For the next 10 days - 23rd Sept to 2nd Oct - I will be in Wigtown as Artist in Residence at the Book Festival.
I've created a separate blog specifically for the event, which will be updated most days.
The intention is it will track my progress from a workspace of empty walls to hopefully a room full of faces.
And from a nervous photographer wondering what the hell he's let himself in for to a confident artist able to hold his own in among the big boys.
Please visit "Artist in Residence" - http://kimayreswigtown.blogspot.com/ - and "Follow", "Share" and leave comments.
See you over there!
.
Friday, 23 September 2011
Thursday, 22 September 2011
Facing The Weekend - The Book
Back at the end of May this year, I was involved in the Open Studio event, “Spring Fling”, where for 3 days I opened my doors to the public and took photos of anyone who wanted to join in the fun (see – Facing The Weekend).
I knew from the start I wanted to make a book out of the event, but rather a lot of life has been getting in the way this past summer. However, it is finally complete and available to be viewed and purchased on Blurb.com in Softcover and Hardcover formats.
Below is a promo video I’ve created for it – the soundtrack coming from the superb Sean Taylor, who some of you might remember I photographed for The Mill Sessions back at the beginning of the year (see – Sean Taylor and the Mill Sessions)
Underneath that is the Blurb widget, which allows you to look at the pages online to decide whether you it’s something you might like for your coffee table.
For those viewing this in their RSS feed, or n Facebook, there’s a chance neither the video nor the Blurb widget will appear, in which case, please follow these links:
YouTube Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vq6AR9PR-A
Facing The Weekend on Blurb.com:
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2488930
And for those who like the sound of Sean Taylor’s music, visit his website at:
www.seantaylorsongs.com
I knew from the start I wanted to make a book out of the event, but rather a lot of life has been getting in the way this past summer. However, it is finally complete and available to be viewed and purchased on Blurb.com in Softcover and Hardcover formats.
Below is a promo video I’ve created for it – the soundtrack coming from the superb Sean Taylor, who some of you might remember I photographed for The Mill Sessions back at the beginning of the year (see – Sean Taylor and the Mill Sessions)
Underneath that is the Blurb widget, which allows you to look at the pages online to decide whether you it’s something you might like for your coffee table.
For those viewing this in their RSS feed, or n Facebook, there’s a chance neither the video nor the Blurb widget will appear, in which case, please follow these links:
YouTube Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vq6AR9PR-A
Facing The Weekend on Blurb.com:
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2488930
And for those who like the sound of Sean Taylor’s music, visit his website at:
www.seantaylorsongs.com
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
Artist in Residence Blog
I have set up a blog specifically to follow my progress as Artist in Residence over the Wigtown Book Festival.
http://kimayreswigtown.blogspot.com/
Do go and take a look and leave a comment or ask questions.
And feel free to "Follow", share on Facebook, Tweet or spread the word in any other fashion.
http://kimayreswigtown.blogspot.com/
Do go and take a look and leave a comment or ask questions.
And feel free to "Follow", share on Facebook, Tweet or spread the word in any other fashion.
Thursday, 11 August 2011
Wigtown Book Festival - Artist in Residence
With over 150 events across 10 days, Wigtown Book Festival is one of the largest art events in Scotland, even though it is located in a remote town near the Southern tip of Scotland.
Over the past couple of years, they have teamed up with the organisers of the open studio event, Spring Fling, to install an Artist-in-Residence for the duration of the Festival.
And this year they have chosen me!
So from September 23rd to October 2nd, I will be taking photos of residents, visitors and attending authors – in fact anyone who will allow me to point my camera at them.
I’ve been given a space in "The Hut" behind ReadingLasses café and bookshop, where I will be printing out the photos and pinning them to the walls. As the festival progresses, so the room should fill up with faces.
Unlike my participation in Spring Fling back in May, I won’t be confining myself to a studio space to take the photos, but will also be out and about on the street and venues, photographing whoever I can, and hopefully engaging in conversation with people about what I’m up to, and what books they are reading. Indeed, my hope is to be able to scribble on the photo of most faces going up on the wall, "Currently reading…" or "Favourite genre..." My guess is there will be very few people who will conform to stereotype.
