Image of the week #6

Taken with the Kodak Brownie Cresta 3, featured in my last post. Yes - it works!

Look what I found!

I was wandering through Brixton Village yesterday, for the first time in ages. It really has come on in the last year since I was there with my studio. There are loads of really exciting cafes, restaurants and quirky little boutiques... well worth a trip.

In one of these boutiques, I was very excited to find a Kodak Brownie Cresta 3, complete with camera bag, instruction manual, and (most exciting of all for me) a luggage label with the previous owners name and address, and the Hotel to which she was going to... which just so happens to be a village in Switzerland called Les Marecotes, which I visited with my family in 1991. With that bit of Swiss-ness in there, I just had to buy it.

It seems that the mechanism works... I will pop a 120 film through it soon, and let you know the results!

(Oh, and I have searched Google for the previous owner. Her name is Georgina Rowe, which is a very common name. The camera dates from the second half of the 1960's, so I reckon she'd be in her 70's now... perhaps you know her or someone who knows her?)

Image of the week #5

At the end of last year, I was invited to give a portraiture workshop at a primary school in Southwark. We studied the use of portraiture in order to convey identity, and looked at a number of different portraits to see how they told a story. I then took photographs of the pupils, in their uniforms one week, and in their own clothes the next. Here is my favourite image of the series; I'm not sure I'm very happy with the light setup, and the depth of field could be shallower, but love his expression and his cute hat!

On Wednesday, the pictures will be in show at the school for parents to come and see...

Image of the week #4

This is a bit of a cheat, because it's a pic I shot in the summer. But I'm continuing the Hipstamatic theme - just found out that the exhibition I mentioned in my previous post is now on until 11 Feb - so still time to see it! I'm excited...

Hipstamatics are also running a competition, to be the 158th print in their exhibition. Post your best Hipstamatic print on their Facebook wall, and the winner is the one with the most "likes".

This is my contribution. Oh it reminds me of the Summer! So sick of this cold...

Hipstamatics only getting Hipper...

A few months ago, I wrote a post mourning the loss of my iphone, and with it the fabulous Hipstamatic app.

It seems I am not the only one to have fallen in love with this digital way of creating retro looking pictures. Now there is an exhibition devoted to the Hipstamatic photograph, at Orange Dot Gallery in Bloomsbury. I'm hoping to get a chance to see it... it's on til 31st January...

In the meantime, I was excited to discover a blog dedicated to the app, with a link to the website of the man who created it. It describes it's history - it really did exist as a camera and there is a sad story which goes with it. The Guardian thinks this story is dubious, but I wanna believe it... a sucker for marketing, me.

Last Chance to see...

Friday sees the last day of AMPS/10, the Annual Members Show at Photofusion in Brixton. I'm sad to see it come down... over the last few months I have nurtured and created this, from selecting the work and working with the photographers to produce the work, to curating and hanging the work. It has been a very successful exhibition, and I'm really pleased to have been working closely with Miranda Gavin from Hotshoe. She judged the inaugural Hotshoe/Photofusion award (which went to Odette England for her project As Above, So Below) and she ran an event with our members about furthering their career in this world of photography.

Throughout the exhibition we have encouraged the public to vote for their favourite photographer; and last night I announced the winner: Vikram Kushwah. I am not surprised he captured the public's imagination... his images are reminiscent of fairytales and the world of Alice in Wonderland, and successfully combine the genres of fashion and fine art photography. Definately one to watch...

Image of the week #3

A year ago today I began a long but fun week of photographing the people of Brixton. In five days, I photographed 200 people, 70 of which I am putting into a book. Unfortunately the book isn't ready for the first anniversary, so instead here is one of my fave portraits from that week...

The complete gallery of images can be seen here. And follow this blog to find out when the book is published!