheen of high class pretension—there are some bare, bottom-level standards to which we all must adhere. One of those is, "Do not sexually exploit minors." You want to economically exploit a minor? Fine. That's a grand American tradition. But trotting out 15 year-old Miley Cyrus with pouty lips, tousled hair, and only a bedsheet is just bad. Bad! Of course Vanity Fair bears the responsibility for publishing it. But the idea for the shoot can be traced to the tired celeb photographer Leibovitz (who is sorry it's been "misinterpreted"). And her narrow, robotically transgressive act has now played itself out. This incident, and Leibovitz's entire style, is less shocking than it is boring— but with a 15-year-old involved, it's boring and creepy."

Another example is this image of James LeBron, which became known as the the 'LeBron Kong' cover, taken for Vogue, April 2008. 

 

This again created a huge media debate, with claims that the image perpetuates a stereotype of a black man that portrays him as animalistic, brutal and a savage .

 

Several of the images included in the exhibition and book, ‘A Photographers Life’ also created reaction and response in the media.  Leibovitz used images of her family, grieving after the death of her Father; images of herself, aged 51 and pregnant, in a similar pose to that of the Demi Moore cover; and images of her longtime companion, Susan Sontag, taken during Sontag's terminal illness, and after her death.

 

One of the main questions raised is whether or not the reaction to Leibovitz’s work, and the label of ‘controversial’, applied to several of her images, is always justified?

If the individual images selected are examined, is it possible to define exactly what it is about them that generated the reaction? On what grounds did they challenge what was considered socially acceptable, at the time they were published? Would reaction to these images have been different, had they been taken at a later date in time, when perhaps the social attitude regarding what is acceptable, had changed?

What impact has the fact that Leibovitz photographs celebrities had on the response her work receives?  Has the way the subject been perceived in the media, prior to the photograph, had any influence on the media and public’s response to the work?

The motivation of Leibovitz herself, may also be an interesting area to examine. To what extent have events and actions in her personal life shaped her work? Has she deliberately set out to be controversial with any of the images considered, in order to increase media coverage and for financial gain? Or are the images just a reflection of what was happening in her life at the time the photographs were taken, and indicative of a photographer who quite literally lives ‘Life through a lens’?.

It is also interesting to consider how much of the reaction to her work has perhaps been provoked by Leibovitz's personal life and behaviour.  Certain aspects of her lifestyle could possibly be said to be pushing the boundaries of what was/is considered 'the norm' and it may be interesting to examine if there is any evidence that this has influenced how her work has been received.  Is it the photographs that are controversial - or the photographer herself?  

Leibovitz took this self portrait of herself, in a style similar to the Demi Moore cover.   At the time it was taken, she was aged 51, and pregnant via IVF - is it possible to speculate that several aspects of this added to the perception of Leibovitz's reputation for controversy?  There had been something of a media back lash against the idea of older mothers, as well as something of a growing media storm about the morality of celebrities having /adopting children as 'accessories', irrespective of whether or not their life style could provide a stable environment for the children.  Was this perhaps compounded by the fact that Leibovitz's long time 'companion' was female, during an era where there was still some arguments about the appropriateness of same sex 'parents', and the threat this could potentially pose to a more 'traditional' idea of a family?

 Is there any evidence to suggest that the media and critics not only look for, but occasionally ‘manufacture’ reasons to apply the label ‘controversial?.

As an example of this, Leibovitz photographed the Queen, for an official portrait, commemorating her visit to the state of Virginia, in the USA - it wasn't so much the resultant image that caused controversy, rather that in making a trailer for a documentary about the occasion, the BBC later admitted to editing a sequence of events in a manner that made it appear that the Queen had 'stormed out' of the photo session - which in fact, didn't happen. Is there any other documented evidence/instances that would support the argument that the media has deliberately manipulated aspects of her work, and how its presented, in order to boost the circulation of publications, or the viewing figures of programs, featuring Leibovitz’s work? 

In order to investigate the questions raised so far, there are a number of sources that can be examined in order to try and establish answers and information.

Books.

In order to get Leibovitz's own perspective on her work and motivation, there are several books available through the library and link services, which may provide an insight. For example,

Annie Leibovitz - At Work

Published By Jonathan Cape, London, 2008

A Photographers Life 1990 - 2005

Published by Jonathan Cape, London, 2006

Film/video

'Life through a Lens' - documentary about Leibovitz's life and work, in which she herself explains her approach and view.

There are also a series of interviews, on video clips, that feature Leibovitz talking about her work and her motivation, including interviews specifically about 'A Photographers Life', in which she discusses her relationship with Sontag and explains why she took the images that featured in the book, exhibition and documentary.

