New year, new projects

While Simon is getting our breakfast ready ( you must know that our favourite morning hang-out Tea Tree Tea cafe went bust couple of weeks ago leaving us without a place to comfortably roll out in our pyjamas to have some morning coffee and a bacon roll just accross the road! We are simply devastated, it was hearbreaking to chat with the guys on their last day and then see a permanent darkness behind their big windows!) I will fill you in what is going on with us these days.

Yesterday we were meeting with three good friends to talk about a project we will be working together this summer - some more hints will be coming soon, meanwhile some photographic record of that wintery morning:

If anyone tells me again that food in Scotland is not good, will have to eat their own words and swallow them with some freshly squeezed carrot juice!

All images taken near a brilliant breakfast spot Roseleaf Bar Cafe in Leith and in the cafe itself! Thank you for taking us there, Sejin!

Simon posing

Simon was posing yesterday for a new series of photographs by our talented Korean photographer friend Sejin Moon. I was involved as her subject in the very first shot in the series (I will let you know when images go on Sejin's website as it is her PhD project, so that you could have a look) and yesterday I was proudly helping with the styling and husband-instructing for Sejin's new photo.

I am full of admiration for Simon - the photoshoot was long, quite demanding as his pose was not the easiest one to hold and he directed the lighting setup so that it matched photographer's concept. I hope Sejin will be happy with the new image for her series!

Meanwhile between the shots...we've had some fun (this is NOT Sejin's photo idea! It is pure Simon when he is happy!):

Christmas on Instagram

These of you who follow also my other blog know now that I am posting now on Instagram as well, but as (still) not everyone has access to these feeds, some of the images will be available here as well. I am pretty much pulling Annie Leibovitz nowadays (as she famously said that she nowadays notoriously takes pictures with her iPhone) - either taking pictures with my phone (bad bad bad) or in the studio with my medium format film camera (love love love).

I am also starting to notice some patterns which suprise me but frighten me as well as  when I started this blog it's purpose was more to be a kind of a personal diary/archive rather than amassing thousands of followers! It is quite refreshing but also frightening to find myself in a community of 20-something aspiring photographers who tend to float the feeds that contain:

- pretty pictures of food (thousands of 'likes' when you post a picture of macaroons)
- cute dogs (preferably french bulldogs)
- anything by Chanel (preferably en masse)
- girls in geek glasses and bright red lipstick, preferably accompanied by a topknot hairstyle or at least a blunt fringe (I assume that the fact that not everybody can pull off a red lip makes these kind of pictures extremely aspirational. I certainly cannot pull anything bright on my lips, cannot put up a topknot due to the hair lenght issues and my glasses come out only in emergency as their lenses are so thick I look like a mole when wearing them - 3 x no!)
- overphotoshopped landscapes (especially when authors went overboard with HDR treatment)
- anything treated with a vintage yellow filter (cannot wait for this 'fashion' to blow over)
- ligth flooded interiors

That list could go on and on and I already need to make an escape.

Meanwhile some pictures that joined my feed during Christmas for you to see if you are not following.

1st image:
Top row: my scrimpy Christmass tree (I just hate when January comes people just chuck out their lovely christmas pine trees so I decided to get a miniature one this year and try to plant it somewhere after Christmas instead of throwing it into the skip!) and a faulty reindeer display. Bottom row: girls having fun at Claudine's Post-Christmas get-together (it must have been a picture of Simon in his Santa's little help headgear that made us laugh so much) and my friend Simon, who came appropriately cladded for our pre-Christmas drink at the National Galleries of Scotland cafe.

2nd image:
Top row features traditional Christmas cake (with a skidding robin) and Christmas pudding (with a brandy flame). Bottom row shows you a Christmas bubble at our friends in Haddington and an indecent snowman that Simon spotted at a farmer's market in Edinburh (well, he spotted the snowman and then quickly added the indecency from some potatoes laying around...):

The Jonah's experience

I have found this image somewhere in the mess on my desktop and it perfectly depicts how we feel at the moment - like I was being sucked into the vortex!

Image for today's post comes from a beautiful installation by Pipilotti Rist (I luuuuuv this woman) shown at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh this summer, that I have sneakily taken on my old Olympus camera with Simon being lit just enough to be glimpsed in the botton of the frame!

In Rzepa between Wieteska and Milach

I am featured in the latest Rempex Warsaw photography auction right between my two favourite photographers! The list of everyone featured is presented in the Rzeczpospolita magazine on line gallery:

http://www.rp.pl/galeria/0,3,746409.html

^ link obrained thanks to Krzysztof Jurecki. So go and BUY ME!

Bridges Walk

Yesterday we invited Monica to visit with us a venue where we will be working soon (and thus some reconnaissance was necessary).

