Posts Tagged 'photography'

Great shot of a sunny Manchester City Centre full of Rangers fans for the UEFA Cup Final 2008

Published Wednesday, May 14, 2008 gardens , manchester , photography 0 Comments
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This is from Getty Images on show @ the BBC site.  What a brilliant image.  This is all the fans without tickets gathered to watch a specially constructed big screen showing live the UEFA Cup Final 2008 Rangers vs Zenit St Petersburg at Albert Square, Manchester. Let’s hope it is a good match with no trouble after final whistle.  I wish they listed the photographers name alongside the Agency’s.

It’s always sunny here in Manchester you know ;-)

 

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

 

 

 

 

A Genuine Bicycling Photographer

Published Wednesday, May 7, 2008 United States , blogging , business , cycling , eco-friendly , environment , environmentally-friendly , photography , transport 0 Comments
Tags: , , , , , , ,

I’ve just got to promote this guys site, I do my best to be eco-friendly but just look at this blog from a genuine bicycling photographer based in the United States. His enthusiasm for pedal power is infectious, of course it does help matters when you are based in Long Beach, California :-)

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

The fight to protect everyone’s right to take photographs continues ….

Published Saturday, April 26, 2008 Intellectual Property Rights , London , award , blogging , competitions , copyright , culture , freedom , photography , police , politics , prize , rights , uk , websites 1 Comment
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

One of my most popular posts has been regarding photographer’s rights in the UK : “Photography rights grabs, erosion of freedom, the fightback begins and blogging helps.” This topic is moving so fast I think it is worthy of a follow-up post. The Pro-Imaging website now has a separate page dealing with good and bad photography competions. This now makes it incredibly easy to check on which photo competions are just rights-grabs lurking behind the banner of a prize. Pro-Imaging are having good success with raising awareness and making information freely available, often getting some organizations to actually change their Terms and Conditions to something more palatable.

Sadly it is not all good news. The farce that was the “Olympic Torch Relay” took place in London at the start of the month. Inevitably the event was crashed by protestors wanting to focus attention on China and the situation in Tibet. We then saw a heavily guarded Olympic flame; a symbol of peace and unity, being protected by a massive security operation involving 2,000 members of the Metropolitan Police Force bolstered by Chinese security officers.
Regular members of the public and press photographers tried to record the event in pictures and reported some of the most heavy-handed policing seen in the UK for many a year. Quite brutal incidents of physical assaults, some on horseback, sent out quite a sobering picture of how easily rights can be waved aside when the time demands.
This comes on the back of a number of highly reported incidents involving community support officers and the police both seemingly unaware of UK law and challenging people’s legal right to photograph in public places. Austin Mitchell MP for Grimbsy has taken up the baton and tabled an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons condemning police action against lawful photography in public spaces and has urged the Home Office to agree a “photography code” to be drawn up and used by police officers and UK citizens as a guide to what is and isn’t possible for street photography. Click here for a link to the EDM wording in full. The link also lists every MP who has signed the petition, if your local MP hasn’t, then find your local MP and send them an email here.
If you want to show your support for this cause then you can sign a petition on the 10 Downing Street website.
For some links to some of the recent problems affecting members of the public trying to take photographs in public places, then Amateur Photographer has some good links.
And on the EPUK site they have a list of incidents affecting press photographers.  Another one here @ photorights.org.
UPDATE :  Further discussion on BBC Radio 4 blog on the current confusion regarding the law and photography, also on the Manchester Flickr group regarding contacting their MP’s.

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

 

 

 

Free Intellectual Property Advice for creative businesses in Northern England

Published Thursday, April 17, 2008 IP , Intellectual Property Rights , London , art , artist , business , copyright , event , galleries , learning , links , manchester , photography , rights , talk , uk , workshop 0 Comments
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Are you based in North or North West of England and work within the creative industries?
Do you want some excellent free advice on Intellectual Property (copyrights, trademarks, patents, and related rights)?
If the answer is YES, you should visit www.own-it.org/north.
Own-It was originally launched online in 2004. Devised by the London Development Agency, it delivers free advice on IP for the creative industries in London. Now they are spreading their wings to create Own-It North and expanding to support creative businesses in the North and North West of England. This is a pilot project, they are testing the water until July 2008.
This is a fantastic opportunity made available due to support from Salford University and the Northern Edge Group of Universities, Skillset NW, and the North West Development Agency.

