Chemotherapy Appeal 2012

The older you get, the larger your network of friends, the greater the frequency that cancer rears it's ugly head. The pain and grief it brings is shared amongst so many not directly affected by it. It was a real joy to be asked if I'd make an image for Barnstaple's Chemo Appeal for this Christmas. I'm hoping many people will be inspired to give to the appeal after seeing the cheery seasonal photograph.

These 'painting with light' photographs are never as easy as they look. This took 9 photos to get all of letters looking readable, plus another to add a little more light into the sky and trees. Thanks to Julie Whitton for organising it and to the 11 volunteers who stood out in the cold for an hour making this picture right.

Bideford Christmas Lights 2012

This year I'm doing my bit to make the Festive Season more interesting and creative. I'm offering people the chance of doing a night photography workshop based around the big 'switch-on' of the Xmas Lights in Bideford and Barnstaple. Below is the course description for Bideford on Sunday 2nd December. To reserve a place click here.

3.30pm: Meet upstairs at Gertie’s Café, Mill St, Bideford. The workshop will start with a round the table chat and introduction to inspirational images from night photographers. You’ll learn how to set your camera up to make long exposures under artificial lighting and for fireworks. You’ll also learn how to balance flash with ambient lighting and to raise the sensitivity to light of your camera so that you can use it in a more candid way. If you have particular images or techniques you’d like to duplicate please bring examples of them along.

4.20pm: Practice session making experimental images under low light and artificial light. These pictures and all of your successive images of the evening will be given 121 feedback to enable your photographing to continually develop and improve.

4.50pm: photographing the grand ‘Christmas Light Switch On’ (5.00pm)

5.30pm: Reindeer Parade. Here you will learn practically how to make documentary photographs of people (public, entertainers, stall holders, Santa etc.) and animals (reindeer) at night.

6.00pm: Firework Display. Using long exposures and combining more than one frame to photograph the firework display within the town/landscape.

6.30pm: Official end of workshop.

7.00pm: Optional drink in a local pub to assess and discuss images.

Bideford Christmas Lights 2010 ©Dave Green

Barnstaple Christmas Lights 2012

This year I'm doing my bit to make the Festive Season more interesting and creative. I'm offering people the chance of doing a night photography workshop based around the big 'switch-on' of the Xmas Lights in Barnstaple and Bideford. Below is the course description for Barnstaple on Thursday 22nd November. To reserve a place click here.

4.00pm*: Meet upstairs at Boston Tea Party, Tuly St, Barnstaple. The workshop will start with a round the table chat and introduction to inspirational images from night photographers. You’ll learn how to set your camera up to make long exposures under artificial lighting and for fireworks. You’ll also learn how to balance flash with ambient lighting and to raise the sensitivity to light of your camera so that you can use it in a more candid way. If you have particular images or techniques you’d like to duplicate please bring examples of them along.

4.50pm: Practice session making experimental images under low light and artificial light. These pictures and all of your successive images of the evening will be given 121 feedback to enable your photographing to continually develop and improve.

5.20pm: photographing the grand ‘Christmas Light Switch On’, here you will learn practically how to make documentary photographs of people (public, entertainers, stall holders, Santa etc.) at night. You will also get all the instruction needed to make photographs of the night-time landscape of the town centre lit by Christmas lights.

6.30pm: You won’t be photographing soul superstar Beverley Knight, but you will get a chance to experience and document the party where she’ll be headlining on the Square. After this you’ll be using fill-in flash to photograph the samba band.

7.30pm: Official end of workshop although there will be an optional drink in a local pub to assess and discuss images. You’re welcome to then continue taking pictures at the after-show party which continues at the Pannier Market headlined by iFunk.

Christmas Lights 2010 ©Dave Green

*all times are subject to change – awaiting official publication from Barnstaple Town Council.

Sandymouth

I've just gone through the pains of replacing my computer. My main frame was making so much hard drive noise and running so slowly that it was high time I moved forward from XP and 2gb of ram. I now have a Intel i5 processor with 8gb of ram which should suffice for a few years. Suddenly I am able to construct images that I could not have hoped for in the past and this image from the cave at Menachurch Point will be my biggest ever photograph once it is completed.

