The Geese at The Mill Sessions

The Geese are a local "indie-folk" band, who I’ve photographed on previous occasions. In fact one of my photos graces their first CD, back when they were just a 3-piece band.

They were performing at The Mill Sessions on Friday past, so we needed a photo of them for the collection.

My comfort zone is photographing people one at a time. Once numbers start becoming plural, the difficulties multiply exponentially. The more people there are, the more chance one of them will be blinking, looking the wrong way, obscuring someone else or pulling a dodgy face.

Time was limited as there’d been a mix up in communication, and I had far less than I’d have liked, as they had to go and sound check with Marcus, who was recording the session.

The upshot of all this was when I got back home to look at the results, I discovered I didn’t have a single shot where they were all looking at the camera and no one was laughing, moving, or obscuring someone else.

Fortunately over the years I’ve become reasonably adept at using Photoshop so was able to take different heads from different shots and merge them together. This final image, then, is actually an amalgamation of about 4 photos. However, I know from talking to other professional photographers, this kind of thing goes on all the time. At least I wasn’t removing wrinkles or making anyone look slimmer.



Filming proved to be a bit problematic too. I was sitting only 4 or 5 feet in front of them - which is great for an intimate live performance, but not so good trying to fit all the band members into the screen. So I had to have the wide-angle lens on the camera, set at the most extreme I could. Unfortunately, the result of this is everyone’s somewhat distorted.

However, if you can forgive the visuals, this song is one of my favourites, and does give quite a good sense of the style of The Geese. It’s called “Trade Not Aid” and is about a man who is drowning but when he calls for help, the person on the shore who can throw him the lifebelt tells him helping him for free could set up a culture of dependency, so he should trade something for the help instead.



For more info about The Geese, visit their Facebook page here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Geese/168328679870494

Finding Albert at The Mill Sessions

Finding Albert are a rather talented, up and coming band who played at The Mill Sessions last week.

As in previous performances this year, I set about photographing the band before the gig started.

Up until now, I’d been photographing people singly, or in pairs, so with Finding Albert being a 4-piece band, it took a bit of shuffling about to fit them all into the shot. There’s also the problem that the more people in a photo, the more chance one of them will be blinking, looking in the wrong direction or getting lost in a shadow cast by one of the others. It took a bit of time, but I got there in the end.


Finding Albert: left to right -
Chris (drums), Rob (vocals and keyboard), Neil (bass), Michael (guitar)

An additional difficulty, however, lay in the fact the summer has now long since passed and it was dark, so there wasn’t the option of photographing outside. And the empty space I’d used in the first 3 Mill Sessions earlier in the year wasn’t empty.

My solution was to bring along a light, a reflector and an extension lead and use the stairwell.



The gig itself was superb. With room only available for 50 to 60 people max, the venue allows a real sense of intimacy. It feels like barely a step up from having a band perform in your living room. Stripped back from their usual big amps, the drummer even used a cajón, as a full drum kit would have over-powered everything else in this smaller space.

As well as the obvious advantage for the audience, for the performers it also feels like playing to a group of friends, creating a mood that is both intimate and relaxed.

Sitting at the front with my camera on my knee, I put on the wide-angle lens so as to fit everyone in at such a close distance. There’s no fancy camera work, but the videos below should give you a flavour of the evening.


Back to Rome


My Friend Jack

For more about Finding Albert, visit their website here:
http://www.findingalbert.com/

or their Facebook page here:
http://www.facebook.com/findingalbert

Photography Fun

During my stint as Artist in Residence for the Wigtown Book Festival, I found myself reflecting on the fact it often feels I’m part photographer, part psychotherapist.

When upward of 90% of people use the opening line, “I hate having my photo taken…” the majority of my time is spent not using the camera, but reassuring, explaining and trying to build a sense of connection and trust with the person in front of me.

So when I encounter a rare individual who is perfectly comfortable in front of the lens right from the start, it’s a pure delight – especially when they are then up for playing.

One such person I discovered during the festival was Peggy.

When I photographed her for the wall of The Hut I was immediately struck by her appearance. With short dark hair, and large rimmed glasses she had an almost iconic look, and when I converted the image to black and white, I was reminded of a kind of 1950s Beatnik style.



Of course one of the things about having such a striking outward style, is people will fix on it as the key identifying trait. So if Peggy was to remove her glasses and change her hairstyle, the chances are she could walk right past most people who know her and they wouldn’t even realise it was her.

With my love of faces, I found myself wanting to photograph her without her glasses. She was up for the idea, but we didn’t then get the chance until the very last evening of the Festival. By then it was dark and the only available light was on the stairs, and that wasn’t particularly great. However, black and white gives more options under these circumstances, so I felt it was still worth going for.

What’s great about Peggy from my point of view is she instantly understood photography is all about storytelling. So no need to be shy in front of the camera – rather it was a chance to play. She fished out some bright red lipstick and between us we came up with the idea of having it smeared, but with an unapologetic, even aggressive expression.

Within a few short minutes we’d created another almost iconic image.



Such fun!

Peggy is also the Programme Director of the West Port Book Festival in Edinburgh, which this year is happening from the 13th to 16th of October.

Visit www.westportbookfestival.org for more information, and if you go along and bump into Peggy, do say hello to her from me.

And... rest...

As I stapled the last of the photos to the walls of The Hut at 1 o’clock in the morning, a few hours after the Wigtown Book Festival had officially closed, I realised no one was going to see all the images on the walls for another 8 months.

Normally you finish putting up an exhibition, and then people view it, but because this was an ongoing installation, visitors only saw it in progress.

The room I was given as a studio space in The Hut, while I was Artist-in-Residence, will now return to use as a place to catalogue the books destined for the shelves of ReadingLasses café and bookshop, until the first weekend in June 2012. It will then be opened up again to the public for the extended bank holiday weekend as part of the Spring Fling Open Studio Event.

It’s difficult to believe it was only 10 days. Thinking back to at time before the festival, it feels more like a couple of months have passed rather than less than 2 weeks.

There have been disappointments and delights, new friends made, opinions revised, lessons learned, skills enhanced, and seeds for potential futures have been sown.

I started off with naïve enthusiasm, fell into despair, adjusted my expectations and grew in confidence.

There’s a saying I love, which goes, “experience is something you gain immediately after you needed it the most”, and the experience of being artist-in-residence has felt a lot like that. At the beginning I didn’t really know what to expect or what was expected of me. I made my best guesses, but it’s only when things go wrong, and you have to revise your ideas and expectations that you really learn.

As the Festival drew to a close, I knew how I should have handled it from the start. I could see clearly when I should have acted differently, when I should have been bolder, and when I should have been more subtle.

So now it’s about finding a way to allow all the experiences and lessons to settle in and let them become part of the fabric of who I am and who I will become.

And trying to catch up on some sleep…


To view the full set of 174 portraits taken over the 10 days of the Wigtown Book Festival, visit my Facebook or Flickr albums:

Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.292506957430682.93692.114749591873087&type=1

Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kimayres/sets/72157627752630956/

Artist in Residence at the Wigtown Book Festival

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!
.

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.

Facing The Weekend by Kim Ayres

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

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.

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

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

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