You will never look at them in the same way again

Somethings I have learned from my exhibition at No: 8 Community Arts Centre Pershore

2011-09-29T04:04:00.001+01:00

In fact I learned a few things from the exhibition, as always it doesn’t matter how organised you are something under the conditions of stress involved in installations will create at least one thing to go wrong, so you need a contingency ie installing at a time when the local hardware shop is open just in case I forget to pack the right screws (that’s happened) and make sure I have some loose change or a bank card to pay for anything required.

I have driven to the Number 8 Gallery a few times to do a reconnaissance on the space so I felt very confident that I knew the way with my eyes closed so I didn’t bother switching on the satnav, and while I was talking to my friend we went straight past the M6 Motorway junction, I noticed the Pershore sign on the road that we should be on, but the only solution is to carry on down the motorway to do a u-turn. That was the only problem that we experienced during the installation, and perhaps one that can’t be covered by a contingency.

When installing big artwork its ideal to have one small person (me at 5ft 2) and another person who’s at least a foot taller.

Libor is a friend of mine from the Czech Republic who has helped me many times before he’s great with all kinds of DIY and I found this out a few years ago when he helped me do an installation in a To Let unit at the Manders Shopping Centre in Wolverhampton. I think I would be there to this day without his strength and expertise. Unfortunately for me Libor is forging a successful career for himself in IT and only comes to Birmingham for a holiday so I need to be very successful before I can persuade him to work for me full time. So something else I have learnt is make sure I do all my exhibitions when he’s on holiday.

To Let unit at the Manders Shopping Centre in Wolverhampton

We made quite a team, me measuring and marking the wall, Libor drilling (without standing on ladders). We were so good that I thought it would a good idea to produce a video so that my customers can see the best way to mount the artwork on the wall; there is a knack that makes it a whole lot easier. I commandeered someone who was I believe waiting for a friend who was involved in rehearsals for the Christmas show to hold the video camera but video lots of storage space and my compact flash card which was only intended for the still photography didn’t have enough capacity to record the full process. I will produce a video in the future and if I do the installation on my own everyone can see how easy it is, mmmmm.

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Social Media Helps Track Down The Birmingham Riots Produced Artwork

2011-08-19T18:39:00.001+01:00

When the news programmes show wars and riots around the world I wish half heartedly I admit, that I could be there dodging the bullets to capture the surfaces of burning cars and military vehicles, can you imagine the cross fire is in full flow, the heat and noise is intolerable as I crawl from the barricades to the burning mangled upturned mess of metal in my bullet proof combat jacket and helmet.

Of course while I do have to keep an eye on my surroundings when photographing and I have been in situations were I have felt at risk and I keep one eye on my escape route there is no need as romantic as it sounds to jetting into flash points around the world to get my stock of images.

On closer evaluation the images that I would get from those vehicles isn’t worth getting my head shot off for. To produce the conditions for a good surface to photograph I need the fireman to attend and soak the hot metal with their hose pipes, don’t think that will happen in the Lybian desert or downtown Kabul. It would also stand to reason that in dry climates there will not be the reaction from the damp in the atmosphere. This week I had the perfect scenario the trouble spots came to me in Birmingham but I also had perfect events and elements not only did the fireman attend but we had a night of rain.

I had no interest in photographing the mindless idiots who rioted in Birmingham I felt embarrassed the way my great city and the country in general was being projected on the television screens around the world. I was tempted to drive into the effected areas and try to find a burnt out car but with a very busy schedule I realised to get up early in the morning before the debris from the night before is cleared would mean I wasn’t going to get any sleep, so I left it. One of my Facebook friends posted a photo of this car with a message that it was wasn’t far from where I live and it was still there. As this arson attack occurred outside of the riot areas I don’t think it was related but, because the clean up had stretched the recovery yards to the limit it meant that this burn out for once was here for a few days

While Facebook provided me with a car on Friday morning I discovered this beauty via the excellent community blog Digbeth Is Good overnight they reported on the clean up campaign and itemized outstanding damage to the area, Ah Ha,

Interestingly, both this van and yesterdays cars produced very poor specimens of scorch marks so in both cases it wasn’t worth photographing them but the story is great to add to my now resurrected blog. I wonder if its karma as I have started blogging again and the burn outs have suddenly appeared

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A Return To Blogging

2011-08-06T17:36:00.001+01:00

About 12 months ago I had this wild idea to reorganise my existence on the web, to stop blogging on my various sites and spend time planning the future strategy. The main problem and reason for this drastic pruning and remodelling was because I realised that my websites and blogs have evolved over a period of time, there is no planed framework and this led to duplication.

At that stage my plan was to change my website to a portal of all my online activities linking to separate websites for each of my projects and further more linking to my social media Facebook and Twitter activity. This Blogger blog would be no more because I was going to produce a Wordpress blog attached to my website, indeed the blog illustrates the reasons for change, the title of the blog “You will never look at them in the same way again” refers to one project a very important large project that no longer needs research and developing. It runs. But, I have now moved forward with so much more work and in the last 12 months I have:

Become a Getty Image Artist.

Exhibited as part of a collective at the Format Street Photography Festival

Had a series of Self Portraits published in F-Stop Magazine

Completed the 100 Strangers (well 99 with one special one to finish off)

I’m in year 3 of the 365 a Photo a Day Everyday

And I have also photographed the odd burnt out car

So why am I posting now, why the change of heart. Well I never did get round to delving into code and creating new sites, or clear the kitchen table and produce artistic Mind Maps and Mandellas, the project manager software remains in the box and I thought at least with the old setup at least I’m produced something to tell the world about my art. So I’ll keep it going until I defeat this procrastination thing.

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I shall be making my way down to the beautiful city of Bath to visit the exhibition Britain From The Air

2010-10-14T04:48:00.001+01:00

In the early days of developing my car project I found great inspiration from the work of Yann Arthus Bertrand and his acclaimed project The Earth From Above. By coincidence the exhibition was on show in Birmingham city centre and it was through viewing that series of large photographs in the open air and bright sunshine that I began to think of my work moving away from pretty rusty images to photographs that create an illusion of landscape, this then became an important aspect of the statement of my work

“…….Using results of the explosion; scorched metal, molten glass, fabrics, and plastics, the rust and the gallons of water from the firemen’s hose I strive to turn a negative blot on the landscape using technology, photography and oil paint to transform the textual image into a positive beautiful landscape”.

I am therefore drawn to images of landscape and aerial photography and came across “Britain from the Air” a free exhibition on display in streets surrounding Bath Abbey. I came across this event via a slide show on the BBC website

And by yet another coincidence on the same day I found this set of pictures from one of my favourite sites The Big Picture This time the focus is on Florida from above. Take a look at both sites to compare the contrasting layout.

To make the final comparison: my own work,

This image originates from a photograph I took of a discarded panel from an old burn out, which I took home and added to the many other pieces that I have in my backgarden. No flowers, no vegetables just car bonnets and side panels in my English country garden.

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One of my photos is selected for the BBC News Viewfinder Blog

2010-01-21T04:12:00.001Z

The BBC Viewfinder blog has a “Your Pictures of The Week” feature, there is a different subject for submitted photographs to be based on and as this week the subject was “Metal” I felt compelled to contribute this image.

Monsters of the Deep

Today I looked and there is my photograph amongst the stream

Working as an artist I often think recognition like this is as good as selling a piece of my artwork, of course it is different because job satisfaction doesn’t pay the bills but if I can keep an even balance between the two achievements I very happy.

I have been involved in the 365 project during 2009 the aim is to take a photograph everyday on any subject and then upload it to Flickr.

Number 365 of 365. Finished

On the 31^st December I completed the project by recreating the photograph I came across on 31^st December 2008 that made me say “I want to try that” unfortunately that original has been lost in the ether of the internet because I didn’t realise the great significance to my future at the time.

Year Two Gets Off The Mark At Midnight

Year Two began on a freezing cold hilltop overlooking the firework display across the city of Birmingham at midnight. The image itself didn’t work out the way I wanted but the significance of the time, the date and the place made it more meaningful.

During the year I noticed an article on BBC Viewfinder by the editor Phil Coomes whom had begun his own photo a day challenge. Phils project is exclusively produced using Kodachrome 64 film and because of his chosen media he has to allow for the delay between finishing a roll, sending it to the US for processing, and then scanning, he is going through this torturous route to mark the death of Kadachrome, 75 years after its introduction, as the last processing laboratory handling the film will no longer offer the service.

Phil asked on his BBC site for those who are undertaking a 365 project to write in about our experiences and sure enough he mentioned my findings and plugged my Flickr site that contains all my 365 images

Theres Hope For The Future Availability Of Models For My Artwork

2009-11-27T04:54:00.001Z

A combination of a full moon, and car park lights turned the kids playground into an ideal setting for some night time photographs to use for my 365 project.

"A Photo a Day Everyday" has no restrictions, that is subject or content, just take a photo a day everyday and post it - no exceptions

Just as I started to take some shots of the playground a couple of young lads turned up and promptly parked their bikes between me and subject after I had spent some time carefully looking for the best shot. Somehow I felt uncomfortable and thought perhaps there might be some confrontation even thinking my camera is at risk, although I am used to this exposure when I’m photographing the burnt out cars. I find the best form of defence is to engage people and explain what I’m doing and why so that they take some interest in this strange man with his camera.

They didn’t seem that interested in what I was doing and I heard one mutter something that “Miss so and so would say that was great” I presume Miss was a teacher. I enquired if they had seen any Burnt Out Cars on the park knowing they would say no because the burn outs are few and far between at the moment. I also pass the park regular and look across the open space to were in days gone by I would see the rusting wrecks - Happy Days. But to my great surprise yes there had been a dumped car over in the overgrown area far from the main road, so that’s why I missed it.

I was half annoyed and half very relieved, annoyed because I had missed it but relieved because torching cars still goes on in the area and who knows I might see a revival.

The lads were playing football using great light conditions and the walls of the play area (to save them having to keep fetching the ball) and once they forgot about me and my camera they began expressing themselves with trick shots backwards and forwards over the wall, and aiming for the basketball basket.

Returning home I evaluated that perhaps although they had this apparent couldn’t care about art strut about them, they did put my business card with a picture of my artwork in their pocket.

Artwork Delivered for the Exhibition at Aston University Business School

2009-11-10T05:19:00.001Z

Saturday Morning I delivered 2 art pieces for the Arts and Business Visual exhibition at the Aston Business School. Normally I deliver the work a few days before the installation date to The Framers in the Custard Factory and that’s all I have to do, they install the exhibition and next time I see it is at the private view a few weeks later. However, this time the printing of one of the pieces was held up because the inks in the printer have been changed, that’s not just replacing a cartridge with the same cartridge, no, in January 2009 Action Graphics invested in a major upgrade to the inks for the machine that prints my images onto glass.

The quality of the work produced with the new ink is outstanding but each photograph that hasn’t been printed previously with the inks has to go through a calibration process to match the output with my original file, this process can take the best part of a day

There’s some good news if you purchased one of my photographs before 2009 because that would be printed using a unique process that will never be repeated

Martin The Man Responsible For Printing My Photos on Glass

Anyway all this extra work for Martin who prints my images onto glass for me has meant that deliver took a little longer. Because I didn’t want to rush this important process I arranged to take the work direct to the venue.

And there alongside the new work was Shared Earth which the Business School purchased last year, I have never seen the piece in situ at the University so it gave me the opportunity to record the work on the wall.

You can see all the work in the exhibition here via the Visual website

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Networking at the Fire Station Open Day

2009-10-20T02:29:00.001+01:00

The local fire station at Billesley recently had an Open Day and so I popped along not so much to queue to sit in the cockpit of a fire engine or have a beefburger (even though they smelt delicious) or ice cream but to do my own public relations. There were fire crews from all over the South of Birmingham attending so a great opportunity to talk collectively about the trends in the dumped burnt out car scene in the city and introduce myself and my art practice.

There has been a massive decline in dumped burnt out cars here in Birmingham which is a great success story for the local council and the brigade but it does nothing for the state of the local culture and art scene not to mention my livelihood. I’m sure I can’t blame this crisis on the credit crunch, no its far more intentional, conceived and controlled by the authorities than that. I have been actively involved in sourcing burnt out cars for my art practice for about 5 years and in the beginning I could drive around selected areas over a weekend or Monday morning and find a burnt car. Today I would find nothing because:

	Access to the waste land and parks has been barricaded with large tree trunks or metal fences and gates.
	Any car burnt over night is towed away by first light, this avoids the blot on the landscape and the risk to health and the environment from the chemicals

The major benefit from the fast clean up has been hiding the results of vandalism from the vandals and therefore they have forgotten about doing the activity, they are no longer reminded of their conquests and it is therefore not in their consciousness and routine.