This constructed photograph is made up of 116 separate frames, many of which were triplicates of the same part where I would use my hand or dodging tool to remove flare; then skillfully merged together in Photoshop layers (minus the fingers). I will be able to get this 1.5gb file printed fine-art high-quality to at least 5 foot or 1.5 metres. An earlier 'snapshot' version is below.

This cave is of particular interest to me; lying at the edge of North Cornwall AONB at Hartland it is the spot where the RFA Green Ranger came to rest after it's shipwreck at Gunpath Rock in 1962.

Green Ranger - copyright unknown

Oops! Hopefully nobody noticed, the shipwrech at Menachurch Point is actually the 1,925 ton steamship "Belem" stranded in thick fog here on 20th November 1917. I've included a picture of some of the remains at the bottom of this blog post. There ought to still be something left of the Green Ranger further up the coast - I shall have to explore soon!
I'll be leading a photographic workshop 'Sea Caves, Shipwrecks and the Rocky Shore' here on Thursday 1st November, exploring this and many other caves and what is left of the Green Ranger (see below). You'll get a good introduction to my own photography whilst learning how to make the best of your own including using your camera under demanding landscape and lighting. Price for the day is £50, please email me to book a place: info@greengallery.co.uk

Other Autumn Workshops include:

Introduction to digital photography - £50
A practical days workshop learning to gain control over your camera, shutter speeds, aperture, ISO, flash etc, setting it up for optimum quality under any given lighting, and making better pictures through composition. Numbers limited to a hand-full. I also offer it on a 1:1 basis for ½ a day for £75
Saturday 20th October in Bideford (10am - 5pm)
Thursday 25th October in Exeter (11am - 6pm)
Monday 26th November in Barnstaple (11am - 6pm)

Half Day Intro to digital photography - £25
A 'sit around the table' workshop to get to know your camera better. You'll learn about shutter speeds, aperture, ISO, flash and setting your camera up for optimum quality.
Monday 29th October in Barnstaple 3.00pm - 5.30pm
Friday 16th November in Bideford 2.00pm - 4.30pm

Photographing your own Artwork 11am - 6pm - £50
I have a wealth of knowledge and experience of photographing 2D artwork, jewellery and ceramics and I'm willing to pass this on to artists eager to improve their own image making camera skills. Although this workshop is for a small group (max 5) I also offer it on a 1:1 basis for ½ a day for £75, or I can deliver the workshop in your own home or studio anywhere in Devon for £100
Course Description pdf
Tuesday 30th October in Bideford
Saturday 24th November in Bideford

Painting with Light - £25
Celebrate the start of the dark winter nights on Westward Ho! beach. There will be natural light from an almost full moon and I will provide torches with coloured lights, flash lights and flame. You will just need to bring your camera with fully charged battery (please check with me beforehand that it can take a long exposure). A tripod would also be very useful but some of these will be provided. A cameraless friend can come along for free if they are happy be a torch bearer and do not mind dancing around with a light source.
Painting with Light pdf
Sunday 28th October at Westward Ho! (6.30pm - 9pm)
Wednesday 28th November at Westward Ho! (6.30pm - 9pm)
*Christmas Specials* Thursday 22nd November Workshop based around Barnstaple Christmas Lights and Fireworks - (4pm - 7.30pm)
Sunday 2nd December Workshop based around Bideford Christmas Lights and Fireworks - (4pm - 7.30pm)

Introduction to Photoshop 11am – 6pm - £50
Opening an image file and adjusting levels, contrast, brightness and colour balance. Rotating, resizing and cropping an image. Placing an image or images into a new file. Using layers and history. Participants will need to be computer literate i.e. use a computer on regular basis and understand the basic controls. Small group (max 4). I also offer it on a 1:1 basis for £150, or I can deliver the workshop in your own home or studio anywhere in Devon for £175
Wednesday 31st October in Bideford

Lands End

Light is both the most important thing for for a photographer and often the most difficult. I spent a couple of days in West Cornwall doing some research for Graveyard of the Atlantic and making some new images. The one above is a snapshot, a sketch, its a recording of somewhere I might return to and make a proper photograph. I was waiting for the tide to go out fully at Nanjizal Cave, south of Lands End, so I had a quick look around the rest of the beach. This one was mined sometime in it's past. I always us natural light in these photographs of caves which can be very tricky as this animation demonstrates!
The end result is a combination of most of the 21 frames. I find that you can't simply make a picture like this using HDR. All of these photos are shot in RAW, processed to jpeg, them loaded into Photoshop layers and manually combined.