It’s going to take a fair amount of planning to ensure I can fit in taking photos, editing, printing and pinning them to the wall, as well as attending events, having The Hut open for a couple of hours each day, and finding time for an afternoon nap...
It’s also going to be something of a psychological trial, as I will have to overcome a natural reluctance to go up to complete strangers and ask if they mind having their photo taken.
Scary?
Of course.
Challenging?
Without doubt.
Exciting?
Absolutely.
For a copy of the Wigtown Book Festival brochure, which includes a list of all the events, the times and the venues, either click on the following link or right-click and select “Save link as…” to download it to your own computer:
http://www.wigtownbookfestival.com/pdfs/WigtownBookFestival2011.pdf
Over the past couple of years, they have teamed up with the organisers of the open studio event, Spring Fling, to install an Artist-in-Residence for the duration of the Festival.
And this year they have chosen me!
So from September 23rd to October 2nd, I will be taking photos of residents, visitors and attending authors – in fact anyone who will allow me to point my camera at them.
I’ve been given a space in "The Hut" behind ReadingLasses café and bookshop, where I will be printing out the photos and pinning them to the walls. As the festival progresses, so the room should fill up with faces.
Unlike my participation in Spring Fling back in May, I won’t be confining myself to a studio space to take the photos, but will also be out and about on the street and venues, photographing whoever I can, and hopefully engaging in conversation with people about what I’m up to, and what books they are reading. Indeed, my hope is to be able to scribble on the photo of most faces going up on the wall, "Currently reading…" or "Favourite genre..." My guess is there will be very few people who will conform to stereotype.
It’s going to take a fair amount of planning to ensure I can fit in taking photos, editing, printing and pinning them to the wall, as well as attending events, having The Hut open for a couple of hours each day, and finding time for an afternoon nap...
It’s also going to be something of a psychological trial, as I will have to overcome a natural reluctance to go up to complete strangers and ask if they mind having their photo taken.
Scary?
Of course.
Challenging?
Without doubt.
Exciting?
Absolutely.
For a copy of the Wigtown Book Festival brochure, which includes a list of all the events, the times and the venues, either click on the following link or right-click and select “Save link as…” to download it to your own computer:
http://www.wigtownbookfestival.com/pdfs/WigtownBookFestival2011.pdf
Monday, 8 August 2011
Cover Art - Prole Issue 5
Towards the end of last year, the poetry and prose magazine, Prole, used one of my images for their cover of Issue 3 (see - "Cover Art on Prole Magazine")
Well, they've done it again, and chosen another of my photos for Issue 5. This time they've gone for one of my more iconic images, that of my friend and poet, David Mark Williams.
If you fancy submitting your own writings for consideration in the magazine, then you'll find their submissions page here - http://www.prolebooks.co.uk/page3.html
Well, they've done it again, and chosen another of my photos for Issue 5. This time they've gone for one of my more iconic images, that of my friend and poet, David Mark Williams.
If you fancy submitting your own writings for consideration in the magazine, then you'll find their submissions page here - http://www.prolebooks.co.uk/page3.html
Monday, 1 August 2011
Building and Burning The Wickerman 2011
The Wickerman Festival is not on the same scale as T in the Park (Scotland's most famous music festival), but it does have 2 distinct advantages over other, larger music festivals. The first is it’s less than 15 miles away, and the second is it has a giant willow sculpture that goes up in flames at midnight on the Saturday.
And it is damned impressive both before and after it does.
Because I know Trevor Leat, one of the sculptors of The Wickerman (built by leatrigg.com), last year I popped out one day during the building of it to take photos (see - Building The Wickerman), then went along to the festival and took photos of it burning down (see - Burning The Wickerman).
This year we planned it a bit more and I went out on site half a dozen times so I could create a sequence of photos showing it being built at several different stages.
The steel frame was still in place from last year’s sculpture, but they repositioned the arms, removed the bow and this year added antlers to create a stag-headed man design.
