b-uncut

Hugh Byrne – Clouding the division between dream and reality

// September 23rd, 2011 // View Comments // b-scene, featured

Hugh Byrne is a UK-based artist, known for creating unique and distinctive pieces using photomontage techniques.  Employing Photoshop as a tool to manipulate his images, Hugh successfully blurs the distinction between the real and the imaginary – his inspiration deriving from his own dreams and an interest in science.  Currently Hugh works as an artist for SNAP, a project which seeks to engage disadvantaged young people with creative art.  Hugh is a new member of b-uncut and this week’s featured artist in the b-uncut “Special Exhibition” gallery.

 What was your very first artwork?

I created my first piece of artwork when I was in the Infants’ school, around the age of 7 – well, it’s the first one I can remember. I drew a dinosaur-lizard type creature.

Which is your favourite piece?

My favourite often changes and is usually the most recent one I’ve completed.

What inspires you?

The life around me is a strong source of inspiration for my art. A third of our lives we spend sleeping and I like to tap in to that world to see other states of mind, other ways of being and capture in my work different conceptions of time.

Tell us about your methods? When did you first start using Photoshop?

I started using Photoshop in 1998. Previously I spent ten years working primarily in photo-montage, with equipment as basic as scissors and glue that went alongside my duties as the darkroom supervisor in 33 Arts Centre, the first place of its kind in Luton. Comparing the work I did with montage techniques of the past to what I am able to achieve in Photoshop today, the quality looks remarkably similar; the developments in digital media have not in any way lessened the impact of my pre-digital artwork of yesteryear.

What memorable responses have you had to your work?

Some time ago I did a photo shoot for a local man who was ready to journey to the US to become a Bounty Hunter. The photographs I took have since been around the world, all the way to The New York Times. Now thirteen years later, the Bounty Hunter is back and we are working together once more: I have recently directed him in a photo shoot to produce stills and artwork for the release of his new book. Alongside this, I have arranged for him to meet a film crew to shoot footage of an episode from his life, for which we have the use of three helicopters in the itinerary.

What do you think is the artist’s role in society?

I believe an artist is very important to the functioning of any society. From my own personal experience as a community artist, I helped start a project over thirteen years ago that incorporated arts, painting, filmmaking, photography and set design; the project is still going strong to this day as a branch of Luton Community Arts Trust under the name of SNAP. With the help of other artists I am able to work with young, disadvantaged individuals by providing them with a safe and creative place to be in and a friendly and welcoming environment. From my time with this innovative community project, it is clear that being creative – and being encouraged to express one’s creativity – is incredibly therapeutic and benefits mental well-being. I find it helps people think and allows them to be in a position to make more positive decisions in life.

And finally…most embarrassing moment?

I was travelling from Luton in to London to take photographs in the Natural History Museum. On leaving it was quite chilly, so I made the journey in a large coat. Then came the time to travel on the underground, which was very warm in the first place but with my big coat it wasn’t long before the sweat began to pour. I had a magazine in my hands to read away the time – what I didn’t realise was that every time I wiped my brow with my hand, I was wiping the ink from the magazine over my face. People’s reactions to me were very strange to the point of madness, until I got home and looked in the mirror: I laughed my head off…. I looked like Rambo’s camouflage!

To find out more about Hugh’s work with SNAP, visit the website www.snap33.co.uk.

Wet Plate Photography – still popular

// July 25th, 2011 // View Comments // b-inspired, featured

Despite the many advancements in photography there are photographers who are using techniques over a century old in their photography today. I’m referring to wet plate photography here, where the a glass plate is covered with thin film of collodion and then treated with silver nitrate. The process is incredibly complicated and difficult, especially when compared to modern day DSLRs. But it is popular among some photographers, including Dan Carillo, a Seattle based artist and photographer. But why?

Well it gives you absolutely huge negatives meaning that you can produce large prints of enormous quality. The flip side is that the exposure times for the each photograph are often quite long, up to a minute often, as the plates have a very low ISO (this is the speed at which the film or plate reacts to light). Standard film has an ISO of 400, with 100 considered quite slow; Carillo’s plates have an ISO of 1. The benefits of this is that it gives you such fine grain prints that they’re hardly noticeable. There’s an excellent video showing Carillo in his studio and his working methods here.

However, the main benefit of Wet Plate Photography is that it gives you results like no other area of photography. Carillo is able to focus you’re attention exactly where he wants it and his Wet Plate Collodion Seattle Artist Portrait Project is well worth looking at. Portraits are have a dream like quality whilst landscapes contain a stunning amount of detail. Though the process is time consuming and easy to get wrong the effort is clearly worth it, as Carillo says ‘there’s always something unique about them’.

