Omninophoto feature

Fabolous Victoria posted a great feature about my work on her Scottish Photography blog Omninophoto. Please go and check it out!

http://www.omninophoto.com/

London Visit - part 2 aka the real purpose

Simon very kindly asked me to accompany him to the opening of his solo exhibition in London in gallery combined with bookshop in Bermondsey: Woolfson and Tay. It is a business run by two very engaged in social issues ladies who regularly invite equally engaged authors and not so easy subjects into their gallery space. Not to mention the enviable book selection (I had to leave some of my pocket money there, and the blow was softened a little with a friendly discount) and delicious coffee smooth as silk courtesy of Frances.

Simon's exhibition subject was not a jolly one either: pictures show people affected by epidemy of AIDS in Ukraine and social workers sacrificing their lives to help the evergrowing army of vistims.

We were slightly worried how many guest will come to the opening presentation (Simon gave an extremely engaged introduction combined with a presentation of his other Ukraine and Russia based social photography projects - I knew the stories of people featured in the project before but I was still very moved by his descriptions of their lives full of hardship and his straightforward, very colorfull but very sad at the same time images) but we were pleasantly surprised by the response - all the seats were taken and among these who ventured past the London Bridge were some familiar faces (Hello Damian! Hello Lila!) as well.

I am sure Simon is going to post his own commentary on his blog but here are some of mine images from the day. The author himself and Frances hanging the images:

The gallery is based in one of the nicest parts of London - Bermondsey, full of quirky boutiques (the dog collars one for example or an exciting shoe shop with United Nude shoes), nice restaurants and cafes with interesting murals (the featured jolly one is by Hannah Warren - have a look at her portfolio here) and The Design Museum is not very far. It would be lovely to have a little pied-a-terre there for future London trips but it has to stay in our dream sphere for now (lovely little flats were still costing a bob or two...):

Another day, another castle

Fahrenheit and photography

I would not have believed it if I have not have witnessed it with my own very nose and ears as I was sitting right next to Simon in Tea Tree Tea this morning, desperately trying not to inhale too deeply...Agata had once a student who when entered the room, filled it up with their own mixture of sweat and perfume. Overwhelming experience, especially when one is not a smoker.

In my opinion this boy was using Fahrenheit , which one of the most invasive male frangrances I came accross in my life but that is not the point. Have a read here and please try not to pull your hair out or use any Dior male edts:
http://simoncroftsphoto.com/blog/?p=327

A Mystery of the Sport called Golf

Last weekend we spent with a work related purpose in St Andrews where students of one of the oldest universities in Britain mix with golfers who come especially to play on one of the most prestigeous golf courses in the country.

Luckily none of us is into golf so these acres of plain green grass interested us only from a photographer's point of view (Simon waited for ages so that someone came into the compositionally right end of the course so that he could take a picture). And even that turned out to be dangerous as when we were walking down The Scores, a street situated just past the golfcourse by the sea, something whizzed past my left ear and landed on the tarmac next to me. I presume you have guessed already what it was! So I picked up the golf ball, much to Simon's dissaprovement (apparently one is not supposed to do that - a golfer is supposed to whack it back into the course). So I left it where it landed, just behind a street bollard and picked it up on our way back, 20 minutes later it was still there!

What a narrow escape I've had - these balls are quite heavy and extremely hard so being hit with one at high speed might create a serious damage. Who would have thought that golf is such a dangerous sport. Especially when one is a wife...

Finally!

There are going to be some good exhibitions this summer in Edinburgh!

R.I.P. Beyond Words

My life recently revolves between work and sleep without much time for anything else, so when I spotted that one of our favourite Edinburgh bookshop is closing down, it did not improve my already grumpy mood.
Beyond Words was a very special photographic bookshop where one could spend hours browsing (let's face it, I have never managed to leave empty handed...) through the latest photo publications of classics like b&w Paris by Doisneau but also the same Doisneau book full of colour photographs from his road trip through America. If I have not flicked throuth that book I would have never known that he took brilliant colour pictures as well!

And I think that is the point - flicking through first 5 pages of a publication on Amazon does not give you the same flavour for it as it would if you were doing it in a bookshop. Simon and I, we actually made a conscious effort to buy our photography books from this particular bookshop, not from Amazon or big highstreet retailers. They were 10 £ more expensive there than on line, so what? You got the pleasure of seeing them all in real life, appreciating the quality of paper and print, comparing them with the other publications, having a reason for a little trip into town, to be dragged out from in front of our computers.

Pity that even people who worked for BW could not sometimes understand what is the purpose of such business. When I asked a guy who worked for them if he buys his books from BW after being able to browse through them at work (well, I was secretly hoping that maybe he has some kind of dicount I would be able to join in) he replied that no, he gets them from Amazon as even with his work discount they are still cheaper on line. Yes, but you would not have even known about them you fool, without having a place like Beyond Words as a reference point!

Our last buy at Cockburn Street shop premises was a beautiful book of Jeff Wall's work, now Beyond Words could be accessed on line, HERE.

Simon's new toy

Here we are, now I want one and Monika as well. Olympus EP1:

Ideas ideas

Do you remember my 'ideas notebook'? Well, I have started a new one already and I have managed to loose it already as well...So many nice ideas LOST!