Below are a few taster photos of the complete sequence, which can be found by following the links at the end of this post to my Facebook or Flickr albums.
As always, feel free to click on any of the images for larger versions.
Starting at the bottom of last year's frame and working upwards
The arms are repositioned
The scaffolding gets higher
The brave photographer scales the scaffolding to see the head being built.
Admiring festival goers give the completed sculpture a sense of scale
One food stall taking full advantage of bonus publicity...
Going up in flames
Because of the direction of the wind, one arm and one antler remain long after the rest has burned away
Links:
The full set of images on Facebook
The full set of images on Flickr
Trevor Leat's website
Alex Rigg's website
Leat-Rigg website
And it is damned impressive both before and after it does.
Because I know Trevor Leat, one of the sculptors of The Wickerman (built by leatrigg.com), last year I popped out one day during the building of it to take photos (see - Building The Wickerman), then went along to the festival and took photos of it burning down (see - Burning The Wickerman).
This year we planned it a bit more and I went out on site half a dozen times so I could create a sequence of photos showing it being built at several different stages.
The steel frame was still in place from last year’s sculpture, but they repositioned the arms, removed the bow and this year added antlers to create a stag-headed man design.
Below are a few taster photos of the complete sequence, which can be found by following the links at the end of this post to my Facebook or Flickr albums.
As always, feel free to click on any of the images for larger versions.
Starting at the bottom of last year's frame and working upwards
The arms are repositioned
The scaffolding gets higher
The brave photographer scales the scaffolding to see the head being built.
Admiring festival goers give the completed sculpture a sense of scale
One food stall taking full advantage of bonus publicity...
Going up in flames
Because of the direction of the wind, one arm and one antler remain long after the rest has burned away
Links:
The full set of images on Facebook
The full set of images on Flickr
Trevor Leat's website
Alex Rigg's website
Leat-Rigg website
Friday, 29 July 2011
Appearances...
“Oh, I know who you mean,” said Maggie. “He works in the Co-op. Lovely man. Always so friendly and helpful.”
Richard is tall, covered in tattoos and has a spiked up Mohawk. At first sight you might assume he was likely to knife you if you looked at him.
And yet, everyone you talk to who knows him comments on what a lovely guy he is.
In a recent debate with the management at the Co-op store where he works, about whether his Mohawk should be flattened, such was the outcry from local residents (including many of the grannies the management feared might be intimidated by his appearance), they backed down and his spikes were allowed to remain.
I first saw Richard at the Midsummer Music Festival a few weeks ago as the new drummer for the band The Geese, and immediately started thinking he might be interesting to photograph. When a chance encounter presented itself a couple of weeks later, I asked him if he’d be up for it. The upshot of that is I now have a couple of new photos, which are among my all time favourites.
So I thought I should put them up online.
As usual, click on the for larger versions
Richard is tall, covered in tattoos and has a spiked up Mohawk. At first sight you might assume he was likely to knife you if you looked at him.
And yet, everyone you talk to who knows him comments on what a lovely guy he is.
In a recent debate with the management at the Co-op store where he works, about whether his Mohawk should be flattened, such was the outcry from local residents (including many of the grannies the management feared might be intimidated by his appearance), they backed down and his spikes were allowed to remain.
I first saw Richard at the Midsummer Music Festival a few weeks ago as the new drummer for the band The Geese, and immediately started thinking he might be interesting to photograph. When a chance encounter presented itself a couple of weeks later, I asked him if he’d be up for it. The upshot of that is I now have a couple of new photos, which are among my all time favourites.
So I thought I should put them up online.
As usual, click on the for larger versions
Monday, 18 July 2011
Qiku at the Mill Sessions
I have been photographing the headline performers each month for “The Mill Sessions” – a mostly acoustic venue at The Mill on the Fleet, in Gatehouse – a town about 15 miles from here (see Mill Sessions Posts).
Last week's headline performers were Qiku (pronounced kee-koo). Usually based in London, these sisters are in fact half Scottish and half Japanese. They were warm friendly and a delight to photograph.