News clips and other similar video’s are available, that show the responses of both critics, and the public's

reaction and views to Leibovitz’s work.   

Online Resources.

Using 'myathens', and through that using -

JSTOR - scholarly journals

NewsBank - full text articles relating to this subject from over 350 UK newspapers

Oxford Art Online - full text journals covering art and design subjects.

There are several blogs where Leibovitz and her work are discussed, which also present interesting views and opinions about several of the questions raised.

Online Magazine features, and interviews about Leibovitz and her work - there is a considerable volume of material like this, from which information may be obtained.

Questionaires

It may be interesting to establish how the public regard Leibovitz images that have been labelled ‘controversial’, and if their response agrees with not only the label of ‘controversial’, but the reasons for it being applied.  These questionnaires could be produced both online, and in paper form, and distributed to a wide range of participants in order to ascertain also what social factors, such as age, may influence views, alongside other factors such as the participants interest and awareness of the celebrity involved in different images,  and their prior knowledge of Leibovitz’s work.

Once research is taken further, it will be possible to narrow down the field of questions, and approach just perhaps one or two of them in greater depth .  At present, there is such a huge amount of available resources, detailing aspects of Leibovtz's work, that it is somewhat overwhelming.  Given the number of research possibilities, it is possible that the questions posed and the direction the research takes, may change as this project develops and evolves. 

Bibliography

Greer, G. (2008) 'We like our Venuses young', The Guardian, April 30th, 2008 

Nolan, H. (2008) 'Why its Annie Leibovitzs Fault', The Gawker.com Available from (http://gawker.com/384674/why-its-annie-leibovitzs-fault) [Electronically Accessed April 2012]

Leibovitz, A. (2008) A Photographers Life 1990 - 2005.  London: Jonathan Cape

BBC News, 2007

Images Obtained from -

Vanity Fair,  August 1991.  

 

Vanity Fair June 2008

Vogue, April 2008. 

Leibovitz, A (2006) A Photographers Life 1990 - 2005. London: Jonathan Cape

Store - the most fun I've had in a shopping centre!

 Part One

I've recently been very fortunate and had the opportunity to photograph one of the most entertaining events I've ever seen, here in Wrexham North Wales.  This came about through Iwan Williams, of Migrations, which are a performance company that specialise in contemporary dance and performance events - Iwan contacted Glyndwr, and offered any students interested in photography and film, the chance to attend, and capture the event to document it - big thank you to Iwan, and to Stewart, who passed the invitation on to me - it was an amazing experience.

The actual 'event' is called Store . . . here is a description, published on acflondon.org ,

"Store is a shop. Art is a business. Fancy a take away, or a special delivery? How about a cheap copy of an expensive original? Enter Store and you are invited to peruse a menu of over sixty mini dance performances. Choose, then watch as your purchase is performed especially for you. Store in Wrexham, presented by Austrian company Matsune & Subal, follows previous outlets in Vienna, Oslo and Philadelphia. With prices starting at 50p art really is affordable for everyone."



Its a very different and innovative concept, and I confess, I walked into day 1, not at all sure what I was going to experience.  David Subal and Michikazu Matsune, the performers, along with Femke Van Gent , who was there to help I guess, 'host' the event, were incredibly welcoming from the moment I arrived - again, I'd like to say a massive thank you to all 3.

David and Michikazu evolved 'Store' about 7 years ago, and have performed it in several major cities across Europe and the USA - I think Wrexham was extremely lucky that they chose to come and perform here.

I had absolutely no idea what to expect by way of the performances - but I soon found out, and there began 4 days of  me trying to take photographs, whilst frequently being convulsed with laughter  attempting to use the camera with tears of mirth running down my face.

The Mayor of Wrexham, Councillor Ian Roberts, and the lady Mayoress, Mrs Hilary Roberts, opened the whole event on Wednesday, 25th of April, at 10 am.  Accompanying them were photographers and reporters and several TV companies, including ITV Wales, and BBC1 Wales.  I was a little daunted, to be trying to work alongside the 'professionals', but found them all, without exception, to be friendly and helpful.

I would guess that the Mayor and Mayoress also had very little idea exactly what to expect - but like myself, they appeared to find it extremely entertaining and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.  David and Michikazu performed several of their 'productions', and soon the whole shop was ringing with laughter - even the reporters, photographers and camera men were obviously enjoying the show.

Store is officially opened

It was both interesting, and educational, incidentally, to watch the 'professionals' at work - it provided me with insights that I hadn't had before, and knowledge to store away for future reference!

