Tag: Photography

On being in diaspora

MA research, personal

Nguyen, in The Refugees, states that “these invaders came to conquer our land and now would never go home” while speaking of Korea. The same can be said for the British occupation of Ireland. Thinking through diaspora brings up a lot of the same sentiment of “my mind trying to approximate what our lives felt like” before being in diaspora or away from the homeland.

Where is your home if you can’t go back to it?

Is it still home?

Can being in diaspora ever feel like being home?

Is this displacement a permanent feeling?

What is the notion of home referring to? Is it an abstract concept or a concrete feeling?

From now on I’ll be sharing my work in progress field-notes and writing as a way of working through some of the themes cropping up as my research progresses. I’ll be using this blog as a an online journal and visual reference to share writing and references as they come up.

Process #2

personal, Photography, updates

My degree project was a book documenting the Irish Diaspora’s journeys from Ireland to England. I photographed and interviewed people in the various Irish centers around London: the London Irish Center, the Luton Irish Forum and the South London Irish Association. The book itself was hand-printed and bound but my bookmaking skills are very lacking! As such, I enlisted the help of my friend Chloe (a 2015 UAL Wimbledon graduate in Print and Time-based Media) to help me fix the binding and structure of the book itself.

Chloe won the Wandle Studio Prize for 2015/16 so she has use of a studio space at Merton Abbey Mills where she runs an “alternative book-makery” called Object Book.

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Original book

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How it stood

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Lying flat

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Attempt at attching the covers

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I attempted to attach the covers and put too much glue on the front

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The binding was too loose so pages would move

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Cutting the binding off each folio

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Placing the first cover

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Sewing the first section

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Tying a kettle stitch at the end

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Sewing the fourth folio to the third with a kettle stitch

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The cross stitch was made by putting the thread through two layers of thread on the folios and making a X shape and tying a kettle stitich

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Exposed biding

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Kettle stitches at the end of each folio

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Flattening in the nipping press

PS: I’m doing photo-book narrative workshops at Object Book on the 6th of August. More details to follow.

Common History

personal, Photography, updates

Two posts in one night?? Aren’t you all lucky people ;)

my major documentary photography project for my Documentary Practice module in college this semester was to make a book, so that’s what I did. It’s called Common History and it’s on myself and my best friend and I’ve wanted to do it for the longest time! It’s a personal exploration of how when we were babies, we were in the same hospital for the same amount of time (although a year apart), we were treated by the same doctor for visual impairment and yet we each turned out completely differently. The book uses archival images, self-portraits and portraits to tie us together visually.

http://www.blurb.com/books/4214521-common-history

What do you think?

If you liked this, please subscribe, on right <3

News and luck

personal, updates

Just to let you all know that I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth and I’m still alive! I’ve been so busy lately, I haven’t had time to sit down and blog properly. I’ll have my editorial calender sorted out and back to normal next week, promise! Now onto the purpose of this post: updates!

I’ve achieved things on my goals / aspirations list for this year! (See post from January here).

I’ve made business cards, I’ve had an exhibition of my work, hung my own photographs (this didn’t turn out the way I had hoped, but that can’t really be helped; everything’s a learning experience, right?) and most importantly, I’ve been accepted to my dream course: BA Fine Art Print and Time-based Media at Wimbledon College of Art in London! (Course link here). I’m so unbelievably happy about this, it’s part of the reason I haven’t been blogging much, I’ve been so busy trying to sort everything out for moving and that; plus, I only have five weeks left in college so I’m busy with end of year stuff too.

On the subject of college work, my current project is a documentary-style book on myself and my best friend, it’ll have self-portraits, portraits of my best friend and archival images. It’ll hopefully be available to buy through Blurb when it’s finished so I’ll keep you updated on that! I’m also working on a book (also made with Blurb) of fashion images so hopefully that will be available to buy too.

Finally, more good news that came through today, I won a Caroline Issa for LK Bennett iPhone case from Canned Fashion! I never win anything… I think my luck is starting to turn!

 

Quick updates and feature!

Photography

I’ve neglected this blog for the last few weeks, I’ve been so busy with college and preparing for my trip to Malta in the morning. (I’ll back to regular posting when I’m back and I’ll have images from the trip to show too). For now though, I’ve been featured on the Lenscratch blog

Here

Gobsmacked, considering this blog showcases incredible artists (…and then there’s me!). Nice Valentine’s surprise :D [Image is in the very middle (along the F’s in the links at the side if you follow that)]

Or if you want here’s a screenshot:

Image

I’d love some feedback on this image. I never really take self portraits but I’ve had self portrait project idea in my head for forever so I’d love to see what you think of this one before I go and shoot an entire series!

Unless You Will issue 24

inspiration, Photography, series

Unless You Will issue 24

Blogging about this today, it’s an Australian online photo magazine. This issue is concerned with landscape photography and how artists connect to the land and photograph it.

The issue features 10 photographer’s practices on landscape photography and a really nice quote from Seneca in “Letters From A Stoic” –

“Are you telling me

not to investigate

the natural world?

Are you trying to bar
me from the whole
of it and restrict me
to a part of it?
Am I not to inquire
into the identity of
the artist who created
that universe?
Or the process by
which the huge mass
became subject to
law and order?
Or the nature of the
one who collected
the things that were
scattered apart, sorted
apart the things that
were commingled,
and when all things
lay in formless chaos
allotted them their
individual shapes?
Or the source of the
light (is it fire or is it
something brighter?)
Am I supposed not
to inquire into this
sort of thing?”