The rain was threatening, but fortunately held off just long enough for me to get the shots.
As usual, feel free to click on any of the photos for larger version
Clare
Rosa
Qiku
They were previously part of a 5 piece band, but are now performing as just the 2 of them, which means there's virtually nothing online about them yet.
So I recorded a couple of their track using the video function on my camera. Almost all of their songs are in English, although the 2nd video here has the one song they sang in Japanese.
When they make it big, you can say you saw them here first.
For more about Qiku, visit their website here:
http://qiku.eu/
or find them on Facebook here:
http://www.facebook.com/qikumusic
Last week's headline performers were Qiku (pronounced kee-koo). Usually based in London, these sisters are in fact half Scottish and half Japanese. They were warm friendly and a delight to photograph.
The rain was threatening, but fortunately held off just long enough for me to get the shots.
As usual, feel free to click on any of the photos for larger version
Clare
Rosa
Qiku
They were previously part of a 5 piece band, but are now performing as just the 2 of them, which means there's virtually nothing online about them yet.
So I recorded a couple of their track using the video function on my camera. Almost all of their songs are in English, although the 2nd video here has the one song they sang in Japanese.
When they make it big, you can say you saw them here first.
For more about Qiku, visit their website here:
http://qiku.eu/
or find them on Facebook here:
http://www.facebook.com/qikumusic
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
Photographing the Midsummer Music Festival
I was invited along to the Midsummer Music Festival in the nearby town of Gatehouse of Fleet to take photos of the bands performing last weekend.
In the studio, I can interact with the sitter, ask them to move this way or that, adjust the lighting and alter the background. But when it comes to musicians on stage, I have no control over any of these things. They move about, the lighting is often poor and constantly changing, the background usually interferes rather than compliments, and when there are more than one of them on stage, they tend to either spread out – leaving huge uninteresting spaces between them – or obscure each other with bits of instruments or entire bodies.
Performance photography, then, is about as far removed from portraiture as you can get while still pointing the camera at people.
In fact it was at the Midsummer Music Festival this time last year, when at I first tried out photographing musicians on stage and discovered these difficulties. Since then I have photographed The Sex Pistols Experience and Cash From Chaos playing live, but I’m hardly a pro in this department.
Still, I have learned a few tricks over the past year. For example, taking photos from closer to the side of the stage will help bunch up spread out musicians. If you move about a bit and use a zoom lens, sometimes you can isolate the head of a singer against a less busy part of the background. And when the lighting is poor you can compensate by increasing the ISO setting on the camera. Unfortunately, this has a side effect of making the photos “noisy”. However, if you drop them into black and white and play with the contrast levels afterwards, the photos can take on a “grainy” quality, reminiscent of old music-press photos, which add mood and atmosphere.
For me, then, it seemed a reasonable exchange. I get a free pass to the event and the chance to develop my skills in this area, and the organisers get some free photos for publicity if I manage to get anything halfway decent.
I had also been asked if I could supply the local paper with any halfway decent photos for post-publicity purposes, which, if they took, would also get my name spread a little further. And while this seemed like a great idea at the time, it ended up interfering with my photography.*
For the first 2 bands on the Friday night – The Ideal Crash and Sweet Relief - I was thinking about camera angles and shots that might make a reasonable newspaper image – nothing too fancy, just something that reports what’s going on.
It was about half way through the third band – a superb group called The Inflictors – that I stopped thinking about the newspaper and started thinking about what kind of images I would like to see. And then everything changed. I started enjoying myself much more, I tuned into the rhythm and movements of the musicians so I could start to predict where they were going to be by the time I clicked the camera, and the quality of the photos improved.
By the time I was onto the 4th act, John Otway, I was in my element and I shot some of my favourite performance photos to date.
The following night I started warming up with the first guy on, Dave Sutherland; I got into my stride with Quirkus and carried that through with The Geese (now a 5 piece band – they were only a 3 piece outfit when I photographed them for their CD cover last year), again, producing photos I was dead chuffed with. However, by the time King Creosote came on stage, my CFS tapped me on the shoulder to remind me it was there and my energy deserted me. I took a few photos, but my heart was no longer in it and I had to leave before the end to ensure I could make the 15-mile drive home in safety.