One thing led to another and we ended up walking almost 10 miles towards South Queensferry from the Dalmeny estete, in a mixture of lashing rain and sunshine peeking through the clouds. The walk ended with a meal in the famous Hawes Inn (it is featured in novel 'Kidnapped' by Robert Louis Stevenson) just by the Forth Rail Bridge. The pies were on a small side I thought, but after several hours of intense walking (and talking, it is always good to have deep conversations about meaning of life with longknown friends) this kind of food was very welcomed. We demolished some profiteroles, apple crumble and pecan pie too. We have returned home on a completely empty Edinburgh bus and we slept like babies.

Can you imagine that someone tried to saw off the bronze horse that stands in front of the Dalmeny House?! I though that these kind of things happen only in my homeland...

London rush and riots

Last week I dragged my poor husband all the way down to London to work on a portrait commission for The Photographers Gallery. I have managed to wriggle in the Victoria and Albert museum as my photoshoot's location (hence we spent most of our time in West London though I went on a brief venture into the East end of the town, still troubled with the recent riots - I had to pick up studio keys for the second part of the working day and on my way in the underground I heard an annoucnment about Brixton station being on fire...).

It was a great stay though (this time we booked a room with a window, a permanently sealed one but let's not be picky) a bit stressfull (it was a work trip after all but as one fellow photographer friend commented London is always good to go to for work reason) and rushed (so not time to meet family or friends - sorry guys!) but I met many friendly and helpful people (special kudos to a lovely press officer from V&A and my charming subject who proved to be extremely photogenic and patient and I seldom work with complete strangers so it was an enigma how the cooperation is going to look like).

I had at least 3 passers by asking me if I need any help when I was flicking thourgh my London A-Z outside of the Euston and Hoxton underground stations trying to arrange map along East to West directions thus shattering a myth of uncooperative Londoners.

And of course it would not have been all possible without Simon's help and support. He is not just a voice activated light stand (as we jokingly call his duties patiently executed during working with me on my portraits) or just my London guide. His presence and encouragement are sometimes the only things that stop me from running away screaming with utter fear from the photoshoot that took several weeks to arrange! It would simply not be possible without him.

It was lovely to come back to our smaller in scale, calmer and slower in pace Scottish capital. Especially after waiting for 40 minutes at King's Cross train station's mail hall right in the middle of the rush hour. The sheer amount of passing faces can make one dizzy.

So here is the visual material. Oh, if you would like to know - I have just picked up my negatives from processing and they are all waiting to be scanned. So far at least they look correctly exposed and some of them look like they have some potential...

An authentic notice on a house railing in one of the main streets in Kensington. I hope it comes from the 1940s (judging by the font):

We have spotted this plaque on a house in Cromwell Road on our way to hotel. Is says that Albert Hitchcock lived in the house! Poor chap, no wonder that our hotel window was sealed completely, this road is extremely busy!

My better profile at the V& A's outrageously decorated cafe:

I hope I will one day have enough time and money to actually go to London for a couple of days just to dive in the richness of its museums collections (we have managed to squeeze in a couple of photo exhibitions - one in Tate Modern and one in Purdy-Hicks gallery nearby, as V&A was visited mainly for scouting best locations at the Hintze sculpture gallery).

So when are you coming, Monika?

Stripes

Our favourite pattern - stripes! The obsession continues with a purchase of a stripy rug from the Habitat's closing down sale (yes, they went into administration poor sods). I have to actually give it a good hoovering when I finally have some spare time! So far the dishes are winning in the urgency stakes as they actually start to stink when left too long to their own devices...

Afternoon in the countryside

Yesterday we had a REAL summer day in  Scotland (yes, like a summer for reeelz!) so we decided to do some work on the sunny early afternoon and visit one of the venues where we will be soon working taking pictures. We had all the lovely bits within one day - sunshine, baby ducklings and lots of history. A very pleasant afternoon indeed and now we are back to the usual Scottish summer which means rain all day and temperature hovering not much above +15 degrees...Luckily I have to sit all day at home and process images for clients!

House for An Art Lover Picture Heavy

House for An Art Lover

Some of you who know me might recall that I am a big fan of Charles Rennie Mackintosh work. To the extent that when I got a scholarship in Paris (in a very prestigeous ESAG design school) instead of Glasgow School of Art, I was very disappointed (well, untill I went to Paris that is, where I had the most inspiring time of my life). However my sentiments to Charles Rennie's work remain the same.

Last weekend we have managed to visit a reconstructed Mackintosh project (the house was originally designed by Mackintosh and his wife, just on paper for a competition and never been executed in real life) - a House for Art Lover in Glasgow. One can get there by a 10 minutes ride on a train from the Glasgow Central which lands one in a very affluent neighbourhood. It looks like a perfect location for a property for an art enthousiast.