At this point I should point out that I notice I’m getting my terminology mixed up – a benefit for the community and environment is no good to me, but I’m sure you understand

My visit to the open day was aimed as a fact finding mission and a chance to make face to face contact and introduce myself to the people I speak to on the phone, to reassure them that this person who telephones them at 5am to 7:30am asking for details of burnt out cars is not some kind of nutter. I am also very aware that they do a very important and dangerous job and the last thing I want to do is get in the way. There are also various legal issues for me to consider primarily with data protection and because of the nature of the vandalism: crime, forensics and insurance claims.

I fell foul of the law one day in Kings Heath when I began climbing all over this vehicle only to be told that it was a scene of crime, my argument to police officer as he considered arresting me was that there wasn’t even high res tape let alone a sign around the vehicle, never the less in my eagerness to get snapping I should considered the situation more.

Here’s a resulting photograph from that car.

Even though the firestation is transformed into a theme park for the day there was still a contingency should someone dial 999 and sure enough as I was leaving the sirens started and a couple of appliances left with blue lights and sirens in full flow.

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In Search Of That Elusive Burnt Out Car In The Wilds Of Deepest Warwickshire

2009-07-27T01:52:00.001+01:00

I was at the cricket club last night having a few pints after watching and photographing the first team when the second team came back to the clubhouse they told me about a dumped car that was in a ditch not far from were they had been playing at Ansley near Nuneaton.

Its been so long time since I found a burnt out car (February I think) so I wasn’t bothered about travelling about 50 miles for the chance of some pictures. I spent ages trying to find the burn out going off the beaten track up some beautiful country lanes, in fact I might go back there to take some scenic photos one day but I wasn’t prepaid to waste the space on my cameras media card, also it had started to rain and the light was deteriorating (and this is Summer).

I asked a few people and one woman told me that when she first saw the crash she thought it was her brothers but was relived to find it wasn’t. Eventually I saw a lorry parked at the bottom of a hill on a sharp bend and there in the ditch was a Citroen saloon car. Unfortunately it hadn’t caught fire.

It was hard to see how anyone had survived the crash: there was no sign of bodies, no sign even of blood stains but at the same time it was impossible to see how the occupants had got out, Furthermore from my experience of attending burnt out cars I know that the emergency services would hack into the panels to get people from crumpled wreck, but there was no sign of any struggle.

There was no smell of petrol which was a good job because the battery was still connected and damaged bare wires and lights would have ignited the fumes. And ha presto there’s my burnt out car.

The owner of the lorry was a scrap metal dealer and was interested in a few components he dragged the car up the ditch but in so doing buried the end of his tow rope underneath a from there we couldn’t push it back.

Backwards and Forwards to Rowans Gallery Brackley

2009-07-13T02:43:00.001+01:00

Last week I went to Rowans Gallery to replenish the stock of my work there. It’s a journey of about 40 miles down the M40 and about 10 miles through the beautiful English countryside to Brackley. I often expect to see Jenson Button driving some very expensive sports car (that is anything but a Ferrari) or indeed formula 1 racing cars in the streets of the town it is after all the home of the Brawn racing team. www.brawngp.com

While I was there I met Elaine Coe who was the featured artist in the window, I persuaded her to pose for a picture with her great artwork.

No sooner had I got home than I had a phone call from the owner Sally Eaton with news that more artwork was required as she had sold my previous delivery, this week we had one of our artist meetings so I went there armed with pictures.

If your in the Northamptonshire/ Oxfordshire area Rowans gallery is well worth a visit because there is a cross section of great artwork from artists who practice in all art disciplines and mediums.

Rowans Gallery

Unit 1 Market House Courtyard

Brackley

Northants

NN13 7AB

Website: www.rowansgallery.co.uk

Usted nunca Mira de la misma manera, de Nuevo | I didn’t expect a Spanish inquisition

2009-07-07T14:15:00.001+01:00

I’m considering two versions of You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again along with my usual English version how about a Spanish version

Estoy considerando dos versiones de Nunca Vea de la misma manera, de nuevo junto con mi habitual Inglés versión acerca de cómo una versión en español

and indeed why stop there how about French

J'envisage de deux versions de You Will Never regarder de la même façon avec mon habitude en anglais sur la façon dont une version espagnole

or even Mandarin

我考慮了兩個版本的你永遠看他們以同樣的方式再連同我通常英文版本如何西班牙文本

I know your impressed but I haven’t been on a crash course of languages far from it because that would be a waste of time, like most English people I find it impossible to grasp any foreign language. It amazes me how someone like the England football manager Fabio Capello within weeks of taking on the job dispenses with the need for a translator and is fluent when talking to reporters.

A few months ago I came across a blog noquedanblogs.com that regularly posts different and interesting photographs

And also video

http://noquedanblogs.com/video/no-hibi-carneiro/

if this link doesn’t work try YouTube

I had a good look on the site but couldn’t figure out what it was about or what country it originated from, I continued following the blog because it is visual and then I came across Google Translate not only was I able to read the blog but I was able to send them a message just to say I appreciate their work.

And then I got thinking surely people will appreciate I have taken the trouble to speak to them in their mother tongue and this has really worked well with my Flickr site when I comment on some ones photos I first find out were they are and then use translate to input two versions. The vibes (hate that would but it works) I get have been really good and it seems give me an edge. noquedanblogs.com have also started to include an English version with each photograph.

However, it looks like Google are being too clever (for me) and spoiling my USP because I read they are developing software that will look at text on a webpage and then translate it for you depending on your location. Although what happens when say a Greek person living in the UK wants to read a Greek site, but wants it in their mother tongue?

On a final note and returning to Fabio Capello I notice most if not all of the footballers from around the world take on and learn English however, as I also follow US Major League Baseball I notice this is the exception with the imports from the Spanish speaking countries in that game. Perhaps they trust their translators more and haven’t heard about the Italian Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri who sacked his translator when he was told that his translations bore no relation the managers original message, he was making up his own version.

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Great news from the Bourneville BA Visual Arts Degree Show 2009.

2009-07-01T03:14:00.001+01:00

I went along to the Birmingham University degree show at Bourneville last week and enjoyed some high quality work; I think I enjoyed it more because I had a friend Nita Walters giving me a guided tour.

My Guide gives some scale to this piece

Now this is very helpful because the show is spread out over several building extensions and floors, but it was great to have someone contextualize each piece of work, I am not a great one for interpreting artist statements and I find this spoils my enjoyment of art, I really hate it when the artist does not want you to know what its all about. I find its very important for me to spell out the detail of my work and this aspect was discussed at length during my “Artist Talk” at my exhibition “You Will Never Look at Them In The Same Way Again” at the Solihull Gallery back in February this year. But I’m sticking to my guns.

This is Nita’s work she managed to get these old TVs from the excellent recycling site http://www.uk.freecycle.org/

Her statement reads

“As an artist, my interests lie within the relationship between my own personal experiences of neighbourhood and that of my neighbours. My experimental audiovisual pieces tie into the perception of place, memory, personal boundaries and its psychological effect on the self.

Although my current work is bordering on social documentary and anecdote, the act of obtaining interviews through personal intervention is as important as the work itself as I attempt to translate my experiences from my own artistic standpoint within an installation context.

My interventions have led me to collecting digital subjective anecdotal accounts from strangers who pass me from person to person. From these interviews I translate the essence of feeling regarding my experiences of this process through audio and various media. The act of obtaining these interviews has affected how I see my neighbourhood and its openness to exploration within communities that I see as becoming more and more disparate at street level.”

I received a text message to say she achieved a First and also gained the Emma Jessie Phipps award for Outstanding Studentship

Here's some more work from the show and a link to the website

http://38-degrees.co.uk/

Interesting work about a film, this photograph is positioned in such a way that the viewer cant stand back further to focus it.

Nita has a break on furniture made from cardboard

Still on the cardboard theme as you can imagine there is something going on in there

and sometimes your not sure if objects are part of the show or not

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Tanya Raabe - Who’s Who Defining the Faces of an Arts Movement

2009-06-25T00:36:00.001+01:00

Colin Hambrook - Tanya Raabe - David King

Currently showing at the Solihull Arts Gallery is an exhibition featuring the work of Tanya Raabe a collection of portraits of other disabled artists.

For Once Its Not a Thursday Night

I was very pleased to see that the Artist Talk as part of the show was scheduled this time for a Monday night, everything seems to be arranged for Thursdays in the local art world and its impossible for me to attend. Every exhibition private view or preview is on a Thursday, events such as the very good Creative Networks monthly networking night was moved from Wednesday to Thursday (because of the football on TV). I’m a member of the Solihull Artists Forum but I rarely attend a meeting because its on a Thursday (and generally in competition with something else that night). Even my own artist talk at the gallery was on a Thursday

So you can imagine my delight when a flyer arrived notifying me its on a Monday (I didn’t believe it so I had to read again) I sent a email and joked with Aimee Green the Arts Development Officer at Solihull, she said it was on Monday just to accommodate me. Yep. So Monday comes and as I’m changing clothes I lean down to pick up some trousers and I felt my back go! Ouch! I thought not tonight of all nights. Anyway with the aide of a few pain killers I made it.

Julie McNamara

I was very glad I made it Tanya gave a great introduction to the artists of the Disability Art Movement.

Mat Fraser

The show Who’s Who Defining the Faces of an Arts Movement continues at the Solihull Arts complex until 4 July

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Solihull College Fine Art Degree Show

2009-06-24T02:28:00.001+01:00

My own art practice has been a little quiet during the last couple of months a victim of the credit crunch it seems, more about this and my theories why in future posts but for now I might as well talk about other artists work. I went to two degree shows last week and saw some impressive work, more to follow about the Birmingham University show but for now my visit to the Solihull College BA (Hons) Fine Art Degree Show “Nineteen Degrees

As I completed my degree at Solihull College I like to support their Fine Art BA (Hons) Show but this year I couldn’t make the Preview Night but I found it better to visit the show away from the crowds

First body of work that caught my eye and impressed was by Alex Lydon. The work has to be viewed with the 3D glasses,

so it’s virtual impossible to photograph accurately in short it highlights the fact that: “photographs are generally seen to convey factual visual information where paintings are not”.

Its been a long 6 years for John Henry Thomas who eventually finished the BA which he chose to do part time, (a full time commitment is 3 years) he deserves some kind of award on top of his degree for lasting the pace, it must be horrible seeing students finish who began the course after you started.

Johns work has always featured animals and illustrated his excellent drawing skills although his canvas has increased in size by about 2000%

Emily Forder work is related to Obsessive Compulsion her installation contained many tablet bottles, smells of medication and the walls were covered with a representation of the human digestive system.

I decided I wouldn’t go in the Fine Art studio this year until the Degree Show but I had to go there once and I saw Rebekah Fearn working on her instillation, I avoided asking what’s it all about? Because I wanted to wait for the show, none the less that peep was enough to make me look forward to seeing it completed. It represents a ‘womb-like’ space, a place of nostalgia providing security and comfort.

I had no idea what this work by Hannah Raithby-Allin was about until I read the brochure – it deals with Conformity and the way society expects conformity even with children going to school aged 4. simple and effective.

Helen Rand who’s work focuses on with the illness and recovery from cancer told me she had almost completed her work for the show when she was allotted a larger area and so it was a race against time to complete more paintings.

Solihull College BA traditionally have a larger selection of painters than the other shows and here are two great artists to follow that tradition.

Mark Skirving

Jenny Mann

Cure Leukaemia Art Auction Just Giving Page

2009-06-13T13:09:00.001+01:00

Just been told that the Just Giving page has been launched you can see the latest total and also make a donation.

The page is live until 30 September 2009

the Cure Leukaemia Art Auction

2009-05-21T03:08:00.001+01:00

Last night I was at the Cure Leukaemia Art Auction in Birmingham. First of all the hard facts the local artists raised £13,000 towards the charity.

My contribution to the event was “Cavernous Deep” a photograph printed on glass. Here the successful bidder Gavin Buckley (right) is joined by Fine Art auctioneer Martin Lambert from Humberts (Cotswold) Ltd. Gavin has known my work for some time in his role at Arts and Business. I was selected for the AandB project Visual a few years ago and Gavin is the Director. So he knows all about my art practice and about this particular piece. He was a very determined bidder.

I was trying to take photographs and listen to the bidding and I could hear and see Martin acknowledging bidders around the room. My stress levels were really high as the starting bid was offered to the floor, because you don’t want it to have come down, but it didn’t and continued on a steady curve upwards.

The Cure Leukaemia Appeal is a multi-million pound project launched in 2004 to create a world class centre of excellence for clinical leukaemia research at University Hospital Birmingham. You can download a copy of the brochure from
www.artauctionbirmingham.co.uk
and more information from
www.cureleukaemia.co.uk

Of course this was a great networking event with all the local arts business and creative industry folk. So a quick mention for some of my artist friends who I spoke to last night.