It’s a woman’s world – our favourite five female photographers

// March 17th, 2011 // View Comments // Uncategorized, b-inspired, featured

Earlier this week it was announced that an exhibition of photographs by Homai Vyarawalla’s, India’s first female photographer, was going to take place. When Ms. Vyarawalla first started out she had to submit her photos under her husbands name because of the prejudices against her gender, prejudices which are still very present today against female photographers in India. It is an obvious shame and one that India will hopefully come to regret; the photos by Ms. Vyarawalla are excellent. The news got me thinking, as I had not heard of Ms. Vyarawalla until this, that now would be an excellent time to share my favourite female photographers:

Anna Atkins 1799 – 1871
Atkins was primarily a botanist but due to her correspondence with Fox Talbot, the inventor of photography, she learnt of photograms, where objects are placed on light sensitive paper and exposed to the sun in order to record their imprint. In 1843 Atkins published Part I of British Algae, pre-dating Talbot’s own book Pencil of Nature by almost a year, and established photography as a medium for scientific illustration. Sadly she received little recognition until recently.

Gertrude Käsebier 1852–1934
In the late 1890′s Käsebier visited Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, whilst at the show she took several pictures of the Native Americans within the show, she would soon become sympathetic of their plight. The substantial body of photographs she would of those Native Americans from the show would be perhaps her most famous images. She was one of the first women to be elected to the famous Linked Ring and the Newark (Ohio) Photographic Journal declared her to be “the foremost professional photographer in the United States”.

Frances Benjamin Johnston

Johnston is perhaps most famous for her portraits of celebrities of the time, she was the last person to take a portrait of US President William McKinley before his assassination. The breadth of her work is astonishing though, she travelled widely taking pictures of all aspects of society and her photographs of buildings falling into disrepair and decay are an invaluable resource to architects. She was pioneer of the so called ‘New Woman’ and was a constant advocate for the female in photography.

Dorothea Lange 1895 – 1965
Lange is the photographer behind one of the most famous photographs of the twentieth century. This is Migrant Mother, one of a series of photographs she took of depression era America, where a mother gazes out into the middle distance whilst her children hide their faces behind her. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for excellence in photography. After the bombing of Pearl Harbour she gave this up to document the internment of Japanese Americans. Her images, including those of Japanese American children being forced to swear allegiance to America before being interned, were so critical of America that the army impounded them.

Margaret Bourke-White 1904 – 1971
Bourke-White has an impressive list of firsts to her name; she was the first female photojournalist for Life, she was the first foreign photographer permitted to take pictures of the Soviet Union and the first female war-correspondent. This last one also made her the first female permitted to work in a war zone. She was an astonishing woman and my favourite photographer. Whether she was photographing a steel mill or the front line of a war she managed to take pictures that captured the essence of her subject. Her list of accomplishments is too long to describe here unfortunately.

These are only brief biographies and I haven’t been able to go into the depth that I would like, but I hope they give a glimpse into the rich contribution that they gave us. I have obviously only been able to include five, there is a huge list on Wikipedia I recommend you  check out.

The title photograph is of Frances Benjamin Johnston in a self portrait occasionally titled ‘New Woman’.  Homai Vyarawalla’s exhibition opens at the Sir Cowasji Jehangir Public Hall in April.

How much is a Photo Worth?

// March 3rd, 2011 // View Comments // b-street

Supposedly a picture’s worth a thousand words, but how many cups of tea can you buy with that? If you’ve managed to papp an elusive celebrity it might be worth a small fortune and these days it’s easy to sell your paparazzi pics. There’s even an iPhone app where you can load your pictures straight onto the market and sell them to highest bidder within minutes. The inexorable march of technology has spread all over photographic world. From your phone to the latest high tech professional kit; cameras are coming with features and settings making it simpler for people to take high quality photographs. You can now pick up an SD card which will hold thousands of photos for less than a tenner. The resources for sharing photos are becoming more prolific as well, Flickr reached the 5 billionth picture mark in September 2010 on it and it’s users alone upload around 3,000 images per minute.

With so many photos around how do you possibly keep track of everything? Well you can’t obviously. I barely even keep up with my friends’ photos. It’s quite common for them to go off for the weekend and come back with 500 pictures, most of which will be rubbish.