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Abbas Kiarostami, “Trees in Snow” inspiration for a challenge.

Published Thursday, April 3, 2008 Iran , London , art , artist , award , cinema , culture , environment , film , galleries , movies , photography 0 Comments
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
I have a long-standing project I began years ago, a mission to photograph my favourite trees.  Sadly, I am nowhere near finished, in fact by it’s very nature I probably never will reach completion.  One thing it does do though, is really get me thinking.  How can I make my work original and capture the subject with beauty and simplicity?  One series of shots from photographer Abbas Kiarostami is etched in my mind as a kind of benchmark.  
trees_in_snow_2.jpg 
 The work featured here is from the series “Trees in Snow”.  Kiarostami is an Iranian photographer.  He is super-talented and may be better known to many of you as an award-winning film-maker; “The Wind Will Carry Us” (1999), “A Taste of Cherry” (1997) and “Ten” (2002) are three from his impressive archive.  He wrote some words to introduce this series at the V&A, London in 2005.

“Snow descends from

the black clouds

with the whiteness of snow”

trees_in_snow_3.jpg
The “Trees in Snow” images were borne out of Kiarostami’s long, solitary walks to search for film sets, sometimes covering thousands of miles in the Iranian landscape. Photographing these landscapes allowed him a spontaneous immersion in nature.  When travelling alone, he sees his camera as a way of sharing moments which would be torturous if not preserved. The scenes became the equivalent of emotional states and the trees almost human, echoing the saying of the Islamic mystic Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi (born 1165 died 1240): ‘the tree is the sister of man’.
trees_in_snow_1.jpg 

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Deutsche Borse Prize 2008; Esko Mannikko, John Davies, Jacob Holdt, Fazal Sheikh.

Published Monday, March 24, 2008 Denmark , Finland , London , United States , art , artist , event , exhibition , galleries , links , photography , prize , talent , websites 0 Comments
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
For anyone who wants a look at the four shortlisted candidates for the Deutsche Borse Prize 2008 then trundle over here click on the gallery view and there are a selection of thumbnails from each of the finalists’ images plus a short biography. Thanks to lensculture.com for a great bit of work.  The eventual winner, announced on 5 March 2008, was Esko Mannikko from Finland for his retrospective exhibition shown at Millesgarden, Stockhom entitled “Cocktails 1990-2007″.  
Two images from the winning exhibition are below.  
mannikko_x2.jpg 
“I am a photographer of fish, dogs and old men”, Männikkö once said. Bringing to attention stories which carry a universal poignancy, Männikkö shows us a world where animals, objects and people are all portrayed and treated with the same mutual respect and childlike wonder.
The three other nominated artists were: 
John Davies (UK) for his exhibition “The British Landscape” at Bradford National Media Museum.  He uses panoramic black and white photography to document the changing post-industrial landscape of Britain between 1979-2005.
Jacob Holdt (Denmark) for “United States 1970-1975″ a book which documents the lives of people he met whilst hitchhiking across the USA.  
Fazal Sheikh (USA) for the publication “Ladli” which seeks to examine the enduring prejudices against women in contemporary Indian Society.
For further information on the prize click here.  All shortlisted work can be seen until April 5th 2008 at the Photograpers’ Gallery, London.  Click here to go to their home site.

Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2007, Charlie Crane & Laurie Hill.

Published Friday, March 14, 2008 animation , art , artist , event , exhibition , film , galleries , photography 2 Comments
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Way back, on a cold January evening, I went along to the Bloomberg newcontemporaries 2007 exhibition at the Cornerhouse in Manchester, UK. The exhibition took up every bit of available space in all their galleries and even the stairwells. It is primarily a showcase for young UK artists to display their work and those chosen must be final year undergraduates or current postgraduates from UK colleges. As you can imagine there was a massive array of styles, medium and standards on show. Two artist’s work stood out for me:-
Charlie Crane’s colour photographs of Pyongyang “Welcome to Pyongyang”
charliecrane_1.jpg
This is probably my favourite shot “Koryo Hotel” from his series of 28 images, which was also made into a limited edition book published by Chris Boot. I find the colours, mood and composition utterly beautiful and transfixing. Tremendously memorable. Charlie has already won many awards and is probably familiar to many of you already, he lives and works in London, UK and his homesite is here.
The second talented artist I wanted to mention is Laurie Hill who had an animated story “My First Taste of Death” on show. In her own words it deals with … “The tormented offspring of half-remembered Hollywood adventure movies with a sting in its tail. Me and the boss discover Dodo island, I face a deadly struggle with my nemesis the demented sea scorpion and destruction looms when the terrible TRUTH is revealed.” It blends wonderful flowing animation and a strong narrative with a real feel for childhood imagination and wonder.
I have searched high and low for a stream of the animated piece shown at the gallery but I am afraid the best I came up with is these stills. Hopefully you can get a sense of the craft and individuality of the piece from the images but for the full effect I guess you must just see if you are lucky and can catch the work as it pops up around the world. At the moment it is showing as part of the Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose, USA. It has already been to London (UK), Utah (USA) and Manchester (UK). Check out here for further up to date listings and information on the director.

lauriehill.jpg

PDN : Best 30 Emerging Photographers for 2008

Published Friday, March 7, 2008 United States , emerging , magazine , photography , talent 0 Comments
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
A footnote to the Redeye submission slideshow piece I did on February 7th 2008. I mentioned the Bangladesh-based photographer Munem Wasif. His work was one of my favourite picks and he has just been selected as one of the best 30 emerging photographers in the world by PDN magazine. PDN (Photo District News) is an award-winning and well respected US magazine and resource which has a strong online presence and a hard copy magazine aimed at professional photographers.
Have a look at this page www.pdngallery.com/gallery/pdns30/2008/28_thirty.htm it gives a brief biography and one image from each of the 30 shortlisted photographers. A nice chance to browse through some of the hottest talent out there.
This is a shot by Katie Kingma who is based in New York, USA. www.katiekingma.com
Katie Kingma one of the chosen Top 30 emerging photographers

Iris pattern watermark for images

Published Saturday, March 1, 2008 copyright , photography , technology 0 Comments
Tags: , , , ,

One thing caught my eye this week regarding the hot topic of preventing unlicensed use of photography images and how to identify the copyright holder. It involves work by John Daugman, the original inventor of Iris Recognition. Here is a link to an interesting way forward being investigated by Canon, possible use of the photographer’s individual Iris pattern, thanks to the PhotographyBay Blog for spotting this one, fascinating.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7251621.stm eye_iris.jpg

Vertical Gardens

Published Monday, February 25, 2008 art , environment , gardens 2 Comments
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
I am intrigued by the work created by Patrick Blanc a french botanist and artist. We know all too well the huge need for green spaces especially in urban environments, he has a fantastic solution - Vertical Gardens www.verticalgardenpatrickblanc.com
Patrick Blanc Garden, Paris, France

He is based in Paris, certainly a city with many beautiful squares and buildings, but it is a geographical area with little room for expansion. There is very little opportunity for the creation of new open spaces or parks when demand for housing is so huge. However, where there is a blank building wall he sees an opportunity. He fixes a solid frame onto the wall and, by allowing water to trickle down, it provides soil-free habitats for various plants which in turn can provide a home for all manner of lifeforms from birds to frogs. The Garden can be inside or out and plant species are chosen to suit the climatic conditions.

Mr Blanc began his botanical experiments in his own home and now he works on commissions all over the world with projects ongoing in China, Spain and his native France. His first UK commissions are Leamouth Peninsula a docklands regeneration scheme ongoing in 2008 and the Pacha Club, Kings Cross, London. Due to the density of the growth there is no need for weeding, so over time they develop from a two dimensional design to a 3D living work of art and each project is protected by copyright. He has a book “The Vertical Garden: In Nature and the City”
patrickblancbook.jpg
Postcript to this article.  Click here for latest news on the Pacha Club, London commission.

Next Page »

scatterdrum is a personal blog by Gill Moore. Gill is a professional photographer based in Manchester in England. She works for commercial and editorial clients together with shooting personal projects. This side of her work often includes exhibiting, publishing and working with like-minded collaborators on an environmental theme.
scatter:   broadcast randomly
drum:   a way of communicating

Favoured topics on the blog include manchester, photography, music, film, dance, theatre & spoken word, internet, technology, graphics and creativity, sport, cycling, business, environment, architecture, sustainability, travel, green issues.

Gill's homepage

gill [at] gillmoorephotography [dot] co [dot] uk

Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe by Email

what i'm reading this month