Wren Music

I had a commision to photograph the staff at Wren Music. They asked for a gothic theme as they were working on a production that required it. The first photoshoot was at Okehampton Castle, a great gothic ruin. The sun was in more than it was out and I had to work very quickly finding the best locations, groupings, expressions etc whilst juggling with the lighting.

There was just an hour spent at the castle then it was into town, for another hour, to use an empty drama room of a local school for the next shoot. I had some lighting with me but the theatre spotlight in the room backed by the black velvet curtains gave the gothic look we were all after. A little light was reflected back into the shadows on the faces using a large sheet of white card. The picture compositions to me were all about marrying the musician with their chosen instrument and making something that filled a 3x4 frame in a balanced way. It was a challenge to make each portrait different from the last as there was no time to change the lighting. Again I had to work very quickly, concentrating on the key things like getting the all important eyes open and in focus.A slideshow of all the photographs from this shoot can be seen at my greengallery website.

Okehampton Camera Club

On Monday 10th September I had the pleasure of talking with the Okehampton Camera Club; a progressive group of about 25 creative photographers on the edge of Dartmoor.

I used the title ‘Constructive Photographs’ to present and discuss my work. This title can be used to sum up my working practice since the mid-1990’s. It was never a conscious decision to have such an obscure thread running through my work. But it is apparent in 35mm film triptychs, camera-less daylight processes silver images and through my 21st century digital work. The process is rarely hidden in my work and the photographically literate will make the connection of sprocket holes on the edge of a triptych or the hard, unblended, edge of a frame seen around the outside of a huge cave interior landscape.

The presentation in Okehampton was split into two parts; the first being key images in the progression of my work over the last 15 years. Then, after a tea/coffee break, the technical considerations of making these images was discussed and illustrated.

The animated gif above shows the constructing of an early image made in North Devon. This is named ‘Shipload Grotto’, a cave in the difficult to get to Shipload Bay, close to Hartland Point. I should really make an up-to-date animation to illustrate the using of ‘photomerge’ in Photoshop; this one was made using a 2003 Sony Cyber-shot which served me well at the time but it’s lens was prone to chromatic aberration (the coloured edge seen where the contrast between very dark and very light is at the most extreme, like the entrance of a cave). The finished imaged was made from 51 separate frames.

Prior to my talk at the Club, I got a chance to witness their annual show, held this year at the Museum of Dartmoor Life, in Okehampton. This was a great way of getting to know the photographers by their photographs. I was really encouraged by the overall quality of work and the emphasis the club has for creativity and experiment; members seem to be developing their own styles which enhances the overall experience of the exhibition. The show continues until 29th September.

Further reading....Writing this blog I just remembered a hidden page I have on my own website which some of you might be interested in. On it I write about the techniques used in making triptychs and constructed images. It isn't up-to-date but find the page here, it's called secrets.

Real Food Talk

The Real Food Store in Exeter hosted an artists reception with talk on 19th August. The group of 15 were full of enthusiasm for the artwork and spellbound by the process of it's execution. People were amazed at the wonders of the North Devon Coast, many regretting that they have experienced so little of it and all vowing to come up soon.

All of the photographs are within North Devon's Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the mounted prints were made with support from the AONB Sustainable Development Fund. All prints are archival and limited edition. The large ones are mounted on aluminium and sandwiched under thick perspex which give them a real depth and perspective. The small ones are giclee prints.

I will be leading a camera workshop 'half day Intro to Digital Photography' on Thursday 16th August at the Real Food Cafe - £25
 A 'sit around the table' workshop to get to know your camera better. You'll learn about shutter speeds, aperture, ISO, flash and setting your camera up for optimum quality.
Booking required in advance email info@greengallery.co.uk

Real Food Store, Exeter

Click then right click and download for large version

Installation Comments

Here are a few of your wonderful comments for the installation
'a Postcard from Manteo' by Dave and Sadie Green

"What a wonderful multi-sensual trip back to Carolina! thank you!"

