June 2010
Thursday 24th June. Busy week with prints of the two boys I photographed last week being framed by Pete at Framed in New Mills, and prints from Andrea and Bill's Wedding. Also updated the maps in New Mills Original. On another note, bizarre that today that one of the top ten news items on the BBC was that Dec of Ant or Dec missed the England goal. Good to see its no dumbing down.
Monday 21st June. Trip to Cheedale in the evening. Beautiful colours and smells of summer and river trout. Evening walking. Best time of day when its hot and so few people about. Photos to come.
Tuesday 15th June. I should update this more often. After watching a very interesting programme on BBC about Brian Duffy, one of the three Cockney photographer's in the sixties: Brian Duffy, Terence Donovan and David Bailey. I subsequently discovered his website and that he had died on 31 May this year. A curious quote from Gore Vidal on the first page: 'For the last twenty five years photography has been the art form of the untalented.' The quote goes on, albeit not on the website: 'Obviously some pictures are more satisfactory than others, but where is credit due? to the designer of the camera? To the finger on the button? to the law of averages?'. Not clear when he said it. Notwithstanding Duffy's photography, best known perhaps for Bowie's Aladdin Zane album cover he also produced 'Oh! What a Lovely War', Richard Attenborough's directorial debut.
Moving on. Two canvases on Dawn's wonderful picture of Trevor produced for customers today as well as a print of a copy of the Castleton Map now hanging in the wonderful Rose Cottage in Castleton.
Photographs of Bill and Andrea's wedding party at Eleven Didsbury Park :
Photographs of Colin and Jennifer's wedding:
May 2010
Tuesday 18th May. Playing with old images from WWII and from Railway Stations (fortunately both out of copyright) just for the fun of it.
Sunday 16th May. Trip to Leeds Art Gallery. Maybe after yesterday's Lowry visit I was a little jaded but I struggled to find anything that evoked a 'wow'. Sure Rodin's The Bronze Age was fine but not the best example I've seen. Barbara Hepworth's Single Form, so influenced by Brancusi, it practically was a Brancusi (Can't find a picture of the example in the gallery since http://www.leeds.gov.uk/sculpture.aspx is no longer available albeit in twelve different languages). Ben Nicholson's Guitar practically a copy of Braque's' after having visited him in Paris. However, Francis Bacon's Head VI, Whistler's Harmony in White and Blue, Percy Wyndham Lewis's Praxitella and Paul Nash's The Shore (at Dymchurch) 1923. And a collection of modern art, in particular a series of Alan Davie pictures that are difficult. Judge for yourself.
On the way home I jumped off the train to catch an hour at the Huddersfield Art Gallery, possibly the only gallery in Great Britain, I discovered, that doesn't open on a Sunday. Sunday being one of only two days in the week that people have the time to visit galleries.
Saturday 15th May. Trip to the Lowry Centre, Salford, to see the Lowry's Favourites Exhibition. Lowry as good as ever. Some interesting facts. 1. Lowry only ever used five pigments: Ivory Black, Vermillion, Prussian Blue, Yellow Ochre and Flake White. 2. Lowry had a collection of original late Rossetti portraits that hung on his bedroom wall in Mottram; he regarded Astarte Syriarca as Rossetti's greatest work. 3. Lowry lived alone the last thirty years of his life in Mottram, just up the road from Hayfield. Very fond of the portrait off Ann his probably imaginary god-daughter and his seascapes.
Nearly forgot. On the way home popped into The Monastery in Gorton. Not open but worth just walking around the outside. Is open Sundays 12-4. The photographs of the interior whetted the appetite.
Saturday 15th May. Added some of my own pictures based on colour theory and abstract art. In a recent programme on the BBC about Matisse it was said that Rothko stared at Matisse's Red Studio (after New York's Museum of Modern Art acquired it from a nightclub) for months inspiring his subsequent abstract paintings. The programme also drew attention to the similarities between some of Matisse's work such as French Window at Collioure and abstract paintings. Is this just coincidence? Possible since beyond this one picture I can't find anymore that have the same similarity although Matisse's Snail helps support the argument.
Saturday 15th May. I read in one of the weekend papers that the IKON Gallery in Birmingham has been voted Britain's Worst Exhibition, in particular Susan Collis' 'Since I fell for you'. Having recently visited this exhibition I wasn't surprised. You walk into a room that looks as if the exhibition is in the process of being built. As the website says: "At first glance Collis’ exhibition appears almost empty, not yet ready for visitors. This misreading is further encouraged by the playful positioning of pieces such as Age old story and Forever Young (both 2009). Each work, resembling a mix of casually piled scraps or waste leaning against walls, is in fact made from expensive hardwoods and veneers held together by nails of gold and silver or ‘stained’ with amber, topaz and jasper." Is this Art? Beautiful gallery, curious exhibition.
Thursday 12th May. I was looking through a book of Magnum photos and came across this one by Ferdinando Scianna. In the same search I came across this picture by Spanish photographer Alberto García-Alix.
New picture 'Hayfield Monopoly' added:
Originally created as a raffle prize for Hayfield Parents Teachers Association for their Christmas raffle 2009.
New picture 'Twenty Twenty Trees' added:
Twenty black and white images of Twenty Trees, the local landmark in Hayfield, overlaid and resized and changed the transparencies to create a new image which looks landscape like, not surprisingly. It wasn't really what I expected when I started but interesting none the less. Over-familiarity with Twenty Trees images necessitated subversion to refresh the original.
Photographs of the May Queen Crowning Ceremony added.
Photographs of the May Queen decorations and parade added.
Photographs of Park Hall Pool.
April 2010
Raison's To Be Cheerful, our homage to the Ian Dury song, now uploaded:
