Summer Project

Haven't updated in a while but this happened on Saturday:

It's been just short of 9 months since my last bad sprain but instead of getting too frustrated with it i've decided to spend my time getting started on my new project.

I took this photo of my Gran moments after she gave me the camera I took it on. Once I developed the roll of film I immediately decided that the next big project I wanted to do would be based around my family. Instead of producing polished portraits of my family members I decided that I would rather continue to work in a similar way as the photograph above. The snapshot aesthetic is something I haven't really tried before so I have been shooting a lot of photographs over the past few weeks in an attempt to try to become more comfortable with this way of working.

Audience In The Community

My group's exhibition for our Audience in the Community project has been up for a little over a week now. We've had a lot of good response for our work and Mandy the owner of Jam Records where it is being show has asked if she could have it up for another couple of weeks. So if you fancy paying it a visit, getting a coffee, that sort of thing then please do.

No Retrospective

Check it out:

HERE

Strange Fruit

Lawrence Beitler's photograph of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abraham Smith is in my opinion one of the greatest photographs ever taken. It signifies a moment of time in American history when things happend that people don't really talk about anymore. As i was doing a bit more research into this photograph, I discovered that the American writer Abel Meeropol was inspired by the image and wrote a poem called "Strange Fruit". The poem was later turned into a song and performed by Billie Holiday. I have posted both the poem and a video of Billie Holiday performing the song below the image. I really recommend taking the time to read the poem and listen to the song as both are equally as amazing as the photograph.

Strange Fruit

Southern trees bear strange fruit,

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,

Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,

For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Up There

The Beacon 2

Got some more pictures from The Beacon. There would have been more but my camera has broken so I'm afraid this is all at the moment.