"A Wonderful record - much enjoyed"

"Great! Hands across the ocean."

"Totally absorbing and transporting, thanks for the pop-corn."

"Wonderful creative exhibition - Dave is a real artist...Sadie is a great photographer!"

"Beautiful space, really interesting and informative, lovely hosts and beautiful things to see!"
"An amazing adventure. Not an art studio nor a gallery. A real life trip into another world."
"Fantastic idea, tantilising all the senses - love the stairs, the food, music and the tour guides are second to none!"
"Wow - so many beautiful pictures, a real taste of the Outer Banks - so many memories!"

"Lovely space and v. interesting to hear about Manteo too." 
"Great Stairs!"

Our Opening Reception - photograph copyright Graham Hobbs

 

Postcard from Manteo - Opening Reception

The opening reception on Friday 6th July went really well. a crowd of 21 braved the unseasonably wet evening and stay for a good two hours each absorbing the OBX atmosphere.

There was lots of drinking of iced tea, lemonade and Norman Palmer (which is a mixture of the two and a top tip of what's in at the moment in North Carolina where the temperature has soured to 110 degs f). There was also a spread of food likely to be consumed in Manteo; sweet potato cakes, crab dip, corn bread, muffins and pecan cookies to name just the homemade food.

Local photographer, Graham Hobbs, was one of our guests, who had come along to make a photograph for the North Devon Gazette. He stayed about an hour soaking it all in before grouping us all together at one end of the room with as much American and Manteo items as we could grab for the shot.

Later on, about 11pm, we had a Skype video call from Mayor of Manteo, Jamie Daniels. It was great to chat for half an hour with Jamie and the hand full of guest still here. Amongst the conversation was talk of Manteo's July 4th celebrations where Jamie felt compelled to show off some of the paraphernalia worn in the parade.

a Postcard from Manteo

I have a joint installation/exhibition with Sadie Green at Green House my home/studio in Bideford as a part of Art Trek 2012.

The installation of photographs, video, sound, smells and digitally generated art has transformed our home into a sensual experience of Bideford’s twin town in the Outer Banks of North Carolina USA.

The Opening Reception is on Friday 6th July 7pm–10pm where a light fare of North Carolina food can be sampled. The installation continues through the weekends of the 7th/8th and 14th/15th of July 11am-5pm. There’s an illustrated talk at 2pm on each of these days.

You'll find my studio here: Green House, Torridge St, Bideford, Devon

Sea Caves, Shipwrecks and the Rocky Shore

On Thursday 5th July, somewhere on the North Devon Coast, 10am - 5pm I'm offering a new workshop 'Sea Caves, Shipwrecks and the Rocky Shore'. I'll be introducing the handful of participants to my own photography. They'll get the opportunity to experience the secret coast, hidden at the far ends of a sandy beach, full of caves and shipwrecks. And learn how to make the best of their own camera under demanding landscape and lighting.

5th of July is a spring tide, an extreme high and low; low tide being approximately 2pm. This will give us the chance to really explore parts of the rocky shore that is usually under 25 feet of water! - all for only £50 !!

Here's a list of the other photographic workshops I'm offering this summer:

Introduction to digital photography 10am - 5pm (unless stated otherwise)- £50
A practical days workshop learning to gain control over your camera, shutter speeds, aperture, ISO, flash etc, setting it up for optimum quality under any given lighting, and making better pictures through composition. Numbers limited to a hand-full. I also offer it on a 1:1 basis for ½ a day for £75
Course Description pdf
Thursday 31st May in South Molton
Thursday 7th June in Appledore (during the Arts Festival)
Saturday 9th June in Appledore (during the Arts Festival)
Thursday 28th June in Barnstaple (11am - 6pm)
Thursday 19th July in Exeter (11am - 5pm) + tour of exhibition
Friday 27th July in Exeter (11am - 6pm)
Saturday 28th July in Bideford
Saturday 18th August in Bideford

