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 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.

More info to come on this (including an exact date), but I just wanted to do a quick post to announce (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.

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

Dates and times of this talk will be confirmed before Harry Watts’ talk on March 6th.

March marks the start of a very busy couple of months for the miniclick talks, with March, April and May packed with talks, panel discussions and screenings. You can keep up to date with all the news at www.miniclick.co.uk.

Stepping in for March, as part of our programme of free monthly photography talks, is the very talented and very dapper gent Harry Watts. For the past three fours months we’ve been concentrating on photographers that specialise in people, with Peter Dench, Luca Sage, Ewen Spencer and Chris Floyd giving great talks in November, December, January and February respectively. Harry’s work and subject matter brings something completely different to the talks and it promises to be a great evening. Harry will be talking about his own work, his route into photography and also (very interestingly) some of the people he has assisted in the past, including Simon Roberts, Clare Strand and Martin Parr.

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

Here’s some of his work…

“Harry Watts (b. 1987 Winchester, UK) graduated from Brighton University in 2009 with a BA in Editorial Photography. In 2009, Harry was selected by Italian Vogue for a solo exhibition at the Salvatore Ferragamo flagship store in London, and has since exhibited across the UK and internationally. Harry is currently working on the series ILLUSIONS and FINDS, along with this he assists photographer Martin Parr in his London studio”

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

Tuesday, November 1st 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 6:00pm). 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!

I’m very, very, very pleased to announce that at 11am on Sunday, May 13th I’m once again joining forces with the world’s only known magazine for film-makers and photographers, Hungry Eye, and Britain’s oldest continuously operating purpose built cinema, The Duke of York’s in Brighton, to screen Anton Corbijn’s “Control” as part of the England’s largest arts festival, the Brighton Festival, 2012. There will also be a special guest Q&A, afterward, which will be announced soon…

“Control is a 2007 black-and-white biographical film about Joy Division singer Ian Curtis. Matt Greenhalgh wrote the screenplay based on the book Touching from a Distance, written by Curtis’ widow Deborah who co-produced the film. Directed by Anton Corbijn, Control stars Sam Riley as Ian, Samantha Morton as Deborah, and Alexandra Maria Lara as Annik Honoré. It also stars James Anthony Pearson, Joe Anderson, and Harry Treadaway as Joy Division members Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, and Stephen Morris, respectively, as well as Toby Kebbell as band manager Rob Gretton and Craig Parkinson as Factory Records head Tony Wilson.

The film follows Ian Curtis’ life from 1973 to 1980, focusing on his marriage to Deborah, the formation and rise of Joy Division, his struggle with epilepsy, and his extramarital affair with Annik, culminating in his May 1980 suicide. The film’s title comes from the Joy Division song “She’s Lost Control”.

Control premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on 17 May 2007 where it won several awards including the Director’s Fortnight, the CICAE Art & Essai prize for best film, the Regards Jeunes Prize for best first/second directed feature film, and the Europa Cinemas Label prize for best European film in the sidebar. It went on to win five British Independent Film Awards including Best Film, Best Director for Corbijn, Most Promising Newcomer for Riley, and Best Supporting Actor for Kebbell. It was named Best Film at the 2007 Evening Standard British Film Awards, and Greenhalgh was given the Carl Foreman award for outstanding achievement in his first feature film at the 61st British Academy Film Awards.”

The screening will be at 11am on Sunday 13th May at the Duke of York’s Picture House in Preston Circus Brighton.

This event is part of the miniclick talks: Brighton’s free monthly photography talks.

Hot of the press this one. I’ve just confirmed with the venue and with Chris Floyd, that he’ll be doing the February miniclick talk – Brighton’s free monthly photography talks! The talk will also be the second one we’ve done in association with Hungry Eye Magazine, of which Chris is a contributing editor. Chris is certainly best known for his exceptional portrait photography and it’s worth browsing through his website to check out his work. Whilst there have a look in the Video section at the “The Way I Dress” short films for Mr Porter, which I really like, and the 140 Characters project he did, which was great in concept and execution.

The talk will be on Tuesday February 7th at The Old Market in Brighton & Hove. Doors are at 6:30pm and entry, as always, is free!

Here’s some of his work…

“Chris Floyd is an internationally acknowledged photographer. His work is in the National Portrait Gallery and has also been recognised by the British & American awards for portrait photography, the Taylor Wessing in 2008 & American Photography in 2008 & 2010.

He is also currently working with The Imperial War Museum on a project called ‘The Consequences of Vengeance’, which consists of large format photographs of Dutch launch sites and British impact sites associated with the German V2 rocket, which terrorised London between September 1944 and March 1945.

His commercial work has been published in Wallpaper*, The New Yorker, Guardian Weekend, Esquire & Harpers Bazaar, as well as in advertising campaigns for Agent Provocateur, British Airways, Sony & Toyota.

His most recent project, ‘One Hundred and Forty Characters’, in which he photographed 140 people he follows on Twitter but had never previously met, was inspired by the realisation that he was communicating more frequently and more intimately with people he had befriended on the social networking site than he was with people he had known as real and actual friends for more than 20 years”.

You can see more of Chris’ work on his website.

Tuesday, February 7th 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 before and after the talk, so please bring some cash and support the venue by having a drink or two.

Just a quick one to let you know there is now a facebook group for the miniclick photography talks and is probably the best way to keep up to date with everything we’re doing.

Click here to head to it.

Thanks! Over and out.

The miniclick talks (Brighton’s free, monthly photography talks) ended 2011 on Monday with a great talk by Luca Sage. To kick off 2012, we have an equally exciting speaker lined up for you in Ewen Spencer. Ewen was part of our September panel discussion and we had a load of emails and requests on twitter to get him back to do a talk on his own – obviously his work has captured a lot of people’s imagination and I’m really pleased to announce he’ll be speaking for us on January 10th (doors at 6:30pm, talk will start around 7:30pm)…

“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.

Tuesday, January 10th 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 (as anyone sitting on the floor at Luca’s talk will testify)! Entry is free, but there is a bar there that stays open before and after the talk, so bring some cash and support the venue by having a drink or two.

Hope to see you there!

Last night (Tues, Nov 1st), Peter Dench gave a fantastic miniclick photography talk for us and fresh on the heels of that, I’m really happy to announce that Luca Sage is going to be doing our December talk. Luca combines three things that don’t always necessarily go together in a photographer – he’s an extremely talented practitioner, a multi-award winner and an all-round nice guy.

The talk is on Monday, December 12th (talk starts at 7:30pm, doors at 6:30pm)…

“Luca Sage graduated with a first class honours degree from the University of Brighton in 2004. Whilst still at college he was selected for the Schweppes Portrait Prize and was runner up in both the FujiFilm Student Awards and the Spectrum Student Awards. Since then Luca Sage has shoot for various editorial magazines and advertising clients including The Independent on Sunday, The Telegraph, The Guardian, Time Out, Monocle and Hackett Clothing.

As well as his editorial work Luca continues his passion for portraiture; his personal projects have taken him to Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Malawi, Lithuania and Serbia.

Over the last few years Luca has shot predominantly with an Ebony large format camera, which suits his ‘slow’ style of working. His portraiture is a contemplative observation, often in opposition to the mass media representations of these countries. Luca also holds a degree in Social Anthropology and this subject has been integral to his subsequent photographic practice.

Luca has recently won four awards with his images from Cote d’Ivoire. ‘Ivory Coast United’ won the Foto 8 Summershow 2011, KL Awards 2011,  LPA Portrait Awards 2011 and the 442 World Football Photography Awards 2011.  His portraits have also been selected for the AOP Awards, Onward, DC Fotoweek and the New York Photo Awards. Luca has been selected for the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize on four occasions.”

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

Monday, December 12th 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!

Following on from Murray Ballard’s miniclick photography talk in October we have Mr Peter Dench coming down to do a talk for us, in association with Hungry Eye Magazine and incorporating the first ever “Dench Diaries Live” (at least, in Brighton…). Anyone who has read Peter’s Dench Diaires will already know they’re a cracking read – the highly entertaining journal of the ups and downs of a sometime-working-pro and one of the brightest British documentary photographers working today.

The talk is on Tuesday, November 1st (talk starts at 7:30pm, doors at 6pm)…

A man holding a can of high strength lager carries a baby on Blackpool promenade. The city has been attracting visitors ever since 1735, when the first guest house opened. In the 19th century, it became a popular working-class destination among the English.

Three Muslim men chat on a bench as a Cobb’s horse parades through the Oxfordshire town of Banbury as part of the annual hobby horse festival.

The Estelle Clifton Dancers in their dressing room change for a show at the Hippodrome Circus in Great Yarmouth, the last remaing dedicated English circus building. Built by showman George Gilbert in 1903, Houdini and Chaplin are once said to have wowed the crowd there.

A woman with a plastic glass of champagne talks on her mobile phone at the inaugural British sand polo event on Sandbanks beach. Sandbanks is a small dune on the south coast in the county of Dorset and one of the most expensive places to live on the planet.

“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”.

Tuesday, November 1st 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 6:00pm). 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!