pixelchristi

Christi MacPherson's photography tumblr. See more work at www.pixelchristi.co.uk

[pixelchristi]

Still life. It's a weird name. Almost, but not quite, an oxymoron. It certainly doesn't describe the act of creating one, which can be one of the most animated of all the disciplines. In terms of the photographer, if not the subject. Nor does it have to be of something alive, or even having been alive. In this case though, it's just been a very long time since it's been alive.

[pixelchristi]

Visit Original Link

(via Wonky Horizons Podcast : Christi MacPherson : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive)

A test episode for my podcast, Wonky Horizons, where I try to chart my progress through the digital landscape as one of the last children of analogue photography.

Excuse the clumsy delivery at times. I’ll improve… :) This first episode is about the importance of building time into the process, and my experience of the The Bridges show I had nearly two years ago now. Based on this article http://pixelchristi.tumblr.com/post/88958002748/time-to-slow-down

[pixelchristi]

I know, I know. Another eclipse shot. Just bear with me. I kind of wanted to focus on the wider effect of the eclipse, rather than a shot of the sun hiding behind the moon. As it happened,I would have to do that anyway.

I found myself at my old favourite spot in Dalgety Bay. One of the few places in the town where you can confirm that you are, in fact, by the sea. It's a WW2 sighting post out on a point that juts out into the Forth. It's peaceful, relatively difficult to get up to, so I have it to myself most of the time, and you see quite a bit of wildlife. Ideal.

Just as I got there, the clouds rolled in, so I looked wistfully at my camera bag, shook my head and decided I'd stay anyway, and soak up the rest of what a solar eclipse has to offer. It was worth it.

To be honest, the cloud cover allowed me to see the eclipse just fine at times without protection, at other times I used the back of the camera. I found I was far more interested in what the light was doing around the eclipse rather than looking at the sun anyway. It really does take on a unique character as everything gets lit by light that's bouncing of other things rather than by the sun itself. A lesson in lighting, direct from the observable universe. Nice. If a little eerie.

Not to mention the birds going to sleep. Although I can kind of understand that, as I did find the whole experience very relaxing myself. As I got up to move on, the eclipse still just barely active, I noticed a duck in the water, head under wing, asleep. Also lost count of the amount of birds who I scared out of the grass, from their slumber, as I walked back to the path. Ha! Stupid birds.

Also I got no spam on my phone for the entire time. What's up with that?! Ha! Stupid spammers.

[pixelchristi]

So. I've come to the conclusion that I need to push my portraiture somehow. I've been mulling over the idea that a good way to do that might be to aim to do one /good/ crafted portrait a week. I don't want to churn them out. I want to plan them, and execute each one as well as I possibly can in the time I have. Week 1 is obviously a selfie, and is a statement, I guess, of where I am now*. Maybe one idea might be to finish on Week 52, with another selfie which demonstrates how far I've gone in the intervening year. The other part of the idea, is that I at least /try/ to make each portrait of someone different. I start with me and move out through family, friends, eventually (hopefully) to interesting people I happen to meet. So, we'll see. It might last one week. It might just last the year. I've learnt over the years that if I tell folk that I'm doing it, that I'm far less likely to give up. * and possibly how grumpy, for no reason, I am today. I always look grumpy in my selfies. Another thing I need to change.

[pixelchristi]

I keep on coming back to these bloody bridges. The light was amazing today, so I grabbed my gear without thinking, and somehow ended up in Port Edgar. Photographing the Forth Bridges. Again. I thought I might get closer to the new one, under construction, but the light bouncing around on the old one held my attention instead. I was right. I am obsessed. I'm not finished with them, even though photographing them is driving me bats. There's something else to it though. There's a misconception that it's harder to see things differently, when you see them everyday. I would argue, that while going somewhere new makes every thing seem fresh, to get a fresh angle on something, you have to return to it again, and again, and again. And possibly again. I had a friend, who set himself the task of making an interesting and fresh photograph of a mundane object. He chose a tap. A faucet. He allowed himself 3 rolls of film, and set 1 rule. Each image must be different from the last. The first roll of film was full of the usual kind of shots, getting the obvious out of his system. The 2nd roll was getting there. And the third roll was by far the best. He had no choice but to move away from the obvious, he'd ticked off the list of shots and views that existed in his head and he had to find something new. I'm not saying that they were beautiful or the best images I'd ever seen. But they were by far the most interesting images of a tap I'd ever seen. I guess I'm trying to tell myself that returning to the bridges is no bad thing. At least for a while. If the mood takes me. The point is not to see or show something new, but to show others a new way of seeing something old, or perhaps too familiar.