Chris Keenan
www.primeobjective.co.uk
To source my photography I go few miles down the road but Chris travels the World and goes up mountains and balances on glaciers to produce his brilliant images. He told me on the trip that produced the image of the “The Franz Joseph Glacier”, New Zealand he had been guided up the glacier took some photographs then when he had finished his film he turned a corner to find a scene to die for. Now that’s another aspect if Chris was using digital media then he could delete one of the lesser shots. Not surprisingly his image of the glacier is featured on the front of the brochure www.artauctionbirmingham.co.uk

Another artist who uses traditional film methods is Dan Burwood
www.danburwood.co.uk
I love the set that he produced in Cuba. I have bumped into Dan a few times this year because he was involved with schools project based around my exhibition at Solihull in Jan/Feb/March this year. For once Dans bicycle wasn’t to be seen chained to a lamppost outside the venue.

And finally Ross Jones,
www.ross-jones.co.uk
I remember deciding that I wanted to draw because I was fascinated by artists whom could produce accurate pictures that somehow evolved and took shape on paper. My first adult art learning lessons were in a drawing class, I loved it and found hard move on into other media –it had to be a drawing. So I’m naturally drawn to Ross work. I must get the pencils out and get back simple draftsmanship.

So there it is do have a look at the sites and enjoy some high quality art work

Cure Leukemia Art Auction Tuesday 19th May 2009

2009-05-14T14:25:00.001+01:00

I have been asked to donate a piece of my artwork for the Cure Leukaemia Art Auction which takes place at Wragge & Co's Banking Hall in Birmingham on Tuesday 19th May.

Cure Leukaemia is a charity based at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, supporting the treatment of and research into Leukaemia and the patient environment. The Centre for Clinical Haematology is unique in bringing both of these things together and was opened in 2006.

This is the second time I have been involved in this charity event and on the first occasion my picture “Shared Earth” raised £650. One couple was very determined not to be out bid for a unique print of mine.

Once again I have donated a unique piece for the auction its a large copy of the image “Cavernous Deep” this particular image was printed using a machine that has since broken down and has been scraped and the new printing process uses different inks. making it even more unique I now use a different type of glass. Its going to be interesting to see if the credit crunch will effect the bidding and final auction price.

You can download a copy of the brochure from

www.artauctionbirmingham.co.uk

and more information from

www.cureleukaemia.co.uk

Sorry just a test

2009-05-14T14:17:00.001+01:00

Hi Folks

Haven't blogged in the month of May because I’m having trouble publishing a post I just get a error message that will mean something to someone but not me, in an effort to find out what is the problem heres a very short almost “Hello World” or even Twitter like post.

Last night I actually made it along to the Birmingham Bloggers Meet it was a double first for me:

1) It was the first time i have managed to make it they have this great idea to rotate the day (so Wednesday this month and guess what Thursday next) so that anyone who cant make such and such a day isn’t left out- a great idea. but each event has coincided with something else for me.

2) even though I am a Guinness drinker and I frequent the various pubs in Digbeth it was the first time I have been in the Spotted Dog (Alcester St and Warwick St) shame on me, it wont be the last.

Sculpture Mark Tilley Fires His Kiln

2009-04-26T03:08:00.001+01:00

A fellow member of the Solihull Artist Forum is Mark Tilley he is a sculpture and this week he has been firing his kiln on the back lawn of his home in Knowle. On Tuesday morning he began the process to flash up at 9.00am and reached a maximum temperature of 1250deg Celsius about 5pm. The kiln is then allowed to cool. While on a workshop Mark discovered how to build and then run his own kiln and he has been using it since 2003, obviously there is so much more control and satisfaction, using this kiln than the mass produced electric oven models that merely involving flicking a switch.

Mark has to nurture the process during the day constantly checking the temperature as the heat increases up through a constant line on the graph. Mark was behind his original planned timescale (finish by 2:30pm) because there had to be more consideration for early morning damp in the kiln and therefore he kept the heat lower than normal for about 90 minutes.

At some time during the day the gas bottles have to be changed I stood well back and was considering videoing this aspect but Mark was too quick for me and had begun before I got a good vantage point. It took two minutes from start to finish and for some reason the temperature in the kiln dropped less than normal, a sunny day does make the work very pleasant in the garden but it’s not going to affect the extreme temperatures inside the kiln.

When the kiln was able to be left un assisted Mark showed me his garden workshop/studio.

This is used for storage which he says is fine until he wants to find something – I think everyone has that dilemma with storage

Thursday morning the kiln was opened

A small group of artists had gathered to see what surprises the firing had provided.

Click the image to view larger

Everything seemed to work as it should and the only problem was trying to assemble the tiles into the right position on the picture board, like a large jigsaw, no problem there was enough people to figure out the puzzle.

Two tiles had stuck together but Mark assures us that with care they can be separated.

This piece will go into an exhibition at the Solihull Arts Complex later in the year.

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RBSA| Royal Birmingham Society of Artists

2009-04-24T03:28:00.001+01:00

I went to the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists gallery on Sunday evening. For a private view of the exhibition “Candidates”, this show is for artists hoping to be elected as Associates or Associates hoping to be elected as Members of the Society.

3 artists from the Solihull Artists Forum are exhibiting in the show Usha Khosla, Frances Townley and Jan Gay, I took the opportunity to take some photographs for the SAF website www.solihullartists.co.uk

Frances Townley

Click for Frances pages on the Solihull Artist Forum website

Jan Gay

Click for Jans pages on the Solihull Artist Forum website

I had problems photographing Jans work because the work was up high I’m not tall enough to take the shot at the direct angle, the photos I took seemed at a funny angle

I spoke to Usha early in the evening but I lost contact with her so there’s no photograph of here with her work and as her work was displayed in glass cabinets I decided to wait for another time when I can do it justice. Have a look at her website for now.

As you can imagine the standard was very high, I was introduced to Margaret Fairhead who produces these beautiful textiles she is applying for Membership.

I was impressed with the diverse styles of painting and in particular this painting by John Shakespeare

Title: Handing in,
Media: Oil,
Price: £850,
Artist: John Shakespeare
Have a look at Johns work at www.jshakart.co.uk

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I Shall Not Be Exhibiting At Birmingham Artfest 2009

2009-04-18T06:00:00.001+01:00

In September I blogged about the Birmingham ArtsFest Weekend and about the great experience I had exhibiting there. ArtFest takes over the city centre with music events and visual arts exhibitions, workshops and demonstrations.

I particularly like the way the event takes over the council buildings, on the Friday afternoon the buildings are used for conducting council business and as the meetings are finishing the artists take over installing their work on the walls, During the weekend the buildings take on a new atmosphere inviting citizens in to chambers and hallowed rooms that very few would normally see and then its all over by 5pm on Sunday afternoon. Large crowds of people descend on the city and generally there’s that late summer sunshine outside to set the scene off just right. Additionally its great to network with other artists and compare notes.

So why am I not going this September? Last night I began my application to apply for a space and I found that this year there is a payable fee for the stand of either £130 or £200 depending on the size of the space, in the past there has been a payable commission on sales, although I don’t think any of the artist achieved great sales. The council has decided that if they can get the commission fee up front this will guarantee the income.

At last years event the famous credit crunch was just beginning to impact and there was very few sales taken. On the RBSA stand they were selling off small items for boot sale prices, but generally in the Art Space area there were no sales on the day. Lots of interest from people looking at the work but no one seemed to have the odd £300 to spend on artwork in their pockets.

Artfest to me should be a platform for all forms of art. Alongside the small affordable craft pieces there should for example be extra large canvases that would never sell in this environment. A commercial success should not be the criteria and all forms of art should be available to the visitors. Birmingham City Council should be doing everything possible to promote the small businesses that make up the arts sector in the city and not imposing an unrealistic charge for this event

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New Origin For My Unusual Contemporary Photographs

2009-04-16T02:19:00.001+01:00

Finding the burnt out cars to use as a basis for my rather unusual contemporary photographs is like feast or famine, regular readers of “You Will Never Look At Them In The Same Way Again” will know that there were two cars found just two days apart in February but nothing since then.

While walking the dogs today I noticed the first tell tale signs of a burnt car, namely tyre tracks leading off the main walk area and into the woods, as I eagerly followed them my hopes were dashed as I found pieces of a burnt car on the floor and at that point I knew that the car had been towed away.

I carried on more in a disbelieving hope that I was wrong only to find the scorched ground.

I looked around for something to retrieve from the incident, a panel or even a smaller piece of metal. There was nothing obvious. There was some molten glass that had solidified into an interesting shape but it was completely grey and didn’t photograph very well.

Then I found this aerosol canister which had many interesting marks on it, so I took it home.

and heres the first two pictures that I have worked on. I’m going to treat the canister in my garden studio and see what results and photographs develop.

I found out that the car was a Peugeot Estate, which made me curse even more because I have found Peugeots have a great combination of metal and body paint that produces great textures and markings, (Scream 1) and estate cars have those nice long roofs that buckle with the intense heat (Sream 2)

I did say that its feast or famine so I’m hoping because the gates have been stripped from the entrance and access for the arsonists will be easier there might be at least one new burnt car in the woods over the next week.

No Action From Bloggers

2009-04-04T00:09:00.001+01:00

You will notice I haven’t posted so regular for a while, I have my doctors note, actually a mixture of work and workman digging a hole almost were my pc is. But I noticed that the blogging community is very quiet in general: Pete Ashton, blogged today first time for ages. Stef Lewandowski hasn’t posted for over a month. So I’m in good company.

Retirement with No Problem has also been quiet although this is because the boat is having a refit and they are not on the narrow boat at the moment so nothing to blog about. However, they have had technical problems too. When I tried to access the blog I found a red screen saying that the site was blocked by Google yet when I access through Googles own Google Reader I’m able to access the site as normal. Google claims the site has been attacked by a third party infecting the site with “malicious mailware”. The blog has now been transferred to Blogger. This sent shivers down my spine and I’m now involved in backing every page of “You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again”.

One blog that is updated every day is Pete's 'Today In History' Quiz, Pete appears on the BBC 2 quiz show “A Question of Genius” Monday 6^th 4:30 pm

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Saatchi’s Best of British. Phew made it

2009-04-02T01:56:00.001+01:00

First of all a bit of background from the website: Saatchi's Best Of British is a nationwide initiative by the BBC and Charles Saatchi to discover the next generation of artistic talent. From artist submissions six chosen artists will be enrolled into Art School in London where they will develop their work under the tutelage of some of the most influential names in the art world today. There will be two principle tutors whose roles are to grow the talents of the students and guide them with their proposed projects towards the final selection. To further inspire and develop them, important figures in the art world will make guest appearances and deliver master classes.

So can you image this is like winning the lottery for any artist.

Every stage of the process, from initial selection to the exhibition, will be filmed for a documentary series to be broadcast later this year on BBC Two. At heart this is a documentary series about art: how it's created, how it embodies ideas, and how it achieves value in our culture.

I did say its like winning the lottery and just as hard because I can imagine every artist wanting to apply. But then it starts to break down and you realise, well not so many will even begin the process I spoke to a few artist friends who thought it was a good idea but wouldn’t get involved because they don’t want to appear on TV, too shy. So slice off a good percentage there. Then the application process were the organisers asked for a video to explain about ourselves and our art practices, now this is not the easiest of projects to put together I was very lucky in being able to call on some previous experience in this field some years ago when: I used to work in radio in the early 80s suddenly with the success of the pop video station MTV every broadcaster was trying to emulate that success and tried changing every radio show into a TV format and every DJ into a VJ, so I was whisked off to a crash course in TV presentation which was only used in a small way at the time but none the less what I learnt there has helped me present myself in networking situations etc ever since. But you can slice a load of artists there.

And finally uploading the application, Midnight Sunday was the closing deadline, but the website was down most of the evening, I kept on trying then eventually at 11:20pm the website was up and I managed to get to click the submit button. Phew!

Can you imagine the disappointment after all the hard work I had put into the production if I had failed at this point. So I am sure there are many artists who would of given up at some point in the evening never to return

I did say its like an artist lottery and chances of winning are so slim, but like the lottery if your not in it you cant win it!

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Birmingham Photospace Flash Swap Exhibition

2009-03-25T03:10:00.001Z

Saturday lunch time I made my way down to the Custard Factory to hand in my picture for the Flash Swap Exhibition and then off I went to watch my son play football, I got a bit sunburnt or wind burnt and returned to the Custard Factory in the early evening.

As you can see there was a very good turnout of photographers of all levels of experiences and reputations. I bumped into so many people I hadn’t seen for a long time, a quick mention for Mike Hale whose website address is the only one I know, I first met Mike on the Creative Alliance course in 2006. It was a good course that introduced us to the business side of the arts, ideal after you have finished your degree and think how can I make a living as an artist. On day one we were separated into pairs and had to introduce the other person to the group for me describing Mikes work was easy because he included so much experimentation and variety at such a high standard.