Half Day Intro to digital photography - £25
A 'sit around the table' workshop to get to know your camera better. You'll learn about shutter speeds, aperture, ISO, flash and setting your camera up for optimum quality.
Wednesday 13th June in Bideford 1.30pm - 4.00pm
Tuesday 10th July in Barnstaple 3.00pm - 5.30pm

Photographing your own Artwork 11am - 6pm - £50
I have a wealth of knowledge and experience of photographing 2D artwork, jewellery and ceramics and I'm willing to pass this on to artists eager to improve their own image making camera skills. Although this workshop is for a small group (max 5) I also offer it on a 1:1 basis for ½ a day for £75, or I can deliver the workshop in your own home or studio anywhere in Devon for £100
Course Description pdf
Saturday 23rd June in Bideford
Monday 2nd July in Bideford

Introduction to Photoshop 11am – 6pm - £50
Opening an image file and adjusting levels, contrast, brightness and colour balance. Rotating, resizing and cropping an image. Placing an image or images into a new file. Using layers and history. Participants will need to be computer literate i.e. use a computer on regular basis and understand the basic controls. Small group (max 4). I also offer it on a 1:1 basis for £150, or I can deliver the workshop in your own home or studio anywhere in Devon for £175
Sunday 24th June in Bideford

Intermediate Photoshop 11am – 6pm - £50
Using tools, masks and filters to manipulate your image. Tools used in this session are: marquee, move, lasso, magic wand, eraser, paint bucket, eyedropper, hand and zoom. Making a contact sheet and using batch production. Adding type to your image. Participants will need to be computer literate i.e. use a computer on regular basis and understand the basic controls. Small group (max 4). I also offer it on a 1:1 basis for £150, or I can deliver the workshop in your own home or studio anywhere in Devon for £175
TBA July/August in Bideford - enquiries welcome

Appledore Arts 2012

front of brochure, image by Pete Ward

I'm very much involved again, in the Appledore Visual Arts Festival this year. On Friday I'm leading a Pin-Hole photography workshop for the festival. I'm really looking forward to getting the big black bin out and helping participants make cameras out of boxes and tins. There ought to be time, this year, to make some stunning images with this primitive technology, as we'll have all day to work on it.

Either side of this, on the Thursday and Saturday, I'm running my own 'Introduction to Digital Photography' workshops. A practical days workshop learning to gain control over your camera, shutter speeds, aperture, ISO, flash etc, setting it up for optimum quality under any given lighting, and making better pictures through composition. Numbers limited to a hand-full. You'll need to book these courses with me and they'll start at Susie's tearoom at 10am.

On Sunday, if not before, I'll be enjoying the delights of Bideford Bay Creatives 'artists' studios' installation which will be taking place in one of the out building's in Susie's garden. Each day a different pair of BBC artists will take up residence there and make the place their own studio for the day.

Details about my workshops are found here: http://greengallery.co.uk/workshops.htm

Land of Opportunity

I've now left North Carolina, where nothing can be finer and arrived home in North Devon, which is closer to Heaven.

Photograph of the ship-like structure that is the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum. This fabulous image is their Facebook cover photo. I was too excited to take any pictures!

Manteo, Roanoke Island and the Outer Banks are wonderful places populated by lovely people who were very welcoming and generous throughout our stay there. The land of opportunity has presented me with a bigger travelling exhibition next summer which will start at the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum on Hatteras Island then move on the Maritime Museums at Beaufort and Southport. This touring show will have much new work, that I shall be working on throughout this year, based on shipwrecks.

Local Opportunities: Summer Photography Workshops

Introduction to digital photography 10am - 5pm - £50
A practical days workshop learning to gain control over your camera, shutter speeds, aperture, ISO, flash etc, setting it up for optimum quality under any given lighting, and making better pictures through composition. Numbers limited to a hand-full.

Thursday 10th May in Barnstaple
Saturday 19th May in Bideford
Thursday 31st May in South Molton
Thursday 7th June in Appledore (during the Arts Festival)

Half Day Intro to digital photography - £25
A 'sit around the table' workshop to get to know your camera better. You'll learn about shutter speeds, aperture, ISO, flash and setting your camera up for optimum quality.

