I've Been Interviewed By Murze Magazine!

The images from my De-Stress photography project are featured on Issue Eight of Murze Magazine and the lovely people of Murze have interviewed me for the feature! Their Issue Eight is a journey through Portraiture, Reality and Change, exploring and focusing on people, the wider world and change in all its forms. Go check the interview out!

De-Stress is a photography project in which I took portraits of members of the community of The Trampery, a social enterprise specialising in shared workspace and support for entrepreneurs and creative businesses, 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 in the co-working space.

You can learn more about Murze Magazine on www.murze.org or find out about the De-Stress project on this link.

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I'm Featured On The Cover Of Issue Eight Of Murze Magazine!

I’m happy to announce that the images from my De-Stress photography project are featured on the cover of Issue Eight of Murze Magazine! Murze examines artwork with a specific focus on the exploration of current social, political and environmental issues. They look at new ideas and concepts that challenge and engage with the world around.

Issue Eight is a journey through Portraiture, Reality and Change, exploring and focusing on people, the wider world and change in all its forms. Featuring interviews from Craig Hubbard, Luna Y Lebron, Tom Herck, Sarah Nance, Stephanie Mei Huang, Christine Beatty, Mana Mehrabian and me!

De-Stress is a photography project in which I took portraits of members of the community of The Trampery, a social enterprise specialising in shared workspace and support for entrepreneurs and creative businesses, 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 in the co-working space.

You can learn more about Murze Magazine on www.murze.org or find out about the De-Stress project on this link.

Do you like what you just read? Subscribe to my weekly blog posts here!

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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