It was nice to see Pete Ashton the blogging guru or Journeyman of the blogging spheres, that’s his description but it is very accurate he had just returned from some techie, bloggy web2 networking event in Austin Texas yep this is a hardcore blogger with about 3 or 4 on the go at the same time plus a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and loads of other social networking sites that the rest of the world will discover in about 12 months time, he’s the type of person you would see in the corner of a bar or restaurant tapping away on his laptop, its thanks to Pete and his friend Stef Lewandowski who talked me into blogging

Pete donated some of his business card size photos (as a set),

Birmingham Phil of Flickr fame was there; although he is one of my contacts/friends on Flickr I didn’t recognize him in the crowd.

So after a short speech everyone was able to select the photograph that they wanted to take home. When we originally handed in our pictures at reception we received a small label with a number on it (one picture equals one label) and this is how we notified our claim to a photograph.

This picture by Richard Gill created a bit of controversy because it was it was chosen by two people I don’t know the outcome.

I don’t know this gentlemans name but he sure has a great taste in art, he went for the “Untitled” Giclee print by John Garghan and when I’m famous or dead he can look back on this moment when he made his fortune.

This is the photograph that I chose Birmingham Music Legend Steve Gibbons; I had my eye on it during the opening speeches so I positioned myself very close but when we got the go ahead to make our selection I couldn’t find my label. The photographer is Tim Ellis

Judging by the turnout and the feedback on the site from people who couldn’t make it I’m sure we will have a similar event in the future

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This Saturday I’m off to the Flash Swap Exhibition

2009-03-20T15:28:00.001Z

An initiative that has my full support is Birmingham Photospace I started to write about it and then I thought the organizers have already produced an excellent explanation and posted it on the Facebook group page.

The group is seeking to galvanise interested individuals and organisations in Birmingham towards the ultimate aim of creating a world class venue for photography in Birmingham. This could be in a reclaimed industrial building close to the city centre. This could build on and support the interest in photography in the city, showcase our magnificent photography collections and fill a gap in Birmingham's visual arts facilities

You can also read the Vision For Birmingham and then visit the informative blog

The Flash Swap Exhibition organized by Birmingham Photospace takes place this Saturday 21st March at the Custard Factory’s Vaad Gallery this is an opportunity for photographers of all levels to showcase their work for free.

Basically you take along at least one photograph and you are then entitled to choose a picture.

Comprehensive information at the Birmingham Photospace Press Release

I decided to take one of my earlier photographs in fact it was taken at the first burnt out car I ever photographed. You will notice that my work today is very different than this first photograph as now I look to disguise any notation that of the origins of the photograph. The only problem now is I have to find it in my spare bedroom.

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I’m flabbergasted! “You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again” gets 1500 hits in one day!

2009-03-18T02:38:00.001Z

I had a massive surprise at lunchtime today when I logged into my web tracking program statcounter.com to find that the blog had achieved 1345 hits in less than 12 hours, it eventually trickled over the 1500 line just before midnight.

So how has it jumped from 350 hits on a good day (if the wind is in the right direction) to this impressive figure? I have no idea.

Once I have loaded a new post I “Ping” the blog url to a few weblogs in particular alphainventions.com which does seem responsible for 99.99% of the hits every day. alphainventions.com must be having a very successful period because not only did this site drive so much traffic to “You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again” but when I tried to access the site about 7pm GMT to top up the Ping I found alphainventions.com was down, perhaps because they had an overload of visitors themselves.

Analysing the data further: I found there were 39 returning visitors, this seems to be my daily average which I’m very happy with because it shows the blog has a following and that has always been the aim. However, I’m disappointed to find that there was no follow on clicks arriving at my website www.johngarghan.co.uk and that of course has to be my ultimate goal. So why is this happening? Is it because when a visitors sees the blog on alphainventions.com it some how is enticed by the headline or pretty pictures and clicks to find out what its all about but then realises in a matter of seconds that the art practice of someone who photographs burnt out cars is not for them and then clicks away to the next flash of interest. Or has it something to do with the layout of the blog page that doesn’t direct the visitor to the website, I shall experiment further.

About Alphainventions.com: just post your blog and select a category that the blog can be pigeon holed into, for example I would categorise “You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again” under “art” (naturally) , “arts” and something like “Shopping” and “Gifts”. As you are doing this you will notice several blogs appear on screen and your blog will shortly appear there too. The blog stays there until it becomes the last one pinged (and effectively the first blog) then someone pings their blog to knock you out of the list.

About Statcounter.com: By pasting a small piece of code onto your website Statecounter immediately counts and analyses all the visitors to your blog and provides you with so much information How many visitors, their location, what sites they came from and how long they spent on the blog. Best of all, its free (although there is an option to make a donation).

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Flickr – Or I’ll Scratch Your Back If You Scratch Mine

2009-03-16T01:02:00.001Z

I enjoy photography and I love Flickr.com, I can spend hours looking at photographs on the site comparing different styles, subjects and the variations that each photographer will use. Here are some pictures from my Flickr site.

The Day Job: - This set is associated with the body of work found in my art practice; here I can test the response to a new image by noting how many clicks a photograph achieves before I spend more effort marketing it.

Cricket (click image for a larger version)

My hobby: That’s Playing Cricket, Watching Cricket and now photographing Cricket.

Other sets include

Birmingham

Live Gigs

Dogs-Pets

Holidays

Two photograph series that have grown into larger projects:

The Last Snow to Fall in Yardley Wood

With the threat of Global Warming I have this mission to photograph the last snow to fall where I live in Yardley Wood, Birmingham.

The 365 Project:- Take a photo everyday and post it to Flickr on that day, every day in 2009. This has been a great exercise in making me look for a photograph everywhere I go during the day, I find myself walking along the road and looking up alleyways or above street level for that piece of interesting and unique architecture or a reference to a bygone age. I’m forced to always carry a camera and now never say “I wish I had a camera” (with me).

Having posted to Flickr I want as many people as possible to look and comment on the work, and if I see anything of interest I will do the same. In this quest for more viewers each picture is added to a relevant Flickr Group, as soon as you do this you will see the number of hits on a picture increase and nice comments start to be added to the picture, great. Or is it? Most groups have rules. Basically if you past a picture to the group you have to comment on other pictures in the group. I realised as I was commenting I’m only fulfilling my contractual obligation, would I really want to comment if I didn’t have to. I would rather have that choice. So I stopped throwing my comments around now giving only to a deserving image.

The Group Administrators and Group Moderators are threatening to throw me out of their groups if I don’t abide by there rules. Am I really bothered? No I will just link to groups who don’t have this rule and rely on traffic from relevant Tags on my photos and the network of friends and contacts that I have built up enjoying their company over the last year. If I had some spare time I might start my own group The “Just Post It - Comment On Another If You Think It Deserves It” Group.

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The Artist Talk

2009-03-12T22:30:00.001Z

As part of the exhibition at Solihull Arts Complex I delivered an Artist Talk in the gallery space, the event was very well attended and included in the audience were the students and the head of Art at Tudor Grange School. Dan Burwood an artist friend of mine is working with the children on a project which will tie in with the show and have some reference to my art practice.

It was great to have them there but it did create a problem, photographing young people is a very sensitive area and I cant place photographs of them on the blog without establishing if permission has been granted by the parents and at the moment I do not have that consent. When I photographed the children who were involved in the workshop earlier in the month I got the parental permission as they brought the kids to the gallery or came to collect them, indeed quite a few parents were just out of shot holding bags and jackets. Sorting and editing the photos from the night I found some great images of adults listening and contributing to the talk but there would be a young person strategically positioned to void the picture.

The main topic of discussion was should I display images of the burnt out cars as part of the show and indeed should I even explain were the images originate from, many of the artist present thought that the photographs on the wall should and do stand by themselves without the history. I agonised over this topic when I first began the project in those early days I swayed backwards and forwards but I’m comfortable with my decision to go the route I have taken.

At first I was concerned that if I divulged the origins of my work then other photographers would copy my methods. In those early days I had a lot of input from Arlene Burnett and we talked about this aspect and for various reasons it was established that it wasn’t a problem. In the main because if two photographers were to work on the same car the images would be totally different, it is the unique human senses that create the image and we are all different. In fact I have tried to repeat a shot and found it impossible to match the angles and lighting conditions, Furthermore its not just about taking photos of cars it’s also about the ground work that goes into building the end results e.g. finding the burn outs in exactly the right condition, etc.

Since the work began the artwork has taken on a wider scope with the documenting of the “Finds” and the meeting of people who help me or even just stop for a chat “You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again” has developed that in an artwork of documenting. Indeed if I didn’t reveal all there would be no blog.

Solihull Arts Development Officer Aimee Green takes the sign down

On Saturday the show came to an end and early Monday morning I arrived with my carefully constructed packaging. It was important that we got the work down as soon as possible because the walls had to be treated, holes filled, smudge marks painted and everything made good, ready for the installation of the next show at the Complex:

Dear Miss Hubbard

16th March to 16th May

In 2004, artist James Bouren, stumbled upon an unopened envelope addressed to a Miss J.E.Hubbard postmarked 1970. James has worked closely with Solihull school children to investigate what could be inside this unopened envelope. The exhibition displays his explorations and responses to children's artwork

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Bugs, Bridge and, and, and I forgot: Memory

2009-03-06T03:12:00.001Z

I can’t have a post on “You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again” without a picture. If there are any loose panels around when I photograph a car I will take them home with me. The bonnet from the car featured in the post “Bloody PCs, bloody Microsoft and a great new car to photograph” has been battered by the winter weather in my garden and today we had the great combination of rain, frost and then brilliant sunlight. It just looked right for a few photographs.

Bugs

Spent today fixing the bugs in the website, well its impossible to do a complete re write of a site (or any software program) of any size and not have a bug that will not turn up during initial testing. This bug was on my main template file and it had been copied all the way through the site.

If I was flying a Boeing 747 we would all be dead by now. I’m not and its no real problem because nobody has been on the site since the change, Oh really? Well that’s another bug because I didn’t put the code on from the website tracking sites Google Analytics and StatCounter

Memory

Finally found out what was the problem with my PC, regular readers of the site will know that a few weeks before my exhibition I began to experience problems and since then I have been nursing it along and trying to work while expecting a crash at any moment so of course I had to be extremely vigilant with excessive backups of files. A simple task like replying to an email meant copying the email onto a memory stick and then moving the file to a very slow laptop.

I have tried all kinds of tests, restored and restored so yesterday I began to try changing components so that through trial and error I would get the answer. First, because it’s the quickest and easiest to get at I changed the memory sticks and it appears to be the 2GB stick that’s faulty.

Adobe Bridge

Having restored my PC originally just after New Year I had lost all the programs that were installed, normally that’s no problem because I have the software on disk and I would just re install, but my sick pc wasn’t always recognizing the CD drive and when it did most of the time would not run a setup file (even when I copied the contents of the CD or DVD to my hard drive) now of course everything’s working just fine.

Do you know what I missed more than anything? Not being able to use Adobe Bridge I didn't realize how much I rely on it but I find it so good for organising my photos. So now I can get to work on all the pictures from the exhibition and the artist talk last week. Hurray!

Technorati Tags: Adobe,Bridge,software bugs

Artists at the Show

2009-03-03T12:09:00.003Z

My one man show at the Solihull Arts Complex continues into its final weeks, at this stage I’m beginning to think about collecting bubble wrap and cardboard for packaging and make some space again at home for the pieces. As my work is printed on glass you will appreciate the necessity for good protection and during the last 2 years I have developed a combination of cardboard, and packing that fully protects particularly the corners but is very quickly assembled and taken apart if I want to show somebody, perhaps a gallery owner.

While my show has been running there has also been a small exhibition of photographs by Lorna Jones down on the ground floor of the Arts Complex.

Lorna attended my private view and I have been meaning to feature her on “You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again” but I couldn’t find the photographs (because of my iffy computer – yes its still not right but I’m getting by) .

Because of the light in the area and the glass mountings it proved very difficult to photograph all of her work but as you can see she also relies on the automobile business for her images. Notice she has some magic red dots next to these pictures, well done.

A few weeks ago I was taking some reference photos of my work in an exhibition situ in the gallery and asked a young lady to pose for some shots next to the work.

She visits the library for her weekly Spanish lesson and I found out that she is a Fine Art Degree student at Coventry University, her work centres around scaffolding and she showed me her sketch book containing some great textile images.

We didn’t swap contact details but I hope I get an invite to her degree show in June.

Technorati Tags: Lorna Jones,Photographer,photos of cars,artists,scaffolding,Coventry University

The Redesigned Website Goes Live

2009-03-02T03:14:00.001Z

My website www.johngarghan.co.uk gets a rework and hopefully reflects my current practice going forward. Its been two years since I originally built the site, and recently its looked a little tired not to mention most of my portfolio was not featured and half the work that was on the site is no longer marketed by me.

