All Things Considered

Maggie’s Centre Portraits
Posted by Kate Sullivan

Earlier this month, a campaign was launched at Downing Street to raise £15m for five new Maggie's Centres across England and Wales. These centres will join the five others already up and running in Scotland, where cancer patients and carers and their families drop in for support.

Sam Taylor-Wood, a patron of Maggie's Centres (along with the prime minister's wife, Sarah Brown), was diagnosed with cancer ten years ago, just as her career as an artist was taking off. This year, Sam was invited to photograph some of the patients at the Maggie's Centre in Fife, Scotland, designed by award winning architect, Zaha Hadid.

The portraits of the cancer patients taken by Taylor-Wood in the light flooded, space-ship like building are being exhibited at Downing Street until early January 2008. The portraits will then go on tour around the UK, to help raise money and awareness for the amazing and needed support that is provided by Maggie's Centres.

Posted by Kate Sullivan on December 20th, 2007

Harry Cory Wright
Posted by Simon Lewin

Photographers can be a funny breed. A few years ago I went to a workshop with landscape photographer Harry Cory Wright. It was a sort of ‘audience with’ out on the North Norfolk coast.

I’ll confess I took a camera – though didn’t take a single photo. To me, the day was more about looking and seeing, rather than taking.

But I shouldn’t have been surprised that the majority of those attending were simply itching to get snapping from the minute we arrived, with more of an interest in f-stops and shutter speeds than the creative process behind Harry’s work. The important bit.

Of course, there’s an element of me that does enjoy the business end of photography – but it’s the (relative) simplicity of Harry’s set up that appeals. A big wooden box on a big tripod that takes big negatives which allow you to produce very big prints. But it's a process that means you think about the photos you're taking - with the cost of the film and processing, you simply can't sit there snapping away and hoping that you'll get one good shot.

You’ll find out a bit more about this on Harry’s website. He spent last year touring the UK preparing a book called ‘Journey through the British Isles’ which will be published later in the year. Harry logged the journey in this excellent blog.

Posted by Simon Lewin on April 4th, 2007

Photo Pairing
Posted by Kate Sullivan

I thought I'd follow up with something inspiring. Since  coming across this site in January, 3191  has become a daily breath of fresh air.

The concept is simple; two photographs are taken in the morning by two different artists, Mav and Stephanie. They live 3191 miles apart in North America and get up early.

Without knowing the subject matter of each others photographs, they post them side by side to reveal a similarity of style and complimentary balance.

Posted by Kate Sullivan on March 10th, 2007