[pixelchristi]

[pixelchristi]

I know it’s a day late but here’s my final Mo’Po. The end of movember ‘tache pic. I’ve not been able to be quite as active with it as I wanted to be, but I’ve raised a little bit of money for a very good cause. If you want to donate, you still can at: http://Mobro.co/pixelchristi Thanks to all who donated to someone involved with #Movember Onwards to Beardcember!

[pixelchristi]

Not if you’re a contemporary fine art photographer!

I’ve just come back from a trip to the Edinburgh Art Fair. I’m looking for somewhere new to exhibit my Bridges work after a successful 6 week run at Abbot House in Dunfermline.

I wish I hadn’t. It was a wall of snobbery. I should have expected it, but I didn’t. I figured it was 2014. We might have moved on. You know?

Nobody saw my work. As soon as I mentioned photography that was it. The end. Time to move on. One conversation went thusly.

Me: Do you deal with contemporary photographers at all?

Gallery owner: No we only deal in art.

I nearly imploded.

So while the whole gamut of art encompasses everything from - perfectly rightly - traditional pictorial representation in oil paint, to sculpture, to some bloke actually /looking for a needle in a haystack/. Photography cannot be uttered in the same sentence, cannot be countenanced in the same thought as “art”.

I, among many lucky photographic artists, was taught by John Blakemore, a man who had a BBC Arena programme devoted entirely to him, a man who could work on one project for years and draw sizeable crowds to his opening nights. I also was taught by Karen Knorr, whose credentials as a fine art photographer are not arguable.

These people don’t fall under that same category? They are merely what? Accomplished technicians? I don’t think so. Their thinking process, craft and flair is easily the equal of many of the wonderful works present at the art fair. And there were some incredible paintings and sculpture at the fair, many with amazing depth and an evident thought process. There was also some very shallow and highly repetitive work there too.

It’s not that I'm /that/ bothered if my work isn’t good enough. I can go away and make it better. It’s that my chosen /medium/ isn’t good enough. That is just snobbery. And it's deeply disappointing.

[pixelchristi]

The alternate shot from today's blipfoto entry. Bucket of coffee. http://www.blipfoto.com/entry/4956389

[pixelchristi]

Seriously. I have to put up with this face for at least another month, probably more before my beard can sufficiently cover it's vastness. Ease my pain by donating at: mobro.co/pixelchristi

[pixelchristi]

Movember has begun!

I shaved at the weekend.

Here’s the before and after. I can’t stand my face, it’s cold, I look like a potato, and I can’t think of anything else to moan about right now.

But I will.

mobro.co/pixelchristi

[pixelchristi]

Words Of Thanks

The thing about photographers is that they can be an insular, selfish bunch. It is a solitary job for the most part, interspersed infrequently with intense collaborations with other people.The old darkrooms that I cut my teeth in were not invented by the most sociable of people I suspect.

And while books frequently have acknowledgements, photographic exhibtions rarely do. So it occurs to me,that I should buck the trend. I didn’t make this little exhibition on my own. Many people nudged me back on track over the years.

So.

Thank you Doogz, for persuading me to get the work seen.

Thank you Kallum at the Acorn Enterprise Initiative for making the connections I needed.

Thank you Louise for taking me seriously.

Thank you Susan for your advice, knowledge and belief.  FCAC is one of Fife’s major plus points.

Thank you Ian T, for taking an interest.

Thank you Ian P for your patience and mentoring skills.

Thank you Gayle for your patience and mentoring skill also.

Thank you Devon, for being savvy, able and willing to get it done.

Thank you Derek, Cat, Sandie and Debbie for being my co-conspirators.

Thank you Heather for your enthusiasm.

Thank you Andi and Gus for being awesomesauce.

Thank you Andy, for having less hair than me, but sporting just as handsome a beard.

