Discontinued

Here

Exhibition space confirmed

Having decided the Europa shopping centre is the ideal place to hold an exhibition thanks to the irresistible combination of its glass roof and a good mix of visitors from all social backgrounds, yesterday I went back to case the joint. Realising from my earlier visit that almost every space in the building is wrong for exhibiting photographs, I got the idea that doing an exhibition/installation inside one of the centre’s two hanging pod-cafés was the way forward, so I cycled down there with a bag full of prints to take some photographs and to look at some of my work on site. The two pods themselves are identical, both being about five metres by three metres and shaped a bit like a coffee bean. The best one to use is the one nearer the main entrance, so I photographed it from a few angles then went there for an espresso. The curvy skeletal form of the pods is hardly what you need as exhibition space, so just how to build the pictures into the place is a challenge in itself (and thankfully not my challenge as somebody else is going to do that part of the job for me). I also noticed that four of the six round, glass-topped tables have got spaces inside them for exhibiting things. So, two options, plus the rather eccentric idea I had the other day of turning menus (or at least one side of a menu) into a photographic exhibition. Where was I? Ah yes, so I paid and asked the waitress if she had the contact details of her boss. Thankfully not only did she have details but the boss in question was in the building, so I ran upstairs to introduce myself. I’ve now got full permission to hold an exhibition in the Ore (In the Air) pod in the Vilnius’ Europa shopping centre towards the end of the year. Now all I’ve got to do is find the money to pay for it and take some more photographs. It’s pissing with rain today, but I’ve decided already to take the train 100km west to Lithuania’s second city Kaunas and see if I can find some characters there to photograph.

See the pod pictures below.

Observing the Unobserved

A page of assorted images in the style of my final project but not necessarily the actual photographs is here.

More to follow.

Hanging pod cafe exhibition space

Text to follow.

Alive at Night II

Two things.

ONE Keep returning to your old pictures.

TWO No matter how bad things get, you'll never be as bad as David Bailey.

Alive at Night

A few weeks ago Rhian sent me a link to Alive at Night, a pointless (in the artistic sense) PR stunt in which the equally pointless David Bailey ran around London after dark with a Nokia N86 eight-megapixel cameraphone taking a lot of crap photographs. The results, which for some reason are restricted to people who register, can be seen, if my secure link works for others, here.

There's not much more to say about the pictures really. My mobile phone photography, despite the fact that it's shot on an appalling cameraphone, craps all over Bailey's rubbish. Sure Nokia are a business and they have to make money and hiring a household name to endorse their products is a smart move. But shouldn't they also be showing that mobile phones are capable of producing serious work?

More exhibtion thoughts etc

After a painfully long period of silence from Rima, wife of Antanas Sutkus, I sent a gentle reminder yesterday and was rewarded with a reply this morning with words to the effect that they’re not available at all for an interview in September. Bollocks. I hate and despise email interviews but it’s really looking like I haven’t got a lot of choice, plus of course the Lithuanians are crap at answering emails, let alone long emails full of personal questions. On a lighter note I’ve been thinking more about exhibitions, namely the group show in London. I’m not sure how this is progressing but I do realise that if we go with the one Paul was recommended then we’re destined to get our work mounted by them. This is not only entirely impractical if we choose to have a show at home first (I’m buggered if I’m paying twice to have my work mounted, plus, as such a internet-heavy course it seems just a little odd to me to be ending it all with a traditional print show. I’m thinking about filming my exhibition in the shopping centre, maybe interviewing some people, including a comments book and turning the whole lot into a bigger piece of work. Anyway, just getting my thoughts down on paper. I’m trying to break away from the urban theme again this weekend with a trip to Kėdainiai in the middle of the most fertile part of the country to experiment with furtive photography in fields. Now that’s going to be interesting.