First Semester, Christmas Assessment

Its that time of year again; I can't believe how fast this semester has gone by. Had an excellent time, and learnt a lot, but I wish there were a few more hours in the day! Here are some pictures of my final set up;

Two pictures from the summer, to suggest to the viewer that these images are not just straight forward family portraits.


I used to sit by my Grans bed in hospital and we'd eat Lindt chocolate truffles together. She would always give me her sweetie wrappers and ask me to put them in the bin, but I used to collect them all in my pockets.
Her bus passes and passport. One of her bus passes is still in date. I remember going with her to the post office (when I was about 10 years old) to get the application form for her passport and for her to get her picture taken.

All eight of my final Black and White images are for sale. Please contact me if you're interested! They are all printed onto Fine Art cotton Rag paper, with a 100% cotton fibre content.

Letters To Granny

Some letters I wrote this week. I managed to forget my camera today, so unfortunately I wont have any more images until next week, but right now I'm really getting my head down and sorting everything for christmas assessment which is in two weeks time. I have a lot of stuff planned for semester two, so I'm looking forward to getting everything finalised!

Letters To Granny

Today I started working in my new moleskin. Click on the images to enlarge;

I plan to fill it with short letters to my Gran (who was demented for many years before her death) with all the things I feel like I never got a chance to say to her.

Third Year, Week 9

A colour image that will be one of my finals for my portraiture module. I'm photographing her house, void of people, using colour film, as a response to our 'Historical Portrait' brief; where you must choose some one of historical importance to you, using symbolism to portray how they have influenced you, and what they mean to you.

My Grans bed was last slept in by her on the 9th of May, and is still made in her house, just as she left it. There are strands of hair, creases in the sheets, and bits of skin from her feet still in it.

Not sure how happy I am with the scan, as I had to scan it using the flat bed scanners, whilst I wait for the negative holder for the film scanner to arrive. I've sent some images to a company in Edinburgh this week to get sample images printed, to see how they work on the paper I (think) I will be using for my finals. I'll be collecting them on saturday afternoon, so hopefully they will work nicely!

Third Year, Week 8

Not had a very productive week, due to tutorials, tour guiding, and technology failing to work, but I managed to get a good amount done today. The following images have been scanned from 5x4 negatives on a flat bed scanner, then taken into photoshop, and edited very slightly;



These are three potential final images, but I have more to shoot and edit. From those I will select the best to be printed onto photo rag paper (paper with 100% cotton content) as my finals. My final images will be scanned using a flextight negative scanner, which is much better quality than using a flat bed scanner. I'm going to get some small 'sample' images printed onto cotton rag whilst I'm down in edinburgh next week end.

Third Year, Week 7

Not had a very productive week in terms of producing new work, but managed to get lots of little, irritating jobs done and out of the way. Over the next 5 weeks or so, I'll be shooting films based on the following photographs (5x4 contact prints) and looking to conclude this area of my project in time for Christmas assessment.

Contact prints sepia toned, printed onto Ilford Warmtone FB paper;

Ilford Warmtone FB toned in Selenium (archival);
Resin coated (Jessops) paper;



Apologies for the poor quality images! Next week I'll be scanning them and editing them digitally in Photoshop, so I'll have better images soon.

Venice Biennale 2011

I was lucky enough to be able to go to the Venice Biennale last week. Saw lots of amazing art, but definitely thought the Gardini was better than the Arsenale. Found lots of inspiration, but right now I'm keeping all those ideas until second semester, and getting my head down to get my final photographs done for our assessment in 6 weeks (eek!).

For me, the two highlights were Christian Boltanski's "Chance", which can be watched here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47o10W_ltVc , and Mike Nelson, who represented Britain;

....And some photographs from my adventures! In no particular order;

Roland Barthes, 'Camera Lucida'

"It is said that mourning, by its gradual labor, slowly erases pain; I could not, I cannot beleive this; because for me, Time eliminates the emotion of loss (I do not weep), that is all. For the rest, everything has remained motionless. For what I have lost is not a Figure (the Mother), but a being; and not a being, but a quality (a soul): not the indespensible, but the irreplaceable. I could live without the Mother (as we all do, sooner or later) ; but what life remained would be absolutely and entirely unqualifable (without quality)."

Third Year, Week Four

Over the past two weeks I've spent time at home and in Dundee photographing family members around my Grans house using my 5 x 4 Large format camera. I'll be continuing to do so over the semester with looking to have some more finalised images by Christmas. All films are Ilford HP5+, contact printed on Jessops B&W paper (Yes, i know its fogged a little!)...

Max Kondola speaking of his father's death.

"I could do nothing at all; all my emotions had been drained and were focused on my father's health. I could not get up and help, or calm her; I wanted the same for my father, but for him to life forever. Looking into my father's eyes, I could tell he knew what I was thinking."

"The need to get closer intensifies, to go beneath the skin, back to a state of belonging that is being slowly but inexorably denied. The skin, the hair the tone of the whole mass will be imprinted indefinitely in my memory. His eyes fixed towards the camera lens go beyond, into death, even further, into a place that I do not know."

"When I look deep within the photographs, death is so close, so close that I can almost small, feel and touch it."

"Death is 'the smile of unknowingness', it arrives, and the conclusion is that of a dream, time disappears, and a void appears, vivid images take over and are translated and embedded within. Seconds are hours and days, time becomes static and the illusion of the present in which our sponge-filled memory begins to conclude and become rational with something that time has already disposed of."

"Death has an impossible beauty, even in decay."

Third year, Week two

Been busy in the dark room enlarging from the films I shot over the summer this week;



I shot lots of 5x4 this week end, which I'll be working with over the next week. I'm really pleased with how their looking (the negatives) so hopefully I'll get some successful prints from them. They're the best 5x4 I've shot since I got my large format camera, so fingers crossed.

3rd Year, Week One.

First week back at uni, and I promise to update this more regularly from now on, hopefully on a weekly basis.


My Gran died over the summer, and I documented the loss from the early stages of her dementia, right through to visiting her body at the undertakers and the funeral. The photographs I took will be the basis for a series of self portraits, exploring the idea of immortality, and that she lives on in all those who knew her. The second image was taken a few hours before she died.