Thank you Duncan, for making me realise it’s okay to be old and broken.

Thank you Rachel and Lily for being my girls and keeping me sane.

You are all… well… awesome.

And thank-you everyone else who has cajoled and encouraged along the way. Seeing those amazing ( and I rarely like my own work for long, so this is quite something ) aluminium prints on the walls, and getting a positive response from everyone has given me a boost, and it’s down to you.

Thank you …

From

Christi

[pixelchristi]

Time to slow down.

Over the next couple of months, I’ll be blogging regularly about the Bridges Project, what it means to me, and even just the simple practicalities of getting it on the walls of a gallery. It’s not been simple, but it /has/ been fun. :)

This is the first of these posts.

Time.

  If all my photography is about one subject, then that subject is time*. All photography requires varying chunks of time to become meaningful. From the expanse of thinking time that leads up the small chunk of time when the shutter is open; the actual time in history that you record, or the sequence of moments that are recorded in order to create a narrative.

But there’s another facet of time that all truly interesting art works generally embody. The span of time it takes to create the work. For me, this is important. It’s space to think and slow down. Space to create meaning and narrative. And if I’m honest, space to become confident that the work is good enough to allow out into the wider world.

My bridges work has ostensibly taken 2 and half years so far ( I can’t say when precisely the first image went from “interesting image”, to “basis for a long term project”, but it definitely followed a deliberate move back to putting some thought behind my images. and that happened nearly 3 years ago. I’d estimate that when it gets exhibited at Abbott House,Dunfermline in September, It’ll be near as dammit 3 years on the button.

John Blakemore taught me the value of time as an ally in making a coherent body of work. The value of slowing down. I was lucky enough to to be his student in Derby back in the 90s, where he taught me, among other things, the joy of a glass of red wine, while you hand retouch your prints; the explosion of taste when you put a little bit of dark chocolate in your mouth and then follow it with a mouthful of black coffee, and let it melt; and the importance of sitting still in a landscape and letting it speak to you before you even get the camera out. Things that depend on slowing down and stretching out the moment.

Most of all though, I drew a great deal of inspiration from his ability to work on a subject over vast time periods. His tulip work, notable in that he worked on it for over a decade, is an amazing piece of work, and knowing the herculean effort it took to make, informs my process as an artist.

“Put the images up on the kitchen cabinets, the fridge, somewhere you’ll see them everyday.”, he said to us once. That way, you “live with them”, slowly developing an insight into how they should look, slowly realising their potential as the beginnings of a new body of work.

And right now, With digital photography everywhere, and the world moving at breakneck pace, his advice is more important to me than ever. The ‘net is jammed with amazing photography, but so much of it is single image, vaccuous, shallow. No narrative, like music’s contextless single, finding favour at the expense of the deep and meaningful album.

I originally moved to digital photography over a decade ago. It was too soon. The quality wasn’t there and I couldn’t get the images out if it that I was accustomed to with film. It set me back several years, but I’ve only recently come to realise that it wasn’t just image quality that was affecting me. It was the speed of the process that I wasn't equipped for.

Back in the film days, there was an enforced slowness to the process. You took time to develop the film, dry it, print on photographic paper, dry that. At best, from the point of exposure in camera, to a /draft/ print might be a day’s work. That’s a nice slow feedback loop, with thinking time built in. It enables you to consider your work for longer and perhaps talk about it with colleagues.

Now though, the feedback loop is insanely fast. Many times an image is /never/ printed on paper and you can go from clicking the shutter to it being at least a draft image on a computer screen in a matter of minutes. This is amazing, it cuts down on costs, allows for rapid development of ideas,and is vital for commercial work. But if you’re not careful, your ideas will not mature. In my opinion, you have to enforce a period of slowness in order to build a coherent sequence of images. That delayed feedback loop is essential if you are to go beyond the shallow “nice image”* stage.

So if I ever had any advice on photography worth giving, it's this. Photography has incredible narrative potential. Narrative requires time - on many levels - to build. Don’t rush to the finish just because the world is rushing around you.

For me, one of the most important things that the Bridges Project has been about, is relearning that fundamental principle. Good things take time to make. From now on, in my personal work, I'll be putting time in the way of everything I do. Time to stop, time to think.