Thursday 24th May in Barnstaple 3.00pm - 5.30pm
Monday 18th June in Bideford 1.30pm - 4.00pm

Photographing your own Artwork 11am - 6pm - £50

I have a wealth of knowledge and experience of photographing 2D artwork, jewellery and ceramics and I'm willing to pass this on to artists eager to improve their own image making camera skills. Although this workshop is for a small group (max 5) I also offer it on a 1:1 basis for £75 a day.
Tuesday 29th May in Bideford
Saturday 23rd June in Bideford

Introduction to Photoshop 11am – 6pm - £50

Opening an image file and adjusting levels, contrast, brightness and colour balance. Rotating, resizing and cropping an image. Placing an image or images into a new file. Using layers and history. Participants will need to be computer literate i.e. use a computer on regular basis and understand the basic controls. Small group (max 4).
Sunday 27th May in Bideford
Intermediate Photoshop 10am – 5pm - £50
Using tools, masks and filters to manipulate your image. Tools used in this session are: marquee, move, lasso, magic wand, eraser, paint bucket, eyedropper, hand and zoom. Making a contact sheet and using batch production. Adding type to your image. Participants will need to be computer literate i.e. use a computer on regular basis and understand the basic controls. Small group (max 4).
TBA June/July in Bideford - enquiries welcome

Workshops and dates can also be found at this link - www.greengallery.co.uk/workshops.htm
Workshop vouchers are also available so you can buy one for a friend or family member who is keen on photography and would enjoy learning with me!

contact 01237 477789 or email info@greengallery.co.uk 

Reception and Presentation

Invite wonderfully designed by Kitty Dough

This was always going to be an evening of exultation and intrepidation I had every confidence in Kitty Dough, Larry Warner the exhibits curator and all of the staff and volunteers at the Aquarium; I just had to make sure I didn't mess it up!

I had made a practice run of the presentation a few days earlier. This was taking place in the perfect location. I was to share the room with a 285,000-gallon shark tank ''Graveyard of the Atlantic'' that's 35-foot long and 14 feet tall. As well as the sharks, and numerous smaller fish which sometimes become dinner, the  tank holds a 1/3 scale replica of the USS Monitor, which lies just off Cape Hatteras at a depth of 210 feet. The room is essentially lit by the dull blue glow coming through the 5.5 inch thick acrylic window of the tank. The projector screen seemed massive, like a small cinema, and combined with the powerful projector made my images look awesome. I spent a lot of time getting used to a wireless mouse because I was using Adobe bridge for the slideshow which enabled me to use big files and zoom right into the images.

Meeting and greeting was at 6pm around the exhibition cabinets. This helped to guage the interest level and questions my audience might have; and calmed my nerves. There was a great spread of Anglo/American food available that had either been bought from the next State that likes to call itself a commonwealth, or homemade like the scones.

7pm was the presentation. Kitty introduced me to the audience numbering 50+. The talk was far more than my photographs, although there was a fascination in the way I construct my images from as many as 100 seperately taken frames. This exhibition, to me, had always been about introducing Manteo to it's twin town through it's surrounding coast, river and, originally shared, history. Using old maps, the North Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty map and Richard Larn's shipwreck map, I took my audience on a journey from Marsland Mouth on the border with Cornwall, along the Hartland coast, across Bideford Bay, up the Torridge into Bideford, around Saunton Sands to Baggy Point, along to Briery Cave at Watermouth, into Combe Martin and it's caves which were mines; and finished off on the Exmoor coast at Wringapeak, near to the Somerset border.

It was supposed to be a half hour presentation and in practice it had been 45 minutes to I had vowed to cut it shorter. But, when I get excited I can't stop; so it was more like 50 minutes, plus questions which were many. Nobody seemed to mind the length except perhaps my ever supportive wife Sadie who had been gesticulating 'cut it' and 'wind it up' but I hadn't noticed! Sadie is also credited for all of these photographs.

The Exhibit

18 months ago I was invited to exhibit at the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island. It's been a massive 2 weeks for me, working up to 'Great Britain's Graveyard of the Atlantic' which opened on Thursday 5th April. And it's not been plain sailing at all. The exhibition prints were made within the State and this foresight for possible problems paid off. We arrived in Manteo, the Dare County seat and home of the Aquarium late on 22nd March and the very next day opened the package containing the exhibition mounted giclee prints.

