Works relating to spacetime, identity and perception.
A rough test and concept illustration.
Father, Self, Son.
Originally produced for the Quay arts open exhibition with the title Self.
I've always noticed, more so as I've got older, how I have many of my fathers mannerism, just everyday things like how he leans against the sink when washing dishes or changes gear when driving, same scenario with my son.
I wanted to illustrate that so I gathered all three of us, set the camera up with a couple of lights in front of my parents lounge window and tethered it so we could trigger it with the mouse and could all take identical "selfies".
After processing I blended the features of all three of us in three variations using my torso... I'd worn a jumper with a specific colour to "bland out" with the background, as a constant. I was going for a hyper-real "North Korean" look, whatever that means.
It was a fun, bonding experience we all enjoyed, but it's a bit disconcerting when you drop your fathers face onto your own and it just goes "click", you're 25 years older, though I think my son got the shittiest end of the stick...
Portrait of a town.
Images of the portraits taken by myself and Alice Armfield in collaboration with Ventnor Fringe Festival for "Portrait of a Town" project in situ.
https://ventnorexchange.co.uk/2017/04/09/portrait-town-check-new-photos/
Hello Austin.
A collaboration about our collaboration by myself and poet John Armstrong in response to the Quay arts open exhibition “Collaboration”.
Long exposure time lapse photography of one of our conversations which we combined with John’s sound piece created from recorded discussions we had during our collaboration.
Promenading
A personal study of seafronts and their users on the Isle of Wight.
In the same river twice.
Since a collaboration with poet John Armstrong about relationship with landscape and the question “when did your relationship with landscape start?” my personal work has lead me to explore places I used to play as a child, in particular a local river where I would, having donned my welly boots I’d go fishing for sticklebacks, bullheads and eels with small nets and hands, free from parental constraint.
Getting in the river again made me consider time, it coincided with the birth of my first grandchild and turning 50 which only added to the contemplation.
Much of the river is the same as it was as a child and so the veil of memory is thin when I'm there, sometimes I am the boy and this life has been just a thought and then I'm back as the man but the connection between the two is bridged in the flow of the water. The Heraclitus quote “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man” came to mind but rather I am in the same river twice or maybe the river is the connecting point.
All the images are long exposures and mainly hand held. The long exposures reflect the passage of time, I love to stretch the moment, to step out of how we perceive what we call time. I move the camera while the image is being taken, sometimes following a line I want to enhance, sometimes walking in or by the river. Other times I hold the camera at arms length, this makes my hand shake, something I've got from my father, when this happens the specular highlights in the water become swirling complexes reflecting my physical vibration into the image.
Portrait of an Island.
An ongoing collaboration between Steve Blamire and Julian Winslow to create a series of photographic portraits of the Isle of Wight creative/arts/cultural community to celebrate the bicentenary of Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. The portraits draw on Julia’s pioneering style and photographs of "the freshwater circle" and we hope form a contemporary representation of the Island community during the early 21st century.
Drive by shooting.
When as a family we would drive to the beach in our turquoise Hillman Super Minx in the early seventies I would try to convince my father to drive faster as I knew when we reached 60mph I could look out the windows at the passing hedgerows and be able to magically see through them which always fascinated me.
The images are taken on the same road though many of the hedgerows are gone and the crops have changed.
Farming memories.
Some of the portraits taken to accompany the aural history project about people who worked on the land on the Isle of Wight in the 1950’s.
https://farmingmemories.com/
Briddlesford Farm.
I was commissioned by Briddlesford Farm to produce a film which would run instead of information boards in their heritage center.
I used long exposure time lapse footage of farm life and old photographs and recorded interviews with the family, recorded music played by the family band in a barn and time stretched it in an attempt to express the passing of time on the farm.
Bunker.
A commission from architectural designer Lincoln Miles and artist Lisa Traxler to document the build and thought process behind their house a converted bunker in St. Lawrence.
I combined long exposure time lapse footage of the build and Lisa’s sculptures and recorded sound inside the house and around the grounds to accompany it.