But does this proliferation of photos raise the bar? Do you have to take truly exceptional photos to stand out from the crowd? Is there any room for mediocre any more? Well this is definitely something that is true in the professional world. There are hundreds of photography courses churning out thousands of photographers each year and the industry is steadily becoming more competitive. Today’s professional photographer has to be multi-skilled number crunching marketer as well capable of taking fantastic photos to stand a chance of surviving.

But can you say the same of the amateur? It would be nice to say that the bar has been raised across the board but the truly great photos do tend to get lost in the sheer quantity that get uploaded every day. Things such as Flickr’s Last Seven Days and Tumblr’s Explore features do make it easier to see people’s favourite photos. But these are far from perfect due to the quantity of photos and the variety of people’s tastes, although Tumblr’s Explore feature is a personal favourite.

There are so many photos in all aspects of our life, when was the last time that you actually appreciated one? Next time you see a photo that catches your eye, don’t just think oh how nice and move on, stop and stare. Look and see what the photographer is trying to say, even if it’s just for a moment.

'EYES ON THE CROWD' @b-uncut: ISSUE 1: Figurative February

// February 26th, 2010 // View Comments // Eyes on the Crowd

At the end of each month we will select a small number of artists to feature in our new publication, Eyes on the Crowd. These artists will also receive an invitation to sell their work in our curated gallery. This months theme is the figure and after much deliberation and debate here is the selection…

Click on the artists below to see more of their work:

Yael Zaken
Dmitriy Kedrin
Stephen Sheffield
John Sauve
Kurt La Quaglia

Make your own Kingdom with Antti Laitinen

// February 25th, 2010 // View Comments // b-inspired

The work of Finnish artist Antti Laitinen kindles some humour. In 2008 under the title ‘Voyage’ he rowed his own desert island down the Thames (watch the video).

Building a paradise somewhere it does not belong is a repeating theme in Laitinen’s works. “The will to build oneself an own independent micro-nation inhabited by a single citizen – I would consider themes such as these to be the starting point for my works, not climate change”, he says.

“Not that it’s wrong to interpret my works from that point of view. There is no one right way to read an artwork.”

His work ‘It’s my Island’ was featured at the Earth: Art for a changing world at the RAA. There I watched his 3 month struggle to construct his own island in the cold Baltic Sea. Complementing these partly slapstick films were idealised photographs of his new territory. Utopian visions poking at our natural urge for our own palm paradise.

b-shots: Old Hollywood Meets New Hollywood

// January 21st, 2010 // View Comments // b-street

“Woman-Movie” by Jason Ellis

5 kick-arse tips to promote yourself on Flickr

// November 11th, 2009 // View Comments // b-wired

Social media is no longer a platform for just big brands and corporations. It has become the soapbox of the online world, to help spread the word where artists can use social media to send messages and forge intimate connections with their fans. The good news is that there are plenty of free tools out there that can help you turn your artistic passion into a full-fledged career if you learn how to use these tools to your advantage. Regardless of your talent and experience, you will have to market yourself in order to sell your art.

Enters Flickr, the best photo-sharing tool on the net, with millions of people from all over the world visit the site everyday for inspiration!

Here are our top 5 tips for a killer Flickr stream:

1) Tell a story with your photo-stream
Flickr isn’t just for photographers and it’s absolutely fine to take pictures of your artwork or upload them onto the site. Go crazy with behind the scenes shots of yourself painting, sketching, thinking, but most importantly always tell a story! Update your photostream often and make sure that your photos are set to the “public viewing settings” for maximum exposure opportunities.

2) Tag, tag, tag!
Dedicate some time towards optimising your images by uniquely naming your photos, adding tags and descriptions this can go a long way towards increasing the traffic driven to your images. The finer your images, the better!

3) Challenge yourself to your limits
If you’re a photographer, you might want to join Flickr’s photographic challenges; there are plenty of groups you can join depending on your interests, such as Happy Blue Monday, Powerful Pink Tuesday or It’s kind of Magic. Start joining and uploading your best images to these groups which will help you generate traffic from users who are likely to have an interest in your photos. Flickr’s your oyster!

4) Networking is the new black
Don’t overdo this, but by adding contacts who share a similar interest and by adding some their best images as favs you are increasing the chances that your own images will receive fave votes and comments. This will help your images to rank highly for competitive queries within Flickr as they will be viewed as being more interesting.

5) Recommend and get recommended
Do you have any idea how important testimonials are for a good “career” on Flickr? Think about it: how important are testimonials in general, in areas like marketing, advertising, and so many others? They’re the lifeblood of so many businesses! They can help you tremendously AND you get the chance to let other people do the bragging for you!

Ladies and gents, the “starving artist” cliché is no more!