Nov 30 2009

Brum Photospace at the Beeb

Category: Photospace — Matt Murtagh @ 23:38

Birmingham Photospace is pretty busy at the moment what with our exhibition launching in one weeks time. We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at the private view.

This week has been devoted to trying to get the word out and on Saturday I had the pleasure of being interviewed on BBC WM about Birmingham’s People and the image of Birmingham in general.

Listen on the iPlayer here (from about 20 minutes in!)

edit – will be off the iPlayer tonight so I’ve uploaded the interview as an audioboo here

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Nov 25 2009

Birmingham’s People 43 – Mr Williams

Category: Photospace — Liz Garlinge @ 11:00

I realise I might be accused of being over-interested in facial hair (and with my husband growing a moustache for Movember) there’s quite a lot of it in my life at the moment.

I did choose this portrait to blog because of the excellent facial hair, but on looking at it a bit closer I realised I liked it because I couldn’t work out what Mr Williams was thinking when he had this portrait taken. We’ve seen people looking stern, some friendly and some completely thrilled to be in front of the camera (I’m thinking of you, Mr Wong!) – but I really can’t tell what Mr Williams is thinking.

I guess that’s one of the interesting things about photographs and visual art in general – so much is left up to the viewer. I wonder if we’ll ever get to ask him about this portrait?

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Nov 24 2009

Birmingham’s people 42 – King

Category: Photospace — Liz Garlinge @ 22:33

So, we took a break from posting images from our fantastic forthcoming exhibition last week – the truth is I was snowed under with the day job!

The group have been working really hard though on arrangements for the Birmingham’s People exhibition at the drum -selecting the spotlight images, printing images, buying frames, working with our lovely partners at The Drum to tell people about the exhibition and generally preparing for our private view.

We’re very excited about the exhibition, so in honour of that here’s another one of the images from the weekend. I can’t help smiling when I see this photo – this chap and his friend came along to see the exhibition of the photos on Sunday afternoon of Artsfest in the Council House and they spent ages enjoying the photos and chatting with people. Really warm, friendly people, completely in the spirit of Artsfest.

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Nov 13 2009

Birmingham’s People – 40 (and 41 I suppose!) Jo and Heather

Category: Photospace — Liz Garlinge @ 12:30

It’s been a while since I blogged about fellow contributors to Artsfest, so it was high time for another.

Jo and Heather were charming! They came in and explained that they had been working on another of the booths in the Visual Arts Village over the weekend, so I asked them to go away and bring back a prop to have their photo taken with. Happily they obliged!

I’m sure that it’s not a classically great composition for a portrait – but our photographer was patient with me and got the vase in. I’m very glad he did: I like the vase. I liked these ladies’ creativity. I like this portrait.

They spent some time with our talented volunteer videographers – thanks to the videographers for all their hard work over the weekend – they worked hard to get some really interesting pieces.

See what Jo and Heather had to say below

joandheather2 from Birmingham Photospace on Vimeo.

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Nov 12 2009

Birmingham’s People 39 – The Enigma

Category: Photospace — Liz Garlinge @ 23:27

I’m sure we must have taken this chap’s name – but for some reason in the moving 170 sets of portraits from cameras to laptops then onto the web this sitter’s name seems to have been lost.

I sort of like the fact that he’s anonymous. It means I can create a whole history for him in my mind. My abiding memory of this sitter is that our photographer, the wonderful Jennifer Peel asked him to smile with his mouth open, and he wouldn’t. He was conscious of his image – and was very clear about how he wanted to be shot.

Great photo. Great subject,

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Nov 11 2009

Birmingham’s People 38 -The inimitable Patrick Wong

Category: Photospace — Liz Garlinge @ 10:30

I’ve blogged about Patrick and his family before. I’m not going to make any apology for that – Patrick loved the camera, and as you can see, the camera loves him.

I’m told that the tattoos are actually temporary – and all his own designs. I’ll leave the rest to Patrick – check out his video below!

Birmingham’s People: Patrick from Birmingham Photospace on Vimeo.

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Nov 10 2009

Birmingham’s People -37 Noel Donnelly

Category: Photospace — Liz Garlinge @ 10:30

Another interesting portrait. I like this one because of Noel’s smile. I wasn’t around when this photo was being taken, so I have no idea what he was smiling about – it’s sort of an enigmatic smile. I wonder how he found the portrait experience?

One of the interesting things to do is compare this image of him to the image at the start of the video. Sure, the video captures Noel speaking, but I found it interesting how much more I could see of his face in the still image – you can see his colouring and even his stubble!

And actually – do watch the video. I found the comments Noel made about his life very interesting – I hope he’ll come to our Private View (9th December at The Drum) so I can sidle up to him and ask him more about it!

Noel Donnelly from Birmingham Photospace on Vimeo.

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Nov 09 2009

Birmingham’s People 36 -Rankin (no, not that Rankin)

Category: Photospace — Liz Garlinge @ 20:50

Terrific photo, this one, I thought. I can say this because I’m not the photographer. When this lady told me her name (see above!) I gulped!

Rankin is, after all, one of Photospace’s heroes. He’s one of the most important photographers making portaits at the moment. Lots and lots of people have written about his work, and I’m not a great photography critic, so I’ll just tell you why I like his work so much.

Rankin for me can shoot an image that sums up a person completely and utterly. That is to say, he sums up what I believe to be true about public figures – captures their glamour, their charm and a bit of their mystique and persona. This would be impressive enough -but I think what sets Rankin apart is that he is at his best when he finds something new to say about his subjects through his photography – exposing vulnerability or awkwardness or another side to a person which he may have noticed (but we may not have done) .

Have a look through his portrait portfolio. Have a look at the Gilbert and George Portrait and the Bowie portrait – I hope you’ll see what I mean.

Anyway, back to this portrait. The reason I like it so much is because actually it does what Rankin’s portraits do. I don’t know this lady at all – but the image seems to capture what I believe to be true about her -that she’s stylish, charming and friendly – and that’s all we could ever want from a subject!

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Nov 03 2009

Birmingham’s People at the Drum Arts Centre

Category: Photospace — Matt Murtagh @ 21:47

We hope that you’ve been enjoying the series of portraits that we’ve been posting since the Artsfest weekend but we all know that photos on a screen can’t hold a candle to proper photographic prints.

We’d like to invite you to see the series in the flesh in an exhibition lasting from the 7th December until the 29th January. The The Drum Arts Centre in Aston has kindly volunteered to be our photospace for the project.

We’ll have all 170 images on display plus 15 ‘spotlight’ images on display as large high quality prints.

We are holding a combined private view/artists talk on Wednesday 9th December 7PM open to all readers of this blog, for further details and to reserve a free ticket please go to our eventbrite site.

If you require any further information or would like to receive our press release please email hello@birminghamphotospace.co.uk

We look forward to seeing you!

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Nov 01 2009

Birmingham Seen at BMAG

Category: Birmingham,photography — Matt Murtagh @ 17:09

Running from 31st October 2009 – 3rd January 2010 the Birmingham Seen exhibition at the Gas Hall in Birmingham’s Museum and Art Gallery explores how photographers and artists in other mediums have represented the changing city of Birmingham.

The timelapse video below (compiled by 7 Inch Cinema from photographs by Derek Fairbrother) shows the building of the iconic 60′s Central Library being built (and the beautiful 19th century library being pulled down)

We hope to be able to review the show very soon, I’m especially looking forward to seeing some of the images pulled out of the depths of Birmingham Central Library’s National Collection of Photography.

Birmingham timelapse from 7inch cinema on Vimeo.

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