Below are a handful of my favourites from the evening, but you can find the full set of 50 or so images on my Facebook or Flickr pages.
As usual, click on any of the images for larger versions.
Cameron of The Inflictors
The Inflictors
John Otway with his 2-headed guitar
John Otway
Nicola of Quirkus
Blue of Quirkus
Michelle and Richard of The Geese
Links of interest:
The complete set on
Flickr
Facebook
The Bands
Friday line up
The Ideal Crash
Sweet Relief
The Inflictors
John Otway
Saturday line up
Dave Sutherland
Quirkus
The Geese
King Creosote
* and it turned out the newspaper weren’t interested in the photos I submitted after all, because they were all black and white and the paper prefers colour images
In the studio, I can interact with the sitter, ask them to move this way or that, adjust the lighting and alter the background. But when it comes to musicians on stage, I have no control over any of these things. They move about, the lighting is often poor and constantly changing, the background usually interferes rather than compliments, and when there are more than one of them on stage, they tend to either spread out – leaving huge uninteresting spaces between them – or obscure each other with bits of instruments or entire bodies.
Performance photography, then, is about as far removed from portraiture as you can get while still pointing the camera at people.
In fact it was at the Midsummer Music Festival this time last year, when at I first tried out photographing musicians on stage and discovered these difficulties. Since then I have photographed The Sex Pistols Experience and Cash From Chaos playing live, but I’m hardly a pro in this department.
Still, I have learned a few tricks over the past year. For example, taking photos from closer to the side of the stage will help bunch up spread out musicians. If you move about a bit and use a zoom lens, sometimes you can isolate the head of a singer against a less busy part of the background. And when the lighting is poor you can compensate by increasing the ISO setting on the camera. Unfortunately, this has a side effect of making the photos “noisy”. However, if you drop them into black and white and play with the contrast levels afterwards, the photos can take on a “grainy” quality, reminiscent of old music-press photos, which add mood and atmosphere.
For me, then, it seemed a reasonable exchange. I get a free pass to the event and the chance to develop my skills in this area, and the organisers get some free photos for publicity if I manage to get anything halfway decent.
I had also been asked if I could supply the local paper with any halfway decent photos for post-publicity purposes, which, if they took, would also get my name spread a little further. And while this seemed like a great idea at the time, it ended up interfering with my photography.*
For the first 2 bands on the Friday night – The Ideal Crash and Sweet Relief - I was thinking about camera angles and shots that might make a reasonable newspaper image – nothing too fancy, just something that reports what’s going on.
It was about half way through the third band – a superb group called The Inflictors – that I stopped thinking about the newspaper and started thinking about what kind of images I would like to see. And then everything changed. I started enjoying myself much more, I tuned into the rhythm and movements of the musicians so I could start to predict where they were going to be by the time I clicked the camera, and the quality of the photos improved.
By the time I was onto the 4th act, John Otway, I was in my element and I shot some of my favourite performance photos to date.
The following night I started warming up with the first guy on, Dave Sutherland; I got into my stride with Quirkus and carried that through with The Geese (now a 5 piece band – they were only a 3 piece outfit when I photographed them for their CD cover last year), again, producing photos I was dead chuffed with. However, by the time King Creosote came on stage, my CFS tapped me on the shoulder to remind me it was there and my energy deserted me. I took a few photos, but my heart was no longer in it and I had to leave before the end to ensure I could make the 15-mile drive home in safety.
Below are a handful of my favourites from the evening, but you can find the full set of 50 or so images on my Facebook or Flickr pages.
As usual, click on any of the images for larger versions.
