This is the photography blog of Jim Stephenson, Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see more of my work.

The Old Market are our amazing hosts for the monthly miniclick photography talks I put together. As a group, they’ve taken us on board and have been really enthusiastic about what we’re trying to do since day one. In fact, as everyone in the city knows, they’re just generally enthusiastic about all kinds of interest art events and they host or put on a series of excellent talks, shows, exhibitions, gigs, theatre productions and dance ensembles on a regular basis (it’s well worth checking out the listings page on their website).

On Tuesday May 29th they have a very interesting talk by Peter Cresswell who will be discussing and displaying Stereoscopes. Entry is free and it kicks off at 7pm (bar open from 6pm). From The Old Market’s website (please note, this is not a miniclick talk – but it looks ace anyway!)…

Stereographer Peter Cresswell brings a collection of his 3D image viewers to TOM for a hands-and-eyes-on event. As Peter will explain in his introductory talk, Stereoview cards and the accompanying Viewers were a Victorian Obsession. Peter’s work creating viewers has provided a fascinating insight into this 19th Century craze.

Following Peter’s talk, there will be a chance to experience the viewers for yourself, and there will then be a Q&A session.

Peter Cresswell introduces his Stereoscopic Viewer:

“I have invented and made a stereoscopic viewer which displays a comfortably large image in a simple undistorted space.  Initially, I only intended it to be used to view my own stereo photography but I soon realised that it also had the potential to reveal the true spatial value of any stereoscopic image once it had been digitally re-mastered to fit the viewer.  So the stereo images created by the very earliest photographers are just as susceptible to the process as any other.

The Victorian obsession with stereoview cards meant that they were produced in millions and many are still readily available today.   They were analogue contact prints so they are as good as negatives for my purposes and enlarge very happily.  They were produced to fit the various Brewster type viewers used at the time and were therefore severely limited in size.  But when subjected to a high definition scan, enlarged, cleaned, re-aligned  and  in some cases subjected to a certain amount of re-organisation, can be offered in my viewer as a spatial experience which could only have been dreamed of  by the photographers of the day.”

Looks ace! (please note, this is not a miniclick event)

This is the photography blog of Jim Stephenson, Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see more of my work.

Back in September, 2011, we put on a panel discussion at The Old Market, featuring Ewen Spencer, Jason Larkin, Ben Roberts, Hin Chua, Laura Pannack and Maja Daniels. The discussion was a great success and after that I had a lot of comments from people who were there, asking if I could get some of the speakers down to do talks on their own and expand on some of the ideas they discussed. Maja’s work really seemed to catch the attention of a lot of people, so I’m really pleased to say that she’ll be doing the June miniclick!

The talk will be on Monday June 11th at The Old Market in Brighton & Hove. Doors are at 6:30pm and entry, as always, is free!

Here’s some images from her project on Parisian twins, Monette and Maddy…

Maja Daniels is a Swedish independent photographer currently based in London, UK. Having studied journalism, photography and sociology, her work focuses on social documentary and portraiture with an emphasis on human relations in a western, contemporary environment. By using sociology as a frame of research and approach to her photographic work, she finds it a successful combination when trying to focus on the interaction between man and society.

Her work was included in the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2011 and exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London. She also won second prize in the 2012 Sony World Photography Awards and was selected as one of the 2011 and 2012 Magenta Foundations Flash Forward Emerging Photographers. She was shortlisted for the 2010 PhotoVisura Grant for an outstanding personal photography project and she has exhibited in Paris, London, New York and Bilbao, Spain.

Dividing her time between long-term documentary projects and commercial work, she is regularly commissioned by the weekly and monthly press including The Guardian Weekend Magazine, Intelligent Life, New Statesman, Monocle Magazine, FT Magazine, Le Monde Magazine as well as humanitarian organisations and cultural institutions such as the UNICEF and the European Commission.

She also collaborates with social scientists in academic projects, using photography as a tool within sociological and cultural research.

It’ well worth spending a while browsing through Maja’s website to check out some of her other projects as well.

Monday, June 11th at The Old Market in Brighton & Hove (11a Upper Market St, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 1AS). It will kickoff at around 7:30pm (doors at 6:30pm). Get there early as the seats get snapped up quick! Entry is free, but there is a bar there that stays open after the talk, so bring some cash and support the venue by having a drink or two.

Hope to see you there!

This is the photography blog of Jim Stephenson, Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see more of my work.

At 11am on Sunday May 13th the miniclick talks, Brighton’s acclaimed monthly photography and filmmaking events are joining forces with Hungry Eye Magazine, the world’s first (and finest) publication for photographers and filmmakers to present Anton Corbijn’s masterpiece Ian Curtis biopic, “Control”. The film will be screened at The Duke of York’s Picturehouse, the UK’s oldest purpose-built cinema and features as part of the Brighton Fringe, the largest arts festival in England. After the screening, we’ll be hosting a discussion on the aesthetics of that era with Stephen Mallinder of Cabaret Voltaire, post-punk act, contemporaries and stable-mates of Joy Division. For all the info, and details on where to get tickets, click here.

To commemorate the screening, we asked four local artists to design one-off special edition posters. We asked two graphic designers; Mark Ferguson of Very Own Studio and Chris Harrison of Harrison & Co, and two illustrators; Billy Mather and Ryan Gillett. They all responded to the brief incredibly well and I’m well chuffed with the results (a set of all four will definitely be going up on my wall).