  *it is arguable that ALL photography is about time at it’s root, but that’s an argument for another… time.

[pixelchristi]

"I don't want anything special".

That's generally what I hear from clients looking for some photography work done. I'll be honest, sometimes it's depressing. Why wouldn't you want something special? EVERYONE likes something special. I'm not sure if it's a misconception about how much something special costs, or if it's a feeling that somehow they don't deserve something special, not yet at least.

Or worse, that they don't need something special, and I'm sorry, but in this day and age, if you want to stand out, you do need that. You need to stand out from everyone else in the market and great photography can do that for you.

Anyway. I digress. Apologies.

"I don't want anything special... that's what I hear most of the time.", was what I said to the wonderful group of creative folk who attended the Arts and Business Scotland workshop in Glenrothes, Fife, a few weeks ago. It got a knowing laugh from most folk there, which surprised me. I thought I was the only one. It turns out I wasn't.

And that was the amazing thing about that workshop. I came away, feeling part of a creative community that I had no idea really existed beforehand. We're insular folk, us creatives ( particularly photographers - I find ), mostly because we don't like to tell anyone that we're actually here. It takes talent to get people like us to drop our guard, especially so quickly. We can be a spiky bunch. Fragile egos make for defensive attitudes.

Arts and Business Scotland, in the interests of impartiality, had asked Kirsty of The Firefly Group to run this workshop - the purpose of which was to sound out the creative industries across Scotland, which in turn will be the basis for a new strategy for the future, promoting collaboration between the arts and business. It was part sounding board, part catharsis and quite unlike any workshop I'd ever been to before.

Kirsty's style is very disarming, and it leads to frank discussion, somehow without confrontation. I personally think the UN should snap her up. The Ukraine crisis would have been sorted by now if they had. They'd have likely had a laugh doing it too. It's a style that works everywhere, it seems. The Firefly Group's client list is very impressive indeed.

At the start, we were asked how we'd like the workshop to go, what we'd hope to see happen and get out of it. I jokingly piped up "no beanbags", She kept her word. And it's been a running joke ever since. It was hugely interactive, but laser focussed on getting what was in our heads and hearts into the heads and hearts of the Arts and Business Scotland crew. Somehow it got a lot out of us, most of which I had no idea was there.

So after a long, intriguing and enlightening afternoon of soul searching and - okay - a bit of whining, we all said our goodbyes. I left enthused, invigorated and a little exhausted.

A few days later, to my delight, Kirsty emailed me with these wonderful words. "I do want something special". And I embarked upon a new project focussed on showing the world how different and dynamic Firefly is as a company. It involved documenting a live workshop ( it turned out to be for the Edinburgh region Arts and Business Workshop ), for the launch of the new Firefly website.

It also involved having as light a presence as possible. These workshops are not a place to play the loud photographer, getting people to stand there again while you re-shoot. It's important - if you're going to tell a story for someone else - that you do your damnedest to not be a part of the story yourself. This meant no flash, only available light, no matter what. 4 hours of a flash firing off every ten seconds would have given everyone in the room a headache anyway, I'm pretty sure.

It was to be art directed by the company responsible for the new Firefly web site (now live, by the way), Eighth Day Design, based in Leith. I'm not ashamed to say that this initially filled me with dread. I hadn't been involved with art direction since I had assisted on advertising shoots nearly 15 years ago, and while those shoots were fun, the idea of someone looking over my shoulder and seeing my missteps, the images I would usually throw away... well... a couple of sleepless nights were had. Not least because of the technical challenge of doing that on what was effectively a documentary shoot.

It turns out that my worries were utterly unfounded. Sarah of Eighth Day is fantastic. She has a great understanding of photography and we built up a level of trust and rapport that surprised me in it's rapidity. What I initially dreaded, became something that I always thrive on.

Collaboration.

On the day, having invested in some technology that meant Sarah could see what I was shooting, wirelessly on her iPad, I tiptoed around, trying to be ninja-like, but more likely coming across like a lumbering bear. It worked well, I think. We both came away impressed by the application of modern tech in a documentary space. It enabled us to make sure that we had the right kind of shots, and move on to the next subject once it was covered in enough detail.

