De-Stress, A Photography Project

Ansel Adams is often credited with saying “We don’t take photographs, we make them”, and this phrase has never been more accurate than in my latest photography project in collaboration with The Trampery. I took portraits of members of their community and explored how working in a creative environment surrounded by a supportive group contributes to the success rate of entrepreneurs and their well-being. I shot the portraits on film and distressed them using household chemicals. The project title is a play on words, "distress" being the technique used to create the images about the "de-stressing" offered in the supportive environment created by the co-working space.

Before becoming part of The Trampery community, I had been working from home since I launched my business. Working from home offered me all the comfort that working in your pyjamas can give you, but it also came with a high price to pay in the form of isolation. I had been considering working from a shared space for almost a year, but I was never able to make up my mind about it. I was under the impression that working from a co-working space would decrease my productivity. I believed that these type of spaces lacked privacy and were crowded, noisy and full of distractions. However, the experience at The Trampery has been the complete opposite and, like most of the participants in the project expressed, being part of a creative community like this one keeps me inspired and has made me grow both personally and professionally.

When you have a group of highly creative and motivated people in the same space, the synergies between the members of the group produce an environment where they can thrive. When interviewed, the majority of the participants in the project agreed that the combination of a supportive community with a space in which the primary purpose is to make great work contributes to keeping them motivated and energised throughout the day. Being in contact with people from diverse cultures and backgrounds working in different ventures and industries, with whom you can bounce ideas around, gives you a different perspective on your challenges, expands your way of thinking and refreshes your work. As one member pointed out, the worst thing about starting a business on your own in your bedroom is that you've started a business alone and in your bedroom. Creative communities like this one provide members with the right environment to realise their entrepreneurial ambitions.

If you want to learn more about my De-Stress project and read extracts of the interviews with The Trampery members, visit this link.

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The Pain Must Be Felt

A few months ago, I went to a portfolio review and the reviewer told me that my work didn’t have a soul, that it lacked personality and that it was too cold. The following day, while I was reflecting on the reviewer's words, I took my recent work and attempted to destroy it with what I had around me at home, trying to emulate how the reviewer had destroyed it with words. To my surprise, from destruction, something beautiful was born.

The American painter Mark Rothko once said that he was interested only in expressing basic human emotions, like tragedy, ecstasy and doom. As creatives, we are in close contact with these emotions every day. We are familiar with exploring (and sometimes exploiting) the tragedy around us, we know first-hand the feeling of ecstasy when we create something beautiful, and we most definitely have felt doomed when our work has been rejected. And we also know that, by embracing our emotions is that we create our best work. We know that the pain must be felt.

So, instead of shying away from how that person's words made me feel, I decided to feel the pain and look for the meaning behind their words. What is it that my work is missing? Is my work looking like everyone else's? Am I just taking pretty photos? Am I just another photographer? That day, when I looked at the ruined images in front of me, I realized that they were unexpectedly beautiful, that I was finally creating something that came from deep inside of me and not inspired by something that I had seen on someone else's work.

Here are some of the images that I have been working on lately:

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Artists Need The Observer

During an interview in 1947, Mark Rothko said: “A painting lives by companionship, expanding and quickening in the eyes of the sensitive observer. It dies by the same token. It is therefore a risky and unfeeling act to send it out into the world.” It is a symbiotic relationship, that of the artists and the observer. Without the latter, the former wouldn't be able to express themselves for it is through the eyes of the observer that their work comes to life. Similarly, those who appreciate art need artists to stimulate them, to make them reflect about the world that surrounds them, to get to know themselves better by the emotions that a piece produces in them. It is indeed a risky act to show ones work, but you never feel more alive than when you do.

This coming Friday the 10th, I will be showing my recent work at the Show and Tell organised by Almudena Romero in partnership with R.A.W Lab and Bow Arts. Almudena Romero is a visual artist working with a wide range of photographic processes. Almudena's practice uses photographic processes to reflect on issues relating to identity, representation and ideology; such as the role of photography in the construction of national identity, or the link between photographic archives and colonialism. Her work focuses on how photography transforms the notions of public, private, individuality, identity, memory, and, in general, the concept of the individual.

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