I hope the new site can be a dynamic experience with in the future some audience interaction, complemented by the blog: in fact they will both cross one and others paths but at the same time without any duplication. Quite a challenge. Pop over to the site and then keep in touch to see how it evolves.

Technorati Tags: New website,Art,Fine Art,Photography

A Visit To My Exhibition To Take Some Photographs

2009-02-23T20:35:00.002Z

When ever I have my artwork in an exhibition I try to take as many photographs as I can of people interacting with the work, the image, the printing on glass, the concept of taking something that on the surface looks so horrible and turning it into a beautiful piece of art that would look attractive on any wall. A living room, office, lounge, in fact because of the nature of the images and presentation on glass: well any room even a bathroom.

My favourite photo is this one from last years Birmingham ArtFest as you can see I like to get creative rather than just have a boring picture of someone standing in front of a picture..

I’ve been waiting for a good sunny day to go and photograph my exhibition at the Solihull Arts Complex. Reading that you would imagine it was an outside event, well it’s as good as because the gallery opens out to the square through very large French windows and of course with a low winter sun it illuminates the artwork just right.

You can imagine my disappointment when I arrived at the gallery to find tables and chairs set out for some kind of event, this meant that I couldn’t as intended do a panorama photograph were I stitch about 20 photos together to achieve one large image

Because of the half term school holiday Kathryn Pettitt was delivering an art session for school children as a holiday extension to the Saturday morning events for 7 to 14 year olds. So I managed to utilize this different opportunity to take photos of the work using the parents and children as my models. The show is on until 7th March and I have no doubt I will have another sunny day and chance to capture the panorama.

If your around the West Midlands area have a look at the exhibition.

Exhibition Title:	You Will Look at Them in the Same Way Again
Venue:	Solihull Gallery
Address:	Solihull Arts Complex
	Library Square
	Touchwood
	Homer Road
	Solihull

Dates: 19th January - 7th March

There is an Artist Talk event on Thursday 26th February at 6pm

Technorati Tags: views from above the earth,fine art,art,exhibition,solihull Arts Complex,solihull

Finished photographs from the two recent burnt out car finds

2009-02-19T03:56:00.002Z

Image from the car on Friday 13th

I promised I would work on an image from the car I photographed on Friday the 13th and here it is I didn’t have to do much Photoshop editing here because most of the work was done when I took the photograph, I had poured water over the wing and this mixed with the sunlight produced the image I wanted.

Image from the second car “Probably the Best car I Have Ever Photographed. Ever”

I was very excited when I first saw this car and throughout the time I was working photographing it, but somehow when I processed the photos on my computer I wasn’t as enthusiastic with them. Somehow the colours don’t seem right to me they are very vibrant but perhaps there are too many strong deep colours in a small area. Sometimes a car that looks good will not produce any final images that fit with my clearly defined art practice and visa versa. Now I’m not saying this isn’t a good image but does it look like a landscape to you?

Technorati Tags: Photographs,Fine art photography,art,Fine Art

Probably the best car I have ever photographed. Ever!

2009-02-18T02:03:00.002Z

A second car was burnt out today in the same park that I found the car on Friday see the previous post, it often happens like this and then there will be nothing for months because those responsible have been sent to prison or juvenile detention centres. This car was dumped on the other side of the park as if they had used the back entrance, however on Friday they had broken a heavy duty gate lock to enter the park so of course they knew it would be easy to get in through there, and once in side they had some fun across the grass

This was one of the best cars that I had ever seen in terms of markings although the proof of the pudding is how they look when I get them home on the pc and start looking for that distinctive landscape quality. Each side of the car was covered in so many colours it was so good I didn’t know where to start. Again the sunlight was great, very strong and in just the right position relevant to the car. I moved around the car changing the angle in all directions.

The front and back of the car was quite poor and the normally good areas such as the roof and wings were no good at all, the roof had no markings just a kind of pink dusty texture which doesn’t translate very well into the finished image.

I couldn’t find out anything about the origin of the car, I know it was a Nissan because there was a small badge on the ground but because it was so far from the paths across the park nobody came close by and so there was no conversations with anybody. Apart that is from a group of youngsters who were shouting abuse from a distance, I never know if its best to engage with them or ignore them. Two police officers appeared after they saw me pouring water over the car (must of thought I was mad) but they won’t tell you anything even if they know.

Technorati Tags: Nissan,Cars,art fine,art,photography

A Real Friday the 13th for the owner of this car

2009-02-15T02:00:00.002Z

When I first started blogging last year I had some notes jotted down in case I had writer’s bloke, one of those stories to fall back on was “Shortage of Burnt Out Cars” because at the time this was a concern to me – my livelihood was at stake. But looking back over the blog it seems that they are in regular supply and I am just refining my means of sourcing them. This involves developing a 6 sense to anticipate where they will be and having the right people in the right places looking out for them.

Yesterday I got the wake up call from John the park cleaner about a burnt out car dumped at Fox Hollies Park in Acocks Green, Birmingham. This was the same location that I went to photograph another car a few weeks back but when I arrived it had been towed away. So off I went half asleep as soon as I could to investigate.

I don’t think this car, a Fiat I believe will be moving so quickly because it was sunk in a bog, there’s a small fishing lake on a higher level not far away and with the melting snow it was overflowing down to the small river, the car was in the way. I had to go home and get my Wellington boots.

You can see how I suffered for may art, the smell wasn’t too bad it was just hard trying to move around the car and concentrate on the shot when your feet are sinking, Also I didn’t want to fall over (nearly did) or drop any of my equipment I made sure there wasn’t even a nearly there, I remembered the date Friday the 13^th, now I would consider myself not superstitious but it really made me focus my attention

Sally will generally go searching nose down and then comes back to me and wants to be quite close, but I wouldn’t let her come near. Because she is now deaf I don’t like it when she goes off on her own because she wouldn’t hear me when I call out for her but how do you tell an animal you want them close but not too close in the end she was quite happy paddling in this part of the water, which is nice and clean.

Although the markings on the car look quite colourful it wasn’t a particularly good specimen, I was so disappointed because the sun light and weather conditions were perfect, the position of the car relevant to the sunlight was perfect and it was so small and low the access around the car was brilliant. I didn’t have to climb to get on the roof it was just the right height for me to work standing by the side of the car but there wasn’t one single shot worth taking.

With these perfect conditions I spent more time than normal examining details to try and get some pictures. Then looking through the lens I noticed the marks on the wings were quite good in fact with a small amount of water splashed on them they were very good and in the end I took over 400 pictures from different angles of these areas.

An area of the car that I don’t normal bother shooting is the wheel arches from the inside of the of the boot, because they are generally in shadow and also have too much rust and a metallic look about them (which I aim to take away from my final edits). But these are quite good. We shall see, it’s a busy weekend taxing grandchildren to various activities oh yes Valentines too but I will try and do some quick edits of the pictures from this car for tomorrows post on “You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again”.

Technorati Tags: Fiat,cars,artwork,art,fine art,unusual art,wall art,modern art,contempory artwork,fine art photography

Experiments with Old Car Parts in the Garden

2009-02-13T03:34:00.002Z

I’m in the middle of a major change to my website, and when I’m doing anything like that I like to concentrate on one thing at a time, but its not that easy, life and the family get in the way, then there’s the work involved promoting the exhibition and my commitment to the 365 project on my Flickr site. That is every day in 2009 I have to take a photograph and upload it to Flickr. I find I’m not out and about as much as normal and so the photo opportunities are restricted.

In my garden I have several panels I have collected from the burnt out cars I photographed last year, I generally carry on photographing them for months after the car was torched, sometimes I will experiment with treatments to metal surfaces using anything from varying strengths of acid to a selection of liquids from light oil, water, and small solutions of acrylic paint (just enough to leave a stain on the surface).

For my Flickr 365 photo today (Number 43-365 no less) I took some photographs of a pile of bonnets with little success because I haven’t worked on them recently (it’s a bit cold outside) but this was a nice result.

I think I will post some more of my work on the blog similar to this image that is nice to look at without being great and also others that are great but could not be added to my portfolio because they don’t fit with my artist statement.

My photography aims to capture the disturbance to surfaces created by acts of joy riding and arson by zooming into scorched, disfigured vehicle parts that are occupied in the lifecycle of corrosion, the natural process that tries to reclaim human made objects to an elemental state more in line with the energy of the molecules the objects are made of.

Torching accelerates this journey of returning to the earth and I look to capture, investigate and at times distort results of the advancement of its lifecycle. Using results of the explosion; scorched metal, molten glass, fabrics, and plastics, the rust and the gallons of water from the firemen’s hose I strive to turn a negative blot on the landscape using technology, photography and oil paint to transform the textual image into a positive beautiful landscape.

Weather Disrupts the Whole of the UK and My Exhibition

2009-02-10T18:11:00.002Z

Technorati Tags: snow,art exhibition,fine Art,art,weather

With global warming and climate change we don’t get real seasons now certainly not as pronounced as when I was young, I remember doing my paper round with the snow so deep that it even fell into the top of my wellies. I have a project on my Flickr site “The Last Snow Ever To fall in Yardley Wood” (Yardley Wood is a 2 square mile area of Birmingham were I live). So every time it snows enough to cover a layer on the ground I take a photograph so that if it is the last snow ever I have recorded it.

We recently had a lot more snow than normal in fact the worst for 18 years and while the whole country was disrupted (including as you can see the weekly rubbish collection didn’t happen) I rather smugly said that the snow doesn’t really affect me as I can work from home, but then I realised nobody is able to get to my exhibition.

Exhibition Title: You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again

Venue: Solihull Gallery

Address: Solihull Arts Complex, Library Square, Touchwood, Homer Road, Solihull, West Midlands

Dates: 19th January - 7th March

Theres an Artist Talk event on Thursday 26^th February at 6pm

Unexpected Ghosts In The Photograph

2009-02-07T17:32:00.002Z

I’m currently involved in the 365 project on my Flickr website, I’m committed to taking a photograph of anything and posting it on Flickr everyday of 2009. The main reason for this pressure is to make sure I’m constantly taking photographs keeping up to speed with using my SLR and at the same time I might find another subject to base my art practise on after all I can’t work with burnt out cars forever can I?

This morning I found myself walking my dog Sally around Cannon Hill Park I took a few photographs and then driving home I took some more, at that stage all of them could be a promising contender for Flickr Photo No 38/365 but when I got home and loaded them on the PC none of them looked that good, a tree in the wrong place or the light had suddenly changed as I took the shot. No real problem at this stage because I still had 13 hours of 7^th February left and I had planned a very full day so I was confident.

I started playing around with the images in Photoshop, this picture I cropped tight into the bandstand (so this copy is about a third size of the original) but I still wasn’t happy with the tone definition, they would be poor because I was about 300 yards away from the bandstand, but while I was trying to enhance the values I noticed a white shadow in the corner and the figure on the bench.

So off I went down to Canon Hill Park to photograph the snowman.

click on a photo to see a larger version

With the lunchtime sunshine and a few people in the picture I had a great time. Here’s the shot that’s on my Flickr site for today.

38/365 “Waiting for the Band”

Saturday Morning Art Session for 7 to 14 Year Olds in Solihull, West Midlands

2009-02-07T03:47:00.003Z

Each Saturday morning local children meet for a mix of Art, Craft, Design and Sculpture sessions and these take place in the gallery space. The age group is 7 to 14, it starts at 10:30 and 12:30 and runs during school term time with some activities during holidays too.

As my work was on the walls in front of them they used my photography as a basis for some paintings. So there’s a nice loop: I take the originating photos the youngsters paint using the photos as inspiration and now I’ve photographed their work.

click on the image to view larger

The exhibition signage was not on display the first week and this was perfect to let their imagination run wild thinking what the pictures originated from.

There are various events in schools and youth centres throughout February centred on my exhibition, organised by Solihull Councils Arts Development Department.

Exhibition at the Solihull Arts Complex

2009-02-06T02:39:00.002Z

Exhibition Title: You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again.

Venue: Solihull Arts Complex

Address:	Library Square
	Touchwood
	Homer Road
	Solihull
	West Midlands

Dates: open up to 7th March

There is an Artist Talk event on Thursday 26^th February at 6pm

Got my PC back today, when they put it on the bench it behaved impeccably and made me look a right idiot, so I took it home and guess what so far in about 3 hours its crashed and re booted 3 times, and a load of other program associated issues that I shall not bore you with here. Anyway one way and another I have managed to prepare the pictures from the show

This couple I meet during a meeting at Sainsburys café with Steph Adams and Jackie Mackay the three of us were selecting the pictures for the show ( or rather Steph and Jackie did) and of course we had all the pictures spread out over 2 tables. Everybody passing couldn’t miss the work. This couple were one of those customers who passed by and staid to talk.

