I am going to be exhibiting images from my ‘Abandoned’ series:

I thought that in the time I have got left living in East London, I should get as involved as possible with these events, and try and get in with the arty crowd before I bugger off to live somewhere that charges a lower car insurance premium…

The days open to the public are 15th to 17th October, 11-6pm. The private view is on 14th Oct, 6 – 9pm. You’re welcome to come along. I may have enough money to buy a bottle of wine to share round.

Photolounge, F Block (First floor), T3 space, Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London. Tel. 020 7770 6001

Read more about Photolounge here

Putting up your own exhibition, and then invigilating it yourself, is such hard work that I’m not sure when I’ll be doing it next…

Other news

September was quite a busy month: doing my first workshops on 4th and 5th, which I enjoyed so much that my next ones are much sooner than I thought I would want them to be (9th and 10th Oct)…

The following weekend, I went to Trey Ratcliff’s (aka Stuck in Customs) HDR weekend workshop in London. He doesn’t do that many workshops so it was a pleasure to join him and to meet the man himself, who I felt like I already knew through sundry online communication over the past 2-3 years. I picked up a good few tips about HDR workflow and met some other interesting HDRers. Trey very kindly took me out to dinner and lunch over the weekend so I had extra chance to nick all his secrets about social media and how exactly to take your single-woman-band Flickr popularity to the next professional level. I wasn’t aware Stuck in Customs is now a company team with a number in double figures!

During September I also finished being filmed for a documentary that has been chugging away for 2 years now. I’ve no idea when and where you will be able to see it, owing to the haphazard nature of these things and also the incompetence of my business head 2 years ago when I was first approached, however, I am excited that at some point, somewhere, you will be able to see it. I’ll probably have wrinkles by then, but it’ll be all the more historically exciting.

Another big thing I did last month was my first fashion shoot. With a great redhead model, styling team, lordly location, set of clothes, and props that included a vintage bike we hired off a seller off Gumtree and 12 big red apples from Tesco, I shot images with the most beautiful natural light that ever bounced off my non-descript gold-sided reflector. I hope to share the results of that within the next few weeks.

As you may know I have been running a prize draw for the people who bought my Abandoned book – two prizes to be precise. The first winner drawn on 30th August (announced on Twitter) was Michel Reij from the Netherlands, who chose the print ‘Stage left’ (33 x 50cm, edition of 10, worth £350).

The second winner just drawn at random yesterday from all buyers, is Robert John Green from Devon, UK, who just bought the book days before the deadline!

Congrats to both!

Taken in the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital, Brighton.

Yonks ago (last October, to be precise), I ventured into my first abandoned building, Hellingly Mental Asylum in East Sussex. Sharing the images on Flickr, and then going to visit more abandoned places with partner Matthew (you can see my abandoned set here) I was eager to also write up a blog post that somehow got lost in draft.

So I decided to write up my thoughts on the various abandoned buildings we have adventured into, including Hellingly, and the ones since then, including another mental hospital and a girls’ school. I shall it post this week (I also plan to create a Blurb book this summer themed on my shoots in abandoned places).

Meanwhile, here are some images we took just this weekend during our latest escapade, a series taken in a children’s ward in the Brighton hospital, which I have entitled ‘Growing pains’:

For the past three and a half years, Flickr has been the site where I share new work and the place I have considered my main ‘portal’ of communication with my viewers. Nearly 30,000 people on Flickr call me a contact.

I first joined Flickr in 2006. It’s the photo-sharing community vibe of Flickr that sparked off my interest in photography. However, one of the main problems I have had with the site is Flickr’s intense antagonism of commercial use of one’s photostream. Flickr likes to barricade its space in on itself, and whilst it demands external links go back to Flickr, it doesn’t like to return the favour, especially where the ‘commercial’ is concerned.
What is deemed as ‘commercial’, however, is another problem area, because Flickr do seem to be massively inconsistent in setting what the rules actually are. They have previously stated that only one’s profile can be used for ‘commercial’ links, and only one commercial link is allowed. However, I’ve seen people told to remove all links from their profile, and also, I’ve seen people asked to remove all links from their photostreams – even links to one’s blog or website (not directly ‘commercial’.) Moreover, these instructions are given to some people, and not to others – there are many photostreams blatantly plugging prints, books, events and creative services, which are seemingly invincible even though Flickr have inevitably been tipped off about them by those who are called to question. This is not the only rule Flickr have been unclear about – they have also been ambiguous about the rules on the content filters and what constitutes ‘moderate’ and ‘restricted’.