Each poster is around 16 inches by 11 inches (approx A3), printed in Brighton on heavyweight, 350gsm recycled paper by Dudley at Stampa. Only 30 copies of each poster are being produced and you can buy a set of all four for just £20 (plus £5 p&p in the UK). That’s a bargain! Please email me jim@clickclickjim.com if you’d like one and I’ll send you the payment details. Here’s what they did (and why they did it)…

Mark Ferguson

Mark Ferguson has worked as a graphic designer for the last ten years. After working in several agencies, lecturing undergraduate students and completing a Masters degree, in 2009 he set up his own practice called Very Own Studio. Mark now works with a range of clients large and small, helping them visually communicate with their audiences.

Control – “For me, the film offers a bittersweet insight into Ian Curtis’ world. While he and the band are finding fame and adulation, Curtis is depressed and going through a failing marriage. He is also diagnosed with epilepsy and is suffering from the side effects of the drugs prescribed to help him. A line in the film stood out for me: “It’s a matter of trial and error until the right drug or combination of drugs are found”. This illustrates how far medicine had yet to develop on managing epilepsy, and brought home to me the confusion, despair and disappointment that Curtis must have felt after diagnosis. According to the Epilepsy Society, seizures may induce, among other things, visual disturbances such as flashing lights, hallucinations and the feeling of a ‘wave’ going through the head. With the poster, I wanted to visually depict the sensations that Curtis may have experienced as an epilepsy sufferer, giving the viewer the same sort of unease. The poster is also intended to represent the tunnel-like dark loneliness that sufferers of depression report.”

“I wanted to build layers of meaning into the image. So for example, the image is made of 23 concentric rings, each representing a year of Curtis’ life; almost like the rings of a tree. There are also 80 segments to the circle as the film ends with Curtis’ death in 1980. I hope the poster does justice to this beautiful and moving film.”

You can see more of Mark’s work at Very Own Studio here and follow him on twitter at @VeryOwnStudio

Chris Harrison

Chris Harrison is Creative Director at Harrison & Co, a Brighton-based, award-winning graphic design studio. Chris started his career at Saatchi & Saatchi. Over the last 20 years he has worked for some of the world’s biggest brands – creating design and advertising campaigns for the likes of the UK Government and Barclaycard, through to London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Freedom Food and many other niche brands. His most recognised piece of work is the design of the UK National Lottery logo. Designed in 1994, it has remained unchanged since then.

Chris’s work has been recognised as ‘Highly Commended’ by D&AD, he has also won a Gold Award for branding from the UK Travel and Tourism Association, a Silver Fedrigoni award for branding, ‘Highly Commended’ work featured in the McNaughton Review and several design excellence awards at sector-specific events that his clients have entered on his behalf.

Click here to see more of Harrison & Co’s work and you can follow Chris on twitter at @ChrisHarrison_

Control – “I’ve been a Joy Division and New Order fan since the mid 80s. My passion for them started in my bedroom, where I would play the vinyl and caress the sleeve artwork. Like many graphic designers, my epiphany moment came whilst holding a piece of Peter Saville design. My Control poster aims to summon up some of the very dark, and somewhat depressing, narrative of the film. I wanted to create a piece of artwork that almost felt as heavy as the story, but I wanted it to have a glimmer of light too. In her memoir, Touching from a Distance, Deborah Curtis writes of an unusual incident: Ian Curtis brought home a bunch of freesias the night before he ended his life. According to Deborah, this was a first, he had never brought home flowers before. The image stood out for me. An image of a man obsessed with death. A man who had already written his suicide note through his music. I wanted to incorporate the freesias, almost as a ‘final act’ to the story. Or if you choose to see it differently, a burial shroud. Darkness and beauty.”

Billy Mather

Billy Mather is a 27 year old illustrator and designer living in Brighton, where he is also interns as a designer for FatCat Records.

Click here to see more of Billy Mather’s work.

Control – “When creating a poster for Control, I wanted to capture the strange juxtaposition of sparseness and chaos that characterises both the film and the music of Joy Division. Whilst it is difficult to try and separate the man from the music, I think Corbijn has been successful in keeping the focus on Ian Curtis the person, as I have tried to do also with this minimalist design.”

Ryan Gillett

“I create my illustrations in a screen-printed style, everything I draw is done individually, then brought together to build layers. Using stippling brushes and thick pencil crayons, I aim to give my drawings a unique texture and feel, like a hand drawn version of bitmapping.”

Click here to see more of Ryan Gillett’s work.

Thanks gents! Again, if you’d like to purchase a set of the posters for just £20, please drop me an email on jim@clickclickjim.com. If you’d like to come to the screening, click here for all the info.

This is the photography blog of Jim Stephenson, Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see more of my work.

As part of an ongoing series coinciding with the monthly miniclick photography talks, Joanna Cresswell has written us another essay that covers some of the themes that April’s speaker, Emma Critchley, covers in her underwater photography and film work. For Emma’s talk, we combined one of her images and Jo’s essay in a folded printed poster you could buy on the night. It proved very, very popular and I’m dead chuffed to have Jo on board for future talks as well! This is the piece she did for it, entitled “Scenes from Silence”. All the images here are courtesy of Emma Critchley.

Scenes from Silence by Joanna Cresswell

Time has a quality of intangibility, a fleeting half-life, emitting its duration-particles only in the passing or transformation of objects and events, thus erasing itself as such while it opens itself to movement and change. It has an evanescence, a fleeting or shimmering, highly precarious ‘identity’ that resists concretisation, indication or direct representation. Time is more intangible than any other ‘thing’, less able to be grasped, conceptually or physically. – Elizabeth A. Grosz

The fundamental debate regarding the inextricable relationship between time and the photographic image can take many avenues; narration in the image, the process between the beholder and the image, and the time that is connected to the construction of the image.  Throughout the history of traditional photographic theory there has always been the deduction that the photograph is a static object – a frozen moment in time.  French philosopher Gilles Deleuze once offered the idea that time (in its fleeting and shimmering evanescence) can be seen as running parallel to prevailing ideas about photography’s relationship to instantaneity and to the idea of the photograph as a record of a transitory moment in time. Such infamous books as Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida, with it’s emphasis on the indexical value of the photograph as an uncontainable trace of the real, highlight the perplexing temporal conundrum that the photograph confronts us with when we try to grapple with what it means to have an image that quite literally freezes time and then preserves it indefinitely.