This is Rita Ryan who is responsible for me working as an artist today, I was producing nice “chocolate box” drawing and paintings when I turned up at Ritas Monday art class in Kings Heath, Birmingham. Somehow Rita has the ability to push you that little bit further but in comfortable way. Quite a talent.. Every time I’ve a Private View Rita has been invited but there has always been some reason why she couldn’t make it.

The Lord Mayor was very relieved that only one of the photographs had originated from a car that was burnt out in Solihull. I asked him when he is back in the council meetings if could persuade the parks department to take down the barriers that block the joy riders driving on the parkland and in fact steps to encourage them so that it’s a lot easier for me to find the burn outs. After all he could see the benefits to the local arts industry and there is the additional service to the community of keeping the kids off the street and giving them something to do.

Also there was Pete from the famous “Pete's 'Today In History' Quiz “ blog the timing worked just right as he was able to pop along before going to the Colebrook pub the Thursday night pub quiz.

At the end we all went off to the Slug and Lettuce pub and here I am surrounded by the girls and some very good artists no less Rita Fletcher, Eva Bennett, Marie Prestleton and Judy Reece.

And finally I was so busy spreading myself about and talking to everybody I had very little time to take any pictures myself my thanks go to fellow artist John Bishop (on the left) seen here with another artist John Thomas.

And Chris Mould my other intrepid snapper seen here with Marie who flew in from the Czech Republic and made it an international event.

Another Session Of Photography In The Cold At Maypole

2009-02-01T03:26:00.007Z

I got a call from John the park cleaner who is one of my look outs to say he had found a burnt out car, of course I knew all about it yesterday but he confirmed that it was still there and worth a visit. Sometimes a car can be towed away within a few hours but I have known them to be in position for a week, I treat every photograph as if its my last with the vehicle concentrating on the most likely areas first. Unlike yesterday when everybody seemed very suspicious of me today everyone wanted to stop and have a chat including this man.

I told him what I did with my photos and invited him to look at my show at the Solihull Arts Complex and he said “Oh my daughters exhibited there”. His daughter is none other than the very talented photographer Michelle Lord. We are both involved in the Art and Business project “Visual” and we both exhibited in the group exhibition at Baskerville House last year.

The surface of the car hadn’t change at all which is unusual, I decided that after today there was no point in returning because the changes to the surface from now on will produce a quality of rust that doesn’t transform well in the photographs. Indeed I decided to pour water over the surface and while this will drastically transform the surface it will accelerate the decline in the quality for my purposes. Yesterday I took the bonnet home to work on that over the next few months.

I would like to work on one of these photographs now to illustrate my point but working with my old pc is ridiculously slow. I upgraded my PC last year so that it could handle large digital files and very large 45 megapixel files that have from scanning the 35mm film negatives, the upgrade was designed specifically for editing with Photoshop and to enable the viewing and selection of the hundreds of files. The PC is still on the bench being diagnosed.

I found out from this chap walking his dog that although the car appeared to me yesterday to have been joy ridden across the grass verge before being set alight it had in fact been in that position for 2 weeks with large For Sale signs advertising to those on the busy road.

Bloody PCs, bloody Microsoft and a great new car to photograph

2009-01-30T03:20:00.010Z

The latest news on my PC is that we have tested some of the known symptoms associated with Windows rebooting- overheating or faulty power supply and as yet nothing seems to add up, strangely after having formatted the hard disc and installed Windows XP when I try to upgrade Service Pack 3 it crashes. Any way lets assume that no one reading “You Will Never Look At Them In The Same Way Again” is a geek and move on enough to say that I have handed it over to my friends Keith and Andy at Bytesize Computers on the Robin Hood Island in Birmingham.

Trying to carry on life and work on my old laptop is like trying to run a marathon but running through treacle. To open a photograph in Photoshop is taking forever so you can image what I’m going through when I say that I took 350 pictures this morning and I cant even sort out the bad fuzzy ones from the “possibles might use it in the future” ones therefore I will wait till I get the tower back to work on the photos associated with the exhibition preview night and some of the events connected to the show. You can get a look at some pictures via my Flickr site which somehow I have managed to keep going through all the mayhem

I got a call from my brother who found a burnt out car at the Maypole in Birmingham, so off I go with camera in hand but when I arrived there was the Ford Galaxy up on a lorry ready for the scrap yard, the burn marks were no good anyway, so I got on the phone to my brother to tell him the latest news. He told me I can’t be right because he was still looking at the car.

The car he spotted was about 200 yards around the corner.

The arsonist really had a great time swinging the car all over the grass verge then resting against the signs, as you can see they got a bit creative.

Remarkable when you think that this is happening on one of the busiest roads in Britain, the 50 bus route that runs to and from Birmingham City Centre through the Maypole is the most used in Europe.

At one stage while I was working and concentrating on the THE shot I became overcome by the extreme smell of the still leaking petrol fumes, I have never experienced this before and for a while I had to work up wind. It wasn’t until I now I realised that I was in a very dangerous environment that could of become a fireball in no time.

So here is a hurriedly put together picture which because of the time frame involved and perhaps my slow laptop doesn’t match my artist statement. If you want to see my work in the gallery and your close to the West Midlands area have a look at my latest exhibition.

Exhibition Title: You Will Look at Them in the Same Way Again
Venue: Solihull Gallery
Address: Solihull Arts Complex, Library Square, Touchwood, Homer Road, Solihull, West Midlands
Dates: 19th January - 7th March
Theres an Artist Talk event on Thursday 26th February at 6pm

Why do PCs crash at the worst possible moment?

2009-01-28T18:41:00.002Z

Last Thursday was the private view of my latest exhibition.

Exhibition Title: You Will Look at Them in the Same Way Again
Venue: Solihull Gallery
Address: Solihull Arts Complex, Library Square, Touchwood, Homer Road, Solihull, West Midlands
Dates: 19th January - 7th March
There's an Artist Talk event on Thursday 26th February at 6pm

But before I could mail shot everybody to publicise the event my computer started crashing and rebooting. I managed to hold it together by the use of the equivalent of blue tack and string and then restored it back to factory settings on Saturday night. That was not the end of my problems and it now seems that its a hardware fault and not the Windows operating system (sorry Microsoft the number of times I have cursed you this week) Further more when I tried to restore my art work files back onto the PC there was another system crash that seemed to damage my external backup hard drive. In a panic I have been trying to fix that and eventually after defragging and using lots of utilities everything seems to be ok.

Data is Backed up, but!!

I do have everything backed up on DVDs CDs and old hard drives but finding the data and tracking down the latest versions would be time consuming and a bit of a nightmare using my old laptop and a 15 year old tower running on Windows 98. The technology has moved on and even copying a large 8 megapixel photo file from one old device to another seems to take forever. In fact I’m copying all my old car original car pictures to the hard drive on my laptop which is taking 6 hours.

Will this unhappy situation create more hits on my blog?

When I look at the visitor stats for “You Will Never Look at Them In The Same Way Again” I notice that the most popular keywords or key phrases that attract hits to the blog are “How do I restore my PC back to factory setting?” and this refers the user to a post I made regarding another PC disaster. last Summer.

Now in the world of SEO I have attracted visitors to my blog but are they relevant visitors because. I’m sure while my PC world was falling apart the last thing I wanted to do was read a blog about some idiot who photographs burnt out cars in the name of art, or indeed select some fine art photography to mount on that bare wall in my living room.

To come: once I have finished my pc repairs and loaded all the software: the pictures from last weeks Private View of the exhibition, and look at what the children of Solihull are doing having based their paintings on my photographs.

Technorati Tags: Exhibition,Solihull,West Midlands,Art,Fine Art,Photography

Technorati Tags: PC,Restore,Windows,Cars,SEO

Depressing

2009-01-22T02:55:00.002Z

Did you know according to experts. January 19 is the most depressing day in the year but this year they say it is going to be the most in history, Cold weather, fading Christmas memories and broken New Year resolutions mean this period is usually miserable, but the effects of the economic downturn makes this year worse than ever.

I got a phone from a council worker informing me of a burnt car in the park, but when I arrived it had been towed away. This is the first time this has ever happened to me.

Although you will notice that boggy mess around the charred floor. Well at least I didn’t have to stand in that, and it was very cold. So I’m not that depressed.

Goodbye Tony Hart

2009-01-22T02:45:00.003Z

I was sad to hear of the death of the Childrens TV artist Tony Hart, I cant quite think if he inspired me to be an artist or not, (its been that long) In some ways I found his programmes very frustrating to watch because I could never see myself being able to draw or paint to the point that someone could recognise what it is! When I was at school I thought that the art of drawing was a natural talent and not something anyone could do by applying certain techniques,

A sleepless night wondering if everything will be ok

2009-01-16T02:39:00.005Z

Yesterday we set the artwork out on the gallery floor so that we could see how each piece looked in the space and how each one harmonised with the other work. I was a little worried because it doesn’t matter how good a picture looks on a monitor or hard copy its still hit or miss if it works printed on glass and at at that stage you can’t see detail in the pictures and therefore they look disappointing. I was very relieved when all the pictures where hung on white wall with the lighting in the right position.

Once again thanks to the staff at the arts complex who did all the installation for me, luxury.

Two weeks of work before the exhibition opens.

2009-01-16T02:06:00.016Z

First a catch up on whats been happening in the world of John Garghan since I last posted on “You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again”.

A New Years Message from one of my lookouts

I have been one of the many who have been caught by this horrible virus flu/cold like symptom epidemic that’s been sweeping the country. Mine has been the cold flavour or should I say coldzzzzs, I have had about 4 one after another as soon as one fades away a new begins. One is on the way out now and I hope this is the end. While I was in the middle of one “cold” and feeling extremely ill I woke one morning to a text message from John the Park Cleaner who is one of my top scouts for finding burnt out cars. Oh no I thought I can barely sit up without my head spinning or is it the room that’s moving and there’s a burnt out car waiting to be photographed by me. The text was mearly a joke and a Happy New Year message, somewhat relieved I had been spared the dilemma I answered and went back to sleep.

The latest news of my exhibiition

I know I promised a look at some more blogs that I follow and I will do that very shortly but I’m in the thick of preparing for my exhibition.

Exhibition Title: You Will Look at Them in the Same Way Again

Venue: Solihull Gallery

Address: Solihull Arts Complex, Library Square,Touchwood, Homer Road, Solihull, West Midlands

Dates: 19th January - 7th March

You are invited to the Private View Thursday 22nd January 6pm to 7:30

We began the instillation yesterday and because there is a lot of new content in the show all printed onto toughened glass I have been backwards and forwards across Birmingham collecting glass or printing. Its worked like clockwork and I must say a thank you to The Glassworks and Action Graphics who supplied right on time. The only problem I encounter happened last week when The Glassworks called to tell me I could pick up the sheets of glass but I couldn’t open my car doors because the locks had frozen. Using a cocktail of WD40 and De-icer I managed to free the doors although now the central locking system is out of sync with doors locking when they should be open and visa versa and further

more they are never all locked or all open its random. Reminds me of the 1960s film “How I won The War” starring John Lennon who played a very raw recruit into the army; Musketeer Gripweed who couldn’t get the hang of marching or at

least marching in time with everyone else he then got everybody else doing it wrong. The Sergeant Major decided to isolate him from the others and show him how it was done but Gripweed ended up getting the sergeant major screwing it up too.

A trip to London to pick up a picture for the show

I decided that I needed a main picture for the show that would stand out above the rest of the work,

I do have a picture that is a unique one off print:

I will never print the photograph this size or as large again

The print process used for this picture has since changed and it is now impossible to calibrate the digital file to recreate the same result again. That photograph was down at the gallery of International Art Consultants in London. They represent my work into the commercial sector through Art For Offices. So a visit to London to pick up this precious piece also enabled me to visit and have a chat about how we can support one and other to sell my work

Trafalgar Square at 1:30pm, you can see how bad the weather is by the light or lack of light

Despite horrible weather I had a great trip, although I had to pay the London congestion charge of £8 I found the traffic moved freely through central London, the last time I drove through the city it was one big bumper to bumper crawl.

The blogs that I follow

2009-01-03T02:39:00.005Z

As an artist I find I spend a great deal of time surfing the net, looking for galleries to approach, inspiration from the big wide world or just to look at other artists work. I call it all part of my job, well that’s my excuse. Here are a few blogs and sites I regularly dip into.

Retirement With No Problem

http://www.choiceforum.co.uk/blog/noproblem.html

This has no relationship with art so that proves a point. The blog follows a couple who took early retirement and travel the inland waterways of Britain in their narrow boat “No Problem”. A friend introduced me to this site about 12 months ago and I have followed it ever since, I don’t know why I have no urge to live on a canal boat but it is just a nice diary. This site got me interested in blogging and taught me there is always a story to tell and blog about

Pete's 'Today in History' Quiz

http://todaysthedayquiz.blogspot.com/

This has no relationship with art so this again proves a point. Every Tuesday night I go to the quiz night at The Bulls Head, Hall Green, Birmingham. Pete achieves the impossible and writes one of the best quizzes that I have been to. His philosophy for a quiz is: - Don't make it too hard (people don't like to go home thinking that they know nothing!) If people don't know an answer, when they do hear it they say, "****, I should have known that!!" (There's nothing worse at a quiz than being none the wiser when you've heard the answer!) It works.

