With festivity and jubilation coming from every pore at the moment, I couldn’t think of a better post to talk about good old fashioned celebration. Last month long standing client, awesome group of individuals and good friends Creative Edinburgh celebrated their 2nd birthday. Apart from the successful championing and encouraging of a tidalwave of local and creative endeavors, the last two years saw both Janine and Lynsey co-direct the organisation together. The birthday doubled as a farewell for Lynsey as she moves on to new pastures in London.
Working as an independent creative, I am always really interested in collaborations. A big believer in 1+1=3, partners, companions, accomplices, double acts and duos are always inspiring, especially when they work really well. No exception to this synergy are J&L who at once compliment each other perfectly yet are mirror opposites. Before the Birthday showdown and awards, I asked to take their portrait as a memento of a cherished time in their careers. The end of a year is always an odd old thing. It is almost a deadline, a fulcrum of change in the closing days of the year. There are departures and arrivals all around at the moment, as they will continue. So it is important for me to salute, while everyone is too hard at work to notice, a brilliant working partnership.
I also produced this whistlestop video of the rest of the night that I love. If chaos and cake are your thing, check it out below!
Creative Edinburgh Awards & 2nd Birthday Party from Creative Edinburgh on Vimeo.
Another blast from the past. Every time I collect new film I am stopped in my tracks. Every time a reminder of what this whole thing is about. Photography for me is still learning, still my main mode of discovery.
Over the last few months I have made lamentable starts at writing posts to apologise for the blog silence and account for the dip in updates. Really tragic writing actually. Some great apologia,and in the end I don’t even have room for photos. In reality, it turns out, I’ve not had the time or the enthusiasm to write about what I work hard and enthusiastically at all week. This ol’ blog has always been an archivist and diary to my heady, chaotic activity. But by the time I sit down to sift through my thoughts on a project, I have already moved on to the next two. Of the things I should always be writing about, is photography’s great brotherly companionship showing us how to keep exploring. Not specific to any camera, or any format, the very act is still universally thrilling.
So hey! I am once again drawn back to earth. Not the commissions or work that I finished in the last two weeks, but small iridescent rectangles of emulsion that I shoot at important points on my search for new ideas. They document and promise nothing but humble, forgettable microseconds in my own travels. There are no stories, nothing to sell.What is here in these rolls, are the beginnings of a documenting of Glasgow’s Southside. Something, I hope in time, I will talk a lot more about. Here is a place I am drawn to like gravity. Its latent, hidden colour and personality are heralding an adventure. For now, film still has a place at my side.
Winter isn’t exactly renowned for its festival abundance in the city of festivals, except, of course, for that one. So as October draws to a close again, a satisfied man, I figuratively hang up my festival hat for the year. The last month saw me working again with Luminate, Scotland’s creative ageing festival, on a programme of events that spanned the regions of Scotland. Performances, workshops, classes, discussions and fairs on subjects from cinema to historical research through to poetry and contemporary art. The umbrella of ‘creative’ is straight-away a broad one.
So too is the handle of ‘ageing.’ I captured a selection of events from the programme and both audiences and participants ranged hugely in years. Nothing in the events were exclusive to older generations, and none of the issues and themes across the works were unique to them either. My assumptions were certainly bruised. New ideas and new technology go through the same processes with older as they do younger. Broad mindedness doesn’t fall out of style as you grow, it’s human nature to search for new means of expression and hidden creative outlets.
From the small moments I shared with the different groups, I realsised ageing is something we all have in common. And not, to contradict popular consensus, necessarily a parallel of maturity.
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| Underpass Mural in Livingston |
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| Stone Carving Workshop at the Burrell Collection, Glasgow |
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| 24 Carat Gold performance at Dancebass, Edinburgh |
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| Open Mic Night at Glad Cafe, Glasgow |
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| Poetry Slam at Ghillie Dhu, Edinburgh |
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| Music Workshop at Howden Park Centre, Livingston |
The exhibition is open until Friday in Out Of The Blue, Dalmeny Street. An extended edit of the project is below for those who can’t make the show. If it was me though I wouldn’t need a reason to get my red gallery troosers out, come one come all.
I feel pretty grateful to hold this document in my hands. A playtext, precious on two counts. Firstly, In Time O’ Strife, the latest production from NTS. Its genesis in the writings of Joe Corrie, a beautiful but largely obscure Fife poet and playwright. “Obscure” may be an unjust description of this striking and humbling career, but it does hint at the ephemeral coincidence and fortunes that brought his writings back to the stage in 2013. A reminder that some of the most brilliant works spend a lifetime on the verge of never happening.
Secondly, this is my first published playtext. With images from my shoot with the company during rehearsals, the script becomes a more immersive medium to get lost in Corrie’s writing. I was sat front row centre last week for the opening of the production’s short run. A brave seat choice, as Joe Corrie’s words crystallised before us into a thunderous and emotional wave of stark, politicised energy. But gratitude remained as the smoke and lights cleared. To have worked on something so unintentionally evasive enjoy only a fleeting run. It felt that history was being made and remade on a torrential October night in Kirkcaldy.
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| Hannah Donaldson, Ewan Stewart, Tom McGovern, Vicki Manderson, Paul Tinto, Owen Whitelaw, Anita Vettesse |
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| Ewan Stewart as Jock |
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| Ewan Stewart and Anita Vettesse |
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| Anita Vetesse as Jean |
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| Owen Whitelaw and Hannah Donaldson |
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| Hannah Donaldson as Jenny |
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| Owen Whitelaw as Wull Baxter |
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| Paul Tinto as Bob |
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| Vicki Manderson as Kate |
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| Tom McGovern as Tam |
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| Jennifer Reeve |
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| MJ McCarthy, Jennifer Reeve, Johnny Scott, Adam John Scott |
Not long ago, I talked about meeting someone for the first time. The most interesting element of our introduction was solely to produce a photograph. That was the original idea anyway, part of a project involving 50 photographers to take a portrait of a writer from the Traverse Theatre’s 50th Anniversary new writing scheme. Since our appointment by Marc and Alex at Writer Pictures, me and Tara, have moved from strangers, to collaborators, to friends. We took to the project straight off the blocks and a few months later, after the exchange of a lot of very strong and very amusing ideas, we finished our assignment.
We didn’t make work easy for ourselves though as we settled on an idea that wasn’t straightforward or conventional. On top of that, Tara lives in Dublin so the chances to meet up and thrash out suggestions were thin on the ground. Still, it made her brief and busy trips incredibly productive, and we moved forward in sync with our ideas. I love her writing, and feel so lucky that it is threaded with subtle visual cues. The chance to meet in a collaboration is so important to me, on one visit I risked passing on my glandular fever for the chance for a brief, feverish, catch-up.
Me and Tara’s portrait will be exhibited at the Traverse on the 21st of October along with the 49 other portraits by a photographic roster that spans the UK. To say I’m looking forward to it is an understatement. But I am excited about sharing the pride of the finished work with another person, someone equally as excited.
Stay tuned..
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| CHVRCHES: Lauren Mayberry, Iain Cook, Martin Doherty |
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