House was built with community funds overs several years in the 1990s and seems to be pretty accurate reconstruction of Mackintosh architectural utopian idea though I could not help but notice that sometimes the particular for Mackintosh work proportions were lost (understandably though as the idealised drawings had to be translated into real building with all its ingeneering and construction demands) and council put some weird art works (not at all connected with architect's work style and quite frankly ugly) in the garden. The groundfloor cafe had some peculiar objects for sale (like a comic about the architect's life and lots of silver jewellery better or worse inspired by his work) but it was full of people willing to spend an afternoon in this still very eye pleasing place with good vibes of a coherent concept. It is a clever combination of old architectural forms (the main hall remaining a medieval castle) with some naval forms and 17th century houses windows proportions (Simon remarked that one of the facades really looks like his old family house which was a building from mid 17th century), all incorporated in an unique form of a very modern looking building.

I wonder if Charles Rennie and Margaret would like how their idea was translated into real life (maybe minus weird, starck white, health-and-safety railings protecting one from falling off some 5 cm high steps in the garden...) or being perfectionists, they would be slightly dissapointed by financial and aesthetical compromises that had to be made in the final execution of the project. I rather think that they woud be jolly glad that finally someone in Scotland realised that they were unique artists. And now Glasgow can cash on the architects whose work was considered too sophisticated and he was not able to make a living out of it.

Cows and seaside

A nice, SUNNY day that we spent in St Andrews, what an exception this summer, but note my canvas coat still being with me! I am finding cows to be rather intimidating but these were friendly and nostalgic, sending longing looks towards the sea, probably dreaming about sailing tall ships towards foreign, distant lands. I have always thought that after a long day in the field cows go home for a nice cuppa but no, they are being left on the field overnight, what a shame, missing so many great programmes on tv (BBC2 The Hour with Romola Garai and Ben Wishaw is on this week!).

 

Hours

The number in the picture seems to state the number of hours (2289446) that Simon and I have worked last week but as usual on Sunday, I have an impression that everything is finally under control and we are able to cope with the workflow. Ha, we wish!

Quick,quick!

We have at least a week of backlogg work to do and not a single free week to do it! Things have to work twice as fast as usual so the private/social life (what social life?!) went inevitably onto a backburner.

A frind of mine (hello Ania!) sent me a brilliant audiobook for children who make their tired parent's life that tad bit more difficult and I can definitely relate to that - though except a demanding toddler I have a buch of demanding clients with toddler's mentalities...

We will try tonight to get to bed earlier than 4 am, promise!

Remedy

A little bit tired and overworked these days I seem to be having problems recently with neatly falling asleep, which never have been a problem before. This British invention (see picture) seems to help though. And having Simon as my own human hot water bottle helps as well, unless he is working until 4 am in the other room! Moomin cup is not compulsory, it just seems to contain a right amount of that calming drink.

P.S. Have you heard Bjork in the Moomins film?

P.S. On some other note about other (little) people who are not able to fall asleep...

Auction time!

Simon has two prints for sale at the prestigeous viennese West Licht Photographica Auction! The bidding finishes on 28th of May so go, have a look and buy yourself a Crofts! While you still can afford it...

Images courtesy of Simon Crofts.

Work space now - it WORKS!

Work space

We have since this picture was taken, made some tweaking to our workspace (and finished filling in our tax return applications!) and Simon's new sofa, ups I ment to say, new work space is arriving tomorrow! We might even consider inviting some guests for a drink since they will actually have someting to sit on...

P.S. To my previous post: Philip Glass will be performing during the Edinburgh Festival this summer; tickets go on sale on 2nd of April.

A little bit Kielce-like

As some of you already know (because we were talking about it so much!) we went to Derby Format festival portfolio review at the beginning of March. We have met with excellent team of reviewers and heard some helpful stuff about our old and new bodies of work. The highlight of the stay was meeting with Amy Stein (see her blog in the bloggroll on your right) - she is smart, charming, intellightn, helpful and funny.

You know as you sometimes think something when looking at your own work but are too lazy or too shy to actually change the direction of an advanced project and start from scratch. That is why I was deeply impressed with Amy's scrutinising eye. What she said will allow me to move my work forward. I am on a lookout for a studio space now so that I could continue my project. Though it is actually quite weird to hear somebody whose work you admire to pronounce aloud what you were secretely thinking about your own work. Well, she said she liked it so fingers crossed for the progress of this new work amidst the wedding work whirlwind.

Derby is a very weird place - visually, of course. I think it must have been quite damaged during WWII (a nearby Coventry was completely flattened) and then rebuild without any particular plan in a very haphazard way. On Sunday morning, while Simon was meeting with his agent (Regina was one of the reviewers) I went in search of Sunday newspapers and it took me quite a while to find a newsagent open at 10 am. Luckily people who I asked about directions were most helpful and I got my Sunday Times and Telegraphs in the end of a quite a long walk in the rain. Just in case I went to say a short prayer in the nearby church (again an interesting architectural mix - gloomy and medieval from outside, pink and welcoming inside!) - for a preagnant Amy, Simon's trip to Warszawa to photograph The Polish National Ballet there (he was going litterally a day after our return from Derby), my mum and dad and many other things that one does not write in a blog post.