Pete's 'Today in History' Quiz has 3 questions relating to this day in history and with answers published the following day I cheat and read a day late. I’m useless on questions based on art and artists which surprises everyone.

Petes written a book "The Easy Quiz Master" it’s self published and available via Amazon and Lulu.com.

Created In Birmingham

http://www.createdinbirmingham.com/

This blog reports on the creative community in Britians second city. Its run by Chris Unitt and it’s a pretty slick site, My thanks to Chris and his coverage of “You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again” because I get loads of clicks originating from Created In Birmingham.

The next post will feature some great artist blogs.

New Year Resolutions on Flickr

2009-01-02T02:16:00.008Z

A Happy New Year one and all, Christmas was better than I expected and now it’s back to the old routine. It seems that everyone is off until Monday 5th which is when I start to get all the materials together for the installation of the show at the Solihull Arts Complex.

Just started the 365 project on Flickr. The idea is to take a photo a day and post it on my Flickr site. I believe that the idea originated with taking self portraits everyday, but I wouldn’t inflict that on anyone.

Title: Ready for the Recycle Bin

Heres the topical picture for the 1st January as I uploaded it I thought of the implications, what happens if I go on holiday and I'm miles from an internet connection but then I thought with the credit crunch, What Holiday? Anyway lets see if I can keep it going for more than a week.

How do I save my Favourites or Bookmarks in Google Chrome?

2008-12-23T17:32:00.008Z

I have been using the Google Chrome web browser for about 2 months, I like it and I want to use it but it’s not totally convincing. It is very fast and I do like the nice clear page view.

I’m a big fan of Google, they produced some great free utilities and application programmes Gmail (or Googlemail as its known here in the UK) this online email programme is refreshingly different and good. I find Google Notebook very useful when I’m looking at galleries or other artists online presence, Google Analytics provides me with detailed information on visitors, Google Maps has blown Multi Map, the AA and RAC route finders away, and that’s even before we look at the free Word Processing and Spreadsheet programmes the equivalent Microsoft versions would cost you £79.99 and that’s a special offer this week. And of course I’m using Blogger to publish this blog.

I have found Firefox getting slower and slower with each upgrade, and it has crashed more and more. I could list more good reasons, but you can see why I want to like Chrome and to an extent it does it for me, but there are some issues that Google needs to sort out.

1. The main reason that I used Firefox was because of the very good facility to backup and save my favourite links and furthermore organising these favourites is a breeze in Firefox. This is very important to me I use the internet a lot and therefore I’m always bookmarking sites and I will often want to organise the position of that bookmark on my browser. After finding no link or command in the Chrome programme I have searched and searched forums and websites trying to get the answer of a round about way to achieve this task, I’m sure that one day Google will provide it.

2. As I do online banking I like to download a copy of my statement. In Firefox its no problem the data is downloaded to my PC as a spreadsheet that can be opened in Excel. At the moment Chrome just presents me with the data unformatted on a blank webpage, it doesn’t download the data in any format. I’m still using Firefox to achieve this. Although this would be the bank not yet optimizing their websites to browsers other than Microsoft Internet Explorer, I’m sure one day they will.

3. When I use Googles very own Blogger to publish a post in “You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again” I have found Chrome is considerably easier to type in the text, and I don’t appear to have any formatting issues Have a look at my previous posts on this issue here and here. You would say that should be a given: same company produces both products so compatibility shouldn’t be an issue. Should it? When I upload a picture this is displayed as thumbnail size and cannot be resized in Chrome. So first I type in my text using Chrome then close down the browser, wait 5 minutes while Firefox opens then re log into Blogger to upload any pictures. I’m not so sure this one will ever be sorted.

From the Chicago Tribune website a picture that caught my eye.

2008-12-23T17:23:00.002Z

American Football is one sport that I can’t get enthusiastic about and of the North American sports only baseball can I watch and take an interest in, so while I looked for the latest baseball news from the Chicago White Sox I came across this great picture taken at the game between The Bears and the Green Bay Packers.

A trip to London planned to collect one of my pieces that is exhibited in the capital

2008-12-21T23:59:00.006Z

The preparation work for the exhibition at Solihull Arts Complex is going well with the glass company and the printers able to deliver on time. I was worried because the Christmas break throws all routine out of the window companies close for the holidays so effectively this will cover this weekend through to 5th January, I have also known situations when individual workers will take addition holiday around this time, so consider if say Martin the operator at the printers who is responsible for the machine that produces my work goes skiing in January this would be a huge problem. I have 8 new art pieces to produce and Martin is central to my plans, he has worked with me over a period of time and is now able to interpret my digital photos and produces that image on the glass. Its taken time, trial and error and a great deal of sharing our respective expertise in print and photography to get our finished results, so imagine my relief when I was told that Martin had had a winter break last week.

I decided to use a large copy of one of the images as the focal point of the exhibition it is a one off never to be repeated edition of this image much larger than my usual prints, I already have this printed but it is currently exhibited at “Art for Offices” in London,. normally I courier packages down to London, its very cost effective and saves me driving into the centre of the capital but this time I have decided to kill two birds with one stone by visiting Arts for Offices to meet the people down there for the first time and collect the piece, this will also ensure I can get it to the show without breaking it in transit, remember this is a unique piece that for various reasons can not be replaced.

After making this decision I worked out the logistics involved, I used to regularly drive through London from the M1 to the A23 when I used to live in Brighton, this was in the 70s and 80s when the M25 wasn’t even on the planners drawing board I knew the best times to travel to get that window of clearish road and also a little illegal short cut that would get me out of the heavy traffic in the West End rejoining the road signs for Hatfield and the North way past the Lords cricket ground, this could reduce my journey time by an hour.

My "London A to Z Street Map" purchased about 1984 still serves me well when I travel down to London on the train, from the stations I just need to walk a few blocks down the road and of course I can use my reading glasses but driving from the M40 through to Tower Bridge, I don’t think so! I will trust to Tom Tom.

No pictures to go with this post so I thought you might look at a photo I worked on last night this was after a few pints of Guinness at the Four Oaks Saints Christmas party so I got very creative.

Which way do you think is best this way or

This way?

Getting ready for my exhibition at the Solihull Arts Complex at the Touchwood Centre. Solihull

2008-12-19T03:55:00.001Z

“You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again” the Exhibition!!!

Venue: Solihull Arts Complex

Address: Library Square

Touchwood

Homer Road

Solihull

West Midlands

Date: From Monday 19th January to Saturday 7th March 2009

Private View Thursday 22nd January 6pm to 7:30

Stand by for some unashamedly over the top self promoting of my upcoming show at the Solihull Arts Complex. As it’s a one man show there is loads of pressure:

How long will my glass suppliers be closed over the Christmas holidays?

What will happen if the pictures don’t come back from the printers in time?

What if no one comes to the Private View?

What happens if there’s a 10 foot snow fall on the afternoon of the Private View

There you are a typical Capricorn and it is also that time of the year.

So far so good I had an amazing time with Jackie Mackay and Steph Adams two fellow members of the Solihull Artist Forum, we got together at the café Sainsburys Supermarket in Shirley Solihull and we put the World to right, had a great laugh and also found time to select the images that are going into the exhibition. Me I just throw them on the wall, nope these girls are serious, hardcore curators “will the streak of Alizarin Crimson blend with the Transparent Red Ochre on the picture on the other side of the room” I kid you not. So now the pictures are chosen and the glass manufacture has begun ready for the printing process in the New Year.

We sat drinking coffee for about 2 hours and in that time loads of other customers looked at the portfolio so hopefully they will make their way down to the town centre and see the show. In fact the response was so good I might approach Sainsburys about taking on a franchise and aim to sell my work via these coffee drinking “sit ins” well with the credit crunch you have to explore all marketing avenues.

Rowans Gallery in Brackley Northamptonshire

2008-12-12T00:51:00.012Z

If your down in the Northampton, Oxford area you might like to pop into Rowans Gallery which is in the town centre of Brackley at the back of the Town Hall and by the side of the Red Lion pub, I’m not too sure of the landmarks there and at the moment I’m relying on the location pictures in Google maps. Its not far from Junction 11 of the M40 motorway, each time I have been down there I find I take a different route back to the motorway possibly because all the country roads look the same no problem it’s a pleasant area to drive around even at this time of the year.

It makes for a nice cosy court yard atmosphere to view artwork by artists coming from a variety of medias and arts disciplines. There’s a selection of my work on view which I change and update on a regular basis.

of course it rained on the opening night

I popped along for the opening night a few weeks ago and had an enjoyable evening talking to other artists, I had taken my work there a few days earlier and at that stage it wasn’t far off still a building site, so it was great to see it all coming together on the big day.

"Natures Play on Water" is in postion

Rowans Gallery

Market House Courtyard

Brackley

Northants

NN13 7AB

The Burnt Out 4 x 4 and a cast of 1000s at Earlswood

2008-11-10T01:14:00.014Z

Two burnt out cars to photograph in a week no wonder I have been grinning from ear to ear and singing happy songs all weekend. This year the dumped cars have been very thin on the ground with only five up to last weekend, its not a real problem because I have only just released my new catalogue (soon to be uploaded onto my website – now that’s putting the pressure on) and I have many many stock photos. But, its great to have the opportunity to get some fresh metal to work on.

Friday morning my brother saw this 4 x 4 while taking a short cut through the back roads of Earlswood on the way home from work. Earlswood is due south of the city boundary of Birmingham and famous locally for some excellent fishing at Earlswood Lakes. After heavy rain during the night I had to negotiate the flooded country roads and then stand in cold mud while I took the photographs. I decided not to let Sally the dog out of my car because the mixture of the mud and the remains of the fire all over the area did not make a good recipe for my car being clean on the journey home. Sally was not pleased.

The timing of the find was superb because it was very bright and sunny certainly one of the best days for taking close up often macro photos, I can also use the strong sunlight directed at different angles on the metal to produce some very creative effects.

As I was working the events of the burn out began to unfold: this chap lives on a canal boat and parks his car here just off the canal bridge at the entrance to the field, at 3pm on Thursday the farmer came running and shouting to the boat to get him to move his car which was right next to burning car 4 x 4 he managed to pull Ford Escort clear without any damage, being very selfish it’s a pity because I would have had 3 cars in one week which therefore would of set a new record for me.

The farmer who had been delivering a lorry load of manure to his field was then trapped in the field by the 4 x 4, fire engines and police vehicles.

I couldn’t at first understand why the burn out had these slash marks all over until I was told that the fire was originally up close to the gate and they got a tractor to move it. The fire had also damaged the box associated with the communications aerial in the field and after the battery power was used up the signal went down in the early evening.

All afternoon we played musical cars as this little picturesque country lane got more and more congested.

First I parked up – to take my photos

Then boat man to go home,

Then the man to inspect the aerial.

Then the police came to try and find some vehicle identification (no luck)

Then a visitor to the caravan site over the bridge.

Backwards and forwards came the farmer with his muck lorry, I don’t know what smelt worse the manure or the fumes from his diesel engine.

It was chaos. And don’t forget the traffic taking the short cut along the lane and even the joggers take no prisoners along the country lanes.

After about 3 hours of taking shots the recovery truck arrived but before they took my beautiful model away I managed to get some final pictures.

The lads took a break while I finished off.

I had taken as much as I could from the vehicle and by now the light was deteriorating

Photographing the Ford Escort Day 2

2008-11-08T02:32:00.005Z

It is very unusual to find a car still there on a second day, but of course I will always pop along somewhat half heartedly just to put some closure on the car. But there it was untouched.

By now I have many (and I would say more than enough) photographs of the car and anything new would be generated by:

Change in the weather. (perhaps overnight frost on the metal)

Heavy overnight rain (creates puddles on the roofs, changes the surface colour)

Damage by bored kids (they create great bumps on the bonnet giving an effect of a mountainous landscape)

Different sunlight from previous day.

The sunlight proved to be the major difference from yesterdays cloudy dark sky to period of no more than an hour of golden Autumn sunlight.

I carried on experimenting from yesterday and even tried some flash photography once the small amount of sunlight dipped. It is difficult to extract anything different after a good long session on the first day, within 24 hours the metal becomes too rusty and its hard to transform the pictures into anything but a rusty surface and of course the aim of my finished images is to alter them far away from their originating base line.

There was no day 3 the car was still on the park until late in the afternoon but a typical November day with dank light and fine misty rain would not facilitate any sharp quality photographs.

