Brighton Photo Fringe Photography Exhibition 2008

These images show my photography exhibition as part of the Brighton Photo Fringe, I am pleased to say that all went well and I was happy with the way my work looked in the space. This series is entitled 'Night' and although I only exhibited a selection of images from the larger series, I feel that these images work well together as a four. The following statement is the text that accompanies the images.

"This series is based on the idea that the beauty in the landscape around us is very different at night than it is in the light of day. Having photographed sunsets, rolling hills and dramatic cloudy skies I began to question whether we only really see our surroundings when the sun is shining; when darkness falls do we react differently to what we see in front of us?

These images where shot in the suburbs of Brighton close to where I live, areas that I often see on my way home or from the car window. Just as the appearance of our landscapes changes gradually over time throughout the seasons, what we see every day is determined by the time of day and the weather. So I began to take note of how these elements affected how I perceived the same scenes I pass almost daily.

By this time the leaves had fallen and winter had moved in and I was able to capture the huge variety of shapes formed by the trees and the light they filter through their branches. I started to explore the idea of beauty at night including many man made elements, mainly artificial lighting from street lamps and car headlights, combined with the often eerie beauty of the natural landscape that transforms itself at night when its shape, form and scale change from the way we see it during daylight hours. When the sun has gone down what we see before us is a fusion of natural and man made elements. My photographs portray a world that is easy to pass by without being appreciated, transforming mundane structures such as masts and posts into striking silhouettes, often reducing intricate objects like trees to masses of shapes and rely entirely on artificial lighting that acts very differently to natural light."

Photography Exhibition

As part of the Brighton Photo Fringe I have an exhibition entitled 'Night' showing part of a series of suburban night landscapes shot on the outskirts of Brighton. As far as I know this will run from today (Friday 17th October) until Sunday 26th October, with my work showing in one of several rooms on the 2nd Floor, One Grand Parade, Brighton. If you haven't had a chance to see any of the dozens and dozens of exhibitions running throughout the festival I highly recommend you see some as there is some excellent work on display. For more information and exhibition listings check out the Brighton Photo Fringe website.

Close Up Photography

I have been having great fun getting to know my new digital SLR and it's many many features and functions, and have been photographing all kinds of things including everyday objects that you wouldn't necessarily think of as being great photographic subjects. While this is certainly true of some things, I believe that there is potential in many everyday objects and sunjects if you look closely enough, and I also believe that sometimes you just have to take the shot before the subject or light changes and it is lost. Take this close up abstract for example, I wasn't even thinking about photography at this moment in time but the sun just broke through the clouds and lit the window and net curtain casting a shadow on the curtain itself and it looked interesting so I shot it, close up, as I saw it.

Dabbled Sunlit Collared Dove

More bird photography, I've really been getting into it and am enjoying it so that's a bonus, and when I spotted this Collared Dove perched in the dappled sunlight that was being filtered down through the leaves I knew that it would make a decent image. Armed with a long lens I framed up and shot several frames just as he turned his head to one side, I guess I was lucky that the sun happened to be highlighting his head.