The photograph is an object associated with permanence, stability and immutability, and as a result, it is often used as a way of trying to preserve events with a nature of impermanence, and instability. The flux of boundaries between the individual and space, presence and absence, object and subject, physical and neurological can all be contained within the photographic frame.  Photographers have long been concerned with distilling the essence of time within the photographic frame, and using the medium to understand, extend and preserve that which we cannot control in everyday consciousness.  It has been widely acknowledged that through the photograph we can explore the nature of suspended states – freeze transitory moments and temporality in points where our physical or mental states are altered.  Personal suspensions of consciousness and of physicality are particularly important in art photographic practice because the extent of their duration is so beyond our control  – suspended states we can enter for only limited periods of time; sleep, being underwater, meditation, unconsciousness and even holding one’s breath become intriguing.

An endless list of contemporary photographers and filmmakers have employed the medium to explore such areas, with Hiroshi Sugimoto, David Williams, Antoine D’Agata, Susan Trangmar and Bill Viola being just a small section of that inventory.  The lucidity, the transience and the ephemeral and ever-changing nature of these states often mean that one theme can slip silently into another as the flux between the real and the imagined, the conscious and unconscious perpetuates.  The allure of fixing fleeting moments indefinitely is what makes photography such a powerful tool – it offers us a way to look back upon ourselves, and we are perplexed.  As a result, photographers will often make work that pushes to find the very peripheries of the camera’s limitations and in using the medium to explore the limitations of the medium itself, we can in turn explore the limitations of ourselves, our bodies and of our understanding of our time here.  The relief felt through containing something within the condensed image is absolute.

Barthes said that within the photograph, “Time is engorged, it contains an enigmatic point of inactuality, a strange stasis, the stasis of an arrest“.  It is in these ideas that we can find a way of understanding the inextricable link.  The physicality of the photographic print offers a conduit through which these in-between threshold states can endure, making it the most powerful tool with which to align the intangible, ungraspable and unattainable within a material terrain. In collapsing the spatio-temporal boundaries of such physical and mental states, and translating them indefinitely into the photographic space, we are able to encapsulate these ephemeral moments in a form that we are able to hold on to, like with no other medium. “The photographic act implies not only a sign of break in the continuity of reality but also the idea of a passage, a crossing irreducible.” The photographic image, through its intervention into the flow of time, reduces the event to a form of absolute spatiality, and inside the photograph lingering, meditative spaces can be built.

The ‘optical unconscious’ is defined as the ability that photography holds to illuminate spaces that previously only existed within the terrain of dreams.  Somewhere between asleep and awake, conscious and unconscious, water and air a certain form of pictorial consciousness emerges. In photographing ourselves or those around us in states that will not last, in states that can be found at the very core of our psyche and our senses, and that we cannot grasp onto, we can extend the wonder of these moments and allow ourselves a prolonged experience of looking.  To immortalize these scenes from silence is what drives us forward.  Whether we’ve seen them or not, or even experienced them consciously at all matters not. Through the photograph breaths and bodies, dreams and memories are suspended, frozen, crystallized in a still and silent space where a tangible version of the true event – liminal or otherwise – is preserved.

Ultimately, the phenomenon of altering ones state can relate back directly to our inherent understanding of photography.  The desire to fix time and space indefinitely is inherent within us all, and our collective magnetism to the photographic image endures through the promised chance of immortalizing in print that which we cannot keep from disappearing and dissolving before our very eyes.

Thanks to Joanna and to Emma! You can read all about future miniclick events and talks by clicking here. You can read Jo’s previous essay, “Everything, All of the Time”, by clicking here.

We’re coming to London again! At this year’s Sony World Photo at Somerset House, London, miniclick are teaming up with Hungry Eye Magazine to bring you something a bit special…

The Big Debate: Photography and filmmaking are the same. Neither exist without narrative. Discuss.

We are pleased to announce that we will be staging a debate as part of World Photo, London 2012. The debate will take place on the 27th April at 4.00pm-7.00pm at Somerset House, London. Admission will be free and entrance will be on a first come first served basis. We’ll also be asking for your questions and insights to be included in the debate on the subject in advance, through twitter. Follow @hungryeyemag and / or @clickclickjim to get involved!

THIS EVENT IS FREE AND YOU DON’T NEED A TICKET TO THE MAIN SONY WPO EVENT TO ATTEND!

We will be in The Partners Room in Somerset House, which should be signposted from the main entrance (or there will be someone there to point you in the right direction). We have the room from 4pm. The debate will start at 5:15pm and run until around 6:30pm. Please, please get there early as we have very limited space and can’t guarantee everyone entry (sorry – health and safety)!

Chair: Jim Stephenson

Jim is the founder and curator of miniclick photography talks Brighton. Jim is also contemporary photographer concerned with the documentation of architecture, interiors and the built environment. His worked has appeared in the Guardian, the Sunday Times and The Financial Times and many leading architectural publications.

The panel includes…

Leo Maguire

Leo Maguire (30) is from the UK. He discovered photography at art school and went on to attend the renowned documentary photography course at the University of Wales, Newport. During his time there, Leo’s work was recognized with a commendation by the Ian Parry Scholarship. His interest lies mainly in the pursuit of long-term projects that examine barely known subjects from within. A recipient of a Getty Images Grant for Editorial Photography, he spent three years gaining unprecedented access to the world of bare-knuckle fighters in Britain’s Gypsy community. Gypsy Blood, his first feature length documentary film, aired on channel 4 in 2012 with an audience of 3.5 million.

You can see more of Leo’s work on his website.

Grant Scott

Grant Scott has art directed magazines such as Elle and Tatler and has worked as a photographer and creative director since 2000. Grant has judged a number of international photographic awards and has had his writings on design published for over ten years. His first monograph of photography was published by Thames & Hudson in 2006. He is the founder and editor of Hungry Eye magazine the monthly magazine for professional photographers and filmmakers.

Visit the Hungry Eye Magazine website by clicking here.

Peter Dench

Peter Dench weighed into the world a hefty 10lb 8oz’s. He was born on the feast of Saint George, the patron saint of England and shares a birthday with Shakespeare, arguably the greatest ever Englishman that has ever lived. From Dench’s first breath the salty air of the English Channel permeated his nostrils, the sounds of seagulls crashed into his eardrums, saturated colours startled the retina; bumper boats, Punch & Judy, arcades, striped deck-chairs. This was his his introduction to England and he was hooked.

Looking through the books of Martin Parr, Greg Leach, Paul Reas and Elliot Erwitt, Dench decided to take photography as a career seriously. If you could travel the world, make people laugh and think, that was a fine way to live. If you could do it with a drink in your hand, that was the life for Dench. Dench has been combining his seaside sense of humour with his passion for photography and drink ever since. His project documenting the imbibing habits of his countrymen picked up a World Press Photo Award. In 2010 he placed second in Advertising at the Sony World Photography Awards. In 2011, England Uncensored – A Decade of Photographing the English, was exhibited at the Visa pour L’image festival of photojournalism. With hindsight, it was perhaps inevitable that one day the world would see, The Dench Diary, a laugh out lout account of his life as a sometime working pro, in print , video and online for Hungry Eye Magazine.

You can see more of Peter’s work here.

Joe Partridge

Joe was the face of professional photography on the television throughout the eighties with his programme and highly successful books ‘Me and My Camera’. A regular contributor to LBC in the past he now appears on Radio 2 talking about the current state of photography in the UK. Joe is also a passionate teacher and advocate of photography as an art form and profession with emphasis on its history.

We put the panel together to get a really good balance of experience, from both sides of the coin, and opinions. I’m over the moon with the four people involved and I hope to see lots of people down there for what should be a cracking debate!

Friday, 27th April at Somerset House in London (for a map, click here) as part of the Sony World Photo, London 2012 event. Doors will open at 4pm and the event will run until about 7pm. Entry is free and strictly on a first come, first served basis!

As part of the Brighton Fringe Festival, and in association with the Brighton University Photography MA course, we’re really pleased to be putting on a Pecha Kucha evening at The Old Market, Brighton & Hove. This event will be May’s edition of the miniclick talks, Brighton’s monthly photography talks.

Pecha Kucha comes from the Japanese term for ‘chit-chat’. The format was devised in Tokyo about ten years ago and features a number of speakers all presenting in one night. Each speaker is allowed 20 slides, with only 20 seconds on each slide. So, each talk only lasts 6 minutes 40 seconds. This makes for a fast paced and informal evening – anyone who has ever been to, or taken part in, one of these nights knows how much fun it is as the audience is presented with lots of interesting ideas and the speakers try to keep up with the slideshow.

For a while now I’ve been in touch with Brighton University to try and put on a night like this, so I’m over the moon we’ve got an evening sorted. The students on the MA course already have some experience with this kind of presentation and they have some really exciting projects and ideas to talk about. The evening will be held in the theatre at The Old Market. Tickets are just £4/£3 (available here), and for that you’ll get to see 15 people presenting! That’s less than 30p per photographer. Bargain. Doors are at 6:30pm, with the event starting at around 7pm. The evening will be broken up into two sets speakers, with a break in the middle and time before and after for a pint, some socialising and to chat to the photographers. Lets have a look at who is involved…

Alina Linnas

Alina Linnas is a young photographer who has been taking pictures from 2006. Her passion for photography arose from painting, which she did for years in Estonia, where she was born. She did her Ba Degree in Digital Photography and Video Art at University of Bedfordshire. At the moment she is doing her Ma Degree in Photography at the University of Brighton. Alina has a great interest in staged photography, through which she explores ideas of claustrophobia and self-alienation. She has been involved in several group Exhibitions: “Parallel” in Luton and “Anywhere/Nowhere” in Milton Keynes.

Chloe Lelliott

Chloe’s work explores our different relationships to place both how we create and navigate spaces physically and psychologically. She is interested in the effects that places have on us culturally and as individuals, how we connect to spaces through memory, fantasy, myth and ideals. You can see more of Chloe’s work on her website.

David Sterry

“My practice questions why things “seem” to be as they do, and why the contemporary built environment is the way it is and not otherwise.”

“My photography is founded in my lifelong passion and association with buildings and their lifecycles. My photographic approach is essentially about the ‘here and now’. About the paraphernalia of life as expressed though architecture: – their forms, their massing, the streets they inhabit and all the spaces and things in-between.  Architecture is the art for the ages; the sheer weight of their construction and structure provide a model of enduring stability and permanence. They have the capacity to endure and bear witness to temporal and unpredictable events and provide an index for time and histories.”

Heather Shuker

Heather Shuker is a professional and creative artsphotographer. She is a graduate of Central St Martins, and is currently working on her MA in photography at the University of Brighton. “As a photographer of ‘life’ and ‘happenings’, my approach is that of an unobserved observer – exploring interactions and gesture within the everyday to show and reveal people as they truly are.”

“I will be talking about 3 bodies of work…

1. Girls UnScene – from the “ladies” in late night venues in London & Brighton (works at part of PG at Central St Martins). Girls UnScene, deliberately taken without the consent of the subjects, reveals the hidden details of, and the exchanges and interactions between females in the environment of night-club toilets.

2. The Art of Smoking – The art of smoking does not depict typical street smoking and intends to be a more poetic picture of the “art” of street smoking using light, building’s shape and form to create aesthetically pleasing images.  I was drawn to the subject matter as public smoking – once a common socially accepted activity – is becoming increasingly marginalised and pushed underground, and, with further legislation inevitable, the activity will soon be relegated to history.  The photographs document the often covert act of public smoking, seeking to highlight the gestures around the communal and private moments of this activity on the streets.  I also moved back to the environment of pure street as I also wanted to explore the concept of public and private boundaries on the streets to support a dissertation I was writing over the summer on the “Ethics of Street Photography”

My work and style is not typical of most street photography and is less about the single picture with multiple elements coming together but more about close up views and noticing the small details and gesture of the often cropped subjects and using usingthese elements to compose visually pleasing images.

Finally I hope to be showing work from my new series – untitled at present – as not taken a photograph yet.    I am going to be capturing people kissing.  The work will concentrate on  gestures within people, in particular exploring the shapes and forms of the human body within a passionate embrace.  I intend to make the images of life as it if, yet recording elements that the eye does not see through the use of framing, camera angle, and flash light to carve and sculpt the image.”

More of Heather’s work can be seen on her website.

Holly Oliver

“Usually I take photographs of everything and nothing but at this moment I am caught up in the stories that exist in our skies.”

You can see more of Holly’s work on her website.

Kat Williams

Kat Williams (b. 1989 Winchester) graduated with a photography degree from The Arts University College at Bournemouth in 2011 and has now continued on to an MA at The University of Brighton. Kat creates work that focuses on the unique fleeting moments of fragility within everyday life, and that provoke feelings of familiarity.

Kerry Grainger

Kerry Grainger was born in Scotland but studied her undergraduate degree in History of Art at the University of York before moving all the way down to beautiful Brighton to take on the MA in Photography that she is currently studying. Her particular passions are travel and motion photography, though she is enjoying the challenge of creating more thought-provoking work on the Masters course. Her current project, ‘Reborn’, is what she will be talking about during her Pecha Kucha presentation: a project looking at the hyper-realistic dolls that make up the reborn baby-doll phenomenon. More of Kerry’s work can be seen on her website.

Kristin Hoell

Kristin Hoell is a photographer from Berlin, Germany. She was born in 1985. In 2011, she graduated with a BA in Media Studies with a focus on photography from the University of Potsdam, before she decided to pursue her studies in photography practice and theory at the MA Photography at the University of Brighton. Her photographic practice evolves from an interest in theatricality in staged as well as documentary and street photography. Since April 2011, Kristin Hoell is represented by the photo agency bobsairport in Berlin. More of Kristin’s work can be seen on her website.

Laurie Griffiths

Laurie Griffiths’ long term project, The Cryosphere, is a photographic study of man’s enduring attraction to some of the most inhospitable and inaccessible areas on Earth. In this body of work, Griffiths explores how man has occupied these vast, frozen spaces in pursuit of leisure and personal challenge. From the frozen lakes of northern Scandinavia to the ski destination of the French Alps, Griffiths has pictured landscapes that are defined by the conspicuous presence of man. Pictures that convey the fragile relationship and ultimate struggle between those who honour the natural grandeur of these expanses and their relationship as a race, with their demise.

Mark Purdom

Mark Purdom was born in England.  His work, while a commentary on people’s influence on the environment, also plays with our concept or arguably our preconceptions of the picturesque.

Since moving to New Zealand in 2003 he has completed various photographic projects, of which In Such Multiples As Is Almost Incredible, Untitled – Launderette series, Coverup 2001-2006 and Mr Whittaker were finalists in the New Zealand National Contemporary Art Award – 2004/5/6/8.

Mark lectures part-time in the Media Arts department at Wintec in Hamilton, New Zealand.  At present Mark is on sabbatical in the UK, whilst studying for an MA in photography at the University of Brighton.

You can see more of Mark’s work on his website.

Mitch Karunaratne

Topophilia is literally “love of place.” In the 1970’s, geographer Yi-Fu Tuan claimed that the term could include “all emotional connections between physical environment and human beings.”

Through photography I work with my topophilia.

Based in Hackney, East London. You can see more of Mitch’s work on her website.

Taka Murakami

Born in Japan and have lived for 27years.
Started taking pictures 18yeas old
Graduated from Nihon university collage of art
studied literature art (writing about philosophy and journalism)
Worked at a CATV company 3years and 9month
Entered Brighton uni 2011
Currently studying photography for the first time in my life

Vanessa Roy

“Originally from Edinburgh, I studied Fine Art(BA. hons) specializing in lens based media at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (University of Dundee). I am currently pursuing a Postgraduate Photography Degree at the University of Brighton.”

You can see more of Venessa’s work on her website.

Virgílio Ferreira

Virgílio Ferreira is a Portuguese photographer and currently he is doing a MA in photography at University of Brighton.

His work has been widely exhibited in Europe, The Middle East, The United States, and South-East Asia. Between 2007 and 2012 some of the most recognised exhibitions have taken place at  the Galerie Huit ( Arles); Format Festival (UK); Módulo Gallery (Lisbon); Empty Quarter Gallery (Dubai), Ofoto Gallery (Shanghai), Museu da Imagem (Braga, Portugal), Southeast Museum of Photography (U.S.A.), Portuguese Centre of Photography, the 2nd Fotofestival Mannheim (Germany), Fotofestiwal Lodz (Poland), 10th Photography Festival (Aleppo, Syria), Royal College of Art (London), Berllaymont, (Bruxelas), Pipfestival (China), 19th International Photography Meeting Thesssaloniki (Greece) and the BAC Festival at the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (Spain) as well as Madridfoto (Spain), Photo La and Photo Miami (U.S.A.).

He has published three projects in books entitled, “Daily Pilgrims”, “We and The Others”, and “Rainbow” and has had work published in international magazines, photo art blogs, and webzines such as European Photography; The Guardian UK; Katalog-Museum for Fotokunst Brandts; Hey, Hot Shot; 1000 Words Photography; Lens Culture; Eye Curious; Mrs Deane; Heading East and Artephotographica.

Virgílio’s work is held in public collections, including the Hahnemuhle Anniversary Collection, Germany; the Southeast Museum of Photography, USA; the National Collection of Photography, Portgual; Lodz Art Center, Poland and the University of Coimbra, Portugal.

That’s a lot of ideas, styles of work and people to be presenting! The Pecha Kucha evenings are always fun and informal, and I hope to see as many of you down there as possible!

Wednesday, May 9th at The Old Market in Brighton & Hove (11a Upper Market St, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 1AS). It will kickoff at around 7:00pm (doors at 6:30pm). Get there early as the seats get snapped up quick! Entry is £4 or £3 for concessions and you can buy them here. There is a bar there that stays open after the talk, so bring some cash and support the venue by having a drink or two.

Earlier in March, Harry Watts came and spoke for us as part of the miniclick monthly photography talks. Harry and I had been talking for a while about putting together a printed giveaway as part of the talk featuring an example of his work and an essay written specifically for this occasion. He put me in touch with photography journalist Joanna Cresswell (BJP, Hotshoe) and she crafted this beautiful essay that touches on some of the themes Harry highlights in his photography (all images below are by Harry Watts).

Everything, All of the Time by Joanna Cresswell

“There is an anaesthetic of familiarity, a sedative of ordinariness, which dulls the senses and hides the wonders of existence. For those of us not gifted in poetry, it is at least worthwhile, from time to time making an effort to shake off the anaesthetic. We can’t actually fly to another planet. But we can recapture that sense of having just tumbled out to life on a new world by looking at our own world in unfamiliar ways” – Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow

When the Russian Formalist Viktor Shlovsky put pen to paper to write his ‘Form and Material in Art’, coining the term ‘Ostranenie’ within it, it was not visual arts he had in mind.  Ostranenie, or the process of ‘Making Strange’ refers to a literary technique intended to defamiliarise the audience’s perception of the ordinary, the quotidian and the habitual.  However, over many years the term has been employed by a number of other art forms, with photography particularly adopting the term into it’s lexicon.

In the mid-1960s, sculpture of the time began to seriously influence a new strand of playfully conceptual still-life photography, in which artists attempted to make art from matter readily available in daily life, and in turn began deconstructing the rigid formal boundaries between the studio, the gallery and the outside world.  In many cases, subtle aspects of street photography were also employed, beginning an ongoing trend for using the street as studio, where in amongst its’ detritus, artists realized still lives could be found.  Artists such as Peter Fraser Julian Stallabrass and Marten Lange have all shown us ways of responding to this in recent years, and photographers ‘ in general have long been drawn to the unnoticed and the everyday.  Simple juxtapositions between shapes, forms and shadows and the energy and relationships found in seemingly unimportant objects and matter come alive within the photographic frame, creating a poetics of the ordinary. But why is there this recurring motif of the mundane?  What is our connection to the overlooked idiosyncrasies of the everyday?

Photography has a unique ability to illuminate the disregarded and the discarded – to document materials that have been transformed through the agency of the human hand, and help us look upon the redundant paper cup, the smattering of oil glittering on the pavement and the stray shoe forgotten by the roadside with a new appreciation for sublime ordinariness.  When viewing a photograph of something we have seen a hundred times before, we will undoubtedly question; why are we looking at this?  When did these objects become worthy of our attention and of their new status of iconicity and as art?  Confronted with the outright thing-ness of these ‘non-subjects’ we are forced to consider their status and our expectations of them – form, weight, scale – are destabilized.  All of a sudden, easily missed and superfluous details are charged with a degree of visual intrigue by being framed and photographed in such a subtle, straightforward and stark manner.

The absurdity of our relationship with the photographic image endures through the problematic yet persistent reliance we invest in its status as a documentary tool.  The ambiguity with which photography has managed to place itself as both document of an artistic gesture, and a work of art in itself has resulted in a perpetual flux between the definition of object and subject.  Because we ordinarily pass these objects by, or keep them restrained at the periphery of our vision, we may not automatically give them any credibility within the realm of art.  But this type of photography makes the ‘nothing’ of daily life the subject – the mundane objects into the ‘something’ in the pictures.  The endless flux between object and subject is explored through the image and it’s content until eventually we are forced to consider the entire picture and its’ layered complexity as a whole.  The power of photography lies in the camera’s ability to elevate the status of an unimportant object to a beautiful subject in a single moment, creating a sort of serendipitous illusion.  Has everything in the world already been photographed?  Maybe.  But in placing something inside of the photographic frame, in considering it for that period of time, it is immediately deemed significant once more.

The importance of continuing to photograph what is familiar – to make normal what is strange, and to make what is strange, normal – is absolute.  “The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known” Shlovsky wrote, and it is with this sentiment that photographers continue to work with this process of searching and seeking out pictures in the flow of everyday life, with the encouragement that it is a strategy to contemplate the way in which we construct our lives and find order in the world around us – the repetition in itself is important.  Everyday objects have the ability to remind us of our impermanence, just as the photographic image does.

Photography is equally about seeing and looking.  Capturing the mundane objects and happenings that furnish our existence are all attempts to shift our perceptions of our daily lives and to confirm our having been here – anti-climatic and small perhaps, but all the more resonant because of this.  Before these objects are disturbed by a gust of wind, or overturned by passing traffic, the photographer can fix them from their ephemeral state into the relative permanence of photographs.  Ultimately, we all use photography in one form or another to archive and index the world around us, to indulge in creating an ‘inventory of things’ and to bear witness to the weight of collective and personal histories as the extensive life of matter and objects are set against the fleeting time frame of human existence, and our restricted time of looking out and seeing the world.

Thanks to Joanna and to Harry! Joanna is currently writing another essay for us that will be made available at Emma Critchley’s miniclick talk on Tuesday, April 3rd. All the info on that talk can be found by clicking here.

After Chris Floyd’s excellent miniclick talk on Tuesday evening down in Brighton, I made five big announcements about future events. The first to come round will be the collaboration miniclick are doing with Photobook Show B at Ground Floor Left in Hackney, London.

Photobook Show B is the second exhibition of photobooks that William and Kevin have organised, with the first being in Brighton and catching a fair bit of attention. The London show promises to be equally as good and we’re partnering with them to bring you an afternoon panel discussion on photography books on Sunday 4th March. The panel, chaired by the Deputy Editor of the British Journal of Photography, Diane Smyth, will consist of some top folk in photo publishing, including…

Photographer and Self-Publisher, Ewen Spencer

“Ewen studied under the tutorage of British Photographer Paul Reas and Mark Power and the School of Art and Design at the University of Brighton. He graduated in 1997 and quickly became known for his groundbreaking editorial during the late 90’s for The Face & Sleazenation magazine. He immediately spoke to an audience interested in subcultures, multiculturalism, music, graphic art, photography, fashion and primarily youth culture.

In 2001 Ewen embarked upon a project simply called Teenagers documenting British adolescents as they come to terms with socialising, dating and sex. His signature flash style became synonymous with a close aspect to his subjects. What separated him from other social-documentarians is the feeling you get from the occurs that he knows and likes his subjects, that they trust him enough to allow him entry and that he has an understanding of what’s going on without being embedded in the scenes himself.

The Teenagers project was shown at the Exposure photo festival in Hereford, UK in 2001, as part of “Jam London – Tokyo” showing at both the Barbican in London and the Tokyo Opera House Gallery and was also exhibited at the Rencontre d’Arles in 2004, curated by Martin Parr, where it was shortlisted for the project assistance award.

Not surprisingly, in 2002 Martin Parr tipped Ewen as the most promising newcomer of that year. Commercial clients started calling and he began working with bands, producing cover art and behind the scenes tour material for The Streets & The White Stripes. There’s many reasons why Ewen continues to be a sought after photographer for clients. He’s quick, precise, spontaneous, collaborative, with a great eye for what’s current, on trend and in line with brand objectives. Over the last 2 years he’s produced work for Puma, Sony, Nike, Addidas, Boxfresh, T mobile, Vodaphone and Lastminute.com.

Ewen has continued to pursue his interest in teen culture and in 2005 completed a series of images taking a look at a group of teenagers involved in London’s “Grime” Scene. The project has come to fruition through the publishing of a book and a touring exhibition called “Open Mic.” Works from Open Mic are now included in the Courtauld institute of Arts, Musee d’Elysee in Lausanne and many private collections throughout Europe. The book Open Mic was awarded a yellow pencil certificate by the D&AD in 2005 for Photographic publishing.

The book “Open Mic” remains one of the best examples of Ewen’s work to date and led to him being awarded a commission by Massive Attack in 2010 to produce a short film concerning ideas around cultural pluralism and gangs in Britain”.

You can see more of Ewen’s work on his website.

Lecturer, Writer, Curator and Founder of Self Publish Be Happy, Bruno Ceschel

“Bruno Ceschel is a lecturer in Photography at Camberwell College of Arts, London, a writer and curator. He is also the founder of Self Publish, Be Happy (selfpublishbehappy.com), an organization aim to promote and study self-published photobooks. Self Publish, Be Happy since 2010 has organized events at The Photographers’ Gallery, ICA and Whitechapel Gallery in London, OffPrint in Paris and at Flash Forward Festival in Toronto and Boston and its library/exhibition toured various photography festivals in the Summer 2011. SP,BH has publish its first book titled SPBN – Self Publish, Be Naughty in October 2011.

Previously Ceschel worked on the 2008 edition of the Brighton Photo Biennial, as book editor at Chris Boot Ltd, and was associate and creative editor at Colors magazine. He has curated exhibitions at Fashion Space Gallery in London and MiCamera in Milan”.

Check out the Self Publish Be Happy website.

Founder and Director of Here, Harry Hardie

“Here is a company that publishes, exhibits, teaches and supports photography.

Harry has been working with photography for 10 years, starting as the assistant to the director of photography at The Times, London, then as the photo editor for The Times Luxx Magazine.

After The Times Harry worked as director of HOST Gallery, London, before founding Here, an company that publishes, exhibits, teaches, and supports photography.

Harry is also a lecturer in photography at University College Falmouth, UK, and an independent curator.”

Head over to the Here website.

Graphic Designer, Art Director and Founder of oodee, Damien Poulain

“Damien Poulain is a french graphic designer and art director who has lived and worked in Germany, Spain and Italy before settling in East London where he founded his practice in 2003.

Specializing in print-based projects including books, small-run publications and visual communication, Damien Poulain also creates posters and other communication imagery for art galleries, fashion designers and music labels. Ongoing projects include design for sketch gallery, hand-crafted set design for brands, illustrations and installation. His work is versatile and recognised internationally.

In 2011, he has set up a publishing house named oodee, publishing photography books from established to young and raw talents. With oodee, he won recognition by newspapers and magazine like TIME magazine and The Guardian who included some of his books in the best photography books of the year 2011″.

You can see some of Damien’s work on his website, and make sure to visit oodee’s site to.

That’s a pretty bleedin’ fantastic lineup! Ewen, Bruno, Harry and Damien will be picking out some highlights from the exhibition and discussing the ins and outs of contemporary photobooks.

The exhibition runs from March 2nd to March 4th and this panel discussion will be held on the Sunday (4th March), kicking off at 1pm. Entry is free to all, so pop down early and grab a seat!

Ground Floor Left, Enterprise House, Tudor Grove, Hackney, London, E9 7QL

In March and May we’ve teamed up with some top photography and cinema folk from the UK to put on three really exciting collaborations. Finally (!) I can announce what’s going on. So, ladies and gents, in chronological order…

On Sunday March 4th, Miniclick is coming to London to collaborate with Photobook Show B. You can read more about this event by clicking here. Photobook Show A was an exhibition photobooks and other related matter that went down a storm in Brighton in November, so much so that they’ve had to organise a follow up in London, featuring some of the best new and classic photobooks from around the world. The exhibition is going to be help at Ground Floor Left in Hackney and they’ve asked us to curate a related panel discussion on the Sunday afternoon (starting at 1pm). I’m delighted to say that former miniclick speaker, ace photographer and self-publisher extraordinaire, Ewen Spencer will be on the panel, alongside graphic designer and creator of Oodee publishing house Damien Poulain and top publisher, exhibitor and all round nice guy Harry Hardie from HERE. This event will be held at Ground Floor Left and will be free entry.

Fast forward to May 9th and, as part of the Brighton Festival Fringe and in collaboration with the University of Brighton, we’ll be hosting an official Pecha Kucha night at The Old Market in Brighton and Hove. If you’re not familiar with the format, Pecha Kucha derives from the Japanese words for “Chit Chat” and involved a series of short informal talks spread across an evening, with each speaker being restricted to 20 slides and only 20 seconds on each slide. For this night we’re working with the University of Brighton’s Photography and Moving Image courses to feature graduating students talking about their final year projects, influences and processes. Under the tutelage of some outstanding photographers (Pauls Reas, Mark Power, Fergus Heron etc etc) Brighton Uni has been consistently producing outstanding photographers for over 20 years, including previous miniclick speakers Laura Pannack, Ewen Spencer, Murray Ballard and Human Endeavour. This is a great chance to see the stars of the future, working both with stills and video. This event will be at The Old Market auditorium and will be £4/£3

Finally, a huge collaboration with Hungry Eye Magazine and The Duke of York’s Picturehouse sees us taking over the UK’s oldest running cinema for a Brighton Festival Fringe, Sunday screening of Anton Corbijn’s excellent “Control“, with an exclusive Q&A session after with a special guest (who will be announced soon…). This event will be on Sunday May 13th at The Duke of York’s in Brighton. You can read all about it here.

Announcing (very excitedly) that April’s speaker in the miniclick photography talks will be Emma Critchley. Emma was part of an event we put on a couple of years ago and did a great talk on her body of work, which is made up of otherworldly and beguiling portraits and short films, all conducted underwater.

The talk will be on Tuesday April 3rd at The Old Market in Brighton & Hove. Doors are at 6:30pm and entry, as always, is free!

Here’s some of Emma’s work…

Emma’s work has been widely published and she has received numerous awards and accolades for her beautiful images and films (the last two images above are stills from her short films “Reflection” and “A Single Shared Breath”).

“Emma has worked as an underwater image-maker for over 9 years and recently graduated with an MA from The Royal College of Art. Through her practice Emma explores the human relationship with the underwater environment. Her work has been exhibited internationally in galleries and festivals including: The Australian Centre of Photography, Fotofreo; Western Australia, Le Mois de la Photo; Canada, The National Portrait Gallery, The Photographers Gallery and most recently The Saatchi Gallery & Channel 4’s ‘New Sensations’. Emma’s work has won many awards, including first prize in competitions at The Royal College of Art, The British Underwater Image Festival and The Association Of Photographers. Her work has been widely published, with features in The Guardian, The Sunday Times, Art Monthly Australia, HotShoe International, AN Magazine and FOAM International amongst many others. Over the last few years she has worked on projects and commissions that have been funded by organisations such as The Photographers Gallery, The National Media Museum and the Arts Council. Emma is currently a lecturer in Photography and Underwater & Surface-Based Imaging at Plymouth College of Art”.

It’s well worth spending a bit of time on her website to check everything out – you won’t be disappointed!

Tuesday, April 3rd at The Old Market in Brighton & Hove (11a Upper Market St, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 1AS). It will kickoff at around 7:30pm (doors at 6:30pm). Get there early as the seats get snapped up quick! Entry is free, but there is a bar there that stays open after the talk, so bring some cash and support the venue by having a drink or two.

Hope to see you there!