Burntout Car in Tysley, Birmingham

2008-11-06T03:26:00.012Z

I have often dreaded the thought of getting a telephone reporting a found burnt out car and for some reason not being able to go and photograph it. Well this morning it happened for real. About 9:30am I received a call from John the park cleaner about a car found off Cowley Road in Tysley, but I had to take my dog to the vet at 10am I had also arranged to take my dad for an appointment at 11 which meant the earliest I would be there would be 12:30 and by then the car could be towed away. A few years ago you would see burnt out cars left in the position were they were torched but nowadays they are carried away within hours so I was not confident this car would be there when I drove to the park.

The moment when I first see a car is full of anticipation, what condition will it be in is generally the most important concern but for this car I was just relieved to see it still there.

Sadly the arsonists had driven across and ploughed up the ground of the small football pitch.

The car, a Ford Escort the make and model which traditionally produces some great scorch marks was in perfect condition and in an ideal position in the field which in the limited winter daylight is very helpful because it means there is a better chance of getting good quality sharp pictures. I had plenty of room to move around the car and point my camera at the best angles, bear in mind that when I’m looking through the lens I aim to capture an image that resembles a landscape (either from outer space or the window of an airplane over a forest or sea or even a seascape below water) and during the manipulation of the image later on my PC I try to dissolve the picture of metal, plastic and glass. There is nothing more frustrating than seeing great markings on a car but that side of the vehicle is in shadow or to too close to a wall/fence and therefore I cant get access. The only problem I encountered here was the choking from the smoke of the still burning tyre.

I had been warned by John to lock my own car and watch my equipment and just be aware of what was going on around me while I worked (the inner city area of Tysley isn’t the best) but the burnout was on the edge of the park far away from the walking paths and Sally was on guard, nobody knows that she is so viscous she would lick them to death.

Despite the warnings I experienced no problems and I was there photographing until it got dark, its unusual to have so much time to work (because the car would normally be towed away by lunch time) and once I had taken as many photographs using my usual method of lenses and camera settings I utilised the time to experiment not only with other lenses but I changed to my film SLR (Canon AE-1 Program) and used a few roles of film. Under normal circumstances I need to work quick and because of the time constrains I don’t like to use a tripod however, I was able to spend more time setting up the shot. I have often wondered what it would be like having a car in a photography studio with the perfect lighting conditions and being able control the shoot, one day it might happen but this was the closest I have come so far.

Hot of the press is a finished picture

The World Series Markes The End of The Baseball Season

2008-11-05T01:08:00.008Z

You may have noticed that I post to “You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again” at some crazy times during the night; the reason for this is my love of Major League Baseball. It all began when Five TV (in the UK) started live coverage of ESPNs “Sunday Night Baseball” from the United States. That programme begins at 1am (UK time) and indeed the majority of American baseball games begin either at midnight or 1am (7pm or 8pm Eastern Standard Time in the USA). I would possibly video the show and watch it on Monday evening, but now as I’m able to be flexible with my working hours and for that matter sleep time I’m able to watch live.

I latched on to the Chicago White Sox as my team, I don’t know why, possibly because I didn’t want to go with the popular option of the Yankees, LA Dodgers, Boston Red Sox or even the Chicago Cubs. This is perhaps because I can’t relate to supporters of the big four Premiership football teams in the UK who don’t live within 200 miles of the ground. Why can’t they support their local team? Anyway because I was a fan I looked at all the Sox related sites on the internet and then began to follow games on line via the brilliant graphical representation on Yahoo sports and MLB.com.

This year I discovered the TV coverage on MLB.com. Via the internet I was able to choose from 15 live games every night from the 1^st of April through to the end of September, I was in heaven. So while on one PC I have been editing my photographs, building websites and blogging, on the other I was watching the Sox game. Because coverage of the days games across America begins about 8pm UK time and will finish as late as 6am the next morning I was able to watch other teams either before or afterwards. Furthermore, since I don’t live in Chicago (not even in the USA) I wasn’t restricted by the TV blackouts that they enforce for a game in the locality and therefore I was able to watch all 166 White Sox regular season games (in baseball they play every day). Taking advantage of the very favourable exchange rate in April this year it only cost me just £60.

People will say and its always the women in my life who have said it that there isn’t a sport that I don’t follow but that isn’t totally true I’ve got no time for horse racing, darts and loads of other sports, many such as tennis and perhaps golf I might watch for a short time if there was nothing else to do. I love football but not wall to wall on TV every night (TV coverage tends to be the Big Four) but I am passionate about playing and watching cricket.

So what is it about baseball that will captivate me into the small hours of the morning?

I do like the break in the action between an innings although the commercials did drive me mad with their repetition, but this break allowed me to do other things while the game was on, a lot of Brits say this is one aspect of the game they don’t like and would like it to be more flowing.

The visible pressure on the players and fragile balance between success and letting the whole team down because at certain times, generally towards the end of the game one bad pitch or error could loose the game.

There are so few errors: most of the play is brilliant and slick which means that the players have to do something or indeed be something exceptional to make a difference.

The policy of MLB to strive for an equal level between all teams: This was achieved in 2008 with Tampa Bay who this year are the beaten World Series finalist having gone from the team with worst record in baseball for the last ten years to the best. The governing body put rules in place to help the small teams, for example: they have first choice of the cream of the new young players that are breaking into the game, they either hold onto them and strengthen their squad or cash in and sell them to a larger organisation who have to give them star players and money to compensate, initiatives like this seem to operate throughout the game. While the teams in the big markets do attract the best free agents they have to pay hefty fines when they exceed the payroll ceiling, the success of this levelling is further illustrated when you factor in the New York Yankees (perhaps the richest franchise in sport) they could only finish a disastrous 3^rd in their division and couldn’t make the playoffs while the small market Tampa Bay won the division and went all the way to the big one.

I often wonder how great it would be if the Premier League in this country applied similar rules, it would break down the top four monopoly of Manchester United, Chelsea. Liverpool and Arsenal. But it aint going to happen. dream on.

A busman’s Holiday in Ireland

2008-11-01T17:26:00.016Z

I suddenly realised I hadn’t had any time off this year. Certainly nothing more than the odd day here and there; this is one of the disadvantages associated with having a job that I enjoy doing, I really look forward to Monday mornings. So I decided to take a few days off and visit my sister who lives in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. And what was I doing most of the time? Taking photographs.

A short drive from Birmingham up the M42 to East Midlands, a short cheap Ryanair flight to Derry and within no time I was drinking Guinness. It rained every day but what do you expect, never the less there was some periods of sunshine too. Although I spent most of the time on my holiday taking photos I missed a great shot during the flight, it was a very cloudy day and I thought it was pointless getting my camera out of the bag and left it on the hand luggage rack. Sure enough passing over Liverpool there wasn’t a gap in the white carpet but then during the descent into Derry the plane banked to approach the runway and at this precise moment the clouds parted and the autumn sun low in the sky lit up the landscape below, it lasted no more than 30 seconds. There was the incredible view from above of a farmer ploughing a field with a flock of white birds (I presume seagulls) following the tractor, this of course contrasted vividly with the dark brown soil. The one that got away!

I spent time in Enniskillen photographing and popped into the Buttermarket where local artists have their studios and galleries,

I remembered the work of Frances Morris from the last time I was there about 4 years ago she paints and displays beautiful photography too. Francis assures me she doesn’t use any digital manipulation software such as Photoshop; all her work is “as taken” her photographs from Venice use the brilliant sunlight to enhance the colours giving the image a strong vibrancy. Frances doesn’t have a website at the moment (she should) but when she does I will link to it.

With my camera I walked around the town exploring places that are off the beaten track, during the 30 years my sister has lived in the area I have visited Enniskillen many times but because I’m no fisherman and not interested in boats I have never seen much of either the river or Loch Erne.

While I didn’t find any Irish burnt out cars I managed to keep within the theme of cars with these two odd speed limit road sign pictures, I forgot that I was after all in Ireland.

Enniskillen is close to the border with the Republic of Ireland both to the south into Cavan and Sligo or strangely north east to Donegal and handy for day trips. We headed down to Mullaghmore, County Sligo. I really enjoy working with my camera here because within a mile you have the contrast of the rocks, cliffs and crashing waves of the Atlantic coast, a sleepy fishing village and a deserted beach not forgetting the mountains in the background.

See more photos of my trip to Ireland at my Flickr site

Burnt Out Car at Kings Norton, Birmingham

2008-10-06T03:59:00.008+01:00

Last week I was in a panic I had a sort of writers block or even bloggers block. I was thinking it’s about time I posted but without just posting for the sake of posting I couldn’t think of anything meaningful to write about. There are a few rants and raves and observations that I had jotted down on the back of a cigarette packet but nothing more than a few thoughts to work on. Then as if by magic: not only was my editorial dilemma solved with one phone call but also a temporary (at least) relief of my concern that there just isn’t the number of burnt out cars ready to be photographed that there used to be. More about this threat to my career on a later post.

I got a phone call from one of my many lookouts reporting a “burn out” over at Kings Norton. It wasn’t particularly early in the morning but as I hadn’t got to bed before 4am I was still half asleep when I arrived on the scene. I follow Major League Baseball on the internet, the games start around one o’clock in the morning UK time. After a season stretching from the 1st April to this final week and after 160 odd games the final standings are still in the balance and therefore recording the games is not the best way to view the season finish.
The car was in a beautiful condition in the best of urban grubby location so everything was ideally stage managed for action photographs for “You Will Never Look at Them in Same Way Again” too.

First let me introduce you to my lookouts: I have an army of dog walkers who cover the parkland in Birmingham and the surrounding areas, but I also try to make contact with people who work in these often off the beaten track locations where the cars will be found. They are in these areas for most if not all of their working day and therefore cover a large area. These guys have been my best source of burn outs this year; I don’t know their names so I can’t introduce you formally but they work for Birmingham City Council cleaning up the public parks. I originally made contact with them while I walked my 3 dogs down Trittiford Park and The Dingles. Sadly I found out today that one of them has been laid off work for the winter months (I do hate the current trend were companies/organisations no longer employ people for a 40 hour week, 52 weeks a year, but rota workers hours as required).

The lads took some photos of me photographing the car

Here they get my good side

Now this is really getting serious.

While I was working away the owner of the car turned up, she didn’t seem interested in what I was creating from her recycled pride and joy but didn’t mind having her picture taken with her burnout.

Of course there was the inevitable passer by, they always ask “Is it yours” “ are you from the police” etc but this cyclist although he was talking to me for some time he completely ignored the car and didn’t ask a single question about me, what I was doing, and why.

My photo of Hlavni Nadrazi is included in Schmap Prague

2008-10-04T20:29:00.005+01:00

A bit of recognition this week when my Flickr photograph of Hlavni Nadrazi (Prague Railway Station) was included in the Schmap Guide for Prague

The picture was taken last June when I went to the Czech Republic with some friends we have been there a few times. Funny enough we talked only this week about doing it again next year, we fly into Prague but don’t normally stay there long and catch the train to Brno the second largest city, located in the South east of the country (far from all the tourists, stag nights and hen parties) last year we timed the visit to coincide with the Rolling Stones Big Bang concert.

Hlavni Nadrazi is the biggest and busiest railway station in Prague. It is also the most central, located just 5 minutes walk from Wenceslas Square. This Art Nouveau structure houses a lofty dome, stained glass windows and carved faces of women representing Prague as the 'Mother of Cities'.

See more of my photographs from the Czech Republic at my Flickr Site under the set Czech Republic

Well if this burn out car business ever comes to an end I can always put myself forward as a travel photographer, yes I fancy a bit of that.

Something Different – My attempt at Sculpture

2008-09-20T01:28:00.007+01:00

A friend reminded me of some sculptor a Chess Set Comprising of Pieces Made of Coke Cans and Bottles that I did a few years ago and asked why it isn’t still on my website. I removed it along with other work because I wanted to focus on my art practise today – the dumped scrapped and burnt cars.

After I saw a funny video on You Tube were the Coca Cola HGV driver sabotages the Pepsi lorry so that he can deliver first I thought of a Chess Set, Coca Cola against Pepsi.

Cola Wars

This piece was accepted for a few open exhibitions noticeably the “Art Official” show at the Light House Media Centre, Wolverhampton in November 2004. When it’s on show people can’t resist moving the pieces around. I dabbled a bit with sculpture without being totally at home working in a 3rd dimension and sadly I found it hard to follow up this thought provoking work. It was a bit like following up “the” album or a Number One hit record, and I know how Thunderclap Newman feel, showing my age there. How about Chesney Hawkes “The One and Only” or one of the best one hit wonders 4 Non Blondes “What's Up” or even New Radicals “You Get What You Give”

One thing I like about this work is when the exhibition is over I don’t have to take it down with care wrap it in cotton wool which of course I do with my photographs on glass (even toughened glass breaks) I don’t even have to go and pick it up I just tell them to dump it in the skip.