To kick off, they treated the Mayoress to a performance of 'For Love',

. . . And this was followed by Big Bang Reconstructed, which was not only funny, but very popular with the public !
















After this, the performances just kept coming for a couple of hours, despite the fact that outside, the rain was coming down in torrents and there were so few people around .  There are so many words to describe what was going on - witty, entertaining, funny, clever, unique - I soon found myself aching with laughter.  At no time did I know what each performance would entail in advance (and even when I saw a performance for the 2nd or 3rd time, the anticipation was always there, as David and Michikazu seemed to change it each time, reacting to the audience and participants ).  The audience had no prior warning either, which led to some incredibly amusing reactions.

 Blue Monday Workshop' - a 'take away product' - for 'take away's', the performance usually meant the creation of a physical product that the customer could take with them - but no information in advance as to what the product might be!

Another take away - 'Dirty Business'

This was one of my favourite performances - Eraser Head'

In terms of photography, right from day 1, it was a huge learning experience - with no prior warning of what David and Michikazu were going to do, where they were going to move to, how the audience would react, and with performances moving outside of the shop on occasion, thinking on my feet about camera settings, and getting into the best place to get the picture, was a priority. 

Day 2, and I couldn't wait - although no wiser about what I was going to see, the lessons that I started to learn from the previous day helped, and I continued to learn more .

The awful weather was a real shame

But both David and Michikazu did plenty to attract people passing

performance of 'Sharp'

A performance of 'David Hockney - copy' - which was met with obvious delight !

It was nice to see some of the people from Glyndwr there - performance of 'Rodin - copy'

Lewis Jones enjoys 'The Art of Identity'

Another performance of 'Eraser Head'

Part of 'Eraser Head' product - though that was far from the finished article !

I also began to take more notice not just of the performance, but of the audience reaction, and start to try and capture that as well , over day 2 and 3 . . .

Expressionist - when performances moved out of the shop, it was a case of grab hold of my camera - and run!

Local Cheesy Art

One of the nicest aspects was the way the performances hit on so many levels - from very young to the more mature, there was something to make everyone laugh and enjoy !

This performance, 'Men's Suits' provoked some of the most hysterical reactions . . .

'Boxing' - popular - and sooooooo funny !









Part 2 to follow                                                                                   

Store - the most fun I've had in a shopping centre!

Part 2

The performances during days 2 and 3 just got funnier and funnier . . .

Rudolph Nureyev - copy

Running Bread Man - this was another popular choice - and no, Gregs weren't in on the act, and didn't have a clue what to make of it!

More running Bread Man

What was really nice about days 3 and 4, for me, was that some people came into the shop having seen some of the previous days photographs, and were not only complimentary, but actually wanting copies.  It was great to meet people, like Estelle and Jo, from the Chester Contemporary Artists Face book group and to have that throw up the chance of perhaps some collaborative work in the future.  I also met Louise, who makes the most incredible felt toys, The Felt Mistress , and her partner Jonathan - great to touch base with some fantastically creative people. I also met Brenda, who is involved in Saith Seren, a music venue in Wrexham, and again, the potential to gain more experience of photographing events through collaboration was raised as a possibility. I owe thanks to all of those who expressed an interest in involving me in their future projects.

The reactions of the people coming into the shop was again, one of the most  fun parts for me - without exception, they left having thoroughly enjoyed themselves - but once again, dreadful weather, on day 3, with non-stop rain, had really affected the number of people who turned up.

Day 4 saw all that change - word of mouth, and no rain, plus the number of weekend shoppers, turned this into an absolutely manic day.

 

Some people were coming in, and just buying performance after performance, as well as just hanging out there to enjoy other peoples purchases.

I took so many images, that in the end, for the purpose of the blog, I have decided to show them in the form of slideshows.

The first is just a compilation of images from day 4, which I hope shows not only how much fun it was, but also, how popular -

And the next is a compilation of photographs from several performances of 'Good Bye'

At the end of 4 days, I was exhausted, but absolutely delighted and thrilled with the experience.  I found I could work under a certain amount of pressure - even when I was often unsure of what was coming next, lol - and that I was able to do as I had been asked, and edit and post the images from each day within 24 hours of the photographs being taken, although it meant me working 10 -12 hour days.  It was fantastic to work as part of a 'team' for an event like this, and an absolute delight to meet so many lovely people, developing contacts and increasing the chance of more work and experience in the future.

Many thanks to all involved, including the lovely audiences and public - and if David and Michikazu ever come this way again, please make the effort to go see them - I promise, you won't be sorry !