After very little time I started to notice strange marks in the highlight areas of the prints and it was all too obvious that the prints, packaged face-to-face, had migrated some of their rich dark areas onto the light areas of their facing images. There were other odd finger shaped smears, odd in that the process of manufacturing the prints has no human contact until they are packaged. Charles from Mastercolor of Greenboro had been very helpful throughout the process of getting the work made since the end of February, and he was as devastated as I with the result which he hadn't seen. Sample prints on different paper stock where UPS'd straight away and arrived on Wednesday 28th. The face-to-face packaging had been an issue but confounded by the saturated black pigment ink that didn't want to stay put. I chose a giclee lustre similar to the prints I'd ordered from Germany for Silver Bonsai Gallery, on the Island, to stock. The finished mounted prints arrived on Friday 30th and Sadie, Kitty Dough (exhibitions co-ordinator at the Aquarium) and I hung the show that afternoon. I should perhaps say created the installation as that is a better description of the artwork.

Me and Kitty Dough, who has been a star throughout the past 18 months

I opened this post with the 18 months of lead time; organisation was crucial with this show. Normally I might turn up to a gallery with a car full of framed images and make design decisions with the work in the space, returning some images to the car and making an exhibition of the work that works best together in the space. But there was no space for those kind of decisions here. A working scale 2D model of the display cabinets has been on my computer for months and has changed many times until the final images, sizes etc where fixed. Even here I decided in the end to have sixteen 16x20's and two 16x16's so that a little interchangability was still possible - and it was needed!

The Aquarium staff, who have been encouraging and supportive throughout, were thrilled with the exhibition prints, and amazed at how quickly they were installed using 3,4 and 6 inch space bars cut from some old foamex. But the icing on the cake, that the Aquarium staff had never seen, were the 200 postcard sized 'snapshots' that I'd had printed as supporting work for the exhibition. These where carefully placed to look like a random collage of images taken on the North Devon coast over the last 7 years.

The first international exhibition in the North Carolina Aquarium was installed and open to the public.

Great Britain's Graveyard of the Atlantic

Here is the illustrated text to accompany my exhibition Great Britain's Graveyard of the Atlantic which opens at the Aquarium on Roanoke Island, North Carolina, on April 5th. Click the image for a giant version.

The Iron Coast

 

 The Iron Coast, or Iron-bound Coast is another name for Graveyard of the Atlantic. It originally refered to the reefs of hard, sharp rocks that line Bideford Bay and Hartland at right angles to the steep cliffs. Later the name was associated with the amount of metal ship debris from wrecked vessels all along this coast. It could also be linked to the natural iron deposits in the sedimentary 'devonian' rocks and to the rusty colours, particularly this vein of clay at Portledge.

These are some of the supplementary images to the Exhibition Graveyard of the Atlantic, North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island, April to June 2012. More supplementary images here: link

Thanks to North Devon AONB

Supplementary Photographs

This blog has been put aside a little over the last month with a greater concentration on my Facebook posts and with all of the work I seem to have this year including the build-up to my major American exhibition. One of the good suggestions from North Devon's AONB team, which is funding the exhibition prints through their Sustainable Development Grant, was to include more than just caves. This was a great advice and I've been inspired through earlier posts to put my pictures of North Devon's caves in context through other more general landscapes of the coast here, all be it in extreme weather.

Another addition to the show will be almost 200 snapshot sized photographs that I've taken on the ND coast from over the last 6 years. This blog is a set of rusty images from the MS Johanna and other related photographs. I was interested to see how a large metal ship can slowly disappear and start to blend in with the rocks with their natural iron content and with yellows and browns of the wider landscape. If only plastic did the same!

The exhibition in the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island will be in two large glass cabinets, 8ft wide by 5ft high and 15inches deep. The supplementary images, along with some tourist postcards will line the bottom shelf of each cabinet and give a real context in terms of place for my fine-art images hung above. This will emphasize how two coasts with the name 'Graveyard of the Atlantic' are so different; one a sandy beach the other a rocky shore.

There are more supplementary images here: The Iron Coast