
Sunday, 19 December 2010
Monday, 6 December 2010
Of light art Dark
Thursday, 4 November 2010
The Uncontrollability of Love
So November has arrived and Shout Festival has begun. Tonight in fact is the official launch at the MAC centre in Birmingham. As part of SHOUT festival I was commissioned to make a piece of photographic art that would go on display around Birmingham in the form of posters.
After some thought thinking about what I wanted to do I decided to make my own construction based on a painting by my favorite artist Sir Edward Burne Jones.
The picture I chose was 'Cupid's Hunting Field' shown below.

This painting lightly comments on the fact that love is blind, using the mythological figure of Cupid to describe this. I took this as a starting point and began to apply it to myself creating a darker more ethereal version of the image. I decided I needed a set building so got the help of two BCU theatre and performance design students Sarah Verblis and Sarah Mcintyre. These girls helped bring everything together and worked through the night to help accomplish my vision.
All the maidens in the picture were replaced with men who were modeled by Justin Focus, Mike Simon, James Shroll, Daniel Ingram, Vincent Chase, and Kyle Finn. They all took to modeling different aspects of love, such as love lost and future love except for James Shroll who took the role of Cupid.
Each make-up look was completed by Gavin Pickle who was assisted by Connie Ball. He worked closely with the brief to create these amazing looks.
The images shall be on display in various locations around Birmingham. To see the completed image visit www.flashyourjak.com

Thursday, 7 October 2010
Black lines






Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Studio experimentation





Monday, 27 September 2010
Art of Darkness
The illamasqua website has an array of amazing new pictures some featured below.



Gavin Pickle was doing a make-up demonstration at Selfridges Birmingham last week, so I went do to film his dark arts. Check it out.
Wednesday, 15 September 2010
Incoming

Thursday, 9 September 2010
If you go down to the woods...
Here's a few of the ones that Josh shot too -
Monday, 23 August 2010
Taking the bull by the HORNS

Monday, 2 August 2010
When everything happens at once, time bends to compensate
Thursday:
So one way or another I found myself volunteering for Rhubarb Rhubarb's photography festival '10 - Collision, Where image worlds meet-. I didn't know much about it, and hadn't found the time to properly research because I'd been generally busy. Anyway, Thursday I find myself at Birmingham international airport ferrying reviewers from their planes to the train station. Seb forgot to give me a sign to hold so I had to make my own. I'm at the airport, I'm holding a hand written sign, it says 'RHUBARB', I'm getting funny looks. There's about an hour and a half in between each reviewer and the last one is delayed by an hour, I'm thinking WTF! It was okay though, everyone I picked up was really nice and friendly and I managed to get back to Birmingham, only 10 minutes late for my meeting.
I was 10 minutes late for my meeting but it was okay. Recently David Viney has accepted my request to make some photographic work for the up coming SHOUT Festival in Birmingham, so we met for drinks to discuss. I'm not going to say too much on that, but let's just say it is my most exciting project to date, so watch out for it in November.
Friday:
I'm back volunteering, this time, in the AM at Aston business school. From the outside I thought it was a regular uni building but inside its a conference centre with a courtyard, fountains, a restaurant, breakfast area, bar, seating area, hotel the whole shebang! It was pretty cool and well designed. I was stationed in a room were reviewers from all round the world sat at tables whilst photographers came to have their work looked at. Every 20 minutes working under Nick's guidance I helped move people in and out of the room. It was surprisingly fun, and I was able to show my work to a lot of people, and the more I showed it, the more people wanted to see it.
DINNER WAS AMAZING!!! It was a buffet, with roast pork, beef stroganoff, mixed vegetables, a veggie table, salads and a dessert table with things like chocolate cheesecake. Believe me when I say I ate till I thought my stomach was splitting.
(Okay I'll speed it up now).
I was told about an exhibition Rhubarb was holding in the former ArtLounge in the Mailbox so I popped along. There was work by Adam Magyar, Vee Spears and Ricardo E. Zulueta and the Jackson Twins. To tell you the truth I loved it all, it's well set out and the work is of an excellent standard. Vee Spears' work is by the door and I love it, the colour, the desaturation, the props and the eerie look in some of the children's eye is captivating.




