Studio Session

I spent some time at my partners’ studio last week. Kate Boyce, is a painter based in Hebden Bridge who works in mixed media. It is a very particular style of work and she is a well known, long established artist. She and I wanted to do some studio work that not only showed in her studio but also some close ups of her handling the materials she uses to create her paintings.

It was the first outing of my Canon RF 35mm f1.8 is sim macro lens (they do make long names for lenses!). First impressions are that it is a fabulous lens. I need to learn how to get the best out of it as do all photographers with new bits of kit. I wanted to focus on her hands manipulating the laser transfers she uses to add detail to her paintings. It’s an unusual process whereby she paints the background and some detail in acrylic before adding the transfer photos over the paint layer. it allows her to not only add detail but also a sort of texture by using small sections of foliage, trees and stone. I have a potential commission from another artist who has seen my work on social media. It will be my first of this type and hopefully not the last!

‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’ is the ancient Chinese proverb and it appears to be so in my case. It has taken me 40 years to arrive at that first step but it’s exciting too. I do plan to do some more studio work with local artists once I know I can replicate the results from the other day. I gave a talk a few weeks ago to photography group. Little by little, I am gradually picking up tiny bits of work. Hopefully, these will create momentum and increase sales of prints. It is incredibly tough to sell prints at the moment unless you’re a well established and highly visible photographer. It is tough for all creatives at the moment what with the fallout from Covid, the cost of living crisis in the UK and general financial insecurity. Art is seen as a luxury, an indulgence. I believe art is essential to help those who don’t create, have a little bit of joy in their lives. We work to not only pay bills but to obtain things that make our lives a little more bearable.

Wish me luck on my first assignment and I hope it is the first of many more!

Kates website is kateboyce.co.uk

Out of Hibernation

Winter tends to feel like a long season. Longer than others given the temperatures, the absence of daylight hours and the incessant rain. In winter, most plants go into a period of hibernation. We need these cold months to enable germination of seeds dropped from the previous year. They allow new growth to appear and carry on the cycle of life. Trees shed their leaves in autumn in order to prepare for the long cold winter months. They preserve their energy in order to resume when the temperatures increase and available light is more plentiful. Now I guess you probably all know these facts about the life cycle of plants.

People adjust to winter as well. We behave differently because of the weather and light conditions. Many photographers relish the low sun and the bare trees. I love taking photos in winter and not just of snow or frost. Spring is and always has been a welcome relief for me but a tricky season to take photos in. I love blossom. new growth, longer daylight hours but it is an unpredictable season. I feel as if I should be doing more, of feeling renewed but this doesn’t always follow. I’m a complex kind of guy, you could say contrary. I love photography and everything surrounding it. I have learned and hopefully improved over recent years but am left with the nagging feeling of having left it all a little late in life. This feeling won’t stop me pursuing my passion and career but it is as if I am playing catch up and to much younger photographers.

All the photos featured in this post are shot in or around Hebden Bridge. It has been my permanent home for a couple of years and it is a good place to live. The artistic community is vibrant and allows me the opportunity to join in with my work. Times are tough for freelance artists, makers, creatives at present. Finances are stretched and people are prioritising basic needs above art. I have an exhibition on at Old Town Post Office currently and I love showing my work to the general public. I could have sold more, have had more at my private viewing but I am grateful to Sarah for giving me the opportunity to show my work. I am participating in the town’s Open Studios this year and have another exhibition with my photographer friend Will booked for early September.

I see my current exhibition as part of my emergence from a creative hibernation. I should be out more often, taking photographs. I should be pushing my work and offering my professional services to small businesses. I should be doing all these things but I am not. That’s not to say I don’t intend to. I am in that place that most burgeoning professional artists find themselves of not quite believing it’s all worth it. The photography I love, the resultant prints look beautiful even if the images aren’t Magnum Photos calibre. I find it hard to say what type of photographer I actually am which is difficult in this age. We like pigeon holes, categories, niches to place people in. Customers, other creatives want to know what you are in one sentence. Long explanations can be pretentious or misleading. They give the listener/reader a sense of uncertainty in the artist or worse, a feeling that to be pigeon holed is to stifle their creativity.

When people ask what sort of photographer I am, I know what sort I am not more than what I am. There you see, he is being vague so he’s either pretentious or amateur. The best description I can come up with is an ‘outdoor and documentary photographer’. I remember trying to write mission statements in my previous career and struggling with it. I know I am not currently a studio portrait, full time landscape, sports, photojournalist photographer. I do all the bits left after those are taken up. Going back to hibernation and emerging from it; I guess I need to be more business like, more goal oriented. I need to set up future work, plan future projects. I just have to believe that striving will produce results. I am not alone in that I’m fully aware. I have no intention giving up and saving myself the effort. I have spent 40 years trying to find a job I love and I am not about to give up!