It also helped me immensely because Sarah was able to reassure my delicate creative soul that she did indeed have something to work with. I learned that it was fine to be not quite so precious about my work in the process, which was actually liberating.

This was a massive worry initially, as the light levels on the day were terrible. The weather was horrendous, and even the large window in the room we were using in the Tower at the National Museum of Scotland couldn't give us the light we really needed. As I've said before, flash was a no-no for several reasons. Any photo buffs out there will do a sharp intake of breath when I say that I had to drop down to ISO6400 to get some images. This meant a choice between noisy images, or risking images blurred due to difficulty focussing or low shutter speed. It was, technically, a very challenging shoot.

In the end, though, it was FUN. I got some good images out of it, that I'm happy to put up on my site. But the best thing of all was another email from Kirsty, the day that I delivered them by hand to Eighth Day. It simply said "I LOVE THE PICTURES!".

Something special. Everybody needs it.

You can see more of the photostory on my main website: here. 

[pixelchristi]

Kallum’s an interesting guy. Far younger than his relaxed and confident manner would have you believe. Already a serial entrepreneur at the age of 24, his real skill is as a connector; he possesses a natural ability to get people together and working well, which will see him go far, of that I’m absolutely certain. This skill is at the fore in his key role at the Acorn Enterprise Initiative, aimed at getting fledgling businesses through the “danger zone” ( most businesses fail at the 3 year stage ). He’s well known locally for the popular Dunfermline Talks Business networking events too, another example of his consummate skill in getting people talking, and working together. On top of that, he runs Audacious Marketing, where ( yet again ) he helps people improve their business. Kallum’s a busy man, it seems.

So with all this confidence, obviously bearing fruit, you’d think Kallum wouldn’t be bothered about a photo shoot. After all, first impressions really count, and online doubly so.

Well, no.

Barring a couple of sitters, almost every client I’ve had has viewed a portrait shoot like a trip to the dentist. Kallum was no different, the scrutiny of a professional eye proving an initially unnerving experience.

He’s in good company though, there are tales on the web of some pretty prominent people, crumbling in front of that unblinking lens. The photographer’s main skill during a shoot, if it is to be a successful one, is to allay those fears quickly, relax the sitter and bring that personality out for all to see. This is not a “one size fits all” skill either. We’re all different, and we all need different approaches.

This takes time, and sometimes, I’m afraid, that can mean the photographer has to be surprisingly blunt. Like telling you to stop smiling. Because it’s making you look daft. Nothing shows nerves like a forced smile. So please for the love of Mike, people… don’t do it.

Kallum had initially said, in our pre-shoot planning meeting that he wanted his cheeky nature to come through in the shots, and in some of the shots I think that comes through very obviously. But there are other, less obvious sides to him too, and I felt it was important to show those too. Once I got him to stop smiling nervously, and relax a little, that started to come through, and I believe that you can see, even in the more serious shots, that there’s a twinkle there. What it took though, was a blunt photographer, to tell him to stop feeling the need to smile. By the end, we were getting natural smiles, and having a lot of fun. I know of few people who could get there in the first few minutes. As I’ve said already, it takes time.

All in all, we had an hour to get the shots we needed. We also had minimal space to shoot in ( a small two desk office, which still had the desks in ). This is fast becoming a major skill of mine. I believe I got studio quality images out of a difficult space, in a tight time frame. I’m really happy with the results.

The biggest thrill though, was watching Kallum’s face as he looked though the images for the first time. A huge smile appeared, unbidden on his face. I should have had my camera ready…

You can view some of the final results here: http://pixelchristi.co.uk/134465/2076389/gallery/my-latest-portrait-shoot-kallum-russell-entrepreneur

[pixelchristi]

Well this is exciting. I've started up a tumblr blog to post up my Phonar13 work over the next 10 weeks. 

First up: Pretask - Journey to work.

For me this consists of: Kid to school; Drive past the new Forth Road Bridge being constructed on my way to work on my ongoing and ever expanding Forth Bridges Project; then on to my new co-working space in Rosyth; before, finally, sitting down to some desk stuff, and a cheeky wee coffee ( mandatory ).

(fwiw - 3 is me taking shot 4 )