So, getting back to the issue of the 30,000 people that call me a contact on Flickr, I cannot in any way do anything with those 30,000 people other than have my pictures show up on their contacts pane. I can’t Flickrmail everyone about an exhibition or my prints (tried that once in my first few months and got my account deleted!) I can’t copy and paste their email addresses (for those who do share that info) into a mailing list, because someone would trace it back and Flickr staff would have my guts for garters.
Sharing my newest pic (with a soft-sell announcement or two) to 30,000 Flickr users is good exposure in itself, but is limited in what I can do, it’s a restricted, in-house visual mailing list; and the nature of Flickr (and what it has become for me) means that there are lots and lots of comments from often faceless people (using Flickr nicknames, not their real names). It might indirectly lead to things, but in terms of business, its indirectness (and walking on eggshells with regards to what one can and can’t promote) can be frustrating.

Then there is Facebook. I set up a page on there a few months back (a Miss Aniela ‘page’ as opposed to my personal account).

So, in context with what I’ve said about Flickr, what’s good about Facebook?
(a) few rules against commercial use. Positively geared for individuals and businesses to promote themselves. And their wares. Or both at the same time, if you’re one of those confusing people whose business and self are kind of blurred. (Like me). So you don’t have to worry if you get mixed up, cos unlike Flickr, Facebook won’t zap you into a million pieces for it.
(b) People use their real name. An oasis of normality amidst a desert of anonymity that is the world wide web.
(c) The most important one – mostly everyone seems to be on there.

Also, I have found that a large number of people can interact relatively intimately, selecting what they want to ‘like’, or comment on, or query. Your updates show up in your followers’ newsfeeds and you can quite literally link people to wherever you want. The layout is pretty good too.

So, without sounding like I am selling Facebook, I think it’s the way forward – for a creative who is trying also to make a livelihood, and to be unashamedly ‘output’ themselves, and measure the return. It’s not necessarily going to be the initial place for sharing new work (as yet; that will still be Flickr), but for interaction with viewers. So, if you are on Facebook, I would like to invite you to join my page on there. Not only will I be posting links and stuff to things you might find interesting, concerning my work and also things I am involved with (exhibitions and events and features), as well as links to when I have a new pic on Flickr, or a new post on this blog, but I have decided to start getting active with some blatant self-promotion that will offer you the chance to win prizes: prints, books and more. So check it out!

Ok, that’s off my chest.
Now, Twitter.
Gah…..

…You can also find me on Twitter.

His assignment is as follows:

“To Kill the Indian in the Child”
100 Years of Genocide in North America

“To document Native North American survivors of genocide who, as children, were forcibly taken from their families and sent to abusive government boarding schools to have their culture destroyed as a “final solution” to the Indian problem.

“From the 1870s through the 1970s the Governments of the U.S. and Canada embarked on a program to eliminate Indian culture and language by rounding up native children and shipping them to boarding schools where they were forbidden to speak their language and forced to learn the white man’s ways.

……”On my Dream Assignment, I would visit pre-selected Indian reservations in the U.S. and Canada, shoot portraits of the survivors and interview them about their experiences and how their lives were impacted then and to this day. I would also document some of the old school buildings that still exist. The images, along with relevant excerpts from survivors’ commentary, would be published as a book and prints for a traveling exhibit would also be prepared.”

Read in full HERE

Here’s how to vote:

1. Click here where you can read the complete Dream Assignment proposal. There’s a voting icon to the left– click on PIC IT.

2. You’ll then be asked to register –which takes only a minute or so. This to prevent multiple votes by the same person. If you do not want to receive promotional material from the sponsor, just leave the “Communication” box unchecked.

3. Within a few minutes after registering, you’ll get an email with a URL. Click it and you’ll be taken to a log-in page.

4. After logging in, you’ll find yourself at the project page again. Once there, click on PIC IT and your vote will be cast.

My friend is counting on your votes to give this project a chance –it must be voted into the Top 20 to be considered.

The deadline is April 3rd!

On behalf of AB, thanks for reading!

Also see:
Don’t look now
Me the obscure
…And the image made from the same shoot as the image you see below: They found themselves on stage

More to come.

Bikini & I…

Beaulieu-sur-mer at night

In Monaco

Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild

The weather has been encouraging for picture-taking… this was taken at Leonardslee Gardens at the weekend. See here for more

On my site is my best work divided into two categories: Surreal self-portraits (Series 1) , and a preview set of Bathroom and Beyond which is I hope is the best way to highlight the work I have been creating over the last year or so. However, more surreal sets will appear in the near future.
Also on my site is an ‘About Me’ section and a Bio which tells a little more about me than I have displayed on Flickr.

I will continue to add to my portfolios as I produce more work, so you can always check back for more. And, of course, any news I have, or if I have something particularly interesting to say, I will post it on this Blog. On this Blog may also appear silly little pictures or unused pictures from my work. Outtakes too, so it should be fun.

Hope you like the site!