Cameron of The Inflictors
The Inflictors
John Otway with his 2-headed guitar
John Otway
Nicola of Quirkus
Blue of Quirkus
Michelle and Richard of The Geese
Links of interest:
The complete set on
Flickr
The Bands
Friday line up
The Ideal Crash
Sweet Relief
The Inflictors
John Otway
Saturday line up
Dave Sutherland
Quirkus
The Geese
King Creosote
* and it turned out the newspaper weren’t interested in the photos I submitted after all, because they were all black and white and the paper prefers colour images
Sunday, 5 June 2011
Facing The Weekend
Photo taken by Rogan
Over the next day or two I will start taking down the 130 or so photos stuck to the walls of my studio from last weekend's Spring Fling Open Studio event (see previous post).
It was a success on every level I can think of - in terms of response, feedback and keeping up my energy levels. Before I began, I thought perhaps I might be able to photograph 80 people over the 3 days. Secretly I hoped for a hundred. As I closed the door late on Monday afternoon, I had photographed over 170.
Amazingly, more than half of all the visitors who walked through the door agreed to take part. And the feedback and enthusiasm I received was wonderful.
This is what the first ones faced as they entered my studio (click on any of the images for larger versions):
KEY
1 - PHOTOS - not wanting the first visitors to face a completely empty wall, I figured having a few photos up first might help encourage people to take part. This included one my daughter, Meg; two of my son, Rogan - before and after his dramatic haircut; one of me, taken by Rogan, and 4 photos of friends who helped me 2 days before when I decided to dry-run the system - Graham, Danny, Mark and Ken. Andrew also helped, but the printer started playing up so I didn't get a photo of him up until later.
2 - REFLECTOR - the back of the reflector used to bounce a softer light on to the other side of the face - see below for more details.
3 - COMPUTER - bridging the photo between camera and printer, allowing me to convert the image to black and white and email a copy to anyone who wanted it.
4 - CHAIR - in order to minimise energy expenditure, I spent most of the weekend sitting down.
5 - OLD PRINTER - ready as back-up in case the new one failed. After all the hassle I'd had with it on the dry-run, when I discovered the new printer would only use the black ink cartridge if I lied to it, I thought it was wise to have one in reserve. Fortunately I didn't need it.
6 - STACK OF BLACK INK CARTRIDGES - I had no idea how many I would need. In the end, I only used about half the number I bought.
7 - OLD LAPTOP - used for displaying a slideshow of photos. However, it became clear quite quickly that no one was bothering with it - partly because it was too low down to see, but as there was no room anywhere to put it at a higher level, we didn't use it on Sunday or Monday.
8 - STEPLADDER - used as a seat for my assistant (my wonderful friend Mark, until about 3.30pm on Saturday, and Rogan the rest of the weekend), or for sticking the photos on the higher parts of the wall.
9 - CUPBOARD - stuffed full of miscellany not intended for display, so hidden behind the assistant/stepladder.
10 - TABLE WITH FORMS - so I could use the photos of the people, I had a Model Release Form for each of them to sign. It's a legal grey area, so this covered my butt. It also allowed people to leave their email address if they wanted more information about the book I'm going to create (see further down the page).
11 - VISITOR COMMENTS BOOK - and a bowl of sweets to encourage people to leave nice comments. However, only 16 visitors left a comment in it, and one of those was my daughter.
THE PHOTOGRAPHY AREA
Those who got their photograph taken would sit in the chair with their body facing the window, which acted as the main light source, then they would turn their head back to me and look into the camera. The textured backdrop worked as a background more interesting than white and not as ink-heavy to print as black. The reflector cast a softer light on the other side of their face, lifting it out of the shadows.
This set up allowed me to be at the right height to photograph them while sitting in my chair, and it removed the need for lights, which would have taken up more room and run the risk of getting knocked over, or bulbs burning out.
It was all about trying to keep things as simple as possible.
Below are a couple of photos of the studio after the weekend, with all the photos on the walls.
The exhibition was intereactive and grew as the weekend progressed. At 5.30pm on Monday, it was all over. However, this is not the end.
Over the next few weeks, I'll be putting all the images into a book called "Facing The Weekend", which I'll be publishing on Blurb.com for anyone who's interested. More on that when it's complete.
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