Photography Fun

During my stint as Artist in Residence for the Wigtown Book Festival, I found myself reflecting on the fact it often feels I’m part photographer, part psychotherapist.

When upward of 90% of people use the opening line, “I hate having my photo taken…” the majority of my time is spent not using the camera, but reassuring, explaining and trying to build a sense of connection and trust with the person in front of me.

So when I encounter a rare individual who is perfectly comfortable in front of the lens right from the start, it’s a pure delight – especially when they are then up for playing.

One such person I discovered during the festival was Peggy.

When I photographed her for the wall of The Hut I was immediately struck by her appearance. With short dark hair, and large rimmed glasses she had an almost iconic look, and when I converted the image to black and white, I was reminded of a kind of 1950s Beatnik style.



Of course one of the things about having such a striking outward style, is people will fix on it as the key identifying trait. So if Peggy was to remove her glasses and change her hairstyle, the chances are she could walk right past most people who know her and they wouldn’t even realise it was her.

With my love of faces, I found myself wanting to photograph her without her glasses. She was up for the idea, but we didn’t then get the chance until the very last evening of the Festival. By then it was dark and the only available light was on the stairs, and that wasn’t particularly great. However, black and white gives more options under these circumstances, so I felt it was still worth going for.

What’s great about Peggy from my point of view is she instantly understood photography is all about storytelling. So no need to be shy in front of the camera – rather it was a chance to play. She fished out some bright red lipstick and between us we came up with the idea of having it smeared, but with an unapologetic, even aggressive expression.

Within a few short minutes we’d created another almost iconic image.



Such fun!

Peggy is also the Programme Director of the West Port Book Festival in Edinburgh, which this year is happening from the 13th to 16th of October.

Visit www.westportbookfestival.org for more information, and if you go along and bump into Peggy, do say hello to her from me.

It's over... or maybe it's just begun...

As I stapled the last of the photos to the walls of The Hut at 1 o’clock in the morning, a few hours after the Wigtown Book Festival had officially closed, I realised no one was going to see all the images on the walls for another 8 months.

Normally you finish putting up an exhibition, and then people view it, but because this was an ongoing installation, visitors only saw it in progress.

The room I was given as a studio space in The Hut, while I was Artist-in-Residence, will now return to use as a place to catalogue the books destined for the shelves of ReadingLasses café and bookshop, until the first weekend in June 2012. It will then be opened up again to the public for the extended bank holiday weekend as part of the Spring Fling Open Studio Event.

It’s difficult to believe it was only 10 days. Thinking back to at time before the festival, it feels more like a couple of months have passed rather than less than 2 weeks.

There have been disappointments and delights, new friends made, opinions revised, lessons learned, skills enhanced, and seeds for potential futures have been sown.

I started off with naïve enthusiasm, fell into despair, adjusted my expectations and grew in confidence.

There’s a saying I love, which goes, “experience is something you gain immediately after you needed it the most”, and the experience of being artist-in-residence has felt a lot like that. At the beginning I didn’t really know what to expect or what was expected of me. I made my best guesses, but it’s only when things go wrong, and you have to revise your ideas and expectations that you really learn.

As the Festival drew to a close, I knew how I should have handled it from the start. I could see clearly when I should have acted differently, when I should have been bolder, and when I should have been more subtle.

So now it’s about finding a way to allow all the experiences and lessons to settle in and let them become part of the fabric of who I am and who I will become.

And trying to catch up on some sleep…


To view the full set of 174 portraits taken over the 10 days of the Wigtown Book Festival, visit my Facebook or Flickr albums:

Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.292506957430682.93692.114749591873087&type=1

Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kimayres/sets/72157627752630956/

Finding Time

I head home today.

Last night I was up until 2.30am editing and printing the last of the photos. Sunday had turned out to be a particularly hectic day and I took more photos than on any other day across the Festival - meaning more to edit and print.

There are still plenty of things to write about that have happened over the past 10 days, but it's going to take a wee while to find the time and space to write them up. But I will, so do keep checking in.

In the meantime, the last of the Festival Portraits have now been uploaded to Facebook and Flickr, so to view the full set - 176 photos of 184 people - do follow these links.

Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.292506957430682.93692.114749591873087&type=1

Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kimayres/sets/72157627752630956/

Having just said that, I'm also going to have to find the time to work out why I counted 176 photos on the wall of The Hut, but there only appear to be 175 images in the photo albums...

Chasing Elaine C. Smith

Elaine C. Smith is a Scottish actress, comedian and author. I first saw her in a comedy sketch show back in the 80s called Naked Video, but she probably became best known for her role as Mary Nesbitt, playing the wife in the Scottish comedy series, Rab C. Nesbitt. But she’s also toured in the stage show of Calendar Girls, and has now released a book called “Nothing Like a Dame”.

Whenever I’ve seen her interviewed, she’s always come across as a strong, intelligent and very funny person, but down to earth and without pretension. So when I saw she was to be appearing at the Wigtown Book Festival, she jumped to the top of my wish-list for photographing for the walls of The Hut.

I knew her event was at 6pm on Thursday, and I was told by Festival staff she’d probably be taken to the Writer’s Retreat upon arrival, so from 3pm, I asked a couple of people to text me if she arrived.

At 4.30pm, I just took my laptop up to the Writer’s Retreat to edit photos and make sure I didn’t miss her.

By 5.30pm I realised even if she arrived now, she wouldn’t have time for a photograph.

By 5.50pm, a lot of people were getting worried about why there was still no sign of her.

Fortunately for the Festival, she arrived a few minutes later and the event was only 5 minutes late in starting. She blamed several slow tractors on the road on the journey down.

The talk was funny, entertaining and thoughtful, but then she was doing book signings. And then she would be taking part in the Wigtown Book Festival Auction at 8pm, and by this time it was far too dark to photograph her anyway.

My only option was to chat to her between the book-signing and the auction, which meant walking with her between venues, pitching the project and trying to get her to agree to be involved the following day before she left.

She was involved in a BBC Radio Scotland Debate event that would be finished at 1pm on Friday, and she assured me I could take her photo then.

Given the fobbing off I’d received from Martin Bell at the beginning of the Festival, I was taking no chances, so at 12.50pm I was sitting on the steps outside the venue and as soon as the doors opened to let people out, I squeezed in and made my way up to the stage.

I was rather relieved she still seemed up for it, and once we found her husband, Bob, the 3 of us headed over to The Hut.

And she was great.

Sometimes you meet people who have a public persona and as soon as they are out of the spotlight they are very different people. But I have to say Elaine appears to be pretty much the same in person in the flesh. She was friendly, engaging, seemed interested in the project and when it came to taking the photo gave me a fantastic intense glare down the lens. Bob was wonderful too, and I got his face for the wall as well.

They even decided they’d like a copy of the photos, so I swapped them for a signed copy of Elaine’s book.


Elaine


Bob

As usual, to view the latest images and the entire collection so far, visit the Facebook or Flickr photo collections.

Watching Paint Dry

Despite the fact I clearly state on my leaflet that I have The Hut open between 10.30am and 12.30pm each day, on Thursday I had to shut up shop to head over to William Neal’s talk about his new book, Watching Paint Dry.

William has been a professional artist for many years. Back in the 70s he designed album covers for Emerson Lake and Palmer, in the 90s he was painting Galloway landscapes, and over the past few years he has moved into abstract works. This new book is a history of his life and work and includes many wonderful images including a special limited edition print to go specifically with this book.

And the cover photo is one of mine.



I did a photo shoot with William a couple of years ago, and he had the idea of taking a photo of him sitting at the easel, like a traditional artist painting a landscape, only with one of his abstract works under his brush. We then worked on it together using selective colour editing and putting in a moon, which is a feature of many of his landscape paintings. Basically, he came at it with the eye of someone who has designed album covers.

The photo ended up as the opening image on his website, and now the cover of his book.

So there was no way I was going to miss that one. Even though it meant having to turn away a couple of potential faces who wanted to see my studio because I was running late.

Rather nicely, William introduced me to the crowd there to hear him speak, which gave me the opportunity to pitch for more faces for the project, and several people came over to The Hut afterwards to stare down the lens of my camera, including William himself



Next up, Chasing Elaine C. Smith – when I can find a moment to write about it.

In the meantime, do check the Facebook or Flickr photo collections for the latest images.

Although as I write this, Flickr has decided to not upload any images from me this morning, so check the Facebook link first. I’ll try again with Flickr this evening.