Work that really stuck out to me was the surreal images by Zhao Renhul,


Saturday:
Saturday was the same as Friday in respects that I helped in the room showing people to the correct tables and moving them on when it was time. There was a great standard of work going round but I just couldn't wait to see what was for dinner. It was this day I managed to show my work to a lot of really great people, and they all pushed it onto one another. As soon as I showed it to Carry from Nottingham Trent University she made sure everyone knew about it and was going to see it. So, I got to have my work viewed by a lot of great people.
Saturday was also host to the Promenade where all the photographers laided out their work and people came round to see it. It was at the new Mac at Canon Hill Park and was a wicked night. It was fascinating to see such a high grade of varied photographic productions.
I had my work with me in a bag, and Mark McPherson -the founder of Big City Press, and independent publisher of the photographic book Hijacked- took charge. He had it out, on the table and was calling people over from left right and centre. He's a great guy with a wickedly friendly personality and I'm glad to have met him. At one point Carry comes over and says 'have you shown your work to the Jackson Twins yet?' I was baffled but low and behold there they were in the corner of the room wearing opposite shirts. I covered them in a torrent of verbal vomit trying to extract every piece of photographic based similarity between us in a very short space of time. They're wicked guys, really friendly and have such confidence in their work (By that I mean, they speak about it effortlessly, there's no erms, argh or it's kind of like's). So it made my evening to talk to them.
Sunday:
Sunday I wasn't working at the Business School because I had things to attend to but I managed to stop by. That afternoon however Kyle took me to yet another exhibition!!! This time in the Pallasades. Surprisingly it was really good. A great body of work by high speed and strobe photographer Harold Edgerton.



What can I say, I have had an amazing weekend! The best weekend since finishing university, and the most photographically involved weekend possibly ever. I would like to take this opportunity for some thanks of my own. I would like to thank Rhonda Wilson, Lorna-Mary Webb and Sebah Chaudhry for putting on a fantastic and well structured event. They looked after everyone with the greatest care, and made sure that my stomach saw the widest range of food since leaving home!!! I would also like to thank 'Uncle Zitty' for putting me in touch to Seb and making sure that I was able to volunteer at this event.
Then there's Diana and Simone for being great volunteers, and Nick for being thoroughly organised and co-ordinated. Carry from Nottingham Trent for being so passionate about my work, as well as Mark McPherson for being so positive and helpful.
So you would think that's it. What more could I possibly have to say!? Well, I went to uni and collected my results on Monday, and guess what? I have a First Class Honors Degree, receiving 80% in my Final Major Project. Yes, at the moment, life is good.
Sunday, 25 July 2010
Trip to the Museum

The reason I actually went to the museum wasn’t to see the piece by Epstein but was in fact to do some research and to look at the Steve McCurry exhibition. Although I knew of his work I wasn’t overly familiar with it. I found it surprising though how inspiring his images really were. Some of them really got me on their content, which is unusual having seen so much documentary work. The use of vivid colour and subject matter really made his images stand out. It was a retrospective, which might be why the pictures swayed me but they seemed like an honest commentary from McCurry’s perspective. They weren’t hung up on poverty or despair, which is what I think I liked most. If you around, I definitely encourage you to see it. It’s free and definitely worth a visit.
Sunday, 4 July 2010
Alex Box
It was Gavin Pickle who asked me to come, and I'm glad I did. I met up with Roseanna Velin and we watched Alex Box put make-up on one of the models used in the Dystopia Campaign.
She worked to high levels of effortless perfection, all the while discussing how make-up is more than coverage. It can be used to transform you, to the extents of spiritual transformations. Illamasqua is like an alchemic creation used as a modern day elixor for all those who want to change themselves.