Back from the country of watches!

Honestly, I have never seen so many adverts concerning hand watches! And plastic surgery clinics, but there weren't any posters to be seen which would advertise recently published books. I wish I bought a bd about Friedrich Nietzsche that I saw at the Geneva airport. Helas I decided to spend my last beautifully designed 20 Swiss francs note on a coffee and a cake...

In the picture - the reason of our short trip:

Expo at ECA

Edinburgh College of Art Graduation Show opened two day ago and I have spent last several days talking to various visitors about my project shown in a very conveninet location of the Sculpture Court. Website also went up, so you can see more than just 3 exhibited Temporal (Portraits) at http://www.sylwiakowalczyk.com/

I have had some frendly conversations with people from Scottish NPG and an independent curator who immediately invited me to take part in the show he is curationg somewhere in the New Town (I did agree though I am going to see the space tomorrow) though beahviour of some visitors bewilders me: they TOUCH works on the wall, they choose their favourite of the provided postcards scattering the rest of them all over the place, they read comments in the comments book without leaving their own and during the private view I had to remove several cups with RED wine that were left just next to the prints in portfolio box.

We are back from Haddington now and back to our regular schedual. I would like to have a look tomorrow if anybody have not nicked my prints (exhibition is supervised but you never know, I kind of assumed that the Blurb book will eventually get stolen at some point as it is too tempting) and to top up the cards as they disappear surprisingly fast - I think at least 200 were distributed in the first 3 days of the exhibition!

Meanwhile have a look at several pictures (courtesy of Simon's new toy about which later) from the Friday evening:

Country weekend

Another country weekend is gone! We went towards the Sutra to meet our clients and we ended up on an authentic Scottish farm with sheep and all. Interesting experience for the citydwellers like us. I think I posted some cows before so this time some sheep and a windturbines in the distance.

The boss

I am spending all of today in the home/office which is my favourite kind of working away while Simon established his workspace in a nearby cafe (our favourite Tea tree Tea cafe just across the road from us, so you could meet us there almost in our pjs we are feeling so ast home there). However I asked for a takeaway soya latte to be brought to me in the afternoon and this is what Jamie and Drew in the Tea Tree Tea cafe prepared for Simon to take upstairs! His and her's coffees, guess who is the boss!

Before...

United K

Nie

I was hoping to get to Arles portfolio review this summer but when a opened their website, I do agree - 24 hours after the submission had started ALL, literally ALL the featured reviewers were FULLY booked up. A massive disappointment. So we will not have a nice working holiday in the South of France with portfolio viewing face to face. Instead we will have sending out a dozen of blurbbooks and lugging the portfolio amongs bored chaps in wet and expensive London. Just my luck.

Out of the gloom

Today's news is that Britain is officially out of recession and frankly I am already sick with Radio 4 repeating it all day long as well as when they were speading doom and gloom a year ago.

During our casual morning in a local cafe (the one on the other side of the road) while reading their copy of the Guardian I came accross an interview with a theatre director in London who said that one thing he hates about his job is realising that all in all, he earns less than a 19 year old shop assistant.

Ah well, a consolation came from one of my favourite websites (one of the links on the right) with a quote from Christo's biography:

Error: "The easy life of an artist"



Not quite so. Until 2006 Christo was working an average of 17 hours a day – 7 days a week. These days, he works and average of 13 hours a day. Jeanne-Claude is a bit lazier, only 10 hours a day.

They do not take vacations.

More here.

To cheer us up

Sexy breakfast:

Sexy breakfast after:

Ok, back to work...

Awful

On the days like this I hate my current life - 8 hours of inserting references and captions into a completely useless critical study (I am photographer, not an aspiring PhD scholar, so just let me take pictures for f* sake, instead of making me to write 9000 words of absolute bullshit so just to match number of words! Especially that fron next year college is changing these rules anyway.), but first 6 hours spent begging the college technicians to print 2 testprints. That is how long it took - anywhere else it takes me 1.5 h including a final print. When I was ready in 15 minutes with my corrections they buggered off for 2 hours lunch break. Then they had an hour coffee break. I know I am not a star of the department and everybody has to bend backwards for my sake but honestly - if everybody in this country works like them, Scotland will not be able to get out of this recession for many years to come. I might be harsh with my judgeent but the final straw was closing the college for 2 weeks until the very day of a final submission. Pay us you dosh but go away to do your prints in town paying commercial prices. I cannot wait to graduate. Never again a teacher and never a student again. Ever. Give me wedding images to process any day.

Peebles

We went out couple of days ago for a client meeting in Peebles, a kind of a Scottish Nowy Targ in my opinion. A bus goes there once an hour and takes a very scenic route through hills and valleys full of white dots of sheep. On our way back there were two men having a very vivid conversation on a bus and I have been counting that one of them used f* word 184 times, which makes it 3 f*s per sentence. I do not mind a good strong f* word to underline one's deep thought or getting emotional but doing it 184 times in space of an hour? Soul destroying.

It was freezing cold we have missed a bus which left 10 minutes ahead of schedual and we had to wait in a pub for an hour cuddling a glass of Macallan whiskey which is definitely not my favourite drink but it turned out to be much more subtle than other ones I have tried.