Dorset Art Weeks

One of the great things about living in the South West, ie, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall, means that there are always 'arty' things going on.  Lyme Regis is already preparing for its ArtsFest in September by laying out art trails of sculptures by local artists.

We, in Dorset, also have Dorset Art Weeks - this year from May 28th to June 12th where you can visit exhibitions, artists' studios and various other art locations around the county.

http://www.dorsetartweeks.co.uk/http://www.dorsetartweeks.co.uk/

I'm looking forward to visiting some of the venues next week where visitors can experience a varied collection of painting, printmaking, textiles and photography together with sculpture in the gardens from over 15 local artists.  They include night photography by Stephen Banks.  Stephen has been to my local camera club and explained how he creates his amazing night sky photography.  It's absolutely stunning.

Mother Teresa exhibition in Sorento, Italy

Found a very touching exhibition, called The Light of God, in a back street church in Sorrento,Italy. A photographer called Rafael Selantano was allowed to photograph Mother Teresa at her orphanage in India, something not many people were able to do during her lifetime.

The pictures were not just of Mother Teresa but of the whole orphanage. It was very moving see how the nuns all lived and worked together with the children

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I'm surprised, if you read the history of the photographer above, how he was given access to the nuns and watch them praying, eating and working. I would have thought a female photographer would have been more acceptable but who knows what motivates people.

Book: Women by Annie Leibovitz & Susan Sontag

This coffee table book by Leibovitz was featured in the manual accompanying the G&M course so I managed to get a copy from my local library to peruse.

The photos are beautiful and portray women from all over the US and with all types of backgrounds. There is also a short section written by Susan Sontag, Leibovitz's late partner, with background information about them.  The book helped me realize that there are lots of opportunities in life as one gets older. Many of the women in the book are old but they still seem very much alive. Most of them have done some astonishing things in their lives!

There are photos of actresses and other famous faces, but I prefer the pictures of "ordinary women" - the ones that we meet every day but don't pay attention to.  Whether famous or unknown each woman is photographed by Leibovitz to bring out their strengths. Image after image of staged and unstaged shots draw you through the book, revealing each woman. Ultimately it is a book which celebrates and empowers womankind.  The book is one I would like to own but its cost is prohibitive.

WCPF (Western Counties Photographic Federation) Members’ Exhibition 2016

This exhibition is one of the highlights of the WCPF’s year where 100+ of the best print images and a showing of all accepted images were on display for two weeks in May. 

I went with three other members of my camera club went to Buckfast Abbey yesterday (May 12^th) and enjoyed a wide range of images of all subjects. The WCPF award gold, silver and bronze medals to the images they consider the best in various categories.  There was also a display of 130+ images on a loop, the majority of which were superb.  

It’s certainly an eye opener to view such amazing images, especially when you can identify with some of the photographers and we all came away highly impressed with what we saw.

Interview by Stephen Bailey (The Spectator) with Martin Parr

 This interview was posted on Facebook by another photography student and gives an extremely interesting point of view about the revered photographer of the English way of life, Martin Parr.  It seems that everyone either loves him and his quirky vision, or hates him. 

(C) Martin Parr

I like his work and wish I could emulate it better.  I think his vision of the English is spot on and highlights those areas that most people want to keep hidden.  We are a law unto ourselves and find other people's view of us shows that we are not understood by the majority of foreigners.  Keep on Martin, find all our quirks.


Stephen Bayley meets Martin Parr

Work of Alec Soth

Alex Soth

Gathered Leaves exhibition, Science Museum, 6 Oct 2015 - 28 Mar 2016

I’ve been researching the work of Alec Soth, partly as there is an OCA study day in January at the Science Museum that I would like to attend and partly as his name has come up several times lately as someone who takes pictures in the way that I  wish mine would. 

There is such vulnerability in his work that strikes a real accord with me.  The way he catches the subject(s) on film with no sense of them deliberately posing.  It looks like, in the majority of his single poses, that he used flash to illuminate the subject but, unless he has post processed his work with darkened edges, I would have thought he would have lost the spontaneity of the subjects.

In some of his wilderness pictures the juxtaposition of his subject within such wide open spaces but placed diagonally and horizontally in the centre of the picture, breaks all the thirds rules where the focal point should be either one third from top or bottom or one third from either edge.  As they say ‘you learn the rules to enable you to break them’ and it works well in Soth’s images. 

Examples of Soth's work at the Science Museum can be seen here:   Gathered Leaves Exhibition

Book: What Are You Looking At?: 150 Years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye

Will Gomperetz is best known as the rather eccentric looking BBC News arts correspondent. However, his cultural pedigree is impeccable. He was Director of the Tate Gallery for 7 years and a seasoned journalist with the Times and Guardian.

Moving through the past 150 years since the recognized birth of 'modern art' Gompertz looks at the different schools of art which sprang up and analyzes each movement in a clear, matter of fact way, without losing the reader in intellectual pseudo-speak.  Nicely illustrated as well, what you are looking at is a great reference book for anyone interested in art.

This is a book to dip in and out as the fancy takes you rather than one solid read from cover to cover. Entertaining and informative for those who want to learn more about art trends.