Winter Photo Fest 2021
22.01.2021
After attending all the guest talks over the last few weeks, I have enjoyed each one in different ways and taken different valued points from each. Here are a few of my favourites.
Frances Scott
Frances grew up in Orkney and moved to Glasgow to study for four years at The Art School. Her work is around landscapes and journeys of personal significance. With Frances's heart and mind back home and not in the city, she moved back home and worked as cabin crew with Loganair. Whilst working in the skies Frances had a lot of time to admire the aerial views, this was one of her inspirations for her project “Tidelines” where she recorded shots on her iphone and GPS on coastlines. It was important for her to leave her hometown and then comeback and told us that knowing a place and having a clear satisfaction was important. Frances would take her Mamiya 645 (ISO125) and one roll of film IlfordFP4. She enjoyed the element of surprise on her personal work when developing the film and while out walking did not want to get too carried away with shooting but rather take a smaller number of shots and spend more time enjoying her surroundings. Recommending to us the use of sketch books and physical edits. When doing a body of work it is key to show off one or two images but keep the rest close to yourself, do not put all the work out at once.
Her influences include Bernd and Hilla Becher and Mark Ruwedel. Speaking about the publication, Stone Built by Gunnie Moberg and quotes by poet Rosemary Sullivan.
Frances has won various awards and held solo and group exhibitions since 2008. She has grown from strength to strength with books and publications he most recent called “Undertow”.
https://frances-scott.co.uk/
Lesley MacGregor
Lesley's work includes seascapes, architecture, modern art and urban textures. There are various things I took from the work including the work of editing. Using Adobe Photoshop to change images from colour to black and white and the use of creating layer masks. Shapes, angles and contrasts within her work is a strong feature. The tilt shift lens are used when it comes to architectural shots and she sketches out a photograph to create different levels of contrast. She has won the IPA Gold award in 2020 for Buildings and told us her favourite place to shoot in the world is Iceland. After travelling there on three different occasions each time is different and she got totally different approaches with her work.
Lesley gave us a few very useful hints and tips:
When it comes to working conditions, work with what you have
Process your work in different stages, its ok to walk away from editing and come back to it after a short while, this helps view perspective.
Create a network and build relations, ensure you get your work out there.
Be patient, enjoy the process of being a photographer, do not be too focused on other markers on your progress.
Stay true to who you really are
I particularly liked her quote “photos are like a pieces of fabric, you need to be gentle with them as they are fragile little things”
https://www.lesleymacgregor.com/
Elaine Livingstone
Elaine is a well established portraiture, documentary and press photographer from Glasgow. As a 3/4 year student she got herself a job with The Sunday Times and in 1999 landed a job with The Sunday Herald. She has worked in papers industry for over 10 years. In the early years as a student she was drawn to telling a stories both within portraiture and documentary style work and this has not changed. Currently, for the past 5 years has worked full time basis Monday to Friday with Glasgow Lives on a portrait series of the people of Glasgow an insight into their lives. She also spoke to us about her time in the Congo shooting documentary work of female farm workers, her work in 2016 in America where she shoot people in New Orleans and Washington around the time in the days leading up to the presidential elections where Donald Trump was campaigning and had won as well as her commissioned work with Gandolfi Fish Café in Glasgow whereby she shot members of the staff in a series of work.
Elaine spoke of the Creative Entrepreneurs Club as a networking source. As a freelance photographer she spoke of the hard work and determination that is required to succeed in such a role as she does her own finances and accounts as well as taking the photographs. She holds strong importance to ethics and work ethics quoting “you have to fall asleep in your own head”.
Elaine is most as ease while with a camera in her hand and struck me as being very humble, down to earth and true to herself. I look forward to seeing more of her personal project work she had mentioned coming up in the future.
https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/whats-on/glasgows-grit-influenced-me-snapper-12031880
https://www.instagram.com/elainelivphoto/?hl=en
One of my overall top picks from the series of talks the last few weeks was this mornings with British fine art photographer Julia Fullerton-Batten. I loved her style, work, attitude and down to earth character. She gave us a real insight into her work, her shoots, the commercial side of photography and her thinking behind the scenes with lighting and objects choices within her images.
Julia was bold, open and honest with us about the highs and lows of the photography industry and her own journey as well as advice on how we can aim to stand out from the crowds and be unique. I admire her most recent projects - CONToRTION and The World Within.
https://www.juliafullerton-batten.com/info.php
















