All sorts of people appear in photographic portraits. Often we are given clues to the identity of the subject. Backgrounds can indicate character traits, give clues to profession or status. Sometimes we can see that the photograph is conceptual and the person we see is representing something we need to think about through their gestures, portrayal or stance. Perhaps identity has been stripped of its specific individuality and somehow conceptualized, prescribed to direct our thoughts to what the photographer is visually ‘up to’.
Blog
Portfolio image review of the month by Helen James: Louise Astbury "About Him 07"
Posted 9 December 2013
Meet a Redeye member - Ian Maxwell
Posted 18 November 2013
For this month's Meet a Redeye member we catch up with Ian Maxwell.
How did you get into photography?
Portfolio image review of the month by Len Grant: Daniel Shiel "Lido"
Posted 4 November 2013
Choose an image from the portfolio, they said. And so I trawled, imagining I might be a client, a commissioner, challenging the drop-down menus to find me a photographer I might write about.
That single thumbnail has to do so much. The viewer needs to be curious enough to click through to the portfolio and then, hopefully, onto a website or Flickr page.
Meet a Redeye member - John Merrill
Posted 16 October 2013
For this month's Meet a Redeye member we catch up with John Merrill.
How did you get into photography?
Portfolio image review of the month by Stephen Snoddy: Peter Mearns "China CONTROL - Mao"
Posted 8 October 2013
What struck me immediately about Peter Mearns' image was the structural similarity to Velazquez’s Las Meninas, painted more than 400 years ago. We have an image divided into three distinct ‘bands’ or ‘grounds’ - foreground, middleground and background.
Meet a Redeye Member - Jan Fyfe
Posted 18 September 2013
For this month's Meet a Redeye Member we catch up with Jan Fyfe.
How did you get into photography?
I have been interested in photography since my teenage years and dabbled in a number of short photographic courses in my early 20s. Photography then took a back seat until 10 years ago when I went back to college to do a basic photo course and became hooked once more. I followed this with an A Level, a BA and then an MA in 2011. I am presently studying for a practice-led PhD at MMU.
Portfolio image review of the month by Stephen Clarke: Geoff Crossley ‘My Father's House Christmas Past’
Posted 10 September 2013
The act of photographing the same place at different points in time is referred to as rephotography. It is particularly associated with the Rephotographic Survey project that was conceived by the American photographer Mark Klett. Klett’s project was ambitious as he and a team of photographers retraced the steps of the nineteenth century government survey team that had photographed the grand landscapes of the American West. Time was sandwiched between two images, one taken in the past and one in the present.
John Darwell: DDSBs (Discarded Dog Sh*t Bags): review by Stephen Clarke
Posted 27 August 2013
The M6 motorway is a major artery of England running along the west of the country from the Midlands through to the Scottish border. At its northern tip it bypasses Carlisle, a small city in a rural county. Journeying up the motorway the passenger is surrounded by an impressive landscape: one that envelopes a photographer who chooses to live there and one that inevitably sets an agenda for discussion.
Excess Baggage
Posted 5 July 2013
In her second personal reflection on this year's Arles Rencontres, Rebecca Dearden reflects on scale and size, focusing on the Manchester-based Roast Beef collective.
Arles in Black
Posted 4 July 2013
Guest Opinion:
In the first of a series of pieces from the 2013 Rencontres d’Arles, the annual photographic festival in the south of France, writer and photographer Rebecca Dearden gives a personal perspective on the theme, and her ambivalence to monochrome.
It's summer in the south of France. The sunflowers are blazing yellow, the sky's blue, the sea's turquoise, but the town of Arles is all in black.
In place of the bright aubergine, carrot and blue fox of previous years' international photo festivals, the 2013 mascot-logo is a black and white swan, albeit with a green beak and blue eye, and I realise I'm hoping there will be some similar touches of colour in what promises to be a worthy, nostalgic and dry festival. This is my sixth time in Arles and I'm lacking enthusiasm for monochrome.
