On Show

Just thought it was worth posting an update on forthcoming exhibitions of the Science project. The major show is in Edinburgh (at The Hub) from the 5th to 16th of April as part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival - this will feature photos of the four scientists seen in the previous exhibition, plus two more who I should be photographing in the next couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to my first visit to Edinburgh (and indeed Scotland) very much...

Before then there's going to be a smaller show (just two subjects probably) at the Kro Bar on Oxford Road here in Manchester (and what is it with all the punning bar names in M'cr?) from the 10th to 19th March. I might have to post more details about that later as I was at Kro today and it wasn't clear exactly where the photos would be hanging, and the spot which seemed most likely didn't have any proper lighting installed as yet...

Technicolor

Okay, so not the most exciting picture ever, but I thought it would be nice to put something up from working at the university last week, and also for the novelty value of a colour shot on this blog!

This is somewhat relevant at the moment - at a portfolio critique yesterday the person looking over my work at one point said I should shoot colour rather than b&w, which wasn't something I was really expecting to hear. I told Kat from my band that it was a bit like being told your songs are great, but would sound better if played with banjos rather than guitars...

So, I didn't really know how to respond to that (or some of the other suggestions, which came down to matters of personal taste really), but I might as well set out the reasons why I do shoot in mono for my personal work. Firstly I should say that I've nothing against colour photography - in fact some of my favourite photographers shoot exclusively in colour (to name a few, Alex Webb, Miguel Rio Branco, Carl de Keyzer...), in fact part of the problem when I started taking pictures was that I was trying to use colour and b&w at the same time - meaning that I was carrying (at least) two cameras with me at all times, plus all the extra paraphenalia. What I noticed as this continued was that there was an inverse relationship between the amount of equipment carried and the number of (good) photographs made - you miss things if you're changing cameras, or trying to decide which to use in a given situation - and you do more if you have less.

I suppose I'm both a bit of a minimalist, and also someone who believes you work best when you understand the limits of the options open to you. So anyway, I made a conscious decision to focus exclusively on b&w, and although I do have "grass is greener" moments when I see great colour work, I haven't really regretted that decision...