June has been an interesting month with some projects coming to fruition, a trip away to the north-east coast of England, and some unexpected good news.
At the start of the month I managed to have three nights away on the Northumberland coast - my first holiday since January 2020. My grandfather and generations of his family had come from Alnwick, and I had been wanting to explore the area for a long time. It’s an incredibly beautiful place with wonderful beaches like Low Newton-by-the-Sea and Budle Bay. Walking to Bamburgh castle, crossing over to Holy Island, and visiting the Scottish borders were also highlights.
View of Dunstanburgh Castle
Twenty Three magazine, a collaboration between London College of Communication and Southwark Partnership, was published mid-month. I picked up a couple of copies from LCC and was really happy with how my article on Nunhead Cemetery had been laid out. It was a lovely project to be involved in, and hopefully more editions of the local arts and culture magazine will follow.
Installation view of ‘Trace’ 2020
I was very happy to find out that my work, Trace, had been selected for Photofusion’s annual members’ exhibition, Salon 21. Trace features images of the sea viewed through a beach shelter window printed onto sea-hued, semi-translucent acrylics. It was originally shown at Worthing Museum & Art Gallery in 2020. Salon 21 opens 13 July and is the 30th anniversary celebration for Photofusion. Having had the Worthing exhibition cut short by covid last year and another unable to open earlier this year I am really looking forward to catching up with friends and celebrating Photofusion’s great achievement.
A little while ago there was an open call through Artquest called The Light of Day. I had made an application and found out this week that mine was one of ten applications selected. This means that work of mine will be featured in one of their upcoming monthly newsletters, and they kindly pay an artist fee which is much appreciated.
Video preparation
Throughout June I’ve continued to work on my video script but I now feel it’s time to focus on shooting the additional material and experiment with the footage. It may be that the script becomes a guide rather than a spoken voice-over. I really hope I can make the project work as I think it’s an interesting idea and a different way of working.
I think I also forgot to mention last month that I had given an online presentation to some LCC students as part of a careers networking event. This was a really useful experience for me, and had me digging deep into my archives to find stories and images of when I started out as a photography freelancer in Canada.