The Gardeners Cottage

I have recently been doing loads of work in the Wye Valley. Photography isn't my day job: rope access, building conservation, stone masonry, geo technical inspections and a bit of hard to reach weeding takes me through to the weekend when usually I get my camera out. I took this photograph at lunch time a few weeks ago. It's part of a ruined stately home called Piersfield house. It's built into the walls of a huge overgrown victorian walled garden. I took the photo with a pinhole camera and thought it could go onto the blog. An indirect clue as to what a really get up to.

Memory

Some photographs from a project which I began whilst at Uni. They were taken from conversations I had with them about their lives. I am hoping to get some funding to finish the project so I thought I would post them up while I wait the funders verdict to my application.

Chris the Farmer: Art

Mr Brown: Whats that Chris?

Chris: Oh. A reprentation of a pig.

Over Looking the Wye

Yessss. Another little commission has just come up teaching pinhole photography to people living in the Wye Valley. The aim of the project is to encourage fresh perspectives of the historically rich area using the long exposure of the pinhole technique. Workshops to begin in May. I will post up some of the results then so again, stay tuned. Nice!

State of the Estate, Penpont Exhabition 2009

Early 2009 I was asked along with 18 other artists to take part in an arts show at the Penpont Estate near Brecon. As the title and theme of the show was Stad yr Ystad (State of the Estate), I decided to involve the local farming community who have traditionally been the backbone to the country estate. Over a period of a couple of months I visited each farmer to collect their stories from a life on the land. I then made these photographs to accompany them and displayed it all in the exhibition.

Hereford Photography Festival 2010

I am pleased to announce that I have recently been given a commission by the Hereford Photography Festival to carry out a community arts project involving local breeders of the Hereford cow. I seem to have become something of a farm photographer.

My hope is to reference the history of farm animal portraiture: using a traditional format to reveal something about contemporary attitudes to farming. I hope to put some control of the photographs to the farmers minds. I can't sure how the farmers will respond to my idea, especially in the wake of this hard weather